A List Of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago |
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Tuesday, December 08, 2009
SHE'S THE ONE FOR ME; SHE'S ALL I REALLY NEED: This blog does not ordinarily traffic in gossip; our Remarkably Promiscuous Golfers Desk has remained unfilled for years, and we plan to keep it that way. But can we ignore the reports that Billy Corgan and Jessica Simpson may be dating? No, we cannot. This, indeed, is more shocking than that other story ... until we hit double digits. (Perkins? Really?) NOW ADD SOME GOLD AND SILVER FOR SOME PIZZA PLACE CLASS: There are a lot of reasons why I should be a long-time fan of They Might Be Giants. My ear bends toward do-it-yourself indie pop, I entered college in the 1980s, I am easily amused by songs that take arcana seriously and occasionally entertained by novelty songs, and my college girlfriend went to Lincoln-Sudbury High School just a few years after the Johns. I'm not a long-time fan of They Might Be Giants, though, because I dock points for using drum machines and not using bassists (as TMBG did and didn't when I first encountered them), because there is an exponential relationship between time (x) and the annoyingness of Linnell's voice (y), and because it's frustrating how the band veers between beautifully and meticulously constructed pieces and other songs that feel like offhand improvisations. They solve little of this in their children's music work. In fact, to paraphrase Spacewoman's comment on No!, their kids' work sounds exactly like their grownup work except with the same music and lyrics. Yet, because the kids' music genre is more forgiving (or maybe just makes me feel more forgiving), I find the kids' albums more enjoyable. Songs like "Seven Days of the Week," "I Am Not Your Broom" and "Violin" still send me racing for the skip button, but I know there's a payoff at the other end. Here Comes Science is, I think, the band's fourth kids' album (after No!, Here Come the ABCs, and Here Come the 123s), and it's the best. For one thing, the science theme is specific enough to give the collection some coherence without being so narrow as to require too much lyrical absurdity as a way of filling out the album. For another, the disc hits the sweet spot where the songs are interesting (usually clever, often outright funny), instructive, hummable, and well-performed by a band that includes both a live drummer and a bass player. It's an educational collection that does not condescend to its audience -- neither music nor lyrics are dumbed down. I think the kids appreciate that, and lord knows, so do I. The other great thing about the album is that it's a little bit ballsy. Dan Zanes, as one example, sometimes takes tentative political stances in his albums ("Down By the Riverside"; "I Don't Want Your Millions, Mister"), but they're watered down in Kum-Ba-Yah folksiness or winking anachronism. It may not be particularly controversial to say, as TMBG do, "Science Is Real," but in case you missed the point, TMBG doesn't try to avoid the sore spot: "Now I like those stories about angels, unicorns, and elves/I like those stories as much as anyone else/But when I'm seeking knowledge, either simple or abstract/The facts are with science." In other words, please feel free to burn this children's disc. Funny. Monday, December 07, 2009
THAT WAS A VERY LOUD BEEP ... I DON'T EVEN KNOW IF THIS IS WORKING, MARK. MARK, ARE YOU THERE? ARE YOU SCREENING YOUR CALLS? IT'S MOM: New York magazine catalogs seventeen once-everyday objects rendered obsolete by the end of the Aughts. WHO IS NOW RUNNING THE HOLLYWOOD GENE PROJECT? With reference to the impending Carrie Underwood Christmas variety special, I defy anybody to make a cogent argument that there is any meaningful difference whatsoever between 2009 Carrie Underwood and 1980 Barbara Mandrell. TRASH LIKE THAT TAKES ITSELF OUT: Continuing my practice of only writing about shows several days after they air, I have a couple of things to say about the Blake Lively SNL that aired two nights ago. The quick thought: am I the only person in the entire world who thinks it was exceedingly strange that they cut directly from a skit whose punchline was Tiger Woods being the victim of domestic abuse to a close-up of Rihanna in the digital short? I guess the way the show is built, and with Rihanna carrying the digital short, that skit was going to come either immediately before or immediately after a Rihanna performance, but I might have tried to use something -- anything -- as a buffer. One of the fake UPS ads? The somewhat more labored thought: the show is not particularly funny these days, but it's also not as unfunny as the Internets would have it, and a lot of the stuff that doesn't work is a result of the pressure for SNL to be funny in the exact same way that it was funny before. I read a lot of stuff suggesting that the show was only funny in one or more of the the Not-Ready-for-Prime-Time-Players/Eddie Murphy/Bill Hartman-Dana Carvey/Will Ferrell eras, with the current cast paling in comparison. One of the reasons the current cast pales in comparison, though, is that it's trying to do what past casts were good at. Fey's first Palin sketch aside, though, this is the wrong age for SNL to do either political satire or send-ups of talk shows, because the bar has been raised too high for that stuff, and the current cast isn't cut out for it. It feels like they think they have to do it, because that's what SNL does (this also works as a summary of Joe Piscopo's entire SNL ouevre). The most memorable SNL performances, though, came from people who weren't trying to repeat an earlier cast's success. The original cast created something completely different from what was then on TV, Eddie Murphy saved the show by running in an entirely different direction, and, as people now seem to forget, Will Ferrell created some extravagantly and defiantly weird TV (the Lord of the Flies morning TV sketch with Grier and Oteri that predicted the gang fight in Anchorman; "more cowbell"; his Neil Diamond). It took people several years to warm to Ferrell. To me, the show is at its worst whenever Jason Sudeikis's Biden is on-screen, because it's a bad impression with no convincing hook done out of duty to SNL's traditions rather than any comic imperative, a cheap Phil Hartman ripoff (though, in candor, I never enjoyed much of Phil Hartman's work until News Radio). The show needs more people trying weird things, not more Sudeikises echoing Piscopo echoing Aykroyd (and note: head writer Seth Myers was the boyish guitar-playing successor to Jimmy Fallon, who was just a cut-rate Adam Sandler). So I agree with the consensus (where "consensus" = Hitfix) that this week's was a good, but not great episode, and completely disagree with the "why." When Spacewoman said to me something that I hear a lot -- "nothing after the news is ever any good" -- I had to disagree. To me, that's where all the good stuff, the really weird stuff, is. The best thing on the show was the last -- the bizarre NASA-potato chip sketch with the inexplicable accents, antebellum costuming, 70s set dressing, and weird melodrama. That may be my favorite thing on SNL all year. And I loved the "To Catch a Predator" talk show, not for the talk show part of it, but for the way it absolutely nailed the feel of the source material (particularly Chris Hansen hiding under the desk). Though it came before the news, I also thought the "Under-Underground Festival" ad was very funny. Which, oddly, makes two sketches where I enjoyed Sudeikis. Then again, I had no need for the compulsories -- the political bit, the dig at reality stars, the parody of the guest's show, the notion that anything making fun of one of the boroughs or of New Jersey is itself a punch line (all of which came before the news). Incidentally, despite the fact that he appears as a performer in just about every movie there is, I can't shake the thought that when Bill Hader leaves the show, he is going to write and run a transcendently funny TV show. And one other thing: If you took the "over" on Matt's query about the number of mentions of Blake Lively's breasts, you lost some money. FIRST DRAFT: Courtesy of White Collar creator's Jeff Eastin's Twitter, here's a massive collection of TV scripts hosted by Google, with an emphasis on pilots. Ones of interest include:
WELL, HE HAD AT LEAST ONE GOOD DAY IN THE STUDIO: Billboard Magazine names Daniel Powter's "Bad Day" the one-hit wonder of the Aughts, though Macy Gray, Vanessa Carlton, Blu Cantrell and James Blunt are among those who have not been forgotten in the process. The list looks at artists whose top single charted from 2000-07 (because folks in the last two years could return some day), "ranked by how high their big song climbed on the chart compared to how far down the tally their subsequent highest-charting effort peaked." AND THAT'S WHY YOU ALWAYS CHECK THE AMAZON GOLD BOX: For those who haven't seen Arrested Development in its entirety yet, you now have no excuses--the Amazon deal of the day is all three seasons for a mere $28.99. That's about 55 cents an episode, and that, my friends, is value. Sunday, December 06, 2009
Y'KNOW, IF YOU'RE GOING TO CALL A SHOW "THE AMAZING RACE," HOW ABOUT MAKING THE TEAMS TRAVEL ON FOOT UP AND DOWN THE VEGAS STRIP RATHER THAN TAKE TAXIS EVERYWHERE? And what was with all the hidden service entrances? Yes, our Race is over, and we had one great challenge tonight -- the Cirque challenge, a tremendous test of athletics and reasoning under pressure -- as well as a deceptively tough one: "what's in Monaco?" But as much as I admired the chip-counting task on a strategic and working-accurately-under-pressure level, it was impossible for viewers to determine what teams were completing it properly as it happened, and so as far as overall narrative cohesiveness is concerned I'm still not entirely sure why the team that won, won. What I appreciated about this season of the Race, overall, was that its challenges were more tourist-based than stunt-based, tasks that reasonably approximated things anyone could do in visiting these places. No, these teams weren't quite as compelling as those in the past, and I missed all the airport-fu -- there was nothing like Season 5's ending which was determined by two teams failing to remember that checking your luggage through to the final destination means you can't change your flights midway. But, still, it's a damn fine show. Party at Wayne's house! Fienberg talks about what I didn't: the awesomeness of the interactions with the embalmed Wayne Newton. COMMISSIONER'S CORNER: By now, we all know what happened in the second quarter of the New Orleans-Washington game today, per the AP recap: [F]acing third-and-26 at the Redskins 44, Brees backpedalled under pressure and threw a desperation pass deep over the middle toward Jeremy Shockey in triple coverage. Kareem Moore dived over Shockey's back to make an interception, rolled over, got up and ran 14 yards before Meachem simply took the ball away from an upright Moore and started running down the sideline -- high-stepping 44 yards for the team's ninth return touchdown of the season.Query for this crucial last week before the fantasy playoffs: is your league scoring this (and should it be scored) as an offensive touchdown for Meachem? As a touchdown for the New Orleans defense/special teams? Both? Neither? QUESTION: BASED ON A SNARKY THOUGHT BY THE BLOGGER THE PATHETIC EARTHLING: Is the the name of this movie actually "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire" not just "Precious" a movie which is based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire? EXCESSIVE BLOCKING: The Blind Side is definitely a well-made movie and tells its story well, but loses something important from the book--distance. The lengthy discussion in the book of how and why the left tackle position became so important in condensed to a brief voiceover from Sandra Bullock at the start of the film, over the film of the Lawrence Taylor-Joe Theisman incident. Likewise, the film loses the skepticism and uncertainty Lewis brings into the book at first--even though Sean Tuohy was a childhood friend of his, at least at first, Lewis is not uncertain that their aims are entirely altrustic and above-board. There's also a couple of really lame "ghetto" scenes near the end of the film that pull you out of the film, and a few minor continuity errors, largely due to them filming in Georgia, rather than Memphis. For instance, even though there's a brief discussion of how the Tuohys don't know any Democrats, before that, we see in their son's room what I immediately recognized as a Harold Ford, Jr. for Congress poster. But that said, you can't deny that it's moving, and the theatre I was in sat, no one leaving, even through the credits, when we see pictures of the real Michael Oher and the Tuohys--that says something. Saturday, December 05, 2009
WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE: I'm finally getting around to this week's Gossip Girl and am unhealthily amused by the fact that a lawyer named "Lionel Tribbey" is referenced as the Waldorf family estate attorney, as I assume the name was taken from the West Wing character. What's next? Chuck Bass retaining Keith Mars to do some investigation for him out on the West Coast? Sandy Cohen suing Bass Industries for negligience? DON'T YOU SEE HOW LATE THEY'RE REACTIN'? Okay, about 30 hours late on both these items, but insofar as both are the sort of thing you expect from us:
I AM A NATIONAL TREASURE. I SHOULD BE CELEBRATED: As they do every year, the Washington Post's reporters set out to profile this year's Kennedy Center honorees and discuss their craft: Mel Brooks, Dave Brubeck, Grace Bumbry, Robert De Niro and Bruce Springsteen. [You'll never guess which one of the five does impressions of Hitler for small children.] The ceremony will be held Sunday night, and air on CBS sometime towards the end of the year. Last year's honorees were profiled here. DON'T PANIC, BE COOL, GET PAID: This is a post about Friday Night Lights, and I'm going to try not to spoil any plot twists. Read at your own risk, though. Wednesday's episode (which I just watched tonight) was sublime. It's interesting, though, that it was sublime in a manner different from the way the show was sublime in its first superlative season. Back then, the show reserved its showy dramatics and grand speeches for the football scenes -- the part of the show's world that was self-conscious spectacle -- and told the off-field personal stories with smaller gestures, quieter words, and less polish. Even when hell was breaking loose, as in my favorite FNL scene, when Tyra's mom confronted Buddy Garrity coming out of church, it was the look that passed between Tyra and Lyla, and not any of the commotion, that carried the freight. That was not the style of Wednesday's episode, in which a character struggles with something while everybody else tries ineffectually to help. This episode was not about wordless glances. People opened their mouths and spilled; they emoted; they made speeches. The show was pushing every button. It made no apologies, though, and it needed none, because, oof, the buttons it pushed were the right ones. One other thing, and this one is a minor plot spoiler, so STOP READING. You'd have to be pretty dense not to suspect, at least, where Tim and Becky are headed, but I'm going to regret it when they get there. Becky is really growing on me as a tragic-spunky Tyra replacement, and broken and self-destructive (but loyal and devoted) Tim Riggins as accidental surrogate dad, something that could build on all the maturing Tim did since his relationship with Tyra 1.0, is one of the most intriguing things the show has done. I am not anxious for it to end. Friday, December 04, 2009
RICHARD GRIECO DIDN'T EVEN MAKE THE TOP 15: Entertainment Weekly is out with its "Best of the Decade" issue with Johnny Depp making the cover as one of its 15 Entertainers of the Decade. As a print subscriber, I am waiting patiently by the mailbox for this week's issue, so I can't say if he is No. 1, but you are welcome to explore the list along with the mag's picks for best movies, TV shows, etc.  YOU, LIEUTENANT WEINBERG? Kevin Pollak has signed to host Fox's upcoming Our Little Genius game show, in which children ages 6-12 get to play a WWTBAM?-type competition in their chosen field of expertise -- except it's the parents who decide when they no longer trust their child to get the answer right. Which sounds evil. Thursday, December 03, 2009
MEET ME IN MONTAUK: The best of the aughts lists have been coming down the pike for a good month or so, but today the Onion AV Club revealed its highly anticipated 50 Best Films of the Decade and kudos are deserved for some great choices (or at least the exactly 50% of the list that I have seen, which considering the decade [plus three months] welcomed three new lives into the Gordon household I consider a triumph). The list also serves as a reminder of what a great period for film 2000-02 was (Memento, Tenenbaums, Almost Famous, Y Tu Mama Tambien, Spirited Away, Crouching Tiger, The Man Who Wasn't There, Moulin Rouge, Adaptation, City of God [which probably deserves the top spot], Punch Drunk Love, and LOTR: The Two Towers). I'm sure there will be those who will dispute many of the choices (especially There Will Be Blood and No Country for Old Men landing in the top five), but any list topped by Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, and with disparate but remarkable films like Children of Men, Capturing the Friedmans, Kill Bill Vol. 1 and Before Sunset in the top 12 gets my respect. Now if you will excuse me, I need to get my butt over to the library and get a copy of 25th Hour so I can knock another one off the list. ETA: Missed the Onion's list of 25 orphans and personal favorites, which includes such worthy films as 40 Year Old Virgin, Idiocracy, Far From Heaven and Sideways. A JOLLY HAPPY SOUL: Wasn't there somebody around here who liked Neil Patrick Harris? I vaguely remember hearing somebody say that in the comments somewhere. If that person is still reading us, he or she may enjoy this official CBS video (!) marrying the animation of Frosty the Snowman (sadly, not the infinitely superior, but copyrightedly unavailable, Rankin-Bass version) with the words of Barney Stinson. (Warming Glow.) YOU THINK I GIVE A DAMN ABOUT A GRAMMY: We were talking in the luxurious cigar lounge at ALOTT5MA headquarters, and realized we had nothing really interesting to say about the Grammy nominations. The closest I can come to an interesting observation is that it's an unusually young/hip year for an awards series that normally is heavy on the old-timers/stodgy--there's no River: The Joni Letters, or other oldster-friendly album in the category (indeed, Dave Matthews Band is the "oldest" artist in the category). Courtesy of their ability to have songs nominated in two fields, Taylor Swift (pop/country) and Beyonce (pop/R&B) lead the nominations, with Lady Gaga, the Black Eyed Peas, and Kings of Leon also making strong showings. Big snubs in the album category include No Line On The Horizon and Working On A Dream. PAGING ADAM SANDLER: So here's my fun fact for the day. Dianna Agron, who plays Quinn Fabray on Glee, is a more observant Jew than Lea Michele. NO DIRECTIONS: Finally, Glee gave us some actual movement on the "fake baby" plotline, though we have not had Terri hit by the J.J. Abrams/Mean Girls bus yet. Also, continuing nice work by Dianna Agron as Quinn, being the first person in recorded history to kick Sue Sylvester's ass, and the episode was generally (and blessedly) free of Quinn-Rachel-Puck-Finn drama (aside from the quite nice Lea Michele "Smile"). And, we raise a question as to whether last night's version of "Jump" was more or less offensive to Van Halen fans than Van Hagar was. Next week--we at long last reach Sectionals, with music from the Rolling Stones, Kelly Clarkson ("My Life Would Suck Without You"), and Streisand ("Don't Rain On My Parade"). #11 -- THE WESTBROOK KNEEL: Shutdown Corner ranks the top ten NFL plays of the decade, sadly without embedded or linked video. (Okay, here's the Antonio Freeman.) Wednesday, December 02, 2009
FOREIGN, OF HONOR, OF DOOM, OF ... EXTRAORDINARY DANCERS? In case KCosmo has some bullet points in the chamber, I won't say anything about the current state of the So You Think You Can Dance competition other than that I think the dancing has been very strong, and even my less-favorite dancers have surprised me repeatedly. I did want to mention, though, that the reason I watch this show is because I know there's always a chance that somebody will do something that will make me go, "wow, that was really f'ing cool." The League of Extraordinary Dancers? Wow, that was really f'ing cool. WELCOME BACK, 3: Are we getting A.I.'s mom back as well? That's my only question. I don't much care whether this is good for the team -- in fact, I hope it doesn't improve them enough to launch the 76ers into playoff contention. (We need the lottery picks. Several of them.) I just want to care about professional basketball in Philadelphia again, and signing Allen Iverson and giving him a chance for a dignified exit from he sport he loves accomplishes that. Like NBC's Treasure Hunters or the Star Wars Christmas Special (HT: Isaac), it's okay for something to suck as long as it sucks in interesting ways. THE SECOND MOST IMPORTANT AWARDS NOMINATIONS ANNOUNCED TODAY: The Golden Satellite Awards are a spinoff of the Golden Globes, and they're even more bizarre than the Globes. Not only do they have robust new media/video game categories, they tend to go bizarre in the nominations, and this year is no exception:
I'D TOTALLY WATCH HOT TRUANT LADY OFFICER: I have nothing to say about Jezebel's Midweek Madness this week (more Brangelina coverage than you can shake a stick at!), but am eternally grateful to them to providing us with a capture of Mindy Kaling's list of "25 Things You Don't Know About Me" from Us, which could also be accurately titled "25 More Reasons Mindy Kaling Is Awesome." PEOPLE WHO DON'T HAVE MAPS: Allegedly, infamously inarticulate Miss South Carolina competitor Caitlin Upton will be one of the competitors on the next season of TAR. I do not see any way in which this can end well. WELCOME BACK, CUTTER: The peak quality life of a good show, in all but a few cases, is a maximum of about six years. Somewhere around that point, the stories start to repeat themselves more frequently and every character combination has been exhausted. Even if the quality of the writing and acting hasn't suffered, a good show can get so familiar that it loses its ability to surprise you. It amazes me that people were able to watch The Simpsons, or ER, or Survivor, or LA Law, for their entire runs. I've given up on a tremendous amount of TV this season and last, not because the shows were necessarily bad, but because I had built up an immunity to them. Although Scrubs debuted nine years ago, it aged in the strangest possible way. While it suffered from the familiarity and repetition problems that plague old shows, the way that NBC (and then ABC) constantly yanked it around and the maturing of its central conceit (newbie doctors aging into experienced veterans) also gave it a constant foal-finding-its-legs feel. It was both immature and decrepit, but still amusing and a little bit disarming. Which kind of summarizes its return last night. It was jarring that the reboot -- a cast and setting change that seems a sensible, if incomplete, response to repetitiveness issues -- started with the same characters to whom the show had just said an emotional goodbye a few months ago. I understand why Bill Lawrence wants to give us a soft transition, but opening with ten solid minutes of Scrubs's Greatest Hits seemed very strange. As for the new cast, who presumably will gradually push aside the old cast, I find them all very likable, and suitably promising. I particularly like that they didn't just try to replicate the same characters with whom they started the show. I have three issues with them, though: (1) what made this show (and its mopier analogue, Grey's Anatomy) work in the first place was the instant chemistry and camaraderie between the new interns. There was little interaction among the med students, and no positive interaction, so I hope the show really works on this. (2) I think they missed an opportunity to carry over some of the last class of reboot candidates -- Aziz Ansari is well used elsewhere, but it would be nice to have Sunny, the large Asian guy, and the dork with the Coke-bottle glasses (okay to lose the Elliot-alike) as recurring characters (and Keith Dudemeister -- the show needs Keith back). (3) Counting Denise/Jo, the new characters are three hot skinny blondes and two cocky pretty boys with Twilight hair. I was under the impression that some med schools now allow Asians, South Asians, Jews, and non-underwear-models to matriculate. OLD PEOPLE BUY RECORDS: Last week was a huge week for album releases, with new records from Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Adam Lambert, and Shakira all hitting record stores and iTunes. But your winner, and new record holder for best opening week for a female artist's debut album is Susan Boyle, who sold 701,000 copies of her debut album, good enough for the second highest opening week for a debut, behind only Snoop Dogg's Doggystyle, and the biggest debut week of the year. Lambert may have lost the Idol title, but more than doubled Kris Allen's opening week numbers and was at #3, behind the Andrea Bocelli Christmas album. This strikes me as an appropriate time to ask what you're buying and listening to these days, so let's discuss. |
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