Tuesday, September 14, 2010
MAYBE THIS FINALLY FREES HIM UP TO PLAY MATT SANTOS AGAIN: There are few shows I'm anticipating more this fall than Jimmy Smits vehicle Outlaw, not because I think it's going to be any good--in fact, quite the opposite--it seems the most worthy of mockery, especially among the ALOTT5MA audience, and Alan's review confirms that it's going to be well worth viewing just for the unintentional comedy of it. It premieres/previews tomorrow at 10. Set your DVRs now.
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It's bad enough that it's SCOTUS --> private practice, but that it's occasioned by a late-in-life ideological flip is ludicrous. So, yes, I'm watching, and not just to see Smits complete the separation-of-powers trifecta on one network within a 4+ year span.
ReplyDeleteSo this is basically Highway to Hiatus, amIright? Is this thing on?
ReplyDeleteIn spite of its bizarre pedigree (Executive Producer Conan O'Brien!) and the Friday Timeslot of Doom, they seem to have some degree of faith in this--they're launching it after the finale of their big summer hit ("America's Got Talent"). I can actually see it taking off a bit--its competition is 20/20 and the generally well-reviewed, but sure to be quite old-skewing "Blue Bloods."
ReplyDeleteQuery: Why exactly is it that Liberal Lawyer Ghost Dad wouldn't want him to stay on the Supreme Court but be more liberal? I mean, I get that LLGD might prefer him not to be voting with the conservative bloc. But I somehow suspect that LLGD would be perfectly happy with having a son be a reliable liberal vote on SCOTUS.
ReplyDeleteAnd for that matter, is this show now Bleep My Ghost Dad Says?
ReplyDeleteA friend of mine is working on the show and it sounds interesting (no comment on whether that'll be good interesting or bad interesting). Does this mean Smits (or the characters he's played at least) has achieved some sort of legal/governmental EGOT?
ReplyDeleteAND, total threadjack to see if anyone else watched the Bachelor Pad finale (besides Adam's wife, who makes me feel much better about my own addiction)...? Too lowbrow for this crowd?
Too lowbrow for Jen, even. :)
ReplyDeleteThis was re-written extensively before it got filmed. In the original draft of the pilot, Smits' character was the CEO of ExxonMobil who decided he was harming society and that he needed to lower energy costs by buying a service station in a small town and cutting prices.
ReplyDeleteNice. It's always fun to compare Jimmy Smits' current roles to his 1986 turn as 'Julio Gonzales, Drug Lord' in Running Scared, particularly if you can imagine the current character screaming "MY COKKKKE!!!!" and firing an uzi from the Thompson Center's balconies at Billy Crystal and Gregory Hines. Something about the age at which I first watched it makes that movie the archetype for all buddy movies ever, at least within my own feeble brain. Related flashbacks to Joe Pantoliano's work as "Snake" plague each new role he takes on. (..."Calling all cars! Calling all cars! UFO landing on Michigan Avenue!!")
ReplyDeleteAlso, are Jedi a branch of government now? What am I missing?
Actually, we're up to at least 5 branches now:
ReplyDeleteExecutive
Legislative
Judicial
Jedi
S.H.I.E.L.D.
Wait, when did we get Jimmy Smits, Agent of <span>S.H.I.E.L.D.?</span>
ReplyDelete<span>
</span>
<span></span>
Not for Smits yet, but generally.
ReplyDeleteAnd Smits hits Exeuctive and Legislative from West Wing (Santos ran for POTUS while a member of the House), and Judicial from this. (Also, District Attorney on Dexter, which is a quasi-judicial office.)
The degree to which my movie tastes overlap with Phil's never cease to amuse me. True story: I just referenced Running Scared over the weekend, when my older daughter was trying to name the books of the Torah and came up with just 4 out of the 5 -- Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, and Numbers. This was exactly the result I was hoping for when she started, because it gave me the opening to say, a la Billy Crystal: "She did not know what Deuteronomy waaas!"
ReplyDeleteYes, my entire family looked at me, befuddled.
And S.H.I.E.L.D., as we know thanks to the latest run of Secret Warriors, is actually an arm of the evil organization H.Y.D.R.A.
ReplyDeleteWait, did I just post back-to-back comments about Marvel Comics? I need to go read Batman: Year One to detox.
Jedi
ReplyDeleteMember of the Galactic Senate, the Imperial Senate and the ruling house of Alderaan, but not Jedi.
Um.
Sorry, current Marvel dudes, I refuse to believe <span>S.H.I.E.L.D. is being run by the goofballs at H.Y.D.R.A. Checkmate, perhaps, but not the snake dudes.</span>
ReplyDeleteAhhh, gotcha Matt. Thanks! (Hey, for all I knew I had blocked out a Jimmy Smits appearance in the wonderfully awful David Hasselhoff TV movie of Nick Fury.)
ReplyDeleteHaha - I thought she'd tweeted about it post-her amazing run of Bachelor/ette related tweets, but maybe I'm mistaken. It's a total train wreck of a show.
ReplyDeleteGuilty! How was there not more uproar about last week (other than obvious answer: no one but bella wilfer and I watched it)? These people are competing in a reality show to win $250k, and then all of a sudden, the men just get to choose the women who stay, with no competition element whatsoever? I guess you really are nobody until somebody loves you. At least if you're a girl.
ReplyDeleteRe last night, watching the dumbest group of people I have ever seen gathered in one place try to work out game theory (and wasn't it a surprising twist for the show to have any challenge that didn't involve making out?) almost made my head explode.
What did you think? I'm so glad someone else on earth was watching besides just me. I really enjoyed hating it!
He has always been Julio Gonzalez to me. What is it about movies you see when you're 12?
ReplyDeleteLove love LOVE Running Scared. Also featuring Joey Pants! Great car chase.
ReplyDeleteI'm assuming this was actually Isaac.
ReplyDelete/Comic Book Guy
ReplyDeleteCheckmate will always be inferior to the Suicide Squad. Always.
My mom and I used to watch that movie all the time. She still loves Dan Heyada as the captain. "You are detectives, go and detect!"
ReplyDeleteAh, thank you spacewoman, you make me feel so much better about my guilty pleasure love for that show.
ReplyDeleteI could not BELIEVE that "guys pick the girls" twist - that said, if the singletons had voted out the "power couples" at the start of the game (like they all kept saying they were going to and then not doing) that would have at least made the choosing of the teams more about who you made an alliance with rather than who you were sleeping with.
I loved that Elizabeth and Kovacs broke up, like, the day after they left the show. That entire exchange was too funny.
And the Prisoner's Dilemma of it all was the icing on the cake. I did think Natalie did an impressive job of faking people out before she revealed her decision (at least, it worked on me...). It was indeed shocking that the final challenge wasn't sex-related...
So, total threadjack, but as we're talking Marvel: I learned the other day that Chris Claremont is now writing an X-Men series and a New Mutants series with the premise, "What if Chris Claremont Hadn't Stopped Writing X-Men and New Mutants?" Both take place immediately after his runs on those series, picking up where he left off. On the one hand, how egotistical can you get? On the other hand, as someone who read the X-books in the 80s, that's somewhat intriguing!
ReplyDeleteRight back at you, bella. Although I love how this crowd thinks it's too lowbrow for them even though many of them were fixated on Paradise Hotel. Pot! Kettle!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite part of the "We must vote out the insiders!" plan was Gia biffing it (and for Wes! are you insane???) and then totally buying her own revisionist history that it was all Nicki's fault. The rest of America (or, you know, you and me and the other 12 people who watched) was not as convinced.
Poor Elizabeth. Beautiful, dum-dum Elizabeth. I'm sorry, she spends the entire show talking about how she's been in love with Kovacs for months, but she doesn't know where he went to college or his brother's name? What is it she likes about him? And it's so hard to watch her spend that much time agonizing and analyzing everything he said, when really it's a great big case of he's just not that into you, hon.
Agreed -- I can't believe I fell for something Natalie did. It was how she instantly looked like she was about to cry. You know the producers must have cooked that one up.
I never saw any movies later like the ones I saw when I was 12. Jesus, did anyone?
ReplyDeleteHa! re: Paradise Hotel. Love it.
ReplyDeleteYeah, the Elizabeth thing was just sad. She looked way cuter as a brunette, though, hopefully she'll find a man who appreciates her bad boob job.
Glad you fell for the Natalie thing too. I agree it was certainly a ploy by the producers, but what was impressive is that she was able to put on a good enough act to sell it!
I for one preferred Hank Steuver's review in the Washington Post. No matter whose review you read though, it's pretty clear this thing is going to be a trainwreck.
ReplyDeleteThanks to Running Scared, I sometimes find myself thinking that Jeremy Sisto is actually Steven Bauer and he just never aged at all.
ReplyDeleteBut by far the worst side effect is that my inner 12-year-old has never gotten over expecting to enjoy Billy Crystal. The repeated crushing disappointments that have followed -- that, indeed, continue to pile on year after year -- are entirely appropriate for a 12-year-old (whether inner and imagined or outer and actual) but I'm certain that they would be more properly visited upon me either by aloof and unattainable females or disgraced sports idols.