May 2007 Entries
Whatever they’re paying Seacrest, I want it doubled and given to Cat Deeley. The playful British host begins Wednesday’s episode of SO YOU THINK YOU CAN DANCE on the streets of Los Angeleeze (her phonetics, not mine) at 7-freaking-a.m., commiserating with the contestants waiting in line to audition. We learn that Season Two winner Benji Schwimmer will appear later when he assists his little sister with her audition. Benji fans across the nation roar in excitement; Travis Wall (Season Two runner-up) fans die a little inside.
Along with Nigel Lythgoe and Crazy Mary Murphy, Wade Robson is the night’s first guest judge. Robson made a name for himself working with the likes of Michael Jackson and Britney at her prime, but he made an even bigger splash with his Season Two “Ramalama” routine. If you have not seen it, I suggest you YouTube it now.
The modern-day medical Sherlock Holmes, the namesake of HOUSE M.D., fights the last battle he can as his medical team crumbles around him. It’s God vs. House to see who is responsible for the mistake and who gets credit for the success.
How do most “season finales” of nighttime dramas work? Plane crash? Mystery gunman? True love revealed? HOUSE M.D. has dabbled in those tired mechanisms before, but not this time. The third season, which brought us real threats to House’s nest of security, ends not with a cliff-hanger so much as an unwritten page. A satisfyingly unwritten page.
Watching THE SHIELD is almost always like taking a bath in mud; you feel dirty right away, and you keep finding grit and dirt long after it’s over. Unlike mud baths, however, this show’s addictive; the stellar writing and acting keep turning over old tropes and clichés as fast as they churn them out. This week’s episode, “Recoil,” was a master class in betrayal, with so many backstabbings, I tossed my notepad away twenty minutes in.
Series creator Shawn Ryan and his crew have embraced the serial drama format with glee, reeling in plot threads and characters from several seasons past for more hijinks. Did you enjoy the heist of the Armenian money train? It’s back, along with the shadow of Antwon Mitchell (Anthony Anderson) and that pernicious cell phone picture of Aceveda (Benito Martinez) doubling some guy’s pleasure at gunpoint. The only way the show could get any more wrapped up in its past would be if all the guys Det. Vic Mackey (Michael Chiklis) and his Strike Team have capped over the years rose from their graves and came back to Farmington looking for munchies. It’d make a hell of a movie, but I digress.
Dear Garry Marshall,
You are so wise and talented. You have had a long, legendary career. You basically made Julia Roberts a star. I admire the fact that you want to mentor young directors, but can’t the Director’s Guild just send you some trainees? Isn’t there a golf tournament you could be playing somewhere, or a film festival over which you could preside? Because, frankly, your pearls of wisdom are wasted in the excruciating show, ON THE LOT.
The nerve of Fox! The absolute nerve! I just spent an hour of my life essentially watching a recap of last night’s episode of ON THE LOT. I know that they need time for “America” to vote, but really? It’s annoying when AMERICAN IDOL does it, but that show has earned the right. ON THE LOT has not. A whole hour of being introduced, then re-introduced to the eighteen finalists? No, you read that right. The contestants, arranged in three rows, are introduced briefly, and then introduced again when Adrianna Costa, the hostess, tells them whether they are staying or going. See what the show made me do? Now I am going all repetitive.
Ahh, the perils of living a complete lie. With every week that passes on THE RICHES, you can just feel the walls closing in on our favorite faux family, and the combination of neighbors, co-workers and creepy cousin Dale make some sort of admission from the clan inevitable.
Doug’s friend Pete comes to visit, which means the Riches have decisions to make. Do they try to carry on the con, or do they run and hide? No, they just pretend they don’t even know who the Riches are, much to Pete’s surprise. In true family fashion, the ruse -- which includes Dahlia posing as the real Doug’s ex-wife on the phone and grandma nearly giving things away with her senility -- goes way too far and poor Pete finds himself in the middle of an emotional breakdown.
The second episode of Mark Burnett and Steven Spielberg’s filmmaking-competition reality show, ON THE LOT, finds the contestants debuting their one-minute comedy shorts. The judges, Carrie Fisher, the venerable Garry Marshall, and DISTURBIA’s D. J. Caruso, are sticklers for plot arcs in the short films, as well they should. The problem is that the show, ON THE LOT, has no arc of it’s own. It yearns for a climax! Carrie and Garry sniping, Paula-and-Simon-style, would have worked beautifully. By the end I was almost asleep, praying that I wouldn’t have to watch anymore short films anytime soon. As for the films, I guess some were OK. Others just sucked. But there is no build at all. I guess they are trying to save some bang for the results show, which airs Tuesday night.
Instead of WHAT NOT TO WEAR it’s WHO NOT TO MARRY. Instead of THE BACHELOR it’s THE DIVORCEE. And when Angie Everhart shows up on your lawn to ask why you were mean to your ex, it’s not FEAR FACTOR, it’s EX-WIVES CLUB.
Reality TV works best when it can explore human nature through real people either excelling at the artful and the fantastic (PROJECT RUNWAY, THE AMAZING RACE) or sacrificing integrity and sense of self for fame and fortune (BIG BROTHER, NANNY 911). TV executives screw this all up when they salivate over the bad taste elements and try and make up for that with slapping some quick-fix guru into the mix and calling the whole event “empowering.” And that is exactly what ABC’s EX-WIVES CLUB is billed as, “An empowering new reality series.”
May 2007 has been an unprecedented month for blockbuster sequels. So far, they haven’t been very good. With the arrival of AT WORLD’S END, the studios appear to have gone 0 for 3.
PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: AT WORLD’S END begins with a long line of pirates being sent to the gallows. With The Flying Dutchman under the control of the British Royal Navy, the Crown has established a no-tolerance policy towards piracy. Those who survive an encounter with Davy Jones and crew are brought in to die by the hangman’s noose. Who will come to the rescue of this defenseless lot? I only hope the same fate will befall the thieves behind a movie that made an estimated $125 million in its opening weekend. But I digress. Okay then. There you go, filmmakers, you have renewed our compassion for the pirates. I daresay Captain Jack Sparrow would be a fine choice for Pirate Hero, but wait a minute. They sent him off to Davy Jones’ locker at the end of DEAD MAN’S CHEST. Well, what then?
The mysterious Peter (Michael Shannon) drags the pathetic Agnes (Ashley Judd) inexorably down the short, dark tunnel of his bloody and bug-ridden schizophrenic delusions. Hilarity ensues.
Adapted for the screen by Tracy Letts from her own play and directed by the legendary William Friedkin, BUG builds tension upon tension to what should be a real screamer of a climax, but ultimately delivers a flatulent letdown that had the audience booing and hissing as the credits rolled.
You've gotta be concerned when an ad campaign has to go back more than 30 years to cite a director’s biggest successes. But the ploy seemed to work, considering the majority of moviegoers (including myself) don’t have the retention capabilities to remember such stinkers as JADE, THE GUARDIAN or THE HUNTED.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to TiVo Wednesday's episode of LOST, as it overlapped with AMERICAN IDOL, a show so reviled by yours truly, I'll save my invective for a future review. Yes, ABC actually allowed the beleaguered LOST and its wavering fan base to contend with the ratings juggernaut that is IDOL – and the final episode, no less. I've remained loyal to the series and I watch every episode. And, I imagine for most LOST die-hards, the choice to watch tonight's episode over the blueballs-athon that is an AI season finale was a no-brainer. But for those of you whose DVRs were available to record ABC's mystery-drama, I'll make a point of keeping this review spoiler-free.