July 2007 Entries
MURDER is form the same people who brought you THE SIMPLE LIFE. You weren't expecting quality, were you?
MURDER is much more than just a new Spike TV series (Tuesdays at 10 p.m.). It is also a signal that Western civilization as we know it is already well in decline.
Who’d a thunk it? A game show about homicides. What’s next? American Pedophile?
There is so much wrong with this program I don’t know where to begin. The premise, I guess, is that if you watch enough episodes of CSI and LAW & ORDER, you’re just one tin badge away from the homicide squad. That, of course, is the equivalent of saying if you watch enough ER and GREY’S ANATOMY, you can appear as a contestant on a surgical game show.
Homicide dicks are the crème de la crème. Rookies just out of the police academy aren’t assigned to the squad, and they’ve just finished training in crime scene and other police procedures. So there’s no way in a heck a group amateurs aren’t going to wind up looking foolish.
Nothing separates the jocks from the dorks more than intramural sports. Our boy Rusty the pledge knows that better than anyone, and that’s why he’s so determined to become one of the former and make his Kappa Tau boys proud at the upcoming floor hockey tournament.
And, wouldn’t you know it, Rusty gets the call at the end of the semifinal game, takes the puck the length of the court, and … scores for the wrong team.
Such is life for the honors engineering major, who was riding high on his beer pong win for the Kappas just a few weeks back and really wants to relive his previous glory. So he uses his physics background to think his way to athletic prowess – and we all know how that works out.
But his game is bigger than Rusty. It’s the Kappas vs. the Omegas. It’s Cappie vs. Evan. And that means pulling out all the stops, which the Zetas (as the Omega cheer sorority house or whatever) plan to do. Rusty’s sister Casey hatches a plan to undermine the Kappas – and that pledge bitch Rebecca Logan – by getting them wasted the night before the big game.
Of course the Kappas, like all good party houses, are well versed in playing on a hangover. And let me interject some personal history in here. I don’t want to brag, but I played my best intramural softball on a raging hangover. There’s just something about getting that extra adrenaline going … and not puking. Definitely not puking.
Chief Johnson (Kyra Sedgwick) is having what my middle-aged female relatives call “power surges,” in keeping with the themes of vulnerability and weakness that THE CLOSER introduced last week. Not being a doctor, I doubt my diagnosis would stand up to critical review, but it seems pretty damn likely the show’s writers are headed down the menopause path, which ought to make things interesting between the chief and her FBI beau Fritz (Jon Tenney). Anyway, that’s for the future to reveal. This week’s episode is about baseball. Well, kinda.
Two Latino teens are shot to death right outside one teen’s house, and since the house is in gang territory, it makes things a little more exciting than the usual random murder in Los Angeles. Because of a number of recent gang-related shootings, Commander Taylor (Robert Gossett) asks for Priority Homicide to lend a hand, presumably all a part of the ongoing thawing of relations between Taylor and Johnson. As Spock once observed, “Only Nixon could go to China.”
Geek non sequitur aside, the investigation unfolds as you’d expect, eventually focusing on a rising high-school baseball star and his hardworking dad, but the emotional turmoil and physiological changes Chief Johnson experiences hamper her investigation. Fortunately, Detective Sanchez (Raymond Cruz) is there to pick up the slack and, to a certain extent, act as Jiminy Cricket.
The winner of HELL’S KITCHEN was crowned last week. The final episodes are just to find the stooge who will do what Chef Gordon Ramsay tells them to do at the Green Valley Ranch Resort and Casino. The real winner was Julia, the waffle house line cook who fought and struggled and cut through the finely roasted layer of horse manure that makes up the egos of chefs trained in fine dining. Julia cooked. And she cooked better than most everybody else on the show. Her lack of experience held her back from going all the way and that was lucky for her. Ramsay said she had the talent and was personally sending her to culinary school. This is a bigger gift than being a figurehead/novelty chef at a casino. She has his seal of approval and is set on a path to make her own way. There is no better way to come out of this show.
So who is left? Who is the artist among Jen, Bonnie and Rock? Who is as inspired as Julia? The lot of them are boring and there isn’t a higher crime in any artistic endeavor than being mundane. When these three completed service on tonight’s episode, Chef said, “It was good, but not perfect.” Perfection comes from lunatics. These three want to safely win when they should be exploding past safe. Good luck finding the candidate who will do that.
Is it possible that the promise land could actually be the desolate part of Seattle that Jordan (Billy Campbell) has moved to with his followers? Promise City - as they have named their new sanctuary – is a Heaven on Earth for anybody with a 4400 ability, original recipe or not. However, those without an ability are not welcome. Hmm, that sounds like a bit of reverse discrimination to me. In order to keep non-conformers out, the group has installed perimeter markers that give those Promicin-free freaks nasty headaches if they try to approach. Sounds like somebody needs to give the fair housing commission a call. But, that call won’t come from Maia (Conchita Campbell), who has come to believe that Jordan may not be as far off his rocker as we all once believed.
In what came as a bit of a shock to me, Shawn (Patrick Flueger) began using his growing power in the community for some personal nooky. Is this yet another example of how power corrupts, or is Shawn being set up and used? Could I have been wrong the whole time? Does Jordan really have pure motives? I couldn’t tell you after tonight’s episode of THE 4400, which served mainly to set up the second half of the season where – hopefully – those questions will be answered. I’ll tell you this much though, Jordan is making his cause harder to accept by throwing down the gauntlet. His – you’re either with us or against us – attitude makes it difficult for people to sympathize with him.
SAVING GRACE is a winner and a perfect complement for THE CLOSER, the show it follows, about a strong (albeit far straighter) female cop. TNT’s motto is “We know drama.” They also know scheduling.
TNT has a great one-two punch on Monday nights in THE CLOSER’s Kyra Sedgwick (at 9 p.m.) and SAVING GRACE’s Holly Hunter (at 10 p.m.), two strong women as far apart temperamentally as Hillary Clinton and Ann Coulter. Deputy Chief Brenda Johnson (Sedgwick) is an angel whose biggest sin is the stash of chocolate she leaves hidden in her desk. Grace Hanadarko (Hunter) desperately needs an angel, and anything sweet is entirely out of character. It is the kind of ratings-building combination that likely leaves broadcast network executives green with envy.
Grace is a troubled Oklahoma City police detective who is street smart and personally stupid. If there’s a bad decision to be made in her life, she’ll do it, whether it’s sleeping with fellow (and married) cops to paying far too much attention to her close friend Jack Daniels. She’s on a dangerous downward spiral when she’s intercepted by a last chance angel, a tobacco-chewing vision named Earl (Leon Rippy).(What a choice for a name. The last Earl I knew was a wife beater dispatched by the Dixie Chicks.)
NO RESERVATIONS is a perfect summer date movie. For one thing, it’s mindless—and I mean that in the best sense of the word. You won’t need a roadmap to figure out how to get to the end of this picture. But that’s never the point of these chick flicks. What’s important here is the scenery en route to the destination – the destination of course being happily ever after. And the scenery here is, appropriately, picturesque.
Master chef Kate Armstrong (Catherine Zeta-Jones) is talented, insecure and very uptight. She’s in charge of the kitchen in a high-tone Greenwich Village restaurant, and hasn’t had a relationship in three years.
Kate’s well ordered life is thrown for a loop when her sister, coming to visit, is involved in a fatal automobile accident. She is survived only by her elementary school age daughter, Zoë (Abigail Breslin). Armstrong takes the young girl in, but doesn’t know how to fit Zoë into her rigidly regimented existence.
These guys are bad mutha-uckas!
Boy, it sure is a sad statement on society when people still get judged by the color of their skin. Bret and Jemaine feel the brunt of this racism when Sanjay, the Indian fruit stand guy, won’t sell them an apple and a banana because of their nationality.
Of course, he thinks they’re Australians (the little buggers). But, as we all know, they’re New Zealanders. And they really want a piece of fruit.
So the boys concoct a plan to get back at the racist fruit man that falls somewhere between framing him for murder and thinking bad thoughts about him. The next best thing? The only way to get back at someone in America: Flip him the bird.
Well, it takes some time to learn the maneuver (for those who don’t know, it doesn’t not involve flapping your hands like wings).
It’s perhaps fitting that even reviews of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE are played out. Admittedly, it’s difficult to devise a fresh angle for a movie review when the handful of catch-phrases have been eviscerated by a deluge of reviews more about the longevity of the material than the film itself. After all, as the longest running animated series on television, THE SIMPSONS needs no introduction.
Matt Groening’s cartoon has influenced pop culture for nearly two decades, but his legacy today shows the signs of age. I have to say, I grew up on THE SIMPSONS and I was a huge fan for basically my entire childhood. But when things got stale, I was one of many fans who deserted the show. By the end of the ‘90s, the family that once had personified new-kid FOX’s edgy persona had been outdone by the likes of SOUTH PARK and FAMILY GUY. It’s probably about time Groening hangs up his spurs.
The film opens with a dimly-lit theater filled with Springfield residents. Homer shuffles to his seat amid the jeers of those seated behind him before asking the audience (real and animated) why we have chosen to pay to see something that we could have watched for free on TV. He makes a great point. After 17 years, bringing America’s favorite family to the silver screen was a surprise. Sure, there was a market for it, but shouldn’t theatrical adaptations have a purpose?
There is a tenuous separation between being a targeted player and a power-mad generalissimo. Dick has not fared well during his current run as HOH in the BIG BROTHER 8 house. I don't criticize because Evel Dick nominated my unitard-wearing, empty-headed angel, Jen. No, I am above that. The facts and the words of his daughter point to his weakness in letting his sense of martyrdom and righteousness cloud his game-playing judgment.
The pivotal moment came when Zach, Jen and Nick were in his HOH room, vacantly staring at the plasma screen that showed nothing but the other HouseGuests doing dishes and cleaning up from dinner. Watching people on TV who are watching other people on TV — who were there to be watched on TV — is a bit too Meta for me. This aside, Dick figured out who was in his room and the slow burn got whipped up into a furious firestorm. First, he tried to get Amber to go up and kick them out of his space. He almost ordered her to do it. When she begged off (I think she had to go cry about something), he went himself. Nick had already asked Zach and Jen to scram, so he was alone when Dick came in to tell them he wasn’t going to put up with their scheming in HIS SPACE!