Monday, October 01, 2007 Rant Archive
See, this is why you don’t ever recommend anyone for a job in your office. It never works out. That’s the basis of the latest storm that continually swirls around Larry David’s life.
Larry gets Richard Lewis’ girlfriend Cha Cha a job at the office, but her office is by the bathroom and she insists on carrying on a conversation with him every time he has to take a leak or drop a deuce (which, apparently, is quite often with his diet of salad and water).
This – inadvertently, of course – leads to Larry getting in trouble with Cheryl for buying environment-unfriendly toilet paper, requesting a new doctor after the old one inquires too much about his bowel movements and getting in a fight with a restaurant chef for claiming he got sick from leftovers. Of course, Daviday checks on Cha Cha to see how many times Larry had dropped bombs that morning, catching him in his web of lies.
So, if you’re scoring at home, that’s three pee/poop jokes in one episode. Stretching things a little thin there, eh LD? As Larry would say, by the end, the joke gets pretty weak. Pretty, pretty weak.
Welcome back to Wisteria Lane, the most dysfunctional street to ever be lined with picket fences. Last we saw the ladies of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES, life was looking pretty sweet for Susan, whose trailer-side wedding to Mike was the culmination of three years of will-they-or-won’t-they viewer frustration. Bree was sporting a strap-on pregnancy bump to con her neighbors into believing the baby her teenage daughter will eventually have – while away at a convent – belongs to her. Gabrielle was kissing Carlos moments after marrying a manipulative politician whose motives are still unclear. Lynette was reeling from news that she has cancer and Edie, oh Edie, was hanging herself with a silk scarf.
The fourth season premiere wastes no time revealing that Edie did not, in fact, kill herself. As it turns out, her suicide attempt was just another well-timed ploy for Carlos’s attention. This puts a wrench in Carlos and Gaby’s plan to run away together on, yes, her wedding night. Carlos is forced to stay in the hospital looking after Edie while Gaby is forced to grin and consummate.
Susan still has the worst luck in the world, this time finding herself in stirrups being examined by a gynecologist who also happens to be her new neighbor. I know the writers love to put Susan through the wringer, but as far as uncomfortable situations go, this one takes the cake. That Teri Hatcher is such a trooper. Oh, we find out she’s pregnant too. Here’s hoping we don’t later find out the baby belongs to her Season 3 love interest, Ian. Who am I kidding? You know that storyline is already on its way down the pike.
America’s favorite family is back. After surviving a year that included the death of its patriarch and a new born twin, Kitty’s (Calista Flockhart) engagement to Republican presidential hopeful Robert McCallister (Rob Lowe), the discovery of an adulterous betrayal, a return to war and a marriage on the brink of disaster, what more can we expect during the second season of BROTHERS AND SISTERS? Who knows, I mean it is the Walker clan after all. And after a year that would have torn apart families with a weaker familial bond, the Walkers finally have something to celebrate … Kitty’s getting married. Well, they’re ready to celebrate now, after getting over the shock and horror that he is a Republican … gasp!
During the season premiere, the family comes full circle. They are celebrating Kitty’s birthday and remembering the family patriarch, who took a heart attack induced header to his death in the family pool a year earlier. Meanwhile, they are still coming to grips with Justin’s (Dave Annable) abrupt return to Iraq. But that worry has to be put on hold, while the family plans Kitty’s birthday. Unfortunately, her father happened to die on her birthday the year before, so that kind of puts a damper on the celebration. But I guess that’s what you call the circle of life. Shopping for your wedding dress fits nicely into that category as well. But when this mother and daughter get together, things seem to get pretty tense. At least there are no secrets in the Walker family. No matter how hard they try, they just can’t seem to keep their yappers shut. Then again, there is the fact that nobody has spilled the beans about uncle Saul’s (Ron Rifkin) presumed homosexuality. Of course that’s only because they haven’t figured that out yet.
The robots in disguise will clash again on June 26, 2009. That is the date, according to
Variety, that Paramount and DreamWorks are planning to launch the sequel to the juggernaut hit Transformers, which so far has grossed almost $700 million worldwide. Michael Bay is expected to once again be at the director’s helm.
Of course the studios are already stressing that the June 26 date is tentative at best—as they probably should, since there seems to be several wrinkles that will need to be smoothed before audiences get to revel in some robot-on-robot action, an the studios see another morbidly obese payday.
First, (and as is the case with all bankable franchises,) salaries will have to be re-worked. It is reported that Michael Bay is in final negotiations to direct, but has yet to come to a deal. Stephen Spielberg golden boy Shia LaBeouf, who will soon star in another popular franchise entry, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, is also expected to return for Transformers sequel—but again, nothing has been finalized. You can be sure that both director and star—and any other co-stars of the original dredged up for the sequel—will be looking to get a piece of that $700 million love before they sign on for another chapter.
Threatening to spoil the pot for everybody, meanwhile, are the ongoing tensions between studios Dreamworks and Paramount. DreamWorks heads Spielberg and David Geffen have had not-so-private spats with the leadership at Viacom on several occasions, going so far as to threaten to end their dealings with Paramount. The split would effectively cost DreamWorks property rights to Transfomers’ CGI characters, as well as any other properties developed under the deal with Viacom. Transfomers was a pet-project for Spielberg (who took an exec producer credit); not having his input for a sequel could doom the film to the ‘all flash, no substance’ fate of unchecked Baydom.
“Baydom,” you heard it.
Even in the 20th century, women who were thought to be promiscuous were blamed for anything horrible that happened to them. Unfortunately, it’s much the same here in the 21st century as well. But when you have a tough as nails female cop on the job, that excuse just doesn’t fly. Especially when new evidence shows up proving that theory wrong. In tonight’s episode of COLD CASE, Lilly (Kathryn Morris) reopens the 1998 case of a murdered 15-year-old girl. Because this girl had a less than a stellar reputation while she was living, her case didn’t necessarily get the scrutiny it deserved. Often times, stereotypes are so hard to overcome, even when it involves the death of a mere child. But, when the victim’s tank top is discovered in an abandoned van, the case can no longer be ignored and is reopened.
We get a good idea of the reputation of our victim in the opening scene, when a fellow student consistently points out that she may be better suited to teach their sex education class than the teacher is. And, when the cold case detectives gather to discuss the appearance of some new evidence, the poor girl’s name is dragged through the mud again. Thanks to President Clinton’s sex scandal, 1998 was not the best year to be known as the go-to-girl for oral pleasure. Come to think of it, is any year good for that kind of notoriety, especially when you are 15-years-old? But considering this is COLD CASE, something tells me all is not what it seems. Maybe her reputation is more about the fact that she comes from the wrong side of the tracks. Meanwhile, Lilly still has some issues to deal with herself, regarding the hostage situation and shooting she went through; namely the fact that her boss feels responsible for the whole thing. This may take a while for the two of them to work out, but that doesn’t stop our team from finding a killer.
Ready or not JACKASS 3 is headed our way. For those of you who aren’t familiar with the JACKASS phenomena, it’s basically a group of guys who go around doing the most ridiculous, insanely stupid and dangerous stunts you can think of. Some examples of these stunts are jumping into sewage, going up against alligators and walking around Japan in panda costumes. Can you tell I’m not a big fan? Besides being the lowest form of entertainment – in my opinion – the JACKASS series on MTV and subsequent movies have spurred young boys around the country to attempt similar acts of stupidity. The difference being that there is a crew of professional stunt coordinators standing by for the TV show and movies, while these young teenagers and their ill-conceived idea of a good time – are going it alone, and using makeshift equipment. Cinematical.com
says “JACKASS NUMBER TWO made so much money that JACKASS 3 was greenlit by Paramount last year.”
The fact that the JACKASS franchise is making so much money doesn’t surprise me, but unfortunately those dollar signs cause otherwise responsible people to lose their ever-loving minds. Putting up a disclaimer before these actors – and that’s what they are, actors – do these stunts may absolve everybody from any legal responsibility, but don’t they have even the smallest amount of moral responsibility? Yes, money is the all mighty king in the entertainment business – well, any business for that matter – but there are so many more creative ways Hollywood can go about providing us with movies and TV shows that will generate them more income. Doing a movie like JACKASS really just amounts to laziness, if you ask me. There’s not really a script to speak of, and they don’t have to hire big name A-list actors that charge 20 million dollars a picture, so they get to pocket a large chunk of what the movie makes.
Season one of DEXTER was easily the best thing on TV last year. The groundwork that HBO pioneered with THE SOPRANOS, SIX FEET UNDER and THE WIRE was furthered by Showtime’s effort with this show. It was serial television writing at its best with a perfectly conceived and executed 12 episodes. The story arc was brilliant, the humor dark, the action crisp and harrowing and there was not one single wasted moment. The story last season was of forensic analysis/ avenging angel/ serial killer Dexter Morgan’s pursuit and gamesmanship with fellow murderer The Ice Truck Killer. As Dexter struggled to discover who he was (an ongoing act for a sociopath with a code) he also discovered how he was created. The Ice Truck Killer turned out to be his biological older brother, bent on freeing Dexter from the rules imposed by his adoptive father. Dexter was offered the choice of fully embracing his nature and living a free life with a brother who he might actually come to love- a feeling, like all of them, that Dexter has heretofore been incapable of. All he had to do was kill his adoptive sister Sergeant Debra Morgan (Jennifer Carpenter).
Dexter killed his brother instead. He chose his “fake family” over his real one and turned his back on the chance to finally live, as the season finale was aptly named, “Born Free.” Why would he do this? The closing montage of season one was Dexter imaging a heroes welcome, people cheering and confetti flying as the city of Miami acknowledged his acts as those of a vindicator and savior. Could it be that with all his talk of finding a true connection in the world, of wanting to shake off the shackles and emerge from the darkness all Dexter really wants is a pat on the back? Mix in a little Christ complex and I think so.
Season one was so well written, so evenly conceived and built for the exact number of episodes, so perfectly tied together I was almost dreading season 2. There is nowhere to go but down, right? Can you have a long lost relative come out of the woodwork each season?
Dammit, Kenny gets his own show!
TVsquad.com says “Trey Parker and Matt Stone are producing a new series for Comedy Central called KENNY VS. SPENNY.” This is actually already a show in Canada, and the deal is to air 10 of the original Canadian episodes as well as finance 10 new episodes. Wow, 20 episodes of Kenny and Spencer battling it out in competitions like who can sell more bibles. I’m not sure if that premise is sustainable. Is it funny, absolutely, but I’m thinking it would work better as a Comedy Central special or a series of specials. The magic of SOUTH PARK is the wacky cast of characters that are in it. Focusing on just these two may get old pretty fast.
That being said, who ever would have thought SOUTH PARK would still be so fresh and innovative, after all these years. Parker and Stone must have had some freaky experiences growing up, to come up with the storylines and ideas they do. If they did, they channeled them in a way that benefits us all. I mean who can forget classic scenes like Santa Claus and Jesus fighting it out over who is the reason for the Christmas Season? Not too mention all the ways in which Kenny died? Thank goodness those deaths never took, otherwise we wouldn’t have this new series to look forward to. I’m not saying I don’t think the Kenny vs. Spencer premise doesn’t sound promising; I’m just perplexed as to how that merits a full series of its own.
I’ve been reading a few reviews for THE GAME PLAN, and I have to say I’m amazed. Almost every critic out there is ripping it apart for being overly predictable and recycled. Um, hello, did anyone notice that this is a Disney family movie about an athlete with a cute kid? It screams predictability. Disney isn’t the Mecca of family movies for nothing, people. When the formula works, they stick to it. And I must admit, it actually works this time.
I was a little afraid of seeing THE GAME PLAN. I, too, am a person who hates seeing the same movie over and over again. I thought it was simply going to be a silly story with an abundance of sight gags, sappy message moments, and an ending we all knew was coming before the end of the first act. Well, it is a silly story with all that stuff, but there is something about Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson that makes this story a little more interesting. No, it’s not his impressive biceps (though seeing them plastered on the screen every once in awhile didn’t hurt). Johnson is actually a decent comedic presence. If you’ve seen BE COOL, you know what I mean. The man may be physically suited to play the action hero, but his strong suit is definitely as the comedic hero. The combination of his on screen charm with the adorable Madison Pettis makes for an enjoyable two hours at the movies.
Johnson is Joe “The King” Kingman, quarterback for the Boston Rebels. He’s so much into himself that you might mistake him for Terrell Owens, but Joe’s a sweet guy on the inside. We find this out when a little girl named Peyton (no, not after Manning or Walter) shows up at his door claiming to be his daughter. After he gets over the shock of having an eight year old, Joe quickly turns into Dad, even if he doesn’t do it so well right off the bat. After a month of ruining his apartment, bedazzling his MVP football, dressing up his bulldog, and getting him to be in her ballet recital, Peyton has made Joe into a sweeter, gentler, badass football player.
After watching Thursday’s pilot of “Big Shots” I have been confronted with one of my greatest fears—even men know they are acting like girls. I guess all that’s left for me and women like myself to do is stage a massive genocide with the hopes of cleansing the gene pool of every last one of these sad, pathetic gender confused XY chromosome carriers.
We’re immediately confronted with our pathetic main characters, Duncan Collingsworth (Dylan McDermott) is busy banging his ex-wife, Lizabeth, (Paige Turco) in the wine cellar of a his country club. Both Duncan and his ex-wife seem surprised by how hot the sex is when Lizabeth tells him his daughter has dropped out of college & he probably should talk to her about it. Uh, thank Lizabeth for being the gender neutral character here and not bothering with acting like the set type cast for women, I am sure that producers will make sure that Duncan does that enough for everyone.
In the same way, we’re introduced to the other main characters, Brody Titus (Christopher Titus), James Auster (Michael Vartan), & Karl Mixworthy (Joshua Malina). These sycophantic megalomaniacs sit around complaining about how complicated their lives are, and most importantly their love lives. Kill me now. The premise for the pilot goes like this: Poor James’s boss drops dead when he is run over by a golf cart rushing to deliver shrimp to Brody for his demanding-as-hell wife. Boo Hoo. The thing is, right before Old Man Asshat meets his untimely demise he tells James he is going to get canned in the morning while holding the sort of diamond necklace that would have made Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell his best friends.
Every freak job in the world ends up in Los Angeles, if you believe network TV. Aliens, monsters and big-ass robots come to the City of Angels for fun and sun, and usually, they set up shop. Apparently, L.A. is also the place to be for those with entrepreneurial spirit.
Among those with such spirit is Mick St. John (Alex O’Loughlin), a handsome rake with a private investigator’s license, a beautiful bachelor pad, and a taste for A-positive. Our friend Mick is, yes, a vampire 90 years young, in what has become something of a new tradition in the genre: undead detectives. His latest case gets him in touch with Beth Turner (Sophia Myles), a lovely young reporter for a news (I use the term loosely) Web site, who teams up with Mick to look into the death of a college student involved with a freaky-deaky anthropology professor (Rudolf Martin, who’s played Dracula once or twice himself).
I could give more details of the plot, but that might be going to the rehash trough one too many times. I liked this show when it was FOREVER KNIGHT, and I liked it even better when it was ANGEL, but the mix is a little thin by now. Storywise, you’ve got to be able to bring something new to the table when working with such well-used tropes, and frankly, CBS is not the first place that pops into the conscious mind when thinking of innovative writing and interesting stories. There are a few new wrinkles in terms of the mythology—the undead aren’t flammable in sunlight, they can sense the past through smell (that’s a good one), stakes don’t seal the deal when it comes to killing the fanged set—but the basic approach seems unaltered. Vampires hiding out from humanity, a loose organization of the undead, one good vampire afraid to love, blah blah blah.
The quirky little town of EUREKA will be a part of our lives for at least another season, and Sci-Fi fans couldn’t be any happier. I got the skinny from
thefutoncritic.com who says “Sci-Fi channel has greenlit production on a third season of its most watched original series EUREKA, ordering 13 new hours of the dramedy.” That’s on top of the news that “Sci-Fi has also renewed its investigative reality hit DESTINATION TRUTH for a second season.” EUREKA grew in ratings in its sophomore year, and that’s just what the heads of the networks love to see. And when you consider that this Sci-Fi hit broke ratings records for them and continues to be the top-rated show in its history, you can understand why this is a no brainer.
EUREKA has one of the most unique and original premises I’ve seen on TV, and apparently millions of other viewers feel the same way. Imagine living in a secret, government run town filled with scientific geniuses that are there for the express purpose of conducting top-secret research. Actually, knowing our government, I wouldn’t be surprised if a community like this really does exist. Both programs are truly innovative shows, but I wouldn’t expect any less from a channel like Sci-Fi. Granted, some of their programming is akin to B-list horror movies, but I gotta hand it to them on these two. Besides, bringing in hits like this shows that they are reaching a little higher than THE KILLER TOMATOES.