Friday, October 05, 2007 Rant Archive
MICHAEL CLAYTON is a morality play about a person ultimately driven to do the right thing – against his own better interests. And it is a story about how venal corporate America and its lawyers can be. But most of all, it is a suspenseful yarn that will get your pulse racing and hold you in its throes almost from the beginning until the end.
Clayton (George Clooney) is an in-house fixer for an upper crust law firm. If a client gets in trouble, his job is to clean up the mess, whatever it is. But it wasn’t always that way. Clayton, who comes from a family of cops, was a promising trial lawyer for the district attorney and a special crime task force before succumbing to the lure of private practice.
One reason he switched careers: he had a gambling problem. Supposedly he licked it, but now Clayton is in debt again because a restaurant he opened with his drug-addicted brother went down the tubes. And the people he owes money to are the kind of people who will repossess your bones if payment isn’t prompt.
We don’t know this in the beginning of course. At the start, all we here is the voice of what appears to be someone discombobulated talking to Clayton, apologizing for running around naked in a parking lot. Meanwhile, the camera is focused on a bunch of people working in a large conference room. It’s the middle of the night and they’re finalizing a settlement of a major lawsuit. Someone asks “where is Karen?” And we see a woman in the restroom sweating through her blouse.
The scene shifts to a gambling den in Chinatown where Clayton’s game is interrupted by a phone call. A top client is in trouble; he was involved in a hit and run. Clayton travels to the driver’s home in a ritzy and bucolic New York City suburb, where he is met with skepticism. “I’m not a miracle worker,” Clayton explains. “I’m a janitor.”
You can almost hear the writers of SMALLVILLE sitting around the table, thinking out loud, asking, “What is it we need this season?” Family’s all weeded out, it’s too early to bring in Doomsday, and the rights to Batman are likely locked up so tight they’ll never get sprung … what to do, what to do? I know, let’s steal a page from one of the ret-cons and bring Kara (Laura Vandervoort) into the mix! Hey presto, so shall it be written, so shall it be done.
Yes, that’s right: The blonde “angel” that saved Lex (Michael Rosenbaum) from drowning last week was the only other survivor of Krypton not sporting a Phantom Zone address, and Clark’s (Tom Welling) cousin to boot. She spends a good chunk of the episode being surly, as she thinks Kal-El is a baby still, thanks to her spending nearly 20 years in suspended animation. But, once she clues in to the facts, a new mission crops up: Get to Kara’s ship and prevent the self-destruct sequence from vaporizing a large chunk of Kansas.
Meanwhile, Lois (Erica Durance) is wooed by the new editor at the Daily Planet, who wants to take the paper in a more tabloidy direction, leaving Chloe (Allison Mack) in the dust. Lionel (John Glover) is still missing, and Lex manages to track down Lana (Kristin Kreuk) for a confrontation that doesn’t go the way either of them suspect, probably due to the writers’ breaking out a cliché that soap operas would be ashamed to use. However, the extreme silliness of the Lex-Lana plot is balanced out by the gentle touch used with Kara, who has been left out of the loop on some things, like the extermination of Krypton and all its inhabitants.
Thursday’s episode marks the return of Ryan to Scranton. Ryan Howard (named after the 2006 MLB NL MVP when he was the star of the Scranton minor league affiliate) has been a character since the first season, when he served as THE OFFICE’s temp. When Jim left at the start of season three, Ryan was promoted to salesman. And in a surprise twist at the conclusion of the season, he beat out Michael for a supervisor’s position at Dunder Mifflin headquarters. Last night’s show was the first experiment with the new power dynamic, which sees Ryan delivering a high-tech business plan to the Scranton office. I’m glad this was a good episode because it was tough pulling myself away from the Division Series games last night.
For those of you who were watching the Yanks get their assed kicked, you missed a classic episode of THE OFFICE. In the early days of the series, we were treated to storylines based around the differences between the work environment and the outside world. Specifically, how you’re supposed to conduct yourself in the workplace as opposed to elsewhere. Some of those original topics included diversity, sexual harassment and disability sensitivity. Steve Carell is best when he can he can funnel Michael’s self-absorption into a touchy subject and boldly go too far in the name of propriety. In the second episode of this season, Michael rebels against Ryan’s charge to update the company. Employees are given Blackberries and a new playbook to compliment the Web site redesign Dunder Mifflin has planned.
Some years ago I spoke with the then head of HBO about The Larry Sanders Show. It was a funny, creative take off of a late-night show and I couldn’t understand why it attracted so small an audience. He suggested that the program might be too hip for the room. That is, it was too in, too chic, too Hollywood for the great unwashed. For want of a better explanation I accepted it.
But now it’s what 15 years later. So how to explain the crummy ratings last season for 30 ROCK, the brilliant Tina Fey sitcom? By her own admission, only about 18 people watched the show last season. (Actually the numbers were higher – between 5 million and 6 million folks tuned to her show – but that’s hardly a drop in the TV bucket.) Could it be the Larry Sanders Effect? I doubt it.
Times have changed a lot since then. The great unwashed are more sophisticated. They’ve seen London. They’ve seen France. They’ve seen Brittney without her underpants. There isn’t a rationale explanation, so there’s no sense dwelling on it. Suffice it to say that the show is back for its second season, and is better than ever. And considering it was the best comedy on the air last season – it did win the Emmy – that’s saying a lot
Like the rest of us, THE GIRLIE SHOW with Tracy Jordan is back from hiatus. Producer and head writer Liz Lemmon (Fey) broke up with her boy friend, but no one cares. They have their own problems.
Every now and then, I like to get out and surf through various TV-related sites and blogs, see what’s happening or find out if there’s something I’ve missed. Anyway, I was tooling through one site when I came across Nielsen ratings for Tuesday, September 25th. I read through them, and what caught my eye were the ratings for DAMAGES, one of the shows I regularly review. The reported ratings were an audience of 1.16 million, and a 0.5/1 share.
Even when adjusting for the effect of DVRs and cable audience size, that number seems pretty damn low. In comparison, REAPER scored nearly three times the audience at 3.28 million, and even EUREKA—which airs on prototypical niche network the Sci-Fi Channel—pulled in nearly 400,000 more viewers. Now, I understand DAMAGES isn’t your typical legal thriller; it’s complex and morally murky, which is the kind of thing FX specializes in (THE SHIELD? NIP/TUCK? Hello?), and it’s hard to root for anyone in particular. But, I guarantee you won’t see much else like it on cable this season. With top-notch writing and acting, strong production values and enough anti-heroes to make Sam Peckinpah weep, DAMAGES is TV that a lot more people ought to be watching.
What’s it all about, you might ask? Well, here’s DAMAGES in a nutshell: Arthur Frobisher (Ted Danson), the head of a major corporation, is being sued by 5,000 of his employees for his role in an Enron-like accounting scandal that wiped out stock portfolios and retirement funds. He’s already survived an attempted federal prosecution, but the lawsuit is spearheaded by Patty Hewes (Glenn Close), a legal piranha so ruthlessly efficient that she probably figures in Beelzebub’s nightmares. The central character of the show, however, is Ellen Parsons (Rose Byrne), a young law school grad who is lured away from a stable, potential-filled law firm to work with Patty. The timeline is fractured: one track follows Ellen’s arrest for the murder of her fiancé (Noah Bean) and her efforts to find out what happened, and the other follows the progress of the suit against Frobisher. Nothing is clear-cut, nobody says anything until the words have gained at least three layers of meaning, and “Trust no one” should be engraved above every door and window. In short, it’s mesmerizing drama.
Last week the boys of Big Shots proved they’re nothing but a bunch of women thinly veiled as men. This week we endure more of the same. I am not really sure if this show is going to survive the network axe, but if it gets canned I am not going to lose a modicum of sleep over it. The two best parts of this show are Christopher Titus’s comedic timing & Dylan McDermott recently filing for divorce from his real life wife.
Moving right along, the boys find themselves in even hotter water this week. Duncan (Dylan McDermott) receives a pop quiz type visit from everyone’s favorite truck stop transsexual while at work. Dontrelle (Jazzmun) tells Duncan that the reporter doing the supposed fluff piece on him is actually writing an article that will leave his career and personal life in shambles. Dontrelle goes on to explain that she/he secretly taped his/her conversation with Duncan about being paid to forget Duncan and their restroom romp.
While Duncan’s life is plummeting quicker than the Dow-Jones, Brody (Christopher Titus) is faced with his own personal quandary. His wife is willing to up their designated sex night to TWICE a week if Brody promises to get a manzilian wax. If you cannot figure out what I am talking about when I say manzilian wax let me spell it out for you — BRODY’S WIFE WANTS HIM TO GET THE HAIR ON HIS TESTICLES REMOVED. This is Brody’s main problem the entire episode. I guess it’s nice to be the completely uncomplicated comedic sidekick, right Christopher Titus?
Tonight’s episode of MAD MEN shall henceforth be known as the vibrating episode. In it there are not one, but two examples of women having fun with appliances.
Peggy is given an assignment involving a curious looking weight loss contraption. You put it on and it exercises for you. But what Peggy found upon trying it is that it simply vibrates. It is an interesting set up for a couple of reasons. First, Peggy is given the assignment because she did a great job on the Belle Jolie account. They also give it to her because over the course of the season she has gained a tremendous amount of weight. Every time a woman walks into a room at Sterling Cooper, the men leer at her like a pack of lions eyeing a wildebeest: Lunch.
When Peggy tries the thing, hoping to lose weight in her sleep, she opens her eyes with a WOOP, and throws the thing to the floor like it’s attacked her. Watching her struggle with how to present the benefits of this new account while also remaining modest is great. Every time she gets in a tough spot, she looks at Don for help yet she is also willing to get tough herself, and say what needs to be said. Considering how little regard these men have for women, it says something about how strong and good she is. Then again she falls into a sweet spot with them. She’s pretty enough that they eye her too, but also plain enough that they forget she’s a woman, or girl as they would say. Joan Holloway would never get to be a copywriter.
“This just in: primetime entertainment news show featuring host Joe Dirt takes dirt nap! Snarky hosts everywhere beware!”
It seems funny-time has run out on David Spade’s entertainment news satire vehicle, “The Showbiz Show With David Spade”. According to
Variety, Comedy Central has opted not to renew the show, which wrapped its third season this past June.
“The Showbiz Show” averaged about one million total viewers each season—a dedicated fan base, sure, but by no means a runaway hit. The show both imitated and spoofed the genre of entertainment news—i.e. “Access Hollywood” or “Extra.” But unlike say, “The Daily Show” or “The Colbert Report,” “Showbiz” leaned more toward imitation side of the line (“E!-centric territory,” as Variety put it,) rather than the spoof side of the line. The show’s brand of “comedy” pretty much consisted of Spade’s trademark snark and sarcasm, often providing the winking commentary of a Hollywood insider. As a Hollywood outsider, I often felt the joke as it was whizzing just over my head. Probably why the show got canceled.
To add insult to injury, Comedy Central has hinted at plans to replace “Showbiz” with another show of the entertainment news variety, the rumored frontrunner being “David Allen Grier’s Chocolate News”. Notice to Comedy Central: I remember when “Mind of Mencia” came along to try and fill the void left by “Chappelle’s Show.” It’s still trying.
You know, I really, really wanted to like this stupid show. Too bad it sucks beyond comparison. I liked Addison’s (Kate Walsh) character on Grey’s Anatomy. She was no nonsense and all action. Then you realize that she was banging Dr. McDreamy and you have to respect her for getting up and leaving him and the entire city of Seattle for Los Angeles. Now Addison is working in her best friend, Naomi’s (Audra McDonald) private medical center, Oceanside Wellness Group and dealing with more of the daily professional & personal drama associated with being a doctor. Here is the assumption I can make about doctors after watching this show: DOCTORS ARE LOSERS.
At any rate, the episode begins with Pete, Violet & Cooper (Tim Daly, Amy Brenneman & Paul Adelstein respectively) crashing Addison’s pad to attack her view of Sam’s (Taye Diggs) apartment to watch his reaction to the stripper they bought him. These guys are charming friends, right? Doesn’t everyone buy their newly single boss a stripper when they also work with his wife? That’s what I thought. Anyways, Addison turns into the flipping crusader of Naomi’s feelings and scolds everyone. While this happens Taye Diggs notices a mysterious rash on the stripper’s ass and signs her up as a patient. Viewing audience, this is your subplot.
With all the tragic news surrounding Britney Spears, it’s nice to see something positive about her. Britney’s new song, “Gimme More,” which she debuted in her disastrous performance on the VMAs, is climbing up the music charts. The song, which is one of 13 on her new cd, was released in August, and
starpulse.com is reporting “it topped Billboard’s Hot Digital Songs chart at No. 1 with 179,000 downloads, and jumped from No. 68 to No. 3 on Billboard’s Hot 100.” This couldn’t come at a better time, for the embattled pop star.
Earlier this week, Britney was ordered to give up custody of her two young boys to ex-husband Kevin Federline (link goes here). There is no doubt that something very serious is going on with the former Mickey Mouse Club member, and based on her latest performance, it appears as if she has lost her desire to continue with her career. But with her new song beginning to gain momentum, will all that change? My feeling is that this may be worse for her than better. By the way she’s been treating the opportunities that have come her way recently, I get the impression that she just doesn’t want to do this anymore. She’s had several chances to jump-start her fledgling career, and didn’t seem to take any of them seriously. There was the trashy behavior she displayed at her shoot for OK magazine, then the VMA follies and finally her refusal to follow court orders, with regards to her children.
This all seems to be a huge cry for help, so is the pressure of promoting her new cd, especially with the rising popularity of her first release, really the best thing for her?
Turns out Life is one of the few premier shows that I’ve had to watch that didn’t make me want to run out and hang myself immediately. Probably because I think Charlie Crews (Damian Lewis) is cute as hell. What can be cuter/hotter/sexier than a man falsely imprisoned that gets out and is awarded tons of money and still wants to be a stupid Detective? Anyways, last week we were introduced to Charlie. One time cop. One time lifer for murders he did not commit. Primetime hottie!
This week Charlie & his partner, Dani (Sarah Shahi) have to figure out the murder of one bloody bride. Literally. They find a newly married woman dead, naked and covered by only her wedding gown in her honeymoon suite. How romantic. Her husband, Jake, is nowhere to be found and after inspecting the room the duo begin hunting for him around the hotel. Miraculously, they find him in a cabana by the pool drinking out of a Costco sized jug of tequila, and let’s face it—if you wake up from a blackout and find your new bride naked & dead drinking is probably the best option you have at that point. After confronting the widower Charlie attempts to calmly place him in handcuffs. Being drunk out of his mind the husband resists arrest and a full on pool fight begins when Jake chucks Charlie into the pool. Dani resourcefully uses a taser to electrocute Jake and Charlie and put a cease and desist to their school boy fighting. Five points for Dani.
Now here is the tricky part, Charlie seems to think he is the master of spotting a criminal from having spent so much time behind bars and he swears up and down he cannot see murder in Jakes eyes. It’s really a sweet sentiment, but too bad checking out someone’s soul via their eyes is not going to suffice as conclusive evidence, moron. In the meantime, he is looking at photos from the wedding and trying to figure out what went wrong where. As they’re interviewing people from the wedding and wedding party it becomes very clear this newly wed couple used to be a couple of party-whores and anything is possible. The bride’s longtime friend comes to the aid of her widower as his legal representative, but as Charlie and Dani delve further into his background it becomes clear that his interest in the case is more personal—he seems to have been obsessed with the dead woman also. It turns out this dead chick was quite the minx.
When you wish upon a star, you just may end up in court. And when you sing about needing a Jew, you will incur the wrath of Hollywood. The irreverent comedy THE FAMILY GUY has just experienced both, after airing an episode in which patriarch Peter Griffin sang about “needing a Jew” because his finances weren’t in order. While that may be offensive to many Jewish people in the industry,
eonline.com says “Bourne Co, which owns the rights to the Oscar-winning Pinocchio song ‘When You Wish Upon a Star,’ has filed a copyright breach lawsuit against Fox and THE FAMILY GUY creator and producers, claiming they illegally lifted the tune and damaged the company by repurposing the song with “anti-Semitic lyrics.”
Fox is known for pushing the envelop, where taste is concerned, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that they are getting sued for it. And considering how many Jewish people work in Hollywood – especially in the many high-powered positions – it isn’t shocking that they would find the song and message offensive. But is this taking political correctness too far? Well, yes and no; Being Jewish myself, I can’t stand the constant association with Jews and money. Just because so many Jewish people work in the economic field, doesn’t mean we are cheap, it means we are good at math and finances. However, the song wasn’t putting Jewish people down, it was actually a twisted kind of compliment.
After an anemic season premier, GREY’S ANATOMY gets back on track with its second episode. It’s got just enough drama to keep this fish on the hook, while being paced at a reasonable rate. There’s a fight, some tears and even a baby that has a stroke!
Much of screwball tone is set by the initial appearance of Dr. Yang in the “A” story. Sitting in an apartment full of useless wedding gifts she decides to use them to get better surgeries. Yang is at her best when she’s finagling and barking orders at her interns. You can tell that this is what makes her tick. The melodrama never sat well on her shoulders, and in this episode she gets a chance to shrug off Burke defection like a bad joke. No tears, no absurd scenes. Well, one absurd scene, but Sandra Oh plays it so perfectly it goes down easy.
That scene is the one we wait all episode for, though this being GREY’S, we know it’s not going to be what we expect. Mama Burke, played with as much dignity as possible by Diahann Carroll, mysteriously shows up at the hospital and asks for Christina. Yang hates scenes, unlike everyone else on the show, and spends most of the episode avoiding her. Grey is sent to see why she is there and is reprimanded for her behavior at the non-wedding. O’Malley runs into her and is reprimanded for being in a marriage that isn’t working. Shepard runs into her and is reprimanded for being Shepard. But to Yang, Mama Burke apologizes and tells Yang she wishes she were more like her. (It could never just be what they set it up to be, could it? Having the reverse happen makes it almost as predictable though, when you do it all the time as they do on GREYS.) Yang handles this fairly enormous revelation with brusque aplomb and even gets Mama to get rid of all the silly gifts. Well played, Yang. She almost made me forget that Burke couldn’t be there himself not because he’s mad at her for not loving him enough, but because the actor who played him, Isaiah Washington, made a lot of really insensitive comments about gay people and is now over on THE BIONIC WOMAN.
Jon Stewart has the golden touch. After the huge success of his spin-off THE COLBERT REPORT, Stewart and Demetri Martin are creating a new show for Comedy Central. There is a twist though, for anybody expecting something similar to the hugely successful THE DAILY SHOW. Jon’s new comedy will be more in the vein of CHAPELLE'S SHOW, with sketches and variety type entertainment. The show, which
usatoday.com reports will be called IMPORTANT THINGS WITH DEMETRI MARTIN, “is slated for the second half of 2008; anywhere from six to 10 episodes will be executive produced by Jon and Demetri, who has been a featured contributor on the THE DAILY SHOW.” So I guess that means we still have to tune in to the THE DAILY SHOW for our political updates.
Jon Stewart’s THE DAILY SHOW has become a cultural phenomenon, and provided most of the college age voters with all their political information. Some think that’s a bad thing, but while his show is side-splittingly funny, it does report the real news. And, in fact, many politicians clamor to get on the show, because of all the exposure to the younger set they will get. Unfortunately, it didn’t help John Kerry in the last election, but that was probably more his fault than anything else. With a new Stewart production on the way, I can only assume there will be wild entertainment to come. I think the premise is a good idea as well, considering how well it did for Dave Chapelle. The demise of CHAPELLE'S SHOW seems to be due to overwork and stress, not a lack of hysterical material, and Jon Stewart is the perfect guy to fill the void that was left, when Dave stepped out of the spotlight.
I know SURVIVOR can get monotonous. I know the ratings are down. But I can’t help but be enthralled by a mullet wearing lunch lady from New Hampshire, stripped down to her undies, trying desperately to throw an Asian American jewelry maker into swamp water to win a blanket and a lantern. I would call my tastes, “Exotic.”
The strategizing and boneheaded game-play starts right at the top of this episode. Zhan Hu tribe leader Dave, having barely escaped the previous night’s Tribal Council, woke up early to annoy his tribe mates. He nearly popped a blood vessel when his chief lieutenant and nagger Peih-Gee told him to take it easy and relax so he would be rested for the next challenge.
Meanwhile at Fei Long, Jean-Robert was trying to keep warm at night by being the creepy meat in a Courtney and Amanda sandwich. I don’t know why they bristled at the clinging and rubbing of a swarthy, flabby poker player, but evidently these chicks don’t know what a man looks like these days. This is it honeys, might as well give over to the sexual harassment and night farts.