Monday, October 08, 2007 Rant Archive
THE SIMPSONS: Whatever else he is, Homer’s got his heart in the right place as a dad. After the last bottle of milk is spilled, he drives all the way to Guidopolis to get some, and ends up on a wild towing adventure. Meanwhile, Marge decides Maggie’s become too clingy, so with Bart and Lisa’s help, she signs up for a counseling program on the Internet designed to help her raise independent children. Considering how the first two turned out, the mind boggles at how Maggie might develop.
Anyway, since Homer isn’t particularly fulfilled as a FUBAR consultant or whatever the hell his official job is, he is enthralled with the romance of driving a tow truck, and takes over the Springfield territory. Surprisingly, despite a few missteps, he’s not too bad at it … although he’s a little overzealous, particularly when he tows that helicopter. In flight. Soon enough, though, the good people of Springfield are in revolt, and things don’t look good for Homer. Marge has other worries than Homer, however; the counseling program for Maggie works too well, and her independence leaves Marge in the sad, lonely dust of obsolescence. But, it all works out: Maggie takes the initiative to rescue Homer from the clutches of the mad tow truck driver that took him prisoner (Matt Dillon).
This week’s episode of DESPERATE HOUSEWIVES opened with Mary Alice talking about the “great crime wave” that had just hit Wisteria Lane. She wasn’t talking about a mentally challenged boy locked in a basement or even a deadly hit-and-run. No, Mary Alice was referring to a knocked over barbeque set, trampled laundry and a missing skateboard. Funny how the priorities on that street just change on a whim.
The culprit behind said destruction was Carlos, who had to race home Ferris Bueller-style or risk exposing his affair with Gaby to Edie. Speaking of Edie, the woman refuses to let Carlos dump her. As we learned last episode, Edie has even sunk so low as to slyly suggest that she’ll tell the feds about Carlos’s offshore bank accounts if he leaves her. So what does Carlos do? He hires a hit man. Listen, I know this storyline was meant to shock but did anyone else find Carlos’s hiring of a hit man to be a tad extreme and premature? I was raised to talk through my problems before hiring a contract killer, but maybe that’s just me.
Well, this is what we’ve feared would happen all season. Teetering on the brink between brilliance and complete oafishness all season, Larry David finally crossed the line into absolutely painful-to-watch territory.
Larry’s always an asshole. But so far in season six, he’s kept it hilarious – and kept others involved in a good way. This time, he goes waaay too far, making the episode almost painful to watch.
It starts with a trip to Ted Danson’s birthday party, where Larry complains about his limo driver having to stay in the car during the whole time, and the bartender having to wear a bow tie. His kvetching to Ted gets Charlie the driver into the party, where he proceeds to get wasted and gets kicked out of the party – with an obnoxious Larry right behind him.
Things only go downhill from there, as Larry and Cheryl are forced to drive the inebriated driver to his run-down home, with a wheelchair-bound wife who never stops yelling. The Davids end up with the limo, and of course Larry is forced to play driver to bail Charlie out by picking up John McEnroe at the airport. Anyway, yada yada yada, Larry and J-Mac get wasted at a pre-party for the Paul McCartney show and get kicked out, but not before picking up an annoying Italian family at the cemetery – where Larry is changing his plot location so he’s not next to Ted – and then kicking them out in the middle of nowhere.
After finding out that Justin’s (Dave Annable) unit got caught in the middle of sniper fire in last week’s episode, Kevin (Mathew Rhys), Kitty (Calista Flockhart) and Nora (Sally Field) are beside themselves when they find out their boy is coming home. But after an experience like that, how can anybody return as the same person they were when they left? Considering that the last time Justin returned from Iraq he was hooked on drugs, I shudder to think what demons he brought back with him this time. This is the type of storyline that truly lets Hollywood shine. The horrors of war, and what the men and women who are fighting have to go through are some of the most relevant topics of the day. Having a hit show like BROTHERS AND SISTERS shine a light on the reality of those horrors is a good thing, even if it isn’t always comfortable or fun to watch. Too often all we see are the happy homecomings, we don’t have to watch the struggle most of the men and women go through while trying to assimilate back into our society. But with episodes like this one, we get a little taste of how difficult it must be.
Last week we saw Dexter (Michael C. Hall) impotent, blocked, and unable to kill. Yet when his watery graveyard of victims was discovered, he felt exhilarated. How much is Dexter a monster? Is there a human ghost in this killing machine? To be complete, to act and function true to his nature, this week he must engage in an emotional release- a ritual of letting go.
Gang enforcer Little Chino got off twice last week. First when a witness against him turned out to have a drug history (the DA wouldn’t build the case on such a shaky witness) and second, when Dexter couldn’t contain him or dispatch him. This week Little Chino sends a message to his territory by offing the would-be witness with a machete.
Elsewhere, Debra (Jennifer Carpenter) is still reliving the trauma of her involvement with Rudy/Brian/The Ice Truck Killer. The FBI is sending in super agent Frank Lundy (Keith Carradine) to assemble a task force to identify and capture the “Bay Harbor Butcher” (aka Dexter). Rita (Julie Benz) is determined to have proper burial for abusive ex-husband Paul and Dexter nearly falls into Little Chino’s hands by breaking one Harry’s rules.
“I need to clear the decks and my head.” Dexter says of this. Maybe he even said or meant, “Dex.”
Debra has a mental break where she pulls a gun on an unarmed child who in turn gives up the location of the 29th Street Kings’ gun and drug stash. This is Little Chino’s gang. When Little Chino seeks revenge on the squealing child, Dexter is laying in wait and gets his chance correct his earlier errors.
Ladies Home Journal runs a monthly column called “Can This Marriage Be Saved.” That’s where the three-and-a-half-couples who are at the center of HBO’s TELL ME YOU LOVE ME belong, a brief magazine column, not a ten-episode TV series that drags on and on and on. A few minutes examining what goes on here and you’ll quickly hit the remote for DESPERATE HOUSEWIFES, where the dysfunctional relationships are at least seasoned with a sense of humor.
Consider the therapist the other people consult on what seems an irregular basis. And by on “an irregular basis,” I mean when it fits the plot. Dr. May Foster (Jane Alexander) has problems of her own. She apparently strayed in her own marriage – twice. Now her husband Arthur (David Selby) arranges a lunch for her with her former paramour. Presumably he wants to be sure she’s over him. Or he wants her to be sure she’s over him. Or he just wants to drive me crazy. I haven’t figured out the answer to that yet; maybe that will happen next week.
Then there’s Dave (Tim DeKay) and Katie (Ally Walker), who haven’t had sex in over a year. Dave unexpectedly shows up at Katie’s therapy session. So Dr. Foster suggests they discuss the elephant in the room. But there really is no discussion. She says their problem is quite common, and those who suffer from it say it is most often caused by a lack of time.
I used to revere the Farrelly brothers. They were pretty much in a league of their own in the ‘90s with classic comedies DUMB & DUMBER, KINGPIN and THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT MARY. But this decade has seen more misses than hits for the tandem and I wonder if they haven’t gone soft on me, abandoning their racier stuff for more commercial humor. I guess it was lucky that I went into THE HEARTBREAK KID not knowing they were behind the camera because it made the experience less disappointing. All said, however, this film is not much more than a formulaic rom-com with a few dirty details mixed in.
One of THE HEARTBREAK KID’s trailers quotes a reviewer as saying something along the lines of “an adult comedy that’s actually for adults!” Although it’s true that this is not part of the growing genre of slacking bachelor comedies hitting theaters (of which I’m an unapologetic fan), I think what the quote really means is you’re not going to like this movie unless you’re old, and lame. While the film does a decent job of side-stepping the sophomoric, the end product comes across as a little too subdued.
From these months of trailers the basic plot can be discerned – as well as all the funny parts in the movie. Yeah, it’s one of those. Ben Stiller plays Eddie Cantrow, a 40something owner of a San Francisco sporting goods store who’s afraid of commitment (shocker). He meets Malin Akerman’s Lily and falls hard. Fed up with being the perennial bachelor, Eddie decides to take the plunge after just six weeks. On their honeymoon in Cabo, Eddie begins to uncover the mistake he’s made while at the same time meeting Miranda (Michelle Monaghan). From there on out, you have Ben Stiller being Ben Stiller – alternately cranky and puppy-eyed with some goofy mixed in. So there you have your basic man-meets-woman-under-false-pretensions, man-and-woman-fall-in-love, woman-finds-out-and-leaves, man-wins-her-back romantic comedy bullshit we’ve all seen before.