And most of this tv-watching has been done in the last 24+ hours:
1) Season 2 Onion News Network (you know, the thus far portion)
2) One Life To Live (I don't think I can say it any more succinctly...) for the week
3) Thursday NBC Lineup Minus Whitney (very, very funny, particularly Spader's insane post-"What am I up to?" ghost story on The Office, Joel McHale's illiteracy performance on Community, and every thing ever on Parks and Recreation, minus...is it just me, or is this latest subplot with Chris Traeger and Jerry's daughter kind of bleh?)
4) latest ep of Happy Endings (because blahmanda told me to, and it was in no way a letdown)
5) latest ep of It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (... you know, I've had mixed feelings regarding this show for a while, but I think I'm reaching a max capac on my shrillness-avoidance flinching)
6) latest ep of Psych (I want someone to offer a rational, non-"Because it's Psych, and it's a USA show, and it's silly!" explanation as to why Juliet O'Hara is dating Shawn Spencer; I really mean it)
7) Ep 2x02 of An Idiot Abroad with Karl Pilkington, which really had a humdinger of an ending. Not every day you get to hear Karl insultingly and nonsensically try to argue the virtues of a Chinese dwarf village with Warwick Davis over a cell phone.
8) Most of a Doctor Who episode featuring Simon Callow as Charles Dickens and Gwen from Torchwood as a psychic chambermaid.
I guess it's a little weird that I feel like I'm not watching that much TV overall. I should probably revisit my definition of "much TV."
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Friday, October 14, 2011
Adventures in the Talkies: Drive
There will come a time in the life of every girl--either a true girl of age 12-18, or a girl at heart--when she, pursuing the love of a movie star crush, will see a movie that fills her heart with regret and her head full of horrible, horrible images.
(I have wracked my brain attempting trying to think of a good example, but all I can come up with is seeing Tommy Lee Jones in Cobb, and that wasn't exactly what I'm going for. It's too bad Kirk Cameron didn't make some arthouse grodo film like Natural Born Killers... damn it, Tommy Lee Jones! Why are you my every example today?)
Anyway, the point is: Kate and I went to Drive a few days ago. We went because not long ago, we saw Crazy, Stupid Love, and tee hee Ryan Gosling...
I thought I had done enough "reading up" on the film. Yay, Ryan Gosling is going to be psychotic! I saw that in Murder by Numbers, and that movie was good-time fun! There will also be driving and Albert Brooks!
All of those things are true, I suppose. There is Ryan Gosling, whose Charles Bronsonesque character clearly isn't what you'd call normal in the first 30+ minutes of the film, but when he goes into psychotic mode, it's not "ha ha ha witty young buck who licks Sandra Bullock" psychotic. It's more like "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" watching through fingers, did-he-just-stomp-that-man's-head-into-mush psychotic. You know: not the enjoyable kind of psychotic.
But maybe it's just me. I've gotten more and more squeamish as I've aged. I used to watch Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street and the several sequels to Psycho (but never Hellraiser, because that Pinhead freaks my shit out), but somewhere along the way, I lost my ability to tolerate gore. And this kind of gore, presented after a setup of ambient music, sun-spackled courting, and I-should-have-known-it-was-eerie stretches of silence just had a brutal, horrifying feel that I couldn't shake even an hour or so after I'd left the theater.
I did like what they did with light. In one scene, Driver is practically encased in shadow while the rest of the scene has natural light, and it was a visual tipoff that our lead character was a moral black hole. And the slo-mo scene before the head-stomping (eesh) in the elevator was breathtaking. Carey Mulligan should demand to be lit like the Lady of the Lake in every movie. But anytime I find myself saying something admiring about the art of the film, I immediately want to follow it with "brrrrrrrrr." So...brrrrrrrrrrrr.
Albert Brooks was incredible. He has that edge he showed in Out of Sight, only of a less wormy, more terrifying variety. I wouldn't go so far as to call his character or performance "genial," and I don't think Brooks was going for "hey, despite all the horrible shit I've done and am about to do, I'm a swell guy," but he was funny and seems to genuinely like Sheldon and, to some extent, Driver. But his affection, particularly for Sheldon was hardly comforting when he was--spoiler alert--opening up his arm with a razor blade.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I don't know. I guess Drive is one of those movies, like Requiem for a Dream, where I can say, "I saw that. It was...well-made." And I'll likely never, ever, ever, ever see it again.
(I have wracked my brain attempting trying to think of a good example, but all I can come up with is seeing Tommy Lee Jones in Cobb, and that wasn't exactly what I'm going for. It's too bad Kirk Cameron didn't make some arthouse grodo film like Natural Born Killers... damn it, Tommy Lee Jones! Why are you my every example today?)
Anyway, the point is: Kate and I went to Drive a few days ago. We went because not long ago, we saw Crazy, Stupid Love, and tee hee Ryan Gosling...
I thought I had done enough "reading up" on the film. Yay, Ryan Gosling is going to be psychotic! I saw that in Murder by Numbers, and that movie was good-time fun! There will also be driving and Albert Brooks!
All of those things are true, I suppose. There is Ryan Gosling, whose Charles Bronsonesque character clearly isn't what you'd call normal in the first 30+ minutes of the film, but when he goes into psychotic mode, it's not "ha ha ha witty young buck who licks Sandra Bullock" psychotic. It's more like "AHHHHHHHHHHHH!" watching through fingers, did-he-just-stomp-that-man's-head-into-mush psychotic. You know: not the enjoyable kind of psychotic.
But maybe it's just me. I've gotten more and more squeamish as I've aged. I used to watch Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street and the several sequels to Psycho (but never Hellraiser, because that Pinhead freaks my shit out), but somewhere along the way, I lost my ability to tolerate gore. And this kind of gore, presented after a setup of ambient music, sun-spackled courting, and I-should-have-known-it-was-eerie stretches of silence just had a brutal, horrifying feel that I couldn't shake even an hour or so after I'd left the theater.
I did like what they did with light. In one scene, Driver is practically encased in shadow while the rest of the scene has natural light, and it was a visual tipoff that our lead character was a moral black hole. And the slo-mo scene before the head-stomping (eesh) in the elevator was breathtaking. Carey Mulligan should demand to be lit like the Lady of the Lake in every movie. But anytime I find myself saying something admiring about the art of the film, I immediately want to follow it with "brrrrrrrrr." So...brrrrrrrrrrrr.
Albert Brooks was incredible. He has that edge he showed in Out of Sight, only of a less wormy, more terrifying variety. I wouldn't go so far as to call his character or performance "genial," and I don't think Brooks was going for "hey, despite all the horrible shit I've done and am about to do, I'm a swell guy," but he was funny and seems to genuinely like Sheldon and, to some extent, Driver. But his affection, particularly for Sheldon was hardly comforting when he was--spoiler alert--opening up his arm with a razor blade.
Brrrrrrrrrrrrrr.
I don't know. I guess Drive is one of those movies, like Requiem for a Dream, where I can say, "I saw that. It was...well-made." And I'll likely never, ever, ever, ever see it again.
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Adventures in the Talkies: 50/50
I had a brief moment at the box office where I almost chose to attend The Lion King in 3-D over 50/50. But then I remembered that a single woman in her mid 30s at a 2:00 pm show would be super creepy, and also something about how I saw The Lion King in 2-D when it was first released and damn it, two dimensions was just fine, what is with the kids today. So I attended 50/50 as planned.
I liked it, overall. It was, as advertised, a comedy(ish) about battling cancer, and while the guy-buddy aspect was great, I think the part I liked most was the equally important development of Adam, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's character, and his relationship with his mother, Diane, played by Anjelica Huston.
There's an early scene in the movie where Diane and Adam's father (who is suffering from Alzheimer's) are coming over to Adam's home for dinner--and to find out that Adam has cancer--and in the ten seconds where Diane is coming up the stairs, she notices chipping paint on the rail and, without missing a beat, offer-demands to call the landlord on Adam's behalf to have it dealt with. Diane's critical eye--the cool way she says "I don't like her" after a nurse leaves the room--and steam-train caretaking nature inform both Adam's reluctance and annoyance at including his mother in his sickness, as well as Adam's own assumption of caretaking duties in his own relationships. I loved Adam's subtle nonverbal reaction when Kyle, Seth Rogen's character, shouts, "Why do you always get involved with selfish bitches?" because as funny and ultimately supportive as Kyle is, he's just another selfish bitch in Adam's life.
Also, semi-related, I think Anjelica Huston is amazing in how she balanced the humor and tears, and her performance reminded me of the scene in The Royal Tenenbaums where Royal tells Etheline he's dying. I have many favorite scenes in TRT, but that is one of my for-real favorites:
I think Joseph Gordon-Leavitt made interesting choices. It seems like it'd be very easy to go broad with the material--young man, working in local public radio, with crass friend and self-absorbed girlfriend, is diagnosed with cancer. But he kept it low-key, building a believable character who was non-demonstrative without seeming cold, angry and frightened without destroying sets and mowing scenery, and charming when he smiled, but not in that 1,000-watt Julia Roberts kind of way.
And Philip Baker Hall was in a sliver of a part as a profanity-inclined elderly gent who becomes Adam's chemo buddy. I think profanity-inclined seniors are always a positive addition to any film.
For pre-film trailers, I saw:
1) Man on a Ledge - just a note to the fine folks who make trailers: don't lead into a heist film setup by showing us Kyra Sedgwick as a hungry reporter and Edward Burns as another reporter (or maybe a cop?) who is also hungry, but also concurrently whiny and aggressively smug. By the time you got to giant diamonds and Ed Harris and Titus Welliver as a uniform and Elizabeth Banks as the negotiator and raining money and another heist to get the diamond that wasn't heisted in the first place, I had long tuned out.
Also, Sam Worthington... that guy's a thing, right? With the ladies and the gay men?
2) Premium Rush - I'm going to quote the talk-to-the-screen lady behind me: oh, I'm going to see me that movie!
Bicycling and fighting crime! Not since Quicksilver, I tell you!
3) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - I believe my feelings about this film are best expressed in spastic, barely contained and coherent interpretive dance...
I don't know why I'm so goofy-psyched about this sequel. I enjoyed the first film and all, but any time I see the trailer, the Ritchie-tastic sequence of the shell popping out of the rifle, Jared Harris talking that beautiful Lane Pryce talk as Moriarity, the promise of Stephen Fry as Mycroft, Robert Downey Jr in garish makeup talking sass... next to The Muppets, there's not a holiday-timeframe film I'm more dedicated to seeing immediately on opening day.
And speaking of Christmas releases, can we talk for a second about Mission Impossible: Ghost in the Machine? I resent being tricked into yet another Mission Impossible. I saw MI2 in the theater about a decade ago--let me check IMDb, yep, 11 years ago--and I can't tell you how fucking terrible and annoying it was to be stuck with the sensation that I was lovingly applying extra layers to Tom Cruise's massive ego for 2+ hours. I may have see MI3, but I refuse to remember anything about it, because I'm still so pissed about MI2. Ugh, so stupid. Do you remember that scene where he and Thandie Newton are making longing eye contact in the middle of a slowed-down whirly chase scene that went on for about five minutes too long? Of course you do, because it encapsulated all that was aggravating and overblown-ina-bad-way about the film. I think the original movie was replaced in my heart long ago by the Bourne series. I can get my explosions and car chases and labyrinthine conspiracies without being beset by Cruise's desperate need to be in my face consistently and thoroughly.
And yet... while he's just as beady-eyed and effortfully "bad" "ass" in the Ghost Dad trailer, I'm kinda feeling the whole giant tower, jumping-and-running-and-punching-Jeremy Renner thing. Like, if Duse wants to go see something dumb and loud the day after Christmas, I could be talked into it.
What is that? Does Cruise have some kind of voodoo powers?
I liked it, overall. It was, as advertised, a comedy(ish) about battling cancer, and while the guy-buddy aspect was great, I think the part I liked most was the equally important development of Adam, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt's character, and his relationship with his mother, Diane, played by Anjelica Huston.
There's an early scene in the movie where Diane and Adam's father (who is suffering from Alzheimer's) are coming over to Adam's home for dinner--and to find out that Adam has cancer--and in the ten seconds where Diane is coming up the stairs, she notices chipping paint on the rail and, without missing a beat, offer-demands to call the landlord on Adam's behalf to have it dealt with. Diane's critical eye--the cool way she says "I don't like her" after a nurse leaves the room--and steam-train caretaking nature inform both Adam's reluctance and annoyance at including his mother in his sickness, as well as Adam's own assumption of caretaking duties in his own relationships. I loved Adam's subtle nonverbal reaction when Kyle, Seth Rogen's character, shouts, "Why do you always get involved with selfish bitches?" because as funny and ultimately supportive as Kyle is, he's just another selfish bitch in Adam's life.
Also, semi-related, I think Anjelica Huston is amazing in how she balanced the humor and tears, and her performance reminded me of the scene in The Royal Tenenbaums where Royal tells Etheline he's dying. I have many favorite scenes in TRT, but that is one of my for-real favorites:
I think Joseph Gordon-Leavitt made interesting choices. It seems like it'd be very easy to go broad with the material--young man, working in local public radio, with crass friend and self-absorbed girlfriend, is diagnosed with cancer. But he kept it low-key, building a believable character who was non-demonstrative without seeming cold, angry and frightened without destroying sets and mowing scenery, and charming when he smiled, but not in that 1,000-watt Julia Roberts kind of way.
And Philip Baker Hall was in a sliver of a part as a profanity-inclined elderly gent who becomes Adam's chemo buddy. I think profanity-inclined seniors are always a positive addition to any film.
For pre-film trailers, I saw:
1) Man on a Ledge - just a note to the fine folks who make trailers: don't lead into a heist film setup by showing us Kyra Sedgwick as a hungry reporter and Edward Burns as another reporter (or maybe a cop?) who is also hungry, but also concurrently whiny and aggressively smug. By the time you got to giant diamonds and Ed Harris and Titus Welliver as a uniform and Elizabeth Banks as the negotiator and raining money and another heist to get the diamond that wasn't heisted in the first place, I had long tuned out.
Also, Sam Worthington... that guy's a thing, right? With the ladies and the gay men?
2) Premium Rush - I'm going to quote the talk-to-the-screen lady behind me: oh, I'm going to see me that movie!
Bicycling and fighting crime! Not since Quicksilver, I tell you!
3) Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows - I believe my feelings about this film are best expressed in spastic, barely contained and coherent interpretive dance...
I don't know why I'm so goofy-psyched about this sequel. I enjoyed the first film and all, but any time I see the trailer, the Ritchie-tastic sequence of the shell popping out of the rifle, Jared Harris talking that beautiful Lane Pryce talk as Moriarity, the promise of Stephen Fry as Mycroft, Robert Downey Jr in garish makeup talking sass... next to The Muppets, there's not a holiday-timeframe film I'm more dedicated to seeing immediately on opening day.
And speaking of Christmas releases, can we talk for a second about Mission Impossible: Ghost in the Machine? I resent being tricked into yet another Mission Impossible. I saw MI2 in the theater about a decade ago--let me check IMDb, yep, 11 years ago--and I can't tell you how fucking terrible and annoying it was to be stuck with the sensation that I was lovingly applying extra layers to Tom Cruise's massive ego for 2+ hours. I may have see MI3, but I refuse to remember anything about it, because I'm still so pissed about MI2. Ugh, so stupid. Do you remember that scene where he and Thandie Newton are making longing eye contact in the middle of a slowed-down whirly chase scene that went on for about five minutes too long? Of course you do, because it encapsulated all that was aggravating and overblown-ina-bad-way about the film. I think the original movie was replaced in my heart long ago by the Bourne series. I can get my explosions and car chases and labyrinthine conspiracies without being beset by Cruise's desperate need to be in my face consistently and thoroughly.
And yet... while he's just as beady-eyed and effortfully "bad" "ass" in the Ghost Dad trailer, I'm kinda feeling the whole giant tower, jumping-and-running-and-punching-Jeremy Renner thing. Like, if Duse wants to go see something dumb and loud the day after Christmas, I could be talked into it.
What is that? Does Cruise have some kind of voodoo powers?
Tuesday, October 4, 2011
Glee 3x03, "Asian F"
Mmmyeah, I...I don't agree.
Also: really with the continuing Coach Beiste eating food jokes? And the ginger supremacists?
Damn it, if I hadn't seen those spoilers for the upcoming November episodes...
Also: really with the continuing Coach Beiste eating food jokes? And the ginger supremacists?
Damn it, if I hadn't seen those spoilers for the upcoming November episodes...
Saturday, October 1, 2011
Adventures in the Talkies: What's Your Number?/Moneyball
Back when my friend Duse and I went to movies every single weekend of our late high school career, we resented the presence of non-serious moviegoers. Duse called the middle-aged to early senior, female-going matinee crowd "biddies." They not only talked through Coming Attractions, they talked through the entire film, one party usually filling the air with inane questions like "Why did he/she do that?" After spending weeks, sometimes months planning to see a film, Duse and I were puzzled as we watched people walk up to the box office and ask what several of the titles were about! Or, worse yet, people clearly making arbitrary choices about what to see!
Now that I am much...much older, I'm beginning to see how that can come to pass. I was at work on Friday, with plans to see Moneyball at 7:15, and I thought to myself, "Why not see one of the matinees to kill some time?" (you know, rather than sit at work and goof off on a Friday Internet dead zone...)
My options, for films that would fit in that time slot and provide me with the opportunity to reasonably make it to the screen showing Moneyball early enough to not get stuck with crappy seats, were the excellent-looking 50/50...and the movie I selected, What's Your Number? I don't know that I selected it arbitrarily, but I have to admit I went into that film very much with a "Shrug! Need to waste some time!" attitude.
It did not disappoint. It indeed helped me waste my time.
Dave White gave the film a pounding for having gross semi-misogynistic overtones, and while that's valid, I suppose, I was much more disappointed in how lazy and sloppy it was in developing the characters ("Hey, guys, 30 minutes into the movie, we'll reveal she's an artist in such a casual and off-hand way, some viewers might not even realize that's going to play into her cobbled-together self-discovery!") and how the supposedly funny parts--the visits to all the exes, who were portrayed by very funny actors like Mr. Anna Faris and Thomas Lennon and Andy Samberg and Aziz Ansari's voice and Martin Freeman--barely elicted chuckles. I believe I laughed harder at Fozzie Bear's "What? I can't hear you! I have a banana in my ear!" in the AMC "Don't talk and text" ad than at any point in the movie.
It wasn't a bad concept--a girl who had lots of fun/couldn't find The One finds The One in a fellow fun-haver/slut--but ugh, it sucked. I don't know. It actually did the whole "I can sneak us into a major sporting venue" thing. I couldn't believe it. I sort of assumed, based on the premise, that the film was more self-aware than that. But there they were, playing strip HORSE where the Boston Celtics shoot hoops.
I thought Anna Faris was pretty funny in Just Friends, but...she didn't bowl me over in this. She's not terrible or anything, but I think she was part of the reason those ex visits fell so flat. She seemed torn between approaching the film as a gross-out, screwball I-slipped-and-fell-into-some-butterscotch-pudding event and in being Kate Hudson Katherine Heigl Anne Hathaway and being a rom com girl. And yay for women's empowerment, but limiting the aforementioned funny guys to 45 seconds really weakened the film's ability to generate belly laughs.
I guess the upside is that I think I can finally tell Chris Evans and Chris Pine apart. Chris Evans is much handsomer. Or at least taller.
Then I saw Moneyball. Moneyball was very, very, very good. Arftul and thoughtful and well-acted and engaging and interesting and layered and great.
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