Brothers & Sisters. Did y'all bail out on it weeks ago? Just wondering if I'm the last one out the door on B&S, which at very long last I have kicked to the curb. The reason is a casting spoiler, which is after the jump in case anyone still cares.
Archive for the ‘TV’ Category
21 Jump Street: "Gotta Finish The Riff"
Tuesday, December 29th, 2009
…Wait, it's already the episode where Jenko gets killed? But he's my favorite character! I ask you: who among us will honor his memory by cutting the rebop? Not this episode, which, although it contains both a school-wide hostage situation and Blair Underwood in a beret, is relatively boring — except when Hanson is an asshole, which is not so much "interesting" as "super-annoying." And "fucking constant." Shut up, Hanson.
"Shut Up, Penhall" count: SHUT UP, HANSON!
Penhall rides his motorcycle in a suit and tie and makes over-the-top Brando grief faces.
Hoffs visits the orcas at the aquarium, wears black, and cries.
Hanson, standing at a scenic river overlook, gazes at Jenko's badge and broods, then hucks the badge into the water. Jenko doesn't have a family that might want that?
Ioki, all in white, practices tai chi. Sad tai chi.
21 Jump Street: "The Worst Night of Your Life"
Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009
And now: A Very Explosive Episode of 21JS.
"Shut Up, Penhall" Count: 1
Catholic school. A nun patrols a hallway sternly, to the accompaniment of organ music. After she's passed a Jesus statue, a door next to the statue opens and two kilted students peer out. The heavy-set one, clutching a videotape, is scared and insists repeatedly that "we shouldn't do this"; the blonde one is like, relax, God has a great sense of humor. "Tell that to Job," Heavy-Set grunts, pulling a videotape out of her bookbag. She asks what happens if they get caught. Blonde snorts that they probably won't get to go to prom, then. She grabs the videotape from Heavy-Set and sprints up the stairs; Heavy-Set follows reluctantly.
The Mother Superior addresses the senior class on the topic of sex education, saying she expects the subject "to be received with…maturity." New on the job, then, MoSu? "And perhaps," MoSu adds, "even with a little bit…of healthy excitement." Heavy-Set looks like she might hurl; Blonde can barely contain her giggles, and says they should open a window, she's getting excited already. Ha? Cut to Hoffs, playing along by chuckling. MoSu notes that the archdiocese has given them a video called "The Miracle of Marriage," and a student next to Hoffs giggles, "That's not what my parents call it." Cue the video, which of course Blonde and Heavy-Set have replaced with a French soft-core title. Blonde flashes Heavy-Set a thumbs-up. About three weeks later, MoSu and her nun sidekick finally realize that all the grunting and bam-chick-accordion probably isn't the chastely informational soundtrack of "The Miracle of Marriage," and rush to turn it off as the class hoots and hollers.
In the hallway, a bomb explodes in a locker.
The fire alarm sounds. MoSu assumes it's a drill and drones the usual "single file, don't panic" instructions — until the room fills with smoke and the students freak out.
Cosmos
Monday, December 21st, 2009
When the National Geographics came out that had the Voyager photos of Jupiter and Saturn in them, I visited them on their shelf in the den almost every day. I looked at them hundreds of times, until the pages started to separate; I just couldn't get over them, the planets themselves or that we had gotten photographs of them somehow. For a brief period in the early '80s, I knew everything about Saturn's moons and rings and how the unmanned craft got through the asteroid belt and on and on.
Obviously, then, I couldn't wait to sit down with the entire run of Carl Sagan's Cosmos, not realizing when I began watching that 1) he filmed the bulk of it before Voyager 2 sent back the really good shit from Saturn and 2) most of the series is not about the specifics of the solar system anyway.
21 Jump Street: "My Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades"
Tuesday, December 15th, 2009(Note: Today's episode of Shut Up, Penhall has been rescheduled for a later date. Please enjoy this airing of Shut Up, Hanson instead.)
Drink for that episode title. What ever happened to Timbuk3, anyway?
The door of a Gothic-dorm-type building opens, and out into the rainy night tumble three tipsy prepster dudes, clutching paper cups and laughing contrivedly, and one big-haired girl who is so drunk she has to cling to the middle prepster to stay upright. The middle prepster is played by one Mitchell Anderson, a.k.a. Richard Carpenter in The Karen Carpenter Story (I remember him as Ross on Party of Five). But wait: the big guest-star gun has yet to roll in.
As Josh Brolin's credit appears on the screen, the man himself helps to pour Drunk Girl into a Beemer. She nearly falls down while sloshing into the front passenger seat. More "omigod it's seewwwww funneh how I've lost control of my motor functions" guffawing from Drunk Girl as the prepsters — who don't seem quite as ripshit as DG — laugh also, more at her than with her.
Brolin is wearing a pink oxford, which means he's probably evil, and purchasing two bottles of champers and a fifth of off-brand vodka at a bodega. The cashier asks for ID a couple of times, but Brolin richily suggests he ring up the purchase and keep the change from a hundo instead. Then he snottily asks for cups to go with…
…but the next shot finds the prepsters and Drunk Girl aboard a friend's boat and serving the champagne in proper glassware.
The next morning, a paper boy is delivering along his route when he stumbles across a hyper-dramatic focus push — and, a second later, Drunk Girl's dead body lying in a culvert and totally breathing during a close-up, like, really, show? A shot edited down so short, it's practically subliminal, and you can't use the frames where the dead girl isn't moving around?
Control
Monday, December 14th, 2009
Don't let the big names fool you: Control is a B movie. Accepted on B-movie terms, it's quite good, in the sense that it is often bad, but has the internal wisdom to keep things moving along and not look down. (The director, Tim Hunter, works mostly in TV, including a bunch of Mad Men episodes and, hilariously, the 90210 pilot.)
The movie begins with Lee Ray Oliver (Ray Liotta, very foxy in cracker-sociopath drag — he should consider sideburns as a permanent fixture) receiving a lethal injection for various murders for which he feels no remorse. Businesslike flashbacks to his crappy childhood let us know that, more than anything, he is a product of his surroundings. Cut, then, to Oliver waking up in the morgue to a reprieve, of sorts: Dr. Michael Copeland (Willem Dafoe), an employee of a semi-ethical Big Pharma giant, is testing a drug on antisocial criminals that, it is hoped, blocks their aggressive impulses and can restore them to society. Oliver can submit to the drug trial, or he can receive the death sentence as originally handed down. Oliver agrees to the trial.
21 Jump Street: "Don't Pet The Teacher"
Friday, December 11th, 2009
"Shut Up, Penhall" Count: 1 0! It's a Christmas miracle!
Nighttime at a high school whose physical plant is modeled after the Taj Mahal. A synthesizer plinks disapprovingly as a mysterious hand pink-spray-paints the phrase "Weintraub bites the big one" in varying sizes in the principal's office. As the mystery tagger moves on, the camera pans in for a close-up on a framed newspaper article: "KYLE STONE TAKES GRAYHOUNDS TO 1971 STATE CHAMPIONSHIP." …"Gray-hounds"? Also, this is poor dummy-newspaper work even for vintage TV: the spacing of the headline is all dicked up, the banner has a bunch of dead space in it, and you can't see it in the photo, but if you pause the DVD, the dummy text is two different articles, neither of which is about sports.
Our anonymous graffiti stylist pays this no mind, however; he's too busy lurking facelessly into the typing room (drink!) to steal himself a few state-of-the-art Selectrics; shooting some forbidden hoops in the gym; creepily leaving a red rose on the desk of one Miss S. Chadwick; and wearing crazily high-waisted jeans — seriously, the rise on his Wranglers is, like, 23 inches.
At Jump Street, Jenko gives the team the brief: South Central High School has a theft problem. Four B&Es in the last four months, but no signs of forced entry, so the administration thinks it's an inside job. Jenko hypothesizes a Steve-Sanders-esque legacy-key situation, adds that Miss Chadwick has a stalker, and dumps the file on Hanson. In lieu of having an actual subplot, or any lines, in this episode, Hoffs contents herself with peering into the file as Hanson asks after suspects. Jenko likes a kid named Jeffrey Stone for it; he's basically a fence, selling concert tickets, records, electronics, you name it. "How do I get close?" Hanson asks. Jenko, sounding exasperated: "Ask him to a rock concert, I guess." Weirdly dated phrasing for that character; yeah, most of his phrasings are dated, but in a hippie way, not in a Mormon way. See: Jenko's next lines, which exposition that Ioki is taking the sergeant's exam and conclude with, "Ayyy, I can dig it, man."
21 Jump Street: "America, What A Town"
Tuesday, December 1st, 2009
"Shut Up, Penhall" Count: 5
Accompanied by a David Coverdale-oid wailing, "YOU stole my WOOOORRRRLD," a guy takes about four days to steal a Mercury Sable under cover of night. Well, sort of. He's directly under a streetlight. Heaven forbid anyone on 21JS do anything subtly.
Cut to the Sable peeling into a garage after one Billy Jacoby opens the door. You may remember Jacoby — now going by "Billy Jayne" — as Mikey Randall on Parker Lewis Can't Lose, but Mr. Stupidhead and I know him best as Buddy from Just One of the Guys, specifically Buddy's "All balls itch! It's a fact!" monologue. Anyway, the thief cracks, "Fill 'er up — and then remove everything from under the hood," and then he and Billy/Mikey/Buddy chop the car. Just before 3 AM, they roll the stripped chassis out of the garage; the thief, Stevie, is about to take off, which gives Billy/Mikey/Buddy the opportunity to exposi-ask if Stevie's going to "leave grease like this" on the floor when they get their own place. Billy/Mikey/Buddy then hits the lights, runs outside, and rolls down the garage door to reveal that it's actually the Northside High School Body Shop.
Adventures In Random DVR-Pausing: Taking! It! Personally!
Tuesday, November 10th, 2009
In Hargitay's defense, I think the guy taking her hostage had just gotten shot by Vincent Spano; I'd make that face too. On the other hand, she could have just read yet another script in which a member of the Stabler family is kidnapped, arrested, or pinned in a wrecked car while delivering a baby. Because: seriously.
Contest: Ocean's 300K
Thursday, October 29th, 2009…Well, well, well. $271,888. Five grand in a day. It's a pleasure working with you.
Just a little more work left to do: keep in mind, reaching 280K by Saturday at 5 PM qualifies us for a 20K match from Mighty Big TARhead. I think we can hit the goal well ahead of time, the better to enjoy the climbing numbers. Don't you? So let's do that. Just over 8K to go — let's get to $280,000.
- MBT is not Phil. OR IS HE?! (He isn't. OR IS HE?!)
"What's my motivation?" Well, let's see. If you donate to anything today, you could win: a copy of Ocean's 11 OR Ocean's 13 (thanks, Trash!); a copy of Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's Dead; or a copy of Office Space. Mmmmmkay?
And if you donate to "Eager Language Learners Need French Materials," you could win a $10 Amazon gift card, compliments of Kim G. (Funded!)
Forward me your receipts to bunting at tomatonation dot com by midnight ET. But if you're having trouble choosing, I'd suggest the French materials (you're still eligible for the other prizes for today), or picking from the short-expiry-date list below.
Taking the Leap: Multimedia Learning for Students with Autism
Hear It, See It. Now I'm Learning.
Math Mania! (funded!)
Cultural Connections to Historical Fiction (funded!)
and the biggest kahuna of them all: Youth Voices Across Curriculum: Documentary Film Makers