Out of Focus

You want to know what all the hype is about the sitcom Arrested Development? Well, aside from it’s regular Sunday night timeslot, you have two (really more) other options to catch what is possibly the funniest show on TV (now that Curb Your Enthusiasm has ended its season and regardless of what NBC marketing says, it sure as hell isn’t Friends).

Tomorrow after yet another unnecessary 60 minute long American Idol results show, Fox will broadcast a new epsiode of the show. Even better, though, is that on Sunday stating at 2:30 PM, FX Network will show six straight episodes of the series, allowing you to get to know the characters and situations a little better. Then, of course, a new episode will be on Fox that evening at 9:30 as usual.

If you did like Curb Your Enthusiasm, you should love Arrested Development. In a way, the two shows are mirror images of each other. In Curb, we constantly watch Larry make a fool of himself due to his incredible insensitivity and narcisism, and we watch the other characters react to him. Arrested Development is comprised of several narcissistic individuals (with many other issues), all putting their troubles upon one character the rest of us identify with.

With all these opportunities, please check it out. There has been enough quality television cancelled over the years for not finding viewers, and to its credit, Fox is at least giving this show a shot!

So Friday was my last day at the “old” job, which is really a misnomer since I will be returning to the “old” job in mid-May, which I suppose simply supports (oooh alliteration … fun) the adage whatever is old becomes new again. (Is that it? Whatever … serves my purposes.) But I digress …

The “old” job is not one that often keeps me at work late, but since I was to be gone for two-plus months and a long-term temp would be covering for everything I do, I wanted to make sure there were as few loose ends as possible, and everything would be relatively straightforward for her. As usual, I left much of the work I needed to do until the last minute, and suddenly, it’s after 10 PM on Friday and I’m still at the office. I had intended to see a movie Friday night because for someone who intended to have a blog with a major focus on film, I’ve seen woefully little … scratch that … I’ve seen nil since catching Russell Crowe and Mr. Jennifer Connelly on a boat and a Brit and an Aussie living and loving through the Civil War the weekend of the Oscars. Two weeks and not even a DVD … that’s gotta be unhealthy.

So when I finally got home Friday night and turned on the TV, I started watching Real Time With Bill Maher, and while scanning the listings I noticed that Phone Booth was starting next. I’m not sure why I thought I wanted to see this movie. I mean, I guess the idea of watching Colin Farrell stuck in a phone booth for 90 minutes while a sniper trains his gun on him isn’t completely unpleasant — live or die, it’s win-win — but I should have known that with Joel Schumacher directing with a reasonably free hand and more money necessary for a one set shoot, things had a good shot of going to crap.

The weird thing about Schumacher is that he’s not always a bad director, but when he makes a bad movie, he doesn’t fuck around. That sucker is a likely Razzie nominee. He singlehandedly destroyed the Batman franchise. (OK, to be fair, the overrated Akiva Goldsman — A Beautiful Mind Oscar not withstanding — is at least as much to blame.) He’s directed brilliant actors such as Robert DeNiro, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Anthony Hopkins to simply bad performances in just awful films. In fact, in Bad Company, not only does he shoot possibly the most drab and dull performance Hopkins has ever given on-screen, but he goes a step further and makes Chris Rock legitimately unfunny.

To be fair, not everything Schumacher has made completely sucks. Tigerland — the film that made Farrell into a star, at least in the eyes of Hollywood if not yet the general public — was actually a very good film. And while I haven’t seen it, I’ve heard decent things about last year’s Veronica Guerin. The Client and A Time to Kill were perfectly serviceable adaptations of their respective John Grisham novels, and both St. Elmo’s Fire and The Lost Boys, while not exactly subtle, are classic examples of late-80s pop cinema. Hell, he even made D.C. Cab. Not a great film, but it had it’s funny moments, and more importantly, it had Mr. T.

I think I figured out what the problem is. If you want Joel Schumacher to make a good film, don’t give him any money. Don’t give him lots of special effects. Don’t give him a big studio backing him, and don’t let him try to make a comedy or a straight-forward action movie. Make him give you a relatively small, issue-oriented drama on a limited budget. For some reason, when he makes those, they turn out well.

While Phone Booth certainly isn’t a big action movie, it is the epitome of what Hollywood types like to call “high concept.” How does one tell a story when your main character has to be on-screen virtually the entire time and is stuck in a phone booth for fear of being killed? I don’t presume to think this would not be an incredibly difficult film to make, however if that’s the case, rather than masking the limited plot and trying to heighten the drama with simple camera trickery in screen inserts, a director might want to try to find a really interesting way to bring us into that phone booth with Farrell and really experience his fear. But not Joel!

Continue reading “SUPERMAN BE DAMNED: AN ARGUMENT AGAINST A PHONE BOOTH“

The cinetrix takes note of the fact that Patrick Swayze and his dancer wife plan to produce a film based on some play they wrote about a New York dance company and two of its former stars. She takes note of Swayze seemingly having missed Robert Altman’s recent collaboration with Neve Campbell in The Company. She quotes Swayze (I’m not sure from where) as saying:

“This is the first movie that ever goes inside the dance world where the audience experiences the dance from the dancer’s point of view. The only other movie that has attempted it is The Red Shoes.”

First of all, I’m shocked that Swayze would even KNOW about The Red Shoes, and he really shouldn’t be allowed to mention any sort of dance movie he plans to make in the same sentence as that Powell & Pressburger classic (one of my all-time favorite films). On the other hand, I have no problem with him disregarding The Company. Cinetrix, whose opinion I have come to value if not actually worship, seems to (possibly unintentionally) be giving Altman’s sleep-inducing drama credit (via Swayze’s quote) for having a point-of-view as if it looked at the life of a dancer from within. But it didn’t … it had somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 points-of-view and was simply a big bore. I stayed with it a good deal longer than those who saw it with me, but when James Franco showed up and STILL nothing happened (other than some sensual breakfast cookery and a brief shot of a naked Neve silhouette), I was done. Can’t wait for Altman’s next film, though. This one sucked so much, his next should be fucking brilliant.

As usual, I often start things at particularly the most inopportune moment. Take this blog, for example. About two weeks ago, I finally said to myself, “Aaron, get off your ass and start this damn thing you’ve been talking about for the past four months.” Lo and behold, I did, knowing full well that in a fortnight I would be switching jobs (temporarily) to a position that would offer me far less time to write such insightful commentary as I have failed to do so far here.

Well, today is that today … the beginning of a new job. I’ve been lucky enough to take a temporary job (of which I will not speak) that excites me greatly, and take a leave from my regular full-time job (of which I will also not speak) which bores me as greatly as this new job excites me. That was a round-about way of saying that for the next two-plyus months, I should be busier, but also hopefully happier. I realize this will diminish some of my misanthropic charm, but I’ll do my best to make it as painless as possible.

Meanwhile, so as not to disappoint the one or two of you who wait with baited breath for every new missive, I stayed up very late last night composing the best preview of films on TV (focusing on TCM, IFC and Sundance) for the week ahead. Oh, you don’t see it online? Well neither do I, and I’m none too happy about that. I suppose the big things that stick in my mind are the really important schedule-items, both of which happen to be full programmed nights on TCM. Tuesday evening TCM devotes itself to a night of films starring the great Ray Milland. Unfortunately, possibly his greatest performance of all (one for which he happened to win the Best Actor Oscar) in The Lost Weekend is not included. If you’ve never seen it, you should definitely consider renting the film which brought the late, great Billy Wilder his first Best Picture, Director and Screenwriter Academy Awards. It also happens to still be possibly the greatest film about alcoholism ever made, The Days of Wine and Roses not withstanding. Two other thrillers from master directors Alfred Hitchcock and Fritz Lang are included, however. Hitchcock’s Dial M For Murder kicks off the evening at 8 PM, followed by Lang’s classic film-noir Ministry of Fear.

Then on Saturday night, take a weekend off and stay home to watch some great boxing films on TCM, especially the John Garfield starrer Body and Soul, which might be the best boxing film of all time if it weren’t for the film that follows it, Martin Scorsese’s near-perfect Raging Bull.

When this season of Curb Your Enthusiasm started and began its storyline involving Larry starring in The Producers on Broadway, I was a bit disappointed. The ensuing episodes which included The Producers storyline were never as good as the ones that left it unmentioned completely or as something simply going on in the background. Personally, I found three of the last four episodes leading-up to tonight’s finale the funniest of the season. “The Car-Pool Lane” finds Larry picking-up a hooker so he can drive in the carpool lane on the way to Dodger Stadium; “Wandering Bear” which finds Larry consulting his Native American gardner to help cure his wife’s numb vagina, a result of his putting on an “all-night” condom inside-out; and in “The Survivor”, Larry almost finally collects on his 10th anniversary gift from Cheryl when Gina Gershon guest stars as the sexiest Hasidic Jew ever who also happens to want to get into Larry’s pants. All three of these stuck The Producers plotline into the deep background.

That’s why I was nervous going into tonight’s season finale “Opening Night,” which would obviously wrap-up the season-long arc. But then the show reminded me why it truly is one of, if not the, best comedies on television. Maybe I was blind and alone on this one, but I was unable to predict the ultimately inevitable denouement. When Mel Brooks and Anne Bancroft start celebrating the demise of The Producers, toasting the failure of their most successful albatross, mimicking the crucial sequence form the actual show, it all came together for me, and the purpose of this entire subplot — an entire season all for one joke — made sense, and more importantly, it worked.

In fact, it helped reinforce exactly how well-written this show is. Yeah, I know that it’s not really scripted, and every scene is improvised by the actors based on nothing more than David’s outline, but the reason the show works as well as it does is because of how well and intricately that outline is plotted. David obviously lookes ahead at the entire season, making sure that the important elements for an overall arc are there. This is sadly lacking in most television. Even David Chase has often been criticized for leaving too many dangling threads at the end of a season of The Sopranos. But the biggest culprit at poor plot-arc planning in my eyes is Fox’s 24.

Continue reading “CURB MY FIRST IMPRESSIONS”

Everyone knows that tonight is the premiere of another episode of The Sopranos, but at some point you should seriously consider revisiting last week’s episode through the eyes of Aaron (no, not me) at Television Without Pity. If you’ve never visited the site, their talented staff writes recaps (laced with sarcasm) of a selection of television series. Well, Aaron’s recap of last week’s episode is finally up, and as usual, it’s well-worth reading. Here’s his teaser summary:

A little less conversation, a little more action, please. All this angst and whining ain’t satisfactioning me. A little less wuss and a little more dark, a little less Artie and be clear on who’s the narc. Come on back with a brand-new start and baby satisfy me.

Better yet, TWoP has added some new shows to its lineup, as well, including Kingdom Hospital, the upcoming Century City which premieres Tuesday on CBS, and the new Fox series Wonderfalls. I will definitely be a regular reader of the Wonderfalls recaps since they will be written by the phenomenal Pamie.

As far as Wonderfalls the show, I’ve only had a chance to watch the first half of Friday’s premiere episode, and so far the most, and least, I can say is that I’m intrigued. The comparisons to Joan of Arcadia are obvious (and I don’t just mean the names of the main characters), but the two series definitely represent the personalities of their respective networks. Joan is very much the standard, well-written, well-acted CBS drama that doesn’t exactly reinvent television. Wonderfalls, from the amount I’ve seen, is your basic Fox drama: a slightly younger bent with a quirky sensibility and a lot more deadpan humor. The most fascinating thing to me about Wonderfalls, however, is not the similarity between Jaye and Joan. Rather, Jaye reminds me much more of George from the Showtime series Dead Like Me. This shouldn’t necessarily come as a surprise since the same guy — Bryan Fuller — created both series. Still, the voices of each of these two young, disaffected, bitter-at-the-world, way-too-smart young women are virtually identical. Considering that Fuller left Dead Like Me after just a few episodes, it will be interesting to see how Jaye devlops in comparison. At the same time, if Wonderfalls can be as interesting as Dead Like Me proved to be in its first season, then it’s a keeper.

I just had to restart my computer, and when AIM came-up again, I had an entirely new set of headlines. Since the “Breaking News” this time actually is important and having been reported on the wires under five hours ago, maybe it’s even still “breaking,” I have to give them some credit, right?

Breaking News: Alleged Iraqi Spy Linked to White House (via CNN)
I don’t know … more important than the Powerball winner getting robbed? You be the judge.

I generally don’t like to judge a new television series until I’ve seen more than one episode. Pilot episodes are often so filled with exposition that while they can help you get to know the characters, they don’t necessarily provide a good feel for what the show will be like on a weekly basis. So if there’s a series that actually interests me, I always try to watch it at least two or three times.

The new Fox half-hour comedy Cracking Up carries more indie film cred than possibly any other sitcom in recent memory. The show was created and is executive produced by Mike White; the Weitz Brothers are also executive producers; it’s shot in single-camera style; it stars Jason Schwartzman (not to mention Molly Shannon and Christopher McDonald); on the second episode Zooey Deschanel guest-starred as Schwartzman’s girlfriend; and on the third episode (which airs in the shows new and soon-to-be regular time slot on Monday at 8:30 PM) Jack Black guest stars as a substance-abuse counselor the family hires to help teach (scare!) the kids into just saying no.

Since Mondays are such dead evenings for television and it sounds like a funny set-up for Jack Black, I may give Cracking Up one more shot. But based on the first two episodes, this is a series filled with a lot of potential, but absolutely horrible execution. First, it’s just not funny. You can tell that half of the lines sound like things that had the whole room rolling with laughter during the initial read-through, but acted-out, on camera and in context, they just die. Second, I’ve rarely seen a cast with such poor chemistry. None of these people (and they’re all very talented) look like they’re acting with each other. Every line sounds like it’s being read, and right now the show is depending on Schwartzman’s attempts at pained and put-upon expressions, and Shannon’s trademark overexcited, wide-eyed, conspiratorial comic style. It just doesn’t cut it. Even Deschanel spent the whole episode looking completely out-of-place, not to mention, the entire storyline was completely predictable and dull.

If you want a great series dealing with dysfunctional families, watch Arrested Development. It is everything that Cracking Up so desperately wants to be … but isn’t.

Wow. This morning, the people at AOL picking the headlines for the AIM welcome screen have really topped themselves. Yeah, they had a headline when the Madrid bombing was breaking yesterday morning, but do they follow-it-up today with more info about what might have happened, including possible ties to al-Queda and Spain has begun an official three days of mourning? Do they include any notice of the California Supreme Court ordering the City and County of San Francisco to stop performing same-sex marriages? Any mention of the Senate passing a $2.4-Trillion budget resolution? No. Apparently none of that matters when there is news (especially “breaking news”) such as this:

1. Breaking News: Lotto Winner Robbed Twice 1 Week, Sued
   I definitely would not have made it through my day not knowing this “breaking news.”

2. R. Kelly’s Sex Photos Dismissed
   Damn, they were that boring? Guess this might make it harder for him to pick-up teenagers if that news gets out.

3. Petting Dog Results in Conviction
   Wha??? Actually, what apparently happened was a female animal activist (belonging to a group called Dogs Deserve Better) went into some guy’s backyard to pet a dog and fill his water bowl. She was convicted of tresspassing and prowling — two misdemeanors. Apparently, the owner of the house was surprised to see some strange woman in his backyard when he went out to fill the water bowl. The woman claims that she saw the dog and he “seemed to be in distress.” The owner denies it. The headline is simply misleading. She didn’t get convicted for petting the dog; she got convicted for going into someone’s backyard. It’s not even a cute, bizarre human interest story. As the owner of the house rightly states, if she was “was so concerned about my dog, it would have been easy to come to my front door and speak to me directly.”

When I started this blog oh-those many years ago (wait, it’s been barely two weeks? oy … my head), I anticipated writing a semi-serious, hopefully often interesting series of posts primarily focused on film and television, but mostly dedicated to freeing my addled brain from it’s jumbled collection of random and inconsequential thoughts. I wasn’t sure what would come, but I thought I might be slightly more focused. (HA!)

You want focused? Thanks to the Cinetrix, today I was given the privilege of finding a new film blog for people who really want to learn about and discuss the artistry of cinema. Or, to state it in more simple vernacular — A Girl and a Gun rocks!!! There’s still not a ton there, but the writer apparently started it less than a week ago. It’s not a simple blog either, focusing more on longer pieces of writing of … hmmm … what’s that word? Substance! That’s it. Read his thoughtful appreciations of Spaulding Gray and Alan Bates in the Faces. And if you’ve never seen a Henri-Georges Clouzot film (and the American remake of Diabolique counts in no way, shape or form), you’ll want to place Le Corbeau it at the top of your Netflix queue (if not simply rush out and buy it) after you read the Essay.

I know Cinetrix already posted this on her site, and chances are if you’re reading me, you’ve already read her, but nonetheless, I like to give mention when and where it’s warranted, and A Girl and a Gun is a keeper!