Entertainment & Media

Two Weeks At The Movies

Mon, 15 Jun 2009 18:25:00 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

My excitement for the summer movie season this year has been curiously subdued. I’ve been seeing pretty much everything that’s coming out, but I’m finding it difficult to care about any of them. The only film I’ve seen this summer that I’d consider seeing multiple times was Star Trek. And I probably only have one more viewing of that movie left in me. Meanwhile, looking ahead, I can only really muster up the energy to get psyched for Judd Apatow’s Funny People and Quentin Tarantino’s Inglourious Basterds. Here’s a sampling of what I’ve seen the last two weeks:

Away We Go

It’s nice to see Sam Mendes, the director of dense Oscar-bait like Revolutionary Road and American Beauty, tackle a small-scale comedy piece like this one. It’s also nice to see respectable publishers/novelists like Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida trying their hands at penning a screenplay. And it’s also nice to see wonderful TV actors like John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph cast in demanding starring film roles like the ones they’re provided here. Unfortunately, all of this niceness just adds to a nice little movie. There are some funny moments, mostly provided by Krasinski and Rudolph, without much help from the much broader supporting turns from usually reliable actors like Allison Janney and Maggie Gyllenhaal, but it doesn’t add up to much. Even when the film tries to get dramatic and profound, with occasional slightly too long, unconvincing monologues, it still retains an annoying sense of ironic detachment that saps away any tension that may have been built. It’s a nice movie. Very nice. But I’ve already forgotten most of it.

Grade: B

Drag Me To Hell

Evil Dead fans were worried when they found out that Sam Raimi’s return to the horror genre that made him would be too lightweight when it received a PG-13 rating from the MPAA. They needn’t have worried their gross little heads. This is a balls-to-the-wall, bizarre, campy, utterly awesome and, occasionally, horrifically gross horror film in the classic Evil Dead tradition. A gypsy with decaying dentures curses Alison Lohman after she denies her a bank loan. And the fun begins. You can almost hear the laughter Raimi and his co-screenwriter brother Ivan were spewing while writing this insanity.

Grade: A-

The Hangover

Well, audiences (and many of my friends) have already decided that this is the great comedy of the summer, and I’m going to beg to differ. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a very solid comedy, consistently funny pretty much all the way through. Bradley Cooper, Zach Galifianakis and Ed Helms all give fantastic individual performances, even if they never quite gel as an ensemble as much you’d hope. But there’s something sort of throw-away about the whole venture and, worse, old-fashioned. In the days when the biggest comedies in the world were your Meet The Parents films or Austin Powers franchise, this would have been very welcome, in the same way director Todd Phillips’ Old School was at the time. But, in a post-Apatow comedic landscape, something seems weirdly dry about this one, with the exception of the presence of Galifianakis and his unpredictable comedic presence. It’s a good film, but time’s gonna tell whether this really is the great comedy of the summer. It already loses for great comedy of 2009, as Adventureland and Observe and Report have already kicked the pants off of it.

Grade: B-

Land of the Lost

What is the audience for this film? It isn’t for kids, what with the never-ending sex jokes, Danny McBride’s wonderful fervor for saying the word “tits,” and Will Ferell’s potty-mouth. It isn’t for adults, what with the repetitive and immature humor, and the lack of any recognizably interesting plot. All I know for sure though is that it definitely isn’t for me. This was a POS of the highest degree. The only way I could handle sitting through it was my own personal undying love for McBride’s comedic persona, which he handily recycles here from much better projects like Eastbound & Down and The Foot Fist Way. Avoid.

Grade: D-

Up

Not the utter masterpiece that last year’s WALL-E was, but not ridiculously far-off either. The extended montage of our main character’s entire life about five minutes in is one of the great achievements of modern animation and the film is as thoughtful and consistently funny as any Pixar project. It does drag a bit in the middle, but is kept buoyant with observant humor (especially, I suspect, for the dog owners in the audience), before peaking again in the exciting final third. Pixar’s tenth good film in a row. They just don’t miss.

Grade: B+

Playing Catch Up: A Capsule Review Fiesta!

Tue, 02 Jun 2009 01:28:00 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

So, it seems that Slow Century Magazine has taken the entire month of May off. Co-founders Joe Ireland and Janna Washington have spent the month packing up their shit and shipping it out west, as they now reside in Eugene, Oregon. Danielle Berg has spent most of her time working on The Quilt Project, a wonderful Community-building non-profit, which hosted a very successful fundraiser on May 9 (which I couldn’t attend, due to Star Trek-related prior commitments). And my laptop has been broken, which has given me the excuse to ignore my journalistic commitments and, instead, sit in my Slanket and watch Gilmore Girls DVDs. But, of course, I have been keeping up on everything pop culture-related, so I have to play catch-up. I thought it might be a good idea to put together a collection of mini-reviews in case our many, many readers have been wondering what Slow Century’s official take on the happenings of early summer are. And I might even have collected my thoughts on the broadcast network upfronts in time for Summer Press Tour in July. Maybe.

FILMS

X-Men Origins: Wolverine

This was, simultaneously, a missed opportunity and a mistake from the get-go. I suppose a good film could be made based on the origin of the most mysterious of the X-Men. There are certainly good comic books having to do with it (just check out Barry Windsor-Smith’s “Weapon X” and Paul Jenkins’ Origin). But, one of the main strengths of the Wolverine character is how shrouded in mystery his origin is. I, for one, really don’t want to know about it. Why not make a modern-day Wolverine film or, if the producers were really so hung up on the origin idea, why not make a Wolverine film about the days just before he joined the X-Men? But these ideas are meaningless. What we’ve got is this fairly terrible, far too angsty action film with dialogue entirely composed of exposition, and a series of overhead shots of Hugh Jackman crying out, “Nooooooo!!!” What’s even worse is that the casting is uniformly spot-on, particularly Liev Schreiber as Sabretooth, but no one is given anything remotely interesting to do or say. The first big summer movie is the first bad movie of the summer.

Grade: C-

Star Trek

I’ve never been a Star Trek fan. I watched a handful of Next Generation episodes, when reruns used to air alongside Buffy the Vampire Slayer and I’ve seen a few of the movies. I was interested in this film because J.J. Abrams was at the helm, and I’ve liked all four of his TV series (Felicity, Alias, Lost, Fringe). So, I went to see this at the Ziegfeld with a massive crowd of ridiculously nerdy Trekkers, and I had a really good time. It’s a hell of a fun movie, completely well cast, with a light tone and a whole bunch of terrific action sequences. And I thought it was completely charming that Abrams thinks “Sabotage,” by The Beastie Boys is still going to be a relevant song hundreds of years in the future. And I didn’t catch the subtle Trek references that my friends did, but I did catch the Abrams-verse references (Slusho! Amanda Foreman! Greg Grunberg’s voice!), and those satisfied my geek cravings far more than seeing Emma Frost for two seconds in Wolverine.

Grade: A-

The Limits of Control

Enjoyment of The Limits of Control depends entirely on one’s ability to stand Jim Jarmusch. I happen to be a huge fan and, having enjoyed all nine of his previous films, I managed to enjoy this one as well. But the film is something of an endurance trial. The pacing makes Dead Man, Jarmusch’s previous meander-fest benchmark, look like a Michael Bay film. But there is something quite mesmerizing and beautiful about the whole affair, and the soundtrack, featuring such favorites as Earth, SUNN O))), and Boris is the best of the year so far.

Grade: B

Music

Veckatimest, by Grizzly Bear

This is Grizzly Bear’s best release to date and, while being a completely satisfying, near-perfect recording, it still hints at even bigger and even better things to come. It retains the spacy, atmospheric dread that the previous Yellow House captured so well, but it adds a newfound interest in melody. First single “Two Weeks,” with its jaunty piano lead, overactive drums and Beach Boys-like harmonies is my pick for song of the summer, not something I would have expected from a Grizzly Bear album. “While You Wait For The Others” is equally enchanting, running up and down the scale with a brilliant bass-line and some more wonderful harmonizing. And, for the angstier Yellow House fans, there’s some more entrancing atmospherics, especially on tracks like “Cheerleader,” the sometimes cacophonous “I Live With You” and the absolutely beautiful closer, “Foreground.”

Grade: A

Outer South, by Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band

This is Conor Oberst’s second album with his non-Bright Eyes band, and it’s a halfway good album, with a load of filler. He lets various band-mates sing lead on roughly half of the tracks, but there are 16 songs, so there’s still a full-length Oberst album in here somewhere. The best of the three non-Oberst singers turns out to be drummer Jason Boesel, mainly because his deeper, more gravelly voice is a nice break from the generically whiny indie rock of the other two. Oberst, predictably, has most of the best songs, including the fun sixties pop-folk of “Nikorette” and “Slowly (Oh So Slowly),” the meandering, but emotionally satisfying “White Shoes” and the rage-aholic political deviation, “Roosevelt Room.” But the other guys bring some decent stuff too, especially “Big Black Nothing,” by Nik Freitas and the synth-led “Air Mattress,” by Taylor Hollingsworth. So, there’s a good album to be found in this sprawling collection of songs, but far too much filler to make it a fully satisfying release.

Grade: B-

21^st Century Breakdown, by Green Day

I’m not quite sure how Green Day became one of the biggest bands in the world, but they are. 21^st Century Breakdown, their second political rock opera in a row, after the more creatively successful American Idiot, has a much more vague storyline than its predecessor, but the same sense of overblown, epic pop punk. The obvious influence here is Queen, with Billie Joe Armstrong’s reaching vocals and seventies-style guitar leads, and it’s absolutely packed to the brim with memorable melodies, but the main problem here is the lyrics, which are, at times, offensively stupid. Armstrong, a strong craftsman when writing songs about jerking off or smoking weed, was quite at home on American Idiot discussing modern suburbia and disaffected teenagers, but 21^st Century Breakdown is a more overt political statement. But, all the statement is saying is that the government is, like, totally lame, broseph. And we need to, like, do something about it! What should we do? Well, the best Armstrong is able to come up with is “Rally up the demons of your soul.” Awesome. It’s a decent Green Day album, if you like that sort of thing. But nothing more and nothing less.

Grade: C+

Yours Truly, The Commuter, by Jason Lytle

When Grandaddy broke up, it seemed as though I was the only one that was upset. The press didn’t cover it much, and that includes the Pitchforks of the world, and there was no spike in sales on their excellent farewell record, Just Like The Fambly Cat. But, still, when frontman Jason Lytle announced his intentions to release a solo album, I was excited. And, though the album is nothing new for him, it’s a satisfying release precisely because of that. It sounds like a solid Grandaddy album, and I’m happy that those are still getting made, even after the break-up. The lyrics are less about technology and the great outdoors now, and more about Lytle’s recent break-up and move to Montana, but there’s the same electronic sheen and rustic beauty of the best Grandaddy albums. Just check out the beautiful “Birds Encouraged Him” and the title track, which begins with the statement-making verse, “The last thing I heard I was left for dead/I could give two shits about what they said/I may be limping, but I’m coming home.” The album ends with a song called “Here For Good,” and I’m extremely glad that he is.

Grade: B+

Television

Glee

FOX tossed us a bone a few weeks ago. After the second-to-last episode of American Idol, they aired the pilot of a new fall series called Glee, about a high school glee club, and the young, idealistic male teacher (Matthew Morrison) who runs it. I can’t fathom that there is a better pilot on any network’s fall schedule. It has an insanely large cast of immediately engaging actors (especially Morrison, Lea Michele and Jayma Mays, who I am considering proposing marriage to) and, seemingly, a lot to say about growing up, even in adulthood. Sure, it sometimes hearkens too close to its influences, which obviously include Freaks and Geeks and Election, but that isn’t too bad when your influences are as wonderful as Freaks and Geeks and Election and, besides, even Freaks and Geeks and Election didn’t have incredibly charming song-and-dance sequences set to songs as far reaching as “Don’t Stop Believing” and “Rehab.” Also, it made me cry. Just for the record. And I watched it twice in the same day, which I don’t think I’ve done with any pilot ever.

Grade: A

The Goode Family

This is a new Mike Judge (Office Space, King of the Hill, Beavis and Butt-Head) animated series, and it’s as good an excuse as any for him to rip on liberals. It’s got a few funny bits (especially the meat-craving vegetarian dog and the heartthrob teen, who makes documentaries and puts them on YouTube), but it doesn’t add up to much more than a time-passing summer diversion to break up Wednesday nights a bit.

Grade: C+

DVD

Caprica

Hot on the heels of Battlestar Galactica ending (mostly unsatisfyingly), here we have the Battlestar prequel show, whose pilot the Sci-Fi channel saw fit to release on DVD a year prior to the premiere of the actual show. It’s very promising, certainly as smart and intriguing as BSG was in its early days, and it’s more down-to-earth to boot, with a solid lead performance from the reliable Eric Stoltz, and an even better supporting one from young Alessandra Torresani. It also has about 1000% more boobs than Battlestar did in its entire run, if you’re into that sort of thing. It captures virtual reality better than Harsh Realm ever did (that’s right, a Harsh Realm reference), and there are geek-out references to the early stages of Cylon creation. So Caprica is good. More next year, I guess.

Grade: B+

Books

Columbine, by Dave Cullen

Cullen achieves something truly remarkable and rare here. It’s a non-fiction account of a fairly recent event that somehow manages to work both as surprising and informative journalism and completely riveting and page-turning storytelling, in the vein of Capote’s In Cold Blood. It’s the best non-fiction book in ages and really makes you realize that everything you’ve previously read about the Columbine tragedy is dead wrong. Even that Michael Moore movie, and especially that Michael Moore movie. Cullen manages to make the true-life characters so fascinating and engaging that you’re dying for a sequel when the book is over. But there is none waiting. And thank god for that.

Grade: A

New Mutants #1, by Zeb Wells and Diogenes Neves

I’m not exactly sure who was clamoring for a New Mutants reunion, but Marvel Comics is banking on some nostalgia for that 100-issue “X-Men in training” eighties superhero book with this one. The characters are certainly as good as ever, and Zeb Wells is obviously having a ton of fun writing them (particularly Sunspot, more wisecracking than he’s been in ages, and Cannonball, taking on a leadership role that has seemed inevitable for decades). Still, there’s a sense of the inconsequential about this book. I feel like I should care more. For now, it’s a quick, fun read, but it better be headed somewhere.

Grade: B

The Unwritten #1, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

Ah, now this is a comic with a lot on its mind. It’s about Tommy Taylor, whose father once wrote a massively successful series of 14 books about a boy wizard named Tommy Taylor. He’s lived for the last several years as a pseudo-celebrity, cashing in on his MIA father’s books, but now he’s beginning to wonder whether he’s a real person or, simply, a character made flesh. The expressive art of Peter Gross brings Mike Carey’s fast-paced, cerebral writing to life, and the quick scenes we see of the Tommy Taylor films satirize and pay tribute to the Harry Potter series perfectly. The finest first issue of a comic I’ve read in a while.

Grade: A

Slow Century Summer Movie Preview

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 17:12:27 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

Well, it’s only April, but the Summer Movie Season appears to have begun in earnest. Fast & Furious is out and making a ton of bank (over 100 million bucks in its first two weekends) and, in so doing has resurrected the careers of both Vin Diesel and Paul Walker. And thank Christ for that, right? But, meanwhile, the studios have also begun releasing genuinely good films. Adventureland gets my highest recommendation, as a mainstream comedy with an indie feel, some wonderful performances and the best damn Lou Reed-laced soundtrack ever. It’s one from the heart, courtesy of Superbad director Greg Mottola. If you don’t enjoy it, you’re probably stupid. Sorry to break that to you if you’re already hating on it. Also, Observe and Report came out, and it’s got to be the ballsiest mainstream studio comedy film to come out in years. This one, I’m more willing to understand people not liking, because it’s definitely not for every taste. But it’s completely for my taste. And it tastes pretty fucking great. Meanwhile, the Summer Movie Season is actually supposed to start every year in May. So I thought we could take a nice little look at where it’s headed. Month by month.

MAY

The Sure Things:

May is going to end up being one of the best months at the movies this summer, because it’s one of only two that contains three absolutely sure things. May 8 brings Star Trek, which I can’t believe I’m psyched about. I am not a Trekkie or a Trekker, or whatever those assholes want to be called, but this movie looks really, really good, and it’s written and directed by J. J. Abrams, who has yet to steer me wrong with wonderful TV shows like Lost, Alias, Felicity and Fringe. To a non-obsessive, the casting looks spot-on (Zachary Quinto as Spock! Simon Pegg as Scotty!), and the effects work looks top-notch. I can’t imagine a scenario where this will suck. That goes double for the new Pixar effort, Up (5/29), about an old man who gives his house a balloon ride. Pixar films are always a good bet. It’s been almost 15 years, and I’ve yet to not like one of their wonderful films (WALL-E, Monsters Inc., The Incredibles, etc.). Finally, we have Drag Me To Hell (5/29), which is Sam Raimi’s return to the genre that made him: horror. The Evil Dead trilogy is an untouchable classic and, after years of hanging out in Spider-Man land, the man is back in the realm that he truly rules at. I can’t wait.

Big Movies I’m Having Trouble Getting Psyched For:

X-Men Origins: Wolverine (5/1) seems right up my alley. Wolverine is a brilliant comic book creation, so much so that I read three monthly comic books with his name in the title, including one called Wolverine Origins. But, no matter how many trailers I see for this one, or how many clips of the copy that leaked onto the internet this month, I can’t seem to get excited. I think the problem is X-Men 3: X-Men United, the last X-Movie. It just sucked so darn hard that my confidence in 20^th Century Fox’s handling of the franchise is completely shaken. Meanwhile, we’ve got a new Terminator movie, this one a reboot called Terminator Salvation (5/22) starring Christian Bale, who continues to use his hysterical gruff Batman voice, which, coupled with his increasingly prominent speech impediment, is going to be the funniest thing you’re likely to listen to all summer.

Crap:

Eek. Where to begin? You want some rom-com crap? Well, you may want to check out Ghosts of Girlfriends Past (5/1), in which Michael Douglas visits Matthew McConaughey as a ghost, in order to show him where he’s gone wrong in past relationships. And yes. Worst premise of the summer indeed. Not into that? You wanna check out some action crap? Well, how about Ron Howard delivering Tom Hanks in Angels and Demons (5/15), the prequel to the four-star crap-fest that was The Da Vinci Code. Still not satisfied? Well, maybe you want to see Dance Flick (5/22), a street-dancing movie parody co-written by six Wayans brothers, two of which I’ve never heard of.

The Hidden Gem:

What’s a Summer Movie Season without a minimalist Jim Jarmusch picture? The Limits of Control (5/1) will fit that bill this summer, with Jarmusch reuniting with Broken Flowers star, Bill Murray.

JUNE

The Sure Things:

None that I can see. But Year One (6/19), a new history-based comedy by Harold Ramis, looks like it could be quite good, especially with a cast that includes Michael Cera and Jack Black. Also, teaming up Will Ferrell and Danny McBride for a Land of the Lost (6/5) film could turn out to be a stroke of genius, and the trailers seem to indicate that that may be the case.

Big Movie I’m Having Trouble Getting Psyched For:

I really want to like The Hangover (6/5). It’s a new comedy by Todd Phillips, who has previously written and directed such hilarious fare as Road Trip and Old School, and before that had a great career as a documentarian, putting together such classics as Hated and Frat House. In recent years, however, the dude has floundered with such mainstream Hollywood bullshit as Starsky and Hutch and School For Scoundrels. This new one seems to be aiming higher, with a great cast that includes reliably funny people like Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms and the brilliant Zach Galifianakis. But that trailer is brutal, and I do not want to be disappointed a third time in a row. Get it together, Phillips. This one better be good.

Crap:

Oh, there is a host of crap in June. First and foremost, there’s Imagine That (6/12). It’s an Eddie Murphy kids movie so we already know for a fact that it will be terrible. Then there’s Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (6/24), the Michael Bay helmed sequel to 2007’s dreadful Transformers. We’ve also got The Proposal (6/19) for your viewing pleasure, in which Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds pretend to be husband and wife for convoluted reasons before, presumably, actually falling in love. The list goes on. Just check out John Travolta’s facial hair in The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (6/12).

The Hidden Gem:

Tetro (6/11) is Francis Ford Coppola’s first original screenplay since 1974’s The Conversation. Whoa. And Vincent Gallo is in it. Whoa. Can’t miss. Finally, June will also contain Away We Go, another can’t-miss from the always-reliable Sam Mendes (American Beauty, Revolutionary Road), this one about a newly pregnant couple road-tripping across America.

JULY

The Sure Things:

Ah, July. The month of my birth. And the day of my birth, July 31, this year, brings Funny People, the third film to be written and directed by Judd Apatow, the guy who previously brought us The 40 Year-Old Virgin and Knocked Up, as well as the TV series Freaks and Geeks and Undeclared. Adam Sandler (yeah, he can be good sometimes) plays a stand-up comedian who, believing he’s dying, befriends a young up-and-comer, played by Seth Rogen. The cast also includes reliable talents like Jason Schwartzman, Leslie Mann, Jonah Hill and Eric Bana. It’s been described as being a more serious effort than Apatow is usually known for, but the trailer still manages to be gut-bustingly funny. Speaking of gut-busting laughs, July also brings us Bruno (7/10), Sascha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to the instant classic, Borat. This one promises to be even more out there and hilarious, if the Red Band Internet trailer is any indication. And, if those aren’t enough, July also brings us Public Enemies (7/1), a new Michael Mann film, in which Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger.

Big Movie I’m Having Trouble Getting Psyched For:

I really love the Harry Potter books, and I’ve liked all of the films a lot from the third one on. Now, here we have the sixth film, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (7/17), based on one of the stronger books in the series, and directed by David Yates, who helmed the wonderful fifth installment. But, now that the book series is done, I feel like I’m sort of done with Harry Potter and his pals. I’ll see this flick and everything, but when it was postponed from last November all the way to July, I kind of didn’t really care.

Crap:

A double-dose of romantic comedy crap this month with the always-charming Katherine Heigl hooking up with the never-charming Gerard Butler in The Ugly Truth (7/24) and Hayden Panettiere hooking up with some poor sap who’s about to learn a big life lesson in the high school graduation picture, I Love You Beth Cooper (7/10).

The Hidden Gem:

500 Days of Summer (7/17) looks like a pretty stock indie rom-com, especially with the presence of Zooey Deschanel and Joseph Gordon-Levitt in the lead roles, but it looks completely charming on that level. I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, and I’m sure that my more cynical hipster-y friends will rip on me for it. The same way they did for Juno and Little Miss Sunshine.

AUGUST

The Sure Thing:

Quentin Tarantino is finally putting out his labor of love World War 2 effort, Inglourious Basterds (8/21), starring such strikingly odd names as Samm Levine, B.J. Novak and Eli Roth, alongside Brad Pitt. It looks insane. It looks like a Quentin Tarantino film. It looks fucking amazing.

Big Movie I’m Having Trouble Getting Psyched For:

I feel like a film about celebrity chef Julia Child starring Meryl Streep and Amy Adams should pretty much be a sure thing. But, Julie & Julia (8/7) is written and directed by Nora Ephron, who just sucks beyond words. Her last four films have been Bewitched, Lucky Numbers, You’ve Got Mail and Michael. Wow. I hate Nora Ephron more than I hate most filmmakers. It’s pretty unreal.

Crap:

Besides Nora Ephron in general, we have a G.I. Joe (8/7) movie, which looks like the worst thing ever, and H2 (8/28), Rob Zombie’s sequel to his Halloween remake, which really was the worst thing ever.

The Hidden Gem:

Taking Woodstock is a new Ang Lee film, starring untested actor/wonderful stand-up comedian Demetri Martin, about the family that loaned their grounds out for the original Woodstock festival. It looks hilarious and, seemingly, heartrending, and it’s bound to have some pretty kick-ass music.

Album Review: The Hazards Of Love, by The Decemberists

Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:31:00 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

We all knew that The Decemberists would eventually write a concept album. After all, they’ve always been storytellers just as much as they’ve been songwriters, sometimes to an extremely frustrating degree. Their last record, and major label debut, The Crane Wife, came very close to being classified as such, by packing in the three-part title track, as well as the five-section prog-rock epic, “The Island,” but, essentially, it was a song album, with a couple of experiments thrown in. Their new album, The Hazards Of Love, takes this experimentation to the next logical place.

Head Decemberist Colin Meloy had set out after The Crane Wife to put on a stage musical, but instead ends up with this mystifying collection of 17 tracks, which often seems just as interested in the tale it’s trying to weave as in writing memorable indie rock songs, something which The Decemberists often excel at. This is a problem, as the story of The Hazards Of Love is quite silly and lame, and packed to the brim with boring sketches of characters, often performed by Meloy himself, always with the same annoyingly dripping earnestness. Meloy’s main character, William, is a whining little wussy, and often a chore to listen to. He has been raised by the Queen (performed with powerhouse vocals by My Brightest Diamond’s Shara Worden), and he falls in love with the beautiful Margaret (voiced by Becky Stark, from Lavendar Diamond). It’s a problem that it takes until the eighth track on the album to really buy that they’re into each other. I don’t care how many times Meloy repeats lines like “Oh, my own true love.” It takes the lovely vocal harmonies and emotional wailing of “The Wanting Comes In Waves” for this to finally come across. Of course, Margaret is kidnapped two tracks later by the piece’s villain, The Rake, who really pulls the whole thing into focus.

Historically, the Decemberists have had an extreme lack of balls in their music, so it is clear that Colin Meloy is channeling himself when writing William’s dialogue. Particularly painful is the sequence in “Anaan Water,” when William is trying to get Margaret back from The Rake. “The horses shiver and bite against the bridle,” he sings. “But I will cross if mine own horse is pulled from me/ Though my mother cries that if I try, I sure will drowned be.” This is just flowery, purple prose, attached to some admittedly quite beautiful music. But, when Meloy writes for The Rake, it’s quite different. First of all, he acts while he sings, so he actually sounds threatening for once. He details a story of a married man, who is shocked to see his life ruined when he and his wife begin to have children (“Her womb started spilling out babies!”). The wife dies giving birth to the fourth child, and The Rake, seeking a sense of peace, murders his remaining children. The song ends with a bad-ass bit of foreshadowing: “I expect that you think that I should be haunted/ But it never really bothers me.” The song is punctuated with the entire band screaming a chorus of “All right!” intermittently. It sounds like something Nick Cave would write. It’s Colin Meloy’s version of “Stagger Lee,” and it’s easily the best thing on the album. On the opposite end of the spectrum is “Isn’t It A Lovely Night?” an interminably wussy love song with couplets like “Here we made a bed of boughs/ And thistledown that we had found to lay upon the dewy ground.”

Because of the ridiculous story, which culminates (spoiler alert!) in The Rake’s children coming back as ghosts and seeking their revenge on him, the problem with the album is that it doesn’t work as a complete piece. Just like any other Decemberists album, it has a few really great songs and a few lame ones. No matter how much this album seems intended to be a complete listen, and no matter how layered this piece is with arcane instruments like bouzoukis, marxophones and harpsichords, it remains an album you’re bound to skip around on. “The Wanting Comes In Waves/ Repaid” is an absolutely beautiful song, which stands up to the best things the Decemberists have recorded. “The Rake’s Song,” is an instant classic. The album ends quite well with the slide-guitar tinged “The Hazards of Love 4 (The Drowned).” But, with each song bleeding artfully into the next, you begin to notice how everything sort of sounds the same. So much care has been put into constructing the unmemorable story and characters that Meloy seems to have forgotten to include a memorable melody in most songs.

Still, it’s another batch of songs from The Decemberists, no better or worse or more or less interesting than any other. But I’m pretty sure that wasn’t the intended reaction. Oh well. At least Margaret and William are occasionally charming, and The Rake, at least, will never be forgotten. Just don’t think too hard about their story.

C+

Ménage à TV

Wed, 25 Mar 2009 22:19:00 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

Three new television shows premiered last week, amidst much hype and ubiquitous advertising campaigns. All three shows turned out to be ratings disappointments, but the networks certainly couldn’t be blamed this time. They got those shows out there. For one, who here hasn’t heard of Kings? That show has been everywhere these last few months. I haven’t been able to take a damn train without seeing that orange butterfly flag waving. NBC, the show’s home network, has also had an extended trailer for it in front of every movie at every movie theater in New York City. The show has HBO-level production values, a superb cast, including Deadwood’s Ian McShane and underrated character actor Dylan Baker (so incredible in Happiness), and an ambitious premise, conceived by Heroes writer Michael Green. NBC gave it a high-profile two-hour premiere on a Sunday night, and it managed to grab just 6 million viewers, who bought into the hype. I was one of them, and I also decided to DVR the new ABC comedy series, Better Off Ted, by Andy Richter Controls The Universe co-creator Victor Fresco, which has been endlessly compared to Arrested Development, largely because of Portia de Rossi’s presence in the capable cast. And, just to round things off, I also taped Party Down, the new Starz original series about a party planning company, which lists Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas and Paul Rudd among its writers, and boasts fabulous comedy pseudo-legends, like Ken Marino (The State), Jane Lynch (Best In Show) and Martin Starr (Freaks and Geeks) in its unbeatable cast.

Reading the day-after ratings for Kings the Monday following its premiere was depressing. I’m really impressed with this show, but I understand why some would be turned off. At the network upfronts last May, Kings was introduced as a modern-day retelling of the Bible story of David and Goliath. Simple enough. But, what they didn’t tell us was that it took place in a new world, where the royalty-led lands of Gath and Gilboa were fighting a war for land and honor, which may be taking place in an alternate universe, but could also just be the very distant future. It’s odd, but the world is instantly well defined, and the pilot looks absolutely beautiful, as filmed by Francis Lawrence (I Am Legend), a filmmaker whose portentous sensibilities, I find, work much better on television than on the big screen. The problem with the marketing for Kings was not that there wasn’t a huge abundance of it, but rather how it made the show look. It seemed like a very white-bread and overly soapy drama. It left out all of the wonderfully bleak questions that the characters must ask themselves, and most of the great cast, beyond the pretty young fellows, like Christopher Egan, who plays farm-boy/war hero, David Shephard. As an experiment, I made a very picky friend watch the pilot, who made his opinions very clear on how stupid he thought the movie trailer looked. While he didn’t love it, he did say that it seemed like a completely different show from the one he watched the trailer for.

ABC seemingly always has trouble launching new comedy series (one recent exception is Samantha Who? which ABC cleverly launched in between Dancing With The Stars and The Bachelor), and Better Off Ted, which premiered after a mid-eighth season episode of Scrubs, only managed to gather up 5.5 million viewers. It should probably be noted here that Better Off Ted has, perhaps, the worst title of any series ever put on the air. I see what they’re trying to do with it. The show is quirky and very odd, and wears that oddness firmly on its sleeve. But the title Better Off Ted makes me think of a bad three-camera sitcom, one of those ones that would get cancelled shortly after premiering between Friends and Seinfeld (remember Stark Raving Mad or Union Square?). This is unfortunate, because the show Better Off Ted is actually quite good. Sure, it’s basically just a redux of Andy Richter Controls The Universe with the same writer, but it’s a damn good redux, with a fun cast of underrated actors, including Allison Anders (squandered so badly on Joey and The Class) and Andy Richter’s hilarious Jonathan Slavin, who gets cryogenically frozen in the pilot episode before being accidentally thawed out by a negligent serviceman, who picks up his cell phone while transporting the cryo-chamber to the basement. The show has a lot of fun bits like this, and isn’t afraid of going off on tangents to fully explore them, but it also has time to show Ted (Jay Harrington) spending time at home with his wonderfully rational young daughter. I have a feeling Better Off Ted doesn’t have much more than half a season in it, but it should be a fun run.

I do, however, desperately hope that Party Down (the first good Starz Original Series!) has more life in it than a half season run. It’s an absolutely hilarious show, but, more surprising than that, it’s quite moving and sad in its ultra-real portrayal of a bunch of poor bastards working a shitty day job, who just want to get famous. One of them, played by Adam Scott (so heartbreaking in the HBO show Tell Me You Love Me and so hilarious in last year’s Step Brothers), has tasted fame via a series of obnoxious television commercials, but is now back at his old day job, actually working under one of the sons of bitches he left behind (Marino, brilliant as always). There’s also Lizzy Caplan (Cloverfield, True Blood), fantastically underplaying an aspiring comedian in a troublesome young marriage, Ryan Hansen (Veronica Mars) as a pretty-boy wannabe actor/celeb and the forever-underrated Starr, as a pretentious writer, who only likes people who get his references to Repo Man. It’s the stuff of dark, bleak drama, and the show is shot as such, using a low-budget, grainy, hand-held style, and exclusively found locations, but it’s also the funniest show of the year so far. I won’t be ready to let Party Down go for a long, long time.

KINGS: A-

BETTER OFF TED: B

PARTY DOWN: A

Our First and Final Word On Watchmen

Sat, 14 Mar 2009 14:37:05 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg and Joe Ireland

Joe: I think I should start out by saying that I’m no expert when it comes to comics, though I’ve read several series and enjoyed most of the ones that I’ve read, some of them quite a bit. Watchmen is hands-down my favorite comic, so I was super excited when I heard that an adaptation was going to be released, and only slightly less excited when I heard that said adaptation was going to be directed by Zack Snyder (director of 300). I have to say that I enjoyed the movie, though I recognize its flaws (of which there are many).

Daniel: I am an expert on comics, I guess. I’ve been reading them since I was a wee young lad in Brooklyn. My first was a Chris Claremont X-Men book, bought for me by my grandfather when I was 4. I read Watchmen for the first time when I was about 12, and starting to get a little jaded about superhero books. And Watchmen isn’t a superhero book. No, really. It isn’t. It’s a book about how writer Alan Moore sees the world, and what would make it “a stronger, loving world to die in,” as John Cale is quoted in the book. That’s the real problem with Zack Snyder’s bold, but woefully misguided film. He made a cool, flashy, superhero film and ended up with a heartless, if occasionally fun, early summer blockbuster that’s gonna be forgotten in less time than it took the comic to come out in serialized form. Fanboys used to argue on the internet about whether Watchmen should be a film or a TV miniseries, but that’s missing the point. Watchmen is as perfect as comic books get, and no filmed adaptation could replicate it. But I’m a fanboy too. I got excited when I heard about it. I was super-excited when Paul Greengrass (Bloody Sunday, the last two Bourne pictures) was set to direct. And I got choked up at the trailer in front of The Dark Knight last summer. But Watchmen is now a great comic and a very, very bad film. Bummer.

Joe: Something that interests me is that numerous critics have suggested that Watchmen actually suffers from its faithfulness to its source material. It seems to me that Watchmen is a film that was doomed to fail from the start. Other comic book adaptations—most notably The Dark Knight—are much looser in their interpretations. I can’t imagine that, had Snyder taking a more interpretive approach, it would have been received much more warmly by fans of the comic.

Daniel: Snyder took an odd approach to the film. In some ways, it’s completely faithful. The characters, the plot, a lot of the dialogue and pretty much all of the set design are taken directly from the comic. But, I’ve rarely seen the director of an adaptation so misread a comic. The reason the faithfulness of the film is a hindrance is that the pacing is so bizarre and insane and wrong for a film. Snyder spends about forty minutes on the first issue of the comic, and twenty minutes on the second, and then must race through the rest of the book, giving the film that odd Cliff’s Notes quality that the weaker of the Harry Potter films seem to have. Snyder also gets the film completely wrong tonally. The film is dark, cool and choreographed. There’s something really awkward and real about the comic that is just not captured here at all. The film feels completely wrong. Maybe a more interpretive approach would have been shit on by fans of the comic (and Greengrass had planned on setting the film in present day with a major middle east conflict going on, so he may have been crucified), but Watchmen, a great comic book, which was so prescient when it was created, should be a great and, more importantly, significant film. But Zack Snyder’s Watchmen is a trifling and, worse, forgettable annoyance, destined to be a footnote in comic book history, the way Michael Steven Johnson’s Daredevil or Snyder’s own 300 have become. A lot of people are going to own Watchmen T-shirts now. That’s about the extent of the film’s significance. Whereas the comic is on Time Magazine’s list of the 100 best English-language novels since 1923, the film will be lucky to get a Best Visual Effects nomination at next year’s Oscars.

Joe: The pacing issue is a good point, but I wonder how much of that is attributable to the fact that so much material had to be cut in order to get the movie down to a manageable length for the big screen. It will be interesting to see how the director’s cut, set to come out on DVD sometime later this year, will look and feel, since so much crucial material was left out of the theatrical cut.

I guess I was just super happy to see that the film wasn’t drastically re-interpreted. It would be very easy to try to re-envision the film as, say, a 9/11 allegory, and I was almost sure that that was what was going to happen. I liked the care Snyder took to replicate the film’s look, something the participation of artist David Gibbons no doubt facilitated.

But I definitely agree that, tonally, the film was way off, at times. The fight scenes were particularly painful. One of the great things about the comic book is that the heroes and heroines—with the exception of Dr. Manhattan—are just people. In the movie, they’re all super heroes, or at the very least, possess superhuman powers. How ridiculous was that fight scene in the alleyway, in which Nite Owl and the Silk Spectre gleefully pulverize a gang of thugs?

Daniel: I think a lot of things built up to destroy the tone of the comic book. One of the major ones was the music. The score was melodramatic and silly. It’s most noticeable in the scene when Rorschach and Dan Dreiberg meet up for the first time. It kicks in like some strange relic from early ‘80’s TV, completely undercutting the emotional impact of the scene, which, in the comic, is stark and sad. The song choices aren’t any better, with the notable exception of Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changin’,” which is used very effectively during the opening credits. “Hallelujah,” by Leonard Cohen is used during the Dan/Laurie sex scene really weirdly, making the scene a joke, as Dan is finally able to get it up after having been impotent in the film thus far. “Hallelujah,” get it? Genius. “All Along The Watchtower” is used to kick off the third act. It’s a song that was mentioned in the comic, so it’s an unsurprising choice for the film, but it feels tired and ridiculous here, narrating Rorschach and Nite Owl’s trip to Ozymandias’s “Watchtower.” The film ends with My Chemical Romance covering Bob Dylan’s “Desolation Row,” which I think serves as a wonderful metaphor for the entire movie. It’s a silly, stupid bastardization of something thoughtful and classic.

Joe: Well played. Anyway, the soundtrack was just atrocious—I’ll give you that. And speaking of the sex scene, how horribly awkward and out of place was that?

Daniel: Yeah, but it was hot, dude. I mean, Malin Akerman was giving the second worst performance in the film (after Matthew Goode’s weirdly Dutch-sounding performance as Ozymandias), so I mean, I was cool with her just getting naked and moaning for a bit. I’ve now seen Akerman in four films and she showed her tits in three of them (this, Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle and The Heartbreak Kid). If only she would stay out of potentially good movies, I’d be cool.

Joe: OK, Matthew Goode was terrible. Actually, Snyder’s whole conception of the Ozymandias/Veidt character was just way, way off. He’s charming and likeable in the early scenes of the comic book, whereas from his first appearance in the movie, he’s smug, preachy and clearly villainous. And at the end of the comic book, you actually sense that he regrets having had to kill so many people in the name of peace and international unity, whereas in the movie, he doesn’t seem to regret what he’s done at all.

I intended to defend the film, but I’ve spent more time criticizing it. Look, it’s not a good movie and it’s definitely not a good adaptation, but despite its flaws, I was won over by the stunning visuals, the visceral fight sequences (as tonally inappropriate as they were), and the outstanding performances by Jackie Earle Haley and Patrick Wilson. The movie was uninspired, yes, but there was also something touching about how much Snyder clearly worships the comic book. And some of the sequences (the one in which Jon Osterman transforms into Dr. Manhattan comes to mind) were so brilliantly realized, I simply can’t imagine it being done better by a Paul Greengrass or Terry Gilliam.

Daniel: Zack Snyder seems to be a nice guy, and a big comic book fan. And he gave us a very good remake of Dawn of the Dead, which inspired one of the funniest scenes in The 40-Year-Old Virgin. But now there is a bad Watchmen movie in existence. A really bad one. But, when I saw the film in theaters, during the scene where Rorschach cries out, “I’m not locked up in here with you, you are locked up in here with me,” some stupid bastard behind me, said far too loud, “I need to buy this book!” So there’s that. Maybe shitty movies will give comic books a bit more respect. That’s something I can live with.

TV Review: Castle

Wed, 11 Mar 2009 15:41:00 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

Somewhere, in a saner universe than our own, Nathan Fillion is the biggest movie star on the planet. He’s got matinee idol looks, he looks like he could take you in a fight, he’s as good at slapstick as he is at subtler verbal humor and he forces you to immediately care about the characters he plays, no matter how morally ambiguous they are. Unfortunately for his career and bank account, Fillion has historically chosen roles in difficult, unconventional films and television series destined from the start to be universally beloved critically while being watched by a very few devoted followers. He was Captain Malcolm Reynolds in Joss Whedon’s cult space western, Firefly, and its companioning theatrical release Serenity. He was a murderous and possibly immortal priest named Caleb in the last season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. He starred as a man entering a cross-country race in FOX’s wonderful Drive, which aired for two weeks before its cancellation. Last year, he brought his charm to theaters in the minor indie hit Waitress. But now Fillion has done something totally genius. Following a stint last year on ABC’s Desperate Housewives, he’s taken a role in a middling, but halfway decent, crime-of-the-week police procedural on ABC, which airs after Dancing With The Stars. If Castle is even remotely watchable on a weekly basis, it’s going to be a hit.

Castle is definitely watchable, but this is largely due to Nathan Fillion’s performance. The show feels like it was written for Fillion’s large personality, but Fillion may just be grafting his best personal tics onto a middling script by Andrew W. Marlowe, a screenwriter responsible for Air Force One (“Get off my plane!”), End of Days (“Maybe it’s not Christ In New York, but a name, like Christine York!”) and Hollow Man (Umm…”I’m Kevin Bacon, but you can’t see me!”). Fillion plays Richard Castle, a famous mystery writer, and a womanizer with heart of solid gold. The best scenes involve him taking care of his 15-year old daughter (the ridiculously charming Molly C. Quinn), a strait-laced high school student, who refuses both the champagne Castle offers her at his book release party and the snatch of whipped cream he wants to feed her like a baby bird, because she “already brushed.” Fillion has a better chemistry with her than he does with his obvious love interest, Kate Beckett, played by Stana Katic, an unmemorable actress who I’m not sold on yet. She plays Beckett like a huge stick in the mud, so it’s hard to root for her to end up with Castle. It’s also hard to see Castle want to pursue her, which he relentlessly does, going so far as to plant himself in her police precinct under the pretense of researching a series of books about a female police detective.

The crime stuff, involving a murderer taking his ideas from Castle’s lesser-read novels is standard broadcast TV procedural nonsense, and it’s populated with ciphers like the sassy black crime scene expert (a one-note Tamala Jones) and the wise old black police chief (Ruben Santiago-Hudson, probably missing being the creative force behind Lackawanna Blues). The thing to keep coming back for is Castle’s personal life, involving an ex-wife who remains his editor, that great father/daughter dynamic, and his live-in mom (Susan Sullivan, channeling Arrested Development’s Lucille Bluth), who proves he’s a chip off the old block.

Castle is underwhelming as anything other than a perfectly watchable cop show, but it may finally turn Nathan Fillion into a household name, just like he’s always deserved. You gotta do the mediocre stuff before you can make your art. Fillion’s finally learned that. Maybe Castle can bring about another Firefly film. And wouldn’t that make you appreciate this fine little show on another level?

ADVANCED Film Review: I Love You, Man

Mon, 09 Mar 2009 16:26:00 -0400

by Daniel Erenberg

I Love You, Man is a good film for only one reason. Its cast is phenomenal. Paul Rudd and Jason Segel carry this movie, completely elevating it beyond the rather uninspired material they are given. The film is also populated with such gifted comedic actors as Rashida Jones, Jon Favreau, Jaime Pressly, J.K. Simmons, Jane Curtin and Andy Samberg in appropriate supporting roles. This exact same script with a completely different cast would have resulted in something completely mediocre and unmemorable. But, dipping into the Judd Apatow casting pool ends up working as well for this film as it did for Role Models back in November, and director John Hamburg has given Rudd and Segel a supporting cast that can completely play off of their brilliance.

The structure of I Love You, Man is a charmer. It’s a romantic comedy about guys. Two guys become best friends, there’s a complication, they “break-up” and they somehow get back together and live happily ever after. And co-screenwriters Hamburg and Larry Levin give these two characters the proper motivations to seek each other out. Rudd plays the newly engaged Peter Klaven, who has always been a relationship guy, choosing to eschew male bonding in favor of coupling up with women. Segel plays Sydney Fife, a perpetual singleton left alone after all his drinking buddies have up and gotten lives and wives. After the set-up, the plot is fairly insignificant because the film becomes an excuse to put Rudd and Segel into situations where they are able to improvise dialogue and play off of each other. One of the best sequences comes when Segel first brings Rudd into his garage, tricked out with an absurd number of instruments, a massive Rush poster and a “masturbation station.” This leads to a long, but fascinatingly realistic scene where the two new bros discuss their masturbation habits. Segel’s disgusted look after Rudd admits to having masturbated to pictures of his own fiancée wearing a bikini is absolutely priceless.

It helps that director John Hamburg used to work on the Apatow series, Undeclared, which Segel was in. He shows that he’s very comfortable letting these actors just go off. Since Undeclared, Hamburg has been floundering in gross-out bullshit like Along Came Polly and, unfortunately, those tendencies come out a few times here, in ham-fisted sight gags involving dog shit, projectile vomit and Lou Ferrigno, but it is the verbal acrobatics of Rudd and Segel that is the whole show here. The two actors recently appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair, along with fellow Apatow actors Seth Rogen and Jonah Hill. The headline was “Legends of Comedy” (which sort of makes me feel bad for Martin Starr, Jay Baruchel, Bill Hader and Danny McBride) and it very well may not turn out to be the hyperbole that it seemingly is. Segel is now two-for-two, following leading roles in this and last year’s absolutely wonderful Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Rudd is on a seemingly endless streak of superb comedies, including lead roles in Role Models, Knocked Up and The 40 Year-Old Virgin (and let’s just ignore Over Her Dead Body, shall we?). “Legends of Comedy” it is, I guess. And I Love You, Man is another positive notch on their IMDB filmographies.

B+

The Smoke Monster vs. Ben Folds Five's "Smoke"

Tue, 03 Mar 2009 16:07:34 -0500

by Danielle Berg and Daniel Erenberg

The smoke monster of Lost is perhaps the show’s most mysterious element; “Smoke,” off Ben Fold Five’s album Whatever and Ever Amen is a fantastic song about a breakup. Dan and Danielle pitted these two contenders against each other to decide which is better. What they found was not the obvious conclusion they had predicted; led, perhaps, by destiny, they discovered some uncanny coincidences.

Here are some snippets from their conversation.

The Black Smoke Would Swallow/Impale Ben Folds Five

· When Locke finally had Ben all to himself, all he could ask was, “What is the smoke monster?” And no one would ask that about “Smoke” the song. It’s a sweet, pretty song about a breakup. That’s it.

· The black smoke has the capacity to kill anyone, it seems, but chooses carefully. We can appreciate discerning taste. Though, as Dan points out, we were obviously not finished with Meestah Eko. Unfortunately, we don’t call the shots. Jacob – or Richard? – does.

· Furthermore, “that motherfucker tore apart Mr. Eko so crazily that it almost made up for [him dying].”

· The CGI effect used to create the smoke monster is totally entrancing/a mindfuck.

· Dan likes the smoke monster so much, he maintains that all of Lost’s mysteries should be wrapped up at the end of the fifth season so that the sixth season can be 16 episodes of the smoke monster chasing people.

· If that happens, Lost will have to introduce so many new characters to kill off, because Danielle would like to see at least eight smoke-related deaths per episode.

· To do this, the writers could utilize their Nikki-and-Paolo strategy, placing these characters in flashback scenes they weren’t in the first time around – then kill them, this time smoke-monster style.

If the Smoke Monster Could Be Serenaded into Hiding, “Smoke” Might Be the Song to Do It

· “Smoke” would beat a lot of things in an awesome contest, says Dan.

· But not the smoke monster.

· “Smoke” reminds Danielle of a time in her life when she didn’t have to work and had no responsibilities. The smoke monster does not.

· A close look at the lyrics reveals a curious similarity: “All the things we’ve written in it/never really happened/All the people come and gone/never really lived.”

· There’s more: “Where do all the secrets live/they travel in the air” = whispers in the jungle.

· “Those who say the past is not dead/can stop and smell the smoke.”

· And finally: “You keep on saying the past is not even past/and you keep on saying/we are smoke.”

· Dan: “Is the smoke monster based on a Ben Folds Five song?”

· Danielle: “It must be.”

· Dan: Cause that actually would make the smoke monster a lot less cool.

Conclusion: The smoke monster wins, unless it’s actually based on the Ben Folds Five song.

Stray Thoughts

· Dan saw Walt in a Hot Pockets commercial last week.

· How dapper did Ben look when he was spying on Locke talking to Walt?

· Dan actually liked Ana Lucia, and the Nikki-Paolo crapisode.

· In his essay collection, Songbook, Nick Hornby writes about “Smoke” and the emotional resonance it carries for him.

Life On The TV Bubble

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:10:00 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

It occurred to me this week that we are a mere two and a half months away from the broadcast network upfront presentations. So I thought we could take a look at some existing shows that remain on the proverbial network bubble and whether they will or won’t and should or shouldn’t be cancelled. I’m not going to go into mid-season replacement shows like Dollhouse or Castle because it’s far too early to go into discussion. I also won’t be going into hit new shows like Lie To Me or total pieces of shit like Kath and Kim because, well, who really cares? I’m just going to read into a few decent-to-great shows that may or may not be on your TV dial next year.

The Show: Privileged

What Is It? A CW show based on a series of teen books called How To Teach The Filthy Rich, it follows an over-literate, manic twenty-something named Megan Smith (Joanna Garcia) as she moves into a Palm Beach mansion to tutor twin teens Sage (Ashley Newbrough), a rebellious socialite, and Rose, a sweet underachiever who actually wants to learn. She also flirts with Will, the cute rich guy next door, and her friend Charlie, who harbors an unrequited crush on her, all while trying to deal with her ex-alcoholic father, criminal sister and runaway mom.

Who is Responsible? Rina Mimoun, who you might remember from the great work she did on the WB’s Everwood.

Will It Be Renewed? It doesn’t seem likely at this point. The first season came to an early end last week, and the final episode only managed a 1.1 rating. But it could be brought back mid-season next year, much like what the CW is trying with Reaper.

Should It Be Renewed? It wouldn’t break my heart if it was cancelled, but it’s a sweet little appetizer of a show, with a good cast and characters. It’s one of those weird shows where, even if you think the writing and the storylines suck, you still want to watch the characters. And that’s to be valued. I’d like to see it renewed.

Season One Rating: B-

The Show: Reaper

What Is It? Another CW show, this one about a kid named Sam (Bret Harrison) whose soul was long ago sold by his parents to the Devil (Ray Wise) and now must work for him as a Reaper, collecting lost souls and dispatching them back to Hell, all while maintaining a job at the Work Bench (basically Home Depot), friendships with slacker friends Sock (Tyler Labine) and Ben (Rick Gonzalez) and a relationship with the beautiful Andi (Missy Peregrym). And it’s hilarious.

Who is Responsible? Tara Butters and Michelle Fazekas, who used to be X-Files writers.

Will It Be Renewed? It’s been renewed for a 13-episode second season, which kicks off this week. We’ll see how the ratings are, but it doesn’t look good. The show has been placed to go up against American Idol.

Should It Be Renewed? Indefinitely. After a shaky, formulaic start last season, the show really came into its own after the writer’s strike, with the addition of Ken Marino and Michael Ian Black to the cast as a gay demon couple. And Labine and Wise consistently give two of the best comedic performances on TV.

Season One Rating: B+

The Show: Life on Mars

What Is It? An ABC remake of a British show about a New York City policeman (Jason O’Mara) who is dispatched in the year 1973 after being hit by a car. There, he must deal with a world that seems completely alien to him and a police force that includes nut jobs like Harvey Keitel and Michael Imperioli and the charming female, “Officer No-Nuts” (Gretchen Mol). The 1970’s were a very different time, and Life On Mars makes that very blatantly clear.

Who is Responsible? Josh Appelbaum, Andre Nemec and Scott Rosenberg, who had previously created October Road, which was cancelled after two short seasons.

Will It Be Renewed? It’s definitely a possibility. It is, after all, a well-liked show with a great cast getting middling ratings. But it’s losing a lot of its Lost lead-in and the ratings have only been dropping. It’s also an expensive show to produce with all of the seventies music cues and it hasn’t seemed to pick up a cult following beyond the folks who discovered it when it was on after Grey’s Anatomy.

Should It Be Renewed? I don’t really care. Probably not, if I’m being honest. It’s become extremely formulaic, sort of a traditional cop procedural set in the seventies. It’s a much better premise than it is a show. Fans who desperately want to know what happens can just seek out the supposedly superior British version and have just as good a time.

Season One Rating: C

The Show: Worst Week

What Is It? Another British import, this one on CBS, about a walking calamity named Sam Briggs (Kyle Bornheimer) who can’t seem to get anything right, except for his relationship with his pregnant fiancée, Melanie Clayton (Erinn Hayes). This often leads to trouble with her ever-present parents (Kurtwood Smith and Nancy Lenehan), who are helping them plan their wedding.

Who is Responsible? Matt Tarses, who wrote many good episodes of Scrubs.

Will It Be Renewed? I’m guessing no, as the first season ended last month with very little fanfare. A new season of Rules of Engagement has taken its place. It should also be noted that, while Worst Week had pretty solid ratings, it lost about half of its lead-in, Two and a Half Men’s large audience.

Should It Be Renewed? Based on quality, yeah. Kyle Bornheimer is a spectacular comedic find and the writing was consistently good. Early on, the show was rightfully accused of ripping off Meet the Parents, but Worst Week handled the premise in a smarter and funnier way, with much more believable and likeable characters. But the show ended with Melanie and Sam married and with child, and with the Claytons beginning to warm up to Sam. So why come back? I sort of feel like we’ve already seen the whole story.

Season One Rating: A-

The Show: Chuck

What Is It? An NBC dramedy about a charming nerd named Chuck Bartowski (Zachary Levi) who has had all the secrets of the CIA and NSA implanted into his head. While maintaining a job as a member of the Nerd Herd (Think Geek Squad) at the Buy More (Think Best Buy), a friendship with even nerdier Morgan Grimes (Joshua Gomez) and a close relationship with his live-in sister Ellie (Sarah Lancaster) and her fiancée Captain Awesome (Ryan McPartlin), Chuck is protected from the evil Fulcrum by Major John Casey (Adam Baldwin) and Agent Sarah Walker (Yvonne Strahovski), who Chuck almost immediately falls in love with. She digs him too, but it can never be.

Who is Responsible? Josh Schwartz, who brought us The O.C. and Gossip Girl, and his friend, Chris Fedak.

Will It Be Renewed? It’s definitely a possibility, but you have to worry with Jay Leno monopolizing an hour of NBC’s primetime line-up next season. After all, some things are gonna have to get cancelled, and Chuck could very well be a casualty. Chuck is in its second season now and hasn’t proven that it could grow beyond what it already is in terms of ratings.

Should It Be Renewed? Fuck yes! It’s one of the best shows on television right now, consistently hilarious and moving, with a pitch-perfect cast, a fascinating, ever-expanding back-story and some damn fun action sequences. I’m more invested in this show than practically anything else on the air right now.

Season Two Rating: A

The Show: Heroes

What It It? A slowly dying phenomenon on NBC about a whole bunch of one-dimensional characters with powers. It’s like X-Men. Almost exactly like it, in fact. It used to be really great though.

Who is Responsible? Tim Kring, who also created Crossing Jordan.

Will It Be Renewed? NBC says probably, but I’m not so sure. The ratings are way down, and NBC was so embarrassed by headlines that wondered whether Heroes would ever be good again that they fired two of the show’s main writers, Jesse Alexander and Jeph Loeb. And Leno, once again, plays a factor.

Should It Be Renewed? I’m ready for it to die. I’ve never seen the quality of a show with that great a first season fall off so quickly. It’s actually pretty remarkable how mediocre it is now. I’d much rather see Chuck renewed.

Season Three Rating: C-

The Show: Scrubs

What Is It? A super-emo medical comedy about a maybe-crazy guy named John “J.D.” Dorian (Zach Braff) and his friends, Elliot Reid (Sarah Chalke), Chris Turk (Donald Faison) and Carla Espinosa (Judy Reyes), who is married to Turk. The show also has time for the doctor J.D. publicly idolizes, Perry Cox (John C. McGinley), the ex-Medical Chief Dr. Bob Kelso (Ken Jenkins) and a psychotic Janitor (Neil Flynn). The show experiments with narrative and visual devices a lot, and, over eight years on the air, has set up quite a fascinating little world in Sacred Heart Hospital, populated with endlessly entertaining characters and a massive supporting cast (including Dr. Beardface and Colonel Doctor).

Who is Responsible? The great Bill Lawrence, one of the co-creators of Spin City and Clone High.

Will It Be Renewed? While the current season has been advertised as its last, and Zach Braff has been confirmed to be leaving after this season, there is a possibility that ABC, who picked up Scrubs after NBC cancelled it last season, will renew it for another season with Dr. Cox teaching a new batch of interns.

Should It Be Renewed? No. The show remains good, but let’s let it go already. J.D. is the heart of the show and, if he’s gone, then the show should be as well. Also, Aziz Ansari, who plays the best of the new intern characters, has left to be on the new show Parks and Recreation, so we wouldn’t be getting that character continuing forward either. Let it go. Eight years is a really good run, and Lawrence wants to get going with his new show, Cougar Town, anyway.

Season Eight Rating: B+

The Show: The New Adventures of Old Christine

What Is It? A post-Seinfeld Julia Louis-Drefus vehicle about a manic and co-dependent single mother named Christine Campbell, who lives with her equally co-dependent brother Matthew (Hamish Linklater) and her best friend Barb (Wanda Sykes). She also hangs out with her ex-husband Richard (Clark Gregg), who has gotten engaged to a new girl named Christine (Emily Rutherfurd), hence the title.

Who is Responsible? Kari Lizer, who used to write for Will and Grace.

Will It Be Renewed? It really is on its last leg. It was a surprise renewal last year after it wasn’t brought back following the writer’s strike, and it would be an even bigger surprise this year.

Should It Be Renewed? After Lizer brought in many former Seinfeld and Friends writers for the second season, the show got quite good, but those days are gone now, and we really are in middling territory. I’d like to see the show renewed, mainly because it has quite a good cast, but the writers really have to get their shit together and figure out where they want to go with this.

Season Four Rating: C+

The Show: Friday Night Lights

What Is It? A brilliant portrait of the small town of Dillon, Texas, whose entire population is captivated by the local High School football team, the Dillon Panthers. The show follows the team’s coach (Kyle Chandler) and his family, along with many of the team’s players, past and present, and their families. The best characters include the coach’s wife (Connie Britton), the paralyzed ex-starting quarterback (Scott Porter), quarterback Matt Saracen (Kyle Gilford), who has to take care of his grandmother while his father is in Iraq, and Matt’s best friend, Landry (Jesse Plemons), who is in a local band called Crucifictorius.

Who is Responsible? Jason Katims, who used to be a major writer for My So-Called Life and Roswell, and Peter Berg, who directed the film based on the book that this show is based on.

Will It Be Renewed? I said no last year, but NBC brought it back in a deal that let it air on DirecTV before moving back over to NBC starting in January. So that may help it get a fourth season this year. But the ratings are pretty awful, so I wouldn’t count on it.

Should It Be Renewed? Oh yeah. Totally. After a second season that didn’t quite live up to its perfect freshman year, Friday Night Lights has rebounded with a perfect third season, full of the small moments and lived-in quality that made us fall in love with it in the first place.

Season Three Rating: A+

The Oscars: Minute By Annoying Minute

Sun, 22 Feb 2009 23:56:00 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

I’ve been watching the Red Carpet show on E! for an hour and I’m already pissed.

I should probably give you guys a disclaimer. I thought Slumdog Millionaire was a totally lame movie, and I don’t care what anyone says. And don’t try to explain the film to me. I don’t care that it’s a fairy tale. I don’t care that it’s being honest about real life events that have occurred in Mumbai. I don’t care that it’s an underdog masterpiece with many wonderful amateur actors. I don’t give a shit. I hated the “message,” I didn’t buy the plot contrivances and I thought the characters were motivated by completely false impulses, and it’s not “feel-good” if it just makes me feel disdain. Also, worst ending ever. And I’m referring to the phone call, the race across the train tracks, the “Destiny” choice and the Bollywood number. It was all awful. But it’s going to win Best Picture tonight. And it may be the worst Best Picture winner of all time. That’s right. Crash was better. So was Million Dollar Baby. So was Shakespeare in Love. If Slumdog wins tonight, it would be worse than if Little Miss Sunshine had beat The Departed three years ago or if Michael Clayton had taken down both No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood last year. The Academy is gonna be really embarrassed about this in a few years. Also, I’m sick of Danny Boyle’s smug face. So let’s get going. Time for the Oscars!

8:10- Danny Boyle is on the Red Carpet with lots of Indian people from the movie standing behind him. Smug, smug, smug, talking about how wonderful it is that these perfect and brilliant people can be there with him. Go away.

8:15- Jeez, Anne Hathaway is fine. And she gave one of my favorite performances of the year in Rachel Getting Married. I’m gonna go watch clips of her naked in Havoc and Brokeback online now. To prepare for the show! I swear!

8:24- Judd Apatow, Leslie Mann and Seth Rogen all on screen. My affection for them is quelling my hatred of Boyle and his band of Indians.

8:27- They’re describing the set. Apparently there are a lot of crystals. ‘Cause that’ll make Hugh Jackman, the gayest straight guy in show business, seem less gay.

8:30- The show begins quite pompously, but it’s offset by a promotion for Diet Coke.

8:31- Hugh Jackman comes out looking oddly young. I’m expecting a really lame song-and-dance performance from ol’ Wolverine, but he starts with some jokes. Very Bruce Vilanche, with lots of bad economy jokes.

8:32- The singing begins. Fuck. Those jokes are looking pretty good right about now.

8:33- Jackman singing “It’s okay to be gay” makes him look even gayer than I already thought he was.

8:35- Now Anne Hathaway is singing. This just got significantly hotter.

8:38- It ended okay, but I don’t miss Jon Stewart any less.

8:39- Jackman is sitting on Frank Langella’s lap. Okay! He’s straight! I get it!

8:40- A steroid joke. How topical!

8:41- A montage of supporting actress winners. Are they going to do this for every award? If so, waste of time. Also, remember when Whoopi Goldberg won an Oscar? Insane! Now she’s coming out on stage with four fellow winners, which include Tilda Swinton, looking more like Thom Yorke than ever. And they’re describing all the performances in great detail. Which seems unnecessary and time-consuming at this stage of the game.

8:43- Okay, I’m rooting for either Penelope Cruz or Marisa Tomei. I’m pretty sure Cruz is gonna win. I could also deal with Amy Adams winning. She was quite good in Doubt and she’s probably the woman in that room that I am most attracted to.

8:48- Penelope Cruz wins and she gives a nice, sweet acceptance speech in both English and Spanish.

8:53- Steve Martin and Tina Fey come out to present. They’ve been working together a lot lately. They’re strained, but funny. And they present Best Original Screenplay, complete with selections from the scripts, which is actually pretty cool and well done.

8:56- Dustin Lance Black wins for Milk, which I was both expecting and rooting for. So, great. Black, as it turns out, is a really young guy and he seems cool. And openly gay, which makes sense. And might be why the screenplay felt so damn authentic.

8:58- Fey and Martin are back out for Adapted Screenplay. They’re funnier this time than they were before. Martin implores, “Don’t fall in love with me.” Awesome.

9:01- Simon Beaufoy wins for Slumdog Millionaire. And so it begins. Even the excerpt from that screenplay was annoying: “She stands a world away from him.” Meh.

9:03- Jack Black and Jennifer Aniston present Best Animated Feature, so we cut to Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie in the audience, which is, perhaps, the tackiest thing I’ve ever seen. Jack Black makes an awesome joke about how Pixar wrecks Dreamworks at the Oscars every year. And he’s right, because they’re always better.

9:05- A clip montage of the Animated Features of the year. So we’re treated to clips from Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Space Chimps.

9:06- Wall-E wins. As it should be.

9:08- Black and Aniston are gonna go ahead and stay out to present Animated Short Film. I guess I’ll root for “Presto,” that one that was played in front of Wall-E.

9:09- The winner is “La Maison en Petits Cubes.” The director can’t really speak English. But, at the end, he says “Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto,” which is fucking hilarious.

9:15- Every time Jackman comes out, the band seems to play a jazzy little number. It’s lamer than it probably sounds.

9:16- We’ve got Daniel Craig and Sarah Jessica Parker (who looks better than usual) announcing Best Art Direction. That jazzy number is still playing and now it’s getting downright irritating.

9:17- Benjamin Button wins, because it had to win something. And that’s a nice choice. It probably deserved this award above all others.

9:19- Parker and Craig stay out there to present Costume Design, and that jazz shit is back. Motherfuck!

9:21- The Duchess wins. I didn’t think they’d go with something that predictable, but fine. Whatever. I can’t be that pissed off about Costume Design.

9:22- Parker and Craig are back for Makeup and so is that jazz number. This is getting ridiculous, and they’re getting more screen time, at this point, than Hugh Jackman. Which might not be the worst thing in the world.

9:24- Benjamin Button wins over The Dark Knight, and I’m cool with that. They probably deserve this one as well. Brad Pitt looks oddly moved by this. Probably because he had to spend a shit-ton of time in that makeup chair.

9:25- Robert Pattinson from Twilight is on stage, but who cares? Amanda Seyfried is presenting with him, and I absolutely love her! (And she’s been great on Big Love so far this season). They present a clip show of great romances in film this year. So, lots of Slumdog and, quite hilariously, Ryan Reynolds in Definitely Maybe making an appearance at the Oscars. But I was particularly happy to see a couple of clips from Forgetting Sarah Marshall. The whole thing is set to “Lovers In Japan,” by Coldplay, which is an okay song.

9:31- Ben Stiller, sporting a hilarious fake Joaquin Phoenix beard and sunglasses, comes out along with Natalie Portman to do Best Cinematography. Stiller is awesome and bizarrely accurate in his impersonation. Natalie Portman says, “You look like you came from a Hassidic Meth Lab,” which is also funny. Now, Stiller is just wandering around on stage. This is the highlight of my night so far.

9:35- Slumdog wins, and it must be asked: Just because a film is shot in a good-looking part of the world, does that mean the cinematography was great? This is a trap the Oscars often fall into, but Slumdog’s cinematography was actually pretty good, so I’m not overly pissed about this one.

9:36- I’m sick of looking at Danny Boyle and his yellow teeth.

9:38- Hey! Jessica Biel is presenting! Why?! Okay, they always get a random hot girl to present the technical awards. I guess it’s her this year. Jessica Alba might have done it last year. I vaguely remember that.

9:42- A Comedy montage kicking off with a hilarious Pineapple Express clip created directly for the Oscars! Awesome! This may be one of the funniest things I’ve ever watched. And Oscar-winning cinematographer Janusz Kaminski showed up, which is just strange.

9:45- Now, Seth Rogen, James Franco and Kaminski are presenting Best Live Action Short Film, and the winner is “Spielzeugland,” which sounds absolutely hilarious coming from the mouth of James Franco. And Rogen laughs at his pronunciation, which is even funnier. Wait a second. Why aren’t James Franco and Seth Rogen hosting the Academy Awards? Let’s start campaigning for next year, shall we?

9:52- “You’re probably wondering why I’m wearing this suit,” says Hugh Jackman. No, but you’re probably going to tell me. Apparently it’s because the musical is back. So Jackman is gonna give another singing/dancing performance, complete with tap dancing.

9:53- Oh, wait! Beyonce is joining him! Whoa! She’s becoming sort of ubiquitous, in a bad way. They’re singing a bunch of songs from classic musicals. The songs are good, but the performance is so ridiculous that I can’t even believe I’m watching it. But I guess I’m really not. I’m using this time to type and pretend it isn’t actually happening. So hey guys. Keep me occupied here okay. Oh! I just got a text! Score!

9:55- Oh, just what we needed: A brief reprise of Beyonce’s “At Last” inauguration party performance. But Amanda Seyfried just showed up, so it got a little bit better, but still not really tolerable. And Zac Efron’s hat fell off when he bowed again. Nice.

10:01- A pretty predictable clip show of supporting actor winners pops up. Oh, what a surprise. “Show me the money!” Jack Palance doing a one-armed push-up! Yay! And it looks like Christopher Walken is here to present, along with other cool guys like Alan Arkin, Joel Grey and Kevin Kline. And Cuba Gooding Jr. is there, snubbed last year for Daddy Day Camp. Wait, Alan Arkin just said, “Seymour Phillip Hoffman.” Awkward!

10:07- Kevin Kline’s tribute to Heath Ledger is actually quite moving. And Ledger, deservedly, wins his posthumous Oscar for a truly remarkable performance. And, on a personal note, a comic book film just won a major award, so that is a milestone I am very happy with. Ledger’s family comes up to accept the award, which is genuinely sweet, and a little bit heartbreaking.

10:11- A Documentary montage, featuring Werner Herzog being bad-ass, just like always.

10:13- Bill Maher is here to present the Documentary award to something other than Religulous. And that something is Man On Wire, the only one of these films I actually saw. It was totally awesome though, so I’m happy with this. Also, the Man on the Wire just did a disappearing-coin magic trick and balanced his Oscar on his face. It just got even more awesome.

10:17- Documentary Short Subject, and we’re still with Maher. The winner is called Smile Pinki, which is an adorable name. Is the film about a bunch of kittens rolling around in a blow-up swimming pool? I hope so. But, no. It’s about children with clefts. That’s really, really different.

10:22- Jackman introduces a montage of this year’s action movies. So we get to see Speed Racer and The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Empire one last time.

10:25- Will Smith comes out to the Dark Knight music because we’ve already forgotten Hancock. He’s here to present Best Visual Effects, and the award goes to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. So that’s another thing it has in common with Forrest Gump.

10:28- Will Smith also presents Outstanding Sound Editing, but takes uncomfortably long in figuring out how to say the word “Outstanding.” Dark Knight wins. Awesome.

10:30- Smith is back for Sound Mixing. I’m kind of done with this guy. I just can’t stand his schtick anymore. And he still sounds like The Fresh Prince to me. Slumdog Millionaire wins. Fine.

10:33- Danny Boyle’s maniacal smile leads me to believe he would be a wonderful Joker in the next Batman film.

10:34- Why the fuck is Will Smith still on the fucking screen? Christ! Anyway, he’s presenting Editing. Slumdog Millionaire’s editing was actually one of the only truly impressive things about that film, so it’ll probably win. And it does. The editor, charmingly, is an insanely white (albino?) guy who seems as though he’s never been to India, despite his claims.

10:37- After the break, there’s going to be a tribute to Jerry Lewis. I may or may not take this time to go online and see if that Rogen/Franco/Kaminski clip is up anywhere yet.

10:41- Eddie Murphy opens up the proceedings for the humanitarian award that Jerry Lewis is getting. Also, second Coldplay song of the night as “Viva La Vida” plays over the annoying Jerry Lewis montage. I’m actually watching a montage of clips from Jerry Lewis telethons right now. What the fuck is going on?

10:44- Jerry comes out to accept his award and gets a standing ovation. Maybe it’s just because I’m young, but really? Why? Because all the winners of this award do? Also, did Jerry have a stroke at some point? He’s sounding a little stroke-y. But better than Dick Clark, and his speech is short and very gracious. Maybe I’ve been too hard on the Nutty Professor.

10:50- The Academy Award Orchestra (led by Lost composer Michael Giacchino) does selections from the nominated Scores. This is actually wonderful, and really calls attention to the losers. Slumdog sounded especially good in this setting.

10:53- Zac Efron and Alicia Keys come out for some reason and present the Score category. A.R. Rahman wins for his truly great Slumdog Millionaire score. Now the Academy just needs to STOP giving this film awards. Immediately.

10:55- Uh-oh. Here come the Best Song performances and we don’t even get to see Bruce Springsteen perform his incredible and moving “The Wrestler” because it is, inexplicably, not nominated. Instead, A.R. Rahman is back out performing “O…Saya” with a bunch of back-up dancers. Lame.

10:57- John Legend is performing “Down To Earth,” the Peter Gabriel song from Wall-E. It breaks up the two Slumdog songs quite nicely, but the song is incredibly lame outside of the context of the film it was written for.

10:59- And now, here is “Jai Ho,” the song from that horrible, horrible Bollywood dance sequence from the end of Slumdog. This song is actually better outside of the context of its film, and it’s probably going to win, because it’s so easily identified with the film. Insanely, John Legend comes back at the end to sing the chorus of “Down To Earth” to the tune of “Jai Ho.” Odd.

11:00- “Jai Ho,” predictably, wins. But, in my heart, The Boss is up there.

11:05- Liam Neeson comes out with the finest of the Slumdog ladies (Frida Pinto? Is that her name?). They’re rocking the Foreign Film category. The only nominee I’ve seen is Waltz With Bashir, which was great, but Departures wins, which is a Japanese film that looks quite interesting. The director is “berry, berry happy,” which is adorable.

11:10- Queen Latifah is here. Remember All Hail The Queen? I totally miss those days. I don’t really care about the Queen anymore. Especially now that she’s crooning a song over the “In Memoriam” reel and doing a very mediocre job.

11:12- Bummer. Bernie Mac and Michael Crichton are dead. And Pat Hingle, the old Commisioner Gordon. And Charles Joffe, Woody Allen’s old producer. And Roy Scheider, our erstwhile sheriff. And, oh, there’s Isaac Hayes, the best Chef ever, and Ricardo Montalban. Khaaaaan! The guy who wrote Rear Window died. Whoa. And there’s the amazing Mr. Heston. And Anthony Minghella, who gave us The Talented Mr. Ripley. And, finally, there’s Mr. Paul Newman. But, if I may say, this was a horribly produced segment, not up to the usual standard of the Oscars. Queen Latifah was horribly tacky and they kept the camera away from the screen that was showing the departed folks. That sucked, Oscars. Worst moment of the night, even beating Beyonce and Hugh Jackman singing “Mamma Mia.” Get your shit together, dicks.

11:18- The President of the Academy stands up in the audience and, thankfully, does not give a speech.

11:19- Reese Witherspoon is here to give out the Best Director award. Please no Danny Boyle, please no Danny Boyle. I’m hoping for either Gus Van Sant or David Fincher.

11:20- FUUUUUUUUUUUCK! NOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Danny Boyle comes up to accept his award for Slumdog Millionaire. He’s a sweet guy and a talented filmmaker, and he gives a good speech here. But he does not deserve this award. No way, no how.

11:25- A Best Actress winner montage, and some actresses come out. I’m not a Nicole Kidman or Halle Berry fan, but the other three are damn good actresses. Shirley Maclaine, Marion Cotillard (looking beautiful) and Sophia Loren (looking like a monster) are all good to see up there. I’m gonna go ahead and root for Hathaway and Mery Streep because they gave the two best female performances of the year.

11:32- Kate Winslet wins and I’m incredibly happy that she now has an Oscar in her possession because she may be the finest actress in the world right now. But did it really have to be for The Reader? It was one of her weaker performances in one of her weaker films. But, whatever, man. She should have won years ago so I’m very pleased with this. Also, she asked her dad to whistle so she knew where he was and he did so, which was a very sweet moment.

11:37- Our Best Actor presenters are Robert Deniro, Ben Kingsley, Anthony Hopkins, Adrien Brody and Michael Douglas. It’s a terribly fine collection of actors. Also, why the fuck is Michael Douglas playing a ghost in Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with Matthew McConaghuey? Deniro is particularly awesome in this setting. So, Penn or Rourke better win. And I’d be totally, totally cool with either one.

11:43- After those speeches, I’m slightly bummed that Mickey Rourke didn’t win. Instead, Sean Penn wins for his absolutely stunning performance as Harvey Milk. The man is a genius and he completely deserves this Oscar. And he keeps calling people “Commie, homo-loving sons of guns,” which rules. He ends the speech with a scathing indictment of those who voted against gay marriage. Because of the film he is winning for, this does not seem out-of-place and annoying, but appropriate and sad. He finishes up calling Mickey Rourke his “brother,” which is sweet.

11:47- Hey kids! It’s Steven Spielberg!

11:49- Oh my god. A film that uses Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? as its framing sequence is about to win Best Picture at the Oscars, isn’t it?

11:52- Yup. Slumdog Millionaire is the best picture of the year. So who really gives a shit anymore?

Music Review: It's Not Me, It's You, by Lily Allen

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 18:29:00 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

“Not Fair,” the third track on Lily Allen’s new album, represents everything that is great about her as an artist. It’s a break-up song about a guy who is perfect in every way, with the apparently massive exception that he’s terrible in bed. The lyrics are cutting and laugh-out-loud funny, calling attention to those aspects of relationships that no one really talks about aloud. And, importantly, Allen never comes across mean or unreasonable. She’s just unsatisfied and just about ready to call it quits. Meanwhile, the music, co-composed by Greg Kurstin, half of the pop duo The Bird & the Bee, is an exhilarating cut-time jig, punctuated by spaghetti-western guitar bends and mechanical drumming. The best verse I’ve heard this year so far must be: “Oh I lie here in the wet patch/ In the middle of the bed/ I’m feeling pretty damn hard done by/ I spent ages giving head/ Then I remember all the nice things that you ever said to me/ Maybe I’m just overreacting, maybe you’re the one for me.”

When Allen concentrates on marrying these sharp personal narratives to innovative pop music, she’s absolutely brilliant. But, on It’s Not Me, It’s You, Allen is feeling a bit headier than last time out. She’s worried about fame and drugs and George W. Bush and religion. And that’s where the album has huge faults. The worst offender is “Him,” one of those “What if God was one of us” rants that pop stars always think will be a profound statement, but come out sounding like total bullshit (“Do you think he’d drive in his car without insurance/ Now is he interesting or do you think he’d bore us?”). There’s even a few sentiments cribbed from the Bright Eyes rant “When The President Talks to God.” Allen has her own Bush rant on this record, entitled “Fuck You.” Musically, it’s one of the more interesting tracks on the album, with its ironically sunny piano part and bombastic chorus. When Allen gets down to the chorus, devolving into a passionate “Fuck you very, very much,” the song becomes one of the best things she’s written, but the lyrics in the verses are the typical musings of someone who has learned everything he or she knows about politics from The Daily Show (“So you say it’s not OK to be gay, well I think you’re evil”).

Finally, while Kurstin’s musical choices are usually exhilarating (as on the club-friendly “Everyone’s At It” or the polka of “Never Gonna Happen”) he too often succumbs to a mainstream radio-friendly sheen that doesn’t service the songs in the same way that Mark Ronson’s experimental pop of Allen’s first record did. “I Could Say” and “Who’d Have Known” are flat-out boring, and Lily Allen albums should be anything but boring. But, when this album reaches its heights, it’s about as great as mainstream pop music can be. “Not Fair” is my anthem of the year so far and, I suspect, shall remain so for months to come.

Dollhouse--Episode One: "Ghost"

Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:40:00 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

I’ve been very reluctant to review the Dollhouse pilot since it aired on Friday. Since the launch of Slow Century Magazine, it’s the only thing that people have actually requested I write about. In fact, friends of mine have asked me to review each episode individually, which is something I haven’t done with anything yet. You have to understand. As I’ve stated elsewhere on the site, part of my background comes in Joss Whedon studies. I wrote my undergraduate thesis about the use of foreshadowing in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Indeed, I wrote a weekly column for three years over at Slayage.com, which has been cited in multiple published books about Buffy and Angel. So now here is Dollhouse, the first new Whedon show since Firefly got cancelled back in December of ’03. I have high hopes for it, and I still do after watching the pilot. But Joss Whedon shows are always slow starters, stumbling out of the gate before becoming the masterpieces you can see at their cores.

The bones of Dollhouse are great. Whedon sets up the world of the show beautifully in the pilot. Whedon regular (and Dollhouse producer) Eliza Dushku plays Echo, a “doll” in the Dollhouse of the title, which is a covert operation that completes “experiences” for its willing clients. In the pilot, Echo must become a hostage negotiator. Next week, she’s the perfect girlfriend. To complete these missions, the Dollhouse and, more specifically, its tech guy Topher (an engaging and darkly funny Fran Kranz) put memory and skill implants into the heads of the “dolls.” It’s a complex premise, but Whedon sets it up for the viewer easily, without it seeming too silly or complicated.

The supporting cast is beautifully assembled, especially the addition of Battlestar Galactica’s Tahmoh Penikett as FBI agent Paul Ballard, who is investigating the Dollhouse. With Echo’s memory getting wiped in every episode, he’s really the character that the audience can root for. After all, what the Dollhouse is doing for its clients is questionable at best, and what it’s doing to its employees is simply monstrous. Boyd Langdon (Harry Lennix) is also a helpful character to the audience because he is the only Dollhouse employee that actually seems troubled by what he is taking part in.

The Dollhouse pilot is given the unenviable task of setting up the universe of the show, introducing the cast satisfactorily, sending Echo on a mission-of-the-week and introducing a new Doll, the bad-ass Sierra. Somehow, it manages this, but the weak link is the mission. As audiences grow tired of serialized shows, creators of complex narratives seem to be retreating to an episode-by-episode structure (J.J. Abrams on Fringe or Amy Sherman-Palladino on last year’s The Return of Jezebel James to name a couple off the top of my head), and Dollhouse is not an exception. Now, Whedon is historically great at this. A lot of the most memorable episodes of Buffy and Angel were those special one-off experiments like “Restless” (the dream one), “Hush” (the silent one), “Once More With Feeling” (the musical one) or “Smile Time” (the puppet one). This premise allows Whedon to run completely wild, but “Ghost” is stuck with an establishing exercise, a boring kidnapping case better suited for something like Law and Order or NCIS. I never connected to the case, and spent every moment longing for a check-in on what was going on back at the Dollhouse.

Another problem right off the bat, it must be said, is Dushku. Her acting range is, shall we say, questionable and her performance in this episode was somewhat uninspiring. As the constantly re-imagined Echo, Dushku is required to play a different character every week. Back in the Buffy days, Whedon had her character switch minds with Buffy (in the “This Year’s Girl”/”Who Are You” two-parter), but, while Sarah Michelle Gellar was incredibly impressive playing Eliza Dushku, Dushku was never that convincing. And, as a hostage negotiator here, she just seems like Eliza Dushku in glasses.

That being said, it’s a Joss Whedon show, and it’s on television. Because of this, I am a horrible person to be reviewing this because I couldn’t be happier.

B+

When I Watch You, I Really Pretend I’m Watching Something Else

Mon, 16 Feb 2009 12:55:00 -0500

by Danielle Berg

MTV’s The City is the television show you don’t admit you watch, unless you’re watching to be ironic, or to stay updated on The Cut’s hilarious recaps. I watch it. But I’m not doing it (primarily) for the reasons above. I’m watching it for the same reasons we fall in love with slightly less attractive, less intelligent versions of our greatest loves; why we order the same dish at a restaurant even though it’s changed owners and our Curry Supreme will never be as good. I’m watching it to bring back My So-Called Life.

Some of the elements are already there, but some have a little way to go. I’ve compiled a guide to help The City become more like one of the greatest television series of the ’90s.

Whitney: B

You’re searching for yourself, and that’s good. Angela Chase might have found herself by this point, in her twenties, but she was middle class, living in Pittsburgh, and people brought guns to her high school. It’s okay: you were sheltered, and we understand that it’ll take you a little longer.

Suggestions for improvement:

- Start writing stories about being a sleeping girl in a gingerbread house.

- Your voiceovers leave room for improvement. Instead of, “Of all the people I’ve met in New York, Olivia is definitely the most opinionated,” try something like, “Olivia is, like, so opinionated. Anyway, I, like, totally love Jay. When he’s nearby, my whole body knows it.”

- A good way to find yourself is to dye your hair red. “Crimson Glow” worked really well for Angela. Not sure if they still carry that, though.

Jay: B+

Well done. You’re the 20^th century Jordan Catalano. No longer living in the decade of grunge, you wear very tight jeans and bright sunglasses. Just like Jordan, you’re very cute until you talk, and you’re in a sub-par band. If there were a basement boiler room somewhere, you’d have taken Whitney there to make out.

Suggestions for improvement:

- Admit that you can’t read. It will make you a more complicated character, and make some of your less supportive viewers feel bad for you.

- Make a friend whom you talk about all the time, but the audience never sees.

Erin: A-

Just like Sharon, you’re genuinely a good best friend. Also, you’re promiscuous. Keep up the good work!

Olivia: C+

You’re the best candidate for Rayanne Graff’s role, but you have a long way to go. Like Rayanne, you’re visibly jealous of Whitney’s life; but Rayanne liked Angela, and while you do a decent job of pretending to like Whitney, we need you to really like her. The good thing is, you have a male sidekick who is (pretending not to be) gay, and like Angela’s, your hair is long and wavy.

Suggestions for improvement:

- Rayanne had a really bad drinking problem. We don’t want you to have a drinking problem, too, because that would be awful; but some kind of really deep, serious secret issue that makes you rely on Whitney will make you a more sympathetic character (like Jay, after revealing his inability to read), while highlighting Whitney’s role as the metaphorical angel.

- Fans are already predicting this: you’ll have to hook up with Jay. It will hurt Whitney very badly, but she keeps talking about whether she can trust you, and this will finally give her an answer.

Nevan: D

The only thing you’ve done right so far is hang out with your cousin, Olivia. Ricky Vasquez is loveable and ponderous. You are loathsome and pompous.

Suggestions for improvement:

- We’re all confused that you’re heterosexual. If you are, there’s nothing wrong with that, but please stop talking about girls so we can at least pretend you’re gay. This will work, because for the most part, Ricky only alluded to being “different,” and we don’t really need a solid answer here.

- Stop being a bitch. Ricky was nothing but adorable, at all times.

Also, we need a Brian Krakow. Alex from episode two seemed like he might work, but he was a model, and that’s not very Brian. That accountant who worked at DVF and took Whitney on a date was a better option, but he hasn’t returned since. Ideally, we need casting to locate the nerdy boy who grew up with Whitney and lived across the street. And do it soon, because Jay really needs a foil who’s not Adam.

Friday Night: Where Good TV Goes To Die

Thu, 12 Feb 2009 14:43:18 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

With Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse set to premiere this Friday night, it must finally be said and agreed upon that Friday is currently the best night of the week for TV. After all, NBC and Sci-Fi are airing near-perfect seasons of Friday Night Lights and Battlestar Galactica, respectfully, and FOX is working hard to create a Geek brand on Friday nights by pairing Dollhouse with Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. Of course, how long are these shows for the world? Friday night has now been a historically great night for quality TV, but most of the shows I’m thinking of are long-cancelled and forgotten by everyone who doesn’t own one of those depressing “Complete Series” DVD sets that never have endings.

In the lead-up to the Dollhouse premiere, FOX has attempted to assuage fan fear of cancellation by referring to The X-Files, a similarly cult-based show which premiered successfully on Friday nights in 1993 before moving to Sundays and becoming a phenomenon. Unfortunately, 1993 was a different time in TV history, when Friday time slots were still looked upon as perfectly viable. Probably the most successful show on Fridays right now is the Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle Ghost Whisperer, which hit a season high 9 million viewers recently. This is very big for a Friday night audience and a lot of the networks will have you believe that it is because it is a Friday night Sci-Fi/Fantasy show and geeks stay home on Friday nights because they are all sad bastards who would rather watch Battlestar than get laid. Now, while this is true of me, it’s an untrue stereotype. And the networks have given us this schtick before. Remember Firefly, the last Whedon cancellation? Remember CBS’ Threshold, that promising alien invasion series starring Carla Gugino and Peter Dinklage? Remember those non-Files Chris Carter shows, Harsh Realm, The Lone Gunmen and Millennium, all of which premiered on Fridays and were swiftly cancelled? How about Bruce Campbell’s The Adventures of Brisco County Jr. or James Cameron’s Dark Angel or Mike White’s Pasadena? The list is just endless. So why should Dollhouse be any different?

Last year, NBC placed the struggling-but-brilliant Friday Night Lights on Fridays amidst much fanfare. Remember those commercials? “Friday Night Lights is finally where it belongs. On Fridays!” Typical network spin. Do they really not think they’re dropping that show off on Friday night so it could die quietly? Joss Whedon responds to the Dollhouse appointment thusly:

“You know, I feel fine about it. I know that it has a bad reputation. But so do the executives who built the sort of Terminator/Dollhouse entity, and they’ve been very up-front about a different expectation about audience numbers and slow growth. I think that they get—in a way that they really didn’t back in the days of Firefly—that genre is … something where a small group embraces it, and then it bleeds out.”

Either Joss Whedon is seriously deluding himself or he’s terrific at spinning network bullshit even further. Maybe part of that is true. If Dollhouse gets over a 4 rating, it might be considered a success. But it probably won’t. The appointment seems even harsher after the originally announced timeslot of Mondays at 8, one of the most high-profile slots you can get. But I guess FOX thought 24 and House needed an even bigger boost. I get that it’s business, but why develop interesting shows only to watch them disappear as quickly as they were produced?

You know who has it right, yet again? Cable. AMC, HBO and Showtime throw their new shows at the screen on Sunday nights and it isn’t a coincidence that they rarely have out-and-out failures. Those young, edgy viewers in the 18-49 demographic that the networks so clearly covet are going out on Friday nights. It’s why the Firefly and, indeed, Friday Night Lights DVDs have sold so well. They don’t mind waiting. But they’re home on Sunday nights getting ready for their work week. So they’re gonna watch Mad Men and Breaking Bad and Dexter and Big Love and Flight of the Conchords. And FOX knows it. That’s why The Simpsons and Family Guy are still on Sunday nights, and that’s why The X-Files was moved there ever so long ago. So, as excited as I am about it (and it really is the only thing in my life that has any meaning right now, hence my frustration), Dollhouse will probably not be on the 2009-2010 schedule and I’m gonna have another “Complete Series” DVD on my Joss Whedon shelf to keep Firefly company.

In Memoriam:

Pasadena. Sadly, yet to get a DVD collection.

Sad, sad, sad. Any Friday-Night brilliant-but-cancelled I left out? Post your memories in the comments section. And just remember: Freaks and Geeks got fucked harder than all of these. That show was dropped off on Saturday nights. The ultimate insult.

Comic Book Review: Secret Warriors #1, by Jonathan Hickman, Brian Michael Bendis and Stefano Caselli

Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:23:48 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

Comic books will never be understood by mainstream audiences, and it’s all the fault of the comic book companies. Here, Marvel have a wonderful new book, written by the interesting indie creator Jonathan Hickman, doing his first mainstream comic book work, co-plotted by superstar writer Brian Michael Bendis and penciled beautifully by rising star Stefano Caselli. But, if a single non-obsessive, ordinary human being were to pick up this book, they’d be completely lost. I can barely explain the origin of this comic without getting dead-eyed stares from laymen.

Secret Warriors, as a concept, was introduced last summer during the big Secret Invasion crossover event. Its main cast was seen getting recruited by former S.H.I.E.L.D. director Nick Fury in two random issues of Mighty Avengers, a Bendis-written Avengers book. The main characters of that comic were not in these two issues. It was just sort of taken over by the Secret Warriors characters for a couple months while the Avengers were fighting the alien Skrulls in Secret Invasion. The concept of the book, which continues in the main title, whose first issue this is supposed to be a review of, is that Nick Fury, on the run from the United States Government and with a completely disintegrated trust in the men in power, recruits a new team using what are called Caterpillar Files—basically a database of young, powered individuals yet to be snatched up by the government. Bendis created all of these new characters and set them up masterfully in the Mighty Avengers issues in which they were introduced. Hickman manages to continue that trend here. He’s an untested writer that Marvel has already shown their confidence in, having assigned him the post of Fantastic Four writer, following Mark Millar’s best-selling run on the book. We’re gonna see a lot more of this guy and that is most definitely a good thing. His character work is spot-on. You can really hear the different voices of these characters rattling off the page. He also handles the brief action sequence arguably better than Bendis would have if he were scripting here.

If this issue was actually the third issue of the ongoing series, following those two Bendis-scripted issues of Mighty Avengers, this could be an accessible, exciting read. I would be recommending the shit out of this to everyone who would listen. Unfortunately, if you aren’t a Mighty Avengers reader, you’re probably not gonna understand what the hell is going on in this thing. And that’s a shame, because Marvel has something really great here.

A-

New York Comic Con Coverage: Day 3 (of 3)

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 23:35:57 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

It was impossible for me to be too depressed today, because I was about to see two of my three modern TV idols in person. I feel as though Joss Whedon, Josh Schwartz and J.J. Abrams are at the top of the heap in terms of TV writing these days (I’m gonna go ahead and wait until Matthew Weiner’s follow-up to Mad Men to add him to this list). Abrams wasn’t going to be attending the con this year—though I was psyched for the panel for his new show, Fringe—but Whedon was there to promote his new one, Dollhouse, and Schwartz was in attendance to talk about his sophomore season slump-defying Chuck.

Chuck was first up on my list, which I was very excited about, but on my way to the panel, I passed by the line for the Dollhouse panel, which was already ridiculously long even two and a half hours before its scheduled start time. This made me nervous, but not nervous to pass up Chuck. The panel started with a long, spoiler-laden exclusive trailer for the second half of the current second season of the show, and it doesn’t seem like it’s going to dip in quality any time soon. The action was kinetic, the laughter by the audience members at the jokes was completely genuine and the dialogue was in top form in the short clips we saw. Chuck was the first Josh Schwartz show that I was able to get into because I dismissed his other two as shallow crap sight unseen. But I spent the better part of August watching the entirety of The O.C. which is probably the best teen show since Freaks and Geeks, by the way, and was able to catch up on Gossip Girl on DVD before the second season began. Schwartz is three for three in my mind, so I was very excited to see him at this panel. He came with Chuck co-creator Chris Fedak and lead actress Yvonne Strahovsky, who might be the most beautiful human being I’ve ever laid eyes upon in real life. It relieved me to hear the three of them so confident that the fledgling show would be renewed for a third season, and it was nice to see fans fill up one of the bigger conference rooms in support of it. In fact, the fans seemed pretty obsessive, which made me happy, as I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one. At the end of the panel, a teenage girl who was sitting in front of me went up to Schwartz with a poster of “Atomic County,” a fictional comic book that was set up on The O.C. Schwartz’s eyes lit up and he signed it immediately. Watching that was the happiest moment of my con experience.

Until I got into the Dollhouse panel and Joss Whedon came out. Now, you have to understand. I’m pretty nuts about Joss Whedon. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite television show of all time, the fourth season of Angel is, in my opinion, as good as a full season can get, I went to see Serenity three times the day it came out and I’ve watched the entireties of all three of his series more times than I care to admit. But wait. There’s more. My first internet writing gig was as a weekly columnist for Joss Whedon fansite, Slayage.com, I’ve been cited in books about Buffy and Angel by Keith Topping and Nikki Stafford, and my undergraduate thesis was called “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn: Foreshadowing in the Buffyverse.” So I guess you can say I’m pretty excited about Dollhouse. Well, Whedon brought the first act of the pilot to Comic Con, and it’s good. Not great yet, but good. Whedon’s shows are almost always growers, but this one is off to a pretty good start. There’s a bit of a cheesy dance/motorcycling sequence, but the exposition is intriguing, the characters are already well-defined, and there’s loads of metaphorical subtext, something Whedon is the best at. The show is about a place called The Dollhouse, which employs human beings that are programmed to perform specific experiences for the company’s clients. After these “experiences” are finished, the minds of the “dolls” are wiped completely clean. But one such “doll,” named Echo (Eliza Dushku) begins to remember things. It’s sort of a bleak concept for a show, so much so that it can really be looked at as a metaphor for human trafficking. Whedon also says it’s been called both a feminist perspective of a woman fighting to discover herself and a misogynist’s biggest fantasy, and that this debate is warranted and intentional. Dollhouse is ambitious and on Friday nights and created by Joss Whedon, so don’t expect it to last too long. But do expect it to be damn good. “I’m such a bitter, sad man,” Whedon told the crowd. “And this is my bitter, sad show. Welcome to it!”

After Joss was done (plus actor Tahmoh Penikett, who you may know as Helo from Battlestar Galactica, but who I barely noticed because I’m too obsessed with Joss Whedon), the entire cast of Fringe took the stage, along with writer Jeff Pinkner. The cast was animated and well-spoken, particularly the surprisingly charming Anna Torv, who is much more captivating in person than she is in the show. Wire actor Lance Reddick endeared himself to me forever by admitting that he is a big Ultimate Spider-Man fan, and Joshua Jackson responded to three Mighty Ducks references with well-timed quips about Gordon Bombay and the legendary triple-deke. Fringe has turned into quite a strong little show, so it was great to see the auditorium remain full following the Dollhouse panel.

After Fringe I walked over to the Life On Mars panel but it was too depressing because only about a quarter of the room was full, and everyone seemed to be milling about during a screening of this week’s new episode. It was awkward, so I left. And that was the last thing I cared about, so I left the Jacob Javits Center entirely. On my way home, I saw Bill Hader on the street. I later found out that he was at Comic Con today to announce a new Spider-Man comic that he is co-writing with Saturday Night Live head writer Seth Meyers.

I like Comic Book Conventions. It’s a place where awkwardness and lack of social skills just aren’t noticed or given a second thought. It’s accepted and even encouraged. I think every attendee has been picked on at one point or another. But no one gets picked on at Comic Con. We just geek out for three days. And what could be better than that?

New York Comic Con Coverage: Day 2 (of 3)

Sun, 08 Feb 2009 00:46:00 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

Like the middle chapter of most trilogies, the second day of Comic Con felt a bit like filler, killing time until the grand conclusion. I woke up in better spirits this morning (though still not great) and walked over to the Javits Center with my head held medium-high. There were only two Saturday panels that I really gave a shit about and those were Cup O’ Joe, a regular Comic Con affair, which is, basically, just a chance to listen to Marvel Comics Editor-in-Chief Joe Quesada answer fan questions, and a spotlight panel about J. Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 and a guy whose comic career has included excellent runs on Thor and The Amazing Spider-Man.

When I got to the con, I went straight to the Cup O’ Joe panel and was pleased that Quesada wasn’t the only man on stage. Marketing guru Jim McCann was, of course, there. He’s been ever-present at Marvel panels for quite some time now. He’s aware of all the goings-on at Marvel and can usually answer questions other panelists cannot. He’s also charmingly flamboyant and frequently makes references to Disco-era superhero, Dazzler. In addition to McCann, Publisher Dan Buckley was there to answer business-related questions, Talent Manager/Writer C.B. Cebulski (X-Infernus) showed up quietly and writer Brian Michael Bendis was there for snark and swearing. The very large conference room was filled to capacity and it was a wonderful panel, even if Bendis probably ended up answering more questions than Quesada did. The one big reveal at this panel was a sort of re-jiggering of the Ultimate line of books, with Ultimate X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four getting cancelled and the line getting cut down to four books with all-new first issues. Bendis remains on Ultimate Spider-Man with new artist David LaFuente, who did some beautiful work on the most recent Ultimate Spider-Man Annual, Mark Millar will return to the Ultimate Universe to launch Ultimate Avengers, with the always reliable Carlos Pacheco on art, and Jeph Loeb will stay on for a new volume of The Ultimates. The fourth book has not been announced yet. I’m geeking out about this as I’ve been fairly obsessed with the Ultimate line for years but, with the exception of the consistently brilliant Ultimate Spider-Man, it’s been in dire need of a reboot for quite some time now.

When I left Cup O’ Joe, I went up to the floor for a bit to see what sort of inexplicable music Marvel had playing in their booth. This time, it was “Bombs Over Baghdad,” by OutKast. Hm. Then I began to casually girl-watch a bit, but every remotely good-looking girl at Comic Con seemed to just be there to accompany her much nerdier boyfriend. I did see one cute girl dressed as Mary Marvel, but then I remembered that I’d seen her last year and she was also dressed like Mary Marvel then. And do I really want to be with someone who will continuously dress like Mary Marvel? Wait. Now I’m second-guessing myself. Anyway, there’s a lot to perv out to at Comic Con this year. I’m a 22 year-old male geek. I can’t help but get a little turned on by a somewhat good-looking girl dressed as Poison Ivy or Black Canary. What can I say? I’m unapologetic.

When I went back down to search for the Straczynski panel, I was told that it was cancelled due to Straczynski’s nomination for a British Academy Award for his work writing Changeling (which, by the way, wasn’t nearly as good as the comic book maxi-series he began this year, The Twelve). So, I decided to go to the DC Universe panel, which turned out to be fairly fun. There was a ridiculous line, which security kept kicking people off of, and I overheard these three super-geeks talking about how they’d like to perform an actual crucifixion on Grant Morrison for his work writing the awful event mini-series Final Crisis, which just ended last week. Then, the panel mostly focused on the aftermath of Final Crisis. They even had a timeline chart to try to explain just what the fuck was going on in the unholy mess that was Final Crisis. But, oh well. It didn’t really illuminate much to me. But Flash: Rebirth, by Geoff Johns, sounded like fun, so I’ll probably pick that up.

After my last panel of the day I decided to just wander the floor for a bit. I stopped by the bootleg stand where I bought the complete series of Daria last year and this year I considered picking up both Karen Sisco (an underrated gem, starring Carla Gugino) and Rocko’s Modern Life before moving on. There was a big T-Shirt booth and I’m a T-Shirt whore so I ended up buying four: a Fantastic Four shirt, an X-Men shirt with a “Danger Room” warning on it, a Serenity shirt and an X-Files shirt with Fox Mulder’s “I Want To Believe” poster emblazoned across it. So day two actually turned out pretty successful. Day three should be even more fun, because it’s the big TV day. I’m gonna try to hit the panels for Chuck, Dollhouse, Fringe and Life On Mars before the end of the day. And I may even go back and pick up Rocko because it’s kind of been calling to me the past couple of hours.

More tomorrow…

New York Comic Con Coverage: Day 1 (of 3)

Sat, 07 Feb 2009 01:26:00 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

For the second straight year, your intrepid reporter is going through a breakup during the New York Comic Con. So, for the second straight year, going into the Jacob Javits Center, I wasn’t excited. I was depressed. And not only about the breakup, mind you. Something sort of personal that had been building up for the last couple weeks came to a strong head this morning. So, on the way to the convention center, alternating between The Blow, Modest Mouse and The White Stripes on my iPod, I decided, “Fuck life.” It’s comics time.

Unfortunately, when I got to the Javits center, I thought it was the wrong day altogether. The huge sign out in front read, “New York Times Travel Convention.” I was stumped, but I went in anyway. It took me about a half hour to finally find the Press Room and, by this point, I was even more pissed off than I had been already. This was also causing me to be annoyed by the awkward fanboys walking about dressed as their favorite superheroes, something I’m usually quite charmed by. But I guess I learned that when I’m in a bad mood, a Green Lantern with back acne is not going to cheer me up. Dammit. Maybe a trip to the con floor would do the trick.

I first stopped at the Marvel Comics booth because I used to work there and I wanted to see if I could find anyone I knew. Alas, it was all new interns that I wasn’t familiar with. The odd thing about the Marvel booth, which is unlike any of the other comic companies’ booths, is that they blast music. And the music is odd. The first time I went around, I heard “No One,” by Alicia Keys. Later in the day, it was a cover of “The Boys Are Back In Town,” by Everclear. This just confused me. Who picked this music? I must know!

Next up was the DC Comics booth, which was a much more satisfying time, because amidst all the creators signing books, Green Arrow and Black Canary artist Mike Norton was sitting there with no line in front of him. I dig the dude’s work, so I walked over and told him that, engaged him in a conversation about previous Green Arrow artists (notably, Phil Hester), and had him sign my program. Things were looking up. Finally. Now how about a panel?

The first panel of the day that I wanted to sit through was called “Superman: Building A Better World.” Unfortunately, in trying to get to the panel, I accidentally walked to the wrong part of the building and nearly entered a panel called “Focus On Africa,” from the stupid New York Times thing. When I finally found the correct room, just to make sure I knew where I was, I asked an attendee called Alex Clabering and he confirmed to me that I was, in fact, in the right place. “Why else would I be here?” he asked. I didn’t quite know what to say to that, but he kept talking anyway. About Superman, fittingly. He tried to explain to me the histories of the Nightwing and Flamebird characters who are taking over for Superman in Greg Rucka’s Action Comics, but I still didn’t get it. The panel started late because of sound issues, and when they started, only one mic was working. Great start!

The panelists were Geoff Johns (writer, Adventure Comics and Superman: Secret Origin), Rucka, James Robinson (writer, Superman), Jamal Igle (artist, Supergirl), Sterling Gates (writer, Supergirl) and Matt Idelson (senior editor). The panel was sort of somber and sparsely attended. I assume this had something to do with the recent end of the big DC event comic, Final Crisis, which was not well-received by fans. Mostly because it was a steaming pile of shit. (When one fan said, “I love Final Crisis,” one of the panelists replied, “You’re the one guy!”) The reason I was excited for this panel, though, was the recent finale of the Superman crossover, “New Krypton,” which got me more excited about reading Superman than I’ve been since I was a kid. This series resulted in the creation of a new planet called New Krypton, which is entirely populated by Kryptonians from the bottle city of Kandor. This may not make sense to you, but it opens up some very series questions for Superman. At the end of the day, is he Clark Kent: American, or is he Kal-El: Kryptonian? It’s an interesting thought that will be explored this year in the maxi-series, “World of New Krypton,” by Rucka and Robinson. Weirdly, Superman’s presence in that series means that he won’t be appearing very much in Superman or Action Comics. Some fans at the panel seemed dubious about this prospect, but it excites and fascinates me. My favorite panelist here was the very droll Robinson, who gave the finger to those same dubious fans.

My next panel was Marvel’s X-Men panel, which was packed to the brim with panelists and fans alike. It was quite an uncomfortable panel, because Chris Claremont, who wrote all of the main X-Men books for decades (including a remarkable 300-issue run on Uncanny X-Men), was in attendance for the classic fans and seemed to consistently look upon what was currently being done with his characters with complete disdain. I don’t understand why though. The X-Men books have been wonderful in the last year or so, almost down the line. This includes the ultra-violent X-Force, by Craig Kyle and Christopher Yost, the thoughtful X-Men Legacy, by Mike Carey, the powerhouse Uncanny X-Men, by Matt Fraction and the time-travel mindfuckery of Cable, by Duane Swierczynski. A few major announcements were made at this panel, the most notable being a New Mutants relaunch penned by the always-reliable Zeb Wells, an X-Force mini-series called Sex and Violence and a new Claremont book called X-Men: Forever, which Claremont pimped out for an uncomfortably long time. (Note: Don’t get me wrong. Chris Claremont is one of my favorite writers of all time and he wrote the first comic book I ever read. But, jeez, is he cantankerous!)

Marvel’s Dark Reign panel was next, which dealt with the aftermath of the Secret Invasion event, which involved the villainous Norman Osborne basically becoming the head of the Marvel Universe. I was psyched for this one, because it included the brilliant Brian Michael Bendis, a writer who I’d never seen in person before. Turns out, he’s a lot shorter and heftier than I thought he was. But no matter. He rules. Hard. And he was easily the funniest and most thoughtful member of the panel during the inevitable Q and A section. The announcements here included Jonathan Hickman (Secret Warriors) replacing Mark Millar on Fantastic Four in September, which I think is an inspired choice, and two new mini-series, Dark Reign: Young Avengers, by Paul Cornell and The Hood, by Jeff Parker. Cornell, as it turns out, was my favorite member of the panel. I’ve never read anything by him before, including his struggling ongoing series, Captain Britain and the MI:13, but I’m going to start. The guy is cartoonishly British, in the most charming way imaginable. I wanted to be his best friend. I’ll definitely be picking up that Young Avengers book.

For the next one, I needed something a bit more thoughtful, so I went to the Vertigo panel (Vertigo is often branded “the HBO of comics,” to give you an idea of what they’re about). Editor Karen Berger was the head panelist and she seemed so excited by everything she was announcing that it made me want to read it all. But first thing’s first. Air writer, G. Willow Wilson was there, and she looked adorable. She’s an odd girl, that G. Willow Wilson. She’s less than four years older than I am, but she’s a Muslim convert, which causes a very sexy and exotic way of dressing, and one of those cool nose rings that attaches to the ear. And Air is pretty brilliant, by the way. Oh my God. Within five minutes of the start of this panel, I already had a crush. Meanwhile, Berger kept making great announcements, like the expansion of Vertigo’s graphic novel division, featuring provocative upcoming books like How To Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, by Sarah Glidden, which concerns the famous “Birthright” trips to Israel. Two new ongoing series were also announced, but wait. I’d started making eyes at G. Willow Wilson. And, what was this? Was she making eyes back at me? I smiled at her. I thought I saw the glimmer of a smile back. What the fuck was happening? But, yeah. Ongoing series. One, by Mike Carey, is called The Unwritten, which is inspired by the real-life Christopher Robin Milne, and wonders whether its main character is real or a fictional creation. The second one is by the great Peter Milligan. Called Greek Street, it’s a modern take on Greek tragedy and it sounds wonderful. And, while Marvel is raising the prices on some of its most popular books by a dollar (to 3.99), Vertigo is offering the first issues of all of its new series (plus, Air #7) for a dollar! Now they have the right idea. So, as the panel was ending, I decided to go talk to G. Willow Wilson. But a bunch of fans mobbed her so I left. Dammit. Depressed again. So I decided to skip the final DC panel and go home, because who really cares anyway? Final Crisis really did suck.

More tomorrow from Comic Con…

Music Review: Noble Beast, by Andrew Bird

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 17:39:50 -0500

by Daniel Erenberg

Andrew Bird is a musician who, historically, has flitted between genres like a hummingbird. For a while there, with each record released, you never quite knew what to expect. So it’s a little bit dismaying that his new release, Noble Beast, sounds so much like an Andrew Bird record. All the signs are there that it is clearly him being himself: the ever-present whistling, the pizzicato violin, the abstract lyrics, often referencing science and history. Noble Beast is an Andrew Bird record to an almost distracting degree. But I guess it’s a good thing that Andrew Bird is so damn good at what he does. It still results in a fantastic record.

Noble Beast isn’t without its missteps though. It has a weak beginning, with two pop songs surrounding the flamenco-flavored “Masterswarm.” Andrew Bird, as it turns out, can’t really handle flamenco, despite a few wonderful violin flourishes, and when he’s attempting to write a radio single, he sounds annoyingly like The Shins. The Shins have never changed anyone’s life, despite what Garden State told us, and neither will these songs. The lyrics on this album take the opposite route, by being almost willfully abstract. Just try to make sense of a line like “Proto-Sanskrit Minoans to porto-centric Lisboans/Greek Cypriots and Hobis-hots who hang around the ports a lot.” I don’t have the time or the Encyclopedia to figure out that line. Now, I like abstract lyrics. Most of my favorite lyricists practically never include literal images in their songs, and Andrew Bird is included on this list. The one upside to lines like this, though, is that they add much greater weight to the few simple lines on this record that you don’t need to read into, like “They took me to the hospital/They put my body through a scan” or “Still my lover won’t return to me,” which is repeated throughout the cathartic “Souverians.”

Most of this album is wonderful though, bitching aside. “Effigy” burns with a wonderful rustic tone, and a brilliant melody. “Tenuousness” washes over you quite majestically, with a swirling violin arrangement and a ghostly vocal. Bird gets electronic with “Not A Robot, But A Ghost” but warms it with a spectacular woodwind arrangement. And, best of all, is “Anonanimal,” which is a monster, whose arrangement is complex beyond the point of belief.

If you want more monster arrangements, there’s Useless Creatures, the bonus disc on the deluxe edition, which is a second full-length new Andrew Bird album, this one composed entirely of instrumental songs. This includes some of Bird’s best songs ever (“Carrion Suite,” “Dissent,” “You Woke Me Up!”) and some of his most self-indulgent as well (“The Barn Tapes”) but that’s to be expected and enjoyed. It turns out that Andrew Bird just being Andrew Bird is pretty great on its own merits.

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