A direct-to-DVD thriller which generates more tension than I'd expected from an overly familiar plot and setting.
Our hero is Steve Cady (Jeremy Sisto) of the US Census Bureau, who's been sent to Rockwell Falls, Kansas, to investigate an odd anomaly: In every census for more than 100 years, the town's population has always been 436. Steve has trouble finding the town, and the locals in surrounding towns are oddly unhelpful, clamming up as soon as he mentions Rockwell Falls.
When Steve does find the town, it's a quaint, wholesome little village -- it's not called Rockwell Falls for nothing -- where everyone is content in that slightly glazed Stepford way, and where everyone is busy baking pies and sewing quilts for the town's upcoming festival. Everyone's polite, friendly, and helpful -- at least on the surface -- but there are clearly Dark Goings On in Rockwell Falls.
There's not an ounce of surprise in the movie; from the opening scenes, it's clear how Rockwell Falls maintains its population so precisely, and the scene meant to be the big shocker -- in which the town honors the woman chosen as "Festival Host" -- will come as no surprise to anyone who's read Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery."
But as familiar as it all is, the movie does create a suitably shivery atmosphere. Sisto is quite good, in an unusual role for him; he usually tends to play the disturbed and creepy roles himself, so it's a change of pace to see him as the normal guy at the center of the weirdness. There's also a sweet, low-key performance from Fred Durst (yes, the guy from Limp Bizkit) as Deputy Bobby, who becomes Steve's best buddy during his stay in town. The performances from most of the villagers are a bit flat, but that's not altogether inappropriate here; the particular darkness afoot in Rockwell Falls is somewhat cult-like, so people might be less likely to display much individual personality.
Population 436 is a bit old-fashioned -- little strong language, one very mild sex scene, no gore -- and its R rating seems a bit harsh. Fifty years ago, something like this would have been labeled a B-movie, and you'd have seen it as part of a double feature, a warm-up for the big movie on the program. Yeah, it's hokey and cheesy and predictable, but within the limits of its story and genre, it's well crafted and skillfully made, and it's kinda fun.
September 17, 2006
September 13, 2006
TV: Men in Trees
Anne Heche stars as "relationship coach" Marin Frist, who's in Alaska on a publicity tour for her new book about the secrets to dating success. This is pretty unlikely to begin with -- I doubt that many publishers send their authors all the way to Alaska to do readings -- but even more so because Marin's been sent not to Anchorage or Juneau, but to the little town of Elmo.
Elmo is a town populated mainly by men -- Theresa, the waitress at the local bar (Sarah Strange), says "it's like a ten to one ratio" -- and Marin is at first frustrated to be there, but begins to see this as an opportunity. What better way to understand men (and get material for her next book) than to live among them? And so, by the end of the pilot, Marin has decided to stay in Elmo for a while.
Elmo offers quite an assortment of men to study. There's Ben, the urbane bartender (Abraham Benrubi); Buzz, the town pilot (John Amos); Patrick, the naive young innkeeper/radio host (Derek Richardson); and Jack, the hunky wildlife ranger (James Tupper) who seems destined to be Marin's principal love interest.
There are a few women on hand, of course. Annie (Emily Bergl) is Marin's biggest fan, who's followed her to Elmo to console her after her breakup, and finds herself falling for Patrick; Sara (Suleka Mathew) is the town prostitute; and Marin's editor, Jane (Seana Kofoed), will pop in from time to time (often by phone, I imagine) with advice.
If you're already thinking Northern Exposure, you're right -- big-city type living in a small Alaska town, populated with eccentrics (and both towns with people's names, Cicely and Elmo) -- and the show occasionally strains a little too hard for its quirkiness. There's also a lot of Sex and the City (one of the Men in Trees creators was a writer for that show), right down to Heche's episode-closing monologue/life lesson.
The cast is very likable, and the writing above average. My biggest qualm after the first episode is the casting of Anne Heche, who is a good actress, but not one who naturally projects vulnerability or empathy. Marin's opening scene, a lecture to an audience of fans, doesn't play quite right because Heche doesn't come across as very warm or comforting; she's a brittle onscreen presence, and it will be interesting to see if she can find the softer edges this character is going to need.
Elmo is a town populated mainly by men -- Theresa, the waitress at the local bar (Sarah Strange), says "it's like a ten to one ratio" -- and Marin is at first frustrated to be there, but begins to see this as an opportunity. What better way to understand men (and get material for her next book) than to live among them? And so, by the end of the pilot, Marin has decided to stay in Elmo for a while.
Elmo offers quite an assortment of men to study. There's Ben, the urbane bartender (Abraham Benrubi); Buzz, the town pilot (John Amos); Patrick, the naive young innkeeper/radio host (Derek Richardson); and Jack, the hunky wildlife ranger (James Tupper) who seems destined to be Marin's principal love interest.
There are a few women on hand, of course. Annie (Emily Bergl) is Marin's biggest fan, who's followed her to Elmo to console her after her breakup, and finds herself falling for Patrick; Sara (Suleka Mathew) is the town prostitute; and Marin's editor, Jane (Seana Kofoed), will pop in from time to time (often by phone, I imagine) with advice.
If you're already thinking Northern Exposure, you're right -- big-city type living in a small Alaska town, populated with eccentrics (and both towns with people's names, Cicely and Elmo) -- and the show occasionally strains a little too hard for its quirkiness. There's also a lot of Sex and the City (one of the Men in Trees creators was a writer for that show), right down to Heche's episode-closing monologue/life lesson.
The cast is very likable, and the writing above average. My biggest qualm after the first episode is the casting of Anne Heche, who is a good actress, but not one who naturally projects vulnerability or empathy. Marin's opening scene, a lecture to an audience of fans, doesn't play quite right because Heche doesn't come across as very warm or comforting; she's a brittle onscreen presence, and it will be interesting to see if she can find the softer edges this character is going to need.
September 11, 2006
TV: The Class
New sitcom from CBS, which doesn't premiere until next week, but had an exclusive sneak preview on TiVo this weekend.
The setup is wildly far-fetched: Ethan (Jason Ritter) throws a surprise party for his fiance, inviting as many members of their third-grade class as he can track down, because they first met in third grade 20 years ago. She arrives for the party and completely freaks out; she accuses Ethan of being too smothering and dumps him. But that's OK, because the party serves entirely as an excuse to get the show's eight principal characters together, and the show will follow the relationships among them; it looks like it will be another Friends variation, but with more characters.
In addition to Ethan, we have:
The setup is wildly far-fetched: Ethan (Jason Ritter) throws a surprise party for his fiance, inviting as many members of their third-grade class as he can track down, because they first met in third grade 20 years ago. She arrives for the party and completely freaks out; she accuses Ethan of being too smothering and dumps him. But that's OK, because the party serves entirely as an excuse to get the show's eight principal characters together, and the show will follow the relationships among them; it looks like it will be another Friends variation, but with more characters.
In addition to Ethan, we have:
- Lina (Heather Goldenhersh), the wacked-out, blissed-out flake
- Kat (Lizzy Caplan), Lina's twin sister, the sarcastic, brooding cynic
- Nicole (Andrea Anders), the pretty blonde stuck in an unhappy marriage to an older ex-jock
- Duncan (Jon Bernthal), the popular boy who still lives with his mother and still wishes he had never split up with Nicole
- Kyle (Sean Maguire), the high-school heartthrob, now apparently the happiest of the bunch, living happily with his boyfriend
- Holly (Lucy Punch), successful news anchor
- Richie (Jesse Tyler Ferguson), who's depressed almost to the point of suicide
The first episode doesn't waste any time establishing new relationships among these characters (and re-establishing old ones); by the end of the half-hour, we've set up three romantic couples. Beyond those couples, though, it's hard to imagine how or why these characters will spend any more time together.
In general, it's the women who make the biggest impression in the pilot. Goldenhersh, playing the show's Phoebe-equivalent, has a voice and inflections that reminded me of Paula Poundstone; Anders (a survivor of the Joey fiasco) is extremely likable, with a loopy charm; Caplan is stuck with the most cliched character so far, but she delivers her zingers with great energy.
The men don't come across as strongly. Bernthal and Maguire are the show's designated hunks, and Ritter is clearly meant to be the sane voice of reason at the center (a job for which he's suitably bland).
Eight characters is a lot to introduce in a half-hour, though, so the show didn't have time to do much more than whip through a lot of backstory and quick introductions. There were enough good laughs, and there are enough interesting actors, that I'll give the show another week or two before giving up on it entirely.
September 10, 2006
BOOKS: Triangle, Katharine Weber (2006)
We begin with an aria:
That's the voice of Esther Gottesfeld, remembering the day of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, in which nearly 150 sweatshop workers were killed, most of them women and girls. (The fire is an actual historical event, but Esther and her story are fictional.) At the time of her death, Esther is 106, and she is the last living survivor of the fire. There are still mysteries surrounding her story, though, and small discrepancies in the versions of the story that Esther has told over the years. We get to read several of those versions -- trial testimony shortly after the fire, a reminiscence from fifty years later (the source of the above paragraph, which opens the book), contemporary interviews -- as Esther's story recurs throughout the novel.
Those contemporary interviews were done by feminist historian Ruth Zion in the year before Esther's death; Ruth later approaches Esther's granddaughter, Rebecca, and Rebecca's partner, George, in the hope that they may be able to answer some of Ruth's remaining questions.
Triangle shares some themes with Weber's previous novel, The Little Women (which I raved about here). If you're telling someone else's story, how do you balance your obligations to the subject of the story with your obligations to truth? And in Triangle, Weber complicates things by adding the factor of historical relevance and asking how that changes the balance of obligations.
For the most part, the characters are very sharply drawn. Esther comes through very vividly, especially since all we ever really hear from her is the one story, repeated over and over. I especially admired the way Esther's language changes over the years; you can hear the difference between the recent immigrant, still not very comfortable with English, and the Esther of 90 years later who's being interviewed by Ruth.
Rebecca and her partner, George, are a believable couple, and the secondary story of George's career as a composer is nicely handled. Weber almost always gets the musical terminology right, which doesn't often happen when novelists write about musicians, and her description of the premiere of George's Triangle Oratorio is a magnificent piece of writing, so perfectly capturing the thrill of a live performance that you feel as if you've heard the music yourself.
The character of Ruth is the novel's greatest weakness. She's a stiff, unlikable cliche of the humorless feminist academic, a woman who says the words "Ha ha ha" instead of actually laughing, and she's the only character in the book who doesn't feel like a real person.
As for the mystery of what really happened to Esther and her sister on the day of the fire, the answer is telegraphed too early and too obviously, which lessens the drama of the final chapter; those revelations should land with far more impact than they do, because we've long since seen them coming.
Despite those flaws, though, the writing is lovely and the story compelling. Triangle doesn't reach the level of The Little Women, but it's a fine piece of work.
This is what happened. I was working at my machine, with only a few minutes left before the end of the day, I remember so clearly I can still see it, that I had only two right sleeves remaining in my pile -- my sister Pauline, she did the left sleeves and I did the right sleeves and between us we could finish sometimes as many as twenty-four shirtwaists in an hour, three hundred shirtwaists on a good day, if the machines didn't break down and if the thread didn't break too often, and if nobody put a needle through her finger, which happened all the time and the biggest problem then was you didn't want to bleed on the goods but you didn't want to stop work so you took a piece of scrap and you wrapped your finger tight and you kept working -- my sister was a little faster than I was and sometimes her finished pile would be high because she did her sleeve first and then I would take from her pile to do the right sleeve but I have to say my seams were the ones always perfectly straight.
That's the voice of Esther Gottesfeld, remembering the day of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist fire, in which nearly 150 sweatshop workers were killed, most of them women and girls. (The fire is an actual historical event, but Esther and her story are fictional.) At the time of her death, Esther is 106, and she is the last living survivor of the fire. There are still mysteries surrounding her story, though, and small discrepancies in the versions of the story that Esther has told over the years. We get to read several of those versions -- trial testimony shortly after the fire, a reminiscence from fifty years later (the source of the above paragraph, which opens the book), contemporary interviews -- as Esther's story recurs throughout the novel.
Those contemporary interviews were done by feminist historian Ruth Zion in the year before Esther's death; Ruth later approaches Esther's granddaughter, Rebecca, and Rebecca's partner, George, in the hope that they may be able to answer some of Ruth's remaining questions.
Triangle shares some themes with Weber's previous novel, The Little Women (which I raved about here). If you're telling someone else's story, how do you balance your obligations to the subject of the story with your obligations to truth? And in Triangle, Weber complicates things by adding the factor of historical relevance and asking how that changes the balance of obligations.
For the most part, the characters are very sharply drawn. Esther comes through very vividly, especially since all we ever really hear from her is the one story, repeated over and over. I especially admired the way Esther's language changes over the years; you can hear the difference between the recent immigrant, still not very comfortable with English, and the Esther of 90 years later who's being interviewed by Ruth.
Rebecca and her partner, George, are a believable couple, and the secondary story of George's career as a composer is nicely handled. Weber almost always gets the musical terminology right, which doesn't often happen when novelists write about musicians, and her description of the premiere of George's Triangle Oratorio is a magnificent piece of writing, so perfectly capturing the thrill of a live performance that you feel as if you've heard the music yourself.
The character of Ruth is the novel's greatest weakness. She's a stiff, unlikable cliche of the humorless feminist academic, a woman who says the words "Ha ha ha" instead of actually laughing, and she's the only character in the book who doesn't feel like a real person.
As for the mystery of what really happened to Esther and her sister on the day of the fire, the answer is telegraphed too early and too obviously, which lessens the drama of the final chapter; those revelations should land with far more impact than they do, because we've long since seen them coming.
Despite those flaws, though, the writing is lovely and the story compelling. Triangle doesn't reach the level of The Little Women, but it's a fine piece of work.
BOOKS: Eye Contact, Cammie McGovern (2006)
Two children disappear from a playground during recess, and are later found in the nearby woods. Amelia has been murdered, and although it is assumed that 9-year-old Adam witnessed the crime, he is autistic and not able to easily or clearly communicate what he might have seen.
Adam's mother, Cara, is better able to communicate with Adam than anyone else, and when another child goes missing, Cara realizes that it's up to her to make sense of what little Adam has said about what happened in the woods.
There is much to like in Eye Contact, especially in the first half of the book -- believable characters, an interesting mystery, crisp prose -- but it all gets buried under the weight of too much illness. Nearly everyone in this book either has some sort of mental or emotional disorder -- there's autism, agoraphobia, post-traumatic brain damage -- or is coping with the difficulties of being a caretaker for such a person.
And as the mystery of what happened to Adam and Amelia is gradually explained, it begins to feel as if every character in the book trekked through those woods during the crucial half-hour. The coincidences pile onto another far too rapidly to be credible, and the resolution of the mystery isn't nearly as satisfying as the setup had been.
Adam's mother, Cara, is better able to communicate with Adam than anyone else, and when another child goes missing, Cara realizes that it's up to her to make sense of what little Adam has said about what happened in the woods.
There is much to like in Eye Contact, especially in the first half of the book -- believable characters, an interesting mystery, crisp prose -- but it all gets buried under the weight of too much illness. Nearly everyone in this book either has some sort of mental or emotional disorder -- there's autism, agoraphobia, post-traumatic brain damage -- or is coping with the difficulties of being a caretaker for such a person.
And as the mystery of what happened to Adam and Amelia is gradually explained, it begins to feel as if every character in the book trekked through those woods during the crucial half-hour. The coincidences pile onto another far too rapidly to be credible, and the resolution of the mystery isn't nearly as satisfying as the setup had been.
September 07, 2006
TV: Happy Hour
The show feels like a mix of Friends, That 70s Show, and every other sitcom from the last 15 years about a bunch of cool young pals hanging out. The jokes don't always work, and the situations are on the stale side. But the characters have potential, and some of the actors are interesting, and if it lasts long enough, it could develop into something fun.
Henry is a small-town Missouri boy who's recently moved to Chicago with girlfriend Heather. But Heather's just dumped him, thrown him out of their apartment, and gotten him fired from his job (his boss was her uncle). Henry finds a new apartment in the same building, moving in with Larry; Larry needs a new roommate because Brad has just moved out to live with his fiance, Tina. Larry is horrified by this development, because Tina is a control freak who insists on dictating Brad's every move; in response, Larry adopts Henry as a personal project, plotting to "build a better Brad" out of Henry. The first step is to get Henry a job working for Larry's friend Amanda.
Unfortunately, the show's least interesting actor is at the center. As Henry, John Sloan is vaguely reminiscent of That 70s Show's Topher Grace, but lacks Grace's charisma and comic timing. The more interesting performances come from the supporting players, especially Lex Medlin as Larry and Beth Lacke as Amanda. Medlin is like a younger version of Greg Grunberg (Alias), and he conveys a certain charm through Larry's vulgarity and cockiness. Lacke puts a distinctive spin on her lines, and gets more laughs than the dialogue deserves.
I'll keep watching for at least another week or two, with a sense of cautious optimism.
Henry is a small-town Missouri boy who's recently moved to Chicago with girlfriend Heather. But Heather's just dumped him, thrown him out of their apartment, and gotten him fired from his job (his boss was her uncle). Henry finds a new apartment in the same building, moving in with Larry; Larry needs a new roommate because Brad has just moved out to live with his fiance, Tina. Larry is horrified by this development, because Tina is a control freak who insists on dictating Brad's every move; in response, Larry adopts Henry as a personal project, plotting to "build a better Brad" out of Henry. The first step is to get Henry a job working for Larry's friend Amanda.
Unfortunately, the show's least interesting actor is at the center. As Henry, John Sloan is vaguely reminiscent of That 70s Show's Topher Grace, but lacks Grace's charisma and comic timing. The more interesting performances come from the supporting players, especially Lex Medlin as Larry and Beth Lacke as Amanda. Medlin is like a younger version of Greg Grunberg (Alias), and he conveys a certain charm through Larry's vulgarity and cockiness. Lacke puts a distinctive spin on her lines, and gets more laughs than the dialogue deserves.
I'll keep watching for at least another week or two, with a sense of cautious optimism.
TV: 'Til Death
Brad Garrett moves from sidekick to star in this mediocre retread of Married With Children.
Garrett and Joely Fisher are Eddie and Joy Stamm, longtime married couple; their new neighbors are newlyweds Jeff and Steph Woodcock (Eddie Kaye Thomas, Kat Foster). The humor, such as it is, centers on the differences between the youthful idealism of the Woodcocks and the tired boredom of the Stamms. Eddie gives Jeff a lot of lectures, explaining to him how miserable his marriage will inevitably become. "Men want to have fun," Eddie says. "Women want to drag that fun into the forest and kill it."
For this show to work at all, we have to believe that deep down, underneath all of the cynicism and the carping, Joy and Eddie really do love each other. But Garrett and Fisher are both specialists in cynicism and carping; they're such glum presences that it's impossible to imagine that they ever even liked each other, much less had any genuine affection. As for the newlyweds, Foster has a pleasantly ditsy chirpiness, but Thomas is so bland as to be invisible.
The jokes aren't very funny -- an assortment of "Woodcock" jokes were about as good as it got -- and Garrett and Fisher haven't made the adjustment to playing leads instead of supporting characters. Sitcom sidekicks can be loud and pushy, but you don't want that kind of energy at the center of a show; the worst seasons of Will & Grace, for instance, were the ones in which Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally took over, turning the show into Jack & Karen. Fisher and (even more so) Garrett are playing these roles as though they're still the eccentrics off to the side of the action; they both need to tone everything down a notch and quit pushing so hard.
But even if they were better suited for the roles, we've seen this before. Eddie and Jeff are already threatening to become Kramden & Norton, with Jeff getting caught up in Eddie's schemes; I can already see the inevitable Lucy/Ethel plotlines that will be built around Joy and Steph. And the Stamms' relationship is a pale, even less funny version of Al and Peg Bundy.
Not something that I need to watch again.
Garrett and Joely Fisher are Eddie and Joy Stamm, longtime married couple; their new neighbors are newlyweds Jeff and Steph Woodcock (Eddie Kaye Thomas, Kat Foster). The humor, such as it is, centers on the differences between the youthful idealism of the Woodcocks and the tired boredom of the Stamms. Eddie gives Jeff a lot of lectures, explaining to him how miserable his marriage will inevitably become. "Men want to have fun," Eddie says. "Women want to drag that fun into the forest and kill it."
For this show to work at all, we have to believe that deep down, underneath all of the cynicism and the carping, Joy and Eddie really do love each other. But Garrett and Fisher are both specialists in cynicism and carping; they're such glum presences that it's impossible to imagine that they ever even liked each other, much less had any genuine affection. As for the newlyweds, Foster has a pleasantly ditsy chirpiness, but Thomas is so bland as to be invisible.
The jokes aren't very funny -- an assortment of "Woodcock" jokes were about as good as it got -- and Garrett and Fisher haven't made the adjustment to playing leads instead of supporting characters. Sitcom sidekicks can be loud and pushy, but you don't want that kind of energy at the center of a show; the worst seasons of Will & Grace, for instance, were the ones in which Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally took over, turning the show into Jack & Karen. Fisher and (even more so) Garrett are playing these roles as though they're still the eccentrics off to the side of the action; they both need to tone everything down a notch and quit pushing so hard.
But even if they were better suited for the roles, we've seen this before. Eddie and Jeff are already threatening to become Kramden & Norton, with Jeff getting caught up in Eddie's schemes; I can already see the inevitable Lucy/Ethel plotlines that will be built around Joy and Steph. And the Stamms' relationship is a pale, even less funny version of Al and Peg Bundy.
Not something that I need to watch again.
September 05, 2006
TV: Standoff
Matt and Emily (Ron Livingston and Rosemarie DeWitt) are the best team the FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit has. They talk to the bad guys and defuse whatever crisis has arisen -- hostage situations, bomb threats, stalking cases. They've also been sleeping together for three months -- strictly against FBI policy -- and now their boss (Gina Torres) knows about it, because Matt blurted it out to the world during one of his negotiations.
This is the most schizophrenic show in years, alternating between crisis scenes and romantic banter that's lifted straight out of Moonlighting. The negotiation scenes are tense and dramatic, and the interplay among the team feels realistic. Matt and Emily manage (most of the time) to rein in each other's more impulsive, reckless side. The conflict between the CNU and the trigger-happy cops of the Hostage Rescue Team is sharply drawn; the CNU isn't only negotiating with the bad guys, they're also negotiating with the HRT for more time to reach a peaceful resolution. In the lighter romantic scenes, Livingston and DeWitt are a terrific pair, completely convincing as a couple trying to balance their illicit romance with the stress of their jobs; their dialogue is sharp and funny.
But the two halves of the show don't mesh well, and you could get whiplash from the abrupt changes in tone and style. I like these actors, and I'd be happy to watch them in either of the shows that have been flung together here, but the writers need to blend the two more smoothly if the show's going to have any chance of surviving.
This is the most schizophrenic show in years, alternating between crisis scenes and romantic banter that's lifted straight out of Moonlighting. The negotiation scenes are tense and dramatic, and the interplay among the team feels realistic. Matt and Emily manage (most of the time) to rein in each other's more impulsive, reckless side. The conflict between the CNU and the trigger-happy cops of the Hostage Rescue Team is sharply drawn; the CNU isn't only negotiating with the bad guys, they're also negotiating with the HRT for more time to reach a peaceful resolution. In the lighter romantic scenes, Livingston and DeWitt are a terrific pair, completely convincing as a couple trying to balance their illicit romance with the stress of their jobs; their dialogue is sharp and funny.
But the two halves of the show don't mesh well, and you could get whiplash from the abrupt changes in tone and style. I like these actors, and I'd be happy to watch them in either of the shows that have been flung together here, but the writers need to blend the two more smoothly if the show's going to have any chance of surviving.
September 04, 2006
MOVIES: This Film Is Not Yet Rated (Kirby Dick, 2006)
Kirby Dick's documentary about the American movie ratings system is a sharp recital of the common complaints against it: It judges sex more harshly than violence (a striking contrast to the ratings systems in most other countries); it is particularly unhappy with depictions of female sexual pleasure, or of homosexuality; and according to several directors, it judges independent films more harshly than those produced by the major studios.
Several directors are on hand to talk about their experiences with the ratings board. Matt Stone discusses the different experiences he had with his independent film Orgazmo, where the board refused to answer his questions about what cuts he might make to get an R rating instead of an NC-17 (because to ask for specific cuts, the board said, would put them in a position of actively censoring his movie), and with his South Park movie, a studio project, where the board was happy to offer recommendations of specific cuts.
Kimberley Pierce and Jamie Babbitt compare the NC-17 ratings their films received for depictions of female sexuality with the R ratings that similar scenes involving men had been given. Dick himself offers a telling montage of side-by-side sex scenes from NC-17 and R movies, virtually identical except that the NC-17 scenes involve same-sex couples.
Film critics David Ansen and Stephen Farber (himself a former member of the ratings board) provide historical perspective on the ratings system; Lawrence Lessig, a specialist in intellectual property law, offers a legal view.
The identities of the ratings board members are kept secret, ostensibly to protect them from pressure. Dick hires a team of private investigators to track down the raters, and this is the least interesting part of the movie. We spend far too much time watching his team sit in their SUV and jot down license plate numbers.
The best part of the movie is the last 20 minutes, in which Dick submits this very documentary to the board for a rating; it gets -- no surprise -- an NC-17 because of all the explicit clips from other movies that are included. We follow Dick through the appeals process, which involves a separate (also secret) board, this one made up of studio executives, theater owners, and (creepiest of all) representatives from the Catholic and Episcopal churches. John Waters talks about his appeals experience with the movie A Dirty Shame, and he's delightful to listen to as he narrates his absurd adventures.
Aside from the wasted time spent with the private investigators, this is a very funny indictment of a broken system. If there's a flaw, it's that neither Dick nor any of his subjects offer any suggestions as to how the system might be improved, or what might replace it.
Several directors are on hand to talk about their experiences with the ratings board. Matt Stone discusses the different experiences he had with his independent film Orgazmo, where the board refused to answer his questions about what cuts he might make to get an R rating instead of an NC-17 (because to ask for specific cuts, the board said, would put them in a position of actively censoring his movie), and with his South Park movie, a studio project, where the board was happy to offer recommendations of specific cuts.
Kimberley Pierce and Jamie Babbitt compare the NC-17 ratings their films received for depictions of female sexuality with the R ratings that similar scenes involving men had been given. Dick himself offers a telling montage of side-by-side sex scenes from NC-17 and R movies, virtually identical except that the NC-17 scenes involve same-sex couples.
Film critics David Ansen and Stephen Farber (himself a former member of the ratings board) provide historical perspective on the ratings system; Lawrence Lessig, a specialist in intellectual property law, offers a legal view.
The identities of the ratings board members are kept secret, ostensibly to protect them from pressure. Dick hires a team of private investigators to track down the raters, and this is the least interesting part of the movie. We spend far too much time watching his team sit in their SUV and jot down license plate numbers.
The best part of the movie is the last 20 minutes, in which Dick submits this very documentary to the board for a rating; it gets -- no surprise -- an NC-17 because of all the explicit clips from other movies that are included. We follow Dick through the appeals process, which involves a separate (also secret) board, this one made up of studio executives, theater owners, and (creepiest of all) representatives from the Catholic and Episcopal churches. John Waters talks about his appeals experience with the movie A Dirty Shame, and he's delightful to listen to as he narrates his absurd adventures.
Aside from the wasted time spent with the private investigators, this is a very funny indictment of a broken system. If there's a flaw, it's that neither Dick nor any of his subjects offer any suggestions as to how the system might be improved, or what might replace it.
BOOKS: Vanishing Point, Marcia Muller (2006)
24th (!) in the Sharon McCone series.
I keep forgetting how large a supporting cast Muller has created around McCone in these books, but every now and then she brings them all together, as she does in the opening chapters here; Sharon's friends and family are celebrating her marriage to Hy Ripinsky. It's a marriage of people who understand one another's careers; she's a private investigator and he works for a somewhat mysterious private security firm.
But no matter how well people understand one another, marriages don't always work as well as you'd like to think they will; Sharon's case in this novel is a reminder of how complex marriages can be. She's asked to search for Laurel Greenwood, who disappeared 22 years ago; Laurel's daughter, Jennifer, is now in her 30s, but has always been haunted by the loss of her mother. (Cold cases really are the rage these days; Sue Grafton's last Kinsey Millhone mystery was also built around a long-unsolved crime.)
Muller, as always, provides an entertaining mystery with a range of interesting suspects and sources. If you're looking for a solidly written traditional private eye story, you can't go wrong with Muller; this it top-notch stuff.
I keep forgetting how large a supporting cast Muller has created around McCone in these books, but every now and then she brings them all together, as she does in the opening chapters here; Sharon's friends and family are celebrating her marriage to Hy Ripinsky. It's a marriage of people who understand one another's careers; she's a private investigator and he works for a somewhat mysterious private security firm.
But no matter how well people understand one another, marriages don't always work as well as you'd like to think they will; Sharon's case in this novel is a reminder of how complex marriages can be. She's asked to search for Laurel Greenwood, who disappeared 22 years ago; Laurel's daughter, Jennifer, is now in her 30s, but has always been haunted by the loss of her mother. (Cold cases really are the rage these days; Sue Grafton's last Kinsey Millhone mystery was also built around a long-unsolved crime.)
Muller, as always, provides an entertaining mystery with a range of interesting suspects and sources. If you're looking for a solidly written traditional private eye story, you can't go wrong with Muller; this it top-notch stuff.
MOVIES: Talladega Nights (Adam McKay, 2006)
Will Ferrell stars as Ricky Bobby, whose dominance of the NASCAR circuit is threatened by the arrogant French driver Jean Girard (Sacha Baron Cohen). There are some funny moments to be had here, and no one commits to silliness as thoroughly as Ferrell, but the movie drags on for far too long, and Baron Cohen is dismally unfunny.
The best performances come from the supporting cast. Jane Lynch and Gary Cole as Ricky's parents, Greg Germann and Molly Shannon as Ricky's chief corporate sponsor and his lush of a wife, John C. Reilly as sidekick (and perennial #2 finisher) Cal Naughton Jr. -- all are spot-on, and none outstay their welcome.
Baron Cohen's performance as the gay French driver, on the other hand, cripples the movie; it's a collection of insulting stereotypes and tired cliches, delivered in a bad imitation of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau accent. He's painful to watch, and he shows up just often enough to keep the movie from ever developing any real momentum.
A disappointment.
The best performances come from the supporting cast. Jane Lynch and Gary Cole as Ricky's parents, Greg Germann and Molly Shannon as Ricky's chief corporate sponsor and his lush of a wife, John C. Reilly as sidekick (and perennial #2 finisher) Cal Naughton Jr. -- all are spot-on, and none outstay their welcome.
Baron Cohen's performance as the gay French driver, on the other hand, cripples the movie; it's a collection of insulting stereotypes and tired cliches, delivered in a bad imitation of Peter Sellers' Inspector Clouseau accent. He's painful to watch, and he shows up just often enough to keep the movie from ever developing any real momentum.
A disappointment.
MOVIES: Idiocracy (Mike Judge, 2006)
This movie's been sitting on the shelf for at least a year, and has been dumped into a handful of theatres in a few cities, with no advertising support; it wasn't made available to critics for review before opening. Those are normally indicators that we have a massive turkey on our hands, but Idiocracy, though certainly no masterpiece, isn't that big a disaster.
Luke Wilson stars as Joe Bowers, a private in the army who's chosen as the guinea pig for a hibernation project; he's chosen because he's a perfectly average guy (and he has no family who would be upset if something goes wrong). Unable to find a suitable female soldier for the experiment, the military recruits prostitute Rita (Maya Rudolph). Joe and Rita are locked into their cryo-coffins, which will be opened in a year.
Well, things go wrong (as they do in movies like this), and it's 500 years later when the boxes finally open, releasing Joe and Rita into a vastly changed world. Stupidity has taken over completely. The most popular TV show is Ow! My Balls!; the latest Academy Award-winning film is Ass, a 90-minute shot of -- yup -- someone's ass. Brand names have become personal names -- Joe's lawyer is Frito Lexus (an annoying performance by Dax Shepard) and the President is Hector Mountain Dew Camacho. Joe is given an IQ test, and with his perfectly average score of 100, is declared to be the smartest man in the world and drafted into service by the US government to solve the many problems faced by this society of morons.
The background is the best part of the movie. Judge provides a perfectly plausible explanation for the spectacular dumbing-down of America, and the look of the movie is terrific, with every square inch of space cluttered with trash and decay. The story is a bit weak, and there's only so many laughs to be gotten from stupidity, no matter how spectacular it may be.
It's probably not worth forking over full theater prices to see Idiocracy, but like Judge's Office Space before it, it may well develop a healthy cult following on DVD.
Luke Wilson stars as Joe Bowers, a private in the army who's chosen as the guinea pig for a hibernation project; he's chosen because he's a perfectly average guy (and he has no family who would be upset if something goes wrong). Unable to find a suitable female soldier for the experiment, the military recruits prostitute Rita (Maya Rudolph). Joe and Rita are locked into their cryo-coffins, which will be opened in a year.
Well, things go wrong (as they do in movies like this), and it's 500 years later when the boxes finally open, releasing Joe and Rita into a vastly changed world. Stupidity has taken over completely. The most popular TV show is Ow! My Balls!; the latest Academy Award-winning film is Ass, a 90-minute shot of -- yup -- someone's ass. Brand names have become personal names -- Joe's lawyer is Frito Lexus (an annoying performance by Dax Shepard) and the President is Hector Mountain Dew Camacho. Joe is given an IQ test, and with his perfectly average score of 100, is declared to be the smartest man in the world and drafted into service by the US government to solve the many problems faced by this society of morons.
The background is the best part of the movie. Judge provides a perfectly plausible explanation for the spectacular dumbing-down of America, and the look of the movie is terrific, with every square inch of space cluttered with trash and decay. The story is a bit weak, and there's only so many laughs to be gotten from stupidity, no matter how spectacular it may be.
It's probably not worth forking over full theater prices to see Idiocracy, but like Judge's Office Space before it, it may well develop a healthy cult following on DVD.
BOOKS: The Color of Law, Mark Gimenez (2005)
A. Scott Fenney is a fast-rising Dallas corporate lawyer. Shawanda Jones is a heroin-addicted prostitute who's been charged with murdering the son of a Texas senator; the senator is running for President.
From those two sentences, you know the plot. Scott must defend Shawanda; his law firm pressures him to keep the dead guy's shameful secrets secret to protect the senator's campaign; Scott learns that he has a conscience, after all, and proves that someone else committed the murder in a magnificently hokey Perry Mason moment.
You could, in fact, probably write this book yourself, and you'd almost certainly do a better job of it than Gimenez has done, because you wouldn't do any of the following:
From those two sentences, you know the plot. Scott must defend Shawanda; his law firm pressures him to keep the dead guy's shameful secrets secret to protect the senator's campaign; Scott learns that he has a conscience, after all, and proves that someone else committed the murder in a magnificently hokey Perry Mason moment.
You could, in fact, probably write this book yourself, and you'd almost certainly do a better job of it than Gimenez has done, because you wouldn't do any of the following:
- Have the judge in Shawanda's trial appoint Scott, a corporate lawyer with no criminal defense experience at all, to serve as Shawanda's attorney. (And if you did do this, surely you would at least try to provide some sort of clever double-talk rationalization for such a ludicrous thing; Gimenez can't be bothered.)
- Use To Kill a Mockingbird as lazy shorthand to convince us that Scott is really a decent guy; why, it's his favorite book and his daughter's even named Barbara Boo Fenney. (And if you don't know that the "A." in "A. Scott" is for "Atticus" long before Gimenez gets around to telling us, then you may just be too damned stupid to live.)
- Make Shawanda a horribly offensive African-American stereotype, the kind of ignorant black woman who has a daughter named Pajamae (which is pronounced "pah-zhu-MAY").
- Have the resolution of the trial turn on an observation that the police could not in a million years be stupid enough to miss.
This is a mess of a book, and it was only the jaw-dropping embarrassing crappiness of it all that kept me going; on some level, I was in awe of Gimenez' achievement here. Not a page goes by without a stupid plot twist, a racist characterization, or a magnificently dimwitted line of dialogue. It's not just a bad book, it's a spectacularly bad book.
I've moved over to the new version of Blogger, which allows categorization of posts (hooray!). Over the next few days, I plan to go back and add labels to all the old posts, so that if I (or you) ever want to look at only the movies posts, or only the TV posts, that'll be possible. I think there will only be five labels: TV, Movies, Books, Music, and a tiny group of Other.
August 31, 2006
TV: Justice
Tell me if this set of characters sounds familiar:
Male professional, early middle age, brilliant at what he does, but so blunt and abrasive that it's not advisable to let him deal directly with the public. He has a team of three assistants who help him prepare, and who serve as the more palatable public face for the presentation of his work; they are a classic Mod Squad team: cute young white guy; sexy/brooding, slightly older black guy; and hot chick. That's right, it's House, but it's also Justice, which has pulled off the most blatant theft of a character set that I can remember.
This time, it's criminal defense attorneys instead of doctors, and our brilliant-but-abrasive genius is Ron Trott (Victor Garber), who prepares for a trial and spins the media better than anyone; unfortunately, juries hate him. So at trial time, Trott steps into the background and lets one of his partners take the lead. Most often, that job falls to the "all-American face of not guilty," Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith). Also on the team are Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker), who tends to play devil's advocate, spotting the weaknesses in his side's case; and Alden Tucker (Rebecca Mader), who deals with the forensic and medical experts.
Like the show's cast of characters, the first episode's plot is borrowed from elsewhere -- from the fine documentary The Staircase. As in that film, we're given a husband accused of murdering his wife; he claims that she died in a fall, but the prosecution argues that the head wounds are too severe and numerous to have been the result of an accident. The police claim that she was clubbed to death with a blunt object, but have been unable to locate that weapon.
As in all the other crime shows from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the visual style is flashy, with lots of swooping camera shots that dive through walls, and lengthy shots in which the passage of time is indicated by a character's clothes changing mid-stride. The show's signature device will be its epilogue, in which we get to see what actually happened, and I suspect that we'll see clients turn out to be guilty as often as not.
As Hugh Laurie dominates House, Victor Garber dominates Justice; he's crisp and witty, constantly barking orders at his colleagues and his clients, and turning on the charm for the TV talk shows. (How Trott can be so successful on these show but so unpopular with actual juries is the greatest flaw in the setup, and I hope that will be explored; perhaps he freezes under courtroom pressure.) It's a brash, extroverted performance, the polar opposite from his work on Alias as the tightly wound stoic Jack Bristow. The other actors didn't make particularly strong impressions in the first episode; they were overshadowed by Garber's oversized presence, but I expect that each will get a chance to shine in later episodes.
The show's got a tough time slot, opposite Lost, Criminal Minds, and One Tree Hill. It's a reasonably entertaining hour, though, and I'll give it at least a few more episodes.
Male professional, early middle age, brilliant at what he does, but so blunt and abrasive that it's not advisable to let him deal directly with the public. He has a team of three assistants who help him prepare, and who serve as the more palatable public face for the presentation of his work; they are a classic Mod Squad team: cute young white guy; sexy/brooding, slightly older black guy; and hot chick. That's right, it's House, but it's also Justice, which has pulled off the most blatant theft of a character set that I can remember.
This time, it's criminal defense attorneys instead of doctors, and our brilliant-but-abrasive genius is Ron Trott (Victor Garber), who prepares for a trial and spins the media better than anyone; unfortunately, juries hate him. So at trial time, Trott steps into the background and lets one of his partners take the lead. Most often, that job falls to the "all-American face of not guilty," Tom Nicholson (Kerr Smith). Also on the team are Luther Graves (Eamonn Walker), who tends to play devil's advocate, spotting the weaknesses in his side's case; and Alden Tucker (Rebecca Mader), who deals with the forensic and medical experts.
Like the show's cast of characters, the first episode's plot is borrowed from elsewhere -- from the fine documentary The Staircase. As in that film, we're given a husband accused of murdering his wife; he claims that she died in a fall, but the prosecution argues that the head wounds are too severe and numerous to have been the result of an accident. The police claim that she was clubbed to death with a blunt object, but have been unable to locate that weapon.
As in all the other crime shows from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, the visual style is flashy, with lots of swooping camera shots that dive through walls, and lengthy shots in which the passage of time is indicated by a character's clothes changing mid-stride. The show's signature device will be its epilogue, in which we get to see what actually happened, and I suspect that we'll see clients turn out to be guilty as often as not.
As Hugh Laurie dominates House, Victor Garber dominates Justice; he's crisp and witty, constantly barking orders at his colleagues and his clients, and turning on the charm for the TV talk shows. (How Trott can be so successful on these show but so unpopular with actual juries is the greatest flaw in the setup, and I hope that will be explored; perhaps he freezes under courtroom pressure.) It's a brash, extroverted performance, the polar opposite from his work on Alias as the tightly wound stoic Jack Bristow. The other actors didn't make particularly strong impressions in the first episode; they were overshadowed by Garber's oversized presence, but I expect that each will get a chance to shine in later episodes.
The show's got a tough time slot, opposite Lost, Criminal Minds, and One Tree Hill. It's a reasonably entertaining hour, though, and I'll give it at least a few more episodes.
August 27, 2006
MOVIES: Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris, 2006)
You've probably heard by now that this is one of the year's best movies, and it is. It's the story of the Hoover family, who find themselves making a road trip to California in a VW van so that 7-year-old Olive (Abigail Breslin) can compete in the Little Miss Sunshine pageant.
The timing couldn't be much worse. Mom Cheryl (Toni Collette) has just taken in her brother, Frank (Steve Carell), to live with them after his recent suicide attempt; husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a would-be self-help guru waiting for news on a book deal that he thinks will propel him to stardom. Teenaged son Dwayne (Paul Dano) wallows in gloom and has refused to speak for months, and Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is a heroin-snorting grump with nothing kind to say about anyone except Olive, who he is helping with her pageant talent routine. None of the Hoovers (except Olive) is very excited about the trip, but everyone has to go. Richard's the only one who can drive a stick shift; neither Frank, Dwayne, nor Grandpa can be left alone at home. And that's all I'm going to say about the story, because it's filled with unexpected twists and jokes that should come as surprises.
The cast is uniformly excellent; it's one of the best ensemble performances of the year, with every pair of characters having a completely believable relationship. The writing (screenplay by Michael Arndt) is sharp, and everytime you think you see a cliche approaching, it's deftly avoided. (There is, for instance, a poolside argument between two characters that does not end with one of them falling into the pool.) Seemingly unimportant details pay off in beautiful and unexpected ways, and the ending is neither too Hollywood-sweet nor too indie-cynical.
Just go. You'll be glad you did.
The timing couldn't be much worse. Mom Cheryl (Toni Collette) has just taken in her brother, Frank (Steve Carell), to live with them after his recent suicide attempt; husband Richard (Greg Kinnear) is a would-be self-help guru waiting for news on a book deal that he thinks will propel him to stardom. Teenaged son Dwayne (Paul Dano) wallows in gloom and has refused to speak for months, and Grandpa (Alan Arkin) is a heroin-snorting grump with nothing kind to say about anyone except Olive, who he is helping with her pageant talent routine. None of the Hoovers (except Olive) is very excited about the trip, but everyone has to go. Richard's the only one who can drive a stick shift; neither Frank, Dwayne, nor Grandpa can be left alone at home. And that's all I'm going to say about the story, because it's filled with unexpected twists and jokes that should come as surprises.
The cast is uniformly excellent; it's one of the best ensemble performances of the year, with every pair of characters having a completely believable relationship. The writing (screenplay by Michael Arndt) is sharp, and everytime you think you see a cliche approaching, it's deftly avoided. (There is, for instance, a poolside argument between two characters that does not end with one of them falling into the pool.) Seemingly unimportant details pay off in beautiful and unexpected ways, and the ending is neither too Hollywood-sweet nor too indie-cynical.
Just go. You'll be glad you did.
August 22, 2006
TV: Vanished
Sara Collins (Joanne Kelly) sits at her desk, nervously talking on the phone. We hear only her end of the conversation, which ends with her saying, "My husband is home. And don't ever call me here again." She greets her husband, Jeffrey (John Allen Nelson, the best thing about the first episode) in the foyer with "I need to tell you something," but before she can tell him anything, he's pulled away on important business by one of his aides. Jeffrey and Sara never do get to have that important conversation, because they have to get to a banquet honoring Sara for her charity work; just before she's due to give the opening remarks, Sara disappears, apparently the victim of a kidnapping.
Enter the FBI, in the form of Graham Kelton (Gale Harold) and Lin Mei (Ming-Na). He is, as TV cops must be, haunted by his disastrous last case, in which a preteen kidnap victim was killed by his captors during a rescue attempt. Sadly, Harold doesn't quite have the gravitas to make him a convincing FBI agent, much less an emotionally wounded one; it's like watching a poodle try to play a Doberman. (If we could find a happy medium between Harold's lightweight performance in this show and Jeremy Sisto's overly brooding performance in Kidnapped, we'd have a terrific FBI agent). As Lin Mei, Ming-Na gives the same flat, affectless performance she's been giving for the last ten years or so; her face is so cold and immobile that you might think her the victim of a tragic Botox accident.
It appears that Vanished will be one of those shows that's going to hand us a lot of goofy plot twists and over-the-top revelations. There's a home pregnancy test (with a positive result) in Sara's bathroom? Then of course, we must learn from her parents tell Sara is infertile. Jeffrey's daughter Marcy has a hunky young boyfriend with shifty eyes? Then of course, we must find a bloody shirt and a hidden backpack of money in his laundry room.
And we haven't even gotten to Jeffrey's ex-wife and the ambitious TV reporter and the body that's had some sort of ritual tattoo applied posthumously and the suggestion that some sort of mysterious Da Vinci Code-esque secret society is involved. It's all wildly farfetched, and that sort of thing works best when a show is willing to go indulge its goofiness to the max and just have fun. Lost, for instance, or the recently departed Alias, simply dove into the deep end of preposterousness and asked the audience to suspend almost every shred of disbelief. Based on the first episode, though, I'm afraid that Vanished is going to take itself too seriously; instead of being carried along by the plot twists in an exhilirating rush, we plod from one revelation to another, every one of them treated with far too much solemnity.
I'll give the show another week or two, in the hopes that it'll find the right tone for its story elements, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
Enter the FBI, in the form of Graham Kelton (Gale Harold) and Lin Mei (Ming-Na). He is, as TV cops must be, haunted by his disastrous last case, in which a preteen kidnap victim was killed by his captors during a rescue attempt. Sadly, Harold doesn't quite have the gravitas to make him a convincing FBI agent, much less an emotionally wounded one; it's like watching a poodle try to play a Doberman. (If we could find a happy medium between Harold's lightweight performance in this show and Jeremy Sisto's overly brooding performance in Kidnapped, we'd have a terrific FBI agent). As Lin Mei, Ming-Na gives the same flat, affectless performance she's been giving for the last ten years or so; her face is so cold and immobile that you might think her the victim of a tragic Botox accident.
It appears that Vanished will be one of those shows that's going to hand us a lot of goofy plot twists and over-the-top revelations. There's a home pregnancy test (with a positive result) in Sara's bathroom? Then of course, we must learn from her parents tell Sara is infertile. Jeffrey's daughter Marcy has a hunky young boyfriend with shifty eyes? Then of course, we must find a bloody shirt and a hidden backpack of money in his laundry room.
And we haven't even gotten to Jeffrey's ex-wife and the ambitious TV reporter and the body that's had some sort of ritual tattoo applied posthumously and the suggestion that some sort of mysterious Da Vinci Code-esque secret society is involved. It's all wildly farfetched, and that sort of thing works best when a show is willing to go indulge its goofiness to the max and just have fun. Lost, for instance, or the recently departed Alias, simply dove into the deep end of preposterousness and asked the audience to suspend almost every shred of disbelief. Based on the first episode, though, I'm afraid that Vanished is going to take itself too seriously; instead of being carried along by the plot twists in an exhilirating rush, we plod from one revelation to another, every one of them treated with far too much solemnity.
I'll give the show another week or two, in the hopes that it'll find the right tone for its story elements, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
August 21, 2006
TV: Kidnapped
Conrad Cain (Timothy Hutton) is a wealthy businessman, ruthless enough that death threats are an occasional part of his life. When 15-year-old son Leopold (Will Denton) is kidnapped, Conrad calls in Knapp (Jeremy Sisto), a former FBI agent who now works privately, specializing in recovering kidnap victims.
(A 15-year-old boy named Leopold? Really?)
It doesn't take long for the FBI to find out about the kidnapping, though; through a twist that's too coincidental even for a TV thriller, Leopold's bodyguard (Mykelti Williamson) is connected somehow (family? friendship? it's not clear yet) to FBI agent Latimer King (Delroy Lindo), who postpones his retirement in order to work on the case. King and Knapp have very different approaches; Knapp relishes the freedom that he has as an independent agent, and the presence of by-the-book FBI agents is cramping his style.
Kidnapped is part of this year's flood of serialized storytelling; the kidnapping story will play out over the course of the entire season. (I will be surprised if Leopold isn't recovered fairly quickly, moving the focus to finding and arresting the kidnappers; Americans don't have a lot of patience for stories about children in jeopardy.)
This is a cast of fine actors (Dana Delany is also on hand as Ellie Cain, Conrad's wife, and she'll surely be given more to do in later episodes than stand in the corner on the verge of tears), and the action scenes are suspenseful and clearly edited. The principal danger, I think, is that Sisto and Lindo share a dark intensity that's often more effective in supporting roles (Sisto was used perfectly in Six Feet Under, for instance); having them both in leading roles, especially where they're likely to be butting heads every week, seems like too much brooding to take on an ongoing basis.
The show may also suffer from the fact that Fox's similarly-themed Vanished (about the disappearance of a Senator's wife), which debuts tonight, and will have been on the air for several weeks when Kidnapped finally arrives; it seems unlikely that both kidnap serials can survive.
(A 15-year-old boy named Leopold? Really?)
It doesn't take long for the FBI to find out about the kidnapping, though; through a twist that's too coincidental even for a TV thriller, Leopold's bodyguard (Mykelti Williamson) is connected somehow (family? friendship? it's not clear yet) to FBI agent Latimer King (Delroy Lindo), who postpones his retirement in order to work on the case. King and Knapp have very different approaches; Knapp relishes the freedom that he has as an independent agent, and the presence of by-the-book FBI agents is cramping his style.
Kidnapped is part of this year's flood of serialized storytelling; the kidnapping story will play out over the course of the entire season. (I will be surprised if Leopold isn't recovered fairly quickly, moving the focus to finding and arresting the kidnappers; Americans don't have a lot of patience for stories about children in jeopardy.)
This is a cast of fine actors (Dana Delany is also on hand as Ellie Cain, Conrad's wife, and she'll surely be given more to do in later episodes than stand in the corner on the verge of tears), and the action scenes are suspenseful and clearly edited. The principal danger, I think, is that Sisto and Lindo share a dark intensity that's often more effective in supporting roles (Sisto was used perfectly in Six Feet Under, for instance); having them both in leading roles, especially where they're likely to be butting heads every week, seems like too much brooding to take on an ongoing basis.
The show may also suffer from the fact that Fox's similarly-themed Vanished (about the disappearance of a Senator's wife), which debuts tonight, and will have been on the air for several weeks when Kidnapped finally arrives; it seems unlikely that both kidnap serials can survive.
TV: Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
As the show begins, we're in Studio 60, where another episode of the live sketch-comedy show Friday Night in Hollywood is about to begin. The show's head writer (a guest appearance by Judd Hirsch) is arguing with the network standards-and-practices guy, who demands that a potentially offensive sketch be pulled; Hirsch melts down completely, interrupting the opening sketch with a Network-style lecture to the audience that gets him fired. (One of the few unsubtle details in the show is that the characters repeatedly tell us how "just like Network" that was.)
The newly hired head of the NBS entertainment division, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), is ordered by network boss Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber), to find a solution to the Friday Night problem in time for a Monday press conference. Her solution is to re-hire the writing team who oversaw the show during its glory years, Matt Albie and Danny Tripp (Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford), a team who left the show after a very visible and somewhat spectacular argument with Rudolph (details are left vague).
These four actors are very comfortable with Sorkin's style of rapid-fire dialogue, much of it delivered while walking through corridors and sets and stairways in trademark Sorkin style. Like Sports Night and The West Wing before it, Studio 60 throws you right into the action. The details of what's going on aren't always immediately explained; unlike most TV writers, who have so little faith in our ability to keep up that they force their characters (for our benefit) to explain to one another things they already know, Sorkin trusts the audience to keep up with what's happening and to figure things out as we go along.
The other principal characters spend most of the first episode in the background, but will presumably get more to do in later episodes. Timothy Busfield is Friday Night's longtime director, worried that he'll lose his own over that on-air meltdown. The three principal members of the Friday Night cast are played by Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, and Nate Corddry; Paulson's character, Harriet Hayes, is a conservative Christian who's only just ended a relationship with Danny.
The first episode of Studio 60 is lots of fun, and gets the series off to a promising start; if you liked Sorkin's other shows, you're going to enjoy this one, too. His writing is just as sharp as ever, and the show is well-cast, with several of the actors playing against their usual type; Weber's never been so hissably smarmy, and while I've enjoyed Amanda Peet's movie work, Jordan is a much smarter character than she usually gets to play, and she's delightful in the role. Perry and Whitfield are a crisp comic team, with the kind of timing and interaction that makes you believe they've known one another for years.
NBC will be airing this on Monday nights at 10:00, opposite CSI: Miami and What About Brian?; even after one episode, it's clear that it's going to be the best show in its timeslot.
The newly hired head of the NBS entertainment division, Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet), is ordered by network boss Jack Rudolph (Steven Weber), to find a solution to the Friday Night problem in time for a Monday press conference. Her solution is to re-hire the writing team who oversaw the show during its glory years, Matt Albie and Danny Tripp (Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford), a team who left the show after a very visible and somewhat spectacular argument with Rudolph (details are left vague).
These four actors are very comfortable with Sorkin's style of rapid-fire dialogue, much of it delivered while walking through corridors and sets and stairways in trademark Sorkin style. Like Sports Night and The West Wing before it, Studio 60 throws you right into the action. The details of what's going on aren't always immediately explained; unlike most TV writers, who have so little faith in our ability to keep up that they force their characters (for our benefit) to explain to one another things they already know, Sorkin trusts the audience to keep up with what's happening and to figure things out as we go along.
The other principal characters spend most of the first episode in the background, but will presumably get more to do in later episodes. Timothy Busfield is Friday Night's longtime director, worried that he'll lose his own over that on-air meltdown. The three principal members of the Friday Night cast are played by Sarah Paulson, D.L. Hughley, and Nate Corddry; Paulson's character, Harriet Hayes, is a conservative Christian who's only just ended a relationship with Danny.
The first episode of Studio 60 is lots of fun, and gets the series off to a promising start; if you liked Sorkin's other shows, you're going to enjoy this one, too. His writing is just as sharp as ever, and the show is well-cast, with several of the actors playing against their usual type; Weber's never been so hissably smarmy, and while I've enjoyed Amanda Peet's movie work, Jordan is a much smarter character than she usually gets to play, and she's delightful in the role. Perry and Whitfield are a crisp comic team, with the kind of timing and interaction that makes you believe they've known one another for years.
NBC will be airing this on Monday nights at 10:00, opposite CSI: Miami and What About Brian?; even after one episode, it's clear that it's going to be the best show in its timeslot.
TV: Another Exciting New Season!
Theoretically, the new TV season doesn't begin for another month (September 18 is the official kickoff date), but as is their custom, Fox is getting things off to an early start with the premiere of Vanished tonight. First episodes of some new shows will probably be popping up online, as was the case last year, and magazines like Entertainment Weekly may include a DVD or two. The newest tactic for getting pre-debut publicity comes from NBC, which has put the first episodes of two new series on a DVD available exclusively as a Netflix rental.
Last year, I watched at least one episode of every new series on the major networks. I'm not sure I'm going to be quite that brave and/or masochistic this year, but I'll watch a lot of them, and post my reactions here, beginning with the NBC/Netflix pair that I watched over the weekend.
Last year, I watched at least one episode of every new series on the major networks. I'm not sure I'm going to be quite that brave and/or masochistic this year, but I'll watch a lot of them, and post my reactions here, beginning with the NBC/Netflix pair that I watched over the weekend.
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