Weeds (spoilers, I guess)

I really enjoyed Weeds season 1, Mary Louise Parker's show about a suburban widow trying to make ends meet by selling marijuana in her gated community. The characters were pretty good, it didn't take itself too seriously and it pointed out the hypocrisy of white people in the suburbs when it comes to the drug war. Parts were pretty farfetched, but it's a comedy show so there's some wiggle room there. Also, Mary Louise Parker is hot.

Season 2 came around, and although the story wasn't great it was still enjoyable. The biggest problem was that Nancy's new boyfriend, DEA agent Something, is a really dumb character. He's played well by Martin Donovan, actually that's the only redeeming thing about the character. It's just poor writing, really. We're to believe that Nancy meets a new man and starts a relationship with him before realizing that he's a DEA agent. Fine. Then she's going to keep seeing him because she's "got everything under control". Ok. Then he reveals that he knows she's a drug dealer and doesn't care. That's a little weird. Eventually he starts helping her weed business by arresting her competition. Fine. Wait. What? Then he eventually goes psycho and tries to extort everything. I know we're supposed to suspend disbelief, but there's really only so much to be expected of the audience. A DEA agent going from by the book to murdering extortionist in a matter of weeks is a pretty big leap. Season 2 isn't a waste simply because of the characters that aren't Nancy Botwin or her kids. Councilman Doug and Brother in Law Andy save the show. Even Celia to a degree (at this point anyway- later they find a way to ruin her). The show at this point has become more about Nancy being stressed out and making bad decisions than it is about comic relief, but at least the side characters are in line with the original spirit. The season ends with a cliffhanger that I thought at first was pretty well done but upon reflection is really preachy. Nancy's oldest son makes a bad decision that puts people's lives in danger, at first I didn't mind it- the kid is naive and made a mistake, he's 16 or 17 and thought he was invincible. Not bad, since 16 & 17 year old kids are complete idiots, but given the future direction of the show it's clear that it was a message that drugs, even marijuana, lead to problems that can spiral out of control.

Season 3 quickly resolves the cliff hanger and moves on. It's like they end with these big events to keep us hooked for the next season, but then when they're writing the next season a new idea pops up in the writer's room and everyone just fills in the holes from the last season and moves on. The only good thing about season 3 is still the secondary characters. Kevin Nealon and whoever plays Andy (look it up yourself) are both awesome. They should seriously have ended Weeds and started a spinoff where those two drive around the southwest solving crime.

Season 4 and 5 will be covered together: they suck. Season 3 was the logical end point- the town they live in burned to the ground and scattered the cast to different places. It was the perfect amount of resolution, but no, that's not good enough. So they continued, and immediately started to be awful. Nancy doesn't even deal pot anymore, sure we see Andy and Doug smoking all the time and her oldest kid starts growing his own, but even that seems tacked on. Like a writer all of a sudden realized "Oh, crap, there's no one dealing drugs anymore on a show about dealing drugs. Make the kid do it. Done, now where can I cash this check?". Then I realized the major problem: the show is actually anti- marijuana. Nancy started in season 1 dealing weed to make money because no one gets hurt. By season 5 she is helping with human traffic and arms dealers. The point of the show is apparently that drugs are bad because they lead to other crimes that are REALLY bad. We can have a discussion about the validity of that thought process later, I'm just upset because it killed my buzz.

Alice in Wonderland

Hey guys! I started watching stuff again this week, and right off the bat I've got a doozy! Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Wow, Tim Burton really stepped out of the box on this one, I can tell you that. It features a slightly older, slightly gothier Alice who returns to Wonderland so that Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter can act crazy. And boy do they! They act just as crazy as they do in every Tim Burton movie. Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter is completely insane, except you know, when the plot requires a moment of sanity. Helena Bonham Carter yells at everybody! A lot! She's never done that before, this is crazy!!!
My problem with Tim Burton is that he used to be awesome and now he sucks. He sucks because he knows he used to be awesome and hasn't changed a thing- every visual in this film was exactly as you would expect it. Everything is impossibly goth and sinister- it's like they filmed the whole movie inside a Hot Topic. The studios might as well save some money and just release Edward Scissorhands under a different title every couple of years. We get it, Tim, you have a unique and skewed view of the world! (if by 'unique and skewed' you mean 'same as every 14 year old girl')

Don't bother watching Alice in Wonderland.

whoops

Hey, the last two posts were about me NOT watching stuff. I'll get better. I watched all of Eastbound & Down over the weekend and re-watched Californication season 1. I'll talk about them soon.

It's been a slow week.

Hey Guys!!!!
I haven't posted anything this week because I haven't really watched much. There were plenty of shows to go to and people to hang out with, so I wasn't in front of the tv much.
Here is a rundown of what I do remember seeing since the last post:
2/3 of Star Trek: First Contact. It was ok, I was always more of a Star Wars fan because Star Wars is superior in every way. This one follows the Next Generation crew of the Enterprise back in time to stop the evil Borg from preventing Earth's first contact with aliens. Yes, it's almost exactly the plot of Terminator, only with aliens and British people. I didn't finish it, maybe some day.
The opening monologue to the Mtv Movie Awards. Aziz Ansari was pretty funny- he made fun of Avatar and Precious and Twilight and some celebrities and stuff. The best part was Tom Cruise reprising his role as Les Grossman (from Tropic Thunder). I take back everything bad I ever said about Tom Cruise because Les Grossman is one of the greatest characters ever. Unfortunately they're going to ruin it by giving the character his own feature. Something that's hilarious for 5 minutes at a time isn't necessarily funny for 90 minutes. Who knows- maybe it'll be good.
Finished season 1 of 24. It was good- Hopper is in it a lot at the end, so that's great. That's the only reason I watched it again to begin with, but I was reminded how awesome Keifer Sutherland is.
Quiet Desperation. This one is weird because it's not on the tv, I watch it on my laptop. It's a fake reality sitcom about the arts & music scene in Allston, Ma. It's really funny. There were rumors of a Jersey Shore type reality show coming to Massachusetts and that's a stupid idea. A good idea would be to put Quiet Desperation on tv, because it's better then most of the crap out there. Seriously, how many shows do you need that feature a camera crew following an unnecessarily large family around? Zero, that's how many. Take them off the air and put Quiet D on instead. Click on this thing to go to the site. Be like me!!!

Sorry, I didn't watch a lot this week

Hey guys,
I didn't watch too much this week because I was busy saving the world but I can't talk about that because it's classified.
When I did get some time to watch stuff this week it was mostly season 1 of 24. I've seen it before, but then Hopper died and it made me all nostalgic (he's the awesome villain in season 1). I'm not done the season yet, but it's as fun as I remember it. Everyone on the show sucks except Jack Bauer (and Hopper, when he eventually shows up on like, the last dvd). Everyone at CTU is an idiot, because they're all "by the book" and don't like when Jack goes with his gut. Well you know what, morons? Jack's gut has saved this great nation more often than [insert something here]. Jack's wife and daughter suck. His daughter gets kidnapped THREE TIMES in season 1, and I know for a fact that in season 2 she is held hostage by a goddamn mountain lion (retroactive spoiler alert). It's like the writers originally knew that Jack would need a family to care about because it would help the audience relate to him, but then they ran out of stuff for them to do. They were like

"Hey, in this part of the script we only have Jack driving for like 40 minutes and then walking around in a field in the middle of nowhere. Pretty boring stuff, no action and no plot development so we need to show something else for a little while. Let's kidnap the daughter and give the wife temporary amnesia. No, it's just temporary, her memory will kick back in as soon as the action picks up again. Yeah, she sucks."

I'm gonna watch more of it later, even though I know it's just a show designed to push Fox's right wing agenda onto a stupid country but I like it. I think Keifer Sutherland should win an award for pissed off staring, by the way.

Oh Goddammit!

The AP is reporting that Guillermo del Toro has quit working on the Hobbit movies. He's an awesome director and I'd have loved to see his versions of the dragon and trolls in the Lord of the Rings prequels.

RIP Dennis Hopper

Watch these commercials:






Now, I generally hate commercials, but these were brilliant. As was pointed out by the wwtdd writer, Dennis Hopper was better in these commercials than most actors are in movies or tv. He was truly an original and the world is less interesting now that he's gone.

Other People Watching Sports

Last night there was a big basketball match between the local Celtics squad and a team from some other part of the country. Orlando? I'm going with Orlando. My roommate had informed me he would be having some friends over to watch the game and hang out. Growing up in New England, I know my average sportsfan, but it's been a long time since I've observed them in their natural habitat. Also, I haven't actually watched a sporting event in a long time. I don't hate sports, I just really don't care. I've been to games for all of Boston's big teams and had some good times at them (the last baseball game I was at was Lester's no hitter, so that was pretty special), it's just that over the years I've chosen to focus my attention on other things.

So, right off the bat (ha!), Peter get's a call from one of his friends informing him that he will only come over if it's guaranteed that every second of the game will be watched. No changing the channel to check something real quick, no turning down the volume while something is discussed. Basically total basketball focus or he won't come over. It was at this time that I attempted to convince everyone who was already there to tell him that we agree to this but then switch to a Bugs Bunny cartoon as soon as he arrived. I was unsuccessful, but you know that would've been hilarious. This is the kind of person I'm dealing with. And I dealt with it by getting gloriously drunk on vodka.

So I watched people watch the game, occasionally asking insightful questions like "OH MY GOD, how is this game still going on?" and receiving answers like "Dude, it's not even half time." People argued about which player is better and ate pizza and nothing exciting really happened. That's the important part. Nothing exciting happened. Remember the kid who demanded we watch every second? Turns out it didn't matter. The Celtics scored first, jumped out to an early 2-0 lead and never fell behind. The other guys never even got close, and it was dreadfully boring. There was never any suspense, no drama. Even if I liked basketball, I can't tell you that I would enjoy watching a game. Maybe just the highlights on the news or sportcenter or something. Actually, yeah, that's what I'd do. To put it in movie terms for myself, I guess it seems like a Michael Bay movie- tons of boring crap with the occasional cool explosion. Just string the explosions together and I'll watch that, I don't care about Shia LeBouf's story arc. Fortunately, last night's victory guarantees a whole new set of games for me to not be interested in.

The Road

Hey everybody! So I watched "The Road" last night and it was fucking incredible. It's based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy, so that's something. It's just about the most depressing thing I've ever seen, and I've seen a guy in a bear costume sit on the curb and cry. So think about that. Think about how depressing I must think this movie is.

Exactly.

Seriously, Viggo Mortensen is an amazing actor and I can't imagine a better choice for the lead in this one. He's prettymuch neck and neck with Daniel Day Lewis for the title of best ever (yes, I think they're both better than Brando, deal with it). The directing was great, even with the choice to add Charlize Theron as a character (I didn't love the idea, but I understand it. Adding a character he can flash back on and have conversations with is better than constant narration. As much as I complain when novels are altered for the screen, I have to admit that translating from one media to the other does pose problems and this is one of the rare instances where they got it as right as they could). So, if you're in the mood for a depressing, post apocalyptic father and son survival epic, this is your movie.

Clean Out The DVR Day

Monday is usually Clean out the DVR day here in my underground headquarters. Today I watched the Simpsons, Parks & Rec and this new show on Fox called the Good Guys.

The Simpsons was pretty good, it was a Moe episode. Moe is the best character on the Simpsons that isn't named Homer Simpson, so it had that going for it. The worst character on the Simpsons is Lisa. Every time they air a Lisa episode Satan prank calls your Grandmother, so think about that.

Parks & Rec is awesome, but it wasn't my favorite. Here's my problem: I am sort of in love with Aubrey Plaza's character April, but a big part of this season is how her and the stupid guy like each other. She's always looking at him in that way girls do on tv shows. That guy sucks. So, the show was funny but they sort of got together so it was also heartbreaking. If you're me.

I'm watching the Good Guys right now. I had really high hopes since I first learned about it 3 days ago. It stars Colin Hanks, who is Tom Hanks' son. Who cares, right? But it's also got Bradley Whitford. He was on the West Wing, and he was great in every episode (especially the one where he was hungover and he meets Joey Lucas for the first time). Turns out that if you're awesome on one show, it doesn't mean you'll be automatically awesome on another. I don't think it's entirely his fault, but he should have turned down the job. The show is a wacky, mismatched cop show. Hanks is clean cut and by the book while Whitford is crazy and goes with his gut. Right off the bat we learn that BW's character likes clothes from the Beastie Boys "Sabotage" video and hates computers. I understand cop stories from 1993 that feature an older detective who hates and fears computers, but in 2010 that reall doesn't fly. Here's one back and forth they had:

Hanks: "I found this phone number on a piece of paper."
Whitford: "Great, I'll hit the streets, see if anybody recognizes it."
Hanks [sarcastically]: "Or I could just search it in the computer and we can find out right away."

How would that lack of knowledge be allowed? Oh. And then later there was a scene where a bad guy throws a knife at him and you think it hit him in the heart, except it didn't! It hit the booze flask in his breast pocket! I have never seen that happen in film or television history. Now who's being sarcastic, Colin Hanks? And tell your dad that Castaway sucks. Right now there is, I swear to God, a car chase with AC/DC's "Thunderstruck" playing in the background. Until this moment I wouldn't have thought that could be bad on any level, but they figured out how to ruin it. Don't bother watching the Good Guys.

Lost Series Finale

Hey kids!!!! I watched the Lost finale last night, then talked about it on Facebook and with my roommate until like 3 in the morning. I don't think I really want to blog about it right now, maybe later.

I will offer my favorite moment from the series. It's from the season 3 finale- Fed up with constantly being on the defensive, Sawyer kills Tom from the Others.

MacGruber

Hey kids! I just watched MacGruber, it was pretty funny. The bad guy's name is Cunth, so they keep saying things like "Let's pound some Cunth!" and stuff like that. It sounds like they're saying a grown-up word (cunt). There was other funny stuff too, but it's not like, the best comedy ever or anything. I'd say it falls somewhere between All the President's Men and the Original Pink Panther. Also, the explosions were pretty fake looking and Val Kilmer got fat.

Streets of Fire

Streets of Fire is the greatest movie ever made in the history of movies. It stars Michael Pare (the best awful actor ever) and eighteen year old Diane Lane (the hottest actress ever. Every movie should have eighteen year old Diane Lane as the female lead). There are some other people too. Willem Dafoe is the bad guy and Rick Moranis is in it. So is the wife from Field of Dreams, but she's kind of annoying.

The most important reason for the artistic success of Streets of Fire is the fact that it includes not one, but two Jim Steinman songs. That's right- two songs by songwriting legend Jim Steinman. "Nowhere Fast" and "Tonight Is What It Means To Be Young"- the best fist pumping songs since Journey's "Separate Ways".