Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Category: Reviews

  • The Concept of Prehistoric Park

    This might be my last traditional review of the year, considering we’re nearing the end of 2006. In this last month of the year, everybody likes to see best and worst of the year lists, so be prepared to be bombarded with those for the next few weeks, culminating with my Top 10 Lists of the Year. Ooooh meta-humor.


    Ahhh the good old days when TV about Dinosaurs was relegated to them hitting each other with frying pans. If only Prehistoric Park had a little more of that.

    Imagine, if you will, if Jurassic Park were a TV show. Wouldn’t that be exciting? Dinosaurs running around, tearing up each other and people, and all kinds of exciting action week after week. You could have park rangers dealing with all of the problems of running a park for dinosaurs, getting eaten while trying to feed them. I can’t really think of any good storylines, but this is dinosaurs and people in the same environment! This is like the holy grail of excitement… unless you count the Flintstones, and that horrible movie “Carnosaur“… god that was bad

    So when I heard about this show, Prehistoric Park, that’s on Animal Planet (originally, it was made for British television, but I would bet that they had a deal with American TV before it was made for funding purposes), I just had to check it out. I was completely let down. There I am with my bowl of popcorn and my dino-pajamas, waiting to see an action-packed hour of dino-tainment, and I’m bored to tears. Why?

    Well, “Prehistoric Park” is a documentary about an animal preserve where the curator goes back in time through some sort of timecube or stargate:atlantis or something and brings the dinosaurs back to his park, where he doesn’t do anything except keep them in pens and watch their health. That’s not entirely true. The last episode had a large “plot” involving saber-toothed tiger husbandry. You heard me. As a documentary on this completely real place, and the fact that it’s been made for educational purposes, obviously the main point is to tell us all about the behavior of these dinosaurs and how to medically and behaviorally care for them. And that’s about as exciting, as say, a documentary on real tiger husbandry, and who would really care about that?

    I’ve boiled the conceptual problems down to three areas: First of all, since this park is entirely real (it is a documentary after all) are we to believe that these people have never seen or heard of Jurassic Park? You would think that if you were planning a dinosaur island theme park, Jurassic Park would probably be the first place you would look to do research. And you would realize that no matter how safely you think your T-Rex is kept, it’s not. Rule number 1 about having an island dinosaur preserve” No T-Rexes. Even if you have your giant electrical fences or in the case of Prehistoric Park, just giant wooden fences,he T-Rex is gonna get out. If we learned one thing from “The Lost World“, it’s that San Diego is not prepared for a T-Rex attack. (granted, that was pre-9/11, but I seriously doubt that the D.H.S. has a plan for dinosaur attacks). I understand that it’s very unlikely and that The Lost World was a movie, but this is a documentary, so you’d think these Palienticians would be more responsible. They’re just as bad as Cartographers

    Secondly, haven’t they ever seen a time-travel movie? In fact there was one that came out about a year or so ago called “A Sound of Thunder” that dealt specifically to going back to the time of dinosaurs and hunting them. When the wrong ones ended up shot, the future (present) was entirely changed. Who knows, they could be abducting the dinosaur that brought their great-great-great etc grandparents together creating a time paradox that could rip apart the space-time continuum. Even if that didn’t happen, think of the change to the animal food chain, what with humans being knocked down a notch… granted, there are a few too many Canadians for my taste. But still, that doesn’t sound like something I want happening on my watch. You people are supposed to be responsible scientists; get your act together.

    For my third point, I have a confession to make. While this show is presented as a documentary, I’ve recently been informed that it really isn’t and that it’s just presented that way to tell you boring information about dinosaur life that you never had any desire to know. This doesn’t make any sense to me. Nobody was ever around when dinosaurs lived. How do we know that there weren’t McDino-lds walk-throughs, or that specific plants made certain dinos sick. The only evidence we have is bones, and some eggs. Everything in this show is presented so seriously that we automatically take every single word for fact. It’s like if the croc hunter went after velociraptors instead of stingrays”. well the result would still be the same either way. Anyway, they could really tell us anything about dinosaurs (say they all wore blue hats, drank horse urine, and were the largest exporter of human pubis in the world) and we’d believe them.

    I always liked learning about dinosaurs because there were so many different kinds, all with their own special features and fighting styles. I wanted to see them fight each other and stuff like all kids do. This show totally de-mystifies the whole dinosaur idea, basically showing us the medical side of running a dinosaur theme park, and unless you’re one of the few people who are interested in paleo-veterinary-zoology you’ll be as completely bored as I was.

    *
    The concept of “Prehistoric Park” gets one star due to having a good idea to start off with and completely wasting it. This show is like watching people oil and polish Transformers instead of letting them do what they do best: shoot laser beams.

  • 13 Months of Empty Bookshelf Reviews

    Though this was meant to correspond with Nate’s review of the first 100 reviews, schedules and, uh, not-feeling-like-it-at-the-moment-because-it’s-a-bit-daunting-of-a-task-itis, has delayed this “One Year Anniversary” review and pushed it into 13/14 months, but that’s fine by me.

    WARNING: Intense self-congratulation ahead.

    Nate’s recap covered things in a time-based manner, in fact you could almost call it a “temporal” recap. (HA!), so I’ll look at things a step back or so.

    stats
    Basically, this chart says that aside from people that randomly come across the site via search engines, a large portion of our readership seems to check back pretty regularly.

    When I had run the idea of a website by Nate, it was presented simply in a “wouldn’t it be funny if we reviewed anything-and-everything.” How often do people assign star rankings to things that aren’t arts or consumables? (Consumer Reports gives star ratings to lots of stuff, though it’s always physical items available for purchase). We never officially decided on what constitutes “reviewable”, but being that we’ve reviewed Pluto’s demotion (those bastards) and thrown an ambitious amount of words towards reviewing the hype surrounding various media properties, we’re definitely keeping our options open.

    From the beginning, we’ve dreaded the dirty “B” word. Our site looks like many, many sites associated with the “movement” associated with the B word; our site runs the same software that is one of the most popular B word platforms, and the fact that we usually indignantly explain “it’s a website, not one of those” when people refer to it as our “BLOG” just serves to establish how much like a blog it is. Well, though we’re wont to admit it, at the end of the day, we’re really not too far removed from the “blogosphere” – we just avoid the “I feel bad today because” style rampant in most blogs. Likewise, it’s rare that we read a random article online then say, “I think I’m going to review that” the way that many people who have blogs write snippets of “I read this article and I think this about it.”

    Nate did a good job wrapping up the first batch of reviews we did. Though the writing in those first reviews had “voice”, the big picture aspects of the site were still up in the air. My first review (about a really long baseball game) didn’t really accomplish much, though it did help to establish the implicit theme of our reviews and how we think we’d like aim to separate from the “blogosphere”: as everyone who writes anything on the internet, we think that we offer something new and interesting that is unique to our site. You could find people talking about how long that baseball game was and how great it was, but no one saying “well, actually, the game wasn’t any good.” This led into our future reviews, where we’re pretty much the only people writing about the topics (verbally harassing horses, recaps of great football injuries, the myth of the Christmas season coming earlier every year [as opposed to the complaint that it does or doesn’t come earlier every year] etc.) That’s not to say we didn’t write about things that were more straight-forward as needed. When I had bad luck with Vonage and when Nate’s long distance provider didn’t see that anything was out of the ordinary when his long distance bill went up somewhere in the 900%+ range, reviews were written. There, the goal was to try to make our bad experiences in consumerism known and hopefully somewhat entertaining.

    After we had established the criteria for whether or not something was considered reviewable, we looked toward more “touchy-feely” sort of goals. Well, at least I did. I’m not sure what Nate’s goals have been. The shear size of the internet makes it so any schmuck can make any website about any thing. That’s widely understood, and that’s fine, but it also gives space for incredibly, well, passionate (for better or for worse) defenses or critiques of topics that go (rightly) ignored in the mainstream print media. Heck, even a devoted sneaker magazine such as Sole Collector probably wouldn’t devote 1600 words to the Oakley Twitch. Likewise, Entertainment Weekly would never run 3500 words about Scrubs (and rightly so). One of the first websites that took advantage of this freedom afforded by the internet was the movie news/rumors site Ain’t It Cool News; it didn’t create the mold, but it had a lot to do with shaping what people expect from the internet. Ain’t It Cool News still “works” as a website almost 10 years after its creation, but it would never work as a traditional magazine or even newspaper. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in the community “power” of the internet, but I will stand behind the sense of community that it can create. Ain’t It Cool News is famous for its rumors and news, but what sets it apart from, say, Variety or Entertainment Weekly are the actual movie reviews. Needless to say, read Harry Knowles’ review of Clerks 2, then read the Variety review. They’re both positive, but the limitations of “traditional journalism” are evident. Sure, Knowles’ review is a bit fanboy-ish, but there’s something to be said about liking a movie, then seeing someone else on the internet go out of his way explaining how and why it is that good. Oddly, it’s re-affirming in some way to see that someone is as over-the-top positive for a movie (or CD, or pair of sneakers, or a Star Wars promo video).

    What brings it all back is that my goal has been to write reviews that people who already like something end up liking it more after they’ve read it. I guess that’s sort of a pretentious if not presumptuous opinion of my own work, but that’s my goal. As always, there have been humorous reviews sprinkled in within the more serious (the Chinese basketball game, verbally harassing horses, etc.), but by-and-large I yearn to educate. So, here’s a recap.

    I like how every single review (well except Nate’s U2/Green Day one) has a picture and funny caption. Nate’s Saving Silverman review has a good one, and I’m still fond of my “Nate Hates Christmas” when we were feuding over whether Christmas comes early every year or earlier every year. I like how pop-ins created an entirely new dynamic within the articles, allowing for jokes that are completely removed from the review itself (such as “HE HAD THE HIGH GROUND” in my Star Wars review. In terms of stuff liked enough to call out…

    Of my reviews, I think the “When Your Reach Exceeds Your Grasp” is probably the strongest: it doesn’t meander, it includes that self-deprecating humor found in all of the emptybookshelf reviews that the ladies claim to love. Of course, here we (I) are (am) writing about how great we are, but still… Anyway, I’d stand behind Verbally Harassing Horses, Oakley Twitch, Outsourcing Phone Support to India, The Last 200 Years of Human Creative Output, the 3 part Current TV Landscape (meandering as the reviews do), and the Roger Ebert’s Take on Video Games.

    I’ve enjoyed how I very infrequently actually follow-up on things I claim I will review in the future: my Pirates Magazine series ended up being just one review, and as you read that review, you can sense my feeling of having any point in reviewing further aspects of it go out the window. I’ve never reviewed the Daily Show, and heck, of the original topics I listed in the first review, well, let’s take a look.

    • electricity – nope
    • Columbus Day – nope
    • sandwiches – hmm…Nate reviewed something from Quizno’s and I reviewed Super Bowl food
    • Adam’s Smug Sense of Self-Worth – actually, I think I ended up covering this in “Knocking the Wind Out of Adam“
    • Arby’s – MIA
    • Dell 2005FPW monitor – Yes
    • scissors – Nope
    • Verizon Online DSL – Uhh, That’d be exciting
    • The Streets’ A Grand Don’t Come for Free – Yep

    Facts:
    4,851 visitors (this actually isn’t very many considering that we’re indexed by Google and these are not necessarily unique visitors. For example, every time I turn my cable modem off then back on, I’m tallied as a “new visitor”)

    The most visited reviews since October 12 of 2005 are the following:

    1. Nate’s LOST Season 2 review
    2. My review of “the internet“
    3. The Cinemax/Star Wars promo review (this has been the third most read review and has been up only about a month so far)
    4. Roger Ebert’s Take on Video Games
    5. Nate’s Other People Stealing Your Ideas Without Having Met You or Even Knowing They Stole Something
    6. My assault on the underaged and pantsless in the review of the Cure4Cole “Ad” campaign

    ****½

    13 Months of Empty Bookshelf gets four-and-a-half big stars due to the fact that, as Nate had covered in his 100 Review review, we managed to keep everything going even though we thought we had a good chance of running out of steam after only a few months. It’s a side project/hobby-type thing, but we’ve both moved into “grown up” type jobs and manage to provide (arguably) quality content on a regular basis. Of course “regular basis” has become much less regular as sometimes after spending all day in front of a computer does not leave one wanting to spend more time in there at home, so that somewhat lack of productivity is responsible for that minus half a star. We’re going to be pretty busy in the coming weeks leading into the movie premiere on December 23, but I’m sure we’ll still have stuff to post.

  • Lady in the Water

    This happened to be one of the five movies shown on the way back from Hong Kong/China. Remembering Nate’s review about the critical hub-bub over this movie, I decided to write notes throughout the movie. I hadn’t read Nate’s review for a long time and was unable to access it on the plane, so this is definitely not a review of his review.

    I was in that sort of delirious state where you’re really tired, but unable to sleep, so the following reads as a combination of the notes one would take during a screening of a movie and a stream-of-consciousness scribbling for however long the movie was. I was too tired to keep track of the context in the movie for some of the notes, so some seems sort of random. Anyway, here we go:

    lady in the water
    If the Lady in the Water were actually a guy, there’d be a solid NAMbLA joke here.

    This opening animation/cartoon certainly doesn’t seem like the beginning of a Will Ferrell movie – maybe there’s some sort of ironic, humorous twist at the end. [I had thought that when they announced the movies they were showing, they were announcing them in order.]

    Hmm, this movie certainly isn’t Talledega Nights. Judging by the opening titles, this looks like “Lady in the Water.” Nate you’re about to be served.

    This looks serious.

    Paul Giamatti seems to play the same character in every movie: tortured, middle-aged man who’s best friends with that guy from Wings. Maybe there just aren’t that many roles for unattractive middle-aged men.

    Get out of the darn pool! He’s so serious, he goes in with all of his clothes on.

    Cleveland Heap’s name should really be “BlueCollar McWorkingClass.”

    Apparently, there’s some sort of monster in the pool. Drain the damn pool. I’m sure the tenants would be okay about the pool closing if there were a monster in it.

    Your mom is the lady in the water.

    Can’t really make out many details: numerous people towards the screen have their shades open or reading lights on.

    He stutters: looks like Paul G is looking for an Oscar – “I JUST WANT TO BE NORMAL!!”

    Chinese people are funny (the people in the movie) – real Chinese people? (not so much)

    Your mom is a Narf.

    TURBULENCE!

    Something about a “chosen one” – man, I wonder if the 2nd and 3rd Matrix movies are still as bad as I remember them being.

    Whispering = dramatic.

    So the guy who sees the water nymph is the “chosen one” – gee, I wonder who that could be…because Cleveland certainly has no idea.

    Bob Balaban was funny in Waiting for Guffman.

    If they made soup out of butterflies, I wonder if rich white people would eat if only because of its extreme expense.

    9 letter word to “in human form” – CORPOREAL – hey, wait, the movie says “INCARNATE” – we’ll see about that, movie.

    The guy next to me loves his armrests.

    Paul Giamatti has a different voice when he yells, not unlike a certain German teacher I know.

    I’ve seen WWE Wrestlers who can do the stuttering disability better than Paul Giamatti.

    I think the movie is something about a story about writing a story – something smells recursive.

    If M. Night Shyamalan would’ve made Franklin, he wouldn’t have revealed Jefferson as a traitor until the very end, and it might’ve sucked even more.

    I spy: a pretentious director cameo!

    Right next to my head is a great place to place your screaming, newly adopted Chinese baby after you’ve decided that the people sitting near you are probably sick of hearing it, and you want to take it for a walk.

    Real janitors who are introspective are usually just crazy.

    Finally, someone is calling out the fact that Cleveland is hanging out with a teenaged girl who has a proclivity for not wearing clothing.

    Your mom is a narf.

    Monkeys!

    Cleveland happens to have an underwater flashlight — and the lung capacity of an orca.

    Tagline for future water movie: Under water, no one can hear you scream…unless they’re under water with you.

    I think the Chinese girl’s accent is fake – it’s too thick considering how solid her English grammar is.

    Scrunt? Madame North? – what the heck is going on?

    How can people have such serious conversations about such ludicrous things?

    M. Night Shyamalan has one face he makes when he “acts” – pensively concerned. Why can’t he do non-speaking cameos like Martin Scorcese in Gangs of New York.

    I bet the end of the movie will coincide with Cleveland finding out about the end of the Chinese story.

    Why do I smell vomit? Oh yeah, a plane full of adopted babies. It’s stinky enough that I don’t feel bad calling this flight “The Infertility Express.”

    This movie is stupid.

    “Is the eagle going to come back for her?”

    One character says, “There’s no originality left in the world.”
    -He’s calling the story and the viewer out.
    -What’s the point of the story calling itself out? Self-awareness is a trite, easy avenue for movies to take.
    -Will there be a big stupid surprise ending?

    Would the movie be more or less creepy if the character named “Story” were a guy? (answer: probably)

    When did all of the people from the apartments not think this was all stupid and decided to try to decipher the story.

    They should make a sequel to Apollo 13 where the astronauts who didn’t make it to the moon try to blow it up.

    It might’ve been a better idea to go through the details of attacking the scrunt instead of being told on-the-fly.

    Bob Balaban’s character again: is he talking about all movies or just this one?
    -Family Guy and the Simpsons make fun of themselves, but they don’t take themselves too seriously.

    Uh-oh, someone killed Cleveland’s family.

    It’s the ultimate, indulgent writer thing to think that you’d write something so powerful that someone would kill you over it.

    I think Hal Sparks is the muscle head in this movie.

    One time I got mauled by an invisible fantasy creature.

    Logic challenge: a “good” movie is in which you want to keep watching until the end (so you can see what happens). If I want to keep watching this movie to see how much stupider it gets, does that make this a good movie?

    Bob Balaban gets called out for being the type of person who sees through bad movies – then he sees so far into the movie that he gets mauled.

    This kid interprets cereal boxes. That’s a life skill, Junior.

    Man, that girl’s good and dead – how inappropriate.

    They should just show the Star Wars movies on airplanes.

    I think this is supposed to be about how traditional stories can be perfectly entertaining…. but this one isn’t entertaining.
    – only people who aren’t clever would think that this clever.

    Looks like the same creature from Brotherhood of the Wolf.

    Okay, that’s NOT Hal Sparks.

    James Newton Howard?! I would’ve never guessed.

    *

    Actually, the end is pretty strong (everything after when Cleveland “heals” the Story character). Looking back, it doesn’t seem that bad, but boy, was it ever. The ending is simply testament to “film-making” skills, not “film writing” skills. Self-indulgent nonsense that’s made even worse by him trying to be “clever” by defending the problems of the movie inside of the movie.

  • The Promotion of ‘Borat:Cultural Learnings of Ame’rica for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’


    Maybe this ridiculous outfit is what I need to get the womens. High Five!

    This guy is everywhere! I mean it. I mean it. Not just the ubiquitous ads for the movie, either. He may very well be the first person I’ve seen promoting one thing on Letterman, Leno, Conan, and The Daily Show, and a half-hour appearance in Opie and Anthony, in less than two weeks. And not only has the actor, Sacha Baron Cohen, been on all of them, he’s been on all of the as Borat, and done so in multiple segments on at least two of them. On Leno, he made a bed with Martha Stewart, and on Conan, he chased Conan around the stage with a pair of scissors, followed by one of the most bizarre musical performances I’ve seen on his show. In all four appearances the interview topics were different and fresh. Here’s a compendium of all of the media appearances. The guy even had a “float” in the NY Halloween parade, which is basically just a costume showcase and giant party. The “float” consisted of about 20 Borat impersonators. Completely ludicrous. I’m sure he’s got a myspace thing going as well. I have never seen an ad campaign for a film that was so in your face. The thing is, the movie was so inexpensive that it made up its cost in the first week. They can throw all kinds of money into the advertising, and it’ll still come out on top. And it’s an hilarious movie to boot. Congrats on getting everyone in the country’s attention.

    *****

    There isn’t a person in the country who doesn’t know about this movie. I’m nearly certain. Five stars.

  • Game 3 of the LaFrance China vs. LaFrance US Basketball Series

    Chinese people love their basketball. Playing, watching, talking about it, assuming that the black guy that’s over here for four weeks is both an engineer and in the NBA (because he’s black, duh). They love it the way the same way that noted friend of The Bookshelf™ (Josh) Calloway loves ginger ale.

    basketball

    Score: 92-80 US
    Any color blue jersey: Chinese Team
    Front Row (minus one basketball player): Basketball Groupies
    Whistle-Owner: Referee
    The rest: The US team (including the girl in the back right who’s from the US)
    (This victory made the US team 3-0. Notice, the US team member holding 3 fingers up. The Chinese people hold 2 fingers up because, well, that’s what Chinese people seem to do when they have their picture taken.)

    So, naturally, the Chinese all-stars (pulled from the ranks of security guards, engineers, factory workers, etc, etc.) from the company want to play the Americans, who they assume are seasoned basketball veterans, being that they’re Americans. So, here are the requirements for a successful intercontinental basketball dominance challenge:

    1. It has to be Wednesday. Selective brown-outs make it so the court is only illuminated on Wednesdays. Let’s say you have some sort of conflict that can only be resolved on the basketball court… and it’s Thursday. You have to wait one whole week to get it taken care of.

    2. You need a court with the gigantic, trapezoidal, official international basketball lane dimensions. Well, this is the only type you’ll find in China, you’re all set. And be careful, if the referee (see below) feels like calling offensive 3 second violations, and you’re in for some embarrassment until you get used to it.

    3. You need fans. The court is between two dorms which probably house 200 people combined. These fans need to bring a drum to bang on whenever the Chinese team scores.

    4. You need groupies. When you’ve just missed two layups, airballed a shot from the arc, and you’re out of breath only three minutes into the game, you need someone to tell you that you’re “number 1 basketball star.”

    5. You need a referee. No, scratch that. You need someone who owns a whistle. Two older (in their 40’s) whistle-owning guys who live in the dorms provided law and order (and a bafflingly inadequate grasp of the concepts of the backcourt violation and team foul) for our game.

    6. You need to have at least 4 of 5 players who are taller than 6’2″. Otherwise, the speed of the Chinese will overwhelm the rebound and layup differentials.

    7. You need to figure out which Chinese player is the best and switch to a box and one zone to cause him to take shots with an exceedingly low chance of being successful. The four people in #6 take care of the rebounds resulting from these shots.

    8. You need a time keeper who keeps time by his watch and yells when the 12 minute quarters are over. Also, he should speak no English; this way, the US team is unable to know how much time is remaining. More importantly, he should arbitrarily add time to the fourth quarter whenever the Chinese team slightly closes the point differential. This way, what should be 48 minutes of basketball ends up being closer to 60 minutes.

    9. You need a security guard to operate the scoreboard. Because he wouldn’t let anyone else near it.

    10. Most importantly, the US team needs an in-shape 40ish guy who plays basketball three times a week.

    ****½

    Game 3 of the LaFrance China vs. LaFrance US Basketball Series receives four-and-a-half stars due largely to the fact that we won the game and that games against the Chinese team don’t end up with someone from one team wanting to fight someone on the other team, like most (if not all) other competitive-in-some-way basketball games in which I’ve participated. And how often does someone get to represent their country successfully without doing something stupid? Minus 1/2 star for the ungodly amount of running involved in basketball.

  • Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

    Before I start, let me say that I’m going to be abbreviating the name of the show to “Studio 60”, both for the name of the show, and the show with-in the show. Our dictatorial leader may argue against that, saying that I don’t work on the show. I do though happen to be friends with someone who does work on the show, so I think that’s close enough. Also, Jenna, if you read this, don’t hate me. I have missed either one or two of the episodes, so if anybody has seen anything on them that contradicts my findings, let me know.


    Could we BE any funnier?…. No I actually mean that. These are the most serious comedians I’ve ever seen.

    I want Studio 60 to succeed. I really do. In theory. The problem is that I can’t bring myself to like it as much as I think I should. While I like a good deal of the characters (or at least their potential) and possible conflict ideas that could be presented, the actual realization of these characters and stories is leaving a bit to be desired in my mind.

    Maybe the bar has just been set too high. The creator/writer of the show is the guy behind the West Wing, and one of my personal favorites, Sports Night. Heck, I even patterned my senior video project after this style, with moderate success. I guess my thought was that he’d be able to take best parts of West Wing, and apply them to the same themes and fast-paced nature that Sports Night brought us. Plus there was an “all-star” cast. I don’t argue with the caliber of the lead actors, but, NBC, saying that Sarah Paulson and Nate Corddry are stars doesn’t make them that. That’s like saying that Diet Coke tastes great. It really doesn’t, but the more you hear it, the more you start to believe it may be true. Unfortunately, when you go to taste it, you know you’re completely wrong.

    That’s not to say that the two of them aren’t serviceable. They’re perfectly fine actors. Do I believe that they, along with D.L. Hughley, are stars of a late night comedy show? Mostly no. I think this is more of a testament to how they’re written, rather than how they’re performed. But I’ll get to that.

    I think that one of the show’s problems is that its focus is too wide. Rather than having a few main characters and a bunch of side characters, they decided to give everyone a more equal share of the time, this being the reason that NBC decided to tell us about fifteen names of people starring on the show. What made Sport Night so good wasn’t its author’s famous idealism, or his apparent love of TV/sports as means to change people’s lives, but it was the relationship between the two leads, played by Peter Krause (who has since been nominated for multiple emmys for Six Feet Under) and Josh Charles, (who has since appeared in Muppets From Space). These two were written and portrayed perfectly, making us believe that they were age-old friends and not just two actors who were thrown together after auditions. It was pure perfection. Of course there were other characters including what I would bill as two other leads, two supporting roles, and a bunch of side/background characters who were always there and consistently had lines, but no stories focused on them.


    “Are you aware that we have a sketch about Commedia dell’arte?”
    “Sure. I love the works of Moliere and his contemporaries”
    “Since most of them aren’t familiar with 17th Century French theatre, we should maybe do something our audience might actually enjoy, or find funny?”
    “It’s Italian, and you know, you should really stop dangling your modifiers like that”
    “HAHAHAHAHAHA. You’re an hilarious writer who is a thinly veiled representation of our show’s creator.”
    “God I hate reality shows.”

    Studio 60 (the drama) recycles this relationship, and even with Matthew Perry and Bradley Whitford playing the parts, it just doesn’t seem the same. They just don’t have that “I know what you’re thinking before you even thought about it” vibe that they could. I understand that the scenes are shorter and slower than on Sports Night, but Perry and Whitford’s characters just don’t give off that best friends thing, as much as everyone on the show says.

    In fact, that’s probably the show’s second biggest problem. Nobody lives up to their self-induced hype. These two are supposed to be a Brilliant writer, and producer, but every sketch we’ve seen Perry write has been mostly unfunny, and I barely ever see Whitford doing any sort of show-running. It extends to other characters and even the show itself. Amanda Peet is touted as a network-saving genius studio executive, even though all she does is hang out at Studio 60 (there must not be other shows on her network), talk about not having friends, and look knowingly at Perry and Whitford” about what, I don’t know. The three big stars of the show seem just too uptight and serious backstage, and not loose and funny as you’d expect them to be ” especially at the many wrap parties we’ve been able to see. In fact we’ve seen more wrap parties than actual episodes of the show on the show. They should just call it “Hollywood Post-Show Cocktail Party”. And because of that we have no reason to believe that the show (within the show) is actually improving (the reason that Perry and Whitford were brought in to run it in the first place). Everyone talks about how great the variety show is, but all I’ve seen are a few awful GWB impressions, two introductions for the Nicolas Cage show, “Meet the Press with Juliet Lewis” (???), and multiple indictments of organized religion (one of which was so “brilliant”” and hyped” that we felt cheated when we didn’t even get to see any of it).

    Maybe it’s ripping SNL’s inability to be funny, but the theme of the show is so idealistic about the power of good entertainment, and the lack of that on TV that I hardly think that’s the case. It seems to be saying that SNL (which exists in the world of Studio 60) is bad, but could be as great as it once was (the overhyped nostalgia at work)” but offers few solutions as to what the remedy could be.

    Which brings me to the biggest problem. Sorkin was ALWAYS preachy. There was the episodes of Sports Night dealing with moral issues of hunting, flying the confederate flag, marijuana legalization, and more, and those were in the first 7 episodes. The West Wing took that to another level by having the perfect president tell everyone how things should be in an ideal world. There was a post-9/11 episode that consisted of the White House staff talking to a group on a field trip about why the terrorists hate America, and what a perfect world would be like, and who could forget the President yelling at God from inside the national cathedral.

    Studio 60 (the drama) seems to take that preachiness and force-feed us, with multiple morals for each episode. If I want my morals given to me, I want them in small doses. This past week we were given two separate lectures on the merits of television history (including the fact that neither of Nate Corddry’s fifty-some year old parents had never heard of Abbot and Costello or “Who’s on First”, and the other story being about blacklisting), the plight of the smart black comedian to rise above stereotypes and dangerous upbringings, and a studio executive going on a tirade against a drama set in the U.N. that nobody would care about (a nod to executives questioning The West Wing in its formative years?…at the very least a shot at execs for not liking “smart” TV). All of these were not only blatantly told to us, but in HUUUUGE monologues that not only lacked any kind of subtlety, but rather than informing, seemed to condescend by telling us that we don’t know as much as Aaron Sorkin. We get it. You’re a well-educated Hollywood big shot, and we’re small America, and therefore we’re idiots. I’ve got news for you. Small America probably couldn’t care less about how much you know, and by treating them like know-nothings, you defeat your purpose of turning people to good TV, by driving them away.

    And for a show that’s as slickly produced, and high-and-mighty about how bad everything else on TV is, you surely have given us some predictable storylines. A vagrant walks into the dressing room of the building and takes an old staff picture that’s hanging on the wall. He mutters the names of some famous old-time Hollywood writers. It turns out that he’s one of the people in the picture!!!! What a shock! D.L. Hughley takes Matthew Perry to see a black stand-up comic, in hopes that he’ll bring some diversity to the writing staff. The comic is the stereotypical “whites do things this way, and blacks do them this way” guy, and Hughley is embarrassed. The two of them hang out at the bar though, and as they’re about to leave, they hear a guy who would be great on the staff!!! I was surprised!!! Perry’s ex-girlfriend and star of the show starts dating a baseball player. He’s not such a good guy, it turns out!!! OMG!!!

    NBC is wondering why nobody is watching what was the most talked about show for the fall season. The thing is, they did watch. The first episode did good numbers. The show has been steadily losing viewers each week, and it’s not hard to see why. People don’t like being told what to think by Hollywood types, not overtly at least. Sorkin tried to do with L.A. what he did with Washington, make a corrupt system look ideal. The situations in Hollywood, though, just seem superficial compared to the problems that a world leader faces, and offer less logical ways to discuss things of such vast importance. While I agree with what Sorkin says, I disagree with how he’s saying it these days.

    I’ll keep watching. I want to like the show. But will I miss the characters when it ends? Will I want to know what happens to them? Not really. Sorkin has chosen his themes and morals over his characters this time around, and not even I have the blinders to overlook it. I believe in the ideal of “Studio 60”, (that quality TV is going by the wayside, and that the American audience is complacent with watching crap) just not the way it’s being fed to me.

    **

    Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip receives two stars for being an incredibly polished and well put-together show, better than 80 percent of TV these days, but one that knows it, and rubs its face in the fact that the rest of television is awful except for it, the program that will restore brains to the boob-tube. Characters suffer because of Sorkin’s need to prove a point, and the name dropping of obscure authors, musicians, etc. only serve to alienate the audience that it depends on to keep running. Please, just don’t blame the fans for not watching your quality television program; blame yourself.

  • getting ripped off by your long-distance carrier/ISP

    I’ve been ripped off huuuuge. Conned. Bamboozled. Gypped. Screwed. And like in any con, the only person I have to blame is myself.


    17 miles is a long distance from Bethlehem, but not from 3 minutes away from here

    A few months ago my modem died. I was without internet at home for a while but I was still paying for the service, mostly because I kept telling myself that I’d be getting a new modem shortly. Eventually, thanks to Dan, I got one, and when I went to log in, there was a kindly message from People PC telling me that they added some new numbers and if i wanted to add them, I could. I checked out the new location, someplace maybe 15-20 miles from here on the other side of allentown. The area code was the same as mine, so I added it and figured that it would be thrown down at the bottom of the list that I already had.

    Today I woke up to my mom crying out in frustration. She showed me the phone bill, with huge charges to a phone number I didn’t recognize in a town that I didn’t recognize. I realized it could only be one thing, and I went to see what number my dial-up connection had been dialing. Sure enough, it was the same number.

    Since I left my internet connected (a period of 241 minutes each time), and each session for the last two weeks ranged in price from 29 dollars to 60 dollars, I managed to rack up a nineteen day total of $810. You heard me. I’m glad I have some money saved up, because that’s the kind of mistake that makes you homeless. Just think, there’s still another four days worth of internet connectivity to be had on the next bill!!

    Still, not understanding the reason for the long distance charge, we called to complain to the Verizon managers. We spoke to higher-ups, and higher-higher-ups, and all we got was the same response. “This is not our fault”. If you look in your phone book, you’ll see that a call to that place is long distance. I say, “But the area code is the same; how can that be long-distance.” “It doesn’t go by area code. It goes by exchange number (the first three digits). In your phone book you’ll find a listing of the exchange numbers that are local to your area that you can call.”

    Of course I went to the phone book and found that sure enough, in Bethlehem, PA, that number is not in the “local” area. If however, I were to live literally two minutes away from here, in Allentown, it would’ve been perfectly fine.

    I can’t blame the ISP because they have a waiver that you click on that says that you’re responsible for all charges incurred by your phone provider. I can’t blame Verizon because the phone book clearly doesn’t list that area as a “local” call. And now I’m out 800 dollars because long distance doesn’t go by area codes, and because that new phone number somehow got set to default.

    Verizon managed to take off 20 percent, so technically I’m only out 640 dollars, but that’s still a huuge chunk of money for 3 weeks of internet service that was mostly slow anyway.

    One thing I can’t understand, and didn’t think of it until after my conversation with the Verizon guy ended, is that if they were a credit card company, and they saw that there were large, abnormal changes to the bill, they would call (hopefully) to make sure that all was right. How come the phone company, after a few days of these enormous charges didn’t bother to think that something was abnormal or wrong about this. Why did they let it go on for weeks and weeks? I understand that with a credit card, there runs a risk of it being stolen, and that’s why those companies do that, to provide security. I just don’t understand how something like this goes unnoticed until the bill arrives. Nobody thinks that four hours of long distance calling per day is strange? In my opinion, Verizon was negligent.

    But like I said, I can’t really hold them accountable for anything, because it’s clearly defined in small print some place I would never bother to look. Bravo legal experts and money-grabbing corporations. You suckered a man out of two weeks pay.


    This may be the most humiliating, degrading, and definitely costly thing that’s happened to me all year… keep in mind that I bombed at a job interview at NBC.

  • The Cinemax Star Wars Promo

    quick intro: Cinemax will be showing all six Star Wars movies in high definition starting in November. Being that this is the first time all six movies have been shown in HD, they’re making a big deal about it, and have a page setup with various promotional videos. The video in question is entitled, “Original Trilogy.” For lower quality, but faster viewing, watch it on YouTube. The video is also embedded in this page. As will become significant later in this review, the song in the video is Fix You by Coldplay. Note: the audio level is very, very low in this file, so turn your speakers up.

    9 Bulleted Reasons Why This is Probably the Best Star Wars Promo Video Ever (and one reason why I say ‘probably’)

    Turn your speakers up, this is a quiet one.
    • Slow-motion makes everyone a good actor. Star Wars movies (old and new) were never known for their quality of their acting, but in slow motion, these are all Oscar-worthy performances. Notice at 0:41 when Natalie Portman’s character is about to cry: when I saw this in the theatre, there was laughing. And this was the buy-tickets-in-advance very first in the zip code midnight showing of the movie – in other words, people that drink the George Lucas Kool-Aid. But in slow motion… it gets ya.
    • It doesn’t use the all-too familiar Star Wars music for once. We know the “Star Wars opening crawl song”, Darth Vader’s music, and those that truly believe can pick out Yoda’s and Leia’s themes as well as the sort of singles from the prequels. As long as I can remember, Star Wars promos have used this music – it’s common brand recognition, people. But these Cinemax folks, they did something blatantly obvious, yet something that no one had thought of. Just choose the most-overused trailer and commercial band ever, Coldplay!
    • Surprisingly, Coldplay is not a bad choice. I’ve long held that Coldplay is more about the “sound” than the “song.” Of their random recordings and three major albums, they have about five really good songs among an unremarkable but perfectly solid collection of songs. The Cinemax people picked a good one, maybe the best one. Sure, picking this particular song isn’t exactly cutting edge for setting to video, but when was the last time Coldplay was set to non-contemporary images? We see new movie trailers, commercials, wrestling hype videos, and sports highlight packages out the wazoo (it doesn’t seem like people archive these type of videos, so no links), but already familiar images set to the music? — it works because as familiar as Coldplay is, this is a new way to present their style.
    • The video takes advantage of the fact that everyone already knows what happens in the movies to focus on some of the smaller moments. For example: they show the targeting computer footage from the original movie (in slow motion, of course), then Luke is shown reacting immediately after he shoots the torpedoes into the Death Star (using the force as guidance instead of the computer). We all know what he did, what it looked like, and instead of focusing on the destruction, we see the moment of relief when he realized he just really did it. A quick, quiet moment in a movie seemingly lacking nuance like that. Then we see the real big explosion, but we don’t hear the sound effects.
    • Finally, a Star Wars commercial that doesn’t focus on fight scenes and “THEN IT GOES BOOM” moments. It’s nice to see other aspects and moments of the movies highlighted…even if it takes slow motion to make them resonate. (disclaimer: I think I remember some love-ish related commercials to try to get women-folk interested in episodes 2 and 3, but those were as subtle in their appeals for women’s attention as the explosion-heavy commercials went after guys)
    • Again, the scene selection is top quality. The fact that they show Luke coming across the dead bodies of his adoptive parents says a lot about the shot selection. Considering that their death is probably the second most forgotten plot point in all six movies (the first being all of episode 1), and it’s the reason that Luke left his home planet to inadvertently join the Rebellion, it’s nice to see it given proper treatment. And the slow motion certainly helps. Also, instead of showing Luke fighting Vader, or the more famous scene where Vader’s mask is removed, they’ve selected the shot of Luke struggling to drag a dying Darth Vader (Anakin Skywalker at this point, I guess) to his shuttle to save him. This isn’t exactly what a beginner would pick from that sequence.
    • Attention to detail: To movie enthusiasts, the Star Wars movies are known for their attention to detail in sets, sound design, and art direction . The video showcases one of the finer details that’s wholly unnecessary in The Empire Strikes Back, but adds something to the “cold, hard, computers” motif seen on the Imperial warships. At 1:28, we see Darth Vader kneel down as he is about to begin his long-distance conversation with the Emperor (who, I’ll point out, is not seen at all in this video, prequels or original movies). It’s a significant moment in the original movies because, after seeing Darth Vader as the ultimate bad guy in the first movie, he’s shown bowing down to someone who really must be bad (as you can imagine, there’s more significance there if you’ve never seen the prequels). This plot point actually isn’t the detail in question though; it’s the fact that the set designer chose to progressively illuminate a four-segment ring of light on Vader’s platform after he knelt down. All of this a considerable amount of work for the carpenters what with the fact that the lit platform was shown in all of two shots. Now, whether the people that worked on this video read that much into it, I don’t know, but at the minimum, it’s an interesting shot from one of the less prominent sequences in any of the movies.
    • It makes the prequels look like movies that mesh with the originals. The fact that the old and new movies have almost completely different “looks” has been beaten to death, but the video merges the two styles into one organic universe (as it’s supposed to be between the trilogies). The Millennium Falcon taking off from the original movie followed by a ship from the prequels doing the same provides a connection to the big picture similarities between the movies. (Yes, I know the Millennium Falcon shot was from the Special Edition, but I’ve never heard of anyone complaining about that replacement.) Shots from the prequels are sparse, but well selected; there’s nothing there to remind you of the bad parts.
    • The music of the song really matches the video well [note: I’m talking about the music, not the lyrics (see below)]. To be honest, this isn’t a challenging song to mesh with images; it starts slow and simply with vocals and an organ, then builds as layers are added to the soundscape with guitars, bass, drums, echo, reverb and other studio magic. The key is that the song has energy, even with a slow vocal part. Simply, good trailer music is too slow to regular dance to, and too fast to slow dance to. Like many Coldplay songs, this sits at that neither-here-nor-there perfect-for-trailers tempo.
    • The lyrics are matched to shot selection too well. Someone at Cinemax said, “wouldn’t it be cute if when the lyrics say ‘I will fix you’, we show Chewbacca fixing C-3PO?” Unfortunately, no one said, “it would be, but that’s a stupid idea.” Though not exactly a metaphorical song, the lyrics can safely be called “evocative,” especially the “lights will guide you home” part. Pairing “when you try your best, but you don’t succeed” with Luke failing to lift his ship out of the swamp, again, is cute, but is ultimately an annoying choice. I’m not believer in the “power of lyrics,” but matching a video of someone trying and failing so literally with that phrase implies that the song is about a specific time when someone tried and failed, and without any sense of generality, that little phrase loses any poetic meaning. It would be like if a greeting card company began printing cards that said, “You’ll be my best friend until the end of time” because a gigantic meteor was on its way towards Earth in one week with a 100% chance of total destruction. The phrase loses any rhetorical weight it might have had because it’s addressing a very literal situation [I’ll pause here to let that one sink in…]. This also goes for “stuck in reverse” while showing R2-D2 rolling away with his back to the camera. BUT, the shot of Obi-Wan smiling (in slow motion) when he’s decided to sacrifice himself to Vader to allow Luke to escape during the first “lights will guide you home” line (1:07) works perfectly, as does the focus on the targeting computer as the song reaches that point a second time (2:09). *Special gross comment: Being that the song does include the “and ignite your bones” lyric, I’ll say that with the movies offering three four different instances of burned bones (the Owen and Beru Lars invitation-only BBQ of the original movie, Anakin totally forgetting that Obi-Wan had the high ground in Episode 3, and Luke getting his hand ginsu’d off in The Empire Strikes Back and Vader Flambee at the end of Return of the Jedi)), I’m surprised they didn’t have thrown a few frames of those shots in the video at the (overly) appropriate times.

    *****
    Too literal video to lyrics issues aside, this is the video which shows why people like these movies. Coincidentally, there’s no dialog, but there’s also very little action; it’s the characters and how they deal with their sneakers-too-large-for-their-feet problems and come out on top that pulls the people in, it’s the effortless attention to detail, it’s the entirely unreal yet very real world and characters created in the movies. Enough of my soapbox. It’s also really cool when the video shows the starfighter from the prequels (2:04) breaking off to blow stuff up, then immediately follows it with the point-of-view shot of the Luke entering the trench of the first Death Star with that same organic, rolling motion. Highest recommendation.

  • That new U2/Green Day Song

    I guess I just don’t understand the point. U2 needed a single for their approximately fifth greatest hits collection. Rather than come up with a really good song themselves, they enlisted the help of a band that while good, just doesn’t seem like the right fit with U2: Green Day. Not that Green Day can’t play, but the two bands’ styles are just a little too different to mesh collectively, not unlike that time where about 16 different musicians got up onstage at the Grammys and butchered Lennon/McCartney’s “Across the Universe”. Paul’s probably rolling in his grave. “twice

    Getting back to the matter at hand, they decided to make their newest hit something for the people in New Orleans . Instead of going the traditional route involving thoughtful lyrics about the condition of the area, or people’s struggles, they decided that the second half of the song should consist of the phrase “The Saints are Coming”, repeated over and over and over again, in a musical phrase that has definitely been taken from somewhere that I can’t quite place. They chose to debut this song at the reopening of the Superdome, for the Saints-Falcons Monday night game a few weeks ago, and it works perfectly as an opening theme song for the football team during games. I can’t imagine, however, that this song is going to be remembered at all in even one year’s time, and that’s a shame considering that this is all that two of the most prolific bands of the last 15 years could come up with. It’s almost like they weren’t trying.

    They could very well have been trying something new though. This could be the start of product placement within the music industry. Well, I guess that’s not new” but maybe actually using the songs on the radio to promote something. It would be like the Eagles writing a song about how great the Philadelphia Eagles are, to get them pumped up, or AC DC writing a song for the Chargers (HA!), or Bad Company writing a song called “Bad Company” and using it at Enron meetings (BA-ZING).

    And isn’t Bono’s thing Africa , anyway? Why didn’t they use the power of song to put together a group to raise funds for Africa “. Oh wait” I forgot” Well, why didn’t they do it again? A world-renowned, self-appointed ambassador to a far-off and underprivileged continent can’t be taking time away from that to help another cause, especially one that’s been nigh on forgotten by most of the world ( You know you’re lost in your own logic when you can’t tell if you’re being sarcastic or not). I mean, you don’t see Brangelina Polie out there helping America ‘s homeless people, or fighting drug abuse, or all the millions of issues people here face every day. And that’s because they have character. They know that if they multi-task, not only do run the risk of reducing the importance of their cause, but they also reduce the importance of other, more useless celebrities. By doing double duty (I said Doody!… I guess that doesn’t work as well when typed out) when it comes to activism, you’re the one putting Rob Scheider out of a job. It’s on your head Bono.

    What was I talking about? Oh, this dumb song. Like I said, it may be good for the football team, but call me cold; I don’t really care about the Saints. It was nice to see them play well, but not nice enough for me to listen to an awful song that could’ve been better.

    *

    One star for trying to bring some attention back to New Orleans , and making a song that they’ll be playing forever at Saints games. Minus four stars for making the rest of us listen to it, and possibly starting a trend of individually-made rock songs for a specific sports team. The last thing we need is a re-made version of “Benny and the Jets” about New York’s lesser football squad. We already have to deal with that annoying J-E-T-S cheer. That should be enough.

  • The Human Back (Model Year 1982)

    (Ripping off of 1/3 of Adam’s title from last fall)

    The MD: Tell me about the pain in your back.
    Me: Well, I can stand up and lie on my back just fine.
    The MD: Okay, good.
    Me: But everything other than that feels like the end of the world.
    The MD: (In the way a doctor would react to a 3 year-old with an “ouchie”) Oh, that’s not good at all.
    Me: Yeah.

    A bit less than a year ago, I wrote a little review about getting older, specifically some unrelenting shoulder pain. Well, that was just the tip of iceberg compared to this one. (And all things considered, it hurts so much that it’s not really a laughing matter at this point). Doing nothing stupid, out of the ordinary, or what I’ve not done lots of time before, I managed to make myself bedridden by the simple act of bringing my groceries inside. The only significance of the problem-causing event was that it could be construed as if I had made an awkward motion and tore a muscle at the small of my back. (the ‘could-be-construed as’ part being the awkward motion, not the torn muscle).

    back

    You choose the caption: 1) Not exactly bringing sexy back. 2) Hehe, you said T12.

    An awkward motion… the red-headed step child of reasons for (relatively) serious injuries. Similar to last year’s much less serious pain, the type of thing that only happens to the rapidly aging and rapidly aged. Not to steal Adam’s joke completely, but I’ve expected much more from my back than going out in such a girly way. (for those that say, but you were born in November, wouldn’t that be the beginning of model year 1983? Not this guy; it’s becoming more and more obvious that I was old stock, made from parts whose lifespans were already one year short due to sitting on the lot for so long. Sure, my back has serviced me well so far, but with my life expectancy being somewhere around 77 bitter years, it’s awfully early for the frame to have gone bad (one of the axles is already shot).

    But man, it hurts. I’m normally a big fan of the small of the back; it’s just so …. useful. But not now. It feel like it’s where North Korea did yesterday’s bomb testing. (how’s that for a needlessly topical joke). Oh it smarts real good.

    *½

    The Human Back (Model Year 1982) receives one-and-a-half stars due to its not even lasting half of an expected lifetime before (relatively) serious failure. (No, I’m not being dramatic: being unable to go to work or even do anything other than lie down or stand up shows that the body part has failed, at least temporarily. If someone were unable to attain consciousness, the brain is considered to have failed.) The meager 1.5 stars come from the sort of trouble-free past years of use.