Empty Bookshelf Reviews

Category: Reviews

  • Best Song Ever?: Ambulance (TV on the Radio)

    Another in the “Best Song Ever?” series. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    TV on the Radio, creators of one of 2006’s best-reviewed albums, Return to Cookie Mountain were once “indie” in more than just genre. They’re now one of those “popular unpopular” bands, with an appearance on David Letterman and a video on rotation on MTV Hits. You’ll see music critics fawning over their doo-wop and soul influences, though at the end of the day, their “thing” is usually more of a noise/fuzz experiment (basically, it’s an entrant in the genre of “stoner rock”), in 2004, they released the album Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes with the a cappella “retro-ish” track “Ambulance.” They’re the type of band that if you namedrop “TV on the Radio,” you’re guaranteed to impress your pretentious friends.

    For

    • Who needs any stinkin’ instruments when you’ve got competent singers.
    • The “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” bass line won’t leave your head. Ever.
    • Relentlessly solid lyrics (and I’m not a lyrics person): I will be your accident if you will be my ambulance //
      And I will be your screech and crash if you will be my crutch and cast // And I will be your one more time if you will be my one last chance.

    Against

    • The “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” bass line won’t leave your head.
    • The music is so straight-forward that you can’t help but pay attention to the words, and some of those words, while usually solid, if not looked at in the context of the whole song give the feel of written-by-high-schoolers-literature. Heart’s colors changed like leaves sounds like one of those faux-deep expressions a 16 year old would think up. To be fair, the line does actually work because the rest of that verse mentions vines, gardens, seeds and other earthy, not entirely unmetamorphical terms. I’m not sure this should be held against the song, but I don’t feel like erasing it.
    • At 4:54, it’s a bit simple for a song with no “build” or swell.

    ***

    This is a tough one. The song is timeless – if I hadn’t mentioned the dates in the first section, I’m not sure anyone would know that it was from 2004 instead of any decade preceding that. Timelessness would be a characteristic of “the best song ever,” but I think this one draws too much from the past. A more modern take of the song is offered when it’s played live (see video, below). A guitar plays some atmospheric texture, a bass plays the “dum-dum-dum-dum-dum” part, and someone beatboxes a drum part. It’s wholly the same song, but provides an all-new direction for it. Note: the video is just a portion of the song, but it’ll get the point across.

  • The Concept of Cinderella 3: A Twist in Time


    Now if we could only get them to make a “Cinderfella III”. Too bad Ed Wynn isn’t alive anymore…. “Now don’t let’s be silly!”

    It would probably be very easy for me to sit here and complain about all the cheaply made direct-to-video sequels Disney has put out over the last 13 years. So I think I will…. at least for just a little bit longer. Did the world really need a sequel to “Atlantis” or “Brother Bear” Is it really possible to make a sequel to “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” After “Bambi II”, “Lady and the Tramp II”, and “The Fox and the Hound 2” are there any Disney classics that are going to be deemed untouchable? Maybe “Snow White” and “Pinocchio”, but who knows, since this year we’re going to be “treated” to both “Cinderella III” and “Peter Pan III”, which has an hi-lariously (mostly) fake cast list on Wikipedia…. godspeed Hax0rs. The one thing that we can be sure we’ll never see though is “Song of the South II: Racist Boogaloo“.

    But getting to the matter at hand, “Cinderella III” specifically. First off, who knew that there was a “Cinderella II”? Apparently, “Cinderella II” didn’t even have a full story, instead giving three vignettes about life in the castle… which teach valuable life lessons, like

    “Cinderella is put in charge of the palace banquets and parties, but realizes she doesn’t agree with the way it’s used to being run. With the help of other characters, Cinderella convinces everyone in the palace that everyone in the kingdom, including the peasants, should be allowed to participate in the next royal banquet.”

    or

    “One of Cinderella mouse friends, Jaq, thinks he’s too small to help Cinderella in the palace like he did in the first movie. The Fairy Godmother shows up to help him out, and turns him into a human so he can help out like everyone else. However, he soon learns to be happy with who he really is.”

    I guess the money is the answer as supposedly, the video cost only five million dollars and earned 120 million in DVD sales. Kids… they’ll watch anything.

    With “Cinderella II” being such a hit, it’s an obvious choice to continue the story where they left off, if by left off, you mean left off after the original, completely ignoring the existence of the sequel. Basically the story is that Cinderella’s stepsister and stepmother find a magic wand that belongs to the Fairy Godmother… heartache, and mild humor possibly ensue. Time gets reversed, people turn into stone, or frogs, or have their memories erased, and Doc and Marty have to stop Old Biff from giving Young Biff the almanac, all because the magic wand doesn’t need a security code or training to operate it. In fact, I’d venture to say that this “Fairy Godmother” is just some random nutjob who found this wand and took it upon herself to grant wishes to unsuspecting minors. I wonder if all this time-shifting stuff would confuse a kid who has seen both other movies. Heck, if the Children’s Theatre workshop said that the Classic Sesame Street DVDs might not be suitable for kids because of the disconnect between characters from the 70’s and now, I would think that messing with “Cinderella”‘s whole space-time continuum would mess with kids’ heads. But the most insane thing about the DVD… a music video featuring a song sung by the Cheerleader from “Heroes”. I guess somebody else is getting on the “acting starlet jumping into music” bandwagon, like Hilary Duff and her mortal enemy Lindsay Lohan.

    Supposedly, Walt Disney made it public that he didn’t want sequels of his movies made, other than “Fantasia“. But why, then is there a need to create these sequels, possibly tarnishing the memories of the classics? It would be one thing if they were given the time and budget to at least make them look good, but quick, cheap, and foreign-made don’t seem like the best way to honor the past. Why couldn’t the Disney company create direct-to-video cartoons that have an entirely new set of characters, with an original story? It’s all in the branding and marketability. The characters are so well-known, and so well-tied to the company, that now, most ties to the original stories they’re based on are forgotten. That, and the fact that anything with princesses will appeal to little girls and the parents of little girls. It’s the easiest way to tap into a market with a built-in fanbase. I can’t blame them for being smart businessmen, but I guess I can blame them for devaluing the past. I bet you never thought you’d hear someone compare Cinderella to Pro Wrestling, but you’re about to.

    What do you think Victor Hugo would say if thirty years after he wrote “The Hunchback of Notre Dame” someone else came along and wrote a sequel? I would venture to guess that the original artists and writers of these theatrical movies would feel the same way about how the direct-to-video business devalues their work. I don’t want to sound like an old man about this, but when I was their age there were at MOST, four cartoon movies that came out in the theatre each year and were heavily promoted. Look at this list. Now, take out all the cartoons with red links, the ones that were released in foreign countries, and the ones that were direct-to-video. In 1989, three; 1990, three; in 1991, it got upped to a generous five (I’m counting ‘Rover Dangerfield’ even though it tanked). Heck, other than “Nightmare Before Christmas”, Disney didn’t even release an animated film in 1993… I would guess because they were spending all of their feature film energy on “The Lion King”. 2006 saw the release of 14 major cartoon movies. FOURTEEN! (And all of them were CGI, but that’s a topic for a review that I probably will never do, ’cause standing on that soapbox is even nerdier than this one.) That’s more than one per month. No wonder kids need everything immediately. I think that’s part of my biggest complaint about Cinderella III, and the others is that they’re not major events. Without any sort of waiting, or time without a child-aimed movie, how can one of these movies be more than mediocre, run-of-the-mill entertainment. Not that the ones in the 80s weren’t, because “All Dogs Go to Heaven” was far from a great movie. But because there were only three cartoons that came out that year, it was an actual “event” for kids, which is more than I can say for “Doogal“, “Arthur and the Invisibles” and “Everyone’s Hero“, and especially “The Ant Bully” and “Flushed Away“, the movie that made Dreamworks end its partnership with Aardman animation, even after the “Wallace and Gromit” movie did so well and won the Best Animated Feature Oscar. Even if “All Dogs…” didn’t turn a huge profit, it was a fairly large pop-culture phenomenon for a month or so, which is way more than I can say about “Everyone’s Hero”. I think that the studios are going to have to realize sooner or later that this oversaturation is hurting the business in the long run, and someone needs to back off for a bit.

    Time for the wrestling analogy. WWE used to run one pay-per view per month, before that it was less, obviously. But in the past few years, they’ve upped it to about 17 or 18, meaning there could be a point where there were two pay events in two weeks. Of course, because of the large amount of programming (in addition to the PPVs, the core audience that buys them is expected to keep up with five hours of other programming per week) audiences are asked to consume, and the lack of quality content, the general viewership has decreased. The animation industry is, I believe, on that threshold. . There’s going to be a point where kids aren’t interested anymore, and that trend seems to have started this year, with the various high-profile animated films just doing disastrous numbers, and I think that the home-video market is watering it down further.

    Yet I digress. The review is on the concept of the movie itself, and not of the entire industry, I know. But I think that Cinderella III is representative of the trends that animation in general is moving towards and it would surprise me if the movie was watchable at all, just as it would surprise me if the feature-film animation industry as a whole got back to the art and storytelling levels that it once was at. Call me lame, but I’m still hoping that it will.

    *½
    The Concept of Cinderella III gets one and a half stars, for at least being somewhat original with the story idea, but generally just adding to the idea that these direct-to-video sequels are worthwhile ventures, when in reality they water down the market for future 2-D animation, and devalue the ground-breaking work done on the theatrical originals that they milk for all they’re worth.

  • Best Song Ever?: Superman (Goldfinger)

    Another in the “Best Song Ever?” series. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    Goldfinger was one of the bigger bands (along with The Mighty Might Bosstones and Reel Big Fish) of the ska “boom” of 1996/1997. They’ve been churning out albums at the pace of about one every other year since 1996, and are known for doing hundreds of concerts each year. The album Hang-Ups is probably their best work. The preceding self-titled album was a bit rough around the edges and the later albums (3 as of today), while solid, didn’t quite have the creative edge presented with the whole of Hang-Ups. Basically, along with Blink 182, Goldfinger invented pop-punk, though for Goldfinger, the “pop” aspect never really came true. I heard the song “Superman” in 9th grade in 1997, and since then it’s been one of my favorites.

    For

    • Incorporates the trumpets and trombones without it being gimmicky. They don’t sound out of place, and they used sparingly enough that the texture they add is not arbitrary.
    • Similar to the last song reviewed, the return from the bridge (the bridge starting at 1:57) happens at exactly the right time within the song (2:23 as the lead guitar plays 3 notes to lead into a recap of the first verse), and the stripped down arrangement of rhythm guitar, bass, cymbal ride, and vocals is the perfect contrast to the “throw everything at the fan” arrangement of the bridge.
    • Ambitious bass playing.

    Against

    • Probably a bit too aggressive for most people.
    • Some people just don’t and won’t like the ska, guitar chord on the upbeat style.
    • No one’s going to be writing a treatise on the lyrics any time soon. (maybe Nate would be up it)

    ***

    In terms of this being the best song ever, it gets only 3 stars. It puts up a good fight, but a real test here is whether one can listen to it beginning to end more than once in a row. This song? Can’t do it. I could listen to the recapitulation of the first verse after the bridge (starting at 2:23) all day long, but unfortunately that’s only part of the song, not the whole thing. And, well, the whole ska thing probably knocks it out of competition for good.

  • Best Song Ever?: In the Aeroplane Over the Sea (Neutral Milk Hotel)

    The first in (maybe) a series of reviews. Simply, I give the background, a point, a counterpoint, then star rating for songs that I have on my list of “good songs” with the goal of deciding what’s the best song ever. Up first is one that definitely isn’t the best song ever, but lets me test my review format. Note for those using feedreaders: the song is embedded on this review’s entry so there’s a point-of-reference in the review; you might want to view this entry from the webpage instead of the feed.

    Background
    I came across Neutral Milk Hotel after reading that they had a 10.0 reviewed album with one of our nemeses, Pitchfork Media. (That’s darn near impossible). I checked out the album, and came across a song I had heard once before and had stuck with me reasonably well considering I had only heard it once. That brings us to “In the Aeroplane Over the Sea.”

    For

    • Note the singing saw and the who cares if it’s out of tune trumpet. It does the whole “using non-traditional instruments” in an artistic, non-self-conscious-way. (see Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys).
    • It’s in 6/8 (kind of rare for rock music [well, indie {the genre} music]).
    • Evocative-ish lyrics “When we meet on a cloud, I’ll be laughing out loud” [internal rhyme for the win!]
    • Everything seems right in the world as the verses begin after the controlled musical meanderings (0:40, 1:28). The return after the bridge (the bridge starting at 2:00) is especially epic. As a listener, you’re rooting for it to get to the “What beautiful face…” after the song seemingly deconstructs after the bridge. At 2:45, everything is where it needs to be.

    Against

    • Neutral Cheese Who?
    • Odd instruments, intentionally sloppy singing and bass playing.
    • Lyrically, there are some nice little onesies (see above), but there’s not much going on beyond that.
    • Just plain too weird for most people.

    *½

    While not a one and a half star song on its own merits, in the scale of whether it’s the best song ever, it really isn’t even a contender. It’s one-of-a-kind, but the weirdness-to-most-people inherent in making a song “one-of-a-kind” seals its fate on the “not the best song ever” side of the dividing line.

  • 2006-07 Academy Awards Nominations


    This year, the movie that I chose to not see, but still complain about is “Dreamgirls”, a movie that wasn’t even nominated for best picture… and I’m not really even complaining about it… which makes me feel real strange.

    The academy awards nominations came out this morning. And for some reason I decided that I don’t really care this year. It’s weird because I don’t know why. In fact, I wrote most of this review on Sunday, before they were even announced. I’ve become jaded to the whole celebrity scene this year, and I’ve stopped seeing this show as an affirmation that the movies that I enjoyed over the past year are good, and more as a means of keeping up the guise of celebrity importance. (review of the near future: celebrity feuds)

    Maybe it was seeing people argue about which movies deserved which awards the way I used to, and thinking, “Wow, do these guys see how completely stupid they look, rooting for something that they think they have partial ownership in, just because they kinda liked it? Did I look that stupid, phony, and in over my head when I was complaining about how undervalued “The Man who Wasn’t There” was, or how that ridiculous “THEY MAKE THE RAIN AND SAY IT’S RAINING!!!” rant from Cold Mountain won good ole squinty-eyed Renee Zellweger her academy award? Well, chances are I did for the last one, because I totally used to do an impression of that was intentionally unintentionally hi-larious, and which has since failed the test of time, seeing as how nobody even remembers the movie a mere two years later. This also goes to show the unimportance of these awards, because I highly doubt that all the people that argue about these sort of things could even tell me without looking it up, who hosted the 2001 awards (held in 2002), let alone who won best actor and actress. Whoopi Goldberg hosted by the by, and I don’t even think I could tell you what movie won best picture ( Chicago maybe?) let alone the acting awards. The only reason I remember Whoopi is because my friends and I were watching in a TV lounge filled with people who actually thought she was funny. We couldn’t take it and ended up leaving in a huff. That’s beside the point.

    All this is not to say that I’m not going to look and see who’s nominated or who wins. I’ll probably even watch the show. But at this moment, writing this review, do I think it’s worth having an Oscar “party” or doing an awards pool (in which I have participated numerous times)? Not really. Do I find that a little disheartening? Of course I do. Three years ago at this time, I was in the center of celebrity culture. I was in the bleachers for the Screen Actor’s Guild red carpet. I stood by the limo security checkpoint at the Golden Globes to get a glimpse of anybody relatively famous. I can’t say for sure if I would do it again. Maybe just to say I did it. Then again, I never really got “star-struck” to begin with. Most of the pictures I took of people were either for bragging rights, or because I knew friends might want them. But still, even the following year I went in on an Oscar pool.

    What’s my point in all this? I’m not quite sure. All I know is that at this specific minute of this specific day, I’m thinking to myself “Don’t we have enough other things to be interested in or worry about than awards for millionaires (I know that the tech award winners are mostly non-millionaires, and the people who make the shorts and documentaries are probably even less well-off) we’ve never met and mostly think they’re better than us anyway?” I suppose you could argue the same of sports, but to me the difference is that football and baseball are designed to be competitions, and film isn’t, or at least shouldn’t. Why should it matter to us if a movie we like wins an award? Shouldn’t liking it be enough? Maybe it’s the validation that comes with being behind something that is regarded by professionals to be the best. Maybe it’s the ability to say to our friends “I totally knew Marcia Gay Harden was gonna win for Pollack, even though I’ve never even heard of the movie because it sounds boring and was only playing in 8 cities”, thereby coming off as knowledgeable, even though you just got lucky or read a newspaper article. Maybe it’s just that feeling that you know a lot about a subject, even if you really don’t, but just know a little bit more than your friends. Besides, ten years from now, “Saving Private Ryan” will be remembered even though it lost to the completely forgettable “Shakespeare in Love”, which was lauded by the pretentious set.

    This pretentiousness is something that the Oscars and other awards do spur on, and I guess this is where my whole complaint starts. Soon enough, the debates will rage over which arthouse movie that nobody was able to see was more overrated, which one deserves more attention etc. And all these people will be arguing over the fact that we love a movie that we haven’t even seen, just because of the talent attached to it. And that “you’re” (the royal “you”) stupid and less important because you’ve never even heard of it. And that’s just wrong. I really don’t want to do that again. (Update: I was flipping through the morning shows today to see if anyone was talking about the noms, just to prove my case, and the new FOX morning show had on their two Oscar Experts… two women who looked to be a mere few years older than I am. Of course there were raving about how great Helen Mirren was in “The Queen”… and to make matters worse, the audience erupted in applause. Now, you have to be sure that in this situation, maybe 25 percent of the audience at most has seen this movie, and the rest are either being egged on by the stage manager/audience warm-up guy, or just don’t want to seem like they don’t know anything about anything. Strangely enough, I’m looking at the box-office tallies for this weekend, and “The Queen” is actually playing in more theaters than “Children of Men”, “Alpha Dog”, and “The Good Shepherd”.)

    And maybe I’m upset that somehow I’ve grown to see something that I used to see as the Holy Grail of Film-making achievement now as a way to sell movies that otherwise wouldn’t have an audience. I mean, would anyone have gone to see “The Last King of Scotland” otherwise? It’s all part of the self-promoting hype machine, and I don’t know if I’m still down with that. Maybe in a case like this, yes, but that silly red carpet image stuff always seems to undermine the gravitas of the “talent-based” awards.

    As for the specific nominations themselves, they seem generally fine across the board, as far as the movies that I’ve gone to see, and those are really all that I can discuss.

    **

    The 2006-07 Academy Awards Nominations get two stars for being a way to generally promote smaller, higher-quality movies. As far as awards competition goes, I’m not really a fan of how divisive it makes people, including myself, about movies we like, versus ones we aren’t planning on seeing, but dislike just for the sake of it . As far as this year’s specific award nominees go, I’ve got no major complaints, other than the lack of “Children of Men”, but I can live without it, knowing how the voting process, and awards campaigning go. Oh… and the fact that THREE freakin songs from Dreamgirls are nominated…. now that’s something genuine to dislike… but still, does it really matter?

  • Calling Out Northwestern on National TV

    It’s not often that colleges get called out negatively on TV. Usually, writers namedrop the college they attended in passing: “These guys were frat brothers of mine from my time at Northwestern” (a sort of quote from an episode of Andy Richter Controls the Universe); it’s not really an endorsement, but it is a type of plug, I guess the screenplayer writer‘s to hanging one’s diploma on the wall at work. Anyway, aside from some Simpsons jokes making fun of Yale (because there was a time when many of the Simpsons writers had come from Harvard), college namedrops are neutral at worst.

    NU
    Hollywood doesn’t like you!

    But, when watching tonight’s episode of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip“, the following dialogue was exchanged:
    note, this is more of an “I think this is what they said” than a pure transcription

    Matthew Perry’s Character: I’ll write you a letter of recommendation.
    Bradley Whitford’s Character: Speaking of which, against my better advice, my nephew is applying to Northwestern, and he needs a letter of recommendation, too.

    Not that big a deal, I know, but in a way, my non-donating-alumnus status just got a high five from Hollywood! Now, I guess it could be rationalized away by the writers by saying, they were getting at: “there are better such and such programs at some other college than Northwestern,” but I feel like I’m part of higher educational history: The first(?) prime time dis’.

    ****½

    Calling Out Northwestern on National TV gets four-and-a-half stars for being the first negative namedrop of a college, with that 1/2 being deducted for the episode of “Studio 60…” being a perfect example of everything that’s right and everything that’s wrong with the show. *note: I don’t really have any negative feelings towards Northwestern or anything like that, but considering how rarely it’s brought up in pop culture, the fact that it was a negative (or pushing towards negative from neutral, at best) mention makes it quite newsworthy.

  • 16 Favorite TV Moments of the Year


    “Remember the time when somebody put a big yellow bullseye in the middle of our living room?”

    Alton Brown’s Feasting on Asphalt– Alton Brown is a certifiable genius. Just watch any episode of Good Eats . I feel smarter every time I watch his show, so to combine that knowledge with a wonderfully-shot and incredibly interesting motorcycle trek across the backroads of America in search of local specialties is extremely compelling, especially in the last episode when Brown suffers a broken collarbone in a nasty wipeout in the Nevada desert.

    Craig Ferguson interviews Lauren Graham ” I’ve lost my love for Conan O’Brien’s show for some reason. Not that it’s not a good show, I just can’t take it every night of the week. He just seems too wooden and it’s like he’s always forcing his conversations with the guests. Craig Ferguson however is naturally funny and conversational, even if nowhere near as slickly-produced. The opening monologues are probably the most obvious example of the difference, with Ferguson’s stream of consciousness rant, as opposed to Conan’s formulaic one line setup followed by one line punchline. Anyway, this interview is the best example I’ve seen of why Ferguson ‘s show has become more entertaining, even if the production values are about one-tenth of Conan’s.

    Tim Russert interviews Barrack Obama on “The Tim Russert Show”” An hour and a half with the biggest “rock star” in politics, and probably the most universally admired since Kennedy (maybe?)” interviewed by Tim Russert? How can it go wrong?

    Red Sox win the World Series on LOST– With all the season two cliffhangers and questions and all that, I still think this character moment is the best from the year. While being held captive, Jack is confronted by the former Henry Gale, who tries to get Jack to cooperate, promising escape from the island. When Jack doesn’t believe him, Henry tells him that since the time they crashed on the island (way back in fall of 2004, more than a month before the World Series for that year) the Red Sox won the World Series. Way back in the first season, Jack had explained that his dad had always said the Red Sox would never win a championship, as a way of saying that things could never change because fate ruled everything. Henry knew Jack wouldn’t believe him, so he played the footage of Joe Buck calling the last out of the final game. In addition to proving that the “others” have contact with the outside world, this is incredibly important as to Jack’s outlook on the world, and watching this magical sports moment (one from another network, no less) again just gave me goosebumps.

    Edgar Dies on 24– In a year where killing off characters for ratings has become vogue (something that 24 managed to do countless times), this one is probably the second most shocking and well-done. (no, I’m not talking about the LOST deaths, see below). Granted, the guy who played Edgar had a clunky acting style, but the network handled it without blowing the surprise (something that promotions departments have forgotten how to do lately…. cough, cough, Heroes…cough), and it was emotionally resonant. The problem with it, like with all things that happen on 24, is that four weeks later in our time, it’s only four hours later on the show, and while we’ve totally put the death behind us, the people on the show shouldn’t have, but do, even though it’s not realistic”. Not that anything else on the show is realistic.

    Zayra Performs on Rockstar:Supernova– I couldn’t decide whether to put this in the good section or the bad one, so I did both. I wrote about her in my review of Rockstar:Supernova, and placed video links in my worst 15 moments list. Just incredibly strange, yet compelling television.

    Claire wakes up on the morgue table on Heroes– On a show known for its shocking endings, this was the best. A character who can heal herself fell and landed on some spike or something, and died temporarily. At the end of the episode, somebody takes the spike out of her head and walks away. Her eyes open up and the camera pulls out to reveal that she’s on the autopsy table with her chest cavity wide open. Great visual, and stunning end to an otherwise mediocre episode.

    The Office- Jim kisses Pam– After more than a year of building to it, it was the moment we all were waiting for. This season, however, even though they handled the post-kiss stuff well, I find myself rooting for the other girl instead of Pam.

    Lem Dies on The Shield– the single best death on TV this year. Hands down. Under investigation by the Internal Affairs Dept. and the crazy/awesome Forest Whittaker, one of Michael Chiklis’ team members goes into hiding, and eventually meets his tragic end. I won’t spoil how, but suffice it to say, Vic Mackey is gonna be on a rampage this season.

    Colbert interviews Washington D.C. representative– Stephen Colbert interviews the D.C. congressional representative and proceeds to tell her that D.C. doesn’t count because it’s the United STATES of America . This segment is a fantastic example of how quick and brilliant Colbert is, and what makes this show so great.

    30 Days goes to Mexico and India– The only socially conscious reality show out there (I don’t give credence to the manipulative Extreme Makeover: Home Edition), one episode had a border patrolling minuteman live with a family of immigrants. At one point he went to Mexico , to see where the family “lived” before they moved. Neither side was unlikable, and they both learned from each other and created a fantastic friendship. In another episode, a laid-off telemarketer travels to India to work there for a month. What makes this episode so unique is that they were there during the riots that ensued when an extremely popular actor died, a big story that nobody reported here in the states.

    Fear Factor is cancelled ” the most despicable show on TV (aside from Nancy Grace) finally saw the end of its run. Don’t fear, you fans of people eating horse anuses; you can still watch it in syndication somewhere.

    Bill O’Reilly town hall on Oprah-It’s interesting to see Bill O’Reilly in an environment where he’s not just yelling at everyone, and where people aren’t rightfully attacking him. Intelligent discourse is absent from his FOX NEWS show, and he’s always calm and on the defensive when on Letterman, but can barely get a word in edgewise. When put in a townhall setting on Oprah (there were actually men in the audience), he actually had a few valid points, as did the audience members who disagreed, but most of the time it didn’t devolve to a shouting match. I think that’s because when he’s out of his element (“on the attack” on his show) he knows that the best way to come out of an interview is to be low-key and let the other people look like idiots for their unwavering attacks on him. He’s still a blowhard and sees everything in black-and-white, but it was actually interesting to see people in her audience (and not elite and/or trailertrash white people) agreeing and defending him against others in intelligent ways.

    “Scrubs”- “My Lunch“ I was gonna put the “Mac Bangs Dennis’ Mom” episode of “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”, but then I remembered that my favorite episode of “Scrubs” aired this year. As a testament to how good this episode was, it has the highest amount of reviews of any “Scrubs” episode, on tv.com, and the second highest overall rating. The end of this episode just floored me, and it makes me wonder even more how John C. McGinley has never gotten ANY award nominations for the show.

    Grammy Performances– Absolutely stunning performances at this years Grammys. From a brooding Springsteen, to Mary J. Blige somehow upstaging Bono in their duet, to Christina Aguilera proving why Britney will never be number one, the Grammy Awards managed to deliver the musical moments once again”. If we forget the awkwardness of seeing Paul McCartney perform with Linkin Park and Jay-Z.

    South Park Cartoon Wars– South Park shows why it’s the best and smartest animated program on TV. In a forty-minute span, the show takes on Family Guy’s writing, the Muslims who got pissed off at those cartoons from Denmark, the people who got pissed off at the Terrence and Phillip special from 1998, the networks’ refusal to air anything that might offend somebody, the Hollywood types, the people who like family guy, and the fact that Bart Simpson used to be considered “edgy”. And they do it all with a completely organic story, and characters that react as they normally would in the situation. Oh” and manatees.

  • The 2006 Fuller Christmas Letter

    Look, we have a new design! If there are any issues with this new layout, please (please, please) leave a comment so I can fix it. It looks fine on my computer, but maybe it doesn’t on yours. Please let us know what you think – Positive, Negative, Who Cares – in the comments section for this review.

    What with my mom using a computer relatively regularly these days, she’s made a habit of writing a Christmas letter every year to stuff into Christmas cards. I’ve long been on the record about the, well, “impersonal-ness” of Christmas card letters, but at the end of the day, is a general letter any more impersonal than the simple signatures at the bottom of any Christmas card? Eh, not really. Two (three? – maybe four? – god, I’m old) years ago, I actually made a deal with my mom that I would write the letter for the cards, mainly because I had complained about the content in years past. She sent my letter out indiscriminately with the cards, so I’m sure that my tale of how my brother had become an unsuccessful comic artist/writer probably fell upon many a “not getting the joke” ear. Anyway, that’s in the past, so here we are at 2006’s letter.

    Nate still hates Christmas.

    First, let it be known that I don’t feel bad reviewing my mom’s letter – as my mother, she should expect no less from me. Whatever the star rating I assign, she should simply say, “well, that’s Dan for ya.” In her defense, this the first year that both my brother and I have been completely out of her hair, both having completely moved out years and (almost) a year ago.

    On to the letter (note: my comments are in pop-ins, so be sure to hover over what look to be links):

    MERRY CHRISTMAS – HAPPY, HEALTHY 2007

    The usual busy-ness has overtaken our lives despite our empty nest. Gordon’s mother passed away in Wilmington in March after her 16+ year siege of dementia or Alzheimer’s. It took about 4 months to know that working weekends & holidays were no longer for me, as much as I enjoyed it. Our business and my new (in August) Nursery School director/ teacher position, trying to rebuild the program, at our nearby church, Mon.-Fri., and painting our new kitchen trim/doors/walls keep me hopping. Sept. & Oct. were crazy with 3 part-time jobs. I left the organist position 10/31.

    We celebrated 3 November weekends by going to the Delaware shore – visiting relatives, to Gordon’s take-in father, now 90, in So. N.J., and to Longwood Gardens!

    Our business went through a few slower months again this year, but Gordon keeps busy. We were fortunate to have work, while other shops were extremely slow or dead. We’re dinosaurs. Dealerships, as you know, give huge, extended warranties on new vehicles. There are dealer-only repairs due to technological restrictions. The trend is for repair information to be restricted or unavailable- e.g. our ’97 Volvo wagon.

    Brian and Beth are fine, in Oxford (near the very recent Amish one-room schoolhouse tragic shooting). She’s made a great recovery from thyroid cancer surgery/treatment, enjoying her new, administrative job with the same hospice. Brian, a Nationwide Ins. senior claims adjuster, is in Chester County, also. We plan to see more of them on our weekends! Brian and Dan live 40 minutes apart.

    Dan lives in Media, an hour+ away from us, and is a project manager for LaFrance Corp., Concordville, PA. He works in its factory in China, a 45 minute ferry ride from Hong Kong, a few times a year for a few weeks. Interesting work, but definitely a company city in a ‘third world’ area, he says. After five VERY hot, humid summer weeks, he preferred his three weeks during a very warm, not-so-humid fall. He and his high school friends premiered their new movie, Franklin II, this Saturday night at a church in Bethlehem. They have a good time. It’s not serious movie-making, but with serious production values, I guess. His website is emptybookshelf.com.

    Come see our kitchen some time. Primer White (2 coats on walls & trim, which our 2nd contractor custom-made to cover #1’s mistakes takes time!) is looking pretty good. But that’s another story. The year of our totally incompetent contractor-thief is over! I’m jealous of all you handypeople!!

    Sorry to be late, but the best to you in 2007!

    Love,
    Peggy and Gordon

    end of letter
    ***

    The 2006 Fuller Christmas Letter receives three stars. There was nothing patently untrue or unnecessarily subjective in it, though the details which make my life more difficult (such as the whole putting the ‘works in China’ part before ‘for a few weeks each year’) makes my Christmas season filled with too many conversations that start with “So, Dan, I hear you’re in China most of the year” then me following with, “well, I’m there less than two months per year…I’m in the US most of the year.” Minor grammatical quibbles aside, it provided a fair update of the Fullers for 2006AD.

    I’ve never been known for my punctuality, so I cannot deduct any points for the fact that the cards will be going out during Epiphany instead of Advent/Christmas.

  • 15 Favorite Sports Moments of the Year


    You know, if we would’ve sent Sacha BARON Cohen instead, he probably wouldn’t have fallen.

    Indy-Pittsburgh Divisional playoff game-Most exciting football game of the year. With the Steelers threatening to put the game away with under two minutes left, (after a disputed non-interception call, an Indy touchdown to put the game within three, and Peyton Manning getting sacked on his own three-yard line on fourth down) Jerome Bettis fumbles at the Indy 1-yard-line. Indy recovers and the guy runs halfway down the field. He’s beaten everyone except Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger who’s run diagonally across the field to tackle the guy returning it, whose wife stabbed him in the leg the night before. With 17 seconds left, Mike Vanederjagt misses a 46 yard field goal which would’ve tied it. Pittsburgh goes on to win the superbowl.

    Endy Chavez catch– Game seven of the Divisional series. Tie Score. Shea Stadium. Mets outfielder Endy Chavez goes back to save the game and makes the catch of the yea,r 3 feet over the fence to rob Scott Rolen of a two-run home run for the lead. If the Mets would have won that game, it would go down in the history books.

    Tigers beat the Yankees– the underdog team with less than half the payroll dominates the Yankees, sending them home. The best part is Kenny Rogers (not that one) on top of the dugout spraying the crowd with champaign.

    U.S. women’s curling team– I watched a TON of curling during the Winter Olympics. I know, I know” it’s boring. Well it can be, but it was always on, and I grew attached to the U.S. women’s team.

    Ryan Howard hits 3 home runs in a game– MVP Ryan Howard carries his team to victory with 3 home runs and 8 RBIs in a game. Also of note is the Home Run Derby contest, where he demolished the competition in the last round, and finished by hitting the “hit it here” sign.

    Dodgers hit 4 home runs to tie and one in extras to win– Surging into the playoffs, The Dodgers were losing in the bottom of the ninth, until back-to-back-to-back-to-back home runs tied the game. In the 10th inning, San Diego was up by one run, until Nomar Garciaparra hit the game winning home run.

    Travis Pastrana Motocross double backflip at X-games- I don’t usually watch the X-games, but it was on when I was working one night and I caught a ridiculous maneuver. As his competitors watched, rooting him on, Travis pulled off a motocross double backflip, something that’s never been done, and could’ve killed him.

    Vince Young beats USC– In the College National Title Game, Vince Young singlehandedly beats the top-ranked team in the country (one with two heisman winners on it) on a fourth down with 18 seconds left by scrambling to the end zone.

    UCLA beats USC– Arch-rival UCLA upsets top-ranked USC to block the University of Spoiled Children Trojans from making a third national title game in a row.

    Miami beats Chicago Bears– The Miami Dolphins, a 2-6 team, and the franchise with the only unbeaten season in history faces off against the 8-0 Chicago Bears and comes up with a win. Only in the NFL.

    World Baseball Classic begins– After Baseball was discontinued from the Olympics for some inane reason, Bud Selig and some other people created a once every four years world tournament. Bravo.

    Kobe scores 81– Despite the fact that I’m not the biggest basketball follower, scoring 81 points in a game is a totally insane achievement.

    Tiger hits a bogey off a roof– In a classic display of why he’s the greatest, Tiger Woods totally screwed up off the tee and hit the ball onto the roof of a nearby building. The placed the ball on the ground by the building, but still far off the course. To finish only one stroke over par’s a strong achievement.

    Agassi plays two classics at U.S. open before retiring– In his last tournament ever, Agassi gives us an unbelievably intense 5 set match, and then goes out in a tough four in the next round. I don’t watch a lot of tennis, but that five-set match was as captivating as anything I’ve ever seen. What made it all the more dramatic was that if he lost, his career was over. And when it finally was, he went out like a pro.

    World Cup game– While the Finals game was great and intense (being decided by penalty kicks, and France’s star Zidane headbutting that guy, and the Australian team came out of nowhere to advance to the second round, I think that the U.S.-France game was my personal favorite. The U.S. team lost its first game and looked terrible, but in their second game they managed to tie the second place France team that won all of its other games, save the Finals. Granted, the goal that U.S.A. scored was actually an “own goal” from the France team, but they played most of the game with only nine people. A valiant display from an overall underachieving team.

  • 15 Least Favorite TV Moments of the Year

    The first in a series of end of the year lists. Sorry for no star ratings, but all of these would fall between zero and one star.


    “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.”

    Runners up:

    Fox cancels ‘Arrested Development’    – Granted the ratings were bad, and viewership was leaking due to mishandled promotions/timeslots and the overall nature of the show, but it was still sad to see it go.

    Oprah making a big deal over the fact that that guy’s memoir wasn’t real, even though it still was an inspirational story.

    Megan Mullally upstages Meat Loaf – Megan Mullally has a talk show… a really annoying one, and when Meat Loaf came on to perform from ‘Bat Out of Hell 3’, she had to jump in and sing the last part of “Paradise by the Dashboard Light” with him. If it was anyone else, it might not have seemed that bad, but she did it in a way that screamed “it’s all about me!”. Talk shows should be about making your guest look interesting, not feeding your huge ego. It just came off as incredibly awkward.

    The finalists… in no particular order.

    ‘My Super Sweet 16’– The new king of hated television. Why should I watch rich, obnoxious people demand things of their parents in a manner worse than Veruca Salt? Because I’m supposed to root against them? It doesn’t seem that way, instead encouraging kids to be ungrateful and rude.

    Nancy Grace– Any single show will do, but I’d go with the one where she accused someone of killing their own child during an interview (Nancy accused her during the interview; she didn’t kill the kid during it), leading the woman to shoot herself. Way to go Nancy . You inadvertently killed someone.

    Gwen Stefani performs at A.M.A.s ” From the moment they said she would be debuting her new hit, I knew there was gonna be trouble. Sure enough, there was yodeling, there were Asian girls in lederhosen with blonde wigs, there were sheep. Completely strange, and completely awful.

    Chevy Chase on ‘Law and Order’ ” RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES!! Chevy Chase plays a washed-up star of some sort who gets arrested for killing a Jewish person. The writing is awful, the story was awful, and even the acting was atrocious. Not only that but it made the Mel Gibson story out to be a lot more than it actually was.

    Connie Chung Goodbye Song– Connie Chung and Maury Povich apparently had a show together. Take a guess how long it lasted. On her last show, she got up on top of a piano like a lounge singer and began to wail (and I mean wail) out a rendition of ‘thanks for the memories’. It became a moderate internet phenomenon because of how awful it was.

    Any episode of ‘The War At Home’    – Just plain awful” they took Arrested Development off for this?

    Roger Daltry as the Makeup Killer on ‘CSI’– On thanksgiving night, I watched CSI for the first” and hopefully last, time. Roger Daltry played a mobster who these four guys thought was dead. Then years later he got his revenge on them by dressing up in fat suits and disguising himself as women in order to kill them. Not sure why one of the greatest frontmen in rock history would decide to do this, but I guess the royalty checks he gets for them using his songs is probably a good bet.

    ‘Celebrity Duets’– Take ‘Dancing with the Stars’ and mix it with ‘American Idol’. What do you get? This craptacular hour of awful celebs singing awfully was thankfully over after only a few weeks. I guess that’s what you get when your judges are Marie Osmond and Little Richard

    Tony dies on ’24’– Unlike Edgar’s death, this one was handled incredibly poorly. Tony was the only character besides Jack Bauer left from the first season. He was universally loved by this point, as Jack’s right-hand-man. He spent half the season unconscious and then he gets up to try and kill the man who killed his wife. He lets up for national security reasons, and gets stabbed with a hypodermic needle of death. He falls over dead, and nobody mentions him ever again. Completely unnecessary, not as dramatic as it should’ve been, and ambiguous to the point where the audience doesn’t even think he’s dead. Why keep him alive but unconscious for all those episodes if you’re just going to kill him as soon as he wakes up?

    Zayra on ‘Rockstar: Supernova’     ” Strange vocals from someone who wants to be a rock star. I can’t believe the producers picked her over someone more qualified, even though she makes for great, yet horrible TV.

    ‘Studio 60’ tells us we’re idiots     ” It seems like every week, ‘Studio 60’ is talking down to the mainstream public and treating Hollywood like the be-all-and end-all of civilization. I’ve been to California . People there aren’t all that smart.

    Dane Cook returns to ‘SNL’    – If you didn’t think his first time (a mere months earlier) hosting the show was funny, you won’t be surprised at the results of this show. Another long “stand-up” set as his monologue, more gay voices, and one of the worst sketches I’ve ever seen. It went so far as to try to explain away it’s awfulness at the end, with a self-aware “lantern“, but that’s like using a suction pump to stop the bleeding.

    ‘Seventh Heaven’ returns from the dead    – it was finally cancelled. That awful show about the perfect and huge family with a one-parent income”. Until the CW executives saw the ratings for the series finale. Now, with almost the entire original cast having moved on, the Camdens have 4 random street-teens living with them for some reason. Just have the second series finale already.

    WWE; Degeneration X drops feces on the McMahons– Wrestling fans have dealt with a lot of crap (no pun intended): The Katie Vick Story, The Gay Wedding Story, Al Wilson, Eugene, Paternity in a suitcase Ladder Match” but dumping a pile of feces on the boss’ family tops everything. When people ask me how I can defend that, I have no answer.

    ‘High School Musical’– The biggest phenomenon in all of TV this year saw awful acting and writing manage to hypnotize “tweens” everywhere into making the soundtrack the year’s top-selling CD. Every time it airs, it’s in the top 20 cable shows of the week, even though these people have seen it 20 times each.