A Nice Movie Streak I Had

Last week I went on a pretty great movie streak. I saw 7 movies in 5 days between Tuesday and Saturday. This was, I think, the second best movie streak I've ever had after 8 movies in 8 days last summer. I guess that's kind of weak, but hey, I'm still young. So I thought, since I don't have much better to write about, that I'd give some brief little reviews of all these movies that I just saw, and I will for once try to keep them brief (that means no synopses people! Look them up yourself!). Maybe you'll discover something good.

Tuesday:
Exit Through the Gift Shop (2010) - This was the best movie of the streak. This documentary, a look into the international world of street art directed by its foremost figure, the notorious and mysterious Banksy, transcends its label. It's by far the best documentary I've ever seen (sorry, "Helvetica") because it has not one moment which feels teachy, and there is a compelling human story which is not only reported on by the movie, but is created by the movie. It stays captivating throughout like you would think only a scripted movie could.

Wednesday:
Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003) - Definitely a unique movie. This is basically one big long dinner conversation, with only some flashbacks (excellent cameo opportunities for David Cross and Jack Black!) interspersed in between. So it certainly does get slow, and if you have a terrible attention span this might not be the movie for you (believe me, I'm really on that spectrum too) but the conversation is interesting and witty. My credit to the writer Bob Odenkirk for keeping this movie bearable.

Thursday:
The Joneses (2010) - I enjoyed this movie a lot more than the critics did. The environment was really well set up, David Duchovny's performance was outstanding, and the themes came through really well. It dealt with both consumerism and family, and was able to go into both of these really well. And that setting of the snobby suburbs wasn't quite as well done as in, say, "Edward Scissorhands" or "Weeds", but it's definitely up there. This movie is highly recommended by me.

Up (2009) - Pretty overrated, in my opinion. Yeah it was really sad, more sad than even I expected after hearing miles about it. But I thought the story was pretty weak by Pixar standards, and parts were way melodramatic for my liking. Still a good movie, but I certainly had my reservations.

Friday:
Igby Goes Down (2002) - I found this one pretty unbearable. I had high expectations because it was compared to "Cather in the Rye", "The Graduate", and, one of my favorites, "Rushmore". It also stars Keiran Culkin, who I loved in "Scott Pilgrim". But the movie was godawful! Nothing ever happens. Really, nothing. Please don't bother.

Signs (2003) - This was my first exposure to the work of M. Night Shyamalan, but I had heard enough about him to... well I don't have time to think of a whatever-it's-called (metaphor? analogy? I can't keep this shit straight). Supposedly his work has gone downhill since this movie, but I found this one entirely pleasurable, and I particularly noticed his direction as a plus. What he did amazingly was show the small town in which the movie takes place gradually be overtaken by dread over the extraterrestrial occurences that are taking place. My biggest problem might have been Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix as brothers - they're 18 years apart in age and look nothing alike, and that annoyed me the whole time.

Saturday:
Brick (2005) - This one was also really unique and interesting. It was made as an homage to noir mysteries, but it turned out to actually be exactly like those stylistically. But when it was put against the setting, a high school with all of the social classes that it has, it made a fascinating result. The movie was also helped tremendously by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who gave a great performance in the lead detective role as he was just breaking onto the scene.

Conclusions have never been my strongest suit in writing. So that's it I guess.

Solitude Is Bliss

If only you could see the conditions in which I live a lot of the time...
Especially with things related to this blog... Most of the time when I'm writing, or when I'm watching TV shows and movies and listening to music to write about, I lie on my bed with the door closed and the light off, just my computer and me savoring the darkness and loneliness. I do enjoy it, though.

Coincidentally, there are two awesome songs that have been in heavy rotation on the soundtrack of my life that talk about loneliness, and even in a bit of a positive light, the type that I was talking about.

Check them out after the jump...

I Love Great Writing

This is going to be the shortest post so far in the short history of this blog. I just wanted to say that "Community" and "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" are both on incredible hot streaks right now. It's really a gift to see such sharp writing on a weekly basis. Sunny's season is almost over, but hopefully Parks and Rec will come back strong and keep the trend going.

That's just what's making me happy.

So this post isn't a total waste, this is an awesome song. Enjoy.

Scott Pilgrim

I saw the Scott Pilgrim movie in theaters back when it first came out. It was pretty fun. I saw it with my friend who was obsessed with the books, and he dressed up and all. Pretty sweet. The movie is one of the most unique I've ever seen. It's completely ADD, always jumping around and it has all these crazy visual effects. It's pretty unprofessional actually, but it works. I just saw the movie again, it was my first iTunes movie rental ever (and, for new releases, those things are damn expensive. 4 bucks to see a movie on my computer? Honestly not worth it). But I liked the movie even more on second watching. Maybe it just took some time for me to get into the world, but either way I'm thinking now that it was a great movie. It probably just moved into my top 5 of the year.

I really want to read the books now, and I think I could become a huge fan of the whole franchise. There's also this song, it actually inspired the books. "Scott Pilgrim" by Plumtree. Plumtree was this awesome Canadian all-girl indie rock band, and this song is pretty sweet. Listen to it below.

Top Movie Scenes

I still don't really have anything timely to say. Also I had a hand injury and couldn't type much. But I guess I'm reaching into the bag of things anybody could do, and I'm going to write a list of my favorite movie scenes ever.

This conversational style might be more effective if anybody was actually reading...

Anyway, here is my list. It's not ranked, because Roger Ebert hates that (and I kind of agree with him).

On a side note, I could barely read that whole article. I felt so guilty knowing that I'm taking up about as much web space as Ebert is and I'm such an inferior writer to him. I'll stop moping and start my list now.

Rushmore - The scene where Max first meets Miss Cross
The blocking of this scene is brilliant, certainly the best of any on this list, and that's what makes it so great. This is the scene where Max first speaks to his love interest, first grade teacher Miss Cross. She is smoking on the bleachers, and he on the other side of them. But as the conversation shifts in tone, he physically moves closer to her. When Max gets into a good topic, he slides towards her. And when he thinks he's offended her, he slides away again. This scene inventively puts into images what anybody on an awkward date feels like doing, and once again director Wes Anderson does a fantastic of subtly turning emotion visible.

I couldn't find a video of just this scene, but it is in this video, just around 4 minutes in. But of course, if you haven't seen Rushmore yet, then you should just see the movie because it is that good.


Inglourious Basterds - Opening scene
This is just a wonderful torture scene. Christoph Waltz is soooo good as Hans Landa, the "Jew Hunter", and when he's drinking the milk... chills run down my sping. It's fantastic. By the way you're going to be seeing a lot of Tarantino on this list. Just warning you.

Also, apparently I'm a terrible Youtube researcher, because I couldn't find a video of this scene. If you have anything, please put it in the comments and I'll add it.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind - Final scene
Until this scene, I was pretty indecisive about my feelings on "Eternal Sunshine". I was confused by it and didn't really feel like there was a point. But all of the point came from this scene. This one scene carried out the message of the entire movie, that it's worth it to have good times with somebody even if you know that the relationship won't end well. It's a beautiful message, and this is a beautiful scene.

I did manage to find a video for this scene, but the quality's absolutely awful (as, if you go to the video's page on Youtube itself, you could see I commented). I can't really understand what anyone's saying, but I'll post it here anyway and wish you luck.



Napoleon Dynamite - Final scene (tetherball)
I suppose this one really isn't too unique. But it's made really sweet just because of who the characters are. Two awkward kids, who had only been gradually drifting together throughout the movie. The shot is really well-done, it stays at the same wide angle the whole time, slowly zooming out. And I love that something so mundane like tetherball can be made into such a romantic experience, actually the climax of this romance as we see it in the movie.

This video is also pretty bad quality, and with this scene more than any I wouldn't think it would make too much sense without the context of the whole movie. But here it is regardless.


Pulp Fiction - Royale with Cheese/Bumping off Brett
This scene is also not that unique, it's just really, really incredibly well done. The dialogue, as it is in this whole movie, is so well-written, and John Travolta and Samuel L. Jackson, as they are in this whole movie, are at the tops of their respective games. Also there's a really funny parody of this scene with Bert and Ernie.
I have videos of the two parts of this scene plus the Sesame Street one. These all seem to be in pretty good quality. Then again I didn't watch them all the way through, but they seem alright.





Wayne's World - Bohemian Rhapsody
Need I say more? This scene, which brought Queen's fantastic song back to popularity, is a classic, and it's really funny.


So that's basically the list right now. There are scenes from "Midnight Meat Train" and "Lost in Translation" which deserve honorable mention as well.
Stay tuned, don't forget about the blog because I will write stuff on here. At some point, eventually, yeah.

Check-in, Thanksgiving stuff

Hey. So I guess I feel a little guilty that I haven't made a post in 12 days.
This blog might be slow in the next while. A lot of shows are on break, so there's not much new stuff to recap. I've been keeping busy by watching old things. "Rescue Me" is getting great, I watched all of season 2 in just two days, so I might write about that at some point, but the stuff from that I'm watching is still years old so I don't know how relevant it would be. There hasn't really been much news lately that I'm interested in either, but if there is I can write about that.

I still don't know if anyone reads this blog, but if there is, please bear with me. I'm not giving up on this thing so quickly. Remember you can also read me at TV Geek Army (tvgeekarmy.com) when new episodes of my shows are made. I'm still doing Amazing Race and Community recaps for them.

So how was your Thanksgiving? I had a nice time. Watched some football, did some baking. I made marshmallow apple crisp and peanut butter pie (that wasn't actually baking, since it's a cold pie, but it counts, right? It's still making dessert), and they were both wonderful. For black Friday all I bought was an iTunes gift card (Best Buy had $50 cards for only $40! How could that be a bad investment?) and season 1 of "Mad Men". So I guess I'll have to change my blog description if I actually do start watching it.

Alright, that's all I have to say for now I guess. I can tell you don't really care about any of this. Go off, live your life. But please don't for get about me.

Community S2E9 "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Decoration" - Fake guns, blanket forts, and Dean Danger

I thought Community started its second season somewhat slowly (I couldn't stand the space episode which everybody seemed to love), but it's definitely on a streak of great episodes which continued with "Conspiracy Theories and Interior Decoration". It was a major contrast to last week's bottle episode, but it had two hilarious plotlines and is immensely quotable.
It all starts when Dean Pelton (Jim Rash) notices an odd entry on Jeff's schedule. The Dean claims, to Annie's shock, that Jeff (who, by the way, is going with some sick stubble!) completely invented a class (Conspiracy Theories in American History) and a teacher (Professor Professorson). This would force the dean to conduct a strenuous audit of the entire school, which would be very time-consuming ("Good-bye writing in Starbucks until a certain Persian barista asks me about my novel!"). Jeff gets the Dean and Annie to come with him to look at the classroom where he claims he took this Conspiracy Theories class, but it turns out to just be a broom closet. However, as the Dean is about to leave to commence his unfortunate audit, Professor Professorson (Kevin Corrigan of "Superbad" and "Big Fan" in an awesome guest role) shows up, telling the Dean that they've probably never met because he teaches primarily in the night school. The Dean, happy to be proven wrong, sets off to continue writing chapter one of "Time Desk: The Adventures of Dean Dangerous" (Jeff: "That will be the worst book I ever read cover to cover").  But not all is right, at least with Annie. Jeff admits he's actually never met the shady Professor before, and while he just wants to get lunch, Annie wants to snoop more.
Meanwhile, Troy and Abed, while at a sleepover, created a simple blanket fort. It was Troy's idea originally to make it bigger, but the real expansion begins when Abed's dorky friend Pablo sees it and wants in. The fort continues to grow until it covers their entire floor (and Leonard joins in with blankets he stole from his son). There's some pretty funny stuff here, and it gets better later on, but I just had to give some back story here.
Back to the main storyline: the stakes are raised when, after Annie discovers that Professor Professorson's name is actually Professor Wooley, Jeff gets a threatening phone call about how "things will get explosive". Jeff sees Annie fiddling with her alternative energy project for the marvelously-named Bio-Diorama-Rama and dives to get her out of the way of the explosion which turns out to be no more than a few underwhelming sparks. This scare only inspires Annie to go even deeper into her investigation, so she and Jeff are actually going to check out the night school and get to the bottom of the whole mystery. They catch Professor Wooley in the hallway and he, knowing they want answers, runs away. This begins an epic chase through Greendale, including through the now-gigantic and citylike blanket fort (it has its own civil rights museum!), and this scene was hilarious. It was a brilliant parody of the standard chase scene. They eventually catch Professor Professorson/Wooley (who it turns out is also the drama professor Sean Garretty). The professor explains that he entirely invented night school because he, just like Jeff, wanted to get an easy free credit. Now that Jeff has this relatability with the professor, they decide to scare the dean away from the scent by using fake guns from the drama department.
This brings on the climactic scene in which we learn that basically everybody was conspiring somehow with everybody else and everybody is fake-shot by their co-conspirators. The dean shoots Annie to teach Jeff about academic honesty, Jeff shoots the dean to teach Annie about friendship, and Annie shoots Jeff to teach the dean not to conspire with anybody he can (Annie: "If you conspire with every person who approaches you, you're not even really conspiring with anyone, you're just doing random crap.") and the dean's high-pitched wail is hilarious. And then of course there's one more conspiracy: an actor shoots Professor Garretty to teach all of them to not use fake guns.
All that was left after that was an amusing end bumper where, after reading about their blanket fort in the school newpaper, Troy and Abed fear that they've gotten too mainstream so they execute "Protocol Omega", which is to pull a couple strategically-placed cords to cause the entire fort to collapse, and looting to ensue (at least for Leonard). But the episode ends with them vowing to each other to go on to create a cardboard submarine.
So while this episode kept me laughing, there is a lot to digest. It's interesting that one week after the bottle episode which had every member of the gang so focused upon, this week Britta, Pierce, and Shirley were barely in the episode. I also wonder about that mysterious professor. What was his real name actually? And will he be back? I sure hope so, because Kevin Corrigan played that part excellently and he is a really fun character.
I said at the beginning of this getting-to-be-pretty-long review that this episode was really quotable, so I'll end with some extra quotes from it.
Professor Professorson: "My family name was Professorberg but we changed it when we were fleeing from the Nazis."
Jeff (after discovering that Professor Professorson is actually real): "My latest theory? Maybe I'm a god. I've ignored the signs for far too long."
Abed: "You shouldn't be in here, Leonard. You already have three farting strikes against you."
Jeff: "Did you just mispronounce etcetera?", Professor Wooley: "My latin class was fake!"
Jeff: "He has defrauded your school to the tune of dozens of credits per year, and nearly twice as many dollars!"
Some of the night school courses were pretty funny. Here are the names of some of them: History of Something, Learning!, Introduction to Basics, Principles of Intermediate, Studyology, Class 101, Theoretical Phys Ed, Math 1-2-3, Simplified Chinese, Reading?, Nominal Ascertainment, Canned Response Awareness.

The Walking Dead - S1E3, "Tell it to the Frogs". Human drama in a world of zombies. Cheesy post titles, too.

But seriously! I wrote that and then I was like, "Whoa. That sucks."

On to the Walking Dead? Good. We probably should be on our way by now anyway, seeing as it originally aired four nights ago already. Chill. I've been sick, okay?

The Walking Dead put out a really good episode this week. It was a great rebound from last week's mediocre "Guts", which I didn't even find interesting enough to write about. This episode was pretty cool because it focused, as I hoped the whole show would, on the human drama aspect of the zombie invasion. There were barely any zombies actually shown in this whole episode, but  it was still thrilling. It started with an absolutely heart-wrenching scene of Merrill Dixon, who we remember had been handcuffed to the roof of the department store last episode and seems to have become utterly mad and depraved since then, struggling to break free of his bondage as the zombies come closer to breaking through the chained door separating them from his flesh. We are then left to wonder what happened to him as we get back to our main group of survivors.

Rick has rescued the group, aside from Dixon, who had been living in the store, and they are ready to rejoin the main group of survivors, which, unbeknownst to Rick, includes his wife, Lori, and son, Carl, in the country. And how's that for a run-on sentence? So of course when Rick's gang comes back to the main outpost, there's a big teary reunion between Rick and Lori and Carl. Of course, lately, since Lori thought that Rick was dead, she's been sleeping with Shane, Rick's former partner and another survivor. So of course there's some awkwardness there, especially since Shane told Lori that Rick was dead. Now when we find out this little piece of information, I guess it's supposed to be a total bombshell, but I didn't find it that shocking or meaningful. I mean, wouldn't you expect him to be dead with everything that's been going on? The hospital he woke up in at the beginning of the first episode certainly seemed pretty ravaged. Lori's response to Shane's supposed deception actually seems pretty harsh to me. She obviously ends the sexual relationship, which I'd expect and would hope that she did. But she also tells him to entirely stay away from her and Carl, with whom he'd built up a good relationship. Again, this move is based on the fact that Shane supposedly lying to Lori about Rick's fate is so bad! But Shane is pretty torn up by this, and this is all part of the drama that will ensue at the camp later.

I should return to the main plot for a bit. Rick is feeling guilty about leaving Dixon in the city to die, and a not-too-warm greeting from Merrill's equally trashy brother Darryl doesn't help, so Rick gets some guys together to go back into the city and save Dixon, as well as Rick's bag of guns that he left behind. So they all go down there and find him gone, with only a hand left. This is definitely a big cliffhanger, and I'm eager to find out what happened to this guy, but it wasn't the most interesting part of the episode and I won't dwell on it much more.

At the camp, tensions are rising. Some of the women are upset about the division of labour, while they stand by the river doing laundry and the men are standing around doing nothing. Also, this one fellow named Ed seems to enjoy beating his wife. Shane is watching all this happen, and the great injustice of it all coupled with his indignation at his treatment by Lori makes his rash, and he leaps upon Ed and beats the living daylights out of him. I tend to think that Shane was justified in this, and Ed was a complete asshole, but it's clear that Shane went too far, and he might be a character to watch in terms of being on the edge.

So anyway, I stink at writing conclusions but this was a great episode. I hope the show continues in a direction that this episode took because, as high as the production value is for the zombies on this show, the lifestyle of the survivors is an interesting angle rarely looked at in the zombie genre.

Ramblings on "Blue Bloods" and other procedurals that would otherwise have potential

I recently watched half of the first episode of the new CBS show "Blue Bloods", a show about a multi-generational police family. I thought this could be a really interesting family drama, but it turned out to be nothing more than a standard police procedural. It really annoys me when things like this happen. It's not like there aren't enough police or legal procedurals on TV. If I want to watch one of those, I'll just turn on one of the CSI's sometime. They're all entertaining, but the only one I've ever found compelling enough to watch regularly was the dearly departed "Numb3rs". And  I guess the even more prematurely departed "Pushing Daisies" kind of counts. "Blue Bloods" had the potential to be a really good show. It's an interesting premise, and it had a pretty talented (or at least famous) cast (Tom Selleck, Donnie Wahlberg, Bridget Moynahan, Andrea Roth, etc.). To me, it looks like CBS messed the show up.

Of course they've done this before. CBS has more procedurals than any other network, and just last year they took another great-looking show and turned it into one. I'm speaking, of course, of "The Good Wife".  That show's premise was so interesting! It took the disgraced former politician, and focused on how his wife would handle the whole fall from grace thing. But of course, the way she handled it was by becoming a practicing lawyer once again, so she could take on a fascinating new case every week. And there goes a great actress (Julianna Margulies) and a great story.

I hate that the TV networks are too close-minded to do have any kind of variation in their lineups. The only kind of dramatic shows you see on broadcast TV are procedurals, and you have to go to cable for interesting things like "Mad Men" and "Rescue Me".

Like I say, I hate pop culture.

The Amazing Race. S17E8. "Ali Baba in a Suit!"

The Amazing Race headed to Oman this week, in what was a bit of a downer episode for me after KevJumba and his dad, the team I had been rooting for, got out last week. But this episode had no shortage of thrills, even though the two dysfunctional couples with obnoxious men ended up being successful.

Obviously this was a big episode for Chad and Stephanie. The two South Beach muscle-people had a rough start after oversleeping two whole hours, but they quickly made up the time after getting to Oman, and Chad made the headline of the show by proposing to Stephanie. This is reality TV, so of course she said yes, but I could not understand why. Chad has been nothing but a brute to her this whole season, and he is rarely not obnoxious. However, he definitely stepped up to the plate this week. They couldn't have run a better race and they ended up in first place.

On to some other things about this week's race. It took less than two minutes to make the obvious joke (Nat: "Oh man, we're going to Oman!"). When Chad proposed to Stephanie, the intolerably bubbly Mallory (and of course I'll get to a lot more on her in a bit) seemed even happier and more excited about it than Stephanie was. I was a little disappointed in Nick this week. I've thought for a while (ever since the "Are you a battlement?" fiasco in episode 1) that despite their apparent lack of intellect, Nick and Vicki were my favorite couple because, despite some tantrums, they seemed to have a warm relationship. Well, Nick had one of those setbacks this week with that meltdown in the gas station. This was sad to see because I thought they had been making some legitimate growth as a couple, but they're still definitely my favorite team at this point. And then there's Thomas. The Thomas-and-Jill team finished second this week, and they really need to get out. Thomas is just too much of a douchebag, and I feel really badly for Jill for having to put up with him.

So of course at the end Gary and Mallory got out, and I can't say I'm too upset about it. Mallory seemed like a spoiled brat, and although her positivity was occasionally enjoyable, most of the time she was absolutely insufferably annoying. Her dad Gary did always seem like a good guy, though, but while I wish they had gotten into his character a little more while he was on the show, I definitely don't miss this team.

Predictions!

Gosh this is hard to say. Not one of the 5 remaining teams has really set themselves apart consistently. If I had to pick a winner right now, it would probably be Brook and Claire. They might have the best relationship of all the remaining teams, and they seem to be able to handle the physical stress (I still go back to episode 1 where Claire was hammered in the face by a watermelon and popped right back up), and they seem to be mostly finishing well. As for the next team to get out, I would probably say Jill and Thomas. It's only a matter of time before their personal deficiencies catch up to them. Nat and Kat should also be on the lookout; other teams are going to start next leg with a big head start over them, and while they have good teamwork I don't think their guile can get them very far.

The Hangover 2 and all of its cameos

Apparently Bill Clinton just shot a scene for the sequel to "The Hangover". So Zach Galifianakis is going to be sharing the screen with a former President. I really can't get past that.

Clinton joins the big three from the first movie and a whole bunch of guys like Liam Neeson, Paul Giamatti, and some person named Jamie Chung who I've never heard of but was apparently on some reality show. And of course Mel Gibson was supposed to appear as well.

I'm not sure if all of these celebrity appearances is a good thing. "The Hangover" was great because it was so sharply written and the leads were so talented and endearing. Sure, Mike Tyson's scenes were hilarious, but I have trouble seeing how Bill Clinton will fit in. And Paul Giamatti... I fail to see how his mopeyness will contribute to this being a funny movie.

I'm sure the movie will still be good, maybe even great. Todd Philips is a great comedy director (I'll give him a pass on "Due Date"), it will hopefully live up to the great standard of writing that the first one set and the leads are still great. But I think that the movie would be best off if it stuck with what made the first one so great, sharp writing and great comics to deliver the lines.

Thoughts on the Cancellation of Rubicon (RIP)

If you haven't yet heard the news: http://tvgeekarmy.com/post/viewPost/amc_cancels_rubicon_after_one_terrifically_chilly_and_thrilling_season/cefac620857547a802b04bf4cb21f3f5

So I've barely even watched Rubicon. It's one of the shows that I'm in the middle of catching up on, but I've only seen one episode so far. But still -- come on, AMC! I'm sad that the show isn't going to be on any more, and the move doesn't make any sense to me. AMC was finally getting its shit together as a network, and it was getting a stellar headlining group of shows with "Mad Men" and "Breaking Bad". And Rubicon was supposed to be the third one, the "Prison Break" to those other shows' "24" and "American Idol", with "The Walking Dead" coming in to be, I don't know, "Hell's Kitchen" maybe?

Comparisons to mid-aughts FOX shows aside, "Rubicon" seemed like it would be around for a very long time. And another thing - this is AMC! It's not like they have all of these options like the major networks that they can just cancel one of their top shows on a whim. It's not like they have high standards for their ratings anyways. Mad Men regularly gets below-average ratings even for cable, and it's less-watched than many mediocre TNT shows, but AMC keeps it on because it gives them credibility with the critics.

Maybe AMC does have more opportunities these days for high-quality programming. But when you look at their lineup, it's not exactly a deep schedule. And it's still seen as a poor man's HBO, just like it was several years ago when Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner came to the network only after being turned down by the most premium of cable networks.So I don't understand this decision at all. AMC had the chance to make it to the majors, but instead they majorly shot themselves in the foot.

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia S6E9 "Dee Reynolds: Shaping America's Youth"

This is such a great episode!

Like really, this might not be my favorite episode ever ("Mac Bangs Dennis' Mom" and "The Gang Solves the North Korea Situation" are still the top two), but it is really close. There are two distinct parts of the episode and they were both hilarious.

I loved at the beginning of the episode, with Charlie just walking through the halls of the school like he's the big man on campus. When the kids started calling him "the prof" I really could not contain myself. When he meets the Juggalo who he takes under his wing, his "protege", that was brilliant, and I really hope Richie keeps showing up on the show. If only for the Juggalo jokes. (I really should make a post about the Juggalos sometime. It's sad that they would be so obsessed about anything, but especially over such a terrible band.) And Dee trying to teach her drama class, telling them they will have a field trip to Broadway. Hahaha. And I love Dave Foley coming back as Principal McIntyre, he's a great straight man for the gang's antics.

Okay, so I know this is one of my more rambling reviews. I get that. There's not going to be much structure here, get over it. I will continue now.

So while all this stuff if going on at Dee's and Charlie's school, there's another plotline going on back at the bar, involving Dennis, Mac, and Frank. It turns out that a while ago they shot a fan-fiction sequel to Lethal Weapon, and they're debating on whether to re-shoot the movie, depending on whether it's acceptable for Mac to use blackface in his performance as the Danny Glover character (I'm sorry I don't know his name... I've never seen the Lethal Weapon movies). Dee is looking for a field trip idea, because obviously Principal McIntyre didn't approve of the Broadway suggestion, so the gang decides to show her class "Othello", so they can judge whether Laurence Olivier's use of blackface was okay. But when Dee shows up with her class, the gang decides to be more direct and just shows the kids their movie.

And as much as I liked the scenes of Charlie in the school, the whole episode really is just an excuse to show the guys' movie, and it is hilarious. The production value of this thing, as we've seen before in previous gang-produced projects like the Kitten Mittens commercial, is awful, and the story makes no sense. And when Charlie chides Richie for filming the movie on his phone (this is a paraphrase because I'm too lazy to watch the episode again - "That's bootlegging! Don't bootleg, man, I'll get you a copy") is a hilarious moment, especially when it turns out that this movie is just a video on Youtube. The whole video is hilarious.

I really loved this episode. Like I said, I think it's in my top three ever. Sorry the review was so weird, but that's just how my mind is. So yeah, that's all for now. :D

Community S2E8 "Cooperative Calligraphy" - Best. Bottle Episode. Ever.

"I hate bottle episodes," Abed proclaims repeatedly during Community's bottle episode. I usually agree with him. When many shows try the bottle episode, an episode in which the core characters are all isolated in one small environment and don't interact with anybody else, it usually means that there will be no real plot and the writing will be forced. But this was another example of Community being so well-written and -produced that they can just do things better than any other show, and I this was one of the best episodes they've ever done.

I should start by saying that I was looking forward to this episode probably more than anything else on TV ever because of this auspicious tweet from star Alison Brie: "Tonight on #NBCCommunity (8/7c) we TAKE OFF OUR CLOTHES!!! Also, it's funny." But even though there may not have been as much eye candy as many of the gentleman viewers might have hoped, the episode totally lived up to the hype.

What happened is that the gang is working on their evolutionary chain project for Professor Duncan's anthropology class (Britta: "I still think that man will evolve into woman, not a three-headed dragon"), but when they all have to leave - Jeff has "a catch to date" and the rest are heading to a puppy parade in the quad. But as they are leaving, Annie notices that her pen is missing - again. Apparently she's lost a bunch of pens recently, and this time she is not going to let it go unchecked.

This becomes what the whole episode is about: finding Annie's missing pen. They go through increased stages of depravity, from checking each other's bags to doing the strip search that Alison referred to in her tweet. At various times, they all want to leave and go to the parade, but one of them steps up and keeps them there. One of the funniest moments in the show is Pierce criticizing the gangs indecision: "People like you are why we took so long to get into Vietnam!"

Even things that annoy me about Community, like Abed's constant self-referencing and metaness, were used perfectly in this episode. I loved that stuff at the beginning of the show, but then I thought it was being used too much. However, in this episode it was used to perfection. It was a great running gag and I cracked up whenever they went back to it.

And then the gag at the end of the episode, Troy's old monkey Annie's Boobs (we didn't see her actual ones but at least the monkey's back!) hopping out of its little lair where it has all kinds of trinkets, including all of Annie's missing pens. There are some great callbacks in this scene, and if you've seen every episode of the show like I have then you will love it.

Some other random notes:

When Jeff empties out Troy's bag to just find a pillow and says "You are my new hero," I could not agree more. Every single day when I'm trying to sleep on my bus ride I wish that there wasn't so much other stuff in my backpack so that I could just put a pillow in it.

In the end bumper of the show, where the puppy parade is actually shown, the dean's comments are absolutely hilarious. "Responsible pet ownership is always in season" and, when a float comes by with a puppy and a kitten together, he says "Oh, well this feels a little preachy." Brilliant.

Yeah, so basically this is amazing episode. And if you haven't seen Community before, now is the time to jump in.

"The Walking Dead" - S1E1 recap and review

Welcome to my new blog! Here is my first post, which is a review of the first episode of the new AMC show, "The Walking Dead":
My biggest problem with television, as opposed to movies, is the open-endedness of it all. The main point of the plot wouldn't realistically last forever, but the show keeps going. It doesn't make sense that it's taken the documentary crew seven years to make that documentary about Dunder-Mifflin, or that Leslie Knope has been giving all of her time in three whole years to build one park, and I see the same fate in new shows like "Boardwalk Empire", which has captivated me so far. The best shows are ones that have the kind of unfocused plotline that can keep moving indefinitely, such as "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia". But there might be no genre better for the television medium than the zombie.
When the zombie apocalypse finally occurs, it will not be a temporary situation. It will not be over in the time it takes to make a workplace documentary, or build a park, or set up an illegal alcohol distribution empire. When the zombies come, they will be here to stay.
When the zombies come, the lifestyle of the survivors will have to change, and it will never change back. This accentuation of the bleakness of LAZ (life after zombies) has never been focused on in zombie movies because movies have to end sometime. But the premier of "The Walking Dead" looked at these aspects of life like no zombie movie ever has. And it sure is bleak.
The show begins with the protagonist, Sheriff's deputy Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln), walking through a huge assortment of abandoned cars up to an eerily empty gas station. It is there that he encounters the first zombie that we see in the show. It is a little girl, walking around in bunny slippers with a teddy bear, and Rick shoots her immediately. Right from this scene, I was struck by the quality of the zombie. The little girl is missing a cheek and has teeth hanging out, and her hair seems to be tangled in just the right way. Clearly this show isn't using any simple Halloween costumes.
After that introduction, we get into the main story. We start with Rick having a chat with his partner Shane (Jon Bernthal) about the differences between men and women. This ended up being the biggest chunk of dialogue in the whole episode, and I thought it was pretty well-written, and Shane's part was well-delivered by Bernthal. The cops are called away to stop a wild driver, who happens to be armed and willing to shoot at the police. They stop him, but Rick is shot and enters a coma.
Now here is where the timeline becomes ambiguous, because Rick wakes up in the hospital some unknown time later, and the environment he finds himself in is the classic zombie movie setting. We have the flickering lights, the frenzied messages written in blood on a wall, and stacks of bodybags overflowing everywhere. But one of my favorite parts of the show is how this scene was set up. Rick isn't like the survivors in other zombie stories. He doesn't get the chance to watch the civilized world's downfall and adapt to the new wild. Rick is thrown into this new world just like we, the viewers, all are. His confusion is palpable and relatable, and at the end of the episode we still don't know how all this destruction happened.
Not long after leaving the hospital, Rick, while searching for his missing wife and son, finds other survivors: Morgan (Lennie Jones), and his son Duane. They explain that there was a virus or fever of some sort that killed all of the people that got it, but they wouldn't stay dead for long, soon coming back alive as "walkings". Morgan and young Duane have had to suffer through this apocalypse the hard way, even suffering the death and subsequent return of Duane's mother. They tell Rick of a survivors' safe place in Atlanta, and Rick tries to get there.
On his way there, Rick sends out a radio message alerting any survivors to where he was, and that signal was picked up by who else but Shane, who is with Rick's wife and son. However, they don't recognize his voice, and are also unable to respond to his message. But they do give some ominous commentary, saying that the city is more dominated by the zombies than we or Rick would imagine.
This premonition turns out to be correct, as Rick finds a horde of zombies waiting for him in Atlanta. He comes close to death, but finds an opening in a tank and climbs in there for safety. While he was running from the zombies, Rick sees a helicopter flying above the city, and once he is in the tank, the radio blurts "Cozy in there?", presumably from the same person. That quip is the end of the episode, and the major cliffhanger of the show so far.
Make no bones about it, this show is bleak. Really, really bleak. But it was exciting too, unlike the uber-bleak, incredibly boring and radically overrated 2010 movie "Winter's Bone". I love the way the story was set up, with the time lapse. The zombies also looked fantastic, and if this show doesn't win the Emmy for best makeup it would be criminal (check out this lovely legless lady! http://screencrave.frsucrave.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/girl-zombie-The-Walking-Dead-AMC-la-10-25-10.jpg). I'm still undecided about Andrew Lincoln as the lead. He didn't really show too much in the premier, but then again there wasn't that much for him to do. I'm also glad that the show hasn't gotten too crazy yet. The creators of the show said before it started that they would not be afraid to make major moves such as killing off characters, and I definitely appreciate the bold ambition of that, but I'm glad they left the first episode to just setting up the environment.
Because if this show lasts, it's the detail of the environment that will set it apart from the rest of the zombie canon to this point.