As Ever, Weird Al Rules.

I know I should have brought this up sooner, but let me tell you about last week's episode of The Simpsons.

That's right--Weird Al had a cameo, again. Unfortunately, it was a cameo in the truest sense of the word, being all too brief. Homer invented grunge music, you see (it was a flashback episode), and Weird Al parodied his song. Amusingly, the fake parody was totally lame and nonsensical and involved food in some fashion--it was a parody of Al's parody. Well played, The Simpsons, well played.

I also feel I should note how good a sport Weird Al is for singing the bad song.

Possibly the best thing about Weird Al's cameo came after his cartoon form had left the screen. Homer, all depressed (which is why he invented grunge music, of course), not even cheered up by the parody, muses on his lowly state, acknowledging, "He who is tired of Weird Al is tired of life." How true.

The good line leads me to the most surprising thing about the episode--it was actually good. I don't know how long it's been since I've seen a first-run Simpsons that I've enjoyed, but safe to say? A long time. I mean, there was single, cohesive plot; the jokes were funny instead of lazy and random; and it was character-driven instead of cram-every-one-note-bit-character-in-there . . . driven. I was so pleasantly surprised that I even watched the episode that came on after the Weird Al one, and discovered that it was pretty good, too. It had the latter-day-Simpsons banes of the totally unrelated B-plot and of "Homer makes up a song! Because he's always done that all the time! Remember?!?" However, the B-plot was introduced in minute 2 instead of minute 15, unlike many newer episodes I've seen, and the "Homer sings!" was . . . not as annoying as it could have been.

In short, the good news is A: The Simpsons has apparently turned a corner, back toward being halfway decent television and B: Weird Al continues to ROCK MY FACE OFF.

Atone-meh-nt

The gentleman caller and I took in what the commercials tell me is THE GREATEST MOVIE OF THIS OR ANY OTHER YEAR! last night.

I didn't care for it.

It's pretty to look at. It's obviously very well made. But, clearly, my tastes are less sophisticated than those of movie critics, and I was more concerned with the fact that it was very long, quite depressing, and did not make me care about the characters.

It starts out promisingly, if slowly, as an inter-war English-country-house drama--but pervy. In the beginning, it seemed very complex and finely layered, one of those movies where you slowly find out about the characters and their backstories, as if it's a puzzle.

But then it's not.

It doesn't answer most of the questions it asks in the first scenes; it in fact forgets about having posed them. It doesn't even bring up new questions, it just turns into a (still lushly-shot) boy-goes-to-war, boy-wants-to-come-home-to-his-girl story. And don't be fooled by the fact that it's a "war movie." It's a war movie like Gone with the Wind is a war movie. The closest thing we see to a battle is the boy traipsing through France, and even that is all about feelings and stuff.

And then the ending is pretty stupid. SPOILERS: the only thing you're really wondering about during the middle of the movie is Whether He Makes It Home Alive. Is the movie going to dish out the happy ending or the sad ending? Instead of doing either, the movie yanks us out of the 1930s, turns the main character (who you don't even see in the previews) into Vanessa Redgrave, who has written this story and who tells us that it turned out (in Vanessa's real life) not only did he die, she died too. But also that in her book, she made it into a happy ending as her way of--you guessed it!--atonement. So you get the worst of all worlds: the downer-ness of a sad ending, and the cop-out-itude of a happy one. HERE END THE SPOILERS.

So anyway, I didn't like it, and I feel perfectly justified in not liking it. My disliking it doesn't even have anything to do with the chronically overused Kiera Knightley, as she is balanced out by the adorable Mr. Tumnus (OK, James McAvoy. Whatever. He's Mr. Tumnus from here on out, as far as I'm concerned).

Monday Nights Have Gotten 175% More Awesome

I just can't understand why people keep hating on American Gladiators. My roommate was just plain perplexed that I fully intended to watch it tonight, and of course on this blog entry, the first two comments are disclaimers about my love of the show.

But what's not to love? It's people running around and hitting each other and climbing on things and hitting each other and swinging on rings and shooting Nerf arrows and hitting each other! People tell me that's it's stupid. Of course it's stupid! That's the point!

If it helps those of you who do not appreciate American Gladiators (for shame!), but would like to start (good for you!), the key may be to pick a contender and root for him or her. That way, you can yell at your TV things like, "He fell down! Run! RUN!" "Come ON! Dodge the wrecking balls! DODGE THEM!" or "You SUCK at the handbike! JUST FALL DOWN!" (Although, in all fairness, everyone sucks at the handbike.) Also, my sister came up with something to say for when the contendors and blathering about their kids or their moms or whatever (snoozefest!); I wanted a variation on "Less chat, more hat!" so she suggested, "Less sound, more pound!"

What a great show.

However, I do some critiques of New American Gladiators as opposed to the Classic version. I do enjoy most of the new events, particularly Hit and Run--the contenders have to run down a sway-prone bridge while dodging the shiny polyester "demolition balls" that various Gladiators swing at them. It's like a human video game!









(Possibly the best part about Hit and Run is that it gives Hellga something to do. Hellga: great name, not that good at gladiating.)






However, some of the new events are just too hard. It just really isn't possible for a 175 pound man to climb a gym-mat pyramid when a 245-pound man comes down from the top to tackle him (over and over and over). Also, they tweaked some original events that were plenty hard already to make them more challenging. Assault did not need to be harder, but they added the unnecessary dimension of hiding ammunition to use against the gladiator in a sandbox. (This seems even goofier than it is because it always reminds me of The Marble in the Oatmeal:

).

I also think they ought to ease up on the difficulty of the Eliminator when next season comes around (note my blithe assurance that next season will indeed come around). For instance, there's the part near the beginning where they have to dive into the water and swim under some sort of platform of fire. As hard as it is for me to argue against fire, the swimming seems to take it out of the contenders to a degree that their weariness makes the Eliminator less interesting. I had to boo heartily tonight when the chicks just gave up at the Travelator. Come on! How many times in life do you get to run The Eliminator? Suck it up!

As my final critique, I must ask NBC the question they cannot outrun, no matter how they try: where are the hamster balls?!? No rounds of Atlasphere so far? What's the problem?

Maybe I'll start a petition.

Two Movies That Have Nothing in Common, Besides the Fact That I've Seen Them Recently

Juno

This is going to sound pretty crazy, pretty out-there, but . . . I thought Juno was ok.

By which I mean, it was fine. But it wasn't mind-bogglingly awesome, as I had been led to believe a person like me would think it was.

That might have been the problem--my expectations. They were pretty high. After all, look what the previews told me: it's an unexpected hit! it's quirky! it's got Jason Bateman and Michael Cera! and look how genuine and loveable and relatable the lead is! I had no choice but to assume it was going to be Teriffic.

The other problem was that (it being a hit, after all, no matter how initially unexpected), the theatre was full of [shudder] people. The more people an audience has, the dumber they collectively are. Anyway, these people were way to easily amused. There are plenty of funny lines in Juno. But really, it's chuckle-level funny. There's nothing wrong with that, but it makes it preversely makes it seem less funny when everybody else is taking it as guffaw-funny. No, people, no. The movie wants you to laugh mildly, almost as if to yourself. You can tell by the way it doesn't leave pauses for big laughs. (Hint: you covered up lines with your disproportionate mirth. Just don't let it happen again.)

As I said, on the whole, it's a fine movie. I'd recommend it to friends (seriously, blog readers, avail yourself of Juno. Just maybe wait til it's not so crowded); I'm just not going to rush out and buy it when it's released on DVD (or whatever format we're supposed to be buying in nowadays. HD-DVD? BluRay? MantaRay? 8-Track for Flying Cars? Why do they keep changing things on me and obsoleting all my stuff?! Sorry, I'll stop now).

I liked the plot. I liked the characters and their relationships to each other. (My particular favorites in this department were Allison Janney as the stepmom [some nice, nuanced stepmomming in this movie] and the best friend character [which was less about the actress and more the writing; it was a nice, believable, low-maintenance girlfriend relationship--in my experience, low-key teenage girls have friendships that are 10% drama, but 90% not-drama. This is one of the few movies I've ever seen that work with, or even acknowledge, that 90%].)

However, I do have two actual quibbles with the movie. One: why so little Michael Cera? Come on! If he's awesome enough to do this part (and, clearly, he is), he's awesome enough to get way more scenes. And stuff to do.

That relates to my second quibble: mightn't this have been a more interesting movie if Juno weren't pregnant? I know, I know that's kind of the point of the whole movie. But, if you've seen it, imagine it: take the quirky, funny girl we're introduced to at the beginning of the movie, and follow her around her day-to-day life. I think it would be awesome to see her in her ordinary circumstances, interacting with her parents, her teachers, and other teenagers--especially Michael Cera. (Come on!) I do like the pregnancy/adoption plot, but that would be a weird situation for anybody. Juno would be entertainingly weird in any situation--like Napoleon Dynamite, except a girl! And funny! And interesting.


But again, Juno = good = see it (although you can wait for DVD; it won't kill you.)




The Golden Compass

I wrote about The Golden Compass once on my other blog, guessing that it was doing poorly not because of Christian fundamentalists being out to get it, but because it wasn't very good.

Afterwards, my mom pointed out--fairly--that maybe I shouldn't smack-talk a movie before seeing it (the wording may be my own there).

However, now I can say with complete objectivity, and being well informed of the facts of the matter, that The Golden Compass . . . is pretty terrible.

(Sorry, Mom.)

I recently read The Golden Compass, and I spent a fair amount of time during the movie wondering whether that was a help or a hindrance. (I also spent time trying to get a piece of paper unstuck from my shoe, some time wondering what I should have for lunch the next day, etc. Not an engrossing film, is what I am hinting at.)

On the one hand, reading the book meant I knew what they were cutting out and what they were changing, so maybe it didn't seem "right" for that reason. On the other hand, reading the book meant I knew what was supposed to be going on, and I'm not sure I would have known otherwise. I could also tell what they were not cutting out, which was way too much.

Basically, Lyra does almost everything in the movie that she did in the book, just at hyper-speed. There's no time to get to know the characters (besides Lyra [the main character], I suppose)--even Pantalaimon, Lyra's daemon (animal-shaped constant companion/soul of all people in Lyra's universe) gets the Ron Weasley treatment: his only function is to be nervous about the main character's hijinx. Apparently, devotees of the books got mad that there was too much cut out; I think they should have cut more.

Yet even though there are too many events, piled on top of each other in no very clear way, the movie can't stop telling you things instead of just showing you. People keep explaining things to each other in dialogue instead of just doing stuff and taking the audience along for the ride. (Strangely, The Golden Compass in book form definitely does the latter. You don't get a definition of a daemon, you just learn it. That's good storytelling.)

I went to see the film with my gentleman caller, who has actually read the whole trilogy (I got bored around Chapter 3 of the second book, but he's told me the plot of the other two and believe me, there's NO WAY they'll be able to make all three into movies. The Golden Compass itself, even the book, doesn't have that much in the way of anti-religiousity but, uh, that changes in the other two) was even less charitable to the movie than I was. He pointed out all kinds of instances of clunky dialogue, pointless plot-lets, and just plain weirdness. My favorite was this:

There's a scene in the movie in which the villainess (Nicole Kidman) gets angry at and hits her daemon (which happens to be a monkey, if anyone is keeping score). Per what daemons are supposed to be, this doesn't make any sense, nor does this little scene help along the plot in any way. My gentleman caller's idea of the director's instructions on that day of filming: "Nicole, this is your motivation: you’re mad at the external physical representation of your soul, so you punch it in the face."

But anyway, I wouldn't recommend this movie to religious people (Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Taoists, anybody) or atheists.

(Sorry again, Mom.)

The Wonder That Is Ugly Betty

I've had a great Ugly Betty evening. But how could any Ugly Betty evening be otherwise?

Tonight's episode was a great example of how I am such a sucker for this show. Claire is innocent?! Yayyyy! Gio ever-more-pathetically in love with Betty?! Awwwwww! Cristina agrees to carry Wilhemina's baby?! Gasp! (OK, I saw that coming from roughly 14 miles away. But still! That's baby's going to be so evil! I know we're all pumped.)

Just as delightful was the preview, which let me know--we're not out of episodes yet! (This writers' strike is going to kill me. Give in, producers! Come on.)

In celebration, after the new episode, I busted out my Christmas present of Ugly Betty: Season One and watched the pilot. Oh, Ugly Betty, how you have changed in 1 and 3/4ths seasons.




Things I miss about Betty of the Past:

Pre-pubescent Justin--so cuuuuuute! (Not that post-pubescent Justin isn't fabulous, because he is.)

Scenes from the telenovela the Suarezes watch.

America Ferrera's hair. They let her wear either her own hair or a much nicer wig in the pilot. I suppose they thought that the horrible wig would make up for the several pounds she appears to have lost since then. (I miss those pounds, too. Those are pounds Betty would have in real life.)












Things I don't miss, and am glad have been dispensed with in Betty of the Present:

Marc's hair. (And makeup. [And wardrobe.])

Walter. (Ewwwwwwww. Betty, what were you thinking?)

Betty deciding she should quit Mode every episode. (Now it's, what? Every third episode?)






(Sidenote: whilst watching Episode 3, I spotted America's Next Top Model's most recent winner, you know, what'sherface. She was a snooty model who rode an elevator with Betty and smirked at the insults Amanda shot at her. Mercifully, she had no lines.)

Ultimately, though, the things that make Ugly Betty wonderful are the things that have stayed the same.

The schemes upon schemes cooked up by the villains and the heroes.

The way it makes you empathize with almost every single character, no matter how good or evil he or she or he/she is supposed to be--one thing I just adore about the character of Wilhemina is how she implements all these devious and hurtul plans to take over the magazine, but the show is brave enough to show that she would be a better editor than Daniel. WAY better. (It makes me want her to succeed.)

And above all, the enthusiastic embrace of its own soapiness and silliness. Only a show this smart could be this good at being stupid.