Tue, January 30

Cliché Standards of Measure—12:11 PM

I like the way movies and TV shows resort to certain overused clichés for certain common expressions. TWoP fondly champions the celery stalk poking out of a paper bag to connote "groceries." There's also a whole cliché system of weights and measures.

I'm sure there's at least a dozen more of these, but every single one is escaping me for the moment. The one that came up the other night – which happens to be a personal favorite – is:

• (of a chemical, particularly a sedative): "enough to kill an elephant"

I love how measurements like these are employed universally, even though there are theoretically situations in which they wouldn't work at all. For example, this is not a good way to measure elephant poison.

And that's the crux of today's little exercise: elephant poison. I'd give anything to be able to write a spec sitcom episode (a talent which still evades me), but I can come up with the third laugh line in a three-minute comedy sketch, no problem. I could probably give you fifteen an hour. So, if there's ever any need for that guy (like the guy in Joe's sketch about the Law & Order writing staff, who just provides the "discovering the body" scenes), I'm set!

7 comments

Mon, January 29

Priceless Dialogue Dept.—10:29 PM

I don't know if people are still watching Heroes. I took quite a few weeks off myself, during the show's winter break. But tonight I started catching up on the new episodes since they've been back.

The following example is – I think – too precious to be an accident, but unfortunately it completely undercuts the drama of the scene. Claire's dad (I forget his name, if in fact it's ever been revealed) is confronting Mohinder, and Mohinder is confused and angry.

Claire's Dad: Not everyone who has these abilities deserves them.

Mohinder: And who are you to judge?! In fact, who are you, period?

Actors are so funny when they're angry. It reminds me of X-Men 2's Brian Cox: "When I get back, I want these doors open all the way!"

1 comment

Thu, January 25

Rape Not Lest Ye Be Raped

Dakota Fanning takes the high road in the debate about her new film, Hounddog. (Read more.)

3 comments

Extras, Season Two—4:57 PM

I don't know how people feel about Extras. I really enjoyed the first season, and respected how different it was from The Office, but most people I talked to didn't seem very wowed, and you didn't hear much buzz in the press.

But even if you weren't that fond of season one, I'd recommend checking out the new season. Andy (the Gervais character) is more central to the story now, if you like that kind of thing. (I was fine with him taking a smaller role, but of course this is great, too.) His character has accepted a starring role in a sitcom he helped create, but most of the creative decisions have been taken over by the network, dumbing it down and adding stupid catchphrases to steal cheap laughs. The scenes from the sitcom expertly skewer the blight of bad sitcoms we've lived through lately, and of course Gervais remains in tip-top form.

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Tue, January 23

Narrowly Averted Typos from This Year's Oscar Ballot—5:45 PM

I'm getting started on the paperwork for the annual onebee Oscar pool. But you have to be careful if you type too fast!

1. Dreamgrills
2. Pierats of the Caribbean
3. The Queer
4. The Devil Wears Panda
5. Curse of the Golden Shower
6. After the Welding
7. Untied 93
8. The Pursuit of Happiness

1 comment

Sat, January 20

My God, My Ears!—1:22 PM

The much-ballyhooed and greatly anticipated Scrubs musical aired this week.

Imagine if an alien civilization contacted you and wanted to know all about Scrubs, but the only thing you had to show them was a tape of clips your jerkoff friend had edited together, cherry-picked to make the case that no one should ever waste their time watching Scrubs.

This is like if that civilization came back a year later with a script for a musical episode.

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Tue, January 16

All-Star Lame—10:23 PM

CBS has announced the teams who will be competing in the utterly absurd Amazing Race: All-Stars which begins airing next month. It turns out there's absolutely no reality show that AmbeRob won't appear on twice!

It's sad and shameful that TAR should stoop to an All-Stars season, specifically after having rebounded so nicely from its Family Edition clusterfuck. They've been going so strong for a couple of seasons, and we didn't even get any oldsters last fall! You can't expect Survivor to be smarter than this, because they have so very little to offer in the first place, but TAR is the quality show. They should really know better. (And they've brought back Kentuckians David & Mary, who are perfectly nice people, but have they just become the TAR version of Rupert Boneham? The producers are just going to keep forcing them on us until they end up with a big prize?)

Mirna and Charla? Team Guido? Oh my, this is going to be the ultimate season to love to hate. I'm astonished they've included so many teams from the really early seasons. (For one thing, haven't these people moved on? How are they still taking calls from reality TV producers?) The clues and tasks have become significantly easier since those days. Aside from their despicable bitchitude, is there anything that can prevent Team Guido from taking the prize from all the late-comers?

Yikes. I'm utterly unsure of what to expect. And I'm fucked as far as keeping all these teams straight. I met half of them only through Miss Alli's recaps, having failed to watch the first five season on CBS, but then I was reacquainted with most of those teams when GSN started rerunning the show – which reruns I watched in mini-marathon form until my TiVo drive died.

How dare they deprive me of more BJ and Tyler?! Dammit! At least I'll have sweet Dustin and Kandice to keep me company. Without Colin, Kendra, or any of my other favorites (Carissa, yum!) around, they'll certainly provide me with a reason to tune in each week.

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Sun, January 14

You Guys!—11:09 AM

Do I have the best friends ever, or what?

So far, practically everyone who has sent me a holiday card or a birthday card has "gotten cute" with the address in one form or another. I don't know if this is the kind of thing you could guess about me, but I absolutely eat that stuff up. I feel so loved!

These are all great. (Jensen and Jansen are the nicknames Drew and I have for each other, respectively. It began because Drew initially misheard my name as Jansen – which would be an awesome name if I were a butler for a WASPy old-money family in the Northeast.) Obviously, the Mulders' is a sentimental favorite because I've been desperate for their new baby to think of me as part of the family even though I'm a world away. (Resigned to my own childless future, I decided I'm going to need someone to dote on, and there's none cuter!)

But the prize has to go to Drew and Beth, who also made use of the return address space, and taught me a new word in the process!

1 comment

Wed, January 10

Man on Mandvi—12:05 AM

Of course I continue to enjoy The Daily Show despite a few shortcomings in the way Jon sells certain jokes that just don't need to be sold that hard. But Aasif Mandvi's appearances are almost as delicious as those of John Hodgman, and unlike Hodgman you can't get Mandvi anywhere else.

(Actually, he showed up on cable recently, telling Tobey Maguire to deliver a pizza in Spider-Man 2. But you can't get quality Mandvi anywhere else!)

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Tue, January 9

Holy Effing Ess.—10:45 AM

Last week, my adorable aunt treated herself to a new 40" Bravia widescreen LCD HDTV. I've heard of these but I haven't really watched one, except for walking past them at the electronics store once in a while, and even then I try to avoid eye contact for obvious reasons.

But last night she had us all over to watch the BCS Championship Game. Sweet Flaming Jeebus, that was awesome. So awesome, in fact, that an exciting but otherwise lopsided game was still spectacular.

It's always been a given that my own TV setup will be upgraded at some point. I've tried to wait as long as I can, because it'll be expensive (a new TV will necessitate a new TiVo and eventually a new DVD player) and I'd like to get the best components and hopefully last at least 8 or 10 years before the next major upgrade. I started getting serious about the research two months ago when stupid football forced me to watch half an episode of Without a Trace on the computer after watching the first half on TiVo. I've watched downloaded episodes before (which come from an HD source), but never half-and-half. The difference was striking.

Anyway, football intervenes again. The countdown can now be measured in days instead of months. Every minute of television I watch between now and HDTV, I feel like I'm wasting my eyeballs. The only thing holding me back is the promise of greater things right around the corner. (But even then, it's only money, right?)

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Mon, January 8

Children of Men

And the quest continues for a serious 2006 movie that is also fulfilling. I have a sense Departed on DVD is my last flickering hope (unless I relax "serious" to include Stranger than Fiction or The Prestige.) (Read more.)

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Thu, January 4

Awesome If Awesome—10:59 AM

Will & Grace scene stealer Megan Mullally's syndicated daytime talk show has been cancelled. Mullally is great, but these daytime talk shows are such a bad idea and very, very few succeed. (Ellen is the only exception this century, and it's a great show, but its success is kind of a disappointment nonetheless because it keeps her from other projects like primetime shows – and even movies although I admit I've never seen one she's been in.)

Anyway, this is not news at all, but I mention it because of this update on the cancellation, which closes with a priceless line. Proposing possible future work for the talented and likable Ms. Mullally, the author pulls the old sitcom-spinoff-with-one-year-gap idea out of his ass. "I don't know how they'd do that without having Will, Grace, and Jack in there," he says, giving way too much credit to deadweights McCormack and Messing, "but it might be pretty funny with some good writing."

Couldn't the same be said for pretty much any sitcom or TV idea, ever?

I like the idea of NBC executives mulling the development of "Karen!":

Exec 1: Okay, she moves to Nebraska and starts a finishing school for newborns. Greenlit.

Exec 2: Absolutely. But let me ask you this... do you think we should go with "good writing" on this one?

Exec 1: Naw. Good writing takes a lot of time, and – worse – good writers. We don't need those headaches.

Exec 2: Fine by me. So... what will we be replacing it with after three weeks when the ratings bottom out?

Exec 1 (yanking a thick, nine-pound manila folder of script pitches from a desk drawer and dropping it on the table with a crack): I'm way ahead of you.

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Mon, January 1

Taking It All In

Going to the movies, James Bond, Chuck Klosterman, and the return of Missing the Point! (Read more.)

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