Owen Wilson: Too Soon? Too Something?

Seeing the commercials for "Drillbit Taylor" over the past few weeks gave me an odd feeling. It's a big, goofy comedy starring a recognizable movie star…who apparently tried to kill himself a few months ago. Is it too soon? I don't know. But I don't feel I have "closure," if that's the right word. I see him make public appearances, and I feel good for him because he's still around, but I also wonder if he's really OK. I never felt a big personal attachment to Owen Wilson, and I don't think I do now, but I can't help but think about all those supposed personal demons that were hinted at when he nearly died last year. Have they gone? Is he "fine"? Are we as moviegoers supposed to just forget about all of that and go see his movies? Maybe we are, I don't know.

I would never be so presumptuous as to say we the public have a "right" to know the personal details of a movie star's life, but at the same time, it's hard to separate the persona from something as drastic as what we saw happen. Even then, we really didn't see much, did we? We got some frantic reports, some speculation, and then…nothing. And that's fine. Owen Wilson doesn't owe us a Barbara Walters interview or a "People" profile. But so far we're getting nothing, and to me, for one, it makes it really tough not to still be curious about all that stuff, even when I see him in a trailer for something as unabashedly silly as 'Drillbit Taylor."

I mean, at some point, he's kind of gonna have to talk about it...isn't he? If not, I guess only time will make this kind of awkward feeling go away. Whatever the case, I wish him the best of luck.

Tomorrow is Octopus Night on TCM

Here's another reason why TCM is the Mostest Excellent Cable Network Ever: This Friday is Octopus Night. Octopus Night!

Yes, it's another reminder that while Turner Classic Movies often earns its somewhat highbrow reputation with its screenings and appreciations of "The Classics," the channel itself has never limited its own definition of the term to high-minded literary adaptations and foreign art films. No, TCM never forgets to leave room for flat-out fun in its celebration of cinematic history, and what could be more fun than Octopus Night?

You get a great big ol' octopus attacking San Fran in "It Came From Beneath the Sea," followed by the Duke himself in "Wake of the Red Witch," then a pre-code Fay Wray thriller called "Below the Sea," and topping it all off, "Sh! The Octopus."

Now, as I recall, this last little comedy/detective movie isn't a candidate for the AFI 100, but it's under an hour and it features Allen Jenkins and Hugh Herbert. There's a rule in my house (and the fact that I'm the only one who knows it, let alone follows it, makes it no less valid) that whenever a movie stars either one of those great character actors, it's recorded if not seen. When both of them are in it, well, there's no excuse.

So check it out tomorrow night. Sit back, grab 8 cold ones, pull up 8 footstools or so, and enjoy a night of octopus movies on TCM.

March Blandness

Nothing against those of you who do partake in the exercise of filling out NCAA hoops tournament brackets, but it's just not for me anymore. it's not just that my interest in the sport has dropped a bit in recent years. I just don't have the patience for all the rigmarole. There are two reasons I see to make the effort worthwhile: money and bragging rights. I don't like gambling a lot of money, and I can't stand people bragging about their brackets, so that leaves me out. I guess if I did better and I got to brag a bit more, I might feel differently.

I like to enjoy the tourney just on its own merits without worrying about how I'm doing in any of 10 different brackets I filled out. I like to see coverage, too, without talking heads giving us their incessant accounts of how they picked this and picked that and so on. I understand that it's a fun format, and people enjoy it, but I get weary of the contest aspect of it. What matters to me is who wins the games on the court, not who wins the office pools.

I get a kick each year out of the weak sister NIT for also-rans, and for years, as part of my recurring desire to make life as much like old-school pro wrestling as possible, I've said the NIT winner should declare itself the "real" world's champion, telling the NCAA winner, "You may have won your own little tourney, but you never beat us, and until you do, you're just a PAPER CHAMPION!" Then all offseason long, the NIT victor could go around challenging the NCAA counterpart to a game to settle it once and for all.

This year I see there is yet ANOTHER tournament, the College Basketball Invitational. So if you're not good enough for the NIT, fear not, there's room for you here. I think it's great in its own ludicrous way. I don't want to see the NCAA field expand to 64 teams. No, just keep adding second-rate tournaments until everyone gets into at least one postseason competition.

Last Week in DVD

Shemp Cocktail: Yes, Shemp Cocktail! A tribute to Shemp Howard from Passport Video, which puts out a lot of low-budget hodgepodges devoted to classic stars. Shemp has quite a following in the hardcore film community, to say nothing of the hardcore Stooge company, so many appreciate this collection of solo Shemp material and new interviews with family members. What they surely don't appreciate is Passport deleting some of the shorts it originally announced and tacking on those same old public domain 3 Stooges shorts that have made their way onto so many discs, I could have sworn I saw "Disorder in the Court" listed on a Ray Charles CD I was playing the other day.

Atonement: Love. Anguish. Loss. Pain. These are just some of the emotions felt by…the filmmakers after this one got relatively low traction on Oscar night.

Enchantment: Amy Adams plays a Disney princess come to life, and she seems like a great choice. Not only does she seem to carry herself with class off camera, but she's been playing a lot of intelligent, sweet, appealing characters in her other films lately. OK, folks, what's she hiding? Someone get some dirt on here, stat.

I Am Legend: I just wrote about this one right here.

The Ice Storm Criterion Collection: I didn't quite "get" this one at the time, but Criterion says it's brilliant, so, fans, here you go. Maybe it's because I never had the pleasure of experiencing a "key party" in the seventies…though I was conceived and born in the seventies. Hey, you don't suppose…

Revolver: Latest crime pic from Mr. Madonna.

Bull Durham: "Cashing in on the beginning of another baseball season" Edition: Well, it’s another release for this one Did they get it right this time? Are they done revisiting this? Are the Pirates gonna win the World Series? (Hey, maybe)

DC The New Frontier: Hopefully better than "Superman: Doomsday," which was a disappointing feature in some ways and not near the standards of the "Justice League" animated series but still entertaining. That one, though, did have one of the best special features ever on any comic-book-related DVD, a documentary look at the "Death of Superman" storyline on which the movie was based. Darwyn Cooke's "New Frontier" series was an outstanding work, a re-imagining of the Silver Age DC Universe in the Cold War era, and if you know what "Silver Age" means, this one could be for you. Hopefully the DVD does the extras up as well as "Superman: Doomsday" did. More importantly, though, hopefully the actual feature does the comic up right.

Should You Watch: The Return of Jezebel James

How funny does this phrase sound: Asherman's Syndrome?

Sounds like a real riot, doesn't it? Anything with the word "syndrome" in it is sure to bring down the mood a bit, and yet the new Fox sitcom "The Return of Jezebel James" uses it prominently as one of its core premises. Star Parker Posey is a book editor who can't conceive a child because, well, she has something called Asherman's Syndrome.

This is a device to get Posey to reunite with her prodigal sister, the one whose lifestyle she has always disapproved, and ohbytheway ask her to carry her child for her. It's a contrived premise, and the fact that the sister (Lauren Ambrose) decides in the span of minutes in the premiere episode doesn't make it any more convincing.

Or funny, for that matter. You see, while you might not expect the phrase "Asherman's Syndrome" to be conducive to laughter, you COULD reasonably expect the presence of show creator Amy Sherman-Palladino, late of "Gilmore Girls" to gaurantee some laughs. Unfortunaely, the two episodes I endured, er, watched with my wife were almost totally laugh-free. In this day of 21-22 minute "half-hour" programs on network TV, it's a really bad sign when one drags like this one.

Posey's sharp-witted, intelligent screen persona might seem a natural fit for the trademark snappy repartee from the creative force behind Lorelai and Rory Gilmore's banter, but "Jezebel James" offers nothing at all like that. I don't know for sure if it's the weakness of the scripts, Posey being a tad too shrill and nervy to carry a sitcom, or a combination, but it all comes off flat in this series.

The dialogue is often as contrived as the plot. For example, when Posey's sister walks into her office for the first time ever, Posey's assistant admires her and unrealistically says, "I want her to have my baby," merely so that Posey can reply with something like, "You'll have to wait in line."

So why SHOULD one watch this program? Well, you should watch "The Return of Jezebel James" if...


*You are nostalgic for the 1990s, when Parker Posey was in seemingly every other indie film released in more than a dozen theaters.
*You're still in denial about "Gilmore Girls" being off the air.
*You're still in denial about the creator of "Gilmore Girls" being off the show.
*You have a rigid policy of supporting comedy programs with laugh tracks. (The show looked and felt like it could, maybe should be sans laugh track, and when it sported one, I have to admit, I was thrown off)
*You're a huge fan of Peter Sarsgaard and always hoped he'd do series TV. He still doesn't, and he's not in this show, but the guy they have playing Posey's assistant sure looks and talks like him.

From the I'm Just Saying department...

TV Land's schedule for this Saturday, beginning at noon (at least as of this post; they tinker with their schedule seemingly every day):

Noon High School Reunion
1 High School Reunion
2 Three Men and a Baby
4 Cheers
4:30 Cheers

(OK, these Cheers showings--not so bad)

5 Just Shoot Me
5:30 Just Shoot Me
6 Beetlejuice
8 High School Reunion
9 High Schol Reunion
10 High School Reunion
11 Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

Baby Boomers, THIS is the kind of programming that TV Land alleges you love: 5 screenings of the original/retread reality show they're cramming down your craw, two overplayed and heavily edited movies, two episodes of a mediocre sitcom that has been widely syndicated fot several years, and ending the night it's another retread reality show.

Oh, yeah, and from 4-5, two episodes of a show that actually almost fits into the original concept of TV Land.

Do Baby Boomers really like this kind of lineup? TV Land touted double-digit ratings improvements for the first episode of High School Reunion, a debut which was promoted and hyped beyond belief. Double-digit gains over what, the last crappy reality show they tried to launch on Wednesday nights?

The party line is that cable operators forced TV Land to carry originals. Hmm. Well, if that's the case, maybe TV Land should just go off the air. Seriously, if it were an option, I wouldn't pay for this garbage as part of an a la carte lineup.