I've been a little down on Entertainment Weekly lately, what with its new unofficial motto ("More pics, less words!") and its increasingly shallow content. Could the mag recover from its recent embarrassment of hyping Harry Potter with its Fall Movie Preview cover? Well, this week's ish is out, and it spotlights...
An "exclusive interview" with Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty from the new "90210."
First, let me say that I'm already sick of this series, and it hasn't even aired yet. It's practically September, there are dozens of new crappy TV series on the way, yet the only one I'm hearing anything about is this one. If a "90210" revival is the most interesting thing in the new TV season, well, then I guess I'll be catching up on my DVDs this fall.
As for "EW," I'll bet you a Peach Pit milkshake that a sizable chunk of the current staff grew up on the original "Beverly Hills 90210" and retains fond memories. Still, the magazine should ease up a bit. Its obsession with this show isn't quite as annoying as its love for "Gossip Girl" or its faux love-hate relationship with "The Hills," but that's only because we haven't seen "90210" yet and can therefore only guess how bad IT is.
I don't know if there's a connection between the attention to this show and the fact that the same parent company owns both "EW" and the CW network (such a connection apparently didn't prevent the mag from making a fool of itself with the Potter cover just as the movie was being pushed to next July), but you have to wonder. At a time when rumors are buzzing that the "network" is on its way out and stations like my own affiliate are rebranding themselves to remove the CW stigma, one outlet hasn't received the memo. "Entertainment Weekly" seems even more passionate about the CW's survival than the teenage female readership it's apparently cultivating.
I have yet to open the issue, and if the Doherty-Garth interview turns out to be a groundbreaking analysis of the show's prospects and those of the CW as a whole, then I might apologize. But I don't think it's going to amount to much more than a wasted cover and another bit of fluff promoting another "hip" show for the young demo.
Saturday, August 30, 2008
This Week in DVD
What Happens in Vegas: Ah, seeing this on the release list makes me smile Oh, it's not the movie itself, though I am amused by the ads which make it evident that someone decided showing Cameron Diaz in her underwear was the best way to sell the DVD. It's the thought that the movie that kicked off the Crummy Movie Cavalcade is already on video. Uh, wait. Speaking of the Cavalcade...well, I've got some catching up to do with that, OK?
Redbelt: David Mamet meets mixed martial arts in my personal Must Rent of the week. I would say MMA should have more shocking twists, elaborate cons, and verbal pyrotechnics, but then I guess it would be boxing.
Three Stooges Volume 3: Hey, I still have to get Volume 2! No complaints, though, as Sony has set a blazing pace for these chronological, comprehensive collections, with number 4 due in early October!
Color Honeymooners Season 4: I really don't want to complain about MPI releasing these, but I'm kind of hoping they get them out ASAP so that they can go back and do a proper release of the original B&W Lost Episodes.
Legend of the Lone Ranger: I have vague memories of this being promoted heavily when I was a young'un. I remember seeing a bunch of ads somewhere, whether it be in the comics I was reading or maybe magazines or whatever. Of course, this 1981 update of the classic character flopped. My recollection is that I was somehow aware the flick was a turkey even as I saw all the ads, and since the world wasn't as box office crazy back then, this must have been quite the stinker indeed. I still have never seen the whole thing, but maybe Lions Gate has put together a DVD package that will shed new light on this one, perhaps revealing it as a neglected gem which was unfairly panned in its time.
Nope. The DVD is pan-and-scan, and that tells you pretty much all you need to know about what Lions Gate thinks of the movie. Actually, it tells you a lot about Lions Gate, too, but never mind that. Don't expect a retrospective documentary putting the film in context, either, although that could have been a fascinating piece of work. Expect nothing, 'cause that's what you're getting.
Westerns Galore: As if "Legend" weren't enough, Warner Brothers makes it a big week for oater fans (Sorry, but I try to use "oater" whenever I can) with several box sets. The "Western Classics Collection" is a hodgepodge of catalogue titles like "Escape to Fort Bravo," while the "Errol Flynn: The Warner Brothers Westerns Collection" proves the legend was more than just a swashbuckler. I'll cop to not having seen most of these movies. All I can say is WB looks to have put a heck of a lot more effort into the Flynn collection, loading it with features, while its other set makes us settle for trailers.
I'm impressed that Flynn apparently does well on DVD. He may not have as high a profile as some of the other Warner legends of his era, but he's clearly "still got it," as Ralph Malph would say. And now that I just mentioned Ralph Malph in the same breath as Errol Flynn, I'm outta here.
Redbelt: David Mamet meets mixed martial arts in my personal Must Rent of the week. I would say MMA should have more shocking twists, elaborate cons, and verbal pyrotechnics, but then I guess it would be boxing.
Three Stooges Volume 3: Hey, I still have to get Volume 2! No complaints, though, as Sony has set a blazing pace for these chronological, comprehensive collections, with number 4 due in early October!
Color Honeymooners Season 4: I really don't want to complain about MPI releasing these, but I'm kind of hoping they get them out ASAP so that they can go back and do a proper release of the original B&W Lost Episodes.
Legend of the Lone Ranger: I have vague memories of this being promoted heavily when I was a young'un. I remember seeing a bunch of ads somewhere, whether it be in the comics I was reading or maybe magazines or whatever. Of course, this 1981 update of the classic character flopped. My recollection is that I was somehow aware the flick was a turkey even as I saw all the ads, and since the world wasn't as box office crazy back then, this must have been quite the stinker indeed. I still have never seen the whole thing, but maybe Lions Gate has put together a DVD package that will shed new light on this one, perhaps revealing it as a neglected gem which was unfairly panned in its time.
Nope. The DVD is pan-and-scan, and that tells you pretty much all you need to know about what Lions Gate thinks of the movie. Actually, it tells you a lot about Lions Gate, too, but never mind that. Don't expect a retrospective documentary putting the film in context, either, although that could have been a fascinating piece of work. Expect nothing, 'cause that's what you're getting.
Westerns Galore: As if "Legend" weren't enough, Warner Brothers makes it a big week for oater fans (Sorry, but I try to use "oater" whenever I can) with several box sets. The "Western Classics Collection" is a hodgepodge of catalogue titles like "Escape to Fort Bravo," while the "Errol Flynn: The Warner Brothers Westerns Collection" proves the legend was more than just a swashbuckler. I'll cop to not having seen most of these movies. All I can say is WB looks to have put a heck of a lot more effort into the Flynn collection, loading it with features, while its other set makes us settle for trailers.
I'm impressed that Flynn apparently does well on DVD. He may not have as high a profile as some of the other Warner legends of his era, but he's clearly "still got it," as Ralph Malph would say. And now that I just mentioned Ralph Malph in the same breath as Errol Flynn, I'm outta here.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Pearl Harbor as a source of comedy?
I recently watched "Don Juan Quilligan," a modest comedy from FOX with William Bendix, Joan Blondell, and Phil Silvers. Bendix is a sailor who sort of inadvertently marries two women, then tries to get out of his predicament by faking his own death. It's a decent enough way to pass an hour and 20 minutes so, but never more than that, and Silvers is in his tame sidekick mode of the 1940s, not his "comic force of nature mode" he would get to unleash later.
Something that stands out to me is when Silvers and Bendix are trying to figure out how to get out of the revoltin' development (apologies to Chester A. Riley). They find out that Pearl Harbor has just been attacked by the Japanese, and Silvers basically says, "Great! Now you can enlist and not have to face any of this." It's kind of a throwaway line, except that the strategy sounds pretty good to them, and that's what they decide to do. So the disaster that led to so many deaths and threw the country in world war here is the catalyst for the next act in the movie.
Now, granted, this was released in 1945, a good 4 years or so after the actual event. I wasn't around back then, and maybe it's only with such ignorance I can say, with hindsight, that at the time this movie hit theaters, the end of the war was a foregone conclusion. But even if that were true, the war was still raging and U.S. troops were still dying.
Was 4 years "too soon" to use Pearl Harbor as an offhand reference in a comedy? Was 1945 too early for even a brief mention of the tragedy in the context of a scheme to get some idiot out of the consequences of self-inflicted bigamy? I guess not. Today people make frivolous references to the event all the time, but I don't know at what point that became "acceptable."
It's interesting to note that even today, let alone in 2005, people are a bit skittish about anything that approaches a joke about 9/11. Have times changed? Are the two situations at all comparable? Beats me. But I was surprised to hear even that little line in a 1945 movie.
Something that stands out to me is when Silvers and Bendix are trying to figure out how to get out of the revoltin' development (apologies to Chester A. Riley). They find out that Pearl Harbor has just been attacked by the Japanese, and Silvers basically says, "Great! Now you can enlist and not have to face any of this." It's kind of a throwaway line, except that the strategy sounds pretty good to them, and that's what they decide to do. So the disaster that led to so many deaths and threw the country in world war here is the catalyst for the next act in the movie.
Now, granted, this was released in 1945, a good 4 years or so after the actual event. I wasn't around back then, and maybe it's only with such ignorance I can say, with hindsight, that at the time this movie hit theaters, the end of the war was a foregone conclusion. But even if that were true, the war was still raging and U.S. troops were still dying.
Was 4 years "too soon" to use Pearl Harbor as an offhand reference in a comedy? Was 1945 too early for even a brief mention of the tragedy in the context of a scheme to get some idiot out of the consequences of self-inflicted bigamy? I guess not. Today people make frivolous references to the event all the time, but I don't know at what point that became "acceptable."
It's interesting to note that even today, let alone in 2005, people are a bit skittish about anything that approaches a joke about 9/11. Have times changed? Are the two situations at all comparable? Beats me. But I was surprised to hear even that little line in a 1945 movie.
Monday, August 25, 2008
My Second-Favorite Olympic Moment
My favorite moment of the Summer Games was Michael Phelps' thrilling win in the 100M Butterfly, which was one of the damndest things I've ever seen in all of sports. That race helped me forget how burned out I was of the pre-Olympic hope and just enjoy the competition. It helped, too, that each time I turned it to NBC (more accurately, my wife turned it there and I went along for the ride), the network was showing events and not endless profiles or travelogue pieces.
My second-favorite moment came last night during the closing ceremonies. The Cirque du Soleil-type stuff was kind of cool looking, but I preferred the glorious chaos that took place when the athletes came pouring into the stadium and just wandered about. Most of the smiling Olympians shared one objective, mugging for the cameras, and their pursuit of that common goal gave me a nice "we're all people" vibe. They were acting goofy, but in a respectful way, far more well behaved than, say, the crowd filing out of the stadium after an average Division I-A college football game.
They were also waving to the crowd, holding their medals with pride, and just generally enjoying themselves, and as I watched the spectacle, I let the uglier moments of the Olympics fade away--things like the murder of our volleyball coach's father-in-law, the apparent cheating of the Chinese gymnastics team, the Cuban taekwondo "artist" sucker-kicking a referee, and Usain Bolt sullying perhaps the greatest competitive sprint ever by pulling up to showboat and celebrate himself.
No, the sight of the athletes milling around together and having so much fun was enough to make me believe that maybe there is such a thing as "Olympic spirit," that maybe events like this do serve some kind of purpose of fostering international goodwill. Maybe.
My second-favorite moment came last night during the closing ceremonies. The Cirque du Soleil-type stuff was kind of cool looking, but I preferred the glorious chaos that took place when the athletes came pouring into the stadium and just wandered about. Most of the smiling Olympians shared one objective, mugging for the cameras, and their pursuit of that common goal gave me a nice "we're all people" vibe. They were acting goofy, but in a respectful way, far more well behaved than, say, the crowd filing out of the stadium after an average Division I-A college football game.
They were also waving to the crowd, holding their medals with pride, and just generally enjoying themselves, and as I watched the spectacle, I let the uglier moments of the Olympics fade away--things like the murder of our volleyball coach's father-in-law, the apparent cheating of the Chinese gymnastics team, the Cuban taekwondo "artist" sucker-kicking a referee, and Usain Bolt sullying perhaps the greatest competitive sprint ever by pulling up to showboat and celebrate himself.
No, the sight of the athletes milling around together and having so much fun was enough to make me believe that maybe there is such a thing as "Olympic spirit," that maybe events like this do serve some kind of purpose of fostering international goodwill. Maybe.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
It's Dead, Jim
The quote, of course, is a paraphrase of Bones on the original "Star Trek," a show TV Land acquired, showed late nights for a few weeks, then booted to 6:00 A.M.
At least it's still on. TV Land is increasingly a lost cause, and I think it's time I give up and exile it from my "favorite channels" selection (ooh, that'll show 'em!).
Just look at this article at Sitcoms Online. I'll give you the lowlights: In October, TV Land begins airing "3rd Rock from the Sun," a debatable move, to be sure. Worse, the fading network will air "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" nightly. Twice nightly, in fact! Ugh.
Sitcoms Online also reported that TV Land will air a mini-marathon of "CSI" on September 13. Even if you think that's an appropriate pickup, the show is already on about 50 times a week elsewhere. Supposedly it's a one-time only stunt, but writer Pavan Badal speculates that it could lead to more. I don't think any of us could be surprised anymore if that did join the regular lineup.
Pavan seems like a great guy, and his news blog is a must-see each day for the latest on program acquisitions by various TV outlets. But, man, I feel for the guy when he has to turn some of these press releases into a positive news story. I don't know how he manages to write about the sad decline of TV Land or other items such as ION buying "NCIS" reruns and still keep a sunny outlook, but I admire his optimism.
Optimism is something I no longer have for the future of TV Land. Even pessimism is fading, replaced by apathy. I'm even finding it difficult to muster the outrage needed to bitch about it here. I think somehow I'll manage to rip them one every now and then (lucky you), but really I'm giving up on hoping anything cool is going to happen on that channel until such time as, in the words of Flo Castleberry, "When donkeys fly."
At least it's still on. TV Land is increasingly a lost cause, and I think it's time I give up and exile it from my "favorite channels" selection (ooh, that'll show 'em!).
Just look at this article at Sitcoms Online. I'll give you the lowlights: In October, TV Land begins airing "3rd Rock from the Sun," a debatable move, to be sure. Worse, the fading network will air "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" nightly. Twice nightly, in fact! Ugh.
Sitcoms Online also reported that TV Land will air a mini-marathon of "CSI" on September 13. Even if you think that's an appropriate pickup, the show is already on about 50 times a week elsewhere. Supposedly it's a one-time only stunt, but writer Pavan Badal speculates that it could lead to more. I don't think any of us could be surprised anymore if that did join the regular lineup.
Pavan seems like a great guy, and his news blog is a must-see each day for the latest on program acquisitions by various TV outlets. But, man, I feel for the guy when he has to turn some of these press releases into a positive news story. I don't know how he manages to write about the sad decline of TV Land or other items such as ION buying "NCIS" reruns and still keep a sunny outlook, but I admire his optimism.
Optimism is something I no longer have for the future of TV Land. Even pessimism is fading, replaced by apathy. I'm even finding it difficult to muster the outrage needed to bitch about it here. I think somehow I'll manage to rip them one every now and then (lucky you), but really I'm giving up on hoping anything cool is going to happen on that channel until such time as, in the words of Flo Castleberry, "When donkeys fly."
Saturday, August 23, 2008
More RTN Highs and Lows
Hey, I just realized that I went DAYS without writing about Retro Television Network. Time to rectify that situation with some more pros and cons:
HIGH: Variety on the schedule. I wish there were more 1960s and 1950s shows, and maybe some more sitcoms, but at least RTN provides some semblance of variety in its lineup. There are cop shows, medical shows, private eye shows, thrillers, war shows, westerns, and more. Plus I like that their weekend lineup is distinct from the weekday one, and it's great that series with shorter runs get some plays on Saturdays and Sundays.
LOW: Perhaps I'm greedy, but it would be nice to see RTN take a few more chances, especially while it's young and not so beholden to demos. I'd enjoy seeing cartoons or game shows or maybe some old news programs on there. Sure, there are niche cable networks devoted to airing certain genres, but they haven't locked up everything, and besides, many of those are abandoning the "retro" stuff, anyway.
HIGH: One of my favorite RTN programs is "Run For Your Life," a nifty variation of "The Fugitive" starring Ben Gazzara as a man with a fatal condition, one which conveniently leaves him hale enough to span the globe and have adventures as he tries to pack as much living as possible into the year or two he has left.
Ivan at TDOY wrote about this show recently, and I'll add that I enjoy the somewhat melancholy air the show has because of that sense that time is running out. Gazzara's performance captures this hint of sadness without turning the character into a self-pitying mope. I also think "Run" has one of the best title/end credits sequences in TV history, a POV sequence that puts you in a car and sends you racing down an empty road into a vast desert.
Oh, and I'd mention Pete Rugolo's music, but I'm still trying to forget this.
LOW: Every now and then, there are some audio hiccups and pixilation issues on RTN. I suppose this is a result of compression, but I'm not savvy enough to go into depth here. Really, I feel like I'm nitpicking here. I'm just glad to see some of these old shows in any form, and overall the channel looks pretty good. But, hey, I have to include a few "Lows" to justify titling this post "Highs and Lows."
LOW: There are no closed captions on any of the programs, at least none that I've seen. Being involved with captioning in a professional capacity, I'm biased, but I've long known you don't have to NEED the service in order to appreciate it. Having a new baby in the house certainly makes me appreciate the ability to mute the tube every now and then while she's trying to fall asleep. I don't know why RTN is exempt from captioning requirements; maybe it's still under the radar. Hopefully they'll offer something soon.
HIGH/LOW?: I read somewhere that RTN showed programs out of broadcast order, but I can't slag them for that because the few shows that I checked ARE running in sequence. Granted, this isn't a big deal in terms of missing out on "Lost"-style serialization or character development (much as I enjoy "Quincy," I don't think the Q-man went through tremendous evolution over the course of his 8 seasons). What bugs me is when stations skip all over the map or go back and forth. For example, though I enjoy "Lou Grant" weekly on American Life, lately I only enjoy it 2 or 3 times a month because the network keeps interrupting the sequential run with repeated first-season episodes. So far, RTN isn't recycling a dozen or so episodes of anything and driving us crazy with repetition.
LOW: The future? Retro Television Network is a lot of fun, but I still worry that it can't last. A recent Sitcoms Online article explained future plans to expand the schedule with a bunch of live talk shows. Now, the goal is supposedly to get rid of some of the infomercials, but what if that stuff starts encroaching on the reruns? I know, I know, it's way too early to fret like that. But I can't help but wonder.
HIGH: Variety on the schedule. I wish there were more 1960s and 1950s shows, and maybe some more sitcoms, but at least RTN provides some semblance of variety in its lineup. There are cop shows, medical shows, private eye shows, thrillers, war shows, westerns, and more. Plus I like that their weekend lineup is distinct from the weekday one, and it's great that series with shorter runs get some plays on Saturdays and Sundays.
LOW: Perhaps I'm greedy, but it would be nice to see RTN take a few more chances, especially while it's young and not so beholden to demos. I'd enjoy seeing cartoons or game shows or maybe some old news programs on there. Sure, there are niche cable networks devoted to airing certain genres, but they haven't locked up everything, and besides, many of those are abandoning the "retro" stuff, anyway.
HIGH: One of my favorite RTN programs is "Run For Your Life," a nifty variation of "The Fugitive" starring Ben Gazzara as a man with a fatal condition, one which conveniently leaves him hale enough to span the globe and have adventures as he tries to pack as much living as possible into the year or two he has left.
Ivan at TDOY wrote about this show recently, and I'll add that I enjoy the somewhat melancholy air the show has because of that sense that time is running out. Gazzara's performance captures this hint of sadness without turning the character into a self-pitying mope. I also think "Run" has one of the best title/end credits sequences in TV history, a POV sequence that puts you in a car and sends you racing down an empty road into a vast desert.
Oh, and I'd mention Pete Rugolo's music, but I'm still trying to forget this.
LOW: Every now and then, there are some audio hiccups and pixilation issues on RTN. I suppose this is a result of compression, but I'm not savvy enough to go into depth here. Really, I feel like I'm nitpicking here. I'm just glad to see some of these old shows in any form, and overall the channel looks pretty good. But, hey, I have to include a few "Lows" to justify titling this post "Highs and Lows."
LOW: There are no closed captions on any of the programs, at least none that I've seen. Being involved with captioning in a professional capacity, I'm biased, but I've long known you don't have to NEED the service in order to appreciate it. Having a new baby in the house certainly makes me appreciate the ability to mute the tube every now and then while she's trying to fall asleep. I don't know why RTN is exempt from captioning requirements; maybe it's still under the radar. Hopefully they'll offer something soon.
HIGH/LOW?: I read somewhere that RTN showed programs out of broadcast order, but I can't slag them for that because the few shows that I checked ARE running in sequence. Granted, this isn't a big deal in terms of missing out on "Lost"-style serialization or character development (much as I enjoy "Quincy," I don't think the Q-man went through tremendous evolution over the course of his 8 seasons). What bugs me is when stations skip all over the map or go back and forth. For example, though I enjoy "Lou Grant" weekly on American Life, lately I only enjoy it 2 or 3 times a month because the network keeps interrupting the sequential run with repeated first-season episodes. So far, RTN isn't recycling a dozen or so episodes of anything and driving us crazy with repetition.
LOW: The future? Retro Television Network is a lot of fun, but I still worry that it can't last. A recent Sitcoms Online article explained future plans to expand the schedule with a bunch of live talk shows. Now, the goal is supposedly to get rid of some of the infomercials, but what if that stuff starts encroaching on the reruns? I know, I know, it's way too early to fret like that. But I can't help but wonder.
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