This Week in Television - Jan. 25-29, 2010

Heroes
Hey, Peter, did it ever occur to you that instead of releasing a dangerous mass murderer to save lives, you could just, oh I don't know, ask Emma not to play the cello? Seems like one of those options is 50 billion times easier and safer than the other. Although in the dream, Emma looked kind of distraught so someone was probably forcing her to do it. But still, Peter should have made an attempt to explore other options before jumping right into the worst one. Also, Sylar already went through a period where he didn't have his powers and it didn't make him any less evil, so why does he think it will work this time?

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town
I like the gag where a video is shown of the mayor reading his will, but not aloud. I wonder where Ricky is going to fit into all of this, being that he is a shut-in and doesn't really interact with the other characters. Unless he's going to get off the couch and exercise like he promised. Rampop is kind of disturbing in a Children of the Corn way.

Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains
Survivor doesn't come back for another two weeks, but since this is a special season with past competitors returning, I thought I would post my opinions on each contestant. I'll discuss the Heroes tribe this week and the Villains next week.
-Rupert Boneham: Rupert was a cool guy and all the viewers seemed to love him, but he has competed twice and was knocked into the jury both times. I don't know if he is enough of a strategist to get any further than he has before, but he might make it to the jury again just because he is likable and useful at camp.
-James Clement: James is a nice guy and the ladies love to look at him, but he's not necessarily a power player.
-Colby Donaldson: Colby performed well the first time he competed, dominating challenges and coming in second, but then when he returned for All-Stars, he got cocky and was voted out early. I'm not sure if I like him and his success could go either way.
-Cirie Fields: I like Cirie. I've always found her kind of funny and endearing, and while she hasn't been very good in challenges I do think she is a cunning and persuasive strategist, and that got her far both times she's competed.
-Amanda Kimmel: Amanda is a record holder, being the only person in Survivor history to make it to the final tribal council twice. However, she has never gotten a single jury vote. I don't understand this because I think Amanda is one of the most deserving players in the game - she's made several genius strategic moves, has proven capable of winning challenges, and doesn't seem like a bad person at all. I'll be rooting for her again this time around.
-Jessica "Sugar" Kiper: Apparently Sugar was extremely annoying to the other survivors, but the viewers loved her. I remember I didn't think much of her at first, but by the end of the game she stood out as a strategist despite appearing dumb at first glance.
-Stephanie LaGrossa: Stephanie was a true survivor, being the only person on the show to ever be part of a one-person tribe. I think that's what made viewers like her more than her personality, although she's kind of cool too, I guess.
-J.T. Thomas: J.T. was a solid all-around competitor and a good guy, plus he won his original season. However these things can also be weaknesses because everyone else knows to watch out for him.
-Tom Westman: I don't even remember that much about Tom's personality, except that he won the season and also a few challenges.
-Candice Woodcock: I hate Candice, and she does not deserve to be on the Heroes team. I have two reasons why: a) When survivors were given an opportunity to ditch their tribe and join the other team, she took it, Jonathan Penner followed her, and then she later blasted him for being a traitor; and b) at the final tribal council, she asked finalist Yul an incredibly biased question and forced him to answer in such a way that no matter what he said it made him look like a liar. Candice is an idiot.

Fringe
Wow, Walter came off rather villainous at the end of this one. But I do like that he pointed out the elephant in the room, which is the looming sexual tension between Peter and Olivia. I kind of hope they don't get together, only because it's such a predictable staple to include a romance subplot in EVERYTHING, but on the other hand they probably would make a good couple. BEWARE THE HITLER TOXIN!

Kenny vs. Spenny
For the first time in history, this episode had no competition. Although at first I thought it was going to be something like "Who can start a competition first?" because Spenny kept naming all these new competitions. But as I watched it I started to feel a little dissatisfied with the season as a whole so far. The show is almost turning into a gimmick and it's become "The Kenny Show" now, and not just because he's been winning them all (although the competitions are much less exciting when you know Kenny has at least an 80% chance every time). It's no longer about competing, now it's more about what Kenny will get away with and what crazy loophole or scheme he'll exploit this week. I don't say this as an attack on Kenny's character, he is clearly a funny and entertaining guy, it's just that they have let him take over the show. I started watching Kenny vs. Spenny because it was a new thing and I thought a show about crazy competitions was an awesome idea, but the show rarely captures the true spirit of competition anymore. I wonder how many Kenny would win if he actually played fairly.

Hero of the Week: Matt Parkman from Heroes, who pulled a fast one on Sylar and trapped him inside his own brain and then proceeded to wall up his body in the basement, brick by brick.

Douchebag of the Week: Peter Petrelli from Heroes, for trying to undo Parkman's awesome handiwork. Nice job, dick.

This Week in Television - Jan. 18-22, 2010

Heroes
Hiro's diner hallucination trial featuring some dead folks was a cool idea. I thought his lawyer should have been Isaac Mendes at first just so they could get another dead guy in there, but then they used Ando. I guess that makes more sense. But it doesn't make sense that his mother could heal him in a hallucination, and if it was a purgatory deal and not a hallucination then it doesn't make sense for Ando to be there. But whatever, I'm down with Hiro not dying. When Sylar was given his Claire tattoo I thought he was going to start wooing her romantically since they're both immortal and they wouldn't be alone that way. Would have been funny, but I guess he's not into college chicks.

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town
I like how the two cops are so incompetent that they accuse each other of murdering the mayor and then a videotape has to remind them that they were on duty together at the time of the murder (which was inexplicably determined by the bald detective). I also find it funny that Heather Weather wants so badly to be the breaking news reporter but has no clue how to report on anything except the weather. For a minute at the end, I thought Death was just going to keep killing off Bruce McCulloch characters.

Fringe
This was actually an intense episode, which was perfect because the concept wasn't as mindblowing as in some of the other episodes (I'm not really a fan of the whole "deadly virus" plot incarnation). The last time an ally turned on Olivia, it was "Flancis" and she shot him outright, but that was a more deadly situation because this time she knew Peter could be cured. I also like those moments where Walter is desperate and fragile, because all those times when he gets excited about science and food, we sometimes forget how much he loves his son.

Parks and Recreation
The best part of the episode was Ron's plans to show up at Leslie's dinner party with a large quantity of deviled eggs and not have to share them with anyone. I think he is becoming my favourite character. I can understand why the guys don't like Justin: there is a fine line between being a fascinating man and constantly telling exotic stories to show off how interesting you are. I mean it's cool if you've experienced a ton of amazing things, but it makes you look like a douche if you bring it up every time you open your mouth.

The Office
Um, okay, I wasn't expecting a clip show. Especially not in the middle of the season. I get that it is their way of saying goodbye to the old Dunder-Mifflin, but it felt more like something they should have done for the series finale or something. But the frame story was funny and I like that they did it via an interview with Toby.

30 Rock
Julianne Moore's back! At least she got some funnier stuff to do this time. I have a feeling that Dale Snitterman could soon become a popular meme for everything that goes wrong with everything.

Kenny vs. Spenny
Who can have more fun? Whenever they do a competition like this, the victory can be considered questionable because the competition concept is abstract and hard to judge. I mean even for a sadist, is torturing someone more fun than partying on a boat with some hot bikini girls (which Kenny would also love)? It's all relative.

NEW FEATURE
I think the rating thing was kind of boring, so I have a new idea: Every week, I will pick two characters from the shows watched. One will be "Hero of the week", the character who has done the funniest or coolest thing in their respective episode, and one will be "Douchebag of the week", the character who has pissed me off or done something I don't approve of. This week's winners are:

Hero of the Week: Our very first hero of the week goes to Ron Swanson of Parks and Recreation, because as I have mentioned, I love when he shows up at events just for the food. Attaboy, Duke Silver.

Douchebag of the Week: Dale Snitterman from 30 Rock. Because he's a bastard.

Gone Baby Gone

Impressions before seeing it
I know it's easy to jump on the "Ben Affleck sucks" train, but I don't think he's a bad actor and I wanted to see what his directorial effort was like. Also I wanted to see Amy Ryan's Oscar nominated performance after her delightful guest appearances on The Office.

How was it?
So what Gone Baby Gone ends up feeling like is a Mystic River-esque mystery involving some characters who border on being white trash and two unofficial hired detectives. But Mystic River was a good movie and this one holds its own against it. I think Affleck's script and direction did a good job of showing us the characters and their environment, it feels authentic. Amy Ryan also handled her part excellently - she will likely remind you of someone you've met at some point, those lower class single mother types. Casey Affleck can be hard to picture as a tough guy because he's not exactly a big muscular guy, but clearly he has figured out how to play these roles where he is somewhat soft spoken yet still commands authority and knows how to invoke fear when he wants to.

What really intrigues me though is the ending (skip this paragraph now if you haven't seen it). The dilemma presented is so morally grey that it's too difficult to choose because both answers seem simultaneously right and wrong. Should a child be kidnapped and raised by someone else if their birth mother is a bad parent, or is it too wrong to separate a parent and child without either of them knowing the other is out there? Our hero thinks he knows, but as the screen closed on the final image of Patrick babysitting Amanda, I had mixed feelings. The good: Amanda is back with her mother. The bad: Helene is not the greatest mother, and even after getting her daughter back she's still hitting the town at night. The good: Patrick is watching her; if he continues that on a regular basis, he will be able to live with his decision. But I think he was having some doubts because he knows Amanda would have had a better life with the other family. I suppose he values honesty more though, and maybe he wanted Amanda to as well.

Recommendation
Great movie and an excellent cast. You probably will like it if you liked Mystic River because again it feels like the exact same genre, but for me I was most fascinated by the choices the characters made.

This Week in Television - Jan. 11-15, 2010

Heroes
Geez, Peter, you could have explained things to Emma first and THEN smashed her cello. Since when is Peter the "shoot first, ask questions later" type? Fun Fact: Inspector Gadget also plays the cello!

Kids in the Hall: Death Comes to Town
I always thought of Kids in the Hall as the Canadian Monty Python, the way the castmembers play every character they can, including the women. The tradition continues here, except this time it's a linear series rather than sketch comedy. It reminded me of the group's only film, Brain Candy, which is to say that it is kind of amusing but not as funny as the original sketch comedy series. The best part of the episode was the Mayor of Shuckton, played by Bruce McCulloch (who was always one of the funniest castmembers), and unfortunately Death took him down. I liked their take on Death though, having Mark McKinney portray him as a kind of seedy junkie who turns departed souls into dust and then snorts it. I didn't laugh out loud much during the episode, but I was definitely amused and entertained, so I'm going to keep watching, if only because it's nice to have The Kids back.

Fringe
Two episodes this week. The first was an unaired episode from season one, and it was actually a little dull so I won't say anything else about it, except that it was cool that they decided to air it. The second was much cooler - I like the idea of altering everyone's perception of something instead of altering the thing itself. As I said before, the second season has been awesome and most of the episodes have just been knocking it out of the park in terms of cool ideas and continuing storylines.

Parks and Recreation
I didn't even know Will Arnett was going to be in this episode, so that was a cool surprise. Ron's storyline was also fun, because the combination of the name Jean-Ralphio with that ridiculous hairstyle and Tom's personality equals comedy gold.

30 Rock
Double 30 Rock this week too! James Franco and his Japanese body pillow were funny, although also kind of sad because it's based on reality - I've heard there actually are some lonely guys out there who are very much in love with those things. Kenneth trying to work a computer was hilarious (it's not THAT easy to accidentally take a picture of yourself and then accidentally make it the desktop wallpaper and send it to everyone in the address book). Most of the time I find Jenna's character more annoying than funny, and she was mostly annoying in this episode too, except when filming her scene on Gossip Girl where she died of old age at 41 and was recalling all of the things she's experienced in her "long" lifetime, like Windows 95. And yes, Kenneth's haircut is an insult to lesbians.

Kenny vs. Spenny
Who do black guys like more (part 2)? Well, I was right about Kenny's plan, but I thought Spenny was going to win it. I wasn't expecting the video footage to look as incriminating as it did, and I think Spenny may have helped it by going overboard in his KKK roleplay. I do like that the one guy said he was choosing Kenny not because of the video, but because just hanging out was more fun than Spenny's "racial retreat", which is exactly what I said last week.

Overall rating for this week's shows: A

Slipstream

Impressions before seeing it
Never heard of it until I caught the trailer on one of my DVDs. Looked cool and original.

How was it?
The most impressive thing about Slipstream is that Anthony Hopkins pulls a quadruple threat: he wrote, directed, starred, and composed the music. It's impressive because this is a smart movie. Too smart. Lucky for them I don't usually quit watching a movie unless it's unbearable, because it was hard to get into at first. The characters aren't that interesting or sympathetic, and a plot barely exists (there's even a character who screams "WE LOST THE PLOT!"), so that and the fast but seemingly random editing made it confusing, and there was really no reason for me to keep watching except out of curiosity for where it was going.

This is the first piece of avant-garde cinema I've seen since my film classes, and possibly also the most accessible - although still confusing. From what I gathered, the movie is about an aging writer going senile, and his real life begins to blend with his career and the world of cinema and filmmaking so much that he can no longer differentiate between the two. The fourth wall is constantly broken, the characters often break character, and plenty of self-referencing goes on. Sometimes it's fun and cool, and again, sometimes it's confusing. But I suppose not knowing what's going on makes you feel exactly like the senile old man, so it works.

Recommendation
I was expecting a lot different, and it's definitely a unique and bold project for Hopkins to take on, but when a movie goes too far over the heads of audiences it ends up being unsatisfying, so it's not for most people. I did like parts of it though - there are some scenes that redeem it.

Volver

Impressions before seeing it
I had seen a couple of Almodovar films before and found his work interesting, and I knew Penelope Cruz got an Oscar nomination for this performance, so I was looking forward to it.

How was it?
The first thing to notice about Volver (and probably all of Almodovar's works) is the colours. Everything looks vibrant and pleasant, even when the movie turns unpleasant. The second thing to notice is the loud kissing noises whenever the actresses kissed each other on the cheeks. I just found it funny and even a little bit annoying that they seemed to make a point of doing these exaggerated face kisses every time they greeted each other. I mean I don't really come from a culture where cheek kissing is custom, but I have never seen anyone do it that way except when a parent or relative is being affectionate with their kid.

Anyway, Volver is another classic murder cover-up movie, with some feminism and family relationships thrown in. I kind of like those movies because the characters have to struggle to hide their crime, and usually it snowballs and gets worse and worse. In this case Almodovar took it in a different direction. There was one accidental murder, they covered it up and moved on, and no one felt the consequences. The police didn't even come looking for Paco, the victim. It's unrealistic, sure, but I think that perhaps it represents an ideal situation, because Paco was a douche who tried to rape his own stepdaughter, and it wouldn't be fair to bring punishment on a girl who was almost raped.

Recommendation
There is a kind of soap opera feel sometimes, especially toward the end. Penelope does turn in some great work (although no one else in the movie was that good so maybe they just made her look better), and the film feels like an Almodovar film for anyone who is a fan, so overall I really enjoyed it.

This Week in Television - Jan. 4-8, 2010

Heroes
Sometimes watching Heroes is like watching someone play a turn-based RPG: whenever someone attacks someone, their target just stands there and lets it happen, and if they're able to retaliate they wait until the enemy's attack is over to do it. I don't mind that in video games but it's a problem on TV. Hiro speaking only in pop culture references reminded me of a patient on House who had a problem that made him say weird word combinations but he thought he was speaking normally. Maybe Hiro should teleport into Dr. House's office for help on that one. Kind of glad that Nathan's finally dead. Really his only contribution to the show was constantly putting his hand on Peter's shoulder and calling him Pete all the time.

Kenny vs. Spenny
Who do black guys like more (Part One)? For the first time we have a two part episode. I don't know why the competition needs to be that long, but whatever. This episode was basically all Spenny's day with the black guys. At first I thought he was blowing it, because he spent the whole time talking about race, and even though he was saying positive things I think bringing it up at all still kind of makes it an issue. My strategy would just be to hang out with them like normal guys and not even talk about race, but they seemed to respond to him very well so I guess it worked. In the preview for next week it looks like Kenny is purposely offending them, but I think I have figured out his plan: he's going to use footage from this episode and edit together footage of Spenny yelling at Kenny-as-black-maid cleaning the toilet with footage of the actual black cleaning lady that Kenny got to clean the toilet, and he will show it to the black guys to make Spenny look like a racist monster. I think he's hoping that the black guys will be more offended by Spenny's supposed deceit than his own upfront douchebaggery. I think Spenny will win though, just because he's due by now. Let's check back next week to see if I'm right!

Overall rating for this week's shows: B

Up in the Air

Impressions before seeing it
I didn't really know much about the plot beforehand, which I like because it makes the movie more enjoyable. But the commercials made it look interesting and I wanted to see it because it might be an Oscar movie.

How was it?
This movie could have just as easily been called Swipe! with all of the card swiping action involved. But the cards represent Ryan's elite status and his "backpack" that he talks about. The cards are his money, his food, his home, his job, his transportation, and even his friends and lovers, because they literally grant him access to all of those things. But I think the message Up in the Air tries to convey is that a card is not a substitute for these things. It's a piece of plastic, and in this day and age, "plastic" is pretty much a synonym for "fake".

But at the end of the movie, (spoiler alert), he does discover that sometimes real life is just as fake. I mean his job in the first place certainly had a falseness to it (firing people for the ones who can't be real enough to do it themselves and then apathetically consoling them) but at the end of the movie Ryan himself is on the other side of it as he kind of gets fired from his relationship with Alex when he finds out she is married and their lovemaking was fake (at least on an emotional level). However the one thing about his job that was real is that he fired the people face to face. When it later became an internet thing, his job and his life swapped places, and he was settling down in one spot, getting an apartment and enjoying this woman he loved. But again, both ended up being too fake for him. His apartment didn't even look furnished when he was living there, it was incredibly bland. So it made sense that he went back to the old method of traveling to terminate in person. At least that one part of his life could still be real.

Recommendation
It was an enjoyable and intelligent movie with good performances. My analysis may make it sound preachy, but I don't think it is. Check it out, it's a good watch.

Family Guy: Something, Something, Something, Dark Side

Impressions before seeing it
The first one, Blue Harvest, was cool and funny. I was looking forward to the sequel even though it didn't need to exist.

How was it?
As in the first one, the animation looked really good and they clearly used some 3D models to enhance the ships and such. However, the writing has "lazy" and "paycheck" written all over it. Now, let me stop for a second to say that I am not one of those people who thinks Family Guy has gone downhill. I generally enjoy the new episodes. But I will also point out that I'm not a fan of American Dad or The Cleveland Show, so Seth McFarlane is hit and miss for me I suppose.

So anyway, Dark Side kicks off with the same opening as last time: the power goes out so Peter entertains his family with the tale of the next Star Wars movie. They could have at least put the family in a different situation for the sake of avoiding repetition, but I can also understand trying to make it sort of a tradition, so fine, whatever. But as we get into it, the humour becomes a problem. First of all, it looks like they used up all of their good Star Wars jokes in the first one, because there aren't even enough in this one to justify it as a Star Wars parody. The other big problem is that they seem to have fallen into the current trend of constant "reference humour". I know they do that a lot on the show as well, but in that case they usually at least contain some jokes. Here they are the joke, replicating (notice I didn't say parodying) scenes from random movies and commercials, which means the only possible response they can elicit is "LOL I AM FAMILIAR WITH THAT!" because there is literally no other way it can be funny. Some people like that kind of humour, and that's fine, but I personally do not, and my problem with Dark Side is that Family Guy does not usually rely so heavily on that type of thing. If I'm not wrong, I think people mostly just watch Family Guy for the random flashbacks, and when you take that away from the show, as they did here, then it loses its appeal. At least Blue Harvest had Star Wars parody jokes to fall back on. So as I said in the first place, there should not have been a sequel. Unfortunately it looks like they're planning on doing one for all of the Star Wars movies, because part 3 is already in production.

Recommendation
I only laughed a few times but overall I was disappointed and it wasn't really worth watching. Fans should just stick to Blue Harvest.