Five Random Things That Make Me Very Very Happy (3)

1: Robert Smigel as Arnold Schwarzenegger on Conan O'Brien:

File this alongside Great Moments in Presidential Speeches. Cheap, stupid, and utterly inspired, every time it gets dragged out. (Special bonus cameos: Mike Tyson and Don King!)



Also notable, Conan's own impression of Arnie, complete with obligatory sausage chomp.

2. The many faces of Carolyn from Tell Me You Love Me

As one of many characters in the huge ensemble on Lost, Sonya Walger was hard pressed to make much of an impression, through no fault of her own. Playing Desmond's great love, Penny Widmore, daughter of shady pharma-millionaire Charles Widmore, she turned up mostly in flashbacks, usually to cause the poor Scot some grief. I had no strong feelings about her either way. However...


We've gone on about Cynthia Mort's Tell Me You Love Me a lot here, because it is an insidious show that seeps into the brain and won't let go. There is a lot that annoys us: the oppressive and mannered lack of music; the glacial pace that makes Lost look like 24; Michelle Borth's pronunciation of the word, "fuck" ("fuuuuuuuuhk"). As it has progressed, though, there is also more and more each week that we like. Some performances have grown on us, but I've resisted one until now. Yes, Sonya Walger as show Gupta Carolyn. Because she is crazy, and selfish, and mean, and oh boy, because she has the weirdest facial expressions.


Whenever she suffers a big shock to the system, her face goes stiff and slack, her head slowly oscillating back and forth. It is the acme of incredulity. Most performers don't get much chance to look shocked at things as regularly as she does, but Carolyn is so self-absorbed she doesn't realise that the things she assumes are hers by right actually aren't, so when anyone (especially cowardly sleazebag husband Palek, played by Adam Scott) denies her her God-given right to get impregnated, like, now, dammit, she goes all durrrrrr.


For a long time we thought it was funny, especially because co-star Tim DeKay was prone to the most peculiar, unactorly facial tics. Was the show trying so desperately to be "real" that actors were being given directions to be as uncomposed as possible? If so, it was an odd direction to give. It added nothing to the veracity of the show, serving only to distract us. However, as the weeks dragged on, and with the help of Tyra Banks, I began to realise that Walger was doing something notable. In America's Next Top Model, the contestants are repeatedly told they should get out of their comfort zone and pose in ways they think might look crazy in order to chance upon a great pose. The results are often funny, but it does work. Many of the show's best shots are created by goofy posing.


In Tell Me You Have Countless Facial Tics, Walger is playing a really unappealing human being, and that alone takes acting courage, before we get into the issue of her many explicit nude sex scenes. Her crazy face is another method of pushing that envelope. Vacant stares, slack jaws, shaky head; it's all in the service of the performance. As the show has progressed, it's become obvious that Carolyn is severely screwed-up, and needs more help than just the occasional trip to see the cosmically awful therapist Dr. May Foster. Walger may seem to be going over the top with her performance, but compared to the naturalistic quietness of many of the other actors, her gurning stands out, adding to the audience's unease at her actions. Over time I've started to think that while Tim DeKay and the amazing Ally Walker deserve the awards, Walger is actually the show's secret weapon. Hey, Sonya! I just complimented you. Can I get a smile?


Nice one.

3: Trailer for Cliffhanger:

I recently watched a trailer for Jumper at work, and while it looks like a lot of fun, a colleague standing on the other side of the room commented that even though he couldn't see the trailer, he could guess what was happening as it sounded like it replicated the beats and rhythms of pretty much every trailer made in the last few years. He had a good point.

It got me thinking about great trailers, and how the style of them has evolved over the years. I love watching old trailers, and will probably seek some out and post them here in the future, but a while back there was one trailer so amazing, so different, so goddamn exciting, that it will almost certainly remain my favourite trailer forever. It was 100 times more exciting than the movie, and it was only ever ripped off once (the trailer for Stephen Hopkin's Blown Away which was also better than the movie). It was the Handel's-Messiah-powered trailer for Renny Harlin's thoroughly average Cliffhanger, and I cannot watch it without getting goosebumps.



That, my friends, is how you edit a trailer.

4: The first four pages of The Brave and the Bold #7

I've said before that Mark Waid is one of my favourite writers, with his celebrated run on the Flash and invigorating spell writing Fantastic Four with the late, great Mike Weiringo on art duties, and I'm glad to say his star still shines brightly. The Brave and the Bold is a revamp of an old DC title which pairs up heroes who don't usually work together (certainly not as a duo). This format allows the writer to bring out the best qualities and characteristics of the heroes by placing opposites together, and Waid has worked wonders with this conceit. In the first six issues of the title he paired up Batman and Green Lantern (not friends), Supergirl and Lobo (really not friends), and Batman and Blue Beetle (some grudging respect from Bats), and though that was all magnificent, Waid and world's best artist George Perez may have outdone themselves with the opening of the latest issue. (Click on the images to enlarge.)








The rest of the comic spins off from there in the most alarming ways, with every page holding at least one surprise or character revelation. I've heard people say both Wonder Woman and Power Girl are dull characters, but in Waid's hands they become two of my favourites. If only he could write them forever. I heartily recommend the title (though this is meant as a standalone it does have some connection to the first six-issue arc), though surely a prologue as awesome as that should be enough to drive even non-comic fans mad with anticipation. Right? Er, hello?

5. The super-pretty HTC Tytn II.

I once had a phone. It was the little phone that could. It didn't have GPS laser targeting, or a taser like in Tomorrow Never Dies, or a special connection to the Pentagon, but I loved it. I had no need of gadgets, I just wanted to text. And text I did, like the veritable wind. My connection to it was so strong that I often texted without looking at it. It was a powerful bond between man and machine, not unlike the bond between Michael Knight and KITT, only with less backtalk.

And then I broke it.

Damn, man, that wrecked me for over a year. Not just because I was upset, or because I lost all my numbers and texts and photos, but because I lost that amazing text synching. The next three phones I owned have been a disaster, with dead and unresponsive keys, fiddly shortcuts that make everything take four times as long, and batteries that hold enough charge for up to ten minutes usage. I was Chuck Yeager, grounded before his time, forced to give up hope that I would ever recapture that joy.


So I did the next best thing; buy a phone with a proper keyboard and a proper browser, not to mention Word. The Tytn II is a bloody gorgeous piece of kit, with a flippy screen and a keyboard way better than the Blackberry and a 3 megapixel camera and a touchscreen and so many other wonderful features I should probably shut up now. When the worst thing I can say about it is that both Canyon and I are finding it hard to type on it because we keep thinking we have to use the old text method of multiple button pushes for each digit, that doesn't even count as criticism. It's so helpful and lovely that this section of this post is being written on the Metropolitan line! ZOMG! Exactly what I've always wanted. I'm sure this blows no one's mind but mine, but it makes me very very happy (see post title), so that's all that matters. Except for the bit where I accessed this blog and flagged it accidentally. Ah, it's not the phone's fault. I can't stay mad at you forever, you beautiful gadget!

Shane Black knows the score

A content-lite week, thanks to Canyon being inundated with work, and me getting dragged into the office for a useless absence management course as well as travelling to Ikea again and again in my miserable quest to replace a broken sofa. Something so simple is actually horribly time-consuming and depressing. Who knew?

So desperate was I to get something on here, I took inspiration from the last 15 minutes of Renny Harlin's The Long Kiss Goodnight (a film that truly exasperates me, what with the terrific script and the inept direction), and decided to do a quick post about cinema's best explosions, with the help of YouTube. However, instead of finding footage of the outrageously large final explosion (a very effective pre-CG FX sequence by Jeffrey Okun), I instead found out that the 9/11 conspiracy types think the film predicted the World Trade Centre bombing.


Who would have thought that multi-millionaire screenwriting supergenius Shane Black knew so much about CIA plots to screw Congress out of funding? I can't wait to read Tim Weiner's Legacy of Ashes now. I bet there's a whole chapter on that! Bear in mind Long Kiss was made in 1996. The fact that Evil Patrick Malahide is referring to the previous WTC bombing, the one that happened in the car park beneath the building, seems to have escaped many of the theorists on there. It's as if they're not really thinking this whole thing through and are just rushing to insane conclusions based on hearsay, bias, paranoia, and terribly flawed science. A mad idea, I know, but it bears considering.

To cleanse the crazy-tainted palate, here is one of the best scenes from Black's magnificent directorial debut, Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, in which the only thing you learn is that if you meet Val Kilmer pretending to be a gay detective, you should not throw his expensive ceramic gun into the lake next to the crashed car or he will hurt your feelings with pithy insults.


And yes, I probably will do the explosions post at some point. It's either write about that or gibber, "Halo 3! Halo 3! Halo 3!" And you don't want that. Though I'll probably do that too. Sorry.

CSI: Miami primer

I'm sure anyone following the CSI: Miami tags on this post will already know everything they need to know about this most unique of shows, but in case you're wandering through here without having experienced it, here is a quick runthrough of the main characters.

Horatio Caine - The Mighty Caruso.
To say there is no other character in modern TV like him is an understatement. He's not even a character. He's a mood. A state of mind. Justice personified. The yin to evil's yang. A one-man pose machine. An enigma. He is of course famous for wearing sunglasses, but does he wear the shades, or do they wear him? The way he stares at them, often from the rear of the frame while everyone else does the actual police work, it's as if he is in communion with them. Do they guide him? If he ever solved a case, we might have to give some credit to the sentient glasses, but as he never seems to actually do any crime-solving other than intimidating perps or blasting hostiles to pieces, it's immaterial.

Calleigh Duquesne - Emily Procter.
Procter's departure from The West Wing, where she was light and funny and likeable, was already saddening, before she decided to turn up here as a humourless, pinched caricature of herself. I always thought of her as a light comedic actress (in a good way), so imagine my dismay when she was cast as a ballistics expert who looks like she's trying her hardest not to break out in a inappropriate grin in every scene. ::sigh:: Whatever. She's getting a big payday, so it's not like it's the end of the world. Plus, every so often she gets to act opposite the excellent character actor John Heard, playing her feckless alcoholic father. Or Foghorn Leghorn in a big hat. It's hard to tell what effect he's aiming for.

Eric Delko - Adam Rodriguez.
Ah, the inept Delko, prone to losing evidence (in an episode that was obviously running 20 minutes short and filled that time with a panicky Delko trying to pretend nothing was wrong), getting caught buying dope for his dying sister, and having outdoor sex with strangers against walls in the middle of Miami. How he keeps his job is beyond me. Perhaps it's his command of Russian, always useful in Florida. Or perhaps it's his incredible knowledge of sports cars and swamp-diving. Whatever it is, it's a good thing he's around. By season 4 Horatio desperately needed someone to stalk, protect from the boogeyman, and/or love, and Delko's cancer-ridden sister fit the bill perfectly. Until the kingpin of a Brazilian drug cartel had her assassinated. Oh CSI: Miami, how I love thee!

Ryan Wolfe - Jonathan Togo.
Brought in to inflate the cast after the death of Tim Speedle (see below), the young man known to Horatio as Mr. Wolfe was promoted to CSI from traffic cop duty after finding a clue. That's a rigorous selection process right there. Perhaps Horatio thought he could mold the man into a copy of himself. It was not to be. Whereas everyone defers to Horatio and respects him (even though he never does any work), for at least a whole season everyone hated Wolfe. His arrogance, snottiness, and ineptitude certainly justified the treatment, not to mention the outrageously pompous way he dismisses Natalia Boa Vista (see below), though that might be a consequence of her not falling gratefully into his arms in season 4. His finest moment, though, has to be getting shot in the eye with a nail gun. I was torn between being sickened to my guts and wanting to write a thank you letter to the writers.

Alexx Woods - Khandi Alexander.
Another employee who really should be let go soon. Not that she's as inept as Delko, but seriously, hasn't someone thought it odd that the Miami Dade coroner has conversations with dead people, and not like in that scary episode of Buffy from season 7? Several corpses have been patronised by Alexx, who refers to the ones she likes as, "Sugah". Other than that, she does very little on the show. Notably, she is one of the few characters who seems able to tolerate Mr. Wolfe, and coincidentally she is the only character other than him to be regularly thanked by Horatio as he leaves the room/crime scene, even if there are other people there. Why be selective? Even hapless Delko deserves to be thanked from time to time, especially if he doesn't contaminate the crime scene, hump a random witness, or accidentally kick evidence into a swamp.

Tim Speedle - Rory Cochrane.
Yes, I know that's not a picture from the show. It's only fitting I choose his greatest onscreen moment to memorialise him now that he's gone to that swish, glass-walled laboratory in the sky. Speedle represented the slob nation on CSI: Miami for a couple of years, before getting into a shoot-out and biting the bullet. His death was caused by a build-up of what looked like Crunchy Nut Cornflakes in his gun, a character quirk that had been set up in a previous season when Calleigh told him off for not taking care of his firearm. Other than that, Cochrane's time on the show is memorable for seemingly being a very uncomfortable experience for him. He looked embarrassed every week, mumbling his dialogue and shiftily glancing off camera as if looking for Richard Linklater to come and save him. And he did! Cochrane then went on to appear in A Scanner Darkly, and in five nervy, rotoscoped minutes he completely erased the memory of his time in Miami Dade. Hooray! If only Aaron Sorkin would stop being crap so that he could save Emily Procter.

Frank Tripp - Rex Linn.
We watched an episode of CSI: Miami last night that was particularly absurd, featuring carbombs and zombies, but it was notable for featuring possibly the first instance of deductive work by Detective Tripp. He picked up a golf club and said it belonged to a man because it was large. It's not exactly Sherlock Holmes, but for the first time he wasn't just relaying obvious information to Horatio (information that Horatio already knows, usually). I was stunned. Poor Rex Linn. He's been a dependable movie tough guy for a few years now, livening up many dubious films, such as Cliffhanger and Cutthroat Island (time to stop taking Renny Harlin's calls, Rex), and now all he does is act as Horatio's secretary. His most bizarre moment on the show was when he suddenly, with absolutely no prior warning, became a racist NIMBY, ranting about floods of Cuban immigrants stealing American jobs, to the immense displeasure of Delko. After almost coming to blows, their differences were resolved in a memorable finale, with Tripp and Delko teaming up to help a Cuban shopkeeper fix up his mini-mart in super-meaningful slo-mo, with Horatio smiling beneficently from the touchlines. I cried!

Natalia Boa Vista - Eva La Rue.
The most recent addition to the team. Prior to that, Natalia was a hastily introduced lab tech who, in a shocking twist, had been planted on the team as a mole by the FBI. I know what you're thinking. Well, actually, you're either thinking you're hungry and Crunchy Nut Cornflakes would go down a treat, or you're thinking, "Why would anyone want to investigate our heroes?" If you're thinking the latter, the answer is that the CSI: Miami team are notoriously inept and corrupt, constantly bending the law while obnoxiously taking the moral high ground against every even vaguely criminal person they come across. Her totally believable transition into a CSI has been hindered by her rivalry with Mr. Wolfe at his most slimy, as well as the reappearance of her evil abusive ex-husband, hilariously released from jail and instantly hired as a crime-scene clean-up guy just so he can keep pestering her at work. The only other things to note about her are that she succumbed to Delko's lumpen sex-vibe, possibly due to temporary insanity brought on by the guilt of being a mole, and she has the biggest Bambi eyes on TV.

Maxine Valera - Boti Bliss.
Where to begin with Valera, played by the delightfully named Boti Bliss? Well, she's a lab tech. And... erm... Oh! There was that one time she accidentally contaminated a bunch of evidence, or something, and she took a leave of absence for a while. Of course, this had to happen during the aforementioned FBI investigation. The picture I've used is from a seemingly anti-glamorous Ultradent promotional gig attended by the cast, which probably accounts for the severely pissed off expression Miss Bliss is wearing. We're only part of the way through season 5, and I'm hoping she gets more to do soon. She's one of the more likeable actors on the show, and so far does little more than relay exposition.

Brendan Fehr - Dan Cooper.
I didn't even know his character's name until I just checked it out on IMDb. Dan is the lab tech responsible for pressing the notorious "Enhance" button when looking at videos (God bless the internet hero who came up with that concept; apologies for not attributing it properly). He can also isolate the sound of a flea farting in a recording of a Korn concert. I totally believe the technology exists to do this. Other than that, I think Wolfe threatened him once when he said something rude about Natalia. You'll have to forgive me for being vague. There has yet to be a point to Dan. I can only imagine he's there because the CSI: Miami producers were jealous of CSI: Original Flavour having Archie Kao as their tech guy. Either that or Adam Rodriguez was doing a solid for his Roswell buddy Fehr.

If you've never watched the show before, hopefully now you can jump in and enjoy the various thrilling shenanigans of our heroes. Truly there is nothing on TV like it. That may seem like an erroneous statement, what with it being a spin-off with its own spin-off, but the other shows are utterly different. It has plowed its own furrow, and as a result is the most watched show on the planet, a fact that never ceases to amaze me. Long may it reign.