That Week in TV Year II (Week 9)

Of course, this was the week Barack Obama was elected President of the United States of America, a week spent fretting, then rejoicing, then fretting again (I did the last bit on my own, I think). Not much aired, but there were still some highpoints, including, of course, The Shield.

Week 9 (3 - 9 Nov):

The Shield 3:10 - Party Line
Friday Night Lights 3:06 - It Ain't Easy Being J.D. McCoy
America's Next Top Model 11:11 - The Final Five
CSI 9:05 - Leave Out All the Rest
The Office 5:06 - Customer Survey
30 Rock 3:02 - Believe in the Stars
Ugly Betty 3:07 - Crush'd

Non-Shield Highlight of Week 8:

For several seasons CSI would feature the occasional episode written by edgy former drug addict Jerry Stahl, writer of the addiction memoir Permanent Midnight, subsequently made into a movie starring Ben Stiller. In the book Stahl freely admits to megalomaniacal behaviour when crazed by drugs, hijacking Twin Peaks writers' meetings with zany behaviour that ended up costing him his job.

Luckily for him he got cleaned up and ended up on the most successful show on US TV, where his scripts stood out like a sore thumb by repeatedly exploring the extremes of sexual experimentation and drug abuse, ostentatiously flying his freak flag as high as possible. That's not to say his work was bad. While Canyon is more sceptical of his episodes, they struck me as cleverer and funnier than regular episodes. He also created the fan-favourite character Lady Heather (played by the ever-excellent Melinda Clarke), dominatrix, therapist, and muse to Gil.


Stahl's moved on from CSI now, but this superb installment, written by Jacqueline Hoyt, echoed his repeatedly used themes while offering a more downbeat and morbid story than he maybe would have approached. Following a murder that looks to have been committed during bondage play, Gil takes that opportunity to visit Lady Heather (last seen brutally whipping a thug), ostensibly to gather information about the BDSM culture, but secretly to find comfort following his breakup with Sara, who dumps him via laptop.


Not cool! Hoyt does a splendid job of weaving the complex murder plot with Gil and Heather's confessional conversations, delivering exposition about the crimes in beautifully paced montages, and giving William Petersen plenty to sink his teeth into. Even better was the inconclusive verdict, with the team up-ending several lives to get to the truth only to find they had gone in completely the wrong direction, which echoed the episode from last season when Catherine let her emotions get in the way of her forensic mind, causing her to cast judgement on an innocent man.


It helps that the episode was directed by the ever-reliable Kenneth Fink, again providing a visual feast (with Nelson Cragg on DoP duties). Fingers crossed Jerry Bruckheimer gets hold of a low-key crime film script and hands it over to Fink to direct. If Gregory Hoblit could make the jump to the big screen with Primal Fear, Fink could do the same.

Shocking Assault of the Week:

The Shield has often horrified the audience with totally out-of-the-blue violence: Aceveda's horrifying rape, the almost deadly attack on Danny at the start of season 7, and of course the soul-numbing awfulness of the season 5 finale. In this episode Aceveda, seemingly cowed by the deals between Vic, Pezuela, and the ICE team, instead explodes into startling violence, raining down such a flurry of blows on Pezuela that even Vic and cartel head Beltran stand by in incomprehending shock. Of course, Aceveda is doing it to try to sabotage Vic's plan and keep himself in the loop, not caring that he has made Pezeula look so weak in the eyes of the cartel that he has effectively signed his death warrant. In a series full of staggering moments, this was yet another stand-out, made all the more powerful by the fact that, as Noel Murray said in his excellent AV Club review, Aceveda has been walking towards that confrontation for years. Fans should have seen this coming, but as ever the magnificent Shield writing team kept us focused on Vic so much that the moment Aceveda snaps is still a huge, gut-churning surprise.

Fashion Faux-Pas of the Week:

Did a Great Eatlon take a big mystical dump on Tyra's top?


And why is it held up with straps from a backpack?



Question of the Week:

Did they or didn't they? Julie and Matt (in another stellar episode of Friday Night Lights) finally get back together after a day spent frolicking in a lake, spending the night together under the stars next to a big bonfire, which is such romantic overkill it positively screams OMG they totally did it. The next morning they're utterly unafraid to be as soppy as possible, and Canyon and I spent the whole scene debating whether they did, but it was this naughty exchange of looks...


...that convinced me. They totally did it! After their previous failed attempt in season one it makes sense the show would be tactful about it, having already shown the conflict between Tami and Julie. Of course, if it turns out they didn't do it, I'm coming back here to erase this part of the post.

Dear God Shut Up Already! Moment of the Week:

I don't think anything on America's Next Top Model has inspired me to such an explosion of splenetic rage as Marjorie's endless self-loathing and inability to accomplish anything.


I already hate go-sees (they make me very anxious), but her nervy race through Amsterdam made it an even more excruciating experience. Her signature hunchback photo style is not so impressive once you realise she only uses it so much because she has no backbone.

Funniest Scene of the Week:

In a classic Office scene, Michael makes Dwight role-play a conversation with a customer (played by Jim) in order to assess his ability to interact with clients, all because evil Kelly faked some customer reports to ruin their chances of a bonus.


What made it so entertaining is that it was possibly the perfect example of the running joke of Michael and Dwight's inability to distinguish reality from fantasy.

Least Funny Scene of the Week:

Jim listening to Pam, via teeny tiny handsfree, as she discusses her possible future in New York with a classmate (played by Mad Men's Rich Sommer) was excruciating stuff, with Krasinski selling his subdued anguish brilliantly.


Even bringing Dwight in at the end of the scene couldn't make it funny. Just horrible to watch, but then The Office has always been very good at yanking the audience from happiness to sadness, which possibly accounts for my occasional reticence to watch it even though I think it's wonderful. This scene was also way more effective and convincing than the rushed denouement to Michael and Holly's relationship in the previous episode, Employee Transfer.

Visual Gag of the Week(s):

The third season of 30 Rock may have opened with a weak episode, even with a customarily welcome appearance by Will Arnett as Devon Banks, but the second episode was a huge improvement. Of the many great gags on offer, Octuples Tennis might have made me laugh the most.


Synchronised Running worked well too.



Irksome New Character of the Week:

With Tyra (Collette from Friday Night Lights, not America's Next Top Model) all loved-up with her new fella (whose apparent drug addiction seems sure to wreck the relationship and doom Tyra to remain in Dillon forever), Landry attempts to cope with the fallout by listening to love ballads in his car and focusing his energies on Crucifictorious. After a bust-up with his bass player, a tryout for a replacement leads to the arrival of Devin, yet another cute hipster for Landry to fall for (considering how square Dillon is meant to be, it seems to be a more of a mecca for Flaming Lips-loving nerd-hotties than nearby Austin). Of course, she instantly joins the band, changing it from a prospective death metal Nirvana into Blake Babies or something.


Our initial misgivings about this new character were partially motivated by the unimaginatively convenient timing of her introduction, providing Landry with someone at exactly the right moment in his post-Tyra downward spiral to put him in a happy enough mindset to forgive Tyra and make them friends again. Luckily, Devin turns out to be gay, which pushed the plot in a much more satisfying direction, with Landry's confidence shaken and Tami stepping in to give him some reassurance in a beautifully performed scene. Our other misgivings, however, were not allayed. Devin's just kind of annoying. Purely subjective, I know, but having her around makes me especially unhappy about the absence of Jean, played by Brea Grant. Written with a peculiar lack of subtlety for a show that is the acme of subtlety, Jean was obviously meant to be Landry's soulmate, in stark contrast to his relationship with Tyra, born of murderous necessity. In a perfect world that character would return to love up our hero, but instead she's racing around the Heroesverse and getting macked on by some turtle-totemed guy old enough to be her dad. It's depressing on a number of levels.

Spoiler of the Week:

When I started writing these posts I had no idea who ultimately won America's Next Top Model, but of course it's impossible to avoid spoilers these days. Canyon managed about twelve hours after the finale aired before being spoiled by a huge photo on the front page of Yahoo News, and I did okay, until yesterday. All I know is, when I see this photo at the start of this week's go-sees...


...there is one goofy looking woman there who really should not be in the competition, and four others who all have promise. Except Elina and her Face of Stone. And yet McKey wins? This model wins?


Maybe when I finally see the finale I will get it, but by this point, the only thing that can get her to the top is some artificial and bullshit arc. I'm curious to see what it was that robbed Analeigh so completely. I am very very upset about this! It's even more upsetting than Cycle 4 when Kahlen lost to proficient but boring Naima, but in that case at least Naima was an excellent model, though Kahlen had a much greater improvement curve and, you know, a personality. This is why I don't watch reality shows very often. They create an unquenchable pain in my heart.

Background Music of the Week:

Top Gear returned with a splash of testosterone strong enough to turn our cats into human males, and even thought it's not been long since the last mini-season it was still good to have it back, not-faked-at-all-wink-wink stunts and all. A particularly good one came when Jeremy Clarkson drove a lorry into a brick wall at high speed and nearly killed himself. His panicked grab for his chest was genuinely worrying. Best thing about it, though, is the astute choice of music. In the first week we got Panda Bear, the week after we got a burst of Wendy Carlos' soundtrack to Tron, and this week was covered in Kings of Leon-y goodness. I love the ladies and gents who sort this stuff out, and even though I can imagine it's horribly expensive to clear these tunes, it's really worth it. I mean, Panda Bear! I couldn't get over that. And it worked perfectly with the shot too.

Your Familiar Face Is In a New And Confusing Context And Is Therefore Rendered Alien Moment of the Week:

The awesome BDSM episode of CSI gave me terrible deja vu, with the snooty club owner Michelle Tournay giving me real problems.


A quick check of IMDb later, and it turns out she's Peyton List, aka Jane the conniving secretary from Mad Men, and yes, it's okay for me to say secretary as I'm just following the customs of the time period. Also familiar was the scarily dominatrixy Kumari, who had more red hair than five Debra Messings put together.


To be honest, I don't know where I've seen Rachelle Lefevre before, but I do know she is going to be in Twilight, which I was ready to assume was going to be a big pile of nonsensical gloopy shite about sparkling vampires, but having seen how rabid (and willing to provide me with lovely hits) the fans are, I will accept is actually the most profoundly romantic and moving exploration of vamp-slash immortal and beautiful dedication and love ever made. Good for her and her mane of crimson hair for getting into this year's hottest and biggest hit movie about lame vampires.

ETA: That picture, showing her sticking needles into some guy's nipple in a scene that made me want to barf, doesn't do justice to her incredible hair.


If Marvel are smart, they'll start work on an Inhumans movie, and cast her as Medusa. And get David Beckham as Black Bolt. All he needs to do is look gorgeous/impassive and not speak. Perfect!

More to come. Seriously. I was really way behind on this mini-project. Blame Obama.

That Week In TV Year II (Week 8)

While life gets tied up in elections, work disasters (boy, I really don't want to talk about that), Civilisation Revolution benders, and other distracting miscellany, TV marches on like a flickering, gaudy, hypnotic glacier, only slightly dented by by the unavoidable scheduling obstructions of the last couple of Obamariffic weeks. We totally took our eye off the ball, but then fatigue has begun to set in. I'm almost totally disillusioned by Ugly Betty even though Canyon is sticking with it, she has escaped the gluetrap that is Heroes while I remain hooked even in the face of cortex-wrecking stupidity, and both of us have lost interest in Pushing Daisies. That's especially galling for me as I really like it, but as with the cruelly cancelled Journeyman last year, watching a show that smells of death is a dispiriting experience. I'm sure I'll get around to it eventually, but it will be bittersweet.

So, I intend to rush through the three-to-four weeks since our last Week in TV, seeing as how those weeks ended up being fairly similar in terms of what rocked and what sucked. Here is a rundown of what we watched:

Week 8 (27 Oct - 2 Nov):

The Shield 7:09 - Moving Day
Friday Night Lights 3:05 - Every Rose Has Its Thorn
America's Next Top Model 11:10 - Planes, Trains, and Slow Automobiles
CSI 9:04 - Let It Bleed
The Office 5:05 - Employee Transfer
House 5:06 - Joy
The Mentalist 1:05 - Redwood
Heroes 3:07- Eris Quod Sum
30 Rock 3:01 - Do-over
Ugly Betty 3:06 - Ugly Berry

If I don't mention the show now, I might in subsequent posts, when an episode worth chatting about crops up.

Highlight of the Week(s):

With a ninety-minute finale set to air tonight that will finally tell us whether Vic kills Shane / Shane kills Vic / Ronnie kills Mara and Corrine / Dutch kills Beaver Casablanca / Julien kills some time by doing nothing interesting / Tina kills everyone through outrageous negligence (delete as applicable), The Shield is almost at the end of a final sprint of astonishing and thrilling brilliance. If only every show could end with this amount of confidence and nerve-annihilating daring. Though we have rushed through all six and a bit seasons in almost no time, I can imagine fans who have been with it since the beginning must feel totally vindicated in their patience, as the knot of plotlines gets tighter and tighter. It sounds like hyperbole when I write it down, but I feel privileged to have been able to take this narrative trip.

Non-Shield Highlight of the Week:

The third season of Friday Night Lights already hitting absurdly high new highs at the moment, and Every Rose Has Its Thorn might well be the best of the year. It was certainly the best thing on air this week that didn't feature Michael Chiklis doing his angry face. Opening on a fraught football game, with Coach gambling on a crazy plan which entails switching between two offensive teams headed by Matt and new QB JD McCoy, we see the changing of the guard as dependable Matt wins the game at the last minute but is effectively ignored by the town, who embrace the new quarterback. It was nerve-wracking and sad and beautifully filmed, with its position right at the start of the episode a masterstroke.


Even better, this week saw the return of Jason Street, desperately trying to save his relationship with the mother of his child by getting involved in a half-arsed house-restoration deal with the Riggins brothers and the ever-belligerent Herc. As I love all of these characters, seeing the four of them bickering over even the smallest things was TV heaven.


In particular it showed how hollow Street's inspirational chatter can be when aimed at the wrong people, doing little to keep his quartet together (hilariously it's Riggins' appropriation of some bullshit salesman speak from Buddy Garrity that makes the difference), and failing to convince Erin to stay with him, while at the same time showing how he can trade on his pre-paralysis reputation in convincing Buddy to sell his house to him. His options are beginning to shrink within Dillon, which is a great set up for later episodes.


Nothing was extraneous. Tyra's Bueller-esque day off to hang with her pill-popping hottie boyfriend has an air of tragedy following her earlier scenes with Tami, where she gives up her college dreams just to shack up with some guy even though this is exactly what doomed her mother and sister, Matt's demotion brings about a reconciliation with his mother and gives Coach reason for some intense soul-searching as he gambles on a 15 year old quarterback, and even the unpromising thread with Julie's tattoo was filled with beautifully realised character moments, jokes, and touching speeches. It was a total triumph from beginning to end. Here is a visual representation of how happy it made me.



Lowlight of the Week:

Much as I hate to beat on a show I once loved, but Ugly Betty's unfortunate run of sub-par episodes now seems to be the default setting, with only the slim chance of temporary improvement. After enduring another depressingly mirthless episode, Ugly Berry, which revolved around the repellent Kimmy Keegan, played with her now-permanent lack of enthusiasm by Lindsay Lohan, I realised that I had no desire to watch another episode (though thankfully I did; see below). As Canyon intends to stick with it there's a good chance I will see it through to the end, and I do enjoy Marc and Amanda a lot, so much so that I wish they would get a spin-off to themselves. However, Canyon hit the nail on the head when she said about Ugly Berry, "It's just not funny any more."


Yes, Marc and Amanda make us laugh, but Michael Urie and Becki Newton are gifted comic actors and could probably make even the worst joke in the world work. What's worrying about that is that during the past twelve episodes or so there's a good chance they have been given the worst joke in the history of the world but we didn't notice thanks to them. I wouldn't put it past the current writing team to have stooped that low, as they are content to rest their show on tired pop culture references, farcical misunderstandings, and pratfalls, not to mention a Get Out The Vote PSA of episode-hobbling awfulness. It made the Wicked episode look subtle.


My distrust of the showrunners is not just paranoia either. Little did we know last season, as things started to go awry, that five writers, two producers (and one director) were let go from the show, all of whom had provided memorable episodes in the first season. Whether this had something to do with the strike or the imminent relocation of the show to New York, I don't know. It surely isn't a coincidence that the quality of the show dropped at that point and never returned to normal.


I will admit, the episode Granny Pants, in which Kimmy begs Betty for a job, was passable, but the script was credited to Sheila Laurence, one of the old guard of writers who has contributed a number of above average episodes, and the following episode written by Ugly Betty ace writers Poust and Kinneally (who are both still in the credits as producers) was a very entertaining hour, with some humanity instead of the empty farce of the rest of the season, but I can't help but feel the show is now broken, and has been for even longer than I had suspected.

Gay Event of the Week:

Analeigh, Marjorie the timid mouse, and Elina and her Face of Stone decided to annoy the rest of the surviving models with hott bathtub action at all hours.


Though there was probably nothing to it all, Samantha deemed it gay. She, of course, would know all about that (scroll down). The increasingly annoying McKey complained the most, which leads me to believe the potentially Sapphic trio should make sure to distract her before embarking on further bathtub parties. All they need to do is punch a wasp in the face and she'll be out of their hair for hours nursing it back to health. Either that or they can try to rust her ridiculous chainmail outfit until she can't use it any more.



Shockingly Ill-Judged Direction of the Week:

Joy, the episode of House featuring THAT KISS featured some of the best writing of the season, with Cuddy getting more screentime than is usual as she deals with an antagonistic pregnant woman whose child she hopes to adopt.


The disease of the week plot was fascinating too, as a father and his daughter sleepwalk through their lives without realising it, thinking they are blacking out when in fact they are living a phantom life, which neatly matches their secret life as Arab-Americans disguised as caucasians. The problem with the episode was that director Deran Serafian, whose work on House and CSI is usually very good, went nuts, turning the sleepwalking events into surreal nightmares...


...filming many of the main cast in exxxtreme close-up...


...or staring at the camera...





...and hilariously shaking the camera a bit during a drug buy, in feeble imitation of grittier fare such as The Mighty Shield.


This overdirection from the man who brought us the admirably economical Terminal Velocity (written by Riddick helmer and ace screenwriter David Twohy). It was utterly perplexing, as his work is usually flashy enough to be interesting but not so much that it distracts from the show. This week he got the balance all wrong. I get the feeling the credits got mixed up with the following episode (more on that in a subsequent post).

We Need An Acting Coach, Stat! Performance of the Week:

It's hard to get a bead on new Ugly Betty non-Gio-therefore-non-interesting love interest Val Emmich, who appears to be killing time in acting (notably on 30 Rock) while waiting for his music career to take off.


I hope it does, just so his depressingly flat line readings never happen again. He gives somnambulism a bad name. Quick! Everyone buy dozens of copies of his album!

Creepy Assault of the Week:

Poor Samantha just can't seem to sort out her panel outfit, a cardinal sin in a show as shallow as this one. After turning up looking like a white-trash Barbie yet again, Tyra (who professed to love McKey's ridiculous Aragorn-esque battletop) took matters into her own hands, launching herself at the poor girl and proceeding to wreck her top before yanking at her skirt.



To make things worse, she even patted Samantha on the butt at the end of it all.



Boundaries, Tyra! Respect them!

Shortest Amount of Time Spent Watching a New Show:

Okay, Gordon Ramsay's Cookalong first aired in the previous week, but I need to address it. Over the past year or so, I have tried many new shows, but have been forced to bail from some due to sheer awfulness or boredom. Here is a rough list:

Chuck: 7 episodes
John From Cincinnati: 6 episodes
Dirty Sexy Money: 4 episodes
Drive: 3 episodes
Knight Rider: 1 episode

Canyon is a fan of Gordon Ramsay, while I think he's one of many member of the Cult of Gratuitous Shittiness, a witless bully with more talent than most hidden behind a formica veneer of despicable attitude, false bravado, and relentless, embarrassing star-fuckery. It's that talent that makes the whole thing tragic. The man obviously know his shit (and then some) but I just cannot watch the man. So his new live show, Gordon Ramsay: Expletive Explosion LIVE! or whatever it was called?

1 minute 30.

I'm a nervous guy, and maybe too empathic for his own good, so it's hell on my sanity when I see something epitomise fat honking FAIL within seconds of beginning, as a live link-up immediately went haywire, and Ramsay's cocky bellowing gave way to that weird chittery laugh he does when he's nervously waiting for his over-encumbered brain to kick in and fill the emptiness with the usual profanity or exclamations (like when he had Meat Loaf in his kitchen on The F Word that one time. In the youth parlance, I have to say, "Bitch crazy!").


I might have been feeling bad, but the resident Ramsay fan sitting next to me started howling, "No! OH GOD NO I can't take it!?" and switched it off before it got any worse. This is without considering that he's trying to get people at home to "cookalong" with him at 21:00 on a Friday night, which is surely a terrible idea. If a show makes you wish Homo Sapiens had evolved with an enormous shell on its back so you could crawl into it just to escape the misery, then it's not going well. Still, our empathic cringe is not the worst thing that's happened to Ramsay in recent times. As I'm sure he said when this happened, DONE up like a kipper!!!

Least Sexy Kiss of the Week:

House taking advantage of a heartbroken Cuddy was depressing on a number of levels, perhaps most importantly that he might not have been taking advantage of her and they both wanted this somehow. Yuk.


Like catching mom and dad snogging. Please let it never happen again.

Further To Canyon's Mates of State Post

A couple of days ago Canyon posted about Mates of State, whose most recent album, Re-Arrange Us, is our joint favourite album of the year. It is sheer pop brilliance, seemingly light and fluffy but musically complex (Pitchfork thought otherwise). It has not left my iPod since we got it. However, I was sad that the incredible song The Re-Arranger didn't appear on YouTube. Nothing I can do about that, of course.

However, a day later, I realised there was a technique for creating videos for songs, after seeing this wonderful collage of images culled from public domain films, here used by locke325 to accompany Panda Bear's Take Pills, from my favourite album of last year, Person Pitch.



Surely someone could spend a bit of their time, say two days filled with frustration and error and eventual triumph, sticking together clips from such disparate films as Gamera vs. Viras, Royal Wedding, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe: Chapter 4, and Till The Clouds Roll By, to create a visual accompaniment for such a wonderful song. Amazingly, and with scarily psychic precision, I was right. It's the same guy who keeps supplying me with Torchwood clips. It's a staggering coincidence.



I know nothing about creating clips like this, and was wondering how difficult it must be. I mean, this guy seemed to make this next clip about a Republican convention from decades ago, in much less time, like maybe a couple of hours, so maybe it's not that bad once you get used to the seemingly infinite amount of free editing programs you have to download to splice it all together.



For the record, I'm disavowing that one for its reliance on a specious comparison that gets made by over-emotional people, and am disgusted by the inflammatory juxtaposition between the audio of the newsreel and the visuals of an evil dictator addressing his followers. I think it's disgraceful that a comparison appears to have been made between the Republicans, who are entitled to their beliefs, their leadership, who represent those beliefs, and the fascist regime on Mongo.

Hipster Douchebag Music Recommendation Of The Week: "Get Better" by Mates of State

Well, it looks like I've left this so long that Masticator has subverted the formula, leaving the douchebags among us out in the cold. So typical of corporate types like him: stealing our ideas and squashing all the soul out of them for mainstream palatability. And since this week's band is slowly leaking hipster cred by the day, much like a tipping can of Pabst Blue Ribbon in the slackening hand of a passed-out, cardigan-wearing skinny teenager, it seemed time I got back to the job.


So anyway, this week's month's quarter's entry is yet another band we discovered through The A.V. Club. No, wait -- we actually saw them first on Conan's show, which tends to have the most unusual music of all the late-night talk shows (Okkervil River were on the show awhile ago, and Conan seemed genuinely shocked at how good they were). They were playing the first single from their latest album, and when I went to The A.V. Club to see if they'd reviewed it, I found this. I was a bit surprised and disappointed to see such a negative review when I'd enjoyed the song so much, but I downloaded procured legally purchased the album anyway on the strength of the single. Turns out that the writer was just some freelancer they'd gotten in, who's apparently gone through a bad breakup recently, given his seeming hatred of happily married life. At any rate, the rest of the A.V. Club permanent staff absolutely loves the album, and many of them are planning to put it on their end-of-year best-of lists. Sucks to you, freelance reviewer who probably just wanted a paycheck and may have some lingering problems with his parents' divorce!

The two band members, Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel, are indeed married, which gives the band a nice hook for feature writers, but it's not like we're dealing with Raffi-level sentimentality here. Their sound was a little bit spikier on previous albums, but it's still much the same: lots of harmonies, disjointed melodies, and pop songcraft. Take my favorite song off the album, the first single "Get Better":



Yes, there are people dressed as animals, but they're more reminiscent of the bunny from Donnie Darko that freaked me the fuck out than anything boringly suburban (even though the video does have a bit of an Ice Storm vibe). It's not a hard-driving song, but the clarity of the piano, the thump of the drums, and the gorgeous swell of the string section (have I mentioned that I'm a sucker for a string section?) all blend with the counterpointed vocals to create something beautiful, lighthearted, and yet a little bit creepy (maybe I'm just flashing back to Frank here). And yeah, the lyrics "Forget your politics for awhile / Let the color schemes arrive" are a bit hippie-ish, but it feels like a joyful song to me -- not a song cloistered in middle-aged smug, boring contentment but a paean to wary hopefulness ("everything's gonna get lighter, even if it never gets better"). Or at least a very good potential song for an AT&T commercial.

As for my other favorite song off the album, "The Rearranger," it's not available as a video on the intertubes except as a live version, which makes it at least 78% less awesome, because much of its beauty comes from its meticulous, heavily layered production. Thus, I instruct you, loyal reader(s), to go here and listen to the audio alone. The first few seconds should hook you in, as the horns seep in like an aural sunrise (ah yes, I'm a sucker for horns too); after that the harmonies come in, and then come the weird tempo shifts, and then the bursting sun of the chorus, where all the elements come together beautifully, as sunny as a Californian summer day (to drag this dead metaphor a little further).

As usual, the band is starting to get more recognition just after I find out about them -- unfortunate, since I should have written about them months ago when I first heard their albums -- and now they've got a song on an Ugly Betty episode. Is this the end of their hipster coolness? Or was it the AT&T commercial that did them in? Or is it cool to sell out now? The backlash begins. Time to put on my trucker hat and wade in.

And now that I've profiled some good music, it's time for my...

Shameful Non-Hipster Possibly Douchebag Admission of the Week:

This is a new addition in which I admit my not-so-secret, undying love for cheesy pop tunes, thus undermining all the careful hipster-image-building I've done in the previous paragraphs. I'm going to do it quick, like ripping off a Band-Aid ("Right off!").

"Spiralling" by Keane

I'm not proud of it, but come on, it's catchy, right? That retro synthesizer hook, the bizarre football-crowd-witnessing-a-nasty-tackle "Oh!"s in the background, the irresistible chorus, and...the, um, video:



Okay, I don't know what's going on with the aerobicizing "Video Killed the Radio Star" robots, and nothing says high production values like Windows Media Player visualizations, but obviously the director is a very smart man -- namely because he's kept lead singer Tom Chaplin's horrifying visage out of the video as much as possible, and when he's been absolutely forced to show it, he's masked it in so many layers of Photoshop effects and shadows that Chaplin looks more like Mr. Stay Puft than a recognizable human (though actually, this is what he normally looks like -- as brilliant Never Mind the Buzzcocks host Simon Amstell put it, he's a skinny man with the face of a chubby toddler).

But my favorite thing about this song is the lyrics in the chorus:

When we fall in love
We're just falling
In love with ourselves
We're spiralling

Looks like someone's really proud of paying attention in his Intro to Psychology class. Or was this song his end-of-term assignment? I'm really looking forward to the next single, "Cathect My Heart, Mother (Or I Will Project My Neuroses Onto My Lover)."

And with that admission, I take off my trucker hat and slowly back away.

Super Or Not-Super? That Was The Question, Ages Ago

I hate it when a plan doesn't come together. This poll, which was originally meant to end several months ago, got dragged beyond its natural endpoint by me because it seemed to keep attracting votes from netsurfers randomly sent here by such Google search terms as "sexxy women boobs", "January Jones bad actor", "Seth Lakeman", and, of course, "Moon Bloodgood". Of all the things that we have done on this blog, be it incurring the wrath of Torchwood fans, incurring the wrath of Bible fans, or incurring the wrath of friends of super-actor Jesse Plemons, the response to that poll, although small compared to bigger, more professional sites, was significant for us. The temptation was there to keep it up until the next wave of superhero movies comes out, which could be a while, thanks to the writers' strike.

However, Blogger decided to fuck me. Right now the poll states 65 votes have been counted, when last week that number stood at 74. Nine votes lost to the ether! WTF is that about? Perhaps that's a glitch that can be explained on Blogger forums, but I'm too distraught to check. As far as I can tell Blogger hates democracy. Someone should call Greg Palast.

Robert Downey Jr. (Iron Man) - 24 (36%)

Christian Bale (Batman) - 16 (24%)

Ron Perlman (Hellboy) - 7 (10%)

Huge Ackman (Wolverine) - 7 (10%)

Tobey Maguire (Spider-Man) - 3 (4%)

Jennifer Garner (Elektra) - 3 (4%)

Brandon Routh (Superman) - 2 (3%)

Halle Berry (Not-Catwoman) - 1 (1%)

Ben Affleck (Daredevil) - 1 (1%)

Patrick Warburton (The Tick) - 1 (1%)

Chris Evans (Human Torch) - 0 (0%)

Thomas "Homeless Dad" Jane (The Punisher) - 0 (0%)

The Shaq (Steel) - 0 (0%)

Nicolas Cage (Ghost Rider) - 0 (0%)

Wesley Snipes (Blade) - 0 (0%)

Ang Lee In A Motion Capture Suit (Hulk) - 0 (0%)

Anyway, before any more votes can go missing, I might as well shut it down now, and reveal the final tallies. Unsurprisingly (at least to me) the clear winner is Robert Downey Jr., who did what only a couple of other superhero actors have been able to do, i.e. take a character we thought we knew and add another dimension to them. Christopher Reeve showed Superman's fear and vulnerability, Nicholas Cage revealed that Johnny Blaze loves monkey documentaries, and Robert Downey Jr revealed that Tony Stark is funny. For too long the character has seemed like little more than an intense cypher in a suit, but Downey Jr. found the spark that brought him to life.

Of course Stark is a show-off and narcissist, traits that don't really go away even when he comes to realise what a negative effect Stark Industries has on the world. That balancing act, between playing Stark as a charming but aloof playboy and as a committed but humorless crusader, is what makes Downey Jr's performance so perfect. It's such a complete and satisfying incarnation of everyone's favourite Registration Act-supporting dickbag that, upon seeing it, I immediately hoped that he would get Oscar attention next year. Just like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, he was so great and entertaining and instantly transformed into A-list superstar material that people came to see the movie to see him as much as they did the superheroics. Add to that his amazing work on the otherwise disappointing Tropic Thunder, and it's so much his year that I'd bet his chances are higher than you'd expect. Of course, Tropic Thunder is too offensive to get a nomination for anything other than technical Oscars, so the buzz will transfer to Iron Man. The campaign is apparently in full swing, and though I still harbour natural doubts, there's hope.


Second place goes to Christian Bale, who did something subtly different than Robert Downey Jr. by showing how the character was meant to work. It's repeatedly stated in Batman comics that the character is meant to be terrifying, but the image of a guy dressed as a bat and unable to turn his head has never seemed scary to anyone. Bale (and Christopher Nolan) finally cracked how to make Batman as fearsome as his reputation demands, and while some find Bale's Batvoice ridiculous, I totally bought it, so much so that when reading the comics, I now hear Batman's dialogue in that insane raspy growl. That said, while I give multiple props to Bale's intense and customarily intelligent performances, I still hear Kevin Conroy's voice for Bruce Wayne. Fans of the legendary animated series will know what I'm talking about, especially one regular reader who loves him some Mask of the Phantasm.


Coming joint third, (unless, of course, those nine missing votes went to Shaq for his sensitive portrayal of Steel) Ron Perlman also brought his character to life, but maybe only for me. As I've said before, the character of Hellboy never worked on the page (subjectively), but once Perlman appeared onscreen, I finally understood what his appeal was. With the talented Perlman usually relegated to gruff bad guy roles, I'm immensely grateful to Guillermo Del Toro for giving him a chance to show how charming he can be, though I think it would go a lot smoother if he wrote Hellboy some funnier dialogue.


Even though joint third place is a good showing, I expected more votes for Hugh Jackman, whose fanboy-appeasing performance as Wolverine was the instant star-making role that gave the superhero genre its big break in film. More than anything else, the massive popular acceptance of this almost unknown song-and-dance guy as a feral killing machine with leaky tear ducts and a heart of gold made everyone who saw it realise there was a way to make superheroes work in serious movies. Without him and his fantastic hott torso (and the guiding hand of Bryan Singer), I doubt any of the subsequent superhero movies would have been possible.


Speaking of Bryan Singer, his random casting of Brandon Routh as Superman ended up paying off brilliantly, which makes the mediocrity of that movie all the more galling. With The Man of Steel seemingly stalled as of this moment, it's a source of almost infinite annoyance that Routh, who managed to convince many fans that he could embody the nobility and vulnerability of Kal-El, will probably not get another shot at playing the role. When DC and Warner Brothers announced the Justice League movie, they caused me much sorrow by announcing he wouldn't reprise the role, made up for it a lot by hinting that he would be replaced by Scott Porter (who is often the moral centre on Friday Night Lights), then pissed me off again by casting some other guy instead. Then they cancelled the film altogether. Whatevs. Seemingly forgotten, Routh only gets two votes, one of them from Canyon.


Though it appears to be an unpopular opinion on the net, I think Jennifer Garner is the tops. I'm pleased she got a few votes, expecting the dreadful nature of Rob Bowman's Elektra to dissuade voters. I'm not as enthused about Tobey Maguire's votes, as my initial glee at the casting of yet another serious actor as a popular superhero has waned over the course of three Spidey movies as Maguire seems to be doing almost no other work (nothing on this planet will make me watch Seabiscuit, so don't even go there), so I can't even tell whether I think he's a talented actor any more. He's just the guy who's too old to play a young loser with powers, dances badly for no reason other than to make the audience put their hands over their faces in embarrassment, and looks like a stack of wet flappy pancakes when he cries. And he's coming back for three more movies? Oy.


I can only assume that the single vote for Halle Berry as Not Catwoman was an ironic statement, because even someone utterly transfixed by her infamous beauty couldn't ignore the ineptitude and total misunderstanding of the character on display here. A lot of fanboys complain about several recent Marvel adaptations, but even the real disasters cannot compare with DC's run of terrible movies. Daredevil has its detractors, though I still maintain Affleck, with his single vote, was better than the haters say, and it at least made an effort to honour the characters. Ghost Rider was appalling but Nic Cage's total commitment to the weird saves the film from total fail. The Fantastic Four movies might be kiddie versions of the bonkers science fiction adventures we FF fans love, but even when it's hard to watch Reed Richards dancing, or Doctor Doom played like a bad guy from some 80s cheap-ass 8 frames-per-second animated shite, you've still got Michael Chiklis and Chris Evans (who received one votes in this poll, though I'm sure he had more at one point) honouring Ben Grimm and Johnny Storm with their valiant efforts.


What do DC offer us at their worst? The nigh-unwatchable Supergirl, with Peter "Go! High-Ah! Gehhhhlll!" O'Toole's career worst performance? Steel, which remains the only superhero adaptation I've been unable to finish due to overwhelming psychic pain and disappointment? Batman and Fucking Robin? I'd rather rewatch Jonathan Hensleigh's The Punisher any day, especially as Thomas "Homeless Dad" Jane is my hero, and to be honest the worst crime of the movie is to be a homage to Don Siegel-style economy in the age of Michael Bay-style excess (not that I think emulating Don Siegel is a crime, just a question of misjudging a mood). I predict a wave of reappraisal when the forthcoming sequel is finally released.


Batman and Robin would be the worst DC adaptation so far, except that it at least gave the world the line "You're not sending me to da coolah!", which is still in constant rotation in our house. It's not much, but that vaults it above the complete failure that is Catwoman. Her weakness is insensibility upon exposure to catnip? Her nemesis is an insane cosmetics entrepreneur (played with an offensive lack of skill by Sharon Stone, no less)? That this anti-feminist fiasco was made while Daniel Waters' brilliantly subversive script sits on a metaphorical shelf would make me doubt the existence of God if I didn't already doubt the existence of God. A lesser blogger than I would probably write something pun-tastic like, "It was a purr-fectly hair-i-ball cat-astrophe that you should make a fe-line to avoid." An even lesser blogger might refer to it as Scatwoman. However that kind of dismissal isn't enough for a failure this total. It's diarrhoea in the middle of the night. It's vomit in a pile of freshly washed clothes. It's nappy rash, poison ivy, tennis elbow, insomnia, and anaphylactic shock all at the same time. Never let it be spoken of again.


Zero votes for Nicolas Cage (which will sadden Johnny Blaze-fan Canyon, I'm sure), Ang Lee in a Motion Capture Suit (even after the blank Hulk Smash performance on the most recent movie failed to generate even a fraction of the character that Ang Lee did), and, most shocking of all, zero votes for Dr. Wesley T. Snipes, who kicked so much vampire bottom in the Blade trilogy? How soon we forget. Or perhaps people thought they would get hassled by the IRS for supporting him. Wimps! Haven't superheroes shown we should stand up to tyranny? I'm tempted to hand those nine votes to him, giving the Dr. of Asskicking a third place spot. Oh, and kudos for noticing poor Patrick Warburton at the bottom of the poll. I'm glad someone threw him some one vote worth of love for his heroic blue-suited silliness.

Right. I'm done. Happy now, Blogger? ::pouts::

BBC Breakfast Watch! World Of Warcraft Will Kill You Stone Dead

I've not watched BBC Breakfast for a while, replacing the misery of watching Bill Turnbull and Sian Williams (aka Mail-tuttery-personified) with the endurance test that is Atlas Shrugged. Well, I say that, but I will admit to taking a break from that as well, so that I could binge on Ed Brubaker's genius run on Captain America (surely the classic Cap run) and Ultimate Spider-Man by Bendis (on top form, thankfully) and Stuart Immonen. I know! I should end that frigging book, but I needed to see the new Captain America kick some right-wingers around, especially now that they're feeling so down. Obama's got a mandate, bitches! A mandate! Suck it up!

Anyway, this morning I paid more attention to BBC Breakfast than is healthy, primarily because today some evil corporate bastards have unleashed a new weapon against humanity, striking against our precious children by chaining them to an artificial reality in order to drain them of their resources, their souls, their potential. Such an apocalyptic event deserved full expression of their dismay, as they tried valiantly to prevent the theft of an entire generation. Yes, though it sickens me to say it, Blizzard released another WoW expansion pack. Those evil mind-controlling motherfuckers! Save the children from that thing we don't quite understand but will distrust anyway just to be on the safe side!


As soon as I saw the two disapproving parent-archetypes sitting on their sofa with all of the moral authority of two angry bags of compost, announcing the imminent discussion with all of the severity their little brains could muster, my heart sank. As I have said before when railing against this most insultingly alarmist show, I understand that early morning TV is meant to be light, but surely the release of an MMORPG expansion pack for one of the most successful, popular, and beloved games in the world is not going to bring about the death of childhood, and so acting like it is is surely the antithesis of "light chatter". I missed the start of the show, but Canyon informed me that even before their little snippy piece about the game began, they predictably brought up the death of a South Korean gamer from exhaustion which, in traditional BBC Breakfast style, was linked to World of Warcraft when, in fact, the guy died playing Starcraft. A small point, but indicative of the rigour with which the disapproving Luddites had researched the piece.

I almost didn't watch. It's been a while since I spent time watching Bill and Sian, simply because they make me so mad I can barely stand it. For all I know they have been railing against gaming with miserable regularity. "The release of a game called The Force Unleashed has raised concerns that children may turn to the Dark Side after playing it." "This game, Spore, encourages children to cultivate and eat diseases!" "Your children are at threat from LittleBigPlanet, which might make your children sew themselves into sacks!" Of course, this morning they were particularly terrible, using their stern faces to register disgust over the thought of anyone daring to play computer games which corrupt minds and destroy lives and many other imaginary things.

Though they've done this before, and even though they were talking (down) to three WoW fans instead of having some typically ineffectual and token balanced debate (which is usually conducted with the inclusion of some non-gaming crazy person with a head full of suspicion and fear), their behaviour this morning was even more snotty and dismissive as usual, probably because they resented wasting their time discussing something as "silly" as a game when OMG! They had the thrill of introducing a previously filmed clip of a BBC journo on a press junket interviewing Angelina Jolie about Changeling! The glamour of presenting BBC Breakfast should never be sullied with something as decadent and corrupting as a mere game. Get off our sofa, worthless fools, I could imagine Sian saying, as Bill sits and devours numerous custard creams while humming the theme to Dixon of Dock Green.


I felt especially bad for one player, Marijke Jensen, who was still clad in the Night Elf costume she had been wearing to the special release event at HMV Oxford Circus last night. It was a cool costume, and after Bill had expressed a somewhat unhealthy interest in it, she seemed to not expect his sneering "Whyyyyyyyyyyy?" because, you know, you don't think a TV presenter would be openly rude and dismissive like that, though she was friendly enough to defuse the moment with a genial acknowledgement that wearing something like that might seem extreme to, say, a trad-dad square from the McCarthy era magically transported to W1, 2008. The other guests, a hardcore player (Ben West) who had also attended the launch, and Tim Edwards from PC Gamer Magazine, then had to put up with Bill and Sian stumbling to understand what the game involves, not to mention returning to the same goddamn question, over and over again, about how long people play it. The poor guy who attended the launch, who had waited 36 hours in line, was mocked by Bill for waiting so long, but at least he tried to explain that he did it for the feeling of being a part of something, a community of like-minded people, that playing the game is a social thing and leads to real friendships (as regular Shades of Caruso visitor Jaredan can attest to). It's something Bill can't understand, as the only community he belongs to is Daily Mail Island, and they despise the BBC. It must be horribly depressing for him.

The piece continued for only a few minutes, but it felt like a million years, with both presenters tut-tutting at the amount of time devoted players spent on the game, and then reading out one viewer email from a Concerned Mother who complained at her 18-year old son's daily WoW marathons (12 hours a day, which seems excessive and probably exaggerated for effect), stating that he has no friends. Of course, anyone who plays the game will know that it's very easy to make friends online, and the game depends on social interaction and cooperation, but parents (and Bill and Sian, obviously) won't accept that because internet friends can't possibly exist or mean anything to their children, oblivious to the fact that they are probably grateful to meet people with the same hobby as them, who don't judge them for doing something they enjoy. After that single negative email Sian deigned to read a positive one, prefaced with the dismissive and frustrated bleat, "I have to say, the majority have been positive because they do play the game," which is the perfect example of how her mind remains closed against new information. Closed, because otherwise all of the Hypothetical Idiots she has invented will come spilling out, babbling hysterically, running into traffic, or eating quicklime, or maybe even playing a computer game for eight days without a break and then dying from dehydration.


As I said earlier, this anti-gaming suspicion is something I've gone on about before, and it's a really silly thing to get annoyed about, but the Today Programme is also getting in on the technophobia with a depressingly one-sided report, and the BBC News homepage features this special report, which makes me suspect the corporation is secretly really pissed at the failure of Fightbox. (Night Elf Marijke is on the far left on the homepage picture.)

Still, despite the depressing blanket suspicion across the BBC's coverage, I'm most incensed by Bill and Sian's obnoxious behaviour, telling their guests off for playing WoW for any amount of time (Bill kept tutting, "That's still a lot" no matter what the response), frowning constantly and belittling them for having an interest in something they don't understand. With the only "professional" interviewed being a young journalist, they felt free to treat their guests like ill-behaved delinquents, sniping at them and their hobby with distasteful arrogance. Even Bill's "jokes" about the Night Elf's ears were framed as a nasty side-effect of playing too long.

Obviously there is an issue about compulsive playing there; I'd be crazy to deny it (probably driven crazy by obsessive gaming!). However, any pursuit can potentially create obsessive behaviour in those who follow it, and many of the complaints about WoW are coming from parents whose children, who have retreated into what they see as a pointless fantasy world, would probably retreat into some other world away from their parents if they weren't gaming. It's called adolescence, and is a fact of life. Nevertheless, that coverage is not what annoys me. It's the distrustful attitude of much of the mainstream media, possibly resentful that young eyeballs are being stolen by gaming (or whatever the dehumanising term for viewing figure decline is this week), that gaming is always framed in terms of the harm it must do to children, that it is never seen as a positive thing or a potential source of much artistic value, that the fact that it brings people together is treated with much amusement by commentators stuck in their 20th Century world and unable to believe that social networking via any new form of technology can be enormously empowering and, at its most base level, a lot of fun. Families are being formed or brought together because of these developments. It's not threatening our way of life, it's enhancing it. Embrace our machine friends!

Most immediately, though, I'm furious about the rude attitude of Bill and Sian, who acted like stern parents to these total strangers, all of whom are over the age of 18 and surely deserving of some respect. It was bordering on bullying behaviour, to be honest, and I'm sick of seeing gamers treated like potentially unstable children. Even worse, I feel especially bad for gamers who have been up all night, filled with excitement about the release of a long-awaited expansion pack and happy to have been part of a joyful event populated by people who share the same interests as them, turning up to a BBC studio to enthuse about their hobby only to be treated like delusional freaks or criminals by the sub-moronic presenters of this appalling, amateurish, poorly researched piece of shit show.


Compare Bill and Sian's awful treatment of the three gamers with their fawning interview of singer and sentient oil slick Jonathan Ansell, whose oleaginous insincerity was only matched by their boundless delight at his dreary anecdotes about how wonderful he is. A truly nauseating display. If I could I'd organise a boycott of the show by bombarding gamer and legendary literary leviathan Charlie Brooker with incensed all-caps emails, but that's just the fatigue-induced temporary insanity talking, and has nothing to do with my recent Civilisation Revolution binges, which have lasted for up to five hours. Nothing to do with that at all.

Still, it was not all misery. They also had Dragon's Den judge Duncan Bannatyne on. I've yet to express my immense frustration at these pompous, self-aggrandising sinkholes who have convinced the BBC, a publicly funded corporation, to air a show that allows them to interview inventors and cherry-pick the best ideas for investment, from which they then make a fat wad of cash. Truly imaginative entrepreneurial thinking, there. Of course, I take great pleasure every time I hear that one of their rejects, usually dismissed with derision and laughter, has become a huge success without their minimal investment (usually offered in exchange for almost punitive shares in the new businesses). If I came up with a solid idea, the last thing I would do is give these crooks a chance to absorb my profits with their rapacious plundering.


Anyway, Bannatyne was on, and looking grumpier than usual. I wonder why? (There was a copy of the Sun sitting around the studio earlier in the show, during the sports news, and I can imagine it was whisked away and hidden with a quickness once they were done with it. Poor Duncan.)

ETA: Good to see I'm not the only one annoyed by Sian and Bill's arrogant embrace of technological ignorance, and worded with far more elegance than I can muster to boot.