Bob's Burgers - "Broadcast Wagstaff School News" - Review

Damn if Bob’s Burgers isn’t having one of animated television’s best seasons, and one of this tv season's best and most consistent seasons of television. The series appeared to have peaked in “Mother Daughter Laser Razor”, but last night’s episode “Broadcast Wagstaff School News” is wonderfully funny and features some of the series best gags to date. It may not be nearly as heartwarming and touching as “Mother Daughter Laser Razor” and it may not be as maddeningly absurd and laser focused as “An Indecent Thanksgiving Proposal”, but it still demonstrates much of the idiosyncratic, offbeat humor and character driven comedy that makes Bob’s Burger the endearing, quirky comedy that it is.

The show has always been brilliant at taking something that at face value is a dark, weird Family Guy-esque piece of humor that in the wrong hands could be childlike and forgettable. In this case the show tackles scatological humor and finds a story worth telling while also making joke after joke about poop. It’s a good thing that at the heart of this story is Tina, who’s so utterly sincere that the idea of her investigating a serial pooper is totally amusing. 

The formatting of the school news show, and the ideas for some of their stories for the news program allows for a faster pace and rate of jokes than typical for the series. The quick establishment of Tina’s story and heading straight into the story makes for one of the most efficient episodes the series has done. The news channel also allows for the return of some of the series best supporting characters including Ollie and Andy, and  Jimmy Pesto (dancing as always).  

The highlight of the episode though is an amazing sight gag where Gene, after learning his father looked a lot like him as a kid, decides to reform himself in the exact, spot-on image of Bob (bald-spot and all). He proceeds for the rest of the episode to imitate his father with surprising, hilarious accuracy (causing even his mother to forget at times that she’s talking to her son as Bob and not Bob himself – to the chagrin of Bob). The best scene to come out of this is one where Bob and Gene have an increasingly escalating “’Bob’ Off” in their crowded bathroom.

It’s not by any stretch of the imagination this series most memorable piece of storytelling, but it is very, very funny and it’s a wonderful example of this show having the confidence to tell understated, amusing, smart stories with an ease and comfort level that many other series lack. 

Grade: A-

Girls - "Bad Friend" - Review

“It seemed like you two shouldn’t have been roommates” – Laird

Girls isn’t just about Hannah Horvath, depressingly self-centered protagonist, but rather it’s often just as much about her former roommate and nominal best friend (and equally selfish, narcissistic human being) Marnie. The last two episodes their relationship has been sidelined, which make sense since they’re no longer roommates. There was a single scene in each episode where Hannah spewed out the polite bullshit of “I’m so busy” as to why they haven’t hung out as much since their fallout last season. However, there’s more to it than these simple epitaphs holding back the two of them from continuing their bond uninhibited, and it’s not merely that Elijah and Marnie had the obligatory awkward sex scene written into the contracts of the regulars of the series. The simple fact, as the surprisingly spot-on quote from downstairs neighbor and recovered drug addict Laird notes, is that Hannah and Marnie aren’t exactly the most suitable pair of people for eachother. Their deep seeded self-interest and their naiveté about other people’s feelings and the way the world works is easily combustible when put under enough pressure (as we already saw happen last season).

This blow-up didn’t need the spark of Elijah and Marnie boning for an infinitesimal amount of time. Some action or event was going to lead to this down the road. However, no matter the cause of the blow-up, Hannah probably wouldn’t have reacted much better had she been cocaine-free when the big reveal came. She might not have headed over right away to pseudo-intellectual poser Booth Jonathan’s apartment and created an even more disastrous mess than already existed. But she would have confronted Marnie and it in all likelihood would have ended very, very badly.

This aspect of the episode intrigued me immensely, but elsewhere a fair amount felt cartoonish. The internet company “JazzHate” (its name bizarre and funny, but stretching credulity) is oddly broad and unbelievable. I totally buy into Hannah attempting to get a job with some company; I buy even more so that at best she’d only manage to scrounge up a freelancing gig. However, it begins to descend into a Dhali’s melting clock like self-aware oddness when the interviewer Jame (Not Jamie!) provides freelance suggestions, including having a threeway with people on Craig’s List, and, the one she eventually attempts, to write about her experiences trying cocaine. The strangeness of this scene isn’t from the typical observation of small character beats or the peculiar nuances of something (which the series is very good at writing), but the wholesale imagination of a company whose motto is: “This is where the magic happens” (a joke hard to describe in fullness without the visual imagery and Jame’s explanation accompanying it). However, Hannah is so desperate for a job and money that she goes to her junkie neighbor Laird (who of course until Marnie brings it up Hannah didn’t realize was a junkie but thought instead he had leprosy) and has him buy her cocaine.

Similarly, Booth Jonathan is an almost implausibly fucking weird dude who isn’t cool, but rather just deeply dickish and even possibly disturbed. If his pet project art designs have any indication (the dollhouse inspired by newspaper accounts of murder featuring the iconic Shining phrase “Redrum” would suggest Marnie is an idiot for having an interest in this guy), the guy is just a weirdo with not much real talent (WHAT IN FUCKS NAME WAS THAT BOOTH WITH THE TELEVISIONS??!!). But as Hannah notes, Marnie is perhaps a little “obsessed” with the guy. She finds (in that young twentysomething way) his art to be transcendental or “fucking genius” when it’s really just empty and pointless and makes no real meaningful statement. But as we’ve seen the past (e.g. last season's "All the Adventurous Women Do", in fact, where we first meet Booth) Marnie is very naïve, hopeless and desperate when it comes to relationships. She’s emotionally unstable and vulnerable. She’s susceptible to the charms of people confident enough (and honestly skeevey and douchey enough as well) to tell her what they want her to do and be. She became frustrated with her relationship with Charlie because Charlie was a “yes man” who didn’t challenge her or push her to be anything she didn’t want to be (and at the same time now, she truly does miss Charlie being in her life and the hole now left in his wake). So of course she has the creepiest, most awkward, most unsatisfying sex of the week with Booth (who has her describe a creepy, blank gazed China doll he has placed watching them fuck). It’s totally in-character that Marnie would do this sort of thing, but Booth reads like a walking cliché, spouting off such string thin faux intellectualism as “The early 90’s were so suburban”.

If we’re being honest, all this previous build up made the episode into the least strong of the first three episodes thus far this season. At least, that is until Hannah arrives at Booth’s apartment to yell feverishly at Marnie. That final scene feels like it put everything that came before it into sharper focus, as if everything prior was “all prologue” to the oncoming train wreck. It actually took me completely by surprise that Elijah’s coke-fueled state would push him over the edge and lead him to confess to Hannah that he slept with Marnie. It’s the type of plot development that in the hands of a lesser show they’d drag out melodramatically, hanging it like a dark plague over all the forthcoming events of the season. However, Dunham pulls the rug out from under us and provides a far more interesting and exciting direction for the series that will hopefully lead to some much needed exploration of the relationship between Hannah and Marnie.

I haven’t even gotten to the best part of this blow-up, which is the piece of dialogue which provides this episode with its title. “May be you’re not the good friend and maybe I’m not the bad friend!” Hannah accusingly sneers at Marnie and a heartbroken Marnie has no course of action but to stand there and take the piling on of crap against her. It’s all true to an extent but it’s done so tactlessly and mean spiritedly that it once against makes Hannah look like a total asshole and leads our sympathies to shift to Marnie. I have my qualms with Marnie, but when she blurts out, “Alright! I’m a bad friend,” it’s a painful and sad moment that’s coming from an incredibly damaged individual.

Drugged up Hannah leaves infuriated and unfulfilled, not even able to enjoy her coke-filled adventures from earlier in the episode, and so she wants to forget her troubles and bury them. What better way to achieve this than to hook up with some random schlub? Well, perhaps, that rando shouldn’t be your downstairs neighbor (who has a weird stalkerish obsession with you). But Hannah has never been one to shy away from doing something rather stupid and questionable, and this is actually perhaps her least eye raising action to date. In the wake of breaking up with Sandy, unhinging Adam, and falling out with Marnie, it’s not entirely surprising, but it’s hard not to cry out: “Why Hannah?!” Hannah may never learn, and her taking to heart a life lession in full would probably make this series stale and unmemorable; however, she’ll still coke up and rage out even when there’s no sensible logic to it. But then again, who needs logic when you’re in your twenties?

Stray Observations:

-“Yea, all the junkies at my place hang out by the mailbox” – Why is there not more Shoshanna?! She is the best underutilized character. We do, however, learn that she’s still with Ray and has the sort of relationship complaints next to no one cares about (Hannah, in perfect character beat, ignores Shosh and cuts her off midway to discuss her cocaine plans).

-Also: next to none Jessa, who is illegally selling wares of clothing on the street in front of her apartment.

-“I get that it takes what it takes to get through life” – Hannah feigns to know what it’s like to be a drug addict.

-“You work here… that’s depressing” – Booth may be a total weird dick, but he has a point. I also can’t stop thinking about Elijah’s beautifully spot-on description of Marnie’s work outfit from last episode: “Slutty Von Trapp”. It is burnt into my mind.

-Apparently there’s a proper dress code for doing cocaine. I never would have guessed. Elijah describes his outfit choice for Hannah: “It’s inspired by a girl I went to middle school with who fucked her uncle and dad”.

-“She’s feeling sassy…?” “No she’s sad” - Does it really matter? I’ve heard of fetishes before but …

-“I was supposed to be your last” – There’s a level of new patheticness to this whole statement. How insecure do you have to be that this holds some value for you?

-Laird wants Hannah and Elijah to take his heroin away from him. Elijah is very enthusiastic about this prospect, while Hannah is not.   

Grade: B-

My Thought on Season 3 of "The Shield"

Spoilers on Season 3 of "The Shield" Below:

The 3^rd Season of The Shield isn’t nearly as good as the previous two seasons that came before it. It’s not that it was bad (the show was still far outperforming most other tv series), but the show had become more unfocused. The stakes didn’t feel as high and a number of characters felt poorly utilized (Danny is barely given any major story time). The reason for this became clear to me at the end of episode 9’s “Slipknot”; the Strike Team really hadn’t been the Strike Team all season long. Under the watchful gaze of Claudette as their new supervisor, the Strike Team wasn’t out on the street beating up on drug dealers, prostitutes, and the like.

There were still complications as per usual; most notably the consequences of the Money Train blowing up in the Strike Team’s face, but the Strike Team didn’t feel like the ground would come out from them at any moment like in the second half of the 1st season or almost the entirety of the 2^nd season. 

Much of the conflicts thrown at the Strike Team were contained, too brief, or episodic, and this led to a stop-and-start feel that undermined the season. The consequences of Tayvon and Shane’s gruesome, bloody fight and the undercover squad blew over too quick and too forgettablely.  

There remained to be some incredibly interesting character and plot decisions. Aceveda getting forcibly raped was unnerving and disturbing, and ultimately brought out a battered, damaged side out of the character seen too infrequently. The Dutch received the opportunity to show a bit of the shattered, dark psyche underneath the brilliant (albeit desensitized) investigative mind (when he kills the cat to recreate the emotional experience of a rapist, it’s not just unsettling but tinged with deep isolation and sadness). Shane was given more screentime that humanized him far more than in the past, where he could at times be too needlessly, caricaturely mean and cruel. Racial questions that had been dealt with fleetingly or as subplots garnered entire episodes that handled them more fully, including “Slipknot” and “Riceburner”.

But too much of the third season was territory far too well-trotted; Vic and Claudette being at odds was too familiar at times, as was Vic and Aceveda butting heads. When the Dutch and Vic came into conflict at the end of the season (Wagenbach got the inclination that Vic had a hand in the money train) it felt like the plausible and grounded, but unexpected character turns and plot movement that had got me invested in the series in the first place.

The Shield in some respects remained inimitably, indelibly good. But in failing to shake up its formula enough this late in its run, it began to feel like it was just going through the motions.

"Audition" - Film Review

 Splatter films re-emerged at the turn of the 21st century, but many lacked the intelligence or craftsmanship of their forbearers (e.g. Dawn of the Dead, Eyes Without a Face, Black Sunday, and Bad Taste). These new splatter films were dubbed by detractors as “torture porn”. They excessively turned up the blood and nudity (often at the expense of the characters and character development). Some of the films noted as part of this trend, such as the Saw and Hostel franchises, literally feature torture. The newer films misunderstand the point of the buckets of blood of their predecessors. Older films used gleeful amounts of blood (on smaller budgets) not just because it was entertaining, but because it began to broach a level of uncomfortable, self-aware absurdity; the blood and violence was a commentary. The new films feature all the blood but none of the brains. The blood is a means in of itself for the latest batch of splatter horror. For the older films, there was something entertaining to be had from it for sure, but not at the cost of making an interesting, memorable, thoughtful film.

While Audition is more of a psychological horror film than a splatter movie, it does end very bloody. However, Audition builds the groundwork to justify its use of the blood and the context in which it’s used. It earns the moments where it shocks and disturbs us.

Audition is a film that’s meant to provoke; to get a reaction. The last 30 minutes are so disturbing, unsettling, and jarring that they feel like a very different film at times from what we’ve seen before it (including a dreamlike montage that’s disgusting and disconcerting). But there have been hints that this is the ultimate direction the film is leading to. The suggestions up to this point should lead us to believe that Yamazaki Asami (Eihi Shiina) is perhaps not the most stable or normal or even sane of individuals (including a particularly memorable, creepy scene where we first get to see the inside of Asami’s apartment).

Aoyama Shigeharu (Ryo Ishibashi) may be a lonely widower desperate for, and encouraged to, marry someone. But the way he goes about finding someone to marry is rather misogynistic and devious. Shigeharu, at the behest of a friend who works for a television company, fakes a tv show audition in order to "audition" young women for the “role” of his wife. Shigeharu narrows the resumes down to the top 30, but becomes fixated on Asami when he reads her essay about an injury that stopped her from performing ballet ever again. Imagining she has real emotional depth, he becomes absolutely obsessed with Asami, too blinded to pick up on the fact that sometimes emotional depth is caused by deep psychological damage and trauma.  

Shigeharu ultimately gets payback for his questionable actions. I won’t get into much detail, but boy is it fucked up. Asami may be crazy but she’s definitely been wronged in the way she’s been chosen as Shigaru’s future wife, and so on some level we root for her vengeance against the man who objectified and mislead her. The ending is a slight cop out though that ties up things a little too nicely for a film that is so thoroughly marked by deep, vivid psychologically unnerving imagery. 

Audition will disturb and unsettle you; it gets uncomfortably under your skin, and it doesn’t hold back its horror punches that it builds up wonderfully to and then forces you to stew in. There are better horror movies, but there aren’t many quite like director Takashi Miike’s Audition. 

Grade: B+

Archer - "The Wind Cries Mary" - Review

Jokes at the expense of gay characters for being gay is overplayed and often in poor taste. Archer manages to get away with it though because the character that’s the target of these jokes and jabs is paragon of masculinity Sterling Archer.

The high concept of the Bob’s Burger crossover has subsided, and though we don’t get anything nearly as interesting or memorable, this episode is far more focused, standard fare for an Archer outing that gets in more jokes per minute than the previous episode (which became so hung up on how to justify the Bob’s Burger crossover that everything was overshadowed by it).

While a good deal of the supporting players aren’t nearly as involved as I would have liked (there’s  not a whole lot of Cheryl, Pam, and Ray – and besides a bizarre running gag involving radioactive ants, there’s not much Krieger ). But that’s okay because this half-hour is all about Sterling and chipping away at his drunken, womanizing exterior. Archer is forced to accept more and more that his good friend Lucas Troy (an always welcome Timothy Olyphant) was probably gay and, more importantly, probably gay for him. This is territory well-worth exploring and the series does it in typically absurd, funny fashion.  

Grade: A-

Vampire Diaries - "Catch Me if You Can" - Review

So much of “Catch Me if You Can” is about table setting. By episodes end Damon is locked away in the Salvatore basement, Rebekah and Stefan are bumping uglies, Bonnie has finally wised up to Shane and has begun being consumed by black magic, and Jeremy has a new plan (courtesy of Elena) for dealing with his hunter’s tattoo problem.

There are a number of anticlimaxes and odd plot decisions that undermine some of the forward momentum of this episode. Like, where does Elena come from during the cold open scene? She pops up out of nowhere. Yea, we know she was headed down to the lake house, but it’s peculiar that she just seems to appear suddenly. Similarly, Stefan shows up deus ex machine style to stop a compelled Damon from killing Jeremy though he really doesn’t want to. Damon’s compulsion appears to be a nicely handled way to sideline Damon for a while (which the series hopefully will use to do interesting things with Elena’s relationships within the love triangle). While Kol remains alive, Damon will stop at nothing to kill Jeremy, which would totes upset Elena, his beau. But it’s unfortunate that in order to earn this moment the cliffhanger from last episode has to be so completely undercut. Kol comes out of the blue and demolishes all the newly baked vampires. It feels as if the writers are aware that it’s far too soon in the season for Jeremy to finish the tattoo and thus they formed an (initially) annoying plot decision to undo the horde of vampires.  

Over in our first subplot, Bonnie (aka most stupidly frustrating character ever) finally discovers what everyone and their mother has known forever and always: Shane’s an asshole and a bad human being. He had a hand in the mass murder/suicide caused by the late Reverend Young. After distrusting every worthwhile character in the series up to this point (including both of her best friends Elena and Caroline), she decides, ya know what, why don’t I give trusting someone a shot, and guess what: guy plans to unleash an immortal evil on the earth in the form of Silas. Not only that, but Bonnie can’t control her dark magic anymore which has begun to consumer her. Well, that’s just great for everyone. 

In the much more interesting sub-plot, Stefan and Rebekah team up to steal the headstone of Silas from Shane. But, more importantly: the sexual tension could be cut with a knife. I’m totally down for this pairing. Someone is going to get with Elena, and the only way we can have the series end on a note that leaves pretty much everyone happy is if either Damon or Stefan finds another love interest. Sure, at the moment, it’s only about sex. Hot, steamy sex. But Rebekah and Stefan did date at one point, as Rebekah so astutely notes (in a damn hot, sexy scene), they had fun in the 1920’s drinking, killing, and having “crazy sex”… Oh, and there was something about the possibility of another unknown group of people also attempting to find the cure… but I was too busy writing fan fiction and shipping different couples. 

“Catch Me If You Can” isn’t the best episode the series has done, but it’s still sexy, smart, and fun. It ultimately suffers from the challenge of (in an overstuffed manner) establishing plots that for now feel like they will be important for BIG PICTURE STUFF. Only time will tell.

Stray Observations:

-“I’m taking artistic licenses”

-The opening was very moody, and beautifully shot despite how shakey it may have been

-“This is Mystic Falls. That’s actually the least ridiculous thing I’ve heard”

-“You don’t know what I look like when I’m not in love with you”- Paul Wesley’s performance becomes so much stronger when Stefan is being the bad guy.

Grade: B

30 Rock - "A Goon’s Deed in a Weary World” - Review

Most series are content to spit out mediocre work in their last few seasons. 30 Rock, however, is producing some of its best episodes to date. Not only is “A Goon’s Deed in a Weary World” a great episode and possibly the best episode this season, but it may very well be one of the series best episodes. Period.

The quality, variety, and amount of jokes feel like they’re at the level of craftsmanship when the series was at its best in early seasons. There’s parody (a sub-plot lovingly in homage to Willy Wonka), sight gags (the skeleton co-worker dream where Lutz still fails to get things right), meta humor (the greenscreen joke; “Expensive musical cues are the sort of thing you can’t afford anymore”), play on words (“I’ll see what I can do, but through back channels” “BET?” “Back channels”), and even the cartoonish (“Tramp Store”; a German cannibal advertiser: “Even Gunther is thinking of backing out”). Highbrow and low brow reside side by side, and so many jokes are blink and you miss them, and take a second to process. 

However, not only is this one of 30 Rock’s funniest half-hours yet, but also one of its best plotted. Unlike other series that cram in as many jokes as possible without remembering their characters or story arcs at the heart of it all, 30 Rock has always succeeded at telling stories in the midst of the crazy at 30 Rockefeller.  

The stakes feel high with TGS put in peril, and Liz attempts to rally the troops, but with little results. No one is taking Liz seriously. Advertisers are dropping out and the show has to be made on a shoe string budget. The writers goof off and fail to write anything, while Tracy and Jenna stir up trouble with the press and end up doing no promotion for the show. Jack can’t help his protégé because as much as he admires and is endeared to Liz, it’s not the most sound first decision as the person soon to be CEO of Kabletown. Liz is so high strung and dedicated to TGS that she’s even willing to miss the arrival of her newly adopted kids. When her co-workers hear of this, it shames them so badly that in an odd but touching act of solidarity they all quit in front of the board members of NBC. Liz rushes to the airport just in time to meet her adopted twins, who look suspiciously liking mini-Tracy and Jenna’s (apparently her time practically raising Jenna and Tracy will pay off in her real-life parenting concerns). 

The no less significant sub-plot (especially for how it ends with Kenneth Parcel the most unlikely of Presidents of a television network), involves Jack in Willy Wonka fashion challenging the top candidates for the NBC President position he formerly held. They’re all terrible, including the one Kenneth has pegged for a “pure heart” (the guy intended to strip the building for parts as broadcast television is totally an unviable prospect these days). Jack ultimately realizes that everything he tried to do for the company (even his dubious attempts to tank it) never went as he planned them to and always played against his hand. He finds himself convinced that perhaps someone who actually deeply cares about television and not the bottom line might just save NBC from disaster.

This isn’t a show plodding towards its inevitable end. This is a show confidently telling with laser precision interesting stories about characters we’ve come to like and never sacrificing quantity or quality of jokes in the process.   

Stray Observations:

-“Boy, women who to try to do things sure do die a lot”

-“My whole life has been building to this moment! – Wait really? That’s terrible”

-Jack admires Willy Wonka. There’s no government regulations in his factory.

-“TGS sounds like am STD you know I’ve got”

-George Clooney had the perfect role lined up for him post-“ER”: “Dumb gay batman”.

-The moonlanding was staged at studio 30.

Grade: A