Modern Family - "Fulgencio" - Review

If I had to recommend tv comedies to someone who had little knowledge of television, odds are that I probably wouldn’t suggest Modern Family. It probably wouldn’t broach my top 10 or even my top 20. The same goes for How I Met Your Mother and The Office for where they stand (though their earlier seasons might have me say otherwise). I want to abandon them; I want to clear up time to watch better, more enjoyable, less frustrating series. But I keep finding myself out of nostalgia for what these series used to be (and the glimpses of their former selves they occasionally show) and a desire for completeness, as if I can’t properly complain about how disappointing they’ve become if I’m not that stalwart individual suffering though it all. Modern Family hasn’t reached the consistently abysmal lows of HIMYM or The Office (although it edged along that line a fair amount last season).

Which is to say “Fulgencio” isn’t a very good episode either in terms of storytelling or in terms of jokes. I’m a sucker for a Godfather spoof as much as the next guy, but it feels like a poorly placed dues ex machina to solve a half-heartedly told story. We know Phil and Claire function as different roles for the kids and within the family but there wasn’t enough set up to establish Phil’s attempts to help his kids despite their protesting; there was also just as little follow through: we get a montage of Phil  sticking his nose where ought not to be stuck, but it’s dashed through without any time for any jokes to be told or scenes to breathe. 

We’ve never met or have even heard any mention of Gloria’s mother and sister, so we have little reason to care about them. They’re barely developed as actual people, and so thus are merely meant to serve as plot devices. However, the episode can’t even decide what their function is within the plot: Jay has met his match in terms of stubbornness (?) … sort of, but not really. There’s not a through line for the conflict for it to matter or for it to go anywhere (i.e. “I can’t win her over” “Oh, dad you’re the new Phil” “Jeez, your right, let me do something about it” and then he proceeds to win her over. Sure, he attempts to do it, but the failure doesn’t matter because it’s undercut by Gloria’s sister freaking out). Similarly, the case goes for Gloria nominally confronting her past and how she screwed her sister over – She’s pretty much responsible for her sister never traveling or leaving Columbia or making any money. These are all terrible things and it’s never commented upon with any level of seriousness which it should have been.

Cam and Mitchell are trying to be better role models for Lily when she starts getting snarky. But they’re freed of all burden of guilt for her sass mouthing because it turns out Claire was responsible and not them. So there’s no lesson to be had or real relevance for why we’ve been told this story. The tough choice between fostering Lily’s snark to go to a party and being the better person to raise her right is lifted from them. All agency, all responsibility up in smoke. Gloria doesn’t have to feel bad about what she’s done. Jay doesn’t have to win over his mother-in-law. The kids never have to confront their own problems. No one contemplates what the point of it all is or whether they should act better or more rationally in the future. In fact, Modern Family’s typical, clichéd voiceover tying up the story with a nice thematic bow is not present at the end of the episode. 

There’s no narrative drive, there’s no real stakes, and there’s not enough jokes (and not enough funny ones at that) to justify how helter skelter and empty the underlying premise of the plot is. 

Grade: C+

New Girl - "Pepperwood" - Review

We oftentimes judge our friends far more than people we don’t know or don’t like. Once you’ve developed a strong relationship with another person, you start to feel comfortable enough to make jokes at their expense, and even to talk about them behind their back. Everybody has got a “pogo”, the term Schmidt coins for the flaws of our friends that we judge them just a little bit on. If I’m being honest, my friends would probably say my “pogo” is either that I can be unintentionally arrogant or that I’m not outgoing enough. I’ve come to accept these flaws; they’re part of who I am, and I’m quite aware my friends probably talk about them a bit behind my back. That’s alright by me, but when you initially hear that there might be a “pogo” that your friends make fun of you for, well, it can be unnerving and bothersome.

The “pogo” concept at the heart of this episode is wonderfully sincere and honest (it even makes Winston’s penis brushing up against other people appear to be an oddly charming thing), and it’s definitely the type of thing 20/30somethings would be fighting over. This heartfelt, believable center drives an episode that’s immensely funny. Though the main plot is primarily about Jess’s creepy student who Nick feels probably wants to murder her, it’s the comedic work related to “pogo” that makes the episode standout.

Jess’s only student who seems to care about her teaching comes off like a possible serial killer. Nick fears for her life and pretends to be heavily Chicago accented “Julius Pepperwood” and shows up at Jess’s writing class. This completely frustrates Jess whose uncanny need to see the good in everyone makes her believe that this guy is everything he claims to be. They end up stalking the guy to his house to determine who’s right. While the whole storyline feels like it’s ready to broach into the cartoonish (and does when the guy turns out to be dating a woman who could be his mother’s age – a weird, unnecessary plot turn), Jake Johnson and Zooey Deschanel are so committed to the material (like where they fight for the notebook and it appears like they’re having sex, or wherea too stressed to think Jess crawls under a van, or the entire end sequence where Jess hops on the guys back and gets pepper sprayed) and get so many genuinely funny jokes that it didn’t matter.     

After brushing his manhood up against Cece accidentally, Schmidt reveals to him that “pogo” is the things about their friends that people talk about behind their friends’ backs. Everyone keeps stewing and wants to know what their pogo is. Schmidt in his quest to determine what his “pogo” is gets really, really weird. He ends up shaving part of his eyebrows (which is one of the oddest looking things I’ve seen in a long time), while Cece continues to whine about how she wants to know what her pogo is (like normal, non-Schmidt people would). The gang ends up telling and admitting to their “pogos” (Cece is a bit of a sass mouth, Schmidt has awful toe nails, Jess is a slight know-it-all, and Nick’s “pogo” isn’t funny: they’re worried he’s “not going to make it”). It all culminates in a great scene where all of them are confronting or have confronted their “pogos” while putting out a grease fire.

Despite what annoys us or bothers us about our friends, we like our friends and we enjoy their company. At the end of the day, we'll kiss and make up with those people important to us. New Girl has done enough groundwork to make it plausible that these characters would be openly discussing their "pogos" and then in turn making up as if it were no big deal.

Stray Observations:

-The “Annoying Bowl” – How epically awesome is that as a counterpart to the “Douche Jar”

-“He’s the first person I got to write in 1^st Person narrative” – And he wrote about murdering someone.

-Jess wonders what a gimp suit is, and Schmidt notes: “You’ve seen me in one before”

-“What’s my one rule?” Jess asks. Nick and Jess at the same time (with great line readings): “Don’t steal your yarn”

-Jess thinks of an alternative name for apricots: “sweet tangy balls”. Apparently she uses apricots too often in everyday life to use it as a “safe word”

-“They make shoes for penises. It’s called pants”

-Nick’s latest book he’s writing: “Julius Pepperwood: Zombie Detective”

Grade: A-

Cougar Town - "Between Two Worlds" - Review

The Avengers are really strange when you think about it. These are a bunch of superheroes that shouldn’t exist in the same story, let alone the same universe. And there’s no way that they should team up in spite of their differences. But we believe it when they do, and they are better off when they come together. Laurie compares the Cul-de-Sac Crew to the Avengers, and assigns powers to all of them (Grayson can do impressions, Andy can find things, Bobby gives great nicknames, Ellie can start fights). When the series initially started, you would never have imagined the group being as tight knit as they are. Grayson wanted nothing to do with the rest of them. Ellie and Laurie really did not get along. Trav was too young to nicely fit in with the group. Bobby and Jules's romantic history was problematic. Over the course of three seasons, the series brought them together and continued to strengthen the bonds that brought them together in the first place. This episode is about the Crew using their “powers” and their place within the group to restore balance to the universe.

Bobby Cobb knows his life isn’t all that great. His wife divorced him and re-married to one of his best friends. He lives on a crappy boat with spiders everywhere.  So he decides to give himself a nickname and becomes Ron Mexico: Total Badass. The name is so cool; it gets him out of tickets with cops and the attention of the ladies. He even sneaks into an AA meeting for free coffee, toting his life story which is oddly similar to Forest Gump’s (noting how many of the characteristics of alcoholics fit the group as well). But it’s all a façade. Bobby isn’t happy where his life is, but Andy cheers him up by noting how people change all the time and Bobby is going to do something BIG which will change how everyone perceives him. Not as a hapless good for nothing, but somebody who truly matters. Perhaps this is a stretch, but I took this as Andy actually using his ability to find things; he found the right thing to say (SHUT UP! I’M A SAP FOR THESE CHEESEY, SENTIMENTAL VIEWS OF THINGS!)

Laurie’s power to read the vibe of people has her very worried about her marine boyfriend Wade, who is off on a military assignment. She’s freaking out and worrying. Travis doesn’t seem to believe he has an ability, but he ends up distracting Laurie from her troubles by having her commit to figuring out what Trav’s ability is. She discovers that he’s “Selfless Man”. He’s willing to feel uncomfortable to confide in her mother that she needs to use her power of fixing things while having sex. He helps Laurie forget her worries for a little while because that's the kind of nice, selfless guy Travis is. 

Ellie puts into motion (as per her power) a fight between Jules and Grayson. Jules complains that there’s no passion to her relationship with Grayson (She wants it to be like it is between Ike and Tina for the first 20 minutes of What’s Love Got to Do with It?). However, she wants an easy fights where it never goes anywhere and she always gets her way. But needless to say, that’s just not how real fights work.  Grayson is upset that Jules won’t take up Ellis as her last name, but instead is keeping Cobb (her ex’s last name). Jules doesn’t want to have to go through the trouble of this (“What if someone were to yell at me that a piano was about to fall on my head?” She asks imagining she wouldn’t recognize when someone called her by her new name). They compromise in the end (while having sex, aka Jule’s power); Jules will be Jules Ellis, but only Grayson can call her that. 

It’s all very sweet and funny, and very much in the vein of typical Cougar Town. And unlike plots like last week’s moustache gag, almost every joke is followed through on. The Avengers joke, initially a throwaway joke, nicely ends up being a lynchpin of the episode both thematically and in terms of jokes (I could definitely see this becoming a running gag). Bobby’s revelatory speech felt well-earned and touching, and could have implications for later episodes for this season. While the Travis-Laurie storyline once again hints at the potential coupling there and Trav’s continued unrequited feelings, something it continues to handle well, leaving it up in the air but never being total dickish teases about it.

Stray Observations:

-“You were conceived when I was trying to fix the VCR remote”

-Title Card of the Week: “I got hired on Cougar Town and they only let me write these. My name's Donny. Hi, Mom.”

-“Question: where are his balls?” – Ellie eating Grayson’s imaginary balls was hilarious.

-“Emasculating men really turns me on” – Ellie in a nutshell.

-“I felt like a kid in a candy store” “So where were you?” “Candy store. They’re often used as covers for meth labs”

Grade: B+

"Punch Drunk Love" - Film Review

It’s weird to admit it but I think I actually liked Adam Sandler in a film. But Punch Drunk Love isn’t really an "Adam Sandler Movie" but rather a Paul Thomas Anderson film that just happens to feature the polarizing star. Comedians have recently taken a shining to starring in more unexpected dramatic work. Jim Carry appeared in The Truman Show and Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind. Ben Stiller starred in Greenberg. Here Anderson is able to get Sandler to rid himself of all his “Sandler-isms” (No goofy voices or weird, unnecessary variations in tone of voice) in order to get out of him an incredibly believable and fascinating character study (similar to Terry Gillam’s attempts to get Bruce Willis to stop his “Willis acting clichés”, such as his well-known steely gaze, for Twelve Monkeys). There’s times that you forget that this is Adam Sandler as the lead of the film Barry Egan. It’s a total departure and it’s tremendously satisfying to see him demonstrate real depth as a performer, bringing deep sadness and darkness to the quiet exterior of the main role.

The cinematography by Robert Elswit is nicely distilled and detached in a Kubrickian manner. Every shot is pale, white, and sanitized, revealing little and obscuring all. This is matched wonderfully by Jon Brion’s hyper, evocative original score that speaks volumes to the inner state of Barry. Sandler’s performance is understated with bursts of violence and rage, but more often than not it’s a minimally drawn upon slate where every slight muscle movement says so much of the deep struggles in Barry’s troubled mind. 

Barry appears to be plucked out of his stupor by a friend of his sister. However, Emily Watson who plays Barry’s love interest Lena Leonard isn’t a manic pixie dream girl. Though she finds something worthwhile in damaged, awkward, unstable Barry, there’s hints that she’s a tad fucked up herself (that whole scene where they’re having sex and saying things like, “I want to smash your skull in”, as if that’s the most sincere, heartfelt pillow talk, is deeply disturbing). 

Paul Thomas Anderson continues to produce striking films. While Punch Drunk Love is much more low-key and personal than Anderson’s other works including Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood, and Magnolia it remains quite unlike any other film out there. His films are visually bold, thematically rich, and filled with great performances, and Punch Drunk Love is no exception. While Punch Drunk Love is more slight and less imposing than these other films, it’s still an interesting character study with an improbably great performance from Sandler that’s filled with Anderson’s typically unique, memorable visual and stylistic choices.

Grade: B+

"Jackie Brown" - Film Review

Quentin Tarantino’s movies have been known to draw controversy; in fact, he tends to invite it with his hyper-violent, unapologetic, sensationalist film style. Long before people were crying foul at Django Unchained for its racial and exploitation elements, there were similar criticisms being thrown at Jackie Brown. The film borrows heavily from Blaxploitation of the 70’s and 80’s, and Pam Grier feels like one of the strong black female leads from many of the best Blaxploitation movies (such as those that Grier herself starred in including Coffy and Foxy Brown). The soundtrack is largely lifted from Blaxploitation movies or is the type of funk or soul music that would often be featured in those types of films.

The problems that exist in Jackie Brown though primarily aren’t from the racial themes (although they’re probably too surface level for a film so drenched in Blaxploitation influence). The film is too sophomoric in its efforts. As to be expected from Tarantino, there are memorable moments, inspired shots (the opening title sequence is great, as is the way he chooses to film the murder of Christ Tucker’s Beaumont Livingston), and great dialogue, but the film feels far too casual and aimless. Unlike other Tarantino flicks which feel like they build towards some narrative end (think of the Mexican standoff in Reservoir Dogs, the burning theater in Inglourious Basterds, or Django seeking vengeance); Jackie Brown feels far too content to wander along without any real purpose or drive.

The whole subplot with a very unmotivated Robert De Niro as a recently released convict doesn’t really have any business being part of the narrative despite a brief role in the climax of the movie. De Niro seems to care so little about being in the movie and reads his lines with the enthusiasm of drying paint. Similarly, while I enjoyed Bridget Fonda as Melanie, it’s just another character we spend time with for no particularly pressing reason.Now Tarantino has taken aimless meandering before and used it for real purposes and great effect (for example, the bar scene in Inglourious Basterds that ends up erupting in violence). While how Jackie plays both the cops and Ordell is fairly interesting and impressive, it’s dragged out for far too long. 

Grier is great as Brown though; she shifts effortlessly from cooing sweetly to exploding with rage. Samuel L. Jackson is essentially playing a variant on every character he’s ever played before (except this time with a weird looking pony tail), but he’s still as fun to watch as ever as he flies off the handle at everyone in his vicinity.  

I suspect much of what holds back the film is that it’s an adaptation of Elemore Leonard’s novel “Rum Punch”. Jackie Brown is the only Tarantino film adapted from another work, and it lacks the kinetic energy of many of his other films. Tarantino followed the novel’s plot rather closely and this totally limited the creative capacity of Tarantino to achieve a more interesting creative vision. 

Jackie Brown is an interesting blaxploitation influenced crime drama that’s entertaining but lacks the ambitions of Tarantino’s best films.

Grade: B

"In the Mood for Love" - Film Review

If In the Mood for Love were made in the U.S., it would be about the other two spouses we don’t see having an affair, bored with their marriage. Instead, it’s the more interesting flip side of the equation: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) slowly coming to the realization that their distant, estranged spouses are having an affair and likely with the other one’s partner. Out of loneliness and a shared sense of connection from their problems, they begin a deeply meaningful but platonic relationship that grows as time goes by. Though they keep saying they want to be the better people and not act on their budding feelings, the tension between them remains rife and palpable. The more time goes by, the more we desire to see them tell their adulterous spouses off and get together.

Like Shigeru Umebayashi’s reoccurring, motivic “Yumeji's Theme”, the film is ferverous, passionate, and ready to boil over at any moment, but also filled with undertones of sadness, melancholy, longing, and lost.

The film is at once grounded and realistic, and yet stylistically and aesthetically interesting and ambitious. Auteur Wong Kar-wai fills the film with vivid imagery and interesting shots. The colorful, buoyant appearances formed from its 1960’s period piece dressing are undercut by long, slow moving sequences of isolation and sadness and shots framed to suggest how alone and trapped characters are (characters framed in doorways is a frequent motif of the film).  

Damaged, quiet and resilient, the characters keep fighting through their suffering and longing, hurting themselves and eachother more and more. Leung and Cheung have such obvious chemistry and give wonderfully understated performances. 

The film lets shots speak for themselves. Small gestures such as the caress of a hand, or longing looks, and sober, sorrowful expressions speak far more volumes than any amount of dialogue. 

Visually immersive and stylish, and quite unlike any typical romantic narrative, In the Mood for Love is a masterfully unique film. 

Grade: A

"The Help" - Film Review

When we think of the South as depicted in pop culture we tend to have certain conceptions of it our mind. Southern gentlemen; southern belles; a bit of rednecks and hicks; a stubborn honorable streak. But we often times forget about just how densely populated the South is with the African American communities of our country. More than half of the black population of the U.S. resides in the South. Which means the story of our southern states is largely the story of what happened to those individuals who struggled under the prejudices and racist strains so prominent in the South.

The Help tells the story of frizzy haired, noble minded Eugenia “Skeeter” Phelan (Emma Stone) who’s looking to become a journalist, but can only find work writing for a domestic advice column. Skeeter has always been compassionate towards the black help that are in almost every home in Jackson, Mississippi. She recognizes that her own maid Constantine Bates (Cicley Tyson) had a greater hand in raising her than her own kind but far too appearance minded mother (Allison Janney). She decides that she has an obligation to tell the story of the help from their perspective, and slowly but surely she wins over the likes of temperate Aibileen Clark (Viola Davis) and feisty Minny Jackson (Octavia Spencer) to tell their stories.

The Help could have been just another conventional story about the civil rights movement, and at times it’s exactly just that (the racial questions are probably not delved into as deeply as a film with this subject matter ought to have been). However, the film forms a heart at the center of the story by creating several likable, memorable characters. These characters don’t simply do the right thing because it’s right (in a wash our hands and be done with it sort of way) but rather have to struggle with what the consequences of standing up against the injustices of the time will be. Skeeter doesn’t win over Aibileen and Minny immediately; she has to get them to talk slowly and begrudgingly against their better judgements so that when the predictable happens and they do speak, it’s all the more satisfying. 

The film is both laugh out loud funny (that whole business about the “chocolate pie” is too, too funny) and tearjerker touching (and abundantly features both – Stephen Colbert’s tagline for his book immediately comes to mind: “I laughed, I cried, I lost 10 pounds” and would totally be fitting for this film). But these tonal shifts never feel jarring or bizarre. In fact, each tends to affect the other. Minny’s struggles to teach the ditzy, naïve Celia Foote (Jessica Chastain) domestic work are very funny at times, but they inform what ends up being some very moving moments where Celia treats Minny as not just a confidante but a trusted friend. 

The film features so many great performances that are given really great material to work with (from writer/director Tate Taylor). You never once doubt that Stone’s determined, wide eyed Skeeter actually cares about the plight of the help. Bryce Dallas Howard is frustratingly convincing as Hilly Holbrook, stuck up Stepford Wife whose racist antagonism drives so much of the need for Skeeter to write the book in the first place. Octavia Spencer brings such warmth and humanity to a character who very well could have become a caricature in the wrong hands. Similarly, Jessica Chastain brings so much sadness and heart to a character that is borderline stock character. Even smaller roles are given so much to work with; Sissy Spacek is deeply funny for her brief stint as Mrs. Walters. 

The Help is a compassionate, funny, moving film bolstered by a great cast. 

Grade: B