A week-in-TV recap from January: Fresh Off the Boat (Liar Liar), LA to Vegas review, Good Place (Best Self, Leap of Faith), The Mick (Trip, Climb), Corporate (Void, Powerpoint of Death), Gifted

A very casually written (as in not something that should be used as a professional sample of my work) week-in-TV recap I do for the folks at the Ice Box that was posted back in January:

Fresh Off the Boat: Liar Liar
This TV show tries to have an A-plot and B-plot that thematically run together a little too consciously: Nicole wants to fit in with her crush and Louis wants to fit in with the guys. The only problem is that I cannot remember anything about Louis’s plot a few days after watching the episode. Some people would say I have a responsibility as a critic to rewatch so I can recap, but screw those people: If you can’t remember anything about a plotline, it must have sucked. It makes sense: Louis is an easy-going guy. He’s great at facilitating plots but he’s not particularly strong as the central conflict of an episode. In the A-plot, Nicole learns a lesson about love and Eddie follows the same pattern of being a good guy but having stumbling books en route. Eddie’s tastes have always been grounded in things that seem stupid in retrospect and here, he can’t get enough of Jim Carrey.
Two main discussion-provoking questions: 
1) Is Nicole’s courtship with the other Lesbian girl an accurate portrayal of teenage lesbian courting in that time period? I am one year younger than Eddie and at that time in the late 1990’, it was very common to be suspicious about other people being gay and it was definitely a bad thing or something that had to be explained away. Compound that with the teenage ostracizing and I’m wondering just how on the DL Nicole needed to be. The gay people I knew in my high school struggled enough to be recognized as gay, let alone have love lives. They generally assumed that if they went to a very liberal college or moved to a big city, they would be able to have them. Of course, it would help that Nicole was very badass (at least in the early episodes. Her first on-screen appearance was knocking a slushie out of a kid’s hands although she’s since been softened almost to the point of flanderization) and already popular in school when coming out?
2) Is "Fresh Off the Boat" intended to comment on the 90’s with appreciation for it or is it intended to comment ironically? Eddie’s obsession with gangstar rap is always played for absurdity. A number of these references, that the show thrives on, is treated without the distance that we have now. In the 1990s, we thought that Titanic would never be equaled in terms of storyline or special effects, that Shaq had a promising career as an actor and that Jim Carrey was high art.

LA to Vegas: First Two Episodes:
The attempt at a balls-to-the-wall lowbrow look at the airline industry (similar to “Airplane” but with slightly less scatological humor) follows Dylan McDermott (best known as Dermot Mulroney’s evil twin), Nathan Lee Graham (best known for playing stereotypical gay roles in films like “Zoolander” and “Sweet Home Alabama”), and Kim Mutola (no idea who she is but she can play standard vulnerable blonde protagonist serviceably) play our surrogate eyes and ears for what it’s like to work on an airplane. The two flight attendants are a bit more grounded in reality whereas Dermot Mulroney (ooops, I mean Dylan McDermott) conveys Leslie Nielsen levels of absurdity as his antics so far include whining about not joining the mile high club, having drinks with passengers, losing the muscle memory to land the plane, and doing jujitsu on a passenger.

Peter Stromare (seriously? This undervalued dramatic character actor has nothing better to do than do an imitation of  Bali from “Perfect Strangers”?) plays a gambler of Eastern European descent and Ed Weeks ("Mindy Project") plays an economics professor who serves as Ronnie’s (Mutola) love interest. These two (and the strippers that appeared in the pilot but not the second episode might also recur, who knows) [update: Several episodes in, it's now apparent that Olivia Macklin is regular on the show as the Nichole] are connected to the show through sitcom-logic which keeps characters together in the same space that otherwise might not be (“Community” and the 2006 Jason Ritter vehicle “The Class” would fall under this) if you consider that occasionally one of these two might book another flight.
[Update: This review should be extended to note that ]

The show, at this point, is adequate with some room for growth.

The Good Place-Best Self/Leap of Faith
Leap of Faith was a little plot-holey. Didn’t Michael play it a little close to the vest with their eternal damnation at stake? The script nicely patched in that hole with the workaround that Michael left them thousands of clues but they only get a few of them. It still felt like a work-around.
From our perspective, however, the episode delivered exactly what The Good Place does which provides comic suspense. The Good Place often seems like it only has one or two episodes left in totality and no idea what it will do next.

“Best Self” was anti-climactic in the first act. The four needing to get on a balloon is a perfect conundrum you hope would take a whole episode to work through, but it was all a shame. Bummer. Then the episode devolves into a sentimental boozefest which is kind of fun from a hang-out perspective, but remember these guys are on the 800th reboot and don’t know each other as well as our out-of-universe perspective. The episode ends with its best bit of humor in Sean texting with the style of a teenager (autocorrect acknowledgements, lols) as he’s talking about hellfire. The episode ends with the one necessity it needs to move the plot forward (their new idea for how to get into heaven). This is a TV show with a long endgame, so having only one plot-relevant moment an episode and letting everything else fall under comedy is not necessarily bad.

The Mick: The Climb
“The Climb” has the kind of maneuvering between characters that epitomizes this show at its best. Ben has a twerp (autocorrect was not particularly generous with my first attempt at that word) of a friend that pisses Mick off until she realizes that her mom is former 90210 star Jenny Garth. Millions of 90’s children probably stared at the screen wondering: Where the hell has Jenny Garth been all this time? Very rarely have I ever seen such random stunt casting, so bravo! The pretentiousness of privileged kids is nailed so well in this episode as is the one-upmanship of Mick and Sabrina with Alba playing a wildcard of sorts (a job that generally alternates between Jimmy and Alba).

Chip is a brat that I’ve even called one of the few appropriate uses of the label “toxic masculinity” (I generally find it a non-sensical crutch): He’s just awkward around everyone. The entirety of the episode was a waiting game of cringe: At what point will Chip let down his father figure? Apparently the answer was never which was an odd half hour of sitcom TV. Sitcomdom depends on conflict: We’re not used to watching a character cook up a hair-brained scheme and succeed at it. I suppose I’m happy for Chip. The episode segues to some continuing search for Chip's father but asking us to be further invested for this plot line is dependent only on the comic payoff and we need to see more seed of something funny to come other than a mug shot. 

Corporate-The Void/The Powerpoint of Death
Woohoo, fresh new TV shows for us to sink our critical teeth into and gnaw away. Following off “Idiotsitter” “Big Time in Hollywood Florida” and others that escape my memory at the moment, Comedy Central often takes chances on unknown comedic teams like this. I do not recognize a single person in the cast, but because it’s a lot like “Better off Ted” or “A to Z” or “Selfie” in its mockery of workplace drudgery, I keep thinking of the characters as Christina Kirk-light (“A to Z” but she also resumed the role of office straight man in “Powerless”) or David Harewood-light (“Selfie”). Maybe if your show lasts more than nine episodes, guys, I’ll learn your names.

The show has a darker current than the above-mentioned shows (it certainly doesn’t help that the bouncy salsa-esque score of “Better off Ted” isn’t used here to indicate sitcom cues) but still falls into the rhythms and beats of a modern sitcom as opposed to “Silicon Valley”, which is equally bleak, but puts less pressure on itself to make its laughs fit into a gift-wrapped half-hour box.

Gifted-The Last Three Episodes
Without spoiling anything, “The Gifted” (which I honored on My Year in TV best of the year list ) carries the same level of adrenaline to its conclusion with character allegiances being switched, other characters adapting on the fly, and lots of glorious chess-style (i.e. let’s use a power A against his power B, while sacrificing our hideout in response to power C) maneuvering that mutant-style shows make capable of providing excitement.

The show, more than anything, deserves credit for making late adolescent problems seem dramatically appropriate at the level that falls below melodrama.

Questions still persist about whether Reed (Stephen Moyer) and Kaitlyn (my crush Amy Acker who seems to always have her hair properly blow-dried) do much other than allow the show to be called a family story. A more heavy-handed example of this was the short-lived ABC show “No Ordinary Family” with Michael Chiklis and Julie Benz as parents (and superheroes themselves) who would often loudly proclaim things like “We’re not tearing this family apart!” or “We have to think about what’s best for the family!” Despite having no superpowers, Reed and Kate seem far more woven in the fabric of the mutant underground than I otherwise would have expected. Yes, they’re doting parents but they’ve also become part of the extended larger family.

The show concludes in a way that doesn't feel fully resolved but allows us to catch our breath. It's been a pretty wild ride.

Crashing (HBO) vs Every Other Comedy Series in History

Credit: Deadline.com

Before the HBO series “Crashing” came along, the tired genre of comedians playing slightly modified versions of themselves consisted of two basic categories: Deranged clowns ("Seinfeld", "Curb Your Enthusiasm", "The Comedians", "Legit") or depressed clowns ("Mr. Saturday Night", "Louie", Larry Sanders Show"). Because comedians are naturally entertaining and often are good at expressing comedy with a unique voice, much of this fare is still watchable and entertaining even if it’s not particularly innovative.  The freshest take I’ve seen in recent years has been the Netflix offering “Lady Dynamite” which took the deranged metaphor literally and used it as a platform for a soft exploration into mental illness.

“Crashing” however is not just a fresh take within already-tried confines but it’s something I've never seen done successfully. It’s a show that shows that the archetypal comedian is not necessarily synonymous with traits of amorality, loneliness or flat-out craziness.

The first season of the show begins with a wet-behind-the-ears Pete Holmes (played, of course, by Pete Holmes) who’s forced out of his marriage by a wife who cheats on him because she needs someone more exciting in bed. In his late 20s, Holmes is forced to come to the realization that he has quite a bit of adulating to do as his Christian upbringing and the complacency of married life has stunted his development quite a bit.  Unable to support himself, Holmes is saved by a near supernatural ability to fall into random encounters with comic celebrities and, even more luckily, he elicits their sympathy enough to get a place to stay (hence, the title of the show).

The show’s cleverness is that all this depression and vice you ordinarily see in the genre is filtered through the lens of an audience surrogate in Holmes who manages to hold on to his cheerful naiveté in forging his new relationship with himself and his new circle of friends.  Some of these friends like Artie Lange could set the depraved comedian trope to new heights if he were to star in his own show, but through the eyes of Holmes, he elicits empathy. Similarly, the off-kilter nature of many of the other characters –TJ Miller has a bit of a God complex, Richard Burr is a bit miserable in domestic life to the point of being unappreciative of his wife, Sara Silverman is a bit overly trusting – is minimized when seen through the eyes of Holmes who sees them for their faults but also for their generosity.

Whereas the comedy scene is generally portrayed in fiction as a cesspool that collects the bottom feeders of society, “Crashing” is about a man who chooses comedy simply because he feels it’s his life’s calling. The second season sees Holmes in a gradual arc of losing contact with his innocence as he sells out his act with a catch phrase, let’s a little cursing slip into his language, and has his first sexual encounter outside of marriage.  However, whereas the typical the comedy scene is generally portrayed as a cesspool that brings out the worst in people the longer they dwell in it, the sense of camaraderie and mutual support is emphasized here.

25 Best Performances of 2017

Loosely written  post to recap of the year that was in film now that the Oscars are upon us. This is out of the 35 films I saw:
1. Gary Oldman, The Darkest Hour-This gives me no pleasure to actually write this. It's like proclaiming the sun the brightest object in the sky and giving an award for it. He's playing Winston Churchill; he put on a fat suit, of course, he's going to get an award for it. But objectively, he's the best
2. Sam Rockwell, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri-Rockwell has oscillated wildly between mainstream and indie fare and, like Johnny Depp's career, has generally waited for the right film to come to him. This film has rightfully launched him into the stratosphere and it turned me into a Sam Rockwell convert. The charges that the handling of the character is haphazardly racist are made by a few people whose voices are being amplified too highly and are indicative that Martin McDonagh did something right by being provocative in the first place. This is a challenging role, but more than that, a challenging character.
3. Tom Cruise, American Made-Either the best Tom Cruise performance ever or the the best that exists in my memory banks  It's been a while since Cruise has sunk his teeth into a role like this and reflects his maturity. Since Oprah-gate and the website Tomcruiseisnuts.com got launched, Cruise retreated from being an actual actor into a standard action star, and this time, it's astounding that he's really going for it and this is pretty much all that and a bag of chips. He's present the entire film, he has a subtle arc, he's outlandish and larger-than-life, he does accent work, he does his own stunts (duh!), he's tragic
4. Holly Hunter, The Big Sick-A fearless performance that mines humor out of idiosyncracy while veering away from stereotype. Her snub was tragic.
5. Bria Vinaite, Florida Project-A tour de force. She's loud and even a little fear-inducing.
6. Frances McDormand, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri-Rightfully awarded a second Oscar. McDormand traditionally traffics in equal parts fear and empathy.
7. Jason Mitchell, Mudbound-Mitchell portrays the chip on his shoulder, the sense of nearly unshakeable self-pride, and the quiet dignity in making do with his circumstances. The look in his eyes as he stares down a threatening mob is harrowing.
8. Richard Jenkins, The Shape of Water-Giles is an endearing wet mess of emotion. He wears his heart on his sleeve, his relation with Eliza is heartwarming and his relationship with the pie owner is just as heartbreaking. Jenkins finds just the right tinge of camp to let the character's identity known to the audience without it coming across as a cariciature.
9. Christopher Plummer, All the Money in the World-Plummer's presence.as Paul Getty is helped by the regal grandiostiy of the surroundings that puts anyone in his castle at a disadvantage. But scenerey aside, Plummer plays Getty with a steady aloofness characteristic of what one would imagine the world's dumbest millionaire is.
10. Jason Clarke, Mudbound-The underrated actor portrays a character who is both an instrument of oppression and an honest man who's resigned himself to the fact that his misfortune at being born in the wrong station in life will never go away. To make both facets of this character appealing isn't something that's easy to do.
11. Margot Robbie, I Tonya-This sympathetic portrayal of Tonya Harding is fun, subversive and requires the actress to react to the bizarrest of circumstances over a decade-long arc. Bonus points for momy issues.
12. Ansel Elgort, Baby Driver-His air guitar in the opening number and the way he dons those sunglasses establishes just how cool he is within the first two minutes. Everything from making a sandwich to doing laundry is a display of sleek acrobatism in his hands, but Elgort also portrays the vulnerability, the emotional attachment to his deaf guardian, the fear of riding along with dangerous men, and he sells us on the love story.
13. Willem Dafoe, The Florida Project-The performance absolutely deserves its Oscar despite its low placement here. His steadfast authoritative demeanor with a hint of gentility underneath makes him a strong presence. It was just that good of a year.
14. John Lithgow, Beatriz at Dinner-Supremely relatable as the man we often meet at many a cocktail party who is powerful enough to go unchecked in his lack of natural charisma. He makes a tasteless or bland joke and people laugh because they know it will position him closer to power. He's grown so accustomed to power his whole life that his moral compass has been withered to a shard. Lithgow plays Doug as a man who's malicious from an outsider's perspective but also unaware of just how bad he is.
15. Sally Hawkins, The Shape of Water-A performance that was a ttad too cutesy to really feel like the best part of an excellent piece of film making. To be fair, I'm not sure what the right way to handle the awkwardness of human-fish sex or the even more awkward subsequent scene of explaining the anatomy of human-fish sex to your coworker using sign language.
16. Selma Hayek, Beatriz at Dinner-Just as Lithgow is oblivious to his own maliciousness, Hayek's character is wonderfully oblivious to the finer points of dinner etiquette even if she is almost saint-like in her moral character. Is it wrong? Not necessarily, but it's awkward as hell and that's the cringe that drives the whole movie.
17. Colin Farrell, The Beguiled-Farrell plays a wounded Civil War soldier recovering in a women's boarding school who turns sinister on a dime during the film's second act. It's a fine belanacing act and Farrrell can do period extremely well. He's as gentlemanly and lovelorn as a character in a Jane Austen novel as Mr. Hyde and while his transition to  Dr. Jekyll isn't particularly well-foreshadowed, it's still Farrell at or near his best.
18. Ben Mendelsohn, The Darkest Hour-Colin Firth, shove a fork in it! Seriously, this understated performance was just the right amount of King George VI to last me for one movie outing. No need to treat a stuttering king as the entirety of the whole movie.
19. Aubrey Plaza, Ingrid Goes West-Aubrey Plaza's presence is still a solid reason to watch a movie, but despite the range of roles she picks, her limitations in accent work still holds her back. Her ability to deadpan is still hard to top and it gives her a great screen persona but that's why I bump her a little down on the list for an otherwise great performance.
20. Laura Dern, Wilson-Probably my least conventional choice. Laura Dern is great at playing hot messes and this is a white poverty version of Amy Jellicoe in "Enlightened".
21. Kirsten Dunst, The Beguiled-The chemistry between Dunst and Farrell that turns from innocent curiosity to what seems to be a mature romance to dread and back again to lust draws out a lot of colors in Dunst. When Dunst and Farrell finally *SPOILER ALERT* get it on, it's hotter than that upside down kiss in "Spider-Man"
22. Lily James, Darkest Hour-A complete 180 from her gregarious waitress in "Baby Driver," James's character is a study in reactions in observations. Joe Wright said in interviews that James's character is the heart and soul of the movie. A female audience surrogate to provide contrast against the largely male climate of the film.
23. Robert Pattinson, Lost City of Z-Who would have thought the actors from "Twilight" would have some of the greatest success in the following decade. As the sidekick to one of the Amazon's greatest explorers, Pattinson embodies the "stiff upper lip" English attitude in the face of horrific insects and humidity that's almost tragi-comic. He forms a visible  emotional bond with the protagonist in short order on screen and he plays the role with admirable physicalilty.
24. Rooney Mara, Discovery-She's a manic pixie dream girl with a goth streak and has some of the hottest. This was an awful film but she really stuck out in a room
25. Jon Hamm, Baby Driver-A bit thin on pathos but it's a stylized film and Hamm's Buddy is a creation that cherry-picks the traits of a dangerous villain and hides them under a layer of grandiose theatricality. Hamm has a lot of fun with the part.

Looking back at 2001 in film

When film critics and like looked back at the year 2001 at their end of the decade retrospective lists (such lists from AV Club, Paste Magazine, IFC, Roger Ebert and compilation at Mubi.com) they found a year rich with great films including "Mullholland Drive", "Fellowship of the Ring", "Gosford Park", "Amelie", "Momento", "Moulin Rouge!", "Ghost World", "In the Bedroom", "The Royal Tanembaums" "Donnie Darko"

Whether I personally like those abovementioned films or not, I can appreciate that the above-mentioned films are all ambitious and well-respected pieces of work. At the same time, my personal experience from 2001 was that it was a terrible year and I distinctly remember an echo of similar sentiments. Within this paradox lies a pretty interesting set of examples of how films age in time.

The reason for this disconnect is that the above-mentioned list of films were not the films that were most anticipated. In many cases these were films that no one really saw when they came out and grew a cult over time. For example, if you've never heard of the film "Donnie Darko" until very recently, don't feel like you're out of the loop. Virtually no one saw it in theaters or even knew of its existence when the film actually came out. It played in just 58 theaters when it opened (for comaprison, your average movie opens in 3,000-4,000 theaters), grossed about $500,000 and was swept out of circulation in just 4 weeks. It was so slow to catch on that among the small number of awards it raked in for indepentent film were awards bodies that didn't get around to honoring the film until 2003.

The films that people were excited about at the time and actually saw in theaters were mostly disappointments. Do you remember any of these films today?

• Hearts in Atlantis-Directed by Scott Hicks, starring Anthony Hopkins, adapted from Stephen King
• Shipping News-Directed by Lasse Hallstrom (he had two Oscar-nominated films in a row in 1999 and 2000), starring Kevin Space and, Julianne Moore
• Captain Corelli's Mandolin-Directed by John Madden, starring Nicolas Cage, Penelope Cruz
• The Mexican-Directed by Gore Verbinski, starring Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Gene Hackman
• All the Pretty Horses-Adapted from a Cormac McCarthy, starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz, released by Miramax (aka the Oscar Factory) on Christmas day
• Vanilla Sky-Directed and written by Cameron Crowe, starring Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, Penelope Cruz
• The Majestic-Directed by Frank Darabont ("Green Mile", "Shawshank Redemption"), starring Jim Carrey
• The Man Who Wasn't There-Directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, starring Billy Bob Thornton, James Gandolfini

The directors of five of these films had been nominated for or won an Oscar within the three years prior to 2001, so the public understandably had great anticipation to their follow-up project. Although some people liked "The Man Who Wasn't There" (this particular author did not) and Jim Carrey still stands by his work in the "Majestic" (this particular author hasn't seen that one), a lot of these films were disappointing.

In the meantime, many of the films that are now classics weren't particularly loved back then with the exceptions of "Lord of the Rings" and "Royal Tenenbaums" Let's look at why the other films weren't well-received at the time:

• "A.I." was awkwardly marketed as a summer blockbuster and audiences found it too thinky. 
• Like the recent 2009 release "Precious," "In the Bedroom" seemed really depressing and had nothing else to market itself on. The only appeal of the film was that it was nominated for an Oscar prompting you to see it so you could join in the conversation. It's box-office take shows an unusually gross imbalance of people who saw it only after it was nominated. Context is also important. Melodramas have become more successful since this film came out such as "Far From Heaven", "Revolutionary Road", and "Little Children" which might have given this film more appeal.
• In context, Christopher Nolan's "Momento" wasn't a very easy sell. Nolan was not a bankable filmmaker at the time and the concept sounds pretty convoluted on paper.
• Moulin Rouge! was polarizing at the time. Some people think Baz Luhrrman was (and still is) all glitz and glamor. I really don't think people knew what to make of it. It was only after a lot of other musicals came out and the genre was revived (this literally was the first musical in years, not counting Evita, to be released in theaters) that critics looked back and said "You know, nothing quite had the energy and bold ambition of Moulin Rouge!" When critics see a lot of films (they usually see at least 200 films a calendar year*), they tend to be desnsetized to the ordinary and be attracted to films that stand out. 
• Mullholland Drive was also incredibly polarizing. No one could understand the ending which invalidated the point of the entire film. I think that years later the film-watching community** gained a greater appreciation for this film because they realized that one of the few universal moments of movie-watching unity they all collectively felt was scratching their heads at the ending of Mullholland Drive. It also helps you appreciate the film when you have some plausible idea as to what the film is all about: I distinctly remember browsing the internet for answers and finding none after watching the film when it first came out on video.
• Ghost World sounded too bizarre to even catch my attention at the time. It was based on a comic book but had no action scenes? I now consider it my favorite film from that calendar year, but I certainly wasn't racing to a theater when it came out. Considering that it grossed just $6.2 million, not much of the rest of America was either.

So there you have it: The landscape of film that was 2001 is an entirely different entity when look back at it ten years later than when we were looking at the previews of those films in movie theaters the year before. That, in and of itself, says a lot about film as a moving body.

*Calendar year means films released from January to December. Many films released in December are watched by most of the public in a movie theater the following year. By 200+ films a callender year, I mean a critic watches some 200 films a year released during that year. They might also watch older movies as well.

**By film-watching community, I mean the critical community but also anyone who posts on message boards or engages in film-watching to a degree that they're the kind of person who would be reading this article