Spring 2015 Roundup Part II-Schitt's Creek, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt, The Librarians

The Librarians (TNT)-This show is reminiscent of the syndicated series I grew up with like "Sinbad: The Seven Seas" and "Young Indiana Jones Chronicles" but times have changed and the show's attempts at building some grand mythology pale in comparison to the kinds of fantasy and historical fiction that TV is producing these days. 

The plot of "The Librarians" is so vague, it almost seems as if it was was created by a pair of hyperactive 9 year olds who were stuck in the library one day with nothing to do but let their imaginations run wild.  "Oooh, and let's pretend the librarian has a magical sword that flies!" "Oooh Oooh  and they have a secret portal to the minotaur castle!" 

Even the level of character development seems like it was written by kids. The thief character has absolutely no development beyond being a thief who lives thieving. He also has a cockney accent which is as lazy a characterization as you can get (Rattling off awful action films that use this trope: "Mortal Kombat", "Fast and Furious", "LXG" and "Tomb Raider"). We also have an exotic looking bad girl with a British accent and an inexplicable willingness to hurl herself at the good guys expecting different results along with henchmen that come straight from the "Mighty Morphing Power Rangers" school of attack. It similarly takes a special lack of competence to put Rebecca Romaijn alongside someone like Noah Wyle and produce so little sexual chemistry. 

If there's any fun to be had,  it's watching pros like Jane Curtin and John Larroquette dive into such inanity as if it's Shakespeare. To the show's credit, it has some self-awareness of its cheeky nature, but there's no harm in actually making the show good on its own merits.

Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (Netflix)-There’s an old saying that comedy is tragedy from distance. Distance, however, can refer not just to the passing of time but the closeness of the viewer to the bad event in question. Wile E Coyote falling off a cliff, for example, would be a lot less funny if there were realistic close-ups of his blood splattering across the desert floor. 

Likewise, one has to wonder why Tina Fey and Robert Carlock made the odd choice to give the central character in this “Naïve Midwesterner Strikes out in the Big City” tale such a traumatic backstory. To recap, the titular Kimmy Schmidt (Ellie Kemper) is a woman who was kidnapped as a young teenager by a psychotic pastor and trapped in an underground bunker for 15 years and subjected to “weird sex stuff.” This isn’t too much of a problem considering the talents of the writers to sidestep the whole probable PTSD issue and keep the tone comic. As the story arced toward the trial at season’s end, one just has to wonder why the season chose such a bleak starting point as the baseline.

Other than that and a highly irritating theme song (which I realize was deliberately annoying, but still), there’s little else to complain about here. Casting Ellie Kemper (the only actress who seemed like she was trying in the latter seasons of “The Office”) as the spunky and naïve lead is a no-brainer but the selection of Carol “Mrs. Latka Gravas” Kane and Tituss Burgess are both strokes of inspiration. Burgess previously appeared in “30 Rock” as the one-notiest of oharacters in flamboyant fame seeker D’Fwan on the show-within-a-show “Queen of Jordan.” Although the D’Fwan character’s flatness was part of the joke, it’s still surprising to see Tituss’s new character follow the same outlines as the old character and be expanded so richly.  Similarly, Carol Kane has never been on 30 Rock, but her comic gifts have always seemed like the perfect fit for the Tina Fey world as a batty old woman with clear Ashkenazi Jewish leanings whose paranoia and shady past are optimized for some of the show’s best quotes.

Credit: GeekBinge

Similarly, Fey and Carlock continue to mine humor out of the absurdly rich with Jane Krakowski as the polar opposite of financially normal.

If anyone’s given short shrift on this show, it’s the love interests (oh, and also the teenage daughter).  Love was never taken seriously on “30 Rock” beyond a superficial plot device that was always acknowledged with a playful wink. Jack Donaghy cycled through love interests in a way that rendered nothing beyond his courtship relevant, and I’ve never been convinced that Liz ended up with Kris for any reason other than that was who he happened to be with when the show ended its run. Similarly, Kimmy cycles through approximately three boyfriends with the first one getting shipped on a bus and the third one (one of the few interracial Asian/American pairings on screen) lacking in chemistry although they did get a lot of mileage out of the dong jokes.

The first season had a number of endearing plot lines as Kimmy found a place, a best friend, and a job in fairly short order.  

 

Schitts Creek (POP TV)– A fish out of water story between an absurdly rich family stuck in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Co-created by Christopher Guest staple Eugene Levy and son Dan Levy, the series is highly watchable and gets a lot of mileage out of a winning premise.

What’s odd, however, is how little of the world is fleshed out. Part of this is intentional (like Springfield with “The Simpsons” or Camden with “My Name is Earl”, Schitt’s Creek could be a stand-in for anywhere) but specificity couldn’t hurt in a small-town comedy like this.

Similarly, the Rose family has a lot of blanks that no one seems to care about filling in. 

Credit: Variety

They’re not just wealthy but wealthy to the point of absurdity. The unrealistic arrested development of their kids is reminiscent of “Step Brothers” where there are expectations that you’ll suspend your disbelief about how people can get that old and know so little about the world. When Dave needs to get a job, he asks if there are any openings in this small town for art curating. 

An effeminate brat who’s likely gay but is restricted to asexuality at the moment (possibly because sex would get in the way of his daily sulking rituals), Dave is the weakest character on the show in that we know only what he doesn’t like (being around his sister, the town, daylight) and not what drives him. He would be more at home in the bratty teen comedies of the late 90s than he would in Doc Hollywood. The only thing that interests him is the equally sarcastic hotel worker (Emily Hampshire, MVP of the show) who bonds with him through their mutual love of being jaded adolescents (which, again, seems awkward considering he’s over 30).
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Alexis makes out a little better as she transitions from a rich boyfriend to a local love interest gives her some reluctant interest in blending into the town [Ed.note: She now has a second local love interest which indicates that she might just be capricious and easily attachable].

Chris Elliott finds his footing here as the kind of oddball sitcom character that would only exist in a quirky world like this. Maybe it's just me because I saw more Chris Elliott in the '90s than any other decade, but I would have trouble seeing Elliott in a comedy without that old-school quirkiness as opposed to something set in the present day. On the whole, it's still an entertaining show and I'd be on board for a second season.

The Christopher Guest stock company

Christopher Guest, co-writer of This is Spinal Tap (1984) and director/co-writer of Waiting for Guffman (1997), Best in Show (2000), A Mighty Wind (2003) and For Your Consideration (2006) has successfully created a niche for himself in comedic films that makes him a very interesting character study.

One of the finer points of Andrew Sarris' auteur theory is that the mark of a great director is being able to impose their mark within the confines of a studio system. In other words, a director being able to take material he doesn't like (that he usually gets stuck with) and make it work within his style. This is one of the most prevalent theories in film study and has generated a lot of heated debate over the years. Some of its detractors might point to someone like Vincente Minelli who took many projects he didn't like just so he could get the financing necessary to make his dream project "Lust for Life." Christopher Guest seems to support that notion because not many of his fans are familiar with the fact that Guest has directed more than four films. A one-time castmember on SNL in the 80's, he has directed some other films and TV movies, like "Dead on Arrival" and the Chris Farley-Matthew Perry vehicle "Almost Heroes," that have absolutely nothing in common with the five films that bear the "Christopher Guest and Co." trademark. The fact that he was willing to completely ditch his style of comedy to play by the studio's rules of conventional comedy before making movies his way, suggests that the studios didn't have a lot of faith in his brand of comedy. Again, I don't have DVD production notes from Almost Heroes with which to make that judgement. The question I want to ask, however, was that deserved?

His films feature a stock company of actors led by Christopher Guest as an actor, Fred Willard, Eugene Levy, Michael McKean, Harry Shearer (although he's been absent from a couple of them), Catherine O'Hara and Parkey Posey. Other actors such as Ed Begley Jr, Michael E Hitchkock, Bob Balaban, Christopher Moynihan, Jane Lynch, and Jennifer Coolidge have grown into the group as a secondary set of characters, although there are no clear lines.





The Christopher guest method of movie making is establishing the characters and then improvising most of their dialogue along the lines of what the characters might say. Improvizational comedy is not entirely new: Good comic actors have generally been known to ad-lib on the set if something better comes to their mind at the moment but the Guest films are based entirely around improv comedy and market themselves as such. It's also done in a very organic way that's key to the creative process.

It's actually kind of odd how this pattern is so pervasive. Many people within the Christopher Guest camp have not achieved widespread fame outside of it or if they do, it's usually for one or two roles that don't express their full ability. Other actors in the Christopher Guest stock company who are known by just one or two roles. Examples include:
Catherine O'Hara from Home Alone
Eugene Levy as the dad from American Pie
Bob Balaban as the studio boss from Seinfeld (although some might recognize him from Godsford Park)
Michael McKean from Lenny and Squiggy and a brief SNL stint
Jennifer Coolidge from the TV show Joey

One could say that Fred Willard and Parker Posey enjoy careers that enable them to capitalize on their strong spots. Willard seems to pop up fairly heavily in TV series and films and has developed a comic persona of an affable fake know-it-all who interferes with everyone around him. It was best perfected in Best in Show for which he might have been considered the highlight of that film. Posey is known for some independent films.

I'm sure if you had some objective way to rank every actor based on their ability to improvize comedically, the top slots would go to people not from the Christopher Guest camp: Jim Carrey, Vince Vaughn, Will Ferrell, Jack Black, Steve Martin, etc. Many Christopher Guest fans feel that Fred Willard, for example might be the funniest person on the face of the planet and would outperform all the others in an improv scene. It is hard to quantify exactly where a Fred Willard or Harry Shearer fits into the comic spectrum. I think it's very curious how the Christopher Guest stock company for all the praise they get (although, I have a feeling that took a negative turn with the lackluster film For Your Consideration), their stock company of actors has not moved up accordingly in fame. That Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn and Jack Black still dominate comedy.

Perhaps, the Christopher Guest films are very organic processes and they take some underrated actors and combine them together to form the sum of their parts. I don't think a Fred Willard would be able to draw the star power that Ferrell, Vaughn or Black would. He doesn't have the ability to make you laugh like a stand-up comedian would, where he fires a couple of opening liners that have you howling. I think he wears down your guard over time. It's the small subtleties of his character's humor that become more and more exxagerated the longer you watch him. This worked very well in "Best in Show" and in "Waiting for Guffman" with him but I think that kind of character-based comedy that slowly builds up on you would be a hard sell on the studio level.

Cheaper by the Dozen I and II

Cheaper by the Dozen (2003) was one of my favorite movies of that year, even though it's just meant as family entertainment. On the DVD commentary, director Shaun Levy spoke of high ambitions he had when making the movieto really try to reinvigorate the classic family comedy with pathos, and I think he succeeded. The movie is actually quite touching and made me reflect on the value of my own family. Other strengths of the movie were a script that catered to Steve Martin's comic gifts and a talented ensemble of younger kids. Here were my reviews of the two films:

Cheaper by the Dozen (2003):
It's true that the fun of having more than two or three kids is cancelled out by the subsequent responsibility and expense of paying for their college, but when we don't have to pay more than the price of a movie ticket to experience a large family, then it's tons of fun. So, first off, yes, I have to admit that the mere fact that the movie centers around a 14-member extended family makes it enjoyable from the start. I was almost instanteously engaged until over halfway through the movie trying to keep track of who was who, and with such a talented and diverse ensemble, I enjoyed watching all of the development, especially Mark (Forest Landiss), the kid who kind of tied the whole story together. They even found room for overrated stars like Ashton Kutcher and Hillary Duff as one-note characters among the others. I also think that underneath all the comedy there was a lot of moral value within the conflicts between Steve Martin and his family and all those people trying to tear it apart (like the coach and his fame-career-driven attitude and Ashton Kuthcer's character and his narcissism and the bullies at school and Paula Marshall and her preppy conformity).

Cheaper by the Dozen II (2005):
Cheaper by the Dozen II like most sequels, wasnt as good as its predecessor but was a safe movie bet, allowing you to fall back into a familiarity of the first and have some more fun with it. It picks up a couple years after the first installment with changes abound as the oldest daughter is now married and pregnant and with everyone growing up, the Bakers plan to vacation one last time at their old summer nesting grounds before sending off newly graduated Lurraine (Hillary Duff) to New York. Ashton Kutchers out of the picture, while Eugene Levy enters the scene as Steve Martins rival, providing some decent comic relief. Knowing full-well, they cant focus on all twelve kids, Tom Wellings newfound romance and rebelliousness are underdeveloped, while the unfortunate mistake is made of shifting the focus to Hillary Duffs character. Duff basically plays a caricature of herself (or at least her public image) as a teenage diva, who only worked in the first movie because she was only added in at small doses. Theres also a side story with one of the younger siblings having her first crush. Like the first film, this installment relies on Martins physical comedy for laughs with some very relatable moments along the way and in the end, the family wins out over all other forces.