Good News: I'm very close to being published on cracked.com.
Since discovering TVTropes.org, I've been very interested in various stock characters in fiction, and when someone on a message board I frequent recently asked me which of several examples was the best "Elegant, Cultured, and Well-Educated Villain," I thought I'd take on the trope in general:
When someone recently asked me for a good example of an elegant and sophisticated villain, he was missing a key point: Perhaps making a villain elegant and sophisticated is more stereotypical and cheap rather than something to be admired and emulated.
If you make a villain elegant, cultured, and well-educated and nothing more, it ends up boring and familiar. Very weak movies such as Johnny English and The Avengers have introduced us to characters like these with little to no variation.
Portraying someone as overtly intellectual is just a screenwriter's prop to show us that they're smart or that they mirror qualities of the protagonist (presumably the protagonist is smart too) which makes them a more ruthless enemy.
Ironically, I think of these traits with regard to Hannibal Lechter's character as a weakness of the way the screenwriter(s) of Silence of the Lambs constructed him. Lechter is undoubtedly a great character but his penchant for listening to classical music before eating someone or entertaining people at a formal dinner party come off as over the top. Similarly, Henri Ducard (Liam Neeson) of Batman Begins Henri Ducard was never a very strong, memorable character and his somewhat philosophical soliloquies on why he should poison the city to expose humanity's underbelly was a case of telling more than showing.
Four of my favorites are Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, Wall Street), Magneto (Ian McKellan, X-Men and Hans Landa (Christophe Waltz, Inglorious Basterds) and Cal (Billy Zane) from Titanic. The first three don't jump out at me as being elegant, well-educated and sophisticated for the sake of being well-elegant, educated and sophisticated and they show rather than tell. Landa speaks many languages and is occasionally poetic and from there we see that there's more to the villain. Other than that, the writers don't go out of their way to show he's sophisticated. Similarly, Magneto might have some sense of refinement and knowledge but it's just organic to the story. If Gekko is enjoying the high-life it's because that's what people in his profession do, and if he appears educated, it's because intelligence oozes out of everything he's saying.
As for Cal, that's just a classical example which is executed very, very well. There's usually only room for one or two iconic performances in the mold before everything else seems stale. It also helps that his villainous character is organic to the era of history and he represents an old-money/new-money dichotomy which is a legitimate fear.
As for an example that I find very odd, Chirstopher Lee as Count Dooku in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. Even if Christopher Lee nailed the part, it would be hard for him to fit in at a place with some of the sillier and base characters with which George Lucas populated the Star Wars universe. If Hannibal Lecter was acting alongside the Muppets, it would be tonally awful. Same thing here. Another more nitpicky concern is that the cultural, elegant and well-educated are traits that are specific to an Earth-bound setting. Does it hold up in a fantasy world or galaxy far, far, far away? Cultural and elegant applies to perceptions of someone who has, for example, read Shakespeare and Charles Dickens. I don't doubt that people in the Star Wars universe are well-educated and cultured, but for all we know, someone who's cultured and well-educated on Tattoine might be someone who sounds by our standards as if he's speaking in a cockney accent
Another interesting example is Henry Blackwood from the 2019 Sherlock Holmes film but this could apply to any villain from Victorian times and it reminds me of how we tend to assume people speaking with British accents are automatically more refined. I read Blackwood as disturbed. He might have sounded refined, but that's because he comes from Victorian times where everyone is refined. In order to fit this category, you have to be more refined than the protagonist or anyone else.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Examining Parks and Recreations' Sense of Place
A strong sense of place sometimes can play a big role in a movie or a TV show. In the cases of films such as "The Shipping News," "Fargo," "Oh Brother Where Art Thou," or "Junebug," I've even heard the setting be referred to by the film makers as a character within the story.
Among TV shows, "The Office" has a pretty strong sense of place as well. In the show's title sequence, the three external shots of Scranton- a graying two-story skyscraper, a historic main street clogged up in traffic, and a glamorous "Scranton Welcomes You" sign with nothing very glamorous behind it- reflect the particular shade of gray that most of the show's characters have resigned their lives to. "The Office" legitimately feels like it's set in a small Rust Belt city and it adds to the show with its exterior shots, its water cooler discussions about the Scranton Strangler, and Dwight's side businesses of hay festivals and bed-and-breakfasts.
When Greg Daniels' follow-up was announced as a show about the trials and tribulations of workers at a city parks department in Indiana, I expected that the show would have a very strong sense of place because he did so well with "The Office." More importantly, because the show is set in a city hall and its characters are in the business of maintaining a sense of place, the show depends on convincing us that Pawnee is important.
It dissapoints me to say that almost two years later, I really don't know very much about Pawnee at all and I wonder if the show itself has put much thought into what Pawnee is and what Pawnee isn't. Complaints that palm trees have appeared in exterior shots weigh pretty heavily on the anti-place side of the argument.
Let's try to answer a few questions:
Is Pawnee a stand-alone metropolitan area or a suburb of a larger city?
What's its size?
Is it a city with a historic downtown or is it part of a larger sprawl-based pattern?
I assume it is a stand-alone metropolitan area because Pawnee has its own newspaper or the newspaper would be named after the bigger town. Considering every interview we see is conducted by the same reporter comes to the department, it's safe to conclude that the newspaper is of the small-town variety (think under 100,000) that employs only one or two professional reporters. The town also has a couple dance clubs. I've lived in a couple small towns (both had populations of about 50,000) and they both had dance clubs converted from pedestrian mall store front space. That's not out of the question, either.
Then again, the town has its own TV station and TV morning hosts. I could understand public access programming, but TV personalities and Regis-and-Kelly clones isn't really much of a small-town vibe to me.
As for the downtown issue, I don't see any skyscrapers in the background. Then again, I rarely see exterior shots at all.
I also doubt the writer's knowledge of the state of Indiana when you consider that Anne and Chris' relationship was almost killed by his moving back to Indianapolis. Virtually, nowhere in Indiana is more than two hours away from Indianapolis. The show acted as if he was relocating across the Atlantic.
I posted this on an IMDB message board and got some good responses. Here are the three best:
Response 1:"Sometimes smaller towns can have decently sized city halls, especially if they're historic. I always imagine Pawnee to be a decently sized town, but kind of in the middle of nowhere (stand-alone metropolitan area), which gives it that small town feeling. Maybe I imagine it like this because I'm from Minnesota and I know a lot of towns that have the same sort of atmosphere.
I do think it's a pretty big deal that he's going back to Indianapolis, though - even a two-hour commute is kind of long for a newer relationship. And I think Leslie's main loyalty is to Pawnee, not to Indiana, although of course I'm sure she has some state pride as well. But perhaps the writers avoid making a lot of references to Indiana itself because they want Pawnee to feel more universal - you know, like it could be Anywhere, USA, so we can all relate. But I did think Donna's "The Last Supper" featuring famous people from Indiana was pretty great.
Small towns have their own newspapers! They're small and usually supplemental (i.e., people from the small towns get them as well as a larger newspaper from a more urban center), and they're HILARIOUS. Seriously. My grandmother lives in a tiny farming town in southern rural Minnesota, and I always ask to see the paper when I visit her - they include things like police logs (which are filled with "2AM: called to city park to investigate noise complaint. Found pack of teenagers. Sent teenagers home with warning.") and notices about local marriages and deaths and events. So it makes sense that Shawna with the Pawnee paper reports on the goings-on of the Parks and Rec department - that's exactly the type of stuff that goes into local small town papers.
I don't know what it's main industry is, but I think Sweetums might have its headquarters there, and if they have a harvest festival, they're probably near a rural area."
Response 2:
"It is a little weird RE: the size of Pawnee. It's apparently big enough to have a local television station with two locally produced morning shows, and has its own radio station. I've always felt like Pawnee would be around 20-30 thousand people, but such a small city wouldn't have all of that. I'm from a city about that size in Wisconsin, and we do have our own newspaper (actually, a very nice one; it was the first newspaper in the state that had an online edition), but not local television stations (and the one local radio station would be the college station). For the most part, though, this show could be set in my hometown. It's one of the reasons I love the show so much.
btw, 2 hours may not be much (Pawnee is in Southeastern Indiana), but that could suck for a relationship, pretty much seeing each other only on weekends.
As for state pride, there's Leslie's "Go Hoosiers!" moment (no, Go BADGERS), and the references to Bobby Knight and Indiana's love of basketball.
I have a good friend who's originally from Indiana (not exactly sure where, but it's a smaller town), and he speaks with a Southern-ish accent. He sounds kind of like Woody Harrelson did on Cheers (who is originally from Texas, though). I do wonder if the characters on this show should have an accent similar to my friend's."
ETA: I was going through the cast, seeing where they're from originally. Nick Offerman is from Joliet, Il, which is another perfect Pawnee-like town (but it would be, in my estimation, quite a bit bigger). Chris Pratt is from Virginia, Minnesota.
Response 3:
"I always envision Pawnee to be similar to a town/city like Grand Island, Nebraska. The similarities are really stirking. nebraska is a pretty big state where almost the entire population (2 million) lives in the southeastern corner of the state. So most of the state's population is crammed in to one area much like Indianapolis, Indiana. Lincoln (200,000 people), and Omaha (500,000) are both right next to each other in the SE corner of the state. the next biggest city in the state is only about (50,000) and it is Grand Island... A city which is born almost out of necessity because there are no other major population centers throughout the rest of the state.... so the state needed a centrally located midsized city located off I-80... and that's what grand island is, and i'll bet that's what Pawnee city is supposed to be. Grand Island is about 4-5 hours west of the major population centers in southeastern nebraska FYI, kind of like Pawnee is supposed to be (though like the op pointed out... they flubbed the size of indiana. this makes sense in a state the size of nebraska, but in indiana you can get pretty much anywhere in 2 hours. heck, you can get from indianapolis to columbus ohio in under 2 hours too.) Anywhoo, Grand Island is very similar to Pawnee. They're completely cut off from the other big cities in the state so they have their own little small media center with their own nbc affiliate station, a couple funny local talk shows on tv, their own radio stations am/fm, a little bit of a night life and a mall, a nice capital building, a newspaper, etc. etc.... and because they are like their own little stand alone mecca out there away from the other big cities in the state... they have a nice sense of civic pride."
Among TV shows, "The Office" has a pretty strong sense of place as well. In the show's title sequence, the three external shots of Scranton- a graying two-story skyscraper, a historic main street clogged up in traffic, and a glamorous "Scranton Welcomes You" sign with nothing very glamorous behind it- reflect the particular shade of gray that most of the show's characters have resigned their lives to. "The Office" legitimately feels like it's set in a small Rust Belt city and it adds to the show with its exterior shots, its water cooler discussions about the Scranton Strangler, and Dwight's side businesses of hay festivals and bed-and-breakfasts.
When Greg Daniels' follow-up was announced as a show about the trials and tribulations of workers at a city parks department in Indiana, I expected that the show would have a very strong sense of place because he did so well with "The Office." More importantly, because the show is set in a city hall and its characters are in the business of maintaining a sense of place, the show depends on convincing us that Pawnee is important.
It dissapoints me to say that almost two years later, I really don't know very much about Pawnee at all and I wonder if the show itself has put much thought into what Pawnee is and what Pawnee isn't. Complaints that palm trees have appeared in exterior shots weigh pretty heavily on the anti-place side of the argument.
Let's try to answer a few questions:
Is Pawnee a stand-alone metropolitan area or a suburb of a larger city?
What's its size?
Is it a city with a historic downtown or is it part of a larger sprawl-based pattern?
I assume it is a stand-alone metropolitan area because Pawnee has its own newspaper or the newspaper would be named after the bigger town. Considering every interview we see is conducted by the same reporter comes to the department, it's safe to conclude that the newspaper is of the small-town variety (think under 100,000) that employs only one or two professional reporters. The town also has a couple dance clubs. I've lived in a couple small towns (both had populations of about 50,000) and they both had dance clubs converted from pedestrian mall store front space. That's not out of the question, either.
Then again, the town has its own TV station and TV morning hosts. I could understand public access programming, but TV personalities and Regis-and-Kelly clones isn't really much of a small-town vibe to me.
As for the downtown issue, I don't see any skyscrapers in the background. Then again, I rarely see exterior shots at all.
I also doubt the writer's knowledge of the state of Indiana when you consider that Anne and Chris' relationship was almost killed by his moving back to Indianapolis. Virtually, nowhere in Indiana is more than two hours away from Indianapolis. The show acted as if he was relocating across the Atlantic.
I posted this on an IMDB message board and got some good responses. Here are the three best:
Response 1:"Sometimes smaller towns can have decently sized city halls, especially if they're historic. I always imagine Pawnee to be a decently sized town, but kind of in the middle of nowhere (stand-alone metropolitan area), which gives it that small town feeling. Maybe I imagine it like this because I'm from Minnesota and I know a lot of towns that have the same sort of atmosphere.
I do think it's a pretty big deal that he's going back to Indianapolis, though - even a two-hour commute is kind of long for a newer relationship. And I think Leslie's main loyalty is to Pawnee, not to Indiana, although of course I'm sure she has some state pride as well. But perhaps the writers avoid making a lot of references to Indiana itself because they want Pawnee to feel more universal - you know, like it could be Anywhere, USA, so we can all relate. But I did think Donna's "The Last Supper" featuring famous people from Indiana was pretty great.
Small towns have their own newspapers! They're small and usually supplemental (i.e., people from the small towns get them as well as a larger newspaper from a more urban center), and they're HILARIOUS. Seriously. My grandmother lives in a tiny farming town in southern rural Minnesota, and I always ask to see the paper when I visit her - they include things like police logs (which are filled with "2AM: called to city park to investigate noise complaint. Found pack of teenagers. Sent teenagers home with warning.") and notices about local marriages and deaths and events. So it makes sense that Shawna with the Pawnee paper reports on the goings-on of the Parks and Rec department - that's exactly the type of stuff that goes into local small town papers.
I don't know what it's main industry is, but I think Sweetums might have its headquarters there, and if they have a harvest festival, they're probably near a rural area."
Response 2:
"It is a little weird RE: the size of Pawnee. It's apparently big enough to have a local television station with two locally produced morning shows, and has its own radio station. I've always felt like Pawnee would be around 20-30 thousand people, but such a small city wouldn't have all of that. I'm from a city about that size in Wisconsin, and we do have our own newspaper (actually, a very nice one; it was the first newspaper in the state that had an online edition), but not local television stations (and the one local radio station would be the college station). For the most part, though, this show could be set in my hometown. It's one of the reasons I love the show so much.
btw, 2 hours may not be much (Pawnee is in Southeastern Indiana), but that could suck for a relationship, pretty much seeing each other only on weekends.
As for state pride, there's Leslie's "Go Hoosiers!" moment (no, Go BADGERS), and the references to Bobby Knight and Indiana's love of basketball.
I have a good friend who's originally from Indiana (not exactly sure where, but it's a smaller town), and he speaks with a Southern-ish accent. He sounds kind of like Woody Harrelson did on Cheers (who is originally from Texas, though). I do wonder if the characters on this show should have an accent similar to my friend's."
ETA: I was going through the cast, seeing where they're from originally. Nick Offerman is from Joliet, Il, which is another perfect Pawnee-like town (but it would be, in my estimation, quite a bit bigger). Chris Pratt is from Virginia, Minnesota.
Response 3:
"I always envision Pawnee to be similar to a town/city like Grand Island, Nebraska. The similarities are really stirking. nebraska is a pretty big state where almost the entire population (2 million) lives in the southeastern corner of the state. So most of the state's population is crammed in to one area much like Indianapolis, Indiana. Lincoln (200,000 people), and Omaha (500,000) are both right next to each other in the SE corner of the state. the next biggest city in the state is only about (50,000) and it is Grand Island... A city which is born almost out of necessity because there are no other major population centers throughout the rest of the state.... so the state needed a centrally located midsized city located off I-80... and that's what grand island is, and i'll bet that's what Pawnee city is supposed to be. Grand Island is about 4-5 hours west of the major population centers in southeastern nebraska FYI, kind of like Pawnee is supposed to be (though like the op pointed out... they flubbed the size of indiana. this makes sense in a state the size of nebraska, but in indiana you can get pretty much anywhere in 2 hours. heck, you can get from indianapolis to columbus ohio in under 2 hours too.) Anywhoo, Grand Island is very similar to Pawnee. They're completely cut off from the other big cities in the state so they have their own little small media center with their own nbc affiliate station, a couple funny local talk shows on tv, their own radio stations am/fm, a little bit of a night life and a mall, a nice capital building, a newspaper, etc. etc.... and because they are like their own little stand alone mecca out there away from the other big cities in the state... they have a nice sense of civic pride."
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
Winter Shows Part II
My take on the new winter shows:
Mr. Sunshine, ABC-Mr. Sunshine has a lot going for it: Allison Janey, Nate Torrence, Matthew Perry, Andreas Anders, and the setting of a sports arena among other things.
I like what Nate Torrence and Allison Janey have done with their characters. Andreas Anders wears on me just a little bit but that's also because she has the misfortune of having to take that same winning screen persona and tweaking it for the fourth time in 6 and a half years (For those of you keeping score: Fall 2004-Joey, 2006-Class, 2009-Better off Ted, January 2011-Mr Sunshine) because that's just the nature of the TV industry. The same problem applies for Perry and James Lesure: I've seen these exact characters in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Las Vegas. As a result, I feel like I'm watching a show that exists within the same universe as those two shows where Matt Alvey quit show business and decided to manage a sports arena and Mike Canon quit the Montecito to join him.
As a result, the show struggles to define its own brand. It feels like a cross between Aaron Sorkin, Scrubs and a less colorful Wes Anderson film. If the show's going to go quirky, I hope we see more quirkiness out of Perry, Lesure and Anders. As it stands, Torrence and Janey are carrying the show and could become breakout characters if the show builds any traction.
One last little note: I liked that the pilot ended on a pretty strong note. It wasn't sappy but not meaningless either. We got the sense that Ben (Matthew Perry's character) would begin to reexamine his life a little but it wasn't going to be a drastic makeover.
Off the Map, ABC-I would estimate that, even though this is an exciting medical show that takes you to the third world, 80% of the show's content is entirely interchangeable with Grey's Anatomy. The focus is on interpersonal relationships, characters with chips on their shoulders trying to prove themselves, romances, and occasional medical emergency.
Bob's Burgers, FOX-Is anyone else irritated by the growing trend that bad animation is making some sort of stylistic statement that ultimately enhances our viewing experience? Two of my favorite animated shows as of late have gone the South Park route of sloppy-is-trendy with regard to animation: "Life and Times of Tim" and this show. Nonetheless, Bob's Burgers is far weaker than the other shows on the Sunday night animation line-up which is going to doom it to unfavorable comparisons. I still like it, however. There's a lot to this show that's not particularly groundbreaking, but i do like the way the ensemble seems to bounce off each other. The three kids are all utterly oblivious to the wishes of their dad and there's a Malcolm in the Middle vibe with the frustrated parent character.
Retired at 35, TV Land-An old-fashioned system is never really out of date as long as audiences exist who grew up on that format. The main appeal of this show is George Segal who won this TV reviewer over on "Just Shoot Me." Jessica Walter is already on Archer so there hasn't been as much of a chance to miss her. The show had a novel premise and was solid enough in the pilot to keep me going. In the second and third episodes, however, the show drifted into pathetic. In focusing so heavily on the sex lives of the older characters, the show is trying too hard to be edgy and putting unnecessarily gross images in my head. The show also fails to answer the question of how the son doesn't seem to mind actively participating in his parent's sex lives as a wing man (for the father) or a buffer (for the mother). I was glad to see local TV star and short-lived SNL castoff Casey Wilson back on the airwaves although it looks like she's a guest star.
Mr. Sunshine, ABC-Mr. Sunshine has a lot going for it: Allison Janey, Nate Torrence, Matthew Perry, Andreas Anders, and the setting of a sports arena among other things.
I like what Nate Torrence and Allison Janey have done with their characters. Andreas Anders wears on me just a little bit but that's also because she has the misfortune of having to take that same winning screen persona and tweaking it for the fourth time in 6 and a half years (For those of you keeping score: Fall 2004-Joey, 2006-Class, 2009-Better off Ted, January 2011-Mr Sunshine) because that's just the nature of the TV industry. The same problem applies for Perry and James Lesure: I've seen these exact characters in Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and Las Vegas. As a result, I feel like I'm watching a show that exists within the same universe as those two shows where Matt Alvey quit show business and decided to manage a sports arena and Mike Canon quit the Montecito to join him.
As a result, the show struggles to define its own brand. It feels like a cross between Aaron Sorkin, Scrubs and a less colorful Wes Anderson film. If the show's going to go quirky, I hope we see more quirkiness out of Perry, Lesure and Anders. As it stands, Torrence and Janey are carrying the show and could become breakout characters if the show builds any traction.
One last little note: I liked that the pilot ended on a pretty strong note. It wasn't sappy but not meaningless either. We got the sense that Ben (Matthew Perry's character) would begin to reexamine his life a little but it wasn't going to be a drastic makeover.
Off the Map, ABC-I would estimate that, even though this is an exciting medical show that takes you to the third world, 80% of the show's content is entirely interchangeable with Grey's Anatomy. The focus is on interpersonal relationships, characters with chips on their shoulders trying to prove themselves, romances, and occasional medical emergency.
Bob's Burgers, FOX-Is anyone else irritated by the growing trend that bad animation is making some sort of stylistic statement that ultimately enhances our viewing experience? Two of my favorite animated shows as of late have gone the South Park route of sloppy-is-trendy with regard to animation: "Life and Times of Tim" and this show. Nonetheless, Bob's Burgers is far weaker than the other shows on the Sunday night animation line-up which is going to doom it to unfavorable comparisons. I still like it, however. There's a lot to this show that's not particularly groundbreaking, but i do like the way the ensemble seems to bounce off each other. The three kids are all utterly oblivious to the wishes of their dad and there's a Malcolm in the Middle vibe with the frustrated parent character.
Retired at 35, TV Land-An old-fashioned system is never really out of date as long as audiences exist who grew up on that format. The main appeal of this show is George Segal who won this TV reviewer over on "Just Shoot Me." Jessica Walter is already on Archer so there hasn't been as much of a chance to miss her. The show had a novel premise and was solid enough in the pilot to keep me going. In the second and third episodes, however, the show drifted into pathetic. In focusing so heavily on the sex lives of the older characters, the show is trying too hard to be edgy and putting unnecessarily gross images in my head. The show also fails to answer the question of how the son doesn't seem to mind actively participating in his parent's sex lives as a wing man (for the father) or a buffer (for the mother). I was glad to see local TV star and short-lived SNL castoff Casey Wilson back on the airwaves although it looks like she's a guest star.
Sunday, February 13, 2011
Is there only room for one It guy from Britain?
Dave Chapelle once said that there's only room for one black comedian and that was Chris Rock before he came along. I'm just using this as an example, but it seems like public attention really only stays glued to one British guy at a time.
Jude Law was that guy from 99-04 with Talented Mr Ripley,
Paul Bettany with his 2 collaborations with Russell Crowe (ABM and M&C) and his career beginning to go solo with Dogville and Wimbledon gave him a run for his money.
Some people were pegging Orlando Bloom a successor in the hype for Elizabethtown and Kingdom of Heaven but he panned out.
Then it was Clive Owen with his GG win in Closer and then going on to star in (I believe) Domino and Children of Men.
Then Daniel Craig with James Bond in Casino Royale and picking up a pretty busy schedule over the next couple years with the sequel and Defiance.
Now it looks like Colin Firth with A Single Man and King's Speech. I originally was curious to know what might have happened if Bettany, Law, and Owen might have even been denied the starring Oscar-bait role for The King's Speech because they weren't hot in the now before finding out that that's exactly what happened. The film's production crew was considering Paul Bettany but the studio vetoed it because he wasn't as much of a star. Theory validated!
This, of course, is absurd. Not that long ago, Bettany had the second largest role in a Best Picture nominee (Master and Commander, 2003), had a prominent role in a Best Picture winner (A Beautiful Mind, 2001), and was tapped to become a star of his own in Wimbledeon. Meanwhile, Colin Firth was pretty much placed in movies to make Hugh Grant look more attractive to ladies (to be fair, this observation was first made on Saturday Night Live).
Jude Law was that guy from 99-04 with Talented Mr Ripley,
Paul Bettany with his 2 collaborations with Russell Crowe (ABM and M&C) and his career beginning to go solo with Dogville and Wimbledon gave him a run for his money.
Some people were pegging Orlando Bloom a successor in the hype for Elizabethtown and Kingdom of Heaven but he panned out.
Then it was Clive Owen with his GG win in Closer and then going on to star in (I believe) Domino and Children of Men.
Then Daniel Craig with James Bond in Casino Royale and picking up a pretty busy schedule over the next couple years with the sequel and Defiance.
Now it looks like Colin Firth with A Single Man and King's Speech. I originally was curious to know what might have happened if Bettany, Law, and Owen might have even been denied the starring Oscar-bait role for The King's Speech because they weren't hot in the now before finding out that that's exactly what happened. The film's production crew was considering Paul Bettany but the studio vetoed it because he wasn't as much of a star. Theory validated!
This, of course, is absurd. Not that long ago, Bettany had the second largest role in a Best Picture nominee (Master and Commander, 2003), had a prominent role in a Best Picture winner (A Beautiful Mind, 2001), and was tapped to become a star of his own in Wimbledeon. Meanwhile, Colin Firth was pretty much placed in movies to make Hugh Grant look more attractive to ladies (to be fair, this observation was first made on Saturday Night Live).
Sunday, February 06, 2011
Winter TV Show Update: Five Sketch Shows and Three New Shows
Click here for 10 Movies that should be remade.
My critique of various new TV shows:
1. With The Onion News Network, I thought it was odd that the pilot didn't put up the show's strongest material first. The first episode consisted of a 3 or 4-minute bit devoted to the guy who made the hand job and a white woman who will be tried as a black. The first segment is overly crude and the second is too oddly specific. Having seen and laughed at so many of their videos over the internet and you have to ask yourself how a creative time with such a higher rate of hits then misses can make such big mistakes in choosing material for its pilot.
The second episode got slightly better but the snow in New Orleans joke was overdone. The bits about congress forgetting how to pass a bill and escorts needed for women in the army were both hilarious but in two different ways: The former was more goofy and brash while the latter was a subtle bit of sharp satire that passed itself more as news. When the Onion writes a really memorable article or makes a really memorable video clip, it's the kind of thing you remember for days on end and tell everyone you know about. I also particularly enjoyed the bit on Martin Luther King's to make people sort of equal and have institutionalized racism rather than outright racism.
The show is smart to come up with a distinct format that runs from episode to episode. The anchor is memorably passive-aggressive and the guy working the infographic is clearly below her in the pecking order. There's also usually one running news story that the show goes back to two or three times; the closest thing they have to a motif. The anchor's passive-aggressive personality doesn't seem like it builds up towards a larger payoff. It's just a way to sprinkle the script with more laughs per minute and it's already run out of gas by the third episode.
Fans of the web videos will also recognize some of the same features. There are the cheery morning hosts (think a female and male version of Kelly Ripa) who act cheery when they're not supposed to. In the last episode, one of the reporters covered a town stoning of a teenage couple who's annoyingly affectionate and decided to join in. It was a pitch-perfect sketch with a very subtle escalation from normality to insanity (that's the key to a lot of sketch comedy).
There's also the "In the Know" panelists which takes the same kind of skewed off-center perspectives that characterize the Onion and put them in round table debate form. The internet versions of this involve five people and usually run a minute or two longer which allows the sketches to fully flesh out and escalate. Unfortunately, the "In the Know" segments are too short to get to that level.
2. Onion Sports Dome-Unlike Onion News Network, I feel like Sports Dome hit the ground running when it aired. It's the same creative team as ONN and the same style of comedy, so if I had to come up with a reason why one works better than the other, Sports Dome follows and parodies a single format very closely whereas ONN is simultaneously parodying the McLaughlin Group, morning talk shows, the CNN news desk, Fox-style infotainment, and more which requires a more delicate balance. Also, Sports Center and the greater realm of sports reporting in this country is just an area of humor that desperately needed its void to be filled.
3. Portlandia Fred Armisen and Carrie Bowenstein's brilliant new sketch series has much more in common with the Onion's TV shows than I would have originally thought. Their material has already been tested out on people through the internet and they stay well within the lines of parody much of the time. Their target is yuppie culture which is most exemplified by Portland, Oregon. I already read Stuff White People Like and would have thought that there wasn't much you could do that hasn't already been done with this theme, but Armisen and Bowenstein have an even sharper eye. It's as if you're looking at the culture through a microscope with a higher power of magnification. The sketches also are very well-structured as stand-alone pieces. The two sketches with the feminist bookstore owners are examples of how well the annoying cashiers can keep the sketch's momentum going so well with a sort of circular conversation that gets funnier as it goes along.
4. Funny or Die Presents-This came out last year but I watched my first episode very recently and found more of the sketches missing than hitting. Come to think of it, that's very true of the website as well. It's a lot more die than funny. Additionally, it's often the case that when it's funny, it's specifically because of the presence of a celebrity. Funny or Die, the TV show, is devoid of celebrity cameos and highlights the show's inconsistency. I fully disclose that it's based entirely on one episode, but that was the pattern I was seeing.
And lastly, one show that's not new, but I wanted to use as a basis of comparison.
5. College Humor Show This TV series was from 2009 and failed after a 6-episode run but the website's video section is as strong as ever. From a sketch-writing perspective, collegehumor.com is strong. Their sketches are sharp, well-structured, escalate well with twists and turns, etc. The website's staff is also prolific producing a volume of quality sketches on a weekly basis that rivals Saturday Night Live. That being said, I feel like for such a large cultural force, there's very little commentary about this comedic institution. There's probably over 1,000 times more commentary on the internet written about SNL's failures than there is for collegehumor.com. I'm not sure if I'm that person considering I'm going to limit myself to a few minutes on a work break, but....
Still, there are two key problems to College Humor as a brand:
1. They haven't expanded their budget. They still shoot sketches in their office and their attempts to expand outside of their office in select sketches usually don't convince you that they're in an authentically different place. Sketches shot in an office with little or no illusion that it's somewhere else are reminiscent of the Sweded production trend that came out of the movie "Be Kind Rewind." Ironically, if you look at the credits section, you'll see that they have a crew devoted to the production: The short films have directors, production assistant and even a DP so they seem to take themselves seriously as film makers.
2. With the exception of Jake Hurwitz and Amir Bluminfeld when they're making their Jake and Amir skits, Collegehumor.com's Hardly Working series doesn't care about establishing characters. There are about 8 or 9 regulars to the collegehumor series and they all pretty much have the same character traits. Dan Geurwitch is slightly nerdier than the rest but that's only if it serves the sketch. Considering Jake and Amir were able to make strong characters, it's a shame that no one else really has that skill.
Coming up....
Retired at 35, The Cape, Off the Map, Bob's Burgers and Mr. Sunshine
My critique of various new TV shows:
1. With The Onion News Network, I thought it was odd that the pilot didn't put up the show's strongest material first. The first episode consisted of a 3 or 4-minute bit devoted to the guy who made the hand job and a white woman who will be tried as a black. The first segment is overly crude and the second is too oddly specific. Having seen and laughed at so many of their videos over the internet and you have to ask yourself how a creative time with such a higher rate of hits then misses can make such big mistakes in choosing material for its pilot.
The second episode got slightly better but the snow in New Orleans joke was overdone. The bits about congress forgetting how to pass a bill and escorts needed for women in the army were both hilarious but in two different ways: The former was more goofy and brash while the latter was a subtle bit of sharp satire that passed itself more as news. When the Onion writes a really memorable article or makes a really memorable video clip, it's the kind of thing you remember for days on end and tell everyone you know about. I also particularly enjoyed the bit on Martin Luther King's to make people sort of equal and have institutionalized racism rather than outright racism.
The show is smart to come up with a distinct format that runs from episode to episode. The anchor is memorably passive-aggressive and the guy working the infographic is clearly below her in the pecking order. There's also usually one running news story that the show goes back to two or three times; the closest thing they have to a motif. The anchor's passive-aggressive personality doesn't seem like it builds up towards a larger payoff. It's just a way to sprinkle the script with more laughs per minute and it's already run out of gas by the third episode.
Fans of the web videos will also recognize some of the same features. There are the cheery morning hosts (think a female and male version of Kelly Ripa) who act cheery when they're not supposed to. In the last episode, one of the reporters covered a town stoning of a teenage couple who's annoyingly affectionate and decided to join in. It was a pitch-perfect sketch with a very subtle escalation from normality to insanity (that's the key to a lot of sketch comedy).
There's also the "In the Know" panelists which takes the same kind of skewed off-center perspectives that characterize the Onion and put them in round table debate form. The internet versions of this involve five people and usually run a minute or two longer which allows the sketches to fully flesh out and escalate. Unfortunately, the "In the Know" segments are too short to get to that level.
2. Onion Sports Dome-Unlike Onion News Network, I feel like Sports Dome hit the ground running when it aired. It's the same creative team as ONN and the same style of comedy, so if I had to come up with a reason why one works better than the other, Sports Dome follows and parodies a single format very closely whereas ONN is simultaneously parodying the McLaughlin Group, morning talk shows, the CNN news desk, Fox-style infotainment, and more which requires a more delicate balance. Also, Sports Center and the greater realm of sports reporting in this country is just an area of humor that desperately needed its void to be filled.
3. Portlandia Fred Armisen and Carrie Bowenstein's brilliant new sketch series has much more in common with the Onion's TV shows than I would have originally thought. Their material has already been tested out on people through the internet and they stay well within the lines of parody much of the time. Their target is yuppie culture which is most exemplified by Portland, Oregon. I already read Stuff White People Like and would have thought that there wasn't much you could do that hasn't already been done with this theme, but Armisen and Bowenstein have an even sharper eye. It's as if you're looking at the culture through a microscope with a higher power of magnification. The sketches also are very well-structured as stand-alone pieces. The two sketches with the feminist bookstore owners are examples of how well the annoying cashiers can keep the sketch's momentum going so well with a sort of circular conversation that gets funnier as it goes along.
4. Funny or Die Presents-This came out last year but I watched my first episode very recently and found more of the sketches missing than hitting. Come to think of it, that's very true of the website as well. It's a lot more die than funny. Additionally, it's often the case that when it's funny, it's specifically because of the presence of a celebrity. Funny or Die, the TV show, is devoid of celebrity cameos and highlights the show's inconsistency. I fully disclose that it's based entirely on one episode, but that was the pattern I was seeing.
And lastly, one show that's not new, but I wanted to use as a basis of comparison.
5. College Humor Show This TV series was from 2009 and failed after a 6-episode run but the website's video section is as strong as ever. From a sketch-writing perspective, collegehumor.com is strong. Their sketches are sharp, well-structured, escalate well with twists and turns, etc. The website's staff is also prolific producing a volume of quality sketches on a weekly basis that rivals Saturday Night Live. That being said, I feel like for such a large cultural force, there's very little commentary about this comedic institution. There's probably over 1,000 times more commentary on the internet written about SNL's failures than there is for collegehumor.com. I'm not sure if I'm that person considering I'm going to limit myself to a few minutes on a work break, but....
Still, there are two key problems to College Humor as a brand:
1. They haven't expanded their budget. They still shoot sketches in their office and their attempts to expand outside of their office in select sketches usually don't convince you that they're in an authentically different place. Sketches shot in an office with little or no illusion that it's somewhere else are reminiscent of the Sweded production trend that came out of the movie "Be Kind Rewind." Ironically, if you look at the credits section, you'll see that they have a crew devoted to the production: The short films have directors, production assistant and even a DP so they seem to take themselves seriously as film makers.
2. With the exception of Jake Hurwitz and Amir Bluminfeld when they're making their Jake and Amir skits, Collegehumor.com's Hardly Working series doesn't care about establishing characters. There are about 8 or 9 regulars to the collegehumor series and they all pretty much have the same character traits. Dan Geurwitch is slightly nerdier than the rest but that's only if it serves the sketch. Considering Jake and Amir were able to make strong characters, it's a shame that no one else really has that skill.
Coming up....
Retired at 35, The Cape, Off the Map, Bob's Burgers and Mr. Sunshine
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Favorite Places A-Z-A rare travel article
Akranes, Iceland-A small little seaside town of about 7,000 people with exactly one restaurant, one internet café/coffee shop, and one club (I imagine one-night stands with someone you met at the club must have difficult repercussions). Also has absolutely gorgeous seaside views, a fish factory that I’ve toured, a soccer team and a gym/water wonderland. I stayed for two weeks in the gym while working on a forestry project and found it a very welcoming place.
Baltimore, Maryland-This city 45 minutes from my own home city, is a place I’ve always seen as the ideal American city but then again I’ve spent very little time in the section that The Wire is based on. I just go occasionally to visit the Inner Harbor, Camden Yards, the Aquarium, the State Fair or the Science Museum so I just see it from a bright lights perspective (as in people being attracted to the city because of its flashier attractions). I also see things in Baltimore that are attractive because they’re not necessarily Washingtonian things. Washington is basically a company town with the company some monstrous entity that hires IT, non-profit fundraising, lawyers and lawyer wanna-be’s, event planning, and schmoozing. Baltimore is a real city with heavy industries and subsequently, it's much lighter on the B.S.
Calgary, Alberta-This city is approximately 90 years old which actually makes a lot of difference because it’s a really clean city. It doesn’t have a lot of rind or soot on the buildings. It just also feels young. I visited the Olympic Park, Basin and Cave National Park and the Railroad depot. I also remember the Canadian Pacific fascinating me with a certain romanticism that people hold for the Orient Express or Wes Anderson so obviously held for the Darjeeling Limited when he made that movie.
Delft, Holland and Dublin, Ireland-The only time I’m going to put two here. I found Dublin really charming. The greenness that Ireland is (probably) famous for is visible all throughout this urban landscape. There were also very cool looking castles in this city superimposed on top of everything else.
Since I realized that I don’t have anything from my trip to Holland when I was 10 and I don’t have a Z, I thought I’d include Delft, Holland. That bluish pottery you think of when you think of Dutch pottery comes from Delft, Holland. It was a lot like Amsterdam but cozier and more compact. People rode bicycles often and there were canals.
Edmonton, Alberta-With so many places in the world, I hate to go back to Alberta again, but Edmonton was pretty exciting in different ways than Calgary and very few cities fall into the "E" category. The city had two remarkable sites. The first, Fort Edmonton, is a living history museum divided into four sections that called Fort Edmonton that seemed much better designed than Colonial Williamsburg. the West Edmonton Mall which is either the first or second biggest mall in the world (it’s in an arms race with Mall of America). Just like how Ft. Edmonton is cooler than Williamsburg, the West Edmonton Mall is (sorry to my American friends, especially the Minnesotans) bigger and bolder than the Mall of America and if you’d went there, you’d see it for yourself. The Mall of America is basically a mall with a cool amusement park and legoland display in the middle. The West Edmonton Mall is a combination mall and theme park. Paramount Kings Dominion wishes they could integrate storefront space and rides as well as WEM does. It’s segregated into different neighborhoods with themes and stuff. This place is a monument of human achievement: It’s ability to get people to go and spend on things they don’t need is unparalleled.
Flagstaff, Arizona-A change of pace temperature-wise from the rest of Arizona. It’s very cool and surrounded by forests. Nearby is Slide Rock State Park. It was also the place where Pluto was discovered and you can see the observatory and look at the very photographic plates where it was discovered.
Grand Banks, Ontario-I briefly stopped here with my friends Garret and Victor on an ambitious road trip through the Northeastern section of North America. It’s a charming beach town in the middle of Canada and on the banks of Lake Ontario which I found to be quite surprising. I would not have pictured a beach town in the middle of Ontario from looking at the globe, would you?
Haifa, Israel-Where my mom was born. The 3rd biggest city in Israel is where I spent at least 2-3 months combined when I was 6 and 8. Do not remember much except the pool, the playgrounds and malls my grandmother would take me too and the elevation. I distinctly remember the view and looking down at the Mediterranean Sea.
Indianapolis, Indiana-I went here with my dad once and then went here with Victor and Garret. I was sort of stranded there for four days while Victor and Garret attended a convention but I came to find the place charming. Sort of like the guy in Local Hero or Music Man. Every state (except maybe New Jersey) has its own uniqueness that it brings to the table, and I got the feeling that the state of Indiana is a little more attuned to its uniqueness than anywhere else. Maybe that’s why I found it charming. Also, a lot of people don’t really talk about Indiana so I felt like I was discovering a hidden treasure when I was over there.
Jerusalem, Israel-Honestly, it’s the lack of J’s that is making me go with Jerusalem. I prefer the more urban parts of Israel. Jerusalem is soooo holy, it’s a little intimidating. It’s like a casual Jew going to visit the synagogue for an ice cream social and then getting invited to lead services on Yom Kippur. At least that’s the way I felt the first couple trips to Israel when I was 6 and 8. Fortunately, I had a great tour guide which showed me all the aspects of Jerusalem and it’s not to say I wasn’t in awe at Jerusalem. I still see Jerusalem more as a living museum than a city. I do remember our secondary guide on my birthright trip, Tamar, had a couple friends who lived in the city and there was a marketplace, so I might have yet to see that side of the city where people might actually lead normal lives rather than living in some constant state of holiness.
Key Largo, Florida-The Florida Keys are my favorite place in the world, hands-down. Key West is the most famous point in the Keys and people associate it with drinking margaritas, partying and experiencing nightlife, but that’s an anomaly and just not the point of the Keys. The Keys is about living this easy slow-paced simple life with the occasional water-skiing or boating adventure. It’s like a stripped-down version of civilization with one highway and never more than a quarter mile on either side of it until you reach the ocean. There are tiki bars all over, but I’ve never associated them with a wild time, usually people are very sedate watching the sunset. Oh, yeah, and fishing’s big.
London, England-Went there when I was ten on the same trip as Holland. I have a lot of pictures that I was recently looking through and that big giant Ferris wheel I recently saw isn’t there. London has a lot to see and a rich history. And there’s that proper British way of doing things. Eating breakfast at the hotel felt like Anne Hathaway suddenly being confronted with royal life in the Princess Diaries (I swear I’ve never seen the movie, just the preview)…there were sugar cubes of different colors and toasts, and crumpets and teas and everything. And one of those guys outside the palace with the really tall hats heckled me because I asked a dumb question (I asked “what’s the purpose to the Tower of London”). I thought they weren’t supposed to talk, right, yeah, I know. Also, the theater district was pretty cool. Up until I was in my 20s I’d only been to Broadway once and it sucked and the two plays I saw in London I still vividly remember to this day as great experiences.
London might possibly be the most important city in the world, when you consider that New York as important as it is just the cultural and financial capital of one country and London is slowly becoming a center of a massively expanding European Union that includes many countries full of people who are trying to rapidly learn English (and not American English but the Queen’s English, I might add).
Mexico City,Mexico-So many to choose from. I spent a summer in Minneapolis and had the best study-abroad experience ever in Merida, Mexico, but Mexico City is quite possibly one of the most exciting cities in the world. So much activity on every street corner with demonstrations, peddlers, beggars, native Americans offering healing potions, street magicians and performers, people playing music for no discernible reason. Needless to say, the city was very lively. Every street was filled with some historic cathedral or building that had existed for 500 years situated next to a drug store situated next to an apartment, situated next to something else. It was completely random. Aztec ruins were there right in the middle of the city. I was only here for four or five days on a study-abroad trip but I remember when we were being shuttled around town how much interesting stuff there was to look at on the streets.
New Orleans, Louisiana-There’s a very good reason that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina lasted longer than it did and we didn’t just clear out the city: That city meant something to those people, and for good reason. New Orleans isn’t just a collection of houses on a piece of land: It was something special and it is a one-of-a-kind place. The cultural roots of the city were historically unique but that culture is still thriving and it’s been preserved very well. One thing that stuck out at me when I was in New Orleans was how well-versed people were about the local history. In some cases, it was kind of the stuff of legend and folklore.
When I volunteered in New Orleans, I worked with Common Ground and Camp Hope. If you want to know what they're working on with the rebuilding effort check those websites.
Orlando, Florida-Disneyworld and all. What more is there to say. I’ve never been to Disneyland so I suppose this is the Gold standard of amusement parks. Last was there when I was 9, so hopefully it’s still just as fun.
Park City, Utah-I love skiing so sooner or later, we’d get to a ski place. Park City is very much a small town. It’s got one big main street where all the glamorous shops are and a pretty efficient bus system that gets you everywhere. It’s amazing that such a small place holds the biggest stars in the world every January for the film festival. I also have a mild interest in what mining was like, and they had a recreated gold mine from what I remember. They also had an Olympic museum that we didn’t go in because I was disgusted that the museum wouldn’t acknowledge how corrupt the SLC Olympics were. They also had three ski resorts and one (Deer Valley) was literally on the edge of town.
Quebec, Canada-I was 5 when I was here, so can’t say I remember too much but it’s a Q. Even though the capital is in Ottawa, I believe that there was a changing of the guard eventgoing on here.
Reykjavik, Iceland-Reykjavik is a really cool place except when I was there the price of everything was ridiculously expensive. I don’t know economics well, but I hear with all the currency problems it might have gotten cheaper. Where to begin with the coolness of Reykjavik: The sun was only up for 7 hours a day in January, so it’s like a really surreal thing that everyone was going to work in the middle of the night. Then when I was there in the summer, it was daylight for literally all 26 hours. People stayed up pretty much all night on the club scene and it really wasn’t that hard. It’s almost like a college town and I literally walked from one end of Reykjavik to the other many times, almost daily in fact, and I even remember bumping into the same people fairly often in my short stays there. The town also had an interesting look. The houses were all painted different colors and I don’t know much about architecture but there was definitely something funky going on there in a lot of Reykjavik but there were also buildings that looked like they were built in the 60’s.
Sun Valley, Idaho-It’s the country’s first ski resort, more or less. It is the country’s first ski resort with a chairlift, I can definitively say, because the first chairlift is a statue with a plaque. The skier’s village at the bottom, therefore has that added historical authenticity. There’s a luxurious ice skating rink, a big ice statue of a sun, one of those shops specializing in chocolate and fudge, and a theater that has weekly screenings of the film Sun Valley Serenade which featured the town in the 1940’s. The ski resort itself also has that touch of class with fancy rugs and intricate wood carvings on the doors. The walks outside the ski mountain are also geothermically heated. At the ski lodge you can also see pictures and autographs of a lot of famous people from the last 70 years and I have a feeling that Sun Valley has a more impressive list than anything else.
Toronto, Canada-I think it’s funny that Americans don’t like to admit there might be things Canada does that are better than us. Like build a better city. For one, Toronto is a true melting pot but with very little racial tension compared to its American counterparts (that I know of). Toronto’s CN Tower is also taller than any American building. They also have lured the film industry away from LA and…..[I don’t remember what went in the second half of this sentence, my computer crashed in the middle of the Toronto entry]
Uxmal and Chichen Itza, Mexico-Say what you want about Mexico lagging behind America but their Natives would beat the crap out of our natives. The Mayans were constructing large cities, using astronomy and psychedelic shrooms to subjugate the working class. They also developed calendars that are more accurate to today’s standards and went all the way up to 2012 while our Natives built a bunch of wigwams and sang about the Colors of the Wind.
Villa Soleadad, Honduras-No other city named V has the distinction of being built by a friend of mine. No other city in the world for that matter. So this is an easy one. I have a friend who went on a trip to Honduras, was touched by the unending poverty he saw, and vowed to do something about it. A hurricane hit Honduras in 1998 from which they never recovered. He raised funds and started a non-profit with his sister to build a new set of houses at higher elevations for one of the towns stuck in the flood plains. It was a really incredible experience to be a part of it last summer.
The organization is called Studentshelpinghonduras.org
Mt Washington, New Hampshire (this entry includes Northern New Hampshire: Bathe/Bretton Woods/Franconia Notch/Cannon Mountain)-(Kind of cheating a bit here but my other W’s were a little problematic. My other options were Williamsburg which pails in comparison to Fort Edmonton, Wayzata, Minnesota which satisfies the requirement of putting something from Minnesota on the map but is kind of small and not notable except for a cross-country skiing venue, and Whistler which is a good representative of the Pacific Northwest but just another ski resort town)
Anyways, I’ve been to this Northern New Hampshire area twice: Once with my dad on our first and last camping trip when I was 10, and once with my whole family twenty years later.
Mt Washington has a cog railway and is important for some reason my dad always stresses that I can’t remember. Hold on a minute, let me ask my dad….Mt Washington has the highest wind speed ever recorded outside of Antarctica. Oh, ok. There’s that. Now I got my dad babbling about wind and if they theoretically could measure a wind station at the top of Mount Everest, I don’t know what his obsession with wind speed is all about, oh boy…
There’s also Franconia Notch where the Man on the Mountain was (see the back of the state quarter), the great skier Bode Miller’s hometown, a really interesting ski museum where I learned a lot about how ski resorts started in this country and looked at some old pictures of people skiing, which I find to be a constant source of diversion. Overall, it’s just a nice place. It’s bed-and-breakfastish but not so desolate that things aren’t open past 6 pm (a problem with neighboring Vermont)
Xoxicalco, Mexico-It’s another city of Mexican ruins very high up. Advantages over Chichen Itza are that there were a lot more signs to show you around, making it possible to see the place without a guide (although we did foolishly hire a false guide, my friend David can tell you more about that story), and the view is incredible. It’s situated way above this forest.
Yorktown, Virginia-Kind of like Colonial Williamsburg but without all the hype and hubbub. The historical district is maybe 3 blocks wide, has very consistent bus service that shuttles you to every stop, and it has a nice beach. There’s also a preserved shipwreck which is a one-of-a-kind experience.
Z-Racked my head trying to find a Z with no luck.
Baltimore, Maryland-This city 45 minutes from my own home city, is a place I’ve always seen as the ideal American city but then again I’ve spent very little time in the section that The Wire is based on. I just go occasionally to visit the Inner Harbor, Camden Yards, the Aquarium, the State Fair or the Science Museum so I just see it from a bright lights perspective (as in people being attracted to the city because of its flashier attractions). I also see things in Baltimore that are attractive because they’re not necessarily Washingtonian things. Washington is basically a company town with the company some monstrous entity that hires IT, non-profit fundraising, lawyers and lawyer wanna-be’s, event planning, and schmoozing. Baltimore is a real city with heavy industries and subsequently, it's much lighter on the B.S.
Calgary, Alberta-This city is approximately 90 years old which actually makes a lot of difference because it’s a really clean city. It doesn’t have a lot of rind or soot on the buildings. It just also feels young. I visited the Olympic Park, Basin and Cave National Park and the Railroad depot. I also remember the Canadian Pacific fascinating me with a certain romanticism that people hold for the Orient Express or Wes Anderson so obviously held for the Darjeeling Limited when he made that movie.
Delft, Holland and Dublin, Ireland-The only time I’m going to put two here. I found Dublin really charming. The greenness that Ireland is (probably) famous for is visible all throughout this urban landscape. There were also very cool looking castles in this city superimposed on top of everything else.
Since I realized that I don’t have anything from my trip to Holland when I was 10 and I don’t have a Z, I thought I’d include Delft, Holland. That bluish pottery you think of when you think of Dutch pottery comes from Delft, Holland. It was a lot like Amsterdam but cozier and more compact. People rode bicycles often and there were canals.
Edmonton, Alberta-With so many places in the world, I hate to go back to Alberta again, but Edmonton was pretty exciting in different ways than Calgary and very few cities fall into the "E" category. The city had two remarkable sites. The first, Fort Edmonton, is a living history museum divided into four sections that called Fort Edmonton that seemed much better designed than Colonial Williamsburg. the West Edmonton Mall which is either the first or second biggest mall in the world (it’s in an arms race with Mall of America). Just like how Ft. Edmonton is cooler than Williamsburg, the West Edmonton Mall is (sorry to my American friends, especially the Minnesotans) bigger and bolder than the Mall of America and if you’d went there, you’d see it for yourself. The Mall of America is basically a mall with a cool amusement park and legoland display in the middle. The West Edmonton Mall is a combination mall and theme park. Paramount Kings Dominion wishes they could integrate storefront space and rides as well as WEM does. It’s segregated into different neighborhoods with themes and stuff. This place is a monument of human achievement: It’s ability to get people to go and spend on things they don’t need is unparalleled.
Flagstaff, Arizona-A change of pace temperature-wise from the rest of Arizona. It’s very cool and surrounded by forests. Nearby is Slide Rock State Park. It was also the place where Pluto was discovered and you can see the observatory and look at the very photographic plates where it was discovered.
Grand Banks, Ontario-I briefly stopped here with my friends Garret and Victor on an ambitious road trip through the Northeastern section of North America. It’s a charming beach town in the middle of Canada and on the banks of Lake Ontario which I found to be quite surprising. I would not have pictured a beach town in the middle of Ontario from looking at the globe, would you?
Haifa, Israel-Where my mom was born. The 3rd biggest city in Israel is where I spent at least 2-3 months combined when I was 6 and 8. Do not remember much except the pool, the playgrounds and malls my grandmother would take me too and the elevation. I distinctly remember the view and looking down at the Mediterranean Sea.
Indianapolis, Indiana-I went here with my dad once and then went here with Victor and Garret. I was sort of stranded there for four days while Victor and Garret attended a convention but I came to find the place charming. Sort of like the guy in Local Hero or Music Man. Every state (except maybe New Jersey) has its own uniqueness that it brings to the table, and I got the feeling that the state of Indiana is a little more attuned to its uniqueness than anywhere else. Maybe that’s why I found it charming. Also, a lot of people don’t really talk about Indiana so I felt like I was discovering a hidden treasure when I was over there.
Jerusalem, Israel-Honestly, it’s the lack of J’s that is making me go with Jerusalem. I prefer the more urban parts of Israel. Jerusalem is soooo holy, it’s a little intimidating. It’s like a casual Jew going to visit the synagogue for an ice cream social and then getting invited to lead services on Yom Kippur. At least that’s the way I felt the first couple trips to Israel when I was 6 and 8. Fortunately, I had a great tour guide which showed me all the aspects of Jerusalem and it’s not to say I wasn’t in awe at Jerusalem. I still see Jerusalem more as a living museum than a city. I do remember our secondary guide on my birthright trip, Tamar, had a couple friends who lived in the city and there was a marketplace, so I might have yet to see that side of the city where people might actually lead normal lives rather than living in some constant state of holiness.
Key Largo, Florida-The Florida Keys are my favorite place in the world, hands-down. Key West is the most famous point in the Keys and people associate it with drinking margaritas, partying and experiencing nightlife, but that’s an anomaly and just not the point of the Keys. The Keys is about living this easy slow-paced simple life with the occasional water-skiing or boating adventure. It’s like a stripped-down version of civilization with one highway and never more than a quarter mile on either side of it until you reach the ocean. There are tiki bars all over, but I’ve never associated them with a wild time, usually people are very sedate watching the sunset. Oh, yeah, and fishing’s big.
London, England-Went there when I was ten on the same trip as Holland. I have a lot of pictures that I was recently looking through and that big giant Ferris wheel I recently saw isn’t there. London has a lot to see and a rich history. And there’s that proper British way of doing things. Eating breakfast at the hotel felt like Anne Hathaway suddenly being confronted with royal life in the Princess Diaries (I swear I’ve never seen the movie, just the preview)…there were sugar cubes of different colors and toasts, and crumpets and teas and everything. And one of those guys outside the palace with the really tall hats heckled me because I asked a dumb question (I asked “what’s the purpose to the Tower of London”). I thought they weren’t supposed to talk, right, yeah, I know. Also, the theater district was pretty cool. Up until I was in my 20s I’d only been to Broadway once and it sucked and the two plays I saw in London I still vividly remember to this day as great experiences.
London might possibly be the most important city in the world, when you consider that New York as important as it is just the cultural and financial capital of one country and London is slowly becoming a center of a massively expanding European Union that includes many countries full of people who are trying to rapidly learn English (and not American English but the Queen’s English, I might add).
Mexico City,Mexico-So many to choose from. I spent a summer in Minneapolis and had the best study-abroad experience ever in Merida, Mexico, but Mexico City is quite possibly one of the most exciting cities in the world. So much activity on every street corner with demonstrations, peddlers, beggars, native Americans offering healing potions, street magicians and performers, people playing music for no discernible reason. Needless to say, the city was very lively. Every street was filled with some historic cathedral or building that had existed for 500 years situated next to a drug store situated next to an apartment, situated next to something else. It was completely random. Aztec ruins were there right in the middle of the city. I was only here for four or five days on a study-abroad trip but I remember when we were being shuttled around town how much interesting stuff there was to look at on the streets.
New Orleans, Louisiana-There’s a very good reason that the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina lasted longer than it did and we didn’t just clear out the city: That city meant something to those people, and for good reason. New Orleans isn’t just a collection of houses on a piece of land: It was something special and it is a one-of-a-kind place. The cultural roots of the city were historically unique but that culture is still thriving and it’s been preserved very well. One thing that stuck out at me when I was in New Orleans was how well-versed people were about the local history. In some cases, it was kind of the stuff of legend and folklore.
When I volunteered in New Orleans, I worked with Common Ground and Camp Hope. If you want to know what they're working on with the rebuilding effort check those websites.
Orlando, Florida-Disneyworld and all. What more is there to say. I’ve never been to Disneyland so I suppose this is the Gold standard of amusement parks. Last was there when I was 9, so hopefully it’s still just as fun.
Park City, Utah-I love skiing so sooner or later, we’d get to a ski place. Park City is very much a small town. It’s got one big main street where all the glamorous shops are and a pretty efficient bus system that gets you everywhere. It’s amazing that such a small place holds the biggest stars in the world every January for the film festival. I also have a mild interest in what mining was like, and they had a recreated gold mine from what I remember. They also had an Olympic museum that we didn’t go in because I was disgusted that the museum wouldn’t acknowledge how corrupt the SLC Olympics were. They also had three ski resorts and one (Deer Valley) was literally on the edge of town.
Quebec, Canada-I was 5 when I was here, so can’t say I remember too much but it’s a Q. Even though the capital is in Ottawa, I believe that there was a changing of the guard eventgoing on here.
Reykjavik, Iceland-Reykjavik is a really cool place except when I was there the price of everything was ridiculously expensive. I don’t know economics well, but I hear with all the currency problems it might have gotten cheaper. Where to begin with the coolness of Reykjavik: The sun was only up for 7 hours a day in January, so it’s like a really surreal thing that everyone was going to work in the middle of the night. Then when I was there in the summer, it was daylight for literally all 26 hours. People stayed up pretty much all night on the club scene and it really wasn’t that hard. It’s almost like a college town and I literally walked from one end of Reykjavik to the other many times, almost daily in fact, and I even remember bumping into the same people fairly often in my short stays there. The town also had an interesting look. The houses were all painted different colors and I don’t know much about architecture but there was definitely something funky going on there in a lot of Reykjavik but there were also buildings that looked like they were built in the 60’s.
Sun Valley, Idaho-It’s the country’s first ski resort, more or less. It is the country’s first ski resort with a chairlift, I can definitively say, because the first chairlift is a statue with a plaque. The skier’s village at the bottom, therefore has that added historical authenticity. There’s a luxurious ice skating rink, a big ice statue of a sun, one of those shops specializing in chocolate and fudge, and a theater that has weekly screenings of the film Sun Valley Serenade which featured the town in the 1940’s. The ski resort itself also has that touch of class with fancy rugs and intricate wood carvings on the doors. The walks outside the ski mountain are also geothermically heated. At the ski lodge you can also see pictures and autographs of a lot of famous people from the last 70 years and I have a feeling that Sun Valley has a more impressive list than anything else.
Toronto, Canada-I think it’s funny that Americans don’t like to admit there might be things Canada does that are better than us. Like build a better city. For one, Toronto is a true melting pot but with very little racial tension compared to its American counterparts (that I know of). Toronto’s CN Tower is also taller than any American building. They also have lured the film industry away from LA and…..[I don’t remember what went in the second half of this sentence, my computer crashed in the middle of the Toronto entry]
Uxmal and Chichen Itza, Mexico-Say what you want about Mexico lagging behind America but their Natives would beat the crap out of our natives. The Mayans were constructing large cities, using astronomy and psychedelic shrooms to subjugate the working class. They also developed calendars that are more accurate to today’s standards and went all the way up to 2012 while our Natives built a bunch of wigwams and sang about the Colors of the Wind.
Villa Soleadad, Honduras-No other city named V has the distinction of being built by a friend of mine. No other city in the world for that matter. So this is an easy one. I have a friend who went on a trip to Honduras, was touched by the unending poverty he saw, and vowed to do something about it. A hurricane hit Honduras in 1998 from which they never recovered. He raised funds and started a non-profit with his sister to build a new set of houses at higher elevations for one of the towns stuck in the flood plains. It was a really incredible experience to be a part of it last summer.
The organization is called Studentshelpinghonduras.org
Mt Washington, New Hampshire (this entry includes Northern New Hampshire: Bathe/Bretton Woods/Franconia Notch/Cannon Mountain)-(Kind of cheating a bit here but my other W’s were a little problematic. My other options were Williamsburg which pails in comparison to Fort Edmonton, Wayzata, Minnesota which satisfies the requirement of putting something from Minnesota on the map but is kind of small and not notable except for a cross-country skiing venue, and Whistler which is a good representative of the Pacific Northwest but just another ski resort town)
Anyways, I’ve been to this Northern New Hampshire area twice: Once with my dad on our first and last camping trip when I was 10, and once with my whole family twenty years later.
Mt Washington has a cog railway and is important for some reason my dad always stresses that I can’t remember. Hold on a minute, let me ask my dad….Mt Washington has the highest wind speed ever recorded outside of Antarctica. Oh, ok. There’s that. Now I got my dad babbling about wind and if they theoretically could measure a wind station at the top of Mount Everest, I don’t know what his obsession with wind speed is all about, oh boy…
There’s also Franconia Notch where the Man on the Mountain was (see the back of the state quarter), the great skier Bode Miller’s hometown, a really interesting ski museum where I learned a lot about how ski resorts started in this country and looked at some old pictures of people skiing, which I find to be a constant source of diversion. Overall, it’s just a nice place. It’s bed-and-breakfastish but not so desolate that things aren’t open past 6 pm (a problem with neighboring Vermont)
Xoxicalco, Mexico-It’s another city of Mexican ruins very high up. Advantages over Chichen Itza are that there were a lot more signs to show you around, making it possible to see the place without a guide (although we did foolishly hire a false guide, my friend David can tell you more about that story), and the view is incredible. It’s situated way above this forest.
Yorktown, Virginia-Kind of like Colonial Williamsburg but without all the hype and hubbub. The historical district is maybe 3 blocks wide, has very consistent bus service that shuttles you to every stop, and it has a nice beach. There’s also a preserved shipwreck which is a one-of-a-kind experience.
Z-Racked my head trying to find a Z with no luck.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Ebert and Roeper Version 4.0
Ebert at the movies was cancelled but Roger Ebert made the wise decision that with the right backing, there's no reason why the show couldn't work. I agree: The audience of people wanting to read and delve into film criticism is much greater now than it was decades ago when Ebert and Siskel started. I have a hunch that even if the blogosphere existed when Ebert and Siskel first came on the air, there would be a lot fewer film blogs. The idea of caring what film critics had to say was novel back then.
Seeking to resurrect his program, Roger Ebert hand-picked his successors: Christy Lemire from the Associated Press and the world's luckiest internet film critic in 24-year old Ignatiy Vishnevetsky who was plucked from obscurity.
A little background on Ignatiy: He immigrated to the USA from Russia at the age of 9. Went to film school and dropped out after two semesters to watch three movies a day, so he could learn everything there was to learn about film. Aside from doing some translation work, he blogs on two or three websites and co-manages a video store in Chicago which charges one dollar per film which isn't exactly a powerhouse.
It's a safe bet that he would have had a career indistinguishable from every other film blogger if Roger Ebert hadn't actively looked for a new and different voice. For that, both Ebert and Vishnevtsky are now cult heroes as far as I'm concerned.
Lest you think that Vishnevtsky has no social life because he watches movies all day, he's very well-connected to people in his field in Chicago, he's very charming and articulate, and he recently proposed marriage to his girlfriend and then impulsively got married two days before the first show aired.
So I tuned into this show very excited at what was being awaited. Everything worked very well. Both hosts are photogenic (read: easy on the eyes), knowledgable and able to compress their opinions into informative one-minute discussions.
There was just one little glitch to the first episode: The way they voted.
Vishnevtsky and Lemire both voted the exact same way every time. He liked absolutely everything. Lemire absolutely disliked everything. Thumbs up thumbs down to eveyrhting.
They shouldn't have been dishonest but they should have at least picked a film where someone had a change of opinion. It looks like one's a softy and one's a massive cynic so far, and they would have been better served by picking a film where they meet in the middle. Hope, it changes next week.
Thursday, January 27, 2011
Brief reviews of Parks and Recreation, 30 Rock, and Outsourced tonight
Hey Guys, I'm going to drift off to sleep very soon, so this will be a somewhat loosely written and sloppy reflection on my thoughts of tonight's episodes.
Check out Top 10 Websites:
bit.ly/eDIrB1
Parks and Recreation:
Last week, Parks and Rec disappointed me by focusing so heavily on the dating lives of Ann and Leslie that I started to feel like the show was becoming a romantic comedy. Fortunately, things cooled down a little this week as we got classic Leslie buffoonery.
Leslie is starting to remind me pretty heavily of that other quintessential TV comedienne whose name starts with an "L": Lucille Ball. In fact, didn't Lucy Ricardo have at least one episode per season in which she tried to break into Ricky's show while sick? My colleague Cory Barker at TVsurveillance.com wrote that Parks and Recreation is already better than The Office (I don't know if I'd go that far) in part because Leslie is a lovable character that we root for, whereas Michael Scott is inconsistently written.
Moving on, Leslie's determination to give the speech was almost a red herring. It wasn't really about whether Leslie would succeed at the speech but what kind of working relationship Leslie would have with Ben and, to a lesser extent, Tom. Ben proved that he'd stand up for her and that he could be counted on and Tom proved otherwise which stayed consistent with what we already know about him. The plot device was entirely meaningless and treated as such: The money was raised despite the fact that she essentially screwed up big.
P&R is essentially about a strong group of friends at a workplace and that ensemble is rounding out nicely. I'm glad that the cast was tweaked to add some new blood. I only hope that Rob Lowe and Adam Scott weren't bought in just to provde romantic "solutions" to Leslie and Anne. Some notes:
-I have seen Rob Lowe in millions of things. He's a ubiquitous actor who finds his way into Aaron Sorkin dramas, Mike Myer comedies and everything in between. His character on Parks and Recration, however, is the first time I've ever seen him act. I'm very impressed
-It's to P&R's great credit that they navigated through a lose-lose situation by giving him some sort of girlfriend figure at the moment but still not taking away what amounts to an inferiority complex. Tom still is jealous of Ron for dating his significantly hotter ex-wife and he also has that same ineffective desire to please with the guys at the spa. It's both a step foward for Tom but it's not enough of a step foward that he isn't essentially a sad figure.
-I still have no idea why everyone's so crazy about Ron Swanson. It seems, based on reviews I'm reading, that he's already become an iconic character who's transcended the popularity of the show itself. Hell, I don't even know why Tom's ex-wife is even interested in her. I have no problem with adoration for Ron Swanson and Nick Offerman. I do, however, feel that Audrey Plaza is the ensemble darkhorse of the show and just hope those on Team Ron are throwing a little love for Team April too.
-Still undecided about the Andy and April relationship. I don't think it has long-term potential and I suspect most viewers don't. Thus, the question is: Are we rooting for a mistake to be made?
30 Rock:
The Tracy-Liz relationship has been one that existed in an uneasy state of equilibrium but it's generally been a constant. Tracy is annoying as Hell and he would drive most people insane. But Liz puts up with it and that's a big key to the show.
Let me explain: It's part of the framework of the show that this star-studded universe is askew and that chracters like Tracy, Jack, and Jenna exhibit alarmingly unacceptable behavior and Liz gets only a little annoyed as if dealing with mildly irritating colleagues like these is just part of a normal workday and she's supposed to grin and bear it.
If one were to call Liz a straight man, they'd be misidentifying her. A real straight man would be a character like Queen Latifah's congresswoman who walks in there and immediately notices that this workplace is full of extremely abnormal people. The fact that Liz reacts with just a little irritation rather than a genuine fear that someone like Tracy is diabolically insane and the business decisions of the entire NBC programming department is in the hands of someone who makes such irrational decisions (seriously, listen closely to Jack's lines) is what makes this universe work.
With that in mind:
Liz blowing up at Tracy is not consistent with the tone to date. It might be a very realistic course of action if the show were a realistic one but I found it a little jarring.
That being said, 30 Rock's strengths were in plain view tonight. When it comes to satirizing the norms of show business, 30 Rock pushes the envelope better than anyone and you know that the writers have a particularly sharp set of surgical tools with which to pick at their target. Liz and Tracy arguing through the song "Uptown Girls" so the reality show producer couldn't film it was one of the most clever scenes I've seen in a sitcom in ages. (Side note: How meta that Billy Joel probably will get money off of it)
I also had the observation tonight about 30 Rock that I can't think of any other show on television that's better line-for-line. When 30 Rock goes for a joke, it's a multi-layered piece of art. Lines of dialogue are beautifully inverted and subtly placed between seemingly ordinary sentences so when you catch it, it's a hidden treasure. There are a million examples of this but Jack said as the credits closed, "We haven't had ratings this good since that episode of SVU where the detectives watched American Idol." Is that not one of the most brilliant lines of dialogue you've ever heard? I will admit that 30 Rock had a drop in quality in Seasons 3 and 4, but that attention to crafting brilliant jewels and subtly inserting them into every line of dialogue they could is something that never waned. This convinces me very strongly that the writer's room is not full of lazy people.
Last but not least:
Outsourced: The episode was typical Outsourced which was pretty good for a show in its first season. With the strength of Parks and 30 Rock tonight, it was easy to not appreciate it as much (in fact, most other critics have already written the show off entirely) but there was some nice things to appreciate.
There were two pretty good twists I didn't see coming. The introduction of the other lover and the backfiring of Rajiv's plan. I thought the plan would backfire but I didn't see it backfiring that way. Falling into predictable sitcom formulas in the first season is the biggest indication (to me, at least) that a show is going nowhere, so I take this as a good sign.
The episode introduced different pairings too which is the kind of thing Community would do in the first season a lot en route to becoming a cult favorite.
But, let's talk about the big development: Charlie finally found out about Todd and Tanya. It's about time. Also, Tanya is looser than I thought. It was a nice moment of resolution and I think the joke was dragged out long enough.
Check out Top 10 Websites:
bit.ly/eDIrB1
Parks and Recreation:
Last week, Parks and Rec disappointed me by focusing so heavily on the dating lives of Ann and Leslie that I started to feel like the show was becoming a romantic comedy. Fortunately, things cooled down a little this week as we got classic Leslie buffoonery.
Leslie is starting to remind me pretty heavily of that other quintessential TV comedienne whose name starts with an "L": Lucille Ball. In fact, didn't Lucy Ricardo have at least one episode per season in which she tried to break into Ricky's show while sick? My colleague Cory Barker at TVsurveillance.com wrote that Parks and Recreation is already better than The Office (I don't know if I'd go that far) in part because Leslie is a lovable character that we root for, whereas Michael Scott is inconsistently written.
Moving on, Leslie's determination to give the speech was almost a red herring. It wasn't really about whether Leslie would succeed at the speech but what kind of working relationship Leslie would have with Ben and, to a lesser extent, Tom. Ben proved that he'd stand up for her and that he could be counted on and Tom proved otherwise which stayed consistent with what we already know about him. The plot device was entirely meaningless and treated as such: The money was raised despite the fact that she essentially screwed up big.
P&R is essentially about a strong group of friends at a workplace and that ensemble is rounding out nicely. I'm glad that the cast was tweaked to add some new blood. I only hope that Rob Lowe and Adam Scott weren't bought in just to provde romantic "solutions" to Leslie and Anne. Some notes:
-I have seen Rob Lowe in millions of things. He's a ubiquitous actor who finds his way into Aaron Sorkin dramas, Mike Myer comedies and everything in between. His character on Parks and Recration, however, is the first time I've ever seen him act. I'm very impressed
-It's to P&R's great credit that they navigated through a lose-lose situation by giving him some sort of girlfriend figure at the moment but still not taking away what amounts to an inferiority complex. Tom still is jealous of Ron for dating his significantly hotter ex-wife and he also has that same ineffective desire to please with the guys at the spa. It's both a step foward for Tom but it's not enough of a step foward that he isn't essentially a sad figure.
-I still have no idea why everyone's so crazy about Ron Swanson. It seems, based on reviews I'm reading, that he's already become an iconic character who's transcended the popularity of the show itself. Hell, I don't even know why Tom's ex-wife is even interested in her. I have no problem with adoration for Ron Swanson and Nick Offerman. I do, however, feel that Audrey Plaza is the ensemble darkhorse of the show and just hope those on Team Ron are throwing a little love for Team April too.
-Still undecided about the Andy and April relationship. I don't think it has long-term potential and I suspect most viewers don't. Thus, the question is: Are we rooting for a mistake to be made?
30 Rock:
The Tracy-Liz relationship has been one that existed in an uneasy state of equilibrium but it's generally been a constant. Tracy is annoying as Hell and he would drive most people insane. But Liz puts up with it and that's a big key to the show.
Let me explain: It's part of the framework of the show that this star-studded universe is askew and that chracters like Tracy, Jack, and Jenna exhibit alarmingly unacceptable behavior and Liz gets only a little annoyed as if dealing with mildly irritating colleagues like these is just part of a normal workday and she's supposed to grin and bear it.
If one were to call Liz a straight man, they'd be misidentifying her. A real straight man would be a character like Queen Latifah's congresswoman who walks in there and immediately notices that this workplace is full of extremely abnormal people. The fact that Liz reacts with just a little irritation rather than a genuine fear that someone like Tracy is diabolically insane and the business decisions of the entire NBC programming department is in the hands of someone who makes such irrational decisions (seriously, listen closely to Jack's lines) is what makes this universe work.
With that in mind:
Liz blowing up at Tracy is not consistent with the tone to date. It might be a very realistic course of action if the show were a realistic one but I found it a little jarring.
That being said, 30 Rock's strengths were in plain view tonight. When it comes to satirizing the norms of show business, 30 Rock pushes the envelope better than anyone and you know that the writers have a particularly sharp set of surgical tools with which to pick at their target. Liz and Tracy arguing through the song "Uptown Girls" so the reality show producer couldn't film it was one of the most clever scenes I've seen in a sitcom in ages. (Side note: How meta that Billy Joel probably will get money off of it)
I also had the observation tonight about 30 Rock that I can't think of any other show on television that's better line-for-line. When 30 Rock goes for a joke, it's a multi-layered piece of art. Lines of dialogue are beautifully inverted and subtly placed between seemingly ordinary sentences so when you catch it, it's a hidden treasure. There are a million examples of this but Jack said as the credits closed, "We haven't had ratings this good since that episode of SVU where the detectives watched American Idol." Is that not one of the most brilliant lines of dialogue you've ever heard? I will admit that 30 Rock had a drop in quality in Seasons 3 and 4, but that attention to crafting brilliant jewels and subtly inserting them into every line of dialogue they could is something that never waned. This convinces me very strongly that the writer's room is not full of lazy people.
Last but not least:
Outsourced: The episode was typical Outsourced which was pretty good for a show in its first season. With the strength of Parks and 30 Rock tonight, it was easy to not appreciate it as much (in fact, most other critics have already written the show off entirely) but there was some nice things to appreciate.
There were two pretty good twists I didn't see coming. The introduction of the other lover and the backfiring of Rajiv's plan. I thought the plan would backfire but I didn't see it backfiring that way. Falling into predictable sitcom formulas in the first season is the biggest indication (to me, at least) that a show is going nowhere, so I take this as a good sign.
The episode introduced different pairings too which is the kind of thing Community would do in the first season a lot en route to becoming a cult favorite.
But, let's talk about the big development: Charlie finally found out about Todd and Tanya. It's about time. Also, Tanya is looser than I thought. It was a nice moment of resolution and I think the joke was dragged out long enough.
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