I loved some of the subtleties of Survivor last night — particularly the [scary knife!] sound effect perfectly timed to one of Taj’s best eye rolls, and the utterly random zoom-ins on a giant turtle that looked like it might attack Taj and Erinn in the water. (I had to rewind and make sure I hadn’t missed the turtle "making its move." Nope. Just a turtle. Possible metaphor for Taj and/or Erinn.) Not so subtle last night: The highly amusing Working-On-a-Pole reward challenge. I think Probst, a junior member of the PopWatch writing staff, is at his hosting best when he embellishes the sexual language just for the hell of it. Jump to 2:30 in the clip below for some of his finest narration of the season. "JT, already workin’ on his pole…Everybody’s now workin’ on their pole!…Coach now in on it! Will his pole reach?" It would not. Do you like it when Survivor tries to get cute?
I loves me a good dumb action movie. I like it when guns blaze, when bones break, when people get hacked up with samurai swords, when heroes ride the blast waves of the same explosions that incinerated their enemies. So you can imagine my joy when I came across these two trailers — for a Gerard Butler sci-fi shoot-’em-up called Gamer and a manga adaptation called Blood: The Last Vampire. I present them both for your approval:
Firstly, it’s nice to see 300‘s Gerard Butler doing manly stuff again — I’d had just about enough of him in romantic comedies. Sure, Gamer has a bit of a Universal Soldier-Running Man vibe…but that is in no way a bad thing. And Dexter’s Michael C. Hall as a Southern-fried reality-TV impresario who uses convicts as puppets in a massively multiplayer real-world war simulation? Campy, scenery-devouring genius. I expect to have as much fun with Gamer as I did with last year’s Death Race — which was 31 flavors of craptastic.
Blood: The Last Vampire runs the risk of taking itself a little too seriously. What makes movies like Gamer or Crank or Doomsday such fun is that they know exactly what they are and aim to deliver as robust a B-movie experience as possible. Coming, as it does, from "a producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon," Blood feels like it wants to be more than just a good time — despite the fact that it’s about a young woman in a school-girl outfit who slays demons.
Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with a little cheese. It is, after all, a staple of a balanced diet.
What about you? Do either of these trailers entice you? Or will you wait for the inevitable basic-cable premieres?
Die-hard Star Trek fans seem to have accepted J.J. Abrams’ reboot with remarkably little grumbling, thanks to the time-travel-prompted alternate universe that keeps the canon they knew perfectly valid while allowing for new interpretations of the characters and their adventures to flourish. As I was geeking out with a buddy earlier this week, talking about what a Trek sequel might look like, he reminded me of something: There are classic events in the Star Trek Universe that Abrams’ reboot didn’t undo.
Just six months ago, doomsayers were predicting that the economic slump would kill Broadway. But recent stories suggest it’s proved surprisingly resilient. According to last week’s box office tallies, 12 Broadway shows filled 90 percent or more of their seats. What’s more, it isn’t just stalwarts like Wicked and Jersey Boys playing to nearly sold-out houses. Seven of those hit shows were new this season, and two of them — the star-studded comedy God of Carnage (pictured at left) and the Nathan Lane-topped Beckett revival Waiting for Godot — were non-musicals.
In fact, one of the big surprises of this Broadway season is the sheer number of non-musical plays on the boards, and how many of them are finding a decent audience. (Even terrific but relatively celeb-free shows like Mary Stuart, Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, and The Norman Conquests are holding up well.) The truest sign of recessionary thinking on Broadway seems to be coming not from ticket buyers but producers, who seem to be favoring less costly productions with smaller casts. Carnage has just four actors; Godot has five. Even usually pricey musicals are more modest in scope: Next to Normal, which boasts 11 Tony nominations and now plays at 86 percent capacity, has just six actors and a six-person band — a far cry from last season’s ambitious South Pacific revival with its 40-member cast and 30-person orchestra.
Does anyone feel shortchanged by paying full price for smaller-scale productions? I suspect the answer is no, so long as the show itself delivers. That’s one of the great joys of live theater. A one-person show on a bare stage can be just as riveting as an over-the-top extravaganza with costumes, sets, and music galore. (Can someone please remind Julie Taymor of this lesson as she preps her Spider-Man musical for next season, with its reported $30 million-plus budget?) What do you think, PopWatchers? Are Broadway shows worth the splurge when dollars are tight?
Hey, Greg Daniels and Mike Schur: Please keep "guest star" Chris Pratt on Parks and Recreation. Pratt, and his goofball fratboy-past-his-prime charm, dominated the show’s season finale, delivering some of the best moments ever in the fledgling series. His listing of all the band names he’s gone through was pure genius. Some favorites: Department of Homeland Obscurity. Just the Tip. Teddy Bear Suicide. Puppy Pendulum. Everything Rhymes with Orange.
The finale, "Rock Show," was solid all-around, with Leslie getting set up on a blind date with a 62-year-old government guy, while the whole Parks department headed to a local bar to watch Andy (Pratt) and his band Scarecrow Boat. (They should totally change it back to Department of Homeland Obscurity.) The music, described as Matchbox Twenty meets The Fray, was awesomely awful. To be fair, not many bands have songs that "rock really hard" but also "inform people about a small public works project."
A lot of people I know gave up on Parks after the first episode. I don’t blame them. It was pretty underwhelming. But the last two have been really good, if not great. But there are still a couple of nagging issues I’d like to see fixed for the next season. Click through the jump to read the three things the show needs to do to improve in season two.
Things degenerated fast in the second hour of the reunion. Andy gave up trying to moderate, looking alternately amused and fatigued by the sniping women. At various points, while Ramona’s head spun around and she caterwauled about not having crazy eyes, he looked like he had given up and resigned himself to doing checklists in his head of upcoming grooming appointments and spinning classes.
Kelly was granted too much air time, exhaling dodo bird nonsense like "cartwheels have no price" and "I don’t want to be in negative town" and that she was voted the most charitable person in her "area" when she was 12 years old. She tsked tsked Bethenny, faux-lamenting the fact that "we could have been best friends, you and I are exactly the same. You’re brunette, I’m blonde." 1) You two would never be friends. 2) You’re cold and always seem to have woken up from a sleeping pill-induced doze. Bethenny is raw and emotional and could benefit from solid meal and a solid 8 hours of sleep. 3) You have brown hair! And why are we talking about hair?!
Kelly tried pushing her Bohemian schtick, bringing up again her Dodge Ram and gypsy lifestyle, but the women pounced. Jill reminded her that a $15 million house in the Hamptons does not an earthy hippie make and Bethenny took her to task for blowing up her journalistic endeavors. "We’re not confusing you with Stone Phillips," Bethenny cracked. "You write a three-sentence column about Matthew Modine saying how good you look in a miniskirt." Zing! You know things are bad when Ramona when has a moment of clarity, turning to Kelly at one point and announcing "You’re like the Scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz! You’re delusional!" (The poor Scarecrow, being unfairly brought into this mess.)
What are you talking about? It’s May. 30 Rock‘s season 3 is over, and the star-studded "We Need a Kidney" musical number is still in my head. Get it out! The Kidney Now! extravaganza was sweet and all, and if Alan Alda really did need a kidney he’d have a bevy of matches (for Dr. Spaceman to shoot down) by 11 p.m. But my preferred story line of the finale by far was Liz Lemon’s emergence as the real-life "That’s a Dealbreaker!" lady. Yes, the woman whose love life is consistently (and oh so endearingly) a disaster, who has less sexual experience than a suburban seventh grader, and who had to call upon the emotional cues of her Sims family in order to advise Jack on his daddy issues is now doling out the dealbreakers with sass ‘n’ style. Big time. THIS is what I want in my head all day. (Press play below.)
S. That. D. Shut it down. Dealbreaker.
More on the season finale — plus, name your favorite quotes from season 3 — after the jump.
Pushing Daisies‘ Anna Friel will star as Holly Golightly in a new stage version of Breakfast at Tiffany’s opening in London this fall, according to Variety. I loved Daisies, in all its primary-colored whimsy, so I’m pleased that the lovely Friel has such a great role in her future. Still, a young actress taking on anything associated with the ever-beloved Audrey Hepburn is setting herself up for quite a backlash. There’s a trail of discarded magazine headlines dubbing one winsome brunette or another the "next Audrey Hepburn." Unfairly or not, most have not lived up to the title. (But keep trying, Jennifer Love Hewitt!)
It’s not always their fault of course — Hepburn is almost canonized at this point, and it’s impossible to measure up to a saint. There’s a deep, dark secret to all this Hepburn worship, though: Breakfast at Tiffany’s isn’t a very good movie. Hepburn is as charming and gorgeous as always, but the movie completely defangs the dark Truman Capote novella it’s based on. I am curious to see what Friel does with the Golightly role, and if the stage version is more faithful to Capote’s original tone.
What do you think? Are you glad Friel’s got some Golightly in her future? Or is this just Hepburn heresy?
Side note: When I first read the sentence "Anna Friel will star as Holly Golightly," I misread it as "Anna Faris will star as Holly Golightly." How awesome would that be? Maybe Faris is the next Audrey Hepburn.
I’ll admit it: I’m not a patient viewer. I like things to make sense for the full hour, which could be why the first thing I wrote in my notebook watching Bones‘ Season 4 finale was "WTF is Hodgins rambling on about?" If you’re not gonna make sense, then you at least have to give me clever dialogue and new insights to keep me playing along. That’s where the episode went wrong for me: Maybe the dialogue was purposely confusing or cliché at times because that’s what it’d be like in someone’s coma-bound mind, but by the time I theorized that, I had no desire to watch the episode again, which is what you would need to do to fully appreciate it. The writing of what I interpreted to be Booth’s coma dream revealed nothing new. By now, we all knew that he had a soft spot for Sweets, that he loved Brennan, that he wanted to be a dad to her child, that he would kill someone who tried to hurt her, and that everyone in "The Lab" would do whatever it took to save him if they believed he was in trouble (either with the Grave Digger or the law). I did get and appreciate the plethora of shoutouts to longtime fans, my favorites of which where: Sweets saying that people think he’s Gormogon, but it’s the name of his band; Nigel-Murray telling Zack that he looks like someone who would go to jail for a crime he didn’t commit; Brennan kissing Booth on the cheek after he told her that their club was doing a benefit for sick children, just like she’d done when Booth let Russ see his sick step-daughter before arresting him; Booth dressing like he did in Vegas, when they went undercover and they first played a couple; and "Bren" being accused of cheating after Brennan’s said repeatedly that monogamy is unnatural. But 59 minutes of playing hide-and-seek with references isn’t what I wanted. Nothing these fake characters did was as interesting as what the real characters could’ve been doing. The final second — when we found out that Booth (presumably) has amnesia — was, however, a season finale-sized jolt that will make the fall premiere a Must See. Let’s break it down:
• So my final interpretation of the hospital scene was that Brennan had been typing (or Doogie-Howsering) what we’d heard in Hodgins’ voiceover throughout the episode, while what we saw was the "weird dream" Booth had been having for the four days he was in a coma after having a bad reaction to the anesthesia used during his otherwise successful brain surgery. Is that how you took it, as opposed to it all being from Brennan’s brain (she wouldn’t have deleted an entire novel and, hopefully, she’s a better writer than that) or that Brennan had been reading aloud what she’d been writing and Booth’s confused mind created its own visual and filled in the holes (that idea I could like because it means that some of what we saw was new, for Brennan)? Regardless, the amnesia, however cliché, is also rather poetic: just when Brennan realizes who Booth is — someone with whom it’s worth sharing control of her happiness — he forgets her. The person who was "acutely aware" of their attraction and struggled with it daily suddenly changed, from him to her. I think the dream was a way to show us that Booth’s mind was losing its memory of people — but that it’s not 100 percent gone, so he’ll get it back my November Sweeps. Note: If he somehow doesn’t actually have amnesia, then this episode was a total waste, and I’ll have to kick someone square in the nuts. So back to Booth having amnesia… I like it. For Brennan, it’s the classic "don’t know what you got till it’s gone" scenario. Seeley had been so nice to her in recent weeks, it could be fun to watch them return to that antagonistic relationship they had in season 1, when they frustrated each other more than sexually. And then we’ll get that great moment when he remembers her (which I’m sure will come right as she moves on — the center must hold, but the tug of war must continue). Of course, we do now run the risk of Booth not being able to work, which means the show will be in full "character" mode as he tries to figure out who he is. That makes me nervous, like when my carbon monoxide alarm chirps but just to tell me that it needs new batteries. I just don’t know that Booth the man is as interesting to me as Booth the man who solves cases with the incredibly intelligent woman amidst massive amounts of sexual tension. I want the show to prove me wrong, but I don’t have complete faith that it will.
• The sex scene: Major disappointment. I forgive everyone from the show who lied and said it wouldn’t be a dream — although would they really have been spoiling it if they had been honest with us? It’s not like we believed it was real for a second. (Not like in the Season 4 Angel episode "Awakening," when Angelus was summoned…) I’m just pissed that it wasn’t hot. I pretty much felt nothing — not even the urge to rewind. I guess it needs to be the real Booth and Brennan getting it on to get me excited. The good news: We still have that moment to look forward to. As do Emily Deschanel’s breasts, which will no doubt make another appearance.
As I was driving to my local movie theater earlier this week, flipping through radio stations and cursing myself for not having one of those car-iPod adapter thingys, a familiar British voice made me pause. It was my favorite dreamboat chef. He was chitchatting about this week’s big finale, and though I may have missed a good chunk of the interview, it seemed like he was giving Paula lots of verbal lovin’. Not to mention that throughout the season it seems like Ramsay has favored Paula a bit, no? Perhaps that’s why I went into tonight’s finale thinking that Paula was going to come out victorious. And that Lacey was going to seriously piss me off. I was right about Lacey, but as for the winner….well those of you who watched don’t need me to remind you, and those of you who didn’t will just have to wait until the end of the recap (no scrolling!) to find out. Let’s get this ball rolling.
Just six months ago, doomsayers were predicting that the economic slump would kill Broadway. But recent 
Pushing Daisies‘ Anna Friel 
