July 27th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews the split-screen episode of *Coupling*

I haven’t had a functioning TV in years, and the last show I watched regularly was the first few seasons of The West Wing, but I still am devoted to the idea of the perfect situation comedy. This is a holdover from my youth, when I actually watched TV and TV actually specialized in sitcoms. Now from what I hear, the medium has largely moved on without me, towards shows that teach you how to build a house or make supper (I have always been averse to learning anything from television).

I can watch as much Much Music as I can do cardio at the gym (and I have pretty good lung capacity), but other than that, all my TV comes from someone else’s house or their DVDs and download. And the British situation comedy Coupling keeps coming up among all the smart people who share TV with me, even though it’s no longer being made (and there’s an American version that no one seems to watch). I’ve seen perhaps 10 episodes over the past couple years, and I do think it is a fine fine example of what may well be a dying breed.

Near as I can tell, there are six friends/acquaintances on the show, three men and three women: urban, neurotic, very funny and attractive, in varying degrees of romantic and sexual involvement with each other. If it sounds like Friends, it does have that flavour of banter, but a) it’s dirtier, because it’s the BBC, b) not all of the characters are actually friends. The men seem to be mainly friends with each other, and two of the girls likewise, the third girl being the ex of one of the guys, that guy now being the boyfriend of one of the other women. It’s confusing and I don’t fully get it, having watched only a smattering of non-consecutive episodes and never bothered to read an episode guide (there is so much wrong with my reviewing technique). But you can still get the jokes without the backstory.

The big diff between this show and a standard American sitcom is that it is more invested in being kooky and inventive than having to have to tie up neatly at the end. The plot of the episode Split is pretty standard and dull, but it takes place entirely in split-screen, which is very cool. It concerns, natch, the break-up of the central couple, Steve and Susan. They each retreat to their own gender teams/sides of the screen, and you get to see both sides offer truly pathetic advice and comfort. The semi-annoying thing about this show is that it’s *so* gendered–but often creepily accurate. The boys with their video games and the girls with their self-help books are lame but also very much like people you know, only funnier (Sally on women’s magazines: “A thousand articles on why men are crap, and then one on how you ought to wake him up with a blow job.” [that may not be a direct quote, since I am not in possession of the DVD, but close enough]).

To do an entire episode in split screen and not make it either boringly static or dizzyingly hard to follow is quite an accomplishment. Even better, they pull a lot of neat visual and aural tricks with the set-up. When the split couple wake up alone the morning after the breakup, each have of the screen shows a lonely arm wandering over the empty half of the bed. And best bit concerned a lot of accidental/on-purpose dialing of each other’s numbers and then hanging up, with ensuing agonies about 1471ing (the British equivalent of *69, I gather). The Greek chorus of friends jumps with each new development, and it’s neat the way the cause and effect ripples across the screen.

Who knows, sitcoms could have come so far since I watched them last that the few still being made are *all* this clever, but I don’t care. To me, with zero context, this is froth at it’s finest and I might even make a serious attempt to watch another episode, which is high praise coming from me.

No more fire / only desire
RR

July 19th, 2008

Rose-coloured Reviews *Get Smart*

I do not necessarily think that hard about my cinematic choices, and so far that has worked out pretty well. The *entire* reason I wanted to see Get Smart is that Fred mentioned that, at some point in the action, someone drives a car through the doors of the Arts Building at McGill, where we both studied. I am fond of McGill and have entirely happy memories of the Arts Building, but I still thought it would be cool to see someone drive a car through the doors. The fact that popcorn and hilarity might be involved just made the possibility even sweeter!

My companion had actually seen the original TV show and gave me an astute precis of what we might see (shoe phones, physical comedy, Cold War references). As soon as we got into Steve Carell‘s goofball seriousness, though, I felt right at home. This is the sort of action-satire that started with Peter Sellers in The Pink Panther–oh, what do I know about film history, it probably started long before that! But it went right up into my childhood: Leslie Neilson in The Naked Gun, Val Kilmer in Top Secret!, Inspector Gadget in Inspector Gadget: an officious, oblivious, dead-serious bumbler, adrift in a high-tech, high-stakes world he thinks he can defeat, but most certainly can’t. His (these characters are never women, it occurs to me) ineptitude is never revealed to him, because circumstances, dumb luck and quick-thinking friends (oh, Penny and Brain!) always bail him out in the nick.

Carell’s Agent 86 is a little more self-aware than the others I mentioned–he feels some of the sting of failure when he fails, and considerable embarrassment when he notices Agent 99 (Anne Hathaway) bailing him out yet again. Carell’s self-awareness and vulnerable ego gives some nice laughs, but he loses others on the physical stuff. I think this guy is not a physical comedian. I haven’t seen a lot of his work, but I understand it to based more on the awkward moment rather than the hilarious pratfall, and *Get Smart* definitely dwelt more on the latter. Yeah, Carell fell down a lot, it just wasn’t all that memorable (I *love* people falling down…in movies, where no one gets hurt)

Anne Hathaway–also not known for her slapstick work! And looking really weird. Her character, Agent 99, is supposed to have had extensive facial reconstructive surgery, but I don’t know why the make-up artists tried to make her look like that. She’s awfully attractive, I’ve seen non-99 pictures (ok, full disclosure, it was The Princess Diaries) and I am sure her face is normally same colour as her neck. I don’t know why it wasn’t here.

Why am I complaining? I liked this movie. The more reviews I write, the more I realized it’s way easier to be grim than Rose-coloured. Hathaway is a fine straight woman for Carell’s awkward deadpan hilarity, and if neither of them can fall down with particular aplomb, The Rock and Alan Arkin sure can. Alan Arkin gets hit in the head with a fire-extinguisher and never lets anyone forget it. Hahaha. No, it’s funny really. And I always forget how much I like the Rock (do you capitalize the “the”, do you think? Is it part of his proper name?) Between movies, it seems like he’s some tall obnoxious wrestler, but he’s actually really goofy and fun–didja see a little gem called The Rundown? No, no you didn’t, nobody did who isn’t a big Seann William Scott fan did, and so that would basically just be me. Nevermind, it was really good. Hey, what was my point?

*Get Smart* is a good movie for not thinking very hard about. I was enjoying myself so much that I actually forgot about the McGill connection, and when the little red car busts through the doors (it comes outta nowhere, there are no previous exteriors at McGill) I bounced in my seat with joy! It was awesome!! Carell drives right past the Three Bares statue off campus to rue Sherbrooke. OMG, so cool.

If you dig that sort of thing, along with the occasional George W. joke and some high-paced action with a train that I didn’t fully understand, you should really go see this movie. I’m also told that it riffs pretty well on the TV show, so that’s good. Really, delightful fluff.

I’ve got this sentimental heart that beats
RR

March 30th, 2008

Questions without answers

Is it just my lame neighbourhood, or was it awfully well lit during Earth Hour? Obviously the press says different, but…

Did America’s Best Dance Crew jump the shark with the rollerskating crew?

Why did my nextdoor neighbour’s snow boots, which he always leaves in the hall, have roses in them the other day?

How could I possibly have spent $55 at Kinko’s this afternoon?

Pondering, pondering…

I watch your hand smooth the front of your blouse
RR

November 8th, 2007

Readers reading readers

I am thinking about metaness today, hence the previous post. Partly because I am headed to my brother’s this evening to watch 30 Rock, that hilarious tv show about writing a hilarious tv show. We’re trying to use the structure of the sitcom to help us write our own (sadly, no link [yet]), but also watching the sheningans of the writers gives us (me, anyway) about how writing as a team might go, or at least things we could throw at each other. And then, mentioning the story “Sleep” yesterday put me in mind of the fact that that was a story, in large part, about someone reading, which is very rare.

Insightful Kerry posted this about how important it is to see characters in fiction working if we are to fully imagine their lives, something I so utterly believe. I have been wondering what else that is normally left out would be good to have in? We never see the housework, but perhaps the times in people’s lives most worth immortalizing in story are not the weeks and months when the stove was always sparkling. And maybe the events of novels and short stories often preclude a lot of leisure time for reading, television watching, movie attendance. God knows, a week in which I finish three books is not one you want to read a story about (or even a blog post).

But writers are word creatures and we build our lives as well as our fictions out of words, and I think characters can’t help but reflect this. Yet I am having trouble thinking of concrete incidents of this–who wants to help me make a list of books read by fictional characters? Or even tv shows watched by them–I very much enjoyed in the current New Quarterly when Amelia Defalco’s characters in “Monuments” watched rented episodes of Monty Python and Kids in the Hall as an excuse for time together. That wreaks of real life. Where else have I seen that?

On the other hand, writing about writing, whether on the page or on the screen, gets boring real fast. Writers are self-absorbed creatures, I know, and so I try to tread lightly on interests of my own that might not be anyone else’s. Some can pull it off, of course: Roth’s Zuckerman, Henry on Bosom Buddies and everything Aaron Sorkin ever wrote (think about it: tv sports writers, speech writers, tv comedy writers).

But is this sort of thing charmingly meta, insight into a delicate craft, or solipsism? As a girl who will, in 2008, attempt to finish a novel in which one of the central characters is a playwright, I do not know if I wish to push this question too far…

But a list of readers you’ve read about, that I’d like to see.

I wanna talk to you
RR

PS–And then there was of course, Black’s Books, the best (and only) tv show ever set in a bookstore. Every now and then on that one, someone actually read something, too!

October 23rd, 2007

Another harmless addition

Perhaps because my apartment has no hot water, the rain, and having my folded umbrella spontaneously and violently unfold as I got onto the bus, the open end in the face of the startled bus driver, and the handle in the chest of winded me, I am not in a very good mood. And so I will follow on from yesterday’s candy and candy blog post with another website recommendation that chronicles a (fairly) harmless indulgence: television.

When I left home in 1997 and the thinking-man’s sitcom was having a moment in the spotlight (I hear it’s having another one now—true?) Sports Night, News Radio, I heard Fraiser though I never watched that one. I didn’t limit myself to shows that require actual thought, either; I recall being quite a fan of Dharma and Greg for reasons that now escape me. And then there was the cultural heroin that was Friends.

When I moved to Montreal, I was probably seriously addicted to close to a dozen half-hour wonders. Um, I did actually go out of the house in high school, but mainly on weekends, when there was nothing good on.

Possibly because they were blinded by their grief that I was moving to another province, my parents agreed to a lunatic project: they would tape all the shows I would miss (except Friends—no one has ever wanted to endorse my theory that that show is funny) and I would watch them in an orgy of loserdom over Thanksgiving and winter break. This continued into spring term, when they *mailed* me tapes (and homemade brownies, which my brother had individually wrapped in plastic). I can’t remember where I found a VCR to watch them on.

Anyway, quite obviously, this arrangement couldn’t last, and second year or thereabouts, I was on my own. The “favourite shows” list whittled down fast, and I learned to rely on heresay and memory. I can’t remember quite when I discovered Mighty Big TV, but it was a happy day: a website of meticulous tv play-by-plays. I think a lot of people read shows they’ve actually already seen, just for the very funny, sarcastic recappers MBTV employed, but I eventually came to love it as a tv surrogate. I adored The West Wing for years having seen only a couple episodes—-17 pages of recap is just as good, I felt, except I often forgot what the characters looked like.

After I moved to TO, I gave up on tv in both forms, visual and written, until the day Studio 60 came to town (sidenote: are you noticing a certain shared element amongst my favourite shows? Of my favourite *writers* in the world, only Aaron Sorkin writes for a non-print medium) and then I realized my broken tv wasn’t up to the task. I went in search of my old reliable MBTV and found that it was new, bigger and better, and owned by NBC under a different name: Television Without Pity. Still great, still thorough, still snarky. There are no shows that I am addicted to these days, sadly: even ones I like, I just like when I see them, I’m not worried about Liz Lemon’s life falling into disrepair without me. But sometimes it’s just fun to read about tv. I really do love it, just from afar.

Wow, such happy memories of being well-entertained. I feel better. Thanks for reading!

No room at the Holiday Inn
RR

October 16th, 2007

Minor things going wrong

Yesterday I got chocolate pudding on my desk dictionary, which is embarrassing because not everyone who sits in my section has one, so mine is often borrowed and I do not want to get the reputation as one who cannot keep her afternoon snack on the spoon. This was the only major hitch yesterday; otherwise it was a productive and pleasant day. Which causes me to wonder why I spent most of last night dreaming about the apocolypse… Surely the pudding spill couldn’t cause an anxiety dream by itself…perhaps I should examine my subconscious a bit more closely.

I do not dream often of the end of the world, but it does seem to recur more frequently in my dreamworld than, say, taking exams unprepared or in the nude or what have you. Though I was deeply upset by my dream when I awoke, I have to admit that this one, when examined in the cold light of day, bore more than a passing ressemblance to the very-good film, Last Night. I loved that movie, but it is both sad and lame that my subconscious is too lazy to come up with original material with which to terrorize me.

*Last Night* stars the very funny Don Mckellar whose twisted world on the tv show Twitch City so coloured my impressions of what it would be like to live in big bad Toronto. When I moved here a few years later, I found that while his vision is accurate re: a certain variant of Toronto life, it doesn’t *have* to be that way. I guess it helps that I have no roommate, or cat.

Well, maybe I’ll give up pudding once my brace-free lifestyle allows for more crunchy snacking options. Really, though, a fair number of those are open to me now, but I’ve gotten sort of addicted to mush. And blogging. There are worse addictions to have, really.

In your endless summer night / I’ll be on your other side
RR

October 9th, 2007

Gratitude

Thanksgiving is always a good time to be thankful for various sorts of food, and various forms of family, and believe me, I adore both, and spent a weekend rife with them. I also spent a lot of time absorbing bits of culture, which I have time right now only to ennumerate but not describe. Will it suffice to say that everything below is very very good?

When I Was Young and in My Primeby Alayna Munce — lyric novel

30 Rock — tv show

Across the Universe — film

Those are all worth experiencing, as are the other highlights of my weekend, but M and L’s house, my mother’s apple pie, and the experience of applying black lipstick in a housewares store while T holds up a pot lid to reflect your face, are sadly not linkable.

These are days you’ll remember
RR

July 25th, 2007

O-Town, Backstreet, *NSYNC

Yes, I was off for the weekend in O-Town/Ottawa, land of sunny skies and buildings so beautiful they inspire patriotism and even architectural study (well, we’ll see). At least, the canal, the art museum, the parliament buildings and Laurk&Dave’s lawn all looked smashing. And I was put up in splendour at my hosts’ new *house*. For those who haven’t seen it, L&D’s new place really is amazing: curvy staircase, room with a dormer window (mine!) and a china cabinet that *lights up when you touch the hinges*. I want to live there.

Ahem.

Ottawa also contains the lovely Ms. Fred and, in delightful coincidence, KT as well. Fred provided colour commentary on our drive through downtown and KT was even prevailed upon to sit with me on the train back and be charming. And there was Mexican food eaten out of doors and the Renoir exhibit and lots of chattering.

Also a visit to a gym much fancier than mine, where you can plug your earphones into your cardio machine and hear what is playing on any of a bank of televisions. I live in a tv-less bubble, and it is probably tragic how exciting I found all this. I was allegedly not watching the show wherein the family of Nick Carter, former Backstreet Boy, noisily implodes. I kept unplugging my earphone jack and determinedly not watching, only to get sucked back in by the puzzling visuals on the screen. Did you know that Carter’s sisters have a lot of body image problems? That the family has way too many dogs that aren’t properly housebroken? That his teenaged brother is happy to cuddle in bed with his dad? Aren’t you sorry you do now? Nick Carter himself actually did not appear on the episode, having apparently disappeared according to his noticeably unperturbed sisters. The whole thing perturbed *me*, so it was just as well when it was time to go and I was forced to unplug for good. Poor Carters.

I got back on Monday and tried to get back to work as quickly as possibly, but things felt somehow not quite in sync. In general, I feel like I’m quite far behind on my writing, but I couldn’t tell you what engenders this feeling. It’s not like anyone’s yelling at me for missed deadlines or anything. Could it be that I’ve actually reached the point where I’m as addicted to time at my desk as I am to caffeine? Weird. No wonder I couldn’t deal with television.

Anyway, I’m back at it, although if the over-reach in this post title is any indication, it’ll be a while until I’m fully up to speed!

She’s throwing her charm away
RR