Oh Canada

I've mentioned Slings & Arrows a few times before, but probably not with sufficient awe and reverence. This show is consistent and surprising, which is like the holy grail of television.

The British model for a drama series, and apparently the Candian structure as well, is six episodes. In America it seems to be either 13 or 23, and I think the main dramatic thrust gets serious dilution when you need to fill so much air time. With six, each and every episode is based around the same 'A' storyline. No need to put up with entire episodes based around so and so who you never really cared about. A season of Slings & Arrows, for example, is about a specific production in a yearly theater festival, and that is what is going on every time you tune in. Sure, The Wire had 13 eps a season, but that show was effin' epic.

I've been watching S & A and Weeds in tandem. Cutting one drug with a slightly different varietal in the hopes that it will dilute the potency of each, risk being that I will get powerfully addicted to both. So far I'm cool, especially because the second season of Weeds is kinda choking. Nancy pants is going through this whole "ooh, look what I can get away with now that I'm a drug dealer" thing and just being a really terrible terrible parent. I guess it's pretty ok, especially the bits where she plays the DEA boyfriend against her lovestruck business partner for titillating dramatic tension, but they just went off the deep end in the part of the show that deals with family matters. Maybe it's just the dialogue, which got away with being clunky in season 1 somehow, because it was cute, but when you need to bring your a-game in season 2 and prove you can last in harsh post-novelty climes without the benefit of concept and character enfatuation, the half-wittedness just don't seem to fly any longer.

So, seriously, if you're in the game for some sustained and complicated dramatic action, netflix or pirate from the high electronic seas a copy of Slings and Arrows. They don't do dippy, and if you're a performer, like myself, it digs pretty deep into questions of poetic faith and worthiness/lack thereof of the artistic pursuit.

A Post

I don't even have a job, and I'm exhausted. I am doing all kinds of work, it's just that there's no reliable paycheck attached to any of it. Not yet. So all I've got in me is a quick rundown.

Slings & Arrows -- This show is amazing, AND Canadian. I know, right? The acting kicks my ass and the script delivers those moments that just tickle me pink. So I get to sit around pink and beat up which is the best kind of existence around. I mean, we have the tortured artist given a second chance to do it right, and he's carrying his old mentor's severed head around in a cooler. Hits the bar, naturally, where he runs into his ex-lover who played Juliet to his Romeo as directed by the head in the cooler. Ellen: "What do you have in there?" Jack: "Oliver's head."

Priceless.

The Juno Effect

It is possible... that time has tempered my love for the Gilmore Girls. You see, at first I was confused as to what, exactly, I was supposed to do with this secret obsession I possessed, for which the world at large was sure to judge me. I watched the show with a hunger fueled in part by my Catholic addiction to guilt. Like, you know how some people quit cigarettes and take up excessive eating? I quit feeling guilty about my Major Life Choices and compensated by feeling guilty about my leisure activities instead.

But the great shake'n'bake of time disperses breading and spices evenly the more time it has to shake, and then it bakes. As such, I feel like I'm finally in a place to crack this crispy crust and talk about what's right and wrong about this show.

I came into GG knowing nothing whatsoever about what it was all about, besides the fact that Ben's sisters really liked it. I never saw the floral DVD packaging. I never saw the WB's godawful advertisements or show lead-ins or the portraits of Lauren Graham and Alexis Bleidel air-brushed until you can barely distinguish their facial features. Sure, there were other hints. Hair and nails, which are done up like the prom regardless of where the ladies are at, but it took until the last season--when Rory's hair was not only, whatever, super... hair... done, but also bouncy and done up all whickety whack--for me to notice. THEN even I had to step back and say, whaaaaaaat?

In fact, the first time I encountered the public image of GGs as a pjs and ice cream show for shallow, depressed women was during an improv comedy show, through a character played by a deeply unfunny guy in a wig using a stupid "i'm a girl" voice and pretending to be depressed and watch GG all day long in his/her bed and whine about his/her boyfriend, and I was so deeply offended I almost can't enjoy improv comedy at all anymore.

So, maybe that's how the show was sold, but it is miles away from what the show was, which was basically... if you take the movie Juno, make Ellen Page's parent's suck and be filthy rich, and have her run away to have the baby, which she keeps and supports, then fast forward 16 years (let's remember this is a character drama from Hollywood about overcoming hardship, and not a political statement). Actually the only thing to take from the movie Juno is an extremely plucky, funny, protagonist who reveals noble and surprising inner strength as she bears up against pressure of the Pregnant Teenager taboo and tries to follow a moral path. The rest of the series is about how the mother surrounds herself and her daughter with a supportive and eccentric community in which they can both thrive, struggle, and learn, before birthing the young 'un out of the womb of Star's Hollow into the world at large (wait till I find that speech, it will be an extra shiny dialogic gem). Yeah there are boys, yeah there is crying, and yes the show can, occasionally, make you sick with displays of New England old money, whiteness, and privilege, but at the end of the day it's funny. The banter is on par with, say, a House (ok maybe not House) or a Scrubs or Buffy.

And it was different than the usual shit on television.

A Drivel in Three Parts

I.

I like to go to the movies alone.

Maybe this is too strong a statement. I mean it's on a line by itself and everything so I should definitely dumb it down.

When I call my friends to go see a movie with me and everyone is being dumb, or I don't feel like trying very hard to get people to go someplace with me, I will very contentedly see the movie by myself. I spend $3.00 on a small coke that will lead to an inevitable pee break which will leave me in bad humor, but that's ok because I knew ahead of time it was going to happen, and then I'll try to laugh at myself but still actually, deep down, I'm pretty mad. Because I had to get up to pee in the middle of the movie. There is no one there to beat me at the dumb pre-movie trivia games so usually I get 100% correct all by myself. I watch the people coming in which is fun, and experience the mildest type of paranoia in which I assume everybody that glances my way is wondering what's wrong with that guy, why is he here all by himself but then I remind myself that actually nobody cares, or if they do I probably don't care that they care, and I grow deeply calm. Which is the best way to watch a movie.

II.

I went to see "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" in exactly this manner about a week ago. It was a well-put together, funny, and sweet movie--I mean, Judd Apatow--which is ultimately very forgettable. But you're glad you saw it, you know? Some moments are just really... adorable, like our protagonist in a black unitard smiling at the girl of his future having just performed his struggling pet project, a Dracula Puppet musical which will charm your socks off and make you laugh. Oops, I just told you the ending. The whole movie is just painful, earnest kitsch thrown out there with a "Ba dup, bap, ba dup, dup, BUP! [slide whistle]." One of the thoughts that passes through my head as I drive home is "It's cool to see some regular looking people in the movies!" Then I have to correct myself and be like, wait, regular looking guys in the movies, because those women were cooked to smokin' hot perfection by the magic celluloid flames of hungry Hollywood (I'm pretty sure they haven't used celluloid since, like, the 20s but whatevah). So, I guess that makes the film passively misogynistic.

I think the funniest parts may have been the fake-TV trailer bits. So deadpan, so not funny, and so absolutely and hilariously damning of pretty much every procedural crime drama currently on the air. SKEWERED the dialogue and character tropes, like, would you like a meathead male sidekick kebab with with some lame-comments-on-the-exposition sauce? I know! Isn't the supernatural twist on the detective's abilities marinade DELICIOUS!?!?

III.

I missed the "My So-Called Life" thing in the mid-nineties. I remember seeing it once and thinking "Nice flannel." Anyway, I watched the pilot and, I dunno. Claire Danes is kind of amazing, and there are some one liners that just ZING, and you remember how confusing everything was in high school and how stupid you were. Then I think about how confusing everything is and how stupid I am...

It's definitely different than the average teen-lit drama fest, so I'll watch a few more to decide if I can make it through the whole thing.

Wonderfalls

As a sucker for novelty, I'm gonna have to start with the series I'm currently in the middle of. Wonderfalls was co-created by Brian Fuller (and some other peeps, but his is the name that seems to stick to all of these shows), the guy who continued on to bring us Dead Like Me and Pushing Daisies. Interestingly enough, executively produced by Tim Minear, who I buh-leeve is one of the Heroes guys (shudder). In total they produced 14 episodes, but only aired 4 before getting the axe which, dammit, is a shame. I guess understandable. This show doesn't have quite the perfectly buffed veneer that characterizes the studio display room. You know--at times it trots instead of gallops, risks inconsistency by stylizing episodes along different genre lines, and frequently relies on humor of the absurd. All quirks I adore, and which represent a huge potential in the medium, but the science of network television says delivering the same, not-too-challenging fare week in and week out is the money shot. Thank god for HBO, amiright or amiright?

Jaye is a wicked cool and disaffected 20-something living in a trailer and working retail at a tourist spot in Niagara Falls when inanimate critters start to speak to her, giving her instructions which inevitably lead to the warming of hearts and further knowledge of the self. And wait a second, what is with the unisex names for female protagonists in all these Fuller shows? Jaye, George (with sister Reggie), and Chuck. End aside.

Me, I got hooked when a chicken on the back of a hairpiece spoke to Jaye and said "Destroy Gretchen Hall" (or whatever her name was, sorry I'm not much of a detail guy). I'm by myself in my basement laughing tears into my eyes and smacking my thighs. I really slapped my thighs, I'm not kidding. Yeah the line loses its potency out of context (up until this point, the stuffed animals and whatnot have been giving kind, gentle, and somewhat obtuse advice) but this shit just tickles me. And the show is full of scenes that just pop with humor of the absurd. Lines like "I had some time to organize my thoughts while you were in a coma, and I have a business proposition for you" take these busted situations in stride and just roll with 'em. Or a kind nun in a crisis of faith wielding a knife over poor Jaye to cut the demons from her... it can get as weird as you want, but in the end is calmly incorporated into familiar character dramas. And it's all cool, because the unexplained talking objects have accounted for all twists of fate and freak occurrences.

Maybe my spot is soft because I, similarly to Jaye, am a happy-go-lucky need nothin' but a roof and three meals although at times societal pressures make me insecure about my position in life kind of person. But this show is totally strange and worthwhile, and I love that I can get my goopy shmaltz without having to feel bad about it because it's relentlessly peppered with shocks of absurdity.