Although “Blossom” is often viewed as a kitschy punch-line of early ‘90s television (“Tonight, on a very special ‘Blossom’”), the series actually contains some unique elements which make it surprisingly easy to respect its accomplishments. With that said, however, while most of the girls like to watch “Blossom,” only some of the boys do. And given that the first episode is all about the titular character getting her period for the first time, you can’t really blame the guys for that.
When “Blossom” premiered on NBC in 1991, Mayim Bialik had already done a fair amount of sitcom work (most notably on “Webster”), but she was riding on the high of having played the younger version of Bette Midler’s character in “Beaches” and ready to break out. Enter Don Reo, who provided her with the opportunity to play Blossom Russo, a teenage girl living with her father and two brothers. What was perhaps most exceptional about the series was Bialik herself: a girl who looked, dare I say it, real. She was cute, but she wasn’t gorgeous, which meant that you could imagine that guys would want to date her, but unlike a lot of teenage TV characters, you didn’t watch the show and find yourself thinking, “How can a girl who looks like this ever be without a date?” The character of Blossom was also an impressive tightrope walk, as she came across as a very original spirit (particularly with her sense of fashion) while still going through the same things that all teenage girls go through.
Tonight’s episode began not with the resolution to the cliffhanger but, rather, with Nathan making a phone call to…who? At first, I thought, “Oh, it’s Mama,” but, no, that would’ve been too obvious. And we knew it wasn’t Tracy, since she was on the plane. Then I had a crazy thought: maybe it’s Papa, already back from the dead. It wasn’t, of course: it actually was Mama. But, hey, a Robert Forster fan can dream, can’t he?
The post-crash sequence quickly showed that last week’s cliffhanger was a big waste of everyone’s time, as every single hero got out alive, but once the gang got on the run, it looked like things were going to get very interesting very quickly, especially when Matt went all white-eyed. But, suddenly, the jets flew over and bombed the shit out of the crashed plane, and I groaned. Really, “Heroes” writers? You think having a couple of big, loud jets flying by and dropping bombs is somehow going to draw attention away from the plane crash that happened a few minutes before…? And my groaning turned into moaning with the funny-for-all-the-wrong-reasons scene of tranced-up Matt busting into a trailer just to hunt down paper and a writing utensil. Fortunately, Ando was there to provide a couple of legitimate laughs, most notably at an airline operator’s lack of knowledge about the whereabouts of the state of Arkansas.
It was a shame to see Daphne get shot down, though I was disappointed that we didn’t get to see a great deal of Matt’s emotional reaction beyond his turning the soldiers against themselves. I’m sure, however, that we’ll see him start to grow darker with his power usage in upcoming weeks as he extracts his revenge.
“The following is a graphic depiction of a violent prehistoric battle. Viewer discretion is advised.” That’s the warning presented at the top of each installment of “Jurassic Fight Club,” and a hat must be tipped toward the producers for coming up with a title guaranteed to grab attention. Thankfully, the show very much delivers on the promise of the title. Over the course of 12 episodes, there’s quite the variety of bloody prehistoric smackdowns involving T. Rex, Raptors and Allosaurus recreated via a mixture of CGI and loads of scientific supposition. Based on the remains of various critters – usually located in close proximity to each other – dino experts piece together the circumstances leading up to the demise of many a different creature. Each episode tackles a separate battle, with the dots being connected based on evidence, slowly leading up to the big brawl.
It crossed my mind numerous times, however, what if they’re just plain wrong? Then I came to my senses and realized it was much more fun to just go with it, and bask in the unbridled carnage. There are a couple surprises along the way, too, such as a non-lizard installment pitting the ice age specimens the Giant Short-Faced Bear against the Mega Lion, and an episode that takes place deep beneath the ocean surface. The season ends with a massive finish entitled “Armageddon,” which recreates what it may have been like when the giant asteroid collided with Earth, bringing to an end the species for good. At this point, the warning is accordingly changed to “The following is a graphic depiction of a prehistoric apocalypse.” Good stuff? You bet Jurassic. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
Look, I like Gabrielle Anwar’s character, the gun-toting Fionia Glenanne, as much as the next red-blooded American male, but I never thought someone (other than maybe a few of the “Burn Notice” writers) could put together 650+ words on what she represents in a post-feminist world. But Ginia Bellafante of the New York Timesdid just that.
Fiona is a character with no memorable precedent: a genius joke-take on girls with gun lust, the joke being that above all else she is every woman who needs to be sent a copy of “He’s Just Not That Into You,” next-day delivery. In the show’s back story Michael broke up with Fiona years ago, disappearing without explanation. (I imagine this to have been like Berger dumping Carrie with a Post-it note on “Sex and the City,” except it occurred three feet from a terrorist cell.)
Fiona has never been able to get over Michael despite his persistent and explicit reminders that he is not made of the ordinary stuff of human need. Still, she keeps pushing for the dream, dating other people solely to try to make Michael jealous, interrupting stakeouts and shooting sprees and manhunts to ask for a key to his apartment or to tell him that what she would really like for her birthday is a teddy.
While reading the piece, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop — for Bellafante to criticize Anwar’s character for continuing to pine over her ex-boyfriend even after all these years. But that shoe never dropped. Bellafante genuinely admires Fiona and what she represents. Good stuff.
On a side note, anyone else remember the pilot episode where Fiona spoke with an Irish accent (which made sense because she used to be a member of the Irish Republican Army)? I thought they should have stuck with it, though the creators apparently thought otherwise.
Welcome back, kids, to one of the most bashed series currently on television…and that’s by people who used to consider themselves fans of the show. Now, clearly, if you’ve been a regular reader of this blog, you know that, although I’ve been here from the very beginning of the “Heroes” saga and plan to hang on ’til the bitter end, I’ve had my problems with the show. Clearly, Tim Kring and the gang can’t please all of the people all of the time, but even I can admit that Season 3 started off looking like it was going to blow the disappointment of Season 2 out of the water and only ended up having its own share of problems. Worst of all, the first half of the third season, “Villains,” came to an end with the death of one of the series’ one interesting new characters: Papa Petrelli, played by the ever-awesome Robert Forster. (The only consolation is that, well, we thought the character of Papa was dead throughout the first two seasons, so there’s every reason to believe that they’ll find a way to bring him back to life yet again.)
Tonight, we were presented with the beginning of the second half of Season 3, which has been given the subtitle of “Fugitives.” How was it, you ask…?
If you went into Bryan Singer’s “Valkyrie” without knowing anything at all about the many plots to kill Hitler throughout his reign of power, then you probably enjoyed the film a hell of a lot more than those who were already familiar with the history of those events. Indeed, you may have walked out of the theater with an interest in learning more about what really happened…and that’s where “Killing Hitler: The True Story of the Valkyrie Plot” comes in. While it does flesh out the events prior to Claus Von Stauffenberg’s actions in a manner which “Valkyrie” fails to do (kids today don’t know nearly as much about World War II as you think they do), the proceedings are a bit dry. It does indeed serve the purpose of educating viewers in a less dramatized fashion…and, more importantly, without the distraction of having one of Hollywood’s top actors playing the part of a German officer…only WWII buffs will be left breathless. And possibly not even them.
“Jericho” fans seemed bewildered when, after all the hype their show received upon its last-second reprieve from cancellation, its second season didn’t find a huge surge in viewership. They shouldn’t have been. There have been precious few occasions when series have been saved from oblivion and suddenly had the masses respond by saying, “Wow, you guys were right! This is awesome!” That’s just not how the mind of the average TV viewer works. They’re not thinking, “Say, if all these people like the show that much, there must be something to it.” Obsessive fans freak out the average TV viewers, and their actions generally only serve to convince Joe Average that this show, whatever it may be, can’t possibly live up to the hype that’s being heaped upon it, and since it can’t, then why bother tuning in?
But here’s a dirty little secret for you: the minds of critics have been known to work the exact same way.
“Moonlight” seemed like a perfectly viable concept when it was originally pitched by CBS. Certainly, “Angel” fans were immediately on edge when word got out about this new series about a vampire private detective…and so, for that matter, were the rabid “Forever Knight” aficionados… but, still, it was going to be produced by David Greenwalt, who had actually worked on “Angel,” so there was hope that the vampire mythos would at least be done right. But then things got a little dodgy on the creative end, with cast and creators being switched out left and right, including the aforementioned Mr. Greenwalt, and critics were left lingering in wait for a pilot episode that took forever to come to fruition. Once it did, we were grumpy and, frankly, we just couldn’t see what all the fuss was about…but, dear God, those Alex O’Loughlin fans sure as hell could. They attacked in droves, criticizing my opinion of the series while invariably finding a way to mention how incredibly hot O’Loughlin was in the role of Mick St. John (the aforementioned vampire), yet they rarely offered much in the way of reasons beyond his sex appeal for me to give the show a second chance.
This should be already be evident to anyone who’s read my reviews of the show’s previous DVD sets over on Bullz-Eye, but even as the show continues onward through its fourth season (tonight brings us the mid-season premiere), it continues to produce episodes which are just as strong now as when it originally premiered. Part of that comes from the fact that its structure feels a bit more free-flowing than your average drama, moving in and out of both the professional and the personal lives of Deputy Police Chief Brenda Johnson - played with a it-grows-on-you Southern drawl by the lovely Kyra Sedgwick - and her fiance, FBI Special Agent Fritz Howard (Jon Tenney). Mostly, though, it’s the combination of a diverse ensemble of actors and a writing team that makes sure to spread the storylines around the offices of the Priority Homicide Division of the LAPD.
As we return to “The Closer,” the wedding of Brenda and Fritz is coming ever closer, so Brenda’s parents - played in their usual fantastic form by Frances Sternhagen and Barry Corbin - have stopped off on their way to Hawaii to help their daughter get fitted for her dress…and find a venue for the ceremony…and pick out the cake. (If you’re surprised by Brenda’s procrastination, you clearly haven’t been watching the show enough.) As ever, however, Brenda finds herself caught up in a case, this time one with a suicide that possibly isn’t a suicide, and it takes up so much of her time that she ends up having to tell one of her patented well-intentioned lies to keep her mama and daddy in the dark. The episode features a horrifying moment that will chill longtime fans of the series to the bone, but it’s one which nonetheless manages to inspire Brenda to follow her intuition toward a break in the case that hadn’t occurred to her before.
Good stuff, as usual, which is no doubt why TNT so readily sent out an advance screener of the episode, but let me tell you in advance that you really, really don’t want to miss the February 9th episode, “Power of Attorney,” which offers an ending that will blow your freaking mind.
And to think I originally only requested this DVD in order to make my daughter happy. Little did I know that it would result in a trip to Wikipedia that would completely blow my mind…but before we dive into that ridiculousness, how about a little background material first?
In case you’re not familiar with the trio known as the Chipettes, they are, as you might well have deduced, the female equivalent of the Chipmunks. Brittany, Jeanette, and Eleanor - for those are the girls’ names - came into existence for two very simple reasons: the Chipmunks’ creators, Ross Bagdasarian and Janice Karman, wanted a chance to do some girl-sung tunes, and because it came them the chance to deal with issues that girls were going through that boys wouldn’t necessarily be dealing with. (Don’t be disgusting: Bagdasarian clarified, “We had a baby girl at the time. We wanted to let her know she can be president, or a soccer champion, or whatever.”)
As Ally (my daughter) watched these six Chipette-centric episodes of “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” she seemed very annoyed by the fact that the opening credits in no way spotlighted the girls. “I thought you said this was the Chipettes,” she grumbled. I assured her that, although these were technically the adventures of the Chipmunks, the Chipettes would feature heavily in all of them; she seemed placated once they finally turned up, thankfully, and sat happily through the entire DVD.
Oh, if you’re wondering, the episodes that have been included are “May the Best Chipmunk Win” (Alvin and Brittany compete for the position of School President), “Operation Theodore” (the Chipettes work as candy-stripers and lose a patient), “Sisters” (Brittany wants to join a sorority but ends up changing her mind after a poignant performance of “Material Girl”), “The Greatest Show-Off on Earth” (the Chipettes join forces with the Chipmunks to save a circus), “My Fair Chipette” (Jeanette competes against Brittany in a beauty pageant), and “Tell It to the Judge” (Brittany and Alvin battle each other in a “People’s Court” parody). In short, if your kid likes the Chipmunks cartoons, then they’ll like this DVD…and if you’ve got a daughter, then she might be even more entertained than usual.
Waking up from a season-long dream, Pam realizes that Bobby is still alive and well, and it’s quickly back to corrupt business as usual at Southfork and Ewing Oil. Season 10 appropriately sees a return to the less flashy template of Season 8, although there is one major holdover from the infamous dream. Steve Forrest was introduced as ranch hand Ben Stivers in Season 9, and he is reintroduced here as a new incarnation of the same character, only this time his name is Wes Parmalee. (Pam’s obvious psychic abilities go unmentioned.)
It doesn’t take long for the bomb to drop: Is Parmalee actually Ewing patriarch Jock, seemingly returned from the dead? While J.R., Bobby, and Clayton are certain he’s a fraud, Miss Ellie is more easily swayed. The Parmalee storyline dominates the first half of the season, and while it’s great drama, it lacks a truly satisfactory conclusion, and the season’s second half is arguably stronger. With the oil business facing tough times, J.R. hires fanatical mercenary B.D. Calhoun (Hunter Von Leer) to blow up an oil field in Saudi Arabia, thus driving up the price of Texas crude. Things don’t go as planned, the CIA starts sniffing around, and Calhoun returns to take bloody revenge on everyone’s favorite oil slick. The situation worsens when J.R.’s botched scheme is leaked to the public, and the government begins an investigation that may bring Ewing Oil down for good.
Season 10 is very traditional “Dallas,” although it clearly signifies a major shift in the series’ mythology. It is not only the final season for both Victoria Principal and Susan Howard, but also the first for Sheree J. Wilson’s April Stevens, who would last through the final season. Further, while the “Dallas” DVDs have never been gold standard, this set is unusually erratic in video quality, and the second episode has terrible audio. Here’s to hoping that Season 11, set for an April release, will at least be of the usual consistent mediocre standard.
This review will appear on the very same day an African-American man will become President of the United States. While the media is constantly reminding us of the historic nature of that fact, what many younger readers may not realize is that only three and a half decades back, a man running on a more or less openly racist, and specifically anti-black, platform was a serious candidate for President — running in the very same Democratic party that would eventually nominate Barack Obama for the highest office on earth.
“George Wallace” is a savvy and darkly engrossing, if often slow and heavy handed, television biopic that takes a circuitous path in tracing the long career of the despised and beloved four-term Governor of Alabama and four-time Presidential candidate of various parties, George C. Wallace (Gary Sinise). We first meet Wallace in 1972 as the avid, middle-aged husband to a beautiful and very sexy young wife, Cornelia (Angelina Jolie). At the same time, a racist state trooper forces Archie (a “composite” character played by Clarence Williams III), a convicted killer and Wallace’s trusted African-America valet, to wear handcuffs at his mother’s funeral.
After his fateful encounter with four bullets that day, we meet Wallace again as the younger and far more liberal political protégé of anti-racist populist governor “Big Jim” Folsom (Joe Don Baker). Though Wallace is a skirt-chasing, semi-absentee father and husband to his steadfast wife, Lurleen (Mare Winningham), the real darkness only comes four year later when Wallace is defeated in his first gubernatorial bid by an opponent supported by the terrorist Ku Klux Klan. Seeing no alternative – losing an election is equivalent to losing his life – Wallace swears that he will “never be outn*ggered again.” He is true to his words and, within a matter of years he is the nation’s most notorious racist pol, blocking the doors of the University of Alabama rather than allowing a pair of black students to enter and “mix” with white students, and uttering his most quoted line: “…I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.”
“George Wallace” is a look at history from the side of a well-deserved loser, and for those portions of the picture where director John Frankenheimer takes a dispassionate, even satirical (though deadly serious) approach, it is strong stuff and very much in line with the liberal director’s professional and personal legacy. A genius at creating smart political thrillers, and a participant in history himself as the man who drove Robert Kennedy the Los Angeles hotel where he was assassinated, the director – never a grandstander – allows himself to directly reference his own past via recreating one of his signature shots.
Saddled with a predilection, if not quite an outright addiction, to too much booze and excessive gambling, Toots Shor somehow avoided being just another Jewish tough guy/borderline crook and instead became one of the most legendary restaurateurs in the history of New York City. His food wasn’t gourmet fair, but that wasn’t really expected in mid-century Manhattan. The key to his success was his way with people, lubricated with plenty of whiskey, and that made his restaurant-saloon into a kind of Valhalla populated by legends of three worlds: sports, entertainment, and crime.
Directed by Schor’s filmmaker granddaughter, Kristi Jacobson, this affectionate but honest documentary portrait from 2006 is constructed largely from reminisces by authors Nicholas Pileggi (”Casino“), Pete Hamill, and Gay Talese; sports personalities Frank Gifford, Yogi Berra, and Joe Garagiola; uber-anchor Walter Cronkite, and many others. More comedy than tragedy, it’s the story of a man whose irresponsibility when it came to practically everything, especially money, was only matched by his sentimental attachment to both friends and family. A full-on gonif who once made his living as professional muscle, but apparently never crossed the line into Murder, Inc. territory, Toots was not a particularly “good” person by any normal definition — except often to the people he loved, and there were apparently quite a lot of them. It’s hard not to like a guy like that.
I’m a reasonably big fan of Werner Herzog, the film performer, documentarian, and wryly humorous, neurotically heroic philosopher-poet. When it comes to his hugely acclaimed fiction films, however, I can become impatient with their emphasis on pure thought over pure storytelling. Though it is a reasonably straightforward documentary, “Encounters at the End of the World” has elements of both sides of Herzog’s output. Instead of being driven by a sharply dramatic real-life narrative like the one in Herzog’s brilliant 2005 nonfiction, “Grizzly Man”, 2007’s “Encounters” is basically a quasi-philosophical and psychological exploration of just what it is that drives a certain species of extremely intelligent people to frozen (still, for the time being) Antarctica — a place that, as Ernest Shackleton learned the hard way, might as well have had a giant “no human beings allowed without space-age technology or a death wish” sign pasted on it.
Herzog obviously loves the hyper-intelligent rebels and happy misfits the place attracts as much as its sometimes mind-blowing beauty. There’s also plenty of cinematic and verbal rumination, including a soliloquy by Herzog in which he muses about what he sees as the impending end of all human life in a more or less fatalistic matter — not so much an “if” as a “when.” On the other hand, in a brief, intriguing interview with a former linguist, the director also appears to be deeply concerned with preserving dead languages for future generations…so, maybe he’s not expecting the end tomorrow. Still, for all its bone-deep beauty and for the sweetness of its intentions, its Herzogian concern with reality-based eschatology makes “Encounters at the Edge of the World” easily the most disturbing G-rated inquiry into science and possible end times since Robert Wises’ “The Andromeda Strain.”
Compared to that other famed desperate housewife of world literature, Tolstoy’s sympathetic Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary is, well, kind of a…word that I’m too well brought up to use. Especially as portrayed during Isabelle Huppert’s perfectly minimalist performance, she is more than a little superficial, unable to distinguish between fantasy and reality, and horribly unable to asess the consequences of her own actions. On the other hand, she’s no Paris Hilton, by which I mean she is still very recognizable as an actual human being, all to similar to anyone one of us (her creator, author Gustav Flaubert famously declared, “Madame Bovary, c’est moi!”). Still, the flavor of the story is dry – almost satirical. So, France’s ultra-prolific master of ultra-dry melodramas and tales of suspense, Claude Chabrol, makes perfect sense as the writer-director to bring Flaubert’s revered, frequently filmed novel to the screen. This 1991 production takes a worm’s eye of the tale, which has Emma coldly marrying a goodhearted but deadly dull doctor (Jean-François Balmer) simply to get out of the house. Bored literally to tears, she cuckolds him with a cold-blooded womanizer (Christophe Malavoy) and a seemingly more goodhearted law student (Lucas Belvaux), while literally spending the good doctor and herself to destruction. Yes, this is an evergreen story with a contemporary ring to it – and Chabrol’s cool, dispassionate, and not merely cynical eye is an appropriate counterpoint. This is no tearjerker, but it’s also impossible to stop thinking about this underplayed tragedy of a family destroyed by pretension, materialism, and self-involvement, with innocent victims all around.
Chalk it up to another case of there simply not being enough hours in the day, but the truth of the matter is that I’ve never watched a single episode of “Nip/Tuck” until now…and since this is the second half of the show’s next-to-last season, it’s probably not exactly the best time for me to decide to get involved in the adventures of Drs. Sean McNamara and Christian Troy. The decision, however, came as a result of two simultaneous events: Ross Ruediger’s review of the first half of the 5th season, which was just released on DVD, and the arrival of a screener of the first episode of the second half of the 5th season. Stupid ol’ Ross. If his positive review of “Criminal Minds: Season 2″ hadn’t introduced me to that show, then I wouldn’t be trusting his opinion of “Nip/Tuck,” but when the guy describes it as “tasteless, vulgar, trashy, over-the-top fare that most people probably don’t care to admit they enjoy,” then I’m left wondering why I never took a chance on it before now.
And with that, let us hit “play” on “Ronnie Chase,” the first new “Nip/Tuck” of 2009.
The use of the O’Jays’ “Backstabber” within the opening sequence is inspired, as is the Mark Ronson cover of “Stop Me If You Think That You’ve Heard This One Before,” since what we’re watching is, after all, more or less an expanded flashback to events which occurred during the last episode of the season’s first half. After we catch up to the cliffhanging moment where Sean was lying in a pool of his own blood, things move pretty fast. Christian and Liz manage to keep Annie from crashing, and even after being dragged from the operating room into his office by Colleen, Sean successfully extracts revenge on his crazed assailant and keeps the show from becoming “Misery: The Series.” But poor Doc McNamara is in bad shape: as Christian arrives and tells his partner to hold on, Sean groans, “I can’t feel my legs.”
Suddenly, it’s four months later…and Sean’s doing his best Ironside impression, making his appearance by rolling out of an elevator in a wheelchair.
Q. Is “Scrubs” funny? A. It’s a matter of opinion. If you ask Peter Griffin, the answer is “no.” (”You ever watch that show ‘Scrubs’? Lois had it on the other night, and I was kinda fading in and out, you know. I was watching and wondering: which one is the funny guy?”) Personally, though, it’s one of my favorite sitcoms, with a great ensemble cast and an ability to move from laughter to tears without making it feel forced.
Q. Has the writing on “Scrubs” maintained the same level of quality since its premiere in 2001? A. I think even those most die-hard fans of the show would have to say that the answer is an unequivocal “no.” And so, for that matter, would the show’s creator. Bill Lawrence said outright in his chat with me for Bullz-Eye, “I let it get too broad and goofy in the middle, and, y’know, we got a little lazy sometimes and were a little bit of a caricature of ourselves.”
Q. So given that “Scrubs” just finished up seven seasons on NBC, isn’t the show outstaying its welcome by moving to ABC for an eighth season? A. Oh, hell, no. And if you think otherwise, then I ask you to at least check out the first two episodes of Season 8 before you make a final decision on the matter, because I’ve seen them, and they’re good.
There’s an immediate change in “Scrubs” from the moment Dr. Dorian…or J.D., if you like…steps onto the screen, sporting what the Janitor describes as a “pre-pubescent ‘Miami Vice’ beard.” (”There are some who say I look like a young Kenny Loggins,” claims J.D., though you’d be a fool to believe him.) Taking a coincidental cue from “House,” the show finds Dr. Dorian dealing with a new class of interns, including Katie the know-it-all suck-up (Betsy Beutler), the incredibly callous Denise (Eliza Coupe), and the awesomely inappropriate Ed, played by Aziz Ansari from “Human Giant.” The powerhouse within the list of guest stars, however, is Courtney Cox, who plays Dr. Taylor Maddox, Dr. Kelso’s replacement as Sacred Heart’s Chief of Medicine.
If we were to organize those readers of Premium Hollywood who’ve watched the entire first season of “Damages” into two groups - the ones who watched it when it originally aired and the ones who watched it when it came out on DVD - and took a quick poll about why the latter group watched it on DVD, I’d guess a sizable number of people would say one of two things:
1. I missed the premiere, and when I tried to pick up the series a few episodes in, I felt like I’d already missed too much. 2. I missed an episode during the season, and I knew I’d never be able to figure out what happened, so I just decided to wait for the DVD.
Yeah, it’s true: “Damages” is that kind of show…and I should know, having been one of the people who missed the premiere. But when I got the Season 1 DVD set, I blew threw it as quickly as my schedule allowed. It was an enthralling thriller which managed to be that rare breed of legal drama which almost never set foot in a courtroom, with gripping performances from Glenn Close, Ted Danson, Rose Byrne, and Željko Ivanek and many a moment that left you breathless. In the end, Ellen Parsons (Byrne) went through hell and back, leading her to declare war on Patty Hewes (Close) by teaming with the FBI to bring her down from the inside, all the while maintaining a front and pretending to be her number-one employee.
Season 2 begins in approximately the same chronological manner as Season 1, starting in the present with a jarring opening scene, then jumping back in time to begin the process of explaining how things got to that point in the first place. How odd it feels, though, for the initial flashback scene to show Patty Hewes making an appearance on “Live with Regis and Kelly.” Not that we haven’t gotten the impression that Patty’s a major public figure in the world of law, but it feels rather jarring to see her in the comparatively day-glo lights of the “Live” stage. Still, you can also imagine it setting Patty up for a big fall when she waves Ellen onto the stage and declares to the studio audience and the millions of viewers watching at home that she’d be lost without her.
But will Patty fall this season? Well, if she doesn’t, it certainly won’t be for lack of Ellen trying to make it happen. “You just want to arrest Patti Hughes,” she says to her two FBI contacts. “I want to destroy her.”
Two good directors are not necessarily better than one. This 1957 fact-inspired noirish black and white melodrama about union-busting gangsters in the clothing business was written by producer and veteran scribe Harry Kleiner and credited to classic-era directing mainstay Vincent Sherman, but the initial helmer was one of the most interesting younger mainstream filmmakers of his generation, Robert Aldrich — already a major talent, and with such classics as “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?” and “The Dirty Dozen” still in his future. Apparently, Aldrich clashed with the film’s biggest name, Lee J. Cobb (”On the Waterfront”). Those on-set clashes might well explain the erratic quality of the acting from the usually outstanding Cobb as the driven head of a garment firm being undermined by Richard Boone (“Have Gun - Will Travel”) as his mobbed-up underling, while second-string swashbuckler Kerwin Matthews – just a year away from his career zenith in “The 7th Voyage of Sinbad” – is actually better than usual in modern garb as Cobb’s idealistic son…while future “Dr. No” Joseph Wiseman gets to do a bit of overacting as a guilt-stricken worker, and a young Robert Loggia (Tom Hanks’ dance partner from “Big”) steals the movie as an idealistic union organizer…and Gia Scala (“The Guns of Navarone”) elicits sympathy and looks beautiful as Loggia’s tragedy-stricken wife. The only problem is, all my run-on fanboyish links of “The Garment Jungle” to far better known films turns out to be somewhat more interesting than this rather overblown, preachy, bit of pro-union agitprop — heavy on speeches (even if I happen to agree with them) and long on hard to swallow deus ex machina plot points.
If you saw my review of the “10 Items or Less: The Complete First and Second Seasons” DVD set, then you already know that, although I like the show, I just feel like it ought to be funnier than it is. “Curb Your Enthusiasm” has proven over and over again that ad-libbed television can be hilarious, but in its first two seasons, “10 Items or Less” repeatedly demonstrated where its strengths lay - in its characters and its premises - but kept getting mired in punchlines that were only funny because they were weird, thereby seriously cutting into its replay value.
Unfortunately, Season 3 is already starting out with one strike against it, due to the departure of Jennifer Elise Cox from the cast. She was a great comedic foil for John Lehr as Leslie’s longtime crush, Amy Anderson, but I guess the producers must not have been able to figure out what to do with her character once she left Super Value Mart and came to work at the Greens & Grains. Instead, we’re introduced to Amy’s replacement at Super Value Mart: Mercedes P. Jones, played by Kim Coles (”Living Single”). She’s proven in the past that she’s a gifted comedienne, but aside from a brief bit about why her character has picked up the nickname “The Velvet Hammer,” her contributions to the 3rd season premiere are predominantly limited to reacting to other people’s lines and offering up generic sassy dialogue. Let’s hope she’s given more of an opportunity to shine creatively in future episodes.
The good news, though, is that the premiere is pretty damned funny even without utilizing Coles, and the reason why can be summed up in two words: turkey bowling.
I wouldn’t have wanted to be in the programming department of The CW when the folks over there first heard that the Sci-Fi Channel had beaten them to the punch in the field of horror-themed game show, but I can only imagine the sigh of relief they released after taking a gander at “Estate of Panic.” I received a screener of the premiere episode, and I duly handed it over to my wife, whose fascination with scary movies is, if not quite an obsession, certainly a bit of a hobby; after watching it, she duly reported back that she had lost a great deal of respect for Steve Valentine for agreeing to host such a cheesy show, likening it more to “Fear Factor” than anything legitimately scary.
Even after this disappointment, however, I was still optimistic about The CW’s “13: Fear is Real,” if only because of the series’ executive producers: Sam Raimi, Robert G. Tapert, and Jay Bienstock. Horror fans will no doubt recognize the first two names, with Raimi having earned his genre stripes with the “Evil Dead” films and then teamed with Tapert to produce such flicks as “30 Days of Night,” “The Messengers,” “Boogeyman,” and “The Grudge.” Bienstock, meanwhile, is best known in reality-TV circles as the guy responsible for bringing “The Apprentice” to the airwaves. In theory, it’s hard to imagine that you could bring this trio together and not come up with a legitimately scary reality show.
The premise of “13: Fear Is Real” as laid out in the press release is thus: “Thirteen people compete to ’stay alive’ as they face their deepest fears in an all-out elimination competition and scare-fest. Pitted against each other in situations straight from the horror movies, the 13 will face shocking surprises, psychological scares and lots of ‘beware of the dark’ moments, all designed by a ‘mastermind’ of terror.”
So, wait, is this when we cue the clip of Count Floyd saying, “Ooooh, scary“?
