Considering that even the biggest stars “SNL” has ever produced only have one ‘Best of’ collection to their names, it’s a testament to Will Ferrell’s versatility that Universal is giving him his third compilation (well, that and the fact that Ferrell is bar none the biggest star “SNL” has produced in 20 years). From the looks of “The Best of Will Ferrell, Vol. III,” however, it’s starting to look like they may be coming close to the bottom of the well. The set is funny, mind you – it includes arguably the best cheerleader skit of all, at the chess match – and you can never go wrong with a “Celebrity Jeopardy” skit. They even include the oddball “Do You Like Luxury?” skit, which only Ferrell could make funny. However, the inclusion of a “Lawrence Welk” skit is a big minus (that should have been saved for a “Best of Kristen Wiig” DVD, God help us), and the “Inside the Actor’s Studio” skits are only as good as the honoree, and while Abby Elliott has her good points, her Drew Barrymore impression does not leave much of a…well, you know. The warm-up performance of Green Day singing “East Jesus Nowhere,” with Ferrell rocking the cowbell and even taunting Billie Joe (“Does this song ever end?”), is a great extra, though. Pity they couldn’t get him to do an audio commentary; those have always been as entertaining on the other best-of DVDs as the skits themselves.
There but for the grace of God goes Fox, who dares to air the series finale to one of their most successful shows in the shadow of “Lost,” which was basically the biggest series finale since “Cheers.” Man, do you remember the cast of “Cheers” on Leno’s show after that last episode aired? They were smashed. Good times.
The “24” finale, however, was not good times.
The bad guys won. Allison had the video of Starbuck with the Russian. Mr. Blonde wiped his servers, so the backup copy of the video was gone. The recording of the conversation between I.M. Weasel and Suvarov, which Jack gave to Chloe, was confiscated by Dominic. Chloe and Buffy are looking at long stints in the slammer for treason. Jack is looking at either the death penalty or life in a deep dark hole somewhere halfway around the world, if he’s lucky. Game over. Bad guys win.
Well, that’s how this would have happened in the real world.
But not here. Instead, Jack, Chloe and Buffy are saved by a long-overdue crisis of conscience on the part of one Allison Taylor. One that, ideally, shouldn’t have needed to happen in the first place – this is where frequent commenter Mr. Paulsen would make a crack about manufactured conflict, and he’s not wrong – but there you are. That’s a hell of a way to end your show about an ass-kicking counter-terrorist agent, with him being saved not by his wits but by someone else’s guilty conscience. And by a hell of a way, I mean lame.
“So what did that Medsker fucker say about me this week? Man, I hate that guy.”
Jack should never have a passive role in how events unfold. He should have been at the center of it all, not on his knees getting a last-minute pardon. To his credit, at least he took his execution the way you would expect him to, by telling the guy to pull the damn trigger already. Still, being a fugitive should have been his choice. The exposing of the scandal should have been by his hand. Hell, he just whacked a small army of Russian goons, and it was one of the best episodes of the show in years. There should be a rule with the “24” staff to never, ever take the power out of his hands.
It was actually going well in the first hour. Jack finds that sweet location where he can take out Logan, and from there it all went wrong. Biting Dominic’s ear off? Really? If I were in charge, I would have had Jack wound Suvarov in Logan’s office at the very least, prompting Allison to sing like a canary not because her conscience is getting to her but because Jack Bauer will fucking kill her if she doesn’t. The truth comes out, the peace treaty is killed, Logan is exposed as the puppet master, Allison’s legacy is ruined, and Jack flees the country as a wanted but righteous man, becoming a folk hero in the process. Years from now, Kim will get a text message from an unknown number saying, “New Zealand is nice this time of year,” or “Zihuatanejo.”
I’d blame the limp-wristed ending on the producers’ desire to maintain “24” as a viable movie property, but the strange thing is, this ending does not set up a potential “24” movie very well. How do you bring him back when both the Russian and US governments want to put him on trial for mass murder? Throw in the Chinese, and Jack is effectively banned from 60% of the world. Ah, well. It’s over. As Marge Simpson once said, when Homer wasn’t sure if a problem was properly resolved, “It’s an ending. That’s enough.”
Our last song comes courtesy of the Pope-dissing firecracker Sinead O’Connor. She took her PR lumps after that incident on “SNL” but those first two records of hers were damn good. Thank you to everyone who read this column over the years. It’s been fun sharing the experience with you all. My current plan is to not like another TV show enough that my bosses will ask me to blog about it. Wish me luck.
There’s no other way to say it: the carnage from tonight’s episode of “24” made me positively giddy. Jack Bauer may have dispensed some Dirty Harry-style justice in the past, but this time around, he’s a Terminator. He doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, and he absolutely will not stop until you are dead. Jesus, I can still feel the small jabs that he hit that hit man with last week, but that shot of Novakovich’s suite littered with dead guys, with Novakovich himself taking a poker to the stomach…that was a thing of beauty. I have been waiting for years to see Jack do something like that. Way to give the people what they want, Fox. I love it when shows finally start acting like they have nothing to lose. Unfortunately, they usually only do so after they’ve lost everything.
Having said that, I’m still unhappy that Jack hasn’t thought to upload the incriminating video to the interwebs. On the plus side, Mr. Blonde still has a copy of it on his hard drive, and since the video is of Starbuck, and Buffy is the one that’s about to pay him a visit, it’s possible that Buffy will get one look at this video and want to blow the whistle whether Jack wishes it or not. Either way, it will be a huge missed opportunity if the world doesn’t see that clip.
I thought for sure that Timmy was going to quit on the spot when Allison asked him to organize the raid of a newspaper. He’s always had a strong moral compass. He has to know that this is bad juju. But never mind that: Jack had to know that White She Devil was not smart enough to evade the authorities long enough to get her piece written. Heck, how many of us are smart enough to fall off the grid? The second you use a credit card, boom, you’re done. Need cash? Can’t get any out of an ATM. She was a sitting duck, and Jack should have known that.
“Hello? Hey, Mr. Rafferty, how are you? Are the royalty checks still coming in?”
Then again, I’ll forgive him for having other things on his mind, namely how he was going to make I.M. Weasel sing like a canary about his involvement in the day’s events. I’m actually tempted to reinstate Logan’s other nickname of Buck Buck Brawwwwwwk, because the sounds he was making as he was grilled by Jack sounded just like a chicken. And, to bring the Terminator analogy back, I loved how Jack only wounded the American agents while mercilessly killing any and all Russians. I half expected him to say to Logan, after knocking one of his Secret Service agents unconscious, “He’ll live.”
So I.M. Weasel finally reveals his source within the Russian government, and it is none other than President Suvarov himself. Now forgive me, because I can be a little dense – I’ll pause while you get all jokes out of your system – but this doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why on earth would Suvarov tell Logan anything? There is no good that can come from this, especially if he’s trying to torpedo a peace treaty that the President of the United States is pushing. If I’m Suvarov, I am meeting Logan’s call with a long string of phrases that vary on the theme “You dumb motherfucker!” Gee, thanks for not ratting me out, but you may as well have, dingus. Please tell me I’m missing something here.
That was a nice touch, though, to see that Jack planted a bug on Logan and overheard everything he said to Suvarov. Here’s the question, though: was he able to capture that recording? Overhearing isn’t exactly admissible in a court of law. Not that Jack is thinking about the letter of the law at the moment, but you get the idea. In case the video’s destroyed, he’s going to need a backup plan. Assuming he even has a plan at this point. Seriously, he’s killed every single Russian connected to Renee’s death. What else is left? Killing Suvarov? He should make a video of himself, in the event of his untimely death, where he explains everything that has happened up to now, and finish it by playing the recording of the conversation he just overheard, if he’s capable. Then, upload it to the Web. Have I mentioned that he should be uploading stuff to the Web, multiple times, and sending copies directly to TV stations as well?
Two hours left. It’s the end of an era, if you will. We’ve given nine years of our lives to this show, and in a week, it’ll all be over. They say that they want to turn it into a movie franchise, but as Mr. Paulsen points out, if people aren’t willing to watch it for free, who’s going to pay to see it? Surely the people at Fox know this, which gives me hope that they will actually have the balls to kill Jack in the final seconds of next week’s series finale, giving him a ten-second silent clock tick. Ah, but who are we kidding, that will never happen. The thing is, it should. For what he’s done in the last few hours, Jack’s either looking at death or life in prison, even if he succeeds in exposing two corrupt administrations. And I for one do not want to see Jack end the show behind bars.
I originally planned on titling this blog “…And you will know us by the trail of dead” after seeing that slow pan of Novakovich’s suite. But I’d be remiss if I didn’t pimp Ice-T’s hardcore side project from the early ’90s, which seems positively quaint now but was a big deal at the time, to the point where his song “Cop Killer” got him in so much trouble that Time Warner voided his contract. These days, of course, he’s a “Law & Order” guy. You know what would be really awesome? When the time comes to kill off his character, it’s at the hands of a guy who was amped up after listening to some rapper talk about killing pigs. I have to think even Ice-T would appreciate the irony of that.
The origins of “Legion” – a group of strangers fight off an unholy invasion – can be found in a dozen low-budget movies from “Assault on Precinct 13” to “Evil Dead,” and as source material goes, those are two damned fine titles to borrow, as it were. And “Legion” pays decent tribute in the process, serving up some enjoyable moments both humorous and dreadful (as in full of dread, not as in miserable). Paul Bettany is the archangel Michael, rebelling against God’s order to essentially launch the apocalypse by killing the unborn child of a truck stop waitress in the middle of nowhere. Instead, Michael leads the truck stop employees and their few patrons into fending off an army of angel-possessed (that’s right, angel-possessed) people who have suddenly swarmed on them. And what a group of employees and patrons this is. You’d expect Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton to be here, but Kate Walsh’s appearance as an angry mom is a nice surprise. The dialogue is decent enough for what is clearly a B movie, but it’s a bit too slick for its own good. Movies of this ilk should have swagger and personality, not glossy production value. Still, Bettany handles the lead role with aplomb, taking the role seriously but not too seriously. Overall, it’s an acceptable entry into the supernatural horror genre, but if we’re lucky, this won’t pull a “Prophecy” and inspire a series of unnecessary sequels.
Considering that even the biggest stars “SNL” has ever produced only have one ‘Best of’ collection to their names, it’s a testament to Will Ferrell’s versatility that Universal is giving him his third compilation (well, that and the fact that Ferrell is bar none the biggest star “SNL” has produced in 20 years). From the looks of “The Best of Will Ferrell, Vol. III,” however, it’s starting to look like they may be coming close to the bottom of the well. The set is funny, mind you – it includes arguably the best cheerleader skit of all, at the chess match – and you can never go wrong with a “Celebrity Jeopardy” skit. They even include the oddball “Do You Like Luxury?” skit, which only Ferrell could make funny. However, the inclusion of a “Lawrence Welk” skit is a big minus (that should have been saved for a “Best of Kristen Wiig” DVD, God help us), and the “Inside the Actor’s Studio” skits are only as good as the honoree, and while Abby Elliott has her good points, her Drew Barrymore impression does not leave much of a…well, you know. The warm-up performance of Green Day singing “East Jesus Nowhere,” with Ferrell rocking the cowbell and even taunting Billie Joe (“Does this song ever end?”), is a great extra, though. Pity they couldn’t get him to do an audio commentary; those have always been as entertaining on the other best-of DVDs as the skits themselves.
The origins of “Legion” – a group of strangers fight off an unholy invasion – can be found in a dozen low-budget movies from “Assault on Precinct 13” to “Evil Dead,” and as source material goes, those are two damned fine titles to borrow, as it were. And “Legion” pays decent tribute in the process, serving up some enjoyable moments both humorous and dreadful (as in full of dread, not as in miserable). Paul Bettany is the archangel Michael, rebelling against God’s order to essentially launch the apocalypse by killing the unborn child of a truck stop waitress in the middle of nowhere. Instead, Michael leads the truck stop employees and their few patrons into fending off an army of angel-possessed (that’s right, angel-possessed) people who have suddenly swarmed on them. And what a group of employees and patrons this is. You’d expect Dennis Quaid and Charles S. Dutton to be here, but Kate Walsh’s appearance as an angry mom is a nice surprise. The dialogue is decent enough for what is clearly a B movie, but it’s a bit too slick for its own good. Movies of this ilk should have swagger and personality, not glossy production value. Still, Bettany handles the lead role with aplomb, taking the role seriously but not too seriously. Overall, it’s an acceptable entry into the supernatural horror genre, but if we’re lucky, this won’t pull a “Prophecy” and inspire a series of unnecessary sequels.
