Okay, so Fred Armisen was just a bit off, but while everyone continues to digest and debate the “Lost” series finale, it’s fun to look back on this old “Saturday Night Live” bit where several “Lost” fans share their early theories about the show while they share an elevator with Matthew Fox.
Author: Jamey Codding (Page 1 of 10)
As a huge (no pun intended) fan of Chris Farley in general and “Tommy Boy” in particular — there weren’t many more popular or quotable movies on campus during my college days — I wasn’t sure what to think about the new DirecTV ad featuring the late comedian’s classic “Fat Guy in a Little Coat” scene from the 1995 movie (watch it below). DirecTV has been running similar commercials for a while now, recreating iconic movie moments from films like “Aliens,” “Back to the Future” and “King Kong” to help illustrate why DirecTV is (allegedly) so much better than cable. I had enjoyed the other spots I saw but, for some reason, watching a re-dubbed David Spade in the “Tommy Boy” commercial with the original footage of Farley seemed…strange. “Tasteless, insensitive or just plain weird” is how the guys at Asylum.com described some of the public reaction to the commercials, which prompted Asylum to contact Spade’s publicist in search of a statement. Here is Spade’s response:
“When DIRECT TV came to me and the Farley family with this idea about ‘Tommy Boy,’ we talked and thought it would be a cool way to remind people just how funny Chris was. It is a clever homage to my friend and a movie that we loved doing.”
Spade said the commercial reminds people how funny Farley was, but it hit me that there may very well be hordes of college kids who have never even known how funny Farley was (he died in 1997) and have never seen “Tommy Boy” or “Black Sheep.” (We can only hope they haven’t been exposed to “Beverly Hills Ninja.”) Will “Fat Guy in a Little Coat” prompt some of them to download rent “Tommy Boy”? Absolutely.
Asylum also heard from a DirecTV spokesperson:
“We should look to Chris’ family and friends for the ultimate opinion on this subject. They were involved from the beginning of this project and felt that the spot was a great tribute to Chris.”
Talk about hitting the nail on the head. If Farley’s family was comfortable with the commercial, shouldn’t we all be? What is there to be offended by, anyway? Considering Farley’s short life was all about making other people laugh, he certainly wouldn’t want people to take this commercial — or his legacy — so seriously.
After five seasons, “Entourage” finally lived up to its name this fall. While E, Turtle and Drama each enjoyed meatier storylines than normal this season, Vince’s role in the proceedings essentially amounted to an imaginary stalker and a random fuck scene of the week. But Vince’s marginalized contributions led to one of the strongest seasons of “Entourage” in a long time, culminating in one hell of a finale tonight.
Let’s hit the main arcs from least to most interesting, beginning with the saga of Turtle and Jamie-Lynn. I recently wrote in a comment on a different episode that Turtle’s UCLA co-ed was hotter than Jamie-Lynn, and I saw nothing tonight to make me alter that stance. I mean…good, GOD. And while it was nice to see Turtle resist her advances in the name of true love, I’m fairly confident that scene would have played out far differently in real life. Girls like that don’t get turned down that often, not by guys like Turtle, and especially not when they’re wearing outfits like that. I found it hilarious that they didn’t even bother to completely shut the vertical blinds in the room, but the topper was when Turtle offered his condolences for leaving after getting her worked up by asking, “You want me to go down on you or something?” Hey, Turtle is nothing if not generous. He’s also single now, after getting dumped right before his plane to New Zealand took off. May as well hop on over to Rome then, right?
I’ll lump Drama and Vince together here, if only because Vince’s auxiliary storyline couldn’t carry a paragraph by itself. Who would’ve thought that Turtle of all people would inspire Drama to figure out what’s truly important to him? You knew he wasn’t going to give up acting for good, but would he change his mind before the credits rolled tonight? Would it be too late? Turns out he killed at his “Melrose Place” audition but the network wants to go younger with the cast. I’ve got to say that the thought of building a show around Drama makes me chuckle. I just hope we get to see some of it next season. Of course, even better is that now Drama is free to go to Italy with Vince. Ah, but not before Matt Damon and his buddy LeBron James (um…what was with the glasses, LBJ?) railroad Vince into giving a bunch of hungry children $150,000. Actually, there were three great cameos tonight, if you include Bono showing up on Damon’s laptop. There were several classic lines in tonight’s episode, but one of the finest was when Damon bullied Drama into handing the phone to Vince. “Sorry, he Jason Bourne’d me,” Drama explained to Vince. Sounds reasonable to me.
I was tempted to rank Drama ahead of E but that would be underestimating just how shocked I was when E proposed to Sloan. In hindsight, maybe I should have expected it – I mean, what was so special about a lunch date at a restaurant the two of them used to go to? – but right up until E mentioned making a commitment to Sloan, I was oblivious. It was actually a pretty cool scene, capped by Sloan’s very believable reaction to the proposal. I feel almost embarrassed about the fact that I thought it was even remotely possible that they’d leave us hanging on Sloan’s answer until next season. I can’t remember an “Entourage” finale that didn’t have all the loose threads sewn up by the end of the episode, and tonight was certainly no different.
All hell has broken loose in Bon Temps. Quite literally, from the looks of things. As Jason so eloquently put it, “This is fuckin’ fucked up!” Agreed.
It amazed me how nonchalantly Sookie and Bill walked into Sookie’s house (or what used to be her house) after seeing the sacrificial offering erected in her front yard. At the very least, wouldn’t Bill lead the way instead of letting Sookie walk in first? Sure enough, Maryann comes in shortly thereafter and, once pleasantries have been exchanged and Sookie pulls her patented Tough Chick act, Maryann slams her up against the wall. Bill to the rescue! In the split second before Bill sunk his teeth into Maryann’s neck, I wondered how her blood would affect him. Yeah, not good. Well, not good for Bill, anyway, but judging by Maryann’s cries of “yes, ravage me!” it looks like she enjoyed it plenty. She also enjoyed the little laser light show that shot out of Sookie’s hand. “What are you?” Maryann asked several times following that incident, a look of amazed curiosity on her face. Sam may be Maryann’s priority right now, but Maryann is so utterly fascinated by Sookie after their encounter that I’m guessing she will be Maryann’s primary target before the season is over. That’s not to say that Maryann will give up on Sam – she seems pretty intent on tracking him down, to say the least – but like Eric before her, Maryann has eyes for Sookie.
Speaking of eyes, just about everyone in town has those utterly creepy, dead, black eyes, including Miss Tara Mae. To quote last week’s post from esteemed blogger Will Harris, whose shoes I hope to be at least serviceably filling tonight: “While I’m sure there have been less successful interventions than the one by Lafayette and Tara’s mama, *I* haven’t seen one.” Well, Lafayette would seem to agree with Will when, after trying prayer, pleading and a vicious slap across the face, he uttered, “This has to be the worst motherfucking intervention in history.” A little later, Lafayette’s invitation to Bill provided another highlight in an episode full of great moments. Some of those moments were funny — Eggs cheerfully asking Maryann, “You want us to kill something, so it’s extra fresh?” — while some were of the more disturbing variety, like Tara promising, “He’s on his way and he’s going to kill us all.” I’m telling you, those eyes give me the willies!
So now that Bill and Sookie were able to team up and pull Tara out of her trance, I wonder just how easily she can fall back into it. Lord knows Lafayette will do everything in his power to keep Tara away from Maryann, but you just know she’ll try to go rescue Eggs at some point. Maryann didn’t seem overly concerned about Tara leaving last week when Lafayette and Tara’s mama rescued her from Sookie’s house, but maybe that’s because she knew Tara would be back soon enough. Hey, everyone digs Maryann’s parties!
In fact, when I say “everyone,” I mean damn near everyone, since just about the entire town is now in Maryann’s employ as she hunts Sam down. Has there ever been a more formidable duo than Sam Merlotte and Andy Bellefleur? Okay, don’t answer that, but at least Andy provided some good laughs tonight, most notably after Sam told him that Maryann probably wanted to cut out his heart in front of a bunch of naked people. “And people thought I was crazy for seein’ a pig.” Poor Andy, although he doesn’t look so crazy now. One wonders whether Andy or Jason came up with the idea to trick the townies into thinking that Jason was Dionysus (or whomever the hell they’re all waiting for), but it worked like a charm, thanks in no small part to Sam’s disappearing act. Andy’s and Jason’s reaction to that was perfect, and the bare-ass-apron shot was a great touch. It’s great to see Jason taking charge in the wake of his L.O.D.I. training, and it looks like he’ll be on the frontlines when this all comes to a head over the final two episodes.
Admittedly, there is plenty that I’m missing here (Terry was awesome tonight as the commander of the townie brigade, as was Hoyt’s batshit crazy mom), but I’ll wrap it up with a comment about last week’s blog entry from fellow PH blogger John Paulsen: “One thing this show does better than just about any other I’ve seen is end each episode with a bang…usually some sort of revelation/cliffhanger that keeps the audience wanting more.” True to form, I sure as hell want to know who the Queen is and why she has a horde of Mr. Smiths surrounding her house. At first I thought Bill might be going to see Lorena, but that doesn’t make much sense. Either way, it’s looking like the Queen will be playing a pivotal role in the war that’s about to go down in Bon Temps. I’m just wondering who’s going to survive, and who won’t.
“Dallas vamps are serious and scary as shit.” So says Barry the telepathic bellboy when Sookie presses him about his “gift” tonight. As far as I can tell, all vampires are serious and scary as shit, but if the Dallas vamp branch is indeed more serious and scarier than the southern variety, I feel for whomever has abducted Godric. Apparently holding true to their reputation, the two Dallas vampires (I didn’t catch their names) who are working with Eric and Bill to try and locate Godric aren’t very interested in a peaceful resolution – the male is ready for war with the Fellowship of the Sun – but you just knew Sookie was going to get tangled up in whatever plan they adopted. Sure enough, she volunteered to infiltrate the Fellowship, which I’m sure will go swimmingly considering Bill won’t be able to help her should she run into any daytime trouble. (On a side note, am I the only one who chuckles anytime Sookie talks tough to a group of vampires? Since when does being a telepath qualify you as a badass in a room full of thirsty vampires?)
I had assumed (as I’m sure others had as well) that Eric’s intense interest in finding Godric was because the latter was the former’s maker, and sure enough, we were treated to a cool flashback of the day Eric got his fangs. He seemed to be a medieval warrior of some kind (was that Swedish they were speaking?) who knew his way around a battlefield, so much so that Godric just had to have him. I’m even more intrigued by the Godric storyline after seeing how young he looks and knowing that he’s actually 2,000 years old. Dude’s been around for a while, huh? I’m guessing Bill’s maker can’t quite match Godric’s lifespan, but judging by the final scene tonight, I’m also guessing we’ll be learning a lot about Lorena in the coming weeks….
Meanwhile, if it’s war that the Dallas vamps want with the Fellowship, Reverend Steve will be happy to oblige, judging by the impressive arsenal he showed Jason tonight: wooden arrows, wooden bullets, a flamethrower, silver throwing stars (very cool) and a guillotine that’s apparently on order. After wrestling with his feelings about vampires early in his Fellowship experience, Jason appears to be all in now that his Light of Day Institute (L.O.D.I) bootcamp has started. He’s not getting the Golden Boy treatment anymore but he definitely impressed Gabe and Sarah when he helped sorry-sack Luke over the fence. ‘That’s a frickin’ soldier of God,” Gabe proclaimed, and Sarah later showed that she agreed by…um…helping Jason put the finishing touches on his bath. Their exchange was classic: “No.” “You don’t mean it.” “No, but I should.” It’s okay, Jason – we don’t blame you. I mean, the preacher’s wife is smokin’ hot! And now, with Sookie’s plan going into effect next week, it’ll be interesting to see how and when Jason’s new path crosses Sookie’s (and Bill’s, of course).
I’ll admit that the Tara/Maryann storyline runs a little hot and cold for me. I’m definitely interested to find out what exactly Maryann is trying to accomplish by keeping Tara around, but the story didn’t advance all that much tonight. Sure, it’s good to know that Maryann can apparently alter the energy around her however she sees fit, tonight choosing to have everyone in Merlotte’s gang up on Tara after Tara told Maryann that she couldn’t move into Sookie’s house with her, but what the hell is her endgame? And how is Eggs involved? I’m still not a fan of Daphne’s either. Sam sure likes having another shape-shifter around – especially one as cute as Daphne – but where did the gashes on her back come from and, more importantly, how did she survive the attack in the first place? For now, I’m assuming Maryann was the attacker (though that’s just the easy guess at this point) and, since she can force Sam to change into a dog whenever she feels so inclined, I wonder if she can actually turn someone into a shape-shifter. That may seem far-fetched but there’s obviously some kind of story behind those long scars on Daphne’s back. And besides, is anything really far-fetched on this show?
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