CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM...: Image A Sound A "The Car
Salesman,"
"Thor," "Trick or Treat," "The Shrimp Incident," "The Thong," "The
Acupuncturist," "The Doll," "Shaq," "The Baptism," "The Massage" THE ANNA NICOLE SHOW...: Image A Sound A Extras D "House
Hunting," "The Introduction of Bobby Trendy," "The Eating Contest,"
"The Dentist," "Las Vegas, Pt. I," "Las Vegas, Pt. II," "Pet Psychic,"
"Cousin Shelly," "The Driving Test," "NYC Publicity Tour," "Paintball,"
"Halloween Party," "The Date"
by Walter Chaw The way that white people behave badly runs the social gamut from being
impolitic to being uncouth--it can be calculated or just the product of
bad breeding, but find in a pair of television series that would at
first glance seem miles apart dual examples of Caucasians running amuck
in their natural upper-class habitat. Larry David's HBO series "Curb
Your Enthusiasm" has won critical hosannas and the "Seinfeld"
demographic, while Anna Nicole Smith's "The Anna Nicole Show" has been
heralded as the dawn of the apocalypse. Both, however, are vignette sitcoms based on slightly fictionalized versions of
semi-celebrities positioned as the ass in various Byzantine and
embarrassing situations. While David's sense of humour is
self-conscious, his "Curb Your Enthusiasm" an example of the self-aware
media hybrid, it would be a terrible mistake to presume that Smith is
as stupid as, say, Jessica Simpson, and "The Anna Nicole Show" is so
carefully calculated that with a little tweaking it could be as
post-modern and oppressively-scripted as "Law & Order: Courtney
Love Unit".
Image
A Sound A+ Extras B- S2:
"Nothing But the
Blood," "Keep This Party Going," "Scratches," "Shake and Fingerpop,"
"Never Let Me Go," "Hard-Hearted Hannah," "Release Me," "Timebomb," "I
Will Rise Up," "New World in My View," "Frenzy," "Beyond Here Lies
Nothin'"
S3:
"Bad
Blood," "Beautifully Broken," "It Hurts Me Too," "9 Crimes," "Trouble,"
"I Got a Right to Sing the Blues," "Hitting the Ground," "Night on the
Sun," "Everything Is Broken," "I Smell a Rat," "Fresh Blood," "Evil Is
Going On"
by
Walter Chaw "True
Blood" is pulp crap. Yet as Bryant
and Bill
have already so eloquently pointed
out, it's highly-addictive pulp crap--the sort of shallow,
handsomely-mounted titillation that fosters the craze that sprung
up around prime-time soaps like "Dynasty" and "Falcon
Crest". White-collar smut
that traffics in the currency of the age: once upon a time it was the
super-rich, now it's the supernatural. Plus ça change, plus
c'est la meme. It's certainly soapier than
showrunner/creator Alan Ball's previous pay-cable drama, "Six Feet
Under", but to its credit what "True Blood" does in returning sexuality--and gore, and (southern) Gothic trappings--to the
vampire mythos, it does
well. The shame of it is that it seems to be ashamed of itself and so
continually strives for relevance in aligning the plight of its
vampire underclass to gay rights. Bill said it first, but is the
appropriate
supernatural analogue to gays really vampires? Is it wise to suggest
that gays
present that same kind of sexual allure? The same kind of blood
contagion?
Doesn't that play into the Conservative storyline a bit too neatly?
At least
it's not "The Walking Dead".
Image A Sound A Extras C+ "Damage Control," "The Writing on the
Wall," "Reunion," "Rock and a Hard Place," "Vision Thing," "Dating
Game," "Good Guys and Bad Guys," "Kingdom Come," "Circle the Wagons,"
"The Happiest Girl," "Take Me As I Am," "Oh, Pioneers"
by Alex Jackson There's definitely something
cheeky and
slyly subversive at the core of HBO's "Big Love". The show is the
brainchild of Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer, an openly-gay couple
who've been together since the early-'90s. That single fact opens up
some interesting connections when it comes to polygamy. The standard
argument religious groups have against homosexuality is that it's
unnatural: Two men or two women cannot naturally procreate and
therefore it's deviant, godless behaviour. By contrast, polygamy is
possibly more natural than monogamy--you could argue that males are
hardwired to spread their seed with as many females as possible and it
is not cost efficient, evolutionarily speaking, to restrict yourself to
one woman. And if the ability to procreate is what makes
heterosexuality more moral than homosexuality, then we have to admit
that polygamists are able to procreate "better" than monogamists and so
polygamy should be embraced as the morally superior lifestyle.
Image A- Sound A Extras B "Kate Winslet," "Ben Stiller," "Ross
Kemp," "Samuel L. Jackson," "Les Dennis," "Patrick Stewart"
by Ian Pugh The oft-invoked reason
as to why we indulge in "entertainment journalism" is because it
demystifies the culture of celebrity. Proof of star public outbursts
and make-up-free faces, in other words, forces them to "our" level of
humanity. At first glance, Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant's BBC
sitcom "Extras" feeds into that fascination through parody: Proposed as
unreachable titans via eponymous episode titles, the guest stars who
tower over "background artists" Andy Millman (Gervais) and Maggie
Jacobs (Ashley Jensen) are invariably revealed to be windbags and/or
perverts. It's possible to see this as an attempt to deter us from
rumour-mongering: Kate Winslet becomes a bitter Oscar bridesmaid ("You
are guaranteed an Oscar if you play a mental," she says upon seeing a
woman with cerebral palsy), for instance, and Ben Stiller--improbably
directing a film about the Yugoslav Wars--presents himself as precisely
the kind of loser he plays in the movies but with twice the ego.
RUNNING TIME
30 minutes/episode MPAA
Not Rated ASPECT
RATIO(S)
1.78:1 (16x9-enhanced) LANGUAGES English DD 2.0 (Stereo) CC
Yes SUBTITLES
English
French
Spanish REGION
1 DISC
TYPE
DVD-5 + DVD-9 STUDIO
HBO
And yet, although self-deprecating humour endears us to big names, it
also distances us from them--when oft-whispered secret shames and
claims of "I hear he's really an asshole" are realized for us in
fictional form, we're still left to wonder if we're witnessing truth.
Realizing this, "Extras" actually encourages us to become starstruck,
to lose focus, since it allows the series more room to blindside us
with its superb characterizations and eventually call us on our
superficiality. By the time we get to C-list game-show host Les Dennis,
here suffering from a breakdown (humorous in how self-consciously
pathetic it is), we understand that it shouldn't be all that sporting
to rag on celebrities.
A different sort of mystique shrouds film
and TV extras. Andy and Maggie are lost in the anonymity of their work
(indeed, so often does Maggie wear wigs on the job that it's something
of a shock to discover that her real hair is a frizzy blonde mop), and
they spend most of their time trying to capture someone's attention, be
it a romantic interest, a professional superior, or their
literal/figurative viewing audience. They succeed, of course, but often
in the worst possible way: a great majority of scenes end with one or
both of our heroes slowly exiting frame after committing some major
social gaffe, costing them a date or a job. Perhaps it is a reflection
of the type of embarrassment comedy that made Ricky Gervais a star with
"The Office", but in "Extras", the gaffe itself is somehow less
egregious than destroying the pretensions that surround life in
Hollywood. In short, the jig is up that the nameless ciphers who pass
us by on a daily basis, the window dressing on our lives, are human
beings. It's an idea that, when seriously contemplated, becomes a cold
shower on our self-centred illusions.
Gervais insists that "Extras" is more about
character development than it is any sort of indictment of the
entertainment industry, and the series certainly manages that aim with
its impossibly quick wit and effortlessly complex situations. That
said, it's impossible to not see Gervai battle for "The Office" in
Andy's struggle to produce his own work-a-day satire, "When the Whistle
Blows". The allegorical frustrations only mount once he finally gets
the script to the BBC--the deadpan misfortune in Andy's life doesn't
change in the least, and the big star (Patrick Stewart, obsessed with
"female nudity") still manages to cast a shadow over it all. In spite
of everything, each episode concludes with a return to relative
normalcy, the greatest successes or failures culminating in
undeterrable dreams that patiently await time in the spotlight. Cat
Steven "Tea for the Tillerman" accompanies the closing titles, which
represent their own form of wish fulfillment for the characters: While
"Andy Millman / Ricky Gervais" and "Maggie Jacobs / Ashley Jensen" are
proudly listed at the top, the supporting cast isn't always afforded
the same luxury. Andy's comically inept agent Darren Lamb (Merchant) is
always credited as "Agent," and Lamb's favourite charge, actor Shaun
Williamson, is rarely referred to as anything but "Barry," his
character from the soap opera "EastEnders". Gervais and Merchant
simultaneously tap into the optimism and cynicism that drive the
business: Perhaps the only way to succeed in this mad industry is to
surround oneself with the right amount of non-identity--an equation of
the roles actors play to the lives they live.
THE
DVD
"Extras: The Complete First Season" arrives on DVD in a two-disc set
courtesy of HBO that reshuffles the episode order as it appeared on the
native BBC/R2 release to reflect the sequence in which the series aired
in North America. The 1.78:1, 16x9-enhanced image is consistently sharp
if slightly washed-out, as is typical of British television; the DD 2.0
stereo audio is particularly robust, though, with musical interludes
coming through with uncommon strength. "Deleted Scenes" and "Outtakes"
are presented across both discs alongside corresponding episodes. Those
elisions that constitute the former, however funny, were pretty
obviously cut because they would've disrupted the flow of the script;
the latter, meanwhile, usually have Gervais ruining takes with his
boisterous hyena-laughter.
Find slightly more substantial bonus
features on Disc Two: "Finding Leo" (10 mins.) is a fascinating home
video shot by Merchant in which Gervais scrambles to locate the number
for Leonardo DiCaprio's agent after Jude Law cancels an appearance on
the show at the last minute (which probably explains the giant Alfie
poster in the parting shot of the season finale); and "Extras: The
Difficult Second Album" (21 mins.) is a breezy doc that has Gervais and
Merchant chronicling the bridge between "The Office" and "Extras" as
well as imparting a few anecdotes about working with celebrities...and
hilariously hawking "Office"-themed office supplies. An unintentionally
goofy promo for various HBO programs (wherein said shows are invaded by
their own titles in giant CGI form) and a commercial for "The Office:
The Complete Series One and Two" cue up on startup of the first platter. Originally published: April 3, 2007.
by Walter Chaw Where
the first season
ended with at least lip-service to ambiguity and frustration, the
second runs a disturbingly cheery course of happy horseshit and the
worst kinds of Dr. Phil-isms while canonizing our Sainted Paul (Gabriel
Byrne) on the cross of other peoples' problems. Taking up where the
series left off, we find Paul divorced, relocated to New York, and in
the process of being sued by the cartoonishly belligerent father (Glynn
Turman) of a patient from Season 1 who killed himself. This 35-episode
batch follows sessions with Mia (Hope Davis), a lawyer and former
patient who owns the insult of the term "hysterical"; April (Alison
Pill), a college student with a saviour complex and a nasty cancer;
Oliver (Aaron Grady Shaw), a chubby adolescent enduring his parents'
divorce; and Walter (John Mahoney), a powerful CEO on the brink of a
fall. Then there's Paul, of course, who's dealing with single
parenthood, the possibility of losing his practice, and another woman
patient who wants to jump his analytical Irish bones.
by Walter Chaw It's a show about the
traditional mode of psychoanalysis--a nine-week, five days-a-week
series detailing shrink Paul (Gabriel Byrne) and four patients,
culminating each "Friday" in Paul's own session with former mentor Gina
(Dianne Wiest). It's based on a popular Israeli drama that was the
brainchild of such filmmaking talents as Eran Kolarin and Nir Bergman.
And though it begins stilted and ends badly, its thick mid-section is
the enabler of our obsessive, maybe ugly, voyeuristic impulses,
gratifying the viewer with the sensation that, for all the dense verbal
webs spun in these little progressive one-acts, the real expert is the
viewer. "In Treatment" clarifies the role of the observer in this
media, how the active participant is always involved in an
anthropological exercise deconstructing the characters' motives and
actions--and how that critical facility, eternally underused, is
occasionally gratified by material that's not quite smarter than you,
but appears to be.
Image A Sound
A Extras C "Milfay," "After the Ball
Is Over," "Tipton," "Black Blizzard," "Babylon," "Pick a Number," "The
River," "Lonnigan, Texas," "Insomnia," "Hot and Bothered," "The Day of
the Dead," "The Day That Was the Day"
by Walter Chaw It's
the Depression in Dust Bowl United States, and Ben (Nick Stahl) really
needs a bath: His mother's just died (but not before hissing at him to
keep his distance, Mr. Antichrist) and he's in the act of burying her
when a traveling carnival happens along to spirit him away before the
local constabulary can. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
threatens briefly to break out as a bulldozer shows up to raze Ben's
ramshackle homestead, but hey diddley hee, the roustie's life for me,
says Ben. In a way, comparisons of HBO's handsomely-mounted "Carnivàle"
to Douglas Adams's brilliant stuff is apt as Ben, like Adams's everyman
Arthur, is orphaned from his home, set adrift in an absurd universe in
the company of freaks, and burdened with the responsibility for the
salvation of all mankind. A parallel story, joined to Ben's by a couple
of early dream sequences, involves preacher-man Brother Crowe (Clancy
Brown) navigating some tricky incestual straits with spinster sister
Iris (Amy Madigan) in the midst of trying to establish a mission for
the dislocated Okies flooding the Golden State--a purpose at odds with
a Church hierarchy represented by kindly Father Balthus (Ralph Waite).
In almost no time (well, actually, just barely in time for the end of
the first season), the opening narration provided by Management liaison
Samson (Michael J. Anderson) telling of one avatar for good and one for
evil born into each generation comes into focus with Ben on one side
and Brother Crowe on the other. No prize for guessing who's who.
Image B Sound
B
SEASON
1 - "Pilot," "The Apology," "The Hungry and the Hunted," "Intellectual
Property," "Mary Pat Shelby," "*The Head Coach, Dinner and the Morning
Mail," "Dear Louise," "Thespis," "The Quality of Mercury at 29K," "Shoe
Money Tonight," "The Six Southern Gentlemen of Tennessee," "Smoky,"
"Small Town," "Rebecca," "Dana and the Deep Blue Sea," "Sally," "How
Are Things in Gloca Morra?," "The Sword of Orion," "Eli's Coming,"
"Ordnance Tactics," "Ten Wickets," "Napoleon's Battle Plan," "What Kind
of Day Has it Been"
SEASON 2 - "Special
Powers," "When Something Wicked This Way Comes," "Cliff Gardner,"
"Louise Revisited," "Kafelnikov," "Shane," "Kyle Whitaker's Got Two
Sacks," "The Reunion," "A Girl Named Pixley," "The Giants Win the
Pennant, the Giants Win the Pennant," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Sweet
Smell of Air," "Dana Get Your Gun," "And the Crowd Goes Wild,"
"Celebrities," "The Local Weather," "Draft Day: Part I - It Can't Rain
at Indian Wells," "Draft Day: Part II - The Fall of Ryan O'Brian,"
"April is the Cruelest Month," "Bells And A Siren," "La Forza Del
Destino," "Quo Vadimus"
by Walter Chaw
Taken as a whole, and a box set from Buena Vista allows one to do just
that, Aaron Sorkin's "Sports Night" takes on the character of an
extended experiment that starts tentatively and ends as one of the
genuinely valuable moments of television in the year before HBO and
flagship show "The Sopranos" became the benchmark for quality
boob-tubery in the post-post-modern age. Detailing the
behind-the-scenes drama of producing an "ESPN SportsCenter"-esque news
program, it draws inevitable comparison to James L. Brooks's Broadcast
News (and accordingly, during the first season, episode five,
Felicity Huffman gets to knock over a production assistant à la Holly
Hunter's character in that film), but distinguishes itself with an
understanding that in many ways, sports is an effective locus for the
hot-button issues of modern society: misogyny, race, addiction,
violence.
by Ian Pugh Speaking strictly as a casual
observer of the event, one of the lessons the recent WGA strike taught
us was that talk-show scripts are pretty carefully tailored to their
hosts' personalities. Consequently, one could finally determine, once
and for all, why "The Colbert Report" is superior to its progenitor,
"The Daily Show with Jon Stewart": When you boil everything down to the
bare essentials, it's easier to see that Stewart's treatment of world
events, unlike Stephen Colbert's, is primarily composed of sharp
chuckles and incredulous reactions. It's a belaboured but valid point
that Comedy Central's hour of "fake news" has casually drifted closer
to relevance as mainstream news sources continue their downward trend
towards pop infotainment and outrageous bias, and by taking on the
persona of an ill-informed, blowhard pundit, Colbert merely brings
media politics to their logical extreme, presenting news items
precisely as they matter to his infallible worldview. His mock
inability to detect irony is a sharp, timely condemnation--sharp
enough, at least, to send the White House Press Corps retreating to the
fossilized, altogether toothless material of Rich Little after Colbert
did his thing at their annual Correspondents Dinner. But one of the
most important facets of Colbert's act--indeed, one that greatly
extends the shelf-life of his shtick--is how he takes the accolades he
receives as a satirist and effortlessly folds them to fit the monstrous
ego of his onscreen character.
Image A Sound
A- Extras B
"Pilot," "Quit Smoking,"
"Randy's Touchdown," "Faked My Own Death," "Teacher Earl," "Broke Joy's
Fancy Figurine," "Stole Beer from a Golfer," "Joy's Wedding," "Cost Dad
an Election," "White Lie Christmas," "Barn Burner," "O Karma, Where Art
Thou?," "Stole P's HD Cart,"
"Monkeys in Space," "Something to Live For," "The Professor," "Didn't
Pay Taxes," "Dad's Car," "Y2K," "Boogeyman," "Bounty Hunter," "Stole a
Badge," "BB," "Number One"
by Ian Pugh I don't know a whole lot about the Buddhist concept of
karma, but Earl Hickey knows even less, and I think that's the point.
As "My Name is Earl" begins, the titular petty criminal and leech on
society (Jason Lee) scratches a winning lotto ticket, whereupon he's
immediately struck by a car. While a doped-up Earl convalesces, his
cheating wife Joy (Jaime Pressly) seizes the opportunity to divorce
him. Flipping through the TV channels from his hospital bed, Earl lands
on Carson Daly, who attributes his own success to the most popular
understanding of karma: "Do good things and good things happen to you.
Do bad things and they come back to haunt you." In the show's first bit
of hilarious commentary--one that guides the question of "doing the
right thing" (which, in turn, dictates the series as a
whole)--celebrity culture gives birth to self-serving pop religion. If
Joe Sixpack is taking philosophical lessons from that guy whose primary
function was to count down from the number ten...Lord, where did we go
wrong?
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