What's Alan Watching?

It's press tour time!

2010-01-08T07:05:00.000-05:00

For a fourth-place network, NBC has a funny way of dominating the news as I get ready for the start of the Television Critics Association press tour. The day before the summer tour six months ago, Ben Silverman announced he was quitting. (Later, his successor Angela Bromstad inadvertently gave us a lot of laughs when she suggested "I think that this has always been Ben's plan" to leave with the network doing much worse than when he arrived.)

And, of course, as critics like me were getting ready to go home and pack for today's start of the winter tour, news broke that NBC might be moving Jay Leno back to late night. (The picture above is Leno in disguise as a reporter for NBC's exec session at the summer '08 tour.)

So I've been a little too preoccupied to pen an update to my traditional guide to press tour, which means if you don't know the drill by now, you'll have to go read the old version.

For practical purposes, I'll be doing a lot of blogging and/or tweeting (depending on time, mood, etc.) about the sessions that I'm attending. Sometimes, I'll be saving material for a story down the road, or otherwise occupied doing a one-on-one interview, or busy writing reviews of the many, many shows that are (as always) inconveniently debuting during the winter tour. So I can only write as much as I can write.

And, as always, my actual blogging about what's airing on TV is going to suffer while I'm in California. If I've seen a show in advance (like "Chuck" or "Friday Night Lights" or the "How I Met Your Mother" 100th episode), I'll be writing something about it to go up after the episode ends. But for a lot of shows, you may have to wait a while, or just accept that, say, the ABC Wednesday comedies are going to be skipped for a week. I'm limited by time, time zone, and by the speed of the hotel's internet connection. So as with most things press tour, we'll be playing things by ear.

I'll be flying for a good chunk of today, then attending visits to the sets of "FlashForward" and "Community," so don't expect a lot out of me until CBS' day at the hotel begins tomorrow.

See you on the wrong coast...

'The Simpsons' hits 450 episodes - Sepinwall on TV

2010-01-08T07:00:00.000-05:00

Over at NJ.com, I have a column marveling that "The Simpsons" is going to celebrate its 450th episode and 20th anniversary on Sunday night. "Wire" fans, look for an early cameo (in the column, not the episode) from Randy Wagstaff.

Is NBC moving Jay Leno back to 11:30?

2010-01-07T17:23:00.003-05:00

Over at NJ.com, I have some thoughts on the reports that NBC wants to move Jay Leno back to 11:30.

Leave it to NBC: the day before summer press tour, Ben Silverman announced he was quitting. The day before winter press tour, this goes down. I've got packing to do! "Chuck" blog entries to write! Sigh...

Survivor: "Heroes" vs. "Villains" questions

2010-01-07T09:36:00.001-05:00

Last night, the AP put out a story revealing the cast of "Survivor: Heroes vs. Villains". After the jump, the full list, and a few other thoughts...

HEROES
Rupert Boneham (Pearl Islands, All-Stars)
James Clement (China, Fans vs. Favorites)
Colby Donaldson (Australian Outback, All-Stars)
Cirie Fields (Panama, Fans vs. Favorites)
Amanda Kimmel (China, Fans vs. Favorites)
Jessica "Sugar" Kiper (Gabon)
Stephenie LaGrossa (Palau, Guatemala)
JT Thomas (Tocantins)
Tom Westman (Palau)
Candice Woodcock (Cook Islands)

VILLAINS

Tyson Apostol (Tocantins)
Randy Bailey (Gabon)
Sandra Diaz (Pearl Islands)
Danielle DiLorenzo (Panama)
Russell Hantz (Samoa)
Jerri Manthey (Australian Outback)
Boston Rob Mariano (Marquesas, All-Stars)
Parvati Shallow (Cook Islands, Fans vs. Favorites)
Benjamin "Coach" Wade (Tocantins)
Courtney Yates (China)

Looking at that list, I have the same three questions I had when I first saw the rumored cast list a few weeks ago:

1)On what planet is Candice - who was despised by the Yul/Ozzy good guys alliance on "Cook Islands" - considered a "hero"?

2)How, exactly, does Sandra - BFF of "hero" Rupert, and the one who helped set up her team's early dominance in "Pearl Islands" with her amazing shopping skills during the brief trip into the city - wind up on the "villains" team?

3)Why is forgettable Danielle (pictured, above, with Cirie) on the "villains" team? For that matter, why is she on the show at all? Other than to fill the usual Available Bikini Babe quota, that is?

Watch: Amber was inexplicably cast on "Survivor: All-Stars" for a similar reason, and wound up winning the whole thing, in part because everyone else was busy picking off the bigger names. I would not be at all shocked to see Danielle win this one.

My man-crush on Tom Westman was strong enough to keep me from hating him after the psy-ops he pulled on Ian in the "Palau" finale, and it might be enough to get me watching the show again for the first time in many seasons. But I tuned into "Fans vs. Favorites" also because I liked some of the returning alums (Jonathan, Cirie) enough to overcome my boredom with the show, and I mostly spent that season remembering why I didn't care anymore. So I suspect I'll put on the premiere for nostalgia's sake, then let it go again.

And in the meantime, CBS' press tour party on Saturday night is going to feature a reunion of what's supposed to be at least 250 "Survivor" alums, highlighted by the original final four of Richard Hatch, Kelly Wigglesworth, Rudy Boesch and Sue Hawk. I'm betting that neither Elisabeth Hasselbeck, who's both big-time and on another network, nor Stacey Stillman, who sued the show and claimed Mark Burnett rigged her ouster to protect Rudy, will be there, but I imagine lots of others will show up. Though I've lost interest in the series going forward, I still have a lot of nostalgia for the years when I was still watching, so I'll try my best to avoid turning into "The Chris Farley Show" around them. ("Remember when you pretended you weren't Gary Hogeboom? That was awesome!")

Cougar Town, "Rhino Skin": I'll be there for (insulting) you

2010-01-07T09:09:00.001-05:00

A review of last night's "Cougar Town" - a show that continues to display an impressive creative growth curve - coming up just as soon as I emerge from my chrysalis...

The headline news for "Rhino Skin" is obviously the quasi-"Friends" reunion of Courteney Cox and Lisa Kudrow, and that part of the episode worked just fine. If you watched "The Comeback" (which I couldn't stand but respected, if that makes sense) or have seen Kudrow's indie film work, you know she was the most versatile, fearless member of the "Friends" cast. So here she had no problem throwing herself into the role of vicious dermatologist Dr. Evans, and there wasn't even a hint of the Phoebe/Monica dynamic in her scenes with Cox as Jules.

But what really struck me about the episode was how confident the show has become in its chaotic storytelling style, in its ability to quickly set up funny but weird jokes (like Laurie's fascination with the First Name/Last Name situation), and, especially, to be able to break down and psychoanalyze the characters without ever seeming preachy or getting in the way of the jokes.

So we had the brilliant subplot about Andy schooling Travis on reading and reacting to women's moods (and being right at every turn, where the lamer, more predictable route would be for him to screw things up). We had Scott Foley in his second episode already being treated like a fact of life for Jules and the show, content to be in the background and make sarcastic asides until called on for more in the final Scrabble scene. We had Grayson being nice to Laurie and telling her a truth about men (that hotness counts more than couth) every bit as universal as what Andy was teaching Travis about women. And we had the usual good jokes about Bobby's white trashiness (the vases of wine), Ellie and Laurie's dislike of each other (the six-foot buffer zone whenever Jules isn't around), etc.

Bill Lawrence admitted back in the summer that the felt the original cut of the pilot felt like a show about women obviously written by men. And there were definitely times early in the season where the male characters seemed to be walking away with what was supposed to be a female-centric show. Now, though, "Cougar Town" feels just like any Lawrence comedy when it's a clicking: a show about weird, funny people, written by weird, funny people.

What did everybody else think?

Modern Family, "Up All Night": The family stone

2010-01-07T08:35:00.000-05:00

A quick review of last night's "Modern Family" coming up just as soon as I put the weasel in my pants...

"Up All Night" was yet another "Modern Family" episode to keep the three families separate (save for Phil doing magic for Cam in the tag), and yet another episode that was much less engaging than the ones that either put the whole family together or mix them up into odd combinations.

The pilot showed that the show can, in fact, be very funny even when the three groups aren't interacting (or aren't interacting until the end), so it's not that these characters don't automatically work together. I think the issue is that episodes that take that approach tend to feel a bit more complacent, willing to just do variations on the same handful of jokes for the running time. So while it was funny at first that Phil was afraid of Claire being around the hot firemen, or that Cam refused to go along with Mitchell's plan to Ferber-ize baby Lily - and while some individual jokes within those stories worked, like Cam explaining Lily's love of "Scarface" - overall the episode felt flatter and more repetitive than the show is in stronger episodes like "Fizbo" or "The Incident."

Jay's story was the least overtly comic, but it was also the strongest of the three because it didn't just sit there. It had a beginning (Jay doesn't trust Javier), a middle (Jay lets himself get charmed by Javier), and an end (Jay discovers, as Gloria and Manny did long before, that Javier will always let you down), and was well-played by Ed O'Neill, Benjamin Bratt, Sofia Vergara and Rico Rodriguez.

Also, I'd like them to decide on a consistent plan for the documentary framework (or whatever it is, since the characters don't usually react to the cameras the way people on "The Office" or "Parks and Recreation" do). Phil's talking head about his "golden ticket" clearly took place after he left the hospital - and, therefore, after he had already lost the ticket because Claire got a look at the hot blonde sisters - yet Ty Burrell played the first half of it like he still had metaphorical possession of the thing. If the talking heads are part of a documentary being filmed about the families, then they need to be treated as such, and make sense in the context of the events happening around them. If the idea is that they're more abstract, and an excuse for the characters to share their thoughts directly with the audience, then that needs to be made more clear, in the manner that fourth-wall-breaking sitcoms like "Titus" or "The Bernie Mac Show" (or even the awful "The War at Home") have done in the past. Because the current approach is just distracting.

What did everybody else think?

'Chuck' season 3 review - Sepinwall on TV

2010-01-07T07:00:00.006-05:00

I began my review of "Chuck" season three column as an expansion of the blog post I wrote immediately after watching the new season's first five episodes. Then I decided I'd done enough preaching to the converted already about this show, and instead decided to do a sequel to my open letter to NBC from last spring - this time addressed to the many people (some of them possibly readers of this blog) who haven't yet given "Chuck" a try.

(And to answer one other question that keeps coming up: yes, you can jump on board the show with the third season if you didn't watch the first two. You'll miss some running gags, and some nuances of Chuck's main relationships, but overall the show is much more accessible and newbie-friendly than a lot of the hour-longs I pimp here. And if you get hooked, then you'll have the previous seasons - particularly the season two DVDs- to look forward to.)

Even with press tour on, I'll be back on Sunday night with a review of the first two episodes, and another on Monday for the third (and the first in the show's regular timeslot).

So go read the column, and we'll have lots more Buy More to talk about on Sunday night.

Friday Night Lights, "Toilet Bowl": Ask me no questions, I'll tell you no lies

2010-01-06T22:00:00.011-05:00

A review of the latest episode of "Friday Night Lights" (which, again, you can catch each Wednesday at 9 p.m. on DirecTV's 101 Network) coming up just as soon as I make the clutch my best friend...

"We're not scrappers anymore. We're Lions. And this is our time. This is your time." -Coach

We're in the second half of this season now, which means it's time for the Lions to finally get in the win column (in part because they've improved, in part because they're playing an even worse team than they are). But it's also time for the characters to start thinking more seriously about their futures, and for the show to start moving them into position for the fifth and presumably final season.

So even as Eric is coaching the boys up to play Campbell Park, we see lots of characters being interviewed for future opportunities: Julie (at Boston College) and Tim (at Sears) most obviously, but also Buddy trying to cut a deal with the Spanish-language radio station and Luke faking his way past the doctor so he can keep playing and hoping for a scholarship. Even the awkward dinner with Vince, his mother Regina and Jess has the feeling of an audition, with Regina desperate to win the role of sober, attentive mother, and struggling right off the bat because she missed (presumably while high) Vince and Jess's break-up.

(Vince doesn't have a comparable audition scene himself this week, but we see in his conversation with Angry Necklace Guy that he's just barely hanging onto being an attentive, rule-following football player in the same way his mom is just barely hanging onto her sobriety. One bad development, and either one could backslide into a life of crime/addiction.)

In the end, some of the interviews go well, while others don't. Julie impresses the admissions officer, Buddy signs a deal with the station and begins a second career as the team's radio color man, and Luke is able to get a new painkiller scrip to allow him to play a key role in the team's first win of the season. But Tim doesn't get the job at Sears, even after all of Becky's (very funny) pageant coaching, and has to stupidly(*) go in with Billy on the chop shop scheme so he can afford his dream ranch. Vince is still wary of his mom. And after Vince's awkward quasi-date with Jess seems to have gone better than the one she has the next night with Landry, it's the pasty punter Jess tracks down to celebrate with after the big victory.

(*) I still feel way too burned by season two - both the murder and then the pointless Ferret Guy storyline - to ever feel totally comfortable with the show getting into the world of crime. But at least the Riggins boys have established a pattern of criminal idiocy in the past, so I believe they would do this, even though I wish they - and the show - wouldn't go there.

Of the stories unfurling here, the one I think I'm most interested in is Luke's. One of the things that usually sets "Friday Night Lights" apart from the average teen drama is its reluctance to moralize about underage drinking (save for those periods when Riggins does nothing but drink) and willingness to accept it as a fact of life. I don't expect Luke's painkiller dependence to end well (not to mention the abuse he's putting his body through just by not letting the injury properly heal), but I'm expecting the story to play out with more nuance than the typical Drugs Are Bad, Mmmmkay? approach you usually see on high school shows.

Julie and Tami's Boston trip didn't have quite the resonance of Street and Riggin's New York adventure last season (both of them shot on location), but the earlier one had the advantage of being our final glimpse of Street, where Julie still has the rest of this season. (And given the character's connection to our two leads, I'm sure we'll be seeing some of Aimee Teegarden next season.) But I thought it did a nice job of again showing Tami Taylor, perfectly imperfect mom, in that Julie was probably right at the start (Tami enjoyed that professor's attention way too much) before coming up, as usual, with the necessary words for her daughter at the end.

And getting back to the Landry/Jess/Vince triangle, I'd like to see Jess move more into the forefront in this back half of the season. I want more of an idea of how things with her and Vince fell apart, and what she sees in Landry besides his sense of humor (and obvious willingness to kill for his woman). Again, the show is juggling a lot of characters, both new and old, both staying and going, and it's hard to service them all every week. But I'm assuming Jason Katims and company were smart enough to make all four newbies underclassmen, which means they'll be carrying a post-Julie-and-Landry show next season, and I feel like I have a much stronger handle on Luke and Becky at this point than I do Vince and Jess.

"Friday Night Lights" doesn't need to audition for me to get it to watch the rest of this season or all of next. It already nailed the job, way back in the pilot episode (around the time Street's helmet was cut open in the ER). I just want it to be working as well as it can going into the home stretch.

Some other thoughts on "Toilet Bowl":

• As I've mentioned in the past, Taylor Kitsch went from cast weak link to indispensable around the time the writers started to take a less-is-more approach to his dialogue. Every now and then, though, we get an episode like this where he's asked to talk a lot - particularly in the scene where he confronts Billy about turning the Rig into a chop shop - and I'm reminded that talking is the one part of his game that still needs work.

• While it was nice to see Buddy being active in his role as a Lions booster, didn't he more or less agree to be a booster four episodes ago? Why is he talking to Eric like he's just finally decided to get with the program?

• With Matt Saracen gone, Landry needs other platonic friends, and thank goodness the show hasn't forgotten about his band. Devin and Jimmy's bored, frustrated reaction to Landry's latest romantic crisis was hilarious, particularly when Jimmy played a rimshot in the middle of the discussion.

• As mentioned often in the past, the show is much better at being a realistic depiction of football culture than it is being a realistic depiction of football itself, but rarely has the show seemed as bad on that front as it has with Landry as placekicker, because Jesse Plemons' kicking form looks awful. When we saw the ball go through the uprights during the game, in the same shot as when Landry kicked it, I started wondering if they had to create a CGI ball to get that effect.

• Two notable songs this week: Delta Spirit's "Trashcan" over the Taylor women's arrival in Boston, and "Killed Myself When I Was Young" by A.A. Bondy over the final sequence.

• A reader last time out pointed out that, in the credits, Angry Necklace Guy's name is Calvin Brown (and he's played by Ernest James), but until a character refers to him by that name on-screen, I'm sticking with Angry Necklace Guy. And now that he seems excited by the Lions' (one-game) winning streak, do I need to re-revisit my prediction that he'd end up back on the team before the season's over? Or will he continue to exist just to tempt Vince and the Riggins boys over to the dark side?

• Was anybody else expecting Tim to reach out to crazy Stan to help get the Sears gig? And has Sears replaced Applebee's as the show's main source of product integration money?

• I was worried at first when Tim didn't pull back from Becky's kiss, but he did eventually, and even she reacted like she just remembered why she wasn't supposed to do things like that.

• Gracie continues to be comic gold. The scene where she stands in a daze, pants-less, just watching the rest of her family be crazy, was another great usage of that little girl (and/or her twin).

What did everybody else think?

'Big Love' season 4 review - Sepinwall on TV

2010-01-06T10:30:00.005-05:00

Over at NJ.com is my review of "Big Love" at the start of season 4, which begins Sunday. Unfortunately, the re-examination of the series' priorities I was hoping for after last year's "Come, Ye Saints" didn't happen, and all the elements I find distracting (Juniper Creek, Bill's businesses, etc.) are still very, very present.

I think I'm going to take a similar approach to blogging this season of the show that I did for much of the most recent season of "Dexter": Assuming I've watched an episode, I'll put up a post for discussion purposes, but I'm not going to write much unless I have much to say (as happened last year with "Come, Ye Saints"). At this point, it's pretty clear to me that the show is what it is, and not what I want it to be, and there's no point beating that dead horse each week, even as I enjoy certain aspects of it.

Better Off Ted, "Beating a Dead Workforce" & "Change We Can't Believe In": Never gonna give you up

2010-01-06T11:21:00.000-05:00

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" double feature coming up just as soon as I talk about drawer elves(*)...

(*) Good lord, were these episodes awash in "just as soon as" candidates. Eventually, I just had to stop jotting them down, and I let "fun Steven," "talk about drawer elves" and "know what a beard of fingers would feel like" battle it out to the death. The lesson: never bet against an elf - especially one in a drawer.

Much like "Scrubs," "Ted" finally regained its footing with its post-Rose Bowl episode, then followed that up with two more very strong ones last night.

Both episodes featured plenty of wordplay (again, see all the potential "as soon as" candidates, which also included "unsubscribe to whatever you're doing right now" and "demonstrate irony"), great physical comedy (Veronica sweeping the leg Cobra Kai-style, Lem and Phil trying to communicate without speech), examples of technology run amok (the noisy sleep machine, the terrifying PA system), random pop culture digressions (Veronica's Rick-rolled elevator music), corporate satire (the company turning the late Jenkins into a religious figure to keep the employees working so hard), and the usual disturbing bits of Veronica psychology (Ted: "The version of Linda you heard in your head was right!").

Plus, the second episode finally gave us another Veridian ad, which taught us, "Friendship. It's the same as stealing."

They finally got the show clicking again, and I'm gonna really enjoy the rest of this run while I can.

What did everybody else think?

Scrubs, "Our White Coats" & "Our Couples": (No JD) + Drew = Winner

2010-01-06T08:05:00.001-05:00

A review of last night's two "Scrubs" - which, if you gave up on the show earlier this season, were vastly improved - coming up just as soon as I say "fo shizzle" for a week...

I kept speculating during the early episodes of the season that we really couldn't judge the new incarnation of the show until Zach Braff left, because he was dominating so much of the proceedings, and because the writers chose to backslide JD into his irritating season 6 & 7 persona. Braff's been gone for three episodes (though he still has one more to go), and those three have been vastly improved. The low ratings probably won't allow for this, but these latest episodes feel like the foundation of a show I'd be happy to watch for several more seasons.

With JD out of the way, the med students have become much more clearly-defined. Lucy seems more interesting as a mirror of Elliot than JD (her fantasy sequences still aren't really working; like the narration, that device probably should have been retired with JD), I'm starting to enjoy Cole more (even if I keep imagining the character being funnier if Aziz Ansari were still available to play him), and Drew has become very funny no matter what other character he's paired with. There's just enough of Dr. Cox in Michael Mosley's performance to feel like a torch is being passed, but not so much that the character just comes across as a rip-off.

After being consigned to play JD's eagle wingman in the earlier episodes, Turk has come back to life (and we still get some Turk-as-the-black-JD moments, just in small enough doses to be funny rather than frustrating), and it was nice to see the second episode address Turk and Cox finally being peers (even if Cox ultimately outranks Turk). And after it seemed like too many episodes this year were designed to take away the edge that made Denise such a unique and funny character last season, we saw with the second episode's golf cart theft subplot that even if Denise softens a little for Drew, she's still capable of unleashing great evil on the rest of the universe.

What did everybody else think?

Men of a Certain Age, "Powerless": Going the distance

2010-01-05T09:00:00.000-05:00

A review of last night's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I lick all my fries...

TNT sent five of the first six "Men of a Certain Age" episodes out for review, omitting only "Powerless." Often, when a network skips over an episode in a screener package, it's because that one's a (relative) dud and they don't want it factored into early reviews. And for a while into "Powerless," it felt like that was exactly the reason TNT didn't send it out. In particular, this was the first time it felt like a Joe story dragged, and the moment where Joe tried to deflect his daughter's anger by telling her that Albert ate her fries was the first time a joke on the show felt uncomfortably close to something Ray Romano would have done on "Everybody Loves Raymond."(*)

(*) And I say this as someone who put "Raymond" on his list of the decade's best comedies, and who first noticed that Ray was becoming a good dramatic actor in some of his scenes on that show. But there was a tone and a level of reality to that show that's different from this one, and so some types of jokes don't easily translate.

But the Owen story carried things for a while. Outside of the usual brilliance of Andre Braugher (his sidewalk spaz-out while making a phone call to cut through the red tape was a thing of comic wonder), any man or woman of a certain age (that age being "adult") can relate to the hell that is institutional bureaucracy, and Owen's frustration at being trapped in this circumstance, followed by his joy at briefly escaping it, were captured on the show's usual loving small scale.

And Joe's story ultimately turned around, too, in the scene where he confronted Lucy's stalker ex. I thought that was a really nice piece of writing (and acting from Ray), as Joe found a way to both comfort and threaten the kid, and as it became clear that only some of what he was saying got through. Had Joe come across as an obvious font of wisdom - or had the kid gotten the "Rocky" reference - it would have felt fake, but instead it was the right level of insight and awkwardness.

Plus, I have to give points to Joe (and, I guess, the show) for recognizing that the best part of the "Rocky" score isn't "Gonna Fly Now" but "Going the Distance," which plays over the climax to the first Creed-Balboa fight, which still gives me chills every damn time I watch it.

Terry's stories still interest me less than the other two guys, but I liked Owen's explanation for why Terry is always late - and Terry suddenly understanding the point on his way to see Annie - and I liked how realistic Annie is about her relationship with "the old guy." She knows what Terry is, and isn't expecting to tame him. She just wants to be treated with a little respect for her time, and Carla Gallo plays well off of Scott Bakula.

What did everybody else think?

Mid-season TV preview - Sepinwall on TV

2010-01-05T07:00:00.002-05:00

In today's column, I run through premiere dates for notable new and returning mid-season TV shows, plus return dates for all those fall shows like "Glee," "V" and the non-rhyming "FlashForward" that are taking very long mid-season breaks.

As mentioned last week, I've liked a good deal of the new stuff I've seen, so what does and doesn't join the blogging rotation will be a question of time management, especially while I'm at press tour starting on Friday. Despite the use of the above photo(*), don't expect "24" to be back in the rotation. I gave the new season two and a half episodes to change my mind after I walked away early last season, and despite liking some of the new castmembers, I think that show and I are better off quits - particularly since what looks like it could be season eight's version of amnesia/cougar comes very early.

(*) Who doesn't like the image of Jack Bauer holding a gun in his hand? Other than suspected terrorists, I mean.

Chuck vs. the season 2 DVD

2010-01-04T11:00:00.001-05:00

"Chuck" comes back on Sunday night (I gave a few early thoughts on the new episodes last month), which means purchasers of the "Chuck: The Complete Second Season" DVD set (which hits stores and places like Amazon tomorrow) will only have a few days to dive through the 22 episodes to get up to speed for the new batch. (In fairness to Warner Bros., the release date was set back when everyone assumed season three wouldn't begin until March, and I don't know how easy it is to change course at the last minute.)

After the jump, a few thoughts on the DVD set, and if you're interested in a chance to meet the cast and/or help out a real good cause, go check out the We Heart Chuck site for details, ASAP...

My review copy was one of the limited-edition ones, which includes the 3-D version of "Chuck vs. the Third Dimension" as well as two pairs of 3-D glasses so that you and your special lady or gentleman friend can watch it together. Having just seen "Avatar," it's hard to be as impressed by effects like a knife flying at the screen or Big Mike's donut moving towards his mouth, but the episode itself remains fun.

And that's my sum feeling about the set in general. The special features are interesting to varying degrees, but the real draw is 22 episodes of one of the most purely fun seasons of TV I've ever had the pleasure to watch and review.

As to the other features, my favorite was probably "Dude in Distress," a breakdown of how they put together the show's stunts (with an extended look at Sarah and Nicole Richie's shower smackdown in "Chuck vs. the Cougars"), but there are also deleted scenes from most episodes (nothing plot-heavy from what I saw; mostly it's jokes that got cut for time), the webisodes about the Buy More staff that ran early last year, a funny gag reel (if you like that sort of thing; if nothing else, it's a rare opportunity to see the usually serious Yvonne Strahovski smiling and laughing), a more general behind-the-scenes featurette, and a couple of funny sequences where Captain Awesome and Casey separately offer tips on how to deal with everyday problems like job interviewing, first dates and going to your high school reunion.

But, again, I was much happier to just have a permanent copy of episodes like "Chuck vs. the Santa Claus" or "Chuck vs. the Colonel" than I was to play with the bonus features. This is going to become one of my go-to DVD sets whenever I'm having a sick day. (Which I'm hoping today doesn't turn into.)

There is a new blog logo. Discuss.

2010-01-04T07:35:00.002-05:00

And don't forget, as always, that you can check this post for links to, and explanations for, all the old logos.

Friday Night Lights, "In the Bag": Don't fence me in

2009-12-16T22:00:00.010-05:00

A review of tonight's "Friday Night Lights" coming up just as soon as I swaddle and shush...

"I'm offering you all I got. This is not just about football. Think about that." -Coach

Now that Matt Saracen has placed Dillon in his rearview mirror, the latest episode of season four focuses on the characters who are still stuck in town, and focuses on new bonds being forged or old ones being strengthened.

Eric learns to place some trust in Vince over the gun situation, and Vince responds in kind. Julie leans on Landry and an extra-curricular overload to get her over Matt's abrupt departure. Landry realizes that the long distance thing with Tyra ain't happening and makes his move with Jess. After Becky's dad shows up briefly and turns out to be every bit the waste of a paternity test that Papa Riggins was to Tim and Billy, Tim steps further into the role of father figure for Becky, much as she'd like him to be interested in her in a different way. And Luke gets his dad to see the value of the football team in his life just an accident with the repaired fence and the cattle may sideline Luke from that team for a while.

And if Luke is out of commission, that's going to put even more of a burden on Vince - is the wildcat really the wildcat if one guy's taking all the snaps from center? - and his tenuous but growing relationship with Coach.

As I discussed around this point last season, one of the drawbacks of the 13-episode order, when combined with the show's desire to give its outgoing characters multi-episode send-offs, is that some storylines wind up with a lot of blanks left to be filled in by the audience. Vince's story here felt like it was either missing some pieces from his perspective, or else was designed to be told mostly from Eric's POV. In other words, Coach doesn't know if Vince has a gun at school, or why, or whether he's sliding back into the criminal life that landed him on the team, and therefore, neither do we. And if that's the plan, that's fine, but I'd like to get inside Vince's head more as the season goes along. We know from "The Wire" that Michael B. Jordan's good enough actor to carry whatever they want to throw at him here, and with Luke potentially sidelined and Landry a scrub-slash-kicker, the only other good active Lion that we know might be helpful, fry-mooching Tinker.

Landry has less time to work on his kicking game, as he winds up a one-man support system for Julie, who's still struggling to deal with Matt's departure, then hit harder when she learns that she (currently) comes in behind Grandma and Shelby on Matt's priority call list.

There was a time early in the series where I would have lumped Aimee Teegarden in with Taylor Kitsch and Minka Kelly as the cast's obvious weak links. But Kitch is now an indispensable part of the show, and it's been a long time since Teegarden hasn't been up to the challenge of a script. (Kelly? Well, at least the writers figured out how to write around her limitations.) Julie's reaction to hearing that Matt called someone other than her, and her trembling trip to the podium during Academic Smackdown!(*) were wonderfully played. We've been so focused on Matt's departure that it's easy to forget the girlfriend he left behind; this episode made forgetting Julie impossible.

(*) Vince McMahon has taught me that the word Smackdown! must be both capitalized and accompanied by an exclamation point. Who am I to argue with the man who made stars of the likes of Haku and The Brooklyn Brawler?

Of our four new characters, Becky has been the least integrated into the world as a whole. Other than her brief, currently on hold flirtation with Luke, she's appeared almost exclusively with Riggins. But even if she's still on the outskirts of the series, it's hard not to feel sympathy for her after an episode like this one, and also to see how complicated her relationship with Tim is going to get. She's crushing on him madly; he's not interested. Becky worships her daddy; Tim sees the guy as an exact replica of his own deadbeat dad, and while he's not necessarily wrong, it's clear Tim's taking out some anger towards Walt when he picks a fight he knows he can win with this guy. And by shattering Becky's illusions about her dad, Tim might chse her away (not in a way he intended), or he might make her lean harder on him than ever.

Lots going on here. Lots of characters in flux, and lots of potential for the latter half of the season.

Some other thoughts:

• Because there are so many new and old characters to service, and because Adrianne Palicki wasn't available to stop by this season the way Minka Kelly did, our closure (for now) on the Landry/Tyra romance has to come via a one-sided phone call. But it felt right to me (even if the show/Landry maybe waited too long to make that call), because as good as Tyra could be at times, and as much as she cared for Landry, she also was desperate to get the hell out of Dillon without looking back, and she has a history of treating Landry badly even though he went on a five-state killing spree for her that one time. So while it makes me sad that she didn't even have the courtesy to write a "Dear Lance" e-mail or text message, I buy that she would have moved on with her life and tried not to look back. (Or that she looked back but didn't have the heart to tell Landry it was over, possibly out of fear that he might kill her.)

• We've established a pattern by now that Billy Riggins is both none-too-bright and a little too eager to try on a life of crime when his finances get tight. So I can buy that he would let himself get drawn into Angry Necklace Guy's pitch about turning Riggins Rigs into a chop shop, and this could potentially tie Tim to Vince down the road, when for now the only new character he has a relationship with is Becky. But season two has made me incredibly wary of this show dabbling in crime, you know?

• And what are we to make of the final scene, with Tim and the renamed Skeeter stopping by a large piece of ranching property for sale? Is Tim going to take the Riggins Rigs cow and start his own cattle operation?

• As we see, West Dillon (formerly Dillon High) has its own Smackdown! team, so how did Landry the chess club nerd not know about it?

• Barry Tubb, who plays Luke's dad, knows a thing or two about TV ranching, as he played a supporting role in the original "Lonesome Dove" miniseries and the "Return to Lonesome Dove" sequel.

• When we met Glenn at the start of season two, I wondered if the writers were going to have him throw himself at Tami while Eric was still commuting to and from TMU. Two seasons later, he finally does it, fueled by booze and tequila and a blue ribbon award for West Dillon, which clearly has as many academic advantages over East Dillon as it does athletic ones. Tami's response to this, both in the moment and the next day (after Glenn has an attack of liberal guilt and says, "It's like I mouth-raped you!") was yet another example of how great this woman is under pressure.

Just a reminder, this is the last original episode to air until January 6, in the usual timeslot, Wednesday at 9 p.m. on DirecTV's 101 Network.

What did everybody else think?

Doctor Who, "The End of Time" Part 2: I have been, and always shall be, your friend

2010-01-03T09:46:00.000-05:00

A review of David Tennant's final Doctor Who" story coming up just as soon as I consider the lasers unfrazzled...

"I don't want to go!" -The Doctor

And we don't want you to go, Doctor, but this is how this particular game has always been played, alas.

The first half of "End of Time" was messy and confusing and over-stuffed, but Russell T. Davies beautifully righted the ship for the conclusion - to both this story and his run (and David Tennant's) on the series.

With the Master replacing all of humanity for most of the running time, we didn't need to deal with random characters like the Naismiths. John Simm's performance as the Master was toned-down just enough so that he still seemed crazy while not overwhelming every other character on screen. (That's an impressive feat, given that in certain portions of the movie, he was every character on screen.) And he was in turn well-matched by Timothy Dalton(*), who was able to convey the insanity, arrogance and sheer danger of the Time Lords circa the end of the Time War - and to explain why The Doctor would have been willing to exterminate his own race right along with the Daleks.

(*) A quick aside on Dalton: I think he gets a bad rap for this stint as James Bond. I thought he was actually a very strong 007, but stranded in two fairly awful Bond films. ("Living Daylights" had one of the drippiest love interests of the series, while "License to Kill" was an embarrassing attempt to modernize the series by taking its cues from "Miami Vice.") Stick him into "Goldeneye" or "Casino Royale" as his introduction, and his tenure goes very differently.

But really, what made "End of Time" part the second work so well was the same thing that was the highlight of last week's episode: the interaction between The Doctor and Wilf, and The Doctor grappling with the impending end of his life.

David Tennant and Bernard Cribbins were both great in the scene aboard the salvage ship where Wilf tried to get The Doctor to take his gun. And then after humanity was restored, after the Time Lords and Gallifrey were doomed once and for all, after the Master disappeared(**), we had the chilling moment when we discovered that the four knocks from the prophecy had nothing to do with the Time Lords or the Master - that it was poor, decent Wilf, trapped in a radiation chamber and needing to come out.

(**) Steven Moffat has said he's not interested in spending a lot of time on classic "Who" villains, so it's entirely possible this will be the last we see of the Master in any incarnation. But Davies left things vague enough that Moffat could use the guy again, should he desire.

And much as The Doctor raged against his fate (another superb scene for Tennant), it felt right that his death would come not from the Time Lords, or the Master, or aliens, or some other big enemy, but from his own love of humanity - and of this human (and his family) in particular. The Doctor has always stood out from his people because of his affection for these small, finite people of Earth, who don't have the power or the lifespan or the wisdom of the Time Lords but are capable of so much emotional greatness that The Doctor views them as giants, not insects. The Ninth Doctor died saving his human companion, and even though Ten wasn't exactly the same man, he was close enough that of course he would make a similar sacrifice in a similar situation, even if he was much less ready to die than Nine.

And by making the regeneration a bit of a drawn-out process, Davies was able to take The Doctor on one last tour of the universe he created over the last five years: rescuing Mickey and Martha (now a married couple) from the Sontarans, saving Sarah Jane's son Luke from an oncoming car, fixing a heartbroken Captain Jack up with Alonso from "Voyage of the Damned," visiting the granddaughter of Joan Redfern (from "Human Nature" and "The Family of Blood"), buying Donna(***) a (presumably winning) lottery ticket with money borrowed in the past from her late father, and saying hi to Rose several months before she would first meet Nine (which allowed Davies to use Billie Piper without invalidating the conclusion to "Journey's End").

(***) It felt like Davies wasn't sure what to do with Donna through this two-parter. He wanted to use Wilf as the companion, which meant Donna couldn't be ignored, but all she does is run around for a bit, come close to remembering, then pass out while The Doctor's "defense mechanism" takes out the Masters around her. In the end, as with Rose, Davies didn't want to undo the events of "Journey's End," but he managed to give Donna a happy ending in spite of her memory remaining wiped. And I found it interesting that The Doctor referred to her as "my best friend." For this incarnation, I guess she was, since the relationships with Rose and Martha were too fraught with other emotional issues.

And then the Ood came to sing this Doctor to sleep, and he raged against his regeneration until it set the TARDIS on fire, and then... young, floppy-haired, manic Matt Smith. About whom we will have quite a lot to say later this year.

But for now, a final round of applause to Mssrs. Davies and Tennant, the former of whom brought the franchise back from the dead (and reimagined it enough to make it appealing to people like me who either didn't watch or didn't care for the original series), the latter of whom goes down, by all accounts, as one of the best Doctors ever.

Well done. As Nine would say, you were fantastic.

A few other thoughts:

• Davies wasn't big on throwing in references to non-"Who" pop culture during his run, but this one had a few really obvious nods to some big guns of sci-fi, with Wilf's stint as an asteroid laser gunner obviously modeled on Luke Skywalker and Han Solo in the Millennium Falcon's turret guns in the original "Star Wars," Captain Jack's space cantina (featuring lots of Davies-era aliens like the Adipose and the Judoon) modeled on a similar sequence also in "Star Wars," and The Doctor's fate in the radiation chamber looked quite a bit like Mr. Spock's sacrifice in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan." For that matter, the scene where The Doctor shut off all the systems on the salvage ship so the Master couldn't find it felt very much like a silent running sequence from any number of classic submarine movies.

• Apparently, the last line Davies wrote for the script was the one I quoted at the top, and he then handed things over to Moffat to write the introduction of the Eleventh Doctor. It's hard to judge from a brief scene - in a circumstance where The Doctor tends to be manic - or from the trailer that BBC America showed during the "Demons" premiere (since a trailer can be cut to hide a lot of sins), but I liked what little I saw of Smith. (Please do not discuss the actual content of the trailer, as that goes against the No Spoilers policy.)

• I'm assuming the woman who appeared to Wilf, and then was revealed as a Time Lord, was The Doctor's mother, but Davies left it vague in the end.

What did everybody else think?

Better Off Ted, "The Great Repression": The extra 'S' is for extra harassment

2010-01-02T08:45:00.001-05:00

I would complain that ABC dumped one of the funniest "Better Off Ted"s of the season - including a great spotlight for Andrea Anders as Linda turned into a sexual harassment vigilante, plus an amusingly inverted premise for Lem and Phil's robots vs. guys with mops subplot - on New Year's Day after the Rose Bowl, but the ratings have been so awful on Tuesdays that at this point I suppose I should just feel grateful they're going to show all the episodes of this season.

While I go to deflect your whiny bitching with my happiness shield, let me ask: what did everybody else think?

Scrubs, "Our New Girl-Bro": Have it all?

2010-01-02T08:39:00.000-05:00

I'm taking it easy on New Year's weekend, but I thought last night's "Scrubs" was an improvement on the recent episodes with JD. Elliot made a more interesting (and mature) mentor figure for Lucy, the Turk and Denise friendship has promise, and it was nice to see Cox and Drew team up to deal with Cole.

What did everybody else think?

Looking back, looking ahead

2009-12-31T07:00:00.004-05:00

On the last day of 2008, I predicted (after watching a bunch of January and February screeners) that 2009 was going to be a very good year in TV. And that's exactly how things turned out.

I don't know that 2010 will live up to that, but I've been watching screeners for the past few weeks(*), plus I know we have things like the final season of "Lost" - which may or may not disappoint, but is sure to not be dull - and HBO's new "The Pacific," "Treme" and "Boardwalk Empire," FX's "Justified," AMC's "Rubicon" (and, of course, "Breaking Bad") and more, all coming up.

(*) The four shows pictured above - "Life Unexpected" on CW, "Human Target" on Fox, "Chuck" season 3 and "Caprica" - will be premiering in the first few weeks of the year, and so far I've liked them all to varying degrees.

So after another relatively quiet week of TV, things are gonna start getting really interesting as of January 10th. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Happy New Year, everybody. Stay safe.

Better Off Ted, "It's Nothing Business, It's Just Personal": Better dead than red

2009-12-30T09:34:00.002-05:00

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" coming up just as soon as I help my daughter build a house of Legos...

That's more like it. The first few episodes of this season had funny bits here and there, but "It's Nothing Business" was the first one that reminded me of the stronger installments from last spring. It had physical comedy (Veronica sleeping sitting up, Ted's tiny office), a bit of farce (every one of Ted's attempts to interfere in Veronica's relationship with Mordor making things worse) and some sharper, more ridiculous corporate satire in the use of the red labcoat and everyone's reaction to it.

Don't forget that there's a new episode (and a new, JD-free "Scrubs") on Friday after the Rose Bowl, allegedly at 8:30 Eastern, but possibly airing later due to the unpredictability of live sporting events. I'm planning to pad my "Ted" recording by 90 minutes, which oughta do the trick of capturing both. And if not, there's always Hulu the next morning.

What did everybody else think?

At the movies: My 20 favorite films of the '00s

2009-12-29T11:16:00.003-05:00

Having run through my favorite TV shows of the decade and the year, and then having invited comments yesterday on your favorite films of '09, I guess the only thing that's left is a movies of the decade list, which follows after the jump...

First, a few caveats. In this decade, I had a kid, started a blog to go with my column-writing, and saw The Star-Ledger's TV department shrink from three people to just me, and those three things drastically cut down on my ability to either go to the movies or watch them on DVD. So there are many movies big and small that I just never got to. Because of that, and because my tastes are idiosyncratic, I want to be clear that I'm not saying these were the 20 best movies of the decade, just my favorite 20 of the films I saw.

Here's how I would sum up "best" vs. "favorite": my favorite movie of all time is "Midnight Run," but I doubt it would crack a list of the 100 "best" movies I've ever seen, if you catch my meaning. The 20 films below (and the handful of runners-up) are a mix of films I think are genuinely great ("Children of Men"), ones that I've watched a million times ("Wonder Boys," which, to be fair, came out in the decade's second month, and so had a head start on the other entries), ones that happen to strongly check a particular box for me ("Miracle"), and some combination of all three ("The Incredibles").

So in alphabetical order, here's the list:

"Almost Famous" - Deeply auto-biographical films can feel self-indulgent (see a later Cameron Crowe film from the decade, "Elizabethtown"), with lots of scenes, characters and storylines thrown in simply with the defense of "this is what happened to me, man!" With "Almost Famous," Crowe told his own story, but it was a great story, and one that turned out to be universal to anyone who's ever been passionate about music, or writing, or, really, passionate about anything.

"American Splendor" - I'm a comic book fan, but I'd never read Harvey Pekar's work until I saw Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini's film, which deftly, hilariously and at times movingly mixed the real Pekar with a bunch of fictional stand-ins, some live-action (most obviously Paul Giamatti, in a performance I liked even better than his work in "Sideways"), some animated. Great work as well from Hope Davis as Harvey's wife, and if the movie had contained nothing but the "Revenge of the Nerds" scene, it might still be on this list.

"Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy" - The funniest, silliest, most spectacularly quotable movie of Will Ferrell's career. It makes me laugh every damn time, and I like it so much that I've even watched "Wake Up, Ron Burgundy," the straight-to-video "sequel" that's essentially a collection of (understandably) deleted scenes and subplots. Sixty percent of the time, it works every time.

"Before Sunset" - Like many Gen X'ers, this movie caught me right in the sweet spot, as I'm around the same age as Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy's characters, just like I was for "Before Sunrise." Richard Linklater made what seemed like one of the most unnecessary sequels of all time feel essential and powerful, and now, like many of my bretheren, I hope like hell the trio keep revisiting the characters every 10 or 15 years, "7 Up"-style.

"Children of Men" - Just balls-out filmmaking by Alfonso Cuaron and company - not just the famous tracking shots (like the ambush scene), but the creation of a believable, terrifying dystopian world, the performances by Clive Owen and Michael Caine, the music and the rest.

"City of God" - Foreign language films probably suffered the most in my movie downsizing this decade. The Brazilian "City of God" is one of the few I saw, and I was damn glad. Like "Children of Men," it's a marriage of incredible filmmaking technique (by director Fernando Meirelles and company) with a nightmarish world - only this one is the very real slums of Rio, as seen over several years. Loved the TV spin-off "City of Men" (which Sundance Channel aired a few years back), too.

"The Dark Knight" - The first of several comic book movies on the list, and also the first of three Christopher Nolan movies. In addition to giving us the justly-celebrated performance by Heath Ledger as the Joker, "Dark Knight" also did as good a job as I've seen of a live-action movie showing what it would be like to live in a comic book world, to live in terror of people like the Joker and even Batman himself.

"Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" - Kate Winslet's best performance in a very good decade for her, a Charlie Kaufman script that managed to marry his usual inventiveness with a real depth of feeling often lacking in his other scripts, and beautiful direction from Michel Gondry. What's not to like? (Other than the fact that Clementine and Joel are probably toxic for each other, that is.)

"The 40-Year-Old Virgin" - Still the best of the Apatow brand of films (both those directed by him and those made by his pals and/or former "Freaks and Geeks" stars). It has a lead performance by Steve Carell so good that it more or less helped save "The Office" (Greg Daniels credits this movie with helping him figure out how to write Michael Scott) and one explosively funny joke or set piece after another. Often imitated, (still) never quite duplicated.

"High Fidelity" - It leaves out a couple of key moments from the Nick Hornby book - Rob refusing to buy the records from the woman with the cheating husband (which is on the DVD as a deleted scene), and Rob and Laura arguing about the mix tapes he always made her - but otherwise Stephen Frears, John Cusack and his screenwriting buddies expertly translate Hornby from England to Chicago. A great (and, whenever Dick or Barry are on-screen, hilarious) meditation on love, be it of music or a woman.

"The Hurt Locker" - I had 19 films set on this list and couldn't pick a 20th. Then I did the post yesterday about the year's best movies, and I just couldn't get "Hurt Locker" out of my head. Among the many things that are cool about it - Jeremy Renner's performance (I can't believe ABC had this guy under contract for a show and let him go), the various action set pieces expertly set up by director Kathryn Bigelow, all the effective cameos - I may be most impressed with how Bigelow and writer Mark Boal managed to make a 100% non-political Iraq War movie. "The Hurt Locker" never asks why we're there; it just accepts that we are, and then goes to show you what that experience is like (terrifying, but also thrilling, mostly) for one specific unit that's there.

"The Incredibles" - I could probably put a half dozen Pixar movies on this list and not blink, but for diversity's sake, I'm going to let my favorite one stand in for all of them. A tremendous superhero movie (and at times spy movie), a great family story, a fantastic commentary on the "Everybody gets a trophy!" mentality our society falls prey to (case in point: my endless Best of the '00s in TV lists), impeccable voice casting and the follow-up I was hoping for from Brad Bird after the wonderful "Iron Giant."

"Kiss Kiss Bang Bang" - A tale of two comebacks. Shane Black had more or less dropped out of the movie business after "The Long Kiss Goodnight," and Robert Downey Jr. was in the midst of another of his troubled, underemployed periods, when the two teamed up for this self-aware modern noir played half-straight, half for laughs, and all of it fun. Val Kilmer hadn't been this good in a long time, and no one has ever used Michelle Monaghan this well before or since. A high rewatchability level, as well.

"The Lord of the Rings" trilogy - Ask me to pick one of the three, and I'll probably go with "Return of the King" (even with the endless epilogues), but everyone seems fine treating them as one single work, so I will, too. I remember going to a critics' preview of "Fellowship" with Matt Zoller Seitz, and when the Balrog came out to battle the fellowship, Matt turned to me with an 8-year-old's smile on his face and whispered, "I'm so happy right now." "Me too," I said back, and I'm sure I was wearing a matching goofy grin. A tremendous technical achievement, but unlike "Avatar" (which I admittedly enjoyed), one that also seemed invested in the more traditional aspects of storytelling like plot and characterization.

"Memento" - The one that put Nolan on the map to make the other two of his films on this list (with a minor bump along the way in the solid-but-nothing-more "Insomnia"). You know a gimmick movie works if it stands up to multiple viewings, and this one does, thanks not only to the clever device that Nolan and his brother used to tell Leonard's story ("I have this condition..."), but the performances by Guy Pearce, Carrie-Ann Moss and Joey Pants. If anything, multiple viewing prove rewarding, as the story only becomes creepier and more tragic once you get out of Leonard's mindset and can remember all the pieces at once.

"Miracle" - The list's token Underdog Sports Movie, it's one I think is really underrated because it was one of a wave of Disney assembly-line sports flicks of the decade. What elevates "Miracle" above the likes of "Remember the Titans" or "The Express" are two things: Kurt Russell giving one of the best, most committed performances of his career as Herb Brooks (jump to the 1:50 mark of this clip and watch how Russell plays Brooks' uncertain reaction to the victory he devoted his whole life, and arguably too much of it, to achieving) and director Gavin O'Connor's long recreation of the Miracle on Ice game, a rare sports movie game sequence that feels almost as thrilling as the real thing.

"The Prestige" - Our third and final Nolan movie, it's a bit of a puzzle box like "Memento," but on a grander scale, as we watch a pair of magicians (Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman, both at the top of their games) try to outdo each other with ultimately deadly consequences. The Nikola Tesla stuff alone is wonderful, but this is another one of those "watch til the end every single time you see it on cable" movies for me.

"Spider-Man 2" - The overcrowded nature of the third film, and the greatness of "Dark Knight," have made it easy to forget how many people were happy to crown this one as The Greatest Superhero Movie Ever when it came out in 2004. With the origin story out of the way (and it still amazes me that everyone feels the need to do origin movies for these franchises, when the second film is usually much better), Sam Raimi got to tell a classic Spider-Man story on screen, with one great action sequence after another (Spidey vs. Doc Ock on the skyscraper is my favorite), a good command of the idea of Peter Parker as the guy with the world's worst and best luck at the same time, and a very strong supporting performance from Alfred Molina as Otto Octavius.

"Wonder Boys" - Based on a book by one of my favorite authors, Michael Chabon (and far more adaptable than "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," which spent the decade in development hell, and which is probably better off unmade), "Wonder Boys" is a funny, shaggy, exceedingly likable story of one memorable weekend in the life of a one-hit wonder author (Michael Douglas), and the various eccentrics (including Tobey Maguire, Katie Holmes and Downey Jr.) trying to help or hinder his return to usefulness. I'm a writer, so the subject may speak to me more than most, but it's my go-to DVD whenever I need to put a movie on while getting something else done.

"You Can Count on Me" - The smallest movie on this list, it's the simple story of an estranged sister and brother briefly coming back together before the usual forces send them apart again. It's carried by great performances by Laura Linney and Mark Ruffalo, and by playwright-turned-filmmaker Kenneth Lonergan's attention to the small details that define a sibling relationship.

Others considered: "The Royal Tenenbaums," "Sideways," "Lost in Translation," "Serenity" (just for the TV fanboy in me), "Casino Royale" and many other Pixar films (notably "Wall-E" and "Up").

Men of a Certain Age, "The New Guy": Big shirtless Ray

2009-12-28T23:00:00.003-05:00

A quick review of tonight's "Men of a Certain Age" coming up just as soon as I look at all our sexy cabbage...

I'm on vacation this week, and a little under the weather, so I don't have a lot of time and energy to spend on "The New Guy." Once again, I think Ray Romano and Andre Braugher are really bringing it, here depicting Joe so adrift that spending a night hanging with his bookie seems like a good idea and Owen struggling with the revelation that Joe's marriage was over much sooner than he had thought.

This wasn't one of the stronger Scott Bakula episodes, though, but I imagine I could watch weekly installments of The Joe & Manfro Show, so it's all good overall.

What did everybody else think?

What was your favorite movie of 2009?

2009-12-28T15:47:00.002-05:00

Since this has apparently turned into a movie blog for the last week of '09 (what with the absence of most original TV this week), I may as well ask a question that's come up a bit in the "Up in the Air" discussion below: what was your favorite film of the year?

Now, I don't get to a lot of movies anymore, and I doubt I'll have seen more than 3 or 4 of the 10 Best Picture nominees this year. But with that caveat in mind, my favorite of 2009 would be either (depending on my mood) "Up" or "The Hurt Locker" (today is a cold and windy day, so I'm feeling "Hurt Locker"). "Up" was yet another Pixar masterpiece (particularly the opening montage about Carl's marriage), while "Hurt Locker" was both a kick-ass action thriller and the most engrossing war movie I've seen since "Three Kings."

So, what was your favorite from this year, and why?

At the movies: Up in the Air

2009-12-28T07:59:00.000-05:00

The Christmas-to-New-Year's period is my one big movie-going stretch of the year these days, so two days after hitting the local multiplex for "Avatar," I was back to see George Clooney in "Up in the Air,", which I thoroughly enjoyed even as I had to keep reminding myself that the movie wasn't called "The Air Up There." A spoiler-laced review (designed, like my TV reviews, to be read after you've watched the thing) coming up just as soon as I throw out a pillow...

"Up in the Air" works on a lot of levels at once. You can simply enjoy it as George Clooney's most unapologetically dashing, romantic leading man performance since "Ocean's Eleven," or maybe even "Out of Sight." He's been great in other movies, but often in roles that feel designed for him to run away from his own innate charms. (He did, after all, win his Oscar for "Syriana," a movie where he packed on weight, grew a beard, and got tortured.) Clooney has become a great actor - and the scene on the airport shuttle where he takes the call from Vera Farmiga may be the best-acted of his career - yet there's something tremendously appealing about just seeing Clooney be Clooney... at least until those later scenes in which Clooney sees the folly of this.

Farmiga and Anna Kendrick are also terrific, and the sequence where the older duo console a heartbroken Kendrick and then invite her to crash the party (complete with a cameo by a not-so-Young MC) was as purely fun a 15 minutes as I've had at the movies in a long time.

But "Up in the Air" isn't just the story of a dashing road warrior. It's a blunt and poignant look at getting downsized in the worst job market in decades. Jason Reitman's idea to cast real people who had been recently fired to talk about their experience was a nice touch. Even better were Clooney and Kendrick's scripted interactions with J.K. Simmons and Jeff Eastin (as the devastated guy in Detroit), the former illustrating Clooney's belief that his job can be about more than just letting people down easy, the latter illustrating just how brutal this profession really is, particularly at a time like this when jobs are scarce.

And, of course, the second half of the movie also beautifully shows how Clooney's personal philosophy is just as much a delusion as his professional one. His life is fun, but empty, and the 1-2-3 punch of spending time on the road with Kendrick (who's far more human and empathetic than her tele-firing plan would suggest), falling for Farmiga and going to his sister's wedding (where Danny McBride showed how easily he can dial his usual schtick into more realistic, dramatic levels) forces him to realize that he does, in fact, need other people in his backpack.

And what makes the movie feel particularly resonant, I think, is that Clooney figuring this out doesn't solve anything for him, any more than his platitudes really help most of the people he fires move on in the job market. Had the movie followed a more predictable arc - had the "When Harry Met Sally" moment where Clooney goes running to tell Farmiga that he loves her worked out(*) - it would have made everything that came before feel phony. Instead, Clooney ends the movie in the exact same physical space as he began it, even as his emotional life has been ripped apart.

(*) Fienberg (who didn't love the movie in general) complained that he figured out that Farmiga's character had a family early on, and therefore grew impatient waiting for Clooney to find out. I have to admit that I didn't catch on until right when he showed up at her doorstep - again, I feared that Reitman was going the cliched rom-cm route when Clooney bailed on his big motivational speech - and was floored when I realized what was up. But I can see how spotting the twist early (like the people who somehow figured out Donnie Wahlberg killed Bruce Willis) could make some sections of the movie drag.

I don't get to the movies a lot anymore, and I haven't seen a lot of the movies that are considered serious Oscar contenders. But of the films I got to in 2009, "Up in the Air" is easily in the top 3 with "Up" and "The Hurt Locker."

What did everybody else think?