Tom Goes to the Mayor: The Complete Series (2004-2006) [Businessman’s Edition] + Anything But Love: Volume One (1989-1990) – DVDs

May 15, 2007Posted in1990s, 2000s, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Esoterica, Romance, Television

TOM GOES TO THE MAYOR: THE COMPLETE SERIES
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"Bear Traps," "WW Laserz," "Pioneer Island," "Toodle Day," "Rats Off to Ya!," "Porcelain Birds," "Vehicular Manslaughter," "Boy Meets Mayor," "Calcucorn," "Gibbons," "Pipe Camp," "Re-Birth," "Vice Mayor," "My Big Cups," "Bass Fest," "Jeffy the Sea Serpent," "White Collarless," "Wrestling," "Saxman," "Spray a Carpet or Rug," "Surprise Party," "CNE," "Friendship Alliance," "Zoo Trouble," "The Layover," "Couples Therapy," "Glass Eyes," "Undercover," "Puddins," "Joy's Ex"

ANYTHING BUT LOVE: VOLUME ONE
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"Fear of Flying," "Deadline," "Burning the Toad (The Jack Story)," "Love and Death," "Dorothy Dearest," "This is Not a Date," "Ch-Ch-Changes," "Those Lips, Those Thais," "It's My Party and I'll Schvitz If I Want To," "Scared Straight," "Mr. Mom," "Just the Facts, Ma'am," "Bang, You're Dead," "Truth or Consequences," "It's Better to Have Loved and Flossed," "Hearts and Bones," "Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown," "Breast of Friends," "Hotel of the Damned," "All About Allison," "Proof It All Night," "Three Men on a Match," "Partying is Such Sweet Sorrow," "The Ice Woman Cometh," "Hooray for Hollywood," "Robin Q. Public," "The Days of Whine and Haroses," "Thirty… Something"

by Ian Pugh Equal parts hilarious and repellent, "Tom Goes to the Mayor" boasts an intentionally ugly aesthetic typified by characters who consist of static, colour-drained photographs of their performers sent through Photoshop's "photocopy" function, their "animation" being the occasional change in pictures to depict a new facial expression. Frequently interrupting are live-action interstitials, usually mock commercials for restaurants or gift shops from a local cable network full of blurry star-wipes and awkwardly-superimposed titles. The show's devotion to these stylistic grotesqueries is not burdened by complex plots, its basic formula boiling down to the title itself: naïve doormat Tom Peters (co-creator Tim Heidecker) comes up with an idea to improve the tiny community of Jefferton only to be blamed for the disasters that occur when he submits his plans to the indifferent, self-absorbed mayor (co-creator Eric Wareheim). Of course, Tom's ideas are routinely terrible on their own (as evidenced by the moronic T-shirt slogans (1.5, "Rats Off to Ya!") and non-functioning toy calculators (1.9, "Calcucorn")), a fact which completes a trinity of exploration into an arena right alongside Saturday morning cartoons (recalling cheapo anti-animation fare like "Clutch Cargo" and "The Marvel Superheroes") and public-access television, where quality control is impertinent. Between Jefferton's overload of obnoxious tchotchkes and its smorgasbord of disgusting food platters, "Tom Goes to the Mayor" is uniformly disturbing and sometimes nauseating. In other words, it succeeds spectacularly.

Extras: The Complete First Season (2005) – DVD

April 3, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Satire, Television, UK

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"Kate Winslet," "Ben Stiller," "Ross Kemp," "Samuel L. Jackson," "Les Dennis," "Patrick Stewart"

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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.

Reno 911: Most Wanted Uncensored (2003-2006) – DVD

March 7, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Crime, DVD, Satire, Television

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"Scavenger Hunt," "Homeland Security, Pt. 1," "Homeland Security, Pt. 2," "Reverend Gigg LeCarp," "Officer Smiley," "Reading Ron," "Rick from Citizen's Patrol"

by Ian Pugh As often as "COPS" is used to validate political arguments regarding the police (on one side as a constant reminder of heroism, on the other as a constant reminder of excessive force), the show is rather useless in serious discussion because it filters out the mundanities in a cop's line of work in favour of only the most titillating footage–which is exactly what's kept it on the air for twenty years. As appalling as it is that "COPS"' lowest-common-denominator brand of entertainment has integrated itself into pop culture, if it is truly "guilty" of anything, it's not that it has outright created a new generation of John Waynes and Harry Callahans (or William Kunstlers and Ron Kubys), it's that it pares down the idea of the police into something that's up for easy generalization. The attempt to throw them in a positive light is obvious, but it all depends on your own worldview: cops are either infallibly virtuous or infallibly corrupt.

My Name is Earl: Season One (2005-2006) – DVD

February 20, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Television

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"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?

The Addams Family: Volume One (1964-1965) + Bones: Season One (2005-2006) – DVDs

January 31, 2007Posted in1960s, 2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Family, Horror, Mystery, Romance, Television

THE ADDAMS FAMILY: VOLUME ONE
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"The Addams Family Goes to School," "Morticia and the Psychiatrist," "Fester's Punctured Romance," "Gomez, the Politician," "The Addams Family Tree," "Morticia Joins the Ladies League," "Halloween with the Addams Family," "Green-Eyed Gomez," "New Neighbors Meet the Addams Family," "The Addams Family Meets the V.I.P.s," "Morticia, the Matchmaker," "Lurch Learns to Dance," "Art and the Addams Family," "The Addams Family Meets a Beatnik," "The Addams Family Meets the Undercover Man," "Mother Lurch Visits the Addams Family," "Uncle Fester's Illness," "The Addams Family Splurges," "Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family," "The Addams Family in Court," "Amnesia in the Addams Family"

BONES: SEASON ONE
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"Pilot," "The Man in the S.U.V.," "A Boy in a Tree," "The Man in the Bear," "A Boy in a Bush," "The Man in the Wall," "The Man on Death Row," "The Girl in the Fridge," "The Man in the Fallout Shelter," "The Woman in the Airport," "The Woman in the Car," "The Superhero in the Alley," "The Woman in the Garden," "The Man on the Fairway," "Two Bodies in the Lab," "The Woman in the Tunnel," "The Skull in the Desert," "The Man with the Bone," "The Man in the Morgue," "The Graft in the Girl," "The Soldier in the Grave," "The Woman in Limbo"

by Ian Pugh Charles Addams's darkest cartoons for THE NEW YORKER were routinely hilarious, not just for their brazen denial of the nuclear family unit, but also because, unlike so many of the publication's other strips, they take their one-panel restrictions to heart without coming off as smarmy. Moreover, Addams's scenarios were simple without being stupid, e.g., family of ghouls about to dump boiling oil on Christmas carollers. The problem in turning these characters into a half-hour sitcom, namely "The Addams Family", should be self-evident: it bloats the brisk silliness into a particularly tiresome game of "Opposite Day"–thirty minutes of a family that cheerfully approves of the macabre and homicidal while despising normalcy and respectability.

The Girls Next Door: Season One (2005) + Stacked: The Complete Series (2005-2006) – DVDs

January 15, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Romance, Television

THE GIRLS NEXT DOOR: SEASON ONE
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"Meet the Girls," "New Girls in Town," "Happy Birthday, Kendra," "What Happens in Vegas," "Fight Night," "Operation Playmate," "Just Shoot Me," "Midsummer Night's Dream," "Under the Covers," "Ghostbusted," "Grape Expectations," "I'll Take Manhattan," "My Kind of Town," "Clue-Less," "It's Vegas Baby!"

STACKED: THE COMPLETE SERIES
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"Pilot," "Beat the Candidate," "A Fan for All Seasons," "Gavin's Pipe Dream," "The Ex-Appeal," "Nobody Says I Love You," "Two Faces of Eve," "Darling Nikki," "Crazy Ray," "iPod," "Heavy Meddle," "Goodwizzle Hunting," "After Party," "Romancing the Stones," "You're Getting Sleepy," "The Third Date," "The Day the Music Died," "Poker," "The Headmaster"

by Ian Pugh I'm pretty sure it was Jon Stewart who described "lad mags" like MAXIM and STUFF as "porn for people too timid to buy porn," and under that category we could probably also file PLAYBOY reality series "The Girls Next Door" and the Pamela Anderson sitcom "Stacked": softcore pap for those too afraid to have God's honest filth appear on their rental history or cable bill. I'm inclined to believe those same people are apt to use the phrase "turn your brain off" while justifying their love of these silicone parades–which in this case means, what, "shut up and masturbate"? PLAYBOY and Anderson are both cultural artifacts and thus demand scrutiny; protest, however, and you'll just be dismissed as a double-plus-bad thought cop bringing intelligence to a discussion where it isn't wanted. You know, the brainiac killjoy who has to say, "Why are you watching this garbage?" The programs themselves shout you down, in fact, before you have a chance to complain: each invokes Shakespeare on a whim ("Girls" in a party and episode named for "A Midsummer Night's Dream", "Stacked" in one of its sarcastic faux-intellectual quotations)–not for any genuine comparison, but as a surrogate for intelligence, introduced for the sole purpose of deriding it as impertinent. You're the idiot, apparently, for harbouring the desire for something substantial out of one of the most widespread and influential media of the last century.

Dane Cook’s Tourgasm (2006) – DVD

January 5, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, Documentary, DVD, Television

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"The First Laugh," "Working It Out," "The United States of Insanity," "It Was The Best of Times…," "Determined and Injured," "Competitively Speaking," "Beginning of the End," "Back in the Day," "The Curtain Call"

by Ian Pugh It's not that I don't get Dane Cook. In fact, it's difficult not to occasionally chuckle when looking over his repertoire, as in ruminating on the general inconvenience of having the Kool-Aid Man burst through your wall and the fact that no one can ever finish a game of Monopoly, or wondering who would write racial epithets while sitting on the toilet, he represents a strict literalization of that old sarcastic summation of stand-up comedy: "He's sayin' what we're all thinkin'!" It's not that funny, but we all laugh, anyway, partially for Cook's enthusiasm, partially because he's a reflection of us at our most vulnerable (that is, at our stalest creative moments), proudly transcribing the idle thoughts and half-attempts at wit that pass through our minds on a daily basis. We laugh, painfully, because we've all contemplated what Cook has to say.

That’s My Bush! [The Definitive Collection] – DVD

January 2, 2007Posted in2000s, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Satire, Television

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"An Aborted Dinner Date," "A Poorly Executed Plan," "Eenie Meenie Miney MURDER!," "S.D.I.-AYE-AYE!," "The First Lady's Persqueeter," "Mom 'E' D.E.A. Arrest," "Trapped in a Small Environment," "Fare Thee Welfare"

"What we're sick of–and it's getting even worse–is: You either like Michael Moore or you wanna fuckin' go overseas and shoot Iraqis. There can't be a middle ground. Basically, if you think Michael Moore's full of shit, then you are a super-Christian right-wing whatever. And we're both just pretty middle-ground guys. We find just as many things to rip on on the left as we do on the right. People on the far left and the far right are the same exact person to us."
— Trey Parker, "Interview of the Meanest"; IN FOCUS, October 2004

by Ian Pugh I think "South Park" boasts the occasional flash of brilliance, but I resent that its more flagrantly political messages, particularly in the past few seasons, essentially boil down to 'both sides are fucking crazy: here's how it really is.' Trey Parker and Matt Stone strike me less as philosophers than as contrarians who force their perceived sensible alternatives down our throats as the infallible Solution. It's a shame, too, because Parker and Stone remain two of the most talented satirists of our generation, if not in terms of hot-button topics: The ending of the recent "South Park" episode "Stanley's Cup," for instance, attacked sports movies by reminding us that every game involves two teams with similar aspirations, and, of course, Team America: World Police's caustic parody of "Rent" is as concise and shocking a criticism of that musical as one will find. I'm not taking the stupidly dismissive "I like you better when you're funny" position that Tucker Carlson had towards Jon Stewart on CNN's "Crossfire", but in the world of "South Park", there are only three options when it comes to world events: left, right, and middle, the latter being invariably correct. Compared to the innumerable increments in the political spectrum of reality, three extremes are no better than two.

The Venture Bros.: Season One (2003-2004) – DVD

December 13, 2006Posted in2000s, Action, Adventure, Animation, Authors: Ian Pugh, Comedy, DVD, Satire, Television

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"Dia de los Dangerous!," "Careers in Science," "Mid-Life Chrysalis," "Eeney, Meeney, Miney… Magic!," "The Incredible Mr. Brisby," "Tag Sale–You're It!," "Home Insecurity," "Ghosts of the Sargasso," "Ice Station–Impossible!," "Are You There, God? It's Me, Dean.," "Past Tense," "The Trial of the Monarch," "Return to Spider-Skull Island"

by Ian Pugh Lengthy postmodern discussions about the drug use in "Scooby-Doo" and the sexual habits of the Smurfs dominated the public mind long before TimeWarner acquired the Hanna-Barbera catalogue. It was only a logical move, then, that TimeWarner's Cartoon Network would devote much of its late-night Adult Swim programming block ("Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law", "Sealab 2021", and, to a lesser degree, "Robot Chicken") to taking the old H-B anti-classics and filtering them through the fine mesh screen of a contemporary ironic eye. Look here, we've got an old superhero, he's an attorney now, that's pretty wacky! Check it out, we've turned the straightforward drama of "Sealab 2020" into angry surrealism! It works to varying degrees of success, primarily depending upon the individual show's (or individual episode's) willingness to move beyond the inherent ridiculousness of its premise. What can we say, then, when "The Venture Bros." represents the kids-on-adventures serial "Jonny Quest", a series centred on a family whose surname is a literal synonym for the characters being parodied? Are we meant to gasp when brilliant über-dad Dr. Benton Quest becomes Dr. Thaddeus "Rusty" Venture (voiced by Henry Fool's James Urbaniak), an ignorant pill-popper, negligent of his teenage sons Hank (co-creator Jackson Publick) and Dean (Michael Sinterniklaas)? Or when bodyguard/second father figure Race Bannon becomes Brock Samson (Patrick Warburton), an emotionally-detached psychopath?

Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes (2003) – DVD

October 26, 2006Posted in2000s, Animation, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Horror, Television

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"Naked Beach Frenzy," "Stimpy's Pregnant," "Altruists," "Ren Seeks Help," "Fire Dogs, Part 2," "Onward and Upward"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There are, believe it or not, those who miss the days of the Production Code as a tool for making writers try harder to suggest things instead of spelling them out. I never really bought into the argument, but it seems almost sensible to me now that I've seen Ren and Stimpy unleashed and uncensored. To be sure, no loyalist can be without the six adventures contained on Paramount's new-to-DVD "Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes" (only half of which ever reached the airwaves, under the banner "Ren & Stimpy 'Adult Party Cartoon'"), whose scripts were suppressed by Nickelodeon for being too raunchy for kids; and when they're on, they take the formula out of the cage of decency so that it might run around free and unfettered. Alas, the introduction of naked women and actual foul language somehow dampens the charm of the Nickelodeon run. The thrill of "Ren & Stimpy" lies in its childish, anal-stage irresponsibility, with its suppression of the sexual in favour of the scatological–to say nothing of the florid insults ("You bloated sack of protoplasm!") with which mere expletives can't possibly compete.

Sealab 2021: Season IV (2004-2005) + Arrested Development: Season Three (2005-2006) – DVDs

October 24, 2006Posted in2000s, Animation, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, DVD, Television

SEALAB 2021: SEASON IV
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"Isla de Chupacabra," "Joy of Grief," "Green Fever," "Sharko's Machine," "Return of Marko," "Casinko," "Butchslap," "Monkey Banana Raffle," "Shrabster," "Cavemen," "Moby Sick," "No Waterworld," "Legacy of Laughter"

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT: SEASON THREE
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"The Cabin Show," "For British Eyes Only," "Forget Me Now," "Notapussy," "Mr. F," "The Ocean Walker," "Prison Break-In," "Making a Stand," "S.O.B.s," "Fakin' It," "Family Ties," "Exit Strategy," "Development Arrested"

by Walter Chaw Oh, I get it. It's hostile.

Stella: Season One (2005) – DVD

October 23, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Esoterica, Television

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"Pilot," "Campaign," "Office Party," "Coffee Shop," "Paper Route," "Camping," "Meeting Girls," "Novel," "Vegetables," "Amusement Park"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover There's a difference between being smart and being "smart." Smart involves the recombination of concepts into some kind of thesis or analysis; "smart" is the mere name-checking of said concepts and the class trappings they afford. The problems begin when people act "smart" and feel they're actually smart–when the pose of intelligence becomes the real thing. And despite many contortions in a vaguely surrealist direction, the masterminds behind "Stella" clearly belong in the poser category. Although their juxtaposition of overgrown children against a world somewhat less mad than they are is fastidiously groomed and played to the hilt, it's not really smart about anything: by putting these naïf characters next to the supposed intelligence of the people who write their lines, they only reveal their "smarts" in comparison to a very limited test group.

Weeds: Season One (2005) – DVD

October 4, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Crime, Drama, DVD, Television

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"You Can't Miss the Bear," "Free Goat," "Good Shit Lollipop," "Fashion of the Christ," "Lude Awakening," "Dead in the Nethers," "Higher Education," "The Punishment Light," "The Punishment Lighter," "The Godmother"

by Walter Chaw Showtime Entertainment chief Roger Greenblatt told the PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER in August of this year that he was surprised "Weeds", the pay channel's latest attempt to catch the HBO original series tiger by the tail, had generated no controversy whatsoever. The ongoing saga of a soccer mom, recently widowed, selling pot to her friends and neighbours, "Weeds" has apparently aroused no ire from the traditionally prickly right-wing groups that make it their stock and trade to get their panties in a bunch over this sort of thing. Credit "Weeds"' decidedly non-controversial make-up and storylines for its complete inconsequence; its weak writing and suffocating air of self-congratulation very quickly metastasizes into a lump of middlebrow prestige. Seen by many as the blue-state response to the red-state Stepford conformity of the allegedly subversive "Desperate Housewives", "Weeds" is more accurately a comedy that uses the very same neo-conservative fear-mongering and race-baiting its satirical targets use but re-deploys them to ostensibly satirical effect. Yet there's so little weight to its happy serial horseshit that what's probably meant as smarty-pants sociology comes off as limp and pandering. I see "Weeds" as an Ayn Rand piece, its straw men stuffed with dolled-up ganja and its slack grasp on the legitimately subversive hidden under a pile of insubstantial, terrified condescension.

Alien Nation: The Complete Series (1989-1990) + Doctor Who: The Complete First Series (2005) – DVDs

October 3, 2006Posted in1980s, 1990s, 2000s, Action, Adventure, Authors: Walter Chaw, Canada, Drama, DVD, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Television, UK

ALIEN NATION: THE COMPLETE SERIES
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"Alien Nation: The TV Movie (Pilot)," "Fountain of Youth," "Little Lost Lamb," "Fifteen with Wanda," "The Takeover," "The First Cigar," "Night of the Screams," "Contact," "Three to Tango," "The Game," "Chains of Love," "The Red Room," "The Spirit of '95," "Generation to Generation," "Eyewitness News," "Partners," "Real Men," "Crossing the Line," "Rebirth," "Gimme, Gimme," "The Touch," "Green Eyes"

DOCTOR WHO: THE COMPLETE FIRST SERIES
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"Rose," "The End of the World," "The Unquiet Dead," "Aliens of London," "World War Three," "Dalek," "The Long Game," "Father's Day," "The Empty Child," "The Doctor Dances," "Boom Town," "Bad Wolf," "The Parting of the Ways"

by Walter Chaw I'm a fan of Graham Baker's dreadful Alien Nation from 1988. Run the words of the title together and you get a not-terribly-clever yet not-entirely-awful summary of what the film is getting at when it's not busy being a ludicrous high-concept buddy cop flick pairing your typical crusty old vet with an earnest rookie who happens to be an alien with a spotted pate instead of a hilarious racial minority. (Shades of Dead Heat, where Joe Piscopo played a bug-eyed zombie.) It's a schlocky B-concept, granted, but the parallax view suggests that lurking in Alien Nation is a neat parable about the Chinese-American experience in San Francisco around the turn of the century and on through to the modern day.

Strangers with Candy: The Complete Series (1999-2000) – DVD

September 7, 2006Posted in1990s, 2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Television

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"Old Habits, New Beginnings," "A Burden's Burden," "Dreams on the Rocks," "Who Wants Cake?," "Bogie Nights," "Let Freedom Ring," "Feather in the Storm," "Jerri Is Only Skin Deep," "The Trip Back," "The Virgin Jerri," "Behind Blank Eyes," "Yes, You Can't," "The Goodbye Guy," "The Blank Page," "Hit and Run," "To Love, Honor & Pretend," "Blank Stare, Part 1," "Blank Stare, Part 2," "A Price Too High for Riches," "Jerri's Burning Issue," "Is Freedom Free?," "Trail of Tears," "Invisible Love," "Is My Daddy Crazy?," "Blank Relay," "Ask Jerri," "There Once Was a Blank from Nantucket," "Bully," "The Last Temptation of Blank"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover "Strangers with Candy" is at once extremely clever and not quite clever enough. On the one hand, its gleeful shredding of After School Specials is fanatically faithful to its target, turning the form's mealy-mouthed platitudes into the kind of dispiriting cruelty that is part and parcel of actual high school. On the other hand, the show's total devotion to that bit of satire means it doesn't hit any other targets. Though its heroine–Jerri Blank (Amy Sedaris), a 46-year-old former "boozer, user and loser" attempting to turn her life around by going back to secondary school–receives a constant stream of parent/teacher figures and learns negative life lessons as a result of her own corruption, the whole thing is fanciful to the point where you can shrug it off as one more naughty bit of college humour. Authority here isn't based on any real-life examples: they're just cartoons dishing out arbitrary meanness; the show's spirited inhumanity often drew a blank face out of me.

30 Days (2005) – DVD

August 7, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Documentary, DVD, Television

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"Minimum Wage," "Anti-Aging," "Muslims and America," Straight Man in a Gay World," "Off the Grid," "Binge Drinking Mom"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover The least interesting thing about Super Size Me was the gimmick for which we showed up. Morgan Spurlock's month-long Mickey-D's binge yielded nothing any reasonably well-informed person couldn't have guessed about fast-food nutritional horrors. Rather, it was the supporting information on the extent and pervasiveness of those horrors that made the film worth the effort. Of course, there are large numbers of people who won't invite facts into their home without entertainment as incentive, so maybe the Spurlock method is craftier than a first glance would suggest. In any event, we now have six more cases with which to test it: debuting on DVD in conjunction with its second-season premiere, his FX program "30 Days" puts the Month-Long Gimmick to work on a variety of unsuspecting innocents in the name of informing the public. And though there are limits to the success of each 44-minute episode, our man harmoniously blends information with rubbernecking.

Masters of Horror: Chocolate (2005) + Masters of Horror: Incident On and Off a Mountain Road (2005) – DVDs

July 4, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, DVD, Horror, Television, Thriller

MASTERS OF HORROR: CHOCOLATE
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starring Henry Thomas, Matt Frewer
teleplay by Mick Garris, based on his short story
directed by Mick Garris

MASTERS OF HORROR: INCIDENT ON AND OFF A MOUNTAIN ROAD
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starring Bree Turner, Ethan Embry
teleplay by Don Coscarelli & Stephen Romano, based on the short story by Joe R. Lansdale
directed by Don Coscarelli

by Walter Chaw Add to the hypocrisies and inconsistencies plaguing Mick Garris's Showtime-broadcast "Masters of Horror" the fact that Garris has the audacity to dub himself one of the titular Masters (on the strength of which, Sleepwalkers or Riding the Bullet?). When Stephen King unofficially bestows upon you the title of best steward of his work to the screen, you need to take a full step back and assess King's track record in the medium. If Garris considers himself to be on a par with any of the other directors in this show's roster, he's got another thing coming–the pudding and the proof being his episode Chocolate, presented by Anchor Bay on an exhaustive DVD as part of their second wave of "Masters of Horror" releases. Lacklustre and non-starting, it stars a craggy Henry Thomas as Jamie, a creator of artificial food flavourings who one day discovers that he's occasionally channelling, Being John Malkovich-like, the consciousness of someone else. That someone else is French-Canadian hottie Catharine (Lucie Laurier), who, as is given away in the trailer and the box text, kills someone, inspiring putz Jamie to travel to the Great White North in search of his bloodthirsty Beatrice to declare his undying love.

American Dad – Volume One (2005) – DVD

May 19, 2006Posted in2000s, Animation, Authors: Travis Mackenzie Hoover, Comedy, DVD, Television

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"American Dad (Pilot)," "Threat Levels," "Stan Knows Best," "Francine's Flashback," "Roger Codger," "Homeland Insecurity," "Deacon Stan, Jesus Man," "Bullocks to Stan," "A Smith in the Hand," "All About Steve," "Con Heir," "Stan of Arabia (Part One)," "Stan of Arabia (Part Two)"

by Travis Mackenzie Hoover "American Dad" is not without merit: though nowhere near as funny as Seth MacFarlane's flagship series "Family Guy" (or as pithy as that show's model, "The Simpsons"), it's surprisingly watchable once you get into the groove of its initial 13-episode run. Still, its send-up of American chauvinism flips over rather easily into a celebration of same whenever it verges on damaging critique. "American Dad" is like that college radical who turns conservative upon realizing he has to bring home the bacon–in fact, it shores up the double-edged sword of all Dumb Father comedies like "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons", which walk the knife-edge between mockery and glorification of the male imperative to be a thoughtless, self-indulgent jerk.

Dawson’s Creek: The Complete Sixth Season (2002-2003) – DVD

April 26, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Bill Chambers, Coming of Age, Drama, DVD, Teen, Television

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"The Kids Are Alright," "The Song Remains the Same," "The Importance of Not Being Too Earnest," Instant Karma!," "The Imposters," "Living Dead Girl," "Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell," "Spiderwebs," "Everything Put Together Falls Apart," "Merry Mayhem," "Day Out of Days," "All the Right Moves," "Rock Bottom," "Clean and Sober," "Castaways," "That Was Then," "Sex and Violence," "Love Bites," "Lovelines," "Catch-22," "Goodbye, Yellow Brick Road," "Joey Potter and the Capeside Redemption," "All Good Things… …Must Come to an End"

by Bill Chambers It's been three years since "Dawson's Creek" left the airwaves, and a side-effect of revisiting the final, wistful season of the show–in which the characters are constantly tabulating five years' worth of individual progress (or lack thereof)–is the urge to subject its core ensemble to a mental game of "Where Are They Now?". Newly-minted Oscar nominee Michelle Williams (a.k.a. Jen Lindley), whose revisionist contempt for the series manifested itself while she was doing press for Brokeback Mountain, has carved out a niche for herself as the muse of indie filmmakers, while Katie Holmes (Joey Potter) has spent the better part of the last nine months promoting the first blockbuster of her career (Batman Begins) and living out a real-life Rosemary's Baby. As for the dudes, James Van Der Beek (Dawson Leery) and Joshua Jackson (Pacey Witter), they've had a great deal more difficulty hitting their stride–which makes a certain amount of sense, given the program's gradual transformation into a distaff version of itself. Call it "Joey's Creek".

Rescue Me: The Complete Second Season (2005) – DVD

April 24, 2006Posted in2000s, Authors: Walter Chaw, Comedy, Drama, DVD, Television

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"Voicemail," "Harmony," "Balls," "Twat," "Sensitivity," "Reunion," "Shame," "Believe," "Rebirth," "Brains," "Bitch," "Happy," "Justice"

by Walter Chaw If we proceed from the premise that the first season of FX's firefighter series "Rescue Me" is an overt metaphor for the reconfiguration of society post-9/11 along tribal/machismo lines, the second season sees the rules established, leaving only the playing-out of über-civilization's system of justice. It's post-apocalyptic in the same manner as Walter Hill's The Warriors: a diary of urban demolition and the erosion of decorum; the crude, reductive barbarism of its survivors is worn as a badge of honour. They're martyrs in uniform flying the banner of the underpaid and overworked–credit the series for acknowledging their position on the cross a time or two through the firefighter's natural archenemy, the bulls. The world as we knew it ended one day, and from its ashes rose cowboys, cowboy crusades, and a "bring it on" attitude towards loss of life and the dealing of death. If the show gets progressively more unpleasant and hard to justify, it also charts the same arc in our culture and society. And it makes perfect sense in this way (if in no other) that Season Two's cliffhanger revolves around the senseless death of a child enlisted in a war not of his making and certainly beyond his comprehension.