The Big Love Finale

March 22, 2011March 22, 2011 / Jared / Leave a comment

I totes should have written this post last night right after watching the show because it seemed like I had lots of thoughts then that I can’t remember now, but oh well, I’m lazy and thems the breaks!

I should start by saying that I know that you hate Big Love. Everyone hates Big Love! But I was always sort of fond of it. It was basically a soap opera with high production values, right? And that’s fun, I think? It seems that most of the problems people had with it were story-based, and that is completely valid. Because like 83% of the stories this show chose to introduce and explore were really stupid. I get it. But I always saw it as more of a character-driven show than a story-driven show, and while I wasn’t really in love with any of the individual performances, these were some pretty compelling and well-drawn characters, IMHO. It was always in the Entourage vein of HBO shows, in that it’s really stupid, but I can settle in and distractedly enjoy it every week while I try to get through my Google Reader. And, unlike Entourage, at least it had a little bit of forward momentum, even if it was stupid forward momentum. Entourage has, like, backward momentum. I suspect I’ll miss Big Love a bit.

I should also say that my wife Johanna and I had some conversations as the season built to the finale about the way the show should end, and it mostly ended, in word if not in spirit, exactly how I thought it should. I wanted Bill to die (BELATED SPOILER ALERT!!1!). Bill needed to die. And Bill died. Also, I wanted to get confirmation that the story was really always about the wives and their relationships with each other, and I got that confirmation.

OK, all that said, this finale was terrible.

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The Emmys, 2010

August 30, 2010November 12, 2010 / Jared / 1 Comment

Here we are again. Another award show, another winner-picking competition between me and my new wife, Johanna. And after slogging through a few shows that, while fun, were ultimately inconsequential (The ESPYs, The Daytime Emmys, and the MTV Movie Awards) we finally have a big one: The Emmys.

This has traditionally been my award show of choice; I’ve always been more of a television guy than a movie guy, I guess. Plus, I don’t usually get around to seeing many of the nominated films before the Oscars, whereas I’m always pretty invested in the Emmys and opinionated about the categories. It feels like the recent golden age of television has faded a bit, and my interest has waned slightly, but this remains my favorite masturbatory Hollywood event.

Tonight is big for Johanna, too. My friend Alex, in anticipation of tonight’s competition, asked me if Johanna had won any of these. I quickly said that yes, she had. While I knew I had taken the last few, I thought we were actually pretty even. Having gone back to check, though, I’m surprised to report that I won The Grammys, The Academy Awards, The MTV Movie Awards, The Daytime Emmys, and The ESPYs, with Johanna only claiming the Golden Globes, the first one of these we did. I’m up five to one! She needs a win. In preparation, she’s been scouring the internet for expert predictions.

As always, we choose for the most part whom we think will win, not whom we want to win. Never is that more true than with the Emmys; trust me, I’m no fan of The Good Wife or, heaven forbid, Glee. Categories and winners are in bold. Johanna has concocted an Emmy cocktail containing peach vodka, Sprite Zero, and a splash of grenadine. She’s named it the “Leading Lady.” It’s better, both in name and taste, than the drink she fixed us for the Daytime Emmys. Let’s do this.

7:41 – Taco night is over, the red carpet has begun, and I’m filling out my ballot. All of these interviews are so unbelievably awkward and cringe-worthy. I instinctively reach for the mute button.

8:00 – Here we go. We’re opening with a shot of the director’s booth. This is such an ego move; it’s like they think we’ll assume the show was put together by elves if they don’t show themselves. Johanna just thinks it’s hacky and compares it to starting a school paper with a Webster’s definition.

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The Lost Finale

May 27, 2010August 18, 2010 / Jared / 2 Comments

So, Lost is over. I was out of town and therefore a few days behind on everything, but I managed to avoid spoilers and sat down last night to watch it with an open mind. When I went to bed after watching not only the finale, but also last week’s episode and the two-hour recap show that had aired immediately prior to the finale, I certainly had some questions. I felt mostly satisfied, though. Then this morning I found myself getting kind of angry about it.

“The End” was a fitting end to this season, and I think it was pretty great as a stand-alone episode. The final season was not a fitting end to the show as a whole, though. It’s not even a matter of tying up older plotlines; there are enough holes in the recently introduced plots alone that there is no way that this finale will age well. The more people think about it, the worse it’s going to get. Which is why everyone who wants to love it unconditionally is telling the rest of us we’re thinking too much about it.

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The Super Bowl, 2010

February 7, 2010May 10, 2010 / Jared / 4 Comments

6:18 – Queen Latifah kicks off formal activities with “America the Beautiful.” When did we decide that we need to sing this in addition to “The Star-Spangled Banner”? Maybe we just all secretly think it’s a better song.

Anyway, the pizza Johanna and I ordered has arrived, so our spread is complete.

6:25 – Our first big commercial of the night, a remake of a classic. Dwight Howard and LeBron James are infinitely better at acting natural than Larry Bird and Michael Jordan were in the original.

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Characters, 2000-2009

February 7, 2010January 30, 2011 / Jared / 4 Comments

This is sort of a vague list. I’m not really sure what the qualifications were. And it seems wrong that 19 of my 25 favorite characters of the decade are from television shows. I obviously need to read more. But, for whatever reason, these are the ones that really stuck with me. Here are my 25 favorite characters of the decade:

25) Borat Sagdiyev (Da Ali G Show)

Frat guys turned Borat into this decade’s Austin Powers, and no one is really clamoring for Borat II at this point. But the character is brilliantly conceived and led Sacha Baron Cohen into comedic territory that he never could have reached as Ali G.

24) Brian Griffin (Family Guy)

Even I am sitting here thinking this is a strange, possibly unworthy, choice for this list. But I can’t stop laughing when they have Brian actually, you know, behave like a dog. Like when he is afraid of the vacuum cleaner, or uncontrollably wags his tail. A rare talking animal character that still, albeit rarely, acts like an animal.

23) Coach Eric Taylor (Friday Night Lights)

This character’s appeal is helped quite a bit by his relationship with his wife, but he’s on the list alone because he does just fine in the football scenes without her. Friday Night Lights seems to have learned from the mistakes of past shows (I’m thinking specifically of The O.C.): when you have a married couple that serves as a solid foundation upon which to build everything else, do not screw with it.

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Movie Adaptations

January 30, 2010December 18, 2010 / Jared / 10 Comments

With the death of J.D. Salinger, speculation about The Catcher in the Rye being adapted as a movie is inevitable. So that got me thinking about movie adaptations that I would be excited about, but secretly dread because of the probability that they would be bad.

That led to a list of ten possible adaptations that will never live up to the hype I would assign them in my brain. That, in turn, led to another list, this time of ten movie adaptations that have already been made, and are already disappointing. But I didn’t want to be completely negative, so I’ll finish with a list of ten movie adaptations that, in my opinion, really knocked it out of the park, and in some cases, surpassed whatever they were based on. I’m sure I’m forgetting some here; let me know if there is anything too obvious. Also, for the most part, I tried to include only examples where I’m familiar with both the movie and the source material (exceptions are noted).

Movie adaptations by which I will inevitably, someday, be disappointed:

10) A Confederacy of Dunces

Apparently Harold Ramis tried to turn this into a movie back in 1982, with John Belushi in the lead role, but then Belushi died. That might have actually been pretty good. Ignatius Reilly is such a weird, delightful character that I can’t really imagine anyone pulling him off. The most recent talk has been about Will Ferrell donning a fat suit to play him. Eh.

9) Then We Came to the End

As far as I know no one is planning to turn this into a movie, but it just seems like the kind of thing that someone might try. For some reason, I picture John C. McGinley, the guy that plays Dr. Cox on Scrubs, getting cast as Tom Mota. And I am aghast at that possibility.

8 ) Lost

Again, no concrete plans in place. But I guarantee there will be a movie at some point. Disney is already talking about the future of Lost as a brand. But what would the movie be? I’m guessing the television finale will give us a pretty definitive ending to the current set of characters’ story. And I can’t imagine a prequel would be all that interesting. So, what happens? A new plane crashes on the island?

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Television, 2000-2009

December 28, 2009April 28, 2010 / Jared / 4 Comments

This has been a great decade for television, so much so that the list of my favorite shows of the decade pretty much doubles as the list of my favorite shows of all time. Other than Seinfeld and the nineties-era Simpsons, I’m struggling to think of a pre-2000 show that would make the cut. It’s amazing how far television has come as a medium over the past ten years. Anyway, here they are, not the best, necessarily, but my favorite shows, 2000-2009 (clips when available and appropriate):

30) Sealab 2021 (Adult Swim, 2000-2005)

A bizarre show for a bizarre decade.

(I couldn’t get the embed code from Adult Swim to work for my favorite clip for some reason, so here’s the link. If I can figure it out, I’ll fix it.)

29) Extras (HBO, 2005-2007)

It’s not The Office, obviously, and parts of the series finale were painfully earnest. But Ricky Gervais (on television, at least) is always worth my time, and about half of the guest stars were hilarious.

28) The “House” Series (Frontier, Colonial, etc.) (PBS, 2000-2006)

It’s almost always entertaining to watch the types of people who sign up for reality television on PBS. For instance, Michelle Rossi-Vorhees, of Colonial House, is simultaneously attempting to recreate the life of a female pioneer in 1628 while staying true to her 21^st-century ideas about feminism and atheism. In doing so, she basically undoes the premise of the show, but it makes for great drama, and the PBS veneer allows viewers to pretend that it’s not just a higher-class Wife Swap. Very sad that there hasn’t been a new installment since 2006.

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