All Atwitter Over Tremors

I’m locked and loaded for tonight’s SciFi Channel premiere of their newest show Tremors: The Series. For those not familiar, this is the latest saga of those delightfully dreadful worm creatures the Graboids, and the humans they love…to eat.

Set in the dusty near-ghost town of Perfection, Nevada, Tremors: The Series should be worth watching if for nothing else than the bravura presence of Michael Gross. Gross, who conquered the TV sitcom world back in the mid-80s with his low-key role as the dad in Family Ties, did an abrupt and hilarious about-face in 1990 when he appeared in the original Tremors motion picture and the subsequent sequels. His Burt Gummer -- a reactionary, right-wing, gun-totin’, ammo-lovin’ survivalist -- was a revelation, a captivating kook of enthusiastic proportions. I think Gross’ interpretation of Burt is as consistently on the mark as Adam West was when he played Batman, and if you’re a TV aficionado you know that’s the gold standard. Broad enough to be clearly comic, yet retaining a droll center that refuses to throw Burt into the realm of the ridiculous, Gross is delightful and dynamic. Actually, this character reminds me of what R. Lee Ermey would be like if he went off the edge and joined a citizen militia group, and you know how much I like him!

The producers of the Tremors franchise have created a detailed biology for their creatures, and it will be interesting – and fun – to see how the concept holds ups on a weekly basis. In addition to Burt, the cast of characters includes two lovely young women, both of whom vie for the affections of the handsome guy who runs the local Graboid tour business, a twitchy government agent safeguarding a rare endangered specimen of the monsters, and a free-spirit artist who uses crystal power to keep in one piece. The latter is played by Marcia Strassman, and let’s hope that she and Burt can get together for a little middle-aged desert nookie in the near future.

I have high hopes for the show, though fans of the genre – science fiction/adventure/humor – know that the landscape is littered with excellent series which couldn’t quite juggle the elements in a way that pleased audiences. In 2001, SciFi tried with the pretty darn good The Chronicle, and I’m still bummed out by UPN’s dumping of the imaginative and offbeat Special Unit 2 last year (at least writer Joel Surnow managed to resurface with 24). As the spiritual offspring of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, these shows learned the hard way that most of the audience seems to like their chills straight, but let’s hope that Tremors: The Series can beat the odds to hang in there, and that SciFi can hold off on their twitchy cancellation trigger finger long enough to let it happen.

So, you’ve got your Friday night sewed up! Catch Tremors: The Series at 9pm and another episode at 10pm, and then take a little nap so you can be sure to stay up late enough to watch this week’s new Da Ali G Show at 12:30am on HBO. This week Ali goes to Hollywood to pitch to studio execs, talks sex in his studio discussion segment, and Borat and Bruno both visit the South. (Is this the one where the crew almost got beat up during an interview with some redneck skinheads?) I can’t say enough great things about Ali G; if you are a fan of comedy and haven’t seen him yet, shame on you and turn on your telly tonight for sure!


Tremors: The Series premieres tonight on SciFi at 9pm, with another episode at 10pm; encores following at 11pm and 12mid, and also on Wednesday 4/2 at 8pm and 9pm. Regular timeslot is Fridays at 9pm, with encore at 11pm, and Wednesdays at 8pm.

Da Ali G Show premieres a new episode on Fridays at 12:30am on HBO, with encores throughout the week.

 
Totally Normal

TLC ran a great documentary the other night, and it's particularly pertinent with HBO's TV movie Normal -- see my 3/17 entry here -- still making the rounds. It's called Sexchange, and is about...well...sex changes. It's the real-life version of the movie dilemma faced by Tom Wilkinson, and a thoughtful and informative hour on this uncommon and uncommonly intriguing subject. I was probably most impressed by the journey of Doc Severinsen bandmember and upright bass virtuoso John Leitham, who underwent her correction surgery (the term she prefers, as reported on her website) to Jennifer in late 2001. I highly recommend a visit to her site, as her writings on this subject are fascinating. Sometimes real life is even better than the movies, and this is one of those cases.

Sexchange repeats this Saturday, 3/29 at 4pm on TLC (The Learning Channel).

 
Catching Up on Movies

The Life of David Gale: After some disappointing box office since its opening in late February, this movie’s disappearing from theatres pretty rapidly; if you’re interested, catch it while you can. Though it’s somewhat positioned as an issue movie – death penalty – it’s really a thriller, pure and simple, and the political agenda only serves as background. The movie feels pretty old-fashioned (but in a good way), and has solid performances from some credible actors, namely Kevin Spacey, Laura Linney, and Kate Winslet. Linney, who’s never less than convincing in any role, does a tremendously self-effacing job here and certainly gives her all for the cause. After some pretty lame newspaper office dialogue at the beginning, and the horribly clichéd big-city-journalist-in-hick-Texas banter when Winslet starts her quest – moaning about no Starbucks, sniping about coffee shop food – LoDG rights itself pretty well, dialogue wise. Like I said, the movie is a thriller with all the usual trappings, but at least it’s aimed at adults and stars grown-ups, and that’s worth supporting.

Dreamcatcher. Stinky! If you’re a Stephen King purist you’ll probably want to see what writer-director Lawrence Kasdan hath wrought on the book, but as a movie it’s unbearable. The monsters are okay, the dialogue quite bad, a bunch of decent actors are stuck in a mess of a plot that goes from promising to poo poo, and thank goodness the whole thing doesn’t last any more than 135 or so minutes. Even Morgan Freeman, who can usually emerge from a film with his self-respect intact, is laughable here, and I don’t think it’s intentional. This is a rental or watch-on-pay for sure. If you’re a real Matrix fan – or a thirteen-year-old boy – you’ll enjoy the Animatrix short which is playing in front of Dreamcatcher. Just the amazing Matrix music is enough to get you excited for the sequel, and you’ll get a smile out of the ridiculous fighting sequence at the beginning where the participants get stripped down to their skivvies.

What I’m Looking Forward To:

The Core. Of course it looks goofy, but I’ve got a thing for end-of-the-world scenarios and this one looks like a doozy. A subterranean, earthquake-makin’ super-weapon goes awry, and the Earth’s chewy, gooey center is about to seize up. Goodbye Gaea, hello hotshot scientific rescue team. Even in the mouths of trustworthy actors like Hilary Swank, Stanley Tucci (who sounds in the trailer like a dandified Dr. Strangelove), Delroy Lindo, and Alfre Woodard, the dialogue (if the preview is any indication) promises to be excruciatingly awful. It looks like they’ve also thrown in a computer geek who will work for “Star Trek and Hot Pockets,” and any movie that will still try to breathe life into a nerd character sounds like a charming (or maybe just clueless) throwback. Hey, they’ve got a cool website, too. Embrace your inner gamer and go see this one before it disappears down, down, down into its own ring of fire.

 
Dude, I’m Getting a Hatchet!

I think it’s time for a teeny rant about commercials. I’m definitely not in the camp that vigorously repeats, “The best thing on TV are the commercials!” or some other insane mantra. If the television you’re watching is so bad that the ads look good, read a book. Actually sitting through a commercial should be viewed with the same unpleasant resignation that Victorian brides in Britain approached the sex act – lie back and think of England. You’re not going to like it and hopefully it might not actually ever happen, but if caught in the horrible situation, for god’s sake don’t enjoy it. And don’t tell me that all the true talents are making commercials. If so, just wait a few months and they’ll probably be making episodic television or movies, so support them then, if you must.

Speaking of ads, do you recall when AOL/TW television honcho Jamie Kellner spouted off about ads on TV a while back? His view was that in tuning into commercial television we had more-or-less a moral contract to watch the ads; viewing them was our payment for enjoying such entertainment riches. From a man who probably hadn’t watched anything except on a screening tape for years, that was pretty condescending stuff. I can barely stop myself from scratching my own eyes out at a movie theater when those horrible big-screen ads come on, and if there were a way to change the channel there, I’d be on it. And if you’re at home? Run for your life!

What about the whole notion of embedding ad messages into programming? It makes sense in a world where there are so many choices that any savvy viewer has his finger ready on the remote – or on the forward button on his recording device of choice – to avoid commercials, but it always sounds so incredibly lame and ham-handed when anybody describes the particulars. Viewers can smell a hard – or soft – sell a mile away, and there’s definitely a point where the convenience of watching a program on TV isn’t worth the pain of sitting through a pitch for whatever new crap needs to get off the shelf. During hyped-up event programming the tolerance level is higher, but during movies, where anybody who really cares about them can run to the street corner and rent an unedited, uninterrupted version thereof, only the desperate and unmotivated need stick around. Maybe that’s really the best audience for a commercial, so I suppose it’s brilliant, after all. Congratulations.

But at the risk of admitting that I do occasionally run headlong into ads and end up viewing them through my fingers (much as little kids used to watch the scary parts in werewolf movies), I need to call out an ad campaign that has been making me nauseous for a while now. Can we all agree that those Dell interns are horrifying little monsters? They’re clueless, condescending, and clubby; it’s hard to imagine how watching their privileged antics could positively affect anybody’s opinion of Dell. Uniformly devoid of charm or any trace of self-knowledge (except when they josh each other if one of them exhibits such obnoxious stupidity that even they notice it), these kids are the epitome of what a lot of us think is wrong with corporate America. I keep waiting for this commercial: the kind and knowledgeable lady who takes the phone orders and bailed the idiot kid out when his Dad needed computer help, and the guy who assembles the machines and patiently answered the interns’ patronizing questions, and the late-night tech staff who had the lights turned out on them (hilariously, I guess to somebody, the interns don’t even apologize for it), lie in wait in some dark corner and pummel the self-satisfied bunch to a pulp, or maybe they could poison their lattes. Whatever…just shut ‘em up.

The whole campaign is an arrogant and snobbish mess, and of course runs incessantly all over cable. If you only watch broadcast TV you probably haven’t gotten sick to death of them yet, but trust me, you will. To know them is to abhor them. Though Steven, the Dell Dude, wasn’t everybody’s favorite – witness the gleeful backlash against him when he was busted for pot back in February – his cheesy but infectious enthusiasm was at the very least optimistic, and harkened back to the time when computers were really fun and getting a new one was a cause for rejoicing. I’d feel like I was high-fiving all of corporate America if I bought into Dell’s current message, which is supposed to be about the behind-the-scenes quality behind their computers. According to an article in USA Today, only 11% of consumers familiar with the spots “like them a lot,” and yet a Dell spokesman opines it's because people haven’t been able to make a connection with the interns.

No, we’ve made a connection, all right…and we just plain hate the little bastards.

 
It’s Hysterical, It’s Historical


I’m all over The History Channel tonight; they’ve got four straight hours of terrific TV, starting at 8pm with two episodes of one of my favorite series, Mail Call with R. Lee Ermey. Check out my March 10th entry for more info, but suffice to say here that especially with what’s happening overseas with our fighting men and women, you’ll be heartened when you watch this entertaining and enlightening show. And if one episode is great, two of them is wonderful! The energy of this series doesn’t let down for one second, and how they cram so much info, action, wit, and bravado into one show is a real triumph. Highly recommended!

Following Mail Call tonight, at 9pm, is the premiere of the documentary The True Story of Killing Pablo, based on author Mark Bowden’s fascinating book Killing Pablo: The Hunt for the World's Greatest Outlaw. Bowden, who also did such a great job bringing the doomed 1993 Mogadishu operation to life in his Black Hawk Down (which of course became a movie), acts as anchor for this two-hour look at the brutal and compelling career of Colombian drug czar Pablo Escobar. What promise to make this program particularly intriguing are Bowden’s revelations not only about the depths of Escobar’s depravity, but the involvement of U.S. forces in his eventual assassination. Even if you’ve never given a moment’s thought to the drug trade or to the squalid morals of this South American master criminal, trust me, this is a fascinating story and kudos to The History Channel once again for going to the right source to tell this dramatic tale. Bowden’s an informed storyteller, and there’s nothing more compelling than that.

And if that wasn’t enough Escobar for the night, History follows up the new doc with an episode of their excellent Organized Crime: A World History series all about the Colombian drug trade. You’re gonna know more about the Medellin cartel than your own mother after three hours of this stuff, and you’re gonna love knowing it, too.

Mail Call airs tonight on The History Channel from 8pm – 9pm (two episodes).
The True Story of Killing Pablo airs on THC from 9pm – 11pm.
Organized Crime: A World History airs on THC from 11pm – 12m.
The whole block repeats immediately following from midnight on.

 
The Morning After

I couldn't stay with the Awards; I actually tuned out after Zeta-Jones won, but looking at the results obviously Chicago went the distance. The somewhat surprise win for Adrien Brody was fine, though I was rooting for Daniel Day-Lewis; it's always nice when someone new (to large-scale recognition, anyway) and talented makes their mark.

Biggest disappointment: Gangs of New York being skipped over completely, even for its impeccable technical achievements. It didn't deserve that.

 
A few more choices as we're approach a half-hour before the show --

Best Documentary Feature: My Choice: Bowling for Columbine.

BfC because I’ve seen it and liked it. I have a feeling the one about the Spelling Bee may win because it’s about kids….

Best Documentary Short Subject: My Choice: Twin Towers

Though the Academy is fairly West Coast-oriented, there’s no way anybody wants to forget 9/11.

Achievement in Film Editing: My Choice: Gangs of New York

I have a bad feeling Chicago might take this, and goodness knows there was plenty of editing in the movie, what with all the cutting away during the musical numbers. Whether that was art or camouflage, not even Oscar will tell. The other nominees are all fine work and would be worthy winners: The Hours, Lord of the Rings:TTT, The Pianist.

Foreign Language Film: My Choice: El Crimen Del Padre Amaro

Achievement in Makeup: My Choice: Frida

Mono-brows and body-casts were amazing here.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score): My Choice: Elmer Bernstein for Far From Heaven.

Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song): My Choice: Anything but the nominated song from Chicago.

Achievement in Sound: My Choice: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Let’s throw something to this lush production where all the technical achievements were superb, and could easily be argued the best of the lot.

Achievement in Sound Editing: My Choice: Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Same reason as above.

Achievement in Visual Effects: My Choice: Star Wars Episode II Attack of the Clones

The dialogue in this movie stunk, but the effects were so good that you almost didn’t notice…almost.

Adapted Screenplay: My Choice: The Hours

I have not read the novel, but many respected sources have marveled at the skillful adaptation of a book some considered unfilmable. The Pianist would be a terrific choice also, and there was nothing more imaginative than what the Brother(s) Kaufman did with Adaptation.

Original Screenplay: My Choice: Y Tu Mama Tambien

I haven’t seen Talk to Her yet, and would consider it the closest runner-up. Although I love Gangs, it may have been the screenplay’s fault that the movie didn’t hang together all the way, keeping it from reaching perfection, but you’ve got to especially appreciate the great lines they gave to Daniel Day-Lewis. Far From Heaven played better than it read on paper, I’m sure. And please…don’t give an Oscar to that two-hour sitcom, even if it’s a Cinderella story in real life (yech). Y Tu Mama Tambien was one of the most amazing movies last year, and if you haven’t seen it yet check out the DVD, even if it doesn’t win the Oscar.

Achievement in Direction: My Choice: Martin Scorcese for Gangs of New York

Not a bad group this year, with Stephen Daldry’s sensitive work for The Hours, Polanski’s relentless vision in The Pianist, and Almodovar’s imaginative Talk To Her fighting against each other. I’m going to Scorcese and his massive undertaking in Gangs of New York; even it perhaps wasn’t everything it might have been, it was still spectacular and a peek into a world long past. Need I say that I hope that Chicago doesn’t triumph here?

Best Motion Picture of the Year: My Choice: Gangs of New York

I fear Chicago is going to take this…because of some weird nostalgic craving for banal musicals, I guess. That’s the only way I can wrap my head around it. But I’m standing by Gangs of New York, though both The Pianist and The Hours would be lovely winners, too. Lord of the Rings: TTT doesn’t seem like a logical choice for this year.

I'm sure I'm going to be disappointed with the wins for Chicago over more interesting films. It feels like nostalgia might win out over something more precise and exacting. We'll see....

 
Some Last Minute Award Picks

With the Awards still on as scheduled tonight, let me get a few more of my choices up:

Animated Feature Film: My Choice: Spirited Away

Ice Age and Lilo & Stitch don’t need Oscar wins to keep raking in the dough, nor does Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron, so give it to something amazing and different like Spirited Away. Poor Treasure Planet cost so much and made so little, but even a fiscally-oriented pity vote shouldn’t win in this case.

Achievement in Art Direction: My Choice: Gangs of New York

While everything didn’t quite come together in this film, Gangs was breathtakingly rich in visual detail and vivid mid-18th century America splendor and squalor. If you like bright lights and razzmatazz, Chicago is the choice, but I’d never pick it over the incredible achievement that was Gangs. Frida’s look was even more impressive, especially in some of the great montage sequences. Lord of the Rings:TTT was dreamy and fantastical, without a doubt stunning and imaginative in its particular genre. Road to Perdition’s look was somber and appropriate, but I still think Gangs, in terms of recreating a whole era with “you are there” visual impact, takes the prize.

Achievement in Cinematography: My Choice: Road to Perdition

The last work of Conrad Hall, Road to Perdition is a great achievement and also a sentimental but deserving choice here. Those of us who followed his career since spooking out to his work on TV’s The Outer Limits would love to have his final and very fine work here honored. My second choice would be Far From Heaven, an homage to ‘50s visual style which managed to capture it faithfully, accurately, and with all the emotional verve intact. Gangs was a feast for the eyes, The Pianist a somber vision of horrific times – either of these would be a worth winner also. The only movie I’d really be disappointed if it got the award would be Chicago. Although a lot of the hoopla about this movie is precisely because of the terrific technical work which hides a fairly hollow core, it doesn’t win out over the other choices here. Though a Road to Perdition win might be primarily seen as a gesture of respect for the late Mr. Hall, it wouldn't be the first time that the judging criteria was skewed in slight favor of emotion, and rightly so.

Costume Design: My Choice: Gangs of New York

I’ve got to go with Gangs’ rags to riches costume closet; all of life’s rich pageant, at least sartorially, was vividly brought to life in perfect 1860s detail. The colorful Latin costumes of Frida were gorgeous and something not often represented onscreen; The Hours evocation of three different eras was precise and added much to your understanding of the three women; The Pianist captured the descent from well-dressed culture to on-the-run desperation and cruelty – all of these movies have much to recommend in terms of costuming and none would be a bad choice. The only thing that I would hate to see get it is Chicago; this movie is nothing if not genuinely synthetic; if anything in it were original, that might be worth an award, but I didn’t see it.

A few more still to go...coming soon!