Too Much of a Beautiful Thing


I’m all for people feeling good about themselves, but after perusing ABC’s website for their Extreme Makeover series, I don’t feel so good anymore. Their gallery of before-and-after shots, with everybody -- no matter if they merely looked tired before, or unhappy, perhaps – transformed into game show hosts or spokesmodels, is frankly depressing. A lot of us will swear to the restorative powers of getting your hair highlighted, but when you read the litany of things these people had changed – ears pinned, breast implants, nose jobs – and realize that we’re supposed to cheer at their transformations into “beautiful” people, somebody needs to get out the old pillow with “Beauty is Only Skin Deep” embroidered on it and study it, but good.

Certainly it’s gratifying that folks with real facial problems can now be helped by masterful surgical techniques, and if you watch TLC or Discovery you’re probably familiar with some of their great documentary specials on the subject. What’s not appealing is the notion that any of these people have been made to feel less than whole by looking average, i.e. not like somebody in an advertisement. It’s simply not good, this emphasis on physical perfection, and what it says about how we’re judging merit and worth is not good, either.

Oh well. If your fantasy is to look like somebody selling toothpaste, then go for it. And this also applies to the – and I’m only using this currently overused adjective because I hate it so much – wildly (ugh!) popular Queer Eye. NBC, seeing decent numbers for their plays of the show, and continued good numbers for Bravo, is running a whole episode tonight at 10pm, in place of the rerun-challenged ER. Why is everybody on TV so dissatisfied with themselves? Why do we care? Are we supposed to be inspired by their changes, or sink further into vacuity because we know it will never happen to us? Do we really want to walk around looking like NY fashion plates? Do you like your friends less because they don’t look like they walked out of a magazine?

I find the whole makeover thing wearying and disheartening. I don’t care if you’re fixing your face, your wardrobe, your front lawn, or your family room – and please don’t make a competition out of it, that’s even more revolting. As you can tell, Reality TV isn’t my favorite genre, but I still would like to recommend the most zen and delightfully dull show around, House Hunters on HGTV, which has two episodes back-to-back tonight at 10pm. HH is starting to get promoted, and believe me, there’s more action in the promo than in a week’s worth of episodes.

Extreme Makeover is on ABC tonight at 9pm, if you must watch. Check out their website for more info and hopefully you’ll come away happier than I did.


And you can learn everything about House Hunters with a visit here.


Born in a Trunk

Tonight’s your chance to catch one of the most amazing movies ever made about Hollywood, about marriage, about women, about stardom, about happy beginnings that have an inevitable sad ending, and I’m talking about A Star is Born from 1954. I know musicals aren’t everybody’s thing, but take heart, the numbers here are of the realistic variety and don’t come out of left field. Judy Garland stars, and it’s a performance that will make anybody a Friend of Judy, even if only for three hours. Maybe I’m partial to it because it came out the year I was born – 1954 – or because it’s got a lot of terrific Southern California footage that really captures that amazing landscape in that most amazing of decades. The movie is just plain good; it’s haunting, optimistic, melancholy, bittersweet, witty, and everything in between, with Garland simply amazing – not a single clichéd moment in her whole performance – and James Mason also particularly wonderful as the jaded but utterly perceptive and ultimately doomed rogue who falls in love with her.

If you’ve never watched the movie, absolutely catch it. If you’ve watched it before, watch it again, because it’s that good. Sometimes classic movies get put up on such a high pedestal that it’s not possible to recapture the magic moviegoers must have felt when seeing it for the first time. With this film, particularly, that magic infuses every moment and is as palpable today as almost fifty years ago. As a movie, it’s incomparable; as a career highlight for an extraordinary performer, it’s unbeatable.

A Star is Born airs tonight at 10pm on Turner Classic Movies.


Here’s a great write-up on the movie from the Judy Garland Database.

And here’s a wonderful thing, a written walkthrough of the movie. If you play computer or videogames, you’re familiar with the concept of a walkthrough. It’s exactly that, basically everything that goes on, step by step, really detailed. This one for A Star is Born doesn’t substitute for watching the movie, but it’s fun to relive the movie this way.


Red Water on High, TBS Says Bye-Bye

Hey, in case you thought that TV worked on the “if it works, let’s do it again” principle, you haven’t heard about TBS’ decision to eliminate their production of made-for-TV movies. Yes, they were crap, but sometimes entertaining crap that obviously appealed to a lot of viewers; their most recent TVM Red Water (airing again tonight at 8pm) landed at the top of the Cable ratings last week. But it looks like TBS is in for a rebranding, don’t ya know, and will be concentrating on light entertainment and reality. How much lighter can you get than nonsensical movies about killer tornadoes and giant bayou sharks? And reality? Believe it or not, this too shall pass, kids, and then what have you got? TBS has one more original on the shelf, a National Lampoon Christmas movie, and that one sounds like a winner, too.

I’ve never understood how a network can throw away ratings, even if they don’t fit into some marketer’s wet dream of a branding statement. Let’s remember that viewers come for the shows, not for the cutesy little tagline that you pepper all over your spots. As I’ve said before, TNT, for instance, is frequently on top these days not because they KNOW drama, but because they AIR Law & Order – again and again and again and again….



Sneak Preview of HBO’s Carnivale

This is the show I’m most excited about this fall, and maybe you might be too after you watch the short preview at 10:45pm tonight all about HBO’s newest drama series. More about this exciting and decidedly different show later, but for a nice taste of what’s in store, watch this and check out their neat website.

 
The Smell of One Gun Smoking

While everything's fair in love and the war for ratings, it's a little bit of a shame that Court TV has gone so strikingly off-brand with their new Smoking Gun TV series. I'm a firm believer in "people watch shows, not networks (or brands)," but sticking this sometimes funny, sometimes belabored half-hour into the midst of their otherwise sensible, serious and unfailingly intelligent line-up is an unfortunate example of program slumming at its most misguided.

Watching Catherine Crier make nice with Mo Rocca (host) and Danny Greene (The Smoking Gun website founder) on her afternoon show was a waste of airtime. If you ever catch her Catherine Crier Live you know it’s a fascinating hour, all the more so because of the sense of intelligence that permeates every moment. Neither Rocca or Greene are idiots, but they’re out of their element on Court TV, at least the Court TV that fans of the channel love. It’s probably the smartest network out there next to CSPAN, and while wit and wisdom are felicitous bedfellows in many venues, the last thing that Court TV is missing, programming-wise, is a smart-ass comedy show.

Yes, we all know that Court TV owns The Smoking Gun website; it’s a fun site and has been for a long time. Perhaps even a show fashioned from its crazy revelations and incriminating celeb mugshots (and I’m always for deflating celebrities) is a good idea – somewhere, maybe, but it seems a huge misstep for Court TV to cram it into their own schedule. It’s creepy and jarring to see Mo Rocca’s deadpan faux reporter only a few seconds before segueing into a show about a father accused of murdering his six-year-old daughter. The latter is an example of the unvarnished reality that has made Court TV such a destination; the former makes you think you stopped on Comedy Central by mistake. Comedy would be a great home for Smoking Gun TV – after all, The Daily Show is where Rocca made a name for himself as a sham expert. If The Daily Show often seems too smart for Comedy Central, so Smoking Gun TV seems too crass for Court.

Will it destroy the credibility of one of the most credible networks around? I doubt it. One half-hour can’t do much damage, but when the terrific Dominic Dunne’s Power, Privilege and Justice is waiting to go on, or the grim Forensic Files, or the always interesting The System, well…watching Mo Rocca do a schnockered Nick Nolte makeover segment really strains the patience.

Hey, this is on Court TV, after all. Judge for yourself. Smoking Gun TV encores several times this week, tonight Wednesday at 12am and 12:30a, this Friday 8/22 at 11p and 11:30p, and Sunday 8/24 at 10p and 10:30pm. Yes, it’s the same episode.

Check out the show website for more information.

And of course if you crave the real thing visit The Smoking Gun original website.

 
A Wee Bit of Crime Solving with Inspector Rebus

Mystery and crime aficionados will enjoy BBC America’s presentation of four adaptations of Ian Rankin’s book series featuring Edinburgh detective police inspector John Rebus. Dubbed “Tartan Noir” by a legion of devoted readers, Rebus promises a gritty look at a Scotland far removed from the misty highlands of Brigadoon. What makes these mysteries especially appealing is the presence of interesting actor John Hannah as Rebus. You might know him from Four Weddings and a Funeral, or more recently as Rachel Weisz’ charming brother in the two The Mummy movies, or perhaps you caught him (albeit briefly) in his starring role on last season’s ABC-TV series MDs.

He’s the real MacCoy, for sure, born and raised in Scotland, and is the perfect choice to bring Rankin’s complex character to life. Four Rebus 2-hour TV movies -- each based on a different novel -- were filmed in the UK during 2000 and 2001, and BBC America will present them on successive Monday nights, with repeats on Saturdays. In a good example of what makes Brit actors so different from those over here, these TV movies were produced after Hannah had achieved his big screen success in The Mummy. Evidently the challenge of bringing Rankin’s enigmatic (remember what a rebus is, after all), troubled and multi-dimensional hero to life was irresistible to Hannah, and how fortunate that is for us. Hannah’s natural and empathetic style makes Rebus’ tackling of his own personal problems even more poignant, and this is one show where the emphasis is definitely on the deep, dark and disturbing side of catching the bad guys.

Rebus is a terrific companion piece to Red Cap which airs before it, both series showcasing the kind of smart, stylish and mature action drama that they’re making over in the UK. Waking the Dead, Murder in Mind and Jonathan Creek, three other superb mystery series, are also airing on BBCA, and highly recommended. Murder in Mind, an anthology of self-contained one-hour tales, Waking the Dead, a forensics-set hour, and Jonathan Creek, a wry and delightful he-said-she-said battle of wits between crime solvers, make BBC America’s mystery quintet a don’t miss proposition. It would be a real crime.

Check out the Rebus website from BBC America for complete show and schedule info. Viewing tip: If you find the thick Scottish accents to be a problem, watch the show with the closed captioning on. It's not cheating....

And don't forget about Waking the Dead, Jonathan Creek, and Murder in Mind. Be sure to check the show times area for upcoming airdates, as some of these only run during the day. Tape them!

For more information on Ian Rankin's series of Rebus books, check out Amazon.com.

And for more info about a side of John Hannah you may not know about, visit this interesting website.