Sunday, September 24, 2006

TV Review: CSI: Crime Scene Investigation (Original)

Genre: Drama
Channel: CBS
Season: 7

The Premise: Crime Scene Investigation. Heck, if you don’t know what CSI is by now, you’ve been living in a cave, under a rock, encased in 12 yards of bubble wrap.

WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS

This season opener pissed me off to no end. Over the years I’ve put up with William Petersen shaving his beard, with George Eads messing with his hair and making himself less pretty, and with the characters generally doing dumb things in their personal lives, but this one takes the cake.

There must be some unwritten rule in Hollywood that if a show is on over 6 years a principle character must be raped. WTF? Seriously, I know the rape statistics, but is the only way to avoid them in any outlet in the world to stop watching a show after season 6? Is that the rule?

And if that isn’t bad enough, the woman is a CSI, and she violates all the rules of collecting evidence, so nothing she gathers is admissible in court, which means that she, an officer of the law, thinks that the law is of no use to her in resolving this. She’s going vigilante.

So, we’re supposed to believe that this ex-exotic dancer, street-wise, and now law-enforcement savvy tough intelligent woman falls prey to a date-rape drugged drink. That it takes only 2 sips, and then the next thing you know she wakes up naked in a hotel room.

Even if I buy all of that, I am supposed to buy that her humiliation trumps her common sense and her desire for justice? I am supposed to buy that all her years as a CSI, counseling rape victims on the importance of gathering evidence and facing their accusers, is now going to perform her own rape kit with a tampon?

And if the character hypocrisy isn’t bad enough, I’m sickened at the thought of how many women watched that, and if god forbid they are raped, they will walk into a police department with a tampon, nail scrapings, and the stuff the combed out of their pubes and say, “I was raped and here is the proof”. No, you’ve just erased the proof. This is not admisibile in court.

How the hell did this episode get written and shot? I mean, did they send all the real-world CSI consultants and all the female writers out of town for a week and then not let them see this till it aired? Because seriously, if I was a writer on this show, and someone told me we were going to totally violate the CSI cannon – the CSI evidence gathering rules (not to mention an actual CSI tech) there’s no way I’d play along.

Not only is this the worst CSI episode ever – it may be the one that turns me off for good.

AV Rating: 0/5 Stars. Shame on you, CBS.

Thursday, September 21, 2006

TV Reivew: Smith


Genre: Drama

Channel: CBS

Season: 1

The Premise: Normal, traveling cup salesman, family guy is actually a master criminal.

Why this should be good: Other than a few liberties, this is based on a true story. There really was a guy, living in suburbia, who seemed to have it all. His neighbors loved him. Women envied his wife for having such a great husband, men envied him for being the perfect husband, dad, scout leader, etc.

Also: Virginia Madsen. I think I have had a girl-crush on her since I saw her in The Creator in 1985 opposite Peter O'Toole, Mariel Hemingway, and Vincent Spano. Is it the hair? The voice? I don't know, but I've always thought she's had the 'it' factor. So why is she regulated to a minor boring existence in the pilot? The real wife actually knew what her husband was doing, does Virginia Madsen know what Ray Liotta is really doing on his business trips, or does she think he is having an affair?

What's not working: It's slow. I've never been more disappointed that they skimped on commercials. Seriously. I needed more breaks. Also, Ray Liotta will never be a guy other guys want to be and women wish they married. When was the last time anyone every looked at Liotta and said, he's such a nice guy? Hell, his nicest role was Field of Dreams, and he basically said next to nothing and he still seemed like he'd kick your ass half the time.

And, this amazing crew still had a lot of things go wrong. Is that the suspense? That these guys are going to screw up periodically, so it's not a question of will they screw up, but when will they screw up, and how serious will the screw up be?

I swore I'd give it a second episode. So, here's the deal, I'm rating this now, and after I see the second episode, I'll come back and tell you if my opinion has changed.

AV Rating: 1.5/5 Stars. Skip it.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

TV Review: Vanished

Genre: Drama
Channel: FOX
Season: 1

The Premise: The wife of a Georgia senator is kidnapped. Wackiness ensues.

I've watched 4 episodes of this new show now, and believe me when I tell you: if you haven't caught "Vanished" fever, then brother... you're probably someone with good taste.

From FOX:

"Sara Collins, the beautiful young wife of prominent Georgia Senator Jeffrey Collins, has inexplicably vanished.

As the search for Sara unravels one of the nation’s most prominent families, it also exposes evidence that could rock the foundations of American society. In VANISHED, nothing is as it seems. Everyone is a suspect. Everyone has a secret. And no one is safe."


OK, at what point did this conversation occur?

FOX EXEC #1: You know, there's another kidnapping show coming out this year too.

FOX EXEC #2: Blast! We've got to do something to separate ourselves in the mind of the viewer!

FOX EXEC #1: I know! Instead of just being about the kidnapping, we'll also rock the foundations of American society!

FOX EXEC #2: Brilliant! Plus, we'll have a completely charmless lead... it's great counterprogramming to that Timothy Hutton and Jeremy Sisto!

FOX EXEC #1: It'll be the breakout show of the season! That'll teach Fox not to fire us from 24!

ALL: BWA HAH HAH HAH HAH!

No seriously. That's what had to have happened here.

The good:

1) Ming-Na? Hawwwwwwwt. I have a serious crush on that girl. Too bad she's reduced to playing Captain Exposition.

2) The show is set in Atlanta. Having been born and raised there, it's nice to see a drama not set in New York, Chicago, L.A. or a deserted island.

The bad:

Virtually everything else. The show screams low budget 24 knockoff, from the repeated use of extras in different roles, re-use of sets, to the bargain-bin actors populating the series. The Georgia senator, in fact, is played by the same dude who was the bad guy in last season's 24 for the first six episodes.

Additionally, the show is buried in cliches. The FBI kidnapping specialist who's recovering from a case gone horribly wrong? Check. Annoying TV reporter who walks a fine line between covering the news and obstructing justice? Check. Powerful white guys in suits with an agenda? Check. And because it will "rock the foundations of American society", it's a sure bet that either the Freemasons or the Knights Templar will be involved at some point.

Look, 24 has its silly comic-book-y moments and plots you don't want to think too hard about, but it moves quickly enough and the actors sell it well enough that it ends up being a fun ride. Vanished seems like a bunch of outtakes from that show strung together without any semblance of direction.

Additionally, with the exception of Ming-Na, who as I've mentioned I have a personal bias towards, the entire cast displays the charisma and acting chops of a tractor.

I'll be switching over to Kidnapped tonight, and hopefully that'll go better.

A/V Rating: 1/5. Move along, nothing to see here.

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

TV Review: Studio 60



Genre: Drama
Channel: NBC
Season: 1


The Premise: Two star writers come to save a SNL-type show -- as seen from the backstage.

From NBC:

In the new drama series, Sorkin lays bare the backstage politics, romances and delicate balance between creative talent, on-air personalities and network executives in an instant text-messaging world. Prominent are Jordan McDeere (Amanda Peet, "Syriana"), a savvy new network entertainment chief who inherits a massive public relations disaster on the series -- even before she starts her first day -- and Matt Albie (Matthew Perry, "Friends") and Danny Tripp (Bradley Whitford, "The West Wing"), a brilliant creative team that she wants to resurrect the program.


The good:

  • The cast - Bradley Whitford, Matthew Perry, Amanda Peet, Steven Weber, Timothy Busfield, D.L. Hughley, Sarah Paulson, Hathan Corddry
  • The writing - Aaron Sorkin is back, baby

The bad:
The music is too much in the foreground - seriously - that's it.

I suspect that this show will follow the West Wing phenomenon - as long as Sorkin is involved, it'll be fantastic, and I'll keep watching. Once he leaves, it'll be a shell of it's former self.

So, keep Sorkin, and you'll keep me.

AV Rating: 5/5 Stars

Friday, September 15, 2006

Underrated Badass of Cinema: LL Cool J

Here’s why LL Cool J is the undisputed biggest badass of scary movies:

LL Cool J is the only black man that EVER survives a scary movie. EVER. And he survives EVERY SINGLE TIME.

Titanium eating, genetically enhanced, super pissed off sharks can’t stop him.

Serial killers pretending to be FBI profilers can’t stop him.

It can’t be done. No man, no beast, no creature great or small will ever kill LL Cool J in a scary movie.

And only LL can deliver such pearls as these and have us still coming back for more:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. For thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. Because I carry a big stick and I'm the meanest mother fucker in the valley! Two sharks down, Lord! One demon fish to go! Can I get an Amen?
Know this: a bunch of fools are going in, and only LL Cool J and some whiny white chick are coming out.

Underrated Badass of Cinema: LL Cool J -- can I get an AMEN?

Leaving a Bad Flavor

A few weeks ago, I professed my love for VH1's "Flavor of Love." It's junk food TV, meaning that it has no redeeming value and is more than likely bad for me, yet I find myself enjoying it on a regular basis.

At least that was the case. I think I've finally found the strength to turn this shit off.

No longer do I debate whether this is the greatest or the worst show in history. It's pretty clear the latter is the case. Allow me to share the highlights of the season thus far (with screencaps provided by Dlisted):

I already discussed the first episode, where Flav brought a whole new group of strippers and wannabe video dancers into a mansion we're supposed to believe is his, in my inital post. Granted, this batch of girls wasn't as classy as the last, but that's because Flav picked them out himself to weed out the gold diggers.Kla-SSEEEEE!

So I covered all that, but now that I have pictures, I'll share so you can see the crazy ghetto bitch who is "not from Compton," but rather lives on Crenshaw, who beat the living piss out of another girl because there weren't enough beds to go around. She then prayed to God for the strength not to "beat dis bitch ass."The moment everyone talked about, though, was when Somethin took a crap on the carpet because--she claims--producers wouldn't let her go to the bathroom before the elimination ceremony and she couldn't hold it.In the weeks that followed, the girls had to clean up Warren G.'s house after a "big party." The party undoubtedly involved a bunch of VH1 production assistants dumping garbage all over a mansion, making a huge mess, and doubting that the average "Flavor of Love" viewer will have the intelligence to ask, "Who the hell throws an entire serving bowl of spaghetti and meat sauce against a bathroom mirror?"Incidentally, this challenge was won by Nibblz based on her willingness to clean a toilet overflowing with diarrhea.

There was also a dance off in which some of the girls were taught to "krump." For the record, one of the people in this picture used to be a spokesperson for former California governor Gray Davis. Care to hazard a guess?I'll give you a clue, he's not wearing a tank top and he's not wearing a clock around his neck. And Gray Davis wonders why the electorate recalled him.

Instead of judging them based on their ability to learn new things, their coordination, or their teamwork, Flavor just gives the prize to the team with the girl who dry humps him.Sadly, one running theme on the show seems to be the breakdown of friendships. Girls who have known each other for all of six days have found they can completely and wholeheartedly trust someone only to have it blow up in their faces. It happened to Nibblz and Toastee, who had been tag teaming Flav in his bed less than 24 hours earlier, when the latter accused the former of "bleeping" off Flav, giving him a "bleep" job. It's unclear whether the bleeps are "suck" and "blow" or "jerk" and "hand." Toastee tells the other girls she "heard noises," so Nibblz retaliates by telling everyone Toastee admitted to being a pornstar who uses the name Natalia.

Natalia--er, Toastee flat out denies she has a past in porn. Flav calls her on her lie, showing a naked picture of her that gets completely blurred out.(Boy, if you're at work, I sure hope you didn't click any of those above links.)

(Oh, and for the record, Toastee still denies she did "porn" as nude modeling and porn are different. If there had been another girl or a guy, she says, that would have been porn.)

Even stupider, Nibblz makes her living by chatting with guys and taking off her clothes on a webcam. Flavor acknowledged the difference by saying the decision wasn't because Toastee was a pornstar, but because she wasn't honest with him about it like Nibblz. Then dismissed her by saying, "I ain't tryin' ta get wit no pornstar. Yer time is up!"

Oh, and two episodes later Nibblz was cut because Flavor has kids and he can't be with someone who takes off her clothes on the internet... like
last season's winner, Hoopz?

Outside of that, my favorite completely stupid moment built out of an episode in which Flavor invited over a bunch of his friends--meaning has-been or mid-level rappers--so they could assess the girls and tell him their opinions. The majority of the show focused on the girls shaking their asses in the faces of the rappers......which prompted this guy from Ying (sic) Yang Twins to say, "Booty booty booty booty wazahea nazahea!" about eight hundred times, apparently because those are lyrics to one of his songs...... giving the rappers' bodyguards lapdances...... and admitting they didn't really know much about who Flavor Flav was before they came on the show but that they are completely in love and want to marry him and have his babies now.

The upshot was all the girls are sluts, except Crazy, who is a big phony who couldn't name one Flav or Public Enemy song, and Like Dat, who everyone agrees is really cool and the kind of girl you'd really like to hang out with.

So in the end, who gets cut? The fat girl.Much like the "dance" contest that went to the girl willing to act like the biggest slut, the "who do my friends like best" contest was lost by the girl they liked best, making the previous 55 minutes of television a complete waste of time (versus a partial waste as it usually is).

The final straw, however, was the return of New York, the bad actress bitch from the first season who makes Omarosa look completely charming and sane. She's supposedly back and still in love with Flav. This leads her to assault the other contestants...... and run away and cry when she's told not to hit people for no reason (other than that the producers told her to).

Ultimately, Flav decides maybe he's in love with New York (despite the episode one demand of "no more gold diggers!") after all, and reinserts her into the contest, raising the question of why he didn't just start dating her after things didn't work out with Hoopz after last season.

New York isn't amusing, she's irritating. I can't watch this show and listen to her scripted interviews calling everyone else sluts and talking about how great she is. ("I do not apologize because I do not make mistakes"? She's the pope now?)

Final screencap highlight that didn't fit in anywhere else: Someone wore this outfit and thought it looked good:

Thursday, September 14, 2006

None Of Us Are Dead (That We Know Of)

We here at AV would like to extend a heartfelt apology to all four of our dedicated readers. We have slacked, for one reason or another, which has led to a distinct lack of content.

Underrated Badasses Of Cinema Week has been postponed until further notice.

Ahem.

That said, be prepared for next week, when AV again comes alive with opinions you could comfortably live the rest of your lives without ever hearing, but we're right so you're going to listen to us anyway.

Thx,
Management