Category: Television

Development Arrested.

Bad news for the Bluths: Despite its critical acclaim and multiple Emmy wins, Fox has cut Season 3 of Arrested Development from 22 to 13 episodes. I caught up with the show recently on DVD, and it’s definitely the funniest thing on TV this side of Curb Your Enthusiasm. That being said, it doesn’t exactly reward casual viewing, so I can see why it’s having trouble at its current slot. Well, maybe it’ll find a more suitable home on one of the cable networks.

From CPB to APB?

A day after a report by the Inspector General on his tenure (and his questionable use of agency money), Kenneth Tomlinson, he of the axe to grind with Bill Moyers, resigns as chairman of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. “Jeffrey Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, an advocacy group, said: ‘It was time that Mr. Tomlinson stepped down. He has engaged in unethical, if not illegal, behavior.’” But don’t jump for joy just yet, Buster: Even with Tomlinson gone, conservatives still rule the roost at CPB.

Let the Gravitas Begin.


“No, this program is dedicated to you, the heroes!…And who are the heroes? The people who watch this show — average, hardworking Americans. You’re not the elites, you’re not the country club crowd. I know for a fact that my country club would never let you in. But you get it! And you come from a long line of it-getters!” Reviews come in grippy for the first installment of The Colbert Report, Comedy Central’s answer to The O’Reilly Factor. His opening monologue (at the official site) is well-worth watching.

Exhuming McCarthy.


While perhaps a bit too black-and-white in terms of the history, George Clooney’s Good Night, and Good Luck is nevertheless a somber and captivating paean to Edward R. Murrow, his televised expose of Joe McCarthy, and, by extension, the Pioneer Days of Television Journalism. (In this last regard, it’s somewhat reminiscent of the excellent Clooney-produced live TV version of Fail Safe a few years ago.) It’s also assuredly a smoother, subtler, and more accomplished bit of muckraking than, say, Tim Robbins’ recent and lamentably over-the-top Embedded. Once again displaying the surprisingly strong directorial sense he exhibited in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, Clooney also benefits here from a smartly written script which refuses to talk down to its audience, the crisp black-and-white cinematography, and quality performances across the board. As a result, what could have been an above-average History Channel documentary is instead a powerful and intelligent work of cinema that’s easily one of the better films out this year.

Admittedly, as Jack Shafer pointed out in Slate, Good Night, and Good Luck is rather narrowly focused, and works better as an impassioned and articulate morality play than it does as sound history. The Murrow of this film is saintly to a fault (although David Straitharn ameliorates this with a sardonic and multifaceted performance that may well get some nods come award time.) And there’s very little historical context offered herein, either for the origins of the McCarthy hysteria or for the Wisconsin Senator’s ultimate downfall, which had more to do with picking a fight with the army than with the Murrow broadcast.

That being said, I really like the way Clooney uses archival footage in this film. For one, Clooney was clever to follow Murrow’s example and let Joe McCarthy hoist himself on his own petard. Having the real McCarthy excoriate Murrow as the “leader of the jackal pack” gives the film a sense of history (and menace) that an actorly turn couldn’t have provided. For another, Clooney, who definitely appears to have done his homework, is unafraid to cut to real historical footage — the Annie Lee Moss hearings, for example — for extended periods, and just let the inherent drama of the real proceedings speak for itself. As a result, the history feels alive and contemporary, no mean feat when so many other historical films seem to use the past as merely exotic window dressing. Could the film have been more nuanced in its appraisal of both Murrow and McCarthyism? Undoubtedly. (Then again, nuanced appraisals weren’t exactly McCarthy’s strong point, either., nor is it a long suit of his current defenders.) But on the whole, Good Night, and Good Luck is, I think, a worthy exercise in historical filmmaking, and one with some obvious relevance in light of today’s entertainment-addled, sideshow-obsessed news media.

Movie-wise, there are a few small problems. I think the GN, & GL should have done either more or less with Robert Downey, Jr. and Patricia Clarkson as Wershbas Joe and Shirley — their particular plight doesn’t tie in to the rest of the story very well. And, while Ray Wise is good as the broadcaster-at-wits-end Don Hollenbeck, he’s also typecast in my mind — I kept expecting him to break into the Leland Palmer dance. All in all, though, Good Night, and Good Luck manages to enliven both the staid television studios of Fifties CBS and this historical moment with smoky jazz, languishing cigarettes, and ominous shadows. As the show says, see it now.

Men of Gondor (and Baltimore).

King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) enlists backup from Faramir and Jimmy McNulty as David Wenham and Dominic West join the cast of 300 — based on Frank Miller’s graphic novel retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae — along with Rodrigo Santoro of Love, Actually and Lena Headey of The Brothers Grimm. 300 Spartans against a million Persians? McNulty had best call up Omar for this one.

The Worst Joke Ever.


“You see there’s this cat burglar who can’t see in the dark…” No, not that one…The Aristocrats, which I heard told several times over in the first leg of my Labor Day movie marathon. By now, you’ve probably heard the setup for both the documentary and the joke…but, just in case, a gaggle of famous comedians tell their respective versions of a crusty and filthy old vaudeville yarn involving a “family act” audition in an agent’s office. The name of the act, as the punch-line tells us, is “the Aristocrats” (or occasionally “the Sophisticates” or “the Debonairs.”) The act itself varies in the telling, but generally includes lots of micturition, bowel-loosening, vomiting, sodomy, incest, bestiality, and sundry other vile depradations you usually can only see on cable TV. And the funniness of the joke depends a good deal on the talents and twisted imagination of the teller. All in all, I’d say the movie is funnier than the joke and worth catching (if you’re not easily offended), but it’s nothing you need to rush out and see in the theater.

In all honesty, be it due to exposure to Deadwood, Grand Theft Auto, or the school bus, I found most iterations of the joke less transgressive than they were just repetitive. While some comedians bomb with the joke (Taylor Negron, Lisa Lampanelli, David Brenner, and Emo Phillips, to whom the years have not been kind), others seem to have never heard it (Chris Rock, Eddie Izzard), and still others hedge their bets (Paul Reiser, Drew Carey), I’d say up to 85% or so of the tellers just seem content to swim around in the same sex-and-defecating pool like demented eighth graders afflicted with the giggles. Sick-and-twisted-funny, sure, but not over and over again (which is why the movie wisely begins throwing in a mime version, two magic versions, and other more idiosyncratic iterations after awhile.)

Still, some comedians do shine with the material. George Carlin and Bill Maher in particular offer sound insights into the joke’s past and present. (As Maher and Lewis Black note, the Aristocrats stand in increasing danger of being overtaken by Reality TV.) Martin Mull, Carrie Fisher, “Christopher Walken,” and Sarah Silverman deserves points for telling roundabout or slightly off-kilter versions of the same sordid story. And Bob Saget gets a gold star for performing a bizarre career self-immolation and running with easily one of the most inventive and disgusting versions of the joke…no more America’s Funniest Home Videos, for him, I’d wager. (Jason Alexander’s isn’t bad, either.)

Much is made of a cathartic public telling of the joke by Gilbert Gottfried soon after 9/11, but, frankly, it doesn’t come across. In fact, in a way that version belies the problem I had with most tellings of the joke. By avoiding the 9/11 tragedy to focus on ungodly shagging and bodily fluids, Gottfried wasn’t being transgressive — he was playing it safe (and, to his credit, uniting the comic world with a joke they all shared, which was more likely his intention.) Still, Jeffrey Ross’ riposte to Rob Schneider that night — “Hasn’t there been enough bombing in this city?” — seems closer to the anarchic, tasteless, subversive, and shocking spirit the Aristocrats needs to be anything more than an endless litany of fart jokes. Different strokes for different folks, I know. But, given that I was watching the film while the Aristocrats in office bumbled their way through the tragedy of errors that was Katrina, I just found myself thinking that, in today’s dark times, the strictly vulgarian canoodling of most versions of the joke seemed, well, quaint, out-dated, and devoid of edge…in some ways, even tame, or as tame as a joke involved incest, bestiality, and sodomy can be. (For their part, the masterminds behind The Onion are, I think, the only comedians to broach politics in the film.)

Not to miss the forest for the trees, though, I wasn’t really brooding on this during the film so much as laughing at every third or fourth version of the joke…which, if you think about it, isn’t all that bad a hit rate. So, check out The Aristocrats on cable if you don’t mind the dirty-talk…but, please, don’t try this at home.

Murrow, Mines, Mobsters, Menage, and Monkey.

Soon after posting the last entry, I found a new cache of trailers for films around the corner over at Coming Soon: First off, Edward Murrow takes a journalistic stand against McCarthyism (with much explicit contemporary relevance) in the trailer for George Clooney’s Good Night and Good Luck, starring David Strathairn, Clooney, Patricia Clarkson, Robert Downey, Jr., Jeff Daniels, and Frank Langella. Then, Charlize Theron braves borderline winds, the mining life, and sexual harassment in the preview for North Country, also with Frances McDormand, Sissy Spacek, Woody Harrelson, Sean Bean, and Richard Jenkins. Meanwhile, law partners John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton look for the big score in Harold Ramis’ The Ice Harvest, with Randy Quaid, Connie Nielsen, and Oliver Platt. And, finally, journalist Alison Lohman looks into the racy reasons behind the demise of comedy team Bacon & Firth in Atom Egoyan’s Where the Truth Lies (recently saddled with a NC-17), and video gamer Allen Covert pays respect to his elders in the trailer for the Adam-Sandler produced Grandma’s Boy. (To be honest, I’m only blogging this last one for the “don’t judge me” monkey bit and the too-brief glimpse of the lovely Linda “Lindsey Weir” Cardellini.) Update: Ok, one more: Tilda Swinton, Vincent D’Onofrio, Vince Vaughn, Benjamin Bratt and Keanu Reeves try to help newcomer Lou Pucci stop a nasty habit in the trailer for Thumbsucker, due out in just over two weeks.