Colbert from The Colbert Report returns to Second City

In an arrogant article written by A. J. Liebling in the January 1952 The New Yorker, Chicago was given its “Second City” moniker. The article offended Chicagoans to their core. But true to the Chicagoan-style that uniquely separates us from them, a group of undergraduate students at the University of Chicago took the moniker and established a comedy theater on North Wells Street.

This past weekend Second City celebrated 50 years of its famed existence. Many of its famous alumni from Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Jack McBrayer, Jim Belushi, Harold Ramis, Dan Castellaneta, Richard Kind, Bonnie Hunt, Nia Vardalos, Neil Flynn (The Janitor!), and many more came back to Chicago to celebrate and give a performance. It was a tribute and a salute to the beginnings of their careers.

Alan Arkin (far right) got his start here.

Mike Myers

The late John Candy and a young Bill Murray

What started out with a self-mocking name for a comedy theater born from an outsider’s perspective, Second City today has cultivated Hollywood with plenty of comedic talent. It has been dubbed “The Harvard of Comedy.” It’s reach and influence on comedy and American pop culture is immense. From the political satires of The Colbert Report and Tina Fey’s impersonations of ex-governor Sarah Palin, to the story of a 40 Year Old Virgin, or a witty-prankster of a Janitor in Scrubs – no comedic stone is left unturned. No one is spared.

However, the microcosm of Second City speaks volumes about Chicago and its culture. We made it cool to be smart and funny. We can take a joke. We can make fun of ourselves. But most importantly we know how to laugh.

Sorry New York…Chicago has the last laugh.

Credits to Chicago Tribune for pictures. Check this amazing article by theater critic Chris Jones.

This has been kicking around on-line for a couple of weeks now but I’ve been studiously ignoring it because I don’t care.  That said, it probably doesn’t deserve a mention.  Dan Castellaneta is going to be making a guest appearance on an upcoming episode of Desperate Housewives.  He’s playing a pilot.  This now concludes the most thought or effort I have ever put into Desperate Housewives.  Thank you.

Happy birthday Dan Castellaneta!

This part of my life… this part right here? This is called “happyness.”

– Chris Gardner

I actively avoided watching The Pursuit of Happyness, because I don’t like those syrupy-knock-you-over-the-head-with-its-message kind of films. Will Smith was nominated for an Oscar for this movie. I can see why, but the overall movie tries at your patience.

It is inspired by the true story of Chris Gardner (Smith), a man struggling to keep his family afloat in San Francisco during the early 80s. When we first meet him, he is a salesman that is selling portable bone density scanners to try to pay for rent.

Chris spent their whole life savings into machines that doctors deemed to be a luxury item. His family is behind in their bills. His distraught wife, Linda (Thandie Newton) is working double shifts to try to keep the family, including helping to send their son, Christopher (Jaden Smith) to daycare in Chinatown.

Chris tries to sell off the last six of the scanners while he tries to better himself by applying for an internship at a brokerage firm, Dean, Witter & Reynolds. He tries to get a way in the broker trainee program by buttering up to one of the executives, Mr. Jay Twistle (Brian Howe).

Chris is very charismatic person. When he sees that Twistle is trying to solve the Rubik cube — which was a hot trend in 1981— Chris impresses Twistle with his math wizardry and solves it. In subsequent meetings with Twistle and Martin Frohm (James Karen), he charms them and become a hard worker on cold calls to potential customers.

Just when his life is looking up, everything else is crumbling down around him. Linda is tired of Chris’ empty promises about leaving the salesman stuff behind and leaves for NYC. She wants to take Christopher with her, but Chris has a rule that child should know his father. He wants Christopher to stay with him.

Being three months behind in rent, the landlord kicks him out on street. With no place to live, Chris looks for different places to live when he is enrolled the six months internship program that could led to a permanent position with the company. Father and son try to stick together through a difficult time in their lives.

Some parts of the movie that bothered me, like the running gag of having Chris chase after people that took his scanners. Be prepared to see a lot of running, voice-overs and references to Thomas Jefferson. This takes place San Francisco; he actually bumps into the hippie or the guy that think the scanner is a time machine that took his scanners. As much as I hated Jayden in The Day the Earth Stood Still, he was equally as annoying here. Asking questions repeatedly got on my last damn nerve. Shut up already!

I supposed that this movie could be cathartic to the people affected by the recession about the past year, but other than that, this is just another saccharine movie that toys with your feelings.

Judgment: Another inspirational movie that doesn’t inspire you. Epic fail!

Rating: **

I must heartily agree with Dan Castellaneta, “All normal people love meat. If I went to a barbeque and there was no meat, I would say, ‘Yo, Goober! Where’s the meat?’ You don’t win friends with salad.”

One of the best things about certain holidays is they provide us with yet one more reason to barbeque; as if we needed another reason.

In the United States, Independence Day gets the most grills fired up with 86 percent of us donning apron and tongs. Labor Day is a close second with 74 percent followed by 69 percent on Memorial Day.

Unfortunately, our Labor Day festivities were for the most part rained out due to the deluge this past Monday. However, this wasn’t a problem for the 19 percent who prefer to grill indoors. I guess this explains why the George Foreman grill has sold 100 million units since it debuted in 1995.

The average American grill owner barbeques 38 times per year and spends 4.4 hours barbequing each week during the summer months. Last year alone we bought roughly 900,000 tons of charcoal briquettes and almost 20 million grills and smokers.

What’s the meat of choice among barbeque aficionados? 56% say their favorite food to grill is steak; people after my own heart.

The lesser foods break down as follows – just under half prefer hamburgers, slightly more than one third like chicken, 16 percent opt for hot dogs, while one in eight grill sausage. Throw in the ten percent who grill vegetables and the six percent who prefer fish and just about anyone can walk away from a barbeque happy and content.

Though it didn’t originate here, barbequing is just about the most American thing we do with more than 75 million Americans barbequing every year. That’s a lot of ribs and burgers!

However, Laurie Colwin reminds us, “Grilling is like sunbathing. Everyone knows it is bad for you but no one ever stops doing it.” Or as I’m fond of saying, “How can something so good be so bad for you?” Grilling, not sunbathing.

Think for a moment of all the things we justify and rationalize that fall into the category of, “Everyone knows it is bad for you but no one ever stops doing it.”

Worrying about tomorrow, exaggerating the truth, being greedy, abusing credit, lusting in our hearts, gossiping about others, envying our neighbor’s new car, manipulating the data, pretending to be someone we’re not, denying we have a problem, eating too many Krispy Kremes. Okay, maybe we should remove the last one from the list but you get the idea.

It’s interesting how we love to claim the 1,260 promises in the Bible for our unique situations and circumstances but assume the 6,468 commands are intended for others.

When we turn our back on what God has said is right and wrong, we turn our back on the ultimate source of truth and wisdom. And we do so to our peril.

The New Testament says in Galatians, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” This is hard truth; but truth nonetheless.

Think twice about what you do and don’t do this week.

“At World’s End”

June 15th, 2009

To signal the end of the world, there are various signs of the apocalypse, things which let you know that doom is imminent. To signal the end of a season of Greek, though, you know that Casey and Cappie are about to become intertwined, Rusty will face some sort of crisis, and some sort of major fraternity/sorority event will take place.

However, what always impresses me about Greek is how the various parts all come together in such a way that feels far more organic than it has any right to, and with greater meaning than one would expect the show to aspire to. Sure, the episode had its comic subplot (Rusty and Dale’s altered purity pledge), but for the most part it tackles the fates of the siblings Cartwright with just the right amount of interconnectivity, and with perhaps the show’s most focused lens yet in terms of sidelining supporting players.

Combined with tying up a few loose ends, “At World’s End” isn’t the end for this show by a long shot, but it takes the episode’s theme and runs with it to the point of really encapsulating where these characters sit within the world of Cyprus-Rhodes university. And although there aren’t too many “critics” covering the show on a regular basis, it also proves how a combination of cultural relevance and self-awareness have made this without question the strongest teen-focused dramedy on the air.

The episode is essentially a take on the whole desert island scenario: if you were trapped on a desert island, or at the end of the world, who would you want to be there with you? For Casey, this question has her pondering between Cappie and Max, while for Rusty it has him choosing between an admittedly sudden academic struggle and spending time with Jordan. Even Ashley gets into the act, as backed up against the wall and facing expulsion she is forced to fight for her life against Frannie, who similarly finds herself facing the realization that she’s recreated the end of the world beyond the walls of the IKI house. Throw in the aptly themed “End of the World” party, all influenced by the opening Art History lecture, and we have ourselves a theme.

I’m not always one for theming episodes like this, but it’s smart in an ensemble quite this large and this proved to be an effective one. On the smaller level, for Frannie and Ashley, it was about advances for their characters: Ashley got to show she has a backbone without Casey (which shouldn’t have even been in question since Casey is far more indecisive, but I’ll let the show continue to pretend that’s how this relationship works), while Frannie realizes she was living a dream if she thought IKI was actually a legitimate sorority, and pretty well waves the white flag with Casey and acknowledges that she has officially outgrown Cyprus Rhodes. It’s not quite as big an exit as Frannie needs, but it was a starkly human one and in line with what we’ve seen of the character so far. I never quite despised Frannie, as I could understand much of her motivation, and in these moments where she steps down from the extremes she reveals herself to be someone capable of both rational observation and, more importantly, moving beyond the catty world of sororities.

It shows that the series itself is capable of doing the same – yes, a large portion of the episode takes place at a giant fraternity rager, but the show is intelligent about when it lets the parties be the focus and when it lets the parties turn into a setting for something larger. On some levels, the party here was just an excuse to bring everyone to one place to have things explode (Max wanting to attend to actively debate the end of the world was particularly contrived in this fashion, and Dale bringing Sheila made no sense whatsoever, but I’ll let them cheat in a few instances), but there were also more subtle impacts that resulted from it. Despite evoking the apocalypse, the show did a pretty good job of making the various decisions feel nuanced and human, which is what the show ultimately does best.

The episode was ultimately most impressive at convincing me to give Cappie and Casey a shot. It’s not that they needed to really do anything with Cappie: his self-deprecatory stance here was not a huge surprise considering his past behaviour, as his inner humanity has never really been in question to anyone who has seen his interactions with Rusty, or Dale, or Evan, or Casey, or Rebecca, or pretty well anyone. However, for Casey, I really have no patience for her romantic back and forth – I’ve said many times before that I don’t like this character, and that the show hasn’t really given me any reason to like her. However, the finale addressed this as far as the show is willing to go: by having Ashley call her out on her bouncing around (and even calling her the dreaded “F-Word,” Felicity), the show acknowledges that Casey isn’t a saint, and that her road to romantic love has not been a particularly enjoyable one for those sitting on the sidelines having to see it all happen.

That it hasn’t overwhelmed the show is impressive, but not surprising, as even here it was handled in a way that felt, if a bit accelerated, like a mature response to the situation. Sure, television cliche would have had Casey pulling an “I choose me,” or having their simultaneously exit from a KT closet cause Max to turn into a jerk and break up with her, but forcing Casey to (after Cappie plays the “I’m just a punk, don’t throw away a decent guy for me” card) make the decision to break up with Max herself, simply because she knows that she can’t hurt him. Yes, Casey should have known this months ago, and she really should have made that call as soon as she found out he gave up grad school for her, but her finally coming to her senses did feel deserved, and Grammer and Rady were strong enough to overcome my personal feelings on Casey and the storyline in general to get pretty caught up in it all.

The result was the right place to leave us on a cliffhanger: built up anticipation about Cappie visiting Casey (they weren’t very subtle pretending that was Cappie at the door instead of Frannie), then have him sitting on a roof pondering what he’d do at the end of the world, just as Casey had realized that it wasn’t Max who she’s want to be with. It’s a good moment for them to build from starting in August (honestly, weirdest season structure ever?), as it places the onus on Cappie, the character we actually care about, as opposed to generally inactive and floaty Casey. I’m not capable of being a “shipper” (however much I can get caught up in romances on other shows against my better judgment) for any of Casey’s relationships, but I want Cappie to be happy, and he certainly is in a position to do so whatever he chooses – he’s resolved his issues with Evan (who appears only twice here but seems in better spirits), and now he just has to deal with his own self-image issues, which I find far more compelling than what most love triangles or the like boil down to.

Michael Rady, of course, was always going to be leaving, so it’s no surprise that Max is going to ride off into the sunset. Chances are the very busy Rady would have left even if he hadn’t landed an apartment at Melrose Place, and the character was just too far ahead of the game for the show to move up to his pace. In his time, he served as an interesting counterpoint to Cappie both romantically and as a mentor for Rusty, and while it was never a realistic romantic pairing it was certainly amongst the most tolerable of the show’s short term romantic guest stars.

I’d say that Jordan is a pretty good addition to the cast as well right now, but the show interestingly isn’t so sure, as the episode pitted Rusty’s burgeoning social life against his academic performance. I was very glad to see the return of Dan Castellaneta (who’s always fun as the stodgy academic advisor/professor), and interested to see them dredging up this Season One storyline in an effort to put some jeopardy into Rusty’s happiness. I like the decision in the end: so many shows would have tried to create yet another romantic diversion for the two of them, but it was smart to have it be a bit more isolated to Rusty, and to never actually create that moment where the far too comfortable couple (combined name? No.) exploded or anything else. It was just about planting the seeds of doubt, and whether or not Rusty will get burned like Max did in choosing his end of the world companion, and whether he’ll get burned deciding to live today like it’s the end of the world and he has all of eternity to figure out how to turn his D into a B (If Lisa Simpson taught me anything, it’s that a D turns into a B so easily).

Considering the show comes back in just two months, it wasn’t looking to line up a huge cliffhanger or put everyone in jeopardy: Ashley was safe from expulsion once Frannie dropped the complaint, Rusty’s grade won’t completely sink him as long as he’s willing to work on it, and the KT’s two week suspension was ignored entirely. But there was just enough doubt placed about everything to leave most characters considering their position, and getting ready to act when the show returns in August. That’s a smart decision, but at the same time you want to be able to offer a little bit of closure.

Closing off the IKI side of things was one way to accomplish this, ending the major “conflict” amongst the greek system that formed the back half of this season, but the other way was through the episode’s comic diversion, which featured Dale and Calvin making an altered purity pledge to keep them from falling into temptation. I’ve always liked this combination, as I like most combinations the show puts together: it’s a very versatile cast, and Calvin and Dale are such polar opposites that they work well together on paper, and in practice work even better thanks to Clark Duke’s brilliant way of portraying Dale’s reaction to Calvin’s homosexuality. It’s that proper combination of his ability to spout the jargon without really applying it to Calvin as a person, combined with the ignorance displayed when he has convinced himself his former purity pledge brothers are sharing a bed on Fire Island to save money in this economic climate.

Here, you knew where things were going: Grant wasn’t introduced just to not become a romantic interest (although so much for his homosexuality being on the down-lo considering they’re making out at a giant rager), and Dale’s failure to keep himself in check with Sheila continues a storyline that has been fun for some one-liners if being a bit lifted directly from Duke’s bomb of a sex comedy Sex Drive (which I randomly watched last week, and is fun if too predictable). Similarly, you knew that Dale pretending to be Calvin’s boyfriend wasn’t going to last for very long (although, the fact that Grant believed it made me question his intelligence). Either way, it made for some nice comedy, and with only really positive consequences (unless we value Dale’s purity pledge, which I think isn’t really the point of his character) it kept the entire episode from getting bogged down. Calvin gets the guy, Dale makes out on the couch, and the episode wasn’t just one big crescendo without an ending.

Does Cappie go to Casey? I don’t know, and I don’t particularly care. At this point, the show has won enough of my respect for me to just let it do its thing. It’s the kind of show that will have fans who are desperate to know whether Cappie goes to see her, and who will be waiting in anticipation for that moment to happen, which is totally justified. At the same time, though, I am legitimately curious to see how the show situates itself in the year ahead, and how it takes these various storylines beyond cliffhangers or moments and keeps turning them into a really entertaining and smart dramedy. When the dialogue is clicking like it has been all season, and when the show seems to be getting more and more comfortable with its universe with each passing episode, it’s becoming a show that should have fans amongst the ABC Family audience of teen girls and amongst hardened critics alike.

It may not be the show I’d take with me to the end of the world, but it’s certainly something I’m glad to have in a non-apocalyptic one.

Cultural Observations

• Chances are I could list some favourite lines for days, but Ashley’s escalating comparison of Casey to Meredith Grey, Joey Potter and Felicity ends up getting beaten by the too clever for his own good “I LIKE the English tudor style!” from Cappie when Frannie attacks him for having it out for her house.
• I enjoyed the contrast of the Frannie-like female head of the IFC and the male who explains that 40% of the panel thought that their prank was totally rad – even authority is fun in Greek land.
• I didn’t mention it above since, again, I don’t like to dwell on my negativity towards Casey, but her manhole stunt was a simple shortcut to making her consider the end of the world/her life that was a bit too cheap but was worth it for the paramedic who treated her, who played the Janitor’s wife, Lady, on Scrubs.
• Admittedly,  enjoy Dan Castellaneta on a bad day, but he was great here as he says that Rusty will get nowhere with buttering him up but then totally falls for Rusty’s logic of his biggest mistake. Smart kid (outside of Organic Chemistry) that one is.
• I’m with Frannie: Ashley’s hat/outfit was ridiculous. I always wonder whether they start at the script level with “Ashley is wearing a ridiculous hat” or whether their wardrobe team is just really uneven and they’re forced to adjust on the fly.
• I’ve put in a question to my Chem major friend Alex about whether or not Organic Chem is actually this hard, but he’s a bit of a genius so he probably got an A like Dale did.
• Not one to miss making a classic reference that 80% of its audience won’t get, Sheila/Dale get the classic Mrs. Robinson moment from The Graduate here.
• Just to be clear: Greek “At World’s End” is superior to the Pirates of the Caribbean sequel of the same name.

En ce moment, pas envie de regarder grand chose, alors ce soir, pas prise de tête, revisionnage du DVD du film des Simpson, ça ne lasse jamais.

B+

Lataa Ohjelma (MP3)

KinoSilmässä kuullaan tällä kertaa televisiosarjasuosikkikeskustelun jälkimmäinen puolisko. Henrik ja Herr KinoSilmä jatkavat listojaan siitä mihin viimeksi jäätiin.

Juhan jälkimmäinen viisikko:
Frasier
Picket Fences
Raid
Babylon 5
The Simpsons

Henrikin jälkimmäinen viisikko:
MythBusters
Die Kommissarin
Monk
From the Earth to the Moon
Matlock

“Right Place Right Time”

May 4th, 2009

[Spoiler Alert: Don't read the Episode Tags if you don't want to have the episode spoiled! - MM]

When it comes to the combination of comedy and mythology on How I Met Your Mother, the show has always operated on a tight rope of sorts as it relates to the identity of the eponymous mother. The reason for this is not that the mystery isn’t interesting (it is the very premise of the show, of course), but rather that the character at the center of the drama is the show’s least funny, often least interesting, and at times most frustrating. Ted Mosby is really only tolerable when he’s being sweet and romantic, and even then he’s rarely funny in those scenarios. He’s better when he is taking a supporting role, not so much the center of the drama than he is an observer who just happens to be our “lead” character.

What “Right Place Right Time” does is position itself as an episode about Ted but really spend almost all of its time with the characters that are more capable of being funny. Utilizing a traditionally unique structure (at what point does it become its own cliche? I remain unsure), the show lets Bob Saget take us through how a series of random and ridiculous events force Ted to end up at the right place at the right time where, holding the epic yellow umbrella we’ve seen in previous episodes, when a woman taps him on the shoulder.

I like this approach because it minimizes being repetitive with Ted’s various destiny speeches, but the show at this point is running a serious risk with its mythology. What happens in this episode appears to actually answer the titular question, but I don’t think it does: there is more than enough wiggle room for them to pull the rug out from under us yet again. Considering who ends up tapping him on the shoulder, I’ll be happy when I’m vindicated and they pull out the “Just kidding!” next week, but the more the show does this the less we’ll be able to trust them, and the mythology will only be getting in the way of the comedy.

And that’s the last thing the show needs.

I’ll be upfront with it: the person at the crosswalk is Stella, and I am not happy about it. I remember, back around “Ten Sessions,” I was all angry at Bill Lawrence for continuing Scrubs and keeping Chalke from joining the cast full time, as she was charming and engaging. But the problem is that Stella was never actually funny, and the show never knew what to do with her as a character outside of being part of one of Ted’s romantic escapades. Stella ended up being an obstacle to humour, the worst possible thing a sitcom can introduce, and my issue now is that the show kind of even acknowledged it: she left Ted at the altar, was never willing to really make any sacrifices for him (forcing him to Jersey, trying to keep Robin from attending the wedding, etc.), and even when she was being reasonable (I understand the Robin thing, for example) it just felt like she was being used as a source of drama and not as an actual character.

So forgive me for holding onto the hope that she is not, in fact, the Mother. It would kill me to see the writers try to take this character that Ted said goodbye to, who Ted put behind him in a very visceral way in order to move on with his life, and resurrect them as the person we’ve all been dying to meet. It’s too much a task for them to achieve, and will take too much time out of the show’s comedy in order to rescue a mythology hampered by a character the show itself made unlikable. I had been spoiled that Chalke would be returning for the end of the season, and I spent the entire episode hoping that it wouldn’t be her at the end, and that the writers would throw us a real curveball instead of the same one we saw at the end of last season when Ted proposed in the arcade.

But, for me, there is still hope: you will notice that the show never explicitly noted that Stella is the mother, but rather that Ted being with Stella at that moment would eventually lead to him meeting her mother. I think it’s also important to note that there’s no reason why Stella would recognize the yellow umbrella, or NEED to recognize the yellow umbrella in order to know that it was Ted (yes, I’m grasping at umbrellas); my impression was always that the umbrella belonging to the Mother would create a moment of recognition, and Stella was in Ted’s apartment and likely would have found the umbrella last season. Combine with the fact that Future Ted never makes any mention of stepchildren in the future stories, and that the daughter can’t possibly be Stella’s child because she would remember Ted first arriving on the scene as a child, I just don’t think that Stella adds up – I think they want us to think that Stella is the Mother because it’s a good Sweeps trick, and that next week we’ll discover that this is yet another step along the road towards that final discovery that may or may not come before season’s end.

There, at least, is my take on it: it’s possible that it’s just an easy one to one equation, but the show has never been that clear and may never be. I worry that they’ve done this too many times, and that one more piece of subterfuge is going to test the audience’s patience, but they were smart to mix it up in this episode by making it not so much about Ted. Robin, Barney and Marshall where all given their own stories that led Ted to that particular corner at that time, and while they weren’t all winners I will say that they made me alugh.

For Robin’s short story, it was really quite simple: giving Robin food poisoning allowed them to explain Ted’s initial left turn away from Schlagel’s Bagels, but it also let them make the “I’m Pregnant” joke that we’ve been waiting for. I enjoyed Ted and Barney’s different reactions to the crisis, and the existence of Galoshes the weather clown, but Smulder’s pregnancy keeps them from doing much more with her character.

Robin actually had more to do in the second story, in a sense, as she helped peruse over Barney’s list of 199 girls he has slept with in preparation for the conquest of his 200th, or “the one” in his world. I actually am frustrated with this storyline, because it felt like it needed a whole episode to itself. I wanted to see Barney have to question whether or not his behaviour was hurting his chances with Robin, or at least show us Robin considering how she feels being on that list with the other 198. I’ll admit that I’m always a bigger fan of sentimental Barney than I am of the obnoxious Barney we got here, so I would have rather seen an investigation of how that 7th Grade lie about 100 girls created the Barney Stinson that we know today than an investigation of how gross it is for Barney to sleep with the “sexxy” body builder from his gym and actually end up ruining the race for 200 in the process.

I just felt like the storyline reduced Barney to one side of his personality, and it’s another moment where you wish Barney was the lead character instead of Ted. It even ignored part of his back story: considering that Barney transformed into his 20s after being burned by a corporate tool, why would he still hold onto that 7th Grade goal? Short stories like this need to flow organically or feel like nothing but a gimmick, and this was too far on the gimmick side for me. Yes, Neil Patrick Harris is hilarious and there was some fun comedy throughout, but considering the episode’s coda ended with a nod towards Barney and Robin (as if this was his transition from one life to another), I needed a more substantial Barney episode to get to that point.

Instead, I preferred the last story, which really did feel organic. Marshall getting addicted to charts not only explained his earlier use of a chart with Barney (My favourite part of the Barney storyline, in many ways: 20 girls a week, 1040 girls a year, 16640 girls = 1% success rate and a .012 batting average, worse than one-armed pitcher Jim Abbott), but it also connected back with two previous storylines: they hold an intervention for Marshall (guess they missed the intervention about holding too many interventions), and when Marshall doesn’t have his charts for his big meeting he reverts to his hilarious(ly bad) standup comedy routine about fish. Both of those were funny stories, and I thought Jason Segel totally nailed every scene involving a chart (My favourites were, of course, the Bar Graph of his Favourite Pies and the Pie Chart of his Favourite Bars, although I want screengrabs to hear how the latter one was quantified in pie chart form). Whereas I wanted the Barney storyline to feel bigger, Marshall’s was just a whole lot of fun.

And I want HIMYM to remain fun, which is why I don’t understand Stella’s return: yes, the show is always creating drama towards the end of the season, but I feel as if we’ve drained that well. I didn’t like Stella at the end of last season, and she became a black hole of funny earlier this season, so what about her should make me in any way root for her? That’s why Ted’s giant run through the rest of the episode, a really cool idea that should have been a lot of fun in execution with the help of Guided By Voices’ “Glad Girls” as its soundtrack, just rings false for me: I am both male and not at all glad about Stella’s return…unless it is just another stepping stone. In that instance, Ted’s elation makes sense, and all of my qualms with the storyline will go away if they manage to let Sarah Chalke be funny and give us a Mother I can stand behind.

Because when I make my chart of potential Mothers, trust me: Stella is going to be at the bottom of that list. Don’t test me, HIMYM: I’ll be at the Print Shop on campus in the morning, I swear. For now, when I ask myself “Is Stella the Mother on How I Met Your Mother,” I can’t help but answer no for the sake of my own sanity.

Cultural Observations

• Okay, have we met this Cecilia person (the person at the center of Marshall’s venn diagram)? Maybe I’m just daft, but it was a really random throwaway, and it was actually indicated as the turning point in chart-related interest in Marshall’s later charts on the subject. Or is Marshall just being a big sustainable growth?
• As Dan Fienberg pointed out on Twitter, it seems as if HIMYM poked some fun at its own lack of racial diversity, as Robin noted that there was a distinct lack of diversity in Barney’s 200 list – you’d think someone with a black brother would be more open to it.
• Guest stars all over the place this week: Lady from Scrubs was Fran the Graphics Department lady, and Dan Castellaneta (the voice of Homer Simpson) stopped by as Milt, the homeless man who Ted will be giving a dollar to every day for one million days.
• In Ted’s hugging montage, really enjoyed the health inspector at Schlagel’s Bagels, really stood out for me for some reason.
• Still waiting for CBS to release every one of Marshall’s charts: but I got down most of his Dirty Presidents’ name one: Johnson, Bush, Harding, Polk, Filmore. I think that Polk is only funny in a post-Facebook world, whereas Filmore is timeless.

Dicen que cada quien cobra lo que quiere, en cualquier negocio se da. Si una persona cobra caro sus servicios, muchos piensan “seguro es porque me da más calidad”, pero en lo que respecta a los actores, esto se traduce, desde mi punto de vista, en un abuso demencial. Veamos algunas cifras:

1. Will Smith (dos veces nominado al Oscar) cobra $80 millones de dólares por película

2. Johnny Depp (nominado al Oscar) cobra $72 millones de dólares por “Piratas del Caribe”

3. Eddie Murphy (nominado al Oscar) cobra $55 millones de dólares por Shrek, igual que Mike Myers.

4. Cameron Díaz cobra $50 millones de dólares por actuar en una cinta.

5. Leonardo DiCaprio cobra $45 millones de dólares.

6. Bruce Willis cobra $41 millones.

7. Ben Stiller cobra $40 millones.

8. Nicholas Cage cobra $38 millones.

9. Keira Knightley cobra $32 millones en “Piratas del Caribe”

Y eso no es todo, en TV se da un fenómeno similar, teniendo como el actor mejor pagado a Charlie Sheen por Two and a Half men con $825 mil dólares por episodio (y una temporada puede tener 20, 25 episodios). Will Petersen de CSI cobra $600 mil dólares por episodio, del que además es productor. Dan Castellaneta cobra $400 mil dólares nada más por poner su voz en “Los Simpson”. Y Oprah, que ya es una de las mujeres más adineradas del planeta, se lleva anualmente ganancias por $385 millones de dólares.

En México, esos sueldos nunca se han visto y probablemente jamás se vean. A los futbolistas chafas de la selección les pagan más, pero a una actriz como Adriana Barraza que también fue nominada al Oscar creo que jamás ha visto un cheque ni por la mitad de cualquiera de los sueldos arriba mencionados. Hace algunos años, todo mundo se sacó de onda cuando Julia Roberts decidió cobrar 20 millones de dólares por película, y ese récord duró muchos años. Hoy por hoy, hasta risa les debe dar acordarse de eso.

¿Acaso esos sueldos son justos? Por muy bien que actúen, no concibo cómo un actor puede ganar 80 millones cuando, quienes realmente hacen la película, como son el guionista o el escritor, no tienen sueldos ni cercanos a ello. Un actor de doblaje en México no gana más de 400 pesos por hora de doblaje, o sea, ¡4 dólares! Contra los 400 mil dólares de Dan Castellaneta, me parece una burla. ¿Dónde encontraremos el justo medio?

Además otra cosa, la industria del cine siempre se ha quejado de que en recientes fechas, sobre todo en México, la gente prefiere comprar piratería a DVD originales. ¿No sería una buena solución que, en lugar de pagarle 80 millones de dólares a una persona, se le paguen 3 o 4 y el resto se utilice para abaratar los costos de los DVD? Digo, creo que el problema es que el dinero está mal encausado y la solución está en sus narices.

 The Play’s The Thing

L.A. THEATRE WORKS

MEDIA ALERT

This Saturday, December 6 from 10 pm – midnight on 89.3 KPCC, L.A. Theatre Works’ The Play’s the Thing will air Broadway Bound by Neil Simon, starring Jonathan Silverman, Jobeth Williams, Scott Wolf, Dan Castellaneta, Caroline Aaron, Kyle Colerider-Krugh, James Gleason and Alan Mandell.  Nominated for the 1987 Tony Award for Best Play, this is the final installment of Neil Simon’s acclaimed, autobiographical “Eugene Trilogy” (preceded by Brighton Beach Memoirs and Biloxi Blues).  Upon returning home from World War II, Eugene Morris Jerome and his brother Stanley pair up to break into the world of professional comedy writing.  But a family crisis threatens to destroy their dreams of success.  Beginning at 12 am PDT on December 7, Broadway Bound will be streamed for one week at http://www.scpr.org/programs/latw .

Next Saturday, December 13 from 10 pm – midnight on 89.3 KPCC, L.A. Theatre Works’ The Play’s the Thing will air The Road to Mecca by Athol Fugard, starring Julie Harris, Amy Irving and Harris Yulin.  When her husband dies, aging Miss Helen begins to fill her home in the remote South African bush with strange sculptures made from beer cans and old headlights. A local clergyman and a young friend disagree on whether Miss Helen’s peculiar artwork is an outpouring of creativity or an outbreak of madness.  Beginning at 12 am PDT on December 14, The Road to Mecca will be streamed for one week at http://www.scpr.org/programs/latw .

L.A. Theatre Works’ radio theater series, The Play’s the Thing, airs locally every Saturday night from 10 pm to midnight on 89.3 FM KPCC Southern California Public Radio, and is streamed on the KPCC website for one week following each broadcast.  The series can also be heard on 89.7 WGBH in Boston; 91.5 FM WBEZ in Chicago; 94.9 KUOW in Seattle; 93.5 FM KRTS “Marfa Public Radio” in Texas; 90.5 FM KUT in Austin; 88.9 FM KUNM in Albuquerque; 91.5 FM, Interlochen Public Radio in Northern Michigan; 94.1 KPFA in Northern California; 91.1 FM KRCB in Sonoma County; 89.1 KUOR in Redlands; as well as on many other public radio stations nationwide and Sirius XM Satellite Radio.  Selected programs from LATW are also heard internationally over BBC World Service, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Radio Telefis Eirann (Ireland), Radio Hong Kong, and Radio New Zealand.  The L.A. Theatre Works Audio Theatre Collection is available in bookstores, libraries, through their catalog, digitally on itunes, overdrive.com, audible.com, and on the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org.

On XM Satellite Radio, The Play’s the Thing now airs on Sonic Theater three times a week.  Each broadcast premieres on Friday evening at 8 pm eastern/5 pm pacific and repeats the following Monday in the same time slot.  On Wednesday, XM offers an encore performance of a previously-broadcast program.

To get a full schedule, go to the L.A. Theatre Works website at www.latw.org and follow the link through the “Radio Theatre Series” heading and then “Episode Guide” or go directly to www.scpr.org for KPCC.

Additional support for the series is provided by AudioFile Magazine.

Listeners can visit their website at www.audiofilemagazine.com to view 65 reviews of LATW plays and hear sound clips from them.

# 30 #

In 1923, legendary director Cecil B. DeMille constructed a replica of ancient Egypt in the California desert for his epic movie The Ten Commandments. When filming was completed, he mysteriously ordered the entire set buried. Now a soon-to-be-divorced archaeologist couple (Morena Baccarin and Adam Baldwin of Serenity and Firefly) and an Iraq War combat veteran (Victor Webster of Charmed) have uncovered the secret DeMille could not keep hidden…and unleashed a horror that cannot be stopped. Dan Castellaneta (The Simpsons), John Aniston (Days Of Our Lives) and Academy Award� winner George Kennedy co-star in this Director s Cut featuring additional footage not seen in the original cable broadcast.

Sands of Oblivion is available at Amazon for $9.49. To Order click here
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imdb puanı : 7.7/10
Yapım : 2007, ABD
Tür : Animasyon / Aile / Komedi / Macera / Politik
Yönetmen : David Silverman
Senaryo : Matt Groening, James L. Brooks
Seslendirenler : Ali Poyrazoğlu, Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith
Yapımcı : Matt Groening, James L. Brooks
Müzik : Hans Zimmer
Dağıtım : Özen Film
Süre : 1 saat, 27 dk.
Gösterim Tarihi : 27 Temmuz 2007
Konusu:Dünyanın en ünlü ailesi beyaz perdeye geliyor. 60 ülkede, 20 farklı dilde yayınlanan, her hafta 60 milyon kişinin seyrettiği, 18 sezon, 400 bölümdür bizlerle birlikte olan Simpson ailesi, dizinin aslına sadık kalınarak yapılan sinema filmi ile Temmuz ayında gösterime girecek. Springfield kasabasında yaşayan bu aileyi tanımayan pek kalmadı gibi. Kel, şişman, biraz aptal ama ailesini herşeyden çok seven Homer, aileyi bir arada tutan sürekli endişeli Marge, aklını yaramazlık dışında hiç bir şeye çalıştırmayan dördüncü sınıf öğencisi Bart, entellektüel saksafon virtüözü Liza ve küçük bebekleri Maggie’nin başından geçen maceralar on altı sezondur ülkemizde de yayınlanmakta. Diziler gibi film de Matt Groening’in imzasını taşıyor. Futurama ve Life In Hell gibi başka ödüllü projeleri de olan Groening, orjinal Simpsons tasarımını tamamen koruyup, dizilere sadık kalarak filmin yapıldığını söylüyor. Homer her zamanki sakarlıklarıyla bu sefer tüm dünyanın başını belaya sokar. Dünyayı kurtarmak gibi bir görev üstlenen Homer, bir yandan da ailesinin çevresinde gelişen olayları halletmek zorundadır.

Starring: Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer
Director: David Silverman
Genre: Comedy
Cert: 12
Released: 2007

It must be hard writing a movie-length version of an iconic 22 minute satirical cartoon that has fired out 420 episodes over 19 years. But Matt Groening and his team, who long had a desire to do it, finally achieved it in 2007, six years after writing begun.

Homer is causing trouble again, polluting the Springfield Lake with a silo full of pig (well, Spider Pig) feces. Naturally the Environmental Protection Agency are none too impressed with the pollution and the EPA Director Russ Cargill decides to enclose Springfield in a glass dome to stop the pollution spreading.

When the residents find out that Homer is responsible, it looks like curtains for him and the family. However, they manage to escape the dome and make their way to Alaska to start a new life. Hooray!

But when they hear of Cargill’s plan to destroy their home town for good, Homer has a choice to make: stay in Alaska where he can terrorise husky dogs or return to reclaim the town and his reputation. I’m sure he’ll pick the easier one.

I didn’t have high hopes for “The Simpsons” – a cartoon that was surpassed by “Family Guy” in my affections a few years back – but thankfully the movie-length version is more than watchable. It does feel like overload at times, kind of like you expect things to end about 2-3 times before they do, but that’s what the 20-odd minute conditioning of the last two decades does to you.

I’m disappointed that there weren’t more celebrity cameos (Green Day and Tom Hanks are there) but apparently a lot of re-writes saw the likes of Edward Norton, Erin Brockovich and Minnie Driver end up on the cutting room floor.

But overall it’s a strong script, has some quality lines (Homer’s reaction to the lowering of the Dome over Springfield: “D’ohhhhhhhhhmmme”) and will make you laugh. That’s enough, right?