TV @ The Movies: "Glee" and "The Walking Dead"

What is the ideal format for talking about tv? I'm beginning to think it's Twitter since even in the days of next day recaps and the 'watch it on your own time' DVR reality, people often watch it in great masses, round about the same time -- only staggered with everyone in their own slightly skewed time zones. I'm on NESST (Nathaniel's Eastern Stop & Start Time). TV has never been the all immersive experience that the movies can be... so it makes sense that people are now tweeting as they're watching. TV is jerry-rigged to withstand distractions: housework, phone calls, commercials. Twitter and Facebook only amplify this and now everyone has become their own tv critic, ringleader, announcer, omniscient narrator, diarist. I always wish that the movies were this accessible to people to enjoy en masse but... sigh.

With deeper immersion comes less accessibility I suppose.

If she's growling and decomposing, shoot her! 

Anyway, Sunday night I opted not to tweet through AMC's much ballyhooed THE WALKING DEAD. I was curious before the series even began how they would work around television restrictions, only to realize that there are no restrictions. You can apparently show anything on non-premium cable during prime-time hours including little girls and grown men getting their brains blown out (in slo-mo!) and men getting their heads smashed to bits with baseball bats as long as nobody says the naughty "F" word or shows the naughty boobies, butts or dangly man-bits.

[Lots on GLEE & more WALKING DEAD after the jump]

Otherwise it's all good!

I had planned to tweet but I didn't get any further than this.

Now that it's had time to settle I don't even know how to review The Walking Dead. It felt like every zombie movie that has ever been made cuisinarted together. Once it had become a fine slush, it was poured into a new TV sized mold slowly, slowly now... you gotta string it out over several episodes. While pouring, Chef Frank Darabont (he's writer, director, producer), described his "new" old concoction with a southern twang.

True to AMC's form, The Walking Dead is a well made show. It was scary, well acted, and intense. I can easily give it that. The only missing AMC ingredient was a unique identity. It even starts its zombie apocalypse just about the same exact way (homage?) as the chief revivalist of today's current zombie craze. In this film / tv show our hero "Jim" (Cillian Murphy, 28 Days Later) /  "Rick" (Andrew Lincoln, The Walking Dead) wakes up in an abandoned hospital, disoriented, sick, thirsty and totally unaware that while he was "sleeping" (coma?), the world basically ended from a zombie plague. The only difference? Rick wakes up buck naked in a stripped hospital bed and Jim wakes up under sheets and under those he's wearing a hospital gown and under that he's got boxer shorts on.

Twang, not wang!

I don't mean to be flippant. I don't expect to see nudity on television. But I'm being absolutely 100% serious when I say that I do not understand why the MPAA ratings or television board (I forgot the name) exist. They've always been, well, dumb. But theoretically their 'goddamn raison d'etre' is easy to understand. But if you seek to destroy a whole entertainer's career over a wardrobe malfunction but you can show a zombie movie on TV with all of the R rated violence intact (they pulled approximately zero punches) what the hell are you on about?

Are body parts (non bloody rotting ones I mean) and excessive profanity the only remaining taboos?

I know there's a lot of violence on TV shows (especially procedurals which really seem to get off on it) but it's usually more "described" than shown. I mean, I watch Dexter. I can handle some violence. But that's a pay cable series. I'm not sure I am okay with the idea that any little kid who wants to can watch The Walking Dead and enjoy all the grisly slaughter. It reminded me of something I'd long since forgotten: on the weekend that Zach Snyder's Dawn of the Dead (2004) remake opened, two teenagers approached me at the movie theater and asked me to buy them tickets. Apparently the theater was policing that R rating. I declined. I wasn't trying to be a jerk but I'd seen way too many parents leading their little kids (not even teenagers) into slasher movies in that same exact theater and so I had become ultra sensitive and judgey about what people were letting the newest generations watch. Just think, all those teens had to do was wait 6 years and they could see the same thing on regular cable for free.

a tough cop and  a hungry mom.

Back on topic. I might give The Walking Dead another episode or two -- again, it was well executed -- but I'm nervous.

I'm especially uncomfortable with what struck me as a pretty obvious (if unintentional?) misogyny: the first female we see is the little girl zombie. She's the first kill. We follow that with a jump backwards in time and we sit with two cops (Rick and his partner Shane, Jon Berthal, pictured above) and we discuss Rick's cruel nagging wife and how she wants him to share his feelings (god forbid!). We don't meet her then so she gets no voice of her own, just the one prescribed to her: cruel, nagging, relentless, one who causes emotional distress to her husband AND child. The next important female "character" we meet is another cruel mother; this one is a zombie who really wants to dine on her son. The boy's good heroic father is protecting him from her, though he still can't bring himself to kill his now-cruel wife. Later, we see a few living female characters (no names) and we discover that Rick's wife (the cruel nag) is alive and she's now sleeping with his former partner (pictured, left). In their defense they both think Rick is dead but basically what we have here is dead women, hungry dead women, and living unfaithful nags!

My rating has to be threefold thus far. Execution: B+ | Morality: D | Originality: F. So, I guess I'll have to go with a C for now.

I'll give it one or two more episodes on account of its fine acting/execution and to see if I'm wrong about the morality and originality problems. Maybe I am. (And, yes, sexism is a moral failing. But I notice on AMC's site that there are a couple of female principals so maybe things will be different soon.)

Meanwhile over on network television...

GLEE was also shoving our hypocrisy in our faces with its strange decision to do a tribute to the very R rated Rocky Horror Picture Show. That one I did tweet through. Glee is generally as horny as your average (gay) teenager -- the show is constantly seeking opportunities to show us the bare abs and chests of the male characters -- but in the same episode, they shamed the teacher (Mr Shue, Matthew Morrison) for his willing exploitation of teen flesh. "Pot." "Kettle." The show just doesn't seem smart enough to be aware of or intentionally presenting its own ironies or hypocrisies. The writing is way too inconsistent to give it that benefit of the doubt. If they can't even remember basic personality traits and motivations from episode to episode, how they gonna build complex story-telling with meta commentary while belting their show stoppers?

My overriding question is this: Why did they choose to do Rocky Horror in the first place when they couldn't even bring themselves to sing the words "transsexual" or "heavy petting" let alone commit to drag or same sex hedonism (Mercedes plays Frankenfurther, negating all of this. Happy to see her get a plum role, but...this one?)?

But, most importantly, I 'm not sure I can live in a world where everyone starts misquoting Rocky Horror's hilarious lyrics because Glee did them wrong; show tunes are sacred!

But for all of my frustrations with Glee, I dig it on some deep level and want it to be a million times better than it is. It's sometimes so embarrassing but every once in a while it transcends. At the very least there's usually a good quotable or three buried somewhere in each messy episode. Becky's "give me some chocolate or I will cut you" has already become a favorite.  And there's a certain amount of joy in the mass-sharing of a public phenomenon. #glee always sparks fun tweet conversations.

WonderRobbie always delights me and Glee's weird double standards on sexuality have escaped virtually no one -- though I hadn't noted, like Joseph wisely did, that the GQ photoshoot that everyone got their panties in a twist about, made an interesting duet with all of the punches they were pulling when doing Rocky Horror.

In the end, I realize I had a similar reaction to The Rocky Horror Glee Show that I had to The Walking Dead. I thought I was enjoying it while it was going on only to realize afterwards that I was totally disappointed. The little missteps and underlying weak foundation just piled up. So I have to hand it to the often brilliant critic Matt Zoller Seitz. We got into it on Twitter -- here's a little of our public back-n-forth...

I share this because, after his brilliant full length write-up of the show, I'm totally coming 'round to his point of view. Except, that is, when it concerns that Britney Spears episode which he liked and which to me was such a creative nadir that I am stunned that the show ever crawled back up again, let alone started doing high kicks and pirouettes like it had never fallen in the first place.

Sweet Transvestite
The Brilliant Tim Curry

I was never an obsessive fan of The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975). I brought toast and rice to throw and what not but I never dressed up in costume or made it a weekly midnight habit. But I did buy the soundtrack and went to 4 or 5 midnight shows over a 2 year period. And I got really fascinated by the overriding theme "Don't dream it. Be it." which scared the hell out of me at the time (late 80s in my case) as it would anyone who is repressed on any level.

So, I was happy to see it revived again in this major reaching-millions way. But since Glee doesn't really have the strength of its convictions, they should probably steer clear of randier material. Please, people, no more Sweet Transvestites from Transsexual, Transylvania. I mean, clutch your pearls, children could be watching! Why couldn't Glee just have gone with something wholesome like Sweeney Todd's throat slitting and cannibalism; you can't can do that on television!
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"Mary, did you see The Omen?"

I'm multi-tasking! It's a new episode of actors on actors, tv @ the movies and a monologue.

Recently after an accidental couch potato binge on The Golden Girls -- you all know what that's like, right? -- I realized that the boyfriend had never seen the classic 70s sitcom Soap, which is from the same creative team, so we've been watching. The main character is rich dotty matriarch Jessica Tate (Katherine Helmond of Whos The Boss fame). She brings up movies and movie stars constantly. The fantasy of movies is a natural fit, since she doesn't have the firmest grasp of reality. She's basically a template for Rose on Golden Girls. Helmond, like White after her, has a very firm grasp of comic timing.

In this scene she wants to look through a family photo album because she believes they've all been cursed.

Jessica Tate: I think that in those pictures we'll find the answer. Mary did you see The Omen? Well, I mean nobody believed Lee Remick when she said that her son was the devil and he was trying to kill her and you know what happened? He killed her. And then, I mean, of course everyone said 'well, she was right' but it did her a lot of good, she was dead by then.

Ha. It's much funnier with Helmond's loopy train of thought speed delivery.

Have you ever gotten into an entertainment mood that you couldn't quite shake? See I've been in this broad yuks mood for like a month now. It's not a normal mood for me. I think it started when I caught the Off Broadway Hitchcock spoof The 39 Steps a few months back which had a lot of inspired slapstick. Recently this mood was reignited watching Mel Brooks Silent Movie (1976) on BluRay (from this terrific box set that). Lets just say I hurt from laughing... especially during Bernadette Peters repeat vavavoom number. Her hip swivels just knock audiences right over. Literally.

The success of any comedy is so dependent on your mood, isn't it?

Anyway, back to Emmy-winning Helmond. Here's another actressy bit when Jessica is accused of the murder of her young lover. Her husband promises her they'll get the best lawyer. "But what about that movie?!" she pleads confusing him, and she's off in her own world again. Instead of worrying about the trial she's worried about who will play her in the movie version she's certain they'll make.

Jessica: Promise me that you'll try to maintain some control. Because I just have a feeling -- I just have this awful feeling that they're thinking of having Shelley Winters play me! See I was thinking of someone like Catherine Deneuve --she's attractive enough. Or it could make a wonderful musical. Barbra Streisand could play me.

 

Shelley Winters, for those of you who are only familiar, was briefly a starlet and then an Oscar bait actress but as early as the 60s she had moved into her late period blowsy mouthy dame mode. She wasn't exactly an emblem of "class" in the movies.

If you were ever on trial for murder, would you worry about who would play you in the movie? 
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TV @ the Movies: Thelma & Louise Hates Texas. Drag U & Marie Antoinette.

I get many emails asking me to write more frequently about the small screen so I figured I should cave if a tv series really excites me (like Mad Men) but on one condition: it has to reference the movies (or feature a beloved movie actress) or involve awardage. I've highlighted movie-adjacent TV before like pre-fame TV roles or unexpected actress moments. So henceforth, I'll package it in series form. You know how we do here at TFE. If something I happen to catch on television references the movies, I'll feature it on Saturday mornings to thank it for doing so.


Last week on Friday Night Lights Becky fell asleep watching Thelma & Louise and that is... well, I can only suspend so much disbelief and you just don't fall asleep watching that movie. It's awesome -- top ten of the 90s level awesome. But Becky is my least favorite character so whatever. She's a mess and there's no accounting for taste. There's a reason Louise won't drive thru Texas, y'all! She'd rather drive right off a cliff. I can't even discuss falling asleep watching Thelma & Louise without turning red with fury. Inappropriate! Those women deserved better.

So for this edition of "TV @ The Movies" a brief discussion of Drag U instead.

RuPaul's Drag U episode 1.2 "Dateless Divas"
I'm fairly certain this show is not half as good as it could be.

• Qualm #1: a makeover show. Like we needed another one.
  
• Qualm #2: I'm assuming Raven won't be in every episode and when the first Raven-less episode appears, I will feel cheated.
  
• Qualm #3: why isn't the entire panel of judges famous queens like Lady Bunny? I mean to have a "Dean of Dance" and it's not Candis Cayne? That's just wrong!) -- but I love that the underlying message is so subversive: everyone would be better off if they became a drag queen.

Raven: These girls are lucky that they have the advanced technology of the dragulator!
RuPaul: The Dragulator is a highly sophisticated piece of tech-no-lo-gy

Raven was the hottest miss thang on last year's Drag Race (and anyone who coins the phrase "giving Michelle Pfeiffer Bitch" has won me for life.) so I'm happy that she's practically the star of Drag U already. And, of course, Ru's always had a way with hilarious line readings. The Dragulator is awesome. Ru understands the camp value of a low budget (not to mention the power of a catchphrase and cheap gimmick). Anyway, the [sassy head bob] tek•nol•uh•jee suggests that contestant Lenae becomes "Honey Boom" and she likes it.

"I was like, 'That's Marilyn Monroe. And she really is inside of me!'"

It's really more like Chicago's Queen Latifah when Velma's like "Not you too, Mama!?!" in despair of platinum blonde Roxie Mania but never mind. Later Lenae dances to "I'm Every Woman" in this new gold lamé platinum blonde version of herself which confuses the girlie iconography even further Whitney + Queen ≠ Marilyn??? Whaaaa... But I shouldn't doubt the Dragulator because it is to RuPaul what "Magic Screen" was to Pee Wee, yes?


So... eventually Lenae as Honeyboom blows a kiss to the judges with a "Happy Birthday Mr. President" proving once again that Marilyn did it best. More celebrities ought to understand their own image with pinpoint precision and sell it accordingly at public events. If they hope to be remembered 48 years after their death, that is.

Meanwhile Lenae's competitor Debbie is transformed into "Moxie Mayhem" saying

"It's like Memoirs of a Geisha meets Marie Antoinette"

And you know that mash-up sent me reeling... cuz I hate and love in equal measure! [To recap: Memoirs = hate / Marie = love]


'Honeyboom' won the competition but I was the true winner because it got me to thinking about Marie-Antoinette, aka the 'misunderestimated' movie of the Aughts.

Leaping far from the RuPaul's Drag U topic, out of curiousity, I thought I'd check that statement. Nope! Oops. It's almost the most critically hated of my top 50 favorite movies of the Aughts but not quite. These are the least acclaimed of those, according to the TomatoMeter, the only films in my top 50 to not score in the 80% and above of critical approval. These are the places I refused consensus. Not out of contrarianism, mind you, but from pure love of the movies in question.

• Birth (39% on Rotten Tomatoes)
• Marie Antoinette (55% on Rotten Tomatoes)
• I ♥ Huckabees (62% on Rotten Tomatoes )
• Bring It On (64% on Rotten Tomatoes)
  
• Idioterne (The Idiots) (70% on Rotten Tomatoes)
  
• Moulin Rouge (77% on Rotten Tomatoes)
• 25th Hour (78% on Rotten Tomatoes)
  
• Beau Travail (79% on Rotten Tomatoes)

What'cha think about that?
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I Heart Huckabees

"I was giving Michelle Pfeiffer, bitch"

TV @ the Movies

Did you watch the finale of RuPaul's Drag Race earlier this week? For the final challenge they had to do a catsuit clad catfight and a music video "scene" with RuPaul straight outta 80s era Dynasty. I fully expected the series outcome but I was still disappointed. Scary/beautiful Raven was robbed. She was great all season long but for the finale challenge she was the only contestant who understood and nailed the 80s.

"I'm channeling Lisa Lisa. I'm chanelling Kelly LeBrock. I'm channeling Teena Marie."

Raven (2010) & Kelly LeBrock (1985)

I believe this is the first time in the history of the English language that anyone has said "I'm channelling Kelly LeBrock." Or at least the first time anyone's thought of doing so since the mid 80s when LeBrock had her flash-in-the-pan as the ideal female in The Woman in Red (1984) and Weird Science (1985).

By the time they got to the music video challenge, Raven had a loftier icon in mind.

"I was giving Michelle Pfeiffer, bitch.
I was looking at myself in the mirror.
I was looking f***ing good."
___-Raven on RuPaul's Drag Race

I knew there was a reason I loved Raven best. I get his meaning but I love that you can punctuate the sentence either way: comma bitch to address the audience or capital B Bitch as in the name of said Look... 'giving Michelle Pfeiffer Bitch.' When staring at the mirror with 80s hauteur cool one could conceivably say one was 'giving Michelle Pfeiffer Bitch' and be fully understood.

Example: Michelle Pfeiffer giving Michelle Pfeiffer Bitch.


It's a look.
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"Guest Starring" Josh Brolin

At the risk of getting cheesy with a Before They Were Stars moment, let's go back to the time when Josh Brolin was only James Brolin's son. It wasn't until his very recent amazing triple play (No Country For Old Men, American Gangster, Grindhouse) that he became a true star just as he was turning 40. Now he's in demand. He'll play the lead role in Oliver Stone's George Bush bio W. this October and then Harvey Milk's assassin in Gus Van Sant's Milk in November.

But guess what? When he was all of 19 years-old in 1987, he warmed up for that Bush role whilst guest starring on 21 Jump Street.


His character "Taylor Rolator" --what a name --was the villain of the the episode "The Future's So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades." Taylor is an over-privileged rich boy who had everything handed to him by his daddy. [Bush warm up? check ]

But wait, there's more. It gets funnier / spookier.

Young Josh shows up as soon as the credits begin. He's one of three prep school heirs who are out drinking and partying with a high school girl from the non-wealthy side of town. A hilariously underlining song plays over the credits... I wish I could make out all the lyrics because it's unbelievable...

My blood is blue...of the upper caste... Whatever I wear, Whatever I say. People stop to notice me...
My blood is blue. [back up singers: So cool, so damn cool. So cool, so damn cool]
That's all we do so don't you make a fuss. We're not ... But most people regard us with a lot more trust ... political preference. What we do always sets the trend...
We believe our press when they say we're cool... And we're breaking the rules!

Oy. Music was not this show's forte. Anyway, the girl is not long for this world. This is a cop show so they have to start with a crime. We don't see what happens but we do see her dead body the next morning. But first, Brolin has to get her properly liquored up.


He's still in high school and thus not old enough to buy booze. He slips the cashier $100 and then gets rude and bossy on account of the tip he just gave. Taylor disregards the laws of the land and behaves like an incredibly smarmy asshole. [Bush warm up? check, check ]

We desert Taylor/Bush soon so that the leads of the show get some story time. Johnny Depp and his cop partner are middle class guys and they resent these rich boys. They go undercover at West Chedway (the school) to befriend them and find out what happened to the girl But Johnny in particular has a real chip on his shoulder about their wealth "6000 a year just to go to high school!" and finds the assignment difficult.

In class the boys are reading All The King's Men. (How subtle!) The teacher calls on Taylor about a plot point. I was so sure he wouldn't know the answer like that horrible horrible scene in Fahrenheit 911 when Bush sits there stupidly when NYC is under siege. Wait is Taylor/Bush praying for the answer? [ check ]

God apparently answers smarmy asshole prayers because he gives a perfect answer pleasing the teacher. He sounds totally intelligent. [Bush warm-up: nope ] Cop Johnny isn't so lucky. He is totally stumped by the teacher's questions.

But soon enough the 21 Jump Street boys infiltrate the rich kid circle and learn more about them along the way. Taylor is the president of the honor council. When asked if he can be bought, he simply laughs.

He's the figurehead. Are these other guys rehearsing for Cheney and Rove roles?

Handed leadership role --doesn't take it seriously. [Bush warm up? check]

Oh but there is one thing he takes seriously. He is also the "President of the Fun Club" When asked what the Fun Club means, his co-hort explains

Thrill seekers, risk takers, wealth makers. Also known as the royal we. Dedicated to competition and recreation.

Taylor/Bush adds on:

The man with the most toys wins. Plebes be damned!

He follows this charming mantra by snorting coke and chasing it with some Absolut.

Booze. Cocaine. Greed. Dismissive of everyone outside of his base. [ check x 4 ]

I can't go on.This is getting too depressing. Taylor and all his pals talk about their fathers constantly. They've got big daddy issues. In another moment in the show he makes a toast while they're drinking "Here's to taking over!" Argh. He's power hungry too. [check, check]

But since this is television and not the real world "Taylor Rolator" doesn't get away with all his crimes like real world politicians and presidents do. Brolin's Bush warm-up ends before this episode does.

In 21 Jump Street Taylor's money and lawyers get him out of the triple rape and murder charges, but he still doesn't live to see the end credits. The murdered girl's angry brother confronts him with a gun in the street.

What did you do to my sister?

Fade out on Brolin's expression dropping and the sound of a gunshot.

Since Young Brolin is so good at playing Taylor/Bush I'm thinking "What did you do to my sister country?" instead as I watch this. But never mind that gunshot (vigilante violence doesn't solve problems... and boy would we be better off now if our president had known that) --let's just get to the fade out. November 4th can't come soon enough.


Time for the next episode, don't you think?
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