MOVIES
Burn After Reading (1.5 Spuds)
Wall-E (2 Spuds)
In The Electric Mist (2 Spuds)
BOOKS/AUTHORS
Michael Connelly
TV
Surviving Suburbia (No Spud 4U)
Parks & Recreation (1 Spud)
Southland (2 Spuds)
The Unusuals (2 Spuds)
KNOW YOUR SPUDS
TWO XL SPUDS — Absolute Must See
TWO SPUDS — Definitely Worth Checking Out
1.5 SPUDS—Worth Checking Out, But Don’t Expect A Ton
ONE SPUD – Not Worth It, Except For The Hardcore Fan
NO SPUD 4U – Just Plain Sucks
Today which is Good Friday, so all the stores are closed, as part of my further commitment to spring, I’m going to wash the Spudmobile. This will not only give me a little quality time out in the sun, it will also give me a chance to see how my Shamwow performs outside the house. You may chuckle at the Shamwow reference, but the fact is they are very good. They absorb moisture like crazy and rinse cleaner than sponges. Over the past few weeks I have become quite the Shamwow fan in spite of the fact that the Shamwow spokesman has recently been arrested in Miami for aggravated assault. It’s a funny story.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Technology/ShamWow+arrested+after+hotel+fight+with+woman+Smoking/1436935/story.html
Anyway, as I sit here in Spud Central looking out the window, I can see that the grass is getting greener and greener. Hope yours is too.
TV
SURVIVING SUBURBIA (NO SPUD 4U)
IN A NUTSHELL: This is a mediocre comedy about life in suburbia. It’s populated with survivors from other mediocre sitcoms and some good shows too (who may be slumming). In the first episode Bob Saget, who I never thought was funny and his hapless neighbour (Jeri Burns), burn down their neighbour’s house. That’s funny? Well I guess it depends on your definition of funny. FEARLESS FORECAST: This show kinda wore out in the first fifteen minutes. It’s pretty awful. If it weren’t for the fact that there’s a shortage of fresh TV these days, I never would have bothered with it. I’m not even gonna tell you when it’s on. Cause if you want to torture yourself in that way, I don’t want to be any part of that. It’s likely they produced 6 episodes of this crud. I predict it will die after that. This will irritate even the most brain dead among us.
PARKS AND RECREATION (1 SPUD)
IN A NUTSHELL: This is a series about an overzealous blonde who works for the parks and rec department of a small city somewhere in America. She has a boss who wants to privatize the park system. An assistant who gets her drunk all the time and watches her do stupid stuff. And associate who slept with her once and appears to be secretly in love with her and an intern who seems to do nothing much. Also, this is being filmed by some documentarian for reasons unknown. FEARLESS FORECAST: This show is a lot like The Office, which I’m sure the derivative thinkers behind the show are hoping people will see and latch onto it with the same ferocity. Unfortunately, in this day and age, shows like this take so long to build an audience that this one could very well be worm food by the time their share reaches and acceptable level. These are not shows that are watched here at Spud Central, simply because they are not entertaining enough. Parks & Rec has the added bonus of an extremely irritating lead character, which will only serve to bury the show even quicker.
SOUTHLAND (2 SPUDS) (THURSDAYS @ 10:00)
John Wells is a Hollywood writer producer got his start on TV way back in the day on a show called China Beach. He then moved quickly up the food chain to megahit shows like Third Watch, The West Wing, ER, and the outstanding, but shortlived series Smith from a couple of years ago. This guy is a heavy hitter in the industry and this show could be destined to be another John Wells Classic. It’s very good. IN A NUTSHELL: It’s a police drama that follows several different characters both detectives and uniforms through the streets of hardcore gangbanger territory in LA. One of the uniformed cops is Ben MacKenzie (no relation to Bob and Doug, eh) from the OC, a Beverly Hills brat who nobody believes will make it on the mean streets. The writing on this show is edgy and there were even a few bleeps, which led me to believe that Wells created this show for cable, where freedom of speech is guaranteed, as opposed to network where the pickle is far up the ass. Whatever. It did not detract from the power of this show. On the flip side, this show is dark and full of nasty stuff. Lots of blood and guts. But the characters are all extremely interesting, even Ben, who I never thought was much of an actor in The OC, has dialed it up a notch. FEARLESS FORECAST: This is high quality TV entertainment all the way. It was put into the ER timeslot and those are big shoes to fill, especially up against The Eleventh Hour, which is run by another master of the media Jerry Bruckheimer. This show is way to good to die, but it might be too good for the networks.
THE UNUSUALS (2 SPUDS) (WEDNESDAY AT 10:00)
This show is the second out of the gate from Executive Producers Denis Leary and his amigo Peter Tolan. (Rescue Me—One of the very best series on TV). I didn’t find that out until just now having watched and really enjoyed it last night. Even the Wife thought it was OK , so that makes it pretty much a must see. IN A NUTSHELL: This is an ensemble cast of officers and detectives in an NYPD precinct, probably lower Manhattan. It’s made up of real bunch of eccentrics and a newly added lady cop who had just moved over from Vice and is partnered with a detective who had just lost his partner to murder, which they are investigating. This show is a real comedy drama. The characters and their eccentricities create the comedy, the gritty New York crime scene creates the drama. There is also another plot overlay which involves corruption in the precinct. So there’s all kinds of good stuff happening here. FEARLESS FORECAST: Cop shows on network TV have gotten edgier and edgier as the years have gone by. This one is no exception. It’s real high quality TV for grown ups. I just hope the grownups keep tuning in to keep it alive. Apparantly, its debut numbers were not that good. But knowing that Leary and Tolan are well connected in the cable world, I think this series will live on in one place or another.
DVD
BURN AFTER READING (1.5 SPUDS)
The Coen Brothers have managed to go through the last 20 years of movie making and never make the same movie twice. In Hollywood this is quite a feat. Over the years they have made some great movies and a lot of good ones. This one falls in the Good category. It’s essentially a black comedy about a CIA agent (John Malkovich) who gets bounced and decides to get back the agency by writing his memoirs. A disk containing this and some of his other personal accounting information, which his wife (Tilda Swinton) is using as part of her divorce action (she’s having an affair with George Clooney) against him, falls into the hands of Brad Pitt and Frances McDormand who try to extort money from Crazy John and the story goes on from there.
The movie creates an extremely complex sequence of relationships that tie themselves into a neat little bow at the end. It’s clever as all get out. It’s mildly entertaining and even a little slapstick in parts. And that’s what’s wrong with it. If I didn’t know better I’d think the Coen Brothers were making a conscious effort in this film to please everybody and by doings so, don’t really wow anyone, least of all me.
Unlike No Country For Old Men, which was pure Coen Brothers and extremely focused, Burn After Reading is a bit of a hodgepodge and kind of a waste of all that star power.
IN THE ELECTRIC MIST (2 SPUDS)
This is an adaptation of southern author James Lee Burke’s great Dave Robichaud novels and I hope it will be one of many more. I always look for movies based on the works of authors I like to read because it’s interesting to see how their work translates to the screen. In this case, it’s very good. Dave, played perfectly by Tommy Lee Jones, is the chief of police in a parish North of New Orleans, where some young women have been turning up dead, killed in ritual fashion. Methodically and intuitively, Dave goes about the business of putting all the pieces together via knowledge of the local hoodlum population, cop intuition and interactions with a lot of very nasty southern types. This is one of those movies where everybody gets to put a little Cajun lilt in their character’s lines.
Dave, as you may have already guessed, is a bit of a tortured soul. He’s an ex-alcoholic who has lost more than his share of people close to him because of his job. He’s pretty world weary and this is the kind of character that Tommy Lee Jones does so well. Part of Dave’s tortured soul, in this case, has allowed him to conjure up the ghost of an old Confederate General who gives him abstract advice. This character is played by Levon Helm and he pretty much steals the movie.
In The Electric Mist has a slow pace to it, mimicking, in a way the slow pace of life down in southern Louisiana. But it’s one of those movies that is all about texture and character and on that level is really quite a rewarding experience.
WALL-E (2 SPUDS)
This is a pixar animated feature about a little robot whose job is compacting the trash that’s pretty much all that’s left when everybody moves off the earth after they have pretty much run it into the ground. This movie is fascinating because the Pixar people are incredibly creative. The story is not much to write home about, but the animation is superb and the visual texture of this film is amazing to look at. It’s kind of hard to critique a film like this because, well, it’s basically a 94 minute cartoon. I guess it’s trying to make a point about the environment. But mostly it’s just interesting to watch and amazingly well constructed.
BOOKS…YEAH BOOKS!
MICHAEL CONNELLY
Michael Connelly is an LA writer who writes about cops and forensics and even the odd novel about general crime in LA.
He is probably most famous for his Harry Bosch novels. Harry is a detective whose old school technique and fierce dedication often get up the nose of the higher ups and, of course, land him in a whole lot of trouble. But the successive police chiefs for whom he works all understand that at the end of the day, he’s an invaluable asset and kind of strike their own deals with him. I’m not sure how Michael Connelly has come to know so much about the inner workings of the LAPD, but he knows an awful lot. LA has always been the poster city FORpolice corruption and it’s no less corrupt today than it ever was. The police department just knows more about public relations.
Harry doesn’t really get directly involved with the politics. He kind of minds his own business and dances around it. His style is slow and methodical, and like most detectives, his memory for criminals is as deep as his understanding of their behaviour.
Connelly is a great writer and storyteller. A lot of the stuff that happens to Harry Bosch in the present has a lot to do with stuff that happened to him in the past, so you can get a kind of history lesson as well as a great story when you read any of Michael Connelly books, which include;
Harry Bosch Books (PS it’s good to read them in order if you can)
1. The Black Echo (1992)
2. The Black Ice (1993)
3. The Concrete Blonde (1994)
4. The Last Coyote (1995)
5. Trunk Music (1996)
6. Angels Flight (1998)
7. A Darkness More Than Night (2000)
8. City Of Bones (2002)
9. Lost Light (2003)
10. The Narrows (2004)
11. The Closers (2005)
12. Echo Park (2006)
13. The Overlook (2007)
14. The Brass Verdict (2008)
15. 9 Dragons (2009)
NOT HARRY BOSCH
The Poet (1995)
Blood Work (1998)
Void Moon (1999)
Chasing The Dime (2002)
The Lincoln Lawyer (2005)
The Scarecrow (2009)
Well that’s all I got for now. I did watch “You Don’t Mess With The Zohan’, last night. But I’m saving that for next time. I’ve gotta go shopping for appliances with the wife. We’re doing our bit to stimulate the econ0my.
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