The "Greek" Gatsby

Yea for Greek being back! I'm so excited about it that I'm finally blogging again. I really like Greek a lot. Maybe because it always airs in kind of a down time (summer, post-strike), but I've come to think it would hold up even against some stiffer competition.

I must start out by saying that my big complaint about this episode was that there was not enough Dale. Come on, folks, Clark Duke is a revelation! Give him more to do. I loved the opening scene with Calvin (how proud am I that I now finally remember that guy's name?) and Rusty trying to figure out what to do, and Dale mentioning gatherings of his geeky friends:

Dale: "And there are girls! Well, there was one once...at least I'm pretty sure it was a girl..."
Calvin: "Let's keep looking."
Rusty: "The circus is in town."

And then Clark's disco dancing at the 1970s party was adorable. They need to figure out some more ways to bring his character into the fold with the other characters.

As a flapper-enthusiast, I loved the Roaring '20s party. I'm also wildly impressed that these college kids are able to adopt a theme so wholeheartedly. They certainly all didn't just happen to pack flapper dresses when they came back to college after winter break.

A shining moment of the episode was the return of Ferris Bueller's Day Off's Cameron as the dean. It's been quite a week for Ferris Bueller guest stars with the secretary on a great episode of Miss Guided last week and now Cameron on Greek. And, kudos to Greek for coming up with an inside joke to acknowledge his presence--while not being too obvious--with Ashleigh's "...which is why, in many ways, I think that Ferris Bueller is my generation's Gatsby." Nicely done.

Other highlights:

• Last summer I called that the Kappa Tau's wouldn't care that Calvin is gay. The KTs are the picture of tolerance.


• Evan is always awfully dressed up. He's wearing a tie for crying out loud. I do not recall ever seeing frat boys who wore ties. On the upside, Evan has been displaying a surprising amount of integrity through the Calvin situation.


• Rebecca looks totally different with that bobbed wig.


• Ashleigh is quite the singer!


• Casey (to a ridiculous looking Rusty): "You look..... are you having fun?"


• Calvin's ex-boyfriend looks like he dressed for a Charles Dickens-themed party. Perhaps he got the wrong memo.


• Cappie's in over his head with balancing Casey and Rebecca. He'd better watch it though, because he doesn't want to make Rebecca too mad; she's dangerous.


• Beaver reading The Great Gatsby aloud was great. "...minute? Minute...it's probably minute." Ok, that joke doesn't translate well when it's written down, but it was funny when Beaver said it.


• Did Cappie just call Evan "bing"? What does "bing" mean? I've only been out of college for a year and I'm out of the loop on the lingo already?


• I'm excited to see Cappie's retribution on Evan!! The Cappie/Evan fight in the previews they showed last week looked hot! Bring it on. With Ryan Atwood and Logan Echolls gone, the instances of fist fights on shows I watch seem to have gone way down.


• Remember when the show at least pretended to be about Rusty? ;-)

So, after giving some good marks for the second episode of Greek's spring semester, I want to add that I thoroughly enjoyed the past series of Wildfire too. I probably should be more ashamed to admit that I like that show than I am. But darn it, I find the whole Chris/Matt/Junior/wind turbine love rhombus to be captivating. Granted, the production value of the show isn't awesome (there's usually at least one scene in each episode where you have no idea what's happening, such as the scene where the barn was on fire), some of the acting could be better, and it seems like a show about horses should display a better knowledge of horses, but whatever: I like it. I'm excited to see all heck break lose when Junior and Chris tell everyone they're getting married. I just wish the next chunk of eps weren't the end of the series.

And also: they should have just given Kristi Yamaguchi the Dancing with the Stars trophy after the first ep. There is no competition. Don't mess with figure skaters.

The SAS Awards

Since new, watchable television continues to dry up, I'm going to turn my attention to the cinema (as Warren Cheswick would say) for a post. To help ease my depression about tonight's lack of an actual Golden Globes awards show, I'm going to bestow some film awards of my own.

It seems that there are about a billion different organizations that hand out film awards every year, so I thought I'd go ahead and throw my hat into the ring. With a little more publicity, perhaps my awards will expand and in a few years maybe the nominees will be showing up at my door in fancy outfits. (By then I suppose I will have to actually make some sort of physical award to give them, but we can worry about that later.)

So, here's my list of the first annual Stuff Ann's Seen Awards a.k.a. the SAS Awards a.k.a. the Sassies! To be nominated or to win, the work must be in a movie released in 2007 that I actually saw...so obviously that limits the competition significantly. The list may have to be eventually revised if/when I catch up on some of the films I wanted to see but didn't.

Best Film Nominees:

• Atonement
• August Rush
• In the Land of Women
• Knocked Up
• Juno
• Spider-Man 3
• Waitress

Analysis: In retrospect, I think my favorite parts of Knocked Up were the fake outtakes with James Franco and Michael Cera that were posted on the internet. I liked In the Land of Women, but more because of my love of Adam Brody/Seth Cohen than for any particularly great aspect of the film itself. I also enjoyed Spider-Man 3, but acknowledge that it isn't exactly the best film of the year. August Rush and Waitress were both well-done, likable and moving (Waitress's main flaw was expecting me to hate Jeremy Sisto, which takes an awful lot of effort on my part). But this is a two-film battle between Juno and Atonement. Atonement was classy, creepy and beautiful and seamlessly produced feelings of great paranoia and disparagement. The film was certainly a masterpiece of using performance, music, cinematography, etc. to instill a single, unifying mood. But, I'm going to give the win to Juno. Although I didn't like it as much as last year's powerhouse small indie comedy Little Miss Sunshine, Juno was still funny, smart and surprisingly touching without being sappy or over-the-top. And, come on, Jason Bateman, Jennifer Garner and Michael Cera in the same movie. Enough said.

Best Actor Nominees:

• Adam Brody, In the Land of Women
• Jon Heder, Blades of Glory
• Freddie Highmore, August Rush
• Tobey Maguire, Spider-Man 3
• James McAvoy, Atonement

Analysis: I doubt I'll ever tire of the Adam Brody/Seth Cohen shtick, Tobey got to display a new range in the Spider-Man trilogy as a less-likable Peter, Jon Heder did a solid Johnny Weir impression (!), and Freddie gave a powerful, believable performance as a music prodigy. But, coming as a surprise to basically no one who knows me and my film tastes, the Sassy goes to James McAvoy for his work in Atonement. And fantastically good work it was, as he proved (yet again) that while he could rely solely on his hotness and very blue eyes, he doesn't have to. His work in the war scenes was harrowing and he was downright scary (good) in the reunion scene with older Briony.

Best Actress Nominees:

• Katherine Heigl, Knocked Up
• Keira Knightley, Atonement
• Ellen Page, Juno
• Keri Russell, Waitress

Analysis: First of all, props to Keira for being the only actress in the category to NOT play a character dealing with an unplanned pregnancy. Also props to Keira for her turn as Atonement's Cecilia, my favorite performance of hers ever. Heigl held up well amongst the bawdiness of Knocked Up, but the race here is between Ellen and Keri. Ellen was great as Juno--truly carrying the film with her combination of searing wit and vulnerability. But the Sassy goes to Keri (often overlooked by other awards) for her engrossing turn as the bitter, desperate and sarcastic pregnant pie-maker. Her hilarious "Dear Damn Baby..." voice-over cemented her win.

Best Supporting Actor Nominees:

• Michael Cera, Juno
• James Franco, Spider-Man 3
• Andy Griffith, Waitress
• Justin Long, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
• Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, August Rush

Analysis: There are quite a few of my favorites smushed together in this one category. Justin provided my favorite part of Walk Hard with his spot-on George Harrison impersonation, Michael Cera was awkwardly irresistible as always in Juno, Andy Griffith was funny and touching as the sage pie store owner, and Jonathan Rhys-Meyers was desperately hot and quite a good singer in August Rush. The Sassy goes to James Franco for (presumably) Harry's last hurrah. I mean, there was a scene where he made and omelet and did the twist--come on, no one else had a chance.

Best Supporting Actress Nominees:

• Jennifer Garner, Juno
• Saoirse Ronan, Atonement
• Jenna Fisher, Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
• Michelle Pfeiffer, Hairspray

Analysis: Jenna Fisher did a good job with her very anti-Pam Beesly over-the-top character and Pfeiffer's evil blonde was about the only thing I liked about Hairspray (I guess it was a problem that I usually agreed with her nasty assessments of the other characters). The real race here is between Jen Gar and Saoirse. Saoirse was a revelation in Atonement, playing the creepy little girl so well that she came dangerously close to stealing the show from James McAvoy (no easy task) and Keira Knightley. Saoirse's performance was all the more brilliant because I really couldn't tell if she was just confused or actually pure evil. The Sassy, however, goes to Jennifer. Obviously already a favorite of mine, Jen freaking broke my heart with her work in Juno--making her character somewhat unlikeable in the beginning only to turn her into the person I most wanted to be happy at the end.

Best Musical Performance:

• Michael Cera and Ellen Page, "Anyone Else But You," Juno
• Hugh Grant, "Pop Goes My Heart," Music and Lyrics
• Glenn Hansard and Marketa Irglova, "Falling Slowly," Once
• John C. Reilly, "Royal Jelly," Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
• Jonathan Rhys Meyers, August Rush

Analysis: Yep, I saw Hairspray and didn't nominate it in the Best Musical Performance category. There's a reason for that. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (with the help of Mick from Moonlight!) performed well as an Irish rock singer and Michael and Ellen's version of "Anyone Else But You" is adorable. The hilarious Bob Dylan spoof song was my favorite musical number in Walk Hard and it is awesome that even after achieving a large amount of success in the movie business, Hugh Grant is still willing to make such a fool of himself. But the category's winner (perhaps on a technicality) is "Falling Slowly" from Once, which I have not seen, but I think the song is pretty great.

Best. NYE. Ever.

Happy New Year's Eve! (And happy new year also.)

As a holiday treat, here's a link to my absolute favorite NYE (have people always been using that acronym, or is it a new thing? It drives me a little nuts) television moment ever:

The kiss, the confetti, the music, the set decoration--it's all perfection.

This television moment has singlehandedly led me to feel that no matter what I do for NYE, it will never quite be good enough.

100th Post! (And Happy Birthday!)

Happy 100th post to me. In honor of my own birthday a few weeks ago, I was planning to do a post on good birthday-themed TV episodes, but I never got around to it. However, I think it kind of applies to the blog's 100th post anniversary in that it's some sort of milestone, so I'll give it a whirl now. Plus, December birthdays always get overshadowed by the holiday season, so here's something a little special for all the people with December b-days. (And, yes, I realize that the chances of one of the 1.7 people who occasionally read this blog actually having a December birthday are not good, but oh well.)



Best Birthday TV Episodes:

• Rory turns 16, Gilmore Girls, season 1: Rory's b-day causes a stir among the Gilmore generations (what doesn't?) when she doesn't appreciate the snooty party Emily throws her. All is tenuously patched up though when Richard and Emily agree to attend Rory's Stars Hollow party...even thought Lorelai accidentally yells, "Get your ass in here!" at them.
• Michelle turns 3, Full House, season 3: It sure seemed like Michelle Tanner had a lot of birthdays (the sun sure seemed to shine on that child), especially since I can't remember Stephanie having any. Hmm. That's a topic for another time, I guess. Anyway, my favorite Michelle b-day was when she, Steph and Uncle Jesse accidentally get locked in a gas station on the day of her party. Things initially look dire, but Jesse and Steph dress like clowns, do a sock puppet routine and juggle, so everything turns out awesome.
• Caleb turns ??, The OC, season 1: Ok, I can't make a complication list without including something from The OC, but I sure wasn't going to include the season 3 ep where Ryan turns 18. Anything that seeped in (dead) Johnny, Sadie and Volchok will never find a place on any Best Of... list of mine. The season 1 ep where we meet Caleb for the first time, however, was great, even though it threw a big monkey wrench (in the form of Caleb's hot and very young girlfriend) into the blossoming Ryan/Marissa love affair. Episode highlights include some freaky foreshadowing about Sandy and Kirstin moving back to Berkeley, the obligatory witty banter, the first mention of the "I Wish I Was a Mermaid" poem and Seth and Summer's first kiss.
• Michael turns ??, The Office, season 2: Michael is never good at sharing the spotlight, especially on his birthday, so things go awry when Kevin has a skin cancer scare on Michael's big day. The episode features a trip to the skating rink, Dwight playing a Billy Joel song on a recorder (ugh), a Pam and Jim shopping trip and lots of funny quotes, including my favorite:

Michael: When I was seven, my mother hired a pony and a cart to come to my house for all the kids. And... I got a really bad rash. From the pony. And all the kids got to ride the pony. And I had to go inside, and my mother was rubbing cream on me, for probably three hours, and I never came outside. And by the time I came out, the pony was already in the truck and around the corner. So that was my worst birthday.

• George Michael turns 16, Arrested Development, season 3: I can't remember how much of GM's b-day is even really in the "Mr. F" episode, but I'm including it on the list because of this hilarious exchange:

Michael: Besides I already got George Michael the big present for his birthday...
George Michael: A suit! Dad, is it Jack Welch?
Michael: I want you to look under the pants.
George Michael: Quicken! Premiere! Dad, I hope you kept the receipt.
Michael: You want to return that?
George Michael: What? No, I want to deduct it!

• Fiona turns 21, Shameless, series 1: In the midst of a tearful scene in which he and Fiona profess their devotion to each other, Steve nearly gets carted away to prison when Tony busts him on his car thieving. Steve thankfully manages to talk his way out of the situation (as he usually can), and surprises birthday-girl Fiona by buying the house next door (and promptly blowing it up for the insurance money). Other highlights: Frank fakes his death, Monica and Norma make an appearance (until the kids kick them out) and Sheila's pregnant.

Ugh

This writers' strike is death. I'm watching people weigh themselves in national prime time television.

Getting to see any new scripted show now is a holiday in and of itself. Gossip Girl tomorrow night, everybody! (thank freaking holy goodness.)

Nobody puts Sark in a coffin.

Sorry, but that's definitely my version of "Nobody puts Baby in a corner." Like Patrick Swayze, I am in no mood for this crap. And you thought I hated Hiro before...

Honestly, if I saw Masi Oka walking down the street, I might punch him... which kind of seems akin to kicking a puppy, but that's how annoyed I am.

Ok, yes, Adam/Kensei/Sark/David Anders was trying to unleash a virus to wipe out 93% of the human population, but, frankly, if all the other people in the Heroes world are as stupid and annoying as the ones with super powers, maybe trying to start fresh isn't such a bad idea.

All right, let me try to move on here, because in addition to my adamant belief that David Anders should never, ever be buried alive, I had a few other hang ups about this episode (not that that should surprise anyone)...

First of all, I acknowledge that the Heroes writers had to rush the conclusion of this chapter due to the writers' strike, but that doesn't really give them carte blanche to plagiarize Alias. Or maybe the explanation is that Hiro is a big Alias fan, because his method for disposing of immortal Adam was exactly the same as Jack's method for disposing of immortal Sloane. Can't say it was a bad idea for Hiro to outsource his thinking to Jack Bristow (how much better would this show be if Jack Bristow were doing the thinking for all these people?). The burying-the-immortal-guy plot twist wouldn't have been so obviously a rip off of the Alias series finale if they hadn't have done it to an actor who was in the Alias season finale. Duh. I now fully expect that after the strike, Elle will spend a season trying to figure out who killed her best friend.

Now, moving past even that, I still have problems with Adam's burial. He's "immortal"--as in when things happen to him that would kill other people, he does not ultimately die because, like Claire, his cells are able to regenerate. But, the regeneration does not happen until whatever it was that "killed" them is removed from their bodies (the metaphorical arrow must be pulled out of the body)... a.k.a. they do technically die for a while. So, Adam is not going to just lie there in the coffin forever and ever--he's going to suffocate. If someone were to then dig him up and re-expose him to air, then I guess he would come alive again. The point is, though, that the "poetic justice" of the immortal guy living forever in a coffin does not exist, Hiro (and Tim Kring). The way I see it, Hiro just avenged the quick death of a fairly annoying old guy with the slow, torturous death of an extremely beautiful guy...which, in my book, makes him now not just annoying, but also kind of monstrous.

Ok, I guess I've said my piece about the burial. The more I think about Tim Kring's comment, "We've given the audience no reason to believe that Adam can figure a way to get out of there," the more I think he's just trying to be coy and that Adam will probably find a way out of the box within the first episode back from the break.

***Sidebar: doesn't it seem like a bad thing that after Heroes' two big finales, Tim Kring has felt the need to give interviews to try to explain what happened? I occasionally like to complain about the Lost guys too, but their "radio silence" after the momentous Lost Season 3 finale was smart.***

Other stuff:

• Maya and Mohinder in the same place is almost too much stupid for one room to handle.
• Nathan landing while carrying Grunberg was hysterical! "Let's never speak of this again!"--by far the funniest thing ever on Heroes. So funny it seemed like it was in the wrong show and a piece of Chuck had somehow slipped in. Heroes would be oh-so-much more tolerable to me if it developed more of a sense of humor about itself.
• Grunberg doesn't know Hiro either? Did they not meet at some point last year in the square when they were all there trying to take down Sylar?
• So, Maya's death was reversed--thank goodness, because we would have all missed her so much.
• The "deaths" of Nikki and Nathan are both somewhat ambiguous. If that was the end of Nikki, I feel badly, even though I can't really stand her, because her death ended up not really having anything to do with the greater plot. Honestly, although Nathan is one of my more-liked characters on this show, I was kind of glad that someone shot him, if just to end that sappy speech!
• I can't really believe that they all thought that telling people the truth about their powers was the best course of action. Aside from the fact that there are still Old Gen-ers around who don't want that secret out, superheroes never divulge their secret identities! Haven't they ever seen The Incredibles? Your greatest asset is your secret identity! Come on!

All right, friends, that is the last snarky blog entry I'll write about Heroes until it returns in "2008." Hopefully. Though if the strike lasts too long, I may run out of material and have to revisit it and come up with new things to complain about.

Snarky 'Heroes' Retrospective

In honor of tonight's nebulous Heroes "finale" (season finale? arc finale?), I compiled a list of--mostly snarky--comments I made but didn't post about the past 5 or so eps of Heroes. I was going to break them up by episode, but since episodes of Heroes tend to all run together anyway, I'm just going to lump them all in one big list.

While the WGA strike shortening the seasons of all tv shows really stinks, I can't say I'm at all bummed to see the virus/assassinating the older generation story line come to an end prematurely.

I am worried that Adam/Kensei/Sark/David is going to meet an untimely (well, I guess it can't be 'untimely' if you're 400+ years old) demise tonight since we now know he's the superbad (to borrow a term from Seth Rogen, etc.). And I really think he's a goner since it was explained in a heavy-handed manner last week that even the "immortal" cannot survive getting their heads chopped off (so, just in case any of you were wondering if Mary Queen of Scots happened to have the same power as Adam and Claire and maybe survived her execution, there's your answer).

In any event, I have decided to be optimistic and have faith that, if he's killed off Heroes, David will be able to find work somewhere else in a project that doesn't make him speak Japanese/talk about viruses/act opposite Masi Oka. I will gratefully watch whatever it is.

Heroes comments:

• Less than 4 minutes into the episode and I'm already totally bored...
• Why does Claire and Hunter's big plan to disgrace the head cheerleader remind me of that movie with Winona Ryder and Christian Slater where they end up killing everyone?
• YEA! David punched Hiro in the back of the head! That's the best thing I've seen on Heroes since he punched Hiro in episode 1.
• Are "Wicked" and "Hairspray" still going to be playing on Broadway next June?
• So we "saved the world" and it just needs saved all over again? This is frustrating, but at least we've got something else to deal with than Japanese school boy crushes and taking down the head cheerleader...
• Opium stops Hiro from using his powers? Crafty, Sark, crafty.
• Oh, thank God! Sark is finally out of feudal Japan! And, even better, he seems to be the evilest of the evil! Score!
• Now what would have been awesome would be if Sark/Adam had turned out to be KB/Elle's dad! That would have been hilarious and weird (since there's no age difference) and they'd be the coolest evil team ever.
• Ohhhh, so in last season's finale, 'Peter was using all his powers to keep from exploding' therefore he couldn't fly by himself. Nice try at explaining the major logical gap 6 months later...
• This Latino twins storyline was still worthless four months ago.
• Yea, KB! Zap him!
• Can we go back to six years ago when David and Kristen got it on? That's what I want to see! Please!
• This Nikki personality disorder thing is actually pretty interesting. It doesn't explain the disappearing tattoo though. Maybe she just imagined it.
• The company shouldn't let their inmates fraternize with each other. It's a recipe for disaster.
• KB to Mohinder: "What's your super power? Punching bag?" Snap.
• Does Dweebs not mind that his daughter goes around acting like a little hussy?
• A show with David Anders and Kristen Bell as the first two actors listed in the credits should be so much better than this.

(photo: heroes-pictures.com)