Cynical Cinema

In season seven of Wings, out today September 9th from Paramount Home Entertainment, Lowell is still the funniest character. However, Lowell is not around very long in season seven. In fact, this was Thomas Haden Church’s last season on Wings, as he left to pursue fame and fortune in the short-lived series Ned And Stacey. THC finally hit it big nine years later in Sideways with Paul Giamatti, and now he stars in Spiderman movies. When he left, in the third episode of the seventh season, joining the witness relocation program after witnessing a murder, there was precious little reason left to watch.

Oh, the fat guy who played Roy was still hilarious, the woman who played Casey was still hot, but after that there wasn’t much happening on this show. Joe and Brian (Tim Daly and Steven Weber) were that stereotypical brother duo that we’ve seen on every sitcom in the world, done much better on Everybody Loves Raymond. Fay is great, but she’s barely in it. Helen is…not as hot as I remember. Then again, it was the early 90s, big hair was the thing, and I was a kid full of hormones when I thought she was the best looking woman alive. She’s still attractive, but Casey holds up better over time. Tim Daly went on to bigger…well, at least better things, when he appeared as Christopher’s AA sponsor on The Sopranos. Crystal Bernard has done a few scant theatre productions since Wings, Steven Weber has done some crappy TV movies, David Schramm has disappeared off the face of the earth, Brian Haley as well, and Amy Yasbeck has virtually disappeared, despite the promise shown by her portrayal of a frazzled mom in the Problem Child movies.

And Tony Shaloub has done much better work of late than he did on Wings as Antonio. For a truly great Shaloub performance, check him out as a shark of a lawyer in last week’s release of The Man Who Wasn’t There, the Coen Brothers’ forgotten gem. For a truly great TV show, check out…something that isn’t Wings.

I have already gone on at length about No Country For Old Men.  Without a doubt in my mind, it was the best movie of last year.  For the full review:  http://blog.rogersradiointernet.com/cynicalcinema/2008/05/10/no-country-for-old-men-best-movie-of-the-millenium-1010/  Now, Alliance Films is releasing it again, along with The Man Who Wasn’t There in a two-disc set.  A two-disc set everyone should buy.  Not only is No Country For Old Men the best film of the past ten years, The Man Who Wasn’t There is a very underrated classic.  Since I have already reviewed No Country, I’ll talk about that one here instead.

Billy Bob Thornton plays a barber who hates his life.  He tries to do something, anything, to relieve his boredom, and that something is blackmail.  He blackmails James Gandolfini, his wife’s boss, who is having an affair with his wife (Frances McDormand).  A fairly innocent, one-time plan at first, the whole thing, as with all film noir, spirals out of control, and before long, Thornton is involved with murder.  And then things get really weird.  The film is shot in black and white, set in the forties, and feels just like 1940s film noir.  It captures the tone, the feeling, and the pacing of great noir, and there are some great performances by Thornton, McDormand, Gandolfini, and Tony Shaloub as a high-priced lawyer.  Also terrific is Scarlett Johannson, who appears as a young ingenue piano player, and looks even hotter in black and white with a 40s hairdo.  And then there is the whole alien abduction thing.  Insane, but this movie is terrific.

The Coen Brothers have done some of the best movies of the past twenty years.  And two of them are packaged together today by Alliance Films.  Well worth picking them both up.