Cynical Cinema

When I brought home Sex And The City on DVD, my girlfriend said “oh, cool”. When I brought home The Visitor, she said “will that make me cry?” and decided not to watch it. And when I brought home The Go-Getter, she said “why do you watch this crap?” (The Go-Getter, incidentally, was not crap - it was very good.) But when I brought home Meerkat Manor: Season Two, she said “oh my God, YAY!” I’m not even joking. And ten minutes later, we were watching the first episode of the second season. And seven hours after that, we were watching the final episode of the second season. Because Meerkat Manor is, really, that compelling. Alliance Films releases season two on October 7th, and it is well worth picking up.

Now, I may just be a morbid guy. Or perhaps I am cruel and mean-spirited. But when I watch nature documentaries, like Meerkat Manor, I want to see animals eat other animals. That’s just what I enjoy watching. And aside from the dominant meerkat, Flower, inexplicably attacking a bird, we see very little of it. There are hard-fought battles between meerkat tribes, battles that leave meerkats dead, and often the babies as well. One of the meerkat babies gets eaten by a goshawk. But we don’t get to see that. The program is all about the “real life and death” events in the Kalahari, but we don’t get to see the cool stuff. I guess it’s a way to keep the series PG-rated. There is even a scene where the group of meerkats surrounds a cobra, keeping it at bay before they finally abandon it to it’s fate as a snake-eating eagle circles overhead. So…what happened to the snake? Did it get eaten? We never find out. Come one Animal Planet. At least show a snake getting eaten.

Despite the fact that the truly violent parts of the show are edited out, this program is still ridiculously compelling. It contains all the cliffhangers and the emotional moments you would associate with soap operas. Only instead of terribly attractive awful actors, this one stars tiny little cute meerkats. My girlfriend is right. Yay!

Paramount Home Entertainment has been coming out with some of the best new TV shows on DVD of late. Dexter, Californication, and many others. And now, on October 7th, they are bringing out another. Brotherhood is amazing. Sort of a Sopranos thing in that it involves mob bosses and contract killings and turf wars and that kind of thing. The main difference here is that the main characters are Irish instead of Italian. Which is fine, except after watching the first disc of Season Two, I started to talk with a bit of an Irish accent. And I started calling my parents “me ma” and “me da”. And my Irish accent is terrible. So my girlfriend got irritated.

After watching the second disc (the next four episodes), I developed a hankering for some Jameson’s Irish whiskey, and headed out to the liquor store. This might be the most effective product placement I have ever seen on TV. In every episode, there seems to be at least one character drinking Jameson’s. Sometimes it’s a cop who’s on duty. Sometimes it’s a hitman having breakfast. And sometimes it’s an old lady who just really needs to get drunk. But at every moment in the world of Brotherhood, someone somewhere is drinking Jameson’s. Thankfully, this got me buzzed for the last two episodes on the third disc, and I didn’t end up acting on my impulse to start killing people. And judging by how bad my Irish accent was, I can only assume I would have been pretty bad at killing people as well, and I would have ended up in prison, and I wouldn’t be here to write this review.

There is just so much going on in this show. There is a cop whose wife has left him, and he spirals downward on a path of self-destruction until finally he’s given but one way out. Inform on his family, or he’s finished. There’s Tommy, a politician whose ties to his own family are just about his only weakness in the political arena. And then there’s Michael, Tommy’s brother. He is the tough guy, bad-ass killer for hire, working for mob boss Freddy. Last season, Freddy attempted to eliminate Michael by having him beaten to death. Of course, Michael didn’t die, and he still doesn’t know that it was his boss that tried to kill him. Now he’s back at work, doing his job, killing folks, while working for the man who crushed in his skull. Because of the beating, Michael has suffered some brain damage, and is prone to blackouts and slightly erratic behaviour.

And then there are the supporting characters. A rich, powerful cast of terrific actors and beautiful women keep Season Two of Brotherhood moving along a a steady, measured, but incredibly compelling pace. Murder, romance, jealousy, whiskey and politics. One of the best shows on television.

Anyone who watches South Park knows that without Eric Cartman, this show would not be close to what it is. And now, Paramount Home Entertainment and the people behind South Park have acknowledged this fact with the new DVD set The Cult of Cartman: Revelations. A series of 12 episodes, the very best (or worst) of Eric Cartman, combined with Cartman’s philosophies of life. Philosophies like, of you are sinned against, be prepared to retaliate a thousand-fold. Which is exactly what he does in the opening episode, the truly shocking and heinous “Scott Tenorman Must Die”. This is Cartman’s most despicable (and therefore most brilliant) moment in all of South Park. Watching him lick Scott Tenorman’s tears at the end of this episode might be the freakiest, creepiest moment in TV history. Well, next to that time a drunken Joe Namath hit on Suzy Kolber on the sidelines during Monday Night Football.

Every episode here is a winner, and each one comes complete with an introduction by Cartman himself, inviting you to worship at the altar of the most despicable character in cartoon history. His wisdom is suspect, his morals are corrupt, his motives are selfish at best and heinous at worst. But boy, can this kid ever preach! Great episodes like “Awesome-O”, an episode where Cartman dresses up as a robot to put a mean practical joke over on Butters, but upon finding out that Butters has an incriminating video tape of him, he must stay in his robot costume for days on end until he can find that video. The Tourette’s episode, where Cartman pretends to have Tourette’s Syndrome so he can swear whenever he likes. Then there’s the one where he pretends to be mentally handicapped so he can win money at the Special Olympics. And, although it isn’t the most despicable moment in Cartman’s career, it is likely the most offensive: The episode where he contracts HIV through a blood transfusion, and then purposely gives it to Kyle when he laughs at him.

I am not exactly ready to worship at the altar of this horrible, horrible little boy. But I am certainly ready to watch him doing what he does, and I will indeed sign up for his fan club. The Cult Of Cartman: Revelations DVD set comes with a sticker for your bedroom wall when you pray, and an official membership card for the Eric Theodore Cartman Society. All of this is great. All of Cartman is great. Well, in the worst possible way.

Paramount Home Entertainment has come out with another classic television series. The Beverly Hillbillies, Volume Two comes out on DVD Tuesday, October 7th. This is a show I just saw for the first time, and although it’s cheesy and silly and relies far too much on that sitcom-style of misunderstanding, it’s still quite funny. My nine-year-old stepson came in the room as I was starting the first episode. And although I became rather tired of Granny and Elly May et al after about three episodes, I was not allowed to turn off the DVD until we had run through all seven episodes on Disc One. We saw Jethro become romantically entangled with an exotic dancer. Which surprised me - not because Jethro wouldn’t want to sleep with a stripper - after all, he’s a man. But it surprised me that there were strippers who would come to your house and perform in 1963. I learned something, from the Beverly Hillbillies.

Actually, there are a lot of things we can learn from the Beverly Hillbillies. Granny gets a mule to plow her front yard, so she can grow her own turnips and parsnips and such-like. Which is a great idea - shouldn’t everyone in opulent Beverly Hills be growing their own food on their massive acreage? You know, eating local foods and all that? Saving the world? We could all learn something from Jed and Granny Clampett. Who would have thought that the hidden messages in The Beverly Hillbillies would remain so relevant today? The show is pretty dated, relying so heavily on coincidence and misunderstandings. I mean, how could a stripper, even a complete moron stripper, really believe that a family of four with an ancient Granny and two young kids, would hire her to do a show in their house? And where do the Clampetts keep finding all those possums?

I enjoyed Season Four of Mission: Impossible, certainly more than I did those three crappy Tom Cruise movies. Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing Season Five on DVD Tuesday, October 7th, and it’s even better. The main reason it’s better is because they have added a hot chick. Now, normally that wouldn’t change the quality of a show, except to make it worse. The addition of a hot chick normally (these days anyway) means that the writers and producers feel the show has jumped the shark, but they can hang on for a few more years simply by providing their weirdo viewers with some eye candy.

But when it came to Season Five of Mission: Impossible, this was actually a good move. The addition of Lesley Ann Warren as Dana Lambert was terrific. She provided the team with something it had been lacking - instead of simply using a bunch of gadgets to set up their targets, they began using actual people and deception a lot more. Dana was able to seduce the people who needed seducing, and get close to the men who were the targets of the team. In a bizarre way, this was actually more realistic spy stuff.

Also great in Season Five is Sam Elliott, one of the great gravelly-voiced, made-for-westerns actors in the world. He comes and goes, and isn’t in every episode, but his role just adds a little more oomph to a series that already has plenty. The fourth season was good, the fifth is great.

Paramount Home Entertainment is in the Christmas spirit. A little early, if you ask me. But they didn’t ask me. They just went ahead and released the Holiday Treats DVD today, October 7th. It’s billed as “8 heartwarming TV classics”, and it actually delivers. For although I have not yet become imbued with the Christmas spirit, and I will likely hold off on that until about December 22nd, these TV episodes stand on their own. I had just turned on the I Love Lucy episode to take a quick gander at the DVD, and I was joined by my nine-year-old stepson. And he forced me to sit there, through eight episodes of Christmas cheer. And, with the exception of the Frasier episode, he laughed the whole time.

There is an episode of I Love Lucy where Lucy and Ricky put up a Christmas tree while reminiscing about the birth of their child. Then The Honeymooners, where Ralph sells his bowling ball to buy Alice her Christmas gift, only to find out she bought him a bag for his bowling ball. The episode of Andy Griffith where they hold their Christmas celebration in the jailhouse. The Brady Bunch episode where Flo has laryngitis. A particularly funny episode of Taxi where Louie puts up his own mother in a poker game with his brother. The Family Ties episode where Alex is visited by the ghosts from A Christmas Carol. Then a truly heartwarming episode of Frasier and a silly episode of Wings that involves Fay throwing her late husband’s ashes out of a plane in a dustbuster.

I could have done without the Family Ties and Wings, but six out of eight isn’t bad. I would suggest saving the Holiday Treats DVD for Christmas, but it’s a gift that could well be opened before December 25th.

I recently reviewed Season One of A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila for Cynical Cinema.

http://blog.rogersradiointernet.com/cynicalcinema/2008/04/15/a-shot-at-love-with-tila-tequila-out-todayapocalypse-tomorrow-010/

  I made the suggestion that not only is this the worst TV show of all time, it might also be the worst single thing in all of civilization. I further went on to suggest that this TV show might be the most obvious sign of the impending apocalypse, and that perhaps we should all begin building our bunkers right now. And now, another TV show - one that is actually good - has made the same case. Lewis Black’s The Root Of All Evil is my new favourite show on television. Mostly because I really enjoy Lewis Black. He gets two comedians to debate two cultural phenomena who might be the Root of All Evil, and Black presides over the debate like a judge. They’ll do Dick Cheney vs. Paris Hilton, or Oprah or the Catholic Church vs. facebook. It’s hilarious, terribly politically incorrect, and very smart. And the one where everything came together for me was when they debated who was the Root of All Evil - Kim Jong Il or Tila Tequila?

As it turns out, Tila Tequila won. It was found that she is, in fact, doing less harm to the world than is Kim Jong Il. I respectfully disagree. Hers is a TV show where she looked for love in a bisexual way with both men and women - as Lewis Black says in the episode, achieving the impossible, actually dumbing down MTV. And after “Season One”, which I was unable to watch until the end for fear my brain would collapse and I would start speaking in internet lingo “I need to dl my lmao lol omfg, wtf?”, and I would perhaps be mistaken for someone speaking crazy-guy gibberish, and be locked away somewhere. And I have golf today. And that’s my ripple of evil.  But season one of A Shot At Love With Tila Tequila is no longer the worst show on TV. Now, there is a season two. I guess she did NOT find true love at the end of season one. Which amazes me. But, season two of Tila Tequila is no longer the worst show coming to TV. No, apparently - I have discovered this through several sources - there will be a spinoff dating show! A spinoff. Of this show. Starring the creepy Italian guy in the speedo from Season One.

Which means that now, you can be famous simply by being the most annoying guy on a reality show that was created to give a starring vehicle to someone who became famous by being the most annoying person on the internet. MySpace, specifically. And THAT is the root of all evil. Or, at the very least, the Apocalypse. This almost makes Tyra Banks look halfway credible. But at least it will give Lewis Black and his terrific program even more fodder with which to entertain me and skewer crappy television “personalities”. And I can’t wait for that day to come. Lewis Black’s Root Of All Evil is one of the funniest shows ever, and Season One comes out on DVD September 30th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Numb3rs is a show with a laudable premise. It attempts to educate people about the glorious, bad-ass side of math and physics while entertaining them and catching bad guys. You see, the cops have recruited a mathematical genius to help them solve their more difficult cases. Which, in the end, could really make for a cool show. But…we don’t get that. What we get is a pretty standard template for each episode. A crime is committed, and the cops are investigating. Which proceeds like a normal cop show, with regular filming and standard acting. Then the cops hit a snag, and the math guy happens to be walking by. He comes up with a way to solve the problem, mathematically. He explains this theory using some kind of analogy, and the camera starts jump-cutting, switches to black and white, and the soundtrack funks up. Like the math portion of this show is a music video, while the rest is CSI: Nerd. The math portion, it turns out, is either something obvious the cops should be doing anyway, or it’s a stretch on credibility that this mathematical solution could ever be applied to this problem.

The one episode in the Fourth Season that illustrates this best is one that has to do with street racing. To determine exactly what happened when a street racer crashes into a café and kills a man, the math guy turns to an engineer friend who happens to have the exact car-crash simulation software that can solve the case. Over the course of several music-video-edited montages, he discovers that someone else must have crashed into the car before it ran into the café. After many analogies and simulations, they determine what exactly happened, and then - it has nothing to do with the resolution of the episode. At all. It turns out the real question is “who murdered the street car racing driver”, and not “how did this happen”. In fact, the math stuff makes no difference whatsoever to the outcome of the show. But then, that’s fairly standard with this program. The mathematical “genius” moments are shoehorned in without really being essential to any episode.

Now, there are some good actors on this program, and the actual cop stuff is just about as good as any of the cop stuff on other similar programs. But the one thing that slows the show down is the one thing that is supposed to make it unique. And that’s too bad. Using an analogy to the behaviour of lions and jackals when discussing the behavious of humans who are being blackmailed doesn’t ring true. Then the mathematical model that will plug the name of the real killer into the equation strains credibility. Anyone who thinks they are learning something about math by watching Numb3rs is mistaken. I’m not even sure they will be entertained. Numb3rs, Season Four comes out on DVD Tuesday, September 30th from Paramount Home Entertainment.

Paramount Home Entertainment is releasing yet another old-time, classic show from the 60s. While some of these shows are painfully dated and seem more stupid than quaint, My Three Sons is not among them. This is a TV series about which I had very little knowledge. I have been a Fred MacMurray fan for a long time. Swing High, Swing Low with Carole Lombard. The Caine Mutiny, The Trail of Lonesome Pine, and of course the magnificent Double Indemnity with Barbara Stanwyck. I’ve followed MacMurray’s career through dozens of movies, some lousy, some great, and one all-time classic. And I never knew he did television. At all. Apparently, he starred in My Three Sons. For twelve years. And I never knew it existed.

But I am awfully glad now that I do. This show, amazingly, was hilarious. And I say amazingly because I assume that any sitcom from the 50s or 60s that isn’t named I Love Lucy or The Hooneymooners must be fairly lousy. Because it isn’t a cultural icon and I don’t see re-runs of it all over the place. But My Three Sons is actually very, very good. And Fred MacMurray is excellent! His comedic timing is terrific, he manages to convey an Atticus Finch-type wisdom, and the dynamic between him and the three boys is remarkable. Also great is William Frawley, who plays the boys’ grandfather Bub. A remarkable show that has either become completely forgotten or has somehow managed to slip past me my entire life, My Three Sons is well worth picking up. Paramount Home Entertainment releases Season One September 30th.

Alliance Films is releasing another VeggieTales DVD on Tuesday, September 30th. Where’s God When I’m S-Scared is just another VeggieTales DVD. Nothing terribly special about it, it’s just an episode about being scared at night and God helping out somehow. Because God, you see, is bigger than whatever it is that frightens you. So there is no point in being terrified of the dark, or the night, or Julia Stiles, because God can kick all of their asses. Or, at least, that’s what I learned from this. And although VeggieTales remains a little too preachy for my liking, at least it does the “good” kind of preaching. Like, everybody is worth something, and don’t discriminate, and don’t be selfish. That sort of thing. You know, the good religion. And this particular VeggieTales DVD features the best part of the show - the songs.

A few months ago, Alliance released a DVD full of nothing but the silly songs from VeggieTales. Those remain the best part of the show, and the two little episodes on this DVD are no different. A song about Daniel being thrown to the lions is particularly entertaining, as is the bizarre song about a water buffalo. There is even a special feature episode of something called 3-2-1 Penguins, which is another animated show that appears to have nothing to do with VeggieTales at all, except that it’s kinda preachy too. That one you can skip.