I wasn’t blow away by this Will Ferrell/John C. Reilly comedy, but it was funny enough to keep me laughing for most of its run time. The story is that the aforementioned man-children come together when their parents (Mary Steenburgen and Richard Jenkins) meet and get married. Will and John don’t get off to a very good start, but eventually do. The plot is kind of similar to that of a romantic comedy, but with a lot more swearing, dirty jokes and fake testicles. Yup, watch out for that.

It’s only been a day since we watched the movie and I can’t really think of too many specific scenes that really made me laugh, but like I said, I laughed most of the time. Will and John have a dynamic that comes off as a lot funnier than their previous collaborations in my opinion. Director Adam McKay who wrote for Saturday Night Live and also directed those awesome web videos starring his daughter Pearl and Will, like The Landlord, which you can check out at the bottom of the page if you haven’t already seen. I do remember that I thought Mary Steenburgen was really funny and yet still retained that gentle mom-ness that I remember from Back to the Future 3 and Elf.

I would recommend watching the theatrical version instead of the director’s cut for the first time, though, if you’re wavering between the two. If you really dig the movie the first time around, maybe give it a shot, but, from what Jim Gibbons, tells me, they kind of go crazy with the improv stuff that goes on for too long. Again, a lot of fun, even if not all that memorable. Now, check out The Landlord:

The first was a movie that had been sitting near our TV for a few weeks along with Drop Dead Gorgeous which Em borrowed from her friend Lee (hey Lee). It’s called The Sweetest Thing (2002) and stars Cameron Diaz, Christina Applegate, Selma Blair, Jason Bateman and The Punisher, er, Tom Jane. I’ll be honest, it’s been over a week and my memory’s definitely fuzzy, but basically Diaz falls for Tom Jane in a club and then tries to go after him at what she thinks is her brother’s (Bateman) but is really Jane’s. Plot-wise, it’s a pretty standard romantic comedy, but it’s the flourishes that make this a pretty good flick. Diaz and Applegate have some pretty over the top scenes and they often sneak into annoying territory with their catch phrases and Diaz’s mugging for the camera. But all in all, if you’ve got to watch a RomCom, it’s a pretty good one.

We also checked out Run Fatboy Run (2007) which also falls into the romantic comedy genre and follows a lot of the standard tropes, but I’m a big Simon Pegg fan and David Schwimmer did a great job directing him, Hank Azaria and Thandie Newton. Pegg plays a dude who ran out on his pregnant fiance (Newton) on their wedding day. Now it’s five years later, they’ve got a kid, he works as a security guard at a clothing store where he runs down bra-stealing trannies and Newton’s dating the super succesful Azaria who likes to run marathons. Pegg realizes how big of a mistake he made and now wants to made good by showing people (mostly her, his kid and himself) that he can run a marathon in England (where he lives).

What I do like about RFR is that, even though it is kind of paint by numbers, Schwimmer uses a few different colors than you might expect. Like a lot of other RomComs, we see that Azaria’s maybe not the greatest guy and we do feel good when Newton finally realizes this. But, and this is a SPOILER at the end, after Azaria’s out of the picture and Pegg’s proven he’s a good dude, it’s not like he and Newton just fall in love again. I appreciate that.

So far, I haven’t seen Pegg in anything that I didn’t like, except for the flick that he co-starred with Schwimmer in called Big Nothing which really didn’t do anything for me. He’s even the reason I’m looking forward to Star Trek, though now that I’ve seen the previews, that movie is really making me want to see it, so kudos to the marketing team.

Yeah, I know romantic comedies probably aren’t what you expected to read about in this first post after a slow week, but I’m trying to catch up on what I read and watched over the week. Until next time…

On Friday, Em went to bed early, so I ran up to Blockbuster and did a trade in for a double feature of Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi (1992) and Desperado (1995). I’d seen Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico before, but had never seen the original piece of the Mexico Trilogoy, plus I’m a sucked for a 2-for1 and traded it in. I did not know that Mariachi is completely in Spanish and it seems as though the version I had rented didn’t have an English dub, but it did have an awesome commentary by Rodriguez. So I listened to that and put subtitles on and enjoyed the heck out of myself. Turns out he made the movie for $7,000 and most of that cost went towards film. He worked with mostly no crew and local people who’d never acted before. And while I can’t understand what they’re saying on screen, they really seemed natural. Rodriguez gives a play by play of how he did everything on screen which is super informative and then, in the special features, offers up a segment called “10 Minute Film School” showcasing how he did some of the more complex stunts and basic stuff like shooting scenes with editing in mind. I’ve never been to film school, but I feel like I got a heck of an education from just listening to the commentary. It was worth the rental for the feeling of “heck, I can do this too.” Who wants to make a movie with me?

So, I was pretty hyped up after Mariachi and put Desperado on immediately after. It definitely looks and feels like a different animal with it’s slicker look, bigger actors and crazier action sequences, but Rodriguez maintains the feel of the original which is impressive. This time Antonio Banderas plays El Mariachi and Salma Hayek plays his love interest. You’ve also got Quentin Tarantino, Cheech Marin, Steve Buscemi and Danny Trejo (my personal favorite interviewee so far). What stuck in my head from my previous viewing of Desperado was how bad ass it was. And that still holds up as Banderas leaps around shooting dudes from all kinds of awesome camera angles. I also love how cool the guitar case full of weapons is. It’s like Rodney Dangerfield’s golf bag from Caddyshack 2! Anyway, I also really dug the final scene where Mariachi calls in his boys who also have guitar cases concealing weapons (machine guns and a rocket launcher!). It’s an awesome revenge story with tons of action and plenty of bad ass characters walking around looking bad ass, but none as bad ass as Mariachi. BAM!

After that I was pretty exhausted (it was 3AM), so I went to bed. The next day Em took a nap in the afternoon and I started tinkering with my VCR and actually got the dumb thing to start working again which meant I could watch some of the tapes I’ve picked up at work and garage sales lately. So I popped Don’t Answer the Phone (1980) on. It wasn’t very good. The story follows a serial killer as he calls in to a radio psychologist and taunts her. The video tape quality added to the atmosphere of the film, but it was overall just kind of uncomfortable and I didn’t even both finishing it. What I did find interesting was the fact that we as the audience spent a good deal of time with the killer even when he wasn’t killing. We see him walking along the street and calling into the radio show. I’ve often thought it would be interesting to see a slasher movie done like this, where you really get to see things from the killer’s perspective. If Don’t Answer the Phone is any indicator, maybe it’s not such a good idea.

After giving up on that flick, I still had a little more time, so I popped in F/X2 (1991), which is a tape I grabbed from Em’s parents when they were cleaning out all the tapes. They used to own a video store back in the day, so I can only assume it’s a leftover from those days (how I wish I was around when they were getting rid of their boxes and boxes of movies!). I actually thought F/X2 was a horror movie, so I was confused when I couldn’t find it in my Creature Features book. It turns out that it’s more of an action thriller than a horror movie, though. Bryan Brown (Cocktail!) stars as a Hollywood effects man who gave up the game after the events of the first movie (which I haven’t seen). This time, the woman he’s dating’s ex husband asks him to help out with a case (making him look like a woman), but it turns out that the ex gets killed and Bryan stumbles upon a much bigger plot involving cops killing cops, mobsters and the Vatican. Bryan calls in his buddy from the previous flick Brian Dennehy and now they’re on the case. It’s a fairly standard plot from here, but what I really liked about the movie is how Brown uses his crazy special effects talents to go after the bad guys. At one point, a dude breaks into his house to kill him, but Brown’s able to slip into this motion control suit that coincides with a robot clown, so anything Brown does, the clown does. Then there’s this amazingly hilarious fight scene with Brown and the clown vs. the assassin. There’s also all kinds of craziness at the end. Definitely worth checking out if you want to see the kind of movie that will never get made nowadays, one with a sense of humor about itself, but also takes itself seriously.

The aforementioned wedding interrupted my movie watching (it’s okay, I forgive them). On Sunday, I caught part of Bad Boys II (2003) on TV and you know what? That movie’s awesome. I think Michael Bay gets a bad rap. I don’t know much about the guy aside from what he puts on the screen, but I definitely appreciate his love of big crazy movies with lots of action and explosions. Some people call him a hack for that, but I don’t buy it. I’ve liked Armageddon, The Rock, Bad Boys I and II (though definitely II better) and Transformers. I haven’t seen The Island yet and I didn’t really like Pearl Harbor at the time, but would definitely give it another shot. I didn’t get to see the entirety of BBII (I’ve seen it before though) and man, there are some awesome scenes in there. The 360 degree scene of Will Smith on one side of a room and dudes with machine guns on the other. The chase scene where the bad guys throw cars at them. You can’t beat that kind of stuff. And, I didn’t get to see it this time, but the absolute disregard for human life while driving through Cuban homes! This is what movies used to be like back in the 70s and 80s and it’s awesome to see that again. (NOTE: I in no way support the ACTUAL disregard of human life in Cuba, just in the movies!) Also, I forgot how cool Will Smith can be when he wants to (and when the camera angels make him look so). There were a lot of fun similarities between how Rodriguez shot Banderas and how Bay shot Smith. Fun stuff.

Finally, I ended my weekend movie watching with the original When A Stranger Calls (1979). I’ve got a bit of a history with the remake. My first year here in New York, before I got married, I didn’t really have a lot going on, so on my birthday Rickey, Ben and I (sorry if I forgot anyone else, my memory’s fuzzy at best) I thought it would be awesome to go see a horror movie (Em was still in New Hampshire). WASC had just come out and Rickey and I had just seen the main girl, Camilla Belle, in Chumscrubber and had school boy crushes on her so it seemed like a great idea. It was not and I still get reminded of how bad of a movie it was. Soon after, I looked the original up in Creature Features to find out that the original actually split it’s time between the babysitter getting terrorized story and then a seven years later story when the killer breaks out of an asylum. No wonder it felt like it was way too drawn out.

So, last night I finally watched the original and was even more surprised to find out that the babysitter portion only takes up about 15 minutes of screen time! Oh remake people, you’re so crazy. Anyway, it’s a pretty effective movie, the babysitter stuff in the beginning is definitely creepy and spawned the line “The call is coming from inside the house.” You’ve also got a pretty creepy killer, he killed the kids she was babysitting in their bedrooms with his bare hands while she was downstairs. After the 7 year jump we end up splitting our time between the escaped killer as he wanders around New York trying to hit on (or kill?) some woman and the private detective who’s on his trail. Here’s another movie where we get to see things from the killer’s perspective for a significant part of the movie. I’m not sure if we’re supposed to feel sorry for him or what, which adds to my not loving this movie, but eventually he finds the babysitter, who now has two kids and a husband and starts screwing with her again. There are some creepy moments and the killer definitely walks the line between total creep and somewhat not-hateable. It’s not a great movie, but definitely not as bad as the remake, though this kind of makes me want to watch it again. Somebody stop me…

I realize it’s been a while since I did an actual comic review. I’ve been reading mostly newer stuff lately and trying to catch up on more recent books that I missed, but I did grab all four Astonishing X-Men trades from the library the other day after. I had read the first three and part of the fourth, but wasn’t really seeing what all the fuss was about and got pretty displeased with the incredible lateness of the book, so I stopped reading. And while I did like the series a little bit more the second time around, I’m still not blown away like everyone else.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I think Whedon crafted a good story and I like Cassaday’s art enough. But neither one of those excuse the lateness of the book. I know it doesn’t matter now that the whole thing is out in trade (and probably an omnibus at some point), but it still bugs me when creators make a splash with a book, get fans excited and then keep you waiting for four years to finish a 25 issues story. It’s the kind of book I would have dropped if I was buying it and didn’t get to read them for free at work.

Okay, aside from that, I did have a bit of a hard time not seeing shades of Buffy in every issue of the book. Em and I just finished watching the series again (look for something Buffy-related coming soon) right before I started re-reading the first trade. Sure these characters stand on their own and maybe Cassaday even took some of his cues from the show (the way he draws Beast with his glasses, instantly makes me think of Giles). But, after the first few pages of the first issue, all that kind of fell away. I still saw elements of his Buffy characters in the X-Men, but it’s obviously not a direct lift or transference. Even though certain bits of dialog brought me right back to Buffy episodes. It could also be argued that the Buffy characters were influenced by the X-Men. Who’s to say?

Also, I do have to say that I’m not much of an X-Men fan. As my faithful reader(s) know(s), I was a DC kid growing up, so my experience with the X-Men were the occasional grocery store comics I’d pick up and the cartoon (and reading Wizard back in the day). Because of this, I find their history nearly incomprehensible at times. That being said, I think this is probably the most accessible X-Men book I’ve ever checked out. Whedon and Cassaday both boil the characters down to their basic natures, both in content and appearance, so that you can figure out what they’re all about in just a few panels. I even handed it to Em after the first two trades were out and she loved it, though I did have to hear her continually ask about the next trade for like two years. She has also re-read them and, with the exception of a few questions about the Legacy Virus and Cassandra Nova, didn’t have any trouble with the plot.

I also appreciate the whole “let’s make the X-Men a real life superhero team” idea that gets a bit lost in the middle of the series, but then comes back later on. One of the many things that has bothered me about the Marvel Universe is how bigoted the general citizens can be toward mutants and not towards the Avengers. How do they know that Cap isn’t a mutant? Come on, get over it already. And for his part, Whedon tried to get people over it, by getting the “feared and hated by those they’ve sworn to protect” bit out of the way after the first arc. Kudos for that. And double extra kudos for leaving guns all over the different issues and firing them off in the end (most specifically, the big giant weird sentient Genosha-killing Sentinel). And super kudos for putting some genuinely funny moments in the book. The scene with Kitty falling thrown the floor into the TV room while her and Pete…celebrated his return, made me actually laugh out loud (yes, that an LLOL, a literal LOL).

I also appreciate how Whedon adds to the mythology without muddying up the already cloudy world of the X-Men and the Marvel U in general. You’ve got Danger, the Breakworld, Agent Brand, S.W.O.R.D. and maybe Armor? I’m not sure if Morrison invented her in his New X-Men or not, but Whedon obviously took a shine to her and gave Wolverine another Kitty Pryde/Jubilee girl partner to pal around with when X-23 gets to be too much of a psychopath.

All in all, like I said above, I think this is a good X-Men story. It almost reads like “All-Star X-Men” because it basically glosses over everything that happened in the Marvel U in the four years it took to tell the story. There’s no mention of the Decimation and only one line about Civil War. Now, I’m not one to say that these big events MUST interfere with a big-time writer’s story, but it would at least make sense to get a mention of the 198 or something. And, I’m sorry to say, but I don’t see what the big deal about Cassaday’s art. My friend Rickey Purdin has promised to sit down with me and go through the trades to try and change my mind, so we shall see. And really, I’m only disappointed in that because I think Whedon could have done some really fun things with those events AND I think the Marvel U and the X-books could have benefited from a more timely involvement.

We (Comic Book Detective Matt Powell and King of the Internet Jim Gibbons) were all talking about this book at lunch the other day and came up with the idea that it would be cool if Whedon “executive produced” X-Men the way he does TV or the Buffy comic, writing the important stuff, letting other writers flesh things out and approving everything that gets done. We all felt that, given a more regular shipping schedule, Whedon’s run would feel a lot fuller and more well-rounded like our favorite seasons of Buffy.

It’s kind of funny because I almost wrote Kevin Smith off early on in my high school career. I remember going over to a girl named Erin Sullivan’s house and she tried putting on Clerks, but everyone was pretty grossed out by the snowball conversation and we turned it off (oh how young and prudish we were). Later, I was at someone else’s house (Chad Yates, I believe) and he put on Chasing Amy which got turned off pretty quickly for whatever reason (it’s not really a good party movie).

Now, I’m not sure when I actually started watching his movies, but whenever that was, I was hooked. I do remember seeing the Mallrats Magic Eye ads in the back of comics, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with it. There was something about the way he had his characters talk that seemed to echo how I thought (though not necessarily how I talked). And the themes were completely original too me. Clerks showed me what the world can be like. Mallrats gave me a comedy that seemed to speak to my generation (or at least the one slightly above mine) and Chasing Amy broke my heart with it’s unorthodox love story and less than happy ending.

I want to say that I saw Dogma in the theater, but I really can’t remember. I do remember that I was freaking in love with it. I grew up Catholic and went to Catholic grade school and high school, but it wasn’t the ultra-strict kind of thing that tend to spring to mind for a lot of people. I actually learned a great deal in those schools about everything from history to sex ed, which kind of blows my mind after talking to other people who went to Catholic schools. Anyway, Dogma basically started pointing out a lot of the kind of crazy things about organized religion around the same time the thoughts started kicking around in my own head so it was great timing.

Somewhere around here I discovered Kevin Smith’s Viewaskew site. I wasn’t really down with the whole message board thing but I really appreciated how open he was with his fans. Smith was one of the first director’s I discovered and really followed in my younger years (Tarantino was another) and I really appreciated how he interacted with people. He seemed like a new kind of director.

I do remember when I saw Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back though. It was the day before I went off to college and my buddy Eric Toth got screener tickets for Randy Lemle and myself, which was great because I had to go down on a Wednesday I believe and would have missed the normal Friday release. It was pretty great timing really as I was leaving my own weird cast of characters for a completely new one (just like Smith was supposedly leaving the View Askewniverse behind. Yes it’s a love letter to the fans, but being such a big fan I gladly accepted it.

Somewhere along the line I saw Jersey Girl on DVD and while it’s definitely not your average Smith flick, I thought it had a lot of heart and he got great performances out of Ben Affleck, George Carlin, Liv Tyler and everyone else. And, if nothing else it lead directly to the 10-years-later sequel to Clerks which I freaking loved in the theaters and watched again with Em back when we didn’t have cable and laughed like crazy. Again, the timing was right as I was feeling older, I’d moved away from home and I wasn’t really around my good close friends from either home or college. So, while my life didn’t reflect the events on screen (no donkey shows for me), I could definitely relate to the scariness of the next steps of life along with questioning what the heck I’m supposed to do with my life. And, of course, I like seeing these characters over and over, it’s the comic book fan in me.

When I started getting into podcasts a few years back Smith and Scott Mosier’s Smodcast was one of the first ones I subscribed to and it’s still one of my favorites. It’s just two dudes talking and it’s great. I, of course, also have the Clerks cartoon on DVD even though I didn’t watch it when it was on. I do have all the DVDs (except Jersey Girl) and have actually watched Mallrats with commentary more times than without. I bought the first round of Clerks Inaction figures and the Jay and Bob figures. Oh, and I got super jealous when Rickey, my roommate at the time, got to go to Smith’s house to take notes during a big poker game with comic talent like Jim Lee and Geoff Johns for a feature in Wizard. I was able to contribute the headline of that feature though, “The Royal Flush Gang.” Hey, it’s something, I guess. The closest I ever personally got was interviewing Walt Flanagan and Bryan Johnson about their rad monster horror comic War of the Undead via E-mail.

So last Saturday I found myself in the theater with Em watching Zack and Miri Make a Porno. I dug the movie. I do have some problems with the plot (they SPOILER never finish the porno or go back and explain what’s up with the other characters), but I laughed hard and got to see some familiar faces (maybe a few too many Apatow familiars for my personal preference). Mostly I liked how Seth Rogen’s character so closely paralleled Smith himself when he was making Clerks. It’s not a necessary piece of information to fully enjoy the movie, but it was kind of cool knowing he was using his own experiences. I’ve got no problem with the porno thing, I guess it would be kind of hard to be a Smith fan by now and actually have a problem with it, but whatever.

I fully recognize that my relationship with Smith’s movies has been very “right place, right time.” I’ve got no idea if I’d be such a big fan if I was a few years older or younger, but hey, that’s how it works. I’m excited to see where he goes from here, especially with Red State, his in-progress horror movie (two great tastes that will hopefully taste great together). Until then, I’ll keep my ear to the Smodcast to see what historical and factual inaccuracies the boys can come up with next.

DDG has a very Christopher Guest-like feel to it, but with a crispness that his films tend to lack. And you can thank writer Lona Williams (who also plays the third pageant judge) and director Michael Patrick Jann who directed a bunch of State and Reno 911 episodes. The story takes a documentary look at a small town beauty pageant that’s very clearly rigged. There also seems to be a high mortality and injury rate for any contestant who isn’t Denise Richards.

Our hero is Kristen Dunst who is just a sweet young lady. Too bad for her she’s competing against Denise Richards, whose mom (Kirstie Alley) won back in the day. She’s also married to one of the richest dudes in town, so they kind of run things.

A big part of the humor comes from the small town atmosphere, kind of like Napoleon Dynamite, but way less out there. There’s also a great amount of black humor as the slowish townsfolk don’t catch on to the incredibly obvious murder plot unfolding around them. Even the cops.

Another big source of fun for me was checking out all the stars in the flick. Aside from Kirsten and Denise, you’ve also got Ellen Barkin, Allison Janney, Brittany Murphy, Nora Dunn, Will Sasso, Thomas Lennon and ADAM WEST! The girl who played Bruce Willis’ daughter who also dated Ross on Friends is in there as well (yeah, I’m a closet Friends fan). Everyone really sold their roles and seemed to have fun doing this really funny movie.

I’ve never been a fan of Denise Richards, but even she’s pretty good in this and Dunst freaking shines. I’m a huge Bring It On fan and love her in that. And I checked out Virgin SuicidesVirgin Suicides earlier this year which she was amazing in and of course Interview With a Vampire. Man, what happened to her? Maybe my intense dislike of Spider-Man 2 and 3 has tainted my view of Ms. Dunst, which is really too bad because she’s awesome. I also really dug Brittany Murphy. Her roll was small, but she played the crazy local girl with awesome flair and abandon. She freaking steals the show every time she’s on screen.

It’s also satisfying as our hero eventually gets what’s coming to her as do the villains. But it doesn’t have a typical Hollywood ending, it’s actually pretty funny. All in all, this movie is definitely worth checking out. It’s funny and actually does the mockumentary genre justice unlike a lot of movies nowadays. If you’re into Reno 911, Christopher Guest movies or dig any of the above actresses, this is definitely the movie for you.

The series started in 2001, dropped 6 episodes, then came back the next year for another 6 and then left fans hanging for a little over a year until they released the two hour Christmas special. The concept is similar to the American version in which a reality TV crew follows a group of officemates, focusing specifically on David, the obnoxious boss, Tim the everyman, Dawn the secretary and Gareth the office weirdo. David’s the kind of guy who doesn’t realize how out of touch he really is, while making uncomfortable jokes bordering on racism and sexism at various times. He also fancies himself a comedian, but his timing is awful.

Tim has a crush on Dawn who’s engaged to a brute of a fellow called Lee. Lee sucks, but then again he’s supposed to as you’re constantly rooting for Tim and Dawn to get together (he even asks her out twice with disastrous results). They’re really the big draw to the show, but it wouldn’t be what it is without Gareth who they often tag team to wind up.

At it’s heart The Office is a love story, though often of the unrequited sort as you root for Dawn to realize she’s making a huge mistake with Lee and run off with Tim so they can both go onto their dream jobs (Dawn wants to be an artist, Tim…well he doesn’t want to work at a paper company). Which brings up another soul-punching aspect of the show: growing up and what that can mean to your dreams. Both Dawn and Tim mention that they started their jobs at Wernham Hog to make some money and get a job while working on other things. Now it’s a few years later and they’re all still doing jobs that were supposed to be temporary. As someone in my 20s, I can really relate to the subject and I’m sure it’ll mean something completely different to me when I watch it again in 5 and 10 years.

I have to thank my good friend Rickey Purdin for turning me onto this version of The Office. When I moved out to NY and we moved in together I was watching the US version and he asked if I had seen the original (and not even in that pretentious way that a lot of people ask, even though he wasn’t a big fan of the US show at the time). I said I hadn’t even heard of it, but I was interested and within a few days we watched the whole thing in 2-3 days. It’s so funny on a moment to moment level that you get absorbed and the late hours don’t seem to matter as you move on to the next episode.

To fans of the UK version who got turned off by the US version’s first season, I have to say give it another shot. The first season of the US series was made up mostly of remakes of the original series, so it seems a little played out if you’ve seen the original. I hadn’t at the time, but its taken on such a life of its own (especially with the background characters) that it’s a completely different animal right now.

I’m not sure if this convinced anyone to really go out and rent or buy The Office box set (which I highly recommend), but I can’t recommend this show enough to anyone. I don’t think there’s anyone reading this blog that wouldn’t love The Office and very few people in the world who wouldn’t like it. In addition to the US version, there’s also Office TV series’ in Germany, France, Chile and Quebec, so it’s got a universal appeal. Also, if you’ve ever worked with other people, you can relate to some of the things on the show and Tim actually plays the pranks on his office nemesis that you want to (like putting his or her stapler in Jello or moving all of his possessions out of the office). Great stuff. Seriously, just go check it out.

THURSDAY

8:00-9:00

MY NAME IS EARL (NBC)

Earl started off the season with an hour long episode (just like The Office) and it was a good one. Earl ended up helping Seth Green, who, a few years ago was on the Make a Wish program. Earl stole the horse he was supposed to ride in a parade. Thinking Seth’s character had died, he tries to make it up to his mom, but she reveals that Seth is still alive. So, to cross Seth off his list, Seth asks if Earl will help him film his awesome action movie, to which Earl agrees and everyone in town does too. There’s a great scene where Randy (Ethan Suplee) does a number of different impressions, including a dead-on Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs. Great stuff. There’s a lot of fun, on the fly super low-budget filmmaking and Seth Green was fantastic as the excited filmmaker. There’s a pretty sad ending (which you can probably guess if you think about it, though I didn’t see it coming until about 2 seconds before). But man, what a great episode to a great show.

9:00-10:00

THE OFFICE (NBC)

The Office is probably my favorite comedy on right now and definitely up there in my all time favorites (though the original is up there as well). As far as I’m concerned they’re pretty much separate animals by now. If you’re a fan, check out the deleted scenes on the DVDs for even more interviews with your favorite background characters (mine is Creed). The season premier had a lot of excellent moments. Spoilers ahead. The through story is that corporate offered the branch that loses the most weight three extra vacation days, so everyone’s trying to loose weight in different ways. So, unlike most episodes, this one takes place over a month instead of a day or two. Also during this time, Pam’s in New York for the summer for art school and Angela (who got engaged to Andy and caught banging Dwight in the season finale last year) continually gives Andy trouble in planning the wedding (though he’s so in love with her that he doesn’t care) and pages Dwight for secret trysts in a room in the warehouse. And the final, fist pumping super-spoiler is that Jim asks Pam to meet him halfway at a rest stop for lunch and proposes to her. I get giddy when stuff like this happens, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the rest of the season plays out.

SATURDAY

11:30-1:00

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE (NBC)

As I mentioned before, I missed the previous two SNL episodes, but I was in last night and got to check it out. Anna Faris hosted and Duffy was the musical guest. As can be expected there were a number of political sketches, but I was impressed with the debate sketch because it didn’t seem to lean too much one way or the other. I think my favorite sketch involved Anna Faris and Keenan Thompson in a rowboat. I would link to it on Hulu, but it’s not on there unfortunately. I will say that there is singing, which I always enjoy.

I picked up Duffy’s record soon after it came out based solely on her first single “Mercy” which has been played to death on the radio (which is why I don’t listen to the radio anymore). Her performance was kind of weird. Her singing and her band were right on, but she had these weird sorta doo wop dance moves that came off as kind of robotic. Not sure what the deal was, if she was nervous or something, but it reminded me of when I saw Black Sabbath on their first reunion tour and Ozzy would do the same three or four things on stage over and over again.

I think this has been a pretty good period for SNL. The last few years have seen a bit of a shift in the kind of comedy they’re going for (thanks in large part, I think to Seth Meyers, Bill Hader, Jason Sudeikis, Andy Sandberg and plenty of writers I don’t really know about), so I’m looking forward to seeing what else they’ve got planned this year.

Sometime last week or the week before Em and I watched Baby Mama, starring Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Greg Kinnear, Steve Martin, Romany Malco and more. I am a big fan of Tina and Amy first from their work on SNL and later Fey on 30 Rock, Romany was awesome in 40 Year Old Virgin and I can’t wait for him to star in something on his own and Steve Martin is funnier in this as an aging hippy mogul that he’s been in anything I’ve seen in a while. The basic plot is that Tina Fey wants to have a baby, but she can’t so she goes through an agency and ends up with Amy Poehler as her surrogate. The plot itself is VERY formulaic (I had it nailed down about 20-ish minutes in), but it’s the performances that really make this movie worth watching. If you’re a fan of Poehler and or Fey, then it’s definitely worth checking out.

Then, just today we watched Speed Racer. I know it bombed in the box office, but I can’t for the life of me understand why. The Wachowski Brothers took a tired old cartoon that I generally disliked and turned it into this crazy mix of action and drama in a really effective live action cartoon. Oh, it also stars Christina Ricci who I’ve had a crush on since Casper. But really, I laughed and called out “Oh [bad word for poo]” off and on so many times during the 2 hour movie. Don’t believe the bad hype and check this flick out on DVD. Emile Hirsch, John Goodman, Susan Sarandon, Matthew Fox and Shaft himself Richard Roundtree all offer up fantastically believable performances even against the backdrop of this cartoony world. Plus, the chimp scenes in this movie are my second favorite next to Any Which You But Loose and its sequel. Big ups to the Wachowskis, I think there’s some kind of Hollywood conspiracy that kept this movie from doing well. A CONSPIRACY I tells ya!

Finally, tonight Em, her mom and I went to see the Coen Brothers’ latest flick Burn After Reading. It was 97 minutes of pure delight. Definitely more Lebowski than No Country. It was much funnier than I expected it to be (I actually didn’t really know what it was about going in, just that it was some kind of spy thriller). It’s also a pretty hard movie to summarize, so I won’t bother. Two of my favorite actors George Clooney and Brad Pitt were awesome, JK Simmons made me laugh so hard I almost watered up. And of course John Malkovich brought his A game. The Coen’s really wove an interesting yarn with this one, keeping me guessing as to what was going to happen next, but also challenging me to keep up with the story. Oh, I also really liked the poster. Well done, what a great week for movies.

I will say, that I really enjoyed seeing Terry O’Quinn in something besides Locke (and the boss from Old School) and Tierney as someone besides Joe from Reservoir Dogs. It’s fun seeing these guys in other rolls when you’re so used to seeing them as specific characters.

Also, I gotta say that I found this to be a pretty effective movie. The werewolf effects weren’t great, but there was a Jaws-like sense of suspense by not showing him all too much. The mystery of who the wolf really is isn’t the main thrust of the flick, but it is a pretty tense moment when you find out who it really is.

And finally, you just can’t go wrong with Busey. He basically plays a slightly less crazy version of himself now and even adlibbed a lot of his lines, which King himself approved (if IMDB is to be believed). Good stuff.