Month: September 2010

Parasomnia (2008)

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Feeling thinky last night I sat down to watch the French drama Seven Days. Ten minutes in and the rape and murder of an 8 year old girl later, I was more depressed than thinky, so I switched to the Lovecraftian sounding horror movie Parasomnia. (I know I said a few days ago, I like horror movies that aren’t afraid to off a child, but dramas are a different story. Child murder can both be a cliche and too hard a story to do right. Plus, there will be zero levity in this seven days story.)



I had weaker reasons to watch a movie, but watching a movie just so you can learn a new word, the title, probably isn’t the strongest endorsement for a movie. Parasomnia is a disease, according to the movie (although WebMD doesn’t really bear this out), where you sleep all the time, like 90% of your life. Admittedly, this sounds like the best possible disease to contract if you had to contract a life-crushing disease.

The film starts with noted Hollywood nutcase Sean Young casually walking off a skyscraper to her grisly death. She’s barely mentioned in the rest of the movie and doesn’t appear again. I believe every movie should start this way, it keeps her employed and guarantees a crowd-pleaser right up top of every movie. The Godfather, Out of Africa, Up, every Batman movie—improved by Sean Young’s grisly unexplained death up top. Look into it Hollywood.

The story concerns Danny, an art student and 60’s record collector, and his growing infatuation with the impossibly adorable Laura, a parasomnia sufferer locked up in the world’s laxest mental hospital. Of course next to her room is a Hannibal Lector like mesmerist named Volpe, hooded and chained after a string of hypnotist-related murders. He’s evil incarnate and he’s next door. Like I said, world’s most lax security. The hypnotist/mesmerist is entering Laura’s dreamscape nightly and trying to control her. You know, standard movie stuff. You’ve seen the X-Files.

So, Danny’s visiting his recovering junkie friend when he sees Laura. (Yes, sleep disorders, rehab and serial killers all on the same floor.) Within two days, he’s kidnapped her (um, a felony) and moved her back into his apartment. The problem with an attractive young woman who’s been asleep 90 percent of her life is that she has the intelligence and personality of a beagle puppy. Seriously, she scoots around in the grass and rubs ice cream on her face. (Fortunately for the audience, this leads to topless sponge bath clean-ups.)
Oh, and she violently murders people under Volpe’s psychic projections in her sleep. That’s a problem.

This modestly budgeted film has a Lovecraft/steam punk vibe and generally looks good. There’s even a steam punk art show held by Lector, ur, Volpe at the end of the film. The movie does have some decent character actors in it besides the aforementioned Sean Young including Timothy Bottoms, Jeffery Combs, and a cameo by Allison Brie (Community, Mad Men) and director Joe Landis.

A note to any movie about Jeffery Combs (Re-Animator, other awesome horror movies): If you use Jeffery Combs in your movie, make sure he goes batshit crazy at some point. That’s what he does best. No one chews the scenery better than Combs. Crazed scientist is his specialty. In Parasomnia, Combs plays a cop and plays it straight until almost the end. C’mon, twitchy, unhinged, arrogant and paranoid is what he does. Not low-key energy and stoic cop.

Low-key energy is how I’d describe the first two-thirds of the film. The film doesn’t really catch fire until the last part. This is due mainly to the guy playing Danny. He’s not bad and certainly be fine in a best friend role, but he’s just not interesting enough (even when he’s committing multiple felonies) to hold the main role. The girl who plays Laura (an ‘introducing’ credit) does better, but does better because she’s suppose to be dumb, innocent and a bit flat, but she sure is adorable. (One pet peeve movie: why does Laura always have lip gloss and make-up on? In dream sequences? Coming out of a long coma? Underwater?)

One thing I like about moderately budgeted horror movies is they generally have the freedom to pursue the kind or horror they want to do, more creative freedom. As a reviewer, they also generally have very identifiable strengths and weaknesses. A miscast actor really stands out, or poor lighting or an effect. Also, you can see because of budget, the director put all his eggs in a particular strength in a film, a quality actor, a sequence, the script. Rarely with a smaller budget does every area of the film get the same high effort. So, this is another note to small budget horror films (and this film didn’t have a tiny budget because it generally looked good and had some name character actors): STOP USING CGI! You’re not Avatar, be creative with set work and physical effects, even old school optical effects can get the job done better. Parasomnia uses CGI for all of Laura’s dreamscape scenes and it looks really fakey, as does 90 percent of CGI in movies with a budget under 20 million. Funny thing is, all of the movie’s physical effects—the throat slashing, gut spilling, head exploding kind—all look great. Then the CGI shows up and it’s like we’re in a video from the 80’s waiting for Night Ranger to show up. And everything they did in the dreamscape could have certainly done as a physical effect with some creativity.

Admittedly, I’ve never been a fan of CGI as my first thought is almost always, “Hey, that’s CGI, not ‘that’s awesome.'” When ever some guy’ss head is blown off with a shotgun with the old exploding blood melon head you’ve seen a hundred times, I almost always buy it instantly even if upon further, later inspection, I spot flaws. That never happens with CGI.

Overall, a mixed recommendation for Parasomnia. There’s some interesting visual style in the film, the villain is well played, the physical effects are good and there’s a few surprises. On the down side, some poor performances, a few big plot holes and bad CGI. It ain’t the pathos of Lovecraft.

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The Event (2010)

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When do you give up on a TV show? When I did my least essential guide to the new fall season a little while ago, I said I’d give The Event five episodes. Well, I’m ready to bail. This semi-review contains spoilers from the first two episodes. It’s okay, seems like the producers are intent on spoiling their own mysteries anyway.


The strange prisoners in episode one are aliens. Big whoop. It was the most obvious answer and the one I hoped wasn’t true. V is already sucking up the airwaves. It just seems lazy. I guess it’s nice we’re getting answers, but answers without new mysteries is not a very good story-telling technique. The characters aren’t compelling enough to warrant ‘why’ as the primary mystery. Breaking Bad and Mad Men are ‘why’ mysteries because we’re interested in the why of the characters actions mores than the actions themselves.

So, what is The Event? I guess it was a plane disappearing into thin air at the end of the first episode. The plane was going to crash INTO the president. Uh-huh. Wow, that’s, um, awesome, great flying. Where’d the plane go? Oh, it’s in Arizona (after disappearing in Miami). OK, mystery solved. And what about the passengers? Oh, they’re all dead except for Jason Ritter, our mechanical emotional ‘soul’ to the story. Really, it’s like every other character has zero emotional depth and is there as plot device. But Jason Ritter is trying to find his fiancée. So, every atrocity he commits is okey-dokey as he tries to find his girlfriend. But he was framed for murder. But, his crazy acts are okay because he’s looking for his fiancee and some bad guys have her because…? They’re real dumb? She’s in the credits and can’t die yet? Do not care.

But he loves her because of the multiple flashbacks show him meeting her and falling in love. You know, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that since she’s HIS FIANCEE, he loves her. No need to kill 10 minutes of show on the flashbacks.
Oh, how did the passengers die? The aliens killed them and they saved the plane to save the passengers. Uh-huh and killed them because….Hey, an actual mystery left over. Too late.
By showing how Jason Ritter met his girlfriend, the show is really just admitting that the audience can’t fill in ONE SINGLE BLANK. About anything. That’s a problem in a show that traffics in mystery.

Also, the show uses the real edgy jump around in time story-telling technique made popular 18 years ago in Pulp Fiction. And there’s no reason for it. None. A few flashbacks would work just fine.
I watched the second episode while goofing around on my iPad the whole episode (something that annoys me if I see Shells do it when we watch TV. Me=hypocrite). I missed nothing because they repeated the key points several times throughout the episode. An engrossing mystery should not be laundry-folding TV. It should be, um, engrossing. I put the iPad down once when President Hunk (Blair Underwood as a Black/Cuban US President, see Sci-Fi) was trying to get answers out of the head alien (Laura Innes, actress wasted in emotionless role). I want back to the boring farming game on my iPad after the second (of three) times she said she couldn’t say anything, but was good.

I might stick with The Event longer if Shells was watching with me. Then I could goof on the show like I used to do with 24. I got Shells to watch a few seasons of that show and goof on it’s ridiculousness. Nad TV shouldn’t be watched alone. I ended up watching the last season of 24 by myself and it wasn’t as good. I make this comparison because The Event more resembles 24 than Lost. It has many reality-denying action sequences and a focus on plot over characters. Shells said she wouldn’t watch The Event because of the way Lost burned us with it’s non-mystery solving ending and spiritual cop-out. I see that. I agree. The Lost producers said they had answers for every mystery they presented. They didn’t. The Event has the opposite problem, they have answers before the mystery is even fully allowed to blossom. I mean, it’s only been two episodes.

The Event should entertain on an acting level, but it doesn’t. The show has a bunch of decent character actors and TV show staples, but gives them no emotional depth or even hints at character shading. They’re card board cut-outs at this point, only to serve the plot.

See the man in the picture above. That’s character actor Zeljko Ivanek. He’s been in almost every TV show I’ve liked for the last ten years. And he’s died in each one of them. He even earned an Emmy for his best death in Damages. He was great in that as he is in everything he’s in. (oh, he did die in Big Love, right?) So, I thought I’d watch The Event until Zeljiko died. It should happen soon. He’s not an above the title listing in the cast. He’s in the ‘With…’ section which, if 24 (where he died) is any indication, this is where guest stars go to eventually be killed.

But not even the the thought of character actor Zeljko Ivanek’s awesome death can’t keep me watching. And that’s a low bar.

Also, I just learned Fox cancelled Lone Star, the one show of the new season I decided to champion. The second episode expanded their universe while keeping the plot tense and adding more depth to the characters. But now it’s cancelled. Booo, Fox. The Event is on NBC, but I’m taking out my anger on that because, well, I don’t know.
It’s a mystery greater than any on The Event.

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The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margret (2009)

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For once, I feel a little bit like a real TV critic. I’m reviewing a show before it’s premier on American TV. The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margret aired on the BBC last year, but starts on IFC October 1st. The Onion’s AV Club has been promoting it. I was looking around on the free offerings on Amazon Video on Demand where you can now watch it for free.

TIPDoTM is David Cross’ baby, he wrote and created it for the BBC. It’s a great showcase for Cross, even if the sitcom itself is a pretty straightforward affair. It’s not the surreal comedy of Mr. Show or even Arrested Development.
Cross plays Todd Margret, an office temp suddenly thrown in way over his head. This six episode sitcom falls into what I call “The Really Bad Day” dark comedy genre. The film After Hours is a great example of this. In “The Really Bad Day” genre, no matter what the protagonist tries, his situation only gets worse. Many sitcoms, like Curb Your Enthusiasm, use this ploy for a single episode to great effect as every mistake Larry makes is magnified back at him ten-fold. It appears TIPDoTM will be an ongoing Bad Day, making the show more like a six-part serial story over fourteen bad days.
Todd Margret’s singular self-destroying flaw is not that he lies, but that he won’t back down from the lie. A simple ‘My bad’ could completely change his bad fortune. He’s like an improv ‘Yes-Anding’ his way to his own grave. He’s a weak man desperately trying to bluff his way into proving to the world he’s a strong man. Cross excels at these characters.
The story starts as Cross blowhard boss (played by Will Arnett, playing an even more swear-filled version of the arrogant blowhard buffoon he’s played since Job on Arrested Development) overhearing Cross practicing an aggressive personality tape and immediately hires him to sell an energy drink called Thunder Muscle in England. Cross never says no, lies to say yes and never backs down from a lie. That’s the premise. Helping him in Britain is an sweet coffee shop owner who enables his lies and Dave, his underling who encourages and baits him to lie. Margret has no impulse control and can’t stop himself.

As they say, hilarity ensues. I admit I expected a more ground breaking show from Cross than TIPDoTM, but that said, Cross does deliver from an acting standpoint. His character isn’t sympathetic and in other shows would be a one-off plot mover, but Cross does a good job of making us see the world from his side and root for his pathos. It’s a nice, tightly focused show and six episodes seem like it’ll be the right length.

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Invisible Shield for iPad (2010)

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The Invisible Shield for iPad is the reason there was no review yesterday.



Generally, I pick what to review based on what’s occupying my noggin each day. Yesterday, this stupid piece of plastic sucked up, like twelve hours of my time yesterday. Over the weekend, I bought the wrong RAM for the desktop, tried to install it, returned it for the right RAM, installed it and put in a new software heavy back-up USB 1 terabyte hard drive that ended taking up over an hour. But none was more frustrating than putting a piece of plastic on my iPad. I know, it’s the very definition of a first world problem.

Shells an I have put screen protectors on iPods a bunch of times with no problems. The result is usually undetectable from the glass screen, so a bigger piece of plastic on an iPad shouldn’t have been a problem. My first clue should have came when I bought it. The Apple guy at Best Buy (not exactly the Genius job) said that Best Buy could ‘install’ it for fifteen bucks, this is on top if the thirty—thirty!?—dollars for the piece of plastic. No thanks, I said.

So, we carefully read the instructions, prepared a clean work area, and started. There is no way to get the sheet on the iPad without creating many air bubbles. We spent a hour just trying to get the initial placement of the piece of plastic as bubble-free as possible. Shells did a pretty good job, even though we went through the whole bottle of ‘lubricating liquid’ in aligning the plastic. I thought I could do better. Big mistake. Eventually, I got the sheet back to close to where Shells had it. The plastic too easily stretches out of place. The instructions said the micro-bubbles would work themselves out after use. Just how big is a micro-bubble? I consider anything I can see as macro.

After putting on the sheet of plastic, the instructions said to wait a day, shorter if you used a fan. The instructions also said not to have the iPad on for twelve hours before you put the sheet on. This is why there was no review yesterday. That’s almost a day without my girlfriend. I used a fan and honestly, the plastic seemed as dry ten minutes after we installed the shield as it did twelve hours later with no use. We never had to wait with the ipod shields.

So the result? The feel of the iPad is a bit gummy in texture now. The micro-bubbles have not worked themselves out after a day. Overall, it’s like skimming your fingers across one of those 60’s-style thick plastic drinking glasses that you get with a happy meal as a kid. It’s not glassy smooth, so swiping your finger across the surface (which is something you do a lot with an iPad) doesn’t feel natural and more important, isn’t as accurate as before. I am pushing a tiny bit harder than I was before. It’s easier to make mistakes because of the changed tactile nature of the surface. Also, the micro-bubbles show up as spots on the screen, so my iPad always feels dirty.

In short, I’m giving it two more days, then I’m probably ripping the plastic off. I hate wasting thirty bucks, but this is much worse. So far, after three months of heavy use, my iPad hasn’t gotten any scratches. That’s different than my iPod which had scratches it seems minutes after unpacking it from the box. I do clean the ipad’s surface about once a day and refer to it as my giant piece of glass because that’s the ipad’s overriding quality. Smooth is sexy.

Look, I love my electronic girlfriend. Yes, that makes me a sad nerd. But after much thought, I’m only going to make love to her without the Invisible Shield condom. Dangerous, yes, but more as God intended.

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Zombies of Mass Destruction (2009)

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Let’s deconstruct the title first. Who wouldn’t want to see Zombies of Mass Destruction? Though, the movie came out in 2009, so the whole “…of Mass Destruction” joke is about 6 years too late. It’s the “Got Milk?” of the 2000. In the film’s defense, it’s set in 2003 and is a satire of sorts. The cheesy title (although IMBD says another Zombies of Mass Destruction is coming out in 2011 and unrelated to this one) made me want to see it, not see it, than see it again. With low-budget horror, the title is 90 percent of the marketing.


Late at night, I often want to zone out to a zombie movie. Netflix streaming has a ton of them, all with a decent poster and no budget. I’ll start watching and usually give up after 15 minutes. Here’s why: the lighting sucks, the audio’s all badly looped and the actor’s are obviously just the director’s friends. And everyone plays a stupid redneck. Look, I’m not looking for Avatar and except new film maker mistakes like poor editing and some sloppy story-telling. But, it should have a tiny bit of technical competence.

So, image my surprise, ZoMD is fairly competently made. It’s a small budget flick, but it’s all on the screen. The acting’s okay. And it’s a satire. That’s why we make zombie movies—gore, humans screwing up, and satire.

The movie’s sort of a red state/blue state thing, firmly siding on the liberal side. Our heros are an Iranian girl and a gay couple. Besides the tiny sub-genre of gay horror, never are the heros gay and never, never Iranian-Americans. I like that. These are the side kicks who are killed off early in other movies.
Yes, the caricatures all a bit broad, but not offensive. There’s the Republican, preacher, flaky liberal teacher, love struck teen, stoner, conservative Iranian dad, and true-blue American torturer dad and a fox-like news network. Their conflicts are played out, broadly, because some think the zombies are caused by terrorists and others see it as God’s Armageddon. There’s even a political debate during a zombie attack with one side turning into a zombie.

The story takes place on a small Washington island over, as in most zombie flicks, the course of a night. The first third of the film, the zombie’s are lurking singularly in the back ground. No one notices them. That’s funny. It isn’t until night there’s enough of them to cause trouble.

The gay couple is returning to the closeted one’s home to tell his mom he’s gay. The good side, if you’re mom turns into a zombie at dinner, she doesn’t care if your gay. Fighting zombies can strengthen any relationship. (Also, if I were gay, I’d totally be the kind to get an ‘I’m with him’ T-Shirt like the closeted one’s partner.)

Everyone thinks the Iranian girl is Iraqi and a terrorist, of course, she’s all-American, but her hard-working dad is a more conservative Muslim. She spends the evening trying to convince people she’s not a terrorist.

And fighting zombies. After all, isn’t a zombie movie all about the zombie fighting. After a slow start, there’s plenty of fun zombie killing. The effects are pretty decent and don’t fall into the zombie beginners effect of just doing the same effect over and over. There’s some unique kills, but nothing super elaborate or a set-piece. You can tell everyone involved at least worked on other projects beside this one.

Oh, the movie did have one plot that almost always like a horror movie. A cute young kid is introduced as someone the hero has to protect. Usually, the kid is okay at the end of the movie. However, if a movie kills the moppet, it’s an automatic thumbs up from me. Yea, it’s stupid. In ZoMD, they introduce a little girl and she dies 30 seconds later, horribly. But later she gets to be a zombie, carrying her own arm. Awesome.

Is ZoMD a great zombie movie? No. Is it good? Not particularly. But if you like zombie movies or broad satire, ZoMD is certainly worth seeing. It’s well-executed and has a decent script. Better than most.

Hey, they’re making a sequel. Can’t be all bad.

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The Kingdom Series 2 (1997)

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Kinda lazy today. I recently finished the Swedish TV miniseries The Kingdom which I talked about the beginning here.
In that review, I compared the emerging plot lines to a really strange paper Role Playing Game. After seeing all that Lars Von Triers had filmed on The Kingdom, the strangeness is ratcheted up ten fold.

There was to be a series 3, but a few key actors had died. Triers sent the season 3 scripts to Stephen King for the American version of The Kingdom, but ABC canceled season one in 2004 after just a few episodes. Too weird for the states even with King’s name attached. I did see it was on DVD, so I may seek it out.

I don’t have much more to say about the series after what I wrote before, but I did watch all 11 hours of sepia-toned Swedes and their (here it comes) shenanigans.

So, just some highlight to clue you in on how odd the whole thing was.

—A doctor wants the world’s largest diseased liver to research. The family wouldn’t sign the death consent form, so he has the organ donated to himself (as the organ donor card was signed), so he could own the liver. The surgery goes bad, he’s stuck with the liver. (in The Twilight Zone)

—A woman has sex with a man she didn’t know was a ghost, possibly The Devil. She gives birth to a baby who has a grown man’s head (Udo Kier) and can talk. The baby grows at a rate so astounding, his arms and legs are 10 feet long after just a few days, very brittle. The baby begs to die. The mom, after much agonizing, releases the baby from the large rigging holding him up and kills him when all the bones snap. Pretty cool.

Um, wow, that was probably the weirdest plot line. But every one of the twenty or so characters had strange stuff going on and to the shows credit, it all kind of worked because the production was pretty low-key and all the smaller moments were kept real.

If those two story lines interested you, check out The Kingdom on Netflix streaming. I can’t possibly see how the giant man-baby plot line would work in America (although, strangely enough, I saw Lake Bell give birth to Nick Kroll on Children’s Hospital the same week.)

It’s vacation time.

Going into low power for the next week and a half. Hopefully some game reviews to come.

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Lone Star (2010)

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As the week plows on, I’ve trying out as many of the new shows of the fall TV season as I can get through. Everything I’ve made fun of in the Twitter feed (on the side), I’ve watched. Most of the new crop of shows haven’t really caught my attention enough to pull my eyeballs away from the more established shows I’ve been watching.
Except one, Lone Star. Of course, the one show I like got really crappy ratings. It’s already on death watch, but I’ll enjoy it while it lasts.

And if you go to the Fox site or iTunes, you can catch the first episode for free.


Lone Star works because the lead is at once both charismatic and empathic, even though he’s nothing but a Texas version of Bernie Madoff. Newcomer James Wolk plays Bob, the son of a con man who’s surpassed the tricks of his dad (The very well cast David Keith) and in the midst of two separate long term cons which has netted himself two different lives with two different women. So, it’s a con man show. However, the twist is that Bob wants to go straight, but is so deep in both cons that to go straight he’ll have to con more.
The look of the film is that of an indie film like Up in the Air, it’s all show and little tell. Every other pilot this week, even that big, dumb mystery show The Event, the characters explained too much, not giving the audience too much credit in figuring stuff out. All the set-up is there in Lone Star, but it’s not showy and works more with the characters. And each of the characters, except maybe Bob’s newer girlfriend are shady enough and smart enough that Bob’s going straight won’t be easy. Also, it’s kind of hard to tell where this show will go. Like Lost in it’s prime, there’s enough different kinds of shows embedded in the pilot that each week could have a different tone. One week it could easily be a highly plotted soap, the next a mystery, the next a romance, the next a drama and of course, the big con.

This con man’s life is as it is, so we deal with the present and move forward. Some of the tropes of the con man genre are there, the different identities, the slippery escapes from simple questions and my least favorite, the dad who drags his kid into his criminal life. (Thanks, Paper Moon) That said, I like the dad/son relationship because it’s the most honest in the show and, unlike most movies of this genre, his dad does seem to love him.

I’m a fan of shows that talk about the nature of the American identity (Mad Men is the current reigning champ), we live in a country where re-inventing yourself is encouraged, where how we present ourselves to the world is more important that who we are inside. Our hero Bob has a problem in that he’s tired of presenting himself as the easygoing smooth charmer and actually wants to live the life he’s only been pretending. I think the trick of the show will be showing that in order to be what we want to be, we have pretend to be other roles for short-term gain. The role of boy friend, co-worker, friend and on and on.

Of course, I could be wrong about any deeper aspirations in the show. If so, that’s okay, there’s still a decent soap in Lone Star. Kinda like the vibe of Big Love, if Bill was a grifter, a soap about the costs of keeping a secret.

Anyway, check it out.

(Also, the third episode of Terriers was a winner and clinched the show into my full rotation. I love shows about anti-heroes.)

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Carriers (2009) or why I hate modern PG-13 horror

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And it isn’t because there’s no nudity or much gore. A lot of classic horror movies would be PG13 movies today, most of Hitchcock’s oeuvre, the Hammer Horror films, Jaws. Also, television is mostly PG13 and there’s plenty of quality adult fare on TV.

And that’s the word I’m looking for, adult. PG13 movies are made pre-teens (Heck, most teenagers watch R rated fare). This means the story lines and story telling has to be dumbed down for the audience. I know I’m not saying anything new here, it’s just I saw a good rating for Carriers on Netflix and decided I was being hard on PG13 horror. It wasn’t until I was bored stiff midway through the movie that this occurred to me.
You don’t need heads exploding like watermelons or girls running around showing their watermelons to make a good movie, you just need interesting characters, writing and plot. (Oh and many a bad movie has been lauded for it’s numerous watermelons which was just there to patch over a crappy film)
Also, the pay cable stations need daytime programming, so PG13 horror will always have money thrown at it to fill time. So they’ll always look better than many of their more adventurous R-rated content. And Carriers looked like it had a decent budget, it was just so stripped down to appeal to people who have never seen this type of movie. It lacked the details that make a good horror (or any) a rich world. You could drop in at any point in the film and not miss anything or even feel like you missed anything.
I was flipping through cable the other night and stopped on Couple’s Retreat (because, well, Kristen Bell in a bikini) and although the film was two-thirds done, I was caught up in 5 minutes because the characters kept repeating the skimpy plot and fit into such pre-defined molds. It was both depressing and a waste of all of those good, slumming actors.
That’s how practically every movie that runs on HBO at 2pm is, a generic genre film that could be dropped in on at any time.
It’s funny, even though TV is filled with all kinds of generic tropes, I almost never just start watching a show midway through it’s run. But I have no problem with that and the more generic pay cable movies.
Maybe it’s a strange bias, but I’d never watch a movie mid-way through, pre 1980. And this includes the MST3K-bad sci-fi movies, as they may be bad, but at least they were awful in interesting ways. But rarely generic and rote.



That poster is probably the most frightening thing in the movie, it at least let’s you use your imagination. However, Carriers, leaves little to the imagination. Fortunately, there’s little plot to explain and almost no detail to create the world. There’s been a worldwide pandemic, most people have died from a contagious disease, blah, blah, blah. Ok, here’s where detail is important, what are the details of this new apocalypse? How are the survivors surviving? The details are how the director comments on who we are today. Look at Children of Men, Goddamn, did that movie create a whole new dystopia through detail. But here we just get the broadest of broad strokes. Empty highways, rotted out farm houses, etc. Ugh.
Of course, being a PG13 aimed, I suppose, at pre-teens the cast are four twenty-somethings. The douche (Chris Pine post Star Trek so guess who’s featured most prominately), the weaker younger brother who’s the obvious eventual survivor (gee, does he stand up to his brother?), his girl friend and the hidden infected (the biggest zombie movie/disease movie trope).
They run into other infected people, abandon them, all act a bit like jerks, but fortunately, Chris Pine overshadows them. The cast is trying to get to their childhood vacation spot to run away from the infected. Guess who makes it and guess what, it’s changed. Ugh.

There’s no beat or plot point I haven’t seen before and seen better in other movies. I actually stopped 45 minutes in and watched the rest later, just so I could complain about PG13 horror movie. So, so generic, how did it get such a good rating on Netflix?

The only good parts, Chris Meloni and the girl who plays Sally Draper on Mad Men as an infected family (why couldn’t the movie follow them instead of the whiny, douchy cast. I’ve seen that movie before as well, but it’s a class above generic)

Oh, they played an M Ward song I liked for ten seconds.

See, I’m not a total hater.

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the 40 Year Old Boy Podcast (2008-Present)

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Like the Kennedy assassination or when you first heard about the concept of a Sam’s Club or Costco, it’s impossible to forget where you were when Former Third Baseman Mike Schmidt and 7th funniest human on the planet Mike Schmidt was no longer on Never Not Funny.
I was taking my late night walk. The air was crisp and I had inklings something might happen, so I was glad it was misting as to hide my tears as a somber Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap danced around, well, something as Mike was gone, unable to defend himself.
Later, Shells and I talked about the possible reasons why Mike was gone like Mike Schmidt was family. What did Mike do? It had to be something horrible, right? I mean, right?
Yea, we kept listening to NNF and eventually coughed up dough as they went pay and big-time. The guests were always funny and Pat Francis was substituted as Jimmy’s longtime friend, but we missed Mike.
So when I ran across a review for Mike’s new show, The 40 Year Old Boy, on Jesse Thorn’s Sound of Young America site, it was like a new Sam’s Club or Cold Stone Creamery opened up next door. I’m hungry.

I know for most of you, the above paragraphs are a big mess of ‘Whaaat?’

So let’s slow down. Mike Schmidt is a funny comedian. Why he’s not fully employed and successful in the comedy game is a mystery. Mike autopsies that mystery most weeks on his show. He has a weekly podcast-The 40 Year Old Boy-where he vents, rambles, endears, infuriates, and shares stories about his past and present. He’s a professional talker, the kind you’d find in a Mamet play or maybe just before 20 bucks goes missing. If Mike ever decided to ply his skills to sales, he’d never have to go home with the steak knives.
He recently had a well received one man play and a run-in with Quentin Tarantino. There have been a few opportunities, but as Mike would readily admit, he’s a bit of a self-saboteur. He’s like a Democrat in a sure thing election year, just how will he fuck this up? There’s good intentions and then there’s also that moment where you see yourself like a ghost outside your own body doing something you just can’t imagine yourself doing. Happens to Mike a lot.
I can relate. My girlfriend, Shells, also wanted me to write that she also can relate to Mike and his stories. It’s strange, we talk about Mike and his producer, Burlesque performer Lili Von Stupp, like they’re friends living in another city. I sound like the crazy stalker people from that Tiffany documentary, but that’s the immediacy of podcasts. It’s just Mike talking and Lili laughing. Like any friend, I can tune out or tune in. It’s funny, I’ll hear a song, some Van Halen anthem and turn to Shells and say, “Yea, I bet Mike likes this…” Coo-coo.
But why Mike and not-so-much Jimmy Pardo who’s also very engaging, extremely funny and relatable. Well, Mike shares more. He says there’s stuff he can’t talk about sometimes and that frightens me. Because Mike talks about every awful (and good) aspect of his life. Boy, thank god his wife doesn’t listen.
Also, he’s a story you don’t hear much in the mainstream media. The scrappy qualified underdog who hasn’t made it (Yet, Mike, Yet). There’s more of these guys than there are full-on successes. Success takes not only talent but luck and hard work. And more luck. And the successes get the microphone.

Years ago, I had dreams of broadcasting success. Stupid broadcasting degree and years of working in radio. Yea, I now work in TV, but it’s like saying I’m Frank Lloyd Wright ’cause I drew a picture of a house in first grade. I work in my own graveyardville. Once I had a child, I focused less on my dreams and more on just being happy and doing what I want. I write these reviews every day and that gives my misguided brain something to do. I finally understand the impetus to create and creating as it’s own reward.
That sounds like quitter-talk, but hey, better than giving up. Hey, back to the review…

If you’ve never heard the podcast, first, listen to it. It’s great and funny and you will enjoy it. Fact. And second, ease in to the listening process. Mike likes to talk until he finds gold. Does he know some of what he’s going to say, of course, but the comedy gold is often found after much mining. How do you know when there’s gold? Well, you laugh stupid, but my favorite part is when Mike goes “Ba-HAA!” Love it. It takes a few episodes to get Mike’s rhythms and to follow his logic. It also takes a few episodes to get through Lili’s fake laughing and realize her sizable contributions to the show as producer and sounding board. So, don’t bail after the first episode. Remember, how you felt about Mad Men’s first episode, didn’t like it, but now it’s your favorite show. That’s right I compared 40 Year Old Boy to Mad Men, mother fuckers. (sorry, slipped into Mike-speak.)

The real reason to invest in the show, Mike has stories to tell. Besides a sketchy past, strange stuff happens to him almost every week. And Mike is a master of telling a story well. Part of me kind of hope he’s lying about some of the stories or over-exaggerating the details. Because Mike’s a bit like a soap opera character–A lot of shit happens to him and because of him. If all that shit happened to me, I’d never leave the house. But Mike is made of tougher stuff.

Bottom line–He’s funny. So,

Click this link, visit his awesome site and subscribe to the podcast. Do it.

(Okay, I know this review kind of rambled and the writing sucked. It happens.)

And Dear Mike, if I’m dumb enough to tweet this link to you (and I am) and you read this, I’m sorry. Anything that is perceived as a slam or negative totally IS NOT. I’m a big fan and want the world to know the genius that is Mike Schmidt.
The anti-depressants ran out and my mind is jumbly, i’m gonna go ahead and blame that. Done.

I am to you as you are to Rock Sugar.

God, I’m kind of a dick. And arrogant much?

Ba-HAAA!

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

The New TV Season (2010)

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As a kid, September meant two things—A new Trapper Keeper and the new new TV season. While they don’t make Trapper Keepers anymore, I still put on the feety pajamas, break out the thick new TV Guide Fall Preview (or in this case the new Flabbytainment Weekly, do they still make the TV Guide?) and pick all the shows I plan to watch, sample and avoid. Until 2002, I also buy a bulk stack of VCR tapes to record all the goodness. Now, with two DVR’s, I can watch up to four shows at once, networked throughout the house. And it only takes me a half hour to put all the new shows into season pass. Nothing to do for the next two months until I bulk erase the shows my ambition wrote checks for that my eyes couldn’t cash (Hey, hey, even my references come from 1986). Whaaat?

For the last few years, it seemed like the networks staggered their new show premiers to try and build audiences. Not so this year, everything starts today! Yea!
(Full disclosure—I work for an ABC affiliate. While I certainly like some of the shows on ABC, my home recording doesn’t reflect my job tastes. That said, I probably wouldn’t have DVR’d Modern Family and Cougartown last year and missed out on some good shows. Then again, seeing The Middle so many times in reruns have made me hate Patricia Heaton with the passion of say, 3 suns. Sad, because everyone else on the show is fine.)

So, let’s get to it, TV babies, it’s the least essential TV Preview ever…

What’s on Bryan’s DVR This Year

Or

What I’m DVRing, Sampling and Avoiding

Monday

Hawaii Five-O—The Entertainment Weekly seemed to like it, but I’m on the fence. Not a fan of cop shows and procedurals, but I’ll sample it because of Daniel Dae Kim and Scott Caan. 3 episodes to prove yourself.

Chuck—Half of last season is still sitting on the DVR. I like the frothy light fun of the show and the ensemble is excellent. Of course, it’ll go on the DVR, but do I just skip ahead to the new season or never watch the season because we never catch up on DVR? Skip ahead, Bryan, you need more light shows in rotation. Sometimes I think I write these reviews just to remind myself to do something.

The Event—How will NBC screw up it’s latest Lost clone? Of course, I’ll watch, but I have a feeling like all these shows (Heroes, Fastforward), I’ll give up midway season two because the ridiculousness or boringness will be overbearing. 35 episodes if it’s still around.

Chase—Doesn’t one of the networks, usually NBC, come out with a bad-ass lady cop show that just disappears? I mean, every year. Isn’t this show already on TBS or something. No DVR for you.

Mike & Molly—Who and what now? A fat people comedy. I hate the fat people reality shows. Roseanne was funny because Roseanne was funny. No thanks. Avoid. Plus that one guy’s vocal inflections bugged me when he was on Earl.

Lone Star—This one looks interesting, but could easily be botched in execution. Is it a con man drama (which I like) or a dysfunctional family drama (eh.) or a soap opera (which is all about execution)? I must say, I’m intrigued. Five episodes to sample. Hopefully, this will be the gem of the season.

Castle—I know it’s a returning show, but I’ve seen a bunch of episodes in reruns over the summer at work. I don’t normally work Monday night and I won’t be DVRing it. Why must this show waste Nathan Fillions’ immense charm in this generic procedural? Don’t watch so Nathan can move on.

House—Only seen about ten episodes. I know should like it, but the plot is the exact same every week. No, not enough time.

(Oh, the shows I don’t mention are either ones I wouldn’t watch in a jillion years, but just don’t have the passion to hate or are reality shows. When I watch TV, I want writers and directors and actors to get paid. Reality shows are for the hospital or while folding laundry.)

Tuesday

No Ordinary Family—I’ll watch it at work, but DVR it for Shells. Not expecting groundbreaking, but Julie Benz and Michael Chiklis have a lot of good will from their last roles. Plus The Incredibles Family Drama seems like a decent enough idea.

Detroit 187—Also watch at work and DVR if Shells wants. Not expecting much. The Wire’s been done, sorry D-Town. Seems like a show with a depressing, gritty outer shell covering a generic center. The actors look good.

The Good Wife—Missed the boat on this one. Will continue to miss the boat. The same goes for Parenthood.

Glee—Will DVR for others in the house and only watch occasionally. The good (Jane Lynch, about half of the songs) isn’t outweighed by the bad (Haphazard ADD storytelling, the relentless upbeatness-which has changed since the pilot-and the other half of the songs).

Raising Hope—This show and the next one are benefitting from my perceived lack of sitcoms in the DVR queue. Created by the My Name is Earl creator and featuring a durable cast, this show has earned this a 4 episode try-out.

Running Wilde—Alright Will Arnett, your wife is on one of the funniest shows on TV (Parks and Rec), it’s your turn to go beyond Arrested Development. And you’ve got the AD team to help. Do it. Oh yea, Felicity’s there too. Four episodes to prove yourself.

Wednesday

Better With You—I’ll be at work, but DVR for Shells. I think ABC may have shot their comedy wad with Modern Family. Better with You looks like an early 2000’s Fox or CBS three-camera sitcom, so it might be iffy. It’s all up to the writing and the jokes in the commercial look awful. This may be cancelled early like that Kelsey Grammer show on ABC last year. Although, I remember ABC put the worse jokes into pre-season press for Modern Family. So, 4 episodes.

Modern Family—Hells yea.

Cougartown—If you gave up on Cougartown after a few episodes last year, check back in. The show is a lot better, more durable comedy-producing machine. Very likable and it doesn’t rest on Courtney Cox’s, arguably the weakest link, shoulders.

The Defenders—Affable show-killer Jerry O’ Connell and Deal With the Devil Man of the Year Jim Belushi? Um, no. who green lit this? The hot girl from Dirty Sexy Money is also in it, but that’s not enough. Booooo.No.

Undercovers—This may be the show I’ll kick myself for not watching by next year, but I already have a light spy show featuring a sexy couple in Chuck, so it’s a pass. Also, after the massively stupid end to Lost and the mess of an end that Alias became, JJ Abrhams no longer has my trust. Maybe just watch the season one DVDs when they come out. And be thankful not watching it to the end.

The Whole Truth—I’ll watch it in the background at work. DVR if Shells wants. Looks generic.

Thursday

My Generation—ABC’s done the whole twenty-something angsty drama show before (October Road) with mixed results. I’m in my forties and could not care less. No DVR.

The Big Bang Theory—I wasn’t a fan of the early shows, but now Big Bang is the perfect sitcom to watch before going to bed. It clears out all the darkness of the brooding dramas we watch, isn’t complicated, well-made and just nerdy enough. I’ve come around. DVR.

$#*! My Dad Says—Looks generic, but Shatner gives it a 5 episode try-out.

Community, 30 Rock, The Office—We watch the Thursday NBC comedies as a block. All are good, but both The Office and 30 Rock slipped last season (as Parks and Rec rose), but like The Simpsons, we ain’t not gonna watch. Oh, check out Community if you weren’t watching, it’s improved as the season’s gone on.

Outsourced—The beneficiary of our Thursday night viewing habit. It’ll get DVR’d. NBC must not have much confidence in it, as it’s at the end of the block and not hammocked in between more popular shows. And honestly, it doesn’t look like a NBC Thursday show, has more of a three-camera feel. 5 episodes to sample, but honestly, we’ll probably DVR all of them out of laziness.

Fringe—Still have half of last season to watch. I like the show as a weird successor to X-Files, but Shells and I like to dump-watch Fringe and we just haven’t had 8 hours to sit in a room and look at a screen. I really don’t want to jump ahead on Fringe like we’ll probably do with Chuck. But maybe we will.

Nikita—23 year old me would’ve liked this rehash, but 40-mumble mumble me just feels guilty. No DVR.

Friday

Blue Blood—The cast looks fantastic, but a) cop shows and b) CBS dramas turn me off. No DVR.

Outlaw—One word. RE-DICK-U-LOUS. I mean, c’mon. No DVR.

The Good Guys—I might watch this show if there were 70 hours in a day and 20 days in a week. Just not enough time. No DVR.

Saturday

Hey nothing’s on. Time to catch up on the DVR.

Sunday

Boardwalk Empire—I’m excited to watch that show in just a few hours. It’s your last chance at greatness HBO. Scorsese, Buscemi, Terence Winter, crime drama, the 1920’s, how can this not be awesome? Why are you not watching this RIGHT NOW? Don’t fuck it up, HBO. Definite DVR.

The Simpsons—Everyone bitches about how the Simpsons isn’t as good as it used to be. You make a show for 20 years and be not just awful, but good and not just good but great. OK, shut up then. A Simpsons episode from any era always cheers me up and I laugh OUT LOUD at least five times in any given new episode. I never laugh at most shows i find funny. And the High-Def looks great. DVR, now and forever.

The Cleveland Show, Family Guy, American Dad—All the Simpsons critics and the young folk have moved on to these shows. I’ve seen ’em many times over the years, I just don’t DVR it. The reason, I just don’t care about the characters. At all. Much of it is funny in an ADHD/absurd kind of way, but I just don’t care. ‘Kay?

I could go on and on. I actually have an opinion about crap shows like Desperate Housewives, Private Practice and Grey’s Anatomy, but even I don’t care about them. Here’s two other shows I’m looking forward to:

Dexter—For once it looks like they can’t just pretend last season didn’t happen and reboot back to the beginning. Maybe they can. But if they do, this season is my last.

The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margret—David Cross and Will Arnett in a BBC comedy airing on IFC in October. Looks cool in that Can-My-Get-Any-Worse kind of way.

So, what show’s did I forget? What shows are you looking forward to watching and how long do you give a show before you bail?

I’ll have longer reviews later on of those shows that catch my fancy.

OOOOOO, my fancy is soooo hard to catch…..

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Neuroshima Hex for iPhone (2010)

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The other day when I went into my Friendly Local Neighborhood Game Store, one of the owners asked me how I liked my iPad. I had shown him Small World on the iPad a few weeks ago and he seemed impressed. The other hangers-on in the store, the group of guys who always seem to be there had bad-mouthed me about my Mac toy a while ago. No bother, a lot of irrational Mac haters still live in 1996.
Fortunately, the genial owner saw the benefit of the iPad for RPG’s and as translations for board games and would ask me about it when the others were gone. I think the iPad is such a great boon to board games and paper RPG’s, Shells almost convinced me to run a panel at the upcoming NukeCon in Omaha. I got lazy, but I do plan on holding a few impromptu panels or at least meet up with other iPad fanatics.
I said to the FLNGS (I think I got the letters wrong) guy that Neuroshima Hex was coming out soon for the iPhone and iPad.
And he said, in words guaranteed to turn Shells off, “Oh, I call that Magic the Gathering the Board Game.” Shells isn’t a fan of Magic because of the time-consuming deck building aspect of most CCG’s.
Oh great, I thought, the one person I’ll play the most games with will hate it.

When I saw the original 2006 Neuroshima Hex board game in the stores a few years ago, it looked like a 70 dollar monstrosity. A million pieces, strange weird symbols and something that looked needlessly complex. Even discounted to 30 bucks, I was hesitant.
When I heard about it for the iPad, I was actually excited. This is why I have an iPad—to take something with a jillion pieces, lots of moving parts rules wise and have the iPad do all the mathematical heavy-lifting. And for four bucks, I’m sold.

After playing roughly five 15 minute games in the last day, I can say while I’m not a master and while I may not even understand the rules and strategies very well, I am hooked. And it isn’t Magic the Gathering the Board Game. It’s a light war-game in the vein of a Battlelore. (I will buy Battlelore if it ever comes out for iPad and I will also buy every expansion. Get on it Days of Wonder or whoever now owns Battlelore!) I think the iPad is perfect for light to medium war-games and miniatures games. I also plan to eventually pick up Ex-Illis which looks to combine the real world tactical miniature genre with an iPhone to do all the math.

Okay the rules as I understand them. (BTW, the game does have the full rules built in with a tutorial and breakdown of every unit in the game, very helpful as I learn) 2-4 players play one of 4 factions battling to destroy the other players headquarters, a sort of health meter in building form. Each faction has their own focus, a la Magic, and has their own special units. I haven’t played enough to see if I have a favorite or if one is more overpowered than the others. Each turn you draw three tiles out of your set of 35 tiles. There are three types of tiles—units, special buildings and instant actions. The units are the fighters trying to take out other units and destroy the headquarters. The special buildings give bonuses to the units adjacent to them and the instant actions let you do a one time action like move a unit or start a battle. The battles are a multi-layered affair happening both simultaneously and in phases. It’s like the speed attribute in CCG’s. I like it because it makes the game very strategic. You gotta think out whether or not you want to battle. And like many computer real time strategy games, the units can only fight in one or two of the six directions of the hex. Some units can rotate and move, some can’t. For every ability that a unit can’t do, there’s usually a special action tile or building to add that function. There’s also ranged and melée attacks and lots of other little goodies.the board game also has a few expansions, so the iPhone developers can get some more money and add in-game expansions down the line. My only complaint as a beginning player is that some of the icons aren’t easily intuitive and I had to go back to the unit descriptions to figure out some of the tiles.

I know that I am just beginning to scratch the surface of how to play the game well, especially moving the units and using the special building. I have beaten the game’s AI on easy twice, so that’s good.
One other interesting mechanic, after drawing up to three tiles for your turn (which the others can see), you have to discard one tile every turn. So, you’re forced to chuck about a third of your force in a game. The game ends either when you’re the last headquarters standing or one player is out of tiles and everyone else gets one more turn. The player with the strongest headquarters win. The battles are where the program shines as it looks like slogging through the process in a board game would just be time consuming and boring. Once again, an hour-plus game can be played in fifteen minutes.

This really isn’t an in-depth review, just a heads-up for iPhone users that there’s a new board game to support. Check it out.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

I Think We’re Alone Now (2008)

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Obsession, true obsession, distorts your reality.
Think back to that first childhood crush. Crushes are crushes because we fill in the vast missing information about the crush object with our own desires. We project our dreams like wet clay onto people who may not not even know we exist. We mold a reality that doesn’t exist into the crushes’ world. Pushing the clay metaphor farther, we create a Golem of the person, a Golem that does our bidding for a while, then eventually storms out of our fantasy castle into the real world to smash and break elements of our actual world.
The effort of maintaining an illusion of a person eventually becomes harder than reconciling the truth about our relationship with the crush object. We either give up or go crazy.
You get what I’m saying, right?

Love is a drug, love is a fantasy, obsession, obsession….



I Think We’re Alone Now is a documentary following two obsessed Tiffany fans. Yea, Tiffany fans.
Jeff, pictured above, has a good 20 years on Tiffany and in 1989, Tiffany went to court to get a restraining order against him after an instance where he tried to give her a Katana and six chrysanthemums after an old Japanese custom. He expected her to marry him. Jeff is a brilliant man who lives on disability because he has Ausbergers’ disease. This makes him socially awkward, but like a child. He’s only concerned about his obsessions and thinks everyone around him is just as interested. His dad died in Vietnam and his tragedies and disabilities have kept him from growing up and moving on. He’s good-natured and optimistic and believes himself to be fighting against the fascist world holding him and others back. He’s a brilliant conspiracy theorist.
But he sees reality much different than most. He built a helmet to talk to Tiffany spiritually. He talks of her as his best friend. He, at least, doesn’t think she’ll marry him anymore. He sees her at a lot of public events and to his and Tiffany’s credit, both are very friendly to each other and he doesn’t cross any boundaries with her. That said, he believes Tiffany hired security to protect her from him.
The other focus of the documentary is obsessed fan Kelly who’s much younger and about Tiffany’s age. He was born a hermaphrodite or ‘intersexual.’ Kelly identifies as a woman. At 16 in 1987, Kelly was in a bike accident that put her in a coma. In the coma, Kelly had a vision of some who looked like Tiffany whom she had never seen before. The first song she heard out of the coma was I Think We’re Alone Now, Tiffany’s biggest pop hit. That sealed it, she became obsessed.
Kelly is also very poor living on disability, her dad also died when she was young and she describes herself as having PTSD. Like Jeff, she is fiercely loyal, like a child emotionally, an outsider and has a positive outlook on life. Kelly, like Jeff, also has other obsessions, in her case it’s physical fitness. In many ways, Kelly is a sadder figure because of the strange hand nature gave her. Also, she’s not as far down the road to recovery as Jeff is. Kelly still believes Tiffany will marry her. She even says the difference between her and stalkers like Jeff is that she really loves Tiffany, unlike everyone else.
Both Jeff and Kelly are sad, sympathetic, creepy and likable characters. And that’s due to the filmmakers skill and home-made style of filmmaking. The credits are scraps of paper and there’s a lo-fi, ramshackle feel to the film. Some of the music cues are off and the editing often feels sloppy instead of intimate, but over-all the documentary stays with the subjects cutting back and forth between the two, slowly expanding each of their worlds.
So, why Tiffany? The question is really moot. Tiffany could be substituted for any number of celebrity obsessions. It’s just a matter of timing, dumb luck, mental illness and tragedy.
Tiffany’s in the movie peripherally, alway nice and pleasant and consistent. Even at the porn convention she goes to because of posing nude in Playboy, Tiffany’s professional to Jeff and others. Images of Tiffany certainly cover Jeff and Kelly’s walls, but that’s how she’s best used, as an image for Jeff and Kelly to project their neuroses. In looking over some other press of the movie, Tiffany’s manager has seen the film, but not Tiffany. And that’s probably best for her sanity.
The only misstep of the documentary is the producers kind of manufacture a meeting between Jeff and Kelly. I’m sure this was done to give the film some internal plot, but imposing plot in a documentary feels cheap and unneeded. Jeff introduces Kelly to Tiffany in Las Vegas, as Kelly has never had a one-to-one meeting with Tiffany. It goes as any fan meeting would. Kelly describes at as one of the biggest moments of her life, even though Tiffany didn’t go back to Denver with her. The only interesting part was seeing Jeff and Kelly talk past each other in discussing their shared interest. They both were downright rude to each other, however unintentional.
I think the producers realized that their manufactured ‘ending’ to the movie was a dud because the film ends about a year after their meeting to catch up on their lives. The good news is both Jeff and Kelly seemed to be in better places and happier. The filming must have helped each of them exorcise some of their problems.
Even Jeff, when asked if he’d like to marry Tiffany, said he prefers Allyssa Millano. He then holds up the God-Awful Embrace of the Vampire (which I assure you no ones ever seen in it’s entirety as they’ve just fast forwarded to Allyssa’s full-frontal nudity. I did.).

Some obsessions don’t die, they just change addresses. And like Allyssa’s nudity in Embrace, crushes are held in amber.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPad