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TV on DVD: “The Life & Times of Vivienne Vyle” and “People Like Us: The Complete Series”

Reality television is always open to satire and there have been many fine examples of the genre getting sent up (The Office and Arrested Development are two shows that come to mind). The BBC recently released two of their reality television satires on DVD — one worth checking out, and one a disappointment.

51ftxdvc9pL._SS500_The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle comes from the mind of the talented Jennifer Saunders, one half of the hilarious Absolutely Fabulous. Saunders plays a talk show host whose show would fit perfectly between airings of Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake. In the first of the three episodes on the DVD, Vivienne is crushed under an overweight crew member when a segment on her show goes wrong. Vivienne experiences an epiphany and decides that she wants to veer into Oprah territory and move away from the kind of trash television she helps perpetuate. Problem is, none of her people, who include her longtime/gay companion, Jared (Conleth Hill) and her drug-addicted producer, Helena (Miranda Richardson), want her to change. They all know her show is a cash cow and don’t see any reason to disrupt the status quo. But Vivienne persists and changes are made.

Saunders is dedicated as the diva Vyle and her supporting cast is top notch (the cast also includes Jason Watkins as Dr. Fowler, a psychologist roped into working on the show). Direction of the show is fine and all technical aspects are held to a high standard. The problem with The Live and Times of Vivienne Vyle is that the writing tries to be biting and dark, but I found the show tedious. (more…)

DVD Review: “The Brothers Bloom”

the_brothers_bloom_200j5tnThe Brothers Bloom is the second feature film from writer/director Rian Johnson. His first, the high school film noir cult classic, Brick, revealed a promising filmmaker with a fluent style and a knack for writing interesting and unique characters. Brick was a critical success and found an audience on DVD. Because of this, Johnson’s follow-up was bound to be scrutinized as many would be left to wonder whether Johnson was part of the next wave of great filmmakers or just another one-hit wonder. In the end, Johnson’s second effort received limited release and didn’t do well at the box office, which is a shame, because The Brothers Bloom is a beautifully shot film that uses the wide screen to its advantage in all of its scope and color. Brothers is now available on DVD, and it builds on the promise of Brick, succeeding in all of the ways necessary to guarantee that Johnson will continue making movies for years to come.

Mark Ruffalo (You Can Count on Me) and Adrian Brody (The Pianist) star as Stephen and Bloom, two brothers who have always shared everything. Tossed around from foster home to foster home as boys, they learned that they could only depend on each other. They also learned that they could make a lot of money by conning people. The opening prologue of The Brothers Bloom is an innocent, funny and expertly executed introduction to the boys, finding their calling as con artists and scamming their peers. From the start, Stephen is the planner and Bloom the one who sets the con in motion. We also see that at this early age Bloom longs for a connection with someone other than the brother he loves and admires; he wants to be loved. As Rod Stewart’s version of “I Know I’m Losing You” accompanies the boys’ slow-mo walk out of their latest town, the film titles appear and the story jumps ahead 20 years, when Stephen and Bloom are world renowned for being able to pull off the most elaborate and well-staged cons. (more…)

Basement Songs: Patty Griffin, “Be Careful”

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Since the day we moved into our house, I have regularly snuggled my daughter Sophie for about 10 minutes before she1000 kisses goes to sleep at night. When she was younger, it was to help ease her fears over the creaks and rattles of her room when the lights were off. As she got older, this routine turned into an opportunity for the two of us to catch up on our days. I found out about how school was for her, and Sophie asked me questions about my job.  For the past year I have tried to end this nightly routine.  Whenever I expressed this to Julie, my great wife admonished me by saying, “There’s going to come a time when she wants nothing to do with you. Enjoy this while you can.” Generally I pooh pooh this comment; I can’t imagine my daughter not wanting her dad around.

I vividly recall dropping her off for the first time at daycare when she was just two months old. It happened to coincide with my first day at a new job, so I was already a bundle of raw nerves. Letting her go and placing her into the care of people I barely knew was one of the worst things I ever had to do, and after I left the daycare, I had a meltdown in my car before finding the strength to start the car. I felt like she was already moving on. (more…)

DVD Review: “An Audience of One”

audience_of_one_DVDAn Audience of One (2009, Indiepix)
Purchase this DVD from Amazon or from Indiepix

At age 40, Richard Gozawsky, a San Francisco Pentecostal pastor at one of those houses of worship where the members are encouraged to speak in tongues and prayers become shouting matches with the devil, saw his first movie ever. Soon thereafter he received a message from God: Richard was to form a production company and make the greatest, biggest motion picture of all time. It was to be called Gravity: In the Shadow of Joseph, and this cross between Star Wars and The Ten Commandments was going to change the world.

Sounds like the makings of a high concept, studio-budgeted comedy from the Bruce Almighty playbook, doesn’t it? Think again, my friends, because Gazowsky and his journey are the subject of An Audience of One, a documentary from director Michael Jacobs. The film, originally released in 2007 and the recipient of many festival awards, has come to DVD through Indiepix. If you’re tired of documentary filmmakers injecting their beliefs and themselves into their movies, or if you simply enjoy well-made, dramatic movies with humor and eccentric characters, then the nonjudgmental An Audience of One is a film you should see.

Jacob’s film opens as preproduction of Gravity is underway. The volunteer members of the church are making costumes, running the finances, and planning a company move from California to Alberobello, Italy, where they plan to shoot their movie. Having never directed a movie in his life and having never produced anything of this capacity before, Gazowsky is able to raise enough money to put the film into production. His “how hard can it be” attitude about film making and his undying faith that God will guide him have convinced people that he will make this movie. As spiritual leader of his entire production staff, no one questions his actions; no one thinks he’s going to fail. As for the professionals hired to light and work on the camera crew, well, a gig is a gig as long as you get paid, even if the director of the film is delusional. (more…)

TV on DVD: “New Tricks: Season One”

NewTricks_S1New Tricks: Season One (2009, BBC)
purchase from Amazon: DVD

Call it Cold Case for the retired crowd. The BBC’s mystery series New Tricks doesn’t break any new ground as far as procedural dramas go and the whodunit aspect may not have you on the end of your seat, but the series has an interesting premise and a charming cast of eccentrics that really clicks.

Amanda Redman (so great in Sexy Beast) plays Superintendent Sandra Pullman, an excessively competitive Scotland Yard detective whose career was on the upswing until an unfortunate dog-shooting incident during a hostage rescue. It wasn’t the dog that derailed her career, it was that the hostage leaped from a window and wound up in a body cast. The embarrassment to the police leads to a demotion, of sorts. Pullman is assigned to lead the Unsolved Crime and Open Case Squad, a new division made up of retired detectives.

The first person she approaches for her new team is Jack Halford (James Bolam) her old boss and mentor. A well respected member of the force before stepping down off, Jack is a widower still grieving over the death his beloved wife, Mary. He lives a lonely life in a big house where Mary is buried in the back yard. After long days Jack can be seen conversing with his dead wife, seeking her advice, needing her comfort. These scenes are touching, but Bolam doesn’t milk them for tears. In fact, some scenes are often humorous as he details the shenanigans of his new crime-fighting endeavor. (more…)

Basement Songs: The Temptations, “Ain’t Too Proud to Beg”

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One of my brother’s infamous parties was going on downstairs in the basement.  He didn’t have to return tobig chill Columbus for a couple weeks, so I guess he felt one more bash was justified before he left for college. In the past, I had sat upstairs and watched a video while the music thumped through the basement door, but this year was different. I was a freshman in high school and I knew some of the people downstairs. Furthermore, I was deemed old enough (not “cool enough,” mind you) to join the older kids in the basement.

I may have been the youngest person in the room, and I didn’t care. Sitting on the second-hand, musty green couch, located right next to the stereo, I stared as the few girls I knew  (just a year ahead of me) made out with guys two or three years older than them. I studied the techniques of concealing alcohol in plastic cups in case my parents decided to make an unexpected visit. Mostly, though, I just listened to music and got to play DJ. I was spinning The Big Chill soundtrack, that collection of ’60s hits that started the Hollywood trend of marketing movies to the sound of nostalgia and oldies. I hadn’t seen the movie yet; it wasn’t on my list of must-see videos — it didn’t have blood and guts or lowbrow humor. But I loved the songs compiled by writer/director Lawrence Kasdan. While I tapped my foot and did some dorky air drumming to Marvin Gaye and The Rascals, I felt the couch shift as someone sat down next to me. (more…)

DVD Review: “The Proposal”

proposalThe Proposal (2009, Touchstone)
purchase from Amazon: Deluxe DVD Edition | Blu-ray

Sandra Bullock is at the top of her game and Ryan Reynolds gives one of his best performances to date in the romantic comedy The Proposal. This funny, sweet and beautifully shot film is released today on DVD and Blue-Ray.

Reynolds plays Andrew, a degraded executive assistant at a publishing company working for bitch on heels, Margaret (Bullock). Although it’s a lowly job, Andrew understands that if he can survive his tenure with the reviled Margaret, he’ll eventually be promoted to book editor. As the film opens, Margaret has a huge dilemma: Through a visa violation she’s about to be deported back to her native Canada, and she’ll losing her job and reputation. In a moment of desperation, she lies to her bosses and U.S. Immigration that she and Andrew are actually engaged, thus meaning she can stay in the U.S. Andrew only goes along with her plan on the condition he gets his promotion. However, the government expects her to prove their engagement is real. To further perpetuate the scam, Margaret must accompany Andrew back to his home state of Alaska for his grandmother’s 90th birthday.  From there, Peter Chiarelli’s script becomes a fun fish out of water story as Margaret the ice queen’s heart slowly melts.

Once they arrive in Andrew’s small Alaskan hometown, Margaret quickly learns that Andrew isn’t the man she thought he was and gains new respect for him.  She gets to see the loving relationship he has with his mother, Grace (the always adorable Mary Steenburgen) and his rambunctious grandma (a riotous Betty White). Besides the tension created by Andrew and Margaret lying about their relationship, there is the strained relationship Andrew has with his father, Joe (an excellent Craig T. Nelson).  Joe looks at Andrew’s literary pursuits as a whim and is impatiently waiting for his son to return home and take over the family business empire. (more…)

Book Review: Jeff Martin, “My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize”

dog_nobelprize-thumb-400x600We live in an age when you don’t have to be a dignitary, famous celebrity or someone who survived tragedy to write your life’s story. In the past decade, blogs, Facebook and Twitter (to name a few) have given any person with a computer or cellphone the ability to create his own memoirs. Case in point: you wouldn’t be reading this review right now if I hadn’t started my own blog back in 2003, which led to Jeff Giles reading some of my ramblings and asking me to be a part of Popdose. In this era of immediate thoughts and short, succinct sentences, it was only matter of time before a writer took the approach of a blog entry or Twitter update to write their memoirs. Well, almost.

Jeff Martin, author of The Customer is Always Wrong: The Retail Chronicles (nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award) and a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, has written his fabricated memoirs, My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize (Soft Skull Press).

As Martin lays out in the author’s note, “Some of the events described almost happened as related, others were expanded and changed. Others were stretched from the smallest inkling of truth. Others were stolen from other memoirs.”  Right off the bat you know this is going to be a silly ride. This whimsical, quick read — it’s only 128 pages, none of which is a full page and including plenty of illustrations — brought me a smile and chuckle as it follows Martin’s “extraordinary” life from his birth in 1980 to the year 2061. Martin’s approach to his so-called life reminded me of Woody Allen’s Zelig and, more obviously, Forrest Gump: Martin is continuously present at some remarkable moments in pop culture history. Some examples: (more…)

Basement Songs: Shawn Colvin with Mary Chapin Carpenter, “One Cool Remove”

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Julie said she was waiting for me.Shawn Colvin Cover Girl

In 1994, outside the special effects warehouse where I worked, a cat had delivered a litter underneath a pile of lumber directly next to the open area where we used fiberglass chemicals. To save these babies from cancerous fumes they were moved to a safer location, but the mother never returned. A group of us divided up the kittens and when the runt, a squeaky fur ball with white fur and black and white gray patches one her back and legs, was the only one unclaimed, Julie and I adopted her. We named her Doodle.

The first night the two of us woke up periodically to feed Doodle from a syringe. She was so tiny that Julie could put her in the front pocket of her overalls. Over the next week or so she slept on the bed with us, or on my chest where she would knead my chest with her claws. When she was hungry she would “mew,” which was pathetic and sweet at the same time. This all took place in our first apartment, a one bedroom sweatbox located in North Hollywood. It was a big place, but the AC didn’t work, thus the summer days were almost unbearable from the hundred-plus degree heat in the San Fernando Valley. Couple that with the class bells from nearby North Hollywood High during the school year, and you can understand why the rent was pretty cheap. (more…)

TV on DVD: “It’s Always Sunny in Phladelphia Season 4″

ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhil_S4

It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia is the twisted spawn of Seinfeld. Much like NBC’s beloved sitcom, the show centers around four friends (three males and a female). In this case, they run a bar in Philly while carrying on their egocentric lives. Although the set up is similar to Jerry and company, the tone is more like Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm: The people are primarily out for themselves. The characters, Dennis (Glenn Howerton), Dee (Kaitlin Olson), Charlie (Charlie Day) and Mac (Rob McElhenney) are all close friends, but that doesn’t mean they’re above abusing each other and double crossing one another to get what they want. I used to watch the show regularly in its first two seasons but my viewing habits changed and I got tired of the conniving and abuse that the four characters threw at each other. Moreover, when Danny DeVito joined the cast as Frank, I didn’t feel like it clicked.

Watching the few episodes provided for me from the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season 4 DVD box set, I wish I had stuck with it. The show had me doubled over in laughter and I couldn’t get the damn songs from “The Nightman Cometh” episode out of my head. In that particular episode, Charlie writes a musical and casts the gang in his play. “The Nightman Cometh” was so popular among the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia fanbase that when a live production of the play within the show was performed live at the Troubadour in Los Angeles, the two performances sold out in 10 minutes. Not bad for a cult show that airs on FX. (more…)