Well hey there. In case you didn’t know, this is the last week of The Three Strike Rule until the new year. Hey, don’t get mad at me, take it up with the Editor in Chief. Anyway, it’s been a pleasure writing about the boob tube over the coarse of the year; we’ve had some fun. To wrap things up, my compadre, Shaun Hamid, has joined me in giving you our two cents’ worth what 2007 brought us in television. Until next year, aloha.

BEST SHOW

Scott: Friday Night Lights (NBC/DirecTV) The small-town football series’ 2nd season ended on a high note last winter as we watched it regain its form after stumbling with a soap opera-ish murder plot. Still, NBC ran the final episodes with little fanfare, despite the fact that there was little original programming on the air due to the writers’ strike. The network redeemed itself by striking a deal with DirecTV to co-produce a third season. Since October, the satellite provider has been airing these new episodes and come January, those same episodes will air on the peacock network.

The third season has been everything fans of the show love, in particular the study of a working marriage between two of the finest actors on television, Kyle Chandler and Connie Britton as Coach and Mrs./Principal Taylor. They are the heart of the show. If you haven’t watched this show yet, what the hell is your problem? More than any other series on TV, FNL approaches each week with intelligence, humor and heart. At a time when the country is in turmoil, here is a quality show that taps into everything that is great about the America and reminds us of what we can be. Procedurals and medical dramas are a dime a dozen, and aren’t we all bored to shit with the woes of filthy rich people? I said it back in January, and now I’ll repeat myself: WATCH THIS SHOW!

Shaun: Mad Men (AMC) In spite of the remarkable amount of attention this show has gotten critically and awards-wise, it still feels unheralded to me. This show consistently elevates itself above much other dramatic fare. No network, NBC to HBO, has a show nearing its quality and innovation currently. While it can be irritating in its few failures, I think that is a testament to a show that a viewer expects so much from. If you have not seen this show yet, and judging by the ratings that may be a good bet, take the leap. It would be unfortunate for it to meet the fate of another similar luminary in another genre: Arrested Development.

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On November 5, the morning after Senator Barack Obama was elected the 44th president of the United States of America, Oprah Winfrey appeared on her talk show with an American flag in one hand and a copy of the Chicago Sun-Times in the other. In May of last year Winfrey endorsed Obama’s candidacy, disappointing many of her viewers who expected her to endorse Hillary Clinton instead (i.e. gender before race), but by some estimates her thumbs-up gave the Illinois senator a million votes he otherwise wouldn’t have had. (An endorsement from Oprah is pretty much an endorsement from God, which is appropriate since a lot of voters expect Jesus-like miracles from the president-elect.) On November 6’s Oprah Winfrey Show, the talk-show queen said that the Sun-Times’s postelection edition, featuring a black-and-white picture of Obama and the words “Mr. President,” was “the best paper of all the papers in the world.” When Oprah endorses, people listen — though an additional 85,000 copies of the November 5 paper were printed the night before in anticipation of extra demand, raising the total to 335,000, an eventual 700,000 copies were printed in order to stay ahead of requests. Other daily papers like the Chicago Tribune and Los Angeles Times also saw increased demand, and there was a similar frenzy for commemorative sections included in the Sun-Times and Tribune’s Sunday, November 9, editions.

When I got on the bus to go to work on November 5, I was carrying my copy of the Sun-Times, which I started subscribing to early last month. I noticed more eyes looking at what was in my hands than usual as I made my way to the back of the bus (in case you’re curious, I’m usually holding baby chickens), and as soon as I sat down a woman to my right asked me where I’d gotten my copy of the paper. I told her I subscribe. She said all the newspaper boxes she’d passed were empty, so I gave her my sales pitch for subscribing to the Sun-Times: “It’s only five dollars a month.” But before I could shout “That’s an average of 18 cents a day!” in my best TV-pitchman voice, it finally dawned on me why people were so interested in the newspaper I was carrying: it was an instant collector’s item. If only every issue was considered a must-have keepsake these days.

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There are a few things about this week’s post that will probably disturb most of my friends who end up reading it (though I’m not sure how many of my friends actually read anything I write, so I might be safe):

1. I’m writing about a John Travolta film.
2. I’m posting a soundtrack comprised mostly of tracks by the Bee Gees and Frank Stallone.
3. I’m admitting how much I love Staying Alive (1983).

Despite the fact I’m losing a little of my friends’ respect with each word I type, I don’t give a rat’s ass. I know it’s not cinematic genius, but Staying Alive is a 1980s dance movie. It has Cynthia Rhodes. It has Finola Hughes. Did I mention it has dancing, ’80s style? I think 1980s dance movies are second only to 1980s bad horror movies in my list of guilty-pleasure film genres; no matter how horrible they are, I’ll watch them. The costumes, the music, the hairstyles, the makeup, the bad plots and over-the-top acting — I just can’t get enough. I know, I probably need a 12-step program.

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This is not a review of Quantum of Solace, the 22nd James Bond picture. There was a screening Wednesday night, but I had to put my Walther PPK aside…and babysit. My license to kill has been revoked, my piece replaced with a 4 oz. bottle.

In any event, it gives me a chance to do what Popdosers often do: stroll down memory lane. Week-to-week, most of this column is in the here and now, but today I go back…way back, from Bond 1 to Bond 21. We start at the age of eight, circa 1973, when Nixon was still in the White House and my dad took me to see a double feature of Diamonds are Forever and Live and Let Die. I have vivid memories of the former, Sean Connery’s second-to-last turn in his signature role: From the get-go, it was more perverse than what I was used to be taken to, with gay villains, lesbian villainesses, and a bad guy in drag, not that any of this registered with any clarity (though its swishy portrait of homosexuality is on a third-grade level today). But I immediately grasped its structure, with the pre-opening credits action, the fusion of opening song and sinuous animated titles, the introduction of series regulars, and a rise-and-fall pattern to the expository, bedroom, and action scenes. Everything snapped perfectly into place, like one of Q’s gadgets.

There was a playful formality to it, credited, I came to recognize, to co-producer Albert R. Broccoli, who from Dr. No to Licence to Kill lavished as much attention on his baby as David O. Selznick did on Gone with the Wind. (His partner Harry Saltzman, who I think kept some of his lesser impulses in check, left the series after The Man with the Golden Gun, as the series made a decisive shift.) The journeyman directors, never A-list auteurs in their own right, who were hired to keep the works running smoothly did some of their best work on the series. Then again, how could they not, with the likes of composer John Barry, production designer Ken Adam, and titles creator Maurice Binder in their corner? (more…)

Encounters at the End of the World (2008)
purchase this DVD (Amazon)

I had a very odd application.

I had to explain that I was into things like: Is there such a thing as insanity among penguins? And why is it that human beings saddle a horse, and like the Lone Ranger, put on masks in order to disguise their identity and then feel the urge to chase the bad guy? And why is it that certain species of ants keep flocks of wild lice in order to milk them like slaves for droplets of sugar? And why is it that a chimp — clearly a superior creature — does not straddle a goat and ride into the sunset?

So does Werner Herzog explain his motivations for the journey that would spawn Encounters at the End of the World, and if you’ve sat down in front of the crusty director’s latest documentary hoping (or fearing) that you were in for another Discovery Channel-esque look at the wonders of life at the bottom of the planet, prepare to have your expectations knocked off their axis. We’ve had a lot of film crews journey to various bits of frozen tundra over the last decade or so, but nobody combines disdain for humanity with a curious spirit quite like Herzog, and his work here is typically, appropriately iconoclastic.

There are no chimps on goats, but Herzog still manages to take viewers places they’ve never been before — both around Antarctica and into the psyches of the people who live and work there. This latter component is really what makes Encounters tick: Herzog arrived at McMurdo Station curious about what would drive a person to seek employment in such unforgiving environs, and between various excursions, he does a fair amount of probing the histories of his hosts. Given Herzog’s career-long love for the exceptional (or exceptionally strange), you might think Antarctica would be the perfect place for him, and you’d be right — pretty much as soon as he steps off the plane, he’s aiming his lens at a pack of characters positively Lynchian in their penchant for the unusual. (more…)

When it was released in 1988, Die Hard set a new standard for action movies. For a decade afterward, pretty much every single action movie was unable to avoid a comparison with John McTiernan’s film, which delivered such a memorable dose of pure entertainment on a number of different levels, including the use of every conceivable weapon outside of a genuine war zone. The writers of the film, Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza (adapting Roderick Thorp’s 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever), contrived plot elements that enabled the film’s characters to use pistols, machine guns, a sniper rifle, a missile launcher, and enough C-4 explosives to blow up several stories of a building. It wasn’t until 1999, when The Matrix came out, that the bar for action sequences was truly set at a higher level. While The Matrix didn’t use any of Die Hard’s trademark humor, it built an intriguing universe for its characters to inhabit that served as a suitable counterpoint to the film’s unforgettable action sequences.

The Film: The Matrix

The Song: “Spybreak”

The Artist: Propellerheads

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I’m hooked on Torchwood, the BBC’s latest sci-fi drama (a spinoff from their cult hit, Dr. Who). The entire second season has just been released on a five-disc DVD box set. If you’re a fan of shows like The X-Files, Lost, and Heroes, then you should be watching this well-produced show. With humor, grace, and some very emotional moments, the second season of Torchwood is addictive and outstanding television that deserves a larger audience in the U.S.

Created by Russell T. Davies (Queer as Folk, Dr. Who), Torchwood¸ derives its name from the fictional Torchwood Institute in Cardiff, Wales. Working outside the boundaries of the government, this mostly top secret agency’s job is to track down extraterrestrials roaming loose on Earth. See, there is an intergalactic rift in the universe, allowing alien creatures from the far reaches of the universe to slip through time and space and end up in Wales. While this set up may sound a bit preposterous (shades of the Sci Fi Channel came to mind), Davies and company wisely chose to have one of the show’s main characters serve as the eyes of the viewer. She is Gwen, played by Eve Myles (pictured). In season one she joined the Torchwood team and had her eyes opened to the craziness out there in space. In season two, she continues to have a few of those “this can’t be real” moments. However she is also engaged and eventually reveals the secrets of Torchwood to her fiancé, Rhys (Kai Owen). Rhys has taken over the role of the person who most often exclaims “what the hell is that?”

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BOTTOM LINE: It’s like watching an indie movie on a stage. The Language of Trees is a captivating story about realistic people thrown into an extreme situation.

The Language of Trees is the second installment in Roundabout Theatre’s new audience initiative, Roundabout Underground. The idea behind Underground is to bring affordable, accessible new theatre to a younger, hipper audience while at the same time giving new artists a place to grow and develop their work. Last year’s Speech & Debate was the first performance in the series, and it was welcomed with glee by both critics and audiences. The Language of Trees is much deeper in context than Speech & Debate, but it resonates with the same connectivity.

Written by Steven Levenson and directed by Alex Timbers, Language follows a family in the midst of a crisis. Set in 2003, dad Denton (Michael Haydon) goes to the Middle East to work as a translator in the Iraq war. His wife Loretta (Natalie Gold) and seven-year-old son Eben (Gio Perez) wait for him at home. Nosy neighbor Kay (Maggie Burke) nuzzles in and offers to assist the family since Denton is away; it turns out she’s lonely too. When Denton’s situation overseas becomes volatile, Loretta, Eben, and Kay are left to rely on each other for support.

Roundabout Underground’s Black Box Theatre at the Harold & Miriam Steinberg Center for Theatre is intimate and personal. As the name implies, it’s a small, dark space with low ceilings; the stage is only a few inches higher than the floor and only a few feet away from the first row of seats. As a result, it’s hard as an audience member to distance yourself from what’s playing out in front of you. The Language of Trees is sincere and powerful; you feel for these characters as they struggle to deal with their loss and move on with their lives, especially as you sit so close to the drama. In such a cozy space, the experience is much more vivid and palpable.

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I’ll be honest — I watched The Idolmaker (1980) because of Prince. I had read in a couple of biographies that the film partly inspired him to create some of his most famous side projects, like the Time and Vanity 6. As someone who wants to see and hear anything that might have influenced a favorite artist, I immediately added the film to my Netflix queue.

I have to say that I’m shocked I’d never seen The Idolmaker before since I’m a huge fan of movies about music and musicians, both real and fictional. But somehow I managed to not even know of its existence until last year. The film is loosely based on the life of Bob Marucci, the legendary rock promoter who discovered acts like Frankie Avalon and Fabian; Ray Sharkey plays a songwriter-turned-producer who makes stars out of two unknowns in the late 1950s, one of whom is played by Peter Gallagher in his feature-film debut (the other is played by Paul Land, with Jesse Frederick providing vocals). The Idolmaker also marks the feature debut of director Taylor Hackford, who went on to direct another, more famous music biopic, the Academy Award-winning Ray (2004).

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The legend goes something like this: a young writer-turned-director is over at Universal Studios taking a tour of the facilities. He’s introduced to another young hotshot fresh off an assignment on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery TV show, who’s in the beginning stages of a TV movie of the week about a man being menaced by a 16-wheeler truck driven by an anonymous party set on destruction, but perhaps the truck is driven by no one at all. In some odd way, the seeds of the blockbuster book and movie Jurassic Park are planted on this occasion. The writer-turned-director, Michael Crichton, and the hotshot TV director, Steven Spielberg, will visit and revisit that theme of being pursued by something faceless, something foreign, and something that inexplicably wants to do harm without just provocation.

Sadly, that’s kind of how Crichton’s life has come to a close as well. He kept his fight with cancer out of the public conversation, but those who regularly stalk the local Barnes & Noble had to figure something was up the past year or so. Crichton was both studious and prolific, his stories steeped in detail and factual bits and pieces. It was that very trait that caused critics to scoff when Spielberg chose to adapt Jurassic Park (1990) for the big screen in 1993, as they couldn’t imagine how one would be able to adapt the author’s genetic ruminations into a plausible summer thriller. (Special effects wizard Stan Winston was instrumental in creating the physical, as opposed to digital, dinosaurs for the movie; he passed away in June due to complications from multiple myeloma, a cancer of the plasma.)

Crichton, for a time, could be counted on to write at least one book a year. His is a name that conjures up a genre in readers’ minds every time they hear it, just as the names King, Koontz, Grisham, and Clancy do. You may not know the actual story you’re going to get, but you know the stage it will likely be set upon. So the infrequency of his output in recent years seemed to be strange. Was it a semi-retirement? Was it a belief that he’d done whatever he wanted — including directing six feature films and creating the Thursday-night television staple ER, now in its 15th and final season — and the time had come to kick back? Now we know.

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