Friday Night Lights (the kids call it FNL)

Well, I just finished watching season one of Friday Night Lights on hulu. It's joined the ranks of Six Feet Under, Lost, Heroes, and The Shield as TV shows I've binged on. And yep, I guess it's the latest show I'll try to get you to watch. After watching 20-odd episodes in 3 days, here were some of my thoughts:


1. Kyle Chandler is fucking hot! I imdb'ed him and it turns out he's the dude from Early Edition—remember that show? where the guy gets a newspaper from the future every day? I didn't remember seeing anyone this hot on the ads for that show, so I checked out the archival footage. Sure enough: not hot (it's the 90's leather jacket!), BUT I did discover that it also starred Fisher Stevens! (??!). So I'm hoping maybe, after Fisher's successful turn on Lost, he can go guest star on Friday Night Lights? But I digress.


2. It's a constant shock to me how little nudity there is on this show! How is it possible we haven't seen Riggins' ass yet?! I didn't realize NBC was so prude...but maybe they're trying to make it a "family" show? In any event, I'm mad I don't get to see the Coach follow through on this bedroom eyes.

3. Hulu needs to get some more corporate sponsorships. At the beginning of each episode, I would cross my fingers and say, "Please not Chili's!" Their 15-second spots invited the viewer to "Pepper in some WOW!" with their "big-mouth bites." In the 30-second spots, a bunch of 20-somethings are in a car trying to decide what to do. Then one of the girls (who were thin as a rail and twice as attractive as their male counterparts) gets the AWESOME idea to go to CHILI's to get their "Smokehouse Bacon Burger," (follow that link, you won't regret it) whose tagline is literally "the thickest strips of bacon you've ever seen." Ironically, the company that has the best ads is Cisco (and one of them even features the executive phone!)


4. Have I mentioned how sexy Kyle Chandler is? I've never found football remotely interesting until now. Suddenly I find it kind of hot.


5. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe this is the first TV show to ever portray a wheelchair-bound person in such a major role. I have no idea what I would think if I was in a wheelchair, but the writers seem to do a good job with it. As soon as I thought, "wouldn't Mexico be less handicap accessible?" Jason can't get over a curb. I should also mention that Scott Porter, who plays him, is excellent, as are all the other no-name teenage actors on the show.

6. ...the actresses, on the other hand, I can't decide if I like or not. (And could Layla look any less like her parents?) I also don't get why there are no awkward, unattractive, or really smart women on the show.

7. Tim Riggins = white trash Baby Dayliner


8. Every time someone refers to linebacker "Smash," I think of LT Smash from the Simpsons: "That's right, Leuitenant LT Smash."

ER and me: back together?

Like most of you, I plan on getting through the strike by watching tv shows on DVD and holding onto the last remaining episodes of the Simpsons (there's six of them left, including one where Ralph Wiggum becomes president!). But something occurred to me last night. I am awfully susceptible to getting hooked on new shows, and with very little to watch I might just get hooked on all sorts of stuff I never knew I needed to see before.

Worst still, I may even get hooked on shows I used to watch until I eventually built up enough antibodies to turn them off. Like ER. Like most people, I haven't watched this show since dreamboat George Clooney left. OK, OK, if I'm being honest, I held on all the way through Goose's brain tumor and long enough to know who Abby is.

But then I never looked back, except for the season 13 ep when Abby's baby was born in a storyline copied almost directly from the season 3 ep when Benton's baby was born. Even though it's even more melodramatic than Grey's Anatomy, and the lighting is still straight out of St. Elsewhere, not only do they have Stanley Tucci, they also have John Stamos. And he is still as dreamy as he was in Jesse and the Rippers:


I may be in trouble.

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Jon Hamm

Don Draper, will you narrate my slide show ad pitch?

I know I've been neglecting you, internets, but unfortunately I just can't see to come up with anything coherent to say about anything lately. So how about some incoherent ramblings? Here are the things that have been on my mind that would make fairly decent blog posts if I had the inspiration to really write about them. Feel free to choose your favorite and write your own blog post about it.

1. I would totally watch Brothers & Sisters if Greg Berlanti would cast Gregory Smith as Emily VanCamp's bf that Sally Field's family doesn't approve of.

2. No one probably has any idea who anyone other than Sally Field was that I just mentioned. It was a little show called Everwood, people, and it was like Brothers & Sisters except it KNEW it was cheesy, and instead of Sally Field's hysterics we got Treat Williams' raised voice and measured apology/feelings explanation.

3. Maybe it's just because I spent a lot of time with him when I was going through puberty and he was a smoldering pediatrician, but I always kind of felt like George Clooney was mine. Until he forsook me for a cocktail waitress/scorpion eater/motorcycle accident victim. On the bright side, George never stays with one woman for too long, and look at her last boyfriend/Fear Factor partner! Maybe there is hope for me yet.

4. I think Dirty Sexy Money is my favorite new show. Unless you count Tina Fey's American Express commercial.

5. I'm getting my wisdom teeth out tomorrow. Behold my provisions for the weekend (other than a nice bottle of vicodin):


6. I want Wes Anderson's brother to come decorate my apartment. Owen can come help (it will give him something purposeful to do), and afterwards I'll make us all some pizza rolls and peanut butter/banana milk shakes.


7. I think what is wrong with our culture today can pretty much be boiled down to the fact that smug, egotistical John Edwards still continues to get TV deals, while gentle, Mr. Belvedere lookalike James Van Praagh gets his show canceled and has to watch Jennifer Love Hewitt reenact his life. If I was dead, I would so never communicate with a guy who whitens his teeth so he can flirt with my bereft sister or whatever.

8. Does everything google touches turn to gold? This new site from blogger is absolutely mesmerizing, and one of the best encapsulations of humankind I've ever seen: it's a slideshow of recently uploaded photos to blogspot blogs. Just try not to get drawn in....

9. I'll try to write some posts this weekend while I'm drooling all over myself and am too disfigured to leave the house. Thanks for sticking with me, people

Dear Jack Nicholson, I'm totally putting you on my myspace page

1. Clear your calendar for the next 20 minutes
2. Read this 1984 Rolling Stone interview with Jack Nicholson
3. Just try to tell me it's not one of the most fascinating pop culture interviews you've ever read

Here are some quotes to whet your appetite (hint: read them in your head in Jack's voice):

On BFF Warren Beatty:
I certainly know that he loves Diane Keaton. Maybe I shouldn't say that, because he doesn't want to have his personal life discussed, but in this case—[laughs]—fuck him.

On women:
I prefer the company of women, and I have deep respect for them. I'm buzzed by the female mystique. I always tell young men there are three rules: They hate us, we hate them; they're stronger, they're smarter; and, most important, they don't play fair.

On The Postman Always Rings Twice:
See, Americans don't like sexual movies, they like sexy movies.

On aging:
I don't want to be a man who, just past a certain point of physicality, believes it when young women who aren't say they actually prefer you this way....It's a goofy, clownish part; I don't mind acting it, but I don't want to be it.

David Rees Snell: I think I love you

While staring into the surf during my recent vacation, I finally made a life decision: I decided I was ready to start watching The Shield again. I'd taken a little break, because it was beginning to consume me, but I've decided I'm ready to dedicate all my spare time to the travails of the Farmington PD again. If you find all of these posts about The Shield boring, then go watch the show and come back. Seriously. Do I have to buy season 1 for every one of you and sit you down in front of it?

If you're still here, I'm sorry to disappoint all of you who found this page by googling "Michael Chiklis bulge," but this post, for once, isn't about Michael Chiklis. It's about David Rees Snell, who plays Detective Ronnie Gardocki on the show. That's him, kinda blurry in the background in the photo, and that's how he is in most episodes.

Even though he only gets about 6 lines per episode (every episode), I love him. And I know I can't convey that as well as this person did on youtube, where you can find a 4-minute montage of all of Ronnie's best moments set to a dance remix of "Hungry Eyes." But I will try:

I might like him so much because he's got a good sense of humor, or because he looks great in a sweatshirt. But it's probably because he has one of the best beards in the business (we won't mention the 'stache he had in season 1), and I'm not the only one who things so because it's the most commented-on topic of conversation on the discussion board of his imdb page.

David plays back-up man Ronnie, who is the only guy who has managed to deal with the disparate personalities of everyone on the Strike Team. Yet he's mysterious. How did he learn so much about computers and safe cracking? Why is he so good with dogs? Who is this horrible woman he's dating that made him shave the beard? As the members of the Strike Team drop like flies, we see more and more of Ronnie, but just enough to whet our appetites.

I feel kind of bad for David. He gets to be just behind the action all the time, and he joked in a DVD commentary one time about how they were always having him go "around back" when they bust through a house and never show him. But his imdb page also says he's married to the most under-shown female regular on the show: Melanie Myers, who plays Paula the patrol woman, the occasional female confidante to Danny (like when she needs to talk about women stuff like almost kissing Dutch). No one on the internet seems to know when they got married, but I like to think that they spent their free time on the set getting to know each other, and ultimately making out in the "cage" after hours, and then falling in love.

I'm so desperate to see more David Rees Snell that I'm rather angry that the Hallmark Channel Original Movie "Desolation Canyon" isn't available on Netflix. Not only is David in it, but so is Kenny Johnson, who played poor Curtis "Lemonhead" Lemansky on The Shield. (Rounding out the cast is Stacey Keach and Patrick Duffy.) I have no doubt this critically lambasted Wild West adventure would keep me very entertained, as the only reason why I watch that new Holly Hunter program is to see Kenny have TV sex with her.

Anyway, I have to go back to watching The Shield now, so please enjoy this little Ronnie moment, and tell me he's not the cutest:




Or check out this short film, which is pretty dumb but stars DRS when he was a 20-something sideburned cutie without a middle name.

I'm sorry, but I still love Tom Cruise

Say what you will about Tom Cruise: that he's a crazy freak, that he never deserved Nicole Kidman, that he champions the strangest religion in America (and that's including the polygamists), that he and Katie Holmes have some kind of arrangement that has nothing to do with falling in love, that "Cruise" was kind of a strange last name to pick for himself, that Suri might be an alien...And you'd be right. But there's still something about him that's strangely compelling. You want to watch him on TV appearances, because he's totally fake but he's playing "Charming Movie Star" better than he ever has.

At this point maybe I should confess that in high school, I had a bit of a thing for Tom. I was on a quest to watch every Tom Cruise movie possible, and am slightly embarrassed to admit that there are fewer Tom Cruise movies I HAVEN'T seen than ones I have. My friends and I rewound and watched the "volleyball scene" from Top Gun over and over, and sneaked into Jerry Maguire by buying tickets for a movie that wasn't rated R (I'm sorry to say it was one of the most rebellious acts of my high school years). My obsession hit its peak when I went through all four years' worth of back issues of Entertainment Weekly I had stashed in my closet and cut out every single picture of Tom and made them into a giant collage, which I hung on my bedroom wall over my bed.



But before you write me off entirely, keep in mind that there are a lot of good Tom Cruise movies, and don't tell me that when you're flipping through the channels and see A Few Good Men, The Color of Money, Mission Impossible, or Interview with a Vamprie you don't stop to watch them. In fact, I bet you'd even watch Cocktail or Losin' It. Tom Cruise brought us the Pervvy Frank T.J. Mackey in Magnolia; he's still what a lot of people think of when they think of amputee veterans; and he gave us all of the idea to use an autistic person to count cards in Vegas.

But Tom's real contribution to the landscape of American cinema is that he is the embodiment--if the not the very creator--of an American ideal we may not realize we have: being cocky is acceptable, even likable, as long as you are a handsome guy with heart. Whether it's a cocky fighter pilot, a cocky lawyer going up against Jack Nicholson, or a cocky, scrappy Irishman trying to fight his way into a enough cash to make it Out West, we find ourselves rooting for him over and over again. Cocky teenager who turns his parents' home into a whorehouse when they're on vacation? Awesome! Cocky sports agent who wins the heart of a single mom? I know I should be cringing but I'm tearing up instead. Cocky Upper East Side doctor who gets caught in a web of sexual desire? You know you want to stick around to see that orgy scene.

Maybe where Tom went wrong in his real life is trying too hard NOT to be cocky. Because it's the attempted earnestness that turns everyone off. If instead of jumping up and down on Oprah's couch proclaiming "I love her!" he simply said, "Katie Holmes is a hottie, my religion may be weird but so is Christianity, I'm an Oscar winner, and p.s., I'm rich, bitches, so shut the hell up," THEN flashed that movie star grin, we'd fall for him the same way Charlie does in Top Gun.

But even if that doesn't happen, I'm still with ya, Tom. If things don't work out with Katie you just give me a call and I'd be happy to live in your mansion and have your babies. Just as long as Nicole doesn't mind.

You had me at "part-time dad juggling his wild L.A. lifestyle"

I just read the description for the new David Duchovney show:

Bachelor Hank Moody's (David Duchovny) got it made: he's a sexy best-selling author who's irresistible to the ladies. But as a part-time dad juggling his wild L.A. lifestyle with grown-up responsibilities, this say-anything writer's at a loss for words. This smart Showtime comedy also stars Natascha McElhone (as Hank's ex-girlfriend), Madeleine Martin (as Becca, his 13-year-old daughter), Madeline Zima and Evan Handler.

Am I just a sucker for good ad copy? Or is it that the name of the show, Californication, reminds me of how tight David Duchovny's pants were in the 1993 film Kalifornia (um, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers, of course)? Because I really want to see this show, and since it's going to be on after Weeds, it almost makes me want to pay the outrageous sum to get Showtime.

I do have some questions, though:
1) How much do you wanna bet that Evan Handler (who you may know as Charlotte's bald husband from Sex in the City) plays his "wild" best friend?
2) How much you wanna bet that his interpretation of this role comes nowhere close to Johnny V's brillance in "Scott Baio is 45 and Single"? (to be fair, Johnny V is not acting. You can't make that kind of assholery up).
3) Do you think Showtime tapped DD to do this show because they loved working with him such much on The Red Shoe Diaries?
4) Will Minnie Driver be making a guest appearance? Her and DD had so much chemistry in that monkey heart movie.
5) If I subscribe to Showtime, will it just be a slippery slope, whereupon I will soon find myself with HBO, Encore, and a DVR?

Why Michael Chiklis is hot.

Just banish all memories of The Commish and watch this scene from The Shield where Vic gets it on with a Domestic Violence–Shelter Runner (what was her name again?).

My Newest Addiction: The Shield

Well, The Shield is on again, and when The Shield is on, I am watching The Shield. This is the second time I've seen this part of this episode. I watched the entire episode last Tuesday, but they replay it over and over again, and I keep finding myself watching it. I can't turn away until after the part at the end where Vic turns into a little rhino. For those of you who have never seen Michael Chiklis as Vic Mackey, he's a pudgy, wild-eyed, crude asshole who also happens to be the fucking hottest thing alive. Michael Chiklis is also the only actor on TV to have the balls to end a scene with drool running down his face.

It would be bad enough that I'll watch the same episode of The Shield over and over.
But I also watch the censored-for-latenight network reruns on channel 11 at 1am every Saturday night (currently in season 3). This Saturday-night episode repeats the next Sunday, so if I miss it I'll catch it then, or sometimes, if it was particularly good, I'll watch it again.

To supplement my Shield addiction during the Wednesday–Friday period, I've recently started getting Season 1 of The Shield from Netflix. For the past week or so, I've been able to watch The Shield pretty much every night.

Incidentally, why aren't YOU watching The Shield? Too busy with American Idol or House or some shit? Not that I'm saying you should be as dedicated to Vic's unique brand of renegade justice as I am. In fact, the only other person I know who is as dedicated to The Shield as I am insists I'm making a mistake. He believes The Shield is a good enough TV show to take the effort to experience in the order in which it was meant to be experienced.

I can see what's he's saying, but there's something about experiencing it all at once—from the death of Terry; to Lem; to Shane's cock, Frank, when he went undercover at the Cockfight.

Afternoon Movie Review: First Knight

I'm sure you've all seen at least a small bit of First Knight at one time or another. It's that movie where Sean Connery plays King Arthur and Richard Gere is Lancelot? It also falls into the category of the perfect Afternoon Movie, one that I would never rent or buy but when it's on The Superstation on a Saturday afternoon I will sit and watch it from beginning to end.

Of course, what I'm doing throughout most of the movie (besides fucking around on myspace and eating lunch) is wishing that I had Richard Gere and Sean Connery fighting over my love. If two guys ever loved me at the same time, they'd probably be more like the guy whose red stapler keeps getting stolen in Office Space and Horned-Rimmed Glasses on Heroes. And I don't think either of those guys would be positioning forest leaves in a pattern so that the rain will drip from one to the next and then into my mouth, or proclaiming "Camelot is yours!" Sigh.

Now I'm not saying I don't totally secretly adore this movie, but unfortunately it really hasn't stood the test of time, thanks to American's favorite racist's elaborately staged war scenes in Braveheart, the Patriot, and Lord of the Rings (he directed that, right?). The ones in this movie look so unimpressive you're just like, yeah, whatever, the American Gigolo just jumped off his horse and now he's shoving a sword into someone, blah blah blah. Also, enough with the elongated facial close-ups, Director Jerry Zucker. I mean, I know your last movie before First Knight was Ghost, but c'mon, Goldfinger was a good movie because Connery was running around shooting people, not because we kept looking as his hurt look every time Pussy Galore made a cutting remark.

But seriously, this is one of those movies that's perfect for killing time...the type of movie they should show on the bus to Boston (NOT City Slickers 2: The Search for the Golden Curls, which I was forced to watch last time. Peter Pan Buslines, WTF?!). If you've never seen it, sit down with a bag of Doritos and a desire to put off your weekend chores and enjoy.

Lloyd Dobbler

I know you like 'em young

Afternoon Movie Review: The Bodyguard

There are some movies you don't rent, you don't buy, you don't even think, "gee, I'd like to see that." But then they come on TV on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and you sit in your sweatpants a d watch them in their entirety. You know the ones I'm talking about: Ghost, Three Men and a Baby, Happy Gilmore. Kevin Costner stars in a lot of these movies, like Bull Durham, Field of Dreams, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, and the subject of today's Afternoon Movie Review: The Bodyguard.

The Bodyguard follows a perfect Afternoon Movie plotline. Man meets woman and they don't like each other; Woman realizes man secretly has a hard-on for her; Woman unsheaves man's sword (in this case, the silk-cutting samurai kind); Man decides their night of passion can never happen again and woman gets pissed; Man decides he's leaving but gets drawn back because of a sense of duty; Man saves woman; woman stops plane and runs out and kisses him; brief "5 years later" scene; the credits roll in about 3.5 seconds so the network can cram more ads in.

Kevin Costner is perfect in this role. He's the unassuming guy who you tell yourself you don't think is hot but really you're totally willing to sit around to wait for him to get laid. And there's no denying this is Whitney Houston's best role ever. The movie even has the "creepy, almost albino-looking" character, and the hardened-man-is-actually-quite-good-with-kids theme. The only thing that could have made this movie better was a little more making out (only three scenes in the entire 2 hours), a tad more hand-to-hand combat (who doesn't want to see Kevvy punching someone out in the name of love?), and a scene where someone gets drunk and confesses something.

The best part about The Bodyguard was that it kept me from vacuuming. Now that it is over I will start the productive part of my day, sucking up cat hair and thinking about becoming famous so I can hire a sturdy man with a gun to protect me.

Hooray Patrick Dempsey

In honor of tonight's season premiere of Grey's Anatomy, here is a hott photo of P.D. I've missed you, Cupcake!

24: Good or Evil?

As some of you may know, I started watching 24 last season because everyone else watched it, only to stop at “nine p.m.” to finish my tenure with Everwood. When I realized Season 5 wasn’t coming out on DVD anytime soon, I turned to Season 1, only to find out that 24 is my new drug.

I was getting the DVDs from netflix, but they just weren’t coming fast enough. I’d watch all four episodes in a sitting, then pace around my apartment for the next two days waiting for the next disc. Over Labor Day weekend I downloaded 4 episodes off of iTunes, then, finally, drunkenly stumbled over to a friend’s house at 1 a.m. to download the rest off her computer because I couldn't stand the thought of going to bed without hearing Jack's insistant whisper/gun shots beforehand. But here’s what you may not know/remember: I don’t have a computer. So I was watching all this on my tiny video ipod. Here’s what it looked like:

My eyes started to dry out and I had to start putting eye drops in. My ears hurt from having headphones wedged in them for so long. But just to see Jack Bauer run around and save the day was worth it. I just wish he had to take his shirt off more. Now my question is, do I go on to Season 2? Or is my addiction too dangerous?

Confession: I find Tony Soprano hot

I'm deep into the third season of The Sopranos (via Netflix), and I just saw the episode where Tony and has mistress go at it at the zoo. And I realized, I can try to deny it all I want, but I really do find Tony Soprano to be totally hot.

This is kind of embarassing because my friends recently busted me secretly thinking Treat Williams, the bearded nerosurgeon dad on Everwood, was totally hot. But I'm gonna come out and say it: I wish my boyfriend was a well-dressed, gun-toting mob boss who could have practically anyone he wanted killed. But I don't think it's just that...I have no desire to do Pauly, or the guy from Springsteen's band who owns the strip club. And I find Christopher hot only in a drug-addict kind of way. No, I think Tony Soprano is intrinsically sexy, and therefore I am not ashamed.

Granted, "Tone," as I would call him, would probably smack me for opening my big mouth at some point or another, and then I'd have to leave him, leaving me with no place to get my heroin. Guess I'll have to find someone else to have monkey-house sex with.

My juicy personal life

Today I recieved an email:

I think your blog would benefit from some juicy personal stories or fantasies or regular updates about how you're not getting "super" sex. Let me know if you're open to these kinds of things, because I want to be amused. Amused on a daily basis.

The "super" sex, of course, being a reference to the strangely attractive Eastern Europen Super of my building. And no, we're not doing it. But he did give me a fan yesterday. A dirty, dirty fan. (And I taught him the word "oscillate")
Unfortunately my life is just not that interesting. Like today, the best thing I did was go and put funny pictures next to the address book listings of business contacts I don't like, like this monkey one. Also, my weekly TV Guide came. We get them free at the office. Apparently Marcia Cross met her husband at a flower shop shortly after having lunch with Lori Loughlin. File that one under "information I am stupider for knowing."