Jan
22
Jesus Christ in a walking cast, when is this going to blow over? A friend of mine, a gal I talk to seasonally, called me up the other day. Apropos of nothing, she brought up the Jay Leno/Conan O’Brien pissing contest. She had to ruin a perfectly good conversation about crap that I’m genuinely interested in by asking my opinion about a pair of hack comedians and their dopey little interview show. Since it’s apparently so important that I express some emotion in regards to this issue, here’s my take on this whole witless kerfuffle:
The one with the big chin left “The Tonight Show” to do a show that comes on immediately before “The Tonight Show,” which is now hosted by the one with the big hair who did a show that used to come on immediately after “The Tonight Show.” Now the one with the big chin wants to go back to being on “The Tonight Show,” but the one with the big hair doesn’t want to leave “The Tonight Show,” even though he gets lower ratings than the one with the big chin.
People honestly care about this. It isn’t like David Caruso leaving “NYPD Blue.” It’s two mediocre comics telling safe jokes about whatever boring of-the-moment nonsense that’s on everyone’s lips and interviewing stoned, drunk or spaced-out celebrities about their crummy movies. Who cares when they’re on, or what show they’re on, or that they’re even on. You should be in bed anyway. You have work tomorrow.
Folks actually picketed NBC over this. In the rain. My Facebook is clogged with people I thought were my friends, trying to get me to join fan pages devoted to Conan’s ego-fueled plight. The buttwad got a $45 million buyout on his contract. I wish someone would pay me not to be on TV because I can’t even bring in the ratings of a half-talent like Leno.
All this sanctimony I see on the Internet, people lionizing Conan’s comedy and lamenting that fewer people watched because it’s more esoteric than stale old Leno — it’s just absurd. This is a show for overly caffeinated college students and grandparents, anyone whose sleep schedule is screwy and isn’t having sex.
So that’s where I’m at. I hate them both with equal aplomb and find Letterman marginally more interesting only because he got into his staff members’ [worldwide] pants.
-Brad Lohan
Nov
20
My next-door neighbor is unnaturally obsessed with Ultimate Fighting, a sort of no holds barred rasslin’ that pits two ‘roided-up thugs against one another in the most boring display of male aggression this side of “Hardball” on MSNBC. I’ve seen bits and pieces of UFC and rank it somewhere below “American Gladiators” in the hierarchy of stupid bullshit I’ll never find appealing. I’d rather watch cricket.
Whenever there’s a UFC match on TV, I know about it. My neighbor invites over all his Cro-Magnon buddies from some bitch-slap class they’re all in (Krav Maga or Long Duk Dong or what have you), and they gather in his apartment, crank up the television volume all the way, and react vocally to every girlie punch that’s thrown over the course of two merciless hours. I usually split from my apartment and frequent adult bookstores in Van Nuys while this cacophony is going on.
My neighbor isn’t the worst person in the world, but it’s sort of impossible to have a conversation with him, being that he’s clearly brain-damaged and all. When I moved in, he came over to introduce himself, and during our brief talk, he found out that I’m a fan of lunk-headed B-movie stars like Jean-Claude Van Damme. As such, that’s pretty much all he wants to discuss with me. Yep, whenever I run into him, he’ll deliver a lengthy monologue from “Kickboxer,” which I haven’t seen in 18 years, and I’m supposed to be impressed. Thing is, I don’t even like Van Damme’s beat-’em-ups like “Kickboxer” because they’re not all that far removed from UFC, which I’ve already established is bilge.
On the other hand, Van Damme’s “Timecop” is genre movie perfection. Does he quote that? Hell, no.
At any rate, I’m not sure how UFC crossed over and became mainstream. I remember Phil Donahue taking it to task in the early-’90s back when it was still an underground thing. Unfortunately, not even Donahue could prevent UFC from becoming wildly popular among young men who need to masturbate more frequently. Now everywhere I look I see these meatheads in Tapout shirts, enthusiasts for this crap-brained sissy-fighting. Boxing requires speed and endurance. Pro wrestling requires…uh, acting talent, I suppose. What does it take to be an Ultimate Fighter? I guess the inability to make it as a boxer or a pro wrestler.
Eff UFC. And eff you if you like it.
-Brad Lohan
Oct
20
By the End of the First Month, I Didn’t Miss TV
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I don’t watch television. I have a TV, which I use to watch DVDs and the occasional VHS tape. What I mean is that I don’t watch any current programming on television. Name any show that’s on right now, and chances are very good that I’ve never seen it. I just don’t care. I think TV is about the lowest form of entertainment available. It’s become one of those culturally acceptable addictions, like drinking coffee or compulsively updating your Facebook status with some bit of bullshit every hour. TV watching is so prevalent, so much of a part of our societal fabric, it’s actually weird not to do it.
All that being said, I’ve been thinking about getting cable. I did have cable once — for a whole month! — when I first moved out to L.A. in 2002. I even remember watching the pilot episode of “girls club,” the extremely short-lived David E. Kelley legal drama starring Gretchen Mol. But I’d signed up for the cheapest subscription that Comcast had to offer, and it showed. The picture was full of grain and I only got a couple dozen channels. I didn’t have Comedy Central or MTV or Cartoon Network, but I did get some janky channel that showed foreign-language cooking shows all day. I couldn’t afford to upgrade to a more expensive package. So I said the hell with it and ultimately canceled my subscription altogether.
I’ve flirted with the idea of getting cable over the years. But I can always talk myself out of it. I’m working full-time and going to school; my free time is eaten up by homework and exercise and trips to the movies; I can better spend my money on exotic dancers. I also hear that cable providers suck. From what I understand, Time Warner Cable has about the shoddiest customer service this side of a gypsy encampment. I don’t think my apartment complex allows for me to get a satellite dish, and I wouldn’t want one anyway. Satellites should be used for monitoring the weather, taking spy photographs and being doomsday weapons. They’re not for bouncing UFC into the homes of Pabst-drinking rednecks.
I also heard about that retarded business not too long ago where our fascistic government ordered all Americans to upgrade to hi-def or be forced to — gasp — go without TV!!! I thought that was the biggest pile of hooey in the history of this country. When Hollywood and our lawmakers climb into bed together, no good can come of it. Anyway, my television is analog, so I’m basically Fred friggin’ Flintstone. And I ain’t going to upconvert to some $1000 flatscreen monstrosity to watch “Dancing With the Stars” or “Glee” or any other cacamamie show. There are better things a person can spend his money on, like a Russian mail-order bride named Svetlana.
So you can see, I’m conflicted about cable. Well, I’m not all that conflicted. I simply can’t seem to justify the hassle. Frankly, I don’t understand why anyone even bothers anymore. Once you get beyond the sting of missing your favorite shows, you realize there are other things to do with your time, better things. Then you stop having favorite shows and start wondering why you ever liked watching TV in the first place.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
28
When I asked, “Will People Actually Watch ‘Stargate: Universe?’” the other day, I had no idea what sort of response I would get. It turns out that, yes, people will indeed. What’s more, almost all of these people think I’m an idiot for being a Gater Hater. I received more comments on that blog than I have for any other piece I’ve written to date. Most were from trolls flaming me, but those are the ones that I find incredibly amusing. Being able to catch hell from some masturgater in Sweden is a why I love the Internet.
That being said, I’m now strangely curious about this program. Part of me wants to see what all the fuss is about. I think that if I can sit through a few episodes of “Star Trek: Voyager,” I can probably take anything. And who knows? Maybe I’ll get into it.
Hell, maybe I’ll become a full-fledged Gater and attend conventions like this one. Michael Shanks is going to be in attendance! And it’s only $30 to get an autograph from him. A photo with Shanks will run you another $45. But it’ll be worth it! I mean, this is Michael “Dr Jackson” Shanks we’re talking about here, not the “one key” guy from “Sex, Lies and Videotape.” (That’s an obscure James Spader reference.) There are even two version of Shanks you can get yourself photographed with — clean or scruffy! That’s a tough call. I think a hardcore Gater — the kind of Gater that men want to be and women want to be with — would pony up the $90 and get himself photographed with both clean Shanks and scruffy Shanks.
Good God, people.
At any rate, I’ve done something I never thought I would do. I added disc one from the first season of “Stargate: SG-1″ to my Netflix queue and bumped it up to the #2 position. I’m going down the rabbit hole or through the Stargate, rather. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m going to approach this with an open mind. I’ll even forgive a crummy pilot if the show can find its footing in the first few eps. But by that same token, if I’m not compelled to watch the rest of the season after disc one is over, then I’m going to stand by my original position and hate the Gate.
-Brad Lohan
Sep
27
Will People Actually Watch “Stargate: Universe?”
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I was driving down Beverly Blvd. last night, and I saw a ginormous ad for “Stargate: Universe” on the side of a building. It got me thinking. Just how many “Stargate” TV spinoffs are there, anyway? Let’s see. There’s “Stargate: SG-1,” which ran for 10(!!!) seasons; “Stargate: Infinity;” “Stargate: Atlantis;” the forthcoming “Stargate: Universe;” and the “Stargate: The Ark of Truth” and “Stargate: Continuum” telefilms. Another TV movie, “Stargate: Extinction,” is slated for 2010!
Christ on his throne, that’s a lot of “Stargate.” That’s way too much “Stargate.” Now, I’ll be honest. I saw the original “Stargate” film two or three times in the theater, read the novelization and own the movie on DVD. I even watched the two-hour pilot of “Stargate: SG-1″ when it came out on video. Because it had originally aired on Showtime, there was even brief, partial nudity! I still thought it was a crushing bore and decided to limit the depth and breadth of my “Stargate” fandom to the Roland Emmerich movie.
However, there’s a segment of our population, folks who call themselves “Gaters,” who’ve kept this franchise afloat for over a decade. Yes, according Wikipedia, “Gaters” are legion. They even attend fan conventions like Gatecon and Gateworld. Being a bit of a geek myself, it’s always refreshing to find a community that I can make fun of.
With the advent of DVD, it’s quite possible that there are humans walking among us who’ve seen literally every single “Stargate” film and TV show. They’ve gone even further than that by reading the expanded universe novels and comics. I’ll bet even some of them have written slashfic, deeping the series’ mythology with all the kink the TV shows leave out. Yep, when I Google “stargate slash fiction,” there are about 400K results.
Some of you might think I’m just being a jerk, ripping on people who suffer from an inability to differentiate between good and bad science-fiction. And you would be right. But look at the damage “Stargate” has done. “SG-1″ lasted for three more seasons than “MacGyver.” What a gross misappropriation of Richard Dean Anderson! “Stargate” and all its fans have simply gone too far.
I can only hope this new series is the franchise’s last. How many friggin’ planets out there can these goofballs visit anyway? I mean, the universe isn’t that big…is it?
-Brad Lohan
Jul
1
“Eastbound & Down” Is My New Favorite TV Show
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Danny McBride is quickly becoming one of my favorite comic actors. I finally saw “The Foot Fist Way” a few months ago and have been quoting it endlessly. He stole “The Pineapple Express” from Seth Rogen and James Franco. After watching “Tropic Thunder” again last Christmas, I found myself wishing his role in that film had been expanded and Jack Black’s reduced. McBride’s about to explode. I hope “Eastbound & Down,” his new HBO series, is what puts him on the map.
I got the first three episodes from Netflix today. The pilot’s incredible. McBride plays Kenny Powers, an MLB has been who returns to his hometown and lands a job as a junior high PE teacher. His high school sweetheart (Katy Mixon) happens to be an art teacher there as well. But she’s engaged to the milksop principal. Where some characters are impressed with Powers’ celebrity status, nobody’s quite as amazed as Powers himself. McBride can somehow play the arrogant prick yet remain likeable enough that you still root for him.
Episodes two and three on the disc aren’t quite as excellent as the first, which is just a brilliantly executed pilot that does all the place-setting without ever being draggy or overly expository. Another three episodes round out the season; they’re coming from Netflix tomorrow and can’t get here soon enough. “Eastbound & Down” could’ve easily been a film, but I like that co-creators McBride and Jody Hill are doing it as a TV series. I could watch Kenny Powers all day.
-Brad Lohan
Jun
22
My Favorite “Star Trek” Plot Contrivances
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I’ve got about 5 episodes of “Star Trek” left to watch before I will be finished with TOS. That said, the third season is a total slog. I used to power through 5 eps in one evening. Now if I can get through a single episode, I feel like I’ve achieved something. The budgets were slashed by the network for season three, and it shows. Most of the episodes are entirely ship-bound, which really takes away from the whole “explore strange new worlds” bit. Limiting the action to the Enterprise narrows the scope of the storylines. So there are a lot of scenes of people sitting around bullshitting. Bullshitting and bulkheads — that’s the third season in a nutsheel.
Having sat through over 70 episodes of “Star Trek” in less than two months, I can honestly say I’ve enjoyed about two-thirds of TOS. Even some of the weaker entries in seasons one and two still have some moments of greatness. Some of these moments are fantastic plot contrivances that the writers repurpose when all else fails. Of course the biggie is that the Enterprise crew encounters some God-like life form that has the mind of a child or a crazy-person. There’s also the convention that the red-shirted crew members bite it on a fairly regular basis. But there are some other ones that crop up every now and again which I find amusing.
One of the main characters dies. I don’t know why they made such a big deal out of Spock’s death in “Wrath of Khan.” Pretty much every member of the Enterprise crew has croaked during TOS: Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov. They’re all resurrected one way or another. Chekov’s actually died twice, IIRC.
The villains disable the landing party’s phasers. I don’t know why the crew members don’t simply carry guns, since their phasers are almost always neutralized by whatever nogoodnik sentient life form they encounter on the planet surface.
The Enterprise is crippled and unable to be repaired. The ship often sustains some sort of damage that makes it seemingly impossible to maintain its life support systems and/or achieve warp speed. Its state of disrepair is unfixable until of course they think of some way to fix it.
The land party’s communicators are taken away. Whenever the crew sets down on a planet and encounters trouble, their communicators (and useless phasers!) are confiscated, so they can’t call for help. They also can’t be beamed back aboard the Enterprise.
Kirk encounters an old mentor or colleague who’s gone berserk. Captaining a starship is a high-pressure job. Apparently James T. Kirk is the only man who’s been able to do it without losing his mind. All his friends from his Academy days or captains he once served under are now nutzoid.
All life forms are fluent in English. It doesn’t matter if they’re Federation-hating types like the Klingons or the Romulans or a race of beings that have never encountered another civilization before, everybody in the galaxy speaks colloquial English. (This is perhaps my favorite convention in all of science fiction.)
There are a shit-ton of planets just like ours. “Class M” planets have similar atmospheric and gravitational conditions to Earth. And the galaxy is filled with them!
I think those 7 are a good snapshot of my favorite contrivances. I’m sure I must be forgetting a couple. I’ll see if any more emerge as I knock out the remaining episodes.
-Brad Lohan
May
28
Being a Completist
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Of the three rebootquels released so far this summer — excluding “Angels & Demons” because it’s unfortunately not a follow-up to Tom Hanks’ seminal “Bachelor Party” — I’ll only be picking up one on DVD. That would be “Star Trek.” “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and “Terminator Salvation” are one-and-done films, movies I can’t imagine ever sitting through again for any reason whatsoever. As a completist, this causes me great pain.
When I fall in love with a franchise, I fall hard. I collect all manner of dumb bullshit associated with the film cycle. Currently, I own three out of the four “Star Trek” glasses from Burger King. I got a free t-shirt at the 12:01 am screening of the movie earlier this month. I’m even holding out hope that I’ll someday meet a green-skinned chick that I can add to my menagerie.
I’ve always been a collector. Toys, comics, DVDs, apparel, drinkware — I love all manner of useless crap that does not impress women. Last night I shaved with a Wolverine Quattro razor. Now that I have more discretionary income, not to mention an eBay account, I don’t have to wait for my birthday or Christmas to roll around, like I did when I was a kid, to add to my collection.
But what happens when a franchise starts to go stale? I own “X3: X-Men United,” but I can’t see myself giving it a spin again. If I lived closer to Amoeba Music — the puppy lake for DVDs I no longer wish to own — I’d probably sell it back as I did with “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” It’s a sin against completism, I know. Still, I can’t see myself shelling out money for movies and other ancillary junk that belong to a creatively bankrupt film series.
So does that make me an incompletist? I mean, I own “Basic Instinct 2: Risk Addiction” on DVD. I have a fairly high tolerance for misfires, all things being equal. But one can only love a franchise so much before having to let it go.
-Brad Lohan
May
26
Here’s a Dumb Idea
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Goodness knows I tried to become a fan of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” — the show, not the crap movie. It was something my goth girlfriend in college was an unabashed fan of, and conceptually, it seemed like it was up my alley. But like “Firefly,” Joss Whedon’s shows are simply too impressed with themselves to win me over. The preening and obnoxious characters that populate the Buffy-verse make me long for the typical dumb teenagers in horror films who aren’t quite so self-aware. Someone told me one time that there’s a such thing as being too clever. And that’s what I don’t like about “Buffy.”
At any rate, the show’s been off the air for several years now. A subsequent comic book series picked up where the show had left off. I read about three or four issues before I finally came to the conclusion there was no way in hell I was ever going to appreciate this material in any medium. There’s also been talk for awhile about another feature film for years. Funnily enough, the original 1992 Kristy Swanson film — also starring “90210″ dreamboat Luke Perry! — was a bomb at the box office, a rather ignonimous start for the cult franchise. Now it’s looking like a “Buffy” film might actually happen, according to IMDb. Just don’t expect Whedon or Sarah Michelle Gellar or any the cast of the TV series to be involved.
That rattling fart you’re hearing right now is the entire fanbase collectively shitting themselves. Even as a non-fan, I’m a little irked by this decision. It’s not as though the property is thirty years old and in need of straight reboot. That said, Paramount made ten “Star Trek” films, using the same cast from one series or the other before relaunching the brand. However, I’ve come to realize that no creative decision is too ill-advised for Hollywood. More often than not, it seems that the dumber ideas are the ones more likely to reach the big screen.
I wonder if that means Kristy Swanson will play Buffy again.
-Brad Lohan
May
14
The first season of “Star Trek” — the original series, or TOS for short — arrived in the mail yesterday. I ended up watching five episodes last night, staying up well past my bedtime. I’d never been a ginormous fan of the show, since I’m more a movie buff. But now I can’t get enough of TOS. I think I can honestly call myself a Trekkie or a Trekker. I believe the difference between the two is that a Trekkie is someone who is into cosplay and reads the EU novels and knows all sorts of arcane bullshit about the various incarnations of the show. A Trekker is also a diehard fan, but doesn’t speak a word of Klingon.
On a side note, in high school I directed and starred in a short film called “Trekkies.” Shot on VHS, it stars myself and a friend of mine as two socially retarded “Star Wars” fans that everyone confuses with Trekkies, much to our chagrin. Perhaps my favorite gag in the film is a send-up of “Scream” — something that was much more timely when we made it in 1997 — when my nameless character gets a phone call from someone who asks if I like scary movies. I answer in the negative and say I prefer sci-fi. Then I promptly hang up on him. My friend’s nameless character asks what the call was all about, and I tell him it’s “some dumb survey.” I thought it was a knee-slapper at the time. Did I mention that I made this in high school?
At any rate, my fandom for “Star Wars” has since imploded. I honestly couldn’t care less about the franchise at this point. I roll my eyes when people talk about the experience of seeing the original film “on the big screen” in 1977, like the ’70s had no other culturally significant movies to offer. Riiight. When myopic dweebs talk about how much of a game-changer “Star Wars” was in terms of filmmaking, they fail to acknowledge the fact that the 1970s was the decade of zeitgeist movies. “Star Wars” wasn’t the first blockbuster franchise either, not when it came out the same year as the tenth James Bond film, “The Spy Who Loved Me.”
“Star Trek,” despite appearing on TV a full decade before “Star Wars” hit screens, has unfortunately existed in the shadow of Lucas’ merchandising monolith from 1977 onward. “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” probably never would’ve been greenlit had the first “Star Wars” film bombed. The endless debate about which franchise is “better” has often ignored the fact that it’s an apples and oranges argument. That being said, JJ Abrams’ new “Trek” film is definitely more like “Star Wars” in terms of action and spectacle than the previous installments. I hope the inevitable sequel has more ideas because that’s really what the beauty of “Star Trek” is — its ideas.
Where George Lucas sort of runs out of ideas about 2/3rds of the way through the original “Star Wars” trilogy and coasts on fumes during the prequels, “Star Trek” isn’t wanting for imagination. I’m not bored to tears by the character stuff because “Trek” is actually about the characters, not the action. The show’s special effects might be dodgy, but who gives a dump? What’s significant about “Star Trek” is how it has more on its mind than simply careening from one setpiece to the next, cherrypicking elements of the Hero’s Journey and pretending to be more than just a video game that plays itself.
I might have shown up a little late to the party with “Star Trek,” and maybe not appropriately dressed, but I finally see what’s kept the franchise viable for over four decades. Now let’s see what kind of a “Trek” fan — Trekkie or Trekker? — I ultimately become.
-Brad Lohan