One Tree Hill - Hold My Hand as I'm lowered

Well tonight we're getting a special live viewing of this illustrious program. Why would I pass up on the opportunity to watch it in a fifteen minute shorter increment and without helpful side ads and factoids, you ask? Because screw you that's why. I don't have to explain myself.

-I'm beginning to think that missing the premier may have been a big deal. It appears that One Tree Hill is taking a page from Mad Men's play book and jumping ahead a few years every season. This may also be the last time One Tree Hill is compared to Mad Men (but it shouldn't be)
-We open with Haley looking at the sonogram and pictures of Nathan with a groupie at the party...waiting for the measured conversation where they discuss this maturely and rationally
-Nathan: You Know I didn't do anything right
Haley: You have your arm around here
Nathan: I get asked to pictures with a lot of people
Haley: You should be smart enough to know better (storms off)
Yeah, that's about right
-Dan gets called a murderer on his TV show since, you know, he killed his brother. Seems like a fair point. You'd think this may have come up before since he actually did time for the crime.
-I was wrong Dan's wife isn't the crazy nanny who kidnapped Jaime last season, its the crazy former heroin addicted model who tried to hook up with mouth last season. My Mistake
-Mouth leaves a lizard in the bathroom to scare skills. He calls Jaime (five year old) to help catch it - sound thinking there
-Groupie asks for $200K to go away. Nathan doesn't understand why she would do this. I mean its so unlikely that a woman would try to get extort money from an NBA star. Also according to his agent the Charlotte Bobcats won't re-sign him (to a $20million contract) if there are allegations about him having an illegitimate child, not to mention all the sponsors who will drop him. I guess its a good thing that Shawn Kemp never wanted to play for the Bobcats. But seriously, I love how this show still exists in a universe where a shooting guard worth $20 million dollars would have his career derailed by adultery accusations. The worst thing that happened to Kobe when he was accused of rape was that Nutella dropped him as an endorser
-Brooke has a photo shoot with the crazy (recurring theme here) model who wants to get a piece of Julian. As usual the world class photographer is 22, keeping the show's trend of having all jobs performed by people under 25
-We then have an extended photo shoot montage - odds of there being a cross over promotion? High. Mayve this one can be brought to us by Skittles
-Dan's Motto: When you stand in the light - you get yourself right. Catchy
-We have a flashback to how Dan met Rachel - at a strip club where she doubled as a prostitute. But like I have to tell you that
-Haley actually seems relatively restrained about this, and then takes out her aggression on the agent for proposing that Nathan pay off the groupie. I knew she couldn't keep it in
-Jaime catches the lizard and names it Percy - this kid is going to get beat up repeatedly.
-Ahhh, Jaime gets Skills to admit that he's afraid of moving in with his girlfriend. I know he's the only black guy in town so everyone hates him, but there has to be more people he can talk to
-I'm serioulsy considering getting a Faux Hawk
-Haley crashes Brooke's photo shoot and starts crying

-My head almost just exploded. One Tree Hill's Kate Voegle (Mia) just did a commercial for University of Phoenix. Because all 19 year old rock stars take on-line accounting classes when they're on the road. There's even a shot of her staring at a laptop while sitting on a hotel bed. Must have been between stops on the Starburst Summer Concert Tour. I am so happy right now
-Haley bitches to Brooke and her sister about the whole thing with the groupie. They still think this is going to screw up his contract and they don't know how they can explain this to the kid. Here's a suggestion:
Haley and Nathan: Jaime this woman is lying, and we'll prove it
Jaime: Ok
-Turns out Rachel hired the guy in the crowd to yell at Dan in an effort to goose ratings. He's torn. Who knew the former hooker would be an opportunistic show runner
-They show an ad of a shirtless Nathan endorsing Rainbow Body spray.
-Crazy former Jukie model gives Julian a script to read. I'm sure Brooke will handle this with aplomb.
-The agent gives the groupie an empty envelope and tells her to go to hell. It. Is. On.
-We get a little slo mo as nathan walks across the backyard and sits down next to Jaime on the swingset. Seriously

I gotta say I've been a little dissapointed by this season so far. I hate to say it but I think I miss Peyton and Lucas. They were the rigth blend of self-seriousness and absolute insanity that really drove the shows genius. I'm not giving up yet though.

One Tree Hill - What are you willing to lose

Oh yeah baby we're back. As this new television season has begun and I started getting set with my viewing rotation (Parks and Recreation, The Office, Dollhouse and soon to be Chuck welcome back. Glee and Community -welcome to the party, for now) there was one show that I was anticipating more than any other which, I'm sure you figured out by the title of this post, is the glorious One Tree Hill. Before we get into another season of North Carolina goodness (mmm dry rub) I have a few programming notes. Apparently my One tree hill facebook group didn't let me know that the CW would only have the most recent episode up to watch so we're starting this off with the second episode of season seven (seriously there's already been six seasons of this). I don't think I'll have a problem jumping right in. Secondly, if I remember, I'm going to include the title of each episode in the post's title. We'll play a little game where if one of the character's says the title in the show you win a, I don't know, ticket to a box social or something. Fun for the whole family. Anyway, here we go:

-oohh, some groupie is claiming that Nathan slept with her on the road. I'm sure Haley will rationally listen to his explanation and not freak out
-Ahhh Julian's gives up a hollywood career to be with brooke. Apparently North Carolina still hasn't realized cross country flights exist. Also its apparently not okay to take off for a few weeks to shoot a movie every once in awhile. Brooke must be one needy chick.
-Nathan and his agent reenact the Rocky and Apollo beach run from Rocky III. He then freaks out and practically starts crying - Wahh I'm a highly paid NBA player and allegations of promiscuity are going to ruin my chance at a new contract. Seriously he says that. Its a new NBA.
-Skillz and Mouth try to force the other one to move out by being naked around the house all the time to freak the other out
-Dan is now a motivational speaker with a TV show and smoking hot wife, that's about right. If I'm right Dan's wife is the crazy nanny who tries to kill him last year. Stockholm syndrome anyone.
-Some mean woman with a british accent is trying to buy Peyton and Haley's record label and shut them down. Apparently having the headliner of the Starburst summer concert series is a big deal
-Julian hangs a poster of The Thin Red Line on his wall. Some writer has taste
-Brooke thinks the poster is tacky and wants it out of the living room - that's about right
-It turns out the new actress hired to be the new face of Clothes over Bros hates disabled people ("Cripples and like retarded people - They're always drooling and like smiling really wierd"), doesn't take rehab seriously, and say's north carolina is hot that it smells like the "Devil's Ass." She also says BTW, and makes up the fact that she only east organic food. Accurate portrayal of hollywood as always
-Dan tries to convince a panhandler he should believe in himself and gives him a copy of his book. called 'Scott Free Redemption' (puns are fun). If this leads to Dan becomming the Anti Christ and taking over the world I'm all for it.
-Nathan runs into a restaurant and starts screaming at his accuser - Wahhh - WHy are you doing this to me!?. That always works
-The crazy actress ends up calling Brooke fat and not getting a 'That's what she said' joke. Wow portraying a hollywood actress as vapid and condescending who won't wear purple because she has a childhood fear of Barney. Well-played One Tree Hill.
-Jaime buried Skillz and Lauren in the sand, so they couldn't get out and they ended up getting burned when he forgot about them. Seriously a seven year old was able to fully bury two grown adults in the sand and completely debilitate them.
-Oh snap, Mia rolls in and says the mean british girl will lose her biggest selling artist if she doesn't keep the label open. That's right you don't mess with a myspace headliner
-The mean actress talks her way back into Brooke's good graces by claiming one of her dresses saved her after rehab (seriously, some crap about how it gave her dignity) - Brooke and Milly of course fall for it and agree to keep her on board (and pay her $500K)
-Uh oh the groupie has pictures what could they be????
-Mia's bluff works, and Haley and the mean English lady make up. And she says Haley has to record an album in six months if she wants to keep the label open. I smell cross promotion.
-Brooke tells off Julian's mean movie producer dad for being a bad father.
-Julian's dad was too busy 'Caring for fictional characters instead of caring for the real ones in his life.' He's proud of Julian for ignoring cross country air travel, and living his own life. 'And Whatever you do don't be like me.' You know, shave or be successful.
-Apparently the groupie claims to have hooked up with Nathan at a party where he celebrated scoring 35 points against Memphis (that warrants celebration?) which was three months earlier. It turns out she gave the agent a picture of a sonogram which he expertly interprets as showing that she's three months pregnant. Apparently they got really drunk so the agent thinks maybe something did happen. What a turncoat
-Nice, the speech the actress gave to brooke about her dress was lifted from a film. Brooke doesn't notice because she's too busy jumping Julian's bones.
-Episode ends with Nathan about to tell Haley something important...I'm sure this will go well.

Man I'm glad this show is back

Extract

I'm a huge fan of Mike Judge's earlier live action work (Office Space, Idiocracy) so I was looking forward to seeing Extract. However, I think my love of the earlier work caused me to feel somewhat disappointed by Extract. The former films had specific satirical targets they were aiming at and, while they had devastatingly accurate portrayals of the mind-dumbing banality of everyday existence, existed in a kind of hyper reality (particularly in the case of Idiocracy) which allowed them to pointedly skewer their intended victims. Extract on the other hand is more of an observational character study that didn't appear, at least on first viewing, to have any particular satirical aim. The shift in tone really threw me as I kept waiting for it to change into something more akin to Judge's other work and as a result I hesitate to pass final judgement until I see it again, hopefully able to better evaluate it on its own merits.

That said the film has an affable charm, and Jason Bateman (playing a variation of his character from Arrested Development - not a bad thing) makes an engaging lead presence. I do think the film suffers from a lack of focus, and there are several story elements (in particular Gene Simmon's character, and how the film deals with the subplot revolving around Mila Kunis) that at best feel thin, and at worst don't work at all. At the moment I would say while the film is worth watching, and did cause to me laugh out loud at times, its probably the weakest of Judge's three films to date. Still for aforementioned reasons I'd consider its grade an incomplete and I look forward to revisiting it in the future.

Crank

After my much professed love for Crank 2 I realized there was no possible way that I could go without seeing its forebearer. I even ended up making a spur of the moment four for twenty purchase after seeing it in the Blockbuster used rack (this unfortunately also resulted in me picking up the putrid Aeon Flux to fill out the four). Anyway for Crank's sake I wish I would have watched it before seeing the sequel. Don't get me wrong Crank is entertaining but it just doesn't compare to the inspired insanity of its successor. It would be akin to seeing Godfather II before the Godfather, Toy Story II before Toy Story, Army of Darkness before Evil Dead, or Leprechaun 5: Leprechaun in the Hood before Leprechaun - the earlier films all have there charms, and may be in themselves fine works, but if you've first seen the genius of their successors there's no way that they can't feel but a little disappointing. They were all necessary to let the filmmakers start developing ideas, but the sequels are where the true genius inherent in the stories is manifested.

In the case of Crank too much time is spent developing plot and character motivation. This is a film about a guy trying to stay alive by stimulating adrenaline production in his body through increasingly crazy acts. I think we can all safely say that no more motivation is needed. Crank 2 wisely ignores this and just concentrates on ratcheting up the insanity until it approaches a surrealistic masterpiece. I am glad I saw Crank as it increased my appreciation of the inspired sociopathic nature in Crank 2 as well my admiration of its creators' maturation.

Note: I am very jealous of Jason Statham's ability to grow a heroic five o'clock shadow. The best I can do is grow in some scraggly looking hippy beard (and you better believe that I do), but I feel like if I could such impressive looking facial hair my street cred would go up exponentially, and I might quite possibly approach competence as a dresser and a lover.

District 9

I had more to say about this when I saw it a week and a half ago, but stuff kept getting in the way and, whatever you don't care. Anyway I found the film to be a clever sc-fi film that kept me entertained, and exhibited a nice, but subtle, sense of humor. I've been a little surprised at how a certain segment of the critical community has turned on the film for reasons that I can best summarize as this: 'The film doesn't stay true to its gritty potential and descends in to the typical chaos of summer blockbusters.'
This is a completely ridiculous sentiment. I mean the film is about aliens landing in South Africa so we shouldn't be shocked at an explosion or six interrupting the proceedings. If anything it manages to balance action and plot in an entertaining manner, and even exhibits a decent level of intelligence (which is pretty impressive considering it involves a pig being used as a weapon) throughout the proceedings. Anyway this a tightly constructed action film, that manages to have a coherent plot and sly sense of humor. So you could say I liked it. (It so tough to write these positive reviews, I need watch something that sucks soon).