February 29, 2008...4:32 pm
Media Maven’s Friday Five - 2/29/08
It’s a leap year! Sweet. Here are my 5 media-related observations of the week:
1. As Lindsey pointed out on my quarterlife post, the show was so awful, NBC has already shipped it off to Bravo. The show premiered Tuesday night to the worst numbers NBC has had for a pilot in the 10pm Tuesday slot in 17 years! Hilarious.
2. Saw the Michel Gondry film, Be Kind Rewind starring Mos Def and Jack Black. It was absolutely terrible. I couldn’t have been more disappointed, across the board. Mos Def put me to sleep, Jack Black was weird and unfunny, and the script was a train wreck. With Eternal Sunshine as his only truly great film, is Michel Gondry destined to remain a cinematic one hit wonder?
3. Last Wednesday, I went to one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen in my life. I was lucky enough to see St. Vincent, aka Annie Clark and friends, at the First Unitarian Church in Philly– if you haven’t yet bought her album, Marry Me, stop reading this and buy it RIGHT NOW. She is the most talented female musician I’ve ever seen — she writes all the songs, sings with a beautiful, clear, pitch perfect voice, shreds up her electric guitar (easily the best female guitarist I’ve ever seen) and performs with the kind of connected, intimate, deep emotion that makes each song feel as if she’s making it up on the spot. She also did an amazing solo cover of The Beatles’ “Dig a Pony.” If you read my Across the Universe post, you know how I feel about cover songs, especially Beatles cover songs, and this was the best Beatles cover I ever heard! A true genius, a wonderous talent, and a cutie to boot. Simply incredible.
4. Last night’s episode of Lost was not too shabby, but there has been a definite fall-off since the first two episodes in terms of information. What did we learn in last night’s episode? Not much. We learned: a. time on the island is not equal to time off the island b. someone on the boat is sabatoging the communications, and is a friend to Sayid and Desmond (is it the same person or two different people?) c. Desmond somehow found time to be a soldier, a monk, an around the world boat sailor, and some other stuff, without aging a day. Nevertheless, it was an entertaining episode and my love for Desmond has only grown stronger. I was definitely waiting for a “see you in another life, brotha”, and was highly disappointed at its exclusion. Overall, I was disappointed, as this episode was concocted by the usually amazing trio of writer/creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and directed by Lost stalwart Jack Bender (who directs all the big episodes like the pilot and season finales, etc.). I was expecting a home run and instead, we only got a ground roll double.
5. I’d say An American in Paris is one of the worst movie musicals I’ve ever seen. I viewed it for the first time this week and found it to be nearly unwatchable. I don’t understand how a film like this could win Best Picture, even back in the 1951. There is no plot, the characters are paper thin, the songs are randomly interspersed to give Gene Kelly (who I found to be boring, uncharismatic, and ludicrous playing a young twenty-something at age 35) a reason to dance, and the overall story arc is non-existent. I was expecting so much more, as Gene Kelly was a huge star back then, the film won Best Picture, and I love director Vincente Minelli’s other 1950’s musical movie, Meet Me in St. Louis, a great deal. Yes, the tap dancing was cool, but 7 tap dance numbers? I don’t know if this is blasphemy or not, but I’d call this easily one of the worst and most forgettable movies I’ve ever seen. What was it about this movie that so entranced moviegoers 50 years ago? I can’t figure it out for the life of me.
9 Comments
March 1, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Hi, I strayed onto your blog via a Gene Kelly Google alert. I am a little disappointed by your comments on An American In Paris. It is my most special movie musical. Just shows how opinions can differ. Can I just say that GK was 38/39 when it was made, and his character would not have been early 20s, more like early 30s, as he had ‘fought’ in the 2nd World War which had ended 5 years earlier according to the setting for the film. And there was a plot, an American artist living in Paris is involved in a ‘love triangle’, with an older rich woman who is trying to buy his love, and a young shop girl who is about to marry an older man out of gratitude. Many other movies have been built around similar or lesser themes. Also there are 4 tap numbers, not 7, and each is fully integrated into the plot line. The other dances are not tap, they feature a range of dance styles.
For me, the only weak areas in this excellent piece are some aspects of the screenplay and Oscar Levant’s self-satisfied section in which he imagines himself to be a complete orchestra. Any movie using Gershwin’s music is worth watching, and the 17 minute ballet is testament to Minnelli’s artistry and Gene Kelly’s imagination and unparallelled choreographic and dancing skills. It was a phenomenal achievement. It was a smash when it was released, adored by both the public and the critics. It actually overshadowed Singin’ In The Rain which was released the following year, though eventually most people would come to agree that SITR was Gene’s masterpiece and probably the best movie musical ever. I love SITR but for me, AAIP has more emotional impact.
I guess we will never agree on AAIP, but I wanted to put in my two pennorth to give a different viewpoint. Hope you don’t mind.
March 1, 2008 at 7:02 pm
Thank you SO much for weighing in, Suzy. The whole point of this blog is foster exactly this type of discussion.
I fear we’ll have to disagree on this one though. For me, the songs barely relate to the film’s subject matter, the characters are as 2-D as you can get, and there is no real plot. What’s Gene Kelley’s character arc? How does he grow? What are his flaws?
And as cool as the dream ballet stuff is, Oklahoma did it almost a decade earlier and to much better narrative effect.
March 4, 2008 at 9:55 am
I think you needed to open your mind more to the latest episode of lost possibly the best this series. We now know about the time shift. We know that Sayid and Desmond have a friend on the boat who let them out of the medical centre on the boat. I believe we have already seen Faraday travel in time, in ep2 when we see his flashback he is crying at the crash report and doesn’t know why i think this is because he has travelled in time. The black rock (the ship) came up again and why did Penny’s dad want that black rock journal so much? He obviously has some sort of link to the plot and island. Why did one of the hanso’s sell the journal at auction? (as in hanso corporation) - There was lots and lots of interesting bits of information in this episode.
March 4, 2008 at 12:21 pm
Ste - I agree about the most recent episode of Lost. It was one of the best episodes ever. I think what really made the episode great was the Desmond and Penny story. The two scenes when Desmond and Penny were talking were very powerful and very well done.
March 4, 2008 at 7:52 pm
Guess I’m the odd man out on this one. I guess it just felt very forced to me. How many times are we going to have the same scene between Penny and Desmond, with Des apologizing and Penny loving him anyways? Its happened like 8 times already!
And yes, maybe that journal and Black rock stuff will have actual significance, but I highly doubt it. There are about 5000 other things on the list of “Things Yet To Explained” and I’d say the elements introduced by this episode fall somewhere around #4333.
But thank you Ste and Frank for your comments– I need readers like you to keep me in check!
March 5, 2008 at 10:51 am
I agree about the black rock being a low priority in the scale of things but I think thats why i enjoyed it so much the fact that they managed to lnk it in without the need for dynamite. It was a really good link in and brought Penny’s dad more into the mystery I just thought it was cleverly done and unexpected. I also want to know how penny knows about the island? Has she seen the journal her father bought??? I also hope we have an episode with a Roussou (spelt wrong) flash back. I want to know what really happened with her crew and where she really comes from.
March 5, 2008 at 10:57 am
Speaking of Rousseau’s crew, I read one person’s idea on the Rousseau’s crew might have experienced the mental time traveling like Desmond and that’s what killed them. Sounds plausible to me.
March 5, 2008 at 1:23 pm
true. and rousseau survived because she had an anchor…her baby.
March 6, 2008 at 5:01 am
I don’t think her baby would work as an anchor because she wasn’t born before she got on the island and she didn’t see her until now. I also thought you only got these effects if you tried to get off the island. Rousseau never mentioned her or her crew having anyway of attempting escape.
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