Ultranormal

Category: tv

  • Booooooomtown Homirobbery Division

    We watched two new cop shows this weekend, Robbery Homicide Division and Boomtown. First, Robbery Homicide Division was ok. It’s better than CSi, but far worse than any of the Law & Order series or NYPD Blue. The weird part is it’s hard to nail down what’s wrong with it. LA is ripe for a good cop show. All the other good cop series on TV are in New York, and LA has enough crime to accomodate several shows, don’t you think? Tom Sizemore was good. The production quality was good. I think it was just a little too easy, even though the end tried to be all indy-film bad news, it didn’t quite live up. There was nothing that made me really care about what was going on. It was just OK.

    Boomtown is another story. Written by Graham Yost, who adapted Band of Brothers for HBO, this is going to be a good show. The storytelling method isn’t as revolutionary as the reviewers have made it out to be, but it is an interesting way to introduce all the characters and give the whole picture of the crime. Again, this show is set in LA, and they did a good job of highlighting the fact they were in LA without relying on the landmarks everyone knows (the Hollywood sign, LAX, etc). It was very well acted, even Jason Gedrick, which surprised me. Definitely worth watching. Hopefully, the rest of the season will match up to the Pilot.

  • More Love For HBO

    There’s more to love about The Wire. Last night’s episode was TiVo’ed, and I got around to watching it tonight. The opening scene with McNulty sending his kids off to follow Stringer Bell around using the old “front and follow” method was incredible. It was really funny, and just perfect.

    It’s such a great show, well done, well written… just about perfect. I’ve talked about it before, so I won’t keep going on about it, but you should definitely watch it.

    In other news, there is no other news.

    It seems that all the pain at work has been worth it. Things are fast, people are happy, and it’s just nice to know that something is working out of all this mess I’ve had to deal with for the past three months.

  • If you have DirecTV, definitely

    If you have DirecTV, definitely check out Sessions at West 54th tonight (ch. 315 @ 5 and 8 EST)! It’s the one with Imani Coppola and John Hiatt. Imani does an amazing 30 minute set that will absolutely blow you away.

  • Jen and I watched Married

    Jen and I watched Married in America on A&E yesterday. If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a documentary by Michael Apted of 9 couples about to get married. It followed them through the final days of preparation, up to the wedding, and in a couple cases, a few days after the wedding. Now, that wouldn’t be so interesting except that they’re going to follow up with the couple every 18 months (Mr. Apted also did the amazing 7up series of films).

    It was striking how different each of the couples were, yet how familiar their problems were. Jen and I sat there saying, “They’ll make it,” and “Oh, they definitely won’t.” We ended up staying up until 1 in the morning talking about all of our married friends and how we see a lot of the problems we saw in the couples in the film in our friends. We also talked about how extremely lucky we are. We’ve been married for four and a half years (exactly 4.5 years yesterday), and while we’ve had our problems, we’ve figured them out and moved on. Some of the couples seemed to hold on to the little problems and bring them up in the interviews, which wasn’t a good sign.

    I think my favorite thing about the documentary was they didn’t choose all well-off white-toothed yuppie couples, like you see in A Wedding Story. They ran the gamut, and that was great to see. They had:

    • the lower middle class interracial couple from Long Island: who I think will make it, they just have it together

    • the Southern fratboy/sorority girl couple: who I guarantee will not make it

    • the mixed-faith Filipino Christian/New Jersey Jewish Guy: who I don’t think will make it, but I’m not betting against them

    • the yuppies: who I’m not sure about

    • the Southern African American couple: I’m not so sure about them either… he’s got mother issues, but they seem together enough to make it as long as he doesn’t wig out when he realizes it

    • The recovering alchoholics / ex-con: Surprisingly, I think they’ll make it in their own way. They hit rock bottom, and are hanging in there. I think they have a great shot at it.

    • The Latino Couple: They’re definitely not going to make it. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but he’s on a major rebound, and she’s not handling it all that well.

    • The Irish Catholic Cop / Columbian first generation American: They were the cutest couple, and after the first couple I listed, I think they have the best chance of making it. They logical and together, but you can tell they have a deep affection for each other, and their families. They’re on the same path, which I think is probably the most important part.

    • The Lesbian Couple: I feel bad, but man, this couple could not have been more of a stereotype. Let’s see, one lady has a she-mullet and is a corrections officer. The other is a P.E. teacher!! They both play softball, dress alike and are a butch as they wanna be. Do I think they’ll make it? Yeah, they remind me of my old boss in Tucson and her partner. Steady, unflappable and determined. I think they’ll have a long, uneventful, happy life together. I almost wish they would have chosen a couple that didn’t quite fit so snugly into the assumptions everyone has about lesbian couples.

    The film’s very well done and if it’s on again, I would heartily recommend it. If you’re married, it’s a great jumping off point for discussion, and I think Jen and I both saw pieces of ourselves in most of the couples (me, I feel I’m just like Toni, but that’s a whole different story).

  • Someone at NBC loves Snatch.

    Someone at NBC loves Snatch. Have you been watching the NBA playoffs on NBC? I have, and every time they cut to a stat graphic (Shaq has X free throw attempts per game per blah, blah, blah) they play a snippet of a different song off the Snatch soundtrack. It’s pretty funny. The first time I noticed it was when they played the theme song (called Diamond – track #2) during Kings/Lakers Game 5. They’ve been working their way through the CD. I’m keeping an ear out for Massive Attack Wednesday night.

    Oh, and what do you think of the new colors? I’m going to play with moving things around when I get some free time.

  • Tardy is Terrific Greg the

    Tardy is Terrific

    Greg the Bunny was hilarious tonight. What a great show that’s getting no promotion at all. It was off for sweeps, and then tonight’s episode got nothing. I didn’t see an ad at all. Tardy had a bunch of lines, and yes, they were all great. The show is pretty much perfect, and well, it’s on the list of summer shows that should keep me entertained during the heat and reruns.

  • Why Do I Love Thee, Tardy?

    The hits just keep on coming for Tardy queries. So, I thought I’d share my favorite things about the dim little turtle from Greg the Bunny. Like Barney on The Simpsons, Tardy gets the throw-away one liners. They’re usually brilliant non-sequiters or add that perfect touch of lunacy to a scene. After four episodes I can honestly say he’s my favorite character on the show, and that’s saying something. The show is great. It’s this generation’s puppet show (my generation had Alf, and the one before it had all those Sid & Marty shows and The Muppet Show). The idea that puppets are real people, like with the Muppets, is a great one, and they’ve really pulled it off. But, Tardy stands out. With his quiet song and “I’m dead, Gil.” from the paintball episode, the “I am strong now!” from the blackmail one and “People aren’t allowed to touch me where my bathing suit covers” in the first one, he has captured my heart. I will forever be a Tardy fan. Well, at least until he sells out and goes Hollywood.

  • They cancelled Ally McBeal

    They cancelled Ally McBeal, which is just as well. I cancelled it at the beginning of the season. That new girl was kind of cute, but it turned into The Muppet Babies with Mini-Ally running around with Mini-Greg and Old Ally watching them all jealous. It was a good show in its prime, but it ran its course. Bye bye, Ally.

  • Stupid

    I was going to write about this last night, but it would have been overly profane and who needs that on their conscience when I know at least my mother-in-law reads this stuff? The last episode of Once and Again aired last night on ABC. It was depressing and it ended poorly. The last episode didn’t measure up (how could it). I don’t know how I wanted it to end, just that it shouldn’t have. It was a great show, as I’ve said before. Oh well. That was the last show I paid attention to on ABC, and probably will be for a good long while. See ya later, Disney. I’ll miss the show, but that’s life. Maybe I’ll read a book.

    Crap segue….

    Yes, I know I didn’t write anything yesterday. I spent many hours on the phone with lawyers this weekend and many more hours working on Monday. Nope, still can’t talk about what this is all about, but it should happen soon. It’s exciting and frustrating to be working on something that will be so huge. People aren’t sleeping and that makes them crabby. They snap and bark and well, they’re no fun to be around. There are conference calls with many people, most of whom don’t understand what’s being said and are relegated to sighing into the phone and taking notes. I’ve been to so many meetings in the past week I’m about to go crazy. I hate meetings. I hate telling people what to do, why they need to do it that way and then having to explain it slower because they didn’t get it the first time.

    I want to work. I want to write code and make things cool and sustainable, maintainable, scalable, etc. I can’t do that in a conference room with a dozen people around a table deciding what not to call things. And on that note, I’m going to get to work…

  • Things that suck

    I was sick all weekend. It started with a scratch in the throat and an early morning on Saturday taking my sister to take the ACT. Then, a headache and general unwellness later in the afternoon and a four hour nap. Then, Sunday was a blur of cough drops and tissues. No nap, but plenty of headaches and drowsiness. Today I’m a little better, butt-dragging and drowsy. It’s not how I imagined feeling on the first day in my new job (which feels a lot like my old job since I’m still in my old pod).

    Watching the news when sick sucks. I watched Israeli and Palestinian spokesheads spout the same arguments over and over again, hour after hour. I watched The Real World for a long time because Jen wanted to catch up since we haven’t been watching this season. I know I’m over my Real World thing now. These kids’ lives don’t interest me any more. Their problems seem small and petty. They appear ignorant and like marshmallow peep versions of previous casts. Oooh, there’s the angry black guy, the cute gay boy, the jock, the bulemic, the lesbian. We’ve seen all this before. At least get us a new crop of socially relevant problem children to feel sorry for. How about a narcoleptic fish farmer from Washington state? Maybe a Native American peyote farmer cut out by the foreign peyote cartel? How about a vato from Tucson who loves his low-rider truck and is feircely Catholic even though he doesn’t know what that really means? How about a fat girl? How about an all-blog cast who sit in front of their computers commenting on life outside without actually doing anything interesting in the house (if I weren’t married, I would be a perfect candidate)? That show has lost all relevance to my life, and while that’s kind of sad, I’m glad I’m not in that post-adolescent, but still stupid stage. I’m a stupid adult now.

    Thankfully, there was Iron Chef to dull my pain. The first New York battle between Bobby Flay and Morimoto was a lot of fun, and the one afterwards with rice as the ingredient was really cool.

    Ok, I’m done. That was my sickly weekend. Hopefully the week will be better.