Mad Men: The Doorway

I'm reading a lot of negative reactions in comments online to Mad Men's sixth-season two-hour premier, comments like "nothing happens," "flat," "just Don being Don."  Here's what everybody seems to be missing:  Weiner and the brilliant writers on Mad Men value the integrity of their storytelling above almost everything else.  They are not interested in being exciting, shocking or unexpected simply for entertainment's sake.  

I remember reading the same complaints of last year's premier, and the year before that.  The show's narrative has always unfolded with a slow, organic realness.  That each of the apparently tedious events depicted in the season 6 premier will eventually lead to a rewarding thematic arc I have no doubt.  The show is still the most beautifully filmed, richly detailed and intelligently layered series on TV.  Viewer patience has always been deeply rewarded with Mad Men.  Have faith and keep watching.

Best. Gif. Ever.

The look on her face at the moment of impact, priceless.  Gotta respect the fact that this queen knows how to fake-slap a bitch.

Brave

At this point, Pixar has proven themselves over and over to be so good at what they do, they could take anything and make it fun to watch.  And that's kinda sorta exactly what they do with Brave.  Like all Pixar features, Brave is a gorgeously realized creation of phenomenal CGI beauty, rich with charming characters and adorable details.  The cinematography, performances and musical score all combine to deliver a typically superior level of animation.  The problem is there's just not much of a story.  The basic plot and events of the film are minimal and feel incredibly stretched out.  There's no epic challenge here, and the movie's perfectly realized stereotype-defying main character's journey, which is simply to [spoiler] save her mom who's been turned into a bear, magically fixes itself just in time for the movie to end.  It felt like her strength, independence and bravery just weren't utilized to their full potential.

The Greatest Show On TV Returns April 7

She Shoudda Just Done It

Well, that was a whole lot better.  Finally, a Walking Dead episode with some worthwhile downtime and character motivation that makes sense.  "I Ain't a Judas" mercifully gave Andrea a chance to follow up on some shit that had been piling up all season.  Almost too little too late because at this point I can't stand her character.  Reunion with her prison buddies?  Check.  Cluing in to what a monster the Governor is?  Check.  Talking it out with Michonne?  Check.  

And wasn't it glorious when Michonne called her out on choosing a warm bed over her friends.  That's really what it comes down to.  Andrea has not only been extremely annoying all season; she been a really shitty friend.  For a brief moment at the end of the episode, [spoilers] I thought the writers were going to redeem themselves and surprise me by having Andrea, standing naked at his bedside, stab the Governor to death as he slept.  No such luck.  But seriously, that would have almost righted every eye-roll worthy thing Andrea has done since the first episode of this season.  Come on, Walking Dead, grow a pair and take a risk again, you know, like you did in the first season.

Retro Horror Classic: Demons

I still clearly recall that special combination of terror and titillation it left me with.  I'm talking about the first time I watched Sam Raimi's The Evil Dead way back when I was still in high school.  Lying on stomach in the carpet, face resting in my hands staring up at the TV, my homegirls on the couch jumping and squealing in that way that only startled high school girls can, elbows pulled in and arms flailing, mouths agape, ear-piercing screeches at the ready.  I feel like I've spent my entire adult life chasing after that feeling, and I've watched a lot of mediocre horror in the process, but every now and then you find a gem that comes close.  Demons, the most commercially successful film by second-generation Italian horror director Lamberto Bava, doesn't have the raw horror of the first Evil Dead film, but it does possess a specific retro-quality fun that straddles the line between disgusting and awesome.

#TeamFeyPoehler

The way I remember it, at the Golden Globes Tina Fey and Amy Poehler poked fun at Taylor Swift for dating everyone.  Then Fey said something mockingly maternal, implying Swift needed some "me time to learn about herself," which hello - truth!  They came off as concerned older sisters giving a cautionary rib to the desperate-for-love singer.  Now Taylor Swift has spun the whole incident into some kind of women-on-women anti-feminist hatefest, which is complete and utter bullshit.  Come on, Taylor Swift, you know you cannot win against Team FehPoehler.  Let the learning about yourself commence forthwith.

Seth MacFarlane Is On Our Side, Folks

Geena Davis is joining the throngs of disgruntleds who think Seth MacFarlane doing what he does as Oscar host was somehow horribly offensive to women.  I just have the following cut-and-pasted comment which I made on the subject, and I'll leave it at that:

"Seth isn't being disrespectful to women. But by playing a character who is, he is trying to point out how stupid it looks to treat women that way. That's the joke. He isn't just saying, look, boobs are cool. He's saying, look how shallow and sexist I look by pointing out that this is all men care about. It's the honesty in what he's portraying that makes it both awkwardly funny and seriously controversial. I think people are misunderstanding him. He's a very liberal, forward-thinking guy. He's not the douche bag at the party who disrespects women. He's the nerd who makes fun of that guy by satirizing him. He wants society to disapprove of treating women this way. THAT'S why he's making fun of it."

The Presets: Pacifica

The Presets are an electronic duo from Australia formed in 2003, but until about four months ago I had never heard of them.  I came across a mention of them online somewhere in an article that referenced Owl City and The Postal Service, and I'm always up for new music so I thought I'd give them a shot.  It's good stuff, sort of a modern-day Erasure (who I loved in high school).  Pacifica was released late last year and it's been at the top of my "recently played" iTunes playlist ever since I discovered it.  Their signature sound of chiming techno rhythms and melodic uplifting riffs is like pretty, textured good-time pop music, but it confidently avoids feeling fluffy or saccharine.  I highly recommend you check them out.

Love They Say Is Magic

Cannot.  Get.  Out.  Of.  Head.

Five Reasons To Still Love Run Lola Run

1. Franka Potente's Face:  Those squinty sullen eyes and the beautifully arched brow, her pretty, boyish grace, the way she breathes when she runs, her aching expression of wanting through the entire movie.  Why isn't she in everything?  A few episodes of AHS last year wasn't enough.
2. This Dude:  Talk about nailing the sympathetic European criminal thing.  While you may shake your head at his lifestyle, you totally get why Lola puts everything on the line for this guy.  The bird's-eye-view bed scene conveys all the intimacy needed to justify a motivation for every other act in the film.
3. The Animated Sequences:  Sometimes animated sequences shoehorned into live action movies feel jarring and cheap.  Here they feel appropriately playful and edgy, but that is certainly helped a lot by the choice of ...
4. The Music:  Pounding, throbbing, pulsing electric through every harried scene, the music is so good as to make the whole movie feel as though it's just one big, long, sophisticated music video.  Is the music there to enhance the story, or is it the other way around?
5. Alternate Futures:   Alternate realities/timelines/endings are just kinda always awesome.

What's Worth Watching

• Rupaul's Drag Race Season 5:  Still an under-appreciated and undiscovered little sparkling gem of a show packed with more entertainment bang for its buck than almost anything else on TV.  It's got drama, glamour and over-the-top humour bursting from its sequined seams.  Something about seeing this much cross-dressing celebrated and respected feels liberating from a cultural standpoint.  It feels like we've come a long way in terms of embracing gender bending in modern society, and even somebody uncomfortable with all this male effeminacy would have a hard time denying it's good fun.   
• Community Season 4:  Even when it doesn't exactly work, Community never stops trying.  In every episode, the show bends over backwards in new and creative ways to entertain you, flipping its formula and tone on a weekly basis and setting a new standard for random self-referential television meta-ness.  Plus now that Chevy Chase is gone, the entire cast will be likable while still having variety.  That's a rarity in a TV landscape which favours all-white 20-somethings or slightly ethnic versions of white 20-somethings.
• The Walking Dead Season 3:  Thankfully episode 10 was a jump back up in quality for the series that came back from its mid-season break with an all-over-the-map clunker of an episode.  The shoot-out at the prison was, IMHO, a lot better paced and believably harrowing than the mist-infused oddly disjointed raid on Woodbury.  The Governor feels threatening again and it should be fun to watch Merle attempt to merge with Rick's group. Now wrap up Andrea's story line and send her packing, please.
• Girls Season 2:  Season 2 has failed to fully recreate the breaking-new-ground creative vibe that came across in the first season.  Maybe Lena Dunham's shtick is just the kind of thing that gets tired fairly quickly.  After a so-so batch of four episodes, the show decides to do something risky and gives us an entire episode about Hannah's fantasy-like sexual encounter with a hot older doctor (played by Patrick Wilson).  Much has been argued online about the unlikeliness of their pairing, but regardless of whether you loved or hated this narrative experiment, Girls is obviously still figuring itself out to mixed success.

Currently The Walking Dead's Five Lamest Characters

"The Suicide King" broke records as the highest rated single episode of anything ever on a cable network.  So why is the show's viewership through the roof when its quality seems to be taking a dive?  This week's episode was filled with perplexing examples of characters showing questionable motivation.  Here are the five lamest characters from The Walking Dead's latest episode:

1. Andrea:  Pretty much everything she has done this season has been annoying, but the fact that she spent this entire episode NOT shooting the Governor in the head is insulting to both the great comic-book character she's based on and the loyal fans of the show.  Why is she putting up with any of his crap for even a second?
2. Michonne:  Aside from the fact that her character has been completely one-note since its introduction, in this episode she was reduced to a conceding agreeable sideliner who gets locked up in a cell while she's sleeping.  She was hiding her knowledge of Andrea all this time and when finally confronted about it, she remains silent yet again?
3. Daryl:  The long-brewing plot point, his reunion with his miserable brother Merle, is completely swept under the rug and sidelined.  When confronted with the choice between Merle or Rick's crew, Daryl barely hesitates before deserting the only people left on the planet who care about him and who he trusts.
4. Rick:  I feel like he spent the better part of this episode staring pensively off into the distance with nothing meaningful to contribute (see photo above).  Is he a broken man slowly being driven insane, or is he a brave hero leading his group to hard-won salvation?  He should be existing somewhere in between, but I'm not feeling it.
5. The Governor:  He was never going to be a good guy, I get that, but why does he have to be so one-dimensional?  I mean, his grudges don't feel personal.  He hasn't even met Rick, and yet that's the only thing motivating him at this point?  Why do his relationships with Andrea, Michonne and the entire town of Woodbury now seem to be completely non-existent?

Wreck-It Ralph

Kids today get to enjoy the most creatively and technologically advanced movies and video games. Sometimes I wish I had been born 30 years later, not that I let it hold me back. Wreck-It Ralph, using a basic Toy Story premise, combines elements of both movies and games.  Once the arcade is closed, all the real people go home and an expansive, charming world plucked from a child's imagination carries on inside the big sleeping electric boxes.  The marriage of characters representing innocent 80s nostalgia and modern violent first-person shooters is the well-executed conceit at the centre of this cute Disney production.

Chewing away at the considerable cartoon scenery is a well-chosen group of talented character actors, including 30 Rock's Jack McBrayer, Glee's Jane Lynch and big-time movie star John C. Reilly as the dopey but sensitive Ralph.  Sarah Silverman, whose naturally effected baby voice and ironic line delivery means she's perfectly cast, steals the show as Vanellope, a tiny but feisty go-kart racer from a candy coated game called Sugar Rush.  The unlikely relationship between bitter old tough guy Ralph and enthusiastic idealist Vanellope feels organic and forms the sympathetic warm centre of this  above-average but probably not classic animated feature.  Big-name television and film actors are enjoying a whole new genre of mainstream acceptance in voice acting these days, and I like it.

Everybody Just Go Back To Your Seats

Everybody needs to just go back to their seats with regard to the following:

• Jennifer Lawrence:  Chill already.  Enough with all the nominations and awards.  She's good but she's not THAT good, I'm sorry.  She's smart, funny and gorgeous and I love her as much as the next human being, but her performances just aren't blowing me away with the same ferocity they seem to be blowing the rest of the world away with (and, yes, that includes Winter's Bone).
• The Hunger Games Movies:  LOVED the books, but am I really the only person who thought the movie felt like they were fighting to the death in someone's suburban back yard?  Where is the expansive, grand scope of the combat arena?  I didn't get that desperate feeling of impoverished subjugation that fueled the intensity of the books.  Again: entertained but just not blown away.
• Last and Current Seasons of The Walking Dead:  Is it just me or has that epic wonderment and motion-picture feel of the first season never really been recreated since?  The show looks and sounds like it's hitting all its marks, but the narrative isn't feeling organic.  All the dramatic upheaval behind the scenes is having a creative toll, for sure.  Last season dragged and this season feels forced and rushed getting from A to B.
• Girls Season 2:  Still good, still fun, yep, but what I originally found charming about the show is now starting to grate.  Self-absorbed, entitled, clever young white people do have a shelf life, even if you're skewering them in a hip pseudo-honest self-deprecating fashion.  Season 2 feels kinda juvenile.  It's possible Lena Dunham isn't as brilliant as I originally thought.
• XCOM: Enemy Unknown and The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings:  I picked up these two titles based on raving reviews from both critics and gamers and gave them both a reasonable amount of time to grow on me.  Neither of them did.  While they aren't duds by any stretch, I just wasn't having as much fun playing them right off the bat as I did in the first couple hours of, say, Devil May Cry or Max Payne 3.

There's Hope Because These Dudes Are All Older Than Me

Here's a totally gratuitous self-indulgent post for you.  It has to do with being over 40 in a culture relentlessly fixated on beauty and youth.  As someone who constantly surfs the internet in search of celebrity validation, it's becoming increasingly difficult not to notice the extra wrinkles and pounds as they creep up.  Thank you, pop culture, for tirelessly reminding me that I'm not in my 20s anymore.  Here's some self-affirming encouragement, giving hope to anyone who might be a white male around my age (43) and shamelessly vain.  The following is a list of handsome actors who are all older than us.  Now, doesn't this make you feel better?

• Kyle Chandler
• Josh Brolin
• Tom Cruise
• Jason Bateman
• Clive Owen
• Aaron Eckhart
• Thomas Jane
• Edward Burns
• Dylan McDermott
• Norman Reedus
• Eric Bana
• Patrick Dempsey

Love Comes Easy

Currently listening to and loving new Tegan and Sara: Heartthrob.  It's like a highly polished collection of 80s love songs significantly jacked up and imbued with musical weight by confident technical production.  Perfectly mastered ornamental 50s do-wop harmonies employed at every opportunity pretty much transform the vast majority of Heartthrob into a charming, romantic and unbelievably catchy experience.  The album on whole achieves a level of charismatic pop hypnotism that is hard to find.  Check out "Closer" below.       

Remember Fun?

When video games aren't bending over backwards to be beautiful and realistic and edgy, somewhere in there they're supposed to be fun, right?  Remember fun?  Well, good news:  I found some.  It's called Devil May Cry.  And no, I have never played any of the previous versions of this game, so I went in with zero expectations (other than published reviews are through the roof while gamers are crying sacrilege).  All I can tell you is that it has completely awakened my appreciation for relentless melee combat and over-the-top fighting combos.  Everything in this game is about how creative and graceful and ridiculous you can slice, chop and punch out the enemies.  That's it really, just incredibly fun combative gameplay.  Sometimes that's all you need.

Frank Ocean is a Musical Warlock

And here's the proof:

Let me just warn you now, if you listen to this song, you won't be able to stop hearing it.  It's some sort of crazy form of genius musical magic, and I love it.

Silver Linings Playbook Is Not A Romantic Comedy

Silver Linings Playbook is billed as a romantic comedy, but it doesn't feel like one to me.  Rom-coms bore me and make my eyes roll (I'm talking to you, Jenn Aniston and Kate Hudson), and I would never knowingly attend one.  The main reason I went is because I have a straight crush on the good-but-overrated Jennifer Lawrence.  Well, it turned out to be hilarious, authentic, complicated and moving.  It made me laugh and cry at things I've never laughed or cried at before.  It's kind of like Little Miss Sunshine for grownups.  One of the best movies I've seen in a very long time.

Listen, I know American is deep in the throes of an irresistible brand new love affair with Jennifer Lawrence.  I get it.  She's awesome, beautiful, talented and funny.  I love her too, but I kind of can't believe more people aren't talking about Bradley Cooper in this movie.  His performance is the one that blew me away the most.  He is the heart of this film, and although the entire cast is acting their faces off, it's Cooper who deserves the most recognition (and the Oscar).  I had no idea he had this kind of depth.  Anyway, it just feels like we're really selling this movie short if we refer to it as a "romantic comedy," so let's not, kay?