What I Watched

Lie To Me

I like this show, primarily because of the two leads, Tim Roth and Kelli Williams, the two psychologists who head up The Lightman Group. They study facial expression, voice, and body language to determine whether people are telling the truth in situations. The stories, to my mind, are often kind of boring, but I don't really care, because I like these two actors so much. I like Tim Roth's shamble I like his intensity. I like his unorthodox nature. I like the way he studies people's faces. I like that his bluntness and his English accent.  In contrast, Kelli Williams as Dr. Gillian Foster is more politcally savvy. She is often diplomatic. She is very feminine. She seems both smart and strong. I think she's a welcome respite to most female characters on TV and in movies.

When I started watching this show, I often thought of The Mentalist. To me, Tim Roth's Cal Lightman is a sadder, more adult version of Simon Baker as Patrick Jane. Dr. Gillian Foster seems much professional to me than Jane's boss, Special Agent Theresa Lisbon (Rubin Tunney). Lisbon's choice of clothes and body language always reminds me more of a teenager who happened to be skipping high school that day rather than a special agent heading an investigation.

Since I started watching this show, I do watch people's faces more. When we see dramatic scenes on television, I will often turn to  Mike and say, "Now what would Lightman say about that face?" It's one of those shows that quietly infiltrates its way into your brain.

Cedar Rapids

Cedar Rapids is one of those movies that I would not hesitate to see again. It's one of those movies that I wish had been a box office success so we could see sequels. I liked the characters in it that much.

There were flaws. Tim Lippe (Ed Helms) seemed too naive to be believable. This is a script, not an acting problem. I thought that Ed Helms tried his best to sell the idea that he could be this clueless on the ways of the world, but he was put in situations in the script that seemed a bit hard to imagine that he would not be more knowledgeable.

SPOILER ALERT PARAGRAPH: The scandal surrounding the Two Diamonds award also seemed like quite a reach to me. The prize is described as something quite prestigious to win, and yet we are later told that some people know that the prize had been bought for years, and no one cares to report it? It also seemed to me that it would be something that Tim's boss (Rip Torn) would know was happening. He seems to be in cahoots with the president of this organization throughout the film. If Tim's predecessor had been bribing him for the award, I think that the boss would have ultimately been behind it. And if that was true, wouldn't there have been some communication with Tim about it beforehand, like, "Here's this very important envelope. Please make sure that you give it to the president." The notion that Tim on his abilities would win this prize seems pretty absurd. Also the idea that Tim could buy the award for $1,500 seems unbelievable.

NOW BACK TO GENERAL DISCUSSION:  I really liked the people in it. Ed Helms as an actor fascinates me. He doesn't have a mobile face. He has really large teeth. Yet he seems to have a great heart. He has an earnestness about him that is genuinely appealing. When I see that he is in a project, I want to see it.

Anne Heche surprised me. I hadn't seen her work in so long; I had gotten to the point where her private troubles had superseded what she was actually doing as an actor. I thought that she had great chemistry with Ed Helms, and that she was smart and funny in a way that felt totally her own. After the movie, we looked to see if Men in Trees could be instantly streamed. It turns out it's not even available on DVD. That just seems wrong, and I hope that will be rectified in the future. I want to see more of her work.

John C. Reilly and Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. were also funny and charming. There just seemed to be a genuine warmth with this very quirky ensemble. It was like puzzle pieces that you never thought would fit together, but I think the glue is that they all genuinely like each other and are having fun.  (And as a someone who loves The Wire, I loved seeing Isaiah Whitlock, Jr. riff on that show in this film.) And it was wonderful to see an older actress with wrinkles on her face. Sigourney Weaver was a hoot as Tim's former middle school teacher/now lover. Wrinkles are so much more attractive than botox! It's really true.

 

Spectacle: Elvis Costello with James Taylor

For me, discovering this show was like someone handing me a book and saying, "Robert B. Parker wrote this series around this character named Spenser. Why don't you give it a try?"

I heard about this show ages ago. I've had it on my Instant Streaming queue for a few weeks. Yesterday, I wanted to watch somewhile on my lunch break, and just on a lark, I thought I'd try this show out. I picked the episode that featured my childhood hero, my first LP, the singer that I found both swoony and profound, James Taylor.

I was blown away by this show. I was surprised by Elvis Costello's interviewing skills. If JT was my go-to musician in my adolescence, Elvis Costello was the musician who pulled me out of the disco morass that had defined my college existence until he showed up. I could see he was really smart. I identified with his anger. I appreciated his work. Every day before I went to my crappy summer job, I would play "Welcome to the Working Week" at full volume before having to leave my apartment. It seemed to really help.

But now we're all older, and here's Elvis, being so thoughtful, sitting back and watching James perform with such caring eyes, harmonizing with him on George Jones and Everly Brothers tunes. Yes, they sing George Jones and Everly Brothers tunes, and they talk about Bing Crosby and hymnal compositions and a Carole King song that I had never heard before that was a cotextual and compositional sequel to "Under the Boardwalk," even though she didn't write that song. They speak with multisyllabic words. The conversation takes surprising turns. The only mystery to me is why I wasn't moved to watch this earlier.

You have to understand. When I was in college I graduated magna cum laude with a double major in French and in English, but what I really studied at school was music. I was a freeform d.j. at the college radio station, all ninety watts of it, perfectly clear if you were on a certain side of the street on campus. But that didn't matter. What mattered was hearing all of these different songs and thinking about how they connected up with each other. When I finally watched this show, I thought, I knew Elvis Costello was a kindred spirit back then, and looky here now, he is again, but in a different way.

This is a music geek lover's paradise. It would be hard to get better than this. I am so thrilled that there is so much of this to see and hear.

More on "Treme"

The day after we raged through the finale of "The Killing," we watched this week's episode of "Treme." It felt like the perfect antidote to the aberration that we had witnessed the night before, a show that is written intelligently, a program that unfolds organically, one that communicates with its audience, one that teaches us a thing or two.

There's a potential spoiler or twp in this paragraph right here. The episode this week, "What is New Orleans?" was written by George Pelecanos, the writer who made me love "The Wire" after watching several episodes and not understanding or caring about what was going on and being too sick to do anything but just sit back and curse that, of all the rentals available at the video store, I had chosen this show. But then the Pelecanos episdoe aired and Wallace died, and I was seriously hooked and never looked back. This is a similar type episode, where a much loved character is suddenly killed. It was shocking and sad and it felt right. As a transcriptionist, I work for lawyers. I've learned about what can happen in cities in these times. The events that unfolded felt real.

"Treme" works slowly on you. It works in layers. There's short vignettes. There's moments. In this episode, competing musicians would stand in a crowd and lift their instrument up in the air and that would serve as their invitation to join the others on stage, or it would provide them an opportounity to convince the crowd to follow them Pied Piper style up the street to their gig. It is this type of detail that makes the show special to me.

And there's music all around. How can you not fall in love with a show where Steve Earle sings "Galway Girl" or where you can watch Dr. John play piano and marvel at his hands?  Or an opening montage that shows not only the parades but an assortment of images of moldy walls? There's outrage about what has happened to this American city. It's sadness and valentines all rolled into one. It's a show I very much like.

Some Thoughts on "The Killing"

I think the best way to approach this show at this point is to imagine that you've just seen a car wreck. I think this would be a great show to use for a writing class to teach students about plot and pacing and characters. This would be used as a cautionary tale. The sad thing is that they had great actors on this project. They tried to sell it as best they could, despite the fact that they were not given consistent motivation, if any motivation at all for their actions. It is not a good sign for a show when disbelief is not suspended; it is vigorously activated, when all good will tickets have been cashed in over the course of this season, and it becomes difficult to hear the lines, because there is so much disgruntled viewer commentary. It was a major disappointment that gave way to anger and frustration in the end. I can't think of another series that gave way to such complete self-destruction.  In the end, you just feel bamboozled, that there was an expectation and an introduction to an intelligent show that became extraordinarily cynical and stupid.

 

Food Network Star

Here is what I like about this show:

I like to see the established Food Network stars and the executives behind the scenes in their role as judges. I like to see their empathy; I like it when they display tough love. For example, sometimes I was surprised by how no nonsense Alton can be. But if I look at the situation, it's generally a moment when someone needs to step up and be professional, and Alton doesn't seem to have much tolerance for those who descend into a pit of silliness or despair or ineptitude at those times. 

I also was a little taken aback by Anne Burrell's directness as a judge. I wondered if it would hurt her chances in the Next Iron Chef competition. Would people see her as abrasive or as someone who takes the role of Food Network Star very seriously and, as a result, gives stern feedback? I believe the latter to be true, but I wondered how others viewed her.

In terms of the competition so far, after watching two episodes, my vote would go to either Jyll or Mary Beth. Both of them seem to me to be grounded individuals. They seem like decent human beings. Jyll actually almost was eliminated, because she couldn't bear to let down one of her teammates. I like the fact that Mary Beth is a writer. They seem like interesting people to me. They don't seem starstruck or Machievellian. They seem to genuinely want to do this work.

In this type of programming, I do wonder about the editing. It does seem that they emphasize certain things. Here is Alicia crying again. Does Penny fully understand how nasty she seems? Is it something that the producers cook up and she agrees to do or is she that oblivious of the impact of her actions? It's interesting to try to figure it all out.

Kidnapped

This series is now available through Netflix Instant Streaming and comes highly recommended from me.

"Kidnapped" is an enigma to me. It was so good that it's hard to believe that this series only lasted one season. It seemed that was something also hard for the creators to fathom. The series ends with an invitation to the next season, one now that we can only imagine (and I will not say anything about it, as this is the tpye of series that plot points should stay unknown.)

But here's the basic premise. Leopold Cain, the son of Conrad (Timothy Hutton) and Ellie Cain (Dana Delaney) is kidnapped. They hire a man known for his expertise in finding missing people (Jeremy Sisto). The FBI, headed up by Agent Latimer King (Delroy Lindo) also soon become involved. The story revolves around trying to bring Leopold home.

It's a well acted story. It was one that had us reaching for our iPhones and checking IMDB for who these actors were and what other work they had done. One that stood out was James Urbaniak as The Accountant. He was genuinely effective in portraying someone who was both coldhearted and full of feelings.

I thought that it was a very well written series. There were genuine twists and turns that surprised me. The real mystery is why the ratings were so low on such a great project.

Downton Abbey

This has been on my Netflix Instant Streaming queue for ages, just waiting for a time when I felt in the mood for a period piece. Yesterday afternoon turned out to be the date. So I embarked on the first episode, quickly felt transported, and wondered, "Why did I wait so long?"

I love the details of the story. It is one of those tales of a wealthy family and a household staff, and part of the pleasures of viewing it is to see the enomous amount of varied tasks that the staff does. For example, ironing the newspaper. I never would have conceived of that as a task, but it's something done every morning before the head of the household reads his newspaper. There are moments when we just watch them carry up plates for the dinner when the duke comes to visit, and it's interesting just to see  the number of plates and serving dishes that are deemed necessary for honored guests. The amount of preparation and organization that is needed to efficiently and effectively run a household on this grand of a scale is rather amazing to behold.

It's a story of class distinctions, of hierarchies, of jealousies and ambitions, of proprieties and transgressions, of gossip, of basic decency, and of pettiness. There are the realities of women and dowries and fortune hunters and inheritances. All of these things were addressed in the first sixty minutes of this series. I was fully engaged; at one point I found myself cheering. There are surprises. It's a plot intelligently devised. It's one that sets your mind in motion during the day while you're doing other things. You think about the characters. You wonder what they'll do next.

As for the acting, Maggie Smith is a member of the cast. Greatness is assured. Everyone shines here, and I particularly enjoyed Hugh Bonneville, as the Earl of Grantham, the head of the household, a quiet man with an expressive face, one who seems to want to do the right thing, a man who seriously considers things before acting.

It is a wonderful series. It's one of those stories where you just want to say, "Can I put my life on hold for half a day?" If one could, it would be wonderful to retreat for that time and just spend it in the story of Downton Abbey.