Rockstar: INXS--8/21, 8/23, 8/24

In advance: I know it’s long. There are 2 ½ hours of TV to talk about, just read it in three installments if you want.

Rockstar: INXS is better than American Idol. I said it. Mark Burnett is a better producer than anyone named Nigel and the fact is that it’s more entertaining to watch “lead singers” sing rock songs with a band then to watch vocal talents do Celine Dion. I really like Idol, hell, I even watch Canadian Idol just cuz the format is interesting. If you need proof just head over to the Canadian Idol website and notice that, with the exception of Aaron Walpole, none of their top 5 would be a shoe-in to even make it to Hollywood. You might also notice that none of the previous Canadian Idols are even half as famous as the Pink Power Ranger, which speaks volumes.

Regardless, I like both shows. I can acknowledge that some of the people on American Idol might be better singers than the cats on Rockstar, I don’t know anywhere near enough about anything musical to say. Nonetheless, rocking out with a sub-par voice to a song with a good rhythm and some power to it is more entertaining in my eyes than the voice of God belting Streisand. It is obvious that Burnett took some lessons and thematized a number of the issues which appear on Idol in the reality portion of Rockstar. Song selection actually happens, we hear something about alternatives, why someone would choose one song over another, and how the judges’ comments play into aforementioned decisions.

J.D. is the first black hat, to my knowledge, in music reality TV. You can hate on Nikki McKibben or Joshua Grayson, as we all did, but it was really just arbitrary dislike for them in opposition to whomever you loved. J.D. is objectively an ass and has been since he essentially accused the rest of the rockers of jumping on the INXS bandwagon during the show. There are really only four people on the show, coming into this week, still in contention, far as I can tell.

--J.D.—He called his friends out during the performance show, he ditched his group and Dave Navarro STILL LET HIM PERFORM ON HIS OWN, but still, he had some great original arrangements early on and INXS seems to buy the (self-created) hype by which he is the artiste in a house of derivatives.

--Mig—I would never have imagined myself writing this during the first weeks of the show, since he sucked at that point, to be honest. During the last 3-4 shows he has really come along and stole the show pretty decisively doing Frampton last week. I’m not sure he can keep it up, but if he maintains the trend it’s dangerous for the rest of the crew.

--Marty—You don’t think of this dude when you think rockstar, but he has been surprising. Both his performances of Nirvana and Franz Ferdinand would make the top 10 performances of the season and his scream is unlike anybody’s in the game.

--Jordis—Oh Jordis, lovely Jordis. I can’t pass up a chance to play up my hometown, but even if Jordis weren’t a quintessential St. Paul lady, she would have to be considered the frontrunner. She did Bowie with real soul, she did Nirvana without having to impersonate Cobain, and—I didn’t believe this one myself—she made HOOBASTANK not suck. A Jordis Unga fronted INXS would be one of the few start-to-finish reality victories.

The reality show: songwriting combined with song selection, creates a really interesting dynamic. The obvious point, that its gonna be hard to compete with the Rolling Stones and Aerosmith when it comes to producing legendary rock songs, still got a little lost on Suzie who was desperate for any chance to show those of us South of the border that she deserved it. Besides the fact that Mig’s songwriting skills may be in question, nothing much interesting happened by. As an aside, I should mention how much it sucks that they moved the 30 minute reality section to VH1 so they could show off another rerun of 2 ½ Men. Its Mondays during the summer, what the hell fills up your TiVo to the point that you can’t set the Season Pass?

The performance show: check out the big brains on Marty—compliment your judges, explain how thoroughly you know their history, then connect yourself both to them and the future. That right there is a quality answer to what could’ve been a painfully boring question. Suzie kicks of the show with a great performance of “Start Me Up” but songs aren’t the issue for the blonde Toronto-nian, America just doesn’t dig her. Heading over for some fellow-rocker accompaniment and finishing with a quick dip in the crowd was awesome and Dave/INXS concurred. If she could just stay out of the bottom three, she might have a shot. J.D was alright but he’s still the rock-singer equivalent of Satan’s violin in “The Devil Went Down to Georgia”—it’s pretty good, but you know you’re supposed to hate it. Deanna’s original song was pretty good, but since everyone is now convinced that she can only do bluesy rock, she’s in the same spot as Suzie.

Alright, now Ty has Jordis, Deanna, and Suzie singing back-up on “Proud Mary.” If Mig jumped off a bridge and INXS gave him an encore would everyone else in the cast do it too? Not that I’m complaining that I get to hear Jordis for a couple extra seconds, though you may want to consider not showcasing your competition during your performance. But yeah, he was good. Mig’s original song was not as good as Deanna and the critique offered during the reality show about how much harder the verses rocked in comparison to the chorus hung true. Apparently one of the camera-people decided they could emphasize this by shooting the crowd through Mig’s legs: there’s nothing better to frame the top of the screen than some Australian taint. Marty (who by the way 1. drastically underestimates how famous “I Alone” was and 2. looks like the heavy-metal Austin Scarlett, to quote my lovely wife) did Live and did it awesome. He does scream and I guess that isn’t INXS necessarily, but I dug it the same way Dave Navarro did before INXS shouted him down.

Jordis gets her own paragraph, cuz she’s special like that. She looks great, little newsy hat, the Steven Tyler props with the scarf around the mic. The song doesn’t start off as the best ever and she simply can’t pull off a note as high as was required for that bit. It was still really good and hopefully it won’t hurt her badly. Bottom three in the early balloting though, damn it.

The results show: Being an hour long this week gave them a chance to check in on the mansion at the opening of the results. Jordis knew she was not on top of her game. Besides that it was just Suzie, Ty, etc. over-generally speculating about the existence of the bottom three. Suzie got the encore, so Jordis’ chances of avoiding the bottom three are growing ever-slimmer. Hey, Reuben, Kelly, Carrie, they were all in the bottom three once, no reason to get worked up about it yet. After the encore they returned to the mansion and we got to see Jordis in turmoil a little bit longer, even guaranteeing she would make the bottom three. Marty continues to shine in answering Dave Navarro’s “tough questions,” so at least J.D. isn’t alone at the top this week.

Apparently everyone besides Suzie was in the bottom three at some point over the course of the voting, so I guess Jordis might escape due to the hard txting of her loyal fanbase. Even if she ends up singing INXS she’s taking it as well as possible. Ty is the first member of the bottom three and though he does “What You Need” pretty well he’s getting into a war of egos with J.D. Deanna is number two, no surprises. But Jordis manages to edge out Marty. A good sign of her support, but you gotta hope America doesn’t piss off the band by voting too many quality rockers into the bottom three. Marty rocked “Don’t Change” notably, so even if he deserved to be there, it wasn’t too dangerous.

Deanna went home. Couldn’t have been that tough a decision, given her company and their performances. Let’s hope the good guys aren’t fighting for their lives next week.

BB6--Tuesday, 8/23

It is pretty fun to have a week that contains this much drama, all these events crammed into each broadcast. Beau, who before this moment was playing the Big Brother game in the same sort of way that you play checkers with your 3 year old niece: you’re following the rules, you’re technically making moves, but there’s no heart in it.

It was saddening that Howie didn’t manage to answer the final question right for at least two reasons:

1) He would have gotten to continue the full court press on Busto—The tension appears to have died down, at least slightly, as it inevitably would. Howie seems to have calmed slightly and besides a little confrontation in the kitchen the Fuckship seemed to let him get by. The diary room session that accompanied it indicated that “Hurricane Howie” had simply moved out into the ocean for the time being, hopefully to gather strength before it again turned towards the shore. At least he got to say Busto once.

2) Neither Beau or Ivette would get a chance at a million—I don’t think it will happen, even if the Fuckship does make it to the final four intact, but anything that hurts those two has got to be good for humankind. If you had HoH you’ve gotta take a run at breaking up the last coupling of absolute total evil.

The only positive that comes from Beau’s coronation is the hope that the trend to backlash on the previous week’s leader will continue. If nothing else maybe he’ll do a little more than drink and flail around in response to Janelle’s insults. We’re almost to the point where I wouldn’t mind James winning and that says a hell of a lot.

Decisions went down the way you’d expect, Howie and Rachel were on the block. April did everything as stupidly as possible, including wearing what may be the stupidest looking bathing suit since the mid 1930s. Its actually kinda interesting to watch her compete in any random situation, its like a video dictionary entry on the word “clusterfuck.”

James won the veto, making Howie look less and less stupid every time he insists that James is the best player in BB history. Yeah, he’s won a bunch of vetoes, but when you’re competing against Sarah, Maggie, Ivette, etc. is it really that impressive. There haven’t been a whole lot of impressive athletic specimens in the house, excepting the short roid-riddled fireman from Las Vegas whose head looks like a testicle.

He didn’t use it of course, cuz the only potentially legitimate relationship he has in the house is with Ivette. I think Rachel is on her way out, I’m pretty sure she knows it, and I don’t think they’re gonna give Hurricane Howie the opportunity to blow the house down before eviction. Another one bites the dust...

Tommy Lee Goes to College--Ep. 3

Tommy Lee is not nearly as interesting with his pants on. That’s simply the way it is, it’s not a criticism, it’s not hating, dude just ain’t as interesting when he’s only disrobed from the waist up. I mean, I like the idea, crazy rock star goes to a Midwestern college, plays on the drum line, struggles mightily in class, etc.

The fact of the matter though is simply that Tommy Lee Goes to College is a decent show. Seeing people flip out when Tommy Lee showed up in class or wherever is somewhat entertaining, as was the search for a roommate. Yeah, it would be cool to have had your dorm room pimped out with a plasma TV and comfy chairs, but the crappy “rock” version of Extreme Home Suckover was more than a little overblown. It was hilarious to see how hot his chemistry tutor was. My wife suggested, potentially correctly in my mind, that they might have chosen the University of Nebraska simply in order to get this woman. Especially since there don’t appear to be any other connections between the former Mr. Pam Anderson and the Huskers. I find it especially interesting that NBC is listing Ms. Natalie as the second star of the program.

Tommy still sucks on the drumline. Since he apparently played at least one football game it’s likely that he will get somewhat better. It’s kind of hard to tell however, if it’s the ex Motley Crue-r or the Huskers drum corps who comes off worse at the opening of this episode. Not only do they sound like the band equivalent of South Park xenophobes (“They took our jobs!”), but apparently only one of them cared enough to get him up to par.

He took the field for his final tryout and he pulled it off, like the trooper we always knew he would be. Much to the delight of the crowd, and Hot Tutor Natalie, Tommy and the band were en-pointe and nothing captures the celebratory attitude of marching band success like “Kickstart My Heart.”



    

Weeds--Ep. 3 Good Sh#t Lollipop

Its hard to talk-up a new series much more than Showtime did leading into the first episode of Weeds. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t just as excited as they were, Mary Louise Parker should be required by law to have at least one series on the air at all times. Not only was Amy smart, hot, and the perfect feminine counterpart to Josh’s magnificent arrogance, but she holds the record for the best awards show line ever. From the Golden Globes: “Janel Moloney said she'd give me $1000 if I thanked my newborn son for making my boobs look so good in this dress.” He deserved the thanks.

The show has some instantaneous appeal, strictly as a result of the subject matter. Weed jokes are funny and if you’ve ever had any involvement with that particular subculture it becomes pretty easy to get caught up in the lingo and what not. Not only do they not attempt to explain every term of art like it was Celebrity Poker Showdown, but they don’t shy away from the usual discussions that take place.

There was a moment, somewhere in the middle of the first episode, where I was a bit worried about how much the show has obviously picked up some Desperate Housewives sensibilities. Not really in the aesthetic or plot dimension, simply insofar as we appear to be at a point where this understanding of the suburbs is hip again. The intro segment is really well done, it really conforms to the HBO/Showtime standard of production values.

Far too little has gone on for me to evaluate any of the plots that are developing. I can tell you that I seriously appreciate that the intro episode didn’t take us for morons. Its nice to be able to slip into a situation in the middle, not having to flash back or watch it develop. We know her husband is dead, we know its tragic, we know she’s selling ganj to make ends meet. It also really fits with the whole suburban idea, the gossip, the uninterrupted drama, and the undifferentiated spectrum of the incredibly interesting and the ass-numbingly mundane.

This week’s episode was the most legitimately funny so far. Kevin Nealon, who has always been funny, finally came through this time around with the medical marijuana situation. The owner of said bud-boutique was a great guess star as well and inspired what is to my knowledge the only weed related I Love Lucy moment in televisual history. A surprising amount of toilet humor joined the party and both Heylia and Conrad were great. Though I must say, I see no reason not to put weed in her cornbread.

Entourage--Ep 20: Good Morning Saigon

I came late to Entourage and I admit that. I caught at least a couple of episodes in Season 1, I think it happened to be sandwiched between either Six Feet Under or The Sopranos and CYE. For some reason it didn’t hit home immediately and at this point I have no idea why not. All the reasons this show is enjoyable should have hit me immediately.

1) Turtle: I think every group of friends has a Turtle. Maybe you weren’t lucky enough to have someone whose habits were quite up to this level, but there must have been someone who had a good number of traits. The guy that, despite smoking, eating, mooching, and playing video games during all waking hours, managed to be incredibly picky with everything offered to him. Fuck psychiatry, having a Turtle somewhere in your life is the key to mental well being.

2) The guy behind the guy: Most of us figured out a long time ago that we were too fat, too ugly, unable to act, and generally without any of the talent required to be seriously famous. Anyone could end up as the bassist of Linkin Park, but Tom Cruise-John Travolta-Jude Law-Denzel Washington, that kind of fame is from the get-go. 99% of the population can only pray for the chance to latch onto a star as loyal to the crew as Vince. If you see yourself as too dorky to even measure up to E (whose work opposite Nikki Cox in “Unhappily Ever After” was truly outstanding), then you’re right, you will never get anywhere near anyone famous without serious risk of a trespassing charge.

3) “Let's hug it out, bitch:” If you could get away with saying that, you would. End of story.

Mandy Moore has been an interesting development for this program, both regarding the show and the plot. She’s not the greatest actress in the world, I admit and I can’t think of a comedic moment she’s really contributed to the program, but things can’t go that good for Vince for that long. I do like the way it looks to have the family gathered around the table with the introduction of a woman as mainstream and traditionally gorgeous as Mandy Moore. It fits in with the whole vibe, the becoming of a Hollywood institution and the contrast between the two halves of his life.

There are only a couple really notable things about this episode. In the first place, things could go bad quickly. Its not looking good for Ari at the office and the battle between Terrance and Ari for Vince’s affections is intensifying. Vince and Mandy missed a meeting, putting E in the awkward position of having to showdown with Mandy’s much more formidable people. It was a high quality episode, though I don’t know if it lives up to the “Best. Episode. Ever.” status proclaimed by the hbo.com bb fanboys/girls. Its setting up the craziness of the final 2 episodes, so its not like too much could go down anyway.

As a final note, the best part of this instsallment, without question, is Turtle and Drama’s discussion of nunchucks. Very little is potentially funnier than the idea of Johnny keeping himself protected in the “ghetto” by packing a pair of nunchucks, except maybe his attempts to speak “playa.”
      

BB6--Saturday 8/20

Its Saturday, the third day of year 0 AK (After Kaysar). The Fuckship succeeded in evicting him yet again on Thursday night and, despite the fact that Janelle managed to win HoH, my confidence that summer reality programming has anything notable left is really low.

I don’t watch the live feeds and rarely read the summaries, but this week has been an exception. If I hadn’t been annoyed by the antics of Cappy’s flock since the first week I might not be so wholeheartedly on the side of Howie and Janelle’s antics. When Howie ripped on Pepperoni I almost felt bad for April, since I too have a slight over attachment to my pet, but continuing to call her Busto is just too hilarious. A good amount of the conflict made the Thursday show, something you can’t always give the folks at BB. Even without having seen Ivette compare Kaysar to Osama Bin Laden, I can honestly say that this is among the most evil alliances in reality history.

Thursday did have two of the best moments of the season:

1) Janelle wins HoH and screams something wonderfully obscene in Jen’s face, who then THREW THE HoH KEY ON THE GROUND. Hilarious.

2) My personal favorite: the last moment of episode when, after nominating Jen and Maggie (perfect choice btw), Howie picks up Janelle and carries her off camera while she lets Jen know what modification of the word “batch” best belongs to her and where she might be going (answers: i for a, home).

Howie continued the routine on Saturday, despite James and Rachel not wanting it. At this point Rachel is the only one delusional enough to believe the S3 has a chance, absent 3-4 miraculous competitions in a row. The Fuckship actually began to realize that they are an enormous collection of whores and not all happy go-lucky when the possibility of negative campaigning came around.

The veto challenge was frightening, insofar as it shattered what was an otherwise unshakable belief that besides naming dogs after pizzas, April could literally not do anything. She managed to beat Howie’s hockey skills by about 15 seconds and ignorantly thought that would somehow make her incredibly lame insinuations that Janelle is a slut borderline entertaining. To paraphrase a friend of mine: if I had a gun with three bullets, I would shoot April three times.

James is trying valiantly to prove to everyone why they were supposed to not screw Kaysar and get rid of him, by at least seemingly allying with the good guys. Janelle, who as the game goes on appears a better and better actual player, vetoed Maggie to put Ivette on the line. Since Ivette is paranoid like a 15 year old stoner when the doorbell rings, she instantly decided her nomination was a conspiracy, just like she did two weeks ago. The voting went down as planned as did Julie Chen’s incredibly boring interview with the ex-houseguest. Besides the revelation that when given the option, she played the game to lose the game, it seemed to me that Julie was trying to make Jennifer someone America wouldn’t hate and maybe stem the tide of e-hatred she has been receiving.

Beau won HoH, despite Maggie being too stupid to lock it up for him by ringing in and answering, right or wrong. Gotta figure that nominating Rachel and Howie is the best move, assuring you can break-up the last partnership in the S-Alliance. One more of the good guys falls. Thank God it’s less than a month til Survivor.