'Best of TBH Politoons'
Baron Dave Romm
Season Finales
By Baron Dave Romm
The 2005-2006 TV Season is largely over, coming to a thundering climax just when the NBA playoff were reaching a crescendo. Indeed, several long-running shows came to their end. I'm feeling lazy on this hot afternoon, so I'm just going to slide down a bunch of quick takes.
The West Wing hasn't been the same since creator Aaron Sorkin left. In many ways, it's an example of how far we've fallen as a country due to the Bush administration's failings before 9/11: In the summer of 2001, Sorkin was arrested when an airport search turned up drugs in his carry-on. Four weeks later, 19 men passed similar checkpoints with wire cutters and bomb paraphernalia. Even before the terror attacks, Bush and co. were asleep at the wheel, targeting political enemies while real threats to America went unnoticed. But I digress.
The West Wing was originally planned to be about the staffers of the west wing of the White House, with only peripheral involvement of the president himself. But Martin Sheen was having too much fun and his on-screen presence too attractive. Ultimately, the show's seven-year run was about President Josiah Bartlet. It ended when President Bartlet left office. The final episode was a minor coda to the series. Hardly dramatic, hardly risk-taking. We got a chance to say a teary good-bye to familiar characters, and that's about it. The final was nice, but no more than that. While I'm glad they didn't screw things up (or have Bartlett assassinated), this pastoral ending didn't fit the beginning.
"Shirley," says Captain Kirk, "this is the sweeps episode..." and
demands a kiss.
Murphy Brown replies, "You always present the most ethically
challenged what-iffers..."
Okay, that characterization is woefully unfair. These are actors, and their sf roles are waaaaay in the past and didn't intersect in Real Life (tm). Tough. Boston Legal is fanfic done right... fanfic with a budget.
Both halves of the season finale of Boston Legal were on the same night. I appreciate that all by itself. The fun started in the opening credits with the title of the second hour, BL: Los Angeles and the amazing array of guests. Boston Legal already has two Star Trek alumni, William Shatner and Rene Auberjonois. Shatner is the only actor I can think of who has has starred in four multi-year successful tv shows. Auberjonois has been a major character in three. Boston Legal is an over-the-top law soap opera, more than LA LAW and sometimes more than another David E. Kelley show Ally McBeal. At first, I wasn't entirely sure of Shatner etal: Too broadly played, even for him. But the show works, anchored by Auberjonois and Bergen who play serious (ie believable) lawyers. Shatner is a self-indulgent, self-absorbed, ultra-conservative, very rich and very successful lawyer who wins every case and chases women at every turn. How much of a stretch this is for Bill I cannot say. Still, when it works, it works spectacularly well.
The finale has Shatner falling for and ultimately defending Jeri Ryan. Yes, Captain Kirk gets to ogle the breasts of Seven of Nine. And so do we.
The guests had plum if thankless roles, but it's still fun to contemplate the crossover fiction of three different iterations of Star Trek colliding head on with It Takes A Thief/Max Headroom/WKRP in Cincinnati/Crossing Jordon and Back To The Future.
Oh yeah, other stuff happened on the show too, including sex and drugs and cat fights and the occasional law thingie. But who cares.
"Maybe that's what bothers me," says James Spader's lawyer to Shatner's at the end of the show, "Hollywood has sunk to the level of Congress."
Alias concluded it's five year run nicely. Not everything was resolved, but several plotlines came to a decent resolution. I guess my favorite thing about the episode was that I watched it online. The entire last season and several shows from previous seasons are available, free for the watching (but with commercials) at from the ABC/Disney Full Episode Streaming site. Kudos to them.
Alias was always more fun than important. You go along for the ride without knowing (or caring) about anything. Maybe it's just me, but I have no idea what's going on. I'm renting the DVDs in sequence, and it still doesn't make sense. Oh well. Just listen to the voice in your ear.
To talk about the finale would be to give away too much, so let me just reiterate that several of the long-simmering feuds and odd continuing threads reach a climax. We sort of see what all the Rimbaldi stuff was about, we sort of see what the powerful-yet-supersecret groups were trying to do, we sort of see what happens to Sloane and Jack Bristow. Vaughn and Sark have a nice scene, and Marshall Flinkman plays his Geek Hero to the hilt. We get a nice coda of the various families and children.
If you've been a fan of the series, you'll want to see the Alias finale... eventually.
24 finished it's fifth day. At last! Unlike previous seasons, this one was tightly plotted the whole way through. That meant a predictable amount of action/pathos/in-fighting/death. Not a bad thing, I suppose, but the ride wasn't really all that fun. Maybe I've just seen it too often. Maybe Jack Bauer's "do it NOW" shtick is getting old.
SPOLIERS: There were whole bunches of things I didn't believe. I didn't believe rules-heavy Lynn McGill (Sean Austin) didn't report his missing card. I didn't believe ultra-geek Chloe O'Brien wouldn't immediately make a back-up copy of the voice recording. I utterly didn't believe that, having been recorded once, President Logan would continue to say incriminating things over the phone. He'd have to be as dumb as... well, okay, maybe that part reflected Real Life (tm).
This season sacrificed a logical flow of events for a sharper edge to the pacing. I'm not going to fault them for the decision to make every show have high drama. Still, I felt a bit burnt out well before the finale. Perhaps it's time for 24 to fade into the sunset.
Both Medium and Numbers turned introspective. Down in Phoenix, Allison Dubois got to see what her life might have been like if she had taken a different turn and become a lawyer instead of ahousewife with three kids. Over in LA, Charlie Epps dreams of his late mother. Both pretty good series entries. I prefer this kind of season ender: No cliffhanger, just a good, solid episode with maybe a twist or self-reference.
I've been trying to figure out what to say about X-Men: The Last Stand. Frankly, there's not a lot to say: It's a mess and it didn't work. (At least, it didn't work for me. Many have loved it. *sigh*) Gold Kryptonite (or the Marvel equivalent thereof) has always made for weak stories. Dumb plot with too many characters to follow if you don't already know who they are. Death, destruction, explosions, mutants. On the Shockwave scale of 9 to 23, I'd have to give X-Men III about a 14, and that's being generous.
But I don't want to end on a bad note. For the second movie in a row, Ian MeKellen shines over anyone else. Magneto, in the first two movies, is the most sympathetic evil guy ever. In X-Men III, he gets his Monster Squad moment. Oh... a nod to Kelsey Grammer, who does fine work after being the Angel of Death in the penultimate Medium.
Baron Dave Romm is a conceptual artist and a noble of Ladonia who produces Shockwave Radio Theater, writes in a Live Journal demi-blog, plays with a very weird CD collection and an ever growing list of political links. Dave Romm reviews things at random for obscure web sites. You can read all his music recommendations from Bartcop-E. Podcasts being reworked. Recent radio programs can be accesses on the Shockwave Radio audio page.
Thanks to everyone who has sent me music to play on the air. --////
Boulder's Progressive Talk - TODAY
Erin Hart
Join Erin Hart when she
fills in for Jay Marvin on Boulder's Progressive Talk, AM760.net
today, Memorial Day, 5am - 9am (PDT) [6am - 10 am MDT].
Skip Dreps of the NW Chapter of Paralyzed Veterans of America talks about the state of veteran's rights. The scoop on Nicholson and Principi, headed for elective office? Says who?
5.3 million vets are losing their disability insurance and another 26.5 lost their identities--what to do about all this!
Then we will explore the ethics of Enron, how the bad guys FINALLY may get some comeuppance anyway. What is the fallout from this huge scandal--and does it pay to be loyal to corporations anymore?
And Rabbi Daniel Weiner joins us to talk about the morality of business and the gay rights issues facing Colorado voters this fall.
Are Bush and Blair REALLY taking responsibility or is that all a lot of hooey. And the year so far in scandal, sigh.
Plus your barbeque tips for the long hot summer ahead. We already know who we want to boil in oil. . .
Check out erinhartshow.com when you can, and visit bartcop entertainment for details about the show.
Recommended Reading
from Bruce
Jack Kenny: Why can't the Democrats be Democrats? (advocate.com)
This TV writer is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. What's the matter with the party he has supported so long? What's so difficult about standing up for what's right? Like, for example, marriage equality. An open letter calling for the ABCs of politics: action, backbone, and clarity.
Tully Satre: I'm out. Aren't I? (advocate.com)
What does it mean to be out? It's one thing to be interviewed by the local and national press as a publicly gay person. It's quite another to be face-to-face with one near stranger who makes the wrong assumptions about your life.
ROGER EBERT: Cannes #8: Sex, awards & film
It probably won't happen this way, but wouldn't everyone be pleased if Gerard Depardieu won the best actor award at Cannes this year. The festival's awards are given out Sunday night (12:30 p.m. CDT), and Depardieu received a tumultuous ovation Friday as the star of "Quand j'etais Chanteur," or "The Singer." Depardieu's character reminded many audience members of the actor himself: A beefy middle-aged artist still slugging away at a job he loves, smoking too much, adamantly on the wagon, given new hope by his feelings for a much younger woman (Cecile de France). "I've been written off a lot of times," he tells her, "but I always bounce back."
ROGER EBERT: Answer Man
Jeff Grant, Centreville, Va.: I for one am glad that I get asked for proof of insurance when I show up at a hospital. It annoys me that people who cannot do so get treated at my expense anyway.
Ebert: The hospitals are always looking for volunteers. Maybe you could help them turn away sick poor people.
ROGER EBERT: Al Gore plays leading man
Gore begins with the famous photograph "Earthrise," which was the first photo taken of Earth from outer space. Then he shows later satellite photos. It is absolutely clear that the white areas are disappearing, that snow and ice is melting, that the shape of continents is changing. The polar areas and Greenland are shrinking, lakes have disappeared, the snows of Kilimanjaro have vanished, and the mountain reveals its naked summit to the sky for the first time in human history.
Robert Urban: X-Men: The Last Stand as Gay Metaphor (afterelton.com)
The climactic third installment of the blockbuster X-Men motion picture series X Men: The Last Stand offers filmgoers an action-packed roller-coaster ride through a well-conceived science-fiction world that is eerily half-fantasy and half-reality. Remaining true to the tone of the two previous X-Men films, it also offers fascinating metaphors and deep philosophical questions on the issues surrounding gay life in a straight world.
Brian Heater: A BOOK CALLED MALICE (nypress.com)
Harvey Pekar successfully strays from autobiography with latest work
Marchelle Hermanus: Why sex is good for you (iafrica.com)
"Good sex is good for you", a wise man once said, and if you don't believe him, then perhaps the words of Henry David Thoreau are more convincing: he compared life without sex to a dried up coconut.
Reader Question
Video Source?
Tweety Bird Matthews showed a video this AM that his staff found on the internet (but of course, the bastard didn't give the reference!). It shows video clips of Moron and Blair speaking the words that add up to the song played in the background--I think it's called My First Love (My Love, you're everything in my life...). It was wonderful.
Marty, can you find it and share it with us. I checked Tweety Bird's web site, but it's not there.
Linda >^..^<
Thanks, Linda!
Sunday was a bit hectic - will poke around today.
Anybody have the answer?
Selected Readings
from that Mad Cat, JD
In The Chaos Household
Last Night
Sunny early, followed by August-like temperatures.
No new flags.
Troubador With An Opinion
Bruce Springsteen
Branching off from his rock'n' roll roots, Bruce Springsteen kicked off his summer U.S. tour on Saturday with songs made famous by folk musician and activist Pete Seeger and strong political overtones.
Backed by a raucous 18-piece band, Springsteen played folk tunes including "We Shall Overcome," an anthem of the U.S. civil rights movement and "Bring Them Home," an anti-war song dating to the Vietnam War era.
During a break between songs, he offered harsh words for the administration of resident George W. Bush and its handling of last year's devastating Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, which killed more than 1,500 people in Louisiana alone.
"I've never seen anything like it in any American city," Springsteen said of the flooding and destruction. Referring to Bush, whom he called "President Bystander" in a performance in New Orleans last month, Springsteen added, "He managed to gut the only agency, through political cronyism, that could help people at a time like this."
Bruce Springsteen
Raises Money For Veterans
'Yellow Ribbon'
"Tie a Yellow Ribbon" was not originally meant as a political statement, but Tony Orlando is running with it. This Memorial Day, he is releasing a book called "Tie a Yellow Ribbon" and donating proceeds to U.S. Vets, a group that finds homes for veterans.
He said he first realized the song was becoming a statement about the military when Bob Hope told him at a concert to welcome home prisoners of war.
Hope told him: "'Oh, I heard your record on the radio, and that opening line, "I'm coming home, I've done my time," Tony, is every mother's wish, and ... every soldier's dream come true.'
Orlando continued: "And he said, 'You know, you're going to be singing this song to welcome home troops for the rest of your career.'"
'Yellow Ribbon'
American Opera Bids Farewell
Sarah Caldwell
American Opera said goodbye to its first lady on Saturday, exalting Sarah Caldwell in prayer and song in a tribute fit for a musical giant.
Caldwell, who died March 23 of heart failure at age 82, staged and conducted some 100 performances in more than 30 years as founder-director of the Opera Company of Boston.
Her memorial service included four operatic soloists, a 40-member chorus and a 23-piece orchestra that performed works by Giuseppe Verdi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johann Sebastian Bach and Aaron Copland.
Sarah Caldwell
Dismayed After Lordi Unmasked
Finns
Nearly 200,000 Finns have signed an online petition to express their dismay after tabloid magazines published pictures of Eurovision winners Lordi out of their trademark monster suits.
Though viewers around the world were curious about the real identity of the five monsters who shot to fame with their song "Hard Rock Hallelujah," many Finns were annoyed to have them unmasked and had signed the petition by Friday.
The band had asked media not to run pictures of them out of character, but two Finnish tabloid magazines went ahead, sparking a chorus of online jeers.
Finns
Small-Town Symphony Flourishes
Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra
They come from towns better known for hog farms and meat packing plants than as fertile ground for musical virtuosos.
Doctors, lawyers, teachers, housewives or third-shift workers, they share a commitment to orchestral and symphonic performance that makes this central Missouri town a regional center for classical music.
The Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra just completed its 43rd year. Local historians have traced the roots of organized community bands in the town back to 1871. Since 1934, residents have paid a one-tenth of a cent "band tax" to support the orchestra and a municipal band.
Marshall Philharmonic Orchestra
Visits Tokyo
Buffet OrphanageMichael Jackson
Michael Jackson visited a Tokyo orphanage Sunday during his first round of public appearances since being acquitted of child molestation charges last year.
Jackson was in the capital to accept MTV Japan's "Legend Award" during an earlier ceremony at Yoyogi Olympic Stadium. There, he choked up as he thanked fans for their loyalty.
After weaving through dozens of screaming adult fans outside the downtown orphanage, Jackson was ushered into a gymnasium, where more than 160 children between the ages of 3 and 18 and nuns in gray uniforms waited.
Michael Jackson
Seek Smoking Exemption
Aussie Brothels
Australian brothel owners want an exemption to anti-smoking laws for sex workers and their clients because, they say, one thing leads to another.
Newspapers reported on Sunday that the Australian Adult Entertainment Industry had written to Victoria state officials seeking an exemption to laws which ban smoking in workplaces for fear they will drive prostitutes back onto the street.
"People smoke when they drink, and people smoke when they fornicate," the industry group's William Albon was quoted as saying by Australian Associated Press.
Aussie Brothels
Strongwoman Seeks Phone Books
The Woman of Steel
A circus strongwoman who rips up telephone directories as part of her act has launched an appeal for 500 phone books to ensure her show in northern England can go on.
German-born Sylvia Brumbach, known as The Woman of Steel, says she is about to run out of books after destroying over 100 at Blackpool Tower Circus.
Brumbach, who says she can tear a directory in half in around 30 seconds, has placed ads in local newspapers appealing for more books.
The Woman of Steel
'Neglected Disease'
Kala Azar
The sickness starts with the bite of a tiny sand fly and mutates quickly from there - chills, then fever, then an onslaught of black lesions that will most likely prove fatal within six months without treatment.
Known as kala azar - a Hindi word meaning Black Death - the disease has killed more people than the 21-year civil war in Sudan, many of them extremely poor children.
"The people who are affected by the problem are poor. That's why we call it a neglected problem," said Dr. Willy Tonui of the Kenya Medical Research Institute, or KEMRI, in Nairobi. "Since you're dealing with a poor population, they won't be able to purchase the drug."
Medicins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, says the disease killed a third of the population in Sudan's Western Upper Nile region between 1990 and 1994 - 100,000 of 300,000 people. The organization says it is a tragedy comparable to the bubonic plague of medieval times.
Kala Azar
In Memory
Paul Gleason
Paul Gleason, who played the go-to bad guy in "Trading Places" and the angry high school principal in "The Breakfast Club," has died. He was 67.
Gleason died at a local hospital Saturday of mesothelioma, a rare form of lung cancer linked to asbestos, said his wife, Susan Gleason.
A native of Miami, Gleason was an avid athlete. Before becoming an actor, he played Triple-A minor league baseball for a handful of clubs in the late 1950s.
Through his career, Gleason appeared in over 60 movies that included "Die Hard," "Johnny Be Good," and "National Lampoon's Van Wilder." Most recently, Gleason made a handful of television appearances in hit shows such as "Friends" and "Seinfeld."
Gleason was survived by his wife, two daughters and a granddaughter. Funeral plans were pending.
Paul Gleason
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