Television: Comedy Central Roasts Pamela Anderson

WARNING!!!  I feel a rant coming on.

Why on earth was Courtney Love there?????  It’s a roast!  And what was with the “Coming up on Comedy Central Roasts Pam Anderson” at each commercial break?  So we get to hear the jokes twice?  Once for each breast I’m assuming.

And where did they get the audience?  With their sympathetic awww’s and ooooooh’s.  Did anyone tell them this is a ROAST.  The jokes are cutting to the extreme and nothing is off limits.  That’s what they do at a roast.  

I was so annoyed I didn’t watch the whole thing.  They should leave the roasting to the Friar’s Club.

Television: The Closer

Mondays at 9/8c on TNT  

It took me a couple or three episodes, but I decided that I like this show.  Good scripts, good character-development.  Kyra Sedgewick plays a police chief that excels at getting people to confess.  She has a great way of getting what she wants by being straight-forward and aggressive (many of her co-workers see her as a bitch) while politely smiling the whole time.

The only thing is, there seems to be something wrong with the sound. It’s either TNT’s feed or my cable company or the sound editing of the show itself that makes me have to turn on my close captioning to catch everything that is being said.

I guess that means the dialogue is good too, since I go to such great lengths to get it all.  Definitely worth checking this one out.

Movies: Fantastic Four

Still in theaters at the time of this posting.

I went to see this today in spite of the horrible reviews. I had to. The Fantastic Four was my favorite comic book as a kid (next to Spidey, natch). The relationships between the characters were interesting. Most other super groups just came together to battle evil, the F.F. as we called them in comic book circles, knew each other before getting super powers. Johnny (the Human Torch) and Sue Storm (the Invisible Girl) are brother and sister. Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) was romantically linked with Sue. They eventually married. And Ben Grimm (the Thing) was a long-time friend of Reed's. This created a different dynamic from other comics I had previously read and I especially liked The Thing.

Hollywood tried to bring this story to film once before. The movie was never released, though I did once see a bootlegged video tape of the disasterous attempt. The effects were laughable, obviously low budget - even for 1994 and the script made it virtually unwatchable. Read more about the 1994 version here.

So, now they have the chance to get it right- AND THEY BLOW IT AGAIN! I thought the effects were pretty good this time around. I've heard them referred to several times as "cheesy", but - c'mon - it's a movie based on a comic book - it has comic book style special effects. I even liked the actors chosen for the roles. But the script/dialogue were terrible. Surely, "The World's Greatest Comic Magazine" deserves better than this! Maybe someone will get to take another shot at it in ten or so years and maybe - just maybe - they'll get it right. Unfortunately, the current film is credited with breaking the long box office slump and has grossed more than $143 million. This could mean a sequel. And how often is the sequel better than the original? Perhaps if Bryan Singer ("The X-Men") directs it....

Television: House

Tuesdays on FOX 8/7c

I started watching this show when it first came on last year. I quit watching after about 4 episodes and picked it up again this summer after hearing everyone rave about the show. One or two people said it got even better later in the season.

I'm still waiting for the better part.

Don't get me wrong - House is a fascinating character and Emmy-nominated Hugh Laurie is fantastic in the role of the misanthropic addict physician, who is brilliant in spite of (or because of) these obstacles. I also love Lisa Edelstein (always do). She is a great foil to House. Though very good here, she is such a great comic actress, I prefer to see her in a comedy. Perhaps one of the reasons she turned to drama was the recent death of the sitcom. Oliver Shulam.

While, this show was unique when it first bowed, after about 2 or 3 episodes an obvious pattern began to emerge. Patient gets sick - House's team diagnoses the illness and begins treatment - treatment doesn't work - patient worsens - AHA! That wasn't the problem, this is - no, wait, that still isn't it - Eureka, it really was this other thing (or combination of things) all along.

I stopped watching because this "unique" show was becoming the same every week. You now know without a shadow of a doubt that the first and second diagnoses are wrong. There's no surprise. The only thing that keeps me watching (for now) is Hugh Laurie. They need to start mixing things up a bit or I won't be back in the fall.