Tommy Wiseau, the anti-visionary director behind the cult classic, The Room, has been busy. This time he's tethered to a much smaller screen: your laptop. Growing media giant, Machinma, provided Tommy with a venue to express his various eccentricities. He is the host/subject of a weekly web series called The Tommy Wi-Show.
On the Wi-Show, Tommy generally sticks to playing video games, although he occasionally drifts off into the stranger corners of his mind and viewers are rewarded with comedy gold. His trademark "Ha, Ha, Ha..." laugh makes many appearances as well. The production values aren't excellent, but they're good enough to fully capture the force of nature that is Tommy Wiseau.
I can't tell if I feel sorry or envious of the poor souls that are behind the camera for this one. It is a rare opportunity to be able to film one of the strangest human beings alive, but it's impossible to imagine how absurdly long it takes to make a series of 10-minute episodes. During the filming of one scene in The Room, Tommy reportedly took 33 takes to do a scene in which he had two short lines.
Props to Machinma and their crew for creating this.
Rupert Grave's best selling novel, I, Claudius, is a triumph in its own right, but the 1976 BBC adaptation more than lives up to its source material. The story, for those not familiar, is an account by one of the less-glamorous members of the Caesarian family, Claudius, of his family history during and afterAugustus's legendary rule over Rome. It is a complex tail of poison, secrecy, poison, assassination, marriage pacts, wars, and did I say poisoning?
The show features a veritable who's who of famous British actors including Brian Blessed (Augustus), Sir Patrick Stewart (Sejanus), John Rhys-Davies (Macro), and John Hurt as the infamously slimy Caligula. Upon release, I, Claudius, was met with a shower of awards and praise. Among these were BAFTAs for Best Actor, Best Actress, and Best Director. In 2007 Time magazine listed it as "One of the 100 Best TV Shows of All TIME".
Definitely check this one out. Every episode from the first season is on youtube now, so it doesn't even require a streaming device. I, Claudius will give you a new appreciation for classic TV at its best, and you'll get to see some living legends early in their careers.
Most pop
culture aware people have seen at least some fan made videos, parodies,
impersonations, or general mockery directed at George Lucas and everyone
responsible for the Star Wars prequels. These humorous
attempts have been done with varying degrees of competency and success.
However, recently I came across one that has raised the bar for dissatisfied
fans everywhere. It is a series of parody reviews on the Youtube channel, RedLetterMedia, from man calling himself Mr. Plinkett. Each review is about an hour and a half long, and he has released one for all three of the prequels. They. Are.
Hilarious.
He uses a few memorable phrases to describe the main problems with The
Phantom Menace including "it's mind boggling how complex the
awfulness is." In addition to the humor, Mr. Plinkett makes some obviously
well thought out criticism of the movies. He explains in great detail the main
failings, not just focusing on obvious aspects like Jar-Jar Binks and Queen
Amidala's hair. It is a great learning experience that you will laugh your
whole way through.
If you find any other great parodies, leave them
in the comments section.
Exclamation points are usually a bad idea when writing because they often convey too much enthusiasm. However, after reading that James and Dave Franco are set to direct and star in The Disaster Artist a.k.a. a movie behind the making of The Room, exclamation points seem more than warranted.
A film about the "Citizen Kane of bad movies" is long overdue, and James Franco seems like the perfect combination of consummate and weird to make it work. Production is still in its early stages. Only Dave Franco has been cast as Mark, the film's protagonist.
Franco's real challenge will be casting one of the strangest people in the history of show business, Tommy Wiseau. Wiseau, if you don't know, is the man entirely responsible for The Room. He wrote, directly, produced, edited and, of course, starred in the movie. There are few actors with the combination of skills and physical appearance to capture Tommy's alien qualities. Whoever takes on this role, despite not being the protagonist, will shoulder much of the burden of the overall quality of the film. Let's hope the Franco brothers are up to the task.
You should rewatch The Room to brush up on your knowledge or at least read my article. Until then, I'll just leave this here.
Bryan Cranston can act in a great range of roles. Besides his obvious stellar work on Breaking Bad, he was truly hilarious on Malcolm in the Middle. He's also had a turn in war in Saving Private Ryan and the legal side of crime in The Lincoln Lawyer. Recently, he even teamed up with Ben Affleck for the critically acclaimed, real-world, high stakes con movie, Argo. However, one of his lesser known but most shocking roles has been as the villain Twinman in the classic 90s children's show: Might Morphin Power Rangers. He just did the voice, of course, but the clip is still genuinely funny if you imagine Heisenberg delivering the lines. If you're a true fan with a few extra minutes go back and watch the full episode. MMPR was a staple of many a' kid's childhood.
The Emmy's weren't a huge surprise this year, generally speaking. Breaking Bad won Drama Lead Actor, Drama Supporting Actress, Drama Supporting Actor, Drama Writing (for Ozymandias), and obviously Drama Series overall. True Detective managed to snag Drama Director, but that's about it.
I'm guessing it didn't take long for HBO executives to start pointing fingers about whose idea it was to submit True Detective as a Drama, not a Mini-Series. At the very least, Matthew McConaughey should've been mad he was denied his well-deserved Emmy for Rust Cohle, especially because he almost certainly won't have another chance to win with that character.
In Comedy, Louie took home Best Writing, and Modern Family generously got Best Comedy Series, Supporting Actor and Director. Julia Louis-Dreyfus received her well-deserved Emmy for Best Actress. All was well, except...
As a strange insult to every other talented person in the Best Comedy Actor category, Matt LeBlanc, Ricky Gervais, Don Cheadle, Louis f-ing C.K., and William H. Macy, Jim Parsons won, again. The man responsible for the, hands down least funny, most annoying, catch-phrase having, cringe inducing, did I say unfunny, character on television right now won. It's generally good to make an effort to separate dislike of a character from the actor portraying them (Anna Gunn for example, seems like a lovely person even though Skylar became pretty unbelievable by the end of Breaking Bad). However, in the case of Jim Parsons, I make an exception. His unbelievable greed for 90 million goddamn dollars a year cost him any benefit of the doubt he had left. I don't often say this, but I think after my experience in school plays for a few years, I could create a better character than Bazinga-man has.
So the Emmy's were relatively, and in one case unfortunately, predictable. A disappointing side-effect of True Detective and Breaking Bad is that Game of Thrones got shut out this year. It's hard to disagree with any decision but I hate to see such a good show not recognized. It's too bad the Emmys don't have an honorable mention category.
In their never-ending quest to completely take over all things on-screen, the good people over at Netflix recently released another original show. It's called BoJack Horseman, and it throws a lot at you. First of all, the show is set in a world where animals are all functioning members of society, equal and completely similar to humans. As important as this sounds, it's not often a source of conflict or plot development, so I won't dwell on it. The titular character is the washed-up former star of a cheesy but successful 90s' sitcom. He's a rich, self-involved, and ultimately lonely person (well...horse, but whatever).
The plot structure of BoJack Horseman covers some fairly familiar ground. The ideas of the washed up former celebrity, his lazy roommate who's there to relieve emotional tension, disappointed ex-wife/girlfriend who our protagonist pretends to hate but is secretly infatuated with... they're all there.
However, what it lacks in overall originality, the show makes up for in style. There are a plethora of excellent actors that have lent their voices to the program. Will Arnett plays BoJack superbly, invoking a great range of emotions smoothly. Aaron Paul, fresh from his Breaking Bad success, has dived into a whole different genre where he also excels playing the roommate, Todd. Patton Oswalt makes frequent appearances as several characters on the show. Patton's an excellent stand-up, but more and more it seems like he was made for voice acting. The frantic desperation he lends his characters is hilarious on an H. Jon Benjamin level.
Speaking of Mr. Benjamin, it is clear from the start that the BoJack Horseman writers love Archer. The show has already shown a tendency towards effectively employing running jokes. At one point, a character is dating Andrew Garfield and he, to the amazement of only Todd, consistently displays the same characteristics of the infamous lasagna-loving, monday-hating cat. As the parallels pile up and Todd gets more and more incredulous that only he seems to notice, the joke gets better.
In that same episode, characters often refer to "Adam Levine's Halloween party" in relation to various extreme occurrences. We're never told exactly what happened at the infamous party, but that's the point. Every time it's used in reference to an event, it become less of a descriptor and more of a joke. A joke that keeps getting funnier.
BoJack's animation is presented in a lovely, intentionally-crude fashion. It is a refreshing departure from other animated comedies on the air today which are nice to look at, but insist on being a little too crisp. The semi-inconsistent outlines are reminiscent of Home Movies, if that means anything to anyone (if not, read this).
In short, BoJack Horseman is an overall predictable show that is filled with talent and creativity. You might not love it, but BoJack is worth the watch. It certainly might improve with season 2, and we could be looking at a hit. Or not. I'm hoping for the former and giving it an tentative B+.
One other thing in BoJack's favor: it has a kick ass theme song produced by The Black Keys.
