The Fighter

I hate the phrase "selling out," but when I see what directors like Darren Aronofsky and David O. Russell are doing (or, in Aronofsky's case, are going to do), I get concerned. Russell has been a prickly helmer in the past, getting into shouting matches with George Clooney and Lily Tomlin. Whatever his work ethic, films like I Heart Huckabee's and Three Kings are singular experiences. I can't tell you that I fully understood I Heart Huckabee's, but I'm glad I saw it. Russell's next film will apparently be an adaption of a video game called Uncharted, starring Mark Wahlberg, Robert De Niro, and Joe Pesci. The latter two in a scene together should be interesting, but then the word about those scenes between De Niro and Harvey Keitel in Little Fockers wasn't too hot. The main problem is this: David O. Russell's directing a video-game adaptation? Of course, he's following up on The Fighter, a conventional film made a little less so simply by how energetic Russell's direction is.

Wahlberg stars as real-life boxer Micky Ward, a guy who'd love to be the champion but is being dragged down by his insane, deluded family. The film opens with Ward walking around Lowell, Massachusetts, his hometown, with his older brother, Dickie (Christian Bale, in an outsized enough yet exciting performance that's sure to get him Oscar heat). Dickie is being followed by an HBO documentary crew doing a piece about how crack addiction ruins people. Dickie thinks it's a documentation of his comeback to boxing (his high point was fighting Sugar Ray Leonard in the 1970s), and no one in his family wants to tell him the truth, or even wants to realize the truth. While the story--of how Micky is encouraged by his new girlfriend and his father to move away from his brother's and mother's influence if he wants to be a champ--is compelling, it also demands that I sit for two hours and watch some truly obnoxious people ruin a nice, if passive, guy.

The performances and direction are fine, if frequently calling attention to themselves. The issue is that the script is either so ridiculously contrived to make me furious, or the writers felt too beholden to what happened in real life to change anything for the movie. Not knowing anything about Ward's life and career, I can't tell you whether it's the former or latter here, but based on the clip of the real Micky and Dickie that appears during the end credits (proving how accurate Bale is in the film), I'm concerned that the writers were too worried about staying true to what happened. It's not a bad idea, but sometimes, the truth is so frustrating and convoluted that it's better to just make something up for what's already going to be intended as a heartwarming crowd-pleaser.

I'm at a bit of a loss to discuss The Fighter further, not because it's bad, but because I'm left a bit cold by it. I try not to go into movies with exorbitant expectations, so even though I know going into watching this movie (or The King's Speech, which I'll finally see tomorrow) that it has Oscar buzz and lots of critical raves, I try to watch the movie on its own merits. So I'm left with a well-made, if somewhat forgettable, boxing movie here. I can see why The Fighter is winning over Academy voters, and there are movies this year that I found more overrated by some critics (The Kids Are All Right is at the top of that list). But I know when a movie works for me, and when a movie just feels distant. The Fighter kept me at a distance from beginning to end. Some elements worked (Bale, Amy Adams in her best performance yet, and Melissa Leo playing a monstrous mother very well), some were just OK (Wahlberg does himself no favors by playing such a weak character, but is fine), and some are pointless (anyone need to tell me why the seven sisters exist in the film? Waste of space). I was hoping to be won over by The Fighter, and was left with nothing. So here's hoping for Uncharted...I guess.

Tron: Legacy

Anything I say about Tron: Legacy needs to be preceded by a lengthy and loud round of applause for the marketing team at Walt Disney Pictures. To a very small group of people, making a sequel to Tron sounds like a great idea. What with the proliferation of the Internet in so many various ways, especially the concept that people reinvent themselves so completely online, following up on the Steven Lisberger film from 1982 that touched on these thoughts seems obvious. And, hey, Jeff Bridges just won an Oscar. He's back in a big way. However, the idea of making a sequel to a barely remembered Disney live-action film from the early 1980s is, on its face, insane. While Bridges is certainly doing well in this stage of his career, he's not a guaranteed box-office draw, and the most memorable thing about Tron to some people is that it's the reason for a great Treehouse of Horror gag ("Has anyone here seen Tron?" "No." "No." "No." "No." "Yes. Oh, I mean, no.").

Making a sequel to a movie from so long ago, a movie that so few people in the target demographic have even heard of, is borderline idiotic. That I wanted to see this movie--and I did--without having seen a single second of footage of the film in my lifetime is cause for celebration for Disney marketing, I'm sure. Mind you, if you watch Tron: Legacy with no prior knowledge of its predecessor, you won't be baffled. The plot is about as convoluted as most science-fiction or action-adventure stories, but the basics of the story are easy enough to pick up. In some ways, that is the biggest problem with Tron: Legacy. At best, it is a mishmash of every popular genre film of the past 40 years. Flashes of Star Wars (though with some fight scenes where the people involved look like they're holding actual lightsabers, it can be more than flashes), Batman Begins, throw in some Joseph Campbell, and you have something close to what Tron: Legacy looks like at its finest, which isn't that great. At its worst, Tron: Legacy is something truly dangerous for any tentpole blockbuster: dull.

So much about the movie could have worked, even if it dredged up familiar ideas. We open in 1989, with Sam Flynn, a tween, being told about the Grid, a virtual world created by Sam's father, Kevin (Bridges). Sam wants to go to the Grid, just like his dad, but before he can, Kevin disappears. Sam grows up into a loner who lives in a studio apartment that looks like a mini-warehouse and plays pranks on the company Kevin was the head of before he vanished, ENCOM. He's able to do so because he's also very rich; ENCOM is wildly successful and Sam is the chief shareholder, despite not wanting to have anything to do with the company. One night, Kevin's friend and ENCOM board member Alan (Bruce Boxleitner, reprising his role from the original film) informs Sam that he was paged at Kevin's old arcade, which has been out of commission for decades. Sam investigates, and by tapping out a few keystrokes, he's sucked into the world of the Grid. Once there, he's riding on lightcycles, fighting for his life with his identity disc, and discovering that the Grid is run by a physical version of Kevin's younger self, called Clu, while the real Kevin lives on the outskirts of the Grid with a pretty young woman who falls for Sam.

I haven't even gotten to the crux of the film, and I'm already nodding off a bit. Nothing about Tron: Legacy works as well as it should. There's a stunning lack of humor in the film, not just because the film takes itself very seriously, but also because what accounts for humor is just a lot of weak one-liners. How do we fix this? Well, Michael Sheen shows up for about 10 minutes and acts like a mix of Ziggy Stardust and Jack Sparrow, and there you are. Sheen is, at least, having plenty of fun, which is more than I could say for the lead of the film, Garrett Hedlund. I'd heard that Hedlund, who plays the adult Sam, was a complete charisma vacuum here, and I didn't end up seeing him as that bad of a performer. However, he just felt very disengaged. Of course, that's as much his fault as it is the director's and the writers' (Joseph Kosinski and Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz, respectively). While the majority of the visual effects are, if not unparalleled, really cool to look at, the story is uninteresting at its best moments.

Buckets of money were thrown at this film's look, and for the most part, it pays off. Kosinski makes his debut here, and knows how to provide interesting imagery. His work doesn't have enough of a distinctive mark to keep me excited for his next project, but there are far worse directors in the business. Kitsis and Horowitz, straight off of writing on Lost, create a similar combination of familiar tropes and idioms, but forgot to include compelling characters. The reason why Lost worked wasn't always the story, it was the characters stuck in that story. Sam Flynn, Kevin Flynn, Clu, Quorra (the love interest, essentially, not the "warrior" Olivia Wilde wants to dub her), and others should have been drawn better, given more heft and dimension. There's more excitement to be had in listening to the Daft Punk score for the film; not being too familiar with the band, I can't say where it stands with their other work, but it's the most flawless element of the movie.

The most glaring element of Tron: Legacy that does not work is Jeff Bridges. Now, in his current, elder state, Bridges is OK. For one reason or another, he's given to randomly talking like he's an old hippie, which is meant to be character-building. It doesn't work, and Bridges almost seems to struggle with the "radical" dialogue. The real misstep comes with Clu, also played by Bridges. While I give him credit for attempting such versatility, the fault lays with the people behind the supposedly groundbreaking effect of having a young and old Bridges in the same film, even interacting in one scene. Clu looks creepy. He looks creepier than anything Robert Zemeckis ever concocted for his motion-capture films, not just because of the so-called "uncanny valley" effect, but because Clu's lips look like dead slugs, not like human lips. Every other "program" in the Grid is played by an actual person. Clu is not a person. He's a creepy projection of what Bridges might have looked like in the 1980s.

There are other problems in the film (why hire Cillian Murphy to play the villain of the sequel for the original, and just have him say a few lines at the beginning?), but Tron: Legacy fails because it wants to be a 21st-century franchise for all the kids who didn't grow up with the original Star Wars films, but isn't able to provide enough action, intrigue, or lovable characters to make me demand a repeat journey. Also, even though it seems obvious that Disney wanted Tron to be a new franchise, I genuinely have no idea what they'd have done. Spoiler alert: the bad guys die at the end of this one. The Grid is safe again. The guy gets the girl. Where else do you go from here? Final note: the 3-D in the film should have been great. But the film takes place in such physically dark places that the technology is almost useless. I don't want to say I literally could not see some scenes in the film, but...it came real close. Considering that this movie was shot in 3-D, I was surprised and disappointed that the technology was a waste of time and money. I have no idea if Walt Disney Pictures was thrilled with the box-office performance of the film (my guess: they were just OK with it), but they should give their marketing team a big, fat bonus for pulling the wool over everyone's eyes.

The Best of 2010: True Grit

It's rare for a director to be able to do what he or she wants all the time and get a sizable enough audience to watch their work. Most directors have to lower their standards, for at least one film, to get what they want done. A great example is Steven Soderbergh, one of the most independent directors in the country. He's made some unique movies, including a two-part epic about Che Guevara, a slowly paced remake of a Russian science-fiction film, and a 90-minute slice-of-life drama featuring no trained actors. He's also the capable helmer of the Ocean's trilogy of heist movies. Soderbergh can, almost like flipping a switch, change from being a studio director to being a personal director very quickly.

By now, most of the singular directors from the 1990s are becoming more ensconced in the studio system. David Fincher, two years ago, directed what was--to me, mind you--essentially a new version of Forrest Gump and was clearly most interested in the visual aspects of the story, as opposed to the story itself. This year, he directed the superlative The Social Network. It's a great movie, but with the notable exception of the greatest digital effect to ever appear in a movie (that would be making one actor--Armie Hammer--into twin brothers), Fincher's directorial stamp isn't as evident as in past works. David O. Russell, a notoriously unfriendly director, helmed The Fighter (still not seen by me), a movie which, by all counts, looks pretty conventional. While Darren Aronofsky just directed the amazing Black Swan, his next project is the next movie about Wolverine from X-Men.

Some directors have merged sensibilities--Christopher Nolan makes mainstream successes out of very complex projects--but only a few directors have escaped the studio system up until now. So it's pretty weird to watch True Grit, the latest film from Joel and Ethan Coen, the writing and directing duo who brought us Fargo, No Country For Old Men, Raising Arizona, and other quirky, inventive, film-buff-ready movies. True Grit, despite a few very weird touches (one such instance made more than a few other audience members actually say, "What the fuck?"), is the most mainstream, conventional film the Coens have ever made. I wouldn't say this is a serious concern for anyone worrying that these two have finally sold out. But by and large, partly because of the source material they've chosen, True Grit is a movie that mass audiences can get behind, and...it's also for the whole family.

Yeah, a Coen movie for the whole family sounds weird, but there it is. Not only is the movie, appropriately, rated PG-13, but it's a movie that kids would probably get a kick out of. I haven't read the Charles Portis novel that the film is based on, but either the Coens completely changed it to fit their sensibilities--though to a very minimal extent--or they're a perfect fit. I'm guessing it's the latter. The plot is not just simple for the Coens, it's just simple. Again, no complaining here, but there aren't nearly as many complications here as there have been in previous films. Mattie Ross is a 14-year old girl who's traveled to Fort Smith, Arkansas to collect the remains of her recently murdered father and exact revenge on the man who killed him. For the latter, she enlists a drunken, mean, grumpy U.S. Marshal to bring the murderer to justice, and is accompanied by a Texas Ranger who's also on the hunt for the killer, though for a different crime.

In some ways, working with source material that isn't as complex as their previous films gives the Coens full measure to have a lot of fun in creating a great Western in the 21st century that hearkens back to the Westerns from Howard Hawks and John Ford. Though their touch isn't as clear as in their previous works, the Coens work magic once again with their cinematographer, Roger Deakins (who has never won an Oscar, which is insane), to create yet another beautiful, spare, yet expansive vision of the Midwest just after the Civil War ended. Most notably, the film reunites the Coens with Jeff Bridges, who played the title role in 1998's The Big Lebowski, a very funny shaggy-dog take on the film noir. Bridges is light-years away from The Dude here, bringing to life Rooster Cogburn, the grouchy lawman who Mattie sees as the man for the job, because people tell her he has "true grit," the kind of no-nonsense quality that will make him unsympathetic to any criminal. Bridges can add Cogburn to the list of his memorable characters; Cogburn manages to seem singular in being drunk, but also being very clever.

The adults in this movie, though, all kind of play second fiddle to Hailee Steinfeld, the newcomer who portrays Mattie, the ostensible lead character of the film. Mattie is a humorless, unemotional, determined, and dogged character and Steinfeld possesses those qualities in earnest. In a key moment early on, proving how much she refuses to be left behind on the journey, Mattie has to ride her horse across a river; there's never a moment there or anywhere else in the film that rings false for Steinfeld. The story of how the Coens found her--the old "thousands of kids auditioned for the role, and here's who we cast" tale--isn't surprising, but it's genuinely charming to watch Steinfeld face off with Bridges, Matt Damon, Josh Brolin, and character actor Dakin Matthews (her confrontation with the latter in the first 20 minutes is a high point) and get the better of all of them.

It should come as no surprise that Damon and Brolin are great here, though the latter isn't in that much of the movie. Damon plays La Boeuf (pronounced "La Beef"), the arrogant young Texas Ranger who assumes that his way is the best, even if he hasn't thought things through. His constant bickering with Cogburn provides plenty of humor throughout the middle portion of the film. What's best about the film--aside from the many excellent sequences, including a climax that is just what you want from a good, old-fashioned Western--is that there's never any spelling out. We know by the end of the film that La Boeuf and Cogburn see Mattie as an adult, just like either of them. We never need to be told this, but we just know it. We know that the movie is about Mattie growing up into the mature middle-aged woman who narrates the film's opening and ending scenes. But we don't need to be told so.

Again, that may be partly thanks to the source material, but the Coens are smart enough to assume the audience is intelligent. One easy pitfall the movie avoids is making Cogburn a very obvious father figure for Mattie, who may want one after losing her real dad. Cogburn performs heroic acts in the film, but there's never anything melodramatic about these deeds. They are as plain and clear as he is. True Grit may not be the best film the Coens have ever made--and some people may have hoped that, with Bridges and Brolin returning to work with the directors, it would be--but it is the most entertaining and cinematic, following in a long line of truly filmic works. If anything, the best thing I can say about True Grit is that the Coen brothers have finally made a genre film without mocking its conventions. Instead of openly skewering Westerns, the Coens have made a rollicking and exciting addition to the canon.

Missing The Forest For The Trees

It's almost Christmas time, which means it's time to go to the movies. I'm very excited to check out a few movies over the break, including The King's Speech, True Grit, The Fighter, Tron, and maybe a second look at Black Swan. We'll see about the last one, but the first four are guaranteed. I can only hope they live up to or past the hype. But as the holiday approaches, I wanted to share my bafflement at the mere existence of a few pieces of entertainment, including one notable exception that is making huge news while being on the stage.

How does a movie like Yogi Bear exist? I was listening to the awesome Comedy Death-Ray Radio podcast earlier this week, and one of the many guests for the show's Christmas episode was Andy Daly, a sly and funny improviser who may be best known for his role on Eastbound and Down. Daly was playing the character of a grizzled old stage veteran known for directing the Rockette show every year in New York, and squeezed a lot of blood from the "I'm a horny old man" stone. At the end of the show, as it always goes, the guests plugged whatever shows, movies, and so on they would appear in the near future. Daly's character ceded his time to Daly, and he said "Go see Yogi Bear," but for one reason or another, was unable to say it without laughing. That moment was, I'm guessing, going to be the funniest thing about the movie. (Also worth noting is that he said on Twitter that he's fine if people see it ironically.)

No one is going to see Yogi Bear expecting a classic of film, or even a classic of the genre. But why is it being made? "To make money, Josh. Did you just become aware of this?" Yes, I know, movies need to make money. That's the point. Who thought this movie would ever make money? "Let's see, how do we get the kids into the movies this Christmas?" "Well, how about turning Yogi Bear into a movie?" "Yogi Bear? The cartoon from the 1960s?" "Yeah, and let's get Dan Aykroyd to do the voice! Worked out so well for Bill Murray and Garfield!" What kid knows who Yogi Bear is? What adult is going to want to see a movie filled with artless pratfalls, scatalogical humor, and shitty computer animation? That this movie has made over 20 million dollars speaks to how bored people are that they can't just see something else, or not see a movie.

One can only hope for the same low grosses for Gulliver's Travels. Here again is a movie based on a product most kids aren't aware of. Some kids might know the image of a regular-sized man being tied to the ground by very tiny people, but that's about it. I give Fox a tiny bit of credit here, though. The executives must have been aware of this, so they got Jack Black as the lead and updated the story to modern times. Black may not be as daring and sneaky as he was a decade ago, but he's made lots of money in family-friendly films. But does anyone need to see this movie? The studio is clearly aware of how bad the movie is going to do, by moving the release date from December 22 (you know, today) to Christmas Day, giving them only a two-day weekend. Whatever else happens, the movie's not going to break out huge this weekend, because it'll have two days. There's a chance--small, mind you--that the crazy rush known as Black Swan will do better.

Whoever thought Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark was a good idea? Bringing Julie Taymor back to Broadway to direct a musical is a good idea. Bringing Bono and the Edge to write music and lyrics for a Broadway show is a good idea. Hell, I'd be willing to say that making a musical out of Spider-Man is...a unique idea. I still don't think it'd be any more interesting had the show not been plagued by myriad issues, injuries, etc., but the idea is somewhat different than everything else. But it's time to stop. When you have to implement a safety plan that consists of more than one person making sure that a harness holding a grown man over a 30-foot precipice more than 2 weeks into the show being performed for paying audiences, you have some serious problems. The problem isn't that the safety plan isn't actually a safety plan, it's that no one realized that, yes, having lots of people confirm that a guy won't break his ribs and do so in front of people with camera phones is a really smart and obvious idea.

Even if this was the first incident, how could this "plan" not have been put into effect already? And since this WASN'T the first incident, how did no one decide to go down the route of extra caution? On the one hand, reading people freak out that someone is going to die while performing the show is a bit silly. But then again, when you read about broken wrists, concussions, broken ribs, and internal bleeding, maybe there's something to the freak-out. Someone, obviously, could die. Reading Taymor's official statement about the injury from Monday night just makes me scratch my head; is she not aware of how serious an issue this is? The show's already ridiculously expensive, and you gotta think that a lot of people buying tickets now are almost doing so just so they can say they saw the eighth stuntman break his neck.

Isn't that a great way to wish you a happy holiday? Of course not, but seriously, have a happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate. I hope you get lots of cool presents.

The Best of 2010: Parks and Recreation

People have short memories. It's hard to believe, for example, that 2010 is still the year of Conan O'Brien's career ending on NBC. It's been 11 months since the final episode of his version of The Tonight Show, but it feels a lot longer. In further nostalgia, Lost ended in 2010. In some reductive way, doesn't it feel like it's been years since we last saw Jack Shephard, John Locke, Ben Linus, and everyone else? My point here is that some of the best TV in 2010 came way before the summer. Party Down, Better Off Ted, Dollhouse, and even some shows that aren't actually canceled made the rounds in the late winter and early spring, and one truly notable program is coming back very soon, thankfully.

If Parks and Recreation had aired more episodes in the calendar year, I'd be hard-pressed to know whether this show or Community was the better NBC show, or the better comedy, period. As it stands, there were only 12 episodes of Parks and Recreation aired in 2010, while Community had far more, and has grown as exponentially in its first season and a half almost as much as Parks and Rec (for short, to its fans) did in its second season. This Office-style sitcom had its work cut out for it; the ads pretty much promised The Office starring Amy Poehler as the Michael Scott character. What's more, the show featured Rashida Jones, previously of The Office, and there was even the potential for a Jim/Pam relationship between Jones' nurse Ann and Paul Schneider's Mark Brendanowicz. What went wrong in the first season is that the show had no consistent tone. There were flashes of potential, but very few strong episodes or even storylines. I have no idea what happened in between seasons one and two, aside from the writers being more focused, but it paid off.

As a season, Parks and Recreation's second goes alongside the first season of Arrested Development and the second season of its spiritual predecessor, The Office, as one of the best seasons of a comedy series in the past decade, at least on network television. Leslie Knope, the deputy director of the Pawnee, Indiana Parks and Recreation department, was no longer a one-dimensional, blinded obsessive focused on unattainable goals. Her superior, Ron Swanson, was less of a Dwight Schrute mimic and a more fully formed and fully realized breakout character. If there was a flaw with the season (and a minute one, to be fair), it was the Mark/Ann relationship. In the six episodes that comprised the first season, Ann was part of the main group of characters because of a literal pit that Leslie wanted to transform into a local park. Ann lived next to the pit and wanted the project to move forward, especially since it would give her something to do aside from avoiding her current layabout boyfriend, Andy. Once she and Andy broke up, and the pit got filled, what purpose did she serve?

Now, being a fan of Rashida Jones, I didn't want to see her go, but the writers didn't give her a lot of material, aside from a hilarious setpiece where she and Poehler pretended to be on a date to soothe Leslie's jangled nerves. The third season, which begins on January 20 (and since the show's on Netflix Instant, you have zero excuses for not watching), has jettisoned Brendanowicz as a character; while Schneider was a nice counterpoint to the insanity going on in the show, he served even less of a purpose, since Jones was more charismatic and had better chemistry with the other performers. In Schneider's place are Adam Scott and Rob Lowe, who entered the series at the end of last season as state-government fixers in town to perform a complete upheaval of the Pawnee government, including the Parks and Recreation department. Whatever ends up happening to the main cast--also including Aziz Ansari, Aubrey Plaza, Nick Offerman, and the wild Chris Pratt--know that Parks and Recreation has become as strong a comedy as The Office ever was.

Why has this show not done as well as other NBC programs? Part of this is thanks to NBC deciding to give the series a break so Outsourced could air after The Office this fall. When the show returns, it will air after The Office (featuring Steve Carell in his final episodes) for the first time, and now is the best time to check it out. If you watched the first season, you may be feeling trepidation. "Wasn't this the show that tried and failed to be another Office?" Yes, it did try and fail. What Parks and Recreation has become is a whole new beast, a show that keeps some of the familiar awkwardness with moments of great, gut-busting humor while keeping fresh all the time. It's an exciting time for comedy, because there are mere days until the return of NBC's most assured entry in the genre in quite some time. Get ready. Parks and Recreation is back, and hopefully better than ever.

The Best of 2010: Mad Men

Nowadays, saying that Mad Men is a great television series, arguably the best in the medium, is a cliche. In the same way that people bestowed praise on The Sopranos (a show for which this program's creator, Matthew Weiner, wrote), they're doing the same for this 1960s'-set drama taking place in the world of advertising in New York City. By not having HBO for so long, and almost wanting to avoid the hype, I always got a little annoyed at the fact that every year at the Emmys, The Sopranos would walk away with some gold. With Mad Men, I get kind of crushed if it doesn't win. Now I know what it's like to watch one of the hip shows, one of the zeitgeist-y shows.

But none of that matters. There are some shows that tap the zeitgeist that I just don't get. I loathe Glee, and I've been in and out of intrigue with True Blood, a show whose first season was probably the best it's ever going to be at attempting to visualize the trashy novel you read at the beach on vacation. But Mad Men, despite getting numbers that would be anemic on any broadcast network (The Walking Dead, AMC's new series, got more than twice the viewers on a given night), is a seriously brilliant TV series. The stories are usually compelling, though some are more intriguing than others (but isn't that how it always is?). What works so well with this show is twofold: the performances (and, in connection, the multilayered characters) and the unexpected bouts of humor.

That the show is a visual feast should go without saying by this point. A show about the 1960s, set in the era, featuring very specific references, doesn't work if it doesn't look the part. OK, it might survive for a while if the ratings are high enough, but critics wouldn't go crazy for a show that fails at being an accurate portrait of the decade. So, yeah, this show is visually sumptuous. But that's almost the norm now; I can't praise the show for doing what it always does so well, because...it does it so, so well without ever trying to show off. In each season, including the fourth (possibly the best of the series so far, but I don't know for sure), the acting has been top-notch. The first season introduced pretty much everyone to Jon Hamm, the square-jawed prototypical male known as Don Draper. Draper is, through his actions, a spectacularly unlikable person. He's not Walt from Breaking Bad, but his charm belies his mostly horrendous deeds. Adultery is like second nature to Don; it's not that, at least originally, he doesn't love his wife. He does love her. But she only has one part of his heart, and he needs some satisfaction. Hamm manages, by being so charming and intelligent in his choices, to make Don a compelling antihero we still want to root for.

Hamm is one part of the excellent ensemble, though. There's Elisabeth Moss, as Peggy Olson; Moss and Olson have grown so much over the first four seasons that it's kind of shocking to see how much she's grown since the first episode, when she was a bright-eyed new secretary. The times have changed, and in "The Suitcase," a mid-season duet between Don and Peggy, Moss has moments of high and low emotion (and Hamm gets to shout the immortal comeback, "THAT'S WHAT THE MONEY IS FOR!"). Only after three-plus seasons, as other critics have pointed out, could this episode even exist, let alone work as well as it does. John Slattery, Rich Sommer, Jared Harris, and more have all been excellent, trying to keep Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce together as an agency while trying to contain or maintain Don as an employee, not just a force of nature. It's hard not to see the ensemble of Mad Men as the best television has had to offer in many years, if only because there are so many actors on the show, and they never fail. Even January Jones, whose character is almost thankless to play, does an excellent job of playing a child in an adult's clothing, as Don's frustrated ex-wife. Finally, Kiernan Shipka, as Don's oldest child, Sally, was amazing this season. Shipka had to play so many different notes; child actors can be so awkward, but at no point does Shipka's performance ring false.

Last, the humor. It's hard for a person's death and the aftermath to induce gales of laughter, but I dare you to not laugh your head off at the dark, dark humor surrounding the shocking death of Miss Blankenship, the secretary installed at Don's office after dire circumstances cause him to need someone at his desk who won't tempt him sexually. Blankenship is, in fitting the description, decrepit. Her death is sudden, and the frantic attempts by the office folk to hide her from a prospective client is great silent comedy punctuated by the following line: "That's my mother's!" This is the kind of dry wit that permeates Mad Men, a show that manages to balance the blackest drama with even the tiniest bit of a laugh, just to alleviate things, to give us a moment to breathe. The fifth season of Mad Men should be coming sometime next year, and I eagerly await its return. When it's on, and when it's off, it maintains its hold on being the best show on television.

The Best of 2010: Black Swan

It's odd that an ostensible ballet movie should be exhilarating, but there you go. Of course, Black Swan is many things, but it's not always just a ballet movie. If The Wrestler, the previous film from this film's director, Darren Aronofsky, is a film set in the world of wrestling while not being an in-depth portrayal of its ins and outs, so it goes for Black Swan and ballet. What beauties and wonders there are to behold in this film, a propulsive descent into madness that ranks as Aronofsky's finest film, thanks in no small part to an excellent and dazzling lead performance from Natalie Portman.

Portman's real-life career could easily mirror that of the lead character in Black Swan, Nina Sayers. Sayers is a young ingenue at a nameless but highly prestigious ballet company in New York City, and it's implied at the beginning of the film that she's been toiling in the background for a long time while being exceptional in her technical proficiency. Lucky for her that the director of the ballet, Thomas, is opening the new season with a production of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, the dark fairy tale where a beautiful, virginal princess is turned into a swan and watches as her beloved prince is seduced by a black swan. Nina can perform the White Swan in her sleep, but can she pull off the role of the Black Swan? Can she push aside her innocence while maintaining her perfectionist streak? What's with the new girl in the company, who not only kind of looks like her but appears to be flirting with her or trying to sabotage her? And what are those scratches on her shoulder that keep getting worse and worse?

The theme of questioning reality has been predominant in film for many years, but there's almost been an explosion of it in 2010, what with such notable films as Shutter Island and Inception (though this one, of course, has no role for Leonardo DiCaprio). There's something much different about Black Swan, a movie that manages to be consistently daring and shocking, while never straying from the little details and clues that are very clear to see, if you're looking for them. Of course, the whole point of the film is misdirection and Aronofsky, through his fluid direction and subtly fast pace, is able to obfuscate what's going on. This is not meant as a criticism, but more proof that the marriage of director and story are better here than anything else Aronofsky's done.

Unlike The Wrestler, Black Swan never stops moving, just like Nina in her climactic spin around the stage before her Black Swan falls to her death. In the moment, nothing really falls apart, because you're so caught up in Nina's struggle. She's fighting most against herself and her mind, but she fights with her mother (Barbara Hershey), a stage mother to end stage mothers. Nina's mother gave up her career to be the mother of a great ballet dancer, and her desperation has frayed her very face and her patience to their edges. All around Nina infuse her with fear and paranoia. What's her mother really want? What does Thomas want, a great performance on the stage or a great performance in bed? Who is Lily (Mila Kunis) and why is she trying to destroy her chances at fame? At all turns, Nina is beset upon by her own weaknesses, but in attempting to overcome them, she destroys herself.

You have seen Natalie Portman before, but you have never seen her like this. I don't know what I was expecting from this film, but for some reason, I was truly blown away by her galvanic, go-for-broke acting here. Letting every minute feeling wash over her face and register in every pore, Portman is honest, open, and frightening as someone who just wants to be perfect. Hershey, Kunis, and Vincent Cassel (as the ballet company director) are all fine here, but it's Portman's show and Aronofsky does her every possible favor by having her appear on screen for just about every single second. We're never away from Nina; even if she's not literally on screen, chances are that what we're seeing is through her point of view.

Black Swan has its roots in the arthouse, but it also has roots in pulp fiction, in horror, in B-movie trash. The word lurid is an appropriate one to describe this film, but it's a compliment. Black Swan is a boiling brew of every horror-movie trope, every portrait-of-an-artist cliche, and Aronofsky revels in every possible outcome. For some people, Black Swan is not going to work. I can see that. Some people are going to come to geek out at watching two beautiful young women have sex (and those people, in that specific scene, will probably not be disappointed), and some people are going to expect an austere ballet movie. Black Swan, like all great movies, asks you to submit to its pleasures almost instantaneously. There's not a point halfway through where you'll realize you're hooked; you'll probably know from the beginning, even if you're not as in love with the film as I was. Black Swan is a fascinating, absorbing, and thrilling ride, and one of the very best films of 2010.

The Best of 2010: The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus

There will come a day when Blu-ray discs are thought of as old hat in the same way that we now consider videotapes and will soon consider DVDs. Of course, when that day comes, it won't be a day for mourning, but there is part of me that wonders how much better the quality of an image can get. I'm not foolish enough to think that there are even further lengths to which we can improve colors, lighting, and so on. That said, Blu-rays seem to have opened our eyes up in such a way that future technology can seemingly only dream of. Two examples of the format at its best were released this summer from the Criterion Collection, now reissuing some of its older releases in the exponentially worthy Blu-ray: The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus.

I rarely buy DVDs and Blu-ray discs (I do still consider buying the former, it's true) without first having seen the movie or TV show, but the few times that it's happened, I've mostly found myself on the winning side of things. Most of you probably haven't seen either The Red Shoes or Black Narcissus, two of the great British films of all time--well, scratch that, two of the best films of all time, period. More people have over the years, partly thanks to Martin Scorsese publicly embracing the works of the filmmakers behind these films, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. Back when they made films in Great Britian, they were known as the Archers, having made other classics like A Matter of Life and Death and The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp. All four of these films are excellent, but the Blu-ray transfers of both The Red Shoes (which is getting lots of name-checks with the recent release of Black Swan, a film which at least has been somewhat influenced by the older film) and Black Narcissus are remarkable.

What makes the transfer so notable and so welcome is that here are two older films that may not be as well-known in their use of color by the masses as, say, The Wizard of Oz or Gone with the Wind, but deserve the upgrade anyway. Chronologically, Black Narcissus comes first, having been released in 1947. The Red Shoes came the year afterwards, and their shared, dynamic, and breathtaking use of color remain as vital today as they did in the 1940s. I've waxed rhapsodic about the two films previously on this blog, but make no mistake: you may not find the prospect of a movie about nuns or a movie about ballet exciting, but you should ignore the little voice casting such doubts. The films are not just marked by compelling, twisted, unique stories, but also by notable performances from Deborah Kerr, Moira Shearer, and Anton Walbrook.

But first and foremost, the color. Oh, the colors in these films. Nuns in India and a ballerina in Europe offer Powell and Pressburger very different, expansive palettes with which to paint. The cinematography in both films, from Jack Cardiff, is frequently jaw-dropping. Consider, when you look at either or both, in their stunning new upgrades, that these movies are from the 1940s. Consider that the bare minimum of effects were used, and they were seamless when utilized. The Criterion Collection is almost always going to live up to your expectations. They do exactly that with The Red Shoes and Black Narcissus. Over 60 years have passed since their releases, and they still hold a shocking power today. Kudos to Criterion for updating both films' discs. Now go check them out.

The Best of 2010: The Social Network

For the most part, the Internet is not exciting. The Internet can be fun, but mostly only if you're playing a game. The Internet can be illuminating, educating, stimulating in various ways, but I rarely consider it exciting. Creating a Web site is tough work, as is maintaining such a site. Creating a social networking site is even tougher and more tech-heavy; even if that site turns out to be Facebook, how much intrigue can there be in its beginnings? The book on which The Social Network, one of the best films of the year, is based is called The Accidental Billionaires. Written by Ben Mezrich, the book details one side of Facebook's creation when there are, of course, many sides to the story. The site's founder and most famous name, Mark Zuckerberg, refused to participate in the book, and who can blame him? Though it's not a very well-done hit piece, the book is still pretty much a hit piece. Who wants to help themselves get taken down?

Billionaires focuses instead on Eduardo Saverin, the young man who was there from the beginning with money to help Zuckerberg make Facebook a reality, but ended up being pushed out as the site expanded to unthinkable heights. Saverin makes an interesting case, but even in the book, which I found alternately compelling and wildly boring, I kept thinking that he didn't have much to complain about. To quote a line from the already-classic screenplay from Aaron Sorkin, "If you were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook." Of course, hindsight is 20/20, but Saverin--pushed out for being too reticent, essentially--comes off as weak-willed even though he was acting this way...ABOUT FACEBOOK. What kind of loony doesn't jump on that opportunity?

The movie kind of has this problem as well, but director David Fincher and Sorkin embrace this, as opposed to just let it slide. No one is a hero in The Social Network; Saverin, Sean Parker, Zuckerberg; all are human, flawed, and all are capable of minor triumphs that give us reason to cheer. Of course, that's mostly thanks to the beauty of the dialogue in the film, which manages to remind us of Sorkin's past work in films and TV while sounding fresh and new. Jesse Eisenberg, in particular, is a gift to dialogue-driven writers. Even more so than in his previous roles, Eisenberg is breathless, hyperactive, nerdy, and perfect as the fictionalized Mark Zuckerberg. While the script jumps fluidly around in time, from before Facebook was even a gleam in his eye to dual depositions after the site went big, Eisenberg is a constant, effortless in his geekily arrogant outlook: he's the smartest man in any room, and doesn't even want to assume he has to deal with anyone who works slower than he does.

Eisenberg's is the performance that stands out even now, though Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, as Parker and Saverin, respectively, are both excellent in divergent roles. Parker is presented here as nothing short of a personification of temptation. Wouldn't it be nice to live in California? All the girls. All the booze. All the connections. Just come with Sean Parker, and look the other way as he gets even more lost in a drug-fueled fantasy built of paranoia. Saverin is the soul of the film, even if that soul gets lost because it shouldn't keep trying to jump off the Facebook train. Garfield gets righteous, he gets indignant, he gets angry, and he still manages to be somewhat unlikable, partly just because he's a dumb college kid who doesn't know how quickly he's grown up.

The Social Network is likely going to get a lot of Oscar nominations, and I'll be honest, if it takes Best Picture, I'll be happy. The film may or may not be a generational milestone, as some critics have claimed. What the movie is is exciting. It's entertaining. It's intense--thanks partly to the score by Trent Reznor, which is awesome in its immense foreboding tones--and it's hilarious. The Social Network manages to be a movie about everything that shouldn't work on film, and is not only an important film but a fun one. Even with the Great Gatsby-esque touches thrown in by Sorkin and Fincher at the end, The Social Network is a truly great piece of cinematic style and entertainment.

The Best of 2010: The 40-Year Old Boy

Everyone loves an underdog. In some ways, nothing is more American than an underdog. Isn't that what this country was built on? The little guy triumphing over seemingly insurmountable odds? One such underdog is Mike Schmidt. No, not the former third baseman of the Philadelphia Phillies (though that is his nickname, for the obvious reasons). No, the Mike Schmidt I'm talking about is the voice behind the best comedy podcast available on iTunes right now, The 40-Year Old Boy. First, let's get something out of the way: there are an insane amount of great comedy podcasts right now. Comedy Death-Ray Radio, Jordan Jesse Go, Never Not Funny, Superego, Stop Podcasting Yourself, The Smartest Man in the World, WTF. The list goes on and on. All of these are hilarious shows you should be listening to. But the premier comic podcast is The 40-Year Old Boy.

The concept is deceptively simple: Schmidt, a stand-up comedian, does a weekly podcast in the kitchen of his producer, burlesque dancer/producer Lili Von Shtupp ("Lili Von Who?" "Von Shtupp." Sorry, can't help myself.). She will laugh boisterously at his self-described "pinwheeling around", he will riff on anything that comes to his mind, and that's the show each week. Simple, but The 40-Year Old Boy is always surprising. Each week, there are a few guarantees. We will hear Mike swear (yes, like most of the great comedy podcasts, this one's explicit, so suck it up, folks). We will hear Lili laugh. We will hear Mike and his friend/podcast artist Mex do fake commercials as bridges in between stories. But, oh, those stories.

The 40-Year Old Boy has been going on for two-plus years. The first two years' worth of shows are available on Mike's website, mikeschmidtcomedy.com, and I would highly urge you to consider buying one or both seasons, after giving a new episode a sample. The money may seem daunting, but the amount of entertainment, funny and caustic, outrageous and realistic, raw and surprisingly emotional, is worth it. What happens to Mike is simply an exaggerated version of your life or mine. I can say with all confidence that I've never wound up just hanging out in a neighbor's house due to some low-grade sneakiness, only to nearly be caught by the neighbor's mother during lunchtime. But Mike has, and his intricately detailed remembrance is not only vivid enough to put you right there with Schmidt's younger self, but it's these little things that end up causing the stories to pack a shocking punch.

Like all of us, Mike Schmidt has highs and lows. His lows, however, can sometimes include goading a douchebag to get into a fist fight....on the freeway. And his highs have included doing a stand-up routine specifically for Quentin Tarantino (who thought he was awesome, by the way). One of the best stories of the show is also one of the most powerful, the most heartbreaking. For those who don't know, Mike used to be one of the co-hosts on Never Not Funny, the fast-paced comic podcast hosted by Jimmy Pardo and Matt Belknap. Mike appeared on the first 60 episodes of the long-running show, but he and Pardo, previously road comics and great friends, had enough of a falling-out that they parted ways as amicably as possible. Fans of Never Not Funny know of the Pard-Cast-A-Thon, a 12-hour event on Black Friday where the comedian does a charity version of the show to raise money and awareness for children suffering from a cleft palate. Last year, Mike relayed in a layered, painful fashion his misbegotten attempt to essentially crash the Pard-Cast-A-Thon. He had good intentions, only wanting to be part of the crowd, and part of him how potentially bad the idea was.

It was hard to listen to, but it was also refreshing. I listen to a lot of podcasts (and, shameless plug, now am part of one, Entertained, which you can find at entertained.podbean.com) and very few feature hosts or guests as willing to cut themselves open and show you everything that can be shown...through audio. Mike Schmidt does this every week, and does so in the most entertaining way possible. He's never shy about his faults, nor is he shy about throwing critiques around to every topic imaginable. His Pard-Cast-A-Thon story was immensely sad, mostly because it was yet another time when all I wanted was for the underdog to triumph. At the end of this story, Mike didn't end up crashing the actual event, but got as close as he could before being warned off by a fellow comedian. What made the story so relatable, so real, is that we've all been there. We've all made decisions we know are bad, dumb, whatever; we make these decisions, and even in the moment, we know they're bad decisions. We've all wanted to be included, and we've all harbored resentment for no good reason (and acknowledged it as such). Schmidt is able to elucidate his feelings so eloquently, so rapidly, and so intelligently on a week-to-week basis that listening to The 40-Year Old Boy is tantamount to the podcast having a good reason to exist.

All of this said, I don't want to lose the main point. What's the main point? A) The 40-Year Old Boy is one of the best podcasts available. B) The 40-Year Old Boy is a wildly hilarious show. One week, he could tell the Pard-Cast-A-Thon story, and the next, he'll tell us all about his experience being a bouncer at an Insane Clown Posse concert (hint: it didn't go well). One week, we'll hear about his experience with Tarantino, and the next, he'll talk about getting his wife's former boss angry at him. Each week, there is but one promise: the 40-Year Old Boy will return with another bracing, brash, and brilliant tale full of insight, incisive wit, and intelligence. Give the show a listen; as I always say with great pieces of entertainment, you do yourself a disservice by not giving it a try.

The Best of 2010: Terriers

Every year, there's at least one show. I assume that TV Guide didn't come up with the phrasing "The Best Show You're Not Watching," but the term applies even more with the proliferation of hundreds of cable channels, various legal and illegal outlets on the Internet, DVRs, and Netflix. Back in the 1990s, a show dubbed the best that no one was watching could often get as many as 8 million viewers. The idea that a show that has 8 million people watching live is something that the proverbial "You" are not watching is quaint; frankly, it was even kind of quaint in the mid-1990s. These days, one of the biggest shows on network TV, one of the most frequently talked-about shows on TV, is The Office. On a good day, it gets 8 million viewers.

With each passing year, though, the term is being bandied about more accurately. Last year, in terms of the actual calendar and the TV season, two notable shows that no one seemed to be watching were Dollhouse and Better Off Ted. These shows, by the end, were struggling to get 3 million people watching live. 2010, however, has a new low in viewership for shows people weren't watching. If you haven't gotten tired of me mentioning Terriers, the FX detective drama that just ended its first season last Wednesday, you may take heart that the show was just canceled. Before I get into why the show was so great, and honor it as one of the best shows on TV in 2010, let's get a couple of things clear.

First, while I wish I could be angry at FX in the same way that I was angry at Fox and ABC for letting Dollhouse and Better Off Ted die (why renew shows you have no interest in marketing?), I can't. The ratings for Terriers were embarrassingly low for pretty much any network. The finale got a grand total of 784,000 viewers, in total, and that made it the show's second-highest-rated episode of 13. There is no question that the network had zero justification to bring back the show if the ratings would stay the same. What's more, FX is fast becoming a network that could dominate the cable world. The quality of its shows are pretty much unparalleled. Terriers, Louie, Justified, The Shield, and others are truly great TV shows. If I knew FX was replacing Terriers with crap, I'd get angry. I can't.

But Terriers was a great show; the only solace I can take is that, yeah, the series got 13 episodes to tell a complete story; for those who think it's even more pointless to watch the show now that it's gone, know that the writing staff (including Ted Griffin, Shawn Ryan, and Tim Minear, all fine writers) got the beginning, middle, and ending into the season. While a few threads were left vaguely open, none were frustrating in their conclusions. You can dive into the series when it is released on DVD and Blu-ray. I'd go so far as to say that it's worth buying without having seen a single second, but then, I'm biased. For the uninitiated, Terriers was--and boy, do I hate using the past tense--a show about Hank Dolworth (Donal Logue) and Britt Pollack (Michael Raymond-James), an ex-cop and ex-thief, respectively. Hank and Britt had a tiny private-detective outfit in Ocean Beach, California, a city near San Diego. Mostly, they work small jobs, the smallest you can think of. When one of Hank's old buddies dies, however, the two friends stumble into a huge case, filled with powerful men who protect even more powerful people and a threat to destroy the little city.

Terriers works best because it's both procedural and serial. The show is never as serialized as an episode of Lost, nor is it as much a procedural as an episode of Law and Order. What the show could potentially lack in an overarching story, it makes up for with sometimes disturbing and always compelling weekly stories, and a dynamic duo (yes, I just wrote "dynamic duo") in Logue and Raymond-James. The two men were friends in real life, and the chemistry shows on screen. The banter they have is not only witty, but it's real. More often than not, movies and TV shows that feature excessive banter don't work because the people talking don't actually seem like friends. Not so here. The best part of the show--and pretty much everything works, mind you--is that we're rooting for these two guys, because they're guys we'd want to hang around with, guys we'd want on our side when things are down.

Other elements of the show work better here than they normally would. Hank's got an ex-wife and ex-partner, both of whom try to hate him but just can't, because as self-destructive as he can be, he's charming and honest and bracing in ways that most people just aren't. Britt has a committed girlfriend who knows about his past (whereas in other shows, she'd find out during the season and fall out with him), and kind of gets off on it initially. There are parts of the show that could have been stronger. Hank and Britt have a lawyer on their side, but she's only in a handful of episodes, and serves only slight purposes as a character. That said, Logue and Raymond-James are working alongside a fine cast, all as effortlessly entertaining as the next.

Terriers was a great show, one with nasty villains (an important SoCal lawyer played by character actor Michael Gaston is the oily baddie) we want to see ruined and destroyed, one with weekly cases that manage to duck and weave thanks to the sharp writing, and one with great leads. We can argue until the cows come home if the marketing and title are to blame (though the president of FX would disagree, I'm sorry to tell him that the answer there is probably a big, fat "Yes"), but what matters isn't even that Terriers is gone. I can be sad, as can the other sub-million viewers, but what makes me happy is that another great TV series existed and will live forever, passed on to friends, neighbors, coworkers, so every one of us can cherish another show people caught just when it was too late.

Tangled

Goals are more important than we give them credit for, when it comes to popular entertainment. Books, television shows, movies, graphic novels; all of these will sink if the main characters of these stories do not have clear goals that drive action. Obviously, not every protagonist is going to have clear goals, even half-formed ones; sometimes, it's the antagonist's goals that drive a story. But think of how many stories' action can be summed up in one sentence, describing a goal. "I want to go home to my kids." "I want to rule the kingdom." "I want to go back to my aunt and uncle." "I want as much power as I can have."

Now, not every story has unique goals; how many of the ones I just quoted could apply to multiple movies, books, and so on? Something that frustrated me about the new Disney animated feature (their 50th) Tangled is that the main character's goals do not drive the story, leaving her essentially passive. Granted, Rapunzel (which really should have been the film's title) is far less passive than, say, Snow White. (Quick, what's Snow White's goal? The answer is, in the short term, to remain alive, and that's only because the Queen's goal--to be the most beautiful woman in the world--comes with the price of killing the fair maiden.) Rapunzel's goal is not only clear, it's stated in full: she wants to leave the tower where she's been kept for pretty much every day of her life to see floating lanterns that happen to be set into the sky on her birthday for a very specific reason.

So what's wrong with this goal? As I said, it's clear and Rapunzel will do just about anything to achieve it once she realizes that she can be helped to her ends. The problem is that Tangled is a movie driven by the antagonist, Mother Gothiel. This old crone, at the beginning of the film, stumbles upon a magical flower that heals wounds and gives new life to anything as long as you sing a specific lullaby, meaning that the old lady can remain healthy and beautiful. Once the flower is used to save the queen of a nearby kingdom as she gives birth, the power transfers to the baby Rapunzel, who Mother Gothiel kidnaps for her own. So there's no story if Mother Gothiel's goal--to be beautiful forever--isn't achieved. Rapunzel only has the goal of leaving because someone wanted her to stay.

I know, I know. I'm thinking too much about a cartoon, right? Here's the thing. Recently, the head of Disney said, in an interview, that the company is going to put a full marketing push behind Toy Story 3 so it could potentially win the Best Picture Oscar. He asked why a Disney movie hadn't ever won the big prize. And he's right. Why not a Disney movie? Why not, more specifically, a Pixar movie? Oscar bloggers may throw up their hands in disdain and disgust, but there is always the possibility that, yeah, a movie that isn't in live-action isn't as good as a....ergh....cartoon. I loved Toy Story 3 and will be glad to see it presumably get nominated for Best Picture. I doubt it will win--mostly because of the anti-animation bias in the Academy--but why shouldn't Disney try for it? If they want to have their movies taken seriously, I say go for it. But that means I take their movies seriously, too.

We all should, really. I can, of course, just say that Tangled is a well-done animated movie and a fine successor to most other "princess" movies, but what kind of critical analysis does that amount to? There are plenty of things to like about Tangled, but it left me a little cold, and part of that is because of a relatively passive lead character. Speaking of which, you can watch all of the trailers you like, and you'll still be woefully underprepared for what Tangled actually is. Why should it be called Rapunzel, for example? Well, she's the main character. Flynn Rider--a name so silly I was glad to find out it was fake--is a fine, dashing romantic lead for Rapunzel to play off of, but he's not the main character. Flynn is also a much better male lead for the "princess" movies than most of the old-school Disney men, but he's still just playing opposite a girl with a lot of hair.

The voice cast, while feeling a bit more sparse than in recent Disney animated features (of the five main characters, two do not talk), is well-used, especially Broadway veteran Donna Murphy as the villain. Unlike most of the classic Disney villains, Mother Gothiel is more realistic and creepy, specifically because she's the most passive-aggressive villain in a cartoon I've seen. Her song in the film (yes, there are songs, from Alan Menken and Glen Slater, most of which are nice but unmemorable) comes early and is one of two highlights. Part of what makes "Mother Knows Best" so entertaining is Murphy's going-for-it-all performance, but part of it is the snappy wit in the lyrics, calling back memories of Menken's collaborations with the late Howard Ashman.

Mandy Moore, as Rapunzel, is a fine addition to the Disney princesses, but her character's most interesting scene to play is the one she has immediately after leaving her tower, as she vacillates between being exhilarated by the outside world and excoriating herself for being a bad daughter. Zachary Levi, as Flynn, is charming and humorous while also being kind of bland. This is a fault of the character--who starts out as a cunning rogue thief, and guess where he's going to end up by the end of the story--but Levi is as likable as he is on NBC's "Chuck." The other cast members include Ron Perlman (as one of Flynn's fellow thieves), Jeffrey Tambor and Brad Garrett (as a couple of thugs who are randomly given a song to sing midway through the film), and comedian Paul F. Tompkins. All are appropriately cast and entertaining, though as a comedy fan, I'd have loved to hear more from Tompkins, as a lush of a thug.

Disney has said that Tangled is their last princess movie, and with it approaching 100 million dollars after only a week and a half, I'm sure they're trying to figure out how to erase that statement from the public record. Having said that, I'll end this review with a bit of an impassioned defense of their most recent animated feature, The Princess and the Frog. For some reason, The Princess and the Frog has been forgotten or simply ignored by most Disney fans. The movie didn't do as well as Disney had hoped, but it remains one of the most exciting, charming pieces of animation in the past decade, outside of Pixar's work. The voice cast is eminently entertaining (Bruno Campos, in particular, delivers a great performance), the music and songs are as toe-tapping as anything from the Menken-Ashman era, and the hand-drawn animation is eye-popping and colorful. Finally, Tiana, the princess of the film, has a very clear goal: she wants to own a restaurant. Her being turned into a frog is a big accident, but from the beginning of the movie, we know who Tiana is, as she is defined by her goal. Most of the Disney princesses do not have such clear goals (Belle, Jasmine, Snow White, and Sleeping Beauty are among them), and for a movie as entertaining and as clear-headed as The Princess and the Frog to get ignored by audiences and the Disney top brass is disappointing. Tangled, meanwhile, is a good movie, a cute movie, and one that kids will like. But Disney has done, and can still do, better.

Fascinating

Presuming that it's still doing well, I genuinely don't know what would compel people to shop at a furniture store called The Dump. Sorry, wait, let me try that again...The Dump! For those of you who do not live in Phoenix--again, I presume this is a local store--there's a new-ish furniture store in the Phoenix area called The Dump. Every ad, radio or TV, uses the same middle-aged male announcer, always gleefully emphasizing the word "Dump". I get (kind of) the name; the point of the store is to sell furniture at supposedly very low prices, as almost a last resort for previously high-end stuff. I imagine that's what may keep the store in business, but...I mean, do I even need to explain what is wrong with this store?

Why would I want to shop at a store that makes me think of trash or literal shit? Why would anyone want to buy furniture from such a store? "Hey, kids, let's go look for a new couch." "Where, Dad?" "We're going to The Dump!" "Uh....when's Mommy coming home?" "Oh, who cares, let's go look at The Dump!" I cannot imagine a scenario where I separate myself from my money to buy furniture from this place. I don't care if it's the best in the world, I don't care if the prices are hilariously low; call me crazy, but this is one minor stand I'm making.

N.B. As a follow-up, the Christmas-music radio station played more consecutive music today, but I also got to hear about someone joking about his chest hair. Because that's what I want to hear about on the morning commute.

Grumble

Isn't the point of an all-Christmas radio station to play Christmas music? Maybe it's me, but when I'm doing my normal morning drive, at this time of year, hearing any holiday music is enough to make the drive bearable. I can criticize the station playing the same song once an hour (so far, there have been no offenders, but in years past, I've had about enough of hearing Mariah Carey sing her "All I Want For Christmas Is You" song), and I can criticize the quality of the music, but for that to happen, the station needs to PLAY CHRISTMAS SONGS.

The Phoenix-area radio station in question is 99.9, and all I heard this morning was a lot of ads and, if I was very lucky, a streak of two whole songs played back-to-back. On the way home, I got seven songs in a row. Why can I not get that many songs in a row in the morning? I know that the morning crew, Beth and Friends, is very popular, or at least I assume that they are. I also appreciate that I'm not a normal listener, but seriously, I hate radio banter. I hate it in so many ways. Banter on local TV news is just as dumb, but it's even worse when all you're hearing are voices that, honestly, end up sounding a lot alike after a while.

Example: to potentially avoid some accident-related traffic on the freeway this morning, I took a few surface streets. On the one hand, 99.9 was very good about constantly updating its traffic reports (though part of that is because the station only plays two songs at a time). On the other hand, it was like pulling teeth to actually get the traffic guy to, you know, REPORT ON THE TRAFFIC. "Well, I was just on the phone with the Mesa Police Department." "Oh my goodness!" "And none of you are wanted, but they did have some questions about Dooley." "Oh, well, that's just Dooley for you." "Something about a statute of limitations..." "Oh my God, JUST TELL ME ABOUT THE TRAFFIC." Take your guess: which one of those is me?

I'm going to try listening to the station tomorrow morning, because hope springs eternal. I wish that they'll have at least three songs in a row, even if it means cutting into the frequent "Let's hear from the listeners requesting the music!" gibberish. One can only imagine what wonders are in store for me; how many other versions of "Winter Wonderland" are there?