Podcast: The United States of Tara

Below you can see me discuss the Showtime Series The United States of Tara. I am making my podcasts available over YouTube and will be posting and linking them here from the YouTube channel.

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Why I Like Don Draper

I've been traveling a lot this summer. One of things I miss when I travel during the summer is my chosen cable programming. I don't tend to watch much TV but there are a small number of shows that I do respect and try to follow. I miss some of HBO's summer programming like True Blood as well as Entourage. However, I especially miss AMC's Mad Men. Thanks to AMC's smart marketing, I get to buy the brand-new episodes on iTunes right after they play on Sunday. This is good for me as I think Mad Men is one of the best things TV has had to offer for years. I have liked it since Season One.

On one of my recent trips I got to spend some time with one of my most accomplished and all-around cool and creative friends who works in advertising. On top of knowing what's up business-wise, she really knows what's up in terms of popular culture as well as literary scholarship. During one of our conversations I learned from her that she also likes Mad Men which was no surprise to me as the show's aesthetic is truly worth a smart person's attention.

I truly like the character of Don Draper. I love his weaknesses most of all. They're, I find, more beautiful than the strengths themselves. As a matter of fact, what makes Don truly interesting and appealing is the ease with which he self-embraces. The world of advertising seems really complex, bizarre, covered by secrets, and informed by the appeal of glitz and superficiality. Don Draper, however, has this gravitas about him that says 'I know this might all seem a tad too fickle to y'all, but without advertising how would you know if Lucky Strikes are right for you?!' And content could never ever hold a candle to form! Without the latter, the former could not be worth much, eh? I would agree with what the character of Don seems to say with regards to the power of advertising. It does determine much in modernity. Of course I'd agree with Don. I buy a lot of Apple products mostly due to their clever advertising. Let's just call apples, apples, shall we?

I've liked Mad Men since the very first season. The writing by Matthew Weiner is not only historicity-minded, it's gripping. Weiner can tell a story like few people can. Sopranos, anyone? He worked on that show as well so no surprises regarding his literary skills.

In short, the reason why I like Don Draper is because he's fully aware of his cognitive skills, his charisma, and the charm which he can dispense with the same ease 50-cent machines dispose cheap gum. I like Don Draper because he is self-accepting albeit in a quiet, controlled, and slightly self-effacing way. Don is good at his job and he doesn't resist the fact that his aesthetics and swagger help. He is good at what he does just like he is aesthetically pleasing to men and women. Don is just how he is. Take it or leave it. Lucky for him, it's mostly 'take it' and people are simply under the power of his charm. Like his new partner, British-born Lane, learns on tonight's episode, Don is not to be resisted. He does know best. Not only when it comes to advertising and the art of women and sociality at large but life in general. And like only a real hero can do, he teaches by example not words.

In sum, what makes Don absolutely beautiful is the fact that he embraces his weaknesses with the same charisma and facility that he embraces his strengths. And Season Four of Mad Men continues to be simply smashing. Do watch it!

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Lost and How Camille Got Me Interested

I wasn't aware of the ABC show Lost till after my friend Camille (I reviewed her first studio-released album here) told me about it as we were chatting one night circa 1AM my time and who-knows-whatAM/PM her jet setting time. I think Camille was in South Africa then and she would use her iPod to watch some shows as she'd unwind from a long day of travails.
At the time I wasn't watching commercial TV with the exception of HBO's Curb Your Enthusiasm. Generally I don't do 'conventional' TV, i.e., the kind where commercials always interject at the most inopportune time. Interruptions tend to vex, or more importantly, they tend to make me lose interest and I give in to digressions. See, they've done it as I'm writing this. Point made!
A year after learning about the show from Camille, I got a call from another pal of mine who was asking me what I thought about Jack and Kate and John. I think I said something akin to 'I'm a year behind but will rent the first season soon.'
And that I did.
I remember finding the pilot interesting mostly out of novelty reasons. There was nothing on TV that resembled the intensity of storytelling of this show. It took me a few days to carve out enough time to catch up on the show. I remember I was teaching a graduate course on Middle High German during the time I got caught up on Lost and I remember a sensing some compatibility between the texts I was using in my course and the content of the show. The first thought I had while watching the show at the beginning was that the creators were either educated in the literature and philosophy of the Middle Ages or they had some interest in medievalism and the rebirth of interest in things medieval back in the 19th century.
Esoteric talk aside, the reason why Lost made me think of the Middle Ages is because of one person: Dante. Dante, in his Divine Comedy, details the journey of Dante, the man, as well as Dante, the poet, through Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Divine Comedy is fundamentally about a person's journey to find the ultimate meaning of living with others and, most importantly, with one's self.
The in-between seasons of Lost, i.e., what transpired between Season 3 up to the season finale resembled the awkward journey of an adolescent where much doesn't make sense but other stuff oozes potential even though it might not actually get actualized.
The season finale, however, was to my liking. It seemed, to me, to be a tip of the hat to Dante's Divine Comedy. The show made me think of Dante's journey through Purgatorio where the damaged souls still have a chance to purge themselves of past foibles of human life and find some redemption. The remaining characters in this unusual show find moments of connectivity and human meaning but for a few moments as they touch one another and memories of a 'past life' or past experiences come to life. It is during these moments that the finale truly delivers. What made this show interesting in the beginning is that it dared to ask questions about the meaning of life and a person's journey through various challenges and crises.
Of course, Lost is an unusual TV accomplishment. There was nothing like it on TV when it first premiered back in 2004 and there's not anything at all like it in 2010, a time when commercial TV is full of embarrassing reality TV where so little of it is TV and much of it is only real in the brain of some producer who is convinced that everyone wants to see people make fools of themselves in front of the camera. But I digress, again.
Lost is one of those shows where the viewer was still given some dignity and respect, for the most part. The viewers were given the impression that they mattered and that they could enjoy 40+ minutes of modern programing that somehow felt informed, enamored of meaning, and soundly literary.

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New Videocast: "Bored to Death" - A Review

In this new episode of Gendering the Media, I analyze HBO's new show Bored to Death. Bored to Death is a real treat especially to those who are in the business of literature and literature translated on the screen. In this analysis I mostly focus on the professional and personal relationship between the characters of George (Ted Danson) and Jonathan (Jason Schwartzman).


Note to self: Next time make sure to place the mic on the other side of the shirt. The episode will also be available on iTunes.

You may view the episode here.

Feedback welcome.

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Spartacus: Blood and Sand - A Review

Well, I think I need to go to a confessional or something akin to it. You see, I believe I might have just wasted 54 minutes of my life tonight. I don't like wasting time. Rephrase: I despise wasting time.
I had an hour between tasks and I thought I would watch the new Starz series Spartacus: Blood and Sand. After the first 15 minutes I said something like, 'did you by any chance put the Gladiator DVD on by mistake?'
I know the answer to my question was 'no!' but I thought I'd ask it anyway. Maybe I was asking to get some sympathy for my visual suffering.
I ask, do some cinematographers really think that they can infantilize audiences as they please? Sex and violence will make a show? What an inane notion.
Spartacus is nothing but a cheap imitation of Ridley Scott's vision of the 2000 production of Gladiator. And that's all the praise I can give it. I will not be watching, I don't think.
I might just add here that what I uttered upon its conclusion was, 'is this a joke?!' It sure did feel like a bad prank.

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Leno vs Conan O'?

If you've read the news daily, you're bound to have read about the NBC nighttime drama surrounding the Leno/O'Brian debacle. It's hardly news, I know, but it's there. We need distractions in order to be able to deal with the really somber news and 'Jay' controversy is certainly better than any and all collective Kardashian nonsense. A lot of people seem to have a lot of opinions on the NBC drama. Mine is mostly informed by my basic entertainment practices. If I had to choose between Jay and Conan, I'd pick Jay. Why? Because I like his unapologetic and genrally hypocrisy-free embracing of mediocrity. That, in and of itself, makes for good comedy. I've always thought that to be his shtick and his best winning quality. Conan, on the other hand, seems to want to exude a kind of elevated elegance that never quite translates to much. I find him generally boring, aesthetically unimpressive, and intellectually as gripping as a Paul Rudd or Oprah. I don't get his appeal. De gustibus non disputandum est seems to go the saying. This is more that that, though.

Jay managed to be successful for a basic reason: he appealed to many and he was darn good when it came to keeping people's interest over time. Whether I was into punk or prog or you name it, I always 'dug' his monologues. Much better than those by Letterman or O'Brian. Maybe Kimmel's joke delivery is a bit better but his show comes at a time I'm told I'm supposed to be in bed so that's a no-go.

O'Brian on the other hand refuses to appeal to more people in an effort to keep this supposed edge that he says he possesses. But where is this edge? In the string dance? Andy's little interjections? The only good thing the new Tonight Show has going is the Max Weinberg music arrangements and that's not saying much about Conan. It says much about Max and the likes of Springsteen but that's another blog.

So, I would say Leno is a better choice than Conan, really. Different people have spoken against Leno and interstingly enough, the reason why they speak against him is because he's simply been too successful and he's been working too long. He should retire now, say they. Am I to understand that the more one works and the more successful one becomes, the more he/she needs to get penalized? Ple- to the -ase!

Leno is not the best comedian out there. Granted, there are many other people who could do a far better job. What he has, though, is a John Carson-esque quality of transcendent mass appeal. And isn't that what the Tonight Show represents? A chance for many to watch something together and be entertained similarly at the end of a hard day?

I don't go out of my way to watch Leno as I don't really care a whole lot for commercial TV. If I am to watch it, I'm bound to watch HBO for the most part, really. But if I had to pick a team, I'd pick Leno. And who am I kidding? The fact that Jay is West-bound has something to do with my choice too. I dig the west and its vibe. Aren't we all entitled to having favorites, after all? And what about sportsmanship? Jay's been able to beat Letterman and Conan and that's worth something. I am not likely to say the following in any other settings, but mass appeal and mediocrity should be embraced in this case. Don't hate, supposed margin-dwellers, study and adapt instead. You might do better that way.

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Jason Schwartzman's Bored to Death

Another reason to continue to like Jason Schwartzman is his new show on HBO called Bored to Death.

You will especially react to the show if you're in the creative business. And you'll definitely appreciate the humor if you've ever been in the pangs of writer's/artist's block.

Also, if you already like author Jonathan Ames, you will definitely like this as, well,it is created by him and Schwartzman's character is called Jonathan Ames.

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Smart Advertising for AMC's Mad Men: Who's 'You'?

I liked this.
AMC's Mad Men is one reason to say yes to commercial TV.
And this is what the Mad Men exercise yielded:

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Thumbs Up for Unwinding

"How do you unwind?" - was the question.
"I watch this 15-second clip a few times in a row." - was my answer.

Those of you who are Entourage fans might especially like seeing Turtle vulnerable.

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Bea Arthur

Bea Arthur passed this weekend.
She was a comedy pro and her work on such shows as Maude and Golden Girls was instrumental in translating feminism into the daily vernacular.

Dorothy of the Golden Girls will be missed. Tip of the hat to an artist whose work touched and continues to touch people cross-generationally.

A clip from the Golden Girls:

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New Podcast: A Gendering of Big Love

In this podcast I am doing a review of the HBO show Big Love.
To listen to the podcast, click here.
The music featured on this podcast comes from Camille Nelson's new album First Words.

This podcast is also featured on iTunes under Gendering the Media with Brikena Ribaj.

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HBO's Big Love: Stanley Fish Reviews

HBO's Big Love is perhaps the queerest show on TV now. The very premise of the show relies on the concept of the margin, actually margins. This show works because underneath its featured confusing relationships it is about one fundamentally relevant concept: human relatability.

The new season started three weeks ago and thanks to OnDemand features I am now updated. The current season is offering new, (even better than before) drama, a contextualized rendering of the polygamy news that resided on the front pages of many US papers this past year, and yes, a new love interest and potential fourth wife, Ana.

Like Stanley Fish, I approve of Big Love. While on the surface it might be about a concept that many find too bizarre to decode, the core of the show is literarily sound, socio-culturally informed, and religiously aware. Big Love attempts to expose the normal (as Nicki calls it) side of polygamy, the side that explores the humanity of a familial system unknown to many of us.

My more detailed, gender theory-informed review of Big Love will appear on an upcoming podcast after my review of Fight of the Conchords. Since both the shows lend themselves to being gendered, it made sense that I develop two podcasts on them. Stay tuned.

For now, here's a solid paragraph from today's post by Stanley Fish. He writes:

"Near the end of the first episode of “Big Love”’s new season, Nicki (Chloe Sevigny), the second of Bill Henrickson’s three wives, stands up on the roof of her house in the middle of a block party. She’s been repairing the roof rather than joining the festivities because she feels unwanted in the neighborhood. But when a couple of the neighbor kids make off with her ladder, she can’t take it anymore and she rises up to say her piece: “All I ever wanted was to be off the compound and live a normal life and be truly free.”

This is an amazing statement. By “normal life” Nicki means a life in a mini-compound (three houses opening up on one backyard) with her husband, her two sister-wives and the eight children Bill has sired. The compound she has fled is led by her patriarch-father, Roman Grant (the great Harry Dean Stanton) and by other male elders who enforce strict obedience to rules they flout and who demand servile fidelity to their every word. (You must be “in harmony with me” is the byword.) "

Read it all here.

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The United States of Tara: Toni Collette's New Playground to Score

I like Toni Collette. Even though star power isn't why I watch certain films and programming, Toni Collette is one of the very few performers I will watch in everything.
The saying in Hollywood is that respectable actors don't do TV. One, apparently, does not go from the movies to TV. To me that thinking sounds too 20-th century. Many actors have made a smart move to TV, per me. Think Harvey Keitel, Glenn Close, Timothy Hutton.... I think these performers, well, their agents at least, understand the market and the psychology of the modern, busy person.

Many of us don't have the extra time to go to the movies. I find myself agreeing to watching very few theater movies and the real reason is time. I don't want to sacrifice time that way. Plus, the internet, OnDemand features on cable and access to only a handful number of relevant cable channels, allow me to pick and choose what I, well, choose to view that won't be too time-consuming. I can get informed politically, artistically, and pop culturally while working on my own projects. Isn't it all about maximizing one's time?
I think so.

So, in modernity, a good artist is not only one who gets the true nature of his/her craft but also one who knows how to work the market so that people can be aware of them and see them as relevant. Think, the Rolling Stones and how they reinvented themselves by virtue of a basic understanding of markets. They're relevant for a very important reason: visibility.

So, Toni Collette is now on TV.
Not the annoying, commercial-laden kind, though. The kind that I do not watch.
Collette's new show, The Unites States of Tara is on Showtime. The show is exec produced by Steven Spielberg and its premise is serious, yet entertaining. I can see why someone with Collette's abilities would want to do a challenging show like this.

First, the show is about Dissociative Identity Disorder which means the performer, Toni Collette, would be portraying FOUR different charters. First, she plays a housewife in middle America. She has two teenage children and a loving husband played by John Corbett. Her 'alters' are T., an out-of-control teenager, Alice, a prudish housewife a-la-50's, and Buck, a macho, heavy smoker of a male. Her portrayal of Buck is what sold me on the show. I think Toni and I think there is an actor who can play it all.

The only reason for me to watch the 27-minute episodes is to see Toni Collette's unique abilities to portray vastly different characters so convincingly well. To me, the viewing experience is one of education. Being aware of someone's talent, I think, feeds well our own talents. Uniquely talented people ooze a sense of possibility that is contagious. And Collette is one of these people.

Here is the first episode of the show which currently airs on Showtime every Sunday night.

I give this show a well-deserved thumbs up.

Showtime is making the first episode available online commercial-free.

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Ari Gold Is the Making of Entourage

(Jeremy Piven's character of 'Ari Gold' is on the right.)

I was never interested in the HBO show Entourage. For some reason its charm never rubbed off on me. But when Jeremy Piven was awarded a third Emmy in a row for his portrayal of Hollywood super agent Ari Gold, I thought I would give it a bit of a chance. Season 5 is the only one I watched and I'm glad I did because during the experience I got to learn about the character of Ari Gold. There are a lot of snore moments in this show and the only reason to watch it, per me, is to see Jeremy Piven's Gold in action.

Ari makes other hyperactives feel gotten. He gets the pace of life of a hyperactive and he unapologetically humanizes the essence of an overachiever.

Yes, he resorts to crudeness quite often but what makes him likable, even relatable, is his brutal honesty vis-a-vis those he truly loves and appreciates.

The episode length is perfect for those of us who are a) pressed for time or b) are of the hyperactive persuasion. Another thing I discovered in the episodes of Entourage, Season 5 is that the subtext of gender is quite fascinating. I read up on the show and many of the reviews say that some have a hard time with the show's premise. More specifically, the show does not have many strong female characters and it's too much representative of male speech.
I am not one of these people.
To those who say that the show lacks strong female characters, I say, I see you and I raise you Dana Gordon. Even Amanda.
The show's creator Doug Ellis wrote a show about the lasting value of true friendship within the bounds of solid homosociality and that it is, de facto, the only thing one needs to survive the plastic nature of Hollywood.

Let me provide a bit from the show. In here one sees Ari Gold in a therapy session with his wife.

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Jon Stewart: Most Trusted TV Man?

Those of you who watch The Daily Show might enjoy this. A bit from the article features Stephen Colbert's comments, among other things.
" “Jon’s ability to consume and process information is invaluable,” said Mr. Colbert. He added that Mr. Stewart is “such a clear thinker” that he’s able to take “all these data points of spin and transparent falsehoods dished out in the form of political discourse” and “fish from that what is the true meaning, what are red herrings, false leads,” even as he performs the ambidextrous feat of “making jokes about it” at the same time.

“We often discuss satire — the sort of thing he does and to a certain extent I do — as distillery,” Mr. Colbert continued. “You have an enormous amount of material, and you have to distill it to a syrup by the end of the day. So much of it is a hewing process, chipping away at things that aren’t the point or aren’t the story or aren’t the intention. Really it’s that last couple of drops you’re distilling that makes all the difference. It isn’t that hard to get a ton of corn into a gallon of sour mash, but to get that gallon of sour mash down to that one shot of pure whiskey takes patience” as well as “discipline and focus.”"
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Tracy Ullman Gets Comedy: Brava!

Tracy Ullman's State of the Union show is perhaps the funniest program on cable TV these days. Granted, I don't watch much TV but based on the research and reviews I've read, little seems to be really worth the time.
I have viewed a few episodes of Ullman's new Showtime show and all I can say is: genius!
It's absolutely mind-boggling how she manages to imitate David Beckam, Laurie David and Arianna Huffington in the same episode.
Definitely a must-see!
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Hybrid Car Joke

As seen the latest HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher.

Garry Shandling: Do you have a Hybrid?
Arianna Huffington: Two.
Gary Shindlin: That makes one regular car.