12/31/2009

My 10 Favorite TV moments that occurred sometime in the last 10 years

In no particular order:

When: 2009
What: Community
Episode: Football, Feminism and You

Jeff (Joel McHale) is trying to talk Troy (Donald Glover) into joining the Greendale Community College football team, because the dean (Jim Rash) has threatened to send out mailers featuring Jeff, which could harm his future career, unless Jeff can convince Troy to join the Human Beings.

Jeff: Football is a part of you, Troy, I can see it in your eyes!
Troy: That's racist!
Jeff: Your soul!
Troy: That's racist.
Jeff: Your heart?
Troy: That's gay.
Jeff: That's homophobic.
Troy: That's black!
Jeff: That's racist!
Troy: Damn

When: 2006
What: How I Met Your Mother
Episode: Slap Bet

Somtimes, sitcoms A stories are good and the B stories fall flat. Sometimes the A story is so-so and the B story is hilarious. In this episode, both storylines build to a beautiful peak and come together to make one of the funniest episodes of TV, ever, with the icing on the cake being the reveal of Robin's secret...her past as a Canadian teen pop star.



When: 2002
What: Firefly
Episode: Out of Gas

It's one of my favorite episodes of one of my top 3 favorite shows. Three timelines are delineated with lighting changes, and they twist and turn together to tell the story of how exactly the crew of Serenity got together in the first place, along with why Captain Mal is bleeding and passed out with what looks to be a nothing piece of equipment in his hand.

When: 2001
What: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Episode: Once More, With Feeling

As established by my list of movie moments, I'm a sucker for a musical, and with Once More, With Feeling, I got a musical episode of my favorite TV show. Sure, not all the singing was stellar, but the episode itself was perfection: it advanced the story, developed the characters, and even gave a plausible (for the Buffyverse) explanation for why everyone was singing and dancing.



When: 2008
What: The Middleman
Episode: all of them

In the summer of 2008, I found myself watching and falling in love with this show. I was sad while I watched it, because I could sense that no one else was watching it, and sure enough, ABC Family canceled it after a run of 12 wonderfully entertaining episodes. Based on the graphic novels by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Les MacClain, The Middleman told the story of Wendy Watson (aka DubDub, aka Dubby), a struggling artist who is recruited to be a superhero in training. In addition, the friendship between Lacey and Wendy was perfection - two young women on TV who talked about things other than men. The dialogue was rapidfire and occasionally filthy, and the situations were ludicrous but entertaining, and I'm sad that I don't get any more episodes. ART CRAWL!



When: 2006
What: Six Feet Under
Episode: Everyone's Waiting

The last few minutes of one of the greatest television series ever. It was perfection.



When: 2007
What: Pushing Daisies
Episode: All of them

Whimsical and more than a little absurb, unbelievable set and art direction, occasional singing, and sweet as pie for every minute. The world really should have Darling Mermaid Darlings and a restaurant called The Pie Hole.





When: 2004
What: Wonderfalls
Episode: Crime Dog

I never caught Wonderfalls when it was actually on TV, but I rented the series from Netflix after catching the first season of Pushing Daisies, since both were created by Bryan Fuller. It had the trademark quirkiness and whimsy of Pushing Daisies, but the main character, Jaye, was decidedly not sweet. She was an Ivy League educated young woman with a degree in philosophy who had no ambition, and worked in a gift shop at Niagara Falls. I liked all the episodes, but I guess I have a little thing for tales told out of order, so this episode, which starts with something that happens more than halfway through the episode, is the one I have to go with. You can watch the whole thing on YouTube. What you need to know: Jaye gets cryptic messages from inanimate animal objects.

When: 2006ish?
What: So You Think You Can Dance
Episode: First performance episode season 3

There are a lot of dances I love that I've seen on this show, but this was my first exposure to the genius of Wade Robson, and for that, it will always have a special place in my heart.



When: 2000
What: Angel
Episode: She

It's truly a terrible episode of Angel that is completely redeemed by this clip and the scenes that play over the closing credits.

12/30/2009

Why oh why

Why am I so tired at 6pm, when I can't go to bed, and so not tired at 11:30, when I should be in bed?

12/15/2009

Re-Viewing

The Siren says tis the season for re-viewing, and she recaps her 20 favorite moments in film to review. So I started thinking about mine, and since I've been immersed in Glee and So You Think You Can Dance and even a wee little bit of The Sing-Off, they are largely musical in nature.

In no particular order:

1. My Sister Eileen - the dance battle between Bob Fosse and Tommy Rall


2. This of course made me think of the first time I saw Bob Fosse, which was probably when I was 7 or 8. It was his short little bit of choreography in the number "From This Moment On" from Kiss Me, Kate! I was electrified.


3.Then I couldn't help but think of movies that Bob Fosse directed, and I immediately went to Cabaret. Aside from the numerous musical numbers that knocked my socks off, the moment in that movie that got me the first time I saw it: Michael York and Liza Minelli talking about Maximilian. Michael York as Brian says "Screw Maximilian". Liza as Sally says: "I do." and then Brian says "So do I." That blew my mind when I was 11 or so, and was probably the first time I ever had an awareness of homosexuality.

4. Thinking of Bob Fosse made me think of All That Jazz, and I couldn't possibly pull just one moment from that movie, but then I thought of Roy Scheider in Jaws: "We're going to need a bigger boat." Totally a cliche now, but it wouldn't be if he hadn't delivered that line so perfectly.

5. I then started thinking about other movies that I can watch over and over again, and I went to Singing In The Rain. I have to agree with The Siren that every word Lina Lamont says is comedy gold.

6. As much as I love Singing In The Rain, I have a slight preference for On The Town. I love every number in this show, but I have a soft spot for You Can Count On Me.


7.Fred Astaire going drum crazy in Easter Parade


8. Marian the Librarian from The Music Man - Shirley Jones was so beautiful, and she was 5 months pregnant when they filmed this scene.


9. Madeleine Kahn, feeling a little sleepy:


10. What's Up Doc? The whole movie is wonderful, but my favorite scene is the courtroom scene.


11. Raising Arizona - it's hard for me to pick just one scene, but I guess I would lean towards all the scenes that involve Glenn and Dot visiting H.I. and Ed, closely followed by every scene with John Goodman as Gayle Snoates. But then there's the wonderful opening scene, where the counselor asks "What do you mean when you say "trapped" in a woman's body?" and the prisoner answers "Well, sometimes I get the menstrual cramps real hard."

12. My kids know I'm a huge sap and I cry at almost everything, but I have to admit that I enjoy crying at certain movies, and one of them is The Family Stone. The scene that always kills me is when Elizabeth Reaser is watching Judy Garland sing "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas". The context is that she knows her mother is dying, and of course the song itself couldn't be more melancholy. My second favorite scene is when Luke Wilson is describing his dream to Sarah Jessica Parker. "You were just a little girl in a flannel night gown. And you were shovelling snow from the walk in front of our house. And I was the snow, I was the snow. And everywhere it landed and everywhere it covered. You scoop me up with a big red shovel. You scoop me up."

13. Prick Up Your Ears - wonderful film about the playwright Joe Orton (Gary Oldman), who was brutally murdered by his long-time lover Kenneth Halliwell (Alfred Molina), who was a wee bit insane. There is much to love for me in this movie (I like watching men kiss other men), but one of my favorite scenes is when Halliwell tries to get something started with Orton, and Orton brushes his hand away and says "Have a wank." Halliwell replies: "Have a wank? Have a wank? I can't just have a wank. I need three days' notice to have a wank. You can just stand there and do it. Me, it's like organizing D-Day. Forces have to be assembled, magazines bought, the past dredged for some suitably unsavoury episode, the dog-eared thought of which can still produce a faint flicker of desire! Have a wank, it'd be easier to raise the Titanic."

14. Room With A View - aside from watching men kiss each other, I am also fond of movies with full frontal made nudity (aside from porn, which...ech, not for me). Room With A View has the most playful, innocent full frontal male nudity scene that's probably ever been filmed, when Reverend Beebe (Simon Callow), George Emerson (Julian Sands) and Freddy Honeychurch (Rupert Graves) decide to have a bathe.

15. The Right Stuff - my favorite scene, quoted in full:
Scott Carpenter: John's right! Now, whether we like it or not, we're public figures. Whether we deserve it or not, people are going to look up to us. We have got a tremendous responsibility here. Alan Shepard: You cannot tell a pilot what he's doing when he's not flying! [Argument continues]
Gus Grissom: Wait a minute, wait a minute!
[turns Glenn toward him]
Gus Grissom: You've got it all wrong, the issue here ain't pussy. The issue here is monkey. John Glenn: What?
Gus Grissom: Us. We are the monkey.
Deke Slayton: What Gus is saying is that we're missing the point. What Gus is saying is that we all heard the rumors that they want to send a monkey up first. Well, none of us wants to think that they're gonna send a monkey up to do a man's work. But what Gus is saying is that what they're trying to do to us is send a man up to do a monkey's work. Us, a bunch of college-trained chimpanzees!
Gus Grissom: Fuckin' A, bubba.
Deke Slayton: Alright, so what Gus is saying is that we've got to change things around here. He's saying that we are pilots. And we know more about what we need to fly this thing than anybody else. So what we have to do is to alter the experiment. And what that comes down to is who is gonna control this thing from here on out.
Gordon Cooper: What Gus is saying here is that we've got to stick together on this deal

16. Serenity - Okay, I can't pick a moment, I just love the hell out of this movie.

17. Miller's Crossing - Albert Finney listening to Danny Boy and then shooting the crap out of the mobsters who are out to get him.

18. Shallow Grave - the final scene - Ewan McGregor is nailed to the floor, but he's got a smile on his face, because he knows where the money is.

19. Rear Window - When Jimmy Stewart introduces his neighbors to Grace Kelly by the nicknames he's given them.

20. The Dead - that final scene, with the voiceover of the last few paragraphs of Joyce's story.
One by one, we're all becoming shades. Better to pass boldly into that other world, in the full glory of some passion, than fade and wither dismally with age. How long you locked away in your heart the image of your lover's eyes when he told you that he did not wish to live. I've never felt that way myself towards any woman, but I know that such a feeling must be love. Think of all those who ever were, back to the start of time. And me, transient as they, flickering out as well into their grey world. Like everything around me, this solid world itself which they reared and lived in, is dwindling and dissolving. Snow is falling. Falling in that lonely churchyard where Michael Furey lies buried. Falling faintly through the universe and faintly falling, like the descent of their last end, upon all the living, and the dead.