A Simple Tool

The show Weeds has quietly been accumulating hype in the “if this show was on HBO everyone would know about it but it’s on Showtime so you haven’t” kind of way, so I decided to check it out and see if it was any good.

The Plot: Nancy (Mary-Louise Parker, who gives off a great “hot mom” vibe), a suburban housewife whose husband unexpectedly dropped dead on her, has taken up selling pot to support her family’s lifestyle. Of course, this occurs in one of those cliche suburbs where everyone is bitter and secretive and utterly unrealistic. Obviously, the first thing that comes to mind after reading this description is “Great, Desperate Housewives with pot. I wonder if the women will be catty?”. Surprisingly, the show rises above its premise, especially after about the 3rd episode when the characters start actually establishing themselves beyond their cliche roots. Weeds actually manages to become consistently funny, especially when Nancy’s deadbeat brother-in-law Andy shows up (and has cyber sex with a 16-year-old deaf chick). Refreshingly, Weeds also avoids typical stoner humor (not that stoner humor is bad, far from it) and concentrates more on quirky characters, such as Kevin Nealon’s hilarious stoner CPA. The show also appears to be moving in a good direction as the season ends, ditching the sassy black momma (who was so stereotypical it actually made me uncomfortable) and focusing more on Nealon and his buddies, who are truly funny. Suffice to say, I’m intrigued about the 2nd season.

So, how good is the show? Well, it’s certainly not as funny as Arrested Development or as wonderfully offensive as It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.  However it’s pretty damn good.  Now, if I only got Showtime…

EDIT: After watching the 1st 3 episodes of the 2nd season, I can say that the show continues its winning ways. In fact, it gets dramatically better (especially Kevin Nealon getting more and more spacey).  The little kid hand-job thing is pretty great.  Also they changed the opening theme song which was horrendously fucking annoying. It’s still the same song but done in a different style every episode, including a cool foreign language version. Hurray variety!

Remeber how I said I was going to post a bunch of stuff soon?  Yeah well I’m home in Hanover so I can’t actually do that.  You’ll just have to wait.  Yes, I’m aware you don’t care

Last night, while perusing the shelves of Bart and Greg’s with me droogies, I stumbled upon Flesh Gordon (oddly enough, filmed before the 1980 adaption of Flash Gordon). There was absolutely no chance in hell that I wasn’t going to watch this movie. The result? wow…just wow…This was goddamn fantastic. The story goes thusly:

Earth is in trouble,the evil sex ray of Emperor Wang the Perverse (from the planet Porno) is causing spontaneous orgy outbreaks throughout the world. Only Flesh Gordon (fresh off his performance at the International Hockey Championships in Tibet), his lady love Dale Ardor, and the steadfast scientist Flexi Jerkoff can defeat Wang and save Earth. Of course, on the way they must defeat “some species of Penisaurus”, Rapist robots, evil lesbians, and Wang’s giant statue monster thing. Oh and restore the rightful ruler of Porno, Prince Precious (who is gay in a way that you simply can’t put on screen nowadays if you see it you’ll know what I mean). Oh by the way, how did Wang come to rule Planet Porno? I’ll let Precious explain:

Prince Precious: I’m Prince Precious, rightful heir to the throne of Porno. Years ago, this planet was a veritable paradise. But Wang, a maniacal botanist whose organ was devoured by a crazed Penis Flytrap, could not tolerate the existence of so much pleasure, and so, banding together an army of the impotent and frustrated, and armed with a small but effective sex ray, plunged my palace into carnal chaos, and took it over.

I think the essential gist of this movie has been conveyed. Did I mention there are an insane amount of boobs in this movie? This is pretty much the perfect movie to watch with a bunch of guys and get chemically altered to, go rent it. That being said, while we were watching this a number of ladies came in the room and lasted roughly .00008 seconds before leaving, so watch with care. Apparently, not everyone can handle softcore sci-fi parody porn (losers).

BUT WAIT! there’s more! Here are some quick mini-reviews:

Talladega Nights:

First off, this movie is funny. John C. Reilly and Sacha Baron Cohen are both standouts, especially Cohen’s gay French NASCAR driver (the scene of the ESPN piece on Cohen and his husband and the anchor’s reaction is goddamn hilarious). However, a ton of the (apparently ad-libbed) jokes fall flat, and the movie essentially takes the “throw it at the screen and see what sticks” approach to comedy. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if you’re looking for some highbrow comedy that makes you feel smart, apply elsewhere. If you’re looking for an inoffensive and chuckle inducing fun the film works, but the recent glut of similar movies, namely Anchorman, Wedding Crashers, and the 40-year Old Virgin all do it better. BONUS NOTE: the trailer for Borat that showed before this movie was insanely funny, I’m very excited.

Tristram Shandy:

Speaking of more intelligent humor, Tristram Shandy is a very odd little film. It’s sort of a movie about making a movie, in which scenes of the aforementioned movie are played out, very surreal. The movie details an attempt to film an unfilmable novel The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (apparently a classic novel that I had never heard of), which is described as “a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about.” The film itself mirrors this theme by presenting both scenes from the movie being filmed, as well as, scenes of the making of the movie (similar to the Anton Handel epic La Mancaza)…it’s all very complicated. It’s also all very funny. I can’t really do it justice, but this sort of unique and witty filmaking should be encouraged, so watch it or I’ll stab you.

Firewall:

Good god, this movie is shitty. Another stupid movie, with stupid characters, similar to Derailed (see below) where everything would be solved if the protagonist had just CALLED THE DAMN POLICE! Harrison Ford looks angry a lot and Virginia Madsen still causes me to wonder what her appeal is to critics. Don’t watch this movie, just don’t, it sucks.

COMING SOON:

I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff like half-written to post and actually some of it is non-movie related. A few music reviews, a book review, and a sort of academic reaction paper (with bonus rant about how Kingdom of Heaven sucked) will be up in the coming week or so. Stay Tuned.

            My new favorite movie, you ask?  XXX: State of the Union.  It’s awesome.  It joins that rare pantheon of movies where the sequel surpasses the original (Terminator 2, Aliens, maybe The Godfather 2) – never mind how shitty the original was.  A script entirely composed of shitty one-liners, as if every character is monologuing staccato style? Check.  Xzibit ‘pimping’ a tank to turn it on the Capitol Building? Check.  A guy whose last name is Steel?  Check.  Willem Dafoe as a villain and Samuel L. Jackson a badass?  A car that jumps onto a train track, loses its wheels, and then rides the rims on the track going 160 MPH?  Falling off a bridge and breaking your fall with a rocket launcher?  The bad girl actually gets shot?  Thawed meat to confuse the heat-sensitive tracking devices?  Love it.  And it’s great watching Vin Diesel die the offstage death dished out to actors who refuse to return for a shitty sequel (Guy running in with piece of paper – “Xander Cage was killed last night in Bora Bora!”).

And to Wedge – I was mentioning less well-known trailers, hence no Spiderman 3.  But on the subject, it’s about damn time we got Venom.  Hell, I even think Topher can pull it off.  Of course even that won’t stop me from hating him for his name.  My only question is how CGI-heavy Venom is going to be.  And if Mary Jane’s carpet matches the drapes.

I’m also excited for Miami Vice.  I’ve read the mixed reviews, but my dad bought the show on DVD and it actually stands the test of time pretty well.  Minus the pastel suits and cheesy music (except “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins, obviously), the show is basically nothing but machismo.  There are guns, boats, cars, a pet alligator, and a duo who constantly get in face-offs and never blink.  So as long as the movie gives me good ol’ badass, I’ll be happy.