'Kid Nation': Fun and games?

July 29, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- The scene opens on a distraught young boy. You see tears leaking behind his eyeglasses.

"I'm feeling, like, really stressed and really worried. It's just been really stressful and tough. I guess I'm just gonna have to keep pushin'," he says, and he sniffs up runny snot.

In another scene, a different little boy weeps. "What I'm really missing is my brother. Because he is in a wheelchair. And um ..."

He can't continue talking because he's overcome with crying and sadness.

These are the types of tragic interviews we're used to experiencing after some nutcase shoots up a school.

But this is a CBS reality-competition show called "Kid Nation" that I think of as "Survivor: Clearasil." CBS has not given TV critics a full episode, yet. These crying-boy scenes are from a preview trailer promoting the show, which premieres Sept. 19.

The trailer is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in relation to a prime-time show. The first two times I watched it, my stomach turned. Literally. I thought I was going to vomit. Not metaphorically. And I don't even have kids.

In "Kid Nation," parents of 40 children ages 8 to 15 let producers take their children out of school in March and April to be bused to a privately owned ghost town-turned-movie set called Bonanza City, N.M. For 40 days, the kids ran the town. They cooked, cleaned toilets and operated a root beer saloon.

"No parents, no teachers anywhere," the narrator says in the trailer.

Hundreds of other adults were behind the scenes. In addition to camera operators, there were pediatricians and child psychologists. Yes, "Kid Nation" was so hard on these kids' lives, they needed therapists to get through the show.

Oh, and there was an animal wrangler, partly, maybe, to handle the snake you see slithering around.

What CBS is delivering here is yet another reality show where the images flashed before us are those capturing the worst in people. But this time, it's children. One girl stands in front of the kid-run town council and verbally attacks another kid.

"Even when you didn't have a job, YOU DIDN'T WORK," she says, and her eyes bug out exactly like a judgmental audience member at a Jerry Springer taping.

How did they get away with this? Producers couldn't film "Kid Nation" in most states, because most states have decent child-labor laws. New Mexico didn't. And producers, working with lawyers, officially declared "Kid Nation" to be a "summer camp" instead of a workplace.

CBS Entertainment President Nina Tassler told critics the kids weren't employees of CBS. I asked her if that means none of the kids or their parents have paycheck stubs as a result. She said no. A CBS spokesman then told me each child was paid a $5,000 stipend. Some kids also earned a $20,000 block of gold shaped like a gold star, if they won various challenges.

They were not allowed to phone their moms and dads; they were told they could quit the show if they wanted.

New Mexico has since changed its child-labor laws (not because of "Kid Nation"). But executive producer Tom Forman told the Television Critics Association convention that he's already started the casting process for a second season.

"I plan to find the right location that seems right for the kids and right for the show and investigate the laws at that location," Forman said.

Right. Maybe the sequel can be "Kid Nation: Cambodia."

Wisely, labor laws in California and New York forbid kids who are residents in those states from even appearing in a show like "Kid Nation." Thus, there are no New Yorkers or Californians in it.

Tassler said the show gives these kids a chance to make a "statement." A critic asked, "What kind of statement would an 8-year-old feel like he needed to be making?"

"You know what?" Tassler said. "You would be incredibly surprised. They're incredibly articulate. They have very strong opinions and, in many cases, their own worldviews."

Forman, a father of two, said he forged the show because he was "bored by the genre, bored by the sort of Hollywood reality types that auditioned for every show I did."

The kids were ideal because they didn't know what they were getting into, the way adults do in reality shows, Forman said.

"They tell you what they think. They tell you how they feel. If they are sad, they cry. If they have a crush on someone, they talk about it. If they're jealous or angry, they fight. It's everything that's best about human beings and, at times, worst."

Since TV execs want to air provocative or "sexy" shows, a critic said to Forman, "So you have 40 kids for 40 days and 40 nights. That's not sexy."

Forman replied, "Really?"

He tried to assuage concerns. "I think, almost to a one, the kids would tell you this was the best experience of their lives. I think, almost to a one, the parents agree," he said.

The children leaned on each other when they had emotional difficulty, he said.

If TV critics have reservations, I asked Forman, how will viewers take to "Kid Nation"?

"It seems outrageous" if judged without seeing it, he said. "I lived it for 40 days, and so I know what happened. I talk to these kids constantly now, so I know how they're doing.

"So if I don't seem to share everybody's concerns, it's not that I'm not a parent and not that I don't care. I just -- I have the benefit of a little bit more information. I think we'll get some tune-in based by the 'Oh my gosh, I can't believe they're doing that' factor. And then my hope is people stick around because they are, in fact, compelling stories about amazing characters."

Perhaps he's right. Maybe other critics and I are reacting too sensitively. I will reiterate I have not seen a full episode. But that CBS preview trailer and the show's legal maneuverings don't pass the early smell test.

I would feel better about "Kid Nation" if CBS showed raw footage and final product to five independent child psychology experts in America, let them interview some kids and crew members, and let those experts issue their own findings.

I did find two TV critics who told me they had no problem with the idea of the show. One was a parent. Another was not. "It's entertainment," the non-parent said, and he pointed out that in a way, "Kid Nation" is no different than fictional shows starring child actors.

"You're right," I said. After all, Danny Bonaduce, Dana Plato, Todd Bridges, Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson were allowed to enter show business as children, and look how rich and famous they turned out.

delfman@suntimes.com

The Xbox 360 proves better than the Playstation 3, but only by a whisker

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

The Sony Playstation 3 has been on the market for half a year, so it's time to see how it's stacking up against the other video game console made for hard-core gamers, the Xbox 360.

Actually, both consoles are lagging in sales behind the new Nintendo Wii, which has captured kids and women gamers.

In May, the Wii ($250) reportedly sold 338,000 units, compared to the Xbox 360 (155,000 consoles; most at $400 each), and the PS 3 (82,000 systems at $600, though summer sales drop the price to $500).

But here's my own bottom line for you the consumer:

The Wii may be the safe choice of a protective parent, and for an amateur or casual gamer who just wants a fun toy to play with. But if you're a serious gamer, I'd recommend the Xbox 360 over the PS 3 by a whisker, because it offers more games, and it's less expensive.

For new games: Xbox 360

Many great titles, such as "Call of Duty 3," are made for both the PS 3 and the Xbox 360. But the PS 3 still hasn't released some multiplatform games that already are on the 360.

And only the 360 will offer the upcoming "Halo 3," which probably will outsell every game this year.

For old games: PS 3

The PS 3 plays every old PS 2 game I've plunked into it. By contrast, I've gotten my 360 to play only one original-Xbox game, "Halo 2."

For visuals and graphics: Tie

I've seen no difference, generally. GameSpot magazine just did a technical comparison of images from "Armored Core 4" and deemed them virtually identical.

PS 3 could take the graphics lead in the next year, as game designers start digging into the PS 3's bigger computer.

For online play: Xbox 360

The fantastic Xbox Live changed my life. But Live's premium Gold service is exorbitant at $50 a year.

You don't pay a penny to play a PS 3 game online. But as of now, there are simply more great Xbox 360 games to play online.

For extras: PS 3

If you already surf cable Internet, you can check the Web on the PS 3. It's not smooth, though. I never use it.

Far more valuable is the PS 3's ability to upload music, photos and videos. I keep my iPod plugged into the Xbox 360.

But I burned hundreds of albums onto DVDs, then put those DVDs into the PS 3, and the Sony system uploaded all that music seamlessly. I now use my PS 3 as a massive, awesome jukebox.

For consumer stability: Tie

The Xbox 360 may freeze during online gaming too often. But it's outselling the PS 3, giving it better market stability at the moment. That's the battle. The winner of the war is a guess, because of each system's movie player.

The 360 plays DVDs, and for $200 more you can add an HD DVD player. Or, you can play regular DVDs and Blu-ray disks on the PS 3. If HD DVD is the next big thing, the 360 benefits. If Blu-ray prevails, the PS 3 gains.

The PS 3 got a boost when Blockbuster just announced it will sell more Blu-ray movies than HD DVDs.

But Sony is restricting the adult-film market from burning movies onto Blu-ray disks, which is reminiscent of when Sony restricted the adult-film market from burning movies to Beta, thereby sealing its obsolete fate against its VHS rival.

Women on top at ABC

July 27, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Women are expected to be so headstrong on TV now. Lucy Liu plays power-hungry Mia in ABC's upcoming show "Cashmere Mafia," where she kisses her boyfriend/work rival in an elevator, then tries to outhustle him for a business account.

"I think," Liu says, "if the audience saw Mia back down and say, 'You know what? I should let him win because he is a man,' I don't know what would happen to me -- if people would throw eggs at me on the street, you know?"

It's great to be a woman on ABC. They're rich, powerful, and they won't let a little thing like a man stand in their way.

ABC viewers are already familiar with the successful heroines of "Grey's Anatomy" (doctors), "Ugly Betty" (glam femmes), "Men in Trees" (novelist), "Desperate Housewives" (wealthy women) and "Brothers & Sisters" (wealthy, powerful women).

Come fall, ABC sends even more women skyrocketing through the glass ceiling in "Private Practice" (rich lawyers), "Samantha Who?" (socialite) and "Women's Murder Club" (crime fighters).

Think of it this way. This fall, ABC will air 12½ hours of dramas and comedies every week. Women will lead the casts for 7½ of those hours -- 63 percent of ABC's primetime fiction.

And when fall gives way to winter, ABC adds "Cashmere Mafia," where Liu and Frances O'Connor star in the story of four female CEO types: a media maven, a cosmetics marketing genius, a Wall Street warrior and one dubbed "the goddess of gracious living."

"Cashmere Mafia" looks like a business version of "Sex and the City" and, wouldn't you know it, it's co-produced by "Sex" creator Darren Star, who says his new drama reflects reality.

"I'm very much living in a world now where ... most of the new Caesars are women," Star says.

This is a weird time for women, though. On the one hand, strong, fictional women are taking over ABC and parts of other networks.

On the other hand, reality shows and TV gossip shows mostly present the worst images of women. "Cashmere" co-star Bonnie Somerville isn't thrilled about that.

"On these reality shows, obviously it makes for better television to see scandal and backstabbing and cheating and lying amongst friends," she says. "I'm tired of that depiction of women.

"My friends aren't like that. My managers are women. I love women. I'm just happy to see a show where women actually love each other and are friends and supporting each other."

The four main characters in "Women's Murder Club" also nurture each other's lives and careers with emotional and tangible support.

There is not, star Angie Harmon says, "the typical, 'Oh, it's women working together. This could get scary.' ... It's not like that at all here. We have a deep respect for each other."

It's hard to underestimate the sea change. James Patterson -- he wrote the novels "Women's Murder Club" is based on -- pinpoints the transformation: "Typically, this would have been called 'The Boys' Club,' and it's the opposite."

Adds "Murder" co-creator Liz Craft, "It's not a situation where we are going to have something great happen, and the women are going to react while the male leads are off being proactive and doing all of the cool stuff."

Male characters will challenge women in these shows, romantically and professionally. Do not expect the often weak men to conquer them. But Liu's character and her friends do struggle. They're human, not superhuman like the heroes and bionic women of NBC.

Sometimes, Liu says, women characters will feel like, "We can have it all. Look at this. I'm in a relationship. I'm working. You know, everything is great!

"And then suddenly, something goes away, and it's because you've sacrificed too much."

But that kind of conflict is integral in TV narrative, rather than destructive. Ultimately, the prize is this: Narrative has turned female -- and female-friendly.

"We feel like there's a perception out there that women tear each other down in the workplace," Craft says. "While that certainly happens, I think that more often, women buoy each other.

"We don't want them to be women trying to be men in a men's world. They are women being themselves."

New 'Price' host has the joy to be a game-show great

July 25, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Drew Carey has been giddy, contemplating life in Bob Barker's shoes.

"All I'm doing is giving away prizes. ... And it's not even my money," Carey said last week amid negotiations to host "The Price Is Right."

"It's like Oprah giving away those cars. She didn't give away those cars," he said. "The car company gave away the cars. Oprah just said, 'You get a car, and you get a car,' and she gets all the credit. That will be me: 'You win a car!' And they'll go, 'Oh, Drew, thank you!'"

The next "Price Is Right" frontman is not your typical pandering game show host. He doesn't even know the name of "the big wheel."

At a press conference last week, a TV critic asked Carey which "Price Is Right" minigame is his favorite. He said he watches only "once in a while," so he was kind of stumped.

"I think 'the wheel spin,' where you have to be closest to the dollar without going over -- that one I like."

Then he started calling it by another name. "One of the things we're having trouble with is I want to change the name of the show to 'The Magic Golden Wheel,' " he said. "You know, 'Price Is Right,' 35 years. Enough."

Barker fans can stop worrying. Carey, 49, is joking, mostly. "That show needs to be treated with a lot of respect," he said.

Barker said Monday he doesn't know Carey's work, but he advised that Carey try not to imitate him. That shouldn't be a problem.

When I screened an episode of "Power of 10," his new nighttime game show that starts Aug. 7, I realized Carey has the potential to become an all-time great game show host. He immediately connects with contestants, he's smart and he's genuinely happy-go-lucky.

I asked Carey why he's so joyous all the time.

"Wouldn't you be happy if you were me?" he said, then laughed like a little boy in an ice cream factory.

CBS courted him. He was psyched about the prospect, even if it means coming out of semiretirement.

"I didn't want to do TV ever for the rest of my life. I was, 'Screw TV.'

"I had all this free time. I had all kinds of money. And people loved me. ... I had all these benefits of TV, but [none] of the work."

There is a political twist to the "Price" hire. Liberal Rosie O'Donnell had been in the running. Carey goes another way. He has been filming documentaries about medical marijuana and eminent domain for the libertarian Reason Foundation's upcoming Web site, he said.

Carey then volunteered that although he doesn't belong to a particular religion, he believes his money is "not my money. It's God's money."

"I am really blessed to have it," he said. "Money is only worth what you perceive it to be worth. If you're even a lower-income guy in the United States, you live better than Solomon. You have a way better backyard than me if you go to Central Park. You have a way cooler TV room than me if you go to Hooters. ... I just happen to have a little extra property that's more private."

And constant mirth. And two new jobs.

The Former, Next, Not-Really Pussycat Doll

July 23, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- In the spring, young women (or old girls) sang their hearts out to try to win the CW's "Pussycat Dolls Present: The Search for the Next Doll." And for what? Winner Asia Nitollano never did become a Doll.

She wasn't fired, says CW head Dawn Ostroff; she quit to pursue a solo career. This might explain why Nitollano was a no-show for the Dolls' performance at the big Live Earth concert earlier this month.

Ostroff broke the news at a press conference Friday. She denies this makes "Pussycat Dolls" pointless. She told me Nitollano quit after the finale aired.

The surprise hit show will return to WGN-Channel 9 and other CW stations in the winter, but this time nine finalists will compete to be in a new trio called Girlicious.

Ostroff said Nitollano's decision -- which officially was her choice all along, to join the Dolls or go solo -- doesn't illegitimize CW reality competitions.

That would include "Beauty and the Geek" and some upcoming series that look super silly in preview trailers: "Farmer Wants a Wife" plus "Crowned," where mother-daughter teams live together in a house, with one duo suffering a "de-sashing ceremony" every week.

In other CW news:

• Scott Patterson says he had a contract with CW that if "Gilmore Girls" was not renewed for another season (it wasn't), the network would place him on another CW show (it did). This is kind of an astonishing disclosure to hear from an actor.

So Patterson, who played Luke, will portray the dad character in CW's new fall comedy "Aliens in America" -- replacing Patrick Breen in the role. Breen had already shot the first episode.

Patterson says he's disappointed "Gilmore" never got a bigger audience, and that it was always snubbed by the Emmys. He joked (I think) that the cast sat around and drank a lot near the end to drown their sorrows.

• "America's Next Top Model" has been renewed through at least 2010.

• Chris Rock will finally appear in his own show, "Everybody Hates Chris," as a guidance counselor in the fall's first episode. He has narrated the show from the start, but this is his first visual appearance. There's no word if it'll be a recurring part.

• And Ostroff says she's not worried about parents' reactions to the simulated pot smoking, sex and booze-swilling in the fall debut of "Gossip Girl." In the first episode given to critics, rich prep-school teens dig into all that stuff.

I didn't get worked up over the content when I watched "Gossip Girl." I was less put off by the line "tap that ass" than I was by a mother telling her daughter, "And put some product in your hair, the ends are dry."

delfman@suntimes.com

Exposing themselves

July 22, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

The naked cop you're looking at wipes whiskey off her Bible, peels dirty boots off her sandy feet, and she wonders: That guy who visited me last night -- that yellow-toothed, tobacco-spitting guy -- he says he's my heavenly angel. Is he for real?

Yes, he is. Earl the angel wants to save the soul of this swilly officer in TNT's "Saving Grace," debuting at 9 p.m. Monday (in the slot formerly occupied by "Heartland," which moves to 7). Since he rescues Grace from a sticky situation, she agrees to his deal, to align with the Almighty, amen.

But you know what? Things aren't so dull with this particular God. Grace gets to keep drinking, smoking, cussing and powering through athletic sex with married people. Angelic Earl doesn't even want her to go to church.

What is this religion, and where do I sign up?

I didn't want to like "Saving Grace." The premise sounds generically proselytizing. But it's not too quirky for quirky's sake. And Holly Hunter's Grace is an extremely interesting woman, fairly unimpressed with God's interest in her, so she remains a head case.

Hunter goes strikingly nude, and she magnifies Grace's gruff flaws with vocal inflections and body movements that don't resemble the usual actory approach.

There's this crazy-good scene where Grace crumples in shock and awe, and Hunter genuinely exhibits how a drunk, naughty, oddball cop might cope with this question: Am I seeing an angel -- or delusions of an angel? And which scenario is worse?

To take her mind off that question, Grace decides to get pounded naked against a wall by her cop buddy, then stops for second thoughts. Her eyes pan, she babbles incoherently, and finally she succumbs to her hellish drunkenness, dank with lust.

"He wants to bring me to my knees?" she says spitefully of God, then proceeds to please her adulterous lover.

What we have here is a show Hunter has produced acceptably well and acted with immense, believable intensity. It's a fairly gritty TV role served with a spoonful of lightheartedness.

This is also the horniest God show on TV. That's the line from this review TNT should use in their ads. When Earl opens his wings, Grace's rapture mimics sexual climax. Grace slinks down and tucks one of Earl's feathers against her breasts.

That's hot, I have to say. The hotness is just a bonus, though. Hunter takes the grace out of Grace and puts grace in "Grace."

What's strange is that this libidinous exhibition is on TNT, which is taking more risks lately with FX-type content and style.

Meanwhile, FX has a new show also starring a movie star -- "Damages," featuring Glenn Close -- where no one gets truly naked or cusses much in Tuesday's commercial-free premiere. This is still FX, right?

Close portrays Patty Hewes, a two-faced, cutthroat, amoral lawyer (also known as "a lawyer"). She hires a fresh-faced young legal eagle named Ellen, supposedly because Ellen is very ambitious, even though she doesn't seem like much of a go-getter.

Anyhow, Ellen (Rose Byrne) is assigned to handle a very high-profile lawsuit against a scumbag CEO type (Ted Danson) who stole millions from his employees.

At first, "Damages" looks like a typical lawyer show where the main players will take on a different case every week. But it becomes apparent quickly this is a serial, like most things on awesome FX, and episode No. 1 is just peeling the first layer of the onion.

The thrust of "Damages" is to dig into these characters and, more importantly, their schemes and reactions to other people's schemes. If I say much more, I'll give away the ending.

The direction is capable. And there are moments of shining in the script, though there aren't yet enough fine scenes, like the stellar reveal where Patty gripes about being a parent, while barely looking up from paperwork.

"Do yourself a favor, Ellen. Don't have kids," Patty hisses. "I read an interview once with a Nobel Prize winner. ... He said, 'Don't have kids. Ruins your ambition. Keeps you from you want in life.' He said to have wives instead. You can leave wives. You can't leave kids."

Close embodies the nastiness of her character. But she's not transcendent in her role the way Hunter is in "Saving Grace," so Hunter wins this week's installment of Movie Stars Sign Up For TV.

And like I said, this is FX -- where's the skin? Ellen engages in a sexless, nakedless love scene -- soft love-making on FX! If you were to watch only "Saving Grace" and "Damages," you'd think FX and TNT swapped positions. I feel a little discombobulated.

delfman@suntimes.com

Low-budget 'Raw Danger' combines a deadly flood with dating tips

Jul. 20, 2007

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

Raw Danger" looks like a disaster movie/video game about a massive flood destroying a city. But under the hood, it's really a game about the male's silly pursuit of the female of the species. You play as a guy trying to escort a woman to safety. And yes, of course, she's hot.

At one point, you (Joshua) stand with her (Stephanie) in the chilly rain, with water lapping perilously at your feet. But she wants to stop and chat. So you must pick one of four sentences that will inch you closer to becoming her boyfriend. What do you want to tell her?

A) "It looks like we'll be OK." (This will make you a wimp.)

B) "I don't think a helicopter is coming." (This will make you a jerk.)

D) "I can't wait to get out of this place." (Coward.)

No, clearly the right thing to say to this young woman during a deadly disaster is C) "What are you thinking about?" (Answer: herself.)

"Raw Danger" is very nearly a great little game. It's earned no big fanfare from the press, because it's not the next movie-based "Harry Potter" outing or "Transformers: The Game".

But it is that rarest of titles: a fun game -- a dramatic but charmingly goofy action-adventure -- made on a relatively small budget (by the fairly humble Agetec, which is selling "Raw Danger" for just $15).

"Raw Danger" won't blow you away. And it does move slowly at first. You begin as a waiter in a convention hall. You serve drinks. You get on your knees to help a woman in a designer gown find her missing contact lens. Can you say "minutia"?

Then come slow floods into the convention hall. Your initial goals are meager. You drag a ladder down a hall to enter a hole in a wall, so that you may reach Stephanie. She loses her mobile phone in the flood. Your choice of words have an effect on the outcome of the game. Do you say?:

A) "It's not your fault!"

B) "No more phone calls."

Or C) "How could you be so stupid"?

If you want her to end up her boyfriend, I think you know the answer.

As "Raw Danger" progresses, you and Stephanie climb up makeshift ladders and look for clues to get to the top of the building you're stuck in. Everything gets harder and more interesting to figure out. And you eventually play as other characters in tougher spots.

The knock against "Raw Danger" are the visuals. They look less enticing on the PS 2 than some handheld PSP games. People and backgrounds barely look like such. They suffer from low-resolution artistry in an age of high-definition imagery.

But the designers, faced with making their own financial choice, were smart to focus on making the game entertaining instead of good looking.

And it's hard to dislike the kookiness. You see flashbacks of Stephanie's youth, and she's a brunette. In the present day, she's a blonde. It seems this is not an error but a funny bit of long-term character development on a shallow scale.

Then, a TV newscaster reports the flood has injured two people named Jim Beam and Will Nelson. Are you telling me Willie Nelson was cozying up to Jim Beam during a flood? What are the odds?

("Raw Danger" retails for $15 for PS 2 -- Plays fun. Looks weak. Moderately challenging. Rated "T" for blood, language, use of alcohol or tobacco, and violence. Three stars out of four.)

Visual effects of bloody, gruesome 'The Darkness' are ugly yet beautiful

Jul. 13, 2007

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

In "The Darkness," your goal is to walk up to mob goons, stick a gun in their mouths, blow holes through their skulls, then rip into their chests and feed their hearts to demon snakes attached to your torso.

That's pretty nasty.

Adding to the gruesome effects are terrific visual details. "Darkness" exists in the style of "ugly-beautiful" games I've talked about before: They're beautiful, because the moving images are fairly close to photorealism; they're ugly for their grimy, gritty settings.

In other "ugly-beautiful" games, like the prison-bound titles "The Suffering" and "The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay," you scrounge around disgusting, blood-covered bathrooms that are so sick, you can't imagine.

"The Darkness" is set not in jail but in a very foul New York. You peruse disgusting bathrooms, almost on the level of restrooms in the movie "Trainspotting." Alleys and subways are strewn with trash, and walls everywhere are covered with mediocre graffiti.

The story: You're a 21-year-old who was raised by a mobster "uncle." The uncle disowns you and puts a hit on you. His gangsters try to slay you. Instead, you execute them with relative ease while working your way to the uncle.

So you walk the streets, alleys, buildings and cemeteries of the big city, taking out one dumb thug after another, in this glorified arcade gunner. And, oh, those hooligans are mighty doofuses, no matter how well-dressed they are in Tarantino-type black suits.

Some villains, who have been told to kill you, walk up and say, "Well, well, well," giving you a chance to shoot them first. There you stand, blasting them with two Uzis as demonic snakes wiggle from your rotator cuffs.

I'm a hard-core gamer, therefore the violence doesn't faze me much; we are a calloused lot. But there are some other problems. "The Darkness" can disappoint you quite a bit with lots of slow, boring walking, and orders to shoot streetlights. Yawn.

Having to walk slowly in a game, as opposed to running and gunning, is much worse than an insane amount of murdering. Why? Because sauntering about for minutes on end, without much action, is not super entertaining.

I also had problems playing it online. All the players kept getting stuck in walking positions. The computer servers couldn't seem to handle either the traffic or graphics, at least during my testing period.

Having said that, "The Darkness" (created by "Chronicles"-maker Starbreeze) marks another small, evolutionary step, bringing a more cinematic look and feel to gaming.

Your character, Jackie, resembles and tilts his head like a young Robert De Niro. The main demon master guy, The Darkness, is voiced by rock musician Mike Patton. Jackie's girlfriend is voiced by "Six Feet Under" star Lauren Ambrose.

There's lots of story and dialogue, though it's not very good dialogue. My favorite quote is when Jackie tells his girlfriend what he does for a living: "I kill people for the Franchetti crime family. I meant to tell you." Huh? When did he forget to tell her he's an assassin?

And just wait till he informs her what he does with the corpses.


("The Darkness" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 and PS 3 -- Plays fun when not sporadically boring. Looks great. Moderately challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, drug reference, intense violence, strong language and suggestive themes. Three stars out of four.)

Harry Potter game is fairly easy fun with lots of ground to cover

Jul. 06, 2007
By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

I wouldn't be the first person to heap praise on the "Harry Potter" movies. This might sound cheesy, but they make me feel at home. I see Hogwarts as a sort of land of magical misfit toys, and I'm kind of a grown-up, nonmagical misfit myself.

Over the years, the "Harry Potter" video games haven't been quite as welcoming or warm. They were either too narrowly focused, like offering a bunch of easy Quidditch matches, or they didn't flesh out the halls of Hogwarts enough.

But here comes the beautiful and fairly expansive "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" to deliver a Hogwarts that players can call home.

Harry, Hermione and Ron interact with each other and other students a lot. The game characters look exactly like the actors, though someone else is voicing Harry and Hermione's dialogue.

And while playing as Harry for most of the game, you walk and run about Hogwarts and its grounds in search of adventures based on the book and summer movie.

I don't think it's enough to just tell you Hogwarts is big. Here is a partial list of campus levels you explore repeatedly: the boathouse, clock tower courtyard, dungeons, entrance hall, first through seventh floors, grand staircase, Gryffindor boys' dorm, Hagrid's hut, herbology, hospital wing, library, Myrtle's bathroom, suspension bridge, Umbridge's office and the viaduct.

The downside is the game's adventure forces you to run back and forth across Hogwarts in search of clues and puzzles.

So, the first time I ran up and down those moving staircases, I was taken aback by the cool grandeur of navigating those playful steps, and I'd stop to chat with the people living in the paintings lining the staircase walls. But the 40th time -- not so much fun.

The game play itself is entertaining and breezy, but it's probably more exciting for a kid or a newcomer to games than to an adult, since there's not as much action gaming here as in typical movie-based games.

Many goals involve using your wand to move things around or to fix broken statues, in order to find missing ghosts and other items. These problem-solving challenges become routine for a hard-core gamer such as myself.

Playing "Phoenix" on the Wii may jazz up your experience a little bit. You swing the Wii wand to make Harry wave his magic wand, to cast spells to move furniture, uncover secrets and engage in battle. This helps the feeling of pretending to be Harry.

I'm not sure "Phoenix" will keep me playing all summer, but there is quite a bit of game here, plus standard minigames, such as the one where you match alike pairs from a deck of cards.

Eventually you can play as Dumbledore and other characters. And as you progress, you unlock bonus videos of cast members talking about the making of the game.

Altogether, it's not quite a great outing. But the colorful people, places and things add up into a sweet distraction in a familiar place.

("Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" retails for $60 for PS 3 and Xbox 360; $50 for the Wii; $40 for the PSP and PS 2; $30 for the DS -- Plays fun when not repetitive. Looks great. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated "E 10+" for fantasy violence. Three stars out of four.)

Inequity of 'Mario Party 8' will leave gamers screaming 'That's no fair!'

Jun. 29, 2007

GAME DORK: Pity Party

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

A video game can make you yell "yay" and "boo." But a game should never make you scream, "That's no fair!" And "Mario Party 8" makes me do just that.

"Mario Party 8" is a party game. You compete against other players in a series of minigames, where you essentially roll dice to travel along a series of colorful board games.

But time after time, I take the lead and close in on a win, when the game suddenly gives my lagging rivals a magical boost -- a "special bonus" -- to catch up to me.

This sort of inequity drags down the fun in "Mario Party 8" just as similar "artificial intelligence" blemishes better games. (How many times have you seen victory artificially ripped from your clutches in a "Madden" football game?)

Even if "Mario Party 8" weren't unfair, it wouldn't be on par with earlier "Mario Party" titles. The minigames are interesting, such as a haunted hideaway and an island board game. But it takes forever for each player's turn to start.

And a lot of minigames rely on the same old Nintendo tricks. You gather coins. Donkey Kong pads about in the background. Cutesy music plays.

This is all disappointing, since the game updates the "Mario Party" series to the Nintendo Wii. But Wii owners will be better off sticking to the excellent party games "Rayman Raving Rabbids" and "Wii Sports."

There is one other new party game called "Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree." It's infinitely more fair than "Mario Party 8." Inexplicably, though, "Big Brain" also makes players wait too long to take turns.

"Big Brain" is sort of like an entertaining IQ test. A clock times your progress while you solve various challenges having to do with visual trickery, memorization and math quizzes.

The test called "Whack Match" is just like "Whac-A-Mole." The game shows you a series of images, like a purse and a water glass, and you use a mallet to pound those images when they pop up from holes.

Harder minigames ask you to lay train tracks very quickly to get a toy train from one point to another. Or you play three-card Monte, but instead of cards you keep track of birds hiding in covered cages.

"Big Brain" is a fairly fun outing. I just wish it came with unrelated distractions, such as "Sudoku," as does the handheld DS game "Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day!" Then again, I think "Sudoku" should be included in every brain game.

("Big Brain Academy: Wii Degree" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays like a fairly entertaining school test. Looks OK. Challenging. Rated "E." Three stars out of four.)

("Mario Party 8" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays average. Looks OK. Easy. Rated "E." Two stars.)

GAME DORK: Hitting the Mute Button

Jun. 22, 2007

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

Some ugly people are playing video games online. They sound ugly, anyway. I was playing a shooting game the other day, and several players did the usual trash talking.

"How do you make a Jewish-black guy?" one racist "joked." Another uncreative bigot said, "I'm running like a (racial slur)."

These Klan types are rare but vocal -- hiding faceless, behind "gamertag" nicknames -- and they try to get under players' skins. Not just Jews and blacks, but women, homosexuals, Hispanics, Asians and, yes, whites.

It's one thing for these race-baiters to spew bile. It's almost kind of worse that they're so uncreative. They garble such pronouncements as, "I hate white people," and "What good have Jews ever done?"

Really? That's all ya got, stupidheads?

If I'm feeling charitable, I'll listen to someone defame, say, Jews while realizing he -- it's always a he -- is on my team.

The other day, a dumb guy said something nasty about Jews without knowing I have Jewish heritage. He then used his character's magical powers to resurrect me after I died. What a moron. He doesn't even know he's saving the Jews he hates.

If you don't play games online, this is probably pretty shocking. But to longtime gamers, it's old news.

Fortunately, video games are getting good at letting us mute undesirables. This doesn't quash Free Speech. Dummies can keep talking. But I press a few buttons to quiet them in my home, and they can go on talking to themselves like crazy people all night long.

I have tried playing games online without my ear piece. But for a lot of team-based games, it helps to hear your teammates devise strategy. And in shooters, it helps to listen in stereo to where gunshots are coming from.

Outright racists -- a very small percentage of gamers -- aren't the only noisy players. But other loudmouths can actually be entertaining, either on purpose or accidentally.

There's the Borat gamer ("Very niiiice!"); the whiners ("I shot that guy a million times and he didn't die!"); the constant cursers (mothers and female dogs are referenced a lot); and competitive go-getters ("Let's stay tight. Let's go, let's go!").

A couple of months ago, I listened to two dudes talk about carburetors. It was confusingly fascinating.

All these talky types are always online, and once again they chatted in abundance while I tested "Shadowrun" for the Xbox 360.

"Shadowrun" itself has been unfairly maligned by some critics who don't think it's a great shooter. Purists are disappointed "Shadowrun" isn't the role-playing game it was first for PC gaming.

Whatever. It's very addictive online. You play on teams and race across battlefields that are ornate, fantasy temple grounds, archaeological dig sites and seven other maps. You kill using guns and magic (like summoning a gust of wind).

Oddly, there are but four characters you can portray: a very white man; a tall, tanner elf; a white-ish troll; and a white-ish dwarf. They all need sun. And they are powerful. But I swear they're not into white power.

("Shadowrun" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays addictive, online especially. Looks very good. Challenging. Rated "M" for blood, intense violence. Three and one-half stars out of four.)

GAME DORK: Games of the Weak

Jun. 15, 2007

By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork

Whoa. It is a mediocre spring for video games. I just wrapped up a two-day gaming marathon, and the only thing that kept my interest for five straight hours was a handheld puzzle title called "Pogo Island." It came out two months ago.

First in my sights was "Shrek the Third," which isn't so bad but isn't so great. You play as the big green ogre, his donkey and so on. You punch tables to steal their table souls (huh?).

But "Shrek the Third" squanders its sweet-looking adventure land with the repetitive punching and kicking of villains. There's got to be more to a game than jogging, jousting, collecting gold coins and busting up wooden crates that get in your way. (Crates? Really?)

More promising is the nicely drawn comedic-horror tale of "Death, Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom." It's got teen spirit. As Death Jr. (son of Death), you sickle bad people into their graves, while you save pretty school friends from the evil clutch of, um, death.

Like "Shrek," though, "Death, Jr." bogs down in redundant killing. Worse, you also must play as a ghost girl who scouts out terrain for Death Jr. This is interesting at first, but quickly becomes as tedious as Friendster.

Gaming is more fun in "Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits." I have to give a slow applause clap to "Classic Series" for compiling into one little hand-held game a big bunch of arcade throwbacks from the 1980s, such as "Track and Field," "Time Pilot," "Contra" and "Yie-Ar Kung Fu."

The trouble with "Konami Classics" is the same problem that plagued "Track and Field" and other games back in the day: They were designed to end quickly, in order to make gamers drop handfuls of quarters into arcade consoles. The games are still too short to be Olympic feats.

And so, the game I settled into is "Pogo Island." It's a fun little nothing. You play a handful of different mini brain games.

In one game, you arrange cute little fish by their various colors as they descend from the ceiling; it's like an upside-down "Tetris." In another game, you play a form of solitaire. And my favorite game is "Word Whomp," where you make words from anagrams.

For instance, when you get served the letters, "inocas," you have only a few minutes to figure out they can be chopped up into "sin," "casino," "can," "con," "son," "ion," "sac," "coin," "icon," "scan" and "sonic."

What's weird is the dictionary isn't complete. Facing other anagrams, I wanted to spell "bile" and "lance," but it wouldn't let me. I'm not sure what's going on with "Word Whomp," but it recognizes "bible" yet not "gay" or "sex."

But whatever. It's pleasantly hard enough to be a simple outing for a hard-core gamer such as myself, and it's not too hard for casual gamers who just want to pass time. It's a wee engaging distraction, which evidently is just enough moderate praise to make it the game of the weak.

("Death, Jr. and the Science Fair of Doom" retails for $30 for DS -- Plays somewhat fun but too repetitive. Looks cute. Moderately hard. Rated "E 10+" for animated blood, cartoon violence, crude humor and mild language. Two and one-half stars out of four.)

("Konami Classics Series: Arcade Hits" retails for $30 for DS -- Plays fun, but games are too brief. Looks rudimentary. Moderately hard. Rated "E 10+" for mild violence. Two and one-half stars.)

("Pogo Island" retails for $25 for DS -- Plays addictive. Looks cute. Moderately hard. Rated "E." Three and one-half stars.)

("Shrek the Third" retails for $50 for Xbox 360 and Wii; $40 for PS 2; $40 for PSP; $30 for DS -- Plays somewhat fun but too repetitive. Looks good. Easy. Rated "E 10+" for cartoon violence, crude humor. Two and one-half stars.)

EMMY NOMINATIONS | This year, much less than usual to gripe about

July 20, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN delfman@ suntimes.com

Well, I guess we don't have the Emmys to pick on this year. Most of the right shows got nominated on Thursday. Most of the wrong ones got naught. Three cheers for the Emmys for not totally sucking!

The most gratifying nods are for Alec Baldwin (best actor in a comedy), Tina Fey (best actress in a comedy) and their show "30 Rock" (best comedy). So, Baldwin's recent offscreen parental rant didn't outweigh his incredible performances.

On the other hand, gay T.R. Knight was nominated for best supporting actor in a drama over his homophobic "Grey's Anatomy" co-star, Isaiah Washington.

To recap: Yelling at your daughter is OK (Baldwin); outing a co-worker as a "faggot" is not (Washington). I think I'm good with that.

Most major nominations are fine choices. Sure, "The Sopranos" and "Grey's Anatomy" are a stretch for best drama. Even many "Sopranos" fans didn't love this past season, and "Grey's" was annoying. But at least "Sopranos" and "Grey's" were finely shot, as opposed to Emmy's biggest clunker -- a best comedy nod for "Two and a Half Men." All that show deserves is two and a half viewers.

An unworthy nomination like that makes you think the Emmys are just giving kudos to cash cows, to make networks happy.

Then again, nominators didn't kowtow to rabid fan bases for overrated hits "Lost" and "Desperate Housewives," or the critically acclaimed but tiresome "Friday Night Lights" and "Battlestar Galactica." All those series were shut out of big awards.

If I could tell the Emmy people one thing, it would be, "Watch more Showtime and FX." Showtime's "Dexter" and its star, Michael C. Hall (as a serial killer who only kills other killers), deserved loving and didn't get any. FX's great "Rescue Me" was forgotten too, except for star Denis Leary. I'll be rooting for him to win best actor in a drama.

Like Oscar nods, Emmy nominations are impossible for cartoons to get outside of animation categories. "South Park," "Family Guy" and "The Simpsons" picked up exactly the same number of lesser nominations as "According to Jim": one. That's absurd.

Also reflecting recent Academy Awards history, the Emmys' strongest category again rewards best dramatic actresses. Women are shining on TV. Minnie Driver probably should win for FX's "The Riches."

But there is one huge omission in the supporting actress list. The fantastically talented Mary McDonnell from "Battlestar Galactica" was overlooked in favor of women from "Grey's," "Sopranos" and "Brothers & Sisters." That's a huge mistake.

And the miniseries and TV movie field is a joke. HBO's mediocre "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" collected a category-record 17 nominations. USA's awful "The Starter Wife" got 10. ABC's heinous "Path to 9/11" has seven nominations. The problem here isn't the Emmys, though. The state of miniseries and movies on TV is just dismal.

On a little bright side, Prince's Super Bowl halftime show was nominated for a technical award. You may not remember, but after he performed, a bunch of sex-obsessed prudes went national with their complaint that his guitar cast a silhouette that reminded them of weedwacker-sized penises they've apparently come in contact with over the years.

Evidently, these prudes had never seen a guitar silhouette before, during, oh, the past 60 years. This is news? So, hurrah for the Emmys for sticking up for half of a century of super obvious guitar symbolism.

Other big categories

Lead drama actor: James Spader, ''Boston Legal"; Hugh Laurie, ''House''; Denis Leary, ''Rescue Me''; James Gandolfini, ''The Sopranos''; Kiefer Sutherland, ''24."

Lead drama actress: Sally Field, ''Brothers & Sisters''; Kyra Sedgwick, ''The Closer''; Mariska Hargitay, ''Law & Order: Special Victims Unit''; Patricia Arquette, ''Medium''; Minnie Driver, ''The Riches''; Edie Falco, ''The Sopranos.''

Lead comedy actor: Ricky Gervais, ''Extras''; Tony Shalhoub, ''Monk''; Steve Carell, ''The Office''; Alec Baldwin, ''30 Rock''; Charlie Sheen, ''Two and a Half Men.''

Lead comedy actress: Felicity Huffman, ''Desperate Housewives''; Julia Louis-Dreyfus, ''The New Adventures of Old Christine''; Tina Fey, ''30 Rock''; America Ferrera, ''Ugly Betty''; Mary-Louise Parker, ''Weeds.''

Miniseries: ''Broken Trail,'' AMC; ''Prime Suspect: The Final Act,'' PBS; ''The Starter Wife,'' USA.

Movie: ''Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee,'' HBO; ''Inside the Twin Towers,'' Discovery Channel; ''Longford,'' HBO; ''The Ron Clark Story,'' TNT; ''Why I Wore Lipstick to My Mastectomy,'' Lifetime.

TELEVISION REVIEW | AMC series about 1960 ad execs is intriguing, subversive

July 19, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- "Mad Men" begins in the sleek offices of an Eisenhower-era ad agency on Madison Avenue. Everyone's dressed dapper. Girdled women wear hairspray helmets. At first, you think, "This is going to be another glamorization of the stupid past."

But then, the past un-glamorizes itself.

A boss at the agency needs a Jewish employee to perform a Jewish-related task, but he can't find one. So he asks his ace ad man, Don Draper, "Have we ever hired any Jews?"

"Not on my watch," says Don (Jon Hamm), appearing slightly alarmed at the mention of the J-word.

"Mad Men" is a welcome oddity. It is anti-nostalgia dressed in the style of nostalgia. It looks like "Bewitched," sort of. Or the film "Down With Love." But it smells like the ugly truth about 1960, looking under the gloss and finding heinous behaviors of the era.

But the focus isn't a macro expose of the period. It's straight, if subversive, storytelling of some of the talented, misogynist bigots (and their submissivized women) who sold America through marketing at the turn of the 1960s.

Ad man Pete (Vincent Kartheiser) is such an arrogant WASP, he refers to clients as "retail Jews" and condescends to a new secretary, "It wouldn't be a sin for us to see your legs. If you pulled your waist in a little bit, you might look like a woman."

Pete thinks he's being helpful. The secretary, Peggy (Elisabeth Moss), might half-think he's right. As part of her work orientation, another secretary tells Peggy she should get on birth control pills, so as to avoid work-related pregnancy.

I wouldn't hold it against you if you thought, "I don't want to see this bunch of jerks and victims in a TV show," but I'm telling you, "Mad Men" is a refreshingly unprocessed, intriguing and more honest look at America than TV normally provides. Rest assured, characters will sometimes deal with consequences from cruel flaws.

It's written, directed (by Alan Taylor) and acted about as superbly as it needs to be. It's pitch perfect. It's beautifully shot, and everything seems authentic -- the detailing of offices, clothes, speech and especially the manners and lack of shame of the time.

Creator Matthew Weiner, 42, wrote the first episode seven years ago, in between typing jokes for the traditional sitcom "Becker." He sent the script to "The Sopranos" creator David Chase, who was so impressed he hired Weiner.

Then, fading giant HBO took a pass on "Mad Men" because HBO is really, really dumb lately. Weiner holds no punches.

"I'll be honest with you," Weiner says. "They had the script from the day I started 'The Sopranos,' and they were not interested. They did not respond to it."

Little AMC, on the other hand, wanted to get in the business of screening original, high-quality series and offered Weiner creative freedom and a ton of money for casting, music rights and sets.

What AMC got is what Weiner sold "Mad Men" as -- a realish, unsentimental portrayal of complicated "whole people" who act with the more decent 1960 manners America has lost, while also playing grab-ass and crassly defaming subordinates.

"Mad Men" tonally reminds me of one spectacular sequence in "Natural Born Killers," where Rodney Dangerfield jokes with his character's daughter one moment, then squeezes her incestuously the next.

It's hard for an artistic entity to balance that kind of American duality. "Mad Men" does so in a subtler and more natural way than "Natural Born Killers" did satirically. But likewise, "Mad Men" may fascinate you while repulsing you. "Happy Days" are not here again.

delfman@suntimes.com

Washington's 'Bionic' part a lightning rod

July 18, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Isaiah Washington is a dillweed, but now he's a dillweed with a thriving career.

On Tuesday, the cast and crew of NBC's new "Bionic Woman" faced grumbling TV critics who wondered why Washington, he of the word "faggot," has been signed as a five-episode guest star.

"We feel he is the right actor for the role, but also we believe in second chances," said "Bionic" executive producer Jason Smilovic.

"When somebody does something wrong, and you have a systemic problem, the best way to change that problem is not by casting them outside of the system," he said. "It's by allowing them to make amends, allowing them to make reparations and do the right thing."

OK, so to make reparations, maybe he should engage in a gay kiss in "Bionic Woman," a TV critic suggested at the "Bionic" press conference. Smilovic, who holds a degree in a political theory, responded with political blandness.

"I think that would do a lot more than break down the third, fourth and fifth wall of television. We're trying to make a show."

Here's another good question: If it had been a white actor using the n-word -- instead of Washington using that f-word -- would NBC be touting that it had hired that scandalized actor?

"That's a theoretical question I really can't answer," Smilovic said.

All right, then, is it disrespectful to gay people for NBC to hire Washington?

"Absolutely not. We embrace the gay community. We are hoping that they're going to watch the show," Smilovic said. "This is about making a television series ... and we found a great actor to do that."

What a mess. And Smilovic didn't seek out Washington. The actor was thrust on him by NBC's new co-chair of entertainment, Ben Silverman. What's Smilovic going to say? "My boss was wrong to hire a pariah?"

After the press conference, I asked Smilovic if the media's fixation on Washington is distracting him from making the show.

"No," he said. "I get it. It's the snake eating the snake."

Personally, I'm sick of the Washington story. He said some jerky, hateful things, but so have Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson, and those guys rule Hollywood. And to tell the truth, Washington's brief acting in the movie "Out of Sight" is better than any performance Cruise and Gibson ever did.

After his stint as a government man in "Bionic," Washington begins development of his own NBC action show. He wasn't at Tuesday's press conference but told the AP he's "humbled" by the new opportunities.

In the midst of all this is the new "Bionic Woman," Michelle Ryan. She's a British soap star so dedicated to the role that she's getting bruises during three to four hours of daily physical training, including something called "Israeli martial arts."

Ryan, 23, is most interested not in Washington but in her character's mighty might as a half-woman, half-cyborg.

"As a young female actress, I always enjoy strong female actresses like Angelina Jolie in 'Tomb Raider,' " Ryan said. "I want to be like that. I want to be strong. I want to be confident and empowered. I think that's a really great message that 'Bionic Woman' brings out there.

"I mean, she's a woman, so all of these feelings and hormones and emotions will come up. So initially, it's going to be dealing with being bionic and dealing with her abilities, but down the line she's got to have some romance."

Yes, hormones. When she said that, it reminded me of another 1970s hit show I'd be more interested in seeing resurrected, so I asked Smilovic if he could produce "Three's Company" next.

"I think you could make 'Three's Company' today," as long as it came with contemporary changes, he said. He seemed glad to be off the Washington subject.

"Larry was great, with the three buttons opened [on his hairy chest]. Always went out with women named Yvonne and all these great exotic names.

"Jack was always relegated to the cold shower."

Maybe a metaphorical cold shower should be Washington's fate. Or maybe not. Who cares? Can we move on and await next year's movie version of "Wonder Woman" and its island of scantily clad, empowered women?

delfman@suntimes.com

School's out, summer's very in for 'Musical 2'

July 17, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Old people can think of Zac Efron as the new John Travolta (circa "Grease"). His character Troy, singing and dancing star of last year's Disney Channel hit "High School Musical," returns in this summer's sequel, "High School Musical 2."

But Efron is only now getting to sing all his vocals. His voice isn't what you always heard in the first movie. Efron has been singing in semiprofessional musicals since he was a kid, so he insisted on singing all of Troy's lines for the sequel, which premieres Aug. 17.

"I really had to fight for it," Efron, 19, says. "It was always sort of an awkward, awkward subject in the first movie, when my voice didn't get used. And to be honest, no one has really come to me and told me why. So it's innately awkward when you have no idea why your voice isn't going to appear on the album."

I ask "Musical" director Kenny Ortega about it. First of all, he says, none of the singers in the sequel has been dubbed, "honest to God."

"The first time around, we shared Zac's [vocals] with another singer because the music was written before we started the film, and before we cast. So not everything was written in Zac's range," Ortega says.

"This time, everything is written in the character of Troy for Zac, and every other character as well. They're all singers," says Ortega, who choreographed "Xanadu," "Dirty Dancing" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off."

In my interview with Efron, his tone isn't whining but determined. He's thankful to Disney for even giving him the role. "Regardless," Efron says, "it's great to come back and kind of put my foot down. It's paying off."

He's right. All the singers sound quite good vocalizing catchy and well-crafted songs in "High School Musical 2." And I don't even like Disney musicals, usually.

This week, Disney.com is uploading a video of the new song "You Are the Music in Me" from "Musical 2." And a free simulcast of the soundtrack is premiering at Disney.com/DXD.

The sequel follows Troy and Gabriella as soon as school lets out for summer. The plot (which is secondary to the music and dancing) asks: Will Troy be manipulated into abandoning his friends to hang out instead with villainess Sharpay and her rich trappings?

More girls than boys watched the first "Musical." So the sequel includes golf and baseball scenes to try to lure in guy viewers.

That means there are more male singers in "Musical 2," including Lucas Grabeel, 22, and Corbin Bleu, 18. Bleu, who portrays Chad, acted but didn't sing in the first "Musical." In "Musical 2," he and Grabeel sing, dance and play baseball.

Grabeel, who plays Ryan, credits Ortega for hiring backup dancers from Utah, where "Musical 2" was filmed.

"Every one of those kids wanted to be there every day, and wanted to put every single ounce of themselves into it," says Grabeel, 22, a St. Louis native.

"That's something you won't find a lot of times when a dancer grows up in L.A., wears the sideways cap, and only cares about what he looks like and dances. There's no soul in that. That's why there are so many unemployed actors and performers in Los Angeles. There's no soul. There's no life.

"You can do the moves, but can you tell me a story with your dancing?"

NBC says Trump to return, this time with celeb contestants

July 17, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- Donald Trump hasn't been fired after all. NBC says it will bring back "The Apprentice" in mid-season with celebrity contestants.

Trump and NBC want his nemesis, Rosie O'Donnell, to be on the show. But her spokeswoman vowed, ''It will never happen in this lifetime or beyond."

Addressing TV critics Monday, new NBC Entertainment co-chairman Ben Silverman also announced:

• • Jerry Seinfeld will do a one-episode guest role as himself -- but with a twist -- in the season debut of "30 Rock."

• • Silverman brought in Norman ("All in the Family") Lear to help oversee a new comedy-drama about the "battle of the sexes," a series in development. It's set on Wall Street.

• • And even though Silverman plugged the Peabody-winning "Friday Night Lights" as a high-quality show, he said a main reason it got renewed was simple: It's cheap to make.

Women are waaaacky!

July 15, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

First, there was that book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. Now there are two new Lifetime shows whose themes suggest a rawer breakdown of the male-female dynamic: men are asshats, women are crrraaazy.

In Lifetime's estrogen-titled "Side Order of Life," a female journalist sees hallucinations. That's cuckoo. She also doubts her fiance is a good man simply because he bought her a beautiful ring she loves. That doesn't even make sense.

And in "State of Mind," a therapist considers staying with her loser husband, even after she walks in on him mid-coitus with another woman.

In other words, women are either so bonkers they look for ways to destroy good relationships, or they're so wacky they attach themselves to the wrong men.

Despite this female nutcakery -- or because of it -- the debut episodes of both shows are fairly watchable. There's entertainment in crazy women and their asshats. And the actors do a solid job of portraying women in crisis.

"Side Order of Life" centers around a journalist named Jenny (Marisa Coughlan). She's happy-go-lucky until a friend battling cancer realizes life is short; she convinces Jenny to order life's main dishes, and not settle for life's side dishes.

Well! This is news to Jenny. Who knew you could dine on lobster instead of peas? Who knew you could look for a more perfect man when you're now settling contentedly with a hot guy (Jason Priestley) who bends over backward for you and your friends?

Suddenly, Jenny begins to question everything, a theory I support to grow as a person. But Jenny's self-inflicted turmoil makes her an unhappier woman for now. And the show implies only chaos can make her a capable journalist.

"Side Order of Life" feeds the earned perceptions that Lifetime is a channel for "chicks" -- and that chicks are drawn to romantic fantasy and magical surrealism.

Romantic fantasy: Jenny accidentally calls some random guy, and their conversations sound like the beginning of an emotional affair. Oh, isn't it just serendipitous!?

Magical surrealism: The universe uses photos and fortune cookies to communicate supernatural messages to Jenny regarding life and love. Or maybe she's experiencing a psychotic breakdown?

The show does its best to appeal stereotypically to the husbands of wifely viewers. Jenny has a dream where she's walking down the aisle only in panties and bra. This is a nightmare for her, a dream for dudes.

Jenny, you see, could pass as an older sister of Lindsay Lohan: she's smoking hot, she's nuts and she babbles incoherently for long stretches of time.

Not being a woman, I'm surprised to learn from Lifetime that females are beset by nightmares. Both "Side Order of Life" and "State of Mind" begin with women anguishing nocturnally. Clearly, these girls need softer pillows.

In "State of Mind," Dr. Ann Bellowes (Lili Taylor) dreams anxiously she is not married to her husband. Then she wakes up and stumbles into a room where he's enjoying a lover. For the rest of the show, Dr. Ann toils with emotional fallout.

As in previous roles, Taylor plays the strong and somewhat batty woman in the room who sees through people, X-raying their failings, and informing them of flaws without sparing their feelings.

And like in "Side Order," Taylor's show also conjures a bit of magical surrealism. While Dr. Ann is listening to a patient prattle on, she spots a ghostly vision of herself walking up behind the client and pretending to kill her.

It is true "Side Order of Life" and "State of Mind" are ripe to be mocked for grade-A chickness, but they aren't bad.

Coughlan finds the nice subtle undertones so Jenny seems more real and less cardboard.

And Taylor, being one of Hollywood's underutilized great actresses, makes "State of Mind" interesting just by appearing in it. Taylor's supporting cast is quite good, too.

Yes, Jenny and Dr. Ann are functional loons. But at least they are about to save themselves and shake codependency with men. In an interview once, Taylor weaved a fine rationale for such roles:

"I would rather play someone who's f---ed up and deep than someone who's one-dimensional and invisible. I would rather drive something and be crazy than be forgotten and nothing."

I couldn't have put it any more succinctly, crazy lady.

delfman@suntimes.com

HBO launching sex series with graphic details to hold viewers who miss action of 'Sopranos'

July 14, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. -- HBO figured out how to replace "The Sopranos" -- with an upcoming drama featuring full-on, male and female frontal nudity and more frank sex scenes than you'll see in a Cinemax skin flick.

The show is "Tell Me You Love Me," a serious, character-based show chronicling four couples as they navigate rocky relationships. Its tone and rhythm is similar to playwright Neil LaBute's 1998 movie "Your Friends & Neighbors" -- but less cruel and more explicit.

For several minutes in an episode, the camera just happens to stay on "Tell Me" characters when they pull off their pants, penetrate each other, masturbate themselves and each other, and engage their mouths lovingly or awkwardly.

Cast members say it's more simulation than stimulation -- that it only looks like men are placing their hmm-hmm's in hoo-hah's. But your eyes may believe otherwise. It seems as authentic as, say, many European commercial films. A lot of things in America claim to be groundbreaking when they're not. "Tell Me" is.

The sex-havers are not just in their 20s, 30s and 40s. Jane Alexander -- who once ran the National Endowment for the Arts -- portrays a therapist to the characters; she goes home to share pleasure with her man in coital detail. Alexander is 67.

Anyone who watches the show, debuting Sept. 9, will see that the mostly unsexy sex is indeed integral to the storytelling, and not just tacked on lasciviously. That's what cast members say, and they're right.

"We are not porn stars. We're actors," Michelle Borth told TV critics Thursday. She plays Jaime, a twentysomething chef who uses sex as a crutch to forge intimacy.

"First of all, it's HBO," says Ally Walker. "You pay to have this in your home." Walker plays Katie, who catches her hubby playing with himself.

Secondly, Walker says, the scenes are naturalistic. "We're having, you know, sex where you're trying to get pregnant, which is not hot. [Some characters are] not having sex, which is depressing. [Another character is] having sex to hide [emotionally], because she's in pain. So it's not really there to titillate you," she says. "It's like reality."

Tim DeKay -- his character David masturbates in the first scene -- struggled with accepting his role as a fortysomething in a sexless marriage. "It took me forever to decide whether or not I was gonna do it," says DeKay, who once played the Bizarro Jerry on "Seinfeld."

Everybody in the cast was scared, he says, but they were eventually comforted in working with high-quality HBO. And the good writing drew them in.

Walker says people who might protest have misplaced priorities about the violence of network TV and the nudity of pay TV.

"What's really awful is you can blow someone's head off and there's no problem," Walker says. "You can decapitate people at [7] o'clock when kids can watch, and there's no problem. But FX and HBO -- [people complain] because someone shows a breast."

Show creator Cynthia Mort seems surprised that TV critics -- the first audience to see the series -- are focusing on the sex, which comprise a vibrant minority of episodes. She just wanted to tell the whole truth about her creations, she says.

"These are sex scenes," Mort says, "between two people who are in love in a committed, long-term relationship. It's not marginalized. It's not perverted."

REVIEW | CBS' episodes show bikini cheesecake, but Showtime's versions go further, faster

July 11, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Since Earth is merging into One Giant Company, CBS is showing live feeds of "Big Brother 8" on Showtime, its main cable channel. And, oh, is it a different experience on Showtime.

I haven't seen sex acts on the cable version yet. But Showtime commercials flash scenes from previous seasons to prove bare bottoms and multiperson showers might be on the horizon.

Here's a difference. On the CBS episodes, women are shown in bikinis for cheesecake factor, grabbing their breasts, covered in butter.

But on Showtime, you see contestant Jen in a bikini bottom so small you can make out impressions of nooks and crannies in the fabric. A fellow contestant, "Evil" Dick, said if the wind were to blow on Jen's privates, well ... the Sun-Times won't let me finish that sentence.

"What's she wearing, like a 10-year-old girl's bikini?" Evil Dick said. "If that thing was wedged up any higher, that [animal-female body part reference] would be as big as the [several words my editors won't let me print] between my legs."

Dick is my favorite of the 14 contestants. He's a name-dropping bar worker slimed in tattoos and an eyebrow ring. That's not what makes him great. He's great because he's the most cynical, at 44, so he sees right through the young dummies.

On uncensored Showtime, he said about a femme: "I f--- girls on a regular basis that are way hotter than her." Yeah, Dick's a weasel.

In a twist this season, CBS brought in "enemies" of contestants. Dick arrived to create conflict with his crying daughter Daniele; they hadn't talked in two years. Two others have fought since they were kids. And Dustin and Joe are ex-lovers from Chicago. Joe accused Dustin of giving him gonorrhea, which Dustin denied.

Joe is a mess. In the same breath, he said to his ex: "Dustin, you are honestly someone I could have seen myself spending a long, long time with. There's just one thing you can't get over, and it's your lying! ... You're a bad person who's only out for yourself!"

Why would Joe want to spend his long life with a bad, lying egoist, if that's even true?

It's typical of "Big Brother" that this fame-seeking cast is not just white bread but stereotypical and designed to engage in garden-variety conflict. Most of the women have cried already. And while watching episodes on CBS and Showtime, I noticed:

• The one black contestant, Jameka, did much of the cooking and cleaning. On CBS, she said, "I am not used to being around all these white people."

• To contrast the flamboyantly gay Chicagoans comes the one suburban mommy, Kail, who made an anti-gay comment after grabbing her big book: "I have to bring my Bible."

• And dumb Carol said she didn't find Jen (who cried because she didn't like her official "Big Brother" photo) a person of substance "because of her giant boobs." Meow.

In Jen's defense, she stated, "My body is not my only asset," while she simultaneously poked her bikini bottom at the camera.

The downfall is, as always, there is nothing for these morons to do. They just sit around and chat about nothing if they talk at all.

Even CBS' condensed shows drag with a butter-slathering contest and little else. On Showtime, the excitement early Monday was a situp class and Amber putting on makeup. I've met funnier, cooler people on cruise ships. On cruise ships, people!

Showtime's act is slower and more mind-numbing, like Amber's strategizing: "Carol told me that Jen told her that ..."

But then, other than Dick, the only thing going for "Big Brother 8" is watching the Showtime feed on DVR and fast-forwarding to see if anyone gets naked. Is that crass? Yeah. Fine. I'll take crass over watching dum-dums sit in chairs and stare at air.

Cheers for 'Bronx' tale

July 8, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

I'm sure all your favorite Cubs and White Sox players are just fantastic guys, really. But otherwise, I've heard many stories from entertainment journalists about how the very worst celebrities in America are egotistical athletes.

Some of the nastiest anecdotes passed my way starred Johnny Bench, Mark McGwire and other sporty heroes. My least-favorite interviewee was Charles Barkley. He was such a horror show, I vowed never to revisit his name in print. Typing it now pains me.

So it's absolutely no surprise at all to watch the eight-part ESPN miniseries, "The Bronx Is Burning," and see its cast of baseball legends behaving like out-of-control megalomaniacs.

"The Bronx is Burning" chronicles the 1977 New York Yankees, specifically its three-way clash of titans -- the triple threat of owner George Steinbrenner, slugger Reggie Jackson and manager Billy Martin.

If you've seen the Steinbrenner of "Seinfeld," you'll recognize Oliver Platt's similar portrayal of the big-city screamer. John Turturro resurrects Martin as a folksy drunk with big Spock ears. And Daniel Sunjata plays Jackson as a Narcissus in sunglasses.

During spring training, Jackson explains to a sportswriter why his head's so big.

"I've got problems that other guys just don't have," Jackson boasts. "This team -- it all flows from me. I've got to keep it all going. I'm the straw that stirs the drink."

Jackson's interviewer types up his quotes, and this understandably injures the egos of all the other Yankees, especially team captain Thurman Munson, who comes off as the one main character with a grounded psyche.

But "Bronx" doesn't begin with Jackson. It starts with Steinbrenner vs. Martin. In the first scene, a steaming Steinbrenner wants to fire Martin for attacking Jackson in the dugout.

We then see a flashback to when Steinbrenner gleefully hired Martin two years earlier. Steinbrenner knew Martin was a controlling hothead, but he thought he could tame him, blustering, "He hasn't worked for me yet!"

"Bronx" is a drama. But there is a funny part in the second episode where Steinbrenner and Martin apologize to each other sheepishly for an earlier screaming match. These two are like wife beaters. They essentially say, "I'm gonna beat you!" followed by "Sorry, honey," then rinse and repeat.

The name of the miniseries comes from a Howard Cosell quote. During the 1977 World Series, a fire broke out near Yankee Stadium. Cosell saw the blaze and said on the air, "There it is, ladies and gentlemen, the Bronx is burning."

Consequently, this miniseries is based on Jonathan Mahler's journalistic book, Ladies and Gentlemen, The Bronx Is Burning. Like the book, the TV series focuses on the Yankees plus two other New York events at the time: a mayoral election and a serial murderer.

Occasionally, we see a jerk walking the streets of New York, shooting young couples while they chat in parked cars. This shootist would go on to be called Son of Sam.

As for the election, some scenes sporadically pop up featuring archival footage of Ed Koch, Mario Cuomo and Bella Abzug running for mayor of a city then burning up with labor strikes, crime waves and -- worst of all -- disco.

The reason the election and murders serve as narrative background is to prove how the Yankees cut through all that turmoil to give baseball fans a joyful diversion.

"The Bronx Is Burning" itself, though, is not so joyful, not with all those cantankerous windbags. But if you enjoy inside baseball, it's an interesting dynamic to view, and it's made cohesive by solid efforts from the actors, scriptwriter James D. Solomon and director Jeremiah S. Chechik.

For viewers too young to remember the summer of Sam starring the New York Yankees, "Bronx" is missing only one context. When Jackson references his race defensively, it helps to know racism in 1977 seemed about 1,000 times worse than now. For Jackson to be touchy when someone called him "boy" was quite understandable.

For me to enjoy "Bronx" is saying something. I gave up following sports several years ago. At some point, I realized I was rooting for three or four teams in the whole world, while wasting hours of worry rooting against about 200 other teams I still hate.

So looking back at this Yankees of my young childhood uncovers cobwebbed memories. When was the last time I heard the names Bucky Dent and Bella Abzug? I don't even know. But "Bronx" makes the flashback a fine outing, starring Major League meanies.

delfman@suntimes.com

It's a wild, wily Wuhl

July 6, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic

Listen, it's the slack summertime. I'm trying to find good TV for you to watch this weekend, but it's hard. I could stomach only 10 minutes of MTV's "My Super Sweet 16: The Movie" (1 p.m. Sunday), because I'm not charmed by idiotic 16-year-old girls whose mantra is "OMG!"

And Comedy Central's * debut of "American Body Shop" (9:30 p.m. Sunday) sets up elaborate comedy bits in a fictional auto shop. But I've laughed more at my own ex-mechanic, who rode a bicycle to his shop because he racked up too many DUIs.

So the TV winner this weekend is HBO's "Assume the Position 201." Comedian Robert Wuhl -- who used to play the skeezy sports agent on HBO's "Arli$$" -- presents a fairly funny lecture about history, to a small class of college-age kids.

He spends most of this second-season premiere pondering the question: Is George W. Bush the worst president in history?

Well, that's not exactly his point. His thesis is this isn't the first time we'll survive a doofus executive swept into the white male club.

"Lousy leaders are as American as apple pie," Wuhl, 55, says.

Yes, indeedy. Vice President Aaron Burr shot Alexander Hamilton to death after he opposed Burr's presidential aspirations.

And President Franklin Pierce was a pro-slavery alcoholic who hastened the Civil War and drove over a woman with a horse-drawn carriage. There is a fantastic payoff to the Pierce story I didn't see coming. Along the way, Wuhl spins stories with the sort of spirited and lighthearted comparisons to pop culture that made my history professors engaging.

So, is Bush numero uno in regards to craptacularness? Wuhl doesn't vote on that. But he delivers a correlating message.

"We'll get through it," he says. "I'm an optimist. ... I always look at the bong as half-full."

The second half of "Assume the Position" focuses on the history of non-political pop culture. One quiz: Which of the following "people" were "Real or Not Real"? Chef Boyardee. Little Debbie. Jose Cuervo. And Aunt Jemima.

To add spice (this is HBO after all), four women in tight clothes hold briefcases during that quiz. This comes across not as a dumbing down of history but as an integration of pop culture while lampooning it.

Wuhl keeps saying that what we know of history isn't necessarily true, because the details depend on the storytellers.

And Wuhl himself is such a flawed storyteller. In a New York Times interview last year, he misquoted Tolstoy's bottom line about history.

"Tolstoy said, 'History is a wonderful thing, if only it were true,' " Wuhl told the Times.

What Tolstoy really said was, "History would be a wonderful thing -- if it were only true."

But what do I know? I was a just history minor at Louisiana State University, where bumper stickers proclaimed LSU "the Harvard of the South," because everyone knows LSU is the Harvard of the South.

And speaking with all my South Harvard wisdom, I say the worst president of all time can't be Bush, because the bottom spot is firmly held by Ronald Wilson Reagan. Each of his names contains six letters: 666. Class dismissed.