September 19, 2007
By Doug Elfman
Chicago Sun-Times
It's too bad Fox's new sitcom "Back to You" starts as a miserable and insufferable flop. But at least the first episode isn't as unbearable as the soul-eating second episode.
The sitcom (debuting tonight before the season opener of " 'Til Death") is an always-laughing-audience comedy starring Kelsey Grammer and Patricia Heaton as news anchors in Pittsburgh. A traditional American stage farce trapped in a faux-contemporary setting, it's like "Frasier" joins the newsroom from "Bruce Almighty." Sorry for the insult to "Frasier" and "Bruce Almighty."
Jokes fail fast due to routine-sitcom punch lines and off-kilter direction (by legendary James Burrows, surprisingly). You can see the setup coming for jokes, every one of the rotten little creatures, like when a guy says, "Sometimes I can be a little whiny," and a woman responds, "I believe that's pronounced 'little weenie.' " Whoa, that's a new one, geniuses.
Here's the best joke from the first two decrepit episodes, as delivered by Fred Willard in a waste of his skills: "Last week I told a perfectly harmless PMS joke, and she threw a bottle at me. Whose point did she prove there, huh?"
There's no need to belabor this compost. But I would like to add that there's an allergy story line here that ABC's awful "October Road" just aired, very similarly, last season. And Grammer is great for 10 seconds when he's supposed to seem gloomy, which makes me think he might be compelling in an uberdramatic role.
Anyway, "Back to You" stinks, shames the sitcom form, is written and directed with smelly gusto, and is not original, funny or redemptive by any universal standards known to science, creation or TV executives. Congratulations, crappy show, you may be the unfunniest sitcom on broadcast TV. I salute your achievement.
Doug Elfman
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
'Kitchen Nightmares' will make you laugh, make you sick and make you think
September 19, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
On "Kitchen Nightmares," chef Gordon Ramsay visits restaurants in middle-class America, and he finds larvae, bugs, rotten meat and moldy food almost everywhere he looks.
"It's not a 'crab' cake," he says at one eatery. "It's a 'crap' cake, because I feel if I eat any more, I'll be [passing gas] for the next 105 years."
This is not something you want to watch while chowing at home. The visuals are yucky.
But it's a very entertaining public service. Merely by showing us how average eateries fail, Ramsay might egg all of us into being more suspicious of food we eat out.
In an upcoming episode, Ramsay goes to a New York seafood place that just received a 95 out of 100 from the health board. Ramsay immediately spots so much grime and putrid food, he shuts the place down so workers can wipe up the deep filth.
"You've got the nerve to tell me that you clean the walls every f----ing Tuesday?" Ramsay screams at a staffer. "Touch the wall, you dirty pig. This is disgusting!"
He's right. Obviously, Ramsay can't bust every restaurant in America. But the series can make you start questioning similar eateries in your own sphere. I was reminded of two restaurants I used to like but have avoided lately. One smells mildly of its bathrooms. At another, I've complained twice, to no avail, about mold or massive mildew piling up on the vents.
Even when the food isn't rotten, restaurants aren't necessarily doing good jobs. On "Nightmares," one family Italian restaurant buys its ravioli from Restaurant Depot. At that point, customers are essentially spending a lot of money for a frozen dinner.
Ramsay is the perfect inspector. As usual, he's demanding, brutal and fearless. He repeatedly insults egotistical managers and chefs and yells, "Just smell that for me!" And they do. And they blanch at their own nasty food.
Ramsay's people refurbish the unkempt kitchens for free, replacing broken equipment with top-notch ovens, refrigerators and dining rooms. I'm not sure these restaurants deserve this, since they have been dishing out rotten, microwaved food to customers and taking their money.
Hopefully, Ramsay will return to these places at the end of the year to see if his changes stick. And I imagine you will be more demanding about where you eat. The next time you're dining out, peek in the kitchen and look very closely. I dare you.
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
On "Kitchen Nightmares," chef Gordon Ramsay visits restaurants in middle-class America, and he finds larvae, bugs, rotten meat and moldy food almost everywhere he looks.
"It's not a 'crab' cake," he says at one eatery. "It's a 'crap' cake, because I feel if I eat any more, I'll be [passing gas] for the next 105 years."
This is not something you want to watch while chowing at home. The visuals are yucky.
But it's a very entertaining public service. Merely by showing us how average eateries fail, Ramsay might egg all of us into being more suspicious of food we eat out.
In an upcoming episode, Ramsay goes to a New York seafood place that just received a 95 out of 100 from the health board. Ramsay immediately spots so much grime and putrid food, he shuts the place down so workers can wipe up the deep filth.
"You've got the nerve to tell me that you clean the walls every f----ing Tuesday?" Ramsay screams at a staffer. "Touch the wall, you dirty pig. This is disgusting!"
He's right. Obviously, Ramsay can't bust every restaurant in America. But the series can make you start questioning similar eateries in your own sphere. I was reminded of two restaurants I used to like but have avoided lately. One smells mildly of its bathrooms. At another, I've complained twice, to no avail, about mold or massive mildew piling up on the vents.
Even when the food isn't rotten, restaurants aren't necessarily doing good jobs. On "Nightmares," one family Italian restaurant buys its ravioli from Restaurant Depot. At that point, customers are essentially spending a lot of money for a frozen dinner.
Ramsay is the perfect inspector. As usual, he's demanding, brutal and fearless. He repeatedly insults egotistical managers and chefs and yells, "Just smell that for me!" And they do. And they blanch at their own nasty food.
Ramsay's people refurbish the unkempt kitchens for free, replacing broken equipment with top-notch ovens, refrigerators and dining rooms. I'm not sure these restaurants deserve this, since they have been dishing out rotten, microwaved food to customers and taking their money.
Hopefully, Ramsay will return to these places at the end of the year to see if his changes stick. And I imagine you will be more demanding about where you eat. The next time you're dining out, peek in the kitchen and look very closely. I dare you.
The Emmys: Are you [bleeping] kidding me?
September 17, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The Emmys were so boring, the only fun part was seeing Sally Field and Katherine Heigl say dirty words and Ray Romano say a synonym of one. But Fox censored each outburst, killing the only rare moments of true personality.
Heigl, Izzie on "Grey's Anatomy," won best supporting actress in a drama. The camera flashed to her in the audience in time to catch her saying "s---," though you didn't hear the word, and the director switched to a different camera in silence.
"I've worked my ass off," she also said, feeling very empowered during a thank-you speech.
Ray Romano joked that his ex-TV wife Patricia Heaton will soon be TV-banging Kelsey Grammer on a new Fox show, but whatever word Romano used for "banging" was too much for Fox, which silently cut away from him.
Sally Field of "Brothers & Sisters" won for dramatic actress and went on what seemed to be a giddy war rant: "Lets face it. If mothers ruled the world, there would be no godd---" ... something-something. Her voice got muted, and the camera switched off of her.
"The Sopranos" creator David Chase also made a political statement, sort of. His show got three swan song Emmys -- for best drama, writing and directing -- even though the last season was hit-and-miss.
He said the show was essentially just about gangsters getting things done, and "if this world and this nation was run by gangsters -- well, maybe it is."
"30 Rock" won best comedy, thank God, since it's the best show on TV.
But everything else was pretty stupid. All of us with good taste just kept waiting to see if Britney Spears would pop up (as rumored) and apologize for being the untalented slag she was at last week's MTV awards.
Britney was a no-show. But she could have apologized for the whole Emmy show.
Britney could have apologized that a big winner of the night was the AMC miniseries called "Broken Trail." I had to watch "Broken Trail." Did anyone else subject their brains to it? Yeah, it kinda super sucked.
Britney could have apologized for the musical number where slick dudes from "Jersey Girls" Chipmunk-sang the Four Seasons' "Walk Like a Man" while scenes from "The Sopranos" flashed in tiny blurs on walls behind them.
Britney could apologize that an announcer pronounced Heigl as "Hay-gl" (like "bagel") when the "Knocked Up" star was presenting nominations. Heigl's hackles hoisted up, and she sniped, "It's 'Hi-gle.' "
Britney could apologize for host Ryan Seacrest being tedious from start to finish. He began by guessing actors' fashion choices. This made Hugh Laurie look very Britishly uncomfortable.
Seacrest told just one good joke. He congratulated Hayden Panettiere from "Heroes" on turning 18: "My gift [to her is] seating you as far away from Jeremy Piven as possible." (If you haven't heard, Piven has stuck his tongue in a mouth or three.)
Piven, the Chicagoan on "Entourage," won best supporting actor in a comedy and joked about his other reputation, that he's a buttface: "I want to thank the entire crew. I don't know any of their names."
Britney could apologize for Judy Davis, who won a supporting actress award for the horrible "Starter Wife" miniseries, but award presenter Marcia Cross said she didn't know where Davis was and walked off stage.
And Britney should apologize for E!'s boob craze during its preshow coverage. We all love boobs, but models were forced to disrobe to their waists to reveal how their magical undergarments/pasties protected them from accidents. No men dropped trou to reveal banana hammocks.
delfman@suntimes.com
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The Emmys were so boring, the only fun part was seeing Sally Field and Katherine Heigl say dirty words and Ray Romano say a synonym of one. But Fox censored each outburst, killing the only rare moments of true personality.
Heigl, Izzie on "Grey's Anatomy," won best supporting actress in a drama. The camera flashed to her in the audience in time to catch her saying "s---," though you didn't hear the word, and the director switched to a different camera in silence.
"I've worked my ass off," she also said, feeling very empowered during a thank-you speech.
Ray Romano joked that his ex-TV wife Patricia Heaton will soon be TV-banging Kelsey Grammer on a new Fox show, but whatever word Romano used for "banging" was too much for Fox, which silently cut away from him.
Sally Field of "Brothers & Sisters" won for dramatic actress and went on what seemed to be a giddy war rant: "Lets face it. If mothers ruled the world, there would be no godd---" ... something-something. Her voice got muted, and the camera switched off of her.
"The Sopranos" creator David Chase also made a political statement, sort of. His show got three swan song Emmys -- for best drama, writing and directing -- even though the last season was hit-and-miss.
He said the show was essentially just about gangsters getting things done, and "if this world and this nation was run by gangsters -- well, maybe it is."
"30 Rock" won best comedy, thank God, since it's the best show on TV.
But everything else was pretty stupid. All of us with good taste just kept waiting to see if Britney Spears would pop up (as rumored) and apologize for being the untalented slag she was at last week's MTV awards.
Britney was a no-show. But she could have apologized for the whole Emmy show.
Britney could have apologized that a big winner of the night was the AMC miniseries called "Broken Trail." I had to watch "Broken Trail." Did anyone else subject their brains to it? Yeah, it kinda super sucked.
Britney could have apologized for the musical number where slick dudes from "Jersey Girls" Chipmunk-sang the Four Seasons' "Walk Like a Man" while scenes from "The Sopranos" flashed in tiny blurs on walls behind them.
Britney could apologize that an announcer pronounced Heigl as "Hay-gl" (like "bagel") when the "Knocked Up" star was presenting nominations. Heigl's hackles hoisted up, and she sniped, "It's 'Hi-gle.' "
Britney could apologize for host Ryan Seacrest being tedious from start to finish. He began by guessing actors' fashion choices. This made Hugh Laurie look very Britishly uncomfortable.
Seacrest told just one good joke. He congratulated Hayden Panettiere from "Heroes" on turning 18: "My gift [to her is] seating you as far away from Jeremy Piven as possible." (If you haven't heard, Piven has stuck his tongue in a mouth or three.)
Piven, the Chicagoan on "Entourage," won best supporting actor in a comedy and joked about his other reputation, that he's a buttface: "I want to thank the entire crew. I don't know any of their names."
Britney could apologize for Judy Davis, who won a supporting actress award for the horrible "Starter Wife" miniseries, but award presenter Marcia Cross said she didn't know where Davis was and walked off stage.
And Britney should apologize for E!'s boob craze during its preshow coverage. We all love boobs, but models were forced to disrobe to their waists to reveal how their magical undergarments/pasties protected them from accidents. No men dropped trou to reveal banana hammocks.
delfman@suntimes.com
Devilishly funny: The fall season is born of woulda, coulda, shoulda, as networks unleash more misses than hits. But first -- the best ...
September 16, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The best new show of the fall is also the most fun. "Reaper" is a silly little piece of hilarity about a guy who turns 21 and finds out his parents sold his soul to the devil. For eternity, he must serve Satan as a small-fry gopher on Earth.
His first mission is to use a Hellacious hand vacuum to suck up the soul of a fugitive from Hell, then deposit the vacuum at a place, like the DMV, that seems like Hell on Earth. The place will change each week.
This plot is truly unique and fresh. It was created by two writers -- Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas -- whose resumes include "The X-Files" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
Their track record suggests "Reaper" won't start sucking anytime soon. Plus, it's on ratings-challenged CW, where shows can live forever, so it may not be canceled this decade.
The first episode benefits from being directed by Kevin ("Dogma") Smith. He won't be back, but his tight yet freewheeling style sets a tone for other directors to follow.
The cast is stellar. Bret Harrison (unknown despite starring in Fox's funny "The Loop") plays Sam, a good guy in weird circumstances whose devilish chores may not be so evil after all. Tyler ("Invasion") Labine portrays his scene-stealing friend Bert "Sock" Wysocki, who finds the whole situation totally super cool.
The hardest I laughed at the first episode comes in a stupid scene (I mean this as a compliment here) where the friend throws a bleach-type bottle at Sam's head to wake him up emotionally. Why's it funny? Why's anything funny? It works.
And Harrison and Labine -- portraying witty, dorky workers at a Home Depot-ish store called the Work Bench -- are immediately one of the funniest duos on TV.
I laughed at another scene where Labine wraps big wads of tape around his hands. I asked Harrison why that gag sings.
"You know why it's funny?" Harrison said. "Because it's random."
He and Labine say the scripts are strong, but they're also improvising their characters' comedy. For instance, Labine didn't like one line in an upcoming script where he was supposed to tell Sam, "You do rock the house on 'Guitar Hero.' "
"I said, 'Nah,' " Labine says. "We decided a better line was, 'You do eat steak pretty good.' Or: 'Yeah, you do roll an impossibly thin crepe.' "
"That is comedy, my friends," Harrison says. "Not 'Guitar Hero!' Everybody would say that s---."
He's completely right.
When Labine read the "Reaper" script, he was "relieved to see something ridiculous and asinine." There's a freedom in this, his sixth TV series. He's steering his character away from being just dumb or aimlessly goofy.
"There's a fine line between jackass and a guy who chooses to be a jackass," he says. "I've decided [that] to follow Sam into the depths of Hell sounds cool. F--- it. I work at the Work Bench. I'm bored. That sounds good."
Quite seriously, there is a lesson to be learned from "Reaper." It is not a show driven by committee and focus group (like "Brothers & Sisters," say). It's made by a team of expert individualists who are allowed to explore their own paths.
There are promising reference points for "Reaper." Labine says it will follow a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" template of being smart and silly but not intimidating or idiotic.
And there's plenty of room to change things up. The devil is portrayed by Ray Wise, who was smiley Leland Palmer on "Twin Peaks." Or is he?
"It has things for comic-book fans like me," Harrison says. "Nuances. Like: What if this guy isn't really the devil? Like: Why hasn't there been a scene yet where he's standing behind my mom waiting to slit her throat?"
There's only one way to find out. Watch "Reaper."
Where have all the good shows gone?
Season starts on a high note but ends on a snore
September 16, 2007
It's a mediocre year for new fall shows. My three favorite new series -- "Reaper," "Chuck" and "Pushing Daisies" -- start great. But in today's lineup of the top 10 new fall dramas and comedies, the rest is the best of the blah.
"Pushing Daisies" (7 p.m. Wednesdays starting Oct. 3, WLS-Channel 7): I keep saying this but it's true. "Pushing Daisies" looks and sounds like "Amelie" meets Tim Burton, though it's helmed by Barry ("Men in Black") Sonnenfeld. The debut is a great little romantic caper where Ned can supernaturally touch dead people once and bring them back to life, and touch them a second time to kill them forever. He and his lady love Chuck (plus their business partner Emerson) go around solving crimes by briefly resurrecting corpses and interviewing them. It's clever, lovely and at times the most sumptuous visual art on TV.
"Life is Wild" (7 p.m. Sundays starting Oct. 7, WGN-Channel 9): Katie's nutty dad moves his family to nowheresville in Africa, just when she's fallen for a boy in her American high school. Suddenly, her whole life changes in the wild. This family show is much better and less smarmier than it sounds, due mostly to pleasant direction and a charismatic star turn from Leah Pipes. It's filmed in Africa, too, not on a SoCal location, so nature lovers rejoice.
"Aliens in America" (7:30 Mondays starting Oct. 1, WGN-Channel 9): So a Wisconsin family decides to take in a foreign exchange student, and what they get is a Pakistani in the era of terrorism alerts. Of course, Pakistanis are not terrorists by definition, but the family and the high school will have to get their heads around this. The debut episode is fairly funny in spots, though it also falls into a few lesson-learning traps. Even so, there's comedy and a possibility for charmingly dorky scenes to come.
"Samantha Who" (8:30 p.m. Mondays starting Oct. 15, WLS-Channel 7): Christina Applegate returns with a strong performance as a woman who wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. This sounds like a soap-opera setup, but the script moves in a good direction. Samantha used to be a cocktail-swilling, lying jerkwad, and the amnesia gives her a chance to realize this and change her ways. The comedy lies in her finding out how awful she used to be. The premiere is just pretty good, but "Samantha" looks like it could add more fun down the line as it develops.
"Women's Murder Club" (8 p.m. Fridays starting Oct. 12, WLS-Channel 7): This is really just a good-cop, bad-guy show starring Angie Harmon, but the debut is well made for what it is. For once, all the detectiving protagonists are women -- a prosecutor, a journalist and other females with snooping skills. They also help each other personally instead of backstabbing, which is a welcome relief on TV. It's a sappy process at its worst, but solid and traditional at its core for fans of the genre.
"K-ville" (8 p.m. Mondays starting this week, WFLD-Channel 32): Here's yet another half-good, half-troubled new series. The good -- it's fairly interesting to watch cops deal with life in post-Katrina New Orleans. The bad -- the plots can be kind of ridiculous at times, adding outlandish storylines to an already crazy situation. Can "K-ville" ditch the dumb and embrace the powerful elements? That's the question.
'Bionic Woman'
September 16, 2007
8 p.m. Wednesdays starting Sept. 26, WMAQ-Channel 5:
I can't believe "Bionic Woman" is in my Top 10 new shows list. That tells you how weak the fall schedule is. It's not horrible. It just doesn't yet execute its mighty premise with super skills.
It begins with an homage to "La Femme Nikita" but poorly so. Then Michelle Ryan, as the good bionic woman, gets upstaged by the great screen presence of Katee Sackhoff, portraying an apparently evil bionic woman.
Even Ryan humbly gives props to Sackhoff for making her rise to the challenge of action scenes. "There was this one section where I have to punch [Sackhoff] and she was saying to me, 'Hit me, hit me.' And I was like, 'But I don't want to hurt you.' But she was like, 'No! Just hit me!"
When impressed TV critics asked producer David Eick this summer if Sackhoff will steal the show, he joked she can be kept in check: "It doesn't take much. Withhold her snacks, and she'll be good."
Ryan isn't a slouch. She's unknown here in the States, but she's a star in England for acting in "EastEnders," a very popular soap.
Anyhow, the show should be named "Bionic Women," since there is good nemesis chemistry between the two lead actresses. Their bond bodes well for the drama, if it survives high expectations, a moderate introduction -- and Isaiah Washington, the guy "Grey's Anatomy" broke up with. Washington joins the show later for a guest-star run before NBC sets him up with his own action series next year. Maybe he'll be "The Bionic Man"?
'Chuck'
September 16, 2007
7 p.m. Mondays starting Sept. 24, WMAQ-Channel 5:
It's the year of the dork, and Chuck is the dork of dorks. He works in a Best Buy-ish place one day. The next, he incidentally gets his brain packed full of national security secrets and turns into a super brainiac spy against his will.
This is a comedic superhero show, unlike most of the dramatic comic book stuff on NBC. The tone is like "Alias" meets "The 40 Year Old Virgin." The premiere is lightly funny.
Can it keep up the comedy? Star Zachary Levi thinks it will. And he believes viewers will be drawn to Chuck as much as he is.
"When I was in high school, I was tucked into a theater doing theater all the time," he says. "I wasn't a jock. I am Chuck in many ways. And I feel the general audience that watches television can relate to Chuck more than they can to a superhero ... He's a great guy, and he means well, and he wants to fix computers. But at the end of the day, he'll pee his pants if someone points a gun at him."
The young-skewing script will be lost on some older viewers, especially when they hear video game lines like, "The terrible troll raises his sword!" But the childlike quirkiness of "Chuck" is not lost on Levi. Dork is the new cool, he says, and he points to Tina Fey as an icon of the Generation of Dorks, with her smartypants eyeglasses and confident, witty outsiderism.
"Tina Fey on '30 Rock,' in a way, she's definitely that cute and unassuming and nice girl, trying to make her way in the world." Chuck will be trying to make his way in a world of NSA agents. People will aim pistols at him. Will he pee his pants? Keep your fingers crossed.
'Gossip Girl'
September 16, 2007
8 p.m. Wednesdays starting this week, WGN-Channel 9:
A few touchy TV critics have lambasted this melodrama soap because it follows fight-happy prep-school teens who get drunk and get raped and such. It's one of the worst new series -- but for its cardboard acting and writing, not for the morals.
I'm including it on this list only for its slight watchability as a potential conversation piece/train wreck. The catty, sex-obsessed dialogue tries to be contemporary -- "tap that ass," limoncellos, etc. -- though all it accomplishes is creating a visual state of awful terribleness.
So anyway, back to the sex and drugs among snooty, old-money teens from New York. Show creator Josh Schwartz, who also produced the rich kids of "The O.C.," claims kids' nasty actions will result in consequences:
"These are flawed characters. And they're trying to do good. And in the environment that they grow up in, they don't always have the best role models," he told critics this summer.
Oddly, "Gossip Girl" is narrated by Kristen ("Veronica Mars") Bell, who gives voice to the title's gossip-writing blogger, a la Perez Hilton. But you never see Gossip Girl. In fact, producers say the narrator is not necessarily even a character Bell will ever play, but that the narration is merely a representation of words being written under the pseudonym of Gossip Girl. That's strange.
Then there are actors who are nothing like their characters. One nasty side girl is played by Nan Zhang, whose real life career path is in science: "I studied for ophthalmology and neuroscience research, and later I focused on photoreceptor retinal damage and ear protection. So just after the [first 'Gossip Girl' episode] wrapped, I was also working on stem cell research."
But don't expect to see any shows to be based on bright young women working on stem cell research. That would really, really draw the ire of the conservative "family values" interest groups.
Doug Elfman
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The best new show of the fall is also the most fun. "Reaper" is a silly little piece of hilarity about a guy who turns 21 and finds out his parents sold his soul to the devil. For eternity, he must serve Satan as a small-fry gopher on Earth.
His first mission is to use a Hellacious hand vacuum to suck up the soul of a fugitive from Hell, then deposit the vacuum at a place, like the DMV, that seems like Hell on Earth. The place will change each week.
This plot is truly unique and fresh. It was created by two writers -- Tara Butters and Michele Fazekas -- whose resumes include "The X-Files" and "Law & Order: Special Victims Unit."
Their track record suggests "Reaper" won't start sucking anytime soon. Plus, it's on ratings-challenged CW, where shows can live forever, so it may not be canceled this decade.
The first episode benefits from being directed by Kevin ("Dogma") Smith. He won't be back, but his tight yet freewheeling style sets a tone for other directors to follow.
The cast is stellar. Bret Harrison (unknown despite starring in Fox's funny "The Loop") plays Sam, a good guy in weird circumstances whose devilish chores may not be so evil after all. Tyler ("Invasion") Labine portrays his scene-stealing friend Bert "Sock" Wysocki, who finds the whole situation totally super cool.
The hardest I laughed at the first episode comes in a stupid scene (I mean this as a compliment here) where the friend throws a bleach-type bottle at Sam's head to wake him up emotionally. Why's it funny? Why's anything funny? It works.
And Harrison and Labine -- portraying witty, dorky workers at a Home Depot-ish store called the Work Bench -- are immediately one of the funniest duos on TV.
I laughed at another scene where Labine wraps big wads of tape around his hands. I asked Harrison why that gag sings.
"You know why it's funny?" Harrison said. "Because it's random."
He and Labine say the scripts are strong, but they're also improvising their characters' comedy. For instance, Labine didn't like one line in an upcoming script where he was supposed to tell Sam, "You do rock the house on 'Guitar Hero.' "
"I said, 'Nah,' " Labine says. "We decided a better line was, 'You do eat steak pretty good.' Or: 'Yeah, you do roll an impossibly thin crepe.' "
"That is comedy, my friends," Harrison says. "Not 'Guitar Hero!' Everybody would say that s---."
He's completely right.
When Labine read the "Reaper" script, he was "relieved to see something ridiculous and asinine." There's a freedom in this, his sixth TV series. He's steering his character away from being just dumb or aimlessly goofy.
"There's a fine line between jackass and a guy who chooses to be a jackass," he says. "I've decided [that] to follow Sam into the depths of Hell sounds cool. F--- it. I work at the Work Bench. I'm bored. That sounds good."
Quite seriously, there is a lesson to be learned from "Reaper." It is not a show driven by committee and focus group (like "Brothers & Sisters," say). It's made by a team of expert individualists who are allowed to explore their own paths.
There are promising reference points for "Reaper." Labine says it will follow a "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" template of being smart and silly but not intimidating or idiotic.
And there's plenty of room to change things up. The devil is portrayed by Ray Wise, who was smiley Leland Palmer on "Twin Peaks." Or is he?
"It has things for comic-book fans like me," Harrison says. "Nuances. Like: What if this guy isn't really the devil? Like: Why hasn't there been a scene yet where he's standing behind my mom waiting to slit her throat?"
There's only one way to find out. Watch "Reaper."
Where have all the good shows gone?
Season starts on a high note but ends on a snore
September 16, 2007
It's a mediocre year for new fall shows. My three favorite new series -- "Reaper," "Chuck" and "Pushing Daisies" -- start great. But in today's lineup of the top 10 new fall dramas and comedies, the rest is the best of the blah.
"Pushing Daisies" (7 p.m. Wednesdays starting Oct. 3, WLS-Channel 7): I keep saying this but it's true. "Pushing Daisies" looks and sounds like "Amelie" meets Tim Burton, though it's helmed by Barry ("Men in Black") Sonnenfeld. The debut is a great little romantic caper where Ned can supernaturally touch dead people once and bring them back to life, and touch them a second time to kill them forever. He and his lady love Chuck (plus their business partner Emerson) go around solving crimes by briefly resurrecting corpses and interviewing them. It's clever, lovely and at times the most sumptuous visual art on TV.
"Life is Wild" (7 p.m. Sundays starting Oct. 7, WGN-Channel 9): Katie's nutty dad moves his family to nowheresville in Africa, just when she's fallen for a boy in her American high school. Suddenly, her whole life changes in the wild. This family show is much better and less smarmier than it sounds, due mostly to pleasant direction and a charismatic star turn from Leah Pipes. It's filmed in Africa, too, not on a SoCal location, so nature lovers rejoice.
"Aliens in America" (7:30 Mondays starting Oct. 1, WGN-Channel 9): So a Wisconsin family decides to take in a foreign exchange student, and what they get is a Pakistani in the era of terrorism alerts. Of course, Pakistanis are not terrorists by definition, but the family and the high school will have to get their heads around this. The debut episode is fairly funny in spots, though it also falls into a few lesson-learning traps. Even so, there's comedy and a possibility for charmingly dorky scenes to come.
"Samantha Who" (8:30 p.m. Mondays starting Oct. 15, WLS-Channel 7): Christina Applegate returns with a strong performance as a woman who wakes up in a hospital with amnesia. This sounds like a soap-opera setup, but the script moves in a good direction. Samantha used to be a cocktail-swilling, lying jerkwad, and the amnesia gives her a chance to realize this and change her ways. The comedy lies in her finding out how awful she used to be. The premiere is just pretty good, but "Samantha" looks like it could add more fun down the line as it develops.
"Women's Murder Club" (8 p.m. Fridays starting Oct. 12, WLS-Channel 7): This is really just a good-cop, bad-guy show starring Angie Harmon, but the debut is well made for what it is. For once, all the detectiving protagonists are women -- a prosecutor, a journalist and other females with snooping skills. They also help each other personally instead of backstabbing, which is a welcome relief on TV. It's a sappy process at its worst, but solid and traditional at its core for fans of the genre.
"K-ville" (8 p.m. Mondays starting this week, WFLD-Channel 32): Here's yet another half-good, half-troubled new series. The good -- it's fairly interesting to watch cops deal with life in post-Katrina New Orleans. The bad -- the plots can be kind of ridiculous at times, adding outlandish storylines to an already crazy situation. Can "K-ville" ditch the dumb and embrace the powerful elements? That's the question.
'Bionic Woman'
September 16, 2007
8 p.m. Wednesdays starting Sept. 26, WMAQ-Channel 5:
I can't believe "Bionic Woman" is in my Top 10 new shows list. That tells you how weak the fall schedule is. It's not horrible. It just doesn't yet execute its mighty premise with super skills.
It begins with an homage to "La Femme Nikita" but poorly so. Then Michelle Ryan, as the good bionic woman, gets upstaged by the great screen presence of Katee Sackhoff, portraying an apparently evil bionic woman.
Even Ryan humbly gives props to Sackhoff for making her rise to the challenge of action scenes. "There was this one section where I have to punch [Sackhoff] and she was saying to me, 'Hit me, hit me.' And I was like, 'But I don't want to hurt you.' But she was like, 'No! Just hit me!"
When impressed TV critics asked producer David Eick this summer if Sackhoff will steal the show, he joked she can be kept in check: "It doesn't take much. Withhold her snacks, and she'll be good."
Ryan isn't a slouch. She's unknown here in the States, but she's a star in England for acting in "EastEnders," a very popular soap.
Anyhow, the show should be named "Bionic Women," since there is good nemesis chemistry between the two lead actresses. Their bond bodes well for the drama, if it survives high expectations, a moderate introduction -- and Isaiah Washington, the guy "Grey's Anatomy" broke up with. Washington joins the show later for a guest-star run before NBC sets him up with his own action series next year. Maybe he'll be "The Bionic Man"?
'Chuck'
September 16, 2007
7 p.m. Mondays starting Sept. 24, WMAQ-Channel 5:
It's the year of the dork, and Chuck is the dork of dorks. He works in a Best Buy-ish place one day. The next, he incidentally gets his brain packed full of national security secrets and turns into a super brainiac spy against his will.
This is a comedic superhero show, unlike most of the dramatic comic book stuff on NBC. The tone is like "Alias" meets "The 40 Year Old Virgin." The premiere is lightly funny.
Can it keep up the comedy? Star Zachary Levi thinks it will. And he believes viewers will be drawn to Chuck as much as he is.
"When I was in high school, I was tucked into a theater doing theater all the time," he says. "I wasn't a jock. I am Chuck in many ways. And I feel the general audience that watches television can relate to Chuck more than they can to a superhero ... He's a great guy, and he means well, and he wants to fix computers. But at the end of the day, he'll pee his pants if someone points a gun at him."
The young-skewing script will be lost on some older viewers, especially when they hear video game lines like, "The terrible troll raises his sword!" But the childlike quirkiness of "Chuck" is not lost on Levi. Dork is the new cool, he says, and he points to Tina Fey as an icon of the Generation of Dorks, with her smartypants eyeglasses and confident, witty outsiderism.
"Tina Fey on '30 Rock,' in a way, she's definitely that cute and unassuming and nice girl, trying to make her way in the world." Chuck will be trying to make his way in a world of NSA agents. People will aim pistols at him. Will he pee his pants? Keep your fingers crossed.
'Gossip Girl'
September 16, 2007
8 p.m. Wednesdays starting this week, WGN-Channel 9:
A few touchy TV critics have lambasted this melodrama soap because it follows fight-happy prep-school teens who get drunk and get raped and such. It's one of the worst new series -- but for its cardboard acting and writing, not for the morals.
I'm including it on this list only for its slight watchability as a potential conversation piece/train wreck. The catty, sex-obsessed dialogue tries to be contemporary -- "tap that ass," limoncellos, etc. -- though all it accomplishes is creating a visual state of awful terribleness.
So anyway, back to the sex and drugs among snooty, old-money teens from New York. Show creator Josh Schwartz, who also produced the rich kids of "The O.C.," claims kids' nasty actions will result in consequences:
"These are flawed characters. And they're trying to do good. And in the environment that they grow up in, they don't always have the best role models," he told critics this summer.
Oddly, "Gossip Girl" is narrated by Kristen ("Veronica Mars") Bell, who gives voice to the title's gossip-writing blogger, a la Perez Hilton. But you never see Gossip Girl. In fact, producers say the narrator is not necessarily even a character Bell will ever play, but that the narration is merely a representation of words being written under the pseudonym of Gossip Girl. That's strange.
Then there are actors who are nothing like their characters. One nasty side girl is played by Nan Zhang, whose real life career path is in science: "I studied for ophthalmology and neuroscience research, and later I focused on photoreceptor retinal damage and ear protection. So just after the [first 'Gossip Girl' episode] wrapped, I was also working on stem cell research."
But don't expect to see any shows to be based on bright young women working on stem cell research. That would really, really draw the ire of the conservative "family values" interest groups.
Doug Elfman
'Medal of Honor' fans won't be disappointed with 'Airborne'
Sept. 14, 2007
By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Medal of Honor" war games always delve into realism, minus the buckets of blood that splatter over other war adventures. "Medal of Honor: Airborne" keeps the blood sort of in check once again, while somehow looking even deadlier.
You snipe a guy in the face, and his head jolts back.
You shoot an Italian fascist in the stomach, and he grabs his belly wound while buckling to the ground.
Maybe I'm making this sound more violent than it is. Either way, "Airborne" does take place on dirty, murderous battlegrounds of World War II Europe.
The "Medal of Honor" series is one of the best in gaming lore. Likewise, "Airborne" shouldn't let you down. You run through muddy towns, invade half-standing buildings and scatter over filth, such as half-blown up lanterns and overturned tables.
The artistry is stellar, finely detailing cracks in bricks and creases in uniforms. It's quite the achievement.
"Airborne" also offers online multiplayer, and as fans of the series know, multiplayer "Medals" are crazy addictive.
If you need a change of pace, you can kill people instead in "Metroid Prime 3: Corruption," where you play as a bounty hunter in space with a twist: You're a woman.
Sure, most of the time, you can't even tell you're a woman, because you're covered in a big metal spacesuit. But it's a curvy spacesuit. And sometimes you can see her blinky eyes.
I consider this a twist, since few video game heroes -- let alone soldier-types -- are heroines. But "Metroid Prime" games by definition star the unladylike Samus, who again travels on spaceships and planets to root out easy-to-kill villains.
"Corruption's" 20-hour journey is sometimes fun and sometimes boring. Samus shoots lasers and plasma cannons out of her arm-attached weapons at space pirates who have been planting computer viruses around the galaxy. That's fine.
And when Samus gets in tight spots, you turn her into a ball and roll her through vents and wall holes. What's new is you get to shoot through walls and go into a killing-spree mania called "hypermode."
But the joy of this first-person shooting game (with no multiplayer option) is limited because it's easy, familiar and somewhat repetitive. Newcomers probably would find it cool. It's not challenging to me, though, so I won't be playing it much.
If you're sick of killing this year, you can always turn to "Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08." It's fantastically deep. You mold your face, arms and other attributes. You buy better clubs as you go. And you golf on majestic links.
Wii owners may especially enjoy the interactive golfing of "Tiger," although it's very hard to do the supposed ball fades and special tricks. But you can golf as a man or as a woman. I golf with a female. She's curvy. No spacesuit. She's the real deal.
("Medal of Honor: Airborne" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays very fun. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "T" for blood, mild language and violence. Four stars out of four.)
("Metroid Prime: Corruption" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays fun but also repetitive and dull too often. Looks good. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated "T" for animated blood, violence. Three stars.)
("Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08" retails for $60 for PS 3 and Xbox 360; $50 for Wii; $40 for PS 2 and PSP; $30 for DS -- Plays fun. Looks great. Very challenging. Rated "E." Four stars.)
By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Medal of Honor" war games always delve into realism, minus the buckets of blood that splatter over other war adventures. "Medal of Honor: Airborne" keeps the blood sort of in check once again, while somehow looking even deadlier.
You snipe a guy in the face, and his head jolts back.
You shoot an Italian fascist in the stomach, and he grabs his belly wound while buckling to the ground.
Maybe I'm making this sound more violent than it is. Either way, "Airborne" does take place on dirty, murderous battlegrounds of World War II Europe.
The "Medal of Honor" series is one of the best in gaming lore. Likewise, "Airborne" shouldn't let you down. You run through muddy towns, invade half-standing buildings and scatter over filth, such as half-blown up lanterns and overturned tables.
The artistry is stellar, finely detailing cracks in bricks and creases in uniforms. It's quite the achievement.
"Airborne" also offers online multiplayer, and as fans of the series know, multiplayer "Medals" are crazy addictive.
If you need a change of pace, you can kill people instead in "Metroid Prime 3: Corruption," where you play as a bounty hunter in space with a twist: You're a woman.
Sure, most of the time, you can't even tell you're a woman, because you're covered in a big metal spacesuit. But it's a curvy spacesuit. And sometimes you can see her blinky eyes.
I consider this a twist, since few video game heroes -- let alone soldier-types -- are heroines. But "Metroid Prime" games by definition star the unladylike Samus, who again travels on spaceships and planets to root out easy-to-kill villains.
"Corruption's" 20-hour journey is sometimes fun and sometimes boring. Samus shoots lasers and plasma cannons out of her arm-attached weapons at space pirates who have been planting computer viruses around the galaxy. That's fine.
And when Samus gets in tight spots, you turn her into a ball and roll her through vents and wall holes. What's new is you get to shoot through walls and go into a killing-spree mania called "hypermode."
But the joy of this first-person shooting game (with no multiplayer option) is limited because it's easy, familiar and somewhat repetitive. Newcomers probably would find it cool. It's not challenging to me, though, so I won't be playing it much.
If you're sick of killing this year, you can always turn to "Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08." It's fantastically deep. You mold your face, arms and other attributes. You buy better clubs as you go. And you golf on majestic links.
Wii owners may especially enjoy the interactive golfing of "Tiger," although it's very hard to do the supposed ball fades and special tricks. But you can golf as a man or as a woman. I golf with a female. She's curvy. No spacesuit. She's the real deal.
("Medal of Honor: Airborne" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays very fun. Looks great. Challenging. Rated "T" for blood, mild language and violence. Four stars out of four.)
("Metroid Prime: Corruption" retails for $50 for Wii -- Plays fun but also repetitive and dull too often. Looks good. Easy to moderately challenging. Rated "T" for animated blood, violence. Three stars.)
("Tiger Woods PGA Tour '08" retails for $60 for PS 3 and Xbox 360; $50 for Wii; $40 for PS 2 and PSP; $30 for DS -- Plays fun. Looks great. Very challenging. Rated "E." Four stars.)
Meet the 'Family'
September 14, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The scripts for "Family Guy" are filled with the f-word and adult situations that Fox won't broadcast. For an upcoming episode, writers penned a minutes-long and hilarious abortion joke (yes, yes, it's a gag about abortion and it's funny, get over it), but it will be edited down to a bare snippet for network TV.
That same episode includes yet another joke that will likely be cut altogether, as show creator Seth MacFarlane explains: "Pleasuring a man with a socked foot probably won't make it to Fox. It'll make it to the DVD," MacFarlane says. "It'll probably make it to Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network reruns.
I was happy to hear the abortion and socked-foot jokes when MacFarlane took his cast mates to a TV critic convention this summer and vocalized a "table read" of the episode. I'm a fan, so it was like heaven, with penis and vagina jokes.
Chicagoans get a similar chance to see table reads this weekend when MacFarlane and the cast perform line-by-line readings of a classic script at the Chicago Theatre.
At the table read I saw, TV critics laughed more than I've seen them laugh at anything else at these conventions. But it was nothing compared to when "Family Guy" does reads for fans.
"We just got back from doing a show in Montreal for the comedy festival," MacFarlane said at the time. "You had, like, 2,000 drunk people in their 20s who were just, you know, laughing at the stage directions."
Visually, it looks like a throwback. Cast members talk into microphones. It's sort of like seeing one of those old-timey radio shows in progress.
That's actually a fitting analogy for MacFarlane, 33. He created the sexaholic character Quagmire as a riff on old radio guys.
"As is true of many kids of my generation, I was a big fan of radio dramas from the '30s and '40s," he half-jokes. "And I used to be amused by the commercials. Everybody was always talking so fast: 'Autoline Sparkplug is the best sparkplug you can buy!' Quagmire started as an impression of one of these 1950s radio pitchmen."
The most shocking thing about hearing MacFarlane speak is he sounds exactly like my favorite "Family Guy" character, Brian the dry-witted dog.
In fact, the first time I met MacFarlane, I listened to him speak for a few minutes and said, "It's nice to meet you, Brian." He must get that all the time, but he greeted me with a smile. He's quite approachable for being such a genius icon.
The other "Family Guy" voice actors are like that, too. Alex Borstein basically sounds like Lois and Mila Kunis basically sounds like Meg.
"When we cast 'Family Guy,' we look for people who sound real," MacFarlane says. "I like the show to sound like it could be 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' or 'The Larry Sanders Show.'"
In the table read I saw, there was a funny joke satirizing the Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock vehicle "The Lake House." I ask MacFarlane how those kinds of gags come about: Does he view "The Lake House," then go to work and tell writers to rip on the movie? Or does he go to writers with a specific joke?
"It can go both ways," he says. "In that instance, that was done in a gag room. The writing room is working on the body of the scripts. We usually have two gag rooms running, because we have so many cutaways and so many jokes. They're assigned to write the last line of a scene. Obviously, it's called a 'scene blow.' Or a 'cutaway gag.'"
"Spitballing" jokes like that, he says, has to come with a good angle.
"It has to have some point of view. It can't just be saying, 'This movie sucks,' although we did do that with '[Wild] Hogs.'"
delfman@suntimes.com
What not to ask Seth MacFarlane
If you go to one of the "Family Guy" performances at the Chicago Theatre, you'll see Seth MacFarlane (the voice of Peter, Stewie and Brian), Alex Borstein (Lois), Mila Kunis (Meg), Seth Green (Chris) and Mike Henry (Cleveland) re-create a classic episode and several musical numbers from the past.
MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy," will head a Q&A afterward. Feel free to ask him a few things, but let me spare you three questions people always, always ask, just as critics did again this summer after a similar table read.
Did he see the "South Park" episode that bashed "Family Guy"?
Yes, and he doesn't attack "South Park" in retaliation.
"We dish it out so much, we gotta take it, right?
"I am a fan of 'South Park,' actually. I think that show is very funny," he says. "They busted our [chops] a lot about the cutaways. The cutaways they sort of see as a deviation from the story."
But MacFarlane sees cutaways as animated versions of "one-frame 'Far Side' cartoons."
"They're just kind of laughs for laughs' sake," he says. "It's just pure comedy, we hope."
Does "Family Guy" want to stay contemporary with its jokes, since it parodies long-ago decades?
"Absolutely," MacFarlane says. "We're not just trying to do '80s references.
"We do try and make sure that we are kept up to date, although there are still some Bob Hope references that neither of those generations are going to get."
Does "Family Guy" work better when it offends people? Or when it doesn't offend people?
"I try," he says, "to kind of have this balance between the classic and the edgy. ... We do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week."
During table reads with network execs in attendance, "no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it's a very good barometer. ... We're never out to shock for the sake of shocking."
By the way, what shocks MacFarlane?
"I don't know," he says, sounding like refined Brian the dog, as usual. "The Bush administration, I guess?"
Doug Elfman
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
The scripts for "Family Guy" are filled with the f-word and adult situations that Fox won't broadcast. For an upcoming episode, writers penned a minutes-long and hilarious abortion joke (yes, yes, it's a gag about abortion and it's funny, get over it), but it will be edited down to a bare snippet for network TV.
That same episode includes yet another joke that will likely be cut altogether, as show creator Seth MacFarlane explains: "Pleasuring a man with a socked foot probably won't make it to Fox. It'll make it to the DVD," MacFarlane says. "It'll probably make it to Adult Swim" on Cartoon Network reruns.
I was happy to hear the abortion and socked-foot jokes when MacFarlane took his cast mates to a TV critic convention this summer and vocalized a "table read" of the episode. I'm a fan, so it was like heaven, with penis and vagina jokes.
Chicagoans get a similar chance to see table reads this weekend when MacFarlane and the cast perform line-by-line readings of a classic script at the Chicago Theatre.
At the table read I saw, TV critics laughed more than I've seen them laugh at anything else at these conventions. But it was nothing compared to when "Family Guy" does reads for fans.
"We just got back from doing a show in Montreal for the comedy festival," MacFarlane said at the time. "You had, like, 2,000 drunk people in their 20s who were just, you know, laughing at the stage directions."
Visually, it looks like a throwback. Cast members talk into microphones. It's sort of like seeing one of those old-timey radio shows in progress.
That's actually a fitting analogy for MacFarlane, 33. He created the sexaholic character Quagmire as a riff on old radio guys.
"As is true of many kids of my generation, I was a big fan of radio dramas from the '30s and '40s," he half-jokes. "And I used to be amused by the commercials. Everybody was always talking so fast: 'Autoline Sparkplug is the best sparkplug you can buy!' Quagmire started as an impression of one of these 1950s radio pitchmen."
The most shocking thing about hearing MacFarlane speak is he sounds exactly like my favorite "Family Guy" character, Brian the dry-witted dog.
In fact, the first time I met MacFarlane, I listened to him speak for a few minutes and said, "It's nice to meet you, Brian." He must get that all the time, but he greeted me with a smile. He's quite approachable for being such a genius icon.
The other "Family Guy" voice actors are like that, too. Alex Borstein basically sounds like Lois and Mila Kunis basically sounds like Meg.
"When we cast 'Family Guy,' we look for people who sound real," MacFarlane says. "I like the show to sound like it could be 'Curb Your Enthusiasm' or 'The Larry Sanders Show.'"
In the table read I saw, there was a funny joke satirizing the Keanu Reeves-Sandra Bullock vehicle "The Lake House." I ask MacFarlane how those kinds of gags come about: Does he view "The Lake House," then go to work and tell writers to rip on the movie? Or does he go to writers with a specific joke?
"It can go both ways," he says. "In that instance, that was done in a gag room. The writing room is working on the body of the scripts. We usually have two gag rooms running, because we have so many cutaways and so many jokes. They're assigned to write the last line of a scene. Obviously, it's called a 'scene blow.' Or a 'cutaway gag.'"
"Spitballing" jokes like that, he says, has to come with a good angle.
"It has to have some point of view. It can't just be saying, 'This movie sucks,' although we did do that with '[Wild] Hogs.'"
delfman@suntimes.com
What not to ask Seth MacFarlane
If you go to one of the "Family Guy" performances at the Chicago Theatre, you'll see Seth MacFarlane (the voice of Peter, Stewie and Brian), Alex Borstein (Lois), Mila Kunis (Meg), Seth Green (Chris) and Mike Henry (Cleveland) re-create a classic episode and several musical numbers from the past.
MacFarlane, creator of "Family Guy," will head a Q&A afterward. Feel free to ask him a few things, but let me spare you three questions people always, always ask, just as critics did again this summer after a similar table read.
Did he see the "South Park" episode that bashed "Family Guy"?
Yes, and he doesn't attack "South Park" in retaliation.
"We dish it out so much, we gotta take it, right?
"I am a fan of 'South Park,' actually. I think that show is very funny," he says. "They busted our [chops] a lot about the cutaways. The cutaways they sort of see as a deviation from the story."
But MacFarlane sees cutaways as animated versions of "one-frame 'Far Side' cartoons."
"They're just kind of laughs for laughs' sake," he says. "It's just pure comedy, we hope."
Does "Family Guy" want to stay contemporary with its jokes, since it parodies long-ago decades?
"Absolutely," MacFarlane says. "We're not just trying to do '80s references.
"We do try and make sure that we are kept up to date, although there are still some Bob Hope references that neither of those generations are going to get."
Does "Family Guy" work better when it offends people? Or when it doesn't offend people?
"I try," he says, "to kind of have this balance between the classic and the edgy. ... We do a lot of poop jokes, but at the same time, we use a 45-piece orchestra every week."
During table reads with network execs in attendance, "no one is shy about gasping in horror if we have crossed the line, and so it's a very good barometer. ... We're never out to shock for the sake of shocking."
By the way, what shocks MacFarlane?
"I don't know," he says, sounding like refined Brian the dog, as usual. "The Bush administration, I guess?"
Doug Elfman
Soap opry misses by country mile
September 14, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Hi, my name is Clint, and I'm a big stupid doofus from Texas starring in a new "docu-soap" called "Nashville," where me and a bunch of other country singers try to become famous, like those girls did on "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County."
In the first episode, I tell Rachel she's reeeal pretty and I have feelings for her, so she dumps her boyfriend, then saunters over to my party. But I don't like it when girls take me all serious-like, so I ignore her and she storms out.
There's a scene where I'm shootin' pool with this guy, and I tell him I get in trouble with girls all the time, because they actually believe me. Girls are so gullible.
But I can't blame 'em. I'm fatless, and I talk real smooth lines, like, "I like kissin' people's hands," and, "You might be the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen."
Can you believe girls fall for this? They're just crazy.
Any damn way, Rachel gets all up in my grill and texts me, "Stay away from me!" So, naturally, I call her and ask her to meet me on a bridge and she does. Ha ha, sucker.
I don't want to give away too much of this first episode, but there are other girls whose hands need to be kissed, if you catch my drift.
Rachel is Terry Bradshaw's daughter. He's a lovin' father, and they get along real nice. She tells him she wants to go to Nashville for one reason. To be famous!
Rachel says, "I want to be a star and I want everybody to love my music and believe in what I'm singing and come to my concerts!"
You gotta hand it to her for sayin' she wants to be a celebrity, instead of sayin' she just wants to be a great singer. What is quality without fame?! And she's got a good throat, and all, but you don't want to waste that blond on not bein' famous!
Another person on this show is Mika. She's from Hazard, Ky., a real-life coal miner's daughter. Her mom tells her she's "naive to the world," but Mika treks on over to Nashville anyway, because all she wants to do is sing -- "all or nothing."
She's sweet. And she's got a hand that my lips wanna meet.
Some people, like this TV critic in Chicago, say that Nashville industry music is all hat and no cattle: nothin' but affectations with no truth or individuality. But what I say is Nashville is great, because it's gonna make me famous!
Well, that's about it for me for now. Tune in to this show if you want to see us musicians trying to be famous more than anything else in the whole world. You'll also hear a few tunes that go, "Well I got my first truck when I was 3 ..." and "We're movin' at the speed of love!" Ain't that romantic?
delfman@suntimes.com
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Hi, my name is Clint, and I'm a big stupid doofus from Texas starring in a new "docu-soap" called "Nashville," where me and a bunch of other country singers try to become famous, like those girls did on "Laguna Beach: The Real Orange County."
In the first episode, I tell Rachel she's reeeal pretty and I have feelings for her, so she dumps her boyfriend, then saunters over to my party. But I don't like it when girls take me all serious-like, so I ignore her and she storms out.
There's a scene where I'm shootin' pool with this guy, and I tell him I get in trouble with girls all the time, because they actually believe me. Girls are so gullible.
But I can't blame 'em. I'm fatless, and I talk real smooth lines, like, "I like kissin' people's hands," and, "You might be the most beautiful thing that I've ever seen."
Can you believe girls fall for this? They're just crazy.
Any damn way, Rachel gets all up in my grill and texts me, "Stay away from me!" So, naturally, I call her and ask her to meet me on a bridge and she does. Ha ha, sucker.
I don't want to give away too much of this first episode, but there are other girls whose hands need to be kissed, if you catch my drift.
Rachel is Terry Bradshaw's daughter. He's a lovin' father, and they get along real nice. She tells him she wants to go to Nashville for one reason. To be famous!
Rachel says, "I want to be a star and I want everybody to love my music and believe in what I'm singing and come to my concerts!"
You gotta hand it to her for sayin' she wants to be a celebrity, instead of sayin' she just wants to be a great singer. What is quality without fame?! And she's got a good throat, and all, but you don't want to waste that blond on not bein' famous!
Another person on this show is Mika. She's from Hazard, Ky., a real-life coal miner's daughter. Her mom tells her she's "naive to the world," but Mika treks on over to Nashville anyway, because all she wants to do is sing -- "all or nothing."
She's sweet. And she's got a hand that my lips wanna meet.
Some people, like this TV critic in Chicago, say that Nashville industry music is all hat and no cattle: nothin' but affectations with no truth or individuality. But what I say is Nashville is great, because it's gonna make me famous!
Well, that's about it for me for now. Tune in to this show if you want to see us musicians trying to be famous more than anything else in the whole world. You'll also hear a few tunes that go, "Well I got my first truck when I was 3 ..." and "We're movin' at the speed of love!" Ain't that romantic?
delfman@suntimes.com
'Sunny' raises bar on offensive fun
September 12, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
In three seasons, the friends and family of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" have gone on crack to get welfare, pretended to be impaired to pick up women at a bar and exploited children at a charity basketball game for personal gain.
At this point, Kaitlin Olson is nonchalant when she describes upcoming plot turns for her character, Dee:
"I beat up a masturbating bum in an alley. And I do have a love interest this year," she says. "He may or may not be a retarded person. I try to find out the entire episode. I'm sorry -- a mentally disabled person."
But before that, in the first new episode titled "The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby," Dee and Mac try to put this Dumpster baby into show biz. Dee is unimpressed with the little human.
"This baby's heavy," she says. "What if we put it back where we found it?" And later: "Give us back our baby, so we can paint it."
That's typical "Sunny." Characters are caustic nuts, sort of like in "Curb Your Enthusiasm," but they're even more self-involved, greedy, scruple-free and unsympathetic to others.
The dumber and crueler the characters are on "Sunny," the more I like them. I ask Glenn Howerton, who plays Dennis, about this.
"I know. I don't know how that works," he says. "Honestly, [the cast] in real life: We're all really nice guys. ... Maybe because we're not such bad people in real life, some of that comes through."
Danny DeVito, for instance, plays the gun-shooting, acid-dropping dad Frank. But DeVito also brings his amiable self to the malicious role, so it's easy to laugh at Frank when he tells his kids what their mom was like in the old days: "She probably went right from the [abortion] clinic and banged some guy and got knocked up, because your mother was a giant whore."
"Sunny" endings may be the most consistently great last acts on TV. The "Dumpster" installment begins a little flatter than normal but it gets funnier with each scene until the excellent last frame where the gang, for the zillionth time, gets an outlandish comeuppance.
The actors are great in these roles, by the way. Howerton is a Juilliard man.
"It was really hilarious to me watching someone do some Juilliard preparing for when we were cracked out," Olson says, "like breathing [exercises], and making his eyes dry so they would be red and watery. ... He takes his acting really seriously."
delfman@suntimes.com
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
In three seasons, the friends and family of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" have gone on crack to get welfare, pretended to be impaired to pick up women at a bar and exploited children at a charity basketball game for personal gain.
At this point, Kaitlin Olson is nonchalant when she describes upcoming plot turns for her character, Dee:
"I beat up a masturbating bum in an alley. And I do have a love interest this year," she says. "He may or may not be a retarded person. I try to find out the entire episode. I'm sorry -- a mentally disabled person."
But before that, in the first new episode titled "The Gang Finds a Dumpster Baby," Dee and Mac try to put this Dumpster baby into show biz. Dee is unimpressed with the little human.
"This baby's heavy," she says. "What if we put it back where we found it?" And later: "Give us back our baby, so we can paint it."
That's typical "Sunny." Characters are caustic nuts, sort of like in "Curb Your Enthusiasm," but they're even more self-involved, greedy, scruple-free and unsympathetic to others.
The dumber and crueler the characters are on "Sunny," the more I like them. I ask Glenn Howerton, who plays Dennis, about this.
"I know. I don't know how that works," he says. "Honestly, [the cast] in real life: We're all really nice guys. ... Maybe because we're not such bad people in real life, some of that comes through."
Danny DeVito, for instance, plays the gun-shooting, acid-dropping dad Frank. But DeVito also brings his amiable self to the malicious role, so it's easy to laugh at Frank when he tells his kids what their mom was like in the old days: "She probably went right from the [abortion] clinic and banged some guy and got knocked up, because your mother was a giant whore."
"Sunny" endings may be the most consistently great last acts on TV. The "Dumpster" installment begins a little flatter than normal but it gets funnier with each scene until the excellent last frame where the gang, for the zillionth time, gets an outlandish comeuppance.
The actors are great in these roles, by the way. Howerton is a Juilliard man.
"It was really hilarious to me watching someone do some Juilliard preparing for when we were cracked out," Olson says, "like breathing [exercises], and making his eyes dry so they would be red and watery. ... He takes his acting really seriously."
delfman@suntimes.com
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Hilarious Larry David press conference roasted by critics who missed it
September 9, 2007
By Doug Elfman
Chicago Sun-Times
Some journalists don't exactly understand Larry David's humor. I won't name names, but judging by their stories lately, a few members of the press seem to think the creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is a jerk.
Why? Because he's getting divorced, and because he delivered a comedic performance at a press conference in July.
David spoke to fawning TV critics the way his TV character would: caustically, with a knowing smirk. It was, without question, the funniest press conference in history.
Critics in the room laughed throughout. But some press people who weren't there read bits of the transcript, took the tone the wrong way, and aren't on board.
It may seem strange to print the bulk of a press conference in a newspaper, but I think someone should in this case. So here we go. Just remember, each funny line was part of a truthful but comedic performance, not jerkiness.
Q. So what made you decide to keep doing ["Curb"]?
A. Well, [last] season ended, and all the editing was done. And I went into my office, and I was sitting at my desk, and I went, "Jeez, I don't have anything to do." ... And I thought, "This is very uncomfortable. I better do another season." So I did.
Q. Why are you so willing to portray yourself ... as such a shmuck?
A. I'm portraying you, shmucko! [Laughter.] That's you, too, not just me!
Q. But you're portraying yourself ...
A. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm sacrificing myself for the betterment of humanity.
Q. I wonder if things happen to you in life now ... where you're angry at what's happening to you, but you're glad, because you're going to get your revenge by acting them out [on "Curb?"]
A. Yeah, if something happens, if I'm angry or something, I'll go, "I'm going to use that." Yeah, so it works like that. Does that answer your stupid question? (Laughter.) ... I can get away with that because there's a very fine line between TV Larry and me. Very close, very close.
Q. Larry, you talked about being raised in this small apartment in Brooklyn as a kid where everyone was yelling. So if everyone was yelling, in the midst of all that chaos, what was the voice of reason that enabled you to believe in yourself?
A. OK, there was no such person. (Laughter.) Nobody told me to believe in myself. Even if they did, I wouldn't have believed them. ... My mother said to me, "You're not special. You're not special, Larry." She begged me to take a Civil Service test to work in the post office. That was her dream for me to work in the post office, deliver the mail, and I thought, "You know, maybe she's right, not such a bad job." But I didn't take the test and, I don't know, one day, you know, I was funny and somebody said, "You should be a comedian."
Q. So you shattered your mother's dreams.
A. Right! [Laughter]
Q. If you do come back for a seventh season -- since there is such a thin line between TV Larry and real Larry -- would you and Cheryl have marital problems?
A. (Looks at actress Cheryl Hines.) Too bad. You're going to be off the show. [Laughter] Oh. What a shame.
Hines: What a way to find out!
A. Good idea for a seventh season, by the way. That's a good idea.
delfman@suntimes.com
Honesty is Garlin's middle name
September 9, 2007
Jeff Garlin's claim to fame is playing Larry's often flustered manager. But in real life, the Chicagoan is just as honest as Larry David is. For instance, he openly proclaims he filmed "Daddy Day Care" for one reason: cash.
"If you see me in something now that's not great, know that I was paid a lot of money," Garlin says. "You know when you have reviews that say, 'So-and-so must have been paid [a lot to be in it],' well, they were."
Garlin's not the only actor eyeing cash. He's just rare for admitting to cashing in.
"Michael Caine is the king of that," he says. "He's won Academy Awards -- and done 'Jaws 3-D' or whatever! And Gene Hackman! He's done his share of crap, but who's a better actor than Gene Hackman?"
I ask him if he also makes a ton of dough performing for private parties thrown by corporations and wealthy fans. He does a few stand-up gigs, he says, but won't name his price. Instead, he names other entertainers' prices.
"I make good money," Garlin says. "But guys like Jay Leno make $750,000 or a million dollars an appearance!"
Garlin does have principles. He wrote, directed and starred in a small movie, opening Oct. 5, called "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With." He plays a depressed Second City actor. His co-stars are Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt, Amy Sedaris, Dan Castellaneta and Paul Mazursky.
But he turned down a "Daddy Day Care" sequel, since he wasn't offered a good salary.
"I will be honest when it's called for. Why am I going to protect the people who made 'Daddy Day Camp?' " he says. "I've got no reason to protect them. Let 'em pay me enough money, and I'll do it.
"I'm even friends with Cuba Gooding Jr., who's starring in it. Our kids are friends. But you gotta pay me," he says. "And by the way, even when you're doing something for the money, you regret it while you're doing it."
Doug Elfman
By Doug Elfman
Chicago Sun-Times
Some journalists don't exactly understand Larry David's humor. I won't name names, but judging by their stories lately, a few members of the press seem to think the creator of "Curb Your Enthusiasm" is a jerk.
Why? Because he's getting divorced, and because he delivered a comedic performance at a press conference in July.
David spoke to fawning TV critics the way his TV character would: caustically, with a knowing smirk. It was, without question, the funniest press conference in history.
Critics in the room laughed throughout. But some press people who weren't there read bits of the transcript, took the tone the wrong way, and aren't on board.
It may seem strange to print the bulk of a press conference in a newspaper, but I think someone should in this case. So here we go. Just remember, each funny line was part of a truthful but comedic performance, not jerkiness.
Q. So what made you decide to keep doing ["Curb"]?
A. Well, [last] season ended, and all the editing was done. And I went into my office, and I was sitting at my desk, and I went, "Jeez, I don't have anything to do." ... And I thought, "This is very uncomfortable. I better do another season." So I did.
Q. Why are you so willing to portray yourself ... as such a shmuck?
A. I'm portraying you, shmucko! [Laughter.] That's you, too, not just me!
Q. But you're portraying yourself ...
A. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm Jesus Christ. I'm sacrificing myself for the betterment of humanity.
Q. I wonder if things happen to you in life now ... where you're angry at what's happening to you, but you're glad, because you're going to get your revenge by acting them out [on "Curb?"]
A. Yeah, if something happens, if I'm angry or something, I'll go, "I'm going to use that." Yeah, so it works like that. Does that answer your stupid question? (Laughter.) ... I can get away with that because there's a very fine line between TV Larry and me. Very close, very close.
Q. Larry, you talked about being raised in this small apartment in Brooklyn as a kid where everyone was yelling. So if everyone was yelling, in the midst of all that chaos, what was the voice of reason that enabled you to believe in yourself?
A. OK, there was no such person. (Laughter.) Nobody told me to believe in myself. Even if they did, I wouldn't have believed them. ... My mother said to me, "You're not special. You're not special, Larry." She begged me to take a Civil Service test to work in the post office. That was her dream for me to work in the post office, deliver the mail, and I thought, "You know, maybe she's right, not such a bad job." But I didn't take the test and, I don't know, one day, you know, I was funny and somebody said, "You should be a comedian."
Q. So you shattered your mother's dreams.
A. Right! [Laughter]
Q. If you do come back for a seventh season -- since there is such a thin line between TV Larry and real Larry -- would you and Cheryl have marital problems?
A. (Looks at actress Cheryl Hines.) Too bad. You're going to be off the show. [Laughter] Oh. What a shame.
Hines: What a way to find out!
A. Good idea for a seventh season, by the way. That's a good idea.
delfman@suntimes.com
Honesty is Garlin's middle name
September 9, 2007
Jeff Garlin's claim to fame is playing Larry's often flustered manager. But in real life, the Chicagoan is just as honest as Larry David is. For instance, he openly proclaims he filmed "Daddy Day Care" for one reason: cash.
"If you see me in something now that's not great, know that I was paid a lot of money," Garlin says. "You know when you have reviews that say, 'So-and-so must have been paid [a lot to be in it],' well, they were."
Garlin's not the only actor eyeing cash. He's just rare for admitting to cashing in.
"Michael Caine is the king of that," he says. "He's won Academy Awards -- and done 'Jaws 3-D' or whatever! And Gene Hackman! He's done his share of crap, but who's a better actor than Gene Hackman?"
I ask him if he also makes a ton of dough performing for private parties thrown by corporations and wealthy fans. He does a few stand-up gigs, he says, but won't name his price. Instead, he names other entertainers' prices.
"I make good money," Garlin says. "But guys like Jay Leno make $750,000 or a million dollars an appearance!"
Garlin does have principles. He wrote, directed and starred in a small movie, opening Oct. 5, called "I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With." He plays a depressed Second City actor. His co-stars are Sarah Silverman, Bonnie Hunt, Amy Sedaris, Dan Castellaneta and Paul Mazursky.
But he turned down a "Daddy Day Care" sequel, since he wasn't offered a good salary.
"I will be honest when it's called for. Why am I going to protect the people who made 'Daddy Day Camp?' " he says. "I've got no reason to protect them. Let 'em pay me enough money, and I'll do it.
"I'm even friends with Cuba Gooding Jr., who's starring in it. Our kids are friends. But you gotta pay me," he says. "And by the way, even when you're doing something for the money, you regret it while you're doing it."
Doug Elfman
Saturday, September 08, 2007
Couples work out 'Love' issues
September 8, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
'Tell Me You Love Me," the new HBO series premiering Sunday, lays down the most graphic sex scenes ever presented in a serious TV drama. If you watch, you might think thoughts along the lines of, "Is that actress really handling that actor's ... in her ...?"
Seriously. It's vivid. And completely distracting.
But supposedly, "Tell Me" is not about sex. It's about couples dealing with sex problems in their relationships. And, goodness gracious, do they have problems.
One wimpy husband doesn't like the way his ice-queen wife demands sex for the sole purpose of babymaking.
Another wimpy husband pleasures himself in his marriage bed while his loving wife showers, because he doesn't desire her anymore.
Yes, yes, there are submissive men on this show. They cower. They hide. They comply. And their women are not happy with such weak traits.
"Tell Me" implies weak men are indicative of American culture. Also, two characters utter lines which serve as other main themes:
• "Every couple that stops having sex ends up hating each other." (Basically true.)
• "Do you really think you're never gonna be attracted to anyone else for the rest of your life?" (Well, no, but do you really want to become a cheater?)
All of these people need to be in therapy, so they tell their problems to (and lie to) an analyst portrayed by Jane Alexander (the onetime head of the National Endowment for the Arts), whose character goes home and puts her lover's ... in her ... right there on the screen.
Actors and creators of "Tell Me" say it would be difficult to investigate the motivations of these stage play-type characters without including integral sex scenes. I think they make their case with steady direction and acting (especially by Sonya Walger, who is incredibly believable as the ice queen).
In other words, it would be shallower to see a couple fighting about sex. It's more telling to see exactly how terrible or passionate they are in the sack, on the couch and on the kitchen counter.
But since we're Americans, and we're not accustomed to seeing raw, unromanticized sex in visual fiction, viewers certainly will be awed by naked things to the detriment of storylines.
Then again, the storylines are not so much entertainingly paced as they are merely interesting, representational or too often plodding.
The tone is similar to the quite good 1998 Neil LaBute film "Your Friends & Neighbors," which followed a bunch of jerkwads and normal losers suffering sexually dysfunctional relationships.
The people in "Tell Me" aren't necessarily jerks or losers. They're just so damn incompatible. That's the thing I take away from "Tell Me" more than anything else: People will stay in relationships that don't work.
I believe they hold on because they feel possessive about their mates; they don't want anyone else to have them. Or maybe they just don't want to be single and start over. Or they're addicted to their pretty wives' faces. Or it could be they subconsciously enjoy being stuck in bad-relationship cycles.
It reminds me of a "Cheers" episode where Diane asked a therapist (John Cleese) if she and Sam could be a good couple since "opposites attract." Cleese bellowed, "Ah, yes, the song of the truly desperate."
There's only one couple in "Tell Me" that's in fairly good shape and compatible. The rest should break up, I think, and go have sex with other people until they find their real soul mates. At least one character may do just that -- and bully for her for trying.
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
'Tell Me You Love Me," the new HBO series premiering Sunday, lays down the most graphic sex scenes ever presented in a serious TV drama. If you watch, you might think thoughts along the lines of, "Is that actress really handling that actor's ... in her ...?"
Seriously. It's vivid. And completely distracting.
But supposedly, "Tell Me" is not about sex. It's about couples dealing with sex problems in their relationships. And, goodness gracious, do they have problems.
One wimpy husband doesn't like the way his ice-queen wife demands sex for the sole purpose of babymaking.
Another wimpy husband pleasures himself in his marriage bed while his loving wife showers, because he doesn't desire her anymore.
Yes, yes, there are submissive men on this show. They cower. They hide. They comply. And their women are not happy with such weak traits.
"Tell Me" implies weak men are indicative of American culture. Also, two characters utter lines which serve as other main themes:
• "Every couple that stops having sex ends up hating each other." (Basically true.)
• "Do you really think you're never gonna be attracted to anyone else for the rest of your life?" (Well, no, but do you really want to become a cheater?)
All of these people need to be in therapy, so they tell their problems to (and lie to) an analyst portrayed by Jane Alexander (the onetime head of the National Endowment for the Arts), whose character goes home and puts her lover's ... in her ... right there on the screen.
Actors and creators of "Tell Me" say it would be difficult to investigate the motivations of these stage play-type characters without including integral sex scenes. I think they make their case with steady direction and acting (especially by Sonya Walger, who is incredibly believable as the ice queen).
In other words, it would be shallower to see a couple fighting about sex. It's more telling to see exactly how terrible or passionate they are in the sack, on the couch and on the kitchen counter.
But since we're Americans, and we're not accustomed to seeing raw, unromanticized sex in visual fiction, viewers certainly will be awed by naked things to the detriment of storylines.
Then again, the storylines are not so much entertainingly paced as they are merely interesting, representational or too often plodding.
The tone is similar to the quite good 1998 Neil LaBute film "Your Friends & Neighbors," which followed a bunch of jerkwads and normal losers suffering sexually dysfunctional relationships.
The people in "Tell Me" aren't necessarily jerks or losers. They're just so damn incompatible. That's the thing I take away from "Tell Me" more than anything else: People will stay in relationships that don't work.
I believe they hold on because they feel possessive about their mates; they don't want anyone else to have them. Or maybe they just don't want to be single and start over. Or they're addicted to their pretty wives' faces. Or it could be they subconsciously enjoy being stuck in bad-relationship cycles.
It reminds me of a "Cheers" episode where Diane asked a therapist (John Cleese) if she and Sam could be a good couple since "opposites attract." Cleese bellowed, "Ah, yes, the song of the truly desperate."
There's only one couple in "Tell Me" that's in fairly good shape and compatible. The rest should break up, I think, and go have sex with other people until they find their real soul mates. At least one character may do just that -- and bully for her for trying.
Celebrities join the rest of us in national pastime of video game addiction
Friday, Sept. 7, 2007
By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Maybe you heard that the romantic stars of Disney's "High School Musical" movies are dating in real life. What you don't know is they love to play PlayStation 3's suspenseful "Resistance: Fall of Man" together.
Zac Efron, 19, and Vanessa Anne Hudgens, 18, tell me "Resistance" was their favorite game over the summer.
"The best game, I think ever, is PS 3's 'Resistance: Fall of Man,'" Hudgens says. "Whenever I play that game, or watch somebody play that game, I get so caught up in it. It's so much fun, killing the aliens. And they're so freaky, you get scared."
Now that video games are a national pastime, it's no surprise celebrities have become game dorks. (Stars are just like us, right?) Efron describes himself as just that, a game "dork" stuck on "Halo," "Fuzion Frenzy" and various PS 3 and Xbox 360 titles.
"I'll be playing PlayStation 3 and goofing off, then I'll go to the grocery store and there'll be photographers" from the tabloids, he says. "It's hilarious" as a lifestyle.
Like gamers everywhere, Efron sometimes has trouble concentrating on real sports, because he's used to controlling virtual sports stars with his thumbs.
"Dude," he tells me, "I was in London for Wimbledon, and I wanted to go see all my favorite players that I play in 'Top Spin.' ... And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, the character should have automatically dove!' I find myself phantom-tapping a controller, like: 'I hit R1 not R2!'"
I think of that phenomenon as "video game vision," when gamers see games as realer than reality. The entertainment industry eventually will cater to video game vision. In the future, I think, Efron and the rest of us will be able to watch real-time football games through the graphics of our modem-synced "Madden" games.
John Madden says, at the very least, sports broadcasts will have to let TV viewers pick which camera angles to watch.
"These players who grew up as gamers, they want to play the game," he says. "They don't want to just sit there like a blob and watch. They want it to be interactive. It's going to be like that someday."
Not every celeb gamer is a pro. Masi Oka, who portrays Hiro on "Heroes," rocks on "Madden" football games during solo PS 3 outings, but isn't fantastic against real-live opponents, he says.
"I thought I was good until I played someone else and said, 'Oh, wait. I guess I'm not that good,'" Oka, 32, says.
Meanwhile, other celebs are digging into the super popular, interactive Nintendo Wii. But a Wii mishap sent Zachary Levi to the emergency room.
Levi, 26, plays a dorky, accidental spy in NBC's new TV show, "Chuck." ("Dork is the new cool," he says.) He injured himself while serving a tennis ball against a buddy in "Wii Sports."
"So I go for this overhead smash, and I put my hand through this light fixture in my living room, and literally glass showered the entire living room," Levi says. "There were shards of glass in the wall, I hit it so hard.
"I bring my hand down with the Wii controller dangling from my wrist by the safety strap -- the SAFETY strap, by the way -- and blood starts dripping from my hand."
You can see Levi's 14 stitches if you look closely at his hand in the first episode of "Chuck."
"I didn't sue," Levi says. "I'm hoping Nintendo hears about the story and gives me some free stuff!"
("Resistance: Fall of Man" retails for $60 for PS 3 -- A pretty, basic sci-fi shooting game. Plays well. Looks good. Moderately challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, intense violence, strong language. Three stars out of four.)
By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
Maybe you heard that the romantic stars of Disney's "High School Musical" movies are dating in real life. What you don't know is they love to play PlayStation 3's suspenseful "Resistance: Fall of Man" together.
Zac Efron, 19, and Vanessa Anne Hudgens, 18, tell me "Resistance" was their favorite game over the summer.
"The best game, I think ever, is PS 3's 'Resistance: Fall of Man,'" Hudgens says. "Whenever I play that game, or watch somebody play that game, I get so caught up in it. It's so much fun, killing the aliens. And they're so freaky, you get scared."
Now that video games are a national pastime, it's no surprise celebrities have become game dorks. (Stars are just like us, right?) Efron describes himself as just that, a game "dork" stuck on "Halo," "Fuzion Frenzy" and various PS 3 and Xbox 360 titles.
"I'll be playing PlayStation 3 and goofing off, then I'll go to the grocery store and there'll be photographers" from the tabloids, he says. "It's hilarious" as a lifestyle.
Like gamers everywhere, Efron sometimes has trouble concentrating on real sports, because he's used to controlling virtual sports stars with his thumbs.
"Dude," he tells me, "I was in London for Wimbledon, and I wanted to go see all my favorite players that I play in 'Top Spin.' ... And I was like, 'Oh my gosh, the character should have automatically dove!' I find myself phantom-tapping a controller, like: 'I hit R1 not R2!'"
I think of that phenomenon as "video game vision," when gamers see games as realer than reality. The entertainment industry eventually will cater to video game vision. In the future, I think, Efron and the rest of us will be able to watch real-time football games through the graphics of our modem-synced "Madden" games.
John Madden says, at the very least, sports broadcasts will have to let TV viewers pick which camera angles to watch.
"These players who grew up as gamers, they want to play the game," he says. "They don't want to just sit there like a blob and watch. They want it to be interactive. It's going to be like that someday."
Not every celeb gamer is a pro. Masi Oka, who portrays Hiro on "Heroes," rocks on "Madden" football games during solo PS 3 outings, but isn't fantastic against real-live opponents, he says.
"I thought I was good until I played someone else and said, 'Oh, wait. I guess I'm not that good,'" Oka, 32, says.
Meanwhile, other celebs are digging into the super popular, interactive Nintendo Wii. But a Wii mishap sent Zachary Levi to the emergency room.
Levi, 26, plays a dorky, accidental spy in NBC's new TV show, "Chuck." ("Dork is the new cool," he says.) He injured himself while serving a tennis ball against a buddy in "Wii Sports."
"So I go for this overhead smash, and I put my hand through this light fixture in my living room, and literally glass showered the entire living room," Levi says. "There were shards of glass in the wall, I hit it so hard.
"I bring my hand down with the Wii controller dangling from my wrist by the safety strap -- the SAFETY strap, by the way -- and blood starts dripping from my hand."
You can see Levi's 14 stitches if you look closely at his hand in the first episode of "Chuck."
"I didn't sue," Levi says. "I'm hoping Nintendo hears about the story and gives me some free stuff!"
("Resistance: Fall of Man" retails for $60 for PS 3 -- A pretty, basic sci-fi shooting game. Plays well. Looks good. Moderately challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, intense violence, strong language. Three stars out of four.)
Thursday, September 06, 2007
Sing a simple song and win a prize on new game shows
September 6, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television critic
According to the Q&A portion of the latest Miss Teen Whatever pageant, Americans can't memorize the location of America on a map of America. But we sure do know the lyrics to loads of crappy songs.
You can see this on your teevee if you watch NBC's "The Singing Bee" and Fox's "Don't Forget the Lyrics," which has new episodes starting tonight. Both game shows correctly presume that dancing wankers everywhere know the words to Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" -- including the apparently awesome lines "Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes."
Maybe you're expecting me to fume here about American priorities -- we memorize tunes over topography. But honestly, have you smelled the world this decade?
American adults have lives to grind. Why should we care less about pop culture than wearisome maps, which are primarily a geopolitical subject?
Geopolitics is now just a Ping-Pong game anyway, where the rest of us are told which Bush or Clinton will be the next president during the coming 1,000-year reign of Bush-Clinton androids manufactured by Acme or Skull and Bones.
Call me a fatalist, but why not drown our sorrows in idiotic karaoke contests and slowly descend into imperial fade?
"Bee" is passable self-medication for the empire. Host Joey Fatone picks a few contestants from an audience. They sing bits of pop hits and fill in the blanks of some lyrics. The final warbler tries to win $50,000 during a speed round.
"Bee" has things going for it. It doesn't take itself seriously. Songs are partly contemporary -- the Drifters one second, Jet the next. And it's bright and cheery. It fits the mood of karaoke, rather than being all funereal like "Don't Forget the Lyrics."
The silhouette set of "Lyrics" is black and shadow-blue. The music and the opening narrator communicate threatening tones, as if losing at karaoke will lead to death by monkey feet.
Like most nighttime game shows, "Lyrics" pounds time to a halt. It takes an entire segment, plus a commercial break, for host Wayne Brady to tell one contestant if he got one lyric correct. Borrrring.
By contrast, "Bee" makes you feel like you're part of a quick, happy bar contest. People who don't browse bars (the marrieds, the parents, the kids) can watch at home and pretend to be at this karaoke bar that they don't really want to be at.
The downside is "Bee" is unfair. One contestant gets to sing "Material Girl." Her rival might have to sing Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lover." I bet you even Osama bin Laden knows pieces of "Material Girl." Who the hell knows one sentence in "Part-Time Lover"?
So "Bee" values pageantry over justice, like most things we cherish (the war, celebrity trials, tipping before we even receive our disappointing Starbucks coffee). And unjust pageantry is, you know, puffery, so "Bee" takes you on a journey to nowhere. It's like a lobotomy, but with pizzazz. These days, things could be worse.
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television critic
According to the Q&A portion of the latest Miss Teen Whatever pageant, Americans can't memorize the location of America on a map of America. But we sure do know the lyrics to loads of crappy songs.
You can see this on your teevee if you watch NBC's "The Singing Bee" and Fox's "Don't Forget the Lyrics," which has new episodes starting tonight. Both game shows correctly presume that dancing wankers everywhere know the words to Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" -- including the apparently awesome lines "Words are like weapons, they wound sometimes."
Maybe you're expecting me to fume here about American priorities -- we memorize tunes over topography. But honestly, have you smelled the world this decade?
American adults have lives to grind. Why should we care less about pop culture than wearisome maps, which are primarily a geopolitical subject?
Geopolitics is now just a Ping-Pong game anyway, where the rest of us are told which Bush or Clinton will be the next president during the coming 1,000-year reign of Bush-Clinton androids manufactured by Acme or Skull and Bones.
Call me a fatalist, but why not drown our sorrows in idiotic karaoke contests and slowly descend into imperial fade?
"Bee" is passable self-medication for the empire. Host Joey Fatone picks a few contestants from an audience. They sing bits of pop hits and fill in the blanks of some lyrics. The final warbler tries to win $50,000 during a speed round.
"Bee" has things going for it. It doesn't take itself seriously. Songs are partly contemporary -- the Drifters one second, Jet the next. And it's bright and cheery. It fits the mood of karaoke, rather than being all funereal like "Don't Forget the Lyrics."
The silhouette set of "Lyrics" is black and shadow-blue. The music and the opening narrator communicate threatening tones, as if losing at karaoke will lead to death by monkey feet.
Like most nighttime game shows, "Lyrics" pounds time to a halt. It takes an entire segment, plus a commercial break, for host Wayne Brady to tell one contestant if he got one lyric correct. Borrrring.
By contrast, "Bee" makes you feel like you're part of a quick, happy bar contest. People who don't browse bars (the marrieds, the parents, the kids) can watch at home and pretend to be at this karaoke bar that they don't really want to be at.
The downside is "Bee" is unfair. One contestant gets to sing "Material Girl." Her rival might have to sing Stevie Wonder's "Part-Time Lover." I bet you even Osama bin Laden knows pieces of "Material Girl." Who the hell knows one sentence in "Part-Time Lover"?
So "Bee" values pageantry over justice, like most things we cherish (the war, celebrity trials, tipping before we even receive our disappointing Starbucks coffee). And unjust pageantry is, you know, puffery, so "Bee" takes you on a journey to nowhere. It's like a lobotomy, but with pizzazz. These days, things could be worse.
Wednesday, September 05, 2007
Whoopi's bow rocks 'View'-ers to sleep
September 5, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Now that Rosie's rabble-rousing is gone for good from "The View," Barbara's blabfest is just "eh" -- so far. Whoopi Goldberg replaced Rosie O'Donnell on Tuesday, and it was blase smooth sailing. She didn't rock the boat. She rowed it to a calm state of yawn.
If her debut is a clue to the future, Goldberg may just be another gal pal in the banal cabal, chatting about the birth canal and the female rationale.
That's great if you like it soft in the morning. The women showed photos of their daughters. And Elisabeth Hasselbeck rubbed her pregnant belly (70 days until delivery, and she's still so in-shape she looks like a girl who swallowed a cantaloupe).
But here's an omen. Barbara Walters and the rest had been on vacation for a while, so a whole mess of subjects awaited them to talk about: the stupid Miss Teen USA girl, Michael Vick's dog abuse and gay senatorial bathroom sex.
Yet it was so structured and nonchalant, my mind wandered -- to Goldberg's urban-cowboy shirt, Joy Behar's post-illness shaky hands, Walters' slip ("MyFace" instead of "MySpace"), and Hasselbeck's "I'm pregnant but I'm still sexy" red dress and black choker.
Goldberg pulled out her peace: "All I want to say to people is have a great day and take time to enjoy 'The View.' "
I like Goldberg normally, but "have a great day" is smooth, and "smooth" is also a synonym for "flat." It's not enough for "The View" to comment on pop culture anymore. It has to make pop culture moments happen.
"The View" owned a pop culture moment with this one-day introduction of an O'Donnell replacement. But it had better get back to backstabbing, political scream therapy, or something as equally entertaining. Otherwise, snooze.
Not even Danny DeVito made waves as Goldberg's first guest. Last season, he got notice for making nonsense noises after a night of drinking limoncellos with George Clooney.
This time, DeVito was clear-eyed and ready to promote his funny FX comedy, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," plus his new line of limoncello liqueur. In other words, he did what every red-blooded American would do. He turned his last public spectacle into an opportunity to cash in.
"You whored yourself!" Behar said.
"Absolutely," DeVito said. "This is America."
In defense of the show, for the introduction of a new co-host, it wasn't a wreck, and the chemistry was fine.
Goldberg did make me chuckle once, when she explained why she took a "Star Trek" role: " 'Star Trek' was the only guarantee that we had that there were black people in the future."
If Goldberg's going to replace O'Donnell's fun-factor watchability without resorting to anger, she needs to dig in with more of those kinds of quick jokes-with-meaning, which is Goldberg at her winning best. If not, the "new" "View" is through.
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
Now that Rosie's rabble-rousing is gone for good from "The View," Barbara's blabfest is just "eh" -- so far. Whoopi Goldberg replaced Rosie O'Donnell on Tuesday, and it was blase smooth sailing. She didn't rock the boat. She rowed it to a calm state of yawn.
If her debut is a clue to the future, Goldberg may just be another gal pal in the banal cabal, chatting about the birth canal and the female rationale.
That's great if you like it soft in the morning. The women showed photos of their daughters. And Elisabeth Hasselbeck rubbed her pregnant belly (70 days until delivery, and she's still so in-shape she looks like a girl who swallowed a cantaloupe).
But here's an omen. Barbara Walters and the rest had been on vacation for a while, so a whole mess of subjects awaited them to talk about: the stupid Miss Teen USA girl, Michael Vick's dog abuse and gay senatorial bathroom sex.
Yet it was so structured and nonchalant, my mind wandered -- to Goldberg's urban-cowboy shirt, Joy Behar's post-illness shaky hands, Walters' slip ("MyFace" instead of "MySpace"), and Hasselbeck's "I'm pregnant but I'm still sexy" red dress and black choker.
Goldberg pulled out her peace: "All I want to say to people is have a great day and take time to enjoy 'The View.' "
I like Goldberg normally, but "have a great day" is smooth, and "smooth" is also a synonym for "flat." It's not enough for "The View" to comment on pop culture anymore. It has to make pop culture moments happen.
"The View" owned a pop culture moment with this one-day introduction of an O'Donnell replacement. But it had better get back to backstabbing, political scream therapy, or something as equally entertaining. Otherwise, snooze.
Not even Danny DeVito made waves as Goldberg's first guest. Last season, he got notice for making nonsense noises after a night of drinking limoncellos with George Clooney.
This time, DeVito was clear-eyed and ready to promote his funny FX comedy, "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," plus his new line of limoncello liqueur. In other words, he did what every red-blooded American would do. He turned his last public spectacle into an opportunity to cash in.
"You whored yourself!" Behar said.
"Absolutely," DeVito said. "This is America."
In defense of the show, for the introduction of a new co-host, it wasn't a wreck, and the chemistry was fine.
Goldberg did make me chuckle once, when she explained why she took a "Star Trek" role: " 'Star Trek' was the only guarantee that we had that there were black people in the future."
If Goldberg's going to replace O'Donnell's fun-factor watchability without resorting to anger, she needs to dig in with more of those kinds of quick jokes-with-meaning, which is Goldberg at her winning best. If not, the "new" "View" is through.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
'Cane' confirms that Latinos have broken through
September 4, 2007
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
When I was a little kid in a whiter America, all I knew about Latinos I learned from Don Rickles and "Chico and the Man." Both Rickles and "the Man" kept telling me Latinos were lazy thieves. Then I grew up and got angry at their nasty jokes.
I mention this to Rita Moreno of "Cane," the new CBS drama starring Jimmy Smits, and she looks at me crestfallen.
"And that became your perception of Latinos," she sighs.
TV has improved, of course. But Latinos are only now gaining more positive attention, as networks discover there's money in that huge demographic.
Last year's debut of "Ugly Betty" established -- on a network -- a hit series with a constructive image of an ensemble cast of Latino heritage.
"Betty" co-star Ana Ortiz, a New Yorker with Puerto Rican heritage, told me her job offers before "Betty" fit cliches.
"It's Maria the maid, or Maria the drug-dealer's girlfriend, or Maria the sassy spitfire," Ortiz, 36, said. Or, "We come in and we have an affair with the husband, we ruin the family, and then we leave."
On Sept. 25, CBS debuts the Tuesday night serial drama "Cane." Moreno, who plays the mother to Jimmy Smits' lead character, points out the series may be the first show on English-speaking, American TV that revolves around a rich, successful and assimilated Latino family.
Moreno was, you know, a Puerto Rican-American who wasn't even the Maria in "West Side Story"; she played Anita to white Natalie Wood's Puerto Rican Maria. Since she's seen the business evolve, I ask her if we are living during the dawn of actual Latino integration on English-speaking TV.
"The door is finally not ajar, it's open," she says. "The door is finally open."
Moreno, 75, pried her way into closed doors for generations. She says she suffered Hollywood indignities -- as both a Latina and as a woman -- even though she established a stellar career, with roles growing from "Singin' in the Rain" to "West Side Story" and "The King and I."
There was, for instance, the movie producer who'd never look her in the eyes and referred to Moreno as "her" in her presence.
"What made it even worse is I accepted it. But you have to remember it was the times. It's very hard for me to talk about this without getting very emotional," she says, looking close to weeping, despite her usual cheerfulness.
"But because it still hurts, I get angry at myself for still smarting."
Moreno credits Smits with breaking a barrier in the 1980s by commanding a central role in "L.A. Law."
"You cannot imagine the effect that Jimmy has had on the perception of Latinos," Moreno says. "For me, that was the changing point, when Jimmy got the part of Victor Sifuentes. See, I even remember the character name. I never do that. He was fabulous."
I tell Smits, who's both producing and starring in "Cane," my angry story about Don Rickles and "Chico and the Man." He reminds me I was also watching reruns of the beloved and successful Desi Arnaz in "I Love Lucy."
"I think it's part of the history of America, in terms of what the assimilation process is," says Smits, 52. "Go back to the '20s and '30s, [and look at] how different groups have had stereotypes. And through the assimilation process, [they] have become part of the mainstream.
"That's true of Latinos in this country, as well."
It's interesting to hear Smits talk about assimilation, since there's a part in "Cane" where Smits' character tells a hard laborer in his employ that it's time to talk English, because he's been in the States for 10 months -- plenty of time to have learned it, he says.
Smits says he was drawn to "Cane" by the writing, the production team and the character-based story about a family running a rum and sugar company in Florida.
"Does it have a cultural specificity to it? Absolutely," he says. "It has a kind of an aspirational quality, in terms of a family you might not have seen before. I just think, on a week-to-week basis: We're doing an American television show on CBS."
Smits, whose character was elected president at the end of "The West Wing," is humble about his own role as a groundbreaker.
"It's not lost upon me that the work I've amassed these past years has had a positive impact," he says. "But I'm not walking around as a role model. I'm just trying to keep the work honest and as challenging to me as possible."
delfman@suntimes.com
BY DOUG ELFMAN Television Critic
When I was a little kid in a whiter America, all I knew about Latinos I learned from Don Rickles and "Chico and the Man." Both Rickles and "the Man" kept telling me Latinos were lazy thieves. Then I grew up and got angry at their nasty jokes.
I mention this to Rita Moreno of "Cane," the new CBS drama starring Jimmy Smits, and she looks at me crestfallen.
"And that became your perception of Latinos," she sighs.
TV has improved, of course. But Latinos are only now gaining more positive attention, as networks discover there's money in that huge demographic.
Last year's debut of "Ugly Betty" established -- on a network -- a hit series with a constructive image of an ensemble cast of Latino heritage.
"Betty" co-star Ana Ortiz, a New Yorker with Puerto Rican heritage, told me her job offers before "Betty" fit cliches.
"It's Maria the maid, or Maria the drug-dealer's girlfriend, or Maria the sassy spitfire," Ortiz, 36, said. Or, "We come in and we have an affair with the husband, we ruin the family, and then we leave."
On Sept. 25, CBS debuts the Tuesday night serial drama "Cane." Moreno, who plays the mother to Jimmy Smits' lead character, points out the series may be the first show on English-speaking, American TV that revolves around a rich, successful and assimilated Latino family.
Moreno was, you know, a Puerto Rican-American who wasn't even the Maria in "West Side Story"; she played Anita to white Natalie Wood's Puerto Rican Maria. Since she's seen the business evolve, I ask her if we are living during the dawn of actual Latino integration on English-speaking TV.
"The door is finally not ajar, it's open," she says. "The door is finally open."
Moreno, 75, pried her way into closed doors for generations. She says she suffered Hollywood indignities -- as both a Latina and as a woman -- even though she established a stellar career, with roles growing from "Singin' in the Rain" to "West Side Story" and "The King and I."
There was, for instance, the movie producer who'd never look her in the eyes and referred to Moreno as "her" in her presence.
"What made it even worse is I accepted it. But you have to remember it was the times. It's very hard for me to talk about this without getting very emotional," she says, looking close to weeping, despite her usual cheerfulness.
"But because it still hurts, I get angry at myself for still smarting."
Moreno credits Smits with breaking a barrier in the 1980s by commanding a central role in "L.A. Law."
"You cannot imagine the effect that Jimmy has had on the perception of Latinos," Moreno says. "For me, that was the changing point, when Jimmy got the part of Victor Sifuentes. See, I even remember the character name. I never do that. He was fabulous."
I tell Smits, who's both producing and starring in "Cane," my angry story about Don Rickles and "Chico and the Man." He reminds me I was also watching reruns of the beloved and successful Desi Arnaz in "I Love Lucy."
"I think it's part of the history of America, in terms of what the assimilation process is," says Smits, 52. "Go back to the '20s and '30s, [and look at] how different groups have had stereotypes. And through the assimilation process, [they] have become part of the mainstream.
"That's true of Latinos in this country, as well."
It's interesting to hear Smits talk about assimilation, since there's a part in "Cane" where Smits' character tells a hard laborer in his employ that it's time to talk English, because he's been in the States for 10 months -- plenty of time to have learned it, he says.
Smits says he was drawn to "Cane" by the writing, the production team and the character-based story about a family running a rum and sugar company in Florida.
"Does it have a cultural specificity to it? Absolutely," he says. "It has a kind of an aspirational quality, in terms of a family you might not have seen before. I just think, on a week-to-week basis: We're doing an American television show on CBS."
Smits, whose character was elected president at the end of "The West Wing," is humble about his own role as a groundbreaker.
"It's not lost upon me that the work I've amassed these past years has had a positive impact," he says. "But I'm not walking around as a role model. I'm just trying to keep the work honest and as challenging to me as possible."
delfman@suntimes.com
Sunday, September 02, 2007
Networks, series increasingly looking outside Hollywood actors' community to fill primetime roles
September 2, 2007
By Doug Elfman
Chicago Sun-Times
Actors from around the world don't even have to go to Hollywood to audition for American TV shows. Two new stars were hired on the Web.
Execs picked Britain's Michelle Ryan to be the new "Bionic Woman" after checking her out "on a tiny little screen," says producer David Eick.
"We watched her on an Internet feed," he says. "You really felt like you were, you know, discovering somebody."
Meanwhile, South African Adhir Kalyan won his role as a Pakistani in the CW's "Aliens in America" after L.A. execs watched his long-distance audition on the "postage-stamp-size image" of a computer, says producer David Guarascio.
"If he was a star on something [as small as YouTube], imagine what he would be like on something this big," says producer Moses Port.
There have been zippy stories in the press lately about TV's new "British invasion." A lot of English actors have signed up to star in new American shows. But as Kalyan can attest, the trend is more international than that.
Yes, Brits will star or co-star in "The Bionic Woman," "Pushing Daisies," "Life," "Moonlight" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
There are also Aussies ("Cashmere Mafia" and "Moonlight"), a Scotsman ("Journeyman"), a Dane ("New Amsterdam") and Kalyan. And that's not counting Latinos (some native, some not) in "Cane" and other new series.
This is a win-win situation for Hollywood. Since most of these actors aren't famous in America, they may work for less.
"I can only assume that we're cheap," British-born Hugh Laurie cracks, a few years after he adopted an American accent for "House."
Shows that look intercontinental earn big cash abroad. "House" is seen in Britain, where Laurie was already well-known. Racially diverse "Heroes" is an international moneymaker.
Some actors don't have to come from overseas. They can merely play to heritage. This summer, I ran into James Kyson Lee -- a serious New York actor who plays Ando on "Heroes" -- and almost the first word out of his mouth was, "Dude!" On the set, he uses a Japanese dialect coach.
Those who do audition in L.A. arrive prepared. Frances O'Connor, co-star in ABC's midseason "Cashmere Mafia," tucks away her Aussie tongue.
"If they see you with an Australian accent, and then you do an American accent, they think, 'Oh, she's doing an accent.' Whereas if you come in as an American, it just makes it easier for everybody," O'Connor says.
Talking American is a breeze for her, she says.
"I've been watching 'Sesame Street' since I was four," she says and laughs.
It's been a longer path for the lead of NBC's "Journeyman," Kevin McKidd. He spoke his native Scottish dialect in "Trainspotting," then a British accent in HBO's "Rome." Even the Queen's English took time to develop.
"I went to drama school in Edinburgh, and they said, 'You know, you're never going to work with a voice like that,' because there are very few dramas being made about the upper regions of the Highlands in Scotland. So ..."
McKidd is trying to sound like he's from San Francisco, the setting of "Journeyman." He's one-upping American actors on the series by focusing on a region, says American co-star Gretchen Egolf.
"He ends up," Egolf says, "being much more specific than all of us [American actors]. He's talking about a West Coast American accent."
One way these actors are getting spotted is by starring in HBO and BBC programs, says David Nutter, producer-director of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
"With the advent of shows like 'Rome,' " he says, "people are able to say, 'Oh, look at this person. ... Let's try to get them on this show.'"
For the actors, working in America translates into more exposure and warmer climes. They also say TV here is developing better scripts and products than the movie business. Laurie was drawn to "House" by its first screenplay.
"It could have been a Latvian circus piece, or it could have been in a piece of American television. It didn't really matter in that regard. It was just a stunning piece of writing," Laurie says.
He has said many times that using the accent for up to 16 hours a day is the hardest part of his job.
McKidd says when he first began studying American vowels and consonants, it was tough not to imitate American stars.
"That's the thing, to make it sound like it isn't an impersonation, but that it's your own voice," McKidd says.
Many actors don't seem too homesick.
"The only thing I found difficult to deal with coming to the States is the size of the portions of food," Kalyan says. "Africa doesn't need Bono. Africa doesn't need Geldof. Africa needs a Denny's 'Grand Slam' breakfast."
But if you add them up, more Brits are immigrating than other nationalities. One is Natascha McElhone, perhaps best known here for playing George Clooney's love interest in "Solaris." She co-stars in Showtime's "Californication."
I asked her if she's the most exotic person on the set. She didn't take me seriously.
"What, because I'm English?" she said in a very British way. "It's a myth that anything in England is exotic. You've gotta go there more often."
By Doug Elfman
Chicago Sun-Times
Actors from around the world don't even have to go to Hollywood to audition for American TV shows. Two new stars were hired on the Web.
Execs picked Britain's Michelle Ryan to be the new "Bionic Woman" after checking her out "on a tiny little screen," says producer David Eick.
"We watched her on an Internet feed," he says. "You really felt like you were, you know, discovering somebody."
Meanwhile, South African Adhir Kalyan won his role as a Pakistani in the CW's "Aliens in America" after L.A. execs watched his long-distance audition on the "postage-stamp-size image" of a computer, says producer David Guarascio.
"If he was a star on something [as small as YouTube], imagine what he would be like on something this big," says producer Moses Port.
There have been zippy stories in the press lately about TV's new "British invasion." A lot of English actors have signed up to star in new American shows. But as Kalyan can attest, the trend is more international than that.
Yes, Brits will star or co-star in "The Bionic Woman," "Pushing Daisies," "Life," "Moonlight" and "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
There are also Aussies ("Cashmere Mafia" and "Moonlight"), a Scotsman ("Journeyman"), a Dane ("New Amsterdam") and Kalyan. And that's not counting Latinos (some native, some not) in "Cane" and other new series.
This is a win-win situation for Hollywood. Since most of these actors aren't famous in America, they may work for less.
"I can only assume that we're cheap," British-born Hugh Laurie cracks, a few years after he adopted an American accent for "House."
Shows that look intercontinental earn big cash abroad. "House" is seen in Britain, where Laurie was already well-known. Racially diverse "Heroes" is an international moneymaker.
Some actors don't have to come from overseas. They can merely play to heritage. This summer, I ran into James Kyson Lee -- a serious New York actor who plays Ando on "Heroes" -- and almost the first word out of his mouth was, "Dude!" On the set, he uses a Japanese dialect coach.
Those who do audition in L.A. arrive prepared. Frances O'Connor, co-star in ABC's midseason "Cashmere Mafia," tucks away her Aussie tongue.
"If they see you with an Australian accent, and then you do an American accent, they think, 'Oh, she's doing an accent.' Whereas if you come in as an American, it just makes it easier for everybody," O'Connor says.
Talking American is a breeze for her, she says.
"I've been watching 'Sesame Street' since I was four," she says and laughs.
It's been a longer path for the lead of NBC's "Journeyman," Kevin McKidd. He spoke his native Scottish dialect in "Trainspotting," then a British accent in HBO's "Rome." Even the Queen's English took time to develop.
"I went to drama school in Edinburgh, and they said, 'You know, you're never going to work with a voice like that,' because there are very few dramas being made about the upper regions of the Highlands in Scotland. So ..."
McKidd is trying to sound like he's from San Francisco, the setting of "Journeyman." He's one-upping American actors on the series by focusing on a region, says American co-star Gretchen Egolf.
"He ends up," Egolf says, "being much more specific than all of us [American actors]. He's talking about a West Coast American accent."
One way these actors are getting spotted is by starring in HBO and BBC programs, says David Nutter, producer-director of "The Sarah Connor Chronicles."
"With the advent of shows like 'Rome,' " he says, "people are able to say, 'Oh, look at this person. ... Let's try to get them on this show.'"
For the actors, working in America translates into more exposure and warmer climes. They also say TV here is developing better scripts and products than the movie business. Laurie was drawn to "House" by its first screenplay.
"It could have been a Latvian circus piece, or it could have been in a piece of American television. It didn't really matter in that regard. It was just a stunning piece of writing," Laurie says.
He has said many times that using the accent for up to 16 hours a day is the hardest part of his job.
McKidd says when he first began studying American vowels and consonants, it was tough not to imitate American stars.
"That's the thing, to make it sound like it isn't an impersonation, but that it's your own voice," McKidd says.
Many actors don't seem too homesick.
"The only thing I found difficult to deal with coming to the States is the size of the portions of food," Kalyan says. "Africa doesn't need Bono. Africa doesn't need Geldof. Africa needs a Denny's 'Grand Slam' breakfast."
But if you add them up, more Brits are immigrating than other nationalities. One is Natascha McElhone, perhaps best known here for playing George Clooney's love interest in "Solaris." She co-stars in Showtime's "Californication."
I asked her if she's the most exotic person on the set. She didn't take me seriously.
"What, because I'm English?" she said in a very British way. "It's a myth that anything in England is exotic. You've gotta go there more often."
Creepy 'BioShock' an unparalleled, realistic horror game
Aug. 31, 2007
By Doug Elfman
The Game Dork
You play as Jack. You walk into a gorgeous art deco room. You see a pigtailed girl sticking a medical needle into a corpse to suck out his life force. From a transistor radio, you hear a faraway guide warning you to avoid her.
"You think that's a child down there? Don't be fooled," the voice of Adam tells you. "Somebody went and turned a sweet baby girl into a monster."
So there you go. It's not enough for "BioShock" -- the buzz game of the season, and the best-reviewed title in several seasons -- to send zombie nurses and machine-gunning robots after you. Even girls (named Little Sisters) want to destroy your flesh.
Claustrophobic "BioShock" is a masterpiece of a horror game. Lasting longer than more than a dozen films, at 25 hours or so, it is an unparalleled artistic achievement in cinematic, realistic gaming.
It's also the creepiest thing I've played since 2004's prison nightmare, "The Suffering." I literally get chills nearly every time I run up against a zombie.
I will be walking down, say, a medical corridor, where light bulbs just partially give me a view of the room, and I can't exactly see what's coming. Instead, I hear a zombie talking sinister threats while his or her bloody, wet footsteps draw near.
When I finally see these jerks, their fantastically drawn faces are rotted and blood-splattered. Nasty. They try to kill me with lead pipes and point-blank guns.
You fire back using pistols, machine guns and shotguns. You also wield various magical powers, like electric bolts, telekinesis and 1,000-degree flames that zap from your fingertips.
If the little girls aren't eerie enough for you, there's the ghostly, slashed woman staring at a restroom mirror, crying, "I'm all sliced up! Nobody's gonna want me."
Then there are "Big Daddies." They're "Lost in Space"-looking robots that come at you with spiral drills attached to their arms.
All of this takes place in a bizarre, art deco city under the sea in 1960.
The story is a deep narrative about an anti-utopia designed by an evil genius. Literary nods point to Ayn Rand and other paranoid writers. A heavy-handed voice-over echoes in hallways: "The parasites hate three things. Free markets. Free will. And free men."
The lead designer of the game, Ken Levine, has said he's obsessed with "Logan's Run" and "1984" because he's interested in societies where good ideas turn rotten (which would be just about any society ever, Rome onward).
So doctors in "BioShock" used stem cells, surgeries and mind control to turn the leaky city into a terrible, disgusting home. On the floor in one section, you see written in blood, "Aesthetics are a moral imperative!!!"
That's the only funny sentence in the game -- which is otherwise humorless (and offers no online multiplayer) -- since it does seem like the game's artists worked under their own little social constraints of perfectionism, where aesthetics were imperative to the bloody end.
("BioShock" retails for $60 for Xbox 360 -- Plays fun, scary and interesting. Looks unparalleled. Challenging to very challenging. Rated "M" for blood, gore, drug reference, intense violence, sexual themes and strong language. Four stars out of four.)
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