Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Now Playing: The Violent Femmes 3
Friday, January 30, 2009
Friday Night Videos
Not that I normally do requests, but since Scott asked so nicely last week, I figured I'd humor him. Don't want to disappoint the regulars, you know. So here it is, ZZ Top performing "La Grange" on the Tonight Show.
Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Now Playing: The Violent Femmes 3
Previously on Friday Night Videos... The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.
Now Playing: The Violent Femmes 3
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Coupling
Oh my goodness, but Coupling is hilarious! Follow--I was among the early fans of Friends, finding the travails of those young, New York 20-somethings quite engaging when it the series first came on the air, only to rapidly lose interest towards the end when the show began wallowing in absurd self-parody. It gave me nothing to connect with then, and wasn't all that funny (kinda like Adam Sandler).
Around this time I heard of a British version of Friends called Coupling which was supposedly extremely funny but more focused on sex. Naturally, the rights were bought by an American television network and a sucky stateside version was made that died a quick and horrible death. But my curiosity about the original remained. Thanks to Netflix, that curiosity has been satisfied.
First off, this show didn't remind me of Friends all that much. Yes, the general trappings are there--three men, three women in their late 20s/early 30s who hang out at a local bar instead of a coffee shop. They know each other mainly through romantic trysts, and only form a clique by the end of the first episode, which is your typical origin story.
Beyond the superficial resemblance to Friends in the broadest strokes, Coupling reminds me, more than anything else, of the brilliant Fawlty Towers. Granted, those two shows are worlds apart, but there's something about the way Coupling begins each episode on a somewhat sedate note, then lays all the groundwork for whatever situation the characters find themselves in to spiral rapidly out of control. The blazing absurdity is so far over the top, the quirky character so outrageous, the holes they dig themselves so spectacularly deep-- watching Jack Davenport (coincidentally, he also played a lead in the much-missed Swingtown) try to pass off the "plot" a porn video titled "Lesbian Spank Inferno" as an independent film by feminist auteurs comes darn close to John Cleese-level brilliance.
The first episode is a bit of a drag early on as it struggles to establish the characters. It's woefully unfunny for the first 15 minutes or so, a fact it attempts to disguise with an annoyingly over-used laugh track. But once it finds its footing, hilarity ensues, as they say. The remaining five episodes on the season 1 disc are consistently funny from the get-go.
Recommended.
Now Playing: Pandora Diana Krall Radio
Around this time I heard of a British version of Friends called Coupling which was supposedly extremely funny but more focused on sex. Naturally, the rights were bought by an American television network and a sucky stateside version was made that died a quick and horrible death. But my curiosity about the original remained. Thanks to Netflix, that curiosity has been satisfied.
First off, this show didn't remind me of Friends all that much. Yes, the general trappings are there--three men, three women in their late 20s/early 30s who hang out at a local bar instead of a coffee shop. They know each other mainly through romantic trysts, and only form a clique by the end of the first episode, which is your typical origin story.
Beyond the superficial resemblance to Friends in the broadest strokes, Coupling reminds me, more than anything else, of the brilliant Fawlty Towers. Granted, those two shows are worlds apart, but there's something about the way Coupling begins each episode on a somewhat sedate note, then lays all the groundwork for whatever situation the characters find themselves in to spiral rapidly out of control. The blazing absurdity is so far over the top, the quirky character so outrageous, the holes they dig themselves so spectacularly deep-- watching Jack Davenport (coincidentally, he also played a lead in the much-missed Swingtown) try to pass off the "plot" a porn video titled "Lesbian Spank Inferno" as an independent film by feminist auteurs comes darn close to John Cleese-level brilliance.
The first episode is a bit of a drag early on as it struggles to establish the characters. It's woefully unfunny for the first 15 minutes or so, a fact it attempts to disguise with an annoyingly over-used laugh track. But once it finds its footing, hilarity ensues, as they say. The remaining five episodes on the season 1 disc are consistently funny from the get-go.
Recommended.
Now Playing: Pandora Diana Krall Radio
Monday, January 26, 2009
Friday, January 23, 2009
Friday Night Videos
Really folks, was there ever any doubt which musical selection would be featured today, given my post from Wednesday?
Previously on Friday Night Videos... Paul Simon.
Now Playing: ZZ Top Tres Hombres
Previously on Friday Night Videos... Paul Simon.
Now Playing: ZZ Top Tres Hombres
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Do you remember the Chicken Ranch?
So, there it is. Do you remember the Chicken Ranch? And by that question, I don't mean "Do you vaguely recall it existed at one point," or "Have you seen the Burt Reynolds/Dolly Parton movie, The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas." I'm looking for folks with actual, genuine first-hand knowledge of the famed brothel in La Grange, Texas. This would include former clients, former employees, post-Marvin Zindler landowners, Dallas-area restauranteurs, townsfolk, neighbors, law enforcement, relatives... anybody with a story, memory or recollection to tell regarding the history of what is, quite possibly, the world's most famous bordello.
I want to interview you. I'm not certain what form this project will ultimately take, but I'm not one for doing things half-assed.
Why am I doing this all of the sudden, when I've got far too many unfinished SFnal projects on my plate that need attention? The plain and simple fact of the matter is that if I don't do it right, nobody will. Too many of the major players in the demise of the Chicken Ranch have already departed this mortal coil, and the brothel was too much a part of Texas history for too long a time to let its memory simply weather away into dust (There's not even a historical marker in La Grange to show the nation's longest-operating brothel--predating the Civil War, fer crying out loud--ever existed). I intend to change that. But I need your help.
Feel free to spread the word.
Now Playing: Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel 2
I want to interview you. I'm not certain what form this project will ultimately take, but I'm not one for doing things half-assed.
Why am I doing this all of the sudden, when I've got far too many unfinished SFnal projects on my plate that need attention? The plain and simple fact of the matter is that if I don't do it right, nobody will. Too many of the major players in the demise of the Chicken Ranch have already departed this mortal coil, and the brothel was too much a part of Texas history for too long a time to let its memory simply weather away into dust (There's not even a historical marker in La Grange to show the nation's longest-operating brothel--predating the Civil War, fer crying out loud--ever existed). I intend to change that. But I need your help.
Feel free to spread the word.
Now Playing: Peter Gabriel Peter Gabriel 2
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
About that Galactica episode...
Friday's new episode of Battlestar Galactica, "Sometimes a Great Notion," did little to allay my concerns regarding the coherence of these final episodes of the series. That's not to say there weren't great moments here to dazzle the masses--Starbuck finding her own corpse (which wasn't that unexpected) or Dee's abrupt and graphic suicide attempt (which was pretty much unexpected) really drove home the emotion of this episode.
But there are other things that leave me unsatisfied. If Earth (if indeed this is Earth--Starbuck's vision of Earth earlier in the series clearly showed the continents, yet this world was just a sort of generic world as seen from space, no identifying marks, so to speak. And I don't recall seeing the Moon or Jupiter...) was nuked 2,000 years ago, then the background levels of radiation should surely be in tolerable limits for human life--there's plant life enough to sustain an oxygen atmosphere, after all. Unless they used cobalt bombs, and this Earth had its very own On the Beach scenario. But the Cylons being the 13th Tribe? Smells like another something Moore bent over and pulled out his ass, not for logical reasons, but purely for "shock the audience" reasons. Because the entire population was supposedly Cylons (and just how big a sample did they take? From how many sites?) it doesn't was that this is Earth. We're not Cylons, no matter how much hand-waving Moore does, since evolution is a pretty clearly established refutation of that point. Unless (and this, admittedly, is a huge stretch) Earth was the mother world and subsequently abandoned (pollution? War?) and Kobol colonized. When they screwed up Kobol, that's when the 12 colonies were settled, making Kobol more of an intermediary home rather than the cradle. The 13th Cylon tribe, presumably being Cylon and more tolerant of radiation and other crap, decided to give Earth another go. Not sure how that works out in the series' timeline, since IIRC Kobol's climatological catastrophe happened about the same time or somewhat after the Cylons' Earthly Armageddon. But honestly, Moore's played so fast and loose with continuity that this may be as valid an explanation as anything else.
I'm not clear why the fleet is leaving the Cylon Earth. I'm assuming it's too radioactive to live on, but that wasn't strongly conveyed. On Caprica, the guerrillas at least had to take little anti-radiation tablets to survive. We're not seeing that here. And I'm not clear how wandering off among the stars will make them any better off, unless there's still the issue of other Cylons chasing them (which hasn't been referenced in a while) and the whole Cylon civil war (a nuked Cylon homeworld becomes a poignant irony when viewed in that light).
As for Ellen Tigh being the final skinjob Cylon, I'm somewhat ambivalent about it. Ellen was a great character, and her death on New Caprica was a high point of the series for me. Great writing there. Of course, that's about the point where the series lost its bearings, so maybe her death, and not the destruction of the Pegasus, marks the point where shark-jumping begins. Bringing her back feels like a cheat, although of all the sudden knee-jerk plot twists introduced to the series, this one at least has enough backstory elements to make it almost seem plausible. But that begs the question, if there are only one model of the Final Five operating, it stretched credulity that each of them not only survive the initial Cylon sneak attacks, but also happen to end up on the Galactica and survive time and again when facing certain death. Magical woo-woo stuff comes into play, which I suppose ties in with the religion and prophecy they've been spouting throughout the series' run, but for once I'd like to see hoary old prophecies be exposed as so much nonsensical fortune cookie babbling. And wouldn't Starbuck's pretty damn obvious resurrection imply pretty damn strongly that she's a Cylon? A 13th model, for the 13th Tribe? There's a certain symmetry there, but not a whole lot of narrative sense.
I did like Apollo changing the number on the dry erase board. That was a nice touch. The series needs more of those.
All in all, lots of powerful individual moments. Lots of "eyeball kicks" if I'm allowed to invoke the Turkey City Lexicon. But ultimately, it's a bunch of hand-waving, the sum equalling far less than the sum of its parts. But I confess at this point I have no idea what's going to happen next, so that's something, right?
Now Playing: Pink Floyd Meddle
But there are other things that leave me unsatisfied. If Earth (if indeed this is Earth--Starbuck's vision of Earth earlier in the series clearly showed the continents, yet this world was just a sort of generic world as seen from space, no identifying marks, so to speak. And I don't recall seeing the Moon or Jupiter...) was nuked 2,000 years ago, then the background levels of radiation should surely be in tolerable limits for human life--there's plant life enough to sustain an oxygen atmosphere, after all. Unless they used cobalt bombs, and this Earth had its very own On the Beach scenario. But the Cylons being the 13th Tribe? Smells like another something Moore bent over and pulled out his ass, not for logical reasons, but purely for "shock the audience" reasons. Because the entire population was supposedly Cylons (and just how big a sample did they take? From how many sites?) it doesn't was that this is Earth. We're not Cylons, no matter how much hand-waving Moore does, since evolution is a pretty clearly established refutation of that point. Unless (and this, admittedly, is a huge stretch) Earth was the mother world and subsequently abandoned (pollution? War?) and Kobol colonized. When they screwed up Kobol, that's when the 12 colonies were settled, making Kobol more of an intermediary home rather than the cradle. The 13th Cylon tribe, presumably being Cylon and more tolerant of radiation and other crap, decided to give Earth another go. Not sure how that works out in the series' timeline, since IIRC Kobol's climatological catastrophe happened about the same time or somewhat after the Cylons' Earthly Armageddon. But honestly, Moore's played so fast and loose with continuity that this may be as valid an explanation as anything else.
I'm not clear why the fleet is leaving the Cylon Earth. I'm assuming it's too radioactive to live on, but that wasn't strongly conveyed. On Caprica, the guerrillas at least had to take little anti-radiation tablets to survive. We're not seeing that here. And I'm not clear how wandering off among the stars will make them any better off, unless there's still the issue of other Cylons chasing them (which hasn't been referenced in a while) and the whole Cylon civil war (a nuked Cylon homeworld becomes a poignant irony when viewed in that light).
As for Ellen Tigh being the final skinjob Cylon, I'm somewhat ambivalent about it. Ellen was a great character, and her death on New Caprica was a high point of the series for me. Great writing there. Of course, that's about the point where the series lost its bearings, so maybe her death, and not the destruction of the Pegasus, marks the point where shark-jumping begins. Bringing her back feels like a cheat, although of all the sudden knee-jerk plot twists introduced to the series, this one at least has enough backstory elements to make it almost seem plausible. But that begs the question, if there are only one model of the Final Five operating, it stretched credulity that each of them not only survive the initial Cylon sneak attacks, but also happen to end up on the Galactica and survive time and again when facing certain death. Magical woo-woo stuff comes into play, which I suppose ties in with the religion and prophecy they've been spouting throughout the series' run, but for once I'd like to see hoary old prophecies be exposed as so much nonsensical fortune cookie babbling. And wouldn't Starbuck's pretty damn obvious resurrection imply pretty damn strongly that she's a Cylon? A 13th model, for the 13th Tribe? There's a certain symmetry there, but not a whole lot of narrative sense.
I did like Apollo changing the number on the dry erase board. That was a nice touch. The series needs more of those.
All in all, lots of powerful individual moments. Lots of "eyeball kicks" if I'm allowed to invoke the Turkey City Lexicon. But ultimately, it's a bunch of hand-waving, the sum equalling far less than the sum of its parts. But I confess at this point I have no idea what's going to happen next, so that's something, right?
Now Playing: Pink Floyd Meddle
Friday, January 16, 2009
Well crap
My PC just went belly-up. Over the last couple of days it'd started acting glitchy, internet browser windows opening at random, programs seizing up... I thought it might be a virus, but all my scans turned up negative. No spyware, either. But then my system diagnostics and repair software crashed every time I tried to run it. Something was seriously wrong, and I couldn't figure it out (although I still suspected a virus).
So I made up my mind to move what files I had on my hard drive over to my external drive and reinstall Windows. So what happens when I boot up this evening? Windows immediately crashes and I can't get it back, not even in safe mode. *sigh* Now I've got to dig up my Windows installation disk (which isn't where it's supposed to be, naturally) and try to boot from that, salvage what files I can, then re-install and wipe out whatever the cause of this problem is.
Until then, we're down to the laptop. Which has some glitchiness of its own, refusing to run Photoshop... egads, what a mess. At least I've been keeping most of my important files stored on the external drive of late...
Now Playing:
So I made up my mind to move what files I had on my hard drive over to my external drive and reinstall Windows. So what happens when I boot up this evening? Windows immediately crashes and I can't get it back, not even in safe mode. *sigh* Now I've got to dig up my Windows installation disk (which isn't where it's supposed to be, naturally) and try to boot from that, salvage what files I can, then re-install and wipe out whatever the cause of this problem is.
Until then, we're down to the laptop. Which has some glitchiness of its own, refusing to run Photoshop... egads, what a mess. At least I've been keeping most of my important files stored on the external drive of late...
Now Playing:
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