The Only True Test of Skills

It is the prerogative of critics to judge who they believe to be the best (and the worst) performers in their given genre. Over the years, they have derived many forms of critiques and rhetoric to aid in their decision making process. In the media of cinema, there are actors who are appropriately decided to be the best and worst actors of all time. Decisions here seem to be made based on the versatility of roles and the intensity of individual performances. These are all well and good in deciding how good you consider an actor to be, but these judgments are so varied in their effect on people that they become difficult to truly gauge ability. Some critics may enjoy a performance and say that it delves into the subtlest of details with great results; other may deride the same role as being too little or too much. Either way, there is a problem with current method of judging an actor’s ability, and, dear audience, I believe I have found the solution.

I call it The Muppet Factor. The roles that define an actor’s career can vary greatly, and too often their cultural significance relies on the ebb and flow of popularity. A role that seemed of the utmost importance at the time may in a few years seem to be making a big deal out of nothing or reflect upon what is later considered the belligerent views of the past. But Muppets? Muppets are timeless. Any actor (or any kind of performer, be it singer or host) who plays a role with Muppets will forever have a mark for or against their career. A scene interacting with Muppets will either make or break an actor, as can be seen many times throughout the past. Let me illustrate.


Upstaged!

If an actor gets totally upstaged by the Muppets, it will always be their own damn fault. It is a clear sign of them being simply not a very good performer. As you can see with Jimmy Fallon here, he is flustered, mildly confused, and just not very funny. It’s no wonder Elmo upstages him, and even Rosita doesn’t get his jokes. If a Muppet is way more entertaining than you in a joint scene, there is something seriously wrong with your craft, end of story.


Why So Serious?

Sometimes someone thinks they are way too cool, talented, or important to act with Muppets. I can safely say this about every performer who has ever existed: No, you are not too important to act with Muppets. No one is. There’s plenty of people who have engaged in petty contests with the Muppets (contests which they always lose). Marked either by performing with bored abandon (like Robert DeNiro pretending he’s Elmo) or simply aiming for too faux-lofty a subject (Peter Sellers telling Kermit about his own existential nightmare). But it’s Whoopi Goldberg who takes the cake by managing to be both bored and far too lofty as she reminds Hoots that she has neither wings nor feathers, and comes this close to forgetting it wasn’t still The Color Purple, all while glancing knowingly at the camera. There’s being proud of who you are, and being too proud to chat humanely with a talking owl. Poor Hoots.


But I’m Famous

Some people understand that either they’re not very good, or at that the Muppets are way better than they are. However, instead of simply owning up to this fact in a responsible way, or even striving to actually become better at their chosen profession, they try to mask this fact by simply pushing the Muppets to the backseat. Little Miley Cyrus here understands that in a Battle of the Bands, Dr. Teeth would kick her scrawny butt back Montana (that’s where she’s from, right?), so instead she practically cuts him out of the skit to make more room for her stage persona. I bet the Electric Mayhem thought they were going to get to play that night, but instead found their mikes cut and some pop playing over them.


Keep Trying

Not everyone is perfect, but there are those who give it their best regardless. They understand their limitations, and are perfectly able to compensate them simply by doing the best they can. The end result may end up maybe a little bit off, and while commendable it’s still not the best, though not for lack of trying.


The Best (go ahead, watch the whole episode)


The actor whose screen presence can match and compliment that of the Muppets, is among the top tier of performers. For instance here. Madeline Kahn has nothing to prove, no axe to grind, and in the end shows just how awesome she is by hosting one of the best episodes of the Muppet Show ever. If nothing else proves this method of judgment, this is it.

Wow. I surprised even myself with the efficiency of the Muppet Factor. You critics watching? This is the proper way to critique people. Now if anyone wants me, I’ll be forcibly guest teaching the Cinema History classes down at the community college.

Lessons of Love and Life... On Animal Crossing

As a lonely, socially inept teenager who happens to also own a Wii, it's not a far stretch to understand what I enjoy about Animal Crossing. Merry little townsfolk who are always happy to see you; a quaint atmosphere where you can beautify your town and watch your trees and flowers grow; even expand your house and fortify your savings by doing little more than dig up dinosaur fossils and catch bugs. Yes, my joyful little burg of Le Couer is a wondrous little place, a non twist ending version of Willoughby, even. It has several perks, mostly involving just cheering me up, but even beyond that there was one that I never expected to encounter. And that is the gaining of a better understanding of love.

I was just a shy city boy, moving to my little house in the countryside town of Le Couer, taking what help I could get from kindly cats on the train and friendly, if monetarily concerned, raccoon merchants. I just wanted to find a place to settle down, and settle down I did. And that was when I met... her. That beautiful, almost ethereal sprite, luring me in with her sweet siren song. She had smooth, fair skin; big, round, irresistible eyes; tall ears that flopped with a decadence only allowed to that most lovely of creatures.

Screenshots cannot do justice to this fair maid

Time went by, as time is wont to do. Spring brings its rich blessings of love to fruitation, and I do believe that there was a subtle spark between me and Tiffany. That was a glorious summer. But

as summer turns to fall, and leaves darken and descend to the ground, so does the treacherous heart grow cold over time. I am sad to say it, but she broke my heart. One day I showed up to her house, with a freshly picked bouquet of black roses (man, are those hard to grow), but what should I find but her house filled with moving boxes. O bitter day, O bitter sorrow of departure. There was nary a soul to console me after our tearful, final farewell. Never again shall I see her who broke my heart so open.

It was soon that a new neighbor came to the neighborhood. At the behest of that mindless sheep who lives next door to me, I introduced myself. She was cute, I'll giver her that. She had a certain air of dignity as well as bubbliness to her, what with that little penguin waddle of hers. To say our relationship was doomed from the start would be true, but it was in no way her fault. Really, it was mine. My heart on the mend, I was merely on the rebound from Tiffany. Not ready was I to mend my heart and move on with my life, so it came as no surprise, and no particular heartache (at least not fresh heartache) when Aurora moved away but a month later.

But just as time marches steadily on, so does it heal all wounds. As the autumn leaves fell to the ground, so did I begin to come to terms with my loss, and soon felt ready to begin anew. The ebb and flow of neighbors coming and leaving this town soon brought Marina, a heavenly creature if I ever saw one, and as sweet as can be.

We're taking it slow, Marina and I; slow but steady. What the future holds, no one can say, not even that fortune telling cat downtown. No, I shall be content to live in the moment, and hold tightly my dearly beloved. For now, I am happy.

The Worst (or Greatest) SNL Skit Ever!

As you know, I don’t keep up to date with a whole lot of things. SNL is not one of those things. Unlike politics, the economy, the stock market, basic news, and higher education, SNL is important to me, and just about every Saturday night you’ll find me holding up the rabbit ears (seriously, even in the switch to digital, I still rely on rabbit ears), and pressed to the TV (quite literally, also because of the rabbit ears). And let me tell you, for a recent record of four episodes, this episode has been dynamite, until last weekend. Not to say they didn’t try, but when the best they can get out of a dead on Jimmy Stewart impression is a lengthy fart joke, and when two Kristen Wiig characters who I had hoped were gone for good returned, it’s time to drop the “Days Since an Accident” sign back to zero. To celebrate SNL’s most recent return to mediocrity, I have written the greatest skit featuring the worst (current) recurring characters. It will, unfortunately, never be acted out, as in real life, there aren’t enough Kristen Wiigs.

Opens in a restaurant; Nicolas Fehn, skewed political commentator, sits with Jean K. Jean, French comedian, are sitting together at a table, waiting for others to arrive.
Nicolas Fehn (holding a newspaper): Say, have you seen these headlines, Jean? They can’t print that!
Jean K. Jean: Man, where is everybody? I’ve been waiting to eat so long, I could eat a dozen Toblerone bars! (Shouts) Merci beaucoup!
Nicolas Fehn: No, look Jean, when you’re trying to make a joke… You have to say things that… Look, when people are laughing… No one thinks that… If I could borrow your ear… At you, not with you, at you not with…
(Is interrupted by the door opening, and in walks Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb.)
Kathy Lee (In a “funny” voice): Oh, hey fellas, this here is a fellas table, so Hoda, you’re sitting here. Get it? Fellas… (mouths “what?”)
Hoda: I get it…
(More and more tired, recurring characters enter the restaurant, and sit in the seats. Finally, when everyone is present, DJ Dynasty Handbag takes a microphone at the front of the room.)
DJ Dynasty Handbag: Alright, is everybody here? Okay, then I have some bad news to tell you all. I have recently heard word that the higher ups are finally getting as fed up with us as the audience is.
T-Shane: Yeah, as fed up as Britney Spears at an all you can eat buffet. Amiright?
DJ Dynasty Handbag: Ooh-ee, T-Shane. Did you forget you’re not a hot air balloon, cause all that just came out is hot… No, sorry, now is not the time for falling back on stale diatribe. This is important, people, because if we don’t get our acts together, we are all cancelled.
Penelope (Pops out of nowhere, and talking in a “funny” voice): I’m already cancelled, except I’m still here, and that just means I can’t be cancelled, cause I’m like the cancellation undead, I’m totally a zombie…
DJ Dynasty Handbag: Well, regardless, this is a dangerous situation for all of us, because if we don’t manage to come up with some new material… (pauses as an arrow is shot into his shoulder) Now, who did that?!
Gilly (armed with a cross bow, and talking in a “funny” voice): Sorry. (Gilly theme song plays)
Lorenzo McInstosh (savagely jumping in Gilly’s face): You think that craps funny? Cause if you like shooting people so much with arrows, how bout you try fighting a whole war among the stars armed with nothing but a cross bow, even though you’re seven feet tall, and even then they won’t give you a medal, cause this here is REAL!
DJ Dynasty Handbag: Look, people I’m serious here, we need to get some new material or they will cancel us!
Jon Bovi: Well then it’s a good thing that we have some new material in the form of our newest opposite cover song, “He Says You Have to Go Away”. And a 1, 2, 3, 4 (singing) He says, you have to go away, there’s plenty of places they can call someone else’s…
DJ Dynasty Handbag: No, guys, that isn’t new material, you’re just going to great lengths to ensure no one has ever made the same joke as you even though its involves something entirely unoriginal
Jon Bovi: What? What? What?
Nicolas Fehn: Well, I’m totally new material, also, and I can show you if you’ll just let me read from this newspaper…
DJ Dynasty Handbag: NO!
Nicolas Fehn: Hey look, I have just as much a right as anyone to… You know what’s great about this country… This here… This here is a map on the back of the Declaration… You don’t have this kind of freedom in… What a country… say, have you ever hunted lions in the Scottish highlands?
DJ Dynast Handbag: ENOUGH! Will someone here please come up with something original so we don’t all get cancelled?
Penelope: I have plenty of things that are new and original, I’m one hundred percent original, and I’m always new because I have a radio uplink to a supercomputer that writes new jokes for me every second, and I have a mutant ability to constantly regenerate so I’m always new, and I also have metal claws…
Kathy Lee Gifford: Hey, you want some original material, I’m sure I can come up with a double entendre about new material and then say Hoda’s name funny. Hoda Kotb, Yoda Kotb, Soda Popb, Grope a Hot Me, TeleDocMe, Gotta Go Pee…
DJ Dynasty Handbag: Are you just about done?
Kathy Lee Gifford: …North Dakota Fanny.
DJ Dynasty Handbag: Look, guys, I didn’t want to tell you this, but there is a bomb underneath this restaurant hooked up to a Stale-O-Meter, and by my calculations, we’ve used up almost all of our stale jokes. It can only take a couple more stale jokes before we all go up in smoke.
Hoda Kotb: Handbag’s right, we’ve got to create some actually decent sketches for once, and not just for our own survival, but to fulfill the purpose which was our duty from our very creation: to entertain viewers. Because, in the long run, it is not important whether we recur, or do not recur; explode, or not explode; but instead, what matters is whether we entertain. And I for one haven’t been entertained, so why would anyone in the audience? We have failed in our mission, the mission that makes our existence not just possible, but legitimate, and if we do not see the error of our ways, turn from this path of folly, and march on to righteous hilarity, then we are not worth saving.
(Long time of silence)
Penelope (slowly, deferentially stands): I...

I'm Mad As Hell...

...And I'm not going to watch this anymore!

Ladies and gentlemen (of, um, the blog), haven't you said these (or some variation of these) words several times in the past. I'm talking of course about that age old, most American of medias, television (specifically TV dramas), and even more importantly, I'm talking about how terrible it is right now. But unfortunately, unlike the economy, wars, and global warming, this seems to be an affliction only suffered by America. This is a travesty! America invented television, and yet television gives us nothing but a terrifying amalgamation of the worst shows in the world, and canceling those very few that are actually good.

Now, I do believe that there isn’t a man, woman, or child on this planet that could honestly say that I am a patriot. But even I am forced to cry out that we deserve better. Even still, I believe in blame where blame is due, and in this case America must share a decent percentage of the blame for our own televisual misfortunes. They say that the best way to improve yourself is to look to the most successful person in a field and copy what they produce as legally as possible, and this is what I suggest we as Americans do. After all, it seems to be working out so far in the field of sitcoms. But in terms of televised dramas we haven’t been doing that well enough. Right about now, science fiction (okay, the British and French share the credit for that one, although sci-fi is ours) seems to be the big thing in TV drama, and yet for all the efforts we put out (Lost, Heroes, Journeyman, Flash Forward, and even this new reboot of V seem to fall into this category), we get lengthy shots of attractive people in extraordinary situations standing around and looking confused and/or aloof. Didn’t Nathan get the memo? Look away from the camera, like you don’t even care it’s there. No wonder he got fired.

Meanwhile the British, arguably the host nation of the greatest current TV, sit back weekly and (as a nation, mind you) enjoy a new episode of Doctor Who. How does it compare to American television? Well, within the four seasons that the new series alone has accrued, they’ve saved the Earth, the Universe, time itself, and then reality itself all from different and separate enemies. And… Heroes is still fighting Sylar, and Lost doesn’t know what the island actually is (which, in a way, makes it the only show right now that doesn’t know what it’s own setting is, or at least isn’t telling the audience.) Journeyman and Flash Forward seem to be more time travel oriented shows; however Journeyman decided that past the whole time traveling to random points thing, no actual science fiction was actually needed and it could fall back on marriage complications to pass the time. The entire point of Flash Forward deals with awaiting a future event where we already know what happens. This means that either they get to the end of the season and finish the story with what we already have seen, or its popularity leads them to slowing down the time between now and the big reveal, which will inevitably make for a longer couple of months within the story than the time dilution of Archie comics. Lastly, V may have aliens, but really it’s just one group of aliens, which is at this point pretty weak in sci-fi terms. Unless they suddenly give us a cantina full of new species, we’re dealing with a threat that Doctor Who can (and has) whipped in one episode.

What I propose is simple. First, pick out what Doctor Who does well. I’m going to say, an overall tone that is more “happy-go-lucky in space” instead of “moping around because I have superpowers/am stuck on Action Island”; make the characters do something other than look dejected and sulkily discuss how bad things are; and have actually interesting things happen. Somewhere along the line it seems as if American television somehow lost its dictionary, and when it got it back, found that the E section had been ripped out so they couldn’t look up what “entertaining” meant. They’ve forgotten that Star Wars and Indiana Jones are more fun to watch than the cinematic equivalent of Junior High politics (stretched out over six seasons, of course, and taunting you with the broken promise of time travel, aliens, robots, or something). They forgot that nice, kind, good natured protagonists saving the day are in fact better than sexy people bickering. Lastly, it has been entirely forgotten that an emotional scene is far more effective when it is interspersed among lighter fare, and that when your entire show is one long heartbreak, it immediately loses its dramatic edge after about two episodes. So America, you know what to do. Copy the Hell out of Doctor Who in tone and ideas, and maybe, just maybe, we won’t have to combine the Primetime Emmy’s with the Daytime Emmy’s.

Still not convinced? Okay, how’s this for proof:

Every single episode.

EVERY SINGLE EPISODE!

The Trouble With GaGa

This post has been a long time coming, but I am notoriously behind on the times, so I’m just getting to it now (seriously, the last time I listened to the radio, Hanson was in style.) The point is, I’m just now finding out about this whole Lady GaGa thing. Now, I’ve heard the name get thrown around, but it took me a while to actually hear a song. Specifically, I had to look her up on YouTube once I found out she’d be on SNL. Let me just say to the uninitiated (as I was), the things I saw on the videos are currently burned into my retinas, and I’m not sure they will ever go away. But past that there was little more than repetitive techno beats with blithely nihilistic and inane lyrics. I had to listen to parts of four songs before I actually found one that had a discernable melody. It’s a sad realization that unlike the crappy pop songs from the 90’s which had memorable (albeit annoying) tunes, the crappy pop music from today has really no true tune, just a series of noises ran through digital programs that occasionally resemble words. Entirely unimpressed, I ended up watching her segments of SNL anyways out of boredom. You might understand why I’d be surprised when this happened:



Taken aback, I went to the most reliable source online to find info on what other music she’s done. After all, I hated “Black Horse and the Cherry Tree”, but love everything else KT Tunstall does. Reading her bio and musical description on Wikipedia, she apparently started singing in the womb, learned piano by 4, wrote a ballad at 12, and spent college performing piano pieces based on European philosophers. From the description of what she can do and the comparisons made, she should be making the equivalent of David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” sung by Freddie Mercury and played by the love child of Billy Joel and Gershwin. But going back to reality, what we got is a bubble headed fashionista droning “muh muh muh muh”. Oh, fate is cruel.

So here it is. Lady GaGa, if you’re reading this, please, think about what you’re doing. The world has enough pop tunes with pseudo electronica beats (Madonna will only retire once she dies, and we all know that’s not going to happen.) We need real music, something you physically are capable of making. Think of the children, GaGa. Think of the children.