L-WORD DVD Marathon: Season 5, Episode 4

EPISODE 4

Before the opening credit: Yet another snippet from the ill-advised “Lez Girls” production (because, really, do you really want to see the same old story on a movie when you can actually just go get your “L-Word” DVD of Season 1 and watch that instead?), this time of the auditions for who would be playing Jesse, who essentially is the barely-fictionalized Jenny. Thus we have scenes of actresses auditioning for what we are made to believe is a very coveted role (although I mostly think this is just Jenny’s version of reality).

In this episode:

Kit is taking up self-defense classes since she got naturally spooked by the robbery in the last episode (although I still think she should improve her cash-handling skills first…and why does she not have security as well?!?). That entails, of course, the whole gang going with her, meaning Tina, Bette, Jodi (but no sign of Tom anywhere), Alice, Jenny, Shane, Shane’s missing vagina (don’t look at me, I don’t write this sh*t). Where, pray tell is baby Angelica? My only answer is, I don’t know. And anyway, being the self-sufficient that she is, she probably already knew self-defense, despite dialogue to the contrary between her parents Bette and Tina.

During the class, a series of conversations ensue: Jenny finds out Natalie Portman passed on the Jesse/Jenny starring role in her “Lez Girls” movie (which is kind of funny for me, because the likelihood of the actual Natalie Portman starring in an all-lesbian sex-fest movie is about as likely as the actual Natalie Portman actually guest-starring in “The L-Word”. But namedrop Christina Ricci and it would have been a whole different ballgame) and is so unhappy about it she hits Tina a bit too harshly. Bette finds out Tina had a hot date and one-night stand with the surgically augmented heart surgeon and hits Jodi a bit too harshly. Moreover, Bette and Tina find themselves partners in a demo of a self-defense move, and you can literally feel the sexual tension oozing from their pores. What are the odds Jodi will be out of the picture anytime soon? Shane is called by the instructor for a demo and this obviously does not bode well for the trying-to-be-celibate-lothario.

Meanwhile, Alice’s lack of supervision on her website, OurChart.com encourages Max to sneak in her two-cents’ worth about FTM transsexuals. Alice eventually finds out, reprimands her, reluctantly offers her a guest column, but not without further alienating Max by telling her it’s a lesbian website, not a website for transsexuals. Alice’s unhappiness about Max’s guerilla-type tactics are soon forgotten when a couple of military investigators barge into her apartment, intent on proving that Tasha is gay simply by association with the very out Alice. Visibly ruffled by the visit, Alice tries to de-gay-ify her apartment more so as to pass for straight. This, in turn, freaks Tasha out, sending her on a rampage and a midnight visit to her uncooperative legal counsel, who, as it turns out, is not only uncooperative, but uninformed, in the dark and severely homophobic. An imlied confrontation with aforementioned legal counsel and his wife though has implied a change of heart for said legal counsel when he ends up on Alice’s doorstep talking to Tasha, who,as it happens, has spent the night with Alice. In her room. Buck nekkid. I don’t know how these things work, but if Tasha is supposed to be lying low, why is she spending the night with the gayest woman in LA?

Meanwhile, Bette has her hands full with a complaint from an art student about another art student who staged a performance art session involving a fake gun infront of Jodi’s class. Jodi is unfazed, Bette is annoyed to reprimand her and skip a possibly dirty night with her (well, only as I gleaned from Jodi’s gestures, which,in retrospect, look really dirty. Still not feelin’ the heat between these two. They have about as much heat as two ajumas talking about the weather).

Tina, on the other hand, is busy trying to keep her sanity while her dickhead boss and Jenny argue about which actor should play Jesse/Jenny, showing complete control even as Jenny, high on nicotine gum, spits her gum on the table, and while Jenny’s new assistant, Adele tries to ever so carefully insinuate herself into the proceedings (Points for Tina for looking hot as these proceedings are going on).

Shane, meanwhile, is failing miserably, at this celibacy thing. We can see this from her seeing naked women all around where there is none. Kit’s one-liners and pie don’t help either. To take her mind off sex, she invites Jenny to a new club (this two look good together as friends…together they almost seem…normal, somehow), She-Bar, owned by a couple of party-loving lesbians, Dawn Denbo (Catherine Keener) and her lover, Cindy (this is actually their introduction to anyone who cares to listen – and it never gets old, and it always makes me feel like laughing hysterically everytime I hear it).

At the She-Bar:

Bette and Jodi arrive, followed by Kit, then Tom, then Shane, Jenny, Jenny’s assistant, starlet Nikki Stevens (Kate French) the one replacing Natalie Portman (apparently) as the star of Jenny’s “Lez Girls”. Tina and her heart-surgeon date are already there, apparently already having fun. There, they meet Dawn Denbo and her lover, Cindy who, as I already mentioned, introduces herself as “Dawn Denbo and this is my lover, Cindy”.

Bette, Kit and Jodi already find the She-Bar scene old and try to leave, but Bette needs to stay behind since she promised Shane she would not leave without her. Shane, meanwhile, is busy shagging Dawn Denbo and her lover, Cindy in the VIP lounge, so I guess it’s safe to say that that celibacy thing is over. Jenny and starlet Nikki are busy trying to like each other, courtesy of Adele, who arranged the meeting between them. Meanwhile, Tina is hiding from her party-loving heart-surgeon date, realizing that She-Bar and partying is so not her scene as well (three words: Angelica Porter-Kennard. Who must already be racking up issues to discuss with her therapist once she’s old enough to afford her own). This is where Bette finds her, in one of the thinly-veiled rooms, where she confesses her aversion of bar-hopping and partying to Bette. This confession leads to an unexpected, long-awaited kiss that is very much worth it all throughout.

Notes:

1. Lez Girls – How do you pronounce it anyway? It’s spelled Lez Girls, so I assume you pronounce it with the /z/ but everyone keeps pronouncing it the French way, like Les Girls (like Les Miserables), so I’m confused. Then again, it’s not even appropriately titled. If it were, then Tina and her dickhead boss would have less of that “it’s-not-marketable!” arguments.

2. Angelica – where art thou?!?

 

L-WORD DVD Marathon: Season 5, Episode 3

Before the opening credits, Alice does a voiceover of having dreamed of Jenny’s script being filmed a la Charlie’s Angel style, with Alice as Farrah Fawcett, Helena as Kate Jackson and Shane as Jaclyn Smith, while Tina is playing the butch Bosley part and Bette is playing Charlie. Their mission: to find out, with the help of their gaydar guns, whether Jenny is lesbian, bisexual or straight.

In this episode:

Shane has sworn off sex. But Shane keeping her promise to swear off sex is about as likely as Bette keeping her promise to be monogamous, so we will see.

Anyway, Shane’s solution to keeping her promise to be celibate involves going early to the gym (although just seeing her in the gym and in a locker-room full of naked women instantly gives you the idea that this is not exactly a bright idea), meditation, a lot of video games and rebuffing every woman who will hit on her. Naturally her fellow gym-going friends, Tina and Alice, find her a freak, while Jenny just cannot be bothered, since she has a new assistant, creepy Adele, who dotes on her, even while they are in the gym.

 

Meanwhile, Max contemplates ditching lesbians and going for gay men instead,with the help of her encouraging assistant, while Helena has gone from frightened mouse to confident jailhouse mama with the advent of her tax-evading protector, lover and cellmate.

On the other side of the divide, Bette meets up with Jodi at the Planet hoping to wriggle her way out of meeting Jodi’s friends, but Jodi successfully cons her into joining the weekend getaway. Tina is visibly impressed (and probably slightly jealous) that Jodi can push perpetually alpha female Bette into attending a gathering she did not like. Tina’s impressed demeanor turns into horror as friends Alice and Shane, later joined by Jodi, are surfing Alice’s OurChart.Com social networking site for possible dates with lesbians other than Tina’s ex, Bette. Jodi and Tina bond over Nancy Drew (read a couple of those, but I’m more a Hardy Boys fan – goes to show you the kind of butch preoccupations I had when I was younger), while Jodi and Tom, her interpreter bond over Tom’s crush on Max. Why are Jodi and Tina in the same room? Jodi is doing a podcast for Alice.

Tasha is still being investigated for possible homosexual conduct (visions of “But I’m a Cheerleader” scenes with lesbians screaming “I’m a homosexual! I’m a homosexual” swim in my head), with a very uncooperative legal counsel.

Alice, meanwhile is doing the podcast with a very enthusiastic Jodi, who teaches them how to use their hands for dirty talk (I feel so dirty just recapping that). Shane is a very attentive pupil, until Kit reminds her she’s supposed to have sworn off sex forever. Kit, meanwhile, is not at all that happy when Alice becomes too personal about her sister Bette and Jodi’s sex life (wouldn’t you be?!? I certainly as hell don’t want to know about my sib’s sex life…that’s like finding out your parents have a healthy sex life. Eeeww.).

Bette joins Jodi for their weekend getaway with Jodi’s friends, only to realize that Jodi’s friends are a bunch of a**holes who embarass her with their knowledge of Bette and Jodi’s the-night-before sex, throw her into the river for refusing to play football with them (does Bette look like she plays games that involve a lot of running and grunting?), accuse her of being a snob, and of making up stories about her sister being robbed so she can get out of this hellish weekend getaway. Bette holds her own with Jodi’s friends (although you kind of wonder why they are Jodi’s friends to begin with), although you can see that it takes a supreme amount of control for her not to implode and explode at the same time infront of these friends. I know these scenes are totally relevant to the brewing plot involving Tina, but I just think they’re unnecessary and totally better off being fastforwarded on your DVD player.

Anyway, Kit gets robbed and that gives Bette the excuse to fly out of there. Kit is devastated, since apparently it’s the whole week’s earnings that the robbers had managed to rob from her at gunpoint (I think the writers here are just lazy – I’ve worked in a restaurant and I know no smart manager ever stashes the week’s earnings away in a safe inside the restaurant for robbers to conveniently steal after. Sigh. What this show usually lacks: writers who know their sh*t), but with her sister and Jodi comforting her, Kit manages to survive the ordeal with nary a sip of alcohol.

Meanwhile, Tina manages to snag a date and a one-night stand with a heart surgeon whose augmented breasts effectively foreshadow that we won’t be seeing much of the heart surgeon soon.

Helena finally gets out of prison courtesy of her mother (played by the gorgeous Holland Taylor) and plans her own permanent vacation with her tax evading prison daddy somewhere in the Pacific.

1. Tina playing butch Bosley – genius! Throwback to the baby butch Randy Dean days of “Incredibly True Adventure of Two Girls in Love”

2. Charlie’s Angel homage – Fun! Definitely way better than Jenny’s carnival-centric stories (whatever happened to those anyway?!? On second thought, I’m glad that’s not the one being filmed!). Is it me, or is this season full of homages?

3. Still no baby Angelica. I wonder where Angelica is as Bette goes off on her weekend getaway with Jodi and Tina gets her one-night stand with the breast-augmented heart surgeon? Obviusly not at Kit’s since she just got robbed, and of course you can’t trust Shane or Alice since they can’t seem to get their sh*t together. Angelica is one self-sufficient little kid!

L-WORD DVD Marathon: Season 5, Episode 2

 Episode 2

Season 5 continues with the more upbeat tone (this time directed by Jamie Babbit, she of “But I’m Not a Cheerleader” fame) with a pre-opening credit, “after previously” scenes of Tina, Jenny and dickhead boss at Shaolin studios, with dickhead boss insisting Jenny revise the script and put in more sex in the script. Suddenly, we see Bev/Bette and Shaun/Shane making out infront of us (aaack! my eyes! my eyes!), Shane/Shaun and Nina/Tina making out as well (aaack! my eyes! my eyes!), Bev/Bette and Helen/Helena making out (now that is just wrong) and before I can recover from the shock and the threat of blindness, that Betty song comes in with the opening credits. Dammit! And yet, I can’t stop watching…

 In This episode

Shane gets a gig for Tina’s boss’ daughter’s wedding, doing hair for the bride, bridesmaids, and the bride’s mother, and eventually doing the bride, bridesmaids and the bride’s mother, before, during and after the wedding, and during the reception (yawn). This repeated, frisky sex ends badly for Shane, when (predictably) she gets caught doing the mother of the bride. Why Shane repeatedly gets laid is beyond me, although the looks do help. 

Tina has a hot date with a hot date that turns into “show and tell” about Bette and their daughter, Angelica (can you blame her? If I had a kid as cute as Angelica, I’d probably do it, too), at the Planet. It does not help that Bette comes in and saunters over to their table while they are having the date, inviting Tina for lunch and sending the message to the hot date that Tina needs to resolve her issues with her ex first before having hot dates with hot dates.

Helena is terrified of her buff, brooding, cellmate, who can do push-ups perched between the sink and the table while inside their cell. The cellmate proves to be more an ally rather than an enemy when she defends Helena’s honor (and ass) when she accidentally drops the soap during shower time. The only thing that keeps her sane is the visits her friends have, this time, from Kit Porter, who gets to put in more lines other than “Girl”, continues with [insert short opinion here, in slang] and ends with [uh-huh/mhhmm]. Then again, her cellmate proves to be more entertaining than that, when she reveals she has the hots for Helena afterall (why am I not surprised?!?). Why is this storyline so familiar?!? 

Max is about to have a hot date with his very own gay man, Tom, Jodi’s interpreter (ho-hum), who proceeds to tell Jodi and the rest of the lesbians the cute gay boy he peed next to at the Planet’s washroom, only to be left flabbergasted at the reveal that the cute gay boy used to be a lesbian. 

Tina and Alice have lunch with Jodi and Bette and makes a great case for why sometimes, staying friends with your ex may not be the greatest idea in the world. Especially if your ex is Bette and she likes to ask you about your dates. 

Tasha finds out that she is being investigated for homosexual conduct and faces the possibility of being discharged, which does not really bode well for her relationship with the very out, very outspoken, Alice. 

A new character, Adele (Malaya Rivera Drew -what are the odds that this woman is Fil-Am? Malaya? Rivera? Very Pinoy methinks. She has that half-Asian vibe going on too.)is introduced. Adele is an unwashed, bespectacled, geeky, mousy but big Jenny Schecter fan who likes to re-read “Some of Her Parts” while at the Planet. Kit makes the unwise decision of befriending her and introducing her to Max and later to Jenny (Kit, really?!? You’re like a magnet for characters that eventually turn into real disappointments by the time the season ends) Since Jenny’s Episcopalian assistant has just quit, driving Jenny insane (is that redundant somehow?) since she has no one to make rainbow filing systems for her and schedules with manatees and Monet-viewings, Jenny in a stroke of genius, decides to hire her (what are the odds this is going to end badly?). 

Later: 

Tina later joins Shane for the wedding reception, in the hopes that she can get laid at the straightest wedding ever, only to have her hopes dashed at the sight of her bosses wanting to talk shop while she’s out having fun, and at the sight of Jenny having an assistant, and at the horror of Jenny slowly turning into a diva. 

Bette and Jodi, meanwhile has dinner with Tasha and Alice, which ends badly since Alice asked the very PDA-centric Bette and Jodi to lay off on the PDA since Tasha is under investigation and may face dismissal if she ever gets caught being with lesbians (the horror! She looks gayer than all the L-Word ladies combined. Yes, even Shane.) On the other side of the restaurant, Phyllis is busy trying to break up with Joyce, realizing that she does not want to “u-haul” with Joyce since that was what she did exactly 25 years ago with her ex-husband. Joyce refuses to be dumped, prompting Bette to say, dump her again, “because some lesbians need to be dumped more than once”. 

Notes on this episode: 

1. Diva Jenny is entertaining. I actually think I prefer her to cutter-Jenny, Jenny-with-the-pretentious-badly-written-stories of the past seasons, psychotic Jenny and overall just annoying Jenny of the rest of the show. Mia Kirshner is da bomb. Loved her since Atom Egoyan’s “Club Exotica”. 

2. A prison sub-plot. Really?!? 

3. Shane’s dalliance with the mother of the bride, totally a “The Graduate” reference. But, really?!? Subtle. 

4. Malaya Rivera Drew’s Adele. Creepy. Even if she eventually ends up being harmless. 

5. The Max storyline. Unlike the L-Word, real-life lesbians are much more inclusive of transsexuals, but I feel the Max storyline has been lackluster since that hot date with the boss’ daughter and the thing with the assistant fizzled out. Wasted potential right there. 

6. No sign of baby Angelica this episode. Told you these domestic fictional lesbian couples don’t seem to be that intent about parenting, despite dialogue to the contrary. Still, Bette and Tina are The Hotness. It’s always a treat seeing them together and apart. Jennifer Beals is officially awesome and officially the hottest fortysomething MILF ever!

Two days before Christmas: What to do? But of course! An L-Word DVD Marathon!

L-WORD DVD Marathon: Season 5

 

So I have been holding out on watching Season 5 of the L-Word since Dana Fairbank’s death. I had already watched Season 6 and thought its incomprehensible, incoherent, illogical David Lynch-inspired ending (Silencio! Silencio! Yo no comprende!), Jenny’s death, and the overall negativity of the show finale really burned me and made me swear off watching L-Word for good. Especially since Season 4 was lackluster and Season 3 was simply that season that killed off Dana. But after much encouragement from friends (gay and straight) who saw Season 5 and thought it the best season, I finally relented – since I have nothing better to do anyway, and watching  The L-Word is much better than moping around at home and getting all Grinch-y about Christmas. This is an entertainment blog, first and foremost, afterall!

 

Episode 1

 

 

After the “previously on the L-Word” (meaning the aforementioned lackluster, ho-hum Season 4), the season opens with a more upbeat tone: Jenny writes a new treatment of her script, “Lez Girls” (which, as fans have pointed out, is a recap of Season 1 of “The L-Word”, but from Jenny Schecter’s warped POV). Jesse (Jenny) is right smack in episode 1 of Season 1 of the L-Word/Lez Girls, the party scene, where Nina (Tina) plays a more predatory, campy version of the real (fictional?) Tina, freaking Jesse/Jenny out by hitting on her. Nina/Tina is joined by Bev (Bette) and Shaun (Shane) and the intro ends with Jenny smiling and that annoying opening credit song/recap-in-itself.

The season though still seems more interesting and then I knew why: director Angela Robinson (D.E.B.S., Herbie: Fully Loaded, Girltrash!) is on-board. I rest my case.

There have been a lot of recaps of all the L-Word seasons, so mine will just be short:

Bette (Jennifer Beals) and Tina (Laurel Holloman) are getting along (quite well, I note), nursery school hunting, competing with other gay parents (playing the “my family’s gayer and more diverse than yours” game and winning), trying to survive interviews with nursery school heads, surviving Bette’s sometimes soccer-mom-hair and trying to navigate the murky waters of lovers-n0w-exes and trying not to be interested in each other’s love and sex lives. I still adore these two though (since Season 2), and they still look like the hot MILFs that I adore.

Helena Peabody (Rachel Shelley) has been arrested and imprisoned for that gambling thingamajig from Season 4 with that hot gambler chick in the ultimate cheesy, campy same sex prison-movie kind of plot that, to actor Rachel Shelley’s credit, she can pull off with just the right amount of comic aplomb, right down to the “bend over” scene.

Jenny Shecter (Mia Kirshner) is back from floating off in a raft on the sea (I know, WTF, right?) from Season 4, with a revised script, a new daddy, hedge fund billionaire William Holsey (Wallace Shaun) who share her love of manatees in the script and in real life. In this episode, she is driving her Episcopalian, church-loving assistant mad with her insane requests regarding her pet dog, Sounder II (Sounder I being the dog from the ill-advised Season 4) and requests to make rainbow-based filing systems for her fictional characters on Sundays, and driving her executive producer, Tina, nuts with her refusal to accept sticky notes and criticism on her script since she believes Tina has no right to criticize Jenny’s work since Tina is not an artist herself (although I think Jenny seems to forget that Tina has been with art gallery owner/dean/art collector Bette. Jenny seems to have forgotten the scene after the opening credits of this episode, where Tina has just announced her fervent love of art…what? You’ll get what I mean when you see some scenes of “Lez Girls”later on, where whole scenes from “The L-Word” ’s season 1 seem to be lifted off, which implies that Jenny seems to be omniscient). Bette, who still is not amused by Jenny’s point-by-point adaptation of Bette’s life, is still cold towards Jenny, something that Shane (who has proven, time and time again, to be the only person who gets Jenny) tries to resolve but fails to do so.

Alice Pieszecki’s (Leisha Hailey) chart has expanded to OurChart.com, with Max Sweeney (Daniela Sea) turning her chart into a social networking site, complete with blogs, guestbians and podcasts. She holds her podcasts at the Planet, with weekly “guestbians” entertaining her viewers. Alice though, seems to have entered a phase of trans-phobia, pointedly excluding Max from podcast discussions of transsexual issues (which does not make sense to me). Alice’s girlfriend, Tasha Williams (Rose Rollins) is absent in the episode except for the last few minutes, since she was supposed to ship out to Iraq. The military though delays her departure and she gets to spend that time to give Alice a surprise visit/booty call, ending up doing it in Alice’s hallway (But! The dust! The dirt! The grime! Aw, crap!).

In this episode, Alice gets Bette’s boss, newly-out middle-aged lesbian academic Phyllis (Cybill Shepherd, Moonlighting) who is currently enjoying a very healthy sex life with new partner, gay lawyer Joyce Wischnia (Jane Lynch, Glee), who, as it happens, seems to the be only lesbian lawyer in LA. Phyllis has become an apt pupil of encyclopaedia lesbiana/lesbian culture, absorbing every term and practice (lipstick lesbians! butch lesbians! u-hauls! the “T” in LGBT (T is for tentative! Yay! Cheeky!)! transsexuals! vanilla sex! etc.) like a sponge. She has even agreed to a coming out party at the Planet sponsored by partner Joyce and slammed Alice’s vanilla sex ways. Yep, Phyllis is on a roll!

Shane McCutcheon (Kate Moennig) is apartment-hunting with Paige (Kristanna Loken, Terminator III: Rise of the Machines a.k.a., Android Erection), but really is just back to her old habits, screwing the real estate agent in apartment that Paige and son, Jared are checking out (ho-hum…Shane’s M.O. is old). Can you blame Paige for burning down Shane’s salon/skateboard hang-out after?

Bette is still going strong with Jodi Lerner (absolutely fab Marlee Matlin, Children of a Lesser God), kissing whenever they can, sending aforementioned ex, Tina, into subtle fits of jealousy. It does not help that Tina’s possible love interest from last season, Kate-Somebody has been fired from the studio, and Bette seems to alternately gloat and look relieved at the idea that her ex is single and very available. What Tina does not realize though is that all is not well in Bette’s paradise, since not only does she lack heat with Jodi, but Jodi does not seem to find Bette’s surprise dinners for her and general control freak behavior as adorable as Tina (and the rest of us) does. Plus, Jodi blindfolding Bette during sex is kind of the equivalent of watching soccer moms have kinky sex, so Tina should not have to worry.

Tina, sans her longing for hot fellow-MILF and ex, Bette (The Hotness!), is on a roll herself, as a movie studio mogul (executive producer and vice president at Shaolin Studios), who seems to have the magical ability to juggle Jenny’s craziness with that of her colleagues and bosses and friends (Alice, Shane, Helena). Best scenes: when Alice and Shane try to help her hook up, banning her from hanging out with Bette too much because that dims her prospects of ever getting laid ever again, when Alice and Shane try to help her hook up with a hot academic at Phyllis’ coming out party at The Planet, when Alice and Shane argue with her about Helena during a jail visit, where Tina insists that since Helena’s an alpha female, she must thus, heretofore assert herself on fellow prisoners so as to establish rule over her prison-kingdom. Best advice they give Helena: “Don’t drop the soap.”

Overall a strong first episode for Season 5, although I had, at first, some suspicions and misgivings, afterall, this is the L-Word, where somebody suddenly mysteriously dies of cancer, somebody suddenly grows a penis, a man can be a lesbian, and..you get what I mean.

Anyway, some notes though:

1. Angelica, Bette and Tina’s daughter, is the cutest kid ever. I wish she had more lines and more screen time with the moms. Next note: Why are Bette and Tina always at parties?!? I’m unmarried and childless, but judging from my friendships with married and/or with-children (gay and straight) couples, their priorities always change once the kids start coming. They don’t party or much less find time to do anything else. I have this feeling Angelica will be raised by nannies/babysitters til she turns 18, at which point she’ll realize she hates her lesbian moms and starts going on a rampage. But then again, that’s just me. And while we’re on the subject, these people don’t seem to be normal. I have never, not once, seen them do anything domestic, like most normal LGBT people are.

2. Jenny, I’ve missed you. Why did you have to die?!?

3. Shane still going at her lothario-loving ways. Shane, grow up.

4. Kit Porter. Watch the whole season, hell, the whole show, and you’ll notice that her speech always consists of “Girl”, continues with [insert short opinion here, in slang] and ends with [uh-huh/mhhmm].

5. Is Jenny omniscient?

6. Poor Max. Always being excluded. I wish he could have had some kind of more interesting, positive ”Trans-America” storyline where he gets to show off his chest, abs and newly acquired organ.

7. Angela Robinson. ‘Nuff said.

Random film watchlist: Surrogates, Forbidden Kingdom

SURROGATES

Imagine a world where you don’t have to get up early in the morning, shower, get dressed, navigate traffic, get to work on time, dodge annoying bosses and equally annoying colleagues, avoid being given memos or suspensions for low performance evaluations or for doing such inane stuff as forgetting to turn off the light after office hours or taking too many coffee or bathroom breaks. Imagine a world where you don’t have to be subjected to the daily rudeness of people cutting in during queues, rude people in supermarkets, or groceries, or movie theaters, or inside public transportation. Imagine being spared the kind of physical torture that daily living in the modern, post-industrialized world of pollution, acid rain, excessive UV rays and crime generates. Imagine being able to stay at home, having a substitute who looks and talks like you, being able to do that for you, and all you have to do is jack into a network to be able to keep in touch with your substitute you as he/she goes through the daily rituals of modern living. Would be pretty nifty, huh?

This is the premise of the movie “Surrogates”. Based on a comic book and directed by Jonathan Mostow (Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines), this movie takes our growing obsession with virtual reality (SIMS, online RPG games, farmville, facebook, myspace, twitter and so on) to a whole new level: we can have virtual selves, “surrogates” who walk and talk and act like us, doing the dirty work of living our lives while we stay in the comfort of our home viewing it from the sidelines. Except there is growing dissent and the predictable marginalization of people who cannot afford surrogates and thus is the stage set for virtual, and real racial tension between those who can afford surrogates and those who don’t and oppose their use. A series of murders involving surrogates and their owners occur and into this mystery steps in US Federal Agent Tom Grier (Bruce Willis in a freakishly photoshopped face and body…with blond hair no less…and bangs) and partner, Radha Mitchell as they try to solve these crimes. A series of convoluted plots later, Grier discovers that the founder of the company that produced the surrogates (James Cromwell – in a similar role he did in “I, Robot”) had engineered the murders to bring down the company he helped create so that he can destroy not only the company but also the surrogates and their owners. Needless to say, the real Grier emerges from his self-imposed isolation to solve the mystery, destroy the surrogates and save the day.

Verdict: Hmmm….hard to tell. It was entertaining, yes, but not compelling. There is something about a freakishly photoshopped Bruce Willis that is surreal. I doubt if virtual selves can be taken out of computers and online games and software and into real life. Thus, you would have to dismiss plausibility and delve into the philosophical and metaphysical aspects of the story. You already know what this story wants to say: Don’t live like a zombie, live your life authentically, etc.etc. A lot of other sci-fi (and non-genre) movies have already successfully tackled these issues. Perhaps what this film lacks is the same kind of thing that Mostow’s other movie, Terminator III lacked: spirit, soul, sass.

THE FORBIDDEN KINGDOM

Let me just say, Jackie Chan rocks and Jet Li rules. For as long as I can remember, their movies dominated my childhood, along with the movies of such B-level actors as Chuck Norris, Jean Claude Van Damme, Dolph Lundgren and Sylvester Stallone (macho Philippines, what can I say?). I have never seen them in one movie before, and to see them in one movie now excites like no other. And this movie, does not disappoint. Forget the plot, I watch Jackie Chan and Jet Li movies for the kung fu.

But briefly: in the days of Middle Kingdom some thousands of years ago, the virtuous Monkey King (Jet Li) wins the favor of the Jade Emperor and thus earns the ire of the Jade Warlord who tricks him into giving up his powerful staff and his power during a duel, thereby making the Jade Warlord win the duel, imprison the Monkey King in clay and allow the Jade Warlord to rule over the kingdom ruthlessly.

Enter present-day, unlikely geeky hero —- who stumbles upon the staff while trying to save a Chinese shop owner from a gang of bullies. The staff brings him to the past, to the Middle Kingdom, where he encounters an immortal, played by Jackie Chan, a monk, played by Jet Li and a young musician hell-bent on exacting revenge on the Jade Warlord. As it happens, our unlikely geeky hero turns out to be the Chosen One, the one who will end the Jade Warlord’s reign of tyranny, free the Monkey King and usher in a new era of peace. Thus, the immortal and the monk train aforementioned hero and helps him defeat the Jade Warlord and free the Monkey King.

Suffice it to say, just watching Jackie Chan and Jet Li fight it out in their scenes together with balletic elegance is awesome. They’re like the Robert De Niro and Al Pacino of kung-fu movies.

ADVENTURELAND

Remember those times in your life when everything just persists on being shitty? When you were young and had a kick-ass degree and upon graduation realize that neither your youth nor your degree can save you from a shitty life or from getting shitty jobs that pay shit wages? Well, don’t look now but somebody came up with the bright idea of making a movie out of your life. And mine, as it happens.

Jessie Eisenberg plays fresh comparative litt major whose father gets demoted and thus has to move with the whole family to Pittsburgh to be able to survive on the father’s salary. Jessie’s dreams of graduate school and of a summer spent in Europe are dashed to pieces, and he must now get a dead-end minimum wage job at “Adventureland” as one of the operators of the games. His life would have been infinitely boring and tedious had it not been for Em (the, must-admit, cute Kristen Stewart), the cool, laidback colleague he becomes mildly interested in and who shares a mild attraction to him as well, but who is, in fact, sleeping with the resident technician cum wanna-be rockstar, played by Ryan Reynolds. Things come to a head when Eisenberg finds out that Em has, in fact, been sleeping with the married Ryan Reynolds, but they make up in the end.

TV Recap: Glee – Ballads and Crushes

Remember those awful high school days when each important stage of your pubescent life is marked by a song? Menarche, pimples, crushes, first loves, heartbreaks, and so on? Yes, traumatic days, I know. But there is a new TV show that has succeeded in making the exercise of reminiscing about high school life less traumatic, and more entertaining.

Yep, I’m talking about “Glee”.

So, in this episode of Glee, the crisis each of our Glee Club heroes go through are elevated to stressful heights: when Mr. Schuester (Matthew Morrison) introduces ballads to the club and in pairing up the members end up being paired to fame-hungry Rachel (Lea Michelle), aforementioned Rachel falls in love with him in the middle of singing “Endless Love”.

Finn (Cory Monteith) is paired with the ever loveable, flamingly gay Kurt (Chris Colfer), who has had a crush on him ever since he defended Kurt’s honor against Puck’s (Mark Salling) bullying, and is busy hatching a plan to pry him away from the arms of his pregnant girlfriend, Quinn (Diana Agron). As the two try to search for a ballad that they can each sing to each other in the heartfelt way that Mr. Shuester intends them to sing it, they bond over Finn’s fears of being a dad and Finn ends up singing his way through his fears, via The Pretender’s “I’ll Stand by You”.

While singing the song to a sonogram of his unborn child on his laptop, his mother,who up to this point, does not know about his impending fatherly responsibilities, finds out that his girlfriend is pregnant. Pregnant girlfriend, Quinn, meanwhile, is intent on keeping her pregnancy from her very wealthy, conservative, devout, chastity-loving, abstinence and celibacy-advocating parents, a secret. During a family dinner with Quinn’s parents, in which the quarterback is invited, the quarterback sings Quinn’s pregnancy into the dinner via the song “Having my baby”.

 

I must say, during the song, the look on the clueless parents’ face, as the condescending, indulgent, self-satisfied smiles are wiped off and replaced by wonder, then confusion, fear, realization, then finally a mixture of anger and disappointment, is priceless. Say what you will about TV shows, teen shows, musicals and corny, cheesy love songs, this TV show gets points in my book for originality and pulling off a pretty heavy scene with great delicacy. Anybody who’s had to drop a bomb on their parents (be it being pregnant, being gay, planning a sex-change operation, or even just planning to move out) know how difficult it is to do so infront of them, and I give kudos to the people behind this show for succeeding in making this scene emphatic. Of course, there is no happy ending for this revelation – Quinn is thrown out of the house and she has to crash in her boyfriend, quarterback’s house. Meanwhile, while Kurt is busy plotting how best to wrest the quarterback from Quinn’s loving clutches, he still finds time to look for the perfect ballad to sing to the quarterback: Olivia Newton-John’s “I Honestly Love You” – which of course freaks the quarterback out. On the other side of the crush divide, Rachel is busy trying to win Mr. Shuester, through ballads, via Jennifer Paige’s “Crush”. Mr. Shuester replies via The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and that song, “Young Girl, you’re out of your mind, you’re much too young girl”.

Rachel doesn’t get the message of the song, and instead is impressed by the ballad and by her teacher’s singing that she intensifies the gift-giving and ballad-singing for him. Her unrequitted infatuation (Mr. Shuester seems unhappily married to an unsympathetic wife who takes advantages of the girls who have crushes on her husband) would have ended up tragically, had not another scorned girl, Pepper, confronted her with her own experience. She realizes she is right and thus decides to deal with the unrequitted crush in the only way unrequitted crushes should be dealt with: by accepting that the object of her affection will never return her love and by letting him go in the process. The episode ends with the club singing a nice rendition of “Lean on Me” for the benefit of Quinn and Finn. Verdict: Who can resist cheesy 80s songs mixed with the equally cheesy songs of the 90s with some rock ballads and soul thrown in? Points for including “The Pretenders” “I’ll Stand by You” and The Police’s “Don’t Stand So Close to Me”. The show gets points for including “Endless Love”, too, which brings back childhood memories of adults making an ass of themselves crooning the tune to their love ones. Must say, this might be the cheesiest song ever produced – up there with “Total Eclipse of the Heart”, both of which are karaoke gems, but both of which none of the 80s babies with ever be caught dead singing. Hence the fun in listening to it being sung with the kind of camp and amplomb it so rightly deserves.

Can’t wait for the next episode!

TV recap: Glee

It’s not everyday you find a TV series you want to keep watching every week for the rest of the year, or its life on the airwaves.

It’s not that I don’t have the time or the resources for such an endeavor- on the contrary, we have unlimited cable and owing to the fact that I am hopelessly FUNemployed, I have all the time in the world for the consumption of inordinate amounts of popular culture – it’s just that there is so much crap out there, and I have little patience for the kind of drama and bullshit that local TV shows offer, and the kind of drama and crap that foreign (often reality) TV shows offer as well.

But then, I switch on the TV for yet another possibly (un)fruitful TV watching (I am a professional couch and mouse potato now), happen to go to JackTV, which offers shows for single, white, straight males  (wrestling, boxing matches, combined with animation, stand-up comedies, comedies and a lot of other shows for bros – meaning pretty much your average low-brow fanfare), but imagine my surprise when they show scenes from an unfamiliar TV show which, to my surprise, ends up being a very interesting one at that.

Spanish teacher Will Shuester (Matthew Morrison) gets it into his head that he wants to take over the Glee Club of the high school where he is teaching. Into his inexperienced, overly enthusiastic and idealistic and totally unprepared lap fall a bunch of teenaged, hormonal angsty misfits whose drama in their lives rival that of those sung in the songs they sing for the club: Rachel Berry (Lea Michelle) intent on being famous and snagging aforementioned Mr. Shuester, gay soprano Kurt (Chris Colfer), paraplegic Artie (Kevin McHale), stuttering goth girl Tina (Jena Ushkowitz). Add to this mix is not-so-bright quarterback Finn (Cory Monteith) who believes he has gotten his hot, picture-perfect, All-American blonde girlfriend, the chastity-belt-wielding Quinn Fabray (Diana Agron), who, in fact, has gotten pregnant through his bestfriend  Noah “Puck” Puckerman (Mark Salling). Throw into the mix Mr. Shuester’s arch-enemy, gym teacher Sue Sylvester (the hilarious Jane Lynch – pretty much the only good thing in the L-Word) and his none too supportive wife, Teri (Jessalyn Gilsig). But Mr. Shuester’s idealism gets the better of his critics and by teaching his Glee club members the importance of understanding and respecting the physically-disabled, he makes a formidable advisor for the Glee Club. Thus is the first episode of “Glee”.

Very interesting, no? But, here’s the catch: Yes, you’ve heard of this familiar or similar stories from “One Tree Hill”, “The O.C.”, “Party of Five”, “Beverly Hills” or some such combination of genres (Buffy the Vampire Slayer comes to mind), but the difference is that this TV show is a musical, and the characters sing out their frustrations and joys seamlessly into the storyline.

Who can resist a show which the song below?

Or this?:

Yes, I thought so, too.

Next up, next episode. I love this show!

Trivia: Matthew Morrison, Lea Michelle and Jena Ushkowitz are all Broadway alumni.

Film watch list: What have I been watching?!?

Back from a long hiatus. What have I been watching thus far? Well…

The Proposal – Sandra Bullock is the fire-breathing, man-eating incarnation of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada), albeit a watered down, less scarier, version. She is a Canadian book editor who faces deportation if she does not fix her visa status soon. Enter nice book editor’s assistant, the secretly rich, quiet Ryan Reynolds who reluctantly agrees to marry her so she can get a spouse visa. Sparks fly. Dogs fly. Guess how it ends? Sidebar: I am sorry. I could not finish this. I just feel that Sandra Bullock is too old to be in romantic comedies. Why can she not be like other fortysomething Hollywood movie stars and star in a movie where she actually acts her age?!?

I Could Never Be Your Woman -  Michelle Pfeiffer is a successful TV executive producer and a single mom juggling between the responsibilities of work and home. Enter Paul Rudd as the young break out actor who falls for her. Sparks fly. Cute one-liners fly. Movie falls flat. Amy Heckerling directed this. So that makes you scratch your head. I do not know why this one has not done better. Perhaps it is because they were trying to pass Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd off as younger, trying to make a non-issue as an issue, trying to make a conflict out of nothing, trying to make a movie that just does not quite compute.

Garden State – Zach Braff plays a young struggling New York actor cum waiter who comes home for his mother’s funeral. Estranged from his father, alienated from his hometown, the character does not know what to do and I do not know what to make of this film as well. Natalie Portman is thrown in in the middle of the mix as a chronic liar with epileptic fits, but even her charm does not save this movie. The problem? Nothing happens. Literally nothing happens in the movie, the whole entire time.

The Sweetest Thing – I know this is an old one, but since I had to go through it, I might as well write about it. Cameron Diaz and her lady friends spend their time hanging out and hooking up (unfortunately not with each other). Apparently they all have issues. Cameron Diaz’s character is afraid of relationships, and her other two friends cannot just have enough sex (in fact, Selma Blair’s character’s jaw gets stuck in an uncompromising position while doing it) and…well, that’s it really.

The Heartbreak Kid – Ben Stiller has relationship issues. Encouraged by family and friends (note to self: never listen to family and friends), he proposes to the first woman he meets on the street and she turns out to be a total psycho (creepy that). On their honeymoon, he meets the perfect woman (Michelle Monaghan). Sparks fly. Lies fly. Fights ensue. This one is actually funny.

Made of Honor – Patrick Dempsey has relationship issues. He is bestfriends with Michelle Monaghan and is in love with her but does not realize it until she leaves for Scotland and comes back with a rich Scottish fiance. Sparks fly. Montages fly.  Guess how it ends?!?

The Ugly Truth – This one is actually more fun. Katherine Heigl (look how nicely she’s filled out since those “Roswell” days!) is a successful TV executive producer (aren’t they always?) with relationship issues. She has a crush on the neighborhood hottie but can’t quite work up the courage to ask him out. Enter totally un-PC, totally woman-hating Gerald Butler (without the “300″ get-up…so sad!) who teaches her how to play the dating game without looking like a total dork. Sparks fly. Vibrating panties fly (best scene that, actually. This redeems the movie for me). Happy endings for everyone.

Mary and Max – Eight-year old Mary from Australia, and 40something obese man from New York, Max, strike up a friendship as pen pals. The story chronicles how each one go through life. A touching, bittersweet, heartfelt animated film.

Zombieland – Funny take on zombie movies, with Woody Harrelson starring, with funny cameo from comedian Bill Murray. Mixes tongue-in-cheek humor with indie sensibility. Winning formula! Now a hit in the USA.

Reading list: What I have been reading for the past few days….

So I have survived three typhoons in the Philippines and am waiting for a new typhoon off the east coast of northern Philippines  to come ravage this country yet again.

To entertain myself, I have been reading books. Here are the books I have finished thus far:

Ever since I read Balzac’s “Pere Goriot” I have developed an interest in French authors (Marcel Proust notwithstanding) and this second book I have from Balzac (bought at 20 pesos at a booksale), does not fail to disappoint. This is the story of Grandet the miser, his clueless wife and even more clueless daughter, Eugenie Grandet, subject of much fascination and gossip, as she could well be the richest young woman outside Paris. Set in post-revolutionary France, this novel is a delight to read, with its vivid descriptions of French aristocrats, nobles, the nouveau riche and the peasants. It provides a good insight into post-revolutionary French life and preoccupation as well as provides insight into the one human universal preoccupation: greed.

The Blood King by Gail Z. Martin. Let’s face it. Fantasy novels are a dime a dozen. I personally have a soft spot for Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman and am always very wary of any other fantasy (relatively unknown) writer with a novel that may probably be just another rip-off of another novel. But then again, we live in a post-modern world. So is there really anything original anymore in a world where everything seems always readily accessible? Anyway, my ex sent me this novel knowing that I had a penchant for sci-fi and fantasy novels (she sent me the complete “Twilight” series as well, bless her soul). I was not looking to be entertained by this novel, but a few pages into this novel and I really got into it. There is supposed to be a book 1 and I was a bit bummed at the prospect that I’d have to go hunting for book 3, but I was pleasantly surprised that second book stands all on its own and wraps all the loose ends from Book 1. In a nutshell: Power-mad, evil Prince Jared Drayke has assassinated his father, driven younger half-brother Prince Martris Drayke out of the kingdom and enlisted the help of evil mage Arontala to take control of all the Winter Kingdoms and resurrect the all-powerful evil,the Obsidian King (think all the evil villains of other fantasy novels like Sauron and He-who-must-not-be-named and you get the idea). Matris Drayke discovers he is a summoner and a mage himself and must control and summon all his powers in order to defeat his brother and mage Arontala and prevent the Obsidian King from coming back from the dead. My summary does not do it justice, but suffice it to say that it is a good read. Lord of the Rings it isn’t, but it sure as hell is an entertaining one.

I have also finished “Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe” by Fanny Flagg (2o pesos at Booksale! Yay!). I’ve already watched the movie, the story is pretty much the same, but the novel is not specific about the sexuality aspect of the two female protagonists as well. That one’s left for the imaginatino.

And now, I am reading one of my favorite fantasy novelists, Ursula K. Le Guinn, and her book, “Sea Road”. More on that later.

Are zombies the new vampires…?!?

From Newsweek Magazine:

“Have you heard? Zombies are the new vampires. First it was the hit literary mash-up, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. Last month it was Jennifer’s Body, the Diablo Cody-written zombie movie starring Megan Fox. This weekend, movie-goers flocked to Zombieland, which became the first surprise hit of the fall season (it opened at No. 1 with $25 million, according to studio estimates). Starz premieres Zombiemania later in the month, reviving all the old zombie classics (Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, Day of the Dead and more). Apparently there’s even a self-help book for zombies on the way, dispensing “advice and etiquette for the living dead.” Zombies zombies zombies.”

For full Newsweek article, click here.