POPGEEK

I’ve reviewed Tim Weiner’s grueling, essential Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA for BlogCritics.

Juno is a good movie, but not a great one.

It exerts an unexpected emotional pull, that much is true. Somehow the sum becomes greater than its parts; the meandering plotline that seems uneventful and too packed at the same time, the grating attempts by screenwriter Diablo Cody to write “clever” dialogue, the shots and music cues ripped straight from Wes Anderson’s Rushmore playbook–they join together and draw you in.

A lot of the credit goes to the actors, who take sometimes outlandish dialogue and plot developments and play them just right. When you’re attempting to create relatable characters out of quipping cyphers who actually use terms such as “home skillet” and “honest to blog,” turns of phrase that seem to have been generated randomly by a computer tasked with creating “hip” dialogue, you must rely upon great acting to elevate what you are providing. These actors deliver.

It’s ironic, then, that much of the movie’s buzz was generated thanks to a screenplay that seems to me like it must have been an awkward document at best. Frankly, the film soars when it is set free from its own words, and I don’t mean that in terms of silence, but in terms of the simple beats that Cody plays absolutely straight–Juno’s dad explaining what love is, Mark and Vanessa quietly confirming their divorce, Juno herself verbally assaulting her baby’s father because he’s taking someone else to prom. I enjoyed the movie because of these moments, and in spite of the more “flashy” bits that involved elaborate attempts to craft some kind of unique voice for the film.

There’s some surprising choices here, too. I was disappointed in some cases and thrilled in others. Juno’s solitary voyage through her pregnancy, with support from her stepmom but little involvement from her dad, who frankly ought to know better than to let his child surrender a baby for adoption with all the cavalier attitude of a friend offering the last of her french fries at McDonald’s–that stretched the limits for me.

The journey of Mark’s character, portrayed by Jason Bateman, struck a more realistic and brave chord. Maybe it’s cause I can relate to that pre-fatherhood terror and flight response, having recently lived through it myself, but I was so impressed that Juno did not take the easy road back to a happy ending, and instead allowed its adoptive father character to totally chicken out and abandon his wife, without any kind of redemption or true realization. You get the sense Mark will probably die alone in his loft downtown, surrounded by guitars and comic books but lacking any true connection to the world around him. Along similar lines was the relationship between Mark and Juno, which again could have been far more explicit and conventional, but instead gets played out with a messy reality.

Because Mark bails, what starts out as a movie about teen pregnancy becomes a movie about teen romance, which is maybe the neatest trick Juno manages to pull off. It didn’t take the cleanest road to get there, but that it got there at all is what made me enjoy the movie.

My week 1 write-up of summer reality lynchpin So You Think You Can Dance (gadDAMN that is a long title) is now posted over at BlogCritics. Come on over and harass me.

I’ve joined the “sinister cabal of superior writers” over at BlogCritics.org, because I JUST DON’T HAVE ENOUGH TO DO.

Anyways, I’ll be writing about comics, TV, and whatever else strikes my fancy. My goal this summer is to review So You Think You Can Dance exclusively over there, and I’ll try to post linkys as the articles go up; you will be able to always find my most recent BlogCritics stuff in my sidebar to the right, and/or you can bookmark/rss my BlogCritic’s writer page.

In other news, I wanna do a pop autopsy, but song-wise, I got nothin’. Any suggestions for shitty top forty tunes I can savage with my insecure wit?

This is to me one of the great iconic moments in TV comedy, even though it’s probably not too “PC.” Truly, a legendary one-liner from a legendary host.

(Two posts in one day? It’s been YEARS.)

As a former Chicago kid, I’m rooting big-time for the Big Man of Chi-town rawkcrit, Jim DeRogatis.

DeRogatis is a music writer for the Chicago Sun-Times who has become a central player in the ongoing child pornography case of R. Kelly, the Windy City native and absolute dirtbag who’s trying to get off scott-free on charges that he urinated on an underage girl and videotaped it. As DeRo was the gentleman who helped break the story–if I recall correctly, the tape was initially mailed to him–the judge would love to get him in the courtroom to testify…

…but DeRo’s standing firm on his First Amendment rights. Not only is he a good music writer; he’s got balls the size of Navy Pier.

Good man, Jim. Good man. You’re doing Chicago proud…even if you are a Jersey boy who inexplicably HATES Springsteen.

Being an occasional recurring feature in which I share bits of video that make me laugh to beat the band. I have a bunch of ideas for this–just need to track down the videos on YouTube. Maybe I’ll set them up to post over the next few days/weeks on their own so that I can pretend to be updating my blog while I’m actually doing bullshit work.

Here’s Jay Thomas sharing his legendary “Lone Ranger story” with David Letterman.

So apparently, the latest creative ploy in TV is to come up with some kind of insane, shocking, and largely unexpected “stunt” with which to end a TV season. To wit:

–On Gossip Girl, the lead girl (who I do not know the name of because I do not watch the show but my wife does while I read comic books and make fun of her) apparently KILLED SOMEBODY.

–On One Tree Hill (see above regarding my wife and making fun of her), Dan Scott is about to get a heart transplant when a car speeds out of NOWHERE and MOWS HIM DOWN.

–On Law & Order: SVU (which I do watch, thanks for asking), Stabler’s wife and Benson are driving to a doctor’s appointment, it looks like the case is wrapped up about 30 minutes into the episode…and then yet another car speeds out of NOWHERE and SLAMS INTO THEIR CAR, resulting in Olivia basically helping Mrs. Stabler deliver her baby after being CUT OUT OF AN AUTOMOBILE.

So are OMG HOLY SHIT endings* the new “Bobby Ewing in the shower”? Discuss.

*Although what’s odd about most of these is that they aren’t truly “endings”; in fact, in all cases, they come near the end but not AT the end of the episode. So you watch Dan Scott get slammed into and bleed on the pavement, and then the musical montage takes us to an airport, where there’s some bullshit about who’s gonna marry Chad Michael Murray in Vegas.**

**Which, if it were actually Patrick Ewing on the other end of that phone next season, would make for the finest TV moment ever.

After a couple months of hoping that fans of The Bad Girls Club would finally come to the realization that I have NOTHING TO DO WITH CASTING THE SHOW, I’ve had to delete my post about the series from a few months back.

It was up to 28 comments, most of which were from women who had Googled the series and somehow lit upon my single post as their surefire ticket to fame and fortune on this cult Oxygen network show. The comments often involved the word “bitches” written in ALL CAPS, several times.

Anyway, I’m sorry if you are only reading this blog because you think for some reason I can put you on The Bad Girls Club. I can’t. Sorry!

kthxbye

I normally have a strong dislike for handguns, but when Dennis Farina gets caught with one at LAX?

I’m sorry–that’s fucking COOL AS HELL. Dennis Farina was a stone cold badass without the handgun, but Jesus–the dude just had a loaded .22 in his goddamned briefcase for shits and giggles. That’s epic.

Dennis Farina, you REDEFINE AWESOME.