TV Reports

Dexter-I watched the entire series.  Some of it was okay.  Most of it wasn't.  I never got behind the idea of a cold blooded murderer being the hero of the show.  I found Michael Hall's 'Dexter' to be unlikable at best and repellent most of the time.  As the show went on I grew tired of their attempts to make me like him and all the attempts to justify his murders.  The lesser of two evils is still evil.  Also, I hated most all the other characters, especially the character of his sister Debra.  At no point did I ever remotely like her and I actively rooted for her to get bumped off, too bad it took 95 episodes for it to happen.  The only things I liked about this show were some of the females.  I loved Nikki Walters, Aimee Garcia, Julie Benz, Julia Stiles, Molly Parker (although she was wasted in such a small role), Katia Winter, Jaime Murray, Liza Lapria, and the absolutely delicious Yvonne Strahovski. Other things that annoyed me about this show were the plot lines they never developed and the characters they introduced but quickly shuffled off.  I tried to like this one, honestly, I did.  But in the end, it just didn't do it for me.  (Netflix)

The Brief-I quite liked the Alan Davies show about British lawyers.  Davies character was smart and mostly honest but he was also just flawed enough to keep me interested.  This show is well acted, well written, and well shot.  (Acorn TV)

The Last Detective-Peter Davison plays a sad sack British policeman who's one step above a uniformed beat cop and who is hated and or marginalized by his superiors.  But somehow he manages to solve murders and save the day.  This not your usual police procedural, it's quirky even by British standards, but it's definitely worth watching. (Acorn TV)

Short Poppies-Seven eccentric New Zealanders are featured in a mock documentary and they're all played by Rhys Darby of Flight of the Conchords fame.  It's a sweetly funny effort by all involved.  And Darby makes an unsettlingly attractive woman.  (Netflix)

There's something in the water and it ain't good

I really wanted to like this Aussie horror film, but it never happened for me.  The film is about how the accidental death of a young girl effects her family and her community.  They try to make it all scary and psychological but it comes off as just boring and tired.  I ended up hating it and wanting that hour and a half of my life back.  Not recommended at all.

As if watching one bad movie this weekend wasn't enough, my curiosity got the better of me with Suspicious River.  The tagline on Netflix said this was a film about a woman who becomes a hooker in the motel she works in and it stars Molly Parker.  How could I go wrong?  Hot as blazes Molly Parker playing a hooker?  Yes please.

Unfortunately, it all went very wrong.  Parker turns to turning tricks to make some money and to cuckold her husband who wants nothing more than to not eat while watching TV all the time.  Okay, fair enough then, let the hooking begin!   Commence the hot nasty prostitute sex with Molly Parker!

Oy, wait, stop.  Parker plays all her sex scenes, and the rest of the film if I'm being honest, as if she's brain damaged and one step away from being comatose.  I guess vacant eyed stares and heaving sighs counted as great acting back in the year 2000.  Ugh.  Then as if her somnambulant performance wasn't bad enough, her character falls for a guy who beats her, steals her money, and pimps her out.

But wait, it gets 'better'!  All through the film she interacts with a little girl who could almost be her when she was young.  The little girl's parents are having marital and money woes and the mother ends up in the arms and bed of her husband's younger brother who eventually kills her.  Then dog gone it, wouldn't ya know it, the kid was Parker's character when she was a kid and they've been interacting all along!  Quel surprise!  Ooo, la la, the new cliche plot twist, how very fucking stupid.

Don't get me wrong, I love Molly Parker.  I think she's a good actor and she's hotter than 5000 suns going super nova but she's awful in this awful film.  It's creepy and not in a good way.  It made me feel dirty and ashamed to watch it.  It's anti female and contains scenes of violence against women and rape.

Avoid this one like the plague.

Meeting of the minds

Now that insurance company apologist and serial tax evader Tom Daschle is out of the running to be Secretary of Health and Human Services I convened an emergency meeting of my brain trust to come up with a viable candidate for President Obama to choose to head up the DHHS. You may not remember who was in my brain trust so I'll go ahead and remind you that it consists of:

Larry Storch from F Troop,

Canadian actress Molly Parker,

Grizzled old gangster Ma Barker,

Peta Wilson as Mina Harker,

Ray Parker Jr,

and Molly Hatchet.

We talked for hours about who would best fill that seat left vacant by Daschle. Many many names were put out there and most all of them were shot down. I held out for Christina Hendricks from Mad Men.
But ultimately I was overruled and we decided to ask President Obama to nominate Elizabeth Kucinich to fill the post.

Her appointment makes sense because she's smart, people will listen to her, she's politically connected, and she was born in a country that already has universal health care so she knows how it all works and she can help implement it as soon as she helps get Congress to pass it.

So please send your emails, faxes, and your notes to President Obama and tell him to nominate Ms. Kucinich today! Let's do this America!

You know what's really good?

This show: I did not see it when it first came out and I resisted renting it at Blockbuster but I had heard people, most notably my friend Todd, rave about it but I refused to believe the hype.

But they started running it again on HBO Zone and I am floored by how good it is. The writing, the acting, the direction, the sets, the costumes, everything is incredible. I'm not a huge western fan, I despise most of John Wayne's western movies, but I love love love this series. Of course it doesn't hurt that is has Molly Parker in it either.And boy howdy, Brad Dourif, Paula Malcomson, Ian McShane, Robin Weigert, William Sanderson, Kim Dickens, and John Hawkes are really really good in this too. They're not Molly Parker, but they're damn good.