Showing posts with label bad TV. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bad TV. Show all posts

Friday, March 20, 2009

Reviews you can use

I've been having a hard time finding a book to read that I liked lately. I tried a couple of novels from the Hard Case Crime series but the best thing about them were the covers, note to writers of Hard Case Crime books: write faster paced more exciting novels, the ones I tried were deadly dull. I tried reading Cold Comfort Farm but by page 60 I gave up because I didn't like it, call me a Philistine but I liked the film much better. But in the midst of my literature dilemma my friend, who just happens to be the head honcho at my local library, recommended this graphic novel to me:
And all I can say is, holy shit, it's really good.

It's about a USA where something has gone horribly wrong and most everyone has been turned into zombies. And of course the zombies do what they do best, they shamble to and fro and they try to eat the remaining humans so that they turn into zombies as well. But as is often the case there's a small band of humans who survive the zombie-pocalypse and they try to soldier on and make their way in the world.

The thing I like about this series is that, at least in the first book anyway, they don't try to come up with an explanation for why the dead became alive once again and turned into flesh eating zombies. You just have to take it on faith that something happened and you go from there.

All the characters are well written and thought out. They're actually like people you might know and they do things and say things that you might really do and say in a world where zombies not only roam the earth but they out number humans by a wide margin as well. It's very engaging and well worth your time. I recommend it highly. I hope I can get the rest of the books at my library because I'm now hooked on them.


Next up the world of television. Specifically the world of NBC sitcoms. More specifically the awful show Kath and Kim:
This is a re imagining of the Aussie sitcom of the same name. I tried watching the original when it aired on Sundance or IFC but I didn't like it. But I was willing to give the NBC remake a shot. I tried to like it, really I did. I watched all the episodes they ran but by the end I not only did not like it, I've decided that I hate Selma Blair more than the thought of having a lit cigar shoved up my ass.

The show is unfunny, condescending, poorly written, and poorly acted. It's not Molly Shannon's fault, she and the guy who plays her boyfriend try very hard to make this show work but despite their best efforts, it's a no go. The show is being dragged down by Selma Blair. She's awful in it. Her character is whiny, self absorbed, and unlikeable. There is not a single redeeming thing about her character. One tries to like her, or to at least find a reason to not hate her as much as one hates Adolf Hitler or Rush Limbo, but it's impossible. Blair's character singlehandedly ruins this show. But to be fair the guy who plays her husband gives her a run for her money in the 'Oh my fucking gawd I hate these people' department. I hope NBC cancels this show faster than a speeding bullet.

I also tried to like the ABC remake of Life on Mars. And in fact I did like the first few episodes. But when they announced that Fred Thompson was joining the cast I dropped out. And it looks like the rest of the country did as well because the series hasn't been picked up. Oh well, after his stinging defeat in the Republican primaries last year and the cancellation of this show this year, it looks like poor ol' sleepy head Fred can't find a gig he can succeed at anymore. I guess he'll have to stay home and let his bubbleheaded trophy wife change his diapers while he sits in his Lazy-Boy and watches his old movies. Fred Thompson, he's not President but he did play one on TV and nobody gave a shit.

And finally there are a couple of mid season replacements that will be cancelled within weeks of their premiere. And they are both one ABC, one is the new show with that guy from Firefly and the other is that show about the kooky cops that they keep advertising during Lost. ABC, you do have one bright spot in your midseason line up replacement shows, Better Off Ted looks to be a decent show, I caught the last five minutes of it last night and it not only made me laugh out loud, it looked like it was well written and well cast.

That's all for now.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

The hate list (TV edition)

I'm currently hatin' like crazy on the following people and or shows on TV:
1) I despise this show and every one on it. I have never watched a full episode of it and I resent it's outsized influence on our popular culture.
2) The Travel Channel cannot cancel this guy's show fast enough for me.His whole shtick is he goes all around the country and the world eating shit food and going, "Mmmm, ooohhh, that is good! Animal penises are really good! I love animal penises. Seriously, animal penises, what's better than that? Nothing. Well okay, maybe animal assholes but that's it. Mmmm. Ooooooohhhhhhh."
3) Both incarnations of What Not To Wear and the insufferable twats who host them.If people hate British females it's because of these two "women." I've never wanted to slap the shit out of any one more than I did when the one on the left told a woman, "You shut up and do what you're told."
And these two women are just as bad. Oooo, let's all bow down to the taste police. Let's let a couple of catty gals decide everything fashion wise. Or how about this, let's don't. And while we're at it, let's actively ignore them all from now on.
4) Chris Matthews, Tim Russert, Joe Scarboro, that female they keep drugged and chained to the chair next to Joe Scarboro, Chris Berman when he does "play by play" on baseball games on ESPN, and everyone on every religious TV show on the airwaves.
5) The food harpy Gail Simmons. If this gal was half the hottie she though she was then she'd suck all the sex appeal off the planet. If I was on Top Chef and my fate was in her hands, I'd gut myself on national television and I'd deep fry my innards and make her eat them.
6) I got nothing but love for Obama, Charlie Rangel, and most every other black politician but I'll have nothing but contempt for this turd in the political punch bowl:
Harold Ford Jr, late of TN, would sell us out in a heart beat if he thought it would endear him to corporate America, to "centerist" circles (when I say centerist he hears Republican lite), or to his media overlords. Harry thinks that because he lived and represented a state that voted Republican in the past few Presidential elections that he's got to be a conservative's conservative Democrat. He thinks we all want Bush lite and that we all shun Nancy Pelosi and Jessee Jackson/Al Sharpton/Tom Harkin style liberalism. Well Hank, I got news for you, not all of us in TN think like you do. Some of us don't want bipartisan politics if it means we have to be like Republicans. Some of us still believe in the party of FDR and LBJ, and we don't want people who claim to be Democrats to be like GWB. Got it?
7) Constant repeats of every Law and Order series. Enough. We've had enough. Stop airing them. I'm begging you.
8) The current crap line up on BBC America. If back to back episodes of Top Gear, Gordon Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares, Torchwood, and that hideous new Robin Hood, represent the best in British TV programming, then it's no fucking wonder why people in England love American TV shows.
9) Can someone please leave Larry King's coffin open in the daylight? Or can someone drive a sharpened wooden cross through his undead vampire heart? Is there no one who will step up to the plate and make him get the hell off the airwaves? Anyone? Please? No? Damn.
10) Note to VH1 Classic, you should have stopped running that same history of heavy metal series after it's seven hundredth showing. There's only so many times people can stomach the riveting story of how Judas Priest and Black Sabbath conquered the metal scene in the UK in the mid seventies. And I'm pleading with you to can the endless showing of Kiss concerts. Kiss stopped being cool back in...oh wait, they never were cool.
That's all for now but I reserve the right to hate on more TV stuff at any time.