Category: trh tv

Tragic Right Updates

Okay so it’s been a pretty busy few days, with lots going on, and I love lists, so here we go:

1. 24 kicked all kinds of crazy ass last night, but my favourite part? When Jack retired for eleven minutes. Awe-some. His retirement was even shorter than Jay Z’s. And let’s talk about 99 Problems: nuclear bombs, presidential bomb shelters with cell phone signals (heh), crazy sibling rivalry, and Rena Sofer as the ‘wife’ character, like someone that hot would end up with angry short man McCrane, but whatever. Enjoyable!

2. Editing and re-editing is super-hard work but I’ve handed in my third draft, just minutes ago, of one of my Classic Starts. I’ve been doing them forever in my spare time and I’m super-exhausted and really want to start working on my other projects.

3. I’ve been attempting to find a version of microwave popcorn that isn’t completely and utterly disgusting. See, I hate butter, love cooking with it, hate the taste and smell otherwise, but every single version of the damn popcorn has way, way too much fake butter on it. And I can’t seem to find a damn box of ‘original’ anywhere. It’s very annoying. We tried “corn on the cob” (oh my god it’s nasty) and cheddar (equally nasty) and are now about to give up entirely. But hell, maybe that’s a good thing as I supposed to be dieting anyway.

4. Tina Fey’s 30 Rock is damn, damn funny. So funny that I actually rewound this bit from last week’s episode about Tracy Morgan (aka Tracy Jordan) “writing” his “memoirs” because it cracked me up so much.

5. I am going to see Colm Toibin on February 7th. I just finished reading his new book of short stories Mothers and Sons, full review to come tomorrow, and it’s bloody brilliant. I’ve also started The Master, which is on the 1001 Books list and my Around the World challenge.

6. I saw Dreamgirls on the weekend and really enjoyed it. Beyoncé was kind of flat but utterly gorgeous, but I totally agree with all of the reviews of Jennifer Hudson, man she completely steals the show. Wow. And I hope that Eddie Murphy wins the Oscar, but who knows…I’m not making any predictions just yet but I have a feeling that all my Oscar ballots will be from the heart, which is always the death of me in our company-party pools.

7. I read Don Hannah’s Ragged Islands. Although not on either of my lists, I’m still saying its #7 for the year, and I have to say that I did enjoy it. Quickly, it’s the story of Susan Ann, an elderly woman brought to the hospital on her last days, that floats in and out of consciousness. When she’s in her ‘dream’ state, she’s all over her life, from start to finish, and it’s fantastical, mystical and whimsical all at the same time. There is a central mystery to her story that never gets solved but I think that’s okay because the book is more about the fact that life simply doesn’t give you the answers. Hannah, a playwright, borrows heavily from Laurence and Shields, but that’s okay, there’s room in CanLit for more than two ornery old broads.

Whew! What a week already…

Friday Musings

1. I do honestly know the difference between “forth” and “fourth” but it seems the typo was up on the site for, like, two days before I even noticed that I had spelled it wrong. And it’s still in the perma-url. Oh well.

2. Well, I might have to break up with Grey’s Anatomy. I simply can’t take the emotional pressure and/or over the top, everybody dying, heartwrenching stuff that happens every single bloody week. Could someone, anyone, please a) not die, b) not break up, make up, make out, or whine and c) not have something absolutely tragic like an abortion happen to them? Please, just one week where I’m not waking up with giant, red, puffy eyes from bawling about the damn show saying to my RRHB, “I c-c-c-can’t watch this show anymore.” Sigh.

3. Some crazy dude is stalking Edgar Allen Poe’s grave. Now there’s a slasher film in the making…and would that be a first, a literary-stalker inspired horror movie? Please educate me if I’m wrong.

4. I had an Office moment when I sent out Linked In notes to a whole bunch of people I didn’t mean to. Kind of like when Michael sent out that email with him and Jan in it to, like, his entire company. Yeah, it was like that. But it all turned out okay, I made a lot of new connections.

5. There’s snow on the ground in Toronto, and it’s cold, but it doesn’t matter because at long last I have a brand-new winter coat. And it’s lovely. And warm. And lovely. And did I mention it’s warm? It’s so snuggly that my RRHB says it looks like I’m wearing a sleeping bag. Isn’t that awesome?

TRH TV – 24 & Rome

Okay, so my New Year’s Revolution not to watch so much television is actually working (I’m only on week 2, but still). The only two shows I watched this whole weekend (Saturday and Sunday) were 24 and Rome. And if you haven’t watched either show yet and they are sitting patiently on your Faux-Vos, please ignore as some of the following might be construed as spoiler-esque.

On the whole, I loved 24 but felt that it was a bit forced in terms of the set up and some of the situations. Sometimes the exposition is so painful (i.e., Karen talks to Bill, LOOKS at her wedding rings, and says, “I wish you were here.”) because they don’t give enough credit to the audience that we’d get what was going on without the characters overtly telling us. But anyway, here’s what I learned/thought last night:

1. Jack is always right. He’s been right for five seasons, why is it that when it comes down to making THE decision, the President rarely listens?

2. Chinese prison must be very sunny. Why else would Jack have a tan? And when he cut his hair his neck was still tanned too.

3. He also must have been fed very well; there’s not a muscle out of place, even when he takes his shirt off and reveals the SIGNS OF TORTURE, you’re still like, whoa, Jack’s been working out!

4. Alexander Siddig must get super-tired of getting blown up, and his character seems straight out of Syriana, but whatever, there’s this one scene where he’s just so absolutely frightening that it gave me chills.

5. Kal Penn playing against type (slightly) is funny. I know it’s wrong of me because he’s a Serious Actor now, especially with the film version of Jhumpa Lahiri’s The Namesake coming out. But seriously dude, I’ll bet he was Jonesing for a White Castle when the FBI came around and tore up his sh*t and took his dad away. And what’s up with him playing a kid in, and am I correct about this, high school? First off, he may be trim but he still looks like a man and he’s 30, or there abouts. A bit of the Andrea Zuckerman going on there.

6. Chloe. Rocks. Even if she is going out with the FoodTV guy that used to date this woman who terrorized me in grade school but then made up for it when I lost my mom and used to call me all the time and be really sweet and sh*t.

7. What’s up with Peter MacNicol’s eye makeup? Seriously? It’s like George on Grey’s Anatomy where they can’t get the balance right between “shading” and “overtly colouring the lids so that he could step on stage in the drag show at Il Convento Rico.”

8. And if he’s (Peter MacNicol, see above) a baddie, well, that sucks because we’ve been there done that last season and I didn’t much appreciate the tense, “I’m thinking very hard about this situation and have my hand on my chin in Deep Thought” moments. Yawn.

9. Please, please do not let the fact that neither Kim nor Audrey know that Jack’s out of Chinese prison mean that we’re in for tearful reunions. Please. I beg you.

10. I got a little choked up when Jack said, “I don’t remember how to do this.” In the promos for tonight’s episodes. Aw, Sensitive Jack is very appealing, even if you know within a matter of, well, hours, he’ll have strapped on his Sidebag of Super Tricks and stepped off a plane knowing that he can absolutely make a parachute by the time he almost hits the ground.

Sigh. I am SO glad 24 is back. Oh, and Rome wasn’t bad either, but that’s Serious TV; it’s HBO, so even though you know you won’t understand ALL of it, it’ll still be miles better than anything else that might be on. And Marc Antony takes his shirt off, A LOT.

Top TV of 2006

Finally, someone who completely and totally gets me. Or at least gets the fact that The Wire is hands down the best show on television, like, ever.

Oh, and I agree with Deadwood, but he’s missing a few shows, like Rescue Me, Weeds, The Office, and Dexter.

And it’s HISTORY TELEVISION, dude, please, if you’re going to write about TV in Canada at least get the channel right.

TRH TV – Intelligence

Okay, you all know I’m obsessed with watching television. I’m convinced it’s because my mother never let us watch TV when we were small kids and so I grew up blissfully unaware of the truly addictive aspects of the little blue box. And all through university we didn’t have cable, and even up until I started living with my RRHB, I didn’t have cable. What did I need it for? I didn’t watch television.

Oh, what a fool I am.

Anyway, what I did watch was tonnes of the CBC. North of 60, Rita MacNeil, you name it, I watched it. And then, once I discovered the glorious joy of cable, I sort of left the CBC behind. I even (as she says in a hushed tone) stopped watching the news. Gasp!

But now, I’m getting older. I listen to Andy Barrie in the morning. I have the CBC on in the background most days at work and have come back into the fold with the new show that’s been on this season called Intelligence. Never a Da Vinci fan, I watched the short tv movie that the series is based on last year by accident (meaning I flipped the channel, answered the phone, and the show was on, and it was interesting enough to keep me watching until the end. I think too, the RRHB was away so we weren’t compromising in terms of the evening show tally).

The story of a third generation dope slinger turned millionaire, Intelligence follows Jimmy’s involvement with the RCMP’s special crime unit, both in terms of giving them information and being a suspect they’re looking to take down. Balancing out the crime with the punishment as we also get Mary, the head of said crime section, whose own agenda involves positioning herself for a sweet promotion over to CSIS (who, by the way, would never have their parking spots noted “parking for CSIS,” art directors please take note). It’s a fascinating little show, a bit Sopranos, a bit The Wire, a bit Can Con, but it kind of works. So much so it’s on a permanent tape-to-watch later status on my Faux-Vo.

However, now that I like it and am actually telling y’all to watch it, sure as it will eventually snow here in Toronto, the CBC will cancel the show and start airing something equally dismal like Air Farce in its place.

Team Karen or Team Pam?

Looking for the perfect holiday “secret Santa” present? Yeah, I’d go for Team Karen just to piss off all of the obvious Team Pam supporters.

I’m all for Pam and Jim, OF COURSE, but a little love triangle never hurt anyone. Except maybe Lorelai because that sh*t’s been going on for eight seasons.

Oh, and other TV news? I had an episode of 30 Rock on the Faux–Vo to catch the last few minutes of The Office while I was in Vancouver last week and I ended up watching it. I was doing the absolutely crazy go through the taped shows and watch them in alphabetical order on Wednesday night after pilates. I started with 30 Rock, ended up on Coronation Street, then Grey’s Anatomy, but I skipped a couple in between. Okay, back on topic. 30 Rock, you know, it’s totally funny. Tracy Morgan is good, and Alec Baldwin truly kills. There was this whole meta-thing about him being a broadcast head playing himself in a sketch but he couldn’t act. And the ham-bone Baldwin pretending not to act all while acting bit? Hilarious.

But the best part of both Studio 60 and 30 Rock? Other than their numerically challenged titles, they’re both kind of about writers, and I really like writers.