Community's Season Four Premiere: Review/Rant

Well, this week Community's long anticipated fourth season premiered. But before I review that, I need to put it into some context for you -

Community was created by a man called Dan Harmon. Now Dan Harmon is very intelligent, and in Community at least, he is always pushing the boundaries of what he can do with it. He is very very smart and he seems like a generally good hearted, if a little distant and a little introverted person. But because he's so smart, and because Community was his project, he was a little bit difficult to work with. I think Dan Harmon was a perfectionist, and the way he arranged things were a little bit.... unorthodox. That is to say, he was constantly changing things and adding things - like it could be happening a minute before they shot the scene. He also had an arrogant streak if someone crossed him, and sometimes did things that were not... totally.... appropriate. And I think for these reasons, and also because the show he was making wasn't getting very high ratings at all, he was fired as the showrunner.

This is a disastrous move. Dan Harmon was the primary creative force behind the show, he's what made the show what it was. He's what made it so self-reflective and spoofy and awesome, and almost everything unique about the show that the fanbase had grown to love was conducted by him. And now he's fired, and NBC wanted a show with higher ratings. So here was the question hanging in the air for us Human Beings that didn't want anything about the show's tone to change - are they going to try to make this mainstream? Are they going to add a laugh track and make it based around sex, make the characters stereotypical and flat and start to talk down to its audience about the pop culture references and just try to ungeekify it? Every Human Being knew that would be disastrous and idiotic - why cater to an audience that hasn't shown interest after three years, instead of catering to an extremely dedicated fanbase that loves everything about the show just the way it is?

So we waited with bated breath, hoping that the show would live up to everything we've built it up to be without Dan Harmon. The amazing makers of Community, who already had such an open dialogue with the fans (did you notice they added #sixseasonsandamovie as the final few seconds of Introduction to Finality? That's amazing) even gave us a bit of a teaser, something to keep the fans occupied for a while, about the plan for postponing the premiere of the show to October 19th, and then moving it again to February 7th - it also added in a little tidbit about the famous Community flashmob orchestrated by the fans, and another about the incomprehensible minds behind NBC.

But I digress.

The point I'm trying to get across is after this long long wait for the show to come back on, the fans were anticipating it like crazy, with a bit of doubt but hoping a lot. Everyone who follows Community knows the name Dan Harmon, and they know the impact he had on the show, and we could only guess at the what the new people were going to do - I think we were all sort of pulling an Abed, running scenarios in our own little Dreamatoriums to see all the different ways this could turn out.

And then along came October 19th.

Here comes the review part of my post.

Overall the show was actually not too bad - again with the dialogue to its fanbase, and it was certainly wacky and zany as ever. It stayed true to what had been set up at the end of last season, for the most part. Overall, I actually expected worse.

That being said.....

The rhythm of it seemed off somehow. Don't ask me to explain that, because I don't know. It just seemed like they fell back a little too hard on old habits from older seasons. Like Pierce's "I know this has a joke", for instance, was a gag that lasted the duration of the episode and with little pay off, and was basically the same gag as Troy's "Don't eat the crab dip!" from season 1 - except that one lasted the duration of a scene, and was pulled off brilliantly by the way Donald Glover played it out. No disrespect to Chevy Chase, he's great at what he does, I just don't think the writers really gave him a lot to work with for the one thing he had.

But what really bugged me were a few tiny things about the characters that really just weren't consistent with what had already been set up.

This was a little moment in the episode that lasted probably two seconds, but it stuck with me because it was... weird. Annie's talking about being a senior now, and pullin' pranks, skippin' classes, not pronouncin' her Gs, etcetera. That's Annie enough - it's normal for Annie to try to be a little bit outside her own comfort zone. Then Shirley says "Ooh! I'll pull pranks with you!" Which again, is Shirley enough - mischeivous when she can be, responsible when she should be. And Annie says uncomfortably, "Yeah, or, you know, Jeff, whoever's around, whatever."

That bugged me. Sure, Annie may have had a crushy type thing on Jeff for a while there, and they certainly had chemistry. But Annie's fascination with Jeff ended around season 2 - she didn't always feel the need to be around him all the time after that, or to try to earn his approval all the time. She likes Jeff, and yeah, would probably go out with him if he asked, but it's weird for her to start doing things while looking over her shoulder for any approving smile or something from Jeff when she stopped doing that quite a while back.

Which brings me to Jeff.

Jeff's character was possibly the least consistent with what had already been established. It was startling, "jarring" is a word I read in a review already. Maybe he would get to the point where he would save seats for his friends in class - MAYBE. He already gave up his career for Shirley's business, so anything's possible. But calling himself "The New Jeff" didn't sit well with me. Yes, he obviously had an evolution through the seasons. That almost goes without saying. But that wasn't by Jeff's CHOICE. He was changed by becoming part of a family, which is an experience Jeff had been deprived of for most of his life. He didn't make a decision one day to stop being so superficial and selfish and to think for more people than himself. That never happened. It was a gradual, natural change that happened to Jeff unconsciously, until he finally looked at himself from a different angle and went "whoa". (See Pillows and Blankets, Introduction to Finality).

But he never made some sort of new year's resolution saying "I'm gonna not be a douchebag now. I'm going to be pleasant and friendly and sincere." Because that would just be ridiculously out of character. Jeff hates change, he likes knowing he can predict what will happen, and manipulate the situation to his will. So deciding one day to change himself? I'm sorry. I don't see it.

Also, he's going to graduate early because he took online courses over the summer? That's completely out of character. It wouldn't bother Jeff to spend the few months more at Greendale, because he'd already devoted so much to the group and the school. And he's mentioned a few times, in a few different ways, that "doing more work than what he has to is his definition of failing".

And sure, if we wanted to be lazy about it, we could credit this change of heart to his evolution through the seasons. But I'm not going to back down for that, because that is a weak argument. Consistently throughout the series, Jeff spends his time passing with the bare minimum and looking for "blow-off" classes - classes in which he doesn't have to do any work, he can just sit and goof off. Jeff starts a riot in one relatively recent episode upon finding out that he'd have to take summer classes - the riot that makes him and the study group known as "The Greendale Seven" and gets them expelled.

And suddenly Jeff decides that that's okay and takes a bunch of online courses in summer? I'm sorry, that doesn't fit in this puzzle. It really just doesn't make sense.

It was lazy writing, in all honesty, and that is one of the first times that I've seen Community be lazy at all. It was weird. And I didn't like it.

Abed was too..... normal. Now Abed is an extremely difficult character to get right, but that doesn't change the fact that they didn't. They got close, and if I weren't analyzing this episode the way I do everything else, I probably wouldn't notice. But I am, and I do. In spite of the fact that they had his "happy place" going for the duration of the episode, (which was good, and totally fit with Abed) he wasn't being himself. Abed is a fly on the wall, an observer. To have him zoned out for just about the entire episode really just didn't fit.

I know what your arguments are going to be. "But it was like the Dreamatorium. He was running scenarios in his head." And sure, that's true. But rarely does Abed EVER bury himself so deep that he can't come back. You'll notice that even in the Dreamatorium he was learning. He listened carefully to everything Annie said, and filed the "new data", if you will, in his head. The only time Abed ever went close to going that deep in was Introduction to Finality, when he became Evil Abed and tried to make the current timeline the darkest timeline.

So here's what's wrong with what they did. While Abed's "happy place" was very well done, and stayed true to character, Abed even HAVING a happy place isn't true to character at all. Abed doesn't use fiction as others do, to take himself away from reality - he uses fiction to help him UNDERSTAND reality. When he's unhappy, he doesn't ignore it and push it away, as others might - he deals with it in his incredible mind and THINKS about it, running scenarios, maybe, and figuring out what to do. So, even though Britta told him to go to a happy place, he would NEVER be able to bury himself like that, because if there's one thing about this fly on the wall, it's that this fly is too awesome for the wall. Abed almost ALWAYS takes action for his emotions. There's never been an episode where Abed simply doesn't DO anything, because that's not how he's learned to deal with things. It's not that Abed wouldn't listen to Britta - I'm almost certain he would. It's just that beneath his happy place his mind would be whirling about what to do, and it wouldn't take twenty two minutes for him to figure it out.

Those were my main problems with the show - since the show is character-driven by nature, of course all the problems were with how the characters were written. But Annie, in general, was well in character and funny, as was Shirley and Britta and Troy - I think Pierce as well, though he didn't actually do much - like I said, his whole thing during the episode was "I know this has a joke", until finally at the end he came up with "Gay balls!" Which, while in character, was a little disappointing.

On the bright side, there were some good things about the episode.

Britta and Troy's fountain scene was very..... Troy and Britta. Which was good. Except for the fact that Troy wouldn't let Britta do that at all, for fear that she'd Britta it, and that Abed didn't join them even though it was his and Troy's thing in the first place. Set-up didn't make sense, but the scene itself was good enough.

I very much enjoyed Jeff's scene with the dean, while they were dancing. The dynamic there was perfect, so good on them for that.

Abed's happy place was quite well done, and worked well with Abed's character (except for the issues that I've mentioned, but never mind).

At the end, when Abed tells Annie to maybe go into Forensics? THAT was a good moment. Reminded me of the moment in the ever-famous Remedial Chaos Theory, when Abed tells Annie she should move in with them. One of those incredible moments that prove that Abed sometimes knows them better than they know themselves.

At the end when it turns out the dean now lives next to Jeff? Good moment, that one,  and in character for both of them. "Please tell me you're breaking into that condo." Well done.

So, there were a FEW good moments in the episode, but overall it was just... off. It wasn't as obvious as I've made it sound, I've just broken it down. But it was clear, to me at least, that there was something wrong about it. Some inconsistensies and things, that really shouldn't have happened.

I realize I'm reading way too much into it. Totally. But that's what I do, and usually Community has been able to fulfill that with satisfaction.

That's what I have to say about it.

3/5 stars.

Another Earth: Review

Saw a movie on Netflix last night with my father, as we do every Friday night. Tonight it was Another Earth.

Short review: it sucked.

Here's my telling of it.

Summary: A girl, called Roda or something? She finds out she got a scholarship to a University. She celebrates, goes to a party. Gets drunk. Drives drunk. Hits a family - a mother, father, son. The mother and son die, the father goes into a coma. She goes to jail for four years. When she comes out, it turns out that they've discovered a second earth in our solar system - they're creatively calling it "Earth 2". You can write an essay and win a trip to Earth 2. Roda, who's always had a fascination with outer space, writes in and tries. Meanwhile, she finds out about the guy she hit those four years ago. He lives alone. She tries to ring his bell to apologize, chickens out, and tells him that she's from some sort of cleaning service. The guy buys it and actually gets her to clean his house. They bond, and eventually they have sex, even though that's kind of disgusting. NASA or whatever, they make contact with Earth 2. There are people living on it, and not only that - they're exact replicas of the people living on Earth 1. With the same names, birthdates, memories and occupations. Roda wins the trip to Earth 2. She tells the guy. They celebrate for her, then he stops pretending and begs her not to go. She tells him that she was the one that killed his entire family. He tells her to get out. She comes back, he tries to strangle her, she says stuff, and somehow or other she ends up giving her free trip to Earth 2 to him. Then as she's walking home, she sees a replica of herself - the her from Earth 2 came to Earth 1.

Now, as my father keeps saying, it told a decent story. And sure, I agree. But the telling of the story was really bad, and I'll tell you why.

First of all, we are not made to care about what happens to these characters. All we know about the girl is she's into space, and she got drunk once. All we know about the guy is his family tragedy. There is never any attempt to make us like these characters, or care what happens to them. Maybe if we saw any of the characters show emotion besides sadness, that maybe would have helped. Roda is a Bella (as in from Twilight. That bad). She's a shell. She shows no emotion besides vague sadness, and doesn't bother to interact with anyone. We didn't care. And as for the guy.... he was alright. He was alright because he actually showed a metamorphosis through the movie, as protagonists generally do. He started out very sad and directionless, then when he likes her he starts to be happy with himself again. Then, when he finds out her true identity (since "the one who killed your family" is really the only identity given her) he starts out sad, goes angry, and goes devastated. He doesn't want to hurt her. And then happy again as he goes to Earth 2. The point is, he changes through the story. And that's what a good story wants, quite often.

Second of all, the story moved SO. SLOWLY. Dad fell asleep through half of it and missed nothing significant at all. If you cut out all the stuff that doesn't move the plot at all, you'd have four minutes of movie left (okay I'm exaggerating.... but you see my point).

But here's my biggest issue; the movie focused so much on being weird, artistic and shocking that it really did sacrifice all those elements that a movie NEEDS in order to be good. The cutting in weird places and weirdly angled close-ups were quite artistic, sure, and all the rest of it. But it was focused so much on being memorably weird that it paid no attention whatsoever to more important things - things like characterization, plot development, theme. Movies should begin with a story. Stories should begin with an idea. Ideas should begin with an emotion. That's the chain as it should be. And maybe the story did have an idea, or a feeling in it. But that got completely lost when they decided that this movie should always keep you completely offbalance, and lets always have the camera cutting as if it's some kind of documentary, and let's do this over here and do that over here. It didn't need that, and frankly crumbled whatever hope I had for the movie.

Don't get me wrong, I'm fine with artistic movies. I find them fascinating. But not every movie can pull it off. Not every movie can do the whole artsy-fartsy bit and still be enjoyable. That's the problem.

But, on the other hand, there were some okay bits in this movie. Some parts of this movie were actually legitimately good. For instance, when the guy is playing the saw with a violin bow. It sounds ridiculous, but that's what happened. It was weird, but strangely drawing, and strangely pretty. And to see the Earth 2 hanging in the sky next to the moon, that was quite good. Some shots were quite striking - when Roda finds out she won, and on the dock. I very much liked that. And the story she tells the guy about the Russian astronaut and the ticking sound was something to bring shivers down your spine. But if not for these things, the movie would be nothing.

So, in general, sometimes the movie succeeded in the poetry it was obviously trying to convey - but most of the time, it was just boring and annoying. Wholly unsatisfying. Attempting to be thought provoking and really not succeeding at all.

0.5/5 stars.

Community: General Review

So, lately I've gotten really into a show. That show is called Community.

Maybe you've heard of it. Maybe you haven't. But I suggest you watch a few episodes. You'll probably like it.

Or....

Well, some people start out liking it and then get tired of it. I was the opposite. I started out not really thinking much of it, and then loving it.

Basic concept:

Seven very different people meet up at a crappy community college. They're all taking spanish, so they form a study group. And that study group becomes a kind of family.

The writing in this show is good, but what I really really love about it is that the characters all have their very own, very distinct identity:

Jeff: He was a bigshot lawyer before he got kicked out of his law firm for not having the proper papers for being a legitimate lawyer. He knew he didn't have the proper papers - Jeff is very used to scamming his way through life. So, in order to get back easy, he went to a crappy community college to get the easiest way back into being a real lawyer. Jeff is a master at manipulating people, and he will if he feels it will help him gain something. He seems to think - or at least tells people that he thinks - that he is the most deserving person on earth. He very rarely likes to admit he cares about something - he prefers to be extremely non-chalant and cool toward people. He's the one who starts the study group in the first place, but not for the proper reason - he did it so that he could get in Britta's bed.
What I like about this character is that he starts out, as you can probably tell, as a huge D-bag. But he does have a kind of evolution through the series, as does every character. He uses his "powers" to bring the group together. He starts thinking about other people - sometimes over himself. He starts to show that he does care about some things. But you need to be following the series to see this - if you start an episode without knowing what's going on, then he's just going to look like a D-bag.

Britta: She's what you would call a modern hippie. A rebel without a cause - or as the show once described her, the "needlessly defiant". She talks about being all for female empowerment, charity, organicness and naturality, to the point of being annoying to the others. She's attractive - she knows it, and uses it. She can be very immature - she has what one could call a brother/sisterly rivalry with Jeff, and they're often bickering and making fun of each other - but she can also be very mature. She and Jeff act as the mother and father figures of the study group, respectively. What Britta most cares about is putting others before herself, and helping others - even if some other people accidentally get hurt in the process. But she's also very defiant by nature, and if someone offends her, then she will do what she can to shove it back in their face.

Annie: A nineteen year old girl, very driven, very smart, very determined. She probably could have gone to a better college, but in high school she got addicted to pills and had a nervous breakdown. She had to go to rehab. Her mother didn't support her in rehab, and as a result they've turned their backs on each other and Annie now lives in an apartment by herself in a dangerous neighbourhood. You wouldn't be able to tell she ever had that problem now. She's quite by-the-book, though she does have the ability to adapt and be resourceful. She had a crush on Troy, and now appears to have a crushy thing on Jeff. She, like me, analyzes everything, though as a result she reads too far into things and ends up expecting more than people actually offered. She's an adult by her actions, but childlike by her morals - her distinction between right and wrong is very bold, and if someone lies or is disrespectful then she will be the one to "tell on them". Her friends are a top priority for her. She wants the best for the people around her, but her judgement of what's best may not be the same as others.

Troy: He and Annie went to high school together. He was the jock in high school, and was very popular then. Now he goes to Greendale...... for some reason. Troy is a believer in passion, and a believer in fun over work. His brotha-from-anotha-motha is Abed.... who I will get to. Troy is not smart.... in the traditional sense. He's not smart intellectually/academically, or particularly street smart..... but he knows instinct, and he knows motivation. And every once in a while he dazzles them with a good idea. Troy is a little bit like Jeff in some ways..... being the popular jock in high school left him under the impression that he was a little more entitled than the rest. But he also has a very dutiful sense of right and wrong, and he always corrects himself if he offends someone, and will tell someone if he thinks they're doing something wrong. He's a little childish - in fact, he's quite childish, but he knows when to be mature.

Shirley: She's a born again christian woman, single mother - her husband cheated on her, so she kicked him out, and then when he came back she forgave him because of her christian values. She fancies herself the perfect christian - she forgives everyone (or says she does) and works hard to always be considerate and nice to people. She responds to good news with an "oh, that's nice," in a very super sweet way and responds to bad news with questions about why that would happen. Shirley.... has thinly veiled anger issues hidden shallowly beneath the surface. If someone offends her, or someone she cares about, then forgiveness and turning the other cheek sort of goes out the window - she knows how to kick ass. She believes in perfection - she strives for it, and can't understand why other people wouldn't. I mean..... she accepts people for their imperfections, but she strives to make sure that nothing that would make people unhappy happens, and can't understand when other people let that happen. She's had some darkness.... she used to be an alcoholic. Which is probably one of the reasons she tries so hard to keep that kind of darkness out.

Pierce: Pretty much Community's equivalent of a crazy old man. Ah, wait, scratch that - that would be Leonard. Pierce is older than the others (like in his sixties) and has very... outdated points of view. That is, he's pretty much racist and homophobic. He thinks he can rule other people's worlds with his money and riches. He likes to manipulate people that way - he's not dependent on people, but he's dependent on people being dependent on him. He demands respect in spite of the fact that it's very hard to. At least in the second season, he was pretty selfish and self-centered, but he was mostly playing the antagonist in the second season, so........ What he wants is to be accepted somewhere, to be liked. He makes it hard for himself though, because if he has any negative feelings toward anyone he tends to blow it out of proportion and just make things worse. He's been married seven times, divorced every single one. When he meets someone he likes, he tests their boundaries. Pushes them. That's why most of them don't last very long. But he gives respect where he can see that respect is due.

Abed: Last but not least. Certainly not least. He's my ultimate favourite out of this show. He's just made of awesome.
Abed is undiagnosable. Jeff's said Aspergers, but that's not the point. The point is Abed is..... weird. He doesn't know how to act around people, he doesn't understand people. He doesn't understand emotion, and he seldom ever really shows any emotion through any facial expression - the only emotion he shows is through cliches from TV that he happens to find relatable at that point in time. He likes TV more than he likes life - he understands TV more. To him, TV has more structure than life, and so because of this he's developed a kind of obsession with television. He's always making references to TV, slipping into blatantly obvious stereotypes or characters from TV and movies, because to him it just makes more sense to apply it that way. Abed does not understand people at all, and he does not know how anything he does will affect anyone, so Abed learns by observation. He observes how people talk to each other, and he usually makes the connections of their psychologies/personalities........ but he doesn't have the natural instinct for it that "normal" people do. He needs to work hard to act accordingly around people. Abed is used to not being understood, and though his facial expression never shows SIGNIFICANT change, one can tell when he's been hurt or doesn't understand something. The most enthusiasm Abed usually shows is a slight twitch at the corner of the mouth and a "Cool. Cool cool cool." People often think that Abed is incompetent because of this.... "disability", and then discover they're sadly mistaken when Abed swiftly and unexpectedly proves his point and make everyone rethink everything. Abed knows the difference between right and wrong, and though you wouldn't know it sometimes, he knows the difference between TV and real life. But Abed has difficulty expressing his emotions. Observations and thoughts, no problem. But emotions are hard for him. That's why he makes movies. People understand movies. They make sense to everyone. So Abed is working to become a filmmaker. He's also Troy's brotha-from-anotha-motha - they have lots of fun doing ridiculous things together.

Those are my summaries of the characters. I know I was supposed to be reviewing the show, but this is pretty much the Community rant I've been wanting to have. But, all in all, the show is wacky, fun, light-hearted, ridiculous at times, great if you like spoofs (courtesy of Abed) and hilarious. It's also great for analyzers like myself, because those wonderful writers are constantly adding dimensions to the characters.

There's always conflict, but it's usually light-hearted nonetheless. It's always wacky, but never nonsensical. It's ingeniusly balanced.

If you like to think, it's a fun show. If you just watch a show for the sake of watching it, then it's fine then too - it will provide you with the laughter you seek. All in all, it's a great show to watch, and you should all watch at least a few episodes.

5/5 stars.

P.S Did I mention that Abed is the best? Because Abed is like the best character. He's awesome.

Pretty In Pink: Movie Review

Cause I review movies from thirty years ago. Don't judge me.

Honestly, I was expecting to be blown away by that John Hughes movie magic. Well, I wasn't. It was kind of mediocre.

I guess at that time, John Hughes was kind of the "magic director", where everything he made was pure gold (Sixteen Candles, The Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, etc.). But I really had trouble with this one.

First of all, a short John Hughes general analysis (not just for this movie, but in general). John Hughes seems to enjoy experimenting with breaking the rules of screenplay writing. For instance, a fairly well known rule is that you NEVER address the audience/camera. Because that breaks the reality of the movie. Well, not only was Ferris Bueller all ABOUT addressing the audience and talking to the audience, he also did the same thing in Sixteen Candles (right before the King of Nerds starts making out with the popular party girl, he looks at the camera and says "THIS is getting interesting") AND there's even a short little nod to the audience in Pretty In Pink (when the girl at the prom is inviting Duckie over to her, Duckie looks at the camera incredulously, then looks back at the girl).

Another fairly well known rule is not to stereotype characters - characters should be three dimensional, not one-sided. But the John Hughes SCHTICK is to stereotype characters. In the Breakfast Club, you had the jock, the princess, the rebel, the nerd, and the weird emo girl. They of course fill out and dimensions are added by the end of the movie - that's kind of the whole point of that particular movie - but in other movies, not so much. In Sixteen Candles, you have the stuck up rich kids, the awkward nerds, the weird asian kid...... and a lot of them never fill out.

A lot of John Hughes movies seem to like putting "normal characters" (usually played by Molly Ringwald) in a sea of stereotypes. I think it's supposed to be because to that character, they ARE stereotypes - it's not reality reality, it's the main character's reality, and I THINK that's what is trying to get across. John Hughes uses that device to hit the audience over the head with the moral of the story.

But Pretty In Pink kind of bugged me.

First of all, a short synopsis of the film:

Andie is kind of a poor girl, living on the wrong side of the tracks. She makes her own clothes because they can't afford to buy her clothes. She has a deadbeat dad who doesn't have a job and her mom left them when she was quite young, but her dad still loves her mom even though he hasn't seen her since she left. Andie's best friend is Duckie, who she's known since they were children. Duckie is in love with her, but doesn't know how to tell her. Andie's other friend is the girl who works at the record store she works at, and she's gotta be I guess around thirty or forty in that movie, but they're still friends. Andie goes to a high school where the poor kids and the rich kids are all separated in different social groups. She likes a rich guy called Blaine who actually likes her back. They go out, but are shunned by both their friends because the rich kids hate the poor kids and vice versa. Feeling pressure from his rich friends, Blaine blows her off after he asks her to go to prom with him. Then Andie goes to prom anyway, escorted by Duckie, then somehow makes up with Blaine and Duckie finds another girl at the prom and somehow they all live happily ever after.

It was better put together than I made it sound.

The thing is, Blaine was supposed to be the love interest, but he's actually a really blah character. He's a really boring person. The only interesting thing he did was somehow send her a picture over a computer chat - which back in the eighties was not easily done. Besides that..... I mean, one minute he's saying "You know what, this could work. This will work. We can do this," and the next day he's avoiding her in the hallways and not returning her calls, and then he's all sad because she got mad at him. Uh, HELLO? YOU blew HER off, not vice versa!!!! Gosh de gosh, as my french teacher would say. And there's this part at the end where he delivers this one-liner to his friend that's supposed to be like sticking it to the man or something, but it's actually really lame.

It was actually kind of awkward for me, because Duckie was the best character in the entire movie, and I realize that it would have completely screwed up the moral of the story, but the whole movie I was rooting for Andie to end up with Duckie (even though the moral of the story would have changed from "Social class doesn't matter" or something like that, it would have changed to "stick with your social class because relationships that cross that line don't work out") but Duckie was actually such a better character than Blaine! Not just because he was funny, but because he was just all around the better man.

For instance, Andie and Duckie had a fight about Blaine because of the whole social class issue, but Duckie forgives her and escorts her to the prom anyways. Then when Blaine comes up and apologizes to Andie, and Andie's looking back at him, she looks pleadingly at Duckie. And rather than Duckie getting mad at her again, he says "You came to this prom alone." And he lets her go to him.

Duckie was also hilarious, and Andie was almost constantly mad at him, but he's awesome. For instance, he's trying to figure out how to tell Andie he loves her, and he starts like singing a song really loudly and dancing around Andie's room. And when Duckie got thrown into the girl's washroom by the guys he pissed off that were bigger than him, at first he's about to run out of the room, then he stops and looks around. "So, this is what it's like in here? What the heck?! Look at all this stuff! We don't have this stuff! Doors on the stalls! A candy machine! (pointing at the tampon dispenser) I'm not leaving until I see the principal in here right now! This is ridiculous!"

And Duckie was the character in the movie that was the most developed. You see him goofy, you see him angry, you see him in despair. He's a character that you can actually understand as a human being. You'd think Andie would be the most developed character, but it was Duckie. And he doesn't get the girl. Come one.

But the thing is, I am prepared to believe that Blaine actually had some character development, but that all the scenes that DID develop him just ended up on the cutting room floor (even though they kept in Duckie's random irrelevant musical interlude that has nothing to do with anything). It seems to me that John Hughes focused a lot more on Duckie than Blaine. Which would be fine, if Duckie were one of the main protagonists. But he's not, in fact he kind of plays the part of an antagonist through a bit of the movie. Blaine should be one of the main protagonists, but he's boring and not very likeable. So it's a very unbalanced movie that way.

What me and my mother decided was that Blaine was actually probably supposed to be kind of an intellectual rich kid - he did the cool thing on the computer chat, and he was an heir to a large electronics corporation. He's also rather awkward, like he doesn't quite fit in with the cool kids, but was thrown in with them because of his social status. All these threads were there, but they didn't serve any purpose to his character. They were just..... there. And as a result, his character simply didn't make a lot of sense, and was generally unlikeable (though he does have one or two charming moments).

Another thing that didn't make a lot of sense in that movie was the catty rich girls. Sure, Andie's clothes were handmade and weird and such, but it's kind of implausible that the main rich girl would go out of her way to insult her - it would make more sense if she just didn't care, if they sort of ignored each other. But the rich girl actually went out of her way to insult Andie, whispering insults to her in Calculus even though she didn't even know Andie's name, and then acting insulting to her while she and Blaine are there, and being insulting in gym..... she just seemed to go out of her way to be catty and nasty to her, which seemed weird because it would just make more sense if they just sort of didn't care about each other.

There were just a few pieces in that movie that were kind of lazy and strange. Kind of a mediocre movie, all in all. I give it 3/5 stars.

There, my longwinded review.

Thank you for your time.

Trust Us With Your Life: REVIEW

Honestly; it was hilarious.

As a person who loves talk shows and as a person who loves improv (well, watching improv), I must say it was a success. It's great to see Colin back in business on TV, great to see Wayne back to improv, and people like Jonathan Mangum in action..... it was just awesome to see some new TV improv again, especially after Improv-a-Ganza crashed.

I love the fact that they mixed it up - you know, a few games from Whose Line, a few games from Improv-a-Ganza, adding a few factors from a different game to a new game here and there, like changing the styles of it now and then.... a lot of it was like Hollywood Director, except without the actual director part, just the host changing the styles of the scene.

I heard someone saying they didn't much enjoy the premise of the show, about celebrities telling stories, and then our beautiful improvers acting out the story we just heard. And it is a weird sort of set-up, I suppose, but I honestly think it worked, and here's a few reasons why:

• It just about proves that they are, in fact, making it up as they go along. No script. Because who has ever heard of a script for a talk show? (I, of course, never doubted that for a second, but I know there are lots of people who have. And I believe it was Colin Mochrie who said "Who, when watching Whose Line, thought that we knew beforehand what was going to happen?" A few people clap. "Yeah? You people are bastards.")
• It was still funny. That's the point of the show, and it gets across, and that's really the main thing, isn't it? To make you laugh.
• It stays compelling. At least for people who like talk shows, anyways. And really, who doesn't like talk shows? The stories are still interesting and, you know..... amusing. And the scenes based off of them make them downright hilarious.

I really enjoyed the little touches they had, too, like cutting to the celebrity in question whenever something particularly outrageous happened. I love watching reactions, and the reactions of the celebrity are usually priceless. 

That being said, there were one or two things I think they could have done better, and hopefully that'll be improved upon as the series goes on (fingers crossed that it'll go to series!).

First of all, the stories. That was one thing that took away from the talk show part of the show. The host always asks for a particular story that he already knows about them. And that bugged me, it made it seem to me like the show was already set up with what stories he wanted them to act out. Looking at Conan as an example, he doesn't right out ask for the story. He'll say something along the lines of "I heard something about........ [insert story subject here]. Is that true? What was going on?" And I know Trust Us With Your Life isn't a talk show, it's not trying to be a talk show, and I know the interview part or whatever it is shouldn't take TOO much time....... we wouldn't want to take time away from our wonderful improv heroes. But make it more casual for god's sake. Don't force them into telling a story you haven't interested them in telling.

If it were up to me, I would have the performers themselves talking to the guests, taking turns talking to the guests. Sort of like they did on Improv-a-Ganza, where they took turns introducing the scenes and everything. That, for me, would be ideal, but I suppose on a show in this format you do sort of need a host, so I guess there's that.

All in all...... it was good. I liked it and it has definitely become my new Tuesday show. It was pretty great in fact, it made me laugh pretty hard. 

But let's not fool ourselves. It was no Whose Line. Whose Line had just the right collection of everything, it was a masterpiece, and nothing can live up to it. 

But Trust Us With Your Life was in fact, great. I rate it 8.5/10 stars, and to any lingering Whoser wondering, I recommend you watch it, just to see our boys back in action. 8) It's good, it's funny, it's interesting.... it's very well put together. Watch it.

Peace out

MeganH