Arrested Development: Season One (2003)

Say What You Will About America; Thirteen Bucks Still Gets You a Hell of a Lot of Mice.

I don’t often get requests to review TV shows, which I generally regard as a blessing, since a review of a TV show can take quite some time and I’ve never found myself particularly good at it.  But, when today’s TV show was requested, I was actually quite happy about it.  Not happy about getting to write a review of it, as I’m not nearly as practiced at it as I am with movies and even video games.  What I was happy about was getting to watch the TV show.  I’d never seen a single episode of this show as I tend to not keep up with television that much, so much so that I actually cancelled my cable service because I could do without the greater majority of them.  But I’d heard so much about how awesome this TV show was I was happy to have a reason to watch it.  So happy, apparently, that I actually bombed through all 22 episodes of the first season in one day.  Let’s see if it can live up to the hype as I review the first season of Arrested Development, created by Mitchell Hurwitz, and starring Jason Bateman, Portia de Rossi, Will Arnett, Tony Hale, Jeffrey Tambor, Jessica Walter, Michael Cera, Alia Shawkat, David Cross, Henry Winkler, Judy Greer, Liza Minnelli, Patricia Velásquez, Carl Weathers, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Jay Johnston, Jerry Minor, Amy Poehler, Ian Roberts, Justin Lee, Jane Lynch, James Lipton, and John Michael Higgins.

George Bluth Sr. (Jeffrey Tambor) retires as the founder and CEO of the Bluth Company and is promptly arrested for spending the company’s money on personal expenses.  Bluth’s wife, Lucille (Jessica Walter) takes over as CEO, naming her extremely sheltered youngest son, Buster (Tony Hale), the president.  The middle son – and the only son actually equipped to run a business – Michael (Jason Bateman) leaves the company as a result, but comes back when they all realize they need him, and because his own son, George Michael (Michael Cera) wants to stay with the family.  Mainly because he’s developed a crush on his cousin, Maeby (Alia Shawkat), daughter of Michael’s sister Lindsay (Portia de Rossi) and her husband Tobias (David Cross).  The majority of the family lives in one of the Bluth model homes, with the rest of them, including the oldest brother Gob (Will Arnett) the aspiring magician, visiting frequently to try to borrow money from Michael as he tries to save the company while not even knowing what his father got into.

I don’t know if I’d say that this show has lived up to the hype so far, but it’s certainly not the fault of the show.  From what I had heard, I half expected to be laughing non-stop while watching.  That wasn’t what happened, but I found the show to be extremely well written, very funny, and even funny enough to get me to laugh out loud on more than one occasion.  The first episode was a little disappointing, but it seemed to mainly be all of the setup to get all of the backstory out of the way, but they pick up their speed pretty quickly after that.  The jokes mainly come from how ridiculous the family are, and are often shown in quick cutaways, almost like a live action Family Guy.  And, more often than not, my favorite part of the episode was actually the very end, where they show scenes from the next episode that may or may not actually happen, but they work very well as rapid fire jokes.  And a lot of the jokes were pretty smart too.  I liked when Gob got literally stabbed in the back as Michael was figuratively stabbing him in the back.  I was also a fan of the part where a guy said to Michael, “If you care about your brother, you’ll get in the car,” and Michael said, “Which brother?” and then, when the guy answered, “Gob,” he kept riding away.  Later, when George Michael was trying to find out if he was actually related to Maeby and he asked Gob if Lindsay was ever pregnant, Gob answers, “Oh yeah, dozens of times.”  I also like the part where George Bluth was talking about his twin brother and says, “You should’ve seen his face,” but then remembers that they’re twins and shows him what the face looked like.  A lot of the jokes seemed extra smart and well thought out as so many of them come together in the final episode, though this could’ve been done without planning to do it before hand.  I also liked a lot of the jokes that went on in the background, like when Gob was complaining about his girlfriend the Mexican soap opera star and saying that he’d kill someone if he ever had to smell some Mexican dish again, and the maid in the background closes her Tupperware that she was eating out of.  The story was never super important to the quality of the show, but there were a couple of reveals that were pretty obvious.  The whole part about “there always being money in the banana stand” could be seen coming from miles away, as well as the part about the blind lawyer being the Bluth’s opposing prosecutor in the trial.  Hell, they even outright spoil one themselves in the scenes from the next episode by saying that the lawyer isn’t really blind, but they say so many things in those next episode sequences that I didn’t know if it was true or a joke.  If it sounds like I’m just listing some of my favorite jokes from the show … well, I am.  But the show is well-written and funny, so you should watch it.

I liked all the performances in the show as well.  The greater majority of them are people that I liked going in, so it’s not really a surprise to me.  Jason Bateman plays a fantastic straight man, though he’s not above getting a little wacky himself.  It’s not too necessary in this show as his family does the bulk of the goofiness.  I was torn on the rest of the family for a while since most of them seemed like such unlikeable people I didn’t know why I’d want to spend time with them.  But you warm up to them fairly quickly.  I warmed up to Portia de Rossi because she was hot, especially when she was being sprayed by water and dancing in a cage in one of the later episodes.  I warmed up to Will Arnett because I’ve always liked him, and because he was one of the characters that started a lot of the funniness.  He also had his real life wife Amy Poehler in a few episodes as the wife he eloped with, and I’m always happy to see her as well.  I didn’t know Tony Hale before this show, but he gets a lot of funniness out of his Buster character.  I liked that he was able to get laughs from things as simple as standing silently in the background of scenes.  David Cross did a great deal of the comedy as well, as his character seemed totally gay and totally eccentric.  I liked the little physical things he did, like when he rolled up on the stage at the school play, or when he licked the end of his pencil and then kept licking it like he liked the taste.  He also got to work with Bob Odenkirk again in one episode, and those guys are genius together.  Michael Cera was an odd one for me.  Not because his performance in this show was not dissimilar from many of his other characters, but because of his relationship with his cousin Alia Shawkat.  Even though his crush on his cousin is pretty inappropriate, I found myself kind of wishing they would end up together.  I also liked Judy Greer in her few appearances as the assistant to George Bluth.  She’s a pretty attractive lady and I thought it was pretty funny when Gob would have her take off her glasses and her eyes would go cross-eyed, and she’d let down her hair and it’d go all crazy, and later she got a boob job and her nipples seemed to be pointing in odd directions.  Another big thing about the show is all of the guest appearances.  Liza Minnelli was in a few episodes, and was pretty damned funny as well.  Henry Winkler was usually funny as the inept lawyer, and he even busted the Fonze move in one episode.  Jane Lynch, Heather Graham, Carl Weathers, and a bunch of other random guest appearances were also great.

I’m sure a crappy show could not have kept me interested enough to actually get through 22 episodes of the first season in one day, but that was thankfully not the case with Arrested Development.  It was extremely well-written, very funny, and with fantastic performances to back it all up.  I don’t want to do it too soon and have the next review follow too quickly, but I can’t wait to get into the second season.  And, since you can stream the whole thing on Netflix, I don’t know why you’re not doing it right now.  Turns out my Friendboss Josh isn’t so much of an asshole after all.  Arrested Development Season One gets “That was a good investment” out of “It was shoplifting and I’m white.  I think I’m going to be okay.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Men in Black II (2002)

The Last Suit You’ll Ever Wear … Again.

Still leading up to my review of the newest addition to the Men in Black movie, we come to the second movie in the series.  After the popularity gained by the first movie, it seemed obvious that they would follow it up.  But there’s always a bit of trepidation going into a follow up movie because they are usually rushed and/or forced which has a negative effect on the quality of the product.  I really have no predisposition towards the answer on this one because I have barely any memory of the movie.  I remember thinking the first movie was very fun, but I have no memory of the second.  So let’s find out how it went in my review of Men in Black 2, written by Robert Gordon and Barry Fanaro, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Lara Flynn Boyle, Rosario Dawson, Johnny Knoxville, Rip Torn, Tim Blaney, Tony Shalhoub, Patrick Warburton, Jack Kehler, David Cross, Colombe Jacobsen, John Alexander, Peter Graves, Biz Markie, Nick Cannon, Jay Johnston, Martha Stewart, and Michael Jackson.

After the events of the first movie, Men in Black agent J (Will Smith) has become the top agent for the secret government organization.  A challenge arrives for him in the shape of a shapeshifting Kylothian queen named Serleena, who disguises herself as a lingerie model (Lara Flynn Boyle).  She recruits a stupid, two-headed alien duo Scrad and Charlie (Johnny Knoxville) and sets about her task of finding the ”Light of Zartha”.  When J finds out about it, the chief of the Men in Black, Zed (Rip Torn), says that the only person that might know about what happened to the Light is J’s former partner, Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones), who had his memory erased by the neuralyzer at the end of the last movie.  J must find K and get his memory back so they can find the Light of Zartha before Serleena does.

I don’t think this movie was nearly as bad as many people did, but the movie does hurt my feelings a little.  At the end of the first movie, it was a sad and poignant moment when J had to neuralyze K so that he could go back to his old life.  This movie just shits right on that by going exactly backwards from it.  It’s preferable to the alternative of leaving K out of the movie because K was a great character, but it does deflate that moment from the first movie significantly.  The mystery in this movie is a little better done, as it becomes a treasure search once K has been brought back into the picture.  They follow clues to finally reach their destination and it’s an interesting new way to go about the story of their movie.  There were some good jokes in this one, but I felt like they really took it easy in some places.  Most of the jokes they went through in the middle of the movie were just the reverse of the same jokes they made in the first one.  Things like giving the “Noisy Cricket” to K, and even using some of the same exact lines, but his time it was J saying them to K.  The look of the movie has not changed drastically for this movie.  It’s still really good and really creative.  I would say the only thing that I would count as an improvement in this movie is the song that Will Smith made for it.  Nod Ya Head is a much better song than Men in Black, and I don’t care who knows that I think this.

The returning performances for this movie were of the same quality, but I would say the new additions do nothing to help the film.  Will Smith is mostly just as charming and funny as he was in the first movie, but he came off as a bit of a dick for the first part of the movie when he was too preoccupied being the best MiB agent.  I like him better as the fish out of water, but he gets back to that.  Tommy Lee Jones is pretty much unchanged in this movie.  He’s still a great compliment to Will Smith.  Lara Flynn Boyle didn’t work for me though.  She was great to look at, especially when she was in her underwear, but she was not at all intimidating as the main bad guy in the movie, and she was barely convincing to boot.  Johnny Knoxville played the role as classic comic relief, but was completely hit or miss.  Rosario Dawson was great in the movie, however.  Not only am I always happy to look at her, but she’s got this great charm to her that makes you instantly like her and seemed like she would be a great compliment to Will Smith.

Altogether, Men in Black 2 makes no drastic steps forward, but does make a few steps backwards, though not enough backwards to make the movie a bad movie.  It’s just inferior to the original.  It’s still pretty funny, but some of the jokes are easy, it’s still got a good story with a little more mystery to it, and the performances that return to the movie still bring it, though Rosario Dawson is the only new performance that’s any good.  But Men in Black 2 still manages to become a fun watch, so I’d still recommend it.  I own both, and it probably wouldn’t hurt for you to own it as well.  Men in Black 2 gets “I’ve dated worse” out of “Your brain needs to reboot.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Men in Black (1997)

We’re Not Hosting an Intergalactic Kegger Down Here

After watching Snow White and the Huntsman, I felt I had the time to catch a second movie, but we’ll get to that in a couple of days.  This movie was the third part in a trilogy, so it stands to reason that I would review the first two movies first.  I remember the other two movies as being very funny, really cool, and really imaginative.  But, as with so many movies, you never really know how well they’re going to hold up to the scrutiny of today.  We’ll find out in my review of Men in Black, written by Ed Solomon, directed by Barry Sonnenfeld, and starring Will Smith, Tommy Lee Jones, Vincent D’Onofrio, Linda Fiorentino, Rip Torn, Tony Shalhoub, David Cross, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Mike Nussbaum, John Gries, Tim Blaney, and Richard Hamilton.

A member of a secret organization called the Men in Black named Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones) is left without a partner when his previous partner (Richard Hamilton) is proven to be too old to do the job anymore.  Meanwhile, James Darrell Edwards III (Will Smith), a NYPD officer chases down a strange man on foot that has two pairs of eyelids and can climb walls.  When he catches him, he tells him that the world is coming to an end and jumps off the roof.  Needless to say, his peers at the precinct don’t believe him, but K does.  After getting the information from him he needs, he uses a device that erases his mind called a neuralyzer, but having seen his potential, also gives him a card to come and potentially become a Men in Black agent.  Though one could say he did less than stellar on the tests, K talks the Agency leader, Zed (Rip Torn), into taking him on.  James Darrell Edwards III loses his identity and becomes Agent J.  Their first case together involves a large, cockroach-like creature wearing the skin of a farmer named Edgar (Vincent D’Onofrio) and looking for something called “The Galaxy”, which is apparently located on Earth.  Finding it would mean the destruction of the Earth, so the Men in Black must intervene.

Men in Black is a really fun and imaginative movie.  It was one of the most fun movies that I can presently remember from my high school days, and it completely holds up.  The writing is pretty basic science fiction fare with a few twists and turns so as to not be predictable and with enough comedy to set itself apart.  At its core, it’s just about the regular stuff of saving the world from destruction by an alien race, but it adds the fish out of water thing with J having to deal with all sorts of things that he was previously unaware of their existence.  Will Smith’s character adds the bulk of the comedy because of this fish out of water stuff.  One of my favorite comedy moments for Will Smith is when he’s in the shooting range to audition for the Men in Black and he shoots only the little girl cutout.  His explanation for why he chose to shoot her is fantastic.  They don’t do very much drama in this movie, and that’s what keeps it fun.  All of the drama stuff is because of K, who we quickly find out is pining over the woman he loved who he can’t keep in touch with because of his job.  That gets a satisfying wrap up in the end.  The part where they save the world from the aliens is almost secondary, but it’s still interesting.  The cockroach creature in the Edgar suit is intimidating in any one of its incarnations.  When it’s wearing the Edgar suit, its skin is hanging off its bones making it look pretty gross, but pretty cool as well.  There’s a bit of a mystery to this part of the story because they’re told the galaxy they’re looking for is on Orion’s Belt, and they need to figure out what that means, but the mystery doesn’t take that long.  The look to this movie holds up very well.  I really like their opening of watching a fly travel down a highway until it’s plastered across a windshield.  The aliens look very good, both in their animatronic forms and their computer generated forms.  It’s all very stylized and cool.  In fact, I figured from the look of it that Tim Burton had something to do with it, but I think it was just the Danny Elfman music that gives that feel to it.

The greater majority of the performances work very well in this movie.  Will Smith is always a delight to watch.  He’s very funny in this movie and even has a few minutes where he gets to be awesome.  Take, for instance, when he was facing off with the cockroach near the end of the movie and he tells the giant, sinister cockroach to ease up out of his face.  He pulls that stuff off just as well as he pulls off the comedy.  Tommy Lee Jones’ most impressive stuff in this movie is the emotional parts.  He doesn’t go over the top with it, but it’s clearly there.  The bulk of the comedy he’s involved with is as a straight man, and he does that fantastically.  Vincent D’Onofrio was a difficult one for me though.  He definitely played the Edgar suit version of himself in an intimidating way, but he also kind of hammed it up at times.

Men in Black was one of the most fun movies of my high school years, and it stands up to the memories I had of it.  At its core, it’s not the most brilliant or innovative story, but the comedy and the creative look it brings sets it apart from the basic sci-fi fare.  And all of the performances in the movie do well to help the movie accomplish the fun it sets its sights on, even though D’Onofrio may go a bit over the top at times.  Men in Black is a great movie that should be in any collection.  Tomorrow, we’ll find out about the sequel.  Men in Black gets “I make this look good” out of “You’ll get used to it … or you’ll have a psychotic episode.”

Let’s get these reviews more attention, people.  Post reviews on your webpages, tell your friends, do some of them crazy Pinterest nonsense.  Whatever you can do to help my reviews get more attention would be greatly appreciated.  You can also add me on FaceBook (Robert T. Bicket) and Twitter (iSizzle).  Don’t forget to leave me some comments.  Your opinions and constructive criticisms are always appreciated.

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004)

Technically Speaking, the Operation IS Brain Damage

Today’s movie came as a suggestion from a coworker named Eric. When he suggested this movie, I found myself getting a little worried because, though this movie stars one of my favorite actors, it’s a total artsy fartsy movie. I generally hate artsy fartsy movies. And what made it worse (and perhaps a little apt) was that I have seen this movie before, I own this movie on DVD, but I really don’t remember anything about it beyond the fact that one of the actresses has blue hair in it. I’m going into this movie fresh because I don’t remember anything about it, but trepidatious because I don’t remember liking it. Let’s see what I think now in my review of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, co-written by Charlie Kaufman, co-written and directed by Michel Gondry, and starring Jim Carrey, Kate Winslet, Tom Wilkinson, Kirsten Dunst, Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, David Cross, Jane Adams, and Deirdre O’Connell.

Joel Barish (Jim Carrey) wakes up one day in a mood. A mood that is not helped when he goes downstairs and realizes his car has, inexplicably, been damaged. He decides at random that he’d liked to ditch work and go to Montauk. Here, he meets a lady with blue hair named Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet). At first, the emotionally withdrawn and nervous Joel is put off by Clementine’s free spirit, but she pretty much forces him into a relationship with her. As he waits for her to come out of her apartment, Patrick Wertz (Elijah Wood) knocks on his window and asks what he’s doing there. We start to unravel that Joel and Clem had once been in a two year relationship with each other, but had a messy break up. So messy, in fact, that Clem decided she wanted to have her memory of Joel erased completely. Joel hastily elects to undergo the same procedure, going to Lacuna, Inc and meeting receptionist Mary Svevo (Kirsten Dunst), Doctor Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson), and technician Stan Fink (Mark Ruffalo). Joel starts undergoing the procedure and we watch him walk through his quickly disappearing memories, but he starts regretting his decision to forget Clem and tries to fight it, but he can’t because he’s asleep.

Though I find it very appropriate that I forgot everything about this movie, I wonder why I did. I actually kind of liked this movie even though it included many things I hate in movies. I’m not a fan of artsy movies because I think they mostly like to be confusing and absurd in order to claim they are meaningful. I don’t like movies that confuse me because it’s usually a sign of piss-poor writing. And, above all, I don’t like movies where Jim Carrey isn’t raucously funny throughout! But this movie is pretty touching, even for a guy with little to no experience in what the movie is about. The only time I’ve ever broken up with someone was a joyous occasion for me, but the story is a concept that normal people (who don’t consider their Xbox their girlfriend) have experience with: wishing you could forget someone you once loved. The movie starts off a little bit grating, before you realize why the movie is being conducted in the manner it is, with it’s quick cuts and constant blur over the movie, but when you find out that they underwent this memory loss procedure, it kind of makes sense. The fact that the middle part of the story was told in flashback (with no real indication that it was a flashback), did make the story a little hard to follow for me. It only becomes really clear around the end of the movie why it started with the beginning of their relationship and instantly jumped to the end. And all the little flashbacks within the bigger flashback did start to make me lose track of where I was in the story. It did manage to bring it all together so that I knew what was happening by the end.

The effects of this movie were pretty trippy, but also pretty interesting. When we were inside Jim Carrey’s memories, they reminded us of our location and showed us how these memories were dissolving around us. Jim Carrey would walk seamlessly from a book store into his friends’ living room with no discernible cut, he would be following Kate Winslet towards the bathroom and she would suddenly be in the kitchen, people’s faces would be missing, scenery would be disappearing behind him as he ran away from it, and then other memories would just be downright warped, like turning Elijah Wood’s eyes upside down on his head. A little disconcerting? Sure, but the effects told a story in and of themselves by showing what was happening to his memories.

The performances were one of the best parts to this movie. Though I prefer my Jim Carrey’s to come in Ace Ventura-like forms, I understand his need to do a more reserved, emotional role every now and then. Actor’s don’t like to be typecast, even if it’s for doing something you’re amazing at. Though I found her character to be pretty tedious, I didn’t blame Kate Winslet. I know she’s a good actress, but that character was just written to be the type of person I don’t ever want to be around. She gets all up in Jim Carrey’s Kool-Aid on the train, and they don’t even know each other. I’m too nice to tell her to fuck off, but she would’ve worked on my nerves by getting into my business, and then overreacting and jumping down my throat because I said “nice” too much. Well go back to YOUR seat then, bitch! Also, just because you’ve decided to call yourself an impulsive, free spirit does not give you cause to use that as an excuse for being a twat. But, again, I was annoyed by the character and not the actress. Winslet pulled off some great moments of manic-depression as her memory loss procedure hadn’t gone too well. She’d be crying one second, then happy the next, as if she didn’t remember what she was supposed to be feeling at the moment, and she pulled it off very well.

I didn’t love this movie, but I found myself pretty fond of it. The story is good and relatable, but gets kind of confusing in the flashbacks and double flashbacks. The effects of the movie are well done and do their part to tell the story instead of being there instead of having a story, but some of them were kind of off-putting. And the performances were all very well executed, but I know I would’ve hated that Clementine. I own this movie, so I didn’t bother checking to see if you could stream it or not, but I do assume it’s available to rent on Netflix. I don’t feel confident in saying that everyone will like this movie, especially as I apparently only half liked it myself. I found it to be a pretty interesting (albeit confusing) story about the moments that happen right after love with good meaning, and it was pretty endearing. I will recommend you at least give it a shot. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind gets “It’s going to be gone soon. What do we do?” out of “Enjoy it”.

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