Things That Just Occurred to Me

There's this commercial that's been airing for a little while -- couldn't say how long, but probably not more than a month or two -- with a bunch of twenty and thirty-somethings singing on buses and streets and whatever. Honestly, I rarely pay attention to commercials. Usually I read something or am on the computer during them, but I still hear them and usually when I see them I'm surprised by the product. So I finally see what this commercial is for, and it's for Smarties. For folks living outside Canada (because, as I've just learned, Smarties are only sold here), Smarties are a soft shell, colorful candy treat, not unlike M & Ms.

Which brought me to my realization: Why do they make Smarties when M & Ms are so much better?
It's not like anyone could possibly have an attachment to the Smarties product. They're smaller than M & Ms, which, by the way, come in a variety of different flavors too. You couldn't fit a nut inside a Smartie if you tried. And taste-wise they're really quite inferior to M & Ms, which have a harder candy shell, pack more chocolate, and top it off with their logo. Plus Smarties has had some of the most asinine advertising campaigns I've ever seen. "When you eat your Smarties, do you eat the red ones last?" -- what does that even mean? Compare that and the recent campaign that really has nothing to do with a soft-shell candy until the logo comes up at the end of the ad to the long-running M & Ms voiced by Billy West and J K Simmons and you come up woefully short.

Don't know why it took me so long to come to this realization, but it seems like it's been a long time coming. If you actually like Smarties, sorry if I disagree with you. But I honestly doubt anyone likes Smarties enough to write in to argue otherwise.

Thoughts as I'm Watching "Seinfeld"

I'm watching the sixth season of Seinfeld on DVD and two things come to mind.

1) Third Rock From the Sun wasn't a very good TV show. Sure, it had it's moments, but once the novelty of the premise and the performances wore off, there really isn't much there. It all boils down to the reason I stopped watching it during the run and why it died a slow painful TV demise -- there was just no progression and it was the kind of show that needed it. Not a big sweeping change to the status quo or anything, but some forward movement. If a show is based around a gimmicky premise, it's a necessity after a few years. I thought That 70's Show was running in circles after a while, but the core idea behind the show, that basically of teens hanging out, is solid enough there are directions to go with it organically. Third Rock From the Sun's premise is that they were aliens on Earth to study humans while pretending to be humans. Unless you do something to shake things up you're going to start repeating yourself after a while. Wouldn't have even needed to be a big change, maybe something as simple as Mary finding out the truth, or Sally marrying Officer Don while keeping the secret going. There were subtle changes to the status quo over the years on the show, but it invariably reset itself after a while, and that lack of forward momentum killed the show. Why bother with a new episode when you've seen the same dozens of times before?

2) What ever happened to that woman Kramer got pregnant in "The Chinese Woman" episode of Seinfeld? Not that they confirmed she was pregnant, but that whole thing seems an odd thing not to get back to.

Declarative George Sez: No More Voiceovers

Why does it seem like movie trailers are regressing to the way they were made in the 1980s? Not that the last ten years of movie trailers have always been great, but there's been a shift away from telling the audience what the movie's about, to showing them what the movie's about. And for the better, I must say. In fact, the norm has been that any telling is usually done via a text card or two. Granted it's a shame that means less work for your Don LaFontaines, but really, with the exception of trailers directed at children, there's really no need to have to beat your audience over the head with what your movie's about, because, quite frankly, it's not that hard to follow a two minute preview of a movie, and if you don't get it, all the more reason to check the movie out. Right?

The first sign was the "Horton Hears a Who" trailer. I'll concede that, yes, this is a movie aimed at children, so it's fine to spell things out for a five year olds who don't know what's going on. I do have a problem though when the Horton trailer is shown before "Superbad", to an audience presumably smart enough to follow what's going on and why it's going on. I mean, if you're going to advertise Horton before "Superbad", do us all a favor and make a trailer that doesn't seem like it was supposed have been shown before "Bratz". That said, I was fine with it. I mean, "Horton Hears a Who"? Of course they'd want a trailer that makes sure you follow everything. It's a kids movie, right? And because it stars Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell, sure you might want to advertise it before "Superbad" because there's probably a lot of folks there who like them too.

The reason why this has become an issue for me stems from another trailer I saw on HD net, on their program that shows new theatrical trailers for an hour or whatever. It's a mixed bag, but some of them are quite good, and they look great in HD. But there were a few, can't remember what they were, that stood out as being... quite frankly, amateurish, which is my way of saying they couldn't tell a story clearly enough on their own so they added a narration. It bugged me, but I don't think I thought much of them because they probably weren't important releases, and, really, they were a couple out of a dozen or so. Not cause for alarm really, but certainly they stood out enough for me to wonder why they had to have a narrator walk you through the synopsis instead of, I don't know, perhaps giving you the synopsis visually. Isn't that the point of film, to convey through visuals? The moving picture, as it were?

At this point I realize I'm harping on this like a little pissant. I mean, trailer narration? Really? How asinine a topic to give even a second thought to, no? But if you're like me, an avid movie-goer who likes to get there early enough to catch the previews and see if there's anything good or at the very least enjoy the surprise of a few minutes of movie that a trailer holds, then you're probably noticing that these throwbacks are a real threat to the modern trailer. And if you doubt me, think back to your favorite trailer, and odds are it didn't have a narrator holding your hand through the two minutes of story.

And in case you think I'm going too far with this, here's a new trailer that I think ably proves my point.



I know if I saw that in theaters I'd be pretty miffed. How about you?

Worse than the "Star Wars Christmas Special"?

I stumbled upon the fabled Legends of the Superheroes special from the late 70s on Youtube about a half hour ago and it's every bit as terrible as you'd assume it to be. It was a comedy program featuring very comic-accurate versions of a lot of big name and lesser known DC Superheroes. Normally that would be enough to capture my interest -- there is something neat about seeing characters from the printed page come to life -- but it's really bad. Like Star Wars Christmas Special bad, except no one wants to see this, and DC isn't worried about people watching it because, quite frankly, who would want to.

I'd considered posting the "roll call" intro clip here because of how cool it is seeing characters like Hawkman, the Flash, Huntress and Black Canary in live-action, but once it got to the villain roll-call, cool as it is to see very comic-accurate representations of Solomon Grundy, Mordru, and Weather Wizard (plus Frank Gorshin as the Riddler), it just killed me. The dreadful performances and weak attempts at humor punctuated by repetitious laugh-tracks is just terrible. That alone would warrant a look... that is if that were the worst the special had to offer.

No, the worst part of the Legends of the Superheroes would have to be the appearance of Ghetto Man: black superhero and cheerfully racist stereotype. With jokes about how having Green Lantern on the team doesn't count as colored superhero, and how Hawkman's not so tough ("Let him walk through Harlem them wings on; by the time he gets to Lennox avenue, he'd be Kentucky Fried") you really start why NBC, DC Comics, Hanna Barbara, and about four dozen cast and crew members, thought this was a good idea. And it gets worse -- when I started writing this post I started checking around to figure out which network this bloody mess aired on and discovered that there were actually TWO Legends of the Superheroes specials that aired! The first was the one with the villains, the second was the one with the roast (featuring our old friend, Ghetto Man).

The bright side to this whole thing is that hardly anyone even remembers these specials, and those that do or those like myself who've stumbled on it years after the fact unilaterally agree that it's absolutely terrible and should be erased from existence.

That said, here's a clip. And yes, I am being ironic.

After the Finale...

So, the JLU series finale aired. It was pretty good. The animation was sharp as always and some of the returning characters were surprising, but I'd be lying if I said I was totally satisfied with it. I was hoping that some of the character that popped up during the this season -- The General, King Faraday, Deadman -- would return since their last appearances were so open-ended. Granted the finale didn't really call for them to show up again, but from a story stand-point their returns were called for since the odds of getting closure at this point is nil. Also the big bad, however shocking and fun his final fight against Superman was, came out of left field and deprived the expected all-out brawl between the Justice League and the Legion of Doom. I think the problem with this season was the handling of the Legion.

The whole idea of doing the LoD is so you can have them square off against the Justice League. Of course, not doing this is a nice twist, but having the Legion as anything but direct adversaries for the Justice League is pointless when you don't actually care about any members of the Legion. Most of them were background fodder anyway with no prior animated appearances to draw from, and the few new villains that did get a moment in the spotlight -- Dr. Polaris, Atomic Skull, the Key, Silver Banshee, Sonar - received no development as characters at all. They were basically one-dimensional bad guys with gimmicks. The few villains that did show up from older series -- Metallo, Giganta, Toyman, Sinestro -- were included in episodes so overloaded with material they weren't given any chances to do anything new and lost any uniqueness that made them so memorable to begin with. The one "new" villain (a brief, non-speaking role aside) to pique my interest was Atomic Skull, and that was only because of his natural sounding voice contrasting with the fact he's a huge guy with a flaming green skull for a head.

But really, the big reason why the Legion failed as a season-long arc was that there was no depth to it. Cadmus worked because you had real people with understandable motives who didn't think they were evil -- they felt they had legitimate reasons to fear and strike against the Justice League. The Legion on the other hand, know they're evil. They just about say as much in several episodes. And, unlike Cadmus with it's rich multi-episode endeavors, the Legion only shined in the season premiere that introduced the team and set up the promising premise of an anti-Justice League, the Warlord and Viking Prince episodes that furthered the story and set up the intriguing idea that Grodd was willing to sacrifice members of his team to keep the Secret Society a true secret, the Deadman episode, and then the two part finale. The two other Society appearances throughout the season were either too brief, as in "Grudge Match", or played for laughs, as in "Great Brain Robbery".

The entire season moved away from episode-to-episode developments of JLU's first and second seasons and instead spent either half of the season on separate mini-arcs with the SS. This shift ultimately contributed to the lack of character development through JLU's final thirteen episodes and brought the show back to the arguably less refined style of the original Justice League series. It's frustrating as a fan because I've seen how well they can handle a mature Justice League Unlimited and made the season less satisfying on the whole.

That said, the finale packed a punch indeed with a great many shocks and surprises in the forms of shocking returns and the deaths of several DCAU vets. I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy it a great deal but the lack of any emotional connection to the characters coupled with the fact that the huge developments called for action over character meant there was little emotional resonance to the proceedings. J'onn's return was a nice touch -- I'd forgotten about him but remember hoping he'd come back during the season -- but Darkseid menacing the world again felt old hat at this point. I got charged up when the Daily Planet was destroyed, but Superman didn't even seem to care, much less worry about Lois Lane and company who were inside when it went down. I felt the same way when Hawkgirl got a spear thrown at her, only to have her shrug it off soon afterwards. What could have been a shocking, emotional moment became a throwaway bit.

So I enjoyed the finale. It was made all the more better watching it on Sean's 42" plasma screen with him, Kerr and Raf, JLU newbies all (and they actually started to like it too!) And with the finale so ends the DCAU proper. Sure there'll be things like the Superman DTV down the line, but I think this is a last real hurrah for these characters. It might not have been my favorite way of closing the curtains, but they still went out with style. Kudos all, and from someone who's been watching since that fateful Saturday in September 1992, thanks for the memories.

Religion and Politics

There are two polarizing topics I don't like to discuss: Religion and politics. Everyone has an opinion on both, and no matter what either side tells you, they're convinced they're right and if you don't agree with them, they'll hate you for it (even if they say they don't). Still, I've got to comment on Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers for the Supreme Court. It's just too much. I don't care much for the guy -- Iraq, Katrina, et al -- but nominating someone with zero judicial experience, likely (and this is where my reasoning behind not discussing politics comes into play) so she has no background for opponents to draw from or accuse her of flip-flopping, and definitely because she's a family friend, is a horrible way to make decisions. It's times like these I'm glad to be Canadian, because Bush isn't even trying anymore. He just does whatever the Hell he wants when he wants.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest...

So...

"Sweeney Todd" wrapped up and I can't say I'm too broken up. The show was actually very well done -- the cast did a fantastic job and the music, costumes and sets were all well done. I'm not eager to watch another version since I'm afraid the Theatre Aquarius show spoiled me (that and watching with an all youth cast will undoubtedly make a regular performance's cast seem woefully aged). But most of the time I felt like a redundancy around the set and since most of my work was really behind the scenes no one had any idea who I was or what I did (outside of being that creepy guy sitting back stage). I shouldn't have been too surprised, knowing theatrical actors and their elitest tendencies, but I suppose it's my own fault for going along with it.

I hope I don't seem too bitter or anything. Honestly it was a nice change of pace and something to add to the c.v, but most of the time it felt like everyone was in on the joke except me. As I've related, I felt like I was surrounded by people, but still felt totally alone.

And on that wonderfully depressing note...