Fishing With John

John Lurie is a very cool guy. He’s a talented composer and jazz musician who also happens to act and hangs out with cool people. Lurie made a tv show a few years ago called “Fishing With John” where he went out fishing with Jim Jarmusch, Tom Waits, Matt Dillon, Willem Defoe, and Dennis Hopper. There were 6 episodes produced (the Dennis Hopper one has two parts) and it’s not so much about fishing as it is about Lurie and his guests. Each episode follows the usual fishing show format, but things are a bit off. The narrator delivers tidbits of information and sometimes loses track of things and talks about sandwiches and just starts rambling. Highlights for me were the Tom Waits episode in Jamaica and the very odd ice fishing in Maine with Willem Defoe (where the narrator claims that they died). The show was written and directed by Lurie and some of episodes veer wildly around. They are entertaining and interesting to watch with an original soundtrack from Lurie. I’d like to see his latest show which is called “Are You Comfortable?” but I don’t know where to find it yet.

June 2, 2004 , , , , , , , ,

The Office Series 2

Stephen Merchant and Ricky GervaisI’ve watched a bit of the second series of The Office and I’m still impressed with it. It’s brilliantly written and performed and it is perched on a knife edge between comedy and pathos. It’s almost a bit painful to watch and it’s interesting to see how the popularity of the show may have altered how the actors and writers approached it. The second series kicks off with a funny little bit to let you know that things are back, but then it throws a few curves as David Brent’s new boss shows up and things just don’t go well for Brent with jokes going awry. What’s great is that any sympathy for Brent is undermined by his telling of a racist joke and how he tries to explain it. The Office is part of an increasingly growing subgenre of comedy that is painful at times to watch as you become invested in the characters. Curb Your Enthusiasm works in the same space as well as Ken Finkleman’s The Newsroom and his much more biting More Tears. What they seem to have in common is strong writing and casts that pull off the documentary feel which heightens drama as well as the comedy. I’ve only watched the first episode of the second series, but I looked at the amazing video diary by co-writer/directors Stephen Merchant and Ricky Gervais as well as the outtakes. One thing that I think always shows on the screen is how good a time people are having working on a show. The best shows are fun to work on. It looks as if working on The Office would have been great fun. I’m looking forward to more from Gervais and Merchant.

April 21, 2004 , , , , , , , , ,

Sports Night

Last week I was able to get the full series of “Sports Night” on DVD. It’s a 6 DVD set with the pilot, first and second seasons on it. I remember watching it when it was airing normally and becoming completely sucked in to it. It wasn’t a comedy and it wasn’t a drama. Unfortunately many of the episodes had a laugh track that ruins some of the pacing and subtlety of the writing and later episodes were thankfully free of the canned laughter.

“Sports Night” was a series created by Aaron Sorkin before “The West Wing.” It was odd in that it was a half-hour “dramadey” which had elements of a sitcom and drama in the shorter slot. With a great ensemble cast and rapid-fire dialogue, it is clear that CBS didn’t really know what to do with it. The show was a critical hit, but I remember that it was hard to find it with a time slot that changed and a sporadic airing and a slow decision not to renew the show. The DVD falls into the category of corporate tolerance in that it crams 45 episodes onto 6 discs, which means that the are fairly highly compressed with a bit of a loss of the visual quality. There are also no special features, but the episodes themselves are great. I’d put it in the same category as “Monkeybone”, “Ghost World”, “The Guru”, and “Mr. Show” in that they stretch beyond easy categories and you have to look around to find them. Now I have to find the time to dip in and keep watching all of the episodes… all 22 1/2 hours of them!

July 2, 2003 , , , ,

Six Feet Under

Some time last year, late one night during a free trial or when I was somewhere that had a cable channel that I don’t subscribe to, I saw a chunk of the pilot of the series “Six Feet Under.” What caught my attention was seeing Peter Krause who starred in the excellent “Sports Night” series… I thought that it was an episode of “Sports Night” that I hadn’t seen, but I realized that it wasn’t. The first season is out on DVD now and I watched the first 3 episodes. The series was created by Alan Ball who made “American Beauty” and they share some elements. The drama is built around a family-owned funeral home and part of what I liked is the way that the family history and tensions emerge in the early episodes…it looks great and has a great ensemble cast who all seem to have deep roots in theatre… The family chemistry is great with a neat dynamic between mother, brothers and sister with a somewhat wacky employee thrown in. I want to see the rest of the episodes and I’m looking forward to checking out the second season as well.

March 5, 2003 , , , , , , , ,

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