Favorite Characters: Rich Hardbeck (Skins (U.K.))

As with most of my favorite characters on Skins, I like Rich because he’s such a mess.  Though, over the course of Gen 3, he gets his act together better than plenty of characters on that show, it’s his flaws that are most appealing.  As he teeters on the brink, you root for him to get it right.

At the outset, Rich is a terrific example of a textbook metalhead.  He’s got the leather, the chains, and the oppressive soundtrack to fit the tropes, and he even has cushy suburban parents to chafe against.  Every day, he meets the world with squared shoulders, prepared for the insults that will be tossed his way for being on the fringes.  He doesn’t mind it – he marches to a Rage Against the Machine beat, and he’s proud to be different.  The rub, of course, is that he’s only different within a very specific box.  He looks exactly like a metalhead; a single glance at him, and you know precisely what he’s about.  He talks about “never compromising,” about not being one of the mindless, homogenous masses, but everything about him is so carefully crafted to be a good metalhead.  He wears a shower cap to make sure his long hair looks sufficiently unwashed, and he takes his crisply-folded T-shirts out of his dresser only to crumple them into wrinkly balls. 

Additionally, he sneers just as much at the mainstream kids as they do at him.  It’s understandable – even ignoring the fact that preferred music is such an enormous, defining thing for a teenager, it’s natural to belittle people who make you feel small.  They can’t hurt you if you don’t care what they think.  However, this makes him quick to judge them, quick to write them off as frivolous, shallow, and conformist (and, obviously, as having horrible taste in music.)  When one of the popular crowd, sweet, friendly Grace, offers to help him out with a problem, he tells her she represents everything he despises and is too busy giving her attitude to realize what a great girl is.  He mocks her ignorance of metal even as he boasts his own ignorance of her music of choice:  ballet/classical, another genre outside the mainstream.

I love this storyline, because it gives Rich such an atypical plot for a character of his type.  Normally, teenagers on the fringes are plainly drawn as the victims, the plucky rebels tilting at the windmills of the vicious in-crowd.  The popular kids either remain antagonists, or they learn how cool and unique and special-snowflaky the outsiders are, opening their eyes to the greater possibilities outside their narrow boxes.  However, the fact that Rich is an insensitive little punk with a chip on his shoulder means that he gets to grow and mature.  He gets to change.  Now, he doesn’t start buying his clothes at trendy stores or listening to pop music or anything, because in the end, his story isn’t about the surface stuff on which it opens.  It’s about realizing that people are more complicated than their labels, and when he intentionally closes himself off, he can miss out on something wonderful.

As Rich lowers his walls, just a bit, we see how much more there is to him than the paint-by-the-numbers archetype.  He’s insecure, he’s clever, he’s surprisingly thoughtful when he wants to be, he’s a loyal friend, and when his limits are tested in season 6, he proves that he can push back.  When the dust settles at the end of this generation, I think he comes out the most mature of them all.  He’s the one who’s learned his lessons best, who’s been sharpened by adversity and, despite inevitable backslides into snap judgments and us vs. them posturing, who’s kept inching his way forward in terms of growth.  And after seeing where he started, you can’t help but feel proud of him.

Doctor Who: Series 9, Episode 0 – “Last Christmas” (2014)

Here comes your Sunday Who review two days early, and color me quite satisfied.  Not only is this one of the better Christmas specials Who has ever had and one of my favorite Twelfth Doctor stories so far (“Mummy on the Orient Express” and “Flatline” are still on top,) but it’s also probably the best Moffat-penned episode I’ve seen literally in years.

Santa is the second most-surprising figure to turn up on Clara’s roof late at night on Christmas Eve – the Doctor is back, and there’s an alien threat he’s anxious to protect her from/enlist her help to stop.  Soon, the pair are at the North Pole, where a scientific expedition has been set upon by dream crabs, creepy/gross alien parasites that look like the facehuggers from Alien and bore holes in your skull to eat your brain.  Yep, merry Christmas, everybody!  The dream crabs are so named because they induce a dream state in their victims while they’re busy digesting, and much of the episode is spent trying to determine what’s real and what isn’t.

Add another to the list of supremely Moffat monsters – the dream crabs fit right in with the Silence, the Weeping Angels, and their ilk, especially thanks to an odd and frightening trait of theirs:  they feed off the image of themselves in your mind, so the more you think about them, the stronger they grow.  There’s still more attention paid to cool moments and Shocking! Twists! than consistency and internal logic, and there’s one particular thread that gets completely dropped in favor of bigger fake-outs, but they’re still pretty decent monsters.  The story keeps you guessing in that old Inception way, and it plays nicely with classic dream tropes.  Plus, it’s really and truly scary in place, which is always a good thing for Doctor Who.

I was dubious about honest-to-goodness Santa, but he’s done pretty well.  There’s just enough irony, bite, and unpredictability to keep him from being too silly, and Nick Frost does a great job in the role (that makes three Spaced regulars who’ve guest-starred on Who, along with several of their recurring cast – gotta love that!)  I like his interactions with the Doctor, and I love the scenes where one of the expedition crew interrogates him about the plausibility of his existence.

Best of all, I’m feeling optimistic about the future of Twelve and Clara.  Granted, Clara has made breakthroughs before and fallen back into old patterns, but even apart from the big moments, their interactions are so much better here than in most of series 8.  You can see how they care about each other, and for the most part, you can see Clara really looking at him as the Doctor – the real Doctor, not just a consolation prize after Eleven.  They bicker a little, but that’s fine.  It feels fitting for both of them, but the affection is there as well, on both sides.  Can we keep them like this?  I want to love Clara, and I think I could with this version.  The Doctor himself is probing, clever, ornery, caring, funny (everything he ought to be,) no one goes on about what a terrible person he is, and he never slides into unlikeable dick Doctor.  (He’s still his usual not-a-ball-of-sunshine self, though; I love that about him.  One of my favorite moments is when Santa’s trying to rally the troops in a rather touchy-feely way, and the Doctor isn’t down with the hand-holding.  He agrees a bit begrudgingly to hold Clara’s, but no one else’s!  Too fun.)

Warnings

Some super-gross alien monstery-ness.

Top Five Christmas Episodes: Sitcoms

I love holiday episodes of TV shows, and while Christmas stories can be hit-or-miss – too sappy/cheesy, recycled storylines about obsessing over the “perfect gift” – I’ve seen some really fun ones as well.  These five episodes can be enjoyed any time of year, but they’re even better around the yuletide.

“My Own Personal Jesus” (Scrubs – Season 1, Episode 11)

Right off the bat, you have Turk’s childlike Christmas excitement compared to everyone else’s holiday fatigue (I love J.D. and Carla lethargically discussing their least favorite parts of the season, as well as J.D.’s forced cheerfulness about going to mass for “some church crackers!”)  The show doesn’t touch on Turk’s faith a lot, but it always does a nice job when it comes up, and it’s at its best here.  I like the storyline of the particularly ugly Christmas Eve on-call that leaves Turk leaving hopeless and abandoned, and his desire to find a sign that God is looking out for everyone who’s hurting.  Plus, how can you not love Dr. Cox as the Grinch?

“The Bath Gift Item Hypothesis” (The Big Bang Theory – Season 2, Episode 11)

Okay, I know I just griped about “finding the perfect gift” tropes, but it’s amusingly subverted here with Sheldon’s logic-fueled attempts to anticipate the value of Penny’s gift to him and find an exact equivalent.  I love the ending, which offers one of the first “sweet Sheldon” moments of the show.  Leonard’s right – it is “a Saturnalia miracle!”

“Comparative Religion” (Community – Season 1, Episode 12)

Sure, it’s a little convenient that every member of the study group is a different religion (and even more convenient that some of these religions are forgotten 98% of the time,) but it leads to a good storyline with Shirley’s put-the-Christ-in-Christmas party.  And we can’t forget the Dean as Mr. Winter, the over-the-top PC, completely nonspecified holiday figure of his own creation.

“An Eric Forman Christmas” (That ‘70s Show – Season 4, Episode 12)

Of course Eric’s efforts to direct the church Christmas pageant are plagued with mishaps and nearly doomed to failure.  His friends’ outrageous demands for their roles are excellent, I love the visual of Pastor Dave tied up with Christmas lights, and the “circle discussion” about Christmas specials is a classic (I especially like Kelso fiercely defending Rudolph’s sexuality.)

“How Lily Stole Christmas” (How I Met Your Mother – Season 2, Episode 11)

Here’s a Christmas episode with a bit of a bite, since it’s all about a feud between Lily and Ted that starts when she discovers the horrible, unnamed word he called her when she and Marshall were broken up.  Stealing all the Christmas decorations is very Aldrin justice – the visual of all of it hanging up in her tiny apartment is terrific – and the whole plot gives us some great scenes between Lily and Ted.  I also love Marshall’s stint playing Santa’s helper for the U.S. postal service.

Relationship Spotlight: Bertie Wooster & Reginald Jeeves (Jeeves and Wooster)

Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie got up to such wonderful work throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s that it’s hard to pinpoint the funniest stuff or the best moments, but their comedic chemistry in this Masterpiece adaption of P.G. Wodehouse’s stories is definitely up there.  Between the playful writing and the pitch-perfect performances, these two characters made the series something special.

Jeeves enters Bertie’s life when the blithely irresponsible rich man about town – plagued by meddlesome aunts and allergic to work – is brought before a judge over a drunken prank.  A “gentleman’s gentleman,” Jeeves is sent by an agency to be Bertie’s manservant.  His impact is felt the instant he arrives, thanks to his foolproof hangover cure, and despite Bertie’s insistence that he’s “not one of those fellows who become absolute slaves to their valets,” Jeeves is soon subtly running the show.

This is most evident, of course, in Jeeves’s many stratagems.  Between inheritance troubles, love woes, and social snafus, Bertie and his friends, all of whom have more gumption than sense, regularly get themselves into all manner of scrapes.  Pre-Jeeves, it seems Bertie has always been the one his chums turn to for solutions to their problems, and he prides himself on his overcomplicated, almost invariably-disastrous schemes.  So, it becomes a point of contention when Jeeves begins helpfully pointing out the flaws in Bertie’s plans – even worse when his friends start choosing Jeeves’s ideas over his own.  Bertie is both stubborn and self-assured enough that he always goes through with his endeavor first, despite Jeeves’s misgivings, but by mid-episode, he’s usually in dire need of Jeeves to save him from himself.

I like that Jeeves throws himself so devotedly and seriously into Bertie’s outlandish quandaries.  Unlike the silly, frivolous Bertie, Jeeves is a stiff, buttoned-up man who’s always interested in doing things properly, and his crisp, plummy diction sounds even more precise alongside Bertie’s easy, offhand slang.  Odd-couple comparisons are probably inevitable, but Jeeves doesn’t live eternally exasperated by the ridiculousness in which Bertie constantly finds himself.  Rather, he truly enjoys playing the strategist, no matter how inane the problem; sometimes, he even stirs the pot intentionally, bringing things to the brink of crisis before swooping in to save the day.

Often, this is to strike an advantageous deal with Bertie.  The two frequently get into minor battles over assorted issues; Jeeves takes particular exception to many of the less-than-gentlemanly articles of clothing Bertie buys in haphazard attempts to be in vogue.  (One of my favorite moments is when, upon discovering that Bertie has packed an especially offensive jacket in his luggage, Jeeves maintains, “I assumed it had got into your wardrobe by mistake, sir, or else that it had been placed there by your enemies.”)  As Bertie sinks deeper into a dilemma, Jeeves will hold on to the ace up his sleeve until Bertie is desperate enough to bargain away the sartorial affront.  In the end, the master is usually left scratching his head, wondering how the manservant wound up getting his way.  However, though Jeeves often lets Bertie flounder, he always comes through eventually, and like I said, I don’t think either would have it any other way.  When they clash to such an extent that they temporarily part ways, Bertie misses Jeeves’s stability and advice, and Jeeves misses Bertie’s predicaments and maneuvers.

Annie (2014, PG)

I was intrigued by this movie as soon as I heard the first rumors about it, and the trailer left me charmed and excited.  Unfortunately, the end result is an incredibly middling film on the lower end of the movie musical spectrum.  It has its good points, and I’m not sorry I saw it, but it’s not nearly what I’d hoped it would be.

In this updated version of the Depression-era story, Annie is one of five plucky foster kids unlucky enough to be saddled with Miss Hannigan, a boozy failed pop star who only fosters for the extra cash.  After a chance encounter with mobile mogul/mayoral candidate Will Stacks, our curly-headed hero is taken in by the billionaire, and what begins as a PR stunt naturally becomes something more genuine.  There are a number of new plot elements, many of which don’t quite work, but I appreciate the film’s effort to do something different with the story.

The best thing about the movie is Quvenzhané Wallis as Annie.  She’s so fun and likeable in the role – charming, savvy, and, of course, adorable.  I enjoy seeing her inventive problem-solving techniques, and she’s just generally so winning; if I were an emotionally-distant billionaire, I’d want to adopt her, too.  I also like her ragtag collection of foster sisters (“It’s a Hard-Knock Life” is easily the best number in the film,) Bobby Cannavale does a fine job as Stacks’s unscrupulous PR guy, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Tracie Thoms (Mahandra from Wonderfalls) pop up in a small role.

The best adjective I have for the singing is “lackluster.”  For the most part, the voices range from mediocre to awkward, and most of the songs aren’t filmed with much life.  I like the creative devices used for some of the numbers, especially “Little Girls,” and I like the way songs have been rearranged or rewritten to better suit the modern-day setting, but “It’s a Hard-Knock Life” is the only one that feels like a proper musical performance, energetic with a lot of personality.  Though Wallis isn’t a remarkable singer, she sounds perfectly passable – in her case, the trouble is the spark.  When she’s acting, she’s like a miniature charisma-bomb, but I don’t see that same engaging spunkiness when she starts singing.  I don’t know if it’s the direction, lip-syncing or sound-mixing issues, or maybe just nervousness about her singing, but she doesn’t feel as much like Annie during the numbers.  And she’s far from the only one; Bobby Cannavale has a similarly well-defined screen presence, but he seems listless during his one song.

For me, my favorite Annie is actually the TV movie from the late ‘90s.  It’s astonishingly imperfect (and honestly, so is the stage show,) but I enjoy it, and watching this movie made me nostalgic for the likes of Victor Garber, Alan Cumming, and Audra McDonald.

Warnings

Some drinking, a few veiled references to sexual content, and a bit of gross-out humor.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Doughboys (1930)

Another Buster Keaton MGM talkie, one that happily continues my trend of “really not all that bad.”  It’s a bit like Speak Easily, a decent-ish, unremarkable film.  Though it has a few memorable scenes, its chief sin is that it squanders its biggest asset:  Buster.

If the name didn’t give it away, Doughboys is a World War I comedy (probably not many of those.)  Buster plays Elmer J. Stiverson, a less memorable echo of his rich dandies in The Navigator, Battling Butler, and The Saphead.  Trying to secure a new chauffeur, Elmer mistakes the recruiting office for the employment bureau and accidently enlists.  The silver lining is that Mary, the girl he loves, is there as well, entertaining the troops.  Even better, while she turned up her nose at him back home, her opinion has improved now that he’s a brave soldier going off to fight for freedom.  Now if only they can make it to France and back in one piece.

The Good – Although Elmer isn’t as funny or well-characterized as Rollo in The Navigator or Alfred in Battling Butler, he’s a great improvement over the dopes in Free and Easy and Parlor, Bedroom and Bath.  What’s more, he’s fairly resourceful and proactive; he holds his ground against his sneering drill sergeant and even plays a pretty clever joke on him.  It’s great to see Buster again playing someone who can make things happen in his own story.  I’m also a fan of Mary, who might be my favorite MGM love interest so far.  She’s cool and gorgeous, and she and Elmer have sweet chemistry together.  I like the nods to Buster’s own military service, like Elmer’s ill-fitting uniform (he looks like a 14-year-old in his dad’s suit,) and there are a few standout moments.  There’s a great scene of Elmer singing and playing the ukulele with some fellow soldiers that’s a lot of fun, and Buster’s wonderfully acrobatic performance as an impromptu drag act in the company show is a riot.  Some of the dancing in this scene is  reminiscent of his dance with Fatty Arbuckle in Back Stage, and it’s made even more fun by Elmer’s attempts to extricate himself from the situation.  A great sequence, and very Buster.

The Bad – As perfect and hilarious as Buster’s tumbling is in the drag routine, there’s far too little of it.  This film is woefully short on physical comedy, and what little there is mostly features Elmer tripping unimpressively over things, with none of the eye-catching twists, flips, and rolls that Buster does so well.  Quick example –in the recruiting office, Elmer resists taking his clothes off for the physical, and the military doctor has to forcibly strip him.  Amusing, but over in… maybe thirty seconds?  A handful of years later, Buster reused this idea for the short General Nuisance, and the half-clothed scuffle that results is hysterical.  Here, though?  Hardly anything.  Additionally, Elmer and Mary’s cute dynamic is hampered by tired misunderstanding-based conflicts.  More than anything, though, it’s just a bland movie.  It’s not hugely funny – for the most part, the comedy only elicits bemused chuckles (the physical comedy in the drag scene being the major exception, because that’s simply outstanding.)  It’s just there, nothing special.  Given Buster’s incredible comic talents, he’s wasted in this okay-but-unmemorable film.

The Ugly – Really, there’s nothing to report here, and that’s nice.  Although the film itself is too staid to merit a lot of praise, it’s a relief to see Buster in an MGM movie without any cringe-worthy moments.  This is perhaps the reason it was Buster’s favorite from this period; even though he has more comedic material in, say, Parlor, Bedroom and Bath or Speak Easily, there’s nothing in it that feels like it was specifically included to humiliate him or break his spirit.  Yay?