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Quiz: Is this my niece Lindsay from a few days ago, or is it Courtney Love at age 2?

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I sampled most of the season’s new offerings last month and wound up adding several to my regular roster. With some, the luster faded after a few episodes.

For example, “The Class” started out funny and emotionally involving — rare for a sitcom — then quickly became formulaic and only mildly funny, very much like every other sitcom.

I was thrilled with the first few episodes of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip,” then realized I’m only interested in the behind-the-scenes TV stuff, NOT the characters. Last week’s episode, which didn’t deal with the production of their TV show at all, is what made me realize it. In the first few minutes there was an exchange between the director and one of the cast members right after a show — “Your sketch ran 15 seconds long! We had to steal it from ‘News 60′!” “Sorry, people laughed. I wasn’t expecting it either” — and that was more fascinating to me, as a TV junkie, than anything that followed. “Studio 60″ is still amusing and full of cracking good dialogue, but I’m not nearly as engaged as I was at first.

And then there are some that started out good — good enough to put on the TiVo list — and only got better. Here are three.

“Heroes.” Yeah, everyone’s talking about “Heroes.” As well they should! I liked the premise, thought the pilot was solid but not spectacular … and have then been increasingly blown away with each subsequent episode. There are enough answers given to keep us satisfied, yet tantalizing mysteries remain, too. It’s a plot-oriented series, with twists and turns and surprises every week, yet the characters are intriguing, too.

“Friday Night Lights.” I know, it’s about a high school football team, and you don’t care about football. NEITHER DO I! Each of the episodes so far has brought a tear to my eye, or almost, anyway. It’s a sophisticated, funny, emotional look at a small Texas town where high school football rules, and where the people are mostly honest, good, decent folks. In the first episode, the golden boy quarterback broke his back during a game. Subsequently, we’ve followed his progress in the hospital while also seeing the team (and the town) deal with it. The second-string QB, a good kid who cares for his senile grandmother while his father’s in Iraq, is in over his head as the new starting QB. The team is close to mutiny, wanting to win but needing to support their coach. The coach juggles his wife and daughter with his responsibilities to the team. There’s so much going on, so many characters and so many emotions, that I look forward to the show every week. The ratings have been lackluster, however. Find it on NBC on Tuesdays (not this week, though; it aired on Monday this week).

“Help Me Help You.” This new sitcom has done pretty well in the ratings, so apparently people are watching it, but I haven’t heard anyone talk about. It’s funny! It stars Ted Danson as a shrink who runs a weekly group-therapy session for five people of varying nutcase-ness. Each episode focuses on Danson’s personal life (trying to get back with his ex-wife, being a vain and pompous Sam Malone type, etc.) with secondary plots involving a couple of his patients in their own lives. The writing is peppy and smart, the delivery impeccable, the timing similar to the rhythm “Arrested Development” had. (Not having a laugh track to get in the way certainly helps.) A couple weeks ago we saw Danson’s character in a group therapy session with other group therapists. One of them was played by Jonathan Katz — aka “Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist.” Perfect casting! The next week had Danson with some of his psychiatrist buddies trying to start their own little rock band. (One of them was Michael McKean.) Some of the names they came up with for the band were Shoq Therapy, Id Sync, Free Association, The Jungbloods, Flock of Egos, Couch, and Pink Freud. I don’t care where you’re from, that’s comedy.

About five years ago, some Mormon writers banded together to create The Sugar Beet, an LDS-culture version of The Onion, featuring satirical fake news stories. I was one of the writers in that first crew, but then I wandered off after a few months to pursue other interests. The project continued, both as a Web site and briefly as a print publication.

Some of the best material from The Sugar Beet’s entire run has now been collected in a book, “The Mormon Tabernacle Enquirer,” available at fine retailers such as Amazon.com or directly from the distributor, Zarahemla Books.

I got my copy in the mail today, and it’s very funny. Anyone with an LDS background (and especially those who have lived in Utah) who also has a sense of humor should find it highly amusing, dancing right on the edge of light-heartedness and light-mindedness.

Some of the articles don’t entirely work because they’re not written in the style of real news stories, and some of the ideas are kinda lame to begin with. But the other 90 percent of the book is a hoot, with headlines like these:

“Area Man’s Mission Years Really Were His Best”
“Cereal and Cheddar Fish Miracle Occurs in Nursery”
“Missionary Now Curses with Near-Native Proficiency”
“BYU-Idaho Students Relieved Austin Powers Movies Aren’t R-Rated”
“Man’s Addiction to Wife Destroying Relationship with Porn”
“Poll Reveals Majority of Men ‘Highly Satisfied’ with Patriarchy”
“Inner Child Found, Baptized”

For me, some of the most laugh-out-loud stuff is in the form of Onion-style “man on the street” interviews and statistical charts. For example:

What phrases do you not want to hear in a patriarchal blessing?

“Morning of the third resurrection”
“Flesh-eating”
“Lazy, shiftless rat-bastard”
“Unfortunate series of events”

Or this:

Brigham Young University has renewed its emphasis against bare midriffs. What do you think?

“It’s a woman’s responsibility not to tempt men, while being sexy enough to make me want to marry her and have babies.”

“I think we should just start pretending that none of us have any naked parts, ever, anywhere.”

“If the girls all cover up, who are we going to blame for our impure thoughts and actions?”

“Well, it makes more sense than the rule against beards. After all, Brigham Young never appeared in public with a bare midriff.”

My one contribution to the book appears on page 72: “Name Withheld Takes Own Life,” in which it is imagined that those inspirational Ensign articles written by “Name Withheld” are the work of the same person, whose name really is Name Withheld, and that all the personal traumas she wrote about finally cracked her. I’m told The Sugar Beet got angry letters as the result of this article when it was first printed, which makes me happy.

So go buy the book. Approximately 1/330th of it was written by me, so I think that means I get royalties. For occasional updates and more samples, visit The Sugar Beet’s blog.

Here are some more e-mails sent to symone.raven@gmail.com, an address that does NOT belong to Raven-Symone, but because Raven’s fans are dumb (i.e., they are children), they think it does. So they write to it all the time. This entry has more details on how this phenomenon came to be.

CHILDREN’S LETTERS TO RAVEN-SYMONE

Dec. 30, 2005:
Hi Raven!! I’m so happy I got your e-mail address! Well my name is Meg and I’m 10 years old! I live in Minnesota. I’m such a big fan! I love thats so raven on disney channel! you are so pretty and nice. you are my role model! and your hilarious!! I hope you had a great christmas and have a happy new year! If you have time can you PLEASE e-mail me back! i know your busy with your acting and singing but i am your BIGGEST fan! so please try to e-mail me back! and my e-amil is [e-amil address withheld]

[I think Meg went to the comic strip school of punctuation! That's why every sentence must end with an exclamation point!]

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Continue reading…

This week’s edition of “In the Dark” is packed with reviews of movies you should definitely see, but none of them are in wide release. The films that are in wide release … meh.

First in the “meh” category is “Saw III,” the requisite last-Friday-before-Halloween bloodbath that is an annual tradition in American cinema. In fact, the last two years, it was “Saw” and “Saw II.” I’m a little frightened at how fast these things are replicating.

They wouldn’t pre-screen this one for critics, but one of the local theaters had a midnight showing last night, so a friend and I attended. It’s better than “Saw II,” and just good enough (for what it is) to be recommendable, but not as good as “Saw.” You know, now that I think about it, I saw “Saw” at a midnight screening, too. Huh. I don’t know what that means, but there you go.

The other new wide release is “Catch a Fire,” a well-intentioned but ineffective film, based on a true story, about South African apartheid and the radicals who fought against it. That’s an uphill battle right there, and with no major-league stars (Derek Luke and Tim Robbins are as good as it gets) and few ecstatic reviews, I can’t imagine people flocking to see this. Especially not when they could watch people being eviscerated in the next theater over.

Getting a mid-size expansion is “Running with Scissors,” an ultra-quirky adaptation of Augusten Burroughs’ bestselling memoir. Now, you have to wonder how true a “memoir” is when the guy won’t even use his OWN real name, let alone anyone else’s, but never mind. The film is well-acted but just too self-consciously loopy for my tastes. I note that my C+ is one of the better marks it’s getting from critics. Yikes.

HOWEVER! All is not lost. Now playing in select theaters across this great land of ours are some truly outstanding films. Are they playing near you? Maybe not. But maybe! If they aren’t, keep an eye out for ‘em! You’ll want to see these.

First and foremost is “The Queen,” starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II in the days following Princess Diana’s death in 1997. Read my review for more raving about Mirren’s performance, but it’s absolutely wonderful, one of those roles that makes you fall in love with the performer and wonder why you never paid attention to his or her career before. Where have you been all my life, Helen Mirren?!

Since Helen Mirren will be nominated for an Oscar (you can take that to the bank) (is there an Oscar bank?), you’ll want to see “The Queen” now and beat the rush.

In the documentary department, “Deliver Us from Evil” is an enraging film about sexual abuse within the Catholic Church. It’s the most damning evidence I’ve seen so far. I’m glad I’m not Catholic — in general, yes, but particularly right now, because I would be disgusted with my church’s leadership if I were. It’s a powerful movie, though I admit it’s not very “fun.” But hey, you all went and saw “Passion of the Christ,” and THAT was no picnic. So go see this one, too.

Also dealing just a li’l bit with pedophilia is “Little Children,” a sardonic satire of suburban tranquility that, its title notwithstanding, is about adults more than kids. Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson play bored parents, each married to someone else, who become friends during the day while their spouses work. It’s based on a novel by the guy who wrote the book on which “Election” (the Matthew Broderick/Reese Witherspoon movie) was based, if that gives you any clues about the dark comedy at play here. It is well worth seeking out.

But wait, there’s more! Two political films, one a documentary and one a “documentary,” are also making the rounds in a few theaters. Both are from a liberal perspective, so proceed with caution.

“Al Franken: God Spoke” is a good but not great account of Franken’s efforts to start Air America Radio and to campaign for John Kerry in the 2004 election. (Not really a happy ending on either front, is there?) The film could use more focus, but Franken is a smart, quick-witted comedian, so it has some very funny moments.

The “documentary” is “Death of a President,” which raised eyebrows when it premiered at the Toronto Film Festival last month. It purports to be a doc from 2009, telling of the fateful 2007 day when George W. Bush was assassinated. The point is not to say, “Hooray! We want Bush to die!,” but rather to imagine the scenario and then imagine what would happen next. Would the Patriot Act be hastily rewritten to become even more wide-ranging? Would Dick Cheney be a paranoid, Nixon-like replacement president? Would all the Muslims within a three-mile radius of where Bush was killed be rounded up and interrogated? The film isn’t entirely successful, but a lot of it plausible.

So there you go. Plenty of good options this weekend if you know where to look. Good night, and good luck.

Some more Bad 9-11 Poetry for you to enjoy. Click the “Bad 9-11 Poetry” category on the right side of the page for past entries. The basic background is that average citizens wrote poems and submitted them to the Utah newspaper I worked for after Sept. 11, 2001, evidently hoping we would publish them. We did not. I am publishing them here, now. This is probably not what they wanted.

Our American Pride
by Lori Adams

Today is such a tragic day
For now we all will stop and pray
For those who lost their lives without warning
We now must face another morning
With blood on our faces and hearts full of sorrow
We know the sun will rise tomorrow
To you evil souls be not mistaken
Because the “sleeping giant” has been reawakened
We will stand and fight for those who died
You cannot kill our American Pride.

[Why is there blood on our faces?!!??!]

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Open Letter To: Our Phantom Foe
by Shane Greer

Dastardly faceless phantom,
Cravenly skulking foe;
Slithering as the viper,
Your venomous act to bestow.
Infamy, your crowning glory,
Black as the pit whence you’ve sprung,
Spawned by the father of darkness
Whose praises your foul soul has sung.
Cloaked in his veil you have ventured,
Unbidden and secreted here,
To prey upon the innocent;
Exacting your ransom most dear.
By no noble cause may you stand forth,
For nobleness has no place in you,
To lay claim of justification,
There is no excusing the evil you do.
Pure hatred alone must inspire it,
Replete with blood-thirsty desire.
These are that essence, rather,
Of the spark which ignited your fire.

You’ve waylayed this maiden in chambers,
Invaded her privacy there,
With basest intent to maul and maim,
Disfigure her countenance fair.
Indeed, she reels bloodied and wounded,
Suff’ring your onslaught and pained;
Shocked and dismayed and shaken,
Yet, no greater advantage you’ve gained.
For beneath her visage so comely
Lays substance unapparent to you,
The heart of a lion, ferocious,
Draped in a lambskin to view.
She may appear docile and helpless,
Exposed to your ravening jaws,
But she lacks only just motivation
To unsheath her razor-sharp claws.
You’ve supplied this ad infinitum,
Her wrath be prepared to receive
When she’ll soon sniff you out of hiding
Her suff’ring and grief to relieve.
For the moment you lurk, form and faceless;
Savoring the evil you’ve done.
Be assured you’ll not go unrewarded,
No vic’try at all have you won.
Your days on their earth, now, are numbered,
God’s scales have been readied and stored
To weigh you in judgment, on passing,
When you come cow’ring before the Lord.

[If my reading of the poem's metaphors is correct, in the second stanza America is compared to a woman who has been raped by evil-doers but who will now reap bloody vengeance on them. I'm pretty sure I have seen horror movies based on exactly that plot.]

We have a very special angry letter to discuss today. It comes from Robert Mackey, a 40-something who runs “Amanda Bynes NOW!,” a Web site obsessively devoted to the 20-year-old actress.

If the name Robert Mackey rings a bell, it’s because he has written two previous angry letters. The first came when I reviewed Amanda Bynes’ film “She’s the Man” and described it (and I’m paraphrasing here) as a putrescent, horrifically unfunny comedy made all the worse by Bynes’ embarrassing performance.

A few months later, I reviewed Lindsay Lohan’s “Just My Luck” and mentioned that it was the worst movie I’d seen since, well, “She’s the Man.” This struck Robert Mackey as an unjustified attack on his beloved Amanda Bynes, so he wrote me again to say so.

Well, then the DVD of Lohan’s “Just My Luck” came out, and I screened it for DVD Talk. The “movie review” portion of the DVD review was essentially the same as the theatrical review had been, including the Amanda Bynes reference. Obviously, Robert Mackey could not let this grievance pass unremarked. He sent me this e-mail:

I read your review of “Just My Luck,” and in the future, leave “She’s the Man” out of it. Again, you have this problem that Amanda Bynes is a punchline whenever you need to refer to a bad movie. You review films and DVDs on their own merits, don’t you?

In the future, when you hate a movie, just speak your piece, allow me to slam you for it, and move on to the next thing. Kapiche, a-hole?

Now, before we go any further, I urge you to look over Mackey’s previous e-mails, and to peruse his site, too. It really is a hilarious site. His devotion to Amanda Bynes is impressive in its fervency and creepiness. What’s more, he HATES anyone in Bynes’ demographic, seeing them all as competition. Lindsay Lohan, Mandy Moore, Hilary Duff — all grievously untalented trainwrecks in Mackey’s view. Amanda Bynes is the only teen queen worthy of adoration!

He also hates the TV show “Ghost Whisperer” and its star, Jennifer Love Hewitt. Why? Because it was on at the same time as Bynes’ “What I Like About You” last season, and its vastly superior ratings were, in Mackey’s estimation, one of the reasons “What I Like About You” got canceled. Somehow, that means “Ghost Whisperer” must be a terrible, evil show, and Jennifer Love Hewitt the spawn of Satan himself.

Oh, and when teen- or TV-focused magazines have someone on the cover who is not Amanda Bynes, they have exercised terribly poor judgment. When they have someone like Lindsay Lohan or Hilary Duff on the cover, you can practically feel Mackey’s rage surging across the Internet.

Anyway, upon receiving this latest angry e-mail from him, I replied with this:

Hooray! I was hoping for another e-mail from the crazy Amanda Bynes-obsessed middle-aged man!

As I was editing my theatrical review of “Just My Luck” for the DVD review, I noticed the Bynes reference (which you chided me for back in May, too). I thought: If I leave this in, will it elicit another response from creepy ol’ Robert Mackey? And sure enough, you did not disappoint me. I thank you for that.

“She’s the Man” is the worst movie I’ve seen all year (followed just barely by “Just My Luck”), and Bynes’ goggle-eyed performance is one of the worst things about it. It is only natural, then, that I should refer to it when the subject of awful movies arises. If your odd, disquieting love for Bynes is so vast that you cannot fathom such a reaction to her work, then I would say that is your problem, not mine.

Here’s to more petty and childish obsessions with teen queens!

Eric

He did not reply. Indeed, though I have replied every time he has e-mailed me, he has never replied back.

I’ve recorded a new song parody for your listening pleasure (?). It’s called “Not Fooling Anyone,” and it’s a parody of Daniel Powter’s ubiquitous pop hit “Bad Day.” Please to be visiting the song player and listening to it there.

The recording was done here in my apartment with my electric piano keyboard and Mac’s Garage Band software. I’m pretty impressed with what Garage Band can do with regard to recording MIDI instruments. I only had to play the song once, and all the minor fixes of wrong notes, etc., were done easily and electronically with that one recording. The vocals were limited by my very poor-quality microphone and poor-quality singing voice, but I added some reverb and distortion to make it sound more radio-y (i.e., as if the flaws were on purpose).

Anyway, there it is. If you’re wondering why I called it “Not Fooling Anyone” instead of the more obvious title that would be closer to the original title (”Bad Day”), it’s because I didn’t want to give away the joke.

In our continuing effort to maintain the illusion of user-friendliness here at EricDSnider.com, we’ve added a new feature relating to the comments. And it comes as the direct result of readers like YOU making the request! And also because I thought of it myself anyway and had Jeff implement it!

On the front page of the site, over at the bottom of the right-hand column, you can now see at a glance which articles have the most comments, and which articles have most recently been commented upon.

This is useful because with something like 3,000 articles on the site (that’s movie reviews, “Snide Remarks,” plus all the old stuff), someone might post a particularly witty or insightful comment on some obscure article and you’d NEVER KNOW!

For example, did someone recently post a comment on my review of “From Justin to Kelly” saying “i thought the movie FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY was the most funniest,brightest,creative movie i’ve seen in years”? Yes, yes someone did. But since you have no reason to be looking at the review of “From Justin to Kelly,” you would never see that comment on your own. Thank goodness for a feature that alerts you to such things!

The release of Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed” two weeks ago was a hint of it, but the Oscar season truly begins today. No fewer than three movies with Oscar potential are opening in wide release this weekend, and no, one of them is not “Flicka.”

“The Prestige” is the most entertaining of the three, all full of twists and turns, good old-fashioned entertainment, and solid performances by Christian Bale and Hugh Jackman — two very likable, very popular, very well-respected actors. They aren’t the kind of roles that get Oscar nominations, but the film’s screenplay or direction (by Christopher Nolan, of “Memento” and “Batman Begins”) might get some attention.

Then there’s “Marie Antoinette,” Sofia Coppola’s (“Lost in Translation”) anachronistic interpretation of French history. This is a curious, strange movie, and I was put off by it overall, though I also liked a lot of things about it. I can almost recommend it for sheer curiosity value, but not quite.

Finally, Clint Eastwood’s “Flags of Our Fathers” tells of the battle of Iwo Jima, the famous photo of six soldiers raising the flag, and the aftermath. Since it’s a Paramount product, however, I won’t be able to post a review until about 3 p.m. today. [And here it is.] The point, as it relates to this discussion, is that Eastwood is an Oscar favorite, the subject matter (World War II), is an Oscar favorite, and one of the screenwriters is Paul Haggis, who wrote and directed “Crash” last year.

The fourth wide release this weekend is “Flicka,” based loosely on the old young adult novel “My Friend Flicka.” Flicka is still the main character’s friend; I guess they just didn’t want to give that away in the title. The movie’s rather mediocre, though it does have my new favorite line of dialogue. (Mild spoiler ahead.) There comes a moment when they fear it may be necessary to “put down” wild Flicka, and they worry how her friend, played by Alison Lohman, will take it. She comes downstairs and says, “It’s OK, Dad. You can shoot us.” Us. Because she and Flicka are soulmates, you see. It made me laugh.

Something else that’s been making me laugh all week, and for no good reason, is saying the word “Flicka” in a high-pitched, creepy child/teddy bear voice. I’m thinking approximately the voice of the Talky Tina doll in that old “Twilight Zone” episode. It’s even better if you say it as a question, with the second syllable going up higher in pitch. (”Flick-A?”) Although it’s possible that if you aren’t me, you won’t be able to amuse yourself with it at all.