Goin' Back to Hitsville

"American Idol"
Fox via DVR

We've gotten to a recognizable point in the "American Idol" season where there's really only one completely talentless person left (Megan Joy and her voodoo warble). So it's not terribly surprising when an evening of average to good performances comes over on a softball theme night. Here's the thing we know for sure. There aren't any "alternative" candidates in the field this year. There's no one the least weird, interesting, or original who also has talent, someone for the adults among us to anticipate and root for every week. Except, maybe, Adam Lambert, who is interesting and original but also delusional and totally untutored. Lambert is the producers' pet, which is makes it hard for him to get behind. But there isn't anyone else in the cast who has the wits, or the stones, to try and do something radical with their source material any week, let alone every week as Adam has done.

Yes, sometimes he's truly terrible. But with his "Tracks of My Tears" this week, he entered another zone. His massive range and power was working for him rather than against him this time, and his untracked ambition served him well on an evening when everyone else was terrified to mix it up with an arrangement while Smokey Robinson was in the audience. No one picked a song that was even a little obscure, because there's nobody in this field who has that kind of creative confidence. This could get tiresome over the next two months.

But on the other hand, the broad theme was revealing in other ways. It was astonished how average a singer Lil Rounds seeemed when she was taken even the least tiny bit out of her comfort zone. On the other hand, Allison Iraheta continues to rip apart everything she touches. Matt Giraud is ruinously obsessed with marketing himself and has all the wrong instincts. Kris Allen and Michael Sarver will never become anything more than what they are. Anoop has talent to spare but is always going to struggle with star power. Danny Gokey shouts everything, Scott MacIntyre is a great piano player but not a singer or much of a distinctive artist, and Megan at this rate will need to strip down to two band-aids and a cup if she expects to make the finals. So whom does that leave? Adam, unfortunately. He's been awful more often than not, but he does fit the vague description of what the show is looking for better than anyone else. A showdown between Adam and Allison, Mr. Style vs. Little Ms. Chops, would be very interesting. And also probably a walk; Allison has been in the bottom three already and Adam already has a waiting list for concert tickets. Now he just has to not do anything stupid, like tip off the preteen girls he's not really playing for their team.

Matt Giraud Poor, dumb Matt just can't get out of his own way, which is too bad because I think he's genuinely a better singer than Kris Allen or Danny Gokey -- he just keeps trying to force a signature moment with songs that are too big, too distinctive, or in this case, too sexy for him. Matt had one good idea, beginning his "Let's Get It On" at the piano and then standing up when the band kicked in. In a season a little light on showmanship the one-eyed dueling piano player could be king. But something just never clicks for Matt, and in this case it was an overly reverent rehashing of Marvin Gaye's numerous vocal tics, matched with a few wooden all-Giraud ad libs, that took a bedroom song to the library and ended up in effect just like all of Matt's other songs. Forced, too earnest by half, and most troublingly, uncool. Although it wasn't all that impressive, he did sing a hard song very well on a night that most took on easy melodies. His falsetto wasn't always quite on point but otherwise he showed off his underrated range well. I think that just singing a song like "Let's Get It On" very well isn't enough, though, it's one of the tunes on which you either have to go for broke or pick something else. 8

Kris Allen Kris Allen's "How Sweet It Is" drew comparisons to James Taylor from the judges, but I was more reminded of Chris Klein's tone-deaf attempts in the first American Pie movie. Look, Kris is great-looking, he's affable enough, he can grow facial hair way more convincingly than I could at his age. But he's no kind of musician. His singing cycles affectations depending on which genre it is he's taking on each week, and his guitar playing is completely worthless and terrible. Unlike Scott MacIntyre, who's a bona fide piano player, Kris just knows a couple of chords and his random two bars of stabbing before the sound guy simply mixes his instrument out are becoming a weekly feature. Why? He looks better and moves better without the guitar, and it's possible he could show more on vocals if he wasn't bothering. It's hardly as if he has an ironclad identity that attaches him to the guitar -- he hardly has an identity at all. At this point in the competition that's a terrible sign. Michael Sarver is in the precise same boat as Kris right now, only he's less good-looking and not as good of a singer, so that alone ought to keep Allen safe right up until the week after Sarver goes back to the oil derricks. 7

Scott MacIntyre I have a lot of respect for Scott, who has gotten bolder with his homemade arrangements and piano excursions as his run on "Idol" has gone deeper. But I no longer really look forward to his turns, because I think we've pretty much seen all he has to offer. Scott's a very good musician but his singing voice really isn't good enough to hang with the Adams and Allisons and even the Dannys of this field. It's a shame because you can hear in his committed performances all of the interesting ideas he has. He just misses the big crescendos with his voice, and pretty consistently at this point. If you could put his brain, except for the part that doesn't interpret information from his eyes right, into Adam's body, then you might have something. Scott got criticized by the judges for picking a song that was too easy ("Can't Hurry Love") but Kris got love for picking one that was easier. 6

Megan Joy Megan sounded better than last week, since she wasn't sick, but she's still lasted way longer than musical logic would demand. Megan hits the front of about fifty percent of her notes flat; less than half the time, she slides up to the right note. If she employed the technique consistently, it would be style, but she doesn't, so I think it's safe to say that she just sucks. What was especially bad about her "For Once in My Life" was that she also tried some soaring high notes and those didn't slide anywhere, they wobbled all over the place, and with an even lower success percentage than her low phrases. Megan is the only "Idol" contestant left this year who often reminds me of someone trying to sing a song they don't know in Rock Band on expert and failing. For what it's worth, although it was technically disastrous I liked Megan's style more than usual this time. It was a signature performance for her, whatever that means. The judges really let her have it, which was weird to me because I thought she'd been this bad or worse every other time she's sung so far. Why now do the knives come out? I guess there are a few people who are less popular with the voters than she but at least we know now that when she does go the judges won't waste a save on her. 5

Anoop Desai Anoop kind of got lured on to the rocks by Smokey Robinson; he seemed humbled and almost reverent in the great man's presence, which was a welcome change after the half-asleep Anoop of the last several shows. But then he decided to do "Ooh Baby Baby," which was ambitious and a little unwise. Anoop has wonderful range, but his chief strength as a vocalist is the fine sustain on his notes in the upper register of his comfort zone. "Ooh Baby Baby" isn't in anyone's comfort zone, skipping from verses below where Anoop would ideally like to start to superhuman falsetto. For the most part Desai had the notes, but it's awfully hard to stay in key in your falsetto head voice and maintain a level of personal expression at the same time. (That's part of what made Lambert's "Tracks of My Tears," later on, so impressive.) While in pitch Anoop was straining just to stay there, and you could hear a lot of gasping and popping on the microphone. It probably works best in Anoop's long-term interests to have a real technical wrestling match like this under his belt, but he needs to get back to moving around pronto. 7

Michael Sarver It was kind of sad watching Michael rush and huff his way through "Ain't Too Proud to Beg." It simply wasn't meant to be, although he might have raised his odds a little bit by slowing it down at least a little and grafting some country elements on to it -- that would have made his rapid-fire transitions into the chroruses sound a little more at home. He needed to do something to personalize the number because allowing the band to default to karaoke mode invited deeply unflattering comparisons. As it was it was average and forgettable, though not without its charming moments -- Michael's no "Idol" champion, but there have been less qualified finalists over the years. Trouble is you can't sing "Ain't Too Proud to Beg" and not win people over, and Sarver wasn't winning anybody with that interpretation. Average and forgettable, but not unpleasant. An ideal "Idol" epitaph for Michael, who's got to be the chalk to go tonight. 5

Lil Rounds This was the big shocker on the night for me. Lil tends to impersonate Mary J. Blige on everything, but even to do that requires rare talent. When it came time to deliver in a different style, I figured she'd have the goods to carry over. Not so much. Lil's "Heatwave" was a near-disaster. If it had come a week or two later in the competition, it might have been a killer. She managed to put in some virtuoso work near the end to save a lot of the glaringly blue beginning third, but she sounded harsh throughout. It's the worst we've seen her on the show by a wide margin, and that sudden jarring shift in quality might hurt her disproportionately. Her status as a possible big winner is shaken, in my mind. Can she avoid ever having to get out of her comfort zone again? It's hard to say that she can if the fairly small leap from Mary J. to 60's R&B is a complete puzzler. 6

Adam Lambert Adam is still way too fond of himself and his Sophomore Spring Play dress-up ensembles, but for the first time in ages he let the song call the shots instead of trying to flamboyantly redefine a classic for the Adam Era. He still overreaches theatrically from time to time but for the most part his "The Tracks of My Tears" was a bold new level of not sucking for Lambert, who desecrated "Ring of Fire" just a week ago. He didn't try to hump the song to death, and that in itself was so refreshing that he went up a few notches in my personal estimation. It was quite a beautiful and affecting use of his authentic talent, in fact. His expressiveness in his falsetto notes put Anoop Desai to shame. It was also the most interesting reimagination of the night by far, arguably the only real reimagination -- Scott MacIntyre went out of his way to make "Can't Hurry Love" sound white, but Phil Collins had already done most of the leg work for him. Still pretty surprised by how emotional of a performance it was from a guy who comes across as a bit of an ice queen -- perhaps Adam does have a soul after all. 9

Danny Gokey Male co-favorite Danny has the best efforts of the production team behind him -- it's amazing how the stage lights up with 3D effects and adoring flattering yellows for Danny, while Allison Iraheta sings in front of a white sheet in a single puke-green spotlight. But Danny's vocals are becoming like the special effects, lots of movement and bright colors but very little real excitement. Danny is convincing as an inspirational figure, but not so much as a party-hearty floor-filler, and his "Get Ready" showed momentum-killing detachment from the subject matter. And vaguely musical shouting is his only real vocal weapon, whether he's doing a ballad or a rocker. I'm bored of him. 6

Allison Iraheta Allison didn't quite process all of the lyrics for "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," and it's too bad, because it kept me from giving her a rare 10. But I'm happy to save it for a later date, but Allison is quickly establishing herself as the only "Idol" contender with stage-transcending, once-a-generation talent. My goodness, she really can sing anything. She's powerful but she doesn't press the accelerator all the way down on every note, she has unteachable instincts (and a valuable sense of humor) when it comes to dirtying up a phrase here and there, and she has a look and style that's she's comfortable with without having to need to tinker with it every time out. In short she's a natural, and the sort of singer "Idol" loved to promote... for the first two seasons. This season, the less authentic, but far more marketable (and coachable) Adam is the guy. It'll be funny to see how the producers and judges conspire to torpedo the unflappable Allison, who seems barely aware of her surroundings most of the time. She was helpful enough to point out this week that Simon had drawn a mustache on Paula with a crayon when the audience couldn't see, in a little scene that could well have been concocted to make her appear more fully conscious. Maybe 19 thinks she's more marketable than I think they do. 9

Michael Sarver, everybody? Seems kind of obvious, although there are more cute boys around than cute girls to split the vote. Megan might go out for that reason. I think she's been interesting enough to keep voters loyal -- and she's consistently worn less clothes each and every time on stage, which is key. Michael on the other hand is more generic than Megan, who's uniquely bad, and thus I feel more likely to slip out of people's phone-voting memories.

I Watched This Movie

Never Back Down
Starz via On Demand

I was expecting to flip on Never Back Down, a formula sports movie designed to catch a hold of the rising mixed martial arts bandwagon, until I fell asleep. I stayed awake for the whole thing! I even watched the credits, to figure out what was the deal with the Lee Ranaldo vocals on one song in the film's otherwise execrable soundtrack. (The Sonic Youth guitarist was a guest on a track by the UK's Cribs.) The movie works for what it is by casting actors as opposed to athletes and not letting any obligatory scene (The Ice Breaking with the Love Interest, Tension Mounting with Your Parent(s), Tension Mounting with Your Mentor, Vaguely Homoerotic Training Montage with Your Floppy Sidekick) run any longer than a few moments.

Director Jeff Wadlow employs lots of handheld shots and the most up-to-date digital editing technology to make an inexpensively made picture look flashy and exciting. He also gets better-than-genre support cast, like Lelie Hope from "24" as the mom and Djimon Hounsou from Gladiator as the trainer. There's even a sort of sly point being made by the filmmakers in the way that this quickie cash-in movie builds so much of its plot on get-famous-quick modern technology: everybody has iPhones and is watching fights replayed on YouTube seconds later.

Amber Heard, who also played Seth Rogen's cursory love interest in Pineapple Express, is quite terrible as the babe, but the rest of the kids are pretty good. Sean Faris is an amiable lead, Evan Peters is lovable as the sidekick, and the sculpted Cam Gigandet nearly steals the picture in the Val Kilmer golden boy baddie role. I also like the inclusion of a younger brother character (Wyatt Smith) who's a preteen tennis prodigy. The idea that the same competitive spirit runs through the gentlemen's game and the bare-knuckle brawls is obvious but effective, and it gives the film a precipitating event (the kid brother gets an academy scholarship, causing the family to move) that's both modern and surprisingly nuanced for a Karate Kid remake.

The somewhat stylized dialogue isn't believable, but it's the right choice for the material. Better you suspect the writing is a little too smart for the characters than be bored by how stupid they both are. The habit of random spectators to conveniently yell out the names of the various wrestling holds as they happen is stupid, but maybe necessary to solidify the tie-in to the UFC brand. I've only ever watched a handful of MMA bouts but I doubt highly that any serious coach would ever tell his charges, "You've got to mix it up. It's mixed martial arts!"

This is the first movie I ever remember seeing that openly identified itself as being set in Orlando. That's a weird first.

Beyond the Valley of the Dollhouse

"Dollhouse"

Fox via DVR

I'm still hanging on with "Dollhouse," but just barely. The show has problems. Fran Kranz's Topher character is a petulant, obnoxious, spoiled ass, but by necessity he's a central part of every episode. Dichen Lachman, as Sierra, is so much better than the lead that it's got to be getting on flagship cheesecake/producer credit-bearing Eliza Dushku's last nerve -- and unfortunately the concept of the show is such that they occasionally end up playing the same role, which makes the unflattering comparison plain. Plus, recent episodes have torn big holes in my pet Amy Acker-is-Alpha theory, and I hate it when things go awry with my theories.

"Gray Hour," the first episode to be more than merely pretty to look at, was also the episode where both Dushku and Lachman got passes at a safecracker named Taffy. Lachman in her few scenes, particularly on the heels of the previous episode where she played a pigtailed, backpack-wearing pop fan, made you wish the show would just give up on Dushku's Echo and see what Sierra was up to each week instead. The pop star episode was otherwise utter garbage, with dreadful guest performances and a "CSI"-level flatlining plot twist. It's painful to see Joss Whedon associated with this stuff, as even the poorer early-season "Buffy" and "Angel" episodes had isolated great scenes and keeper performances.

Dushku is supposed to be a different person each week, but in reality she only has two modes -- when she's not "running a program," she's like a child actor having trouble reading her lines, and when she is, she's like a C-list TV actress having trouble reading her lines. "True Believer," an episode recasting her as a blind cult follower, seemed designed to demonstrate Eliza's range after four pretty similar action yarns (and the one where she was the backup dancer, which amounted to the same thing since she was randomly given preconscious kung fu skills). Only she muffed it, badly, flirting with all of the male cultists in the manner of a drunk teenager hitting on an Amish guy for a bet. At least her rack is still magnificent. And I don't feel at all sexist saying so because she reminds us herself in dialogue every couple of personas.

"Man on the Street," the first episode to be written by Whedon himself since the pilot, was positioned as the one where the mythology deepened and the show's hidden depth became more evident. Only it was kind of a mess, on several levels -- the random documentary-style interviews were pretentious and served no narrative purpose, a theoretically comic scene with Patton Oswalt was bad enough to make you wonder if Joss has misplaced his muse ("threw the Kindle at them," ugh), and the finale predictably revealed one of the few remaining recurring characters not already exposed as a robot as... another robot. What's worse, in the installment meant to more fully reveal his overarching vision for the series as a whole, Whedon used his leading lady as a bit player, leaning on the more capable Lennix and Penikett instead.

It's not entirely loyalty to the Mutant Enemy brand that has kept me hanging on. As promised, the show has started to open up a larger mythology after the shallow first few episodes. Harry Lennix is somewhat shunted to the side in his modified Watcher role but I like the way he still shows his compassion for Echo in all of her various guises. Liza Lapira, who plays Topher's overqualified, put-upon assistant, is quite attractive and impressively has significant credits from both the most mainstream show I watch regularly ("NCIS") and arguably the most transgressive ("Dexter"). "Dollhouse" has a self-conscious level of diversity. Perhaps he's making up for the lily-white "Buffy," or the "Angel" writers' infuriating inability (despite being quite at home writing convincing demons and 1000-year-old vampires) to create believable dialogue for black characters, but Joss has overloaded this show with hard-to-spell names from around the world. Tahmoh Pennikett is native Canadian, Lachman is Tibetan-Australian, Enver Gjokaj Albanian-American, Lapira Filipino/Spanish/Chinese. And yet all of these actors can manage multiple accents while Dushku has never managed to completely erase her Back Bay roots in any role she's ever played.

I like the developing Alpha mystery. I like the eerie, Japanese horror-like idea of Echo being remotely deactivated, being returned to a fetal state in the middle of a sophisticated operation. (The balance of terror between psychology and technology on this show is very Kiyoshi Kurosawa.) I like the possibility however remote that when Alpha comes back to headquarters he will eviscerate Topher in the most graphic, unpleasant, and protracted manner possible, such that the fines Fox will incur will double those "Family Guy" gets. But something about the show overall just rubs me the wrong way, and I don't think there's any amount of retooling that can be done that will get the bad taste out of my mouth.

The trouble is, what is the theme here? What's the overarching metaphor? Joss Whedon wouldn't make a series without one, but what he's saying here is cynical and more than a little self-pitying. How can you not watch the show and see Topher as a stand-in for the creator, a comic book geek who grew up to live out his fantasies of turning hot girls into superheroes? And the way the show loves to spread around ambiguity about who is and who isn't an "active" bothers me. Is the FBI agent? Is the doctor? Is the security guy? What about the senator? Hell, what if they're all robots? "Buffy" had a subtext so simple and obvious it was brilliant: High school (then, later, young adulthood) is hell. "Angel" was a little more convoluted, but with how it ended Whedon made it clear that his core theme was redemption, and how it is a process rather than an endpoint. "Firefly" was more basic, hokey even: Your family is whomever you go home to. But now we have "Dollhouse" and the theme is: Everybody's a robot.

That's a sucky theme. I'm not a robot! We all are compromised by the institutions in which we choose to participate, but we don't have to join a particular institution or any institution at all. (My thinking on "Dollhouse," oddly, is influenced a lot by all the reading I've been doing lately about "The Wire," and particular the Omar character -- the maverick, the guy who opts out and doesn't play by anybody's rules.) Joss seems to be making a whole show out of his anger about how "Firefly" got the shaft, and how none of his many master plans for big-budget superhero franchises have panned out. That's really lame, partly because he should be grateful to have the opportunity to make multimillion-dollar-budgeted movies and TV shows of any kind, and partly because the whole Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog thing illustrated (again) that Whedon is one of the few artists out there working in film and television who could conceivably opt out of the whole studio system and market his work directly on DVD to his huge fanbase. Maybe for his next series, he could just put all the episodes up on a website somewhere and charge whatever people were willing to pay, as Radiohead did with In Rainbows. Of course, the economies of scale are different, I don't know if he'd meet his budget.

Yeah, Fox dicked with "Firefly" something awful, and rumors abound that the same thing is happening to "Dollhouse." But Joss didn't have to make another show with Fox, and he chose to anyway. That may or may not have something to do with the fact that Eliza Dushku had her own development deal with the network and wanted to work with Whedon again. After all the movie franchises he's walked off of and bridges he's burned, Joss might not draw enough water these days to get a network show on the air based on his star power alone. But frankly, even as a devoted fan who will insist to my grandchildren that "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" was the greatest TV show there ever was, I'm getting sick of his whole act. Most people don't get to make big-screen conclusions to their failed 17-episode series. Joss is incredibly lucky to have the fans he has, even if his talent earned them in the first place. Starting to act like Eric Cartman every time things don't go exactly his way isn't fair to those fans who just want to see him making the best stuff possible, and to see that material reaching a larger audience so that it might have the chance of filling out more than one gift set of DVD's someday.

"Screw you guys, I'm going home."

Sadly, No Segel Wang

I Love You, Man

In the theater (second time in 2009)

I don't go out to the movies very often, because I'm cheap and I would much rather buy a previously viewed DVD for eight bucks than see a film once for ten. But I do tend to go in clusters (often facilitated by theater gift cards, which I had kicking around still from Christmas and my birthday), and I do tend to go to a certain kind of movie. Last year I saw Forgetting Sarah Marshall, Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay, Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Sex and the City, and Pineapple Express. So broadly, we have three categories -- big event movies that you have to see on the big screen, new installments in established comedy franchises, and stuff my girlfriend wants to see.

Watchmen last time out -- that was an event movie. And I'm glad that I saw it on the big screen, even if the definitive version for me as a longtime fan of the graphic novel will likely be the three-hour-plus DVD director's cut. I saw all of the Lord of the Rings movies in the theaters too. As for my comedy franchises, assuming we treat everything Judd Apatow makes as essentially one continuing series with the same small group of actors checking in and out as their schedules allow, I'm not too sure about Funny People. Caught the trailer right before I Love You, Man, and  it looks like a tailor-made jump the shark moment, the gross-out comedy director aiming for poignance and relevance and hitting boring and preachy. Also: If Paul Thomas Anderson couldn't wring a reasonable dramatic performance out of Adam Sandler, no one can. The man cannot act! He does funny voices! It's not the same thing at all!

As long as we're reviewing previews, count me out when it comes to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. For a bold new direction for a fading franchise, it seems like wallowing in the minutiae of the backstory of the original series (and incorrectly at that) is exactly the wrong idea. Aren't most people who are of prime moviegoing age who still care about "Star Trek" fans of "The Next Generation" anyway? And the trailer seems to fixate on dumb, outdated elements of the overly romanticized 60's series. Sulu is Asian, so he is a master sword fighter! Scotty has a funny accent! Uhura is still black! Also, Zachary Quinto might look quite a bit like a young Spock, but his voice is completely wrong. Nimoy's gravelly authority made that role, but Quinto's wispy effeminacy (while perfect for Sylar's serial-killer detachment) is totally wrong for the greatest science officer in the history of the Federation. The silver lining is, when and if this film bombs colossally, the profile of "Trek" might be tarnished to the degree that Paramount might be humbled enough to give Ron Moore, Ira Behr, Manny Coto, or one of the numerous other brilliant former "Trek" writers they've needlessly alienated in the past free reign to do a new series on cable. The massive blind spot the company has with this new reboot is incomprehensible -- "Star Trek" is a TV show! A TV show! Its movie spinoffs were at best watchable (Wrath of Khan, Voyage Home, First Contact) and usually way worse than that (all of the other ones, except for bits of III and VI). Character development and currently relevant allegory are the two constants when "Star Trek" works and both are more suited to the small screen. Looks like what we're getting instead is a lot of CGI, pandering fan service, and hours of wooden dialogue. Are we sure George Lucas wasn't called in to consult on this?

Okay, so because I'm rapidly in danger of making this post more about "Star Trek" than the movie I just came home from -- I Love You, Man. Pretty solid movie. No credited Apatow involvement, although the movie feels like an extension of the brand. There's familiar faces you're happy to see in just about every scene, from the Australian-hating fruit vendor from "Flight of the Conchords" to Joy from "My Name Is Earl" to Joe Lo Truglio and Thomas Lennon from "The State" to Jon Favreau. Karen from "The Office" plays Paul Rudd's fiancee in the movie, and J.K. Simmons (Juno, the Spider-Man films) and Jane Curtin ("SNL," "Third Rock") are his parents. And Andy Samberg is his brother! Just about everybody in this movie seems like they would be amazing to have lunch with, and I thought that even before I checked the cast list and saw that Carla Gallo had a scene I missed somehow. I've had a crush on Carla Gallo since the original run of "Undeclared." Nice to see she's getting work, and even if her role here has a number in it it's a more dignified credit than the ones she got for Superbad, 40-Year-Old Virgin, or Sarah Marshall.

Although in tone and structure it's a romantic comedy through and through, watching I Love You, Man is kind of refreshing because it's not completely obvious where things will go. The relationship between Rudd's Peter and Rashida Jones' Zooey is never in that much danger, and the screenwriters don't feel the need to force conflicts where there aren't any. For a second it seems like Segel's character might turn out to be evil and manipulative, like The Cable Guy, and you get worried. Almost immediately the movie shows you his heart is in the right place. The brilliant thing about Apatow's movies (and let me note for the record that this movie was directed by John Hamburg and written by Hamburg and Larry Levin, although if I had to guess I'd say Jason Segel did a ton of uncredited work on the writing, since his character is so specific to his particular brand of offbeat) is the way he inverts the usual Idiot Plot formula of the standard Hollywood rom-com. Most romantic comedies are built around the two lovers failing to connect for a reason that's really stupid. If one or the other would sit down and explain the complications rationally to the other, there would be no movie. But in Apatow's movies, and this one too, it's not failure to communicate that gets the characters in hot water. It's communicating too much. That's truer to life, and it's why the formula keeps working.

Rudd is playing to his strengths here as a straight guy who's simply more comfortable around women, and his improvisations around the theme -- his character is genetically incapable of inventing a decent nickname, for example -- are natural and funny. In Knocked Up he played the slightly more mature role model for Seth Rogen's Peter Pan character, and here he plays a guy who's too mature, too polite. He needs Segel's assistance to cut loose, be cool, jam out to Rush, and stick up for his own needs every once in a while. Psychologically it's not a complex dynamic, and not a terribly original one, either, but I Love You, Man is effective because it doesn't force anything. The leads aren't complete wrecks at the beginning and perfect happy functional humans by the end. When Rudd tries to set up Segel with his wife's obligatory single friend, it's a complete disaster. A similar situation exists with Favreau's character, the husband of Zooey's other best friend (Jaime Pressly). In most movies of this type, the romantic lead has storybook relationships with everybody in his circle -- the in-laws, the neighbors, the parents. Here, though, Rudd and Favreau just hate each other, and it's both refreshing and hilarious.

One of the other things I really loved about the movie was the performance of Thomas Lennon. Lennon hasn't been in a bunch of small roles lately like his "State" castmates Lo Truglio, Ken Marino, and Michael Ian Black; he's an extremely intense, somewhat discomfiting performer whose commitment to characters is both his biggest strength and biggest weakness. Anyone who's a fan of "Reno 911!" knows what I'm talking about. He's like a method comedian, and I imagine kind of a bear to work with if the circumstances aren't perfect. He takes what had to be a bit part on the page and ends up the movie's funniest running joke. Samberg, on the other hand, is an actor whose appeal I have never understood. He's miscast as Peter's gay brother and fades into the woodwork fairly quickly.

I have always suspected the only reason the terrible Saving Silverman got made is because its stars really wanted to hang out with Neil Diamond. It's possible given the amount of their music that's used in I Love You, Man that this movie only exists because Segel and Rudd really wanted to geek out on Rush. I'm okay with that. Rush are awesome; I've been annoying my girlfriend for months now trying to get perfect scores on all the Moving Pictures tracks on the Rock Band drums, and now perhaps she has some insight as to why. Rush made Jason Segel a star, in a way; no one who's seen his dry ice-enhanced drum performance of "Tom Sawyer" from "Freaks and Geeks" will ever forget it. The only bad thing about watching him and Rudd thrashing through "Limelight" was the pain of recalling Nick Andopolis's disastrous audition scene. That was the magic of "Freaks and Geeks": the high school show so good (and so accurate) that no one who has seen it ever wants to watch it again.

Crazy Island Reports

"Lost"

ABC via DVR

For a week or so there, I thought I had the endgame for "Lost" all mapped out in my head, but now I don't know which way is up again. That's what the stakes are like for network TV's best drama right now: every episode is like a whole earlier season unto itself, with the rules changing on a commercial break-to-commercial break basis. It's dizzying, and certain actors work better than others as compasses. There are larger concerns for our core group of plane crash survivors (including one elite set that's now made it through two wrecks, sort of), but the little question that's really bugging me is: What happened to Faraday? The one guy who seemed to have any concrete knowledge of what the hell was going on, and the narrative conveniently managed to misplace him. Perfect.

Here's what I just have no answer for: Why did Sun not vanish and reappear in the 70's from Flight 316, like everybody else (save Ben, which makes sense since he left the island before the time jump-precipitating incident)? Does it have something to do with Jin's wedding ring? I can't figure it out. I thought I had an ironclad theory as to the behavior of the island in this one particular instance, but it's all out the window now.

Eliminating Faraday, and empowering Sawyer as the leader by default of the remaining Dharma imposters, makes for high drama. Sawyer doesn't have any idea what his next move is most of the time -- his speech at the end of "Namaste" to Jack regarding the doctor's leadership on the island three years prior was laced with irony -- and with the incomplete information he has regarding the probably not final demise of John Locke he could lead everyone to ruin. There's also the oddball pairing of Sawyer and Juliet to complicate matters, three years of mutual hostility worn away to relatively functional couplehood and undone in all of three seconds with Kate's return to the island. Elizabeth Mitchell gets too little credit for her role in the "Lost" ensemble, I think, because her character wasn't introduced in a particularly sympathetic light (during the dreary early portion of Season Three, when our heroes literally and the plot figuratively were locked in cages) and her tendency to keep winding up as a consolation prize. Her nuanced take on Juliet's reintroduction to Kate was beautifully played, layers upon layers of mistrust couched in a few icy lines.

Will I ever come to feel the same way about Ken Leung's Miles Straume? Given the shortest end of the stick among the freighter folk when Season 4 became strike-truncated, Miles has served as annoying neighbor-type comic relief for Season 5 thus far. His never-quite-articulated ability to commune with the dead only seems to come up when the writers remember about it. I've always liked Leung, who was memorable without being obtrusive in a supporting cop role in the first Saw. I don't think that the "Lost" producers would have kept him around this long if they didn't have something significant in store for him.

Also under-recognized: The "Lost" hair and makeup people. It's amazing how they keep track of so many different hairstyles and costume changes as the scripts become so complicated that they leave the actors in the dust. Jeff Fahey's Lapidus looks like a totally different guy three years on, with a distinguished airline pilot style instead of his crazy-explorer look from last season. Daniel Dae Kim's hair gets longer for every word of English Jin acquires. (I'm tickled doubly now that Kim, a native English speaker, has to affect a halting accent while Yunjin Kim, who grew up speaking Korean, as Sun has all these long speeches and ball-busting competitions with heavyweights like Ben and Widmore.) Jack and Kate have distinctive "new timeline" hair. Only Hurley looks pretty much the same, which is not insignificant -- every now and then, somebody likes to play the "the whole thing is Hurley's delusion" card, and keeping Jorge Garcia's look the same keeps that red herring alive.

Again, with Sawyer in charge, it's impossible to predict what will happen next. With Jack making the decisions, things followed a pattern -- Miles hit the nail right on the head when he talked about going back to the beach and then leaving it again being more or less the only things these lamebrained castaways ever do. Hard not to recall some earlier conflicts when Sawyer made the knee-jerk, possibly unnecessary decision to treat Sayid like a prisoner. Is Sayid the Hostile who turns Young Ben to the other side? Wouldn't that be great? After watching the last two episodes, "LaFleur" and "Namaste," I realized I needed to watch the classic late third-season "The Man Behind the Curtain" for the nth time. That's Ben's origin episode. This time, I want to see the first appearance of Horace Goodspeed (Doug Hutchison), the head Dharma honcho on the island in the late 70's.

I'm pretty sure "Namaste" marks the first time we've seen the scientist character played by François Chau and identified variably as Marvin Candle, Edgar Halliwax, Mark Wickmund, and (as in this case) Pierre Chang in person, as opposed to on a Dharma Initiative training film. It's interesting that he really exists, as I've read at least a few theories out there saying he was everything from a ghost to Jacob to a computer program. Maybe there's a bunch of him? I don't know what the advantage of having numerous aliases in a small, close-knit society like the Dharmas would be. Of course, at least some of the stations involved isolating and misinforming their staff.

If the island had power rankings, Sawyer would be way up while Jack and Sayid would be in the doldrums. Ben has been more or less unshakable from his position in the top spot since first he appeared on the show midway through the second season, as he is roughly eight billion times smarter than everybody else on the show combined. Sun is the big riser this week for having the good sense to brain Ben with a solid piece of wood the first he turned his back on her. Don't trust Ben! Ben is pure evil! Even as a little kid who looks like Chris Mintz-Plasse! Jack, Locke, Sayid, and many stronger men have trusted him even for a second, and all to their peril! It ought to be open policy with all the plane crash survivors (either one) to knock Ben unconscious every time he starts to speak. I'd maybe go so far as to suggest killing him, but I'm pretty sure he can't be killed.

Adam Lambert Must Pay

Yikes! Country night was interesting this year, as it always is. There were more than a few safe choices -- every week it seems no matter what the genre is a few balls roll into the beauty-pageant "American Idol" gutter -- and some pleasant surprises. But a night that continued a trend of massive improvement since the semifinals was marred by one of the ugliest battles between an unstoppable force and an immovable object in contest history. Adam Lambert's abuse of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire" was so jaw-droppingly bad that it simply cannot go unpunished. The judges have been finding new positions in which to contort to praise Adam every week, and the inflated praise has finally popped Adam's ego balloon. His Boy George/Bond villainess harem croon was like torture.

Otherwise, it went pretty chalk -- good ol' boy Michael Sarver was the most in his element, big voices like Lil, Allison, and Anoop proved able to adapt, Danny continued to be the most successfully manipulative and Matt Giraud the least, and Megan Joy was at once terrible, mildly offensive, and strangely compelling. I'll spoil the ending for you now: Adam has to go. has to! This evil cannot be allowed to stand!

Michael Sarver The judges entered a bizarro world about a half-season ago where they assumed they had the ability to reshape reality with their own critiques. They love to criticize contestants who don't have sufficient it factor for picking easy songs or making lots of pitch mistakes -- while praising contestants who do, for picking easy songs and making lot of pitch mistakes. I felt bad for Michael, who picked a fast, crowd-pleasing song with a ton of words, sort of Garth Brooks' answer to "Subterranean Homesick Blues," and only missed about two of them while he was slapping his harmonica player on the back. Michael was dead on target in that a big part of country music is having a good time, and I had a better time while he was singing than anybody else on the night. The judges might not be hip to it but what's commercial among male country singers right now is a lot of hunky guys who aren't great singers but deliver witty songs well with a lot of personality. Michael Sarver could be the next Trace Adkins, for all they know. 9

Allison Iraheta It could have gone either way for Allison, who's a rock belter at heart but a skilled enough singer to more than fake it in other styles. She did a little bit of both for country night. Her instincts betrayed her at times, as she didn't really sync up to the beat in the slow part and she was off on more of her power notes than in past performances. She's getting more coherent in her interview clips, probably after long hours of laborious coaching. I love her raw power and her prospects for continued success in a thin eighth-season "Idol" field. 7

Kris Allen I don't have much of a bead on Kris, flying under the radar for most of the season so far. He has bad luck choosing when to set aside his guitar and when to pick it up again. I think he might have found more of a connection to his number this week if he'd played it solo accompanying himself, as doing "To Make You Feel My Love" with the band in karaoke-CD mode sounded very sappy. Although his look and vibe are street-busker authentic, his voice does play well in the pop ballad idiom. If you saw the brilliant recent "South Park" with the Jonas Brothers, Kris has some of the same marketability -- a stealthy, wholesome way of selling sex to tween girls. If he goes that way, he won't have to become a better singer. He was flat and guttural on his low notes and his falsetto was pretty weak, atonal, and pathetic. 7

Lil Rounds Lil is either pretty bad at playing the "Idol" political game, or quite brilliant. She seems to keep slightly missing her target, which gives her a place to go from here in the weeks to come. Other real great voices of past seasons have peaked too early, from Jennifer Hudson to Melinda Doolittle. I thought Lil could have done worse than "Independence Day," although in parts it approached cruise-ship territory. She let her instrument do the work over a very bland backing, which is the safe play. Her verses never quite gelled but she was in her usual fine form for the heavy-lifting section. 8

Adam Lambert Adam sneered at Randy Travis and leered at the girls in the pit, piled the foundation on in big scabby cakes and just sucked all of the heart out of "Ring of Fire." It's funny, if Adam had taken a straightforward approach and just tried to sing the song a little like the Man in Black, it might have been a shocker highlight. He's got range to spare and he's certainly no stranger to drama. But instead, he pulled some sitar-lite lounge arrangement off a "music for strippers" website and wailed ghoulishly (and in no relation to pitch). Dress sense and attitude go a long way in "Idol," but the line has to be drawn somewhere. The line must be drawn here! Here and no further! 1

Scott MacIntyre Apparently Scott spends every waking moment of his unsupervised "Idol" time painstakingly working out his own arrangements. That's charming, but is it really helping his cause any? He seems to have pretty Utah music tastes, and let me tell you Scott, Hollywood ain't Utah. Maybe he should let the experts do the arranging, and spend that extra time sleeping, or practicing his vocals, or shopping for sunglasses. Scott's unique problem with stage presence has a simple solution -- he just needs to hold on to his piano for dear life. His "Wild Angels" was earnest enough, if a bit broad, and I liked his musical ideas. His execution however was wanting. 6

Alexis Grace Alexis's dress was short enough to be a nightgown, but apparently it wasn't low-cut enough for the judges. Kara and Paula were all over her to dirty it up. Like for a single week she can't put on a classy outfit? Alexis did "Jolene," a great song, but not one to approach lightly. I don't know if she came off as insincere exactly but perhaps a bit defensive. It was technically solid, but I didn't ache for her, and if you're going to sing a weeper like that, you can't leave a dry eye in the house. The performance itself was safe, but it was the kind of song that really exposes lack of commitment. 8

Danny Gokey Danny knows where he's coming from. How can you root for the guy who has the dead wife and a song for Jesus in his heart? Danny has no level of pandering to which he won't sink, but as prolonged exposure reveals more of his weaknesses, it may not be enough to sustain him. His verses on "Jesus Take the Wheel" were goony and poorly sung, and his cracked yelling for the choruses was not at all special. He's beyond average on stage... but with enviable intangibles. 5

Anoop Desai Anoop seemed nonchalant in his semifinal and first final-round performances, but it's funny how the difference between lazy and crafty can all boil down to song choice. "Always on My Mind" is one those melodies so powerful that it transcends genre, and Anoop was definitely in no danger of drawing comparisons to Willie Nelson. He brought the goods with a solidly melodic, confident performance that was a fine showcase for Anoop's soulful side and his voice's natural presence and sustain. By dressing more casual and keeping his profile low, Anoop made his song choice a sort of apology to his "Idol" fanbase for taking things too lightly earlier on. Now he's going to be around for awhile, assuming he works this hard every time out. 8

Megan Joy Now without the awkward "Corkrey," Megan is that least little bit more commercial -- and still can't really sing a lick. Her "Walking After Midnight" had so many tics and hiccups that it was sort of its own little work of art. I usually hate Megan, but even though she was doing a Caribbean accent for some reason and her "jazz" accents were minstrel show-level, it was at the very least distinctive. Her falsetto leaps were fifty-fifty, and her out-of-control tremolo was awful-sounding (but kind of impressive). She was suffering from the flu, Ryan Seacrest was careful to disclose. 4

Matt Giraud Matt is obsessed with being commercial, only he's too naive to exercise this desire in any kind of constructive way. His Coldplay thing was his low point so far, but he's always in danger of screwing himself over. As a bar pianist and soul merchant, it seems like his connection to and knowledge of music ought to go deeper. He did look very slick in a three-piece suit, but he didn't put enough of his own stamp on "So Small" and his final high note was woefully off. I really think that he's more talented than he's shown, but he has a little bit of a tiny idea in his head of how to sell himself and it's throwing him off. He'd be better off if his head was completely empty of conscious thought, like Allison. 7

Adam goes. He has to. Maybe if I feel it strongly enough it will come to pass.

Books About UFO's

Watchmen
In the theater (first time in 2009)

I saw Zack Snyder's competent Watchmen adaptation on Friday night and I've been trying to think of the proper angle from which to approach writing about it ever since. Like the director's 300, it's not a particularly cerebral film. He lines up the characters, he goes through the story, and he's not particularly interested in ambiguities or loose ends. Perhaps Snyder's economical approach is the only one possible: more ambitious directors like Terry Gilliam and Paul Greengrass have been attached to Watchmen projects but this is the one that actually got filmed.

Snyder has a nice fallback position because the rich psychological lives of the characters was the principal selling point of Alan Moore's graphic novel; he doesn't have to get into Nite Owl's impotence or The Comedian's sadism because readers of the book know all about that already. The director is careful about not having anyone act out of character, and he uses casting cleverly to nudge viewers' minds in the right direction. Patrick Wilson (from Hard Candy) is a perfect Nite Owl and Matthew Goode (The Lookout) seems appropriately impressed by himself in his limited screen time as Ozymandias. Brit Goode starts out affecting an American accent but by the end of the movie is doing a broad Charlton Heston "classical" delivery, which is something the comic book obviously never got the chance to consider and is something given the character's obsession with antiquity that makes perfect sense.

There's not much else added to the movie that wasn't done first and more authoritatively in the book. Rorshach is still crazy, Dr. Manhattan is still naked and blue, and the Silk Spectres still have boobs. Snyder does change the visualization of the ending (if not the effect), which serves only to make the whole thing wrap up neatly, rather than crawling with lingering questions and possible contradictions the way the comics did. By playing it safe clinging to the major beats of the story, I think Snyder has made a movie that's completely impossible to appreciate for people who haven't read the comic. Although his dedication to recreating entire compositions from the book will make the film fun on DVD for Moore fanboys, none of the mysteries and easter eggs in the Watchmen movie are its own -- they're all just borrowed from the source material.

I'm glad they made it, just as I was kind of detached in my enjoyment when they made the Lord of the Rings films -- maybe the movies didn't come close to the book, but they certainly drummed up a lot of interest in that world. The Peter Jackon trilogy did a lot better than Watchmen does at getting some of the non-narrative flavor of the original, but then again, he had seven hours of running time to work with and even more on DVD. At under three hours, it's extraordinary that Watchmen can be followed at all. Part of me wishes that I could see it again without such intimate knowledge of the graphic novel, to see whether I could tell what was going on. (My girlfriend was completely befuddled, but she's one of those Facebook generation people who has trouble following the plots of "Big Bang Theory" episodes.)

It is nice though that Comic-Con type culture has pervaded the mainstream to the extent that a $200 million adaptation of a cult series is not an uncommon risk for a mainstream studio these days. Apparently the contracts of all the Watchmen actors (and Malin Akerman) have sequel clauses. I don't know if the lawyers who drafted those contracts have read the book, but the slavish devotion to the original demonstrated by the filmmakers in this instance makes me curious about how they would possibly try and invent an entire original sequel given the wholesale lack of original ideas in the first film.

It is very cool that we have comic book movies for grown-ups nowadays, a few misbegotten sequels to the side. Watchmen the movie doesn't pull punches. When The Comedian is attempting to force his attentions on the first Silk Spectre, we see a closeup of his crotch and the unmistakable sound of stretching rubber. Dr. Manhattan's penis swings around in full view most of the time just as it did in the comic, and it's not gratuitous -- an important aspect of the character is that he still holds on to these certain vestiges of humanity even though they have no further purpose or meaning for him. What we're still waiting to see is a director who combines the technical skills of Snyder with the independent creative vision of an Alan Moore or Neil Gaiman or Frank Miller. Until then, movies like Sin City and Watchmen are like watching a really good cover band -- it's a good time, but the people who deserve most of the credit are the original songwriters.