Low Resolution: Latest Gossip Girl Finger-Puppet Recap

Puppet Chuck Bass is gunning for gold!

More finger-puppet recaps can be found here.

The Week in TV:

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Nurse Jackie (7/6)
This show and True Blood are engaged in a fierce battle for the best of the summer. Either way, I win, because I am just crazy in love with this show. This week's episode was especially funny, and the canvass of characters continues to get deeper, funnier, and more relaxed. Top to bottom, that cast is brill, and this week we got some extra special awesome Anna Deveare Smith action. I just feel like, despite the hospital setting, and despite the "self-destructive, flawed hero" archetype, we're getting characters and stories here we're not getting on the rest of TV.

Weeds (7/6)
My friend and former TWoP colleague Stephen Falk wrote this week's episode, so I don't blame you if you take my objectivity here with a grain of salt, but: best episode of the season thus far. The characters just felt more human than they have all season, and for the first time in a while I remembered why I like them all so much. Even with Nancy making all the wrong choices again. Even with Shane acting like a little shit some more. That Nancy/Andy scene near the end was an emotional watershed, for real. All that, plus some awesome Isabelle action, and Celia got some upper hand back ("selfish, pregnant cunt..."). Well done, Stee!

The Young & the Restless (7/6)
I told you guys I was getting hooked. But seriously, shit went OFF today. Undead sons! Strokes! Faked suicides! Shirtless Billy! Billy sadly shirted but punching out his suddenly-not-brother! And this wasn't even an episode with Mary Jane the crazy stuffed-cat-talking-to lady who is actually Patty. And don't even get me started on stupid fucking Sharon. But back to today's events: Look, I know Cane has lied for months and months (years) and caused no small amount of heartache and betrayal ... but just look at him! Lily's a moron if she lets that go.

Hung (7/5)
Caught the rerun on Sunday. It was okay. Didn't really move me, beyond one great, unhinged Anne Heche scene. I'll probs give it another episode to prove itself, but I'm not sure how much of a leash. Given the unexpectedly rich summer output, I can't keep up with shows I kinda don't care about.

The Real World (7/1)
Okay, Joey's a douche and looks for trouble and is someone I would probably not like in person either ... but Aaaaiiiyyyeeeaaa or whoever is just awful. The kind of person who accepts an apology like she's picking up a hundred pound weight, then proceeds to keep talking about why you should have apologized for a half hour. Also, they're really laying it on thick with foreshadowing Rihanna's eventual boyfriend cheating. Clearly, it's gonna happen. And if it's with CJ, it shouldn't even count. Her boyfriend would fuck CJ too. Also, 2 eps down and Derek doesn't seem crazy or an asshole. Promising!

NYC Prep (6/30)
Don't hurt me or anything, but I kind of like P.C. YOU shut up! He's completely in on what a total fucking setup the show is (i.e. the only reason it's there is to make us hate these kids), and he plays into it so hard I can't help but like him. He IS Chuck Bass. Those two insipid girls going after Mophead the Pubescent Sex Bomb are beneath contempt just for being both pathetic AND boring, and Jessie is interesting but awful, so it's P.C. or bust with me.

Recently Viewed

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Up
Absolutely charming and lovable and beautiful and moving as has been promised, and with about 30% less hectoring peer pressure from the entire universe to find the whole thing brilliant beyond all understanding, it was much easier to sit back and enjoy than WALL-E was. I'm still not sure how Charles Muntz went missing in South America when Carl was a child and yet ended up apparently younger than Carl in the present. Botox? A-

The Proposal
Not an especially good movie, but it goes far on the collective charm of Sandra Bullock and Ryan Reynolds. I'd like to throttle the music supervisor, though, as that hokey, tootling score intruded on the events approximately every three minutes or so. Weirdo highlight? It involves Betty White AND Lil' John, but I won't ruin it for you. Also of note, after watching the credits: Zoe Bell was Sandra Bullock's stunt double. ZOE BELL? Somehow I think falling off of a boat doesn't quite compare to that Grindhouse car chase. C+

Whatever Works
I'll say this for Woody Allen's latest: It didn't end up quite as awful as the first half-hour would suggest. It's the faintest praise I can manage, though, because the best the movie gets is dated amusement. I've been told the movie is based on a decades-old Woody script, and despite Age of Obama gussying up, boy does it feel like it. The stereotypes, the worldviews, the tired depictions of avant-garde New York are all positively moldy with age. Evan Rachel Wood and Patricia Clarkson do yeoman's work with terrible characters; Larry David, less so. D+

Away We Go
The movie paints in broad strokes, especially in its first half, and the point of it all often seems to be "Please tell me we're cooler than whoever it is we're talking to now," but that being said, I found it very funny and, in the end, quite moving. Krasinski's really great, and way cuter than I've ever found him. I really loved the way the movie painted him as decidedly a nerd but didn't exaggerate it or make him feel nobly superior because of it. Seeing as we're now living under a nerd-talitarian regime in pop culture, that's something. Maya Rudolph is somewhat impenetrable, probably by design, and I can't decide whether that works as well as it should. Maggie Gyllenhaal is awesome (as a total cartoon character) and Catherine O'Hara is the absolute best, playing a character named What If Kathie Lee Gifford Were a Hippie? B+

Humpday
Low-key and funny without being cheap or reactionary. OR preachy and message-y, for that matter. Big fan of all three leads, including Blair Witch Project alum Josh Leonard but espcially Alycia Delmore, who drew more laughs with a sideways glance than anything else. I can't say anything else without completely spoiling the movie, but read on if you don't care SPOILER LOOK AWAY Okay, not to be immature or juvenile, but I paid to see awkward, ungainly man-fucking and ultimately, I didn't get that. So it drops a letter grade. Sorry, them's the breaks. END SPOILER ALL CLEAR B

Were the World Mine
How do you make a movie about a high-school rugby team full of 18-year old underwear models suddenly making out with each other under the influence seem so fucking BORING? I dunno, ask the makers of this movie. I normally tend to brush off the "why should I care about the problems of young, pretty white people?" criticisms as pointless whining, but even I couldn't get into the all-consuming angst of a boy this cookie-cutter cute. Like, boys that good looking don't need creepy drama teachers with Shakespeare spells to hook up with straight boys. Anyway, a total wasted opportunity made notable only because it featured Opal from "All My Children" singing and going momentarily sapphic. C

Spring Breakdown
Funny, if dated in its depiction of Lilith-era feminine dorkiness. But Amy Poehler and Parker Posey sell it well enough -- and an honorable mention goes to Amy's cornrows, which got about 20% of the movie's laughs on their own -- but best in show honors absolutely go to Missi Pyle who transcends "cougar" and steals every single scene with ease. B-

Tuesday, January 06, 2009

Latest Gossip Girl Finger-Puppet Recap

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