Pitchmen Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Got a Flowbee? A Magic Bullet? How about a George Foreman Grill? Whether you thank or blame TV infomercials for encouraging America's addiction to consumption, there's no denying we can't stop dialing 800 numbers to purchase the latest and greatest must-have-item-I-never-even-thought-about-until-I-saw-this-ad. But wait! There's more! Discovery Channel has turned these late-night, sitcom-sized commercials into a documentary series cum reality show, with ubiquitous infomercialmen Billy Mays and Anthony Sullivan on a quest to wrangle the next great invention. Despite their polished TV personas, these two squabble on set like mismatched frat brothers, whose frustration with each other is tempered both by mutual respect and all the cash they know their infomercials are about to make. At first glance, Pitchmen might seem like just another behind-the-scenes production peek, but there's a truth behind the madness: selling this crap is hard work. Even if it's only for three easy payments of $19.95! Discovery Channel, April 15, 10 p.m. (Originally published on TVDelete.com, March 25, 2009.)

posted by Derek Thomas @ 11:14 PM, ,

Tokyo! Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Directed in three parts by Michel Gondry, Leos Carax and Bong Joon-ho, Tokyo! doesn't expose the city so much as its citizens, sometimes quite literally. In the opener, Gondry's "Interior Design," an aspiring filmmaker's girlfriend finds herself so useless in cosmopolitan Toyko that she morphs into furniture. Carax's "Merde" creates monster-movie terror via the bloody antics of a homeless gnome, who puts the city on edge with random killings and confounds the courtroom with leprechaun gibberish. The finale, Bong's "Shaking Tokyo," follows a recluse (hikikomori, in the vernacular) with a Monk-like penchant for stacking empty pizza boxes just so, who finally exits his house after 10 years only to find everyone else in the metropolis has shut themselves in. Odder than Japan itself, thanks to its decidedly non-Japanese directors, this cinematic triptych transforms Tokyo's surreality into a nearly inexplicable study of disconnect in an ultra-urban world. Nuart Theater, 11272 Santa Monica Blvd. L.A.; March 20-26. (Originally published in L.A. Weekly, March 20, 2009.)

posted by Derek Thomas @ 5:38 AM, ,

Grease @ The Pantages Monday, March 16, 2009

Born of NBC's reality-TV casting competition Grease: You're the One That I Want, this latest take on Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey's Broadway-hit malt-shop musical features perfunctory performances by Eric Schneider and Emily Padgett as the star-crossed summer lovers, Danny and Sandy. This may explain why headliner status went to American Idol winner Taylor Hicks, despite his mere cameo appearance. He's the Teen Angel ("teen"? wait, what?) who advises beauty school dropout Frenchy (Kate Morgan Chadwick) to go back to high school. Hicks' turn is actually the most effective part of the show, with him crooning to her swooning, as he descends from above amid wafting curls of smoke — but that's not saying much. Director-choreographer Kathleen Marshall's staging generally involves the cast just walking around or, worse, sitting or standing in one place as they belt out their numbers. Can we get these kids some roller skates or something? The actors' voices are uniformly strong, though Schneider's is unremarkable, and Padgett often tackles the Olivia Newton-John songs like they're arias. Paul Huntley's wig stylings and Martin Pakledinaz's costume design provide delightfully retro coifs on the ladies and snazzy duds on the dudes, but Derek McLane's cartoon set looks like it was designed by a middle school stagecraft club. And what's with censoring the explicit lyrics? The Greased Lightnin' car is no longer "a real pussy wagon," it's a "dragon wagon." What the hell does that even mean? Make no mistake, I love Grease, with its timeless plot of boy-meets-girl, boy-loses-girl, girl-sluts-it-up-to-get-boy-back, but this not the one that you want. Pantages Theater, 6233 Hollywood Blvd., L.A.; Tues.-Sat., 8 p.m.; Sat., 2 p.m.; Sun., 1 & 6:30 p.m.; thru March 22. (Originally published in L.A. Weekly, March 20, 2009.)

posted by Derek Thomas @ 12:25 AM, ,