Author Archives: Scott Howard

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About Scott Howard

Scott Howard grew up in rural Georgia and got a job making grocery store ads for his hometown newspaper at the ripe old age of 15. When the entire editorial staff was fired, he started writing movie reviews to fill empty space. He's been doing the same thing ever since, as one of the original editors of PiQ Magazine, a columnist for Connect Savannah and The Savannah Morning News, and a regular contributor to Newtype USA, The Stanford Daily and Bolt Reporter. His work as a graphic designer has been featured in ADV Manga, PiQ Magazine and Newtype USA. He holds BFAs in Graphic Design and Photography from Georgia Southern University and lives in Houston, TX with his lovely wife Marisa.

Breaking Bad’s creator says it “should end” next season

After fantastic ratings for its long-awaited season premiere last week, Breaking Bad mastermind Vince Gilligan told the New York Times that the show should end next season.

“This was never intended to be an open-ended show,” he said. “As creators of the show, we have to see it through to the end, to finish what we started.”

The show up to now has always been ratings-challenged, but Sunday’s episode was AMC’s second highest rated premiere ever, behind the blockbuster ratings for The Walking Dead. We’ll see if Gilligan will change his mind now that his show is finally getting the audience it deserves.

TNT sends Men Of A Certain Age to the old folks’ home

TNT today axed the best show it’s ever aired, Men of a Certain Age. The critically acclaimed but low-rated show was an ill fit for a network known more for cop/lawyer procedural trash. The network said in a statement:

While the show has featured great storytelling and impeccable performances, the audience simply hasn’t built to the point where we can continue the series. This was an extremely difficult decision for us.

Sadly, Franklin and Bash lives to annoy another day.

James Spader officially the new boss on The Office

The final, and arguably biggest, question of the 2010-2011 TV season is now answered, nearly 2 months after it ended: James Spader will replace Steve Carell as the new boss on The Office. As has been reported elsewhere, he’ll actually be taking Kathy Bates’ position, not Carell’s, but he’ll be a full-fledged regular cast member. Spader’s character Robert California was light years ahead of everyone else on this season’s finale, especially the rumored favorite for the position, Catherine Tate, who crashed and burned in an unspectacular fashion. This isn’t the first time Spader has taken over the reins of a vacating star; he toplined the final season of The Practice following Dylan McDermott’s departure before spinning off his Alan Shore character to Boston Legal.

The Tree of Life

  • Fox Searchlight
  • In theaters now

The Tree of Life is one of the greatest movies ever made. There, I said it.

Now, the caveats. Terrence Malick’s long in the works epic about the yin and yang of nature and grace is so personal and specific that those not tuned in to its rhythms will find it interminable. But if it works for you, as it did for me, I’m hard-pressed to think of another movie that has ever used the medium of film more effectively.

It starts in the middle and then goes back to the beginning, and when I say back to the beginning I mean the dawn of time. We see mysterious lights, signaling the creation of the universe. We see volcanoes erupting, creating the continents. We see torrential rains, creating the oceans. And we see the origins of life, cells that turn into amoebas that turn into small creatures that turn into great dinosaurs. This where we came from as physical beings. Then we see where we came from as emotional beings. The birth of a child. The freedom of early life. The everyday magic of an afternoon spent in the front yard. Then we have to start obeying rules. We begin to feel pain. We see sadness and oppression. We lose people we love.

These are universal emotions, rendered with incredible intimacy by Malick and cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki and a team of editors led by Hank Corwin. I can see how the film doesn’t work for some, but for me, I was with it for every second of its 139 minutes. There are countless ideas, images and themes I’ve rarely if ever seen a film tackle before, chief among them the significance and insignificance of a single life in the scheme of the universe. The Tree Of Life stares into the vastness of the cosmos, boldly aspires to greatness, and reaches it.

The Stunt Man

Richard Rush’s 1980 oddball masterpiece The Stunt Man is an anomaly in every way. It’s one of the only films Rush ever directed (the only film he’s made since is the bonkers Bruce Willis softcore extravaganza Color of Night). It’s one of the only films where Peter O’Toole plays someone who didn’t die several centuries ago. And it’s one of the only films that, at least to my knowledge, begins as a genre picture about a drifter on the run from the cops, and soon morphs into an insanely ambitious rumination on reality and unreality, with countless layers of Charlie Kaufman-esque weirdness. O’Toole gives one of the greatest performances of his career as a dictatorial director who may or may not be willing to kill Vietnam-vet-turned-stunt-man Steve Railsback to make a great film, delivering every line with the delectable loftiness of a man relishing his all-abiding God complex. It’s an incredibly dense film that rewards multiple viewings, appropriately becoming something completely different depending on what you’re paying attention to. Severin Films’ fantastic new Blu-ray edition polishes the low budgeted film to a gorgeous luster; it’s hard to believe this is the same Stunt Man I fell in love with on a battered VHS in the mid-90′s. Also included are extensive interviews with Rush and every major actor in the film, including an immaculately dressed O’Toole who, despite pushing 80, is spry as ever and funny as hell.

62: Three Finales and Three Realitys

Game of Thrones: “Baelor”, “Fire and Blood”

Robert: All’s well that ends well—except in Westeros, where apparently nothing ever ends well. It’s some kind of twisted fate that Tyrion should be thrown into the front lines of battle and live to see another day while Ned, thinking his life had been mercifully spared, ends up paying the ultimate price. Unfortunately, I discovered that shocking development by complete accident (in trying to remember all the characters’ names early on, I wandered over to Wikipedia and was almost immediately spoiled on Ned’s misfortune) but like the story of an ill-fated Apollo mission or a doomed White Star Line ocean liner, it’s always interesting to see how things play out even when you know the end result. Knowing that Ned stuck to his guns and that Sansa and Arya—now on opposite sides of the same coin, it seems—are going to be all that’s left in King’s Landing is terribly tragic, but not if Robb and Lady Catelyn have anything to say about it. Their abduction of Jamie was a crucial move and stands to be a useful bargaining chip in the future, but things only stand to get worse for everyone now. And that’s not even including what’s happening abroad: Jon Snow marching off into the North to face the otherworldly horrors that have started showing themselves and Daenerys re-introducing dragons to the world of men.

Bringing the first season to a close, I thought these two episodes did a pretty good job of flipping everything on its head and leaving us with a real sense of wanting to know what happens next. The world of Game of Thrones is a place of death, treachery and abandon, no doubt, but we, the audience, naturally insist that things will right themselves eventually. Until they do, the show has no qualms about pulling rugs out from under us. The loss of Sean Bean’s Ned and Jason Momoa’s Drogo is significant (and unfortunate, as I’m sure lots of viewers tuned in just for their presence alone), but the way I see it, now is the time for far more magnetic characters to come to the forefront. Where the series started out with Robert, Ned and Viserys pushing the narrative forward, it’s now Tyrion, Robb and Daenerys who are poised to face off for the Iron Throne. Seeing their lesser beginnings gives us a fundamental understanding of who we’re dealing with going forward, while every remaining ancillary character struggles to find a new place in this suddenly-changed world. In just ten episodes, Game of Thrones has gone further and done more than I’d expected (those incredibly dense, early episodes seem to have paid off) and I can only expect things to roar ahead full steam when the second season begins in early 2012.

Zoe: I literally just received a call from a friend who had just finished watching the show. She, unlike me, was not spoiled for this turn of events and so was able to say “I don’t know, I guess I just thought he’d get out of it somehow.” Exactly. It seems that Game of Thrones exists to be a critique of our expectations of fantasies stories, at least in part. There will be no mighty rescue of Ned by Robb, and Dany finds out that the reality of war can’t be washed away with good deeds. Of course, her harsh lesson ends with dragons, so it’s not all terrible. Meanwhile too much is happening with basically every other character for me to review here, but suffice to say, it looks like shit is going down. Knowing that this is all based off The War of the Roses–a thirty year long war thatstill manages to not be the longest war in English history–we’re probably in for the long haul. I couldn’t be more excited, as I’m really enjoying the show, but fighting the temptation to read the books and skip ahead in the plot is strong. Hopefully the show won’t even give me a reason to.

The Killing: “Orpheus Descending”

Scott: More like RATINGS descending, amirite??? But seriously, folks, I think The Killing dug its grave with this truly abysmal finale. Any whodunit is essentially a series of red herrings before finding out that, yep, this one person is a murderer, and when it comes down to it, that’s pretty boring. Twin Peaks brilliantly subverted that formula by creating a town full of people so interesting that you really didn’t care about the central conceit of the show at all. Despite all the ways AMC tried to draw parallels to that other great, Pacific Northwestern masterpiece about a mysterious young lady who’s found dead in the pilot, The Killing is even worse than a rote CBS detective show, because at least those shows know what they are while The Killing is a pointless mess with an added layer of completely unwarranted pretension, perfectly exemplified by the maddening interviews showrunner Veena Sud gave to every TV website Monday morning. Sud thinks she’s making a towering epic about the nature of evil, when she’s really making a potboiler that we’ve been a bazillion times before, with a lot of characters that we hate, even more that we don’t care about, and one that’s pretty great who is completely ruined in the final moments of the finale. Hopefully in season 2 she realizes that she’s pissed off every viewer who had the patience to stick with this stupid show and sees what she’s really making: a show that’s going to get cancelled when everyone bails the second Rosie Larsen’s killer is revealed.

Ryan and Tatum: The O’Neals: “A Home Coming”

Scott: Ryan O’Neal has been in some good movies, but he’s never been a good actor, and according to everything I’ve ever read about him, he’s a horrible son of a bitch. Every single one of his kids have A) been estranged from him for decades at a time, B) struggled with crippling drug/alcohol addiction, C) been introduced to those drugs/alcoholic beverages by him before being legal adult, and D) been sent to prison, usually with some involvement by him. This new show on Oprah’s OWN channel is set up as an attempt for his most famous child, Tatum, to reconnect with him, but so far it’s just filmed proof of what’s been rumored for so long. This guy is simply an awful person: vain, hateful, violent, petty, and pathologically incapable of loving anyone but Farrah Fawcett. He’s almost a cartoon villain; every person in the show has a story about him chasing them with a baseball bat, or throwing furniture at them, or him kicking them out of a car in the middle of the freeway, or snorting lines with him at the age of twelve. He’s 70 but leers at his young assistant, who’s “my muse, but she also works for me”, and tries to pick up his grandchildren’s 20 year old friends. He’s the most sickening reality show villain since Donald “My People Can’t Believe What They’re Finding” Trump, and it’s heartbreaking to see his daughter begging for his love while he debates “whether I should let her back into my heart.” I might stick it out for a few more episodes, but so far this thing is sad, not funny.

The Glee Project: “Individuality” and “Theatricality”

Dennis: So, I abandoned Glee earlier in the season, but strangely that hasn’t stopped me from watching and enjoying this reality competition to select someone for a recurring role on the sub par Fox series. Sure, this is another “brand extension” to accompany the oodles of merchandise and the concert tours, and yes there are some flourishes of regular Glee here, namely the dependence on already overplayed pop music (there are few things more horrifying than watching the contestants go apeshit over getting to sing “Firework,” like it’s the greatest song of all time). But, there are also things that this Project has that its parent show no longer features, which include the ability to have characters who seem real (not always a guarantee on a reality show, either), and who also seem consistent from episode, and also the ability to have a cohesive plot each week. Oh, and the cast members on this show actually sing live sometimes, at least sparing us the overproduced-and-yet-still-bad-karaoke-sounding stuff we’ve come to get watching Glee or worse yet, (shudder) listening to one of the 80000 soundtracks associated with the show.  I’m curious to see who wins this competition. Since Glee is all about misfits, and many of the archetypes here (the big girl, the diva, the flamboyant and proud gay kid) already exist on the mothership, my money’s on suave little guy Matheus to ultimately reign supreme..

Switched At Birth: “American Gothic” and “Portrait of my Father”

Zoe: Watching something on ABC Family, I was expecting treacly hugs-all-around programming. I wasn’t expecting to be so consistently annoyed at missed writing opportunities. It’s not that the show is bad–it’s fairly middling, all things considered–but that with minor changes, it could be so much better. Take, for example, D.W. Moffett’s character. He’s supposed to be a well-meaning dad, but a lot of the time he just comes off as such a jerk. Which is every character D.W. Moffett has ever played, but on this show we’re supposed to take a few redeeming moments as a sign of him being a good guy. Ditto Mrs. McFly. Meanwhile, Daphne’s mom is supposed to be seen as angry, despite that being both a horrible stereotype and just not true. Is she angry? Sure. But two people are trying to steal her daughter from her. I’d be a little teed off too. I honestly don’t know if I’m going to be able to keep watching this show, because right now it makes me yell for an hour.

Camelot: “The Battle of Bardon Pass”, “Reckoning”

Robert: After Igraine found her way back to Camelot, Morgan’s dirty deeds had already been done, and the fallout between Leontes and Guinevere (albeit a bit too soap opera-ish for my tastes) was felt immediately. He couldn’t reconcile her dalliance with Arthur and she couldn’t find her way back into his heart. When Merlin finds out, he lashes out at Arthur for foolishly risking his credibility as king. And yet, that’s only the beginning of Morgan’s plan. She also sends a company of men to take Bardon Pass, hoping to draw Arthur and his best men (including Kay, Gawain and a reluctant Leontes) out into the open while leaving the people of Camelot fearful and without a leader. After Arthur’s team takes some losses, he orders them back to Camelot and stays behind, both to prove his dedication to them and give them time to escape unseen.
As that all plays out, Merlin and Igraine are left to hold down the fort, but Morgan makes her move on Camelot and believing Arthur’s death is imminent, prepares to finally take the crown for herself. Her ability to work both sides—showing the people that she can be the compassionate, reliable leader they need and playing Arthur, Merlin and Igraine for fools that they may or may not be—serves her coup effort well, but while under attack at Bardon Pass, Arthur’s resourcefulness and sheer determination to stay alive becomes the last tiny glimmer of hope for Camelot’s future. When Bardon Pass is overrun and his men double back to save him, Leontes goes down and Arthur, knowing that Guinevere will be heartbroken, is overcome with guilt. When they return to Camelot, Morgan is quickly dismissed once Arthur provides evidence that she was the one who had been behind everything, but not before she deals a deadly hand to Igraine. Arthur commands a swift and brutal justice be dealt to Morgan, but Cybil steps up and assumes all responsibility, condemning herself to a hard and cold traitor’s death.

In contrast to Game of Thrones, Camelot is easily the more palatable medieval fantasy of 2011 because, if nothing else, its characters aren’t as viciously gung-ho about conspiring and backstabbing. Not to mention, having a lead character like Arthur who stands at the heart of the show as a virtuous model of what every other character aspires to gives viewers something to easily latch on to. Sure, he’s young, idealistic and reckless (and due to Jamie Campbell Bower’s sometimes meek appearance and demeanor, a bit ill-suited as king), but he fights for what’s right and when pushed, can push back like the best of them. Eva Green’s Morgan carries herself with a certain campy, deluded honor, and ultimately she just wants to claim her birthright of the throne even if her methods are wholly unsound. On its own merits, the first season of Camelot has been a noble attempt to re-imagine a time-honored legend while also challenging viewers with new wrinkles here and there. Speaking of which, considering Morgan’s conniving, totally-incestuous move in its final minutes, I’m curious to see where Camelot goes from here, should it be picked up for another season.

Love Bites: “Keep on Truckin” and “Sky High”

Dennis: It’s interesting, this show is all about getting TV mainstays as guest stars (these two episodes featured That 70s Show’s Laura Prepon, Community’s Ken Jeong, Cougar Town’s Spencer Locke, and the Old Spice guy himself Isaiah Mustafa), but I find myself wishing even more as these episodes go on that we’d spend more time with Becki Newton and only Becki Newton, especially as her character develops a flirtation with Jack & Bobby/Mad Men’s Matt Long (another go-to TV guy). Considering Love is likely to um, bite the dust, I’m hoping Newton soon gets the star-making TV role she so totally deserves.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution: “We’re Going to Go Guerilla” and “Feed Them Healthy Food with 77 Cents”

Dennis: This season is only six episodes, and yet by episodes 4 and 5 even that’s starting to feel a little long. Don’t get me wrong, I still think this incredibly moving and powerful show got the shaft this season, shipped off to summer to air its remaining episodes mostly unnoticed, but I’m starting to wonder if Jamie had enough material this year. While season one of the series, allowed Jamie into a West Virginia school to really bring positive change to the community, this second season is forced to be about Jamie’s struggle to even get into a school, with school boards terrified of what the erstwhile Naked Chef will find lurking in their cafeteria kitchens. Watching Jamie unable to even get near LA’s school food is certainly disconcerting (what are they trying to hide?), but I find myself increasingly more interested in the episodes’ B-plots, as Jamie tries to help families and business owners, one by one, with their food choices. Here’s hoping if Jamie Oliver gets the chance to retool Revolution, it’s this more personal interaction he focuses on in the future.

Upcoming season of Glee last with original cast

Glee co-creator/gigantic cheeseball Ryan Murphy confirmed on Ryan Seacrest’s radio show Friday that every student cast member of the show will graduate from high school, and presumably Glee, in next year’s season finale.

“We didn’t want to have a show where they were in high school for eight years,” he explained. “We really wanted  to be true to that experience.”

Murphy plans to deal with this by adding even more cast members to the show, which currently has 13,874,698 full-time regulars. Given the precipitous drop in ratings and quality last year, ditching the vast majority of the cast in favor of new folks the audience has no attachment to doesn’t bode well for Glee‘s future.

If you had doubts, Chevy Chase will be back on Community

We here at SPJ are huge fans of Community. Heck, I called it the best show of 2010. But we are not big fans of Chevy Chase’s Pierce, who went from silly old dude last year to hateful supervillain this year. Season 2′s finale seemed to suggest an exit for Pierce from the show, but series creator Dan Harmon quieted all that talk today in an interview with TVLine.

” I didn’t want to hold people emotionally hostage in terms of, ‘You have to tune in to find out what happens next!’” Harmon tells TVLine. “But at the same time, I wanted to give some energy to the first six or so episodes [of Season 3].”

Oh well. TVLine did report some good news elsewhere: the most useless character on network TV, Jessalyn Gilsig’s Terri on Glee, won’t be back next year, and Catherine Tate, who was reportedly the heir apparent to Steve Carell on The Office before completely flopping in her appearance on the finale, won’t be getting the job.

61: Summer School Edition

The Killing: “Missing”

Zoe: The Killing is a show I really, really wanted to like. I enjoy the hell out of murder mysteries and lady detectives, and AMC has a pretty good track record. Unfortunately, the show bounces around from “terrible and nonsensical” to “boring” and really hits anything good. The main detective characters are fine–the best part of the show–but everything else is really meh. I never thought I would be so callous about victim’s grief, but man, I hate Mitch Larsen. Hate her so much.

Fortunately, this week The Killing chose (or was contractually forced) to ditch those extra, annoying characters in favor of Holder and Linden actually bonding. About 3 episodes too late, really, but a welcome relief all the same. And while we still know next to nothing about Rosie or what she was doing or how racist the Native American Casino plot will become, we learned some more about our main characters and got to see Linden lighten up, just a little bit. Prior to this episode, my investment was limited to being angry that I had waste my time and wanting to see the show through. Now my investment is partially because I actually like some people on the show and their relationship. Progress!

Men of a Certain Age: “The Great Escape”

Scott: Boy oh boy am I excited for this summer’s half season of the show I’m way to young to love on a network I’m way too young to watch, TNT’s Men of a Certain Age. My love of sweet, sweet MOACA (I pronounce it “mocha”) is no secret to regular Remote Uncontrolled readers. Despite the fact that it’s about fiftysomething men in situations I’m decades away from, the great characters, autumnal cinematography, wry observational humor and so-subtle-it’s-almost-slight writing earn it a place on my very favorite shows. Last week’s half-season premiere was maybe its best episode ever, bringing several series-long arcs to fruition but working as a standalone piece too that highlights just what makes the show special: warm, melancholy and quietly magnificent. Joe (Ray Romano), nice guy that he is, finds himself pulled on by the two people for whom he has the most mixed feelings imaginable: his ex-wife he still loves but who cheated on him, and his former bookie/current friend whose mere presence fans the flames of his gambling addiction. Owen (Andre Braugher) gets a ticket out of the $500 million debt his father saddled him with when he handed over the dealership that’s his birthright. And Terry (Scott Bakula) gives up the last vestiges of his prolonged adolescence for a woman who may not even want him. All of the arcs unfold in quiet, unspectacular ways, but the simple humanity the series spins out of ordinary, decent people reminds me of the first season of Friday Night Lights. MOACA’s already back in its stride, let’s hope audiences show up for it.

Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution “Is It Me or Have We Just Been Pushed Into a Corner?”

Dennis: While I might be slacking on catching up on shows I neglected all season (sorry, Fringe, Treme,Justified, The Middle, and Southland, I’ll get to you eventually, I swear), I’m at least doing well keeping up with shows that the networks hid from sight until the season was over. Poor Food Revolution, a reality show nominated for an Emmy last year, whose really bad ratings caused it to be yanked from the schedule two episodes into its season, for the duration of May sweeps. Whenever anyone asks me how this show is (because I’m increasingly convinced I might be the only person watching, especially in these summer network TV doldrums), I always say that it is manipulative, but for all the right reasons. Three episodes in, Jamie finally broke his fast food-peddling frenemy Deno, who realized that perhaps he could make a difference in the community. I challenge anyone to watch this episode and not tear up as Deno does. It’s a shame these episodes might be the last we see of this show. I guess the Revolution really won’t be televised.

Game of Thrones: “You Win or You Die” and “The Pointy End”

Zoe: Hoo boy! A lot happened on this show in the past few weeks, including Ned finally realizing how fucked he is, the Lannisters and the Starks finally going to war with each other, some zombie action, and Khal Dragoripping some dude’s throat out. Pretty exciting stuff all around, and yet I want to talk about nudity! Im not the only person who complains about this show’s occasionally gratuitous T&A, because it’s so blatant. And yet I see people call those reviewers puritans. Now, look. I’m as ok with ladies boobs being shown as the next gal who doesn’t care about boobs at all. In fact, there are times when being on a broadcast channel would limit perfectly natural boobs showing. But there’s a difference between that and having some ladies finger bang for the hell of it and the latter is damaging not just those scenes, but the shows reputation. With people who don’t really watch, this has now become the show with weird sex acts to hear about and not the show about badass and nobility and snow zombies. That’s a crying shame and I hope that HBO and the writers have enough faith in their audience next season to ditch it. Or at least add some more dong, because Hodor and Theon isn’t really doing a lot for the ladies, you know?

On to more important things, like how fucked Ned is. Because man. It was bad enough when he just wasn’t politically savvy enough to pick up on the massive hints people were dropping on him, but to be betrayed by his wife’s rival and accused of treachery? Harsh. And the one card he had in his sleeve was freed to go help the Hill Tribes take down the Eeryie (land of Motherboy). Whoops! Should have stayed in Winterfell, with your equally foolish wife and teenaged daughter. I guess on the bright side he could always come back as a snow zombie?

Love Bites “Firsts” and “How To…”

Dennis: I kind of feel bad for Love Bites. It was supposed to be one of NBC’s staples last fall and then it was shelved for the entire actual season. When it finally hit airwaves. it was savaged by the critics who bothered to knowledge its existence. I mean, maybe this show isn’t good per se, but based on the two episodes that have aired, I don’t think it’s completely terrible either. Ugly Betty‘s Becki Newton definitely has star potential and I enjoy her scenes here. I wish TBS hadn’t renewed My Boys for one more season, thus pulling from the show its planned lead, the equally as compelling Jordanna Spiro, since now we have to endure Greg Grunberg for a large portion of the episodes. It’s not that I dislike Grunberg, JJ Abrams’ pal and perpetual second banana, it’s just I guess I only like him as said secondary player. The one thing I did like about Grunberg’s character, shifted in between the two episodes. In the first episode, Grunberg’s wife was played by Louie‘s Pamela Adlon, who’s made a career of being sharply sarcastic ever since Grease 2, but unfortunately she’s since been re-cast with Constance Zimmer. Again, nothing against Zimmer, I just wonder what the could’ve been like with Adlon (who ended up on Californication instead). Then again, with this show, unfortunately there’s a lot of wondering what might’ve been. What if this had aired last fall? What if the NBC heads that were supportive of the show were still at NBC? What if Newton’s character weren’t pregnant for the whole season? (Although, I kind of like that real life-dictated addition). Still, as mild summer diversions go, I’ll take this sweet scripted trifle over watching Gordon Ramsay scream at people. or Bachelor Pad candidates getting the clap, any day.

Switched at Birth: “This is Not a Pipe”

Zoe: I know Dennis is a big booster of ABC Family, and I hear good things, like “it’s not as bad as you think!” This, and the fact that as an ASL student, I’m basically required by law to watch anything with the Deaf community, is what brought me to Switched at Birth. Which, honestly, was about what I would expect from something with Family in the channel name–I didn’t feel like I was watching Seventh Heaven, per se, but at least their neighbor. Not that I am against family programming–I defend the Disney Channel, for god’s sakes–but I don’t think this was the most compelling version of it I’ve seen. However, this largely hinges on the fact that the rich parents are such douches that I can’t believe normal humans, estranged daughter or not, would continue to hang out with them. Likewise, the fact that now these two families will be living together is a hard contrivance to swallow. On the plus side, for once teen angst was warranted on a teen show and the show moved along at a good clip. You go from the opening to the reveal in about 3 minutes, which is really all you need when the premise is in the title. All things considered, I can’t judge a pilot as harsh as I would a normal episode, and there’s a chance the rich family will become less douchey to the daughter they raised (and the mother of the daughter they didn’t) over time. Plus, it is fun to see ASL on TV. I’ll keep watching, but the fact that I can’t barely remember these characters names probably says something.

 

First photo of Sacha Baron Cohen in The Dictator debuts

Sacha Baron Cohen, easily on a shortlist of the greatest comedic minds working today, is currently working on his next project The Dictator, in which he plays a petty dictator inspired by Saddam Hussein and a lowly goat herder oppressed by said dictator. Huffington Post debuted the first photo of Cohen in full dictatorial regalia today, and it’s as weirdly unhinged as you’d expect. The film is partially based on one of Saddam’s own books, Zabibah and the King:

The book itself is about a benevolent, beloved king who falls in love with a beautiful, victimized girl who was raped by her cruel husband. Believe it or not, it’s a subtle allegory for Iraq and the United States — the king (based, obviously, on Saddam) is the peaceful Iraq, while the cruel, rapist husband is the Gulf War-waging United States.