Television Obsession

I geeked out last night with a midnight showing of Spider Man 2. I really shouldn't say anything about it, since it was a total battle to stay awake and I think I need to see it again more alertly before I have any sort of opinion. I learned several interesting things at this midnight showing: first - UA at Union Square has very lax security. We decided not to get in the huge Spider Man line and instead opted to just go straight into the theater. No one stopped us - apparently the ticket taker guys weren't told about the massive line outside. We got there about an hour early and snuck into the theater as Harry Potter's credits were rolling, and we picked out the perfect seats and just sat there until Spider Man started. Some kids who obviously worked at the theater were in there with us for a while, but they seemed to think we belonged there and didn't say anything. Second - lots of people think it's a good idea to bring small children to midnight movies. I think it makes the kids totally psyched - but it seems like kind of a weird thing to do. Third - Apparently Union Square is the theater where people yell at the screen (and some weird kid dressed as spider man pretends to throw himself off the balcony). And apparently Battery Park theater is a very quiet nice theater - this is according to my friend who actually instigated the midnight showing thing, and had accidentally hit Union Square when he meant to hit Battery Park in the excitement of online Spider Man 2 ticket buying - and then every time some annoying kid yelled something at the screen - he was like "Battery Park" under his breath. So, my only advice to all of you is to see Spider Man 2 at Battery Park and to see it when you aren't really sleepy.

There's not much good tv happening in the summer. I have no material to write about. Is that why no one wants to give me comments anymore? I think the focus of the summer is really movies, so maybe I should see some and comment on them. I did see Dodgeball this weekend. It was very amusing, sort of a poor man's Zoolander, except featuring Vince Vaughn's perfect little nose. Of course the big event of the weekend is that Fahrenheit 9/11 made 23.9 million dollars. That not only puts the film in the top box office slot for the weekend (with White Chicks as a distant 2nd with 19.7 million) but that breaks Michael Moore's own record for top grossing documentary of all time. And this is just the opening weekend. Insane.

If you want to see David Cross every day, just hang out in my neighborhood. Sighting number four last night.

Subliminal message: notetakingpizza. Todd Barry is so fucking funny. Will someone in the know tell me what this job at NBC is that has something to do with "comedy development" and involves spying on comedians and taking notes? I saw Graham Norton perform live on stage last night. I knew that he was going to be at this show, and I was not looking forward to it. He's so irritating on TV, and the billboards for his new comedy central show just make me want to never, ever watch it. But then he got on stage, and he had this fantastic presence that made me want to be his friend. Yes, he was super hyper, flamboyant and seemed interested in being as gay as possible - but somehow it was all so charming. I think because there was this major undercurrent of "I really don't give a fuck what you think of me" running under his performance, and basically anyone who gives me that vibe is immediately someone I give a fuck about. Plus he was wearing the best jeans ever, and this shirt that looked kinda torn up and vintagey but probably cost ten million dollars.

I'm reading the most incredible book - Running with Scissors by Augusten Burroughs. I might be the last person in America to be reading this book, (I guess it's a bestseller?) but I also just finished reading the Da Vinci Code last week, so I am clearly not on the pulse of the New York Times bestseller list. I read a lot - yes, I have time to not only watch an obscene amount of TV, but also to read at least one book a week - so I never really buy books. I usually go to the library and pick up random books based on their covers. I've read every book by every author I like (more or less) and I'm too lazy to go out of my way seeking new authors. The fact that most modern literature is depressing and boring might have something to do with my literary laziness. But, this Augusten Burroughs I am really into. The basic plot of Running with Scissors is that Augusten Burroughs' mom goes crazy when he's about 9, his parents get divorced, and he is handed over to his mother's insane psychiatrist. Literally - the psychiatrist becomes his legal guardian. Every horrible thing that could happen to this kid happens - and yet somehow it's totally hilarious. Part of the greatness of the book is that Burroughs has so much ambiguity about it - on one hand you can tell that he's kind of horrified as he writes things down, but then at the same time he has a bit of Stockholm Syndrome and kind of likes the total insanity of his life - because at least it's never boring.

The North Shore still intrigues me in concept, but I'm going to have to agree with the naysayers that the writing is incredibly crappy. Hailey from the OC has now joined the cast as a strangely niave con artist. One of her best lines of the last episode was: "No one's ever given me a chance, and you gave me a chance" - believe me, it was totally ridiculous in the context. So, I really want to like the show, but the writers keep getting in the way. Hailey is actually a pretty good actor, I have to say, since she was the most convincing actor of the episode, even with her cheesy lines.

I forgot to say the funniest thing about Joe Schmo 2 - in the "pearl necklace eviction ceremony" the bachelor says to the contestants: "May I give you a pearl necklace?"

Joe Schmo 2 is pretty awesome. I'm afraid they may have even gone too far - since it's so crazy that one of the Schmos (the girl, of course) already said "I feel like I'm on the Truman Show or something" This week we see if she blows the cover after one day or not. It didn't help that some dumb model who was hired to be one of the minorities voted off in the first elimination ceremony told Ingrid (the female Joe Schmo) that she got to the show through her agent... oops. It was kind of funny that they immediately elimated almost all of the minorities - as the producer said "those dating reality shows always eliminate the minorities first so we wanted to parody that" or (in real reality shows) - they keep them around to appear non-racist, while the bachelor or bachelorette seems very uninterested in them. You'd think no one in America ever dated anyone outside their race. Well, at least no one in reality show land.

I'm really glad Spike TV decided to do another season of Joe Schmo. For those of you unfamiliar with the show - it's the best idea ever, basically a real person gets thrown in with actors who stage a fake reality show. Joe Schmo (and in season 2, a Jane Schmo) are the only ones who don't know it's fake. Last season the fake reality show was called "rags to riches" and it had these crazy portraits of all the contestants on plates that were dashed on the fireplace when they were voted out. And there was some weird fuzzy costume the people who had gained "immunity" had to wear. It was so great. I did feel kind of bad for Joe Schmo last year, since he was such a nice guy. Then when they told him they'd been tricking him the whole time, they tried to spin it as "it was all for you!" instead of, "it was all to humiliate you on national tv!" He did win some money and vacations though, so he seemed ok with it. And when he realized the girl he'd had a big crush on was an actor and not a christian virgin having an affair with the "rags to riches" host, he was actually pretty psyched about that. I haven't seen this season yet, but the fake show this time is a dating reality show - complete with "pearl necklace eliminations" (who could be dumb enough to think that's real?)

I was just out of town shooting for a few weeks, there wasn't much tv watching, and there definitely wasn't a dvr. We all watched the season finale of the sopranos that someone from the office fed exed to us. I wasn't too impressed. Basically now that Adriana is gone, I don't feel the need to watch the show. Well, I guess I'll probably watch the last season, but I haven't loved the sopranos for about two years. It just became so self important at some point. I did some random hotel room tv watching and discovered two shows I never would have stumbled upon. One was Lenny vs Spenny on the game show network. It's basically two loser guys from Canada who challenge each other to various useless competitions. Spenny is a straight arrow, and Lenny always cheats. And somehow it's really compelling. And hilarious at moments. I also discovered that one of my favorite people ever, Andrew WK has a very strange show on MTV2. It's mostly videos, being MTV2, but then there are random emails from people that Andrew WK responds to, and then Andrew WK goes to people's houses and helps them with their problems. I actually got pretty bored by the show, because I really just wanted to watch videos. But there is something so great about Andrew WK that might be enough of a draw for me to watch his show again. I also watched the North Shore, which is the OC replacement for the summer. It's not anywhere near as witty as the OC, and the characters are all a lot older. It's more like the Love Boat, which is its own kind of good thing, I think. And a lot of funny gossipy things happened on my shoot, which I will not discuss here since this blog is all about tv.