Category Archives: All the Spoilers
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In the “House of Lies” Pilot
Dear Frank,
Show me the person who doesn’t like Don Cheadle and I’ll show you a liar. I mean, seriously, what could you object to? Do you not think that Boogie Nights is awesome? Was his performance in Hotel Rwanda TOO heart-breaking? I mean, sure, his accent in the Ocean’s Eleven movies is a little silly, but it’s SUPPOSED to be silly. C’mon now.
Thus, Frank, because I am a person of sense and taste, of course I decided to take advantage of Showtime’s generosity and sample the first episode of House of Lies, Showtime’s new dramedy series starring Don Cheadle. And not just because I love me some Cheadle — the supporting cast is also pretty good! Veronica Mars! Jean-Ralphio! Some random guy who I don’t recognize from other TV shows but doesn’t trip over himself terribly! Thus, worthy of 34 minutes of my time.
At least, I hope it is.
It’s worth noting that because what I am watching is a free download from iTunes, the episode is edited for content, which means lots of muted four-letter-words and censored nakedness. As a result, here is the tableau presented in the opening shot of this pilot: Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In the Anti-Choice Drama “Sarah’s Choice”
Dear Frank,
There was a sad article in Salon this week about how the savvy video store clerk is becoming an endangered species, replaced by algorithmic recommendations developed by companies like Netflix and Amazon. This article is depressing on a personal level, because I spent some formative years behind the counter of a video store, but also depressing because Netflix recommendations are FAR from accurate.
How do I know this? Because a movie called Sarah’s Choice ended up as one of my Netflix recommendations at some point. Now, due to the amount of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine I watch, I’ve always assumed that Netflix thinks I’m a gay man with a crush on Dr. Bashir (which isn’t too far off from the truth). But somehow this anti-choice abortion drama slipped through the cracks.
A properly-trained video store clerk would never have let this happen. And more importantly, they would have never let me watch it, even for comedy purposes. Alas, I am alone. So let’s do this. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Speed 2: Cruise Control”
Dear Frank,
The other day, I was sitting on the couch finishing a sandwich and watching TV, and I ended up on a HBO channel playing The Blind Side, a movie I saw months ago and didn’t much care for.
Which is why I’m very confused about this: I watched the WHOLE DAMN MOVIE, Frank. Start to finish. The whole time, I was thinking, god, this movie is really bad, but Sandra Bullock is so good in it! Sandra Bullock has been very good in many bad movies! What is the deal with that?
And that’s how I ended up watching Speed 2: Cruise Control, Frank. Because I kinda wanted to see which was the worst Sandra Bullock film between the two, thinking at the time that there was no way Speed 2 could be as bad as I remembered. WROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “The Simpsons” Episode “The Book Job”
Dear Frank,
When was the last time you watched a new episode of The Simpsons? Yeah, same here — a long time! At this point, I would guess that I have only seen a third of the episodes produced to date, which doesn’t sound like a lot until you remember that there have been almost FIVE HUNDRED EPISODES of The Simpsons. That is a lot of episodes. Perhaps too many! Who’s to say.
But while you, me and most comedy snobs have abandoned the show at some point in the last decade, The Simpsons has continued to turn out episodes with a continually impressive roster of guest stars. Last season alone they had Cheech and Chong, Halle Berry, Hugh Laurie, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, a whole bunch of other people…
And this season, they had Neil Gaiman, which is what brings us together today. Frank, ostensibly I’m telling you about a recent Simpsons episode because revisiting the show this late into its run makes for an interesting intellectual exercise. But the real reason I’m writing this is that despite the fact that I’ve been a tremendous fan of his work for over a decade, Neil Gaiman has started annoying me over the last year or so, and I need to spend a thousand words or so working out why that is. Sorry, Frank. We’ll get through this together. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In “Flashdance”
Dear Frank,
One of the fascinating things about doing this blog is that I can never properly predict what gaps might need filling in your pop culture consciousness. For example, I know you’ve seen Dirty Dancing and Center Stage — but you haven’t seen Flashdance? Frank, what the hell.
Flashdance is worth knowing about for many reasons, but the most important might be that it launched the following things: a rage for shoulder-baring sweatshirts, the epic producing partnership between Jerry Bruckheimer and Don Simpson and the writing career of Joe Eszterhas, one of the geniuses behind Showgirls. That’s right — without Flashdance, there is no Showgirls and the world is a… Different place, definitely. Better? Worse? Who knows. I’m just saying, different.
Flashdance opens with our lady hero, spunky 18-year-old Alex, stopping to pet a cat while biking to work. What does she do at work? Holy shit, she’s a welder! She welds things! Read the rest of this entry
Frank Tells Liz What Happened In the “Twilight Zone” Episode “Steel”
Dear Liz,
So I know you saw the new Huge Ackman vehicle Real Steel last week, and though we haven’t yet been able to discuss it in detail, I’m very pleased to hear that it was 100% pure enjoyment! (Surprising no one, really, because how could a cybernetic pugilism film from the director of Date Night be anything less?)
Anyway, I’m bummed that I couldn’t join you on the trip to the ol’ robot ring, so I’m going to try to make it up here. I figure there’s only one thing that can retroactively enhance the Real Steel experience: READING ABOUT THE SOURCE MATERIAL!
One of the many Marx toys! Have you all of them?
Liz, though I still have trouble believing it, Real Steel is not an adaptation of Rock’em Sock’em Robots. Apparently it is actually an adaptation of “Steel,” a short story by the great Richard Matheson, originally published in 1956 (eight years before Rock’em Sock’em Robots hit the shelves)! The Los Angeles Public Library system is very stingy with its back issues of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, so I have not been able to track down the story. Fortunately, they made it into a Twilight Zone episode! Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 