Category Archives: No Spoilers
Liz Tells Frank About The Time She Interviewed Bryan Cranston
Dear Frank,
To the delight of cliche-addicted writing professors everywhere, today’s installment is a is more of a “show” than a “tell.”
In 2010, Frank, I was working full-time as an online video journalist, which meant getting to interview a very odd assortment of folks: Celebrities and CEOs and anyone else deigning to explore the possibilities of new media. It was good fun! I still dabble. And one of those random opportunities ended up being one of the great interview experiences of my life — completely by accident. Read the rest of this entry
“Farscape”: The Complete Skip It/Watch It Guide
[I’ve wanted to do a SI/WI for this show for ages, but it’s been a while since I really dug into the Henson Company’s insane combination of puppets, sci-fi and attractive people in leather pants. Fortunately, I happen to know a bonafide “Farscape” expert, and she was willing to step in and perform this valuable public service! Andreanna Ditton, take it away… –Liz]
Farscape is, as one character says, “Disneyland on Acid.” It’s a roller-coaster of sci-fi and bad decisions when the human is always wrong, but that doesn’t stop him from having a plan. Our protagonists are all escaped criminals, from the big blue priest (Zhaan), who orgasms in the light, to the tentacled warrior masquerading as a Klingon rip-off (D’Argo), who turns out to be funny, young, romantic and ragey. There’s a soldier (Aeryn Sun), raised by a fascist military race that look human, who accidentally goes against her training and gets exiled for it. And then there’s the deposed dictator with the worst case of swamp gas in history (Rygel). Couple all that with a living ship (Moya), her snarktastic Pilot (Pilot), and John Crichton, All-American boy wonder who got shot through a wormhole into the ass-end of a universe that considers him expendable, problematic, and eventually marked for death — and you have a television show.
This is science fiction for people who like their comedy in turns black and snot-filled, their love stories fraught and full of sex, their action-sequences big, the consequences bigger, and the actual science…best left unexplored. It’s space opera on an epic scale.
Farscape tackles all the traditional tropes, then turns them on their collective heads. Continuity matters. Story matters. This is the Odyssey — a man lost in the universe, trying to get home. In the meantime, home changes. Decisions don’t get undone in Farscape, for any of the characters — heroes or villains. It helps that the cast is uniformly stellar, that crazy is not pretty but terrifying, that space is vast, and villains cruel but multi-faceted, and that everyone is capable of doing bad all by themselves.
And yes, there are puppets. If those puppets don’t make you cry at some point, you have no heart. Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In Some Stupid Katherine Heigl Movie
Dear Frank,
I’m super sick. This is how you know I am super sick — I just watched a movie starring this bitch, from beginning to end.
Ugh.
It was pretty bad. I mean, there were a bunch of really great character actors being wasted in side roles. And there were a couple of decent bits of dialogue.
But the movie basically consisted of Katherine Heigl being the perfect woman except slightly uptight, which means that she clashed with the super-cute but totally irresponsible guy with whom she was thrown into an impossible-to-believe situation.
But don’t worry — despite there being a much more suitable guy around, she ended up with the irresponsible manly guy who taught her how to loosen up. Because OPPOSITES ATTRACT, FRANK, AND LOVE BETWEEN TWO PEOPLE WHO ARE DRAMATICALLY DIFFERENT IS THE MOST NATURAL AND POSSIBLE THING.
Oh, and she sat in bubble baths a bunch. Whatever. Bitch.
Don’t worry, Frank. I’m watching old Mad Men episodes now, and thus I am feeling much better.
Love,
Liz
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In The CW’s “Nikita” (Sorta.)
Dear Frank,
Like most of Los Angeles, I came down with a bit of a cold this weekend, which means that I failed to properly deal with my Liz Tells Frank responsibilities. I accept my shame! (I also blame Speed 2.) But I did do what I usually do whilst lying in bed willing my body to get better — watch a bunch of TV! Specifically, the CW series Nikita, which recently became available on Netflix. And Frank, Nikita? It’s faaaaaaaaaab.
I mean, it’s fab in a very specific way — basically, it’s Alias, but without a lot of Alias‘s mistakes, and a far superior lead in Maggie Q. (Sorry, Jennifer Garner, but Maggie Q is THE BEST). I know there have been many other incarnations of this tale before (and that the La Femme Nikita series has a certain fascination for some folks), but with having seen both the French and American films and without having seen the TV show, I feel comfortable saying that this is my favorite version of the story. Frank, let me break it down for you in a nice vague way, with only one major twist from the pilot revealed: Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In the “John Carter of Mars” Trailer
Dear Frank,
You didn’t come see Real Steel with us on Sunday night, which I feel sad about because Real Steel, Frank? Was totally awesome. However, it was preceded by something perhaps a little less awesome — the trailer for John Carter of Mars — and Frank, I think we need to talk about it a bit.
You see, I have seen this trailer many, many times now, but it was this most recent viewing that finally cemented my firm opinion that this trailer is not a good trailer, and is perhaps an actively terrible one. Here it is, for your reference:
I freely admit that I have no familiarity with the source material, as my childhood was spent reading Bradbury obsessively, and while I know he read Burroughs obsessively when he was a child I never bothered to close the loop. So the thing I have to apologize for is this — Frank, today I have failed you. For officially, I’m here to tell you what happens in this trailer, but even though I have seen this trailer many times, I have no idea what is happening in it. Read the rest of this entry
“Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” Season 1: The Skip It/Watch It Guide
Hey, want to check out on the complete series? A guide to all seven seasons of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” can be found in “Liz Tells Frank: The Skip It/Watch It Guides,” now available on Amazon!
Friends, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine is now streaming live on Netflix and that is a BIG DEAL. For if you never watched the show, then you’ve missed out on television that was subversive and revolutionary for its time, eschewing previous Star Trek formula to instead push the limits of multi-arc storytelling in the sci-fi genre. Oh, and it essentially served as a training ground for Ronald D. Moore prior to his equally groundbreaking work on Battlestar Galactica. That’s right — no DS9, no Battlestar.
However, the problem with DS9 is that it WAS subversive and revolutionary for its era, but that doesn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of dead weight along the way. It takes at least two seasons for the show to really kick into gear, and in the meantime Lwaxana Troi shows up TWICE. In TWO DIFFERENT EPISODES. Letting someone watch the show as is could be considered an act of cruelty. Thus, the discerning television fan who wants to check it out should please consider the below recommendations. With the writer’s compliments.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 1: The Skip It/Watch It Guide Read the rest of this entry
Liz Tells Frank What Happened In... 