Viewing Log #72: Plinywurst [2/1/11 - 2/6/11]

by Ryland Walker Knight

• The Super Bowl. My favorite ads were the Transformers 3 ad because a teaser is supposed to blare and dazzle, the new bug teaser animation because the punchline made me look at Cam, and the Motor City paean from Chrysler because, as Barry said, it's about how we make things in America (or how we used to, at that). The game was fun, too, even though I lost money.
  
  
• Scrapertown [Drea Cooper & Zackary Canepari, 2010] Part of California is a place, via Haz. Just great. The exactly perfect tone that's never cute but simply positive and charming.
  
  
• Cry For Bobo [David Cairns, 2001] See it here. Conceptually pretty perfect, and you know I love jokes. Wish there were more goofy little gems, not all those sad sack lunch pails about Big Ideas. Gags are great! And I'm not just saying this to be "blog polite" (is that a term?); I really dug this little thing.
  
  
• True Grit [Henry Hathaway, 1969] # I put the seen-this-before tag just left of these words, but, really, I didn't remember how cheesy and clunky and kinda-sorta bad this movie is. The Coens certainly improved on it, and clearly had more of the book in mind than any ideas of remaking this thing. Kim Darby sure was cute, though.
  
  
• A lot of Larry Sanders on Instant, selected mostly at random. This week's NBC shows: I fear 30 Rock's veering away from its sweet spot again, but it's always nice to see Elizabeth Banks, and Community was all the clever things I don't like about it rolled up into a bottle episode that can't compete with the earlier one this season because this one was so damned sweet; that is, I like acerbity more than lobbed-on poignancy when it comes to my weekly sitcoms. Oh, and, Season Seven of Peep Show is, in the first episode at least, a marvel of hilariousness and exactly what I want. Then again, I also love this video below by Jaime Harley, for a song called "Suicide Dream" by How To Dress Well, so my criteria certainly shift all the time like anybody else.

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