From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V12 #184 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Wednesday, May 21 2003 Volume 12 : Number 184 Today's Subjects: ----------------- one vote for Julia Sweeney ["Roberta Cowan" ] Re: ooops [Barbara Soutar ] Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) [Miles Goosens ] Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) [Eb ] Re: Use the force [steve ] Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) [Glen Uber ] (Almost) All Girl Comedy Kung Fu Smackdown (boob content? you bet !) ["Re] got funny? [Miles Goosens ] Further reading ["Rex.Broome" ] Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) ["Maximilian Lang" ] got funny? (con't) [Miles Goosens ] Re: (Almost) All Girl Comedy Kung Fu Smackdown (boob content? you bet !) [Miles Goosens Subject: one vote for Julia Sweeney from Miles: >I liked Julia Sweeney initially but got tired of her as she did more >on SNL, and haven't enjoyed her work since God Said HA! is one of the few films I own on video and the first time I saw it I was laughing about as hard as I have at any movie in my life. Maybe it helps if you're a single woman with cancer whose parents move in with you for awhile to help out but I have shown it to friends who were not in that situation and they liked it also. ;-) Highly recommended-- Cheers, Roberta ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 14:18:12 -0700 From: Barbara Soutar Subject: Re: ooops Jeff Dwarf replied to Barbara's Democrat VS Republican sex scandal theory: >Except that doesn't explain why so many Republicans >(including so many of the more brutal shrieker re: Clinton) >have also been involved in various similar incidents. > Wanting desperately to explain it all to you, Barbara is raising her right hand and eagerly jumping up in down at her desk saysing, I know the answer! Call on me! Barbara Soutar Victoria, British Columbia ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 16:54:11 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) At 01:44 PM 5/21/2003 -0700, Eb wrote: >>Miles: >>[Gene Wilder] an older, terminally unfunny star of Mel Brooks and >>Richard Pryor movies. >> >>Hey, I think Molly Shannon's the best thing SNL has had in its long, >>dark, endlessly unfunny last decade > >Hm. If we ever do a "video night" together, we're renting dramas. Usually safer choices. Not that you won't find a range of diversity in people's taste in dramas too (and let's face it, if you went by people like most of my coworkers, TITANIC is a great drama -- no carping from the Quail section, please!), but humor is even more notoriously subjective. FWIW, a quick and of course very subjective and personal recap of the first ten "funny" and "unfunny" comedies or comedians or allegedly comedic things that occurred to me... Funny: Coen Brothers movies SCTV MONTY PYTHON THE KIDS IN THE HALL Marx Brothers Three Stooges BRINGING UP BABY Jackie Mason Mitch Hedberg Denis Leary Not Funny: Mel Brooks Albert Brooks Gene Wilder Robert Wuhl Robert Klein Martin Mull Fred Willard (though spot-on funny in A MIGHTY WIND) SOAP Robin Williams post-1987 Billy Crystal post-1987 Of course this could go on forever. If anyone wants to submit other names to the "funny?" question in an attempt to see a pattern in my taste or lack thereof, feel free. :-) >> I liked Julia Sweeney initially but got tired of her as she did >>more on SNL, and haven't enjoyed her work since > >I saw that one-woman film she did ("When God Said Ha," something like >that?), and thought it was a damn good piece of work. Not so much >because it was *funny*, but because of its overall humanity, insight, >etc. Hard to see that film, and not want to give Sweeney a big hug >afterwards. I thought it was... OK. A shrug. An "ehhhhh," if you will. :-) >What, no 24 and Buffy babble? Lost track of taping the former early on this year, and decided to wait for the inevitable DVDs. Have kept pretty spoiler-free to this point, too. The BUFFY finale was, to me, something of a dud, especially after they went through all of Season Six setting things up that they didn't... seem... to... have... time... to... get... back... to... I... guess... because... of... all... the... talking... this... season. Until Buffy's plan went into action around the 30 minute mark, Melissa and I were yelling stuff like "40 minutes left, let's move it along!" Way better than last week's penultimate snooze, mind you. Part of me defending this season's episodes until lately was the conviction that Mutant Enemy would make it all pay off in the end -- not in a nice, tidy, all-loose-ends-wrapped-up way, but in the way they've knocked down the big dominoes before, leaving the *right* sort of ambiguity where necessary, and all of it consonant with the things they seemed to be working hard to set up. Instead, the clock just seemed to run out,. Heck, over the last few episodes, even a lot of basic low-level plot stuff (how did Buffy know where that temple was? where did Dawn get the tazer? etc. etc.) seemed severely elided, as though edited out because they only had a few minutes of airtime to play with. Normally this would make me anticipate something like an "expanded" version of the last few eps on DVD, but the quality of what actually got left in was so sloppy by BUFFY standards that I have little confidence that a longer version would be significantly better. >Shoot...now I have to contrive some boob content to add, to fit the >subject line. Um, um...oh, I got it. I think that lacy red dress >Lauren Graham wore on last night's Gilmore Girls will become a >permanent feature of my mental image of her. Mmmmmmm.... OK, that makes me almost wish I had seen this week's GILMORE GIRLS, speaking of Things Which Are Not Funny To Me At All. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 17:07:59 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: Film film film film At 09:17 AM 5/21/2003 -0700, Natalie Jane wrote: >GEEKS!), and Alan Moore, as they say, knows the score. Gotta love a PWEI reference! :-) >I went to >see "Donnie Darko," which a lot of my friends recommended. I liked it, but >with reservations. (No spoilers here, read on...) My response is spoiler-free too, never fear -- I guess I'd vote with your friends, as I thought it was superb in every respect. An interesting thing happened when Melissa and I viewed the commentary and deleted scenes on the DVD: We both concluded that the director had ended up making a different picture than he thinks he did, that the performances had taken the film to a slightly different place. The deleted scenes would have made the film much *less* ambiguous and a certain theme *much* more explicit, even a bit didactic. To Richard Kelly's credit, removing those scenes made the audience do much more of the work themselves, and it created a film that admits varying interpretations, which in this case I think is a Good Thing. Given your complaint about "plot strands [not being] tied together well," I wonder if you would have liked DONNIE DARKO better with those deleted scenes left in? :-) To say more would be spoiler-ful. Will second all your applause for various cast members, of course. Watchmen we love you all, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 15:41:18 -0700 From: Eb Subject: Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) Miles: >Funny: >Three Stooges >Jackie Mason Ugh. >Not Funny: >Mel Brooks >Albert Brooks >Gene Wilder >Robert Wuhl >Robert Klein >Martin Mull Fred Willard Hm. Maybe you would have a more upbeat attitude toward comedy if you upgraded your frame of reference past the '70s and '80s, Grandpa. ;) Though it's true that Billy Crystal is so unfunny, it's SCARY! >all... the... talking... this... season. Until Buffy's plan went >into action around the 30 minute mark, Melissa and I were yelling >stuff like "40 minutes left, let's move it along!" Exactly how I felt. >OK, that makes me almost wish I had seen this week's GILMORE GIRLS, >speaking of Things Which Are Not Funny To Me At All. Dramas...definitely dramas. I can't think of any boob content to add to this post...sorry. Somebody send me a .JPG. Eb ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 22:55:31 -0500 From: steve Subject: Re: Use the force On Tuesday, May 20, 2003, at 10:17 PM, Maximilian Lang wrote: > http://www.teamabuse.com/toxic/stuff/swk.htm This was on NPR sometime today. Some of the online geeks have taken pity and are collecting money to buy him a new computer. They're up to $3000.00. For ass-kicking females, one need look no further than many of the zillions of Hong Kong films. And if you want something crazy to watch this weekend, rent Volcano High School, from Korea. http://www.movietyme.com/specsheets/wha_san_go.shtml - - Steve __________ If the president fell flat on his face in the middle of the Rose Garden some of these characters would applaud his uncanny foresight in having arranged for the ground to be in just the right place to break his descent. Shades of the personality cult. - Josh Marshall, on the right wing echo chamber ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 16:19:04 -0700 From: Glen Uber Subject: Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) On 5/21/03 2:54 PM, Miles Goosens was rumored to have said: > Funny: > Coen Brothers movies Yes. > SCTV Most of the time. Not a fan of John Candy's, though. > MONTY PYTHON Definitely. > THE KIDS IN THE HALL Not at all. > Marx Brothers > Three Stooges Yep. > BRINGING UP BABY ??? > Jackie Mason Sometimes. > Mitch Hedberg ??? > Denis Leary Eh. I'd put him in the usta be funny category along with Dennis Miller, Dana Carvey and Eddie Murphy. Of course, he stole, errr, "borrowed" some of his best material from Bill Hicks. Q: Why did Bill Hicks stop smoking? A: To see if Denis Leary would, too. Q: Why is Denis Leary more popular than Bill Hicks? A: Because there's "No Cure for Cancer". I'd add Bill Hicks, George Carlin, Peter Sellers/the Goons, Peter Cook, Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Richard Pryor & Rudy Ray Moore to my list of extremely funny people. Newer funny people I like are Doug Stanhope, Mike Myers, Jimmy Fallon, Jay Mohr, Eddie Izzard, Robert Shimmell, Carlos Mencea, Henry Phillips and Jack Black. Chick comics who crack me up include Sarah Silverman, Cheri Oteri ("Simmer down, now!") and Nicole Sullivan from MadTV. > Not Funny: > Mel Brooks Do not concur. > Albert Brooks Absolutely not funny. > Gene Wilder He's hit and miss. He was brilliant in Young Frankenstein (really, who else could have played that role?) and pretty good in Blazing Saddles. Willy Wonka is one my favorite movies ever. > Robert Wuhl Definitely not funny. > Robert Klein > Martin Mull > Fred Willard (though spot-on funny in A MIGHTY WIND) These three guys are hilarious. > SOAP Never watched it, so I can't really comment. > Robin Williams post-1987 I agree. Way too spastic for me (same reason I don't like Jim Carrey). Love some of his dramatic roles, though. > Billy Crystal post-1987 Billy Crystal has never really made me laugh. Will Ferrell is ok. Love the "Cowbell" sketch with Christopher Walken. People who other folks like but I just don't "get" are Adam Sandler, Chris Farley, Bill Murray, Chris Rock, Lucille Ball, and any number of comics who have their own sit-coms now. - -- Cheers! - -g- "Half the world's starving and have the world bloats; half the world sits on the other and gloats." --Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 16:19:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Mike Swedene Subject: Nick Drake I found this and thought some might be interested in it: http://212.209.231.144/nickdrake/mulistentia.asp Nick Drake demos. Herbie np -> "I'm A Genius In France" Wierd Al Yankovic POODLE HAT ===== - --------------------------------------------- Rebuilding my websight: http://www34.brinkster.com/bflomidy/ _____________________________________________ __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? The New Yahoo! Search - Faster. Easier. Bingo. http://search.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 16:44:49 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: (Almost) All Girl Comedy Kung Fu Smackdown (boob content? you bet !) Me 'n' Max on C O'H: >>>>Anyhow, I'm in love with her. Again. >>Sorry dude, she's mine. I'll fight ya for her! And of course because fighting feels good. ______ Miles: >>Anyway, I fully expect THE KIDS IN THE HALL to have a more lasting >>reputation among North American sketch comedy shows, as they more often >>took the Python route of avoiding terribly topical stuff and just being >>surrealistically funny. I see what you mean there. But the thing that elevates SCTV from SNL et. al. is that in addition to the parodies there were plotlines and continuing characters between, and within, the parodies. Some real pathos built up (see Johnny LaRue as you later mentioned). I mean, they had a newscaster portrayed by Joe Flaherty, and a late-night-horror-host-vampire played by Joe Flaherty, and after a while you realized that it was actually Flaherty portraying one sorry guy at a crappy TV station who was both the newscaster *and* the vampire. The more I think about, the more it seems to prefigure Guest's current MO. Plus I didn't see SCTV in its first run, so some of the satires were already outdated when I first saw them. I saw their Godfather, Graduate, and Midnight Cowboy parodies before I saw the actual films on VHS. But look at those titles. Still oft -reviewed touchstones getting new exposure on DVD. I think there's some mileage left in those old shows yet. But yeah, I'm old, too. >>Even when SCTV alums get good film roles, as Ms. O'Hara's stellar turn in A >>MIGHTY WIND, I still feel like they're undervalued because it's really not a >>forum that shows off their range and versatility. In the bad films they get into (which are legion), that's true. But the Guest films, and a few others, actually give them opportunities to show that they can stretch out and sustain a character for more than just 7 minutes until a punchline (the ones of them who can, that is). That's a beautiful thing. To expect them to show their versatility every time out is to order up a modern Eddie Murphy movie where he plays everyone... blehhh. Take the Levy character in "Wind"-- in a sketch that would've been just a particularly odd burnout nutcase, but in the film he gets to take it to some really intriguing places. I'm still processing that one. Quickly now: ((caveat: all modern SNL skit-expansion movies intrinsically blow)) Molly Shannon is okay, usually, sometimes oddly alluring. Oteri a bit shrill for me. Ana Gasteyer actually usually had the sharpest writing during those years, though. Sweeney no great shakes in sketch-land but a terrific "monologuiste" or whatever Spalding Gray is. Gilda was fascinating but I always get a "you had to be there" vibe from many of her classic bits, especially the child-impersonation ones. I do remember the Brief Ubiquity of Stuart Pankin; it was odd. Boob content? All of these performers have/had them, so there. "Dark Angel" got better in the second season, for what it's worth. I really enjoy "Alias" but I wouldn't say it's actually better than "Dark Angel", just a little more confident. The romantic leads on "Dark Angel" had way more chemistry than those on "Alias" do. The supporting characters on "Alias" are better written and acted, but the bits where the Enemy Lair is always under the Hottest Club in City X which Can Only Be Infiltrated by Wearing Bondage Gear and Walking in Slow-Motion are tiresome. I guess those are there for the red-blooded male audience, but somehow I think I'd appreciate them much more if I was really, really gay, as I suspect they reek of this concept "camp" of which I've heard but cannot myself perceive. In my book "24" beats them all, warts and all, but that's another conflicted rant. ____ Natalie: >>Alan Moore, as they say, knows the score. Ummm, first Pop Will Eat Itself reference on Feg this year? Century? Ever? - -Rex ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 18:41:44 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: got funny? >From: Eb >Sent: 05/21/03 05:41 PM >To: fegmaniax@smoe.org >Subject: Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) > >> >> Miles: >>Funny: >>Three Stooges >>Jackie Mason > >Ugh. > >>Not Funny: >>Mel Brooks >>Albert Brooks >>Gene Wilder >>Robert Wuhl >>Robert Klein >>Martin Mull >Fred Willard > >Hm. Maybe you would have a more upbeat attitude toward comedy if you >upgraded your frame of reference past the '70s and '80s, Grandpa. ;) Hee! Those are longstanding enmities, and I still feel that these folks afflict me, though mercifully Wilder and Klein seem less omnipresent these days. It's sort of like how Hunter S. Thompson is always really fighting Nixon. :-) OK, people/shows/troupes whose time of greatest prominence has come after 1989, 10 each on the funny/unfunny lists: Funny: SOUTH PARK, most of the time SEINFELD, probably 80% of the time Mitch Hedberg Kids in the Hall THE DAILY SHOW Chris Rock after SNL (though he seems to be backsliding as of late) Denis Leary, including the sadly cancelled THE JOB THE OFFICE The Upright Citizens' Brigade EVERYBODY LOVES RAYMOND (the most blackhearted, bitterly funny show on TV, believe it or not) Not Funny: GILMORE GIRLS (arguably not a comedy?) Will Ferrell Farley/Spade (I'll stop now or the whole list will be "People on SNL '94-present") Jim Carrey SEX AND THE CITY Tim Allen Tom Green Farrelly Brothers movies GOOD MORNING, MIAMI (I suppose renewed only b/c it's the WILL & GRACE folks' baby) The League of Gentlemen >Though it's true that Billy Crystal is so unfunny, >it's SCARY! The real-life Billy would make a perfect guest on the Sammy Maudlin show. I think Bobby Bittman could smoke current-day Billy. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 16:56:26 -0700 From: "Rex.Broome" Subject: Further reading By the way, if you want to talk about an SCTV grad whose career is beyond tanked, I present Exhibit A, Dave Thomas. However, in a very self-aware move during his years punching the clock on that Brett Butler sitcom, he wrote a fantastic tell-all about the SCTV years and I can't recommend it highly enough. It's slightly "dishy", but as one of the less successful alumni he's able to admit that even the performers who later became far more famous did their best, most creative work in those early days, and he even gets some of the bigger stars to admit it. The book predates the Guest/Levy collaborations which have finally, happily reversed that trend for some of them. I also have the more recent book on the history of Second City as a whole but I haven't penetrated that far yet; the Thomas book I couldn't put down. - -Rex, who ended up at Martin Short's house after having been told to go to hell by both Dave Thomas and Dan Akroyd on the day John Candy died; long story... ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:59:44 -0400 From: "Maximilian Lang" Subject: Re: Mighty Superpowers (some boob content) >From: Glen Uber > > Not Funny: > > > Gene Wilder > >He's hit and miss. He was brilliant in Young Frankenstein (really, who else >could have played that role?) and pretty good in Blazing Saddles. Willy >Wonka is one my favorite movies ever. Not to mention the fact that Wilder created and wrote Young Frankenstein, as far as I know Mel Brooks only "punched it up". Let us not forget his turn as Leo Bloom in my favorite comedy The Producers. Max _________________________________________________________________ Add photos to your e-mail with MSN 8. Get 2 months FREE*. http://join.msn.com/?page=features/featuredemail ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 17:16:44 -0700 From: Glen Uber Subject: Chicks who kick ass I'm surprised no one's mentioned Pam Grier yet. Or Michelle Yeoh. - -- Cheers! - -g- "Half the world's starving and have the world bloats; half the world sits on the other and gloats." --Robyn Hitchcock ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:29:24 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: got funny? (con't) Glen Uber: >On 5/21/03 2:54 PM, Miles Goosens was rumored to have said: >> SCTV > >Most of the time. Not a fan of John Candy's, though. I would have said that Candy was the least talented of the regular cast, and the one with the least range (though I liked him lots)... up until the day he died. Comedy Central appropriately pulled the regular programming and ran non-stop SCTV episodes that prominently featured Candy characters. And watching so many of them, in such a concentrated burst, I realized that he had *far* more range than I had imagined, and a sense of pathos (ex: the Johnny LaRue craneshot plot on the Christmas episode) that I had overlooked. Now when I catch the occasional SCTV, I wonder how I missed these qualities the first and even the CC-aided second times through the show. >> MONTY PYTHON > >Definitely. > >> THE KIDS IN THE HALL > >Not at all. I find this an odd pair of likes/dislikes, since I see the latter as being *very* related to the former -- not "ripoff" derivative, but of the same ilk. >> BRINGING UP BABY > >??? Maybe the funniest movie ever, IMO. Young, hot, non-annoyingly-affected Katherine Hepburn trades spitfire barbs and flirtations with nerdy paleontologist Cary Grant (take *that*, Ross Geller!) in a screwball comedy that'll knock your socks off. I laughed so hard and often on the first viewing that my sides hurt for days afterwards. Directed by the ever-versatile Howard Hawks. >> Mitch Hedberg > >??? Current-day standup comedian. Jeffrey and Eb laughed at me for describing him as the "stoner Steven Wright," which without explanation does seem kinda redundant. But what I meant to say was that Hedberg does the same kind of wordplay mess-with-your-mind surreal stuff, but instead of reminding me of a cool guy you might meet in a bar outside the Harvard campus (Wright), Mitch reminds me of smart-but-stoned backwoodsy guys that I grew up with -- like what might have happened of M* B* from high school hadn't joined the Navy but had gotten his shit together and done an act. He has a really unique cadence to his jokes too, and *hearing* him deliver the lines is an essential part of his comedy. > >> Denis Leary > >Eh. I'd put him in the usta be funny category along with Dennis Miller, >Dana >Carvey and Eddie Murphy. Of course, he stole, errr, "borrowed" some of his >best material from Bill Hicks. I don't think he's a "usta" (see THE JOB... wait, no one saw it, which I guess is why it's not on anymore), and I see him as less derivative than you do. >I'd add Bill Hicks, Funny. >George Carlin, Funny. >Peter Sellers/the Goons, Peter Cook, Have yet to see the Goons, though I know I should, nor have I seen the allegedly classic Cook/Moore material -- *hated* Moore in 10, ARTHUR, etc. Sellers gets a resounding "Funny!" >Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, Funny most of the time. Don't like Shearer when he's the primary guy behind something (I'm shuddering remembering his horribly-titled news show/game show for Comedy Central, THE NEWS HOLE -- and yes, I know where the term comes from, but still. And the show sucked.). However, in collaborative ventures, he's great. >Richard Pryor Funny. >Rudy Ray Moore >Doug Stanhope >Carlos Mencea >Henry Phillips Don't know 'em. >Mike Myers, >Jay Mohr >Eddie Izzard >Robert Shimmell >Sarah Silverman >Cheri Oteri >Nicole Sullivan Funny! Izzard and Shimmel should have been on my '90s-'00s "funny!" list... >Jack Black. ...but this guy should have been #1 on my '90s-'00s "not funny!" list. Words cannot describe how much he repulses me, and how intensely I dislike him. It doesn't matter what the context is, even if it's an otherwise great thing like HIGH FIDELITY or his spot on MR. SHOW -- when I see him I just want to smack the living crap out of him. >Jimmy Fallon I would have said "not funny!" based on most of his SNL stuff and what movies I've seen him in, but IMO he was hilarious hosting that MTV thingy last year, so I'll keep the jury out on him. later, Miles ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 May 2003 19:58:57 -0500 From: Miles Goosens Subject: Re: (Almost) All Girl Comedy Kung Fu Smackdown (boob content? you bet !) Rex: >Miles: >>>Anyway, I fully expect THE KIDS IN THE HALL to have a more lasting >>>reputation among North American sketch comedy shows, as they more often >>>took the Python route of avoiding terribly topical stuff and just being >>>surrealistically funny. > >I see what you mean there. But the thing that elevates SCTV from SNL et. >al. is that in addition to the parodies there were plotlines and >continuing characters between, and within, the parodies. Some real pathos >built up (see Johnny LaRue as you later mentioned). I mean, they had a >newscaster portrayed by Joe Flaherty, and a late-night-horror-host-vampire >played by Joe Flaherty, and after a while you realized that it was actually >Flaherty portraying one sorry guy at a crappy TV station who was both the >newscaster *and* the vampire. Rex, while I wholly agree with what you say about the continuing "SCTV network" continuing characters and their plotlines (and you cited exactly the example I would have), do you really think a 22-year old who's seeing these shows for the first time is going to sit through all these parodies he or she doesn't get? And sit though it long enough to start perceiving the subtleties you just described? I'm not sure I'd watch a parody show from the '50s where I didn't understand 2/3 to 3/4 of the content just to enjoy the continuing character bits. >Plus I didn't see SCTV in its first run, so some of the satires were >already >outdated when I first saw them. Yeah, but you're certainly old enough to have remembered almost everything SCTV makes fun of, whether first-hand or residual '70s haze lingering into the mid-to-late '80s. You might not have seen that Brenda Vaccaro tampon ad where her breathing between lines was incredibly audible, but the celebs, movies, and TV shows had to be part of your world. For what it's worth, I saw their GRADUATE and MIDNIGHT COWBOY parodies before *I* saw the real films -- like my mom is gonna let her 15 year-old rent MIDNIGHT COWBOY! :-) >>>Even when SCTV alums get good film roles, as Ms. O'Hara's stellar turn >in >A >>MIGHTY WIND, I still feel like they're undervalued because it's really >not a >>forum that shows off their range and versatility. > >In the bad films they get into (which are legion), that's true. But the >Guest films, and a few others, actually give them opportunities to show >that >they can stretch out and sustain a character for more than just 7 minutes >until a punchline (the ones of them who can, that is). That's a beautiful >thing. Oh, I agree re: the Guest films. But... >To expect them to show their versatility every time out is to >order up a modern Eddie Murphy movie where he plays everyone... blehhh. ...that's not what I'm saying they should do. What I *am* saying is that the thing that SCTV people are best at is sketch comedy, and I wish they were still in vehicles that gave them those same sorts of acting and comedy opportunities. Film is *not* such a medium, beyond the stunt crap you just described. >Take >the >Levy character in "Wind"-- in a sketch that would've been just a >particularly odd burnout nutcase, but in the film he gets to take it to >some >really intriguing places. I'm still processing that one. It's a great performance. Also, there were lots of things about the character -- his general affect, his gait, his looks, his distractedness, his difficulty in relating to people -- that reminded me strongly of my dad. It was like Levy observed my dad for a week to prep for the part, but decided that a thrice-married erstwhile logic professor just wouldn't fly on the big screen. >I do remember the Brief Ubiquity >of Stuart Pankin; it was odd. Boob content? All of these performers >have/had them, so there. Heh. >"Dark Angel" got better in the second season, for what it's worth. I >really >enjoy "Alias" but I wouldn't say it's actually better than "Dark Angel", >just a little more confident. The romantic leads on "Dark Angel" had way >more chemistry than those on "Alias" do. Oooh, I gotta part ways with you on all of this -- DARK ANGEL blew just as much in Year Two, and even though M. Weatherly and J. Alba were (are?) a real-life couple, I didn't feel spark one onscreen. ALIAS is exponentially better at everything. >the bits where the Enemy Lair is >always under the Hottest Club in City X which Can Only Be Infiltrated by >Wearing Bondage Gear and Walking in Slow-Motion are tiresome. I guess >those >are there for the red-blooded male audience, but somehow I think I'd >appreciate them much more if I was really, really gay, as I suspect they >reek of this concept "camp" of which I've heard but cannot myself >perceive. I must be really, really gay, because I dig those scenes a lot. Some of my fondest ALIAS memories! I guess it's like the argument I had with someone (here? on Loud-Fans?) about the first season, where the other person was down to arguing about how that little amount of explosive couldn't have blown up that whole plant in Germany (the one where Sydney hands off stuff to CIA agents inside the factory for her countermission and disables the detonator, but Dixon turns out to have a 2nd detonator and blows up the factory and the CIA agents). Either you dig the kicky over-the-top elements (see your slow-mo club scenes above) and Bond-like leap-of-logic explosions or you don't, I guess, and I'm a sucker for them in a show done with this much joie de ass-kicking vivre. >Natalie: >>>Alan Moore, as they say, knows the score. > >Ummm, first Pop Will Eat Itself reference on Feg this year? Century? >Ever? I'm betting I dropped one at some point. Maybe while you were out. If I didn't, it was a sin of omission. later, Miles ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V12 #184 ********************************