Aaron Sorkin returns to NBC with a smart new drama about the inner workings of a sketch-comedy show. Elsewhere, the Roots make another predictably great record.
You can tell that Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip has the biggest buzz of an new TV show because most people I know already have an opinion about it before they’ve even watched one episode. Tonight, they finally get to see if they were right.
Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip (NBC on Mondays)
Desperate to ensure that its fall season’s highest-profile offering is the hit it needs to be, NBC is pushing Studio 60’s worst attribute hard in its advertising: its glibness. Aaron Sorkin fans will recognize and appreciate the expensive production values and the zingy back-and-forth dialogue, but the ads oversell the show’s self-consciousness cleverness. You can’t blame NBC; tell the viewing audience that a show is really smart and you’ll experience the same problem HBO faces with The Wire. If you hate Sorkin’s razzle-dazzle – his desire to end every scene with a triple somersault and a perfect landing – then the pilot episode will roll your eyes right out of your head. But no one else does knowing sophistication as well as he does it, and Studio 60’s central conceit – making a sketch-comedy show is anything but funny – has just the right balance of wit and playfulness to sustain the bumpy stretches. Now, I’m not going to argue that the actual sketch show at the heart of this program is worth saving – and the popularity of Amanda Peet remains one of the great mysteries of this young century – but Bradley Whitford and Matthew Perry’s relationship is so smoothly established that you take it on faith that these two guys (and Sorkin) will keep us interested in subsequent weeks.
Battlestar Galactica (Universal Home Video)
What’s frustrating for people like me who don’t invest a lot of time into television shows is accepting the fact that even great programs have utterly awful episodes – you have to fill all those minutes with something and therefore it can’t all be gold. But now that the first two seasons (and the initial miniseries) for Battlestar Galactica are available on DVD, the information is all there to see: At its best – which is often – this is a major program, a smart, pitiless series of enormous depth and well-placed surprises. While much has been made about its allusions to 9/11’s psychological aftermath, none of Battlestar’s references to prisoner torture (or even its stolen-election episode) would mean much without a level of writing and craft that sci-fi shows rarely aspire to. But the program’s secret weapon is its cast of mostly unknowns – outside of Mary McDonnell and Edward James Olmos, these actors feel appropriately anonymous, and not even the Cylon blonde is just a good-looking shell. Battlestar’s great irony, of course, is that while it’s supposed to be about mankind’s battle for survival, the show’s plots are merely a more dramatic variation of the political and romantic relationships we see around us on a daily basis. We all face our own Cylons, the show seems to be saying, and I’ll admit that I’ve found myself missing Battlestar during its hiatus because I’ve found it to be a guide for living. C’mon, I can’t be the only one to ask myself in a difficult situation, "I wonder what Adama would do?"
The Roots, Game Theory (Def Jam)
You want just one Roots album? Go for Phrenology, where a strong hip-hop band established its rock ‘n’ roll cred with its best group of songs. Since then, the Roots have made two strong records, tuneful if less overtly amazing. Here, they work best when they slow things down, especially on "Atonement," where a subtle Radiohead sample shows not just good taste but good ears – you may hum the song for days before making the connection to its source. And for all the talk about Black Thought not being a great hip-hop vocalist, you recognize his charcoal delivery instantly, intoning and tough-minded. Perhaps he and the rest of the band don’t wow us enough, but their steady consistency has its own delights.
The Raconteurs, Broken Boy Soldiers (V2)
Because Jack White has never spent a second of his well-manicured career not giving less than 110 percent – simply cracking a smile might mean a noticeable drop in artistic principles – the hangdog nonchalance of this side project might seem horribly self-indulgent. The goofy album cover, the tossed-off lyrics – even if Brendan Benson is responsible for half the writing credits, who didn’t assume that White would hijack this band for his own purposes? But once you readjust, this is easily the most likable he’s ever been – the betrayal songs don’t have the usual bile, but they don’t feel lazy, either. As for Benson, he nails good tune after good tune without ever knocking your socks off. Reliably rocking from start to finish with a short running time and no real duds – it’s not miraculous because nobody involved worried about such matters.
Be Your Own Pet, Be Your Own Pet (Ecstatic Peace/Universal)
Teenagers raging and rocking for 120 seconds per song, this album is an instant love-it-or-hate-it affair. Call me wishy-washy, but I see it both ways. The ecstatic energy generated is stunning in sections, but very few of these 15 songs linger in the mind, and you might end up wishing that they stuck to their 10 best riffs and formed better songs around those. I know, that wouldn’t be as punk of them, and if you don’t shuffle around, the album does build to some real frenetic moments. Prediction: Later they’ll make a real polished classic, and we’ll look back on this one as their Bleach.
Mutual Appreciation (Goodbye Cruel Releasing)
Even though it’s meant as praise, calling Andrew Bujalski’s movies emblematic of a generation is to straightjacket them and turn off a large chunk of the potential audience that will think, "Oh great, another movie about twentysomethings." Being 25 is being 25 no matter the era, and while not much happens in this emo Manhattan, the small details are all precise. This is what it was like to wander into a party as it was winding down, know no one there, and start talking about nothing because, hey, you could. This is what it felt like to have grand aspirations but not to quite care what it all meant – unable to articulate what you wanted but to know it was something. Because the characters are so low-key, the movie follows suit, which is both its great accomplishment and its only drawback – it’s a small, delicate gem that doesn’t add up to much. But it’s deceptively well acted – Bujalski is particularly good at giving his "nice-guy boyfriend" role a human element – and the characters are intelligent without being precious. Even better, there’s very little chance they’ll grow up to be the humorless whiners of The Last Kiss.
The Proposition (First Look Home Entertainment)
With its blood-and-guts amorality, there’s a lurid fascination in this Down Under Western. But there’s also a lot of malarkey – tough-guy wisdom about Family and Racism and, always a personal favorite, the Nature of Evil. Put another way, this film has Danny Huston, continuing a recent string of appearances in prestigious, actorly films he sullies with his ham. Huston embodies all that’s right and wrong with The Proposition – he takes his role as a poetry-spewing ruthless killer utterly seriously and tackles the role with great flair, but aren’t we all tired of seeing ruthless killers quoting the Bible and/or Shakespeare? This is the sort of film where scene-chewing is considered acting, Emily Watson is stuck playing the wife role, and director John Hillcoat (in a pinch) fills the frame with another beautiful shot of Australia’s desert plains.
Beck, "Nausea" (from the forthcoming The Information, Geffen)
Guero was eclecticism approaching maturity – still musically curious but without so many of the indulgences and the gimmicks. This, on the other hand, sounds ordinary – the sort of leftover track the exhausted artist gives to a movie soundtrack for the easy bucks. Is this really how you get the populace excited for your latest comeback effort?
Consumables is a biweekly overview of popular culture.
