Glee‘s first season was nothing short of a revelation.  It had accomplished what nobody had ever accomplished in the history of television.  It took the idea of a musical TV show airing in primetime and made it a smash hit.  And for those not put off by the sheer principles of the format, it was drop-dead entertaining to boot!  It stumbled here and there, sure.  Some of the early episodes were awkward when they weren’t sure if the musical numbers were real or not and Home was just kind of dull.  But beyond that, Ryan Murphy and company managed to churn out one of the most consistently enjoyable hours of television in the ’09-’10 season.

And now here we are, halfway through season 2, and wow is it really starting to suck.  What happened?  It seems as though Glee‘s producers learned all the wrong lessons from season 1.  The human moments have been shedded, making way for big, flashy moments to carry the show along.  The musical numbers have mostly reverted to being sheer reproductions of the music videos for the original songs.  And the storylines have reached an almost comedic level of inconsistency.

But by far the most glaring issue with the new season is the melodrama.  Oh, the melodrama!  Glee has always had it’s dramatic undercurrents, sure, but they were under-currents.  Glee is better when it uses the comedy and music to mask an air of sadness, not when it openly discusses how sad it is.  Which brings me to my first tip for saving the season:

1. Remember that you’re a comedy show.  I understand that there are dramatic elements that are important to the over-arching narrative, and I get that if they were to disappear the show would suffer.  But the melodrama of this season is threatening to swallow the show whole.  So, my suggestion?  Just do one episode that completely shucks the drama.  Just one.  One episode that is nothing but pure balls-out comedy.  With giant fun musical numbers to go along with it.  Maybe Sue gets up to one of her schemes and the glee club has to stop her.  I don’t know!  What I do know is that in this episode Will doesn’t get to fret over Emma, Kurt doesn’t get all angsty (not a bad storyline, mind you, but it’s kind of been beaten to death this year), and I know this sounds counter-intuitive, but Brittany is kept to a minimum.  She’s a funny character in small doses, but she went from a supporting character with the occasional funny one-liner to a major player while skipping the entire transitional phase that would have made that less jarring.
2. Remember that your characters are human beings.  By the end of the first season, basically all of the characters had become less selfish, and had let their humanity shine through (at least to the home viewer, if not each other, yet).  But this season Rachel’s back to being a self-absorbed witch (seriously, I hate her this year), Will’s had at least two storylines where in a desperate attempt to seem cool he’s put himself in scenarios involving inappropriate interactions with students that just make him seem creepy, and even Sue chucked her epiphany from the end of season 1 aside in favor of being even more comically evil than she was last year.  I know nobody involved with Glee ever claimed subtlety was an important factor for the show, but seriously, it’s just getting ridiculous!
3. Fill in the gaps.  The big, splashy moments are Glee‘s bread and butter, but the producers seem to be leaning too hard on that crutch lately.  And even though the epic moments are what will likely be discussed around the water cooler the next day (people still do that, right?), it makes it way more enjoyable to actually, you know, watch the damn program when the small moments don’t feel like you’re just passing time until the next chance to break into song.  Whether that means getting your writers fired up to write better dialogue or getting your cast to work harder to come up with better character moments, I don’t know, but something desperately needs to be done.

And this one is slightly more general, but please, for the love of God, don’t make anymore episodes as wretched as “Brittany/Britney.”  The fact that that was the highest rated episode the show has ever seen doesn’t excuse the fact that it was absolutely terrible (and I mean absolutely terrible).

So yeah, if the producers could just follow these simple tips, that would be terrific and I would feel no qualms at all about continuing to watch Glee.  It has the capacity for greatness, we saw it a lot last year, but they seem to be resting on their laurels too much, and if they could just shake it up, we could round this season out right.  Cue the music!

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

In 2003, the unthinkable happened to Aron Ralston.  While on a hiking trip in Utah he found himself with his arm pinned under a boulder.  Being a solitary individual, he wound up in this position without telling anyone where he was, thus leaving him only one possible option for escape.  127 Hours dramatizes that event while simultaneously bringing the horror of the situation into stark focus.

James Franco plays Aron with a swagger that could only be broken by a giant rock.  In the canyon he conveys the resourcefulness, the restlessness, and the helplessness that the real-life Ralston experienced, and so powerful is his performance that we, the audience, fully understand why he has to do what he did.  Franco’s performance is so magnetic, in fact, that it’s a shame the film around him couldn’t match it.  Don’t get me wrong, 127 Hours is not a bad film, it is actually quite good, but with such a strong presence at the center, the film’s faults become more obvious.

Chief among the problems is Danny Boyle’s direction.  Boyle has been accused in the past of favoring style over substance, especially when it came to Slumdog Millionaire (a sentiment I did not agree with, because I walked out of that movie with a giant grin on my face, and there’s something to be said for that), and in this case I am inclined to agree with that assessment.  While some visual style is required for a film like this (after all, it is one person sitting in the same spot for over an hour), Boyle too often goes overboard with hallucinations and dream sequences that threaten to take away from the enormously compelling story at hand.

Now granted, those hallucinations and dream sequences were real things that Ralston really dealt with during the five days that he was stuck, but Boyle gives them too many flourishes that at times make this harrowing film about survival look like a music video (and not a terribly good one).  Boyle is not completely out of his element here, though.  In the pre-boulder segments, Boyle expertly shows us the pure euphoria that Ralston is able to squeeze out of life, making his ultimate fate all the more tragic.  And he manages to convey the same cavernous landscape both as an exciting place full of adventure, and as a desolate hellscape after the boulder falls.

And I must congratulate him for not shying away from the key scene in the film.  If you’re not aware, yes, the film does include a graphic depiction of Ralston removing his right forearm with a pen-knife.  But the brilliant thing about the film is that by not leaving Aron, we absolutely comprehend why he has to go to such drastic lengths.  Yes, the scene is unflinching and brutal and horrifying, but all that completely melts away the second he steps away from the boulder.

But this is more than a movie about a guy getting stuck under a rock.  This is a film that celebrates life.  It’s about the joys of being surrounded by the ones you love and who love you in return.  It shows how being connected and being free don’t have to be mutually exclusive.  And how desperation and fear can drive people to do extraordinary things, even if those things aren’t all that nice to think about.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture

Over the weekend I was watching a bit of Fuse’s Celebration of Mediocrity Top 40 of 2010 which gave recognition to the “best” songs that came out this year.  It got me thinking about the state of pop music and why most of it is just plain awful.  Now before I get too far on this tirade (and believe me, it will likely be a tirade) I understand that by virtue of me having different taste in music than most people who listen to Top 40, I am probably not qualified to comment on music I’m pre-disposed to dislike.  But I’m going to anyway.

Let me begin by stating that I don’t actually hate all pop music.  I genuinely enjoy (or at least ironically enjoy) several songs mass-marketed to a mainstream audience.  The thing that bugs me, though, is that so many songs seem to be popular solely because the powers-that-be deem them to be popular.  Anyone with even a mild cynical streak (hello!) could easily draw the conclusion that the people who listen to this stuff are mindless drones who just like what they’re told to like.  For example, could somebody please explain to me the draw behind ‘Like A G6?’  Everytime I hear that song, I fail to hear anything that even resembles a melody or a steady beat, making it unpleasant to listen OR dance to.

At least with songs like ‘OMG,’ while they may be inhumanely annoying, they at least have a beat and can therefore be danced to in a club setting.  Which hits upon my biggest (and pretty much only) standard for a pop song: be catchy, and barring that, be danceable.  But really, be catchy.  Unfortunately most music artists and producers seem to have the opposite agenda, favoring danceability way more than hooks.  Which would be fine if a club were the only place you ever heard this stuff, but those pesky radio stations like to reach a wide audience (jerks).

My other giant complaint about pop music is that most of the songs, when they’re not being completely irritating, are borrrrrrrring.  Going back to Fuse’s list, ‘Airplanes’ by B.O.B. came in at number 12, and I’d be hard-pressed to think of a bigger snooze-fest to come out in the last year, whereas ‘Magic’ by B.O.B. is a song I’ll get sick of roughly never.  But ‘Magic’ doesn’t make the list, and I think it stems from fun songs being looked at less seriously, whereas ‘serious’ (read: boring) songs are given WAY too much credence.  And that would explain why Eminem’s latest crop of material has been so well-received, even though it’s just tuneless anger.  Also why ‘Use Somebody’ by Kings of Leon was such a gigantic hit despite being completely God-awful.  I mean seriously, that song sucked out loud.

A lesser (yet still reasonably major) issue I have is many artists taking their art entirely too seriously.  So while I genuinely enjoy most of Lady Gaga’s music (except for ‘Paparazzi’ which was terrible and ‘Alejandro’ which is an interesting song exactly never), I am, by-and-large, fed up with Lady Gaga.  She has bought so completely into the system that I think she’s lost the ability to switch off and become a normal person.  Which brings me to why I like Ke$ha so much.  I know a lot of people find her obnoxious (and that’s not an argument without merit), but I kind of dig her music.  But what I really find endearing about her is the fact that she doesn’t really seem to buy into the image of her that’s been crafted.  I feel like at the end of the day, Ke$ha becomes Kesha, whereas Lady Gaga doesn’t become Stephanie (I didn’t have to look that up, unfortunately).

The flip side of that though, is that Ke$ha is pretty much the most awkward performer in the history of the world.  But since I rarely find myself in situations that require watching these types of artists perform, I’ll totally take not being able to watch her in exchange for (in my opinion) some of the catchiest pop music out there right now.  Also, News 18′s own Megan Wiebold does interpretive Ke$ha (which is exactly what it sounds like), and that’s pretty awesome.

Posted under Kyle's Adventures in Pop Culture