The Conical Glass: Hootenanny Time!

Friday, September 12, 2008

Hootenanny Time!

Bad news for ABBA fans! The opening of the ABBA museum in Stockholm has been delayed 'til 2010 at the earliest.

Meanwhile, back in the East Bay... San Francisco Chronicle TV critic/blogger/podcaster Tim Goodman holds an annual fall preview night at a local movie theater for his cult of fans. Joe and I almost always go, but we missed last year's because we had tickets for "Sweeney Todd" at ACT. Apparently it was such a madhouse that Tim decided to hold two events this year -- one in conjunction with local radio station KFOG, and one for the crazed masses that follow his Bastard Machine blog. To be honest, I was a little worried about coming F2F with a horde of blog/podcast fans, so I decided to attend the first one.

Tim's TV Hootenanny features a screening of several new TV shows, Q&As with Tim, and lots of free stuff -- he saves up all the DVDs, T-shirts, and gimmicky items the networks send out to promote their shows and gives them away (I was excited to score a John Oliver stand-up DVD). Here is what Tim chose to show this year:

1. "The Life and Times of Tim": No, this has nothing to do with Mr. Goodman; it's a crudely animated series that will debut on HBO on Sept. 28. The episode we saw was titled "Angry Unpaid Hooker," which should be a tip-off that "Tim" is not for kids -- it's more for the "Adult Swim" crowd. It was sort of clever but not the sort of thing that makes me want to shell out for HBO.

2. "Worst Week": U.S. remake of a BBC series that premieres on CBS on Sept. 22. I can't believe I managed to sit through this entire episode, because I hated it so much. It belongs to a genre I absolutely despise -- I'll call it "everything goes horribly wrong," or, according to Wikipedia, "a comedy of embarrassment and errors." If you've ever seen the films "After Hours" or "Meet the Parents," you know what I'm talking about. Things just get worse and worse for a hapless protagonist. In the "Worst Week" pilot, a young couple, Sam and Melanie, are about to announce their engagement to Melanie's wealthy parents. Sam arrives at the in-laws' palatial manse clad only in a diaper made out of a garbage bag (don't ask), and he winds up urinating on the food, mistakenly declaring his father-in-law dead, and setting a valuable portrait on fire. Won't people be exhausted watching this kind of stuff week after week? I was tired of it after 3 minutes.

3. "Gavin and Stacey": Delightful British sitcom currently airing on BBC America, about two 20-somethings who "meet" each other over the phone at their respective jobs. She lives in Wales, he's in Essex. They make plans to get together in London, and arrive in the big city with their best friends in tow. The pals, Nessa and Smithy, are the tart and cynical counterparts to the sweet title characters (indeed, James Corden and Ruth Jones, who play the friends, are the creators and writers of the series). Rights to a U.S. remake have been purchased by NBC, but if you have BBC America, you should definitely check out the original.

4. "Little Britain USA": I had never seen the original "Little Britain," a hit sketch show that is invariably described as "tasteless" or "lowbrow" in reviews; I just had a feeling, based on what I read, that I wouldn't like it. I definitely didn't like "Little Britain USA," although I'd rather watch it than "Worst Week." Both shows feature jokes about people urinating. If you love bodily function humor and insult comedy, step right up. It debuts Sept. 28 on HBO.

5. "NOVA: Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives": Talk about an abrupt change of tone -- the evening ended with this sensitive documentary about musician Mark Everett of the Eels, who goes on a quest to learn about his father. Hugh Everett died when Mark was just 19, and it sounds like the singer barely got to know him during the years they did spend together. The emotionally distant man was a brilliant physicist whose theories were so ahead of his time that they've only been getting the recognition they deserve in the past few years. The amazing thing about "Parallel Worlds" is that it manages to explain some of the basics of quantum mechanics to people who know zilch about it, which would include both me and Mark Everett (who jokes that he's such a math-illiterate that he has problems calculating a restaurant tip).

Hugh Everett's groundbreaking theory declared that every time we make a decision, a parallel universe splits off from our own. I've always wondered what would have happened if I hadn't gone to college where I did. In fact, an alternate-universe Sue may have gone to the University of Michigan instead of Johns Hopkins and gone on to lead a parallel life. I wonder what she's up to now?

Parallel universes have become almost commonplace in popular entertainment in recent years, including "Star Trek" and films like "Sliding Doors" and "The Butterfly Effect." If you're interested in the science behind parallel worlds, or just want to see a fascinating family story, don't miss this "Nova" episode, which will air in late October.

posted by 125records @ 10:03 AM

3 Comments:

At 8:06 PM, neal said…

That's all well and good, but where are the pictures of the new dog???
At 6:05 PM, yellojkt said…

I'm watching Sweeney Todd on DVD right now. Just a little too gruesome for me.
At 8:46 AM, 125records said…

Well, I was talking about the stage play, not the movie, which was too gruesome for me to even contemplate seeing!