Out of Focus

R.I.P. MICHELANGELO (CAN WE TAKE A BREAK, PLEASE?)

This is a bit terrifying. Let's leave aside Bill Walsh, Tom Snyder and Michel Serrault. I don't even want to think about what the news will be tomorrow, especially considering the number of French New Wave directors are still alive. Sunday, it was the Swedish Ingmar Bergman and now I wake up today to read that another of the world's most important filmmakers who had a direct influence on just about every film considered "art house" today passed yesterday. Sure, the great Michelangelo Antonioni at 94 was even older than Bergman, so again, it maybe shouldn't be a surprise and many probably thought he died years ago. Nevertheless, news of his death was a very unwelcome surprise this morning.

Antonioni was one of the first filmmakers to truly explore loneliness, solitude and alienation -- qualities that too many pretentious but not as talented directors try to present these days -- on film. He was also responsible -- along with Federico Fellini -- for changing the direction of the entire Italian film industry, moving away from the post-War Neorealism of Roberto Rossellini and Vittorio de Sica towards a more modernist -- and abstract -- form of storytelling. Like Bergman (and Fellini, for that matter), Antonioni cast such a great shadow over the rest of cinema that his last name became a fully descriptive adjective simply by adding an -esque to the end.

Antonioni was the first of the great Italian directors I ever paid attention to. I remember first hearing his name in high school. It was because of the musical Hair, which was my Sophomore year's Spring production. In the song "Manchester England" which introduces the character Claude to the audience, there's a line which goes: "Claude Hooper Bukowski, Who finds that it's groovy to hide in a movie/Pretends he's Fellini and Antonioni...."

Then, the summer after my first year of college, I started getting really into film, particularly that group of American directors who came of age in the late '60s and '70s -- especially Martin Scorsese and (at the time) Brian De Palma. I read lots of books about both, and all the De Palma ones discussed how Antonioni was this huge influence on him. Sure De Palma obviously idolized Hitchcock more than anyone, but his Blow Out is an obvious pseudo-remake of the Italian master's brilliant Blow-Up. I also was a huge Pink Floyd fan at the time, and as the band had written all the music for the bizarre and difficult but somewhat fascinating Zabriskie Point.

Blow-Up was the first film I watched of Antonioni's, and the first I fell in love with. Last year, BAMcinématek ran a series called The Vision That Changed Cinema: Michelangelo Antonioni, a three-week retrospective in which they screened most of the filmmakers work. It gave me an opportunity to see one of his earlier films -- Chronicle of a Love, an interesting mixture of Neorealism and American noir. The film is particularly interesting as an artifact of Antonioni's artistic development, showing the glimmers of many of his later themes within the more standard story structure one might expect from a younger filmmaker.

His greatest achievement, however, is arguably his alienation & relationship trilogy of L'Avventura, La Notte and L'Eclisse. Some may argue more for Blow-Up, Red Desert or The Passenger, but these first three films are the ones that truly launched Antonioni as an international sensation and established that "-esque." And they're each brilliant in their own way, changing the very method of utilizing narrative -- when else does one see a main character disappear only to be totally forgotten and have it all work like in L'Avventura or ending a film with the succession of images and lack of resolution yet multitudes of emotion and meaning as in L'Eclisse -- and expressing human interaction and emotion.

Unlike Bergman, Antonioni hadn't worked consistently for most of the past 30 years. His last masterpiece was The Passenger, and that was in 1975. His last film was a segment of the omnibus Eros in 2004.

But also like Bergman, Antonioni's work lives on. (Unlike Bergman, Criterion only has two of his films in its catalog: L'Avventura and L'Eclisse, but both DVD editions are phenomenal, and most of his films are available on video.) And even if he had not worked for years, it's always sad (and reflective) when someone of such importance is lost and the knowledge of the physicality of his mortal and earthly presence is gone.

It must be hard to be Italian and carry a name like Michelangelo. It presents a tremendous height to which one might aspire, especially should that person enter a field of artistry and creativity. Antonioni arguably succeeded in his challenge, making films that -- like the statue of "David" -- will forever be considered among the greatest and most important in the history of cinema.

R.I.P. Michelangelo. You will be missed.

I WROTE THE PREVIOUS POST TOO SOON: R.I.P. BILL

Wow. And now, just after finishing that post below, I read the news about Bill Walsh dying at 75, also after a long battle with Leukemia. For those of you non-sports fans, out of all these men who've passed away in the last 48 hours, Walsh, actually, probably had the biggest impact on me for in 1982 when the Dwight Clark made "The Catch" and Joe Montana led the San Francisco 49ers over the Cincinnati Bengals to win Super Bowl XVI and launch a football dynasty, it was because of the man who soon became known as "The Genius" -- coach Bill Walsh. I was 10 years old and a San Francisco sports fanatic in January 1982. I had suffered my early years as a sports fan (let's say, the previous 3-4, since I remember going to my first baseball game at 6) with a pretty bad Giants team and an even worse 49er team. But throughout my teens and college years, the Niners made up for all of that, winning five super bowls over the next 14 years. And even though Walsh was directly responsible for only three of them (although, many might argue four). he was the reason that the 49ers became a team with a winning tradition. (Yes, fine: he and the then-owner Eddie Debartolo who was free-spending in a football era that didn't really know as much of free-spending.)

Walsh drafted Montana in the third round when everyone else had passed him over. Walsh drafted Jerry Rice by trading up for the 16th pick in the 1985 draft, taking him from a tiny, nobody-pays-attention-to-it college, and making one of the best picks in NFL history. Walsh started a secondary in 1981 with three rookies -- Ronnie Lott, Eric Wright and Carlton Williamson -- that still managed to be one of the strongest defensive backfields in the league and was directly responsible for that 13-3 season and first Super Bowl win. He traded for quarterback Steve Young when he was becoming nothing more than a USFL and Tampa Bay cast-off, only to help turn him into the Super Bowl MVP and Hall-of-Famer he later became. Walsh's legacy spread throughout the NFL as many of his assistant coaches went on to become Super Bowl winning coaches themselves and his creation of the "West Coast Offense" featuring short dropbacks, quick dump-offs, multiple options and a set number of repeated plays with multiple variations.

Oh sure, Walsh was often granted with hosannas filled with hyperbole. "The Genius" alone was a bit much of a nickname. But as much as Montana or Rice or any number of other 49er players through history, every head coach from the early-'90s on has been compared -- and usually lost out in said comparisons -- to Walsh.

Yeah, some people are often surprised when I suddenly start talking sports, but the Giants and 49ers have been important and major parts of my life since I was a little boy. They both give me a sense of always being linked to San Francisco: I watch Giants games on my computer and I often go to sports bars to catch the Niners, even during these past several crappy losing seasons.

Bill Walsh is a football icon who was directly responsible for giving me some of my happiest childhood and teenage memories filled with freezing nights at the 'Stick, tailgating on warm days in the parking lot, and knowing that almost any game I went to, the Niners were going to win. (Of course, with that said, my record of attending playoff games was not a positive one for my team. I was at a devastating ass-whooping courtesy of the Vikings one year.)

Thanks Bill. I met you once when I was a little boy, but I never knew you. But thanks. And R.I.P.

YOU KNOW WHO ELSE DIED TODAY ...

Yeah, you probably do. If you read GreenCine, you've certainly read about the passing of French actor Michel Serrault. But also dying, losing his battle with Leukemia was former talk-show host Tom Snyder. I had always had big problems with Snyder as an interviewer, however his influence and impact on the chat-show format and concept is indisputable. For one thing, without his 1970s The Tomorrow Show, who knows what late night would have become? The 12:30 hour became one that networks found profitable with programming that wasn't simply reruns. His show, in many ways, specifically opened the door for David Letterman to create Late Night after Tomorrow was canceled but NBC didn't want to give-up owning that time period. And, as importantly for at least a brief period of time, it allowed for the existence of Later With Bob Costas, one of the most entertaining, interesting, informative and well-researched half-hours of talk-show television in my memory. (The Later franchise was totally bastardized post-Costas, turning into just another late night comedy/talk-show, only to find a small semblance of integrity when Carson Daly took over and tried to resume the two-easy-chair conversation set-piece with Last Call. But then Daly proved to be unable to actually sustain a long interview in interesting fashion, and the show became too entertainment oriented, added a desk and a bad-joke monologue, moved to LA, and became the tripe it is now. But I digress ....)

My problem with Snyder was always hard to put my finger on, but in a way, I think it was that he always tried so hard to appear genuine that to my eyes, he never was. His huge guffaw and simple desire to appear like he and his guest were long-time friends having a simple conversation, all mixed with consistently softball questions often presented with an aggressiveness to make them seem not so, just rubbed me slightly wrong. I never saw him during the Tomorrow days (canceled in 1982, I was not 11, and so was my bedtime probably), but I did watch his post-Letterman CBS The Late Late Show from time-to-time depending on his guest.

But I'm not really interested in focusing on what I didn't like about Snyder because as an avid TV viewer, fan and student, I totally recognize that a huge part of the television landscape -- and more importantly, the nature of interviews and interviewing -- comes straight from the work he did. In fact, in my own way, I probably was influenced by and learned a lot from Snyder's style when doing interviews myself: preparing with as much knowledge as possible about the subject but without questions or a script and trying to simply start that rolling conversation ... seeing where it takes you. He also was never afraid to interview anyone, and, unlike say ... oh, I don't know ... Larry King, for example ... he was very rarely unprepared or uninterested. He would also very rarely follow-up an interesting point by completely changing the subject.

So R.I.P. Tom (and Michel). What does it mean that you and Bergman passed at roughly the same time? I don't know ... but maybe that this was a Sunday where some of the last remnants of the innovations of the cinema and television broadcasting both faded away.

R.I.P. INGMAR

Waking up this morning to learn that Swedish master Ingmar Bergman had passed away was a bit of a shock. Why? He was 89 years old, and I'm sure lots of people didn't even realize he was still alive. But in fact, Bergman was not only alive, but still recently working: his Saraband played the New York Film Festival in 2004 and received a US release the year after. Bergman was the kind of iconic figure and name who people recognize even when they don't know why. Non-cinephiles likely have heard of Bergman even if they somehow think that the woman from Casablanca directed a seminal foreign film about death. Bergman's name is like Kleenex or Q-Tips ... brand names that are even more recognizable than the actual product itself; things that influenced followers and imitators -- both positively and probably negatively, through no fault of his own -- in ways that plenty of the audience may not realize or recognize.

Everybody who blogs and is even a casual film fanatic will likely be writing about Bergman today. Every major media outlet will certainly include something, and all of them will review his career, the myriad of films which can be considered classics and near perfect studies of the human condition. I'm not nearly enough of a Bergman expert -- even as a fan -- to adequately provide my own study/obit or repeat everything that can be found through the best summaries at places like GreenCine Daily. But I know that for myself, in addition to having even better reason to watch my Eclipse Series 1: Early Bergman set, it will be time for me to revisit my favorite Bergman-influence -- Woody Allen's Love and Death with its final Seventh Seal-influenced scene of Allen skipping off alongside the Grim Reaper. Poignant and silly at the same time, a tribute to an artist whose work will live on always at the forefront of the history of cinema.

For one of the few times in history, there is a bit of darkness in Sweden during this mid-summer.

UPDATE: Unsurprisingly, the great TCM has moved quickly to air a brief Bergman tribute, albeit at a time when most of us would need to DiVo it rather than watch "live." It's not reflected on their website yet, but apparently tomorrow night they will be showing an episode of The Dick Cavett Show with Bergman airing at 2:15 AM and 5:00 AM, and at 3:15 AM they're showing The Seventh Seal.

NOTES FROM TRIBECA: THREE 2007 FILMS ASK IF YOU PREFER SODA OR POPCORN?

This week's Tribeca Film Festival email was sent out yesterday. Did you get it? If not, you're missing out on all the freebies! This week, three film's from this year's festival open theatrically (at least in New York). I wrote about The Sugar Curtain (now playing at the Two Boots Pioneer) on Wednesday, but also opening this week are the Darfur documentary The Devil Came on Horseback and Shane Meadow's latest feature This Is England. I actually haven't seen either yet, but I've heard they're both incredible.

If you did get the Tribeca emailed newsletter, you would already know that just by printing it out, you can get yourself a free popcorn at the IFC Center when you buy a ticket to either Devil or England and, with a little bit of additional, easily IMDbed info, the Pioneer will give you a free soda when you go to see The Sugar Curtain. And we're giving away some other things in this week's Tribeca SWAG Bag as well, so check-it-out, and sign-up.

WHAT A WAY TO START THE WEEKEND: ANOTHER MTA BITCH-SLAP

Oh, I'm so annoyed. I've been working really hard to procrastinate less; to calm some of my perfectionist tendencies; to just get the important things done, run the errands I need to run, make the meals I need to make, save the money I need to save ... really discipline myself to take care of myself and, in some ways, relieve stress. And yet, there again comes the NYC Subway to remind me that I will never not be crazy because I insist on staying in this city, where one thing can set off a chain reaction to ruin ... everything.

It's no surprise to me that in the Straphangers Campaign annual subway line report card, the C train -- upon which I mostly rely -- rated basically at the bottom. But still, I've become used to it and it's schedule ... to a degree. This morning, however, I had an important 9:45 AM appointment. Generally, if I'm at my stop in Brooklyn by 9:15, I'll make it fine. The ride on the train itself is usually only about 20-25 minutes.

But this morning, when I arrived at the Clinton-Washington stop at 9:10 AM, the platform was already more crowded than usual -- along with swelteringly hot and humid. At 9:20, the light finally appeared way down the tunnel, and by 9:25, I was on the train. But then ... an announcement came over the loudspeaker. Due to a stalled F Train at Second Avenue, F trains were being diverted to the A/C line between Jay St and W. 4th, causing "extensive delays."

I get delays. I get train traffic. I've lived in New York for going on 11 years. But I really can't fathom who in traffic control fucked up so extensively that it took an hour and five minutes of me on the train before I was able to exit at W. 4th? By the time I arrived at 10:30, I had not only missed my appointment, but I was 45 minutes late in even being able to notify the person because I had been stuck underground. Sure, I got to listen to two full 30 minute episodes/podcasts of KCRW's The Treatment, including a really great one with Sunshine director Danny Boyle, but I would have preferred making it through only one.

This has thrown me into a crappy mood, and the superstitious part of me does not think it bodes well to this weekend's weather report getting any better. In fact, should myself and the rest of the prospective McCarren Park Pool audiences this weekend be truly concerned about lightning strikes??

MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY: RAIN RAIN GO AWAY AND OTHER THOUGHTS FOR A FRI-DAY (GET IT? ... SORRY)

In the spirit of posting regularly, earlier today while at work, I had a slew of things I was going to throw up here in the midst of several job-related activities. And then, our network went down. And then it came back up ... for about 30 seconds before going back down. Eventually, I just decided it made more sense to skip the post and go to a movie. Duh!

• So off I went to finally see Ratatouille. I twittered it on my way out, and I'll say it again: Brad Bird is a genius! OK ... hyperbole aside ... he really is. I'm not going to actually say that Ratatouille is a perfect film; it has a few flaws here and there and I think I probably still like Bird's The Incredibles more. But Bird repeatedly brings a humanity to his films that is unparalleled in most animated features, including its Pixar brethren. But even more amazingly, Bird has managed to compel me to do something I thought very unlikely: to not only agree with an A.O. Scott review, but to also actively applaud him for (I can't believe I'm going to say this) a keen insight that goes beyond his usual holier-than-thou-and-thou-and-thou posturing. Maybe it's because Scott sees a bit too much of himself in the character of food critic Anton Ego. I don't know. As Scott writes, Ratatouille is "one of the most persuasive portraits of an artist ever committed to film," and it achieves this feat not just by showing said artist (in this case, an adorable little rat with a knack for cuisine) perform his magic, but by also depicting an audience transformed through his experience of the work. Bird doesn't make animated films; he makes films that happen to be animated rather than live-action, and he is, quite simply, one of the most talented storytellers working in cinema today.
  

• Seeing Ratatouille was enough to take my mind (briefly) off of this weekend's weather report. According to all the weather reports (and most recently to weather.com), there are supposed to be scattered thunderstorms all weekend, especially starting Saturday night. And where am I supposed to be Saturday night? Standing outside in an empty pool in Williamsburg to see Sonic Youth. And potentially going make on Sunday for TV on the Radio. Sunday is free ... I'll happily skip it. Saturday is a paid show and I have tickets. But do I really want to stand out in a downpour? And at what point do they call a show when there's lightning in the area?
  

• The past two weeks have seen a couple must-own (or at the very least must-see) DVDs hit the market. This past Tuesday, The Host came out. As I've already mentioned several times on this blog (starting with my review last October), The Host will most certainly be near the top of my 2007 "Best" list. It's a remarkable film, and much more than just a monster movie.

  But even more importantly, and likely unseen by many, is the Criterion release on July 14 of Billy Wilder's Ace in the Hole. I mentioned this release just before it happened two weeks ago, but it's worth mentioning again. Ace in the Hole is a tremendous examination of the media, still relevant today even as it happens to be over half-a-century old. It had never been on DVD, and if there was a commercial video copy anywhere, I was never able to find it. I've managed to see it twice thanks to both BAM and Film Forum. Thankfully, with my DVD finally arriving today, I no longer need to depend on them to revisit this marvelous, long-overlooked and often-forgotten movie from one of history's greatest filmmakers. Netflix it now.
  

• Johnny Depp is going to play Barnabas Collins? So says Variety, and so awesome that should be!
  

• I love Top Chef, but what the hell was that crappy three-season/mid-season reunion special they aired this week. First of all, you know what I really hate? When television programming executives think it's time to appear on camera themselves. Andy Cohen, apparently a Senior Vice President of Production and Programming at Bravo, seems to host all of the cable network's "What What Happens!" reunion specials. Oh, and he's terrible at it. Please, someone get him to stop. Regardless, why are we sitting through season filler like this so early. A rerun would have been more entertaining. Bravo has done a good job with most of its reality series -- although Shear Genius was anything but and Top Design was relatively meh -- but why ruin it with crappy reunion specials.
  

• Speaking of Bravo reality, every time I walk by the poster for Flipping Out, which premieres next week, I do a double-take at the brunette who looks like Julia Louis-Dreyfus' double.

Oh yeah ... I need to move. By the end of September, but I'm shooting for beginning of September. I need to live alone again, and preferably in a building where the landlord responds to things like a collapsing ceiling because of a leak in the pipes from the apartment above in less than five days, thereby stopping the paint and plaster from actually bursting. But more importantly ... I just need to live alone again. Send tips my way if you know of any.

AN EARLY WEEKEND TO-DO SUGGESTION: GET THEE TO GREY GARDENS

My weekend seems to be overflowing with music rather than movies or theater: Friday night is Robbers on High Street at Bowery; Saturday is the Sonic Youth plays "Daydream Nation" show in Williamsburg; and Sunday, it's back to McCarren Pool for TV on the Radio. At least, that's the plan. Purchased tix for the first two, so those are the only guarantees.

But never mind my plans: I want to tell you what yours should be. This Sunday, Grey Gardens: The Musical will play its last performance on Broadway, and that's just a crying shame. If you're familiar with the classic 1975 Maysles Brothers documentary about Edie Bouvier Beale and her daughter "Little" Edie living in a majestic but decrepit Hamptons mansion, you will likely appreciate the care and imagination the entire creative team put into adapting a fascinating but narratively formless film into a wonderful two-act piece of musical theatre. If you've never seen the film, first of all ... you should. But secondly, you probably will love the show even more because you won't be comparing it at all.

Yes, the show has received most of its notice because of the central performances by Christine Ebersole and Mary Louise Wilson, both of whom won Tonys this summer, and both wins richly deserved. Ebersole, in particular, gives one of the most amazing performances I've ever seen on the stage, and the number she has regularly performed in public ("The Revolutionary Costume For Today." which she did on the Tonys and I've heard in other places) doesn't truly alone represent exactly how great she is. What is so marvelous about Ebersole is the dramatic transformation she goes through between acts. In case you don't know, the first act of the musical doesn't come from the film at all. It's an imagined day at Grey Gardens back when the Beales were still grand members of society, and "Little" Edie is portrayed as a co-ed all set to marry into the Kennedy family -- beating her cousin Jacqueline Bouvier to the punch. In this act, Ebersole plays "Big" Edie before the fall, as it were. In the second act, the curtain rises on the Grey Gardens we know from the film and Ebersole is now an adult "Little" Edie (while Wilson plays the aged "Big" Edie).

So really how good is Ebersole? Let's just say, it's almost hard to recognize and believe that she is playing both parts, even with the amazing physical resemblance. It's not just two different performances; it's like there are two different actresses, and each of them brilliant.

But the show itself is thoroughly enjoyable, interesting and well-produced beyond the performances. The sets are wonderful, and real footage from the film is imaginatively integrated through projections during act 2.

Grey Gardens has been available at the TKTS booth every time I've been by there over the past couple weeks. Since the producers made a quick turnaround from talking about the continuing run to deciding the show would close this weekend (without recouping its investment), chances are, tickets aren't hard to come by and will still be available for 50% the day of at TKTS. There are only four chances left (tonight, tomorrow, two shows on Saturday, and Sunday matinee), so if you have the chance and haven't yet been, go.

THE SUGAR CURTAIN: WHEN CHILDHOOD MEMORY CONFLICTS WITH ADULT REALITY

As I've mentioned before, watching submissions for Tribeca can often be a frustrating experience. We watch so many movies, and it's not that all of them are terrible by any means, but considering the very small percentage we can actually accept, it's much more pleasant and refreshing to see a must-show. Early in my viewing process, I popped in a film called The Sugar Curtain. I gave it a really high score, and my notes read as follows: "Really interesting look at Cuba from the young, post-revolutionary Cuban perspective. Considered pre-fall of USSR Cuba a utopia and yet once no more Soviet support, the curtain fell and there's been disillusionment ever since. Although seemingly, they still believe in the ideal."

I'm not actually sure why I even had the disc because a couple of our programmers had already seen it at San Sebastian and Toronto, and I discovered that the film had, in fact, already been accepted. And yet, I'm happy it had been given to me because otherwise, I may not have found time to watch it.

Director Camila Guzmán Urzúa makes her feature documentary debut with this fascinating insight into growing up in (and eventually out of) Cuba. She presents a society which has utterly failed due to Communism and authoritarian rule, but was formed on a foundation of ideals that many -- including herself, it seems -- still believe to be sound.

MONDAY MISCELLANEOUS MISCELLANY: SNAP JUDGMENTS

Even with I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry coming in first with over $30-Million once again proving that Adam Sandler really can open any movie simply by his presence, I didn't let this weekend get me down. In fact, it was one of productivity (albeit not enough) and punishment (although, not really). I deliberately chose to stay home virtually the entire time -- including skipping Saturday's Siren Festival at Coney Island. (Kalefa Sanneh's piece in today's NY Times sounds like I didn't miss much, but he also didn't mention the two bands I actually wanted to see the most -- Elvis Perkins in Dearland and The Detroit Cobras.

I did, however, get a bunch of little things done around the apartment -- especially a chunk of very necessary desk organization -- while simultaneously catching-up on a ton of TV from my ever-bursting DiVo. Now, what that means, is many little things bouncing around in my continuously-softening brain, so it's time to release at least some of them:

• Hairspray came in a more-than-respectable third in the box office this weekend with an estimated $27-Million-plus, giving it the highest opening for a movie musical. I'm glad that people are seeing it, and I'm guessing that they're enjoying it. That makes me happy. Just like the film.
  

• Speaking of Hairspray, producers Neil Meron and Craig Zadan and star Nikki Blonsky appeared on AMC's Sunday Morning Shootout (about which I ranted a bit last September). The show is still pretty awful simply because neither Peter is any good on camera, yet I watch it somewhat regularly just because occasionally the content is interesting. Anyway, Peter Bart (I think) asked them about the resurgence of movie musicals but also why most in recent memory haven't really done well even though they came from big Broadway successes -- e.g., The Producers, Rent and Phantom of the Opera. Diplomatically enough, neither Meron nor Zadan said the most basic reason all three flopped: because they were all terrible. They did make a really interesting point which goes to explain why Chicago was successful and Hairspray should be as well: they try to produce adaptations that are re-imaginations of the shows rather than recreations of the Broadway experience. Rightly so! They're different mediums and need to be approached that way.
  

• Speaking further about Sunday Morning Shootout, the show started with a discussion between the two Peters and Anne Thompson of Variety about bloggers, the internet and how both are affecting entertainment journalism overall. Bart managed to criticize most bloggers before pulling back and also stating that lots of us do produce good work and even professional style entertainment journalism. They're main gripe was how so much "news" is floated before any of it is ever confirmed. I don't have a problem with Bart criticizing online journalists and bloggers, pulling to some degree the same argument lots of "professional" media like to claim to maintain a feeling or air of superiority, but Peter, if you're going to do that, please stop having your own publication send out "Breaking News" alerts that are simply notices that you've posted a new column with nothing but your same old opinions? Thanks.
  

• I love Chelsea Handler. I don't really need to say much more than that (but I will at some other point (including when I finally talk about On the Lot). Her new late-night talk show -- kind of an entertainment/pop culture-oriented Real Time with Bill Maher -- is, so far, fantastic.
  

• I also can't turn away from VH-1's Rock of Love, although I'm sure it's more dangerous to one's lifespan than smoking. Who thought a show could have even more skanky ho's than Flavor of Love. Good on you, Casting department. Finding the next cast for Charm School should be a breeze now.
  

• On the other hand, Scott Baio is 45 ... and Single is a total snoozefest. There's too much obvious situational set-up; Baio isn't utterly psychotic like Danny Bonaduce; and his little group of friends are (inexplicably) trying to hard to look like a bunch of 40s Friars Club/Catskills-in-the-Summer/Borscht Belt comedians. Enough with the cigars. Especially on the gold course. And the inflection. Oy.
  

• I'm finally all caught-up with Rescue Me. I'm really disappointed in myself that I didn't latch-on to this show sooner. It's really terrific.
  

• Also terrific: the new series Burn Notice on USA. First of all, any show with Bruce Campbell in the cast automatically deserves attention, and he's great as usual. Add the still gorgeous Gabrielle Anwar as a trigger-happy ex-spy ex-girlfriend and Sharon Gless as a pushy, cranky mother, and you've got a great supporting cast at work. (In one episode, Campbell introduces himself and Anwar to two young wanna-be-con men as "Cagney & Lacey"! Tongue firmly in cheek.) And Jeffrey Donovan very capably carries the rest of the show on his shoulders. But what is really great is this series doing very well what television is supposed to do: namely, create a season-long intrigue that is moving forward a little bit every episode while also producing a singular story with a complete beginning, middle and end within each episode. It's a formula that is increasingly lost even in some of the best shows on TV.