CHEATER #2: Special Preview Edition!

I saw a preview screening of Butter, an indie-but-not-really-indie comedy that's coming out next year. My friend and Butter date Josh says I'm not supposed to talk about it online, but whatever. That ship has sailed.

Butter is about two ladies who enter a butter-carving competition. I liked it (mostly, ish) while I was watching it, but in retrospect, my impressions are kind of negative? This definitely says more about me than about Butter. Below I will rank stuff I remember about it from best to worst:

1. Olivia Wilde as an angry stripper. The characterization of "stripper" is pretty lazy, but she's still hilarious.

2. There are very sweet scenes between Yara Shahidi, who plays the hero of the movie, and Rob Corddry, who plays her Cool Foster Dad. He was so cool that he made me wish I'd been in foster care! (No, not really. But he was very cool.)

3. I definitely remember that there were some funny lines of dialogue. So.

4. Ashley Greene was not bad, but she didn't have enough screen time. But she definitely makes out with Olivia Wilde during her limited screen time, and that is pretty great.

5. Hugh Jackman plays this weird superfluous character who has weird superfluous scenes. Like in one he sits in his car showroom and thanks God for letting him fuck Jennifer Garner. I don't even know.

6. The movie relies pretty heavily on tired Hollywood nonsense. FOR EXAMPLE: the movie opens with a boring voiceover over headless footage of fat people! Yay! Are these fat people relevant to the movie? Does the movie criticize overconsumption? Should writers be forced to prove to some centralized body that they actually deserve to use voiceover? No, no, and yes, respectively.

7. Jennifer Garner's character suuuuuuuuuuuucks. Basically a Sarah Palin type, but more two-dimensional and more neurotic.

8. Heard recently that the movie's supposed to parallel the Clinton/Obama primary. If that is true, that blows. "Oh, Hillary Clinton, what a bitch." -the filmmakers, right before they ATE ME

Party Down, S2E9: Cole Landry's Draft Day Party (2010)

Hello, America! I have not written in a while because I was very busy being sick and going to work and watching all of Sons of Anarchy (not available on Netflix Instant, I am sad to say). While I haven't watched a Netflix Instant movie in far too long, I did watch an episode of Party Down, so I'm going to write about that. Here we go.

Party Down is a very funny show, and if you are not watching it, you should start. It's about a group of cater waiters in Los Angeles. It being L.A., most of them aspire to be Hollywood somebodies (actors, writers, etc.). It being a darkish show, none of them ever get anywhere. It's fun, it's easy to get into, it's all available on Netflix Instant. Go forth and watch it.

That being said, I thought "Cole Landry's Draft Day Party" was a little weak (relative to the rest of the very good season). It lacked in three areas that make Party Down one of my favorite comedies on the air:

1) The crazy guest spots. Party Down has the most consistently delightful guest roles of any show I've ever seen. J.K. Simmons pops up twice as a foulmouthed studio exec who runs on rage. Veronica Mars' Jason Dohring and Alona Tal knock it out of the park as College Republicans. Kristen Bell plays Uda, an ice queen who works for our heroes' competition, Valhalla Catering. I thought I was going to injure myself laughing at Rob Huebel and Kerri Kenney-Silver's hedonistic community theater actors. Thomas Lennon plays a man desperately trying to organize an orgy... and I haven't even mentioned what were, for me, the two best performances on Party Down (and two of my favorite comedic TV performances in memory): Steven Weber as mobster Rick Sargulesh and Jimmi Simpson as a Marilyn Manson-esque rock star collapsing under the weight of his ennui.

2) The twists. That might be a weird thing to say; this show is no LOST, you know what I mean? (What I mean is that Party Down is not a portentous, frustrating drama that I gave up on in season 2.) What I really mean is that Party Down is a fun-times sitcom that is not about suspenseful plots. Still, episodes of Party Down frequently surprise me with some reveal--e.g. the end of "James Ellison Funeral." But the unexpected bit of "Cole Landry's Draft Day Party" was completely expected. Whenever I see "secret relationship" in a TV show or movie, I go, "Okay, gay." Maybe I wasn't supposed to be surprised? I don't know; that was a letdown for me.

3) The main characters' big emotional moments. Usually this manifests as acute disappointment in themselves (Roman in "Steve Guttenberg's Birthday") or in the world (Roman in "Joel Munt's Big Deal Party"). Very occasionally, the emotional moment is a happy one. I loved "Not On Your Wife Opening Night," in which Roman ditches his scorn for a night; at the end of the episode, he emerges from a van with a goofy grin and drunkenly exclaims, "Magnicifent!"* There wasn't a moment as blissful as "Magnicifent!" in "Cole Landry," nor was there anything as hopeless as, for example, Henry's response in "Precious Lights Pre-School Auction" to "you'll never work in this town again!": "I know."

Still, "Cole Landry" had its moments. It was a good episode for Lydia (Megan Mullally). For once, she knew more about the event than her coworkers did. Who's savvy now? Plus, one of the funniest lines of the episode had to be "You don't think I have to bite my tongue every time I carry a tray with Santa Barbara grilled eel beaks in a baby pinecone sauce?" (Sorry for the quotations, everyone. As Genevieve Koski has pointed out, the hilarity of Party Down's lines lies largely in the actors' excellent delivery.)

I loved Roman (Martin Starr) underestimating a pre-med football player's intelligence. This reaches its apotheosis when Roman starts--and persists--in explaining the concept of irony:

ROMAN: Irony is when you say one thing, but you mean the opposite. For example--
ZIGGY (the football player): I could stand here all night and soak up this knowledge.

The only character allowed to be really wacky in this episode was Ron. As per always, Ken Marino played it to the hilt. Ron's worried that he doesn't produce enough ejaculate, and the episode opens with him unloading (yeesh) his concerns on an unwilling Henry. Adam Scott's reactions are spot-on because of course. Adam Scott is always spot-on in Party Down. Everybody watch Party Down, dammit! Anyway, Ron's preoccupation lasts all episode, and it's pretty funny.

The Cum of All Fears

TO SUM UP: "Cole Landry" is good but not good enough for me because Party Down has spoiled me because it is a great show that you should be watching so it doesn't get canceled. If you are not watching Party Down, you are part of the problem.

*I guess all my examples of feelings come from Roman? Don't know what that's about. Maybe it's about how Martin Starr has gotten a lot of excellent material this season.