making faces

Show us something you love but everyone else hates. 
Submitted by AKA Vasquez.  

Songs from the original soundtracks of Broadway musicals are in regular rotation on my playlist, which means if you're riding with me, they could pop up at the most random times. While I was driving today, Rihanna's "Umbrella" was immediately followed by this:

Ragtime (Disk 1) - 21 -Till We Reach That Day

Stephen Flaherty

I have this theory that the songs I instantly fall in love with are the ones that most closely match my mind music -- my involuntary humming and natural, internal rhythm.

This weekend, I heard this song (during the opening credits of Keeping the Faith) and nearly lost my mind, I loved it so much.

Tom Waits - Please Call Me Baby

It's one of those songs that I know I'll never tire of hearing. Within the first five seconds, it secured a position in the Roxy Hall of Musical Immortality. There are only a few songs that haunt me, forcing me to love them without ceasing -- this is now one of those songs.

Tell us two truths and a lie about yourself.

I hate cell phones and refuse to use one. I'm extremely sensitive to alcohol. I can't write in cursive.

You can't be serious.

I saw it coming. The Friday night slot is where good TV shows go to die. Still, when NBC made Raines go away after only seven episodes, it stung a little.

I should've known better than to get all excited. Most shows I like don't stay on the air for long, and ever since Boomtown, poor Graham Yost can't catch a break on NBC.

The entire "season" is online for now, so I'll probably catch up on the ones I missed. I really want to see the one Laurie Metcalf (Jackie from Roseanne) guest stars in. I love her. But, I better move fast. Once they take those episodes offline, poor Raines will just fade away, like all good heroes do.

Pity.

It's cool, though -- I've recently become taken with a bunch of new series: some extinct, some extant. I'm almost finished with the second (and final) season of Carnivale, and even though I sometimes have to do a closed-caption-fast-forward maneuver through Brother Justin's exhausting brimstone rants, I still love it to pieces. It's proven to me that you can't judge a DVD set by its brown, drab, boring cover. Once you can see past the dirt and the dust, a bunch of really colorful characters shine through. I may even give Deadwood a try next. Maybe.

Canceled shows cry out to me like forgotten spirits in the wind. Lol. Still, I do take an active interest in the living. I've developed a real thing for Weeds, even though I've only seen the first season. The opening sequence cracks me up every time. Looks like somewhere I know. *cough, Carmel, cough*  Then again, every caricatured suburb reminds me of my town, even the cartoon Lawndale where Daria lived. Gosh, that show made me laugh when I was younger. Lawndale High even had our school colors. Hilarious.

James Spader

Back to the living, now. Oh, yes -- I started watching Boston Legal a little while ago. Tres cool. I don't know why I never took an interest before. James Spader is the disaffected chick's patron saint. I've been talking about scrapping medicine for health law, but contrary to what my sister says (she still remembers my ER obsession), my choice of TV shows does not inform my career interests -- it only mirrors / sustains them.

Anyway, I'm already up to Disc 2, Season 2, so there may actually be a chance of me catching up in time to start watching it on the air. Astonishing. I'm sure it'll be around for a long time -- David E. Kelley freakin' rocks. I really should check out his Wedding Bells sometime, too.

Who knows? If I manage to fall in love with enough current, promising shows maybe I'll stop pining after those lost. But if not, it's cool -- that's what TV on DVD is for.

It's been a while since I've posted about television, but rest assured, I'm still on the couch tv-whoring it up from channel to channel. I've even made two new television friends -- actually they're like two old friends with spiffy haircuts and new outfits.

Jeff Goldblum

The first one's Raines on NBC Thursday nights. I'm such a sucker for shows that give the would-be silent a voice (Wonderfalls, Dead Like Me, Six Feet Under, and heck, even Joan of Arcadia), and my obsession with differing points of view makes Boomtown still reign as my favorite show to date. But Raines has definitely made its own little impression -- this show lets me enjoy current television and take a break from clutching DVD box sets, pining after beloved shows lost.

Even before I saw last week's pilot, I could tell by the cast that I was going to love it. First, there's Jeff Goldblum (as Detective Raines), who I've loved since Jurassic Park, and whose hilarious portrayal of Jim Watson in The Race for the Double Helix made my having to watch it over and over -- in every single biology class I've ever taken -- just a little more bearable.

Then, there's Raine's retired partner played by Malik Yoba, who I once had a girlish crush on as Detective JC Williams on New York Undercover. The crush has long passed, but it's still nice to see him back playing a (sorta) detective. I don't think he's going to have a huge role in the series, though, since he wasn't even included in the cast photo -- pity.

Nicole Sullivan

Nicole Sullivan (from MadTV) plays some kind of brainiac assistant to Det. Raines. Most of her lines in the pilot were pretty boring, but, seriously, she could read the phone book and crack me up. I think she'll get to say a lot more in future episodes (well, at least a lot more than our friend Yoba, it seems, who isn't featured in a single picture on the entire NBC website).

Matt Craven plays the police captain, and he holds a special place in my heart as a recurring guest star on Boomtown, playing the MD/JD who did double duty as a psychiatrist and public defender. There's also Luis Guzmán, who was so much better than that failed sitcom he had some years back -- I think my mother is the only person who ever watched that.

Matt Craven

Luis Guzmán

Yeah, the premise is what drew me in, but the actors will make me keep watching. Speaking of good actors, I caught an episode of 'Til Death on FOX last night, and it's actually a really funny show.

Brad Garrett

I'm not surprised -- Brad Garrett was always hilarious as the sullen, single brother on Everybody Loves Raymond, and even though it's a little weird seeing Garrett play a happily married guy, if someone had to star in a Raymond: The Sequel, I'm glad it's him.

His character's black best friend is played by Anthony Anderson -- I seriously don't like Anderson. From what I've seen in interviews, he has an ego that's the size of Uranus and about as fragile as a balloon -- which in my book makes him an incredible ass. But he's also an incredible actor.

Anthony Anderson

I wouldn't have said that a couple years ago, especially considering how he used to grate on my nerves as the loud, annoying sidekick in a ton of movies (Two Can Play That Game, Barbershop, and loads more).

But after watching Hustle and Flow, and seeing him play someone sweet and likable, I had to give him credit -- not because I think he's a good guy in real life, but because I knew that if he could make me (me!) actually like him, he had to be one hell of an actor. Wowza. Like, whoa.

I loved that movie -- more notably, I loved him in that movie, and that's a big deal coming from me, saying an awful lot about his acting skills.

 I haven't seen Hustle and Flow in a long time -- I would pop it in now, but my friend Raines is coming over tonight, and I need to go do something productive for a few hours, or my legs may stop working for lack of use.

Raines on NBC, Thursdays 10/9c

Van der Beek in Criminal Minds

I was avoiding FOX last Wednesday (I love American Idol, but even I have my limits), and I caught sight of a new little CBS gem -- Criminal Minds.

I'd seen commercials for it before, but Wednesday was the first episode I saw, and had I known James Van der Beek would be guest starring, I probably wouldn't have given it a chance.

Dawson's Creek was all the rage when I was in middle school. It pioneered the whole teenagers-as walking-thesauri thing, and I lapped it up with the rest of the tweens. I grew to love the kids of Capeside High, but I was one of the only girls at school who didn't have a photo of James Van der Beek hanging up in my locker -- partly because he just wasn't cute to me (still isn't), and largely because his character Dawson was the most irritating, simpering little loser I'd ever seen.

As Dawson Leery

But, the man I saw on Wednesday was a totally different beast. I didn't even realize it was Van der Beek until over halfway into the episode. He was creepy, but not in a whiny teenage loser way. He was serial-killer creepy.

And he was good. Fiercely good. At one point, I honestly shrieked aloud.

I've been a life-long Dawson-hater, but I have to give Van der Beek some serious credit.

Nicely done, Dawson.

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