TV on DVD: Two and a Half Men -- The Complete Sixth Season

Season 6 is Now Available to Own

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After being thoroughly impressed by the extraordinarily inventive scandalous wit utilized by the writers in the previous DVD set of America's number one smash TV comedy, I must say that I was initially dismayed by the lack of creativity evidenced at the start of the sixth season.

While fortunately it bounces back, unfortunately it doesn't manage to do so consistently until the middle of the set's second disc or approximately one half of the season's run with twelve's "Thank God For Scoliosis," which was a double-back on a previous episode as Alan (Jon Cryer) begins dating his receptionist whom Charlie (Charlie Sheen) of course had previously used and abused.

Yet despite this sign of more surefire comedic awkwardness to come as the men engage in multiple episode arcs with (gasp!) the same women and Charlie becomes engaged to the beautiful and kind Chelsea (Jennifer Taylor Bini), before "Scoliosis," there had only been one must-see via the ridiculously funny "It's Always Nazi Week" which was ironically the sixth episode of the sixth season that wouldn't be topped for six more episodes.

Helping to propel one of the season's biggest mysteries and comedic goldmines, in "Nazi Week," Alan and his ex-wife Judith (Marin Hinkle) briefly hook-up after she has a falling out with nerdy replacement husband Herb, played by the terrific Ryan Stiles from America's underrated take on UK's sketch comedy series Whose Line is It Anyway?

Needless to say, their old pet peeves along with fundamental down-to-their-core incompatibility soon take over which ends the couple's brief insecure mad dash for comfortable familiarity. However, when Judith is revealed to be pregnant six weeks later, their reunion is far from over as far as Alan's concerned. Yet since Judith and Herb had reconciled, Judith keeps her moment of insanity with Alan from Herb but it does little to keep Alan from trying to be a part of what very well could be his soon-to-be-born child's life.

While the familiarity of making whoopee isn't exchanged for the other kind of booties as in the land of Men, boom-boom always comes before babies, at the same time for fans who'd been growing weary of the same paradigm we'd seen previously, the show grows stronger with several plot-lines firmly in place.

Thus it endures after its odd start wherein the main problem seemed to be in the writing as it replaced the brilliance of its sexually charged hidden innuendo by fixating far too heavily on scatological humor wherein jokes about number two, the gasses emitted by Jake and the need of his father to use a special stool for stools became the most go-to source of humor.

Obviously "potty humor" as it was always called in my neck of the woods has never been foreign fodder for these Men but it was one of the many weapons housed in the show's successful arsenal of jokes and writers, comedy junkies, series enthusiasts, and the show's extremely hard working ensemble deserved much better than the series stooping that lazily low for laughs. I'm not sure if it's because they were spreading themselves too thin with the series mastermind Chuck Lorre's co-development and launch of the sweet and hilarious Big Bang Theory which will now play with the Men on Monday night's lineup in the most coveted time-slot on CBS.

Still, whatever the case may have been, once it makes its way past a few speed bumps, there are some priceless episodes to enjoy as Alan struggles internally about Judith's pregnancy but begins a romance that results in an acid trip with the girl's mother, Charlie grows serious about settling down, and Jake dates the girl next door whose ex-NFL star father is played by Michael Clarke Duncan. While guest stars including Alicia Witt, Sheen's brother Emilio Estevez and Duncan are introduced early on, it's Duncan who is given the best material when he returns for arguably one of the season's wittiest episodes following what we'd feared would be a one-time cameo.

Aside from the aforementioned titles, the other can't miss episodes include: "David Copperfield Slipped Me a Roofie" which saddles Alan with the worst fortieth birthday party in history (to our delight), "She'll Still Be Dead At Halftime" in which the trio has to get rid of a drunken, lingerie-clad, passed out blonde in Charlie's bed before his fiance returns, a Friends meets Sex and the City style dysfunctional bromance pity party in "The Two Finger Rule," and Alan's blind date with Melanie Lynskey's cutesy stalker Rose in "Above Exalted Cyclops."

Likewise, aside from a surprising turn at the end of the season that demands a DVR program for its comeback this month, by switching up the main duo's roles, we have new sources for laughs as Alan is the player of the season compared to Charlie and the Two rebounds from more of the same to new craziness as Charlie is put to the test taking care of Chelsea and Alan "text-blocks" Charlie when he becomes the quintessential gay best friend of Chelsea.

Sadly missing series favorite Lynskey in the interviews contained in the set's intriguing and hilarious featurette "The Women of Two and a Half Men" in which I realized the way that Conchata Ferrell's Berta has replaced Holland Taylor's mother Evelyn for Charlie, there's also an especially interesting portrait of Angus T. Jones and the way he's essentially come-of-age on television in the refreshingly earnest "Growing Up Harper" that presents us with not only the opposite of Jake but the opposite of a child actor stereotype.

Additionally containing the obligatory gag-reel that illustrates the way the actors cope with the tongue-twisting lines live in front of a studio audience and giggle fits (often even before the joke is uttered) which again makes you appreciate just how much more Cryer has to do in any given episode, the four-disc set from Warner Brothers thankfully includes a DVD episode-guide insert that lets you jump right to your favorites.

Uneven yet still more consistently funny than the crash-and-burn of NBC's The Office which has overstayed its welcome, by briefly showing us an alternate side of the Men as they slightly morph into one another and pick up atypical habits throughout season six, stale becomes fresh in a quality comeback for the perennial favorite network comedy.


Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

Movie Review: Weather Girl (2009)

Arriving on DVD 12/29

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In writer/director Blayne Weaver's utterly charming indie summer sleeper, Tricia O'Kelley plays the titular (albeit soon-to-be-former) weather girl who's as sassy as hell and she's not going to take this anymore.

As we learn in the movie's memorable opener-- she's driven sassy by being forced to be sassy. Likewise, the factors of her restlessness consist of working in an industry where the show's leads are referred to as "anchors" whereas O'Kelley's 35 year old college educated professional Sylvia is still patronizingly described as a "girl" complete with the sexist stereotype of "sassy" being part of her daily on-air introduction that's of course mimicked all over town (you've seen The Weather Man and Groundhog Day). Of course, this isn't helped by being given the thankless and tireless quest to come up with new adjectives for the word "rain" in Seattle while pointing to a green screen sharing-- what Sylvia reveals in her "career suicide" meltdown is not news but "tidbits for dumb people."

Yet, the most pressing reason that has "blacken[ed] all of" her "skies of blue"-- to quote Ella Fitzgerald-- is that she's found the underwear of the perky alcoholic co-anchor Sherry (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's Kaitlin Olson) in the condo she's shared with the main anchor, Dale (NCIS star Mark Harmon) for the past two years.

Confronting Dale and Sherry live and on the air of their Seattle morning program where the network affiliate manager Blair Underwood (obviously frantic about FCC violations and viewer complaints for her "R" rated tirade) wants to cut and immediately go to commercial despite the camera crew's decision to keep rolling since this is the stuff of television gold.

Ridiculing not just her position at the station and encouraging viewers to pick up a newspaper but also belittling the "amateurish" sexual technique of Dale-- her on-air blow-up soon becomes a bigger YouTube-like online hit than the Lily Tomlin/David O'Russell back-and-forth exchange (in separate videos) from the set of I Heart Huckabees.

Yet, shortly thereafter, realizing she's given up her job as well as her medical insurance, her condo, and everything else by becoming the laughingstock of the hiring circuit for-- as a friend chides-- her "weather girl" resume, Sylvia quickly seeks shelter by crashing on the couch in the apartment of her younger brother, Walt (Ryan Devlin). And, after lowering her standards, she accepts a job as a waitress for Jane Lynch (effective in a cameo that seems to be a distant and less crazy cousin to the character she played in Role Models).

While some (read: male) critics are easily dismissing the female-centric work-- albeit one crafted by a male writer/director with a knack for clever dialogue-- via that shudder inducing overused description of comparing it to a Lifetime Movie, it's still a highly entertaining feel-great rom-com that benefits considerably from its avoidance of set stereotypes.

For example, as opposed to most Sex and the City knockoffs, Sylvia's two friends (Marin Hinkle and Alex Kapp Horner) are the opposite of supportive, going as far as to set her up with Hinkle's ex on the TV show Two and a Half Men (Jon Cryer) as a man whose biological clock is ticking so hard that he wants to "fast-track" the relationship in a way that makes him-- as Sylvia describes-- "probably the creepiest person on the planet."

While admittedly the film is fairly predictable especially when Sylvia finds herself on the receiving end of the adorable puppy dog crush of Walt's highly articulate, subtly funny and openly flirtatious 29 year old best friend Byron (Patrick J. Adams) which evolves into a "friends with benefits" arrangement with Sylvia's rule that he's not allowed to fall in love with her despite their frequent couplings-- the scenes between Byron and Sylvia are some of the best ones in the film.

However, most likely this is because they may have come from a personal place as the writer/director shared in the production notes that he "got the idea for Weather Girl after dating a woman about five years older than me... The difference in age was minimal... but the pressures she felt professionally, from her friends and from society kept hammering home this idea that 'she didn't have time.' I really liked the idea of this woman who seems to have it all... but then gives it all up and has to start over again with those pressures looming over her."

Moreover, societal pressures and human relationships-- not just romantic ones-- are laced throughout and help make the movie work as Sylvia's estrangement from her friends who blankly tell her that she's cold and puts up emotional walls (which Dale has has used as the reason he's cheated) is so strong that they forget that she even has a brother at one point. And even Walt is given one revealing scene to show our disconnect from one another when he admits that he's worried when she becomes involved with Byron that she'll mess up his one only real friendship.

In fact, the dynamic between the three and the novelty of a strong emotional rollercoaster friendship between a brother and a sister-- instead of two guys just leaning on each other in a "bromance" or women sipping "cosmos"-- make this the opposite of a Lifetime feature. Likewise, it helps elevate the obviously budget-strapped indie (wherein we have to forgive a few "convenient" moments like Sylvia and Byron running into her friends illogically at night on the docks for no reason) in a way that hides its flaws via the thoughtful script and the sheer likability of the cast.

O'Kelley, Adams and Devlin in particular are all wonderful and a special mention must be given to Cryer and Harmon's knack for making what could've been a pretty clear-cut way to tackle each character into something else altogether... so that instead of just one single joke, they get a lot of mileage out of their roles whether it's Cryer's cameo as a Hummer driving baby mama hunter or Harmon's news man diva who sleeps in his makeup towel but feels that he's the victim in his infidelity.

However, to me, the real story was O'Kelley who is a terrific talent and one who energetically tapped into her character and believed so much in the work that she was on board from the start, fighting to help get funding, cast-mates and serving as a producer on the film. Additionally, I truly admired her lack of fear in showing us the flaws of Sylvia's sense of entitlement before she gets a dose of reality and when she ascertains that it's so much better to be a real woman than a "girl" on TV-- even if, unfortunately the beginning of that revelation happens to occur live on-the-air when Sylvia walks out with a pair of pink panties and a whole lot to say.

Text ©2009, Film Intuition, LLC; All Rights Reserved. http://www.filmintuition.com
Unauthorized Reproduction or Publication Elsewhere is Strictly Prohibited.

TV on DVD: Two and a Half Men -- The Complete Fifth Season

Season 5 is Now Available on DVD

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Far more sex-obsessed than Carrie Bradshaw and her three New York pals on HBO's Sex and the City and rivaling FX's It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia as the most politically incorrect show airing on a non-premium channel-- essentially creators Chuck Lorre and Lee Aronsohn's Two and a Half Men is a network television version of a Kevin Smith movie.



However, while Smith left absolutely nothing to the imagination-- the impeccable writing on this smash success Emmy award-winning series manages to aim simultaneously for the highest of the highbrow and the lowest of lowbrow in humor by throwing out enough obvious below the belt references to the masses that they can get away with on CBS (aka the Hallmark Hall of Fame network who brought us Jag and Murder She Wrote). And admirably they do this while at the same time wickedly layering their dialogue with the most innuendo possible to make the humor far richer.

Definitely a show that isn't for everyone as just two minutes of the program can send people running in the other direction. However-- and just like the aforementioned shows in tandem with other personal favorites like the witty discomfort of Ricky Gervais in Extras and BBC's The Office and Larry David's Curb Your Enthusiasm-- as far as this reviewer is concerned, I simply marveled first in shock about the jokes being leveled at the audience in Everybody Loves Raymond's old 9pm Eastern/8pm Central Monday night time slot. Shock that was until I picked my jaw up off the floor and became dazzled as a writer by the writers' amazingly acerbic style.

While most sitcoms go for a sarcastic line followed by an obvious joke, Two and a Half Men pulls a fast one on audiences every single time by riffing, picking up threads from jokes thrown out carelessly two minutes earlier and manage to keep topping the previous joke even though the moment's long passed and a different conversation is well underway.



Although I'd seen a majority of the first season and a few episodes here and there when work or college didn't get in the way (and sadly this was before the era of widespread and affordable access to DVR and/or TiVo), I managed to get hooked right into the familiar premise in this Warner Brothers release of the complete fifth season.



Due to the writer's strike-- Two and a Half Men's season five was truncated from its usual length to a mere nineteen episodes as opposed to the traditional twenty-four or twenty-six that typically run annually for a comedic series. And while some shows struggled to find their footing once again when the writers returned, Two and Half Men never made a false step by adding some multi-episode story arcs.



In fact these additions were extremely helpful in augmenting the running gag of the part time wealthy musician and full time womanizer Charlie Harper (Charlie Sheen) who spends most of his time drinking at all hours of the day and parading in and out of his gorgeous Malibu beach side home women half his age whose IQs are probably right in alignment with their bra size.



Essentially taking an Odd Couple approach-- the show's set-up is simple as in the earliest season, Charlie took in his younger brother Alan (Jon Cryer) and Alan's son Jake (Angus T. Jones) following his divorce from the still controlling and now remarried Judith (Marin Hinkle). Yet although the arrangement was supposed to be temporary, the threesome remain sharing the same roof to amusing effect as-- whereas Charlie's life is all fleeting hedonistic spontaneous pleasure where women and good fortune never fail to fall into his lap-- the uptight, neat freak chiropractor Alan never manages to have one tenth of his brother's success.



Thrown into the mix are Alan's exceedingly dim son Jake (Angus T. Jones) who seems to have ruined his brain with cereal the way that his uncle Charlie has done with booze and Berta (Conchata Ferrell) as the guys' loud, always inappropriate but comically dynamite housekeeper.

And, offering a true glimpse into just how Alan and Charlie's development went so wrong-- the series' frequent scene stealer Holland Taylor routinely swings by as their old manipulative cougar mother who works in real estate by trading in dirty gossip and helping arrange divorces to boost business (once by amusingly pimping out a clueless Charlie). Taylor's bravery is commendable as she launches headfirst into the unlikable role of a woman who is in every sense an older female version of Charlie except in lieu of toxic bachelorhood, she'd been married nearly a half a dozen times.



One of the comedic bright spots who pops up only occasionally in the fifth season is Melanie Lynskey's delightful contradiction of a sweet smiling devil with an angelic face in her embodiment of Rose-- a former stalker and girlfriend of Charlie who despite moving to England (allegedly) still sneaks back into Charlie's life from time to time. This is used to great effect in one of the season's kookiest episodes that finds Charlie and Rose reenacting Rob Reiner's Misery except with yarn knitted scarves and strong European tranquilizers instead of brutal violence.

Featuring some nice twists that find Charlie first trying to take a cue from Alan and date a woman his age (i.e. a brainy judge played by Ming-Na), which only lasts a few episodes-- soon he becomes an overnight children's singing sensation Mr. Waffles who uses his new found popularity as a far less talented version of Raffi to ignore his hatred of children and troll for single moms a la Hugh Grant in About a Boy.

While admittedly it is a tad repetitive as overall, most of the humor derives from the brothers' polar opposite sex lives as Alan suffers through a relationship with a neurotic, self-loathing weeper (Janeane Garofalo) whereas the promiscuous sex-addict in denial Charlie begins a twisted flirtation and intermittent affair with Jenny McCarthy just before her father (James Brolin) marries their mother.



Still fortunately, it's to the credit of the writers once again of switching things up with nice curve balls to lead you around the bases to a home plate you were never guessing would be there in managing to lessen the potential "ick" factor with a sinister twist for McCarthy and Brolin's extended cameo work.



Aside from wishing there would be more opportunities to work in Jane Lynch as Sheen (and Cryer's) terrific psychoanalyst and noting that the show always benefits from the additions of Rose and their mother (particularly in one episode when Charlie is shocked to discover he enjoys hanging out with her), one major drain on the show's humorous energy comes via the dialogue scripted for the overwhelmingly dim-witted Jake. In fact, as the season continued, I realized I began to pity poor Angus T. Jones so much that you feel the "half" portion of the men would be left out of a few more episodes.



While the series has always been synonymous with Charlie Sheen and his payday is long said to be the highest of any network television actor, when I began watching the fifth season in quick succession while preparing this review, I began to realize just how talented and underrated Jon Cryer is in the role of Alan.

Cryer, who will always be known to me as Pretty in Pink's Duckie, brings so much to the table since without Alan as his foil-- the Charlie show or God forbid, the Charlie and Jake show-- would've only survived a single season as opposed to the recent announcement that Men has been renewed by CBS for an additional three full seasons.

Although on television in its regular run, the show just ended its sixth successful season as one of the most watched and highest rated popular sitcoms on network television (and in my eyes, one that far surpasses the channel's previous contenders The King of Queens and Everybody Loves Raymond)-- given some of the risks the writers took throughout this great slim-packaged fifth season set (which also contains the hundredth episode milestone mark) in trying to actively inspire change in the main characters, I'm hopeful that they'll have enough ideas to play with this more in the future.

Similarly, by showing their ambition for the men continue to grow (as much like Jake, it's only logical), I'm optimistic that-- instead of succumbing to the sad fate of so many long-running shows by remaining the same Odd Couple like types they were introduced as in the opening season-- they'll keep us laughing for a long, long time.