Rinaldo

Some voices in commercials are instantly recognizable: John Corbett, Linda Hunt, Ty Burrell, Peri Gilpin. I always feel good when I hear them, both because I like the people and because this is incredibly good pay for those who do it. I've more recently become aware that some voice-overs are actors whom I admire (primarily from the stage) and I had no idea they had achieved this nice a paycheck for themselves. Like, a few years ago I belatedly heard that the MasterCard "priceless" guy is Billy Crudup (it may have been when he actually got to appear onscreen in this one): And yesterday I discovered that my current favorite stage actor, Santino Fontana, is the voice for Macy's, CoverGirl, and Excedrin.

We're encouraged to start threads for individual episodes. I myself, having caught just 3 or 4 episodes over the course of its run (I liked it, but kept overlooking it somehow), am now enjoying catching up with all the episodes in order on the DVD sets. I've just started Season 2 and am almost cackling with glee at the thought of how many I still have ahead of me to discover.

Emerson Cod gets many of the best ones. Besides the topic title, which always makes me chuckle, there's "Just because there's vodka in my freezer doesn't mean I have to drink it. Wait... yes it does." "The money don't care." "If I'd wanted to hang out with geeks in leotards, I would've stayed in art school."

Would anybody mind if the two parts of this thread title were reversed? It took me two readings of the forum listing to realize that this was a general "what we thought we heard" topic, and not a whole thread insanely and forever devoted to an IHOP cinnamon squirrel. :)

This may be too big and fraught a topic for this thread, and I'm certainly not empowered to speak for what "the world" thinks. But I don't get the impression that any such sweeping decision as you describe has been proposed. It's a matter of degree, and of examining each specific case. And there's room for discussion and respectful disagreement about specific cases, of course. But my own feeling is that wherever one draws the line, this Mickey Rooney performance is beyond it -- and is not a performance but a caricature, based on the notion that "acting Japanese" is squinting one's eyes and talking funny. The Sinatra and Quinn performances mentioned didn't do anything comparable. The question is also bound up with the standing of a particular ethnicity in the social fabric at any given time (so reactions will change over time), which is too much for me to take on, so I'll stop here.

Sorry about the redundancy in my comment above. I over-edited.

Yep. I so agree with both of those, I put 'em in thread titles here. (Though I was a chickenshit about one of 'em.)

Any episode in which a character's toe is cut or bitten off. One might not think this happened enough to be mentioned as a category, but Friends did it, Seinfeld did it, Weeds did it. In fact I never watched Weeds again after it happened.

And wasn't that also the only time we saw Paul's other sister Sharon? And the first time we saw his mother (amazing that they waited till Season 2, as Cynthia Harris came to seem so iconic as Sylvia). I liked the episode for the way it showed how Sylvia could casually "unintentionally" zing each of the three "kids" in successive sentences. And I love that Sharon was played by the great Randy Graff, whom I've enjoyed onstage so often. After that the only sister we saw was Debbie, played once by Talia Balsam and thereafter by Robin Bartlett; Sharon would sometimes be mentioned but never came to family gatherings.

If I hear of a new scripted series having an LGBT character, I'll generally try it once. But I don't hesitate to stop watching, even partway through the first episode, if I decide it's no good. That content alone won't earn my loyalty. Also I stopped worrying about TV (or movies) "sending a good message to straight people" around 1995 (when the movie Jeffrey caused me to rethink my previous point of view). As long as I personally find it entertaining and inoffensive, screw what others might extrapolate from it. If bigots draw the wrong conclusions, that's on them, and nobody has to pander to them.

That's lovely. Thank you, arc. I remember not liking that finale on first airing, I'm not sure why now. Maybe I hadn't lived enough at the time. I saw it (on FXX) last month for the first time since, and it felt just fine to me. The only element that I disliked was Jamie repeatedly changing her mind about whether Paul should have a vasectomy... while he was having the procedure/reversal. All because of mindless chatter from Lisa of all people while they were waiting. That seemed like writers being false to the characters for a cheap bit that wasn't even funny. Otherwise, I can buy these ups and downs over the years, and the final home-movie montage was unexpectedly touching in just the way they describe in the interview.

Remo Williams. Fred Ward is taught to be a superninja by that eminent Asian wise man, Joel Grey. Kate Mulgrew acts spiteful, the better to melt later. Ice Pirates is probably too aware of its own schlockiness, but it's a lot of fun. I especially enjoy imagining who they really wanted for each part but had to get the equivalent they could afford: Not Burt Reynolds but Robert Urich. Not Gregory Hines but Michael D. Roberts. Not Glenn Close but Mary Crosby. But we do get the real Anjelica Huston.

Stringer epitomizes the character complexity of The Wire more than almost anyone else. We think we know what he's about at first, then he reveals more and more sides and interests. His attempt to run a drug-dealing meeting in an appropriate way is one of the more hilarious scenes I've seen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPS9YKGaKQE And kudos to Idris Elba for internalizing a very specific American accent perfectly.

Lester is probably my favorite character in the series. Touching, hilarious in his wry quiet way, and a many of many talents. Cool Lester Smooth, indeed.

I suppose one can say that the LOTR movies felt the need to keep simultaneous events in different locations happening onscreen at about the same time, whereas the books can hop back and forth between "parts." That seems defensible to me, but it does make for a different order of telling the story. My first thought on knowing the books were to be filmed, and knowing how much did have to be covered, was that Tom Bombadil and the scouring of the Shire would lift right out. And I don't mind Faramir not being convinced at first; JRT did like to establish some characters as All Good, impervious to temptation, and I'm not wedded to that idea. But I know opinions differ on that.

I haven't seen the movie, but depending on the source and computations, Methuselah lived until the year of the flood, so it's not wrong that he would have been around. (By other reckonings, he lived till 14 years after the flood, which makes for interesting speculation -- like he was good at holding his breath...) And Noah did curse Ham's son Canaan, but I guess the movie does it differently? (Jehosaphat belongs to a whole different era -- was Japhet intended?) Jehosophat is of a much later date. Did you mean Japheth?

I'm a devotee of classic orchestral movie soundtracks. Some of my personal favorites: David Raksin: Laura Alex North: The Rainmaker, Spartacus, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Dragonslayer John Barry: Body Heat Jerome Moross: The Big Country Richard Rodney Bennett: Murder on the Orient Express John Williams: Images, The Fury

I just thought that "wookie" was genuinely unfair, as it means nothing outside the movies. Whereas words like "empire," "revenge," "falcon" exist to be described in lots of other ways. (Not that the players always took advantage of that.)

[Edited from earlier vague memory:] I checked in WIkipedia, which confirmed my memory that last August, it happened twice: Al Roker and Minnie Driver. And both did poorly when given the chance. (My reply above, that Donald Faison had been picked for the final round in the past, was wrong.) My guess (and it's purely a guess) is that Joel himself was unsure about Romney, and rather than be embarrassed publicly for such political ignorance, he moved on.

Responding to my own question: For me, all five seasons were of high quality; it never really had a slump. But if I must rank them, the fifth & last comes off weakest. Not because of McNulty's crazy scheme -- it's out there, but so were Hamsterdam and other season stories, and it has its serious consequences that aren't shrugged off. But the newspaper stuff just wasn't as fully imagined and nuanced as the "worlds" for the other seasons. Those characters weren't as rich or surprising as the dockmen or the students had been when they were introduced in seasons 2 and 4, and their stories seemed contrived for more simplistic "lessons" about how the world is changing, rather than unfolding in an illusion of reality. And I don't think (contrary to a reason I see sometimes given) that this is fallout from a shorter-than-usual season; it wasn't that much shorter in terms of time, and the time just wasn't filled as interestingly or completely. Still, it's all relative: there was still a lot that was top-quality Wire in this last year, the structure held up, and the final episode (including the last and best of the summation montages) brought it home beautifully. No complaints here. My favorite? Hard to choose between 1 (it got me started, and induced that first amazement at the scope of what I was experiencing) and 4 (what a risk, to entrust your new story to four kids, and how stunningly well it paid off). Make it a tie.

Really, what else could I call the Lou Grant thread? This role was the sort of thing that occasionally happens to experienced Hollywood character men: a sitcom role that completely redefines how people see them thereafter. Nobody thought Ed Asner was inherently funny before MTM (or Leslie Nielsen before Airplane! -- or currently Andre Braugher before Brooklyn Nine-Nine; though the latter two had higher "leading man" profiles than Asner had had). But Lou turned Asner into a permanently beloved and smile-inducing actor, one who is still active and doing new things. I would have requested a forum for his subsequent Lou Grant series, but it hasn't been aired anywhere in many years, nor has it been made available on home video (its first 3 seasons, or most of them, are on Hulu). So I can't imagine much of a discussion happening, which is too bad because it was a great series. And a unique crossing between genres for a character.

I agree that Barney Miller is not only the obvious but a logical comparison. They both have the atmosphere that the coworkers/friends are trying to be better people, but as with all of us the change is both gradual and partial; and in the end people accept each others' eccentricities and flaws as part of the deal. Also, the ability to incorporate both subtle, almost subliminal comic touches with broad gags is a mark of both series. One of the blogs by a former sitcom writer (I actually can't remember which at the moment) was moaning that among all of today's supposedly sophisticated and admirable half-hour comedy show, none actually provides any laughs. I think that's mistaken in the first place, but my primary evidence against it would be Brooklyn Nine-Nine, both smart and hilarious. One additional similarity, probably common to all workplace comedies, is our need to accept (or agree not to notice) that the precinct seems to run on a workforce of about a half-dozen people. There was lip service given once to the "weekend" shift, but really there should be three shifts a day, and each one would need to be a whole lot more populated. The squadroom does have extras in the background, but somehow they're never invited to Thanksgiving, or Holt's party, or anything else. I'm not complaining -- a show would become unwatchable (as well as unproduceable) if there were dozens of speaking roles in all the scenes -- but it's a reminder that even now we need to accept certain stylizations. And we do, without even thinking much about it.

I can see a lot of actors (Affleck included) as Nick -- we almost seem to breed Nicks as a national type: pleasant and initially plausible and likable, but in fact not quite grown up or disciplined about his life. Amy seems much the trickier acting challenge to me.

And that was a new way to lose the final round. Just waste precious seconds on every single name with lots of "Er, um, uh" before getting around to the obvious thing to say. And this was, I think, the first time the "will come back to haunt you" threat actually came to pass in that round. He was about to have to try Mitt Romney again when time ran out.

I fell in love with Sam in the first episode. First, for his insistence that he accidentally slept with a hooker. (Toby: "I don't understand. Did you trip on something?") Second, his encounter with "the president's daughter's first-grade class." Having fobbed them off with a fake tour, he excuses himself with a self-incriminating tirade to the teacher, whom he then discovers to be that same president's daughter. His response? a smiling "This is bad on... so many levels." I instantly adopted that phrase for my own use. It fits a lot of situations.