Around The Web - Sex and the City sucks, more upfront fun and Jesus, Jesus, Jesus

Catching up on some various things I found funny, interesting or appealing from the web...

- As regular readers know, I love Roger Ebert in a way that should be illegal for a man to love another man. Perhaps Tommy Heinsohn loves Walter McCarty and Rajon Rondo more; I don't know, and I really hope I don't ever have to complete a test to find out.

Ebert is at his best when he is ripping into a truly horrible movie, such as Sex and the City 2. Frankly, the first movie looked like excrement, and the second movie looks even more horrid with the totally cheap plot device of transporting the characters to some foreign locale. He is no fan, giving it one star out of four, and he savages it from the opening paragraph:

Some of these people make my skin crawl. The characters of "Sex and the City 2" are flyweight bubbleheads living in a world which rarely requires three sentences in a row. Their defining quality is consuming things. They gobble food, fashion, houses, husbands, children, vitamins and freebies. They must plan their wardrobes on the phone, so often do they appear in different basic colors, like the plugs you pound into a Playskool workbench.

As a wise man once said, ouch baby! I've seen about half an episode of Sex and the City, and I found it... well, repugnant. Then again, I find no problem with professional wrestling, so go figure. Like Jersey Shore, I just find Sex and the City to be the embodiment of thoughtless, ridiculous extravagance. I understand that it is probably escapist fun for many, but given how many people seem to actually emulate the show, I'm not a fan.

- Slate finished its series on upfronts by having Troy Patterson go to the CW's presentation. There are at least two reasons that I'm happy they had Katy Perry perform at their upfront. Apparently, she's some sort of singer! Strangely, I had never noticed that she sang.

Anyway, all of the CW shows sound horrible, but none of them are really aimed at me. Nikita sounds like it would have potential if it was on another network, but since it is on the CW, then she will probably be a part-time assassin, and a part-time fashion consultant. Plain Jane and Shedding for the Wedding sound like rehashes of shows. And California Gurls and Hellcats sound like the horrid, standard fare for the CW.

- And finally... This entire story from Slate about three guys claiming to be Jesus Christ who were forced to live together is pretty nuts. Enjoy! (And p.s., wasn't Dogma an underrated movie? I totally agree!)

The Katy Perry photo is from here.

A sneak peek of the other upfronts, and Pitching Perfect Projects

Note: Elvis Costello should have his own sitcom.

Continuing on my post from yesterday, and from the excellent dispatches from the upfronts by Slate's Troy Patterson here and here, my thoughts on the new shows pitched for the upcoming fall season...

- Lonestar is about an oil tycoon con man trying to keep it all together. A FOX show, it'll probably be canceled at the first sign of ratings trouble. I'm not really that interested in the concept; this sounds like the type of show that will be crammed down my throat in promos during the baseball playoffs, only to disappear from the fall schedule after a couple episodes. (However, in case anyone has forgotten the lesson pounded into our heads from past postseasons, "Her father is the DISTRICT ATTORNEY!")

- I like the pedigree of Running Wilde, which has Will Arnett and Keri Russell in it. However, as good as Arnett was as Gob Bluth, he has produced a lot of... well, shit, since then. It would be a shame if that was his career peak, but it has happened to actors a lot better than him. Therefore, I'm going to remain cautiously optimistic for his new show.

- Mixed Signals got the best response from the mostly-old-dude crowd at the FOX upfront, so I will try to check it out in the fall, even though I know almost nothing of it. Raising Hope sounds horrid, even from Patterson's short description of it as Three Men and a Baby minus two men. Doesn't Two and a Half Men fill out quota for shows-without-moms needed on network TV?


Better yet, I think we need a ridiculous premise show that goes the completely opposite direction. Therefore, I am proposing a new show, which I call Four Lesbians, Two Babies and an Elephant. (In case "lesbians" in a show title doesn't fly, my alternate title is Four Women, Two Babies and an Elephant.) Of the four women, two would be doctors - they're very popular with executives - one would be a spy, and the last one would be a drug addict. If one baby means ratings, then two babies mean DOUBLE ratings. And, any show can have a puppy or a kitten. To spice things up, these gals need an elephant.

- At the ABC upfront, No Ordinary Family sounds like it could be a winner. A drama about a family with superhero powers? Yes. Sign me up. Heroes was awesome until it started adding 500,000 different characters, so focusing on just a single family of heroes could be interesting.

- In contrast, I'm not sure how much I'll like Mr. Sunshine with Matthew Perry. In the early seasons of Friends, he was savagely sharp and funny. But as the show was increasingly pitched toward female viewers and the female characters, he lost a lot of his edge. If he is back to his snide-as-eff character, then I'm in. If he's pining for some woman in the first episode, I'm out.

- Happy Endings sounds vapid and stupid and a waste of time. The same goes for My Generation. Generally, anything that claims to be cool, hip or on the cutting edge is never cool, hip or on the cutting edge.

- Off The Map and Body of Proof sound like rehashes of shows currently on the air. If they're decent, I'm guessing they'll just piggyback on to the existing shows. Neither one sounds like it has breakout potential.

- And finally... The Shatner show based on Shit My Dad Says. My goodness, I'm excited. Two reasons: It will either be legitimately good, or it will be so bad it is great, because Shatner is involved. I really don't see any middle ground on this, although I think it's far more likely that it sucks, like the show based on the Geico cavemen. I do like my friend Tom's suggestion: It should be renamed from Shit My Day Says, which won't fly on network television, to Shatner My Dad Says.

The picture of Elvis Costello at the top of the blog is from this blog, which is in some foreign language. The lesbian photo I modified a bit, but found at this blog. The baby photo is from here. And Dumbo is from this blog.

A sneak peek of the NBC upfronts

In the past, I've spoken of how Troy Patterson from the online magazine Slate is my favorite television columnist. Well, I'm happy to report that in keeping with a yearly tradition, he is filing dispatches from all of the network upfronts this year, starting with NBC. (And if you want to see a nifty question and answer with Troy, which is also where I got the picture from, click here.)

For those not in the know, the upfronts take place over roughly a week, and the networks give critics, advertisers and industry heavies a sneak preview of their new shows and pilots for the fall season. Since NBC is in fourth place, they obviously would like to make the best impression of the networks that will present.

Of the shows described, The Paul Reiser Show is the only one that sounds remotely interesting to me. A network-rated version of Curb Your Enthusiasm could be good, and before it focused solely on the baby in its later seasons, I did enjoy Mad About You. Reiser is likable enough in the stand-up and movie roles I've seen him in, like as the square detective partner of Alex Foley in a minor role in Beverly Hills Cop.

The rest of the shows... ick. Outlaw, the Jimmy Smits show, sounds too implausible for people interested in the law, and too lame for people into action. The Event sounds like it could be solid, a casual version of The West Wing, but it isn't really the type of show I'm into. And although I like Olivia Munn, Perfect Couples sounds like a good candidate to get canceled within five episodes.

The picture of Reiser comes from this site about movie actors, obviously.