Tag Archives: television

Twin Peaks “The Man Behind Glass” [1990)

I’m guessing this episode might best be chalked up to studio interference.

We’ve seen it before.

Take the James Bond film Spectre.

One can feel the executive sabotage.

But here is a little different.

From a quick glance.

ABC (presumably) wanted Lynch and Co. to move things along.

Enough with this suspense.

Or perhaps that was yet to come.

Perhaps this episode is like recitative in opera.

It has to be there (upon a time), but we kinda want it to be over.

We want the arias.  The choruses.

There’s no Maria Callas disc of “best-loved recitatives”.

[Recitativi?]

Yes. sì.

Here we run into a sort of auteur theory for stories.

Or perhaps we are running into auteur theory in its purest form.

If we assume the brilliance of David Lynch (and Mark Frost), then we will blame Lesli Linka Glatter for daft direction here.

But we have previously praised Ms. Glatter.  She has the chops.

So what was the problem with this episode?

Did the material (Lynch and Frost) save Glatter’s direction?

[Did Glatter’s direction ruin Lynch and Frost’s writing?]

Or did Glatter save a mediocre piece of writing by Lynch and Frost?

That’s the problem of episodes.

Chunks.

TV is inherently cubist.

And stories are not conceived with interpolated commercial breaks.

That’s why the stories suffer.

On TV.

The medium is faulty.

The medium gives very little respect for the creations it airs.

But hey:  at least the message is getting out there!

McLuhan would point out that the orientation of space and time determines to the largest extent how we interpret television shows.

[Which is to say, “…the medium is the message.”]

I would have to agree.

And so we are left hanging.

Perhaps for the first time.

Usually we are looking forward to the next episode.

But this time we’re just annoyed.

Because the episode is not a self-contained satisfying unit of entertainment.

Not this time.

You win some, you lose some.

We still love the story.  And the characters.

But we could have done without some of the clumsy fluff.

That was, by the way, my initial concept.

For my website.

A descriptive coup.

Clumsy fluff.

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “May the Giant Be With You” [1990)

For instance, I could tell you that George Hunter White

of the CIA

killed the first Secretary of Defense

James Forrestal

and I might be right.

Or I might be wrong.

Because the method was the same as for Dr. Frank Olson.

THrown from a high window.

Ruled a suicide.

Think about that for a second…

What kind of precedent would that set?

That the first SecDef was whacked.

They say Hobe Sound, but do they mean Jupiter Island?

This will all sound incredibly boring if you don’t know about Frank Olson.

Fort Detrick.

Slipped some acid.

Not very nice.  To experiment on a government employee.  And a medical doctor (to boot).

It is the ridiculous dance of death.

Staggering, staggering, walking like an Egyptian.

Boots and coke.

We don’t remember the label.

We just remember the Boni & Liveright colophon.

Propaganda.

Sophocles, tragedian.  Bernays.  Pure evil.

That’s the big question of Twin Peaks as season two kicks off.

Does evil exist?

Science doesn’t allow such.

But if anyone can convince us, it’s David Lynch.

Never a more awkward television episode than this.

A hulking oddity.

Beautiful!

As Ajax sits in the diner eating a piece of huckleberry pie.

Particularly fresh.  And particularly…  That’s classified.

Takes a long time to die from such a wound.

Dr. No says just a stupid cop.

With the stolen painting.

Hank Worden destroys television.

Turned on its head.

The most beautiful destruction.

Of the shallowest medium.

Montana.  Stanford.  White hair.

J. Geils?

And then Boban Marjanović makes his appearance.

Bohemian Club Moloch David Gergen.

Diane…

I would like to make love to a beautiful woman.

For whom I feel genuine tenderness.

tendresse

THe most longwinded rephrasing of “I am Spartacus” in the history of OSINT.

He was chopping wood INSIDE?

Wait a minute…

He was chopping wood INSIDE??

Miguel Ferrer is priceless 🙂

He is the dialectic.

A show having a conversation with itself.

Predicting the incredulous urban take on yokel homespun rerun.

Mask of Ivan IV’s comrade.

Dancing to await the unfolding of a plot.

Coy joy.

Spider bite at Paranormal Activity.

Slow news day?

Mairzy Doats comin’ thro’ the rye.

Tells Samuel Beckett to leave it in.  The interjection.  [offstage]

Same hair.  And Warhol.

The evil is grease.

And Donna’s all Double Indemnity.

Exploding genres à la James Monaco à la François Truffaut.

As bathetic as Wayne’s World.

Genre explodes.

And no author.

Just Army of God (thanks to FBI curation).

Curare cure air.  Volare.  Hugh Laurie?

Silence of the Lambs got in a little late with Buffalo Bill.

But right on the heels of BOB.

And the psyop B.o.B.

Felt good to burn.

But most touching is Mendelssohn.

SS.

Camera bobbing up and down like ROman Polanski’s buoy.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2

Carol Reed would have been ruined with such attendance.

But still the theme.

The credits are worse.

No late-period Godard waterfall slow-motion on Boyle and Fenn names.

The most terrifying moment in U.S. television history.

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “The Last Evening” [1990)

The essence of Twin Peaks is make-believe FBI.

Our main character (arguably) is a Special Agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

He is a shining example of honor.  A professional.  A vestige of Norman Rockwell’s America.

And before we go crying kitsch and digging up old Soviet propaganda posters in the spirit of Milan Kundera’s distillation (“Soviet kitsch” from Nesnesitelná lehkost bytí), let’s pause for a Mom and apple-pie moment…and a damn good cup of coffee.

Ahhh!

Do one nice thing for yourself every day.

Says agent Cooper.

And he’s right.

Fit as a fiddle.  Healthy as an apple.  A strapping young man.  Not to be confused with the boy with the Arab strap.

Lime in the coconut.  I knew but I didn’t know.

Fleeting.

No, I never spent hours on the beach.

Always a day late and a dollar short.

But we learn.

Attack the attackers.

Neutralize the threat.

While setting Mexican standoff traps to protect all of your resources.  Capabilities.  Core competencies.

You might just achieve a competitive advantage.  And achieve strategic competitiveness.

THis is the meaningless parlance of business.

Leverage without mechanical advantage–without the amplification of force.

And always a metaphorical lever without the equally necessary fulcrum.

Stay with me!

Twin Peaks was the era of VHS.  And cassette tapes.

And mixtapes…  [Now don’t we miss those?]

Something beautiful about the analog warmth.

Analog to digital and back to analog.

And when the tape would unravel…?  Oh well, as long as the tape player is alright 🙂

IT’s really a nasty prank.  But Lara Flynn Boyle fits the Nancy Drew role like a reincarnated Bonita Granville.

And James with his Harley-Davidson…by her side.  like Sade.  Sha-day.

Not as Yoshimi as Saoirse Ronan in Hanna, but I digress.

THe drum-machine universe keeps on boppin’.

Seagrams?  AMF?  Seeburg?  Seberg?

I can remember the magic fingers of Merlin at the Wurlitzer.

That suitably sums up “and Russ Tamblyn as Dr. Jacoby”.

That old television credits ritual.  Need a history on that.  Stat!

Wigs and fake mustaches.  In a little undersized briefcase.  Like Lon Chaney.

Walter Olkewicz seems quintessentially from “down the bayou”, but it’s a mashup with QUebecois generalizations…transposed to British Colombia.

Ahh, how my heart years for Bellingham…

[film is truth 24 times a second]

cuckoo’s nest

Can’t blame Michael Horse.

The lesson here is, Never wash your hair.

Which is to say, Keith Richards has a method to his madness.

His long life.  His longevity.

So much intercutting.  Such convergence.

The strands are not tied up, yet we come to a significant knot in a series of many mini-loops.

D’you know what I mean?

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “Cooper’s Dreams” [1990)

Television doesn’t get any better than this.

We all want to be Sherlock Holmes.

We all want to be James Bond.

The analytical in the United States might gravitate towards the FBI.

And the adventurous towards the CIA.

And why would a director of the stature of David Lynch (a true auteur) ever lower himself to doing TV?

Money.

The film studios won’t support a crackpot genius.

Because his whims will be their asses (come annual board meeting time).

And so film’s loss is TV’s gain.

Television is the most disposable medium of all.

It’s like air.  Constantly flowing.  Into every stop on this highline hell.

There are precedents.

Alfred Hitchcock Presents is the direct ancestor.

But the greatest film of all time was made for TV.

And so we must give credit to Canal+, France 3, the late La Sept, and the late Télévision Suisse Romande.  You see what supporting genius gets you.  You might just cease to exist!

But La Sept and Télévision Suisse Romande never did anything more important and timeless than supporting Histoire(s) du cinema.

Perhaps we could count Gaumont as a television player (they deserve thanks regardless).

Likewise, there was the French CNC.

What the fuck does any of this have to do with Twin Peaks?

It’s the red drapes.  The big rig.  The details.

The myna bird.  The poker chip.  The cuckoo clock.

Birds in general.

[meant in all possible ways]

Two eyelids?  Per side?  Red light was my baby?  Blue light was my mind?

BBC 1?  BBC 2?

Television can’t possibly get any better than this.

Episode 5.  Season 1.

We talk about David Lynch.

And we should.

He’s the big gun.

But we don’t mention Mark Frost.

Genius needs organization.

Who’s who?

And who reeled it in (fishy coffee)?

A:  Lesli Linka Glatter.

Director.

We’re all Icelanders.

“Ich bin ein Berliner.”  [with Addison’s disease]

And just as he reaches for the jelly donut (lots of donuts [my favorite])…no, a strudel.  No.  A sort of maple syrup concoction.  Brisk?  Bisque?  Bris?

Long John!  [I was way off]

Just as he reaches…no-look…opening the cabinet…a little secret altar…all with secret places…false bottoms (and real fronts).-

We see the joy of mental activity.

Of solving a puzzle.

Of feeling the brain cells (all two in my case) rub up against one another.

Many problems we have.

This would be a good point to end.  Poorly.

Ms. Glatter’s fine direction brings authorship (in the auteurist sense) into question.

Was Lynch too busy?

Was he deemed unqualified for network work?  Work.

I can’t answer all that.

Not right now.

Gather and interpret.

Orlando looks as fake as a three-dollar bill.

“reality erupts within the spectacle”

“and the spectacle is real”

There’s more than one way to pretend to skin a cat.

And the same venal studio system.  The same generally repugnant mass media.

Which pipes digital air (pollution) into your home.

Only needs to be controlled at the choke points.

Yale.  Princeton.  You know.

Like the Strait of Malacca.

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “The One-Armed Man”[1990)

Sometimes we spend more time searching for what to watch than

watching that upon which we decide.

It’s an old phenomenon.

“57 Channels (And Nothin’ On)” Bruce Springsteen was singing in 1982.

And so by the confluence of circumstances these days

I am bringing you more musings on the greatest TV series ever.

I think it’s safe to say.

I’ve approached a few other television programs.

TV is not my natural interest.

The medium tends towards the antithesis of my love.

For cinema.

So I sat down.  More or less.

I rummaged a bit.  Upon the Hulu trash heap.

No deep cuts tonight.

Straight to a standby.

Because now Orlando has a special agent in charge.

A government operation always has the killer wrapped up by midday.

With a bow around him.

And his wallet on his chest…open to show his photo ID.

I’m assuming.

None of that proves anything.

Either way.

What’s at issue is a trend.  A government which operates as a serial killer.

For the sake of survival we avoid (at all costs) the news outlets which have led us so far astray in the past.

These unrepentant charlatans continue their mockingbird mimesis.

I’ve seen good Americans question because something is not quite right.

Not much has moved along.

Same old song and dance.

The essence of code.

To be talking about two things at once.

Key would reveal what those two things are.

[Making code-breaking possible.]

Cipher and code.

A long-term project.

Professionals.

Acting honorably.

Priceless propaganda.

The real story…

is not pretty.

America wants the truth.

From Rosser Reeves (hard sell) to soft sell to no-sell.

That is the future.

Anti-marketing.

Perception management will be a reservist function.

There will be no marketing of ideas.

Until that time (a goal, not a calendar date), closer and closer to brute truth.

That the greatest crime would be for a federal employee to leads his or her countrymen astray.

That such activity should cease cold turkey and news anchors be caught like deer in headlights before blank Tele-Promp-Ters.

No directly line from Langley, no news.

A very valuable oversimplification.

And we have the honorable men and women in the FBI who come through Quantico.

The LGBT culmination will feature a J. Edgar Hoover auto-icon (à la Jeremy Bentham) dressed in drag.

And the message will be clear:  no more obfuscation.

That at least one agency (the FBI) has a vested interest in bringing criminal elements within the CIA and DoD to justice.

This is the only route which saves the FBI.

The same for every agency.  The U.S. government (across the board) has zero credibility (at home and abroad).

It can work.

Who will be the first to rebuild the country?

Comey?  He shares the same birthday with me.

But it might take a madman like Trump to throw the moneychangers out of the temple.

[poor choice of metaphor…on several levels]

Trump still thinks it’s Islamic terror.  Trump needs to visit a decent bookstore.

Get some books which the State Dept. calls disinformation (those are the good ones) and go to work.

Get the country back on track.

9/11 makes sense only as a largely inside job.

The assets or operatives employed may have left trails to incriminate (blackmail) future targets (Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, etc.).

Their domestic movements were picked up by Able Danger.

Translation:  DoD (rightly) doesn’t trust CIA.

But let’s give the Agency its due.

Dirty deeds, done for no more than the risk-free rate.

NSA just sits back and giggles.

Could take down any of these punks.

So that everyday the transmission of fraudulent information passed on as news is hell on Earth.

Skills is one thing.

Brazen is another.

Too close to the fire.

Emotional intensity.

Not a disorder.

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “Rest in Pain” [1990)

Science thinks it knows what religion doesn’t.

Religion thinks it knows what science doesn’t.

Science thinks.

Religion feels.

Romance is a sort of religion.

Unthinking.

But beautiful.

These are the issues in this rather unremarkable episode of Twin Peaks.

The romance of film criticism seeks to give no spoilers.

Break the code, solve the case.

Handwriting analysis…seems as old and mystical as phrenology.

Because today it is stylometry.

Were it not for Snowden, we’d still be in the dark.

ABSENCE OF LIGHT.

Hoping David Sanborn makes an album called Kryptos.

Or not.

I INSERTED THE CANDLE.

CAUSED THE FLAME TO FLICKER.

EMERGED FROM THE MIST.

There’s easier ways to get jobs.

To make verb tenses agree.

And to verb agreements tense.

Word pie lay.

The fragments are essential.

Each piece.

Piece by piece.

With ice cream on the side.

Huckleberry H.

Scalia was whisked off.

Like a broom.

He had been a jack of one-eyed secret society.  Guest.  SS.

Pound’s poetry didn’t go this deep.

But deeper.

To Colombian hell.

It’s trying to think.

Puttin’ on the Ritz.

I thought it was her.

A cipher.

Shame on me.

Eric Da Re.  Doremi Fasol Latido.

Rest in pain.

Jawohl.

The biggest asshole in television history.

Vs. a perception sharpest blade mind ever.

Even for an actor.

Kyle MacLachlan.

Sherlock Holmes.

A perverse sense of knowing.

Raymond Chandler.

Several stops and starts to get here.

Like the end of Vivre sa vie.

And like the beginning.

Michel Legrand subject to the most genius whims ever.

Lynch is our Godard.

Where the Germans have Schoenberg, we have Ives.

Not the best metaphor.

But perfect.

Length trying your patience.

I know.

Like the end of Vivre sa vie.

Where we don’t know whether to laugh or cry.

That is the bathos of mechanical mayhem.  Haywire sob hiccups.

G’uh g’uh g’uh.

Over and over and over and over and over again.

The Vladimir Poutine syndicate have goldBRICked with the Meow Zedong overseas intelligence amoeba to form a truly Quebecois brand of! Godspeed.

Kinda like that hockey scene from Strange Brew.

Messiaen at the organ.

ils.

Sont.  Hellfire.  Bohemian.

No Moloch or Moulouk can do it justice.

Moulouk vs. Bébert.

Oui.  C’est Ça.

There’s always two sets of books.

 

-PD

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Twin Peaks “Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer” [1990)

By way of progressing my survey of David Lynch’s masterpiece television series, I would like to direct your attention to a film which I will likely not review in the normal sense.

That film is The Greatest Movie Ever Sold.

There’s some rubbish about POM Wonderful which officially fills out the title.

I wouldn’t be a Jewish mother if I didn’t worry about such stuff.

David Lynch was right to introduce Michael J. Anderson 11 years before MJA’s portrayal of Larry Silverstein premiered at Cannes.

The whole thing came to me in a dream.

The collapse of the stritch and manzello.

In a dream I saw the bright shining genius of Morgan Spurlock.

The birth of Chomsky and Nader.

Putting a word to beauty:  Mädchen Amick.

Miss or missy.  Little maid.

Mademoiselle.

In dreams wiped clean like São Paulo.

Or Tibet.

Martin Lindstrom is following closely the amygdala.

60 feet and 6 inches from a damn good cup of coffee.

Mark Crispin Miller rightly brings up “the spectacle” (I SEE you…).

Miguel Ferrer is a perfect Rosenfield.

No one uses Mane ‘n Tail on queer street.

It’s hard to pin down further.

Brilliance and brilliances.

Courage to be clever.

A place to fit within the business world.

The disruptive innovation of two auteurs.

Spurlock and Lynch.

Fact and fiction or faction.

Slice of life and life of slices.

Sad for what we’ve lost.  And hopeful for what we’ll gain.

Hard work.  Optimism.  Artistic integrity.

Marketing is no less surreal than a Shetland pony speaking through backmasking (and subtitles).

A kiss from Sheryl Lee.

Perhaps there is no other way to convey the savant fullness of Kyle MacLachlan than through such an oblique strategy.

 

-PD

 

 

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Twin Peaks “Traces to Nowhere” [1990)

Before 9/11.

Before the Oklahoma City bombing.

There was a skeleton key.

Dangling.

Word.  To the wise:

it is not easy to pick this show back up after a long hiatus.

Leaving the Rosetta Stone in the mud…to return knee-deep in crypticism.

Almost makes you want to become an FBI agent.  A special agent.

Because your mind likes puzzles…

Plenty of shows on TV like that now.

It’s the law enforcement arm of the propaganda machine which gives us the sexier James Bond.

Word.  To the wise:

Never Say Never Again is really painful (unbearably so) without John Barry.

Or Monty Norman.

Even Kasparov lost to Deep Blue.

On a rematch.

Maybe.

Barely.

And we’ve discussed the much-vaunted anti-Semitism of Fischer.

Word.  To the wise:

there’s a fish in the percolator.

And so Duwayne Dunham (who?) turns in a masterfully-directed episode of Twin Peaks.

The first real episode (after the lengthy pilot).

Which is to say (viz.)–don’t neglect your studies.

Only you are you.

And you are fighting the greatest enemy in the known world.

The hydra-headed logarithm.

Ask my log.

I thought so.

Sherilyn Fenn is painfully attractive.

Like Martha Vickers in The Big Sleep.

C’est-à-dire, Twin Peaks is the Picasso of television.

A once-in-a-lifetime experience.

That this show was broadcast on a major American TV network (ABC) is a miracle.

It was the Armory Show of 7-Eleven culture.

The priceless amidst a shitstorm of mediocrity.

Sometimes the rag pickers find a gem in our disposable civilization.

At which point we chiffonniers are mandated to return it…to its rightful owners.

You.

America.

America is everywhere.

An amoebic blob phenomenon bleeding porn and missiles.

Hasta la vista!  Hava Nagila!

Git er done.

We all need to return to the beginning.

In matters so complex.

And I wish you sharp swords in slicing through the bollocks.

Sincerely.

 

-PD

 

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The Cat in the Hat [1971)

TV special…

“We interrupt your regularly-scheduled program to bring you a flight of fancy free.”

Dr. Seuss.  SS.  Theodor Seuss Geisel.

If the PhD proves too difficult–too stultifying, then just drop out.  Right?

David H. DePatie.  Friz [sic] Freleng.

Allan Sherman is great as the voice of the title character.  The eponymous feline.

But most interesting is the fish:  Karlos K. Krinklebein.

(!)

You can’t make this shit up.

Krinkelbein?

Perhaps it’s Carlos…

In any case, it’s Daws Butler voicing the goldfish.

Directed by Hawley Pratt (who graduated from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn).

Again with the not making of the shit up.

But most important are the readymade, pre-reified Thing 1 and Thing 2.

Woe unto Thurl Ravenscroft for voicing merely one Thing (Thing 1, mind you!).

He was Tony the Tiger.

(!)

“They’re grrreat!”

The dumbest, most genius tagline ever.

Thou canst not maketh up such as this…on the 400th year of our laird.

The Grinch stole Christmas in 1966.  Right there on CBS.

Thurl crooned “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch” and became doubly immortal.

Never underestimate Tony the Tiger.

Or the Tourette’s Guy.

Danny.

Anthony L. Six.

A weird last name.

Brilliant!

And Jared.

YouTube diamond.

Back to the cat…our composer Dean Elliott.

Eleven years after composing the score for Sex Kittens Go to College, he was in the animation business (more or less).

To go from Mijanou Bardot (Brigitte’s sister) to the moss-covered three-handled family credenza.

Credenza…altar for food of the elite.  Most elite.  Papal.

With faith (belief), the food taster.  Not discriminating flavor.  Checking poison.

Mamie Van Doren and Tuesday Weld.  Back to the (sex) kittens.

It’s the real deal.  Chuck Jones.  Producer.

Indeed, Siberia.

Indeed.

Sympathy.  And Yerself is Steam.

It’s mania.  It’s depression.

Are you experienced?  (¿With backmasking)

That’s the sombrero psychedelia.

chapka in a shlyapa.

Cat matryoshka.

EmrNyisIdtdGelrMeyA

 

-PD

 

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#8 Mr. Bean in Room 426 [1993)

First, a short list of Hulu failings:

-Pootie Tang (shite)

-Mordecai (shite)

-Lars and the Real Girl (epically shite)

-The Voices (shite)

-Mystery Team (shite)

-Hot Tub Time Machine 2 (shite squared) [catalog dilemma]

-Anchorman 2 (shite to the second power)

-Beverly Hills Cop II (repetitive shiteness) [catalog dilemma]

-Cannonball Run II (must see first episode to appreciate this shite)

-Teen Wolf Too (now with word shite!)

-The Naked Gun 2 1/2 (quasi-decimal shite)

-The Naked Gun 33 1/3 (LP shite)

-My Best Friend’s Wedding (shite)

-Cashback (shite)

-Dear White People (shite)

-Everything Must Go (shite)

-Jerry Maguire (shite)

-The Skeleton Twins (shite)

-Trailer Park Boys (shite)

-16-Love (shite)

-Novocaine (sic shite)

-Dark Horse (Judeo-Nepotistic shite)

-Little Paradise (shite)

-Frances Ha (epically shite)

-Stranger Than Fiction (shite)

-8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (shite)

-C.S.A.:  The Confederate States of America (ambitious shite)

-Trees Lounge (depressing attempt at shite)

-King of California (total shite)

-Dead Hooker in a Trunk (go-back-to-film-school shite)

-Are You Joking? (more Judeo-Nepotistic shite)

-And Now a Word From Our Sponsors (shite)

-Falling Star (Kosher Casino shite)

-Jewtopia (no comment)

-The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Swedish shite)

-Heathers (cruel shite)

-Sleeping Beauty (barely shite)

-Gold (Irish shite)

-The Hunger Games:  Catching Fire (quintessential shite)

-Jack Ryan:  Shadow Recruit (lazy shite)

-Mission:  Impossible (a colon-full of Scientologist shite)

-Space Milkshake (actually, not too bad…)

[I hate to say it, but the number of films by mediocre directors named Schwarz is really astonishing.]

Now, you might reason:  these are just the rantings of an anti-Semitic film snob.

I admit I don’t laugh easily.

It takes a lot to laugh, it takes a train to cry.

Mostly I don’t like waste.

Entitled filmmakers are more likely to make shite.

They didn’t earn their stripes.

They have an uncle who works for Sony Pictures.

Actually, the film school rubbish on Hulu is astonishing.

It is completely venal in nature.

I just happen to have had some bad experiences with unfunny Jewish films.

What do I mean, “Jewish films”?

I mean exactly what Brandon Tartikoff was referring to when he first saw the Seinfeld pilot.

In that instance, Tartikoff (himself Jewish) was wrong.

Seinfeld was genius!

Seinfeld is a funny show.

Yes, it exists in a Jewish milieu.

Tartikoff thought the show was “too Jewish” to appeal to Americans in general.

He was wrong.

But, sadly, now we have a gaggle of filmmakers who think they are Woody Allen or Mel Brooks.

Status update:  those two guys actually have talent!

Which is not to say they didn’t make some clunkers.

Hulu happens to have picked up two of those clunkers:  Bananas and Life Stinks.

No one’s perfect.

But please…dear world Jewry,

Please tell your precocious sons and daughters that they aren’t all geniuses.

Who’s funding this shit?

Hulu:  who the fuck is in charge over there!?!

Your catalog indicates that you enjoy wasting the monthly fees people pay for your woeful service.

Ok, ok…

A short list of Hulu successes:

-the Criterion collection

THE END.

And so…what part of the Hulu catalog presently needs the most work?

Answer:  the comedy genre of movies.

Second most problematic lack of imaginative curation?

Answer:  the drama genre of movies.

[If you think that Hulu’s selection of movies might be lacking (based on my first two points of emphasis), then you are right:  it is!]

Third crappiest category on Hulu?

Answer:  the “action & adventure” genre of movies.

Even Hulu’s genres are ass-backwards compared to the pinpoint precision of iTunes.

Korean Drama?  Really???  Ok.  I guess Hulu is really killing it in Seoul (and Pyongyang).

CEO Mike Hopkins needs to take a long look in the mirror.

Whoever got the Criterion catalog, give that person an infinite raise.

The rest of them?  Fire their sorry asses.

Beth Comstock needs to overturn the moneychangers’ tables.

Destroy YOUR business, Ms. Comstock.

Jason Kilar…you know what doesn’t work?  Faux-dreams.

Faux-tographs.

A catalog of shite.

Make a call.  Do lunch.

“Anywhere, Anytime:  Shite”

“For the Love of shite”

“Come Shite with Us”

Lot of people drawing a check at Hulu and turning out a subpar service.

The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words…both of which translate roughly to “shite”.

Now, just to be fair…I wouldn’t sign up for Netflix if my life depended on it.

iTunes is a horribly antiquated business model (and offers very little value for consumers).

Amazon Prime Video was petty to disallow MacBooks (as incompatible devices) as late as last year.  Not to mention that Jeff Bezos is just a wannabe Rupert Murdoch who bans books like Nobody Died at Sandy Hook.  [And yes, Virginia, Murdoch is the great Satan.]

And so, with such a paltry selection of movies on Hulu, I’ve been forced to examine its television offerings.  The prospects are not much better.

But I will give credit where credit is due.

Mr. Bean was an excellent pickup.

If you want a tight, seamless work of art (unlike this rambling, frothing review), then check out the episode under consideration.

You know, not even the childlike Rowan Atkinson was above making fun of old people (in this episode) or suggesting that continental Europeans be purposefully killed by British drivers (tourists).  Check out his standup comedy album from 1995 for the latter bit.

Which just goes to show…we all lose our heads.

We all exercise poor judgment.  We all have poor taste now and then.

You may not believe it, but I have put my own sorry butt on the line to stand up for world Jewry.

I will be the first to admit that my term “Judeo-Nepotistic” is incredibly crass and insensitive.

And still, I would ask that Jews (who are no doubt hard-pressed on all sides) please exercise some judgment of their own.  Transparent nepotism is really tasteless.  It goes against our better Jeffersonian principles.

So there you have it.  Bobby Fischer was a jerk.  The Holocaust really happened.  Not so sure about the gas chambers.  You’re welcome Faurisson.  The Earth is not flat.  9/11 was an inside job (and therefore not an Israeli job).  Insofar as it was an Israeli job, the U.S. government was at least half-responsible.  It was much more likely an Israeli job than a Saudi job.  Much more likely a purely self-inflicted inside job (no substantial Israeli involvement) than an Israeli job.  And finally, Israel is a criminal country oppressing the Palestinians in a most disgusting manner.

And for good measure, yes Donald Trump is a bigot.  And he’s horribly wrong about immigration (both in regards to our Mexican brothers and sisters and our Islamic brothers and sisters).  But he’s still the only real choice for President.

Sanders has been right about one thing:  Snowden.  Snowden’s a hero.  But America is not a socialist country.  Sanders would actually be a bigger step backwards than Trump.

The other candidates (Clinton and Cruz) are worthless.

So there you go, Hulu…I need some better circuses here!

To keep me out of the political arena!!

I could use some bread as well 🙂

In any case, I’m sorry for my vile ranting.

But film is my religion.  Through film, omnism.

Stop defiling my religion, Hulu.  Your thoughtlessness is ghastly.

Hire some people who love cinema.

Get your shit together.

 

-PD

 

 

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