Out Cole
Doin' It All for the Cookie
Pages to Fold
Introducing Ask Torontoist
A Trash Bin Quandary
Each week, Torontoist examines the upcoming TV listings and makes note of programs that are entertaining, informative, and of quality. Or, alternately, none of those. The result: Televisualist.
Monday
"The key to faking out the parents is the clammy hands. It's a good non-specific symptom; I'm a big believer in it. A lot of people will tell you that a good phony fever is a dead lock, but, you get a nervous mother, you could wind up in a doctor's office. That's worse than school. You fake a stomach cramp, and when you're bent over, moaning and wailing, you lick your palms. It's a little childish and stupid, but then, so is high school." Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It never, ever, becomes less good as time passes. (AMC, 8 p.m.)
Sara Gilbert alert: she appears again on The Big Bang Theory as the nerd-not-quite-a-love-interest for Johnny Galecki's character. No, Televisualist has no comments about teenage crushes on Darlene from Roseanne. None at all. (A-Channel, 8 p.m.)
Tuesday
Strange Days is an oft-overlooked little gem of a movie from the mid-90s: it's a great sci-fi/action/thriller with a fantastic soundtrack, one of Ralph Fiennes' best performances, and Angela Bassett kicking ass in copious amounts. Really, she kicks so much ass in this movie. And I don't just mean metaphorically. She beats people up like crazy. It's terrific. (Sun TV, 8 p.m.)
There is an Extra Special Beauty and the Geek special tonight. Televisualist does not watch the show, so we have no idea what is on it. Therefore, we are going to pretend it is about the Geeks riding polar bears in a polar bear jousting competition to earn super-voting privileges when choosing Beauties. Actually, we would watch that. (City, 8 p.m.)
The Pennsylvania Democratic primary, which is of course all-important in every conceivable way right until the next Democratic primary, is tonight. CNN will have coverage which will hopefully be less pathetic than the ABC debate last week. (Starting at 8 p.m.)
Wednesday
The tremendously bad Pussycat Dolls Present: Girlicious wraps up tonight, and Televisualist can't help but think that the winnowing process for this show is somehow very apt: instead of having one winner, the show has three winners out of four potential remaining contestants. So it's basically Heathers with a bad dance-pop musical interlude. (City, 9 p.m.)
The Simpsons rerun of the week: "Itchy and Scratchy Land." This constantly places in most fan top ten lists, mostly because it has a horde of killer robots in it and makes fun of Walt Disney without directly making fun of Walt Disney. (CFMT, 10 p.m.)
Thursday
Lost returns after a brief strike-caused hiatus, and really, the fourth season of Lost has been a season best described as "all killer no filler." Even the Kate episode was decent—a Kate episode, if you can believe it—and it's just been going to a whole new place. The fact that the writers now know the exact endpoint they're working towards probably has a lot to do with it - they don't have to stall for time any more. Quite the opposite, really. (CTV, 10 p.m.)
Courage and Patience and Grit is a horribly overblown title, but it's a ninety-minute special about Great Big Sea's last tour of North America, so if you like tinwhistles and that sort of a drum thing that's kind of like a tambourine without the little bits that go "ching," it should probably be very entertaining to you. (SunTV, 8 p.m.)
Friday
A new episode of Reaper airs, although it's likely at this point that the show is not coming back for another season. Which in some respects is a shame, because Ray Wise's Satan is a treat. In other respects, though (I am looking at you, fat comedy sidekick person), it's not exactly unexpected. (City, 8 p.m.)
YTV airs Ultimate Avengers: The Movie, which as cartoon direct-to-DVD movies go is... actually, honestly, it's not very good. Cartoons are one of the areas where Marvel Comics is still mostly in its live-action Captain America phase. See, they made this live-action Captain America movie in Italy, with an Italian Red Skull, and... it wasn't good, okay? (8 p.m.)
Birdie numnum? Birrrrrrrdie numnum? The Party. Peter Sellers in his prime. You'd be crazy to miss out if you haven't seen it. (Peachtree, 8 p.m.)
add to digg
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
email this
add to facebook
add to del.icio.us
I once watched an igloo-making competition on APTN and it was one of the most fun shows I've ever seen. Any idea when they will show something like that? Mmmh, maybe we have to wait till winter? no idea.
Wow. Describing a Bodhrán as a a "that sort of a drum thing that's kind of like a tambourine without the little bits that go 'ching'"
That's just very unique and... special. And part of why I always enjoy your articles.
"Howwwwwdy partner!" - Hrundi V. Bakshi (aka Sellers)
Priceless. And I recently caught the brilliant Geoffrey Rush in the title role of HBO's The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. A fricking fantastic film. If you're going to watch The Party, then please rent this movie to watch as a companion piece. Really.
As much as I enjoyed Strange Days I really can't agree that it's one of Fiennes' best performances, he's very earnest about it but if anything he should be having a little more fun with the character. Everyone else is with theirs but no one told Fiennes this wasn't Pushkin.
An 8pm start time for Strange Days?! It will surely be butchered into a vacuous action movie. Rent the DVD instead.
You're right, though.. it is a gem.
Whatever happened to Kathryn Bigelow? Point Break was one of my all-time favourite movies.
I remember Strange Days having an incredibly striking theatrical teaser, with impossibly hip (for the time) techno music, bright flashing colours and just some close-up shots of the actors faces, covered in sweat like they were having orgasms. It was so stylistically ahead of its time, I was hyped for the movie big time.
Unfortunately when the movie came along it ended up with a more conventional 80s goth-rock look and style, and a hokey plot that basically re-visited concepts that had already been done in the movie Brainstorm. Nearly worth it for the single-shot, first-person POV opening sequence, but in the end a disappointing film that should have beaten the Matrix to the punch by several years.
No joke about James Van Der Beek (Dawson of Dawson's Creek) appearing on How I Met Your Mother tonight in another "Robin Sparkles" episode? You must like that because Robin Sparkles seems to be influenced by Alanis' early career. If you don't know the details about HIMYM, check TV Squad
"Oh, he's very popular Ed. The sportos, the motorheads, geeks, sluts, bloods, waistoids, dweebies, dickheads - they all adore him. They think he's a righteous dude."
I second the comment about Ferris Bueller's Day Off. It never, ever, becomes less good as time passes.
I have the (unused) ferrisbuelleryouremyhero.com domain, just for kitsch value. What's funny is how the flick got a tonne of poor reviews when it came out—little did we know...