mr-payton Reviews

This Christmas (2007)

underrated

[7/10 · 22 November 2008]

Strange how this flick gets an average rating of 4.9 while lame garbage like, say, Lady in the Water gets a 6...

One thing that sets this movie apart from lots of other recent "black" comedies is that it doesn't rely on cheap lowbrow humor. Instead of painting black folks as various comedic stereotypes, it tries to create characters that everyone can sympathize with. It falls flat sometimes, mainly due to your basic family movie clichés (The Shocking Baby Revelation; We Have Money Problems; The Cheating Spouse), and a kinda slow pace, but the strong performances and dialogue manage to do some good for the plot.

Of course it wouldn't be a comedy-drama without the heavy stuff, and this one has it in spades. I'll tell you what: One scene shows two sisters screaming and clawing at each other in the middle of a rain storm during an argument. That's basically fair warning that this flick can get pretty tough on the drama front. It's balanced out well enough, but it's liable to make you shake your head at some points.

All in all, you could do worse than this one.

Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law (2000–2007)

the second season killed the whole thing

[7/10 · 24 September 2008]

Harvey Birdman started out with high hopes. Episodes like "Dabba Don", "Very Personal Injury" and "Deadomutt" (my personal favorite) were pure genius. Then, horrible things started to happen, which just ruined the whole show.

Somewhere in the middle of the second season, they forgot all about the "Attorney at Law" part, and the writers started throwing in tons of non-sequiturs between scenes, like characters popping in randomly for cheap laughs, the Bear doing dumb stuff for no reason, Peter Potamus's libido jokes, all kinds of lame one-shot gags.

It didn't bother me at first because the courtroom bits took a backseat to stuff that was actually FUNNY, like that one ep where Peanut starts to gain his superpowers and the adults treat the whole thing like puberty. But then that stupid Yakky Doodle episode with the efficiency guy comes along, and that's when I knew this show was officially done for.

Hancock (2008)

Gets off to a good start, then gets tripped up

[6/10 · 1 September 2008]

I think lots of folks have said the same thing: Hancock is two movies in one.

You got the first half. Enjoyable stuff. Will Smith does a good job keeping his acting subtle. He wasn't the best choice for the role as some people say--but he plays Hancock convincingly as a guy who just doesn't care and wants to be left alone. Jason Bateman's everyman character plays off of Hancock pretty well, especially considering he wasn't developed too far.

The script is pretty shaky though, especially when it comes to Charlize Theron's character. The repeated piercing stares from her at Hancock were so goofy and obvious, it killed the foreshadowing to the big twist. I know you have to add some kind of suspense, but make it a little subtle, man.

Good sell scenes like the little French kid getting tossed into space made the first half worth watching. This, combined with Will's charisma and Bateman's straight man status, gave us a decent superhero buddy flick.

Now, the second half of it was all over the place, and hard to swallow. The plot twist where we find out Hancock and Mary were...well, whatever they were supposed to be (the dialog never really went into detail beyond them being designated protectors of the earth) was really rushed, and the whole movie went down because of it.

Will had to drop his cool indifference and look to let himself fall into a hackneyed love story with no real build up. Bateman's character was made irrelevant. The villains were lame, also because of the lack of build to the climax. Worst of all, the concept of the rejected superhero was completely let go, which is a powerful irony when you think about it.

So...what we have here is a comedy popcorn flick that turned into a boring drama just as it was getting interesting.

Ed, Edd n Eddy (1999–2008)

Has its ups and downs

[7/10 · 12 August 2008]

I had my doubts about Ed, Edd n Eddy when it first started out. Three kids with the same name? How long could the writers work that angle? And look at that low-rate animation. Are these guys even supposed to look human? Then it debuted, and I liked what I saw. Right off the bat they let you know which character is which and what kind of story lines we would get.

Even though the basic idea for every episode is the same, the dialog was strong enough to back everything up. The Eds getting screwed over in nearly every episode was annoying, but in its own messed up way, it made you root more when they actually pulled off a win. A lot of the time the writers worked too hard to make *everybody* a jerk, so then you couldn't root for anyone, which was always lame.

Then the fourth season passed, the show was supposedly over, and the writers sent it off with a weird, shaky ending. Fan demand brought it back, and the Eds went to middle school.

At this point everything just got too forced. the plots got lamer as time went cause the school setting doesn't allow for funnier antics. Add to that the overusing of the Kanker sisters (who never really worked as straight-up antagonists, especially compared to Kevin or Sarah), and that cooler side-characters like Rolf, Nazz and Johnny didn't get love anymore, and the whole quality went down.

So basically, we've got a decent show that had some good moments, and took a fall because of typical "jump the shark" situations. That's my take on it.

The Amanda Show (1999–2002)

Man, this show was bad.

[3/10 · 18 November 2007]

Before I get dissed for watching a show "out of my demographic", I gotta let you know that I watched this when I was still a kid. Even then, it was outright terrible.

A lot of the sketches were just lame: the "Hillbilly Moments" (one goofy hick would tell another a knock-knock joke, then hit him upside the head with something mentioned in the punchline), Blockblister (a video store owned by foreigners who would sell poor homemade versions of popular movies), Commercial skits where they would shill stuff like a soft drink sucked out of a sumo wrestler's gut, and Souper Dooper, in which a man and his daughter try to sell nasty fast-food products.

I'm sure some of these sound okay on paper, but I guess there was a failure to communicate backstage, because they didn't turn out that way. Too many of the sketches didn't even have any real jokes--only some stuff that was just...there.

The only cool sketches were Tony Pajamas, about a high-school age mob boss, and Moody's Point, a satire of teen dramas like Dawson's Creek.

Why do I know so much about it? Eh, it was the only thing on in the afternoon. Plus, I liked All That, so I figured a spin-off would be good TV. I was wrong.

Buzz Lightyear of Star Command (2000–2001)

"Seinfeld" + Green Lantern Corps = Buzz Lightyear of Star Command

[8/10 · 18 November 2007]

I really didn't think I'd like this cartoon when I first checked it out, but it turned out to be a pretty good watch.

The conceptis simple--four Space Rangers protect various planets--but it's thequirky characters and crazy subplots that do the job. From villains whose goal is to make a planet boring and bland, to evil preteen clones of the heroes, the weird cast makes for good TV.

The four main Rangers are almost analogues to the Seinfeld gang: Buzz is the introverted and suspicious Jerry, Mira is the sly-yet-socially-awkward Elaine, Booster and George are both chubby mama's boys, and Kramer and XR are just plain crazy. Then there's the insecure archenemy: Emperor Zurg. Voiced by Newman, no less.

The voice acting is a little shaky but it holds up. The character design works well and in some cases is pretty innovative. Animation's smooth for the most part. The writing never really has any slow spots, and some dialogue (especially Buzz/Zurg banter) can make you laugh out loud.

Overall, a pretty good show, kid's fare or not.