Category: Television

  • Trump v Biden: The Debate Battle Royale!

    Maybe I should talk about Trump’s income taxes? That seems to be a big deal right now.

    The debate between Biden and Trump is tonight. I will be watching it alone, as anything that comes out of Trump’s mouth makes my wife very angry, and pretty much puts her in a bad mood for the rest of the night…

    And into the morning…

    And all the next day…

    And for the whole week…

    So, I will be watching the debate on my computer with headphones, while also live tweeting (@mlgroff) my reactions to whatever crazy shit that is said. My goal is to make my friends laugh, but it is also to keep my sanity.

    I was extremely nervous four years ago when Clinton and Trump met for their debates. Hilary won all the face offs, as Trump come across as disrespectful and unprepared, but we all know that in the end, it didn’t really mean anything.

    There is a good chance again, that these debates won’t mean anything. And honestly, I agree with that conclusion. Trump and Biden’s polling numbers really haven’t changed that much in two months, which for me says that most people are locked in on who they are voting for.

    But honestly, who is that 3-5% of the voting population that are still undecided? With everything that has happened in this year alone, how has that not influenced you to make a decision?

    I need to laugh, and I need to laugh and the big orange bully in the room.

  • Late to the Party: Review of “Perry Mason” (2020)

    This is my continuing series of reviews of tv, movies, or music that has been out for a while, that I am just getting around to… As always, there are SPOLIERS!

    I am a sucker for noir films and TV shows. From Sam Spade, to Chinatown, to The Long Goodbye, to LA Confidential, I love noir’s visual style, the dark stories, and also how these noir stories show the dark criminal world that is just under the surface of the cities we inhabit. I will even throw The Third Man in as well.

    When I saw the previews of Perry Mason on HBO in the spring, I was hooked and ready to go. I never watched the original Raymond Burr 1957 television series of the same name, so I had no attachment to anything that had happened in the past, but I was aware that Perry Manson was “the best” defense lawyer around as he could get criminals to admit their crimes on the stand. When I saw that the cast was lead by Matthew Rhys, and also that Tim Van Patten was directing many of the episodes, I felt that I was in very safe hands.

    And for the most part I was.

    We meet Perry in 1932, who at this point is a detective for the lawyer Elias Birchard “E.B.” Jonathan. Jonathan takes the case of defending a mother who is accused of killing her child in a kidnapping plot. It was a very dark subject matter to have the show revolve around, but I do admit that it did create a feeling of uncomfortableness in me for all the characters that are involved in the murder. What also became apparent very early on is that this was going to be the origin story of Perry Mason becoming a lawyer, and his drive to defend people who seemed to be undefendable.

    What I was given was a show that hit all the right noir notes that this type of genre demands, as well adding a very relevant depth to the inherent racism in the LA Police Department, and the indignities black police officers faced. Most of the characters did have backstories of pain that they were still dealing with, or secrets they couldn’t share, or of living lives not out in the open. It created a solid foundation of why all of these very different people would be drawn together to fight for justice.

    The series had a nice slow simmer to it, hitting its marks, and then at the crux of the show, episode 5, after E.B. Jonathan’s suicide, the show starts an awkward sprint to the end. It comes across as jarring and very out of left field. Somehow, with a little coaching, Perry is able to pass the California Bar exam, which I do happen to know that you do not need to go to law school for, and POOF! He’s a lawyer now!

    After a few stumbles at the start of the trial, Perry has no issues to working his way through the courtroom. And when Perry wants to put the corrupt cop who is behind the murder on the stand, he is told that no one confesses under cross examination, but then the show doesn’t put the cop on the stand. A choice that left me very confused. I thought that was Perry Mason’s whole thing. At least let him try and fail, right, as that would be realistic. In the end Perry pays off a juror to deadlock the jury, only to learn that two other jurors also felt the mother was innocent, which I guess was meant to make us feel that Perry did a better job than he thought. It left me with the feeling that Perry isn’t going to become a good lawyer one day, but that he’s just not a good lawyer at all.

    Sadly, it felt like all the pieces are there to make a really good show that is moody, honest, and can be relevant as we examine what justice denied in the past looked like. Perry Mason was renewed for a second season, so I hope that the next time around, with all the characters in place, that they will be able to stick the landing.

  • Well-Read and Books on the Shelf

    Okay, one last thought that I had about the FaceBook argument. That guy kept asking me what conservative media I read, and I knew full well that it was a set-up question. No matter how many sources I named, he would say he read more, and hence was an expert, and thus my opinion was uninformed and invalid. I knew better than to play that game, but it did make me think about at what point does a person cross the threshold and become “well read?”

    There is the Malcom Gladwell rule/guideline of 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert. Does that apply to reading? Not reading up on a subject, because if you spent 10,000 reading about plumbing, you might not be an expert, but you would, or at least should, be very knowledgeable on the subject. But if you spent 10,000 hours reading, anything and everything, does that makes you an expert at reading?

    I don’t know where I was going with that…

    Being well read.

    Anyway…

    With all of the news interviews in people’s homes, the performance space in demand clearly has been a wall of books in an office setting. That is the “classic” sign of a well-read person. Some offices are a little too conspicuously clean and well organized, like the books are never touched. The offices I have enjoyed looking at are the ones where the books and papers are sort of stacked all over the place. Those are usually the offices of research doctors, and I want to believe that they just threw their books on the shelf when they are done reading it.

    I can admit that, since moving back from California, I only have about half of my books in the apartment, with the other half still in storage. We have one wall in the apartment that all the housed books live on. They are in no order, and just got thrown up there. It’s not author ordered, or even in some sort style of size of book color. We just them up there with the plan of coming back and put some order to it. That was seven months ago.

  • Cancel the Election? Just asking…

    So… Trump told the world that we should cancel the 2020 election, and then added some question marks at the end to make it a suggestion, something to think about.

    The President of the United States is a freshman in his first philosophy class. You know the guy. The one who says something really offensive and off the wall, but when you call him on it, he tries to flip it back at you. “What’s wrong with asking a questions? I thought we were open minded here.” So you’re the jerk now.

    Our President is a teen-aged deep thinker.

    This is what happens when the troll culture of an AOL chat room from late 90’s lands in narcissist 70-year old’s brain.

    I remember seeing this shit in 1996 when some guy in Alt-Rock AOL chat room was like, “Nirvana was over as a band in 1992, so what Kurt killing himself a bad thing?”

    Everyone goes ape shit in the chat room.

    Then the guy responds, “I’m just asking a question, you’re the one who can’t handle a debate. I didn’t say Kurt should have killed himself…”

    That crap…

    And was it a joke? Because that will be the other line used. “He was joking. Can’t you take a joke?”

    Fuck man, this is exhausting.

    Is anyone else exhausted?

  • Enablers

    I was nervous that Harvey Weinstein wouldn’t get convicted. I hadn’t been following the case closely, as I felt that it was only a 50/50 shot, he would be found guilty, and I had already decided that I believed the survivors. I didn’t need a jury to justify my stance.

    But Harvey is going to jail, and I hope that this brings about the beginning of the end of the idea that there are “untouchable” men in any industry that take advantage of their position.

    Now, it’s time that we start addressing the enablers that helped Harvey. The agents who sent women to his hotel room, and office. The directors who were ordered to put women in, or take them out of their movies, the assistants who heard what was happening and did.

    I know that there are people out there that want to punish all of these enablers, and I understand where they are coming from. And that may or should happen.

    From my experience, and I have spent some time in theatre education, it needs to start in all theatre classes, and be reiterated again, and again, all the way up to grad school, and supported by all the unions in the entertainment industry. There needs to be an ethical standard that everyone needs to understand and follow. And I’m talking about simple things like no more one on one meetings between actors and producers or directors. Actors/artist have the right to have an advocate present at all times.

    Harvey didn’t create this world of casting couches, and treating women as if they are disposable. And it is wrong for us to believe that even if these few men that have been outed by #MeToo all go to jail that this issue will go away. We have to start building the new acceptable culture of the entertainment industry today.