Who Is Watching?

Tonight was the 63rd Annual Emmy Awards, but if anyone asks, I was totally watching the Eagles game.  Anyways, tonight I'd like to talk about television.  More specifically I'd like to talk about television that I am not sure why it is still on the air.  I'm talking about the shows that when they are brought up or when you see a commercial for them you are puzzled that they weren't cancelled 2-3 years ago.

The Bachelor/The Bachelorette

This show is sort of the great-aunt of dating shows.  This is probably the last one still on the air that doesn't have a washed up rapper in it.  I remember this show being very popular a few years ago.  People were invested in it and seemed to care if the bachelor and whoever got the final rose actually got married.  I NEVER hear anyone talking about this show anymore.  Yet here we are and this show is still on TV easily two years after everyone stopped watching it. 

Big Brother

When this show was stolen from European television and brought to the United States, it was HUGE.  CBS aired it six nights a week.  They had the Big Brother: After Dark show on Showtime.  Julie Chen had to be plugged in and recharged several times a day due to over use.  Then America got wise and realized that if they wanted to watch boring, unattractive people sit on the couch, they would just put a mirror in the living room.  So why is this show still on TV?  If you host a show and are married to the president of the network it airs on, you're boring show doesn't get cancelled.  As a matter of fact, you will probably get to host a few more terrible shows as well.

American Idol/America's Next Top Model/America's Got Talent

There hasn't been one since Kelly Clarkson.  There has never been one.  And no, no we don't.

Every Basic Cable Reality Show

It all started with The Deadliest Catch and now 15,000 different reality shows later, here we are. Due to the sheer number of shows there are, there cannot possibly a large enough audience to keep any of them on the air. Plus they crank these shows out so quickly, the content is just God awful. Maybe that is part of the allure and I can dig that. But I will say that even if you can't take your eyes off of a horrific car accident, you wouldn't camp out at the same intersection every week looking for another one.

CSI/NCIS/Law & Order/Homicide/JAG/Burn Notice/Cold Case

To answer the question put forth in the title of this blog: apparently everyone. The police procedural shows are ratings juggernauts. My only problem with these shows besides the overkill in the amount of them is that for shows that are numbers one through ten in the ratings week to week I don't watch any of them and don't know anyone who does.

So for the amount of time I spend flipping channels and the amount of crap on TV I have to endure, one might think it would be better to shut it off and crack open a book.  But, whether you are a casual reader of this blog or have read every single one, I think we all know that just isn't going to happen.

I Heart YouTube

There are a number of activities in which I use the internet.  These activities include watching my online stock portfolio, checking Ke$ha's tour schedule, and posting my Strawberry Shortcake fan fiction.  Oh yeah, don't forget the nonsense I write here.  While all of these things provide a certain level of happiness, nothing comes close to the joy that I get watching videos on YouTube.  I watch a lot of videos, but they can be broken down into these four categories.

The thing that I use YouTube for the most is looking at music videos.  Sometimes you have to hear a song right away.  Then you realize that you're too cheap to download it from iTunes.  Then you realize you aren't cheap afterall, "Rump Shaker" by Wrecks-N-Effect isn't quite worth 99 cents.  I just head to YouTube and search for all my favorite jams.  Due to the number of butts in the "Rump Shaker" video I decided to post something a little more family friendly.

The next category of videos that I like to look at is called random bullcrap.  This category really covers a lot of ground.  Maybe I might find a local television commercial that has good intentions but really just comes across as racist.  Maybe I might find a really cool clip of Super Mario Brothers auto-tuned (way cooler than it sounds).  Or maybe I might find something like this:

Ever since I was a kid I have enjoyed the kind of humor that came at other people's expense.  I would just laugh for hours when my little brothers would "fall down".  So it's no surprise that I love videos of people getting hurt doing really dumb things.  And believe me when I tell you that you can see someone getting seriously injured doing ANYTHING.  All you have to do is go to the search bar, type in any activity you could possibly think of plus the word fail.  Then just sit back and enjoy.

The final category of YouTube videos that I love is cute cats.  Actually I am just kidding (as far as you know).  The popularity and sheer volume of cute cat clips actually baffles me.  I am a cat owner so I have no beef with the felines, but what is the appeal?  There are just hours and hours of videos of cats on YouTube.  Each video will have a minimum of 13 million views.  If someone can explain what would make you want to watch cat videos all day, everyday, I'd like to know.

So, if you're like me and are always needing new ways to put off doing things that are actually valuable uses of your time, look no further than YouTube.  You'll laugh, you'll cringe, and most important you'll get down to the sweet sounds of R&B from the 80's and 90's.

Profiles In Cinematic Greatness: Commando

Well boys and girls, it is once again time for a Profile In Cinematic Greatness.  Today's film is titled "Commando".  Those of you who are not familiar with this 1985 film may think it was the story of a man who didn't wear briefs under his pants, but I assure, this was not the case.  No, this was one of the all-time greats in terms of 80's action movies.  And if you watch closely you may recognize that the lead is none other than former governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  It seems that before he got into politics he dabbled in feature films.  There were many classic Arnold movies, but for my money this was one of his best.  It's no "Junior", but it's pretty good.

This movie started out the way most movies about former special forces members start out, with them trying to live a normal life.  But we all know that if it was the 80's or 90's you didn't put Arnold in a movie about being a normal dad.  Could you imagine if he would have made a movie about being a normal dad doing something like buying a coveted toy for his kid at Christmas?  Anyways, within five minutes into the film his daughter was abducted and he was forced to once again become a "Commando".  There was a lot of punching, shooting, and explosions.  All of this was pretty standard fare for a Schwarzenegger film.  I'd like to tell you why I thought this one was better than most of the rest.

If you were a fan of Arnold's movies, or even if you hated them but watched them for the phenomenal cinematography, you knew that he would use awful tough guy puns.  For this movie he put on a clinic.  I'm not sure that he had any lines in this movie that weren't terrible action movie puns.  I loved every deliciously cheesy syllable of it.  In the course of an average person's life they get maybe 2 or 3 chances to deliver a tough guy line.  My few opportunities I totally blew it and said something like, "Hey, I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that," or, "Let's just cool down and talk about this."  Arnold got the chance to do this about twenty times in this movie and totally nailed it every time. 

Another great thing about this movie was Mr. Schwarzenegger's co-stars.  The female lead in this movie was Rae Dawn Chong.  Rae or Rae Dawn of whatever she goes by, is the daughter of Tommy Chong.  It doesn't matter what era you're in or what kind of film you are making, if you have the chance to land a member of the distinguished Chong family of actors, you just do it.  Her role consisted of a lot of screaming and probably some other stuff too.   Also in the film was a young Alyssa Milano, who portrayed Arnold's daughter.  I'm sure we all remember Milano from her hit TV show "Who's the Boss?" and also from such films as "I Sure Wish Who's the Boss? Was Still On the Air" and "Remember When I Was On Who's the Boss?".  Finally, they had Bill Duke (aka the guy with the coolest gun in the movie "Predator").  Although, I am sure many would have preferred that they cast that sweet, sweet mini-gun from the movie "Predator", Duke really held his own in this movie.

They really pulled out all the stops in terms of the action sequences of this movie.  Let's review the checklist shall we?  Jumping out of a taking off airplane - check.  Throwing a dude off a cliff - check.  Blowing the crap out of barracks filled with mercenary soldiers - double check.  Do you like car chases?  "Commando" had two of them.  Do you like sea planes?  That's a stupid question, everyone likes sea planes, and yeah, they had one of those.  Do you like to see mall security guards get their asses handed to them in a 20 on 1 brawl?  That's two stupid questions in a row and by the way, yeah they had that too.  This movie was a medieval joust away from having every kind of action imaginable. 

So as you can see, this was truly one of the all-time great Schwarzenegger action movies.  As with all of the movies that I think are masterpieces, don't look for a lot of great acting, or brilliantly written scripts, or plausible storylines, or even coherent storylines.  That's why we have Cate Blanchett movies.