So, as you probably heard, AMC is doing a spin-off of The Walking Dead. It’s going to be called Fear the Walking Dead, which is not exactly the greatest title that I’ve ever heard.
(Seriously, Fear the Walking Dead sounds like it should be the title of a low-budget, Asylum-produced mockbuster version of The Walking Dead...)
But, despite that imperfect title, Fear the Walking Dead is still highly anticipated by Walking Dead fans. (Is Chris Hardwick going to host Talking Fear?) Apparently, it’s going to be a prequel, dealing with the early days of the zombie outbreak and maybe it will even offer up some clues as to why it all happened in the first place. Even better, it’s going to take place in Los Angeles so we won’t have to deal with any dodgy accents.
Here’s the first promo for Fear the Walking Dead. It aired last night during the Walking Dead‘s season finale. It really doesn’t tell us much about the show itself but, at the same time, it does have a nicely ominous feel.
The cast of The Neighbors. Yes, that is Tommy Wiseau in a blonde wig…
Earlier tonight, I went onto Hulu and I watched the first episode of The Neighbors, which is the latest project from cult movie icon Tommy Wiseau.
Before I even start watching, I knew that The Neighbors would be bad. That’s really the only reason that anyone would choose to watch The Neighbors, just to see how bad it could possibly be. After all, Tommy Wiseau is best known as the director of The Room, a film that has become famous for being one of the worst ever made. And, as I’ve made clear on this site in the past, I absolutely love The Room. I own a copy. My boyfriend and I have attended countless midnight showings of The Room, where we’ve shouted out all the lines and we’ve thrown plastic spoons at the screen with joyous abandon. When Clint Jun Gamboa showed up on American Idol, I wanted him to win just because he composed three of the songs that appear on The Room soundtrack. I consider The Disaster Artist to be one of the best film books ever written. I’ve even been lucky enough to interact with Room co-star Greg Sestero on twitter. The Room is a bad film that you can’t help but love and I think that a lot of people — like me — assumed that The Neighbors would be a bad sitcom that you could not help but love.
Uhmm yeah … about that.
Having now watched the first episode of The Neighbors (entitled “Meet the Neighbors”), I can definitely say that sitting through it was perhaps the most unpleasant 31 minutes of my life so far.
The Neighbors is about an apartment complex. (Every few minutes, we see the exact same establishing shot of the building while some rudimentary but catchy EDM plays in the background.) The tenants are an eccentric bunch but, fortunately, they’re all watched over by property managers Charlie (Tommy Wiseau) and Bebe (Gretel Roenfeldt). Remember how, in The Room, everyone was always asking Johnny for his advice? Well, the same seems to apply for Charlie here. For the most part, the first episode of The Neighbors consisted of characters stepping into Charlie’s office and telling him about their problems. Charlie gives advice that is, of course, delivered in that famously impenetrable Wiseau accent. Characters leave the office. “What a day!” Charlie says.
(It’s interesting that, in both The Neighbors and The Room, Wiseau played a wise man who keeps his childish friends from making terrible mistakes. Based on his performances and the portrait of him that emerges in Greg Sestero’s book, The Disaster Artist, I imagine that’s the way that Wiseau prefers to view himself in real life.)
The other main storyline deals with CiCi (Pamela Bailey), a woman who owns a chicken. When she can’t find her chicken, she wanders around the apartment complex, screaming at people and demanding that they return her chicken. Eventually, she finds her chicken.
Yay.
There are other things going on, of course. There’s a guy who is thinking about hanging himself but then he’s paid a visit by Philadelphia (Karly Kim), who has big plastic boobs, looks straight at the camera whenever she has to deliver her lines, and who spends the entire episode wearing a pink bikini. And then there’s Troy (Andrew Buckley) who smokes weed and sells gun and yells a lot. When we first meet Troy, he’s angry because he’s found a big note on his door that reads, “BRING $850 TODAY OR BE EVICTED.” And then there’s Tim (Raul Phoenix) who always has a basketball with him and who is always borrowing money from Tommy so that he can pay back Bebe or from Bebe so that he can pay back Tommy. There’s a handyman named Ed (Jonathan Freed) and a pizza boy named Joe (Brian Kong) who rents an apartment of his own. Joe is Asian but his last name is Spielberg because that’s what passes for the height of hilarity in The Neighbors. Both Joe and Ed also wear Tommy Wiseau-brand underwear.
There was one character that I did like. Lula (Cheyenne Van Zutphen) is the girlfriend of drug dealer Ricky Rick (played, in a blonde wig, by Tommy Wiseau). Lula has the power to literally hypnotize people with her charm. That’s a great power to have and, at one point, she uses it to get a free gun from Troy. When Troy comes out of his charmed state, he yells and yells while the camera zooms in on his sweaty face.
There’s also a tenant who is upset because his pregnant wife has figured out that he’s gay. His name is Don and when he first steps into the office, Charlie says, “Oh hai, Don,” and you’re briefly reminded of how much more fun The Room was compared to this. Don and his wife have a huge fight in the manager’s office while Charlie and Bebe try to maintain the peace. It all adds up to a lot of yelling.
And that, to be honest, is why The Neighbors was such an unpleasant viewing experience. Everyone in this show yells nonstop. They yell when they argue. They yell when they say hello. They yell when they tell jokes. They yell when they say goodbye. After spending just a few minutes of listening to them, I had a massive headache. Imagine if the “WHERE’S MY FUCKING MONEY!?” scene from The Room had gone on for 32 minutes and you have a pretty good idea of what it was like to watch The Neighbors.
One reason why The Room is so beloved is because, as bad as it is, it’s also a legitimate movie. The Room is blessed with such a mix of sincerity and ineptness that the film becomes both terrible and endearing. You marvel at how bad the film is while also respecting Wiseau for staying true to his own eccentric vision. The Neighbors, on the other hand, has all of the ineptness of The Room but none of the sincerity. The Room is fascinating because it’s so clearly the product of Wiseau’s own eccentric world view. The Neighbors, meanwhile, is the product of Wiseau’s newfound fame. The Room was made by a director who wanted to make a statement. The Neighbors, on the other hand, was made by a director who knows that people will watch anything that has his name slapped onto it, regardess of what it may be.
The Room is a guilty pleasure. The Neighbors is just guilty. (One side effect of thinking about Tommy Wiseau is that you soon find yourself writing like him as well.)
That said, I’m still probably going to watch the other three episodes of The Neighbors. The first episode was so bad that the show itself has nowhere to go but up.
Pictured above, you’ll find Liv Moore (played by Rose McIver), the character who is at the center of the new CW show, iZombie.
Just a few months before the start of iZombie, Liv was a friendly and optimistic medical student who was engaged to marry the handsome and rich Major Lillywhite (Robert Buckley), whose personality can pretty much be summed up by the fact that his name is Major Lillywhite.
However, then Liv happened to attend a party where things went dramatically wrong. How wrong? Liv was offered a mysterious drug by a mysterious man. Liv turned the man down. Everyone else at the party took the drug and soon, it was zombie apocalypse time! Liv was one of the few “survivors,” practically bursting out of a body bag that she had been placed into and discovering that her arms were covered with zombie scratches. That would traumatize anyone, right?
Now, several months later, Liv is no longer in medical school and she’s broken things up with Major. She works as a coroner’s assistant, spending her time surrounded by the dead. Her skin is deathly pale. Her hair is nearly white. She no longer smiles and instead, she reacts to almost every situation with a sarcastic comment. Her family and former friends assume that she’s just going through a phase and that eventually, she’ll get over it and end up back with Major.
What her family and friends don’t know is that, at work, Liv eats the brains of cadavers. Eating brains is the only thing that keeps her own mind alert. Much like the lead character in Warm Bodies, eating a brain allows her to access both the memories and the skills of the brain’s previous owner.
As you probably guessed from the show’s title, Liv is now a zombie. She’s a walking, talking, and thinking zombie and she’s not particularly happy about it. Apparently, the only way that she can keep from turning fully into a mindless flesh eater is by eating brains.
She’s also a zombie who solves crimes! (And I’m just going to say right now that I’ve been waiting my entire life to have an excuse to write that sentence.) She does so with the help of her boss, Dr. Ravi Chakrabarti (Rahul Kohli) and Detective Clive Babinaux (Malcolm Goodwin). Ravi knows that Liv is a zombie and is overjoyed to have the chance to study her existence. Detective Babinaux, meanwhile, thinks that Liv is a psychic.
Ever since I first saw the teaser trailer in January, I’ve been looking forward to seeing iZombie. Not only did I think that the concept was a promising one, but I was excited to hear that iZombie was the latest from Rob Thomas, who previously gave the world Veronica Mars.
As well, and with all due respect to The Walking Dead, it was hard not to feel that it was time for a zombie show that was actually fun to watch. (The Walking Dead is a great show but, whenever I watch it, I’m always thankful for the knowledge that each somber and grisly episode will be followed the always funny and adorable Chris Hardwick. We need Hardwick there to keep the Walking Dead experience from becoming too oppressively depressing.) From the minute I first heard about iZombie, I thought it seemed like it would be a fun show.
And you know what?
Judging from the pilot, it is.
The first episode of iZombie aired on Tuesday night and it was pretty good. The procedural aspects of the pilot’s mystery didn’t really interest me but then again, the pilot really wasn’t about the mystery. The pilot was all about establishing Liv and her existence and it succeeded quite well in accomplishing just that. Rose McIver brought a lot of life to the role of the undead Liv and the pilot made good use of the show’s moody Seattle setting.
Add to that, the pilot features a great throw-away line in which Liv dealt with an annoying hipster by calling him, “Karl Marx.” Seriously, you can’t set a show in Seattle unless you’re willing to make fun of hipsters…
So, I’m definitely looking forward to seeing where iZombie goes. Hopefully, the show will continue to mix comedy with drama and it won’t allow itself to get bogged down in the whole procedural format. Am I saying that I’m hoping that future episodes will continue to follow the lead of the pilot and turn out to be Zombie Veronica Mars? Yes, I am.
I’ve read some comments on the imdb from people who are angry that Liv is not a “real” zombie because she can think and talk and all the rest. Those people need to relax and stop taking their CW shows so seriously. Obviously it’s too early to say whether or not iZombie is going to live up to its full potential but the pilot was definitely a step in the right direction.
While I did watch the Super Bowl tonight, I have to admit that I only watched it for the commercials. Back in 2013, I did a post on my favorite super bowl commercials and I meant to do the same thing for 2014 but, for whatever reason, I never got around to doing so. So, I was definitely not going to miss out this year!
Unfortunately, the commercials really weren’t that great this year. Perhaps if I was looking for a new car, the constant barrage of car commercials would have been more interesting. I found a lot of the so-called “empowering” commercials to be condescending. (To be honest, I always resent the idea that I need a commercial to make me feel good about myself. I’m stronger than that.) The McDonald’s commercial where people got free food for telling their mom that they loved them upset me because my mom’s not here for me to tell her how much I love her. And then there were all the commercials about fathers bonding with their sons (never their daughters, interestingly enough) and those made me want to throw stuff as well.
In fact, when all is said and done, my favorite part of the Super Bowl was not watching that commercials. Instead, it was watching the dancing sharks.
Dance, Shark, dance!
But there were a few commercials that stood out. For example, there was the Nationwide dead kid commercial, which made me feel like a terrible person because I started giggling as soon as I saw that the TV had fallen over. And then there was that GoDaddy commercial that was so offensive that it didn’t even make it to air. (The commercial featured a lost puppy who, upon finally making his way back home, discovers that he’s being sold online. Dear GoDaddy, I hate you and your asinine commercials. Stop trying to be edgy, ‘kay? Okay.)
Oh! And don’t forget the Nissan commercial about the NASCAR driver who is a crappy father but then makes up for it by showing up at his son’s school in a new car.
My boyfriend actually paid more attention to the game than the commercials, which is like totally the wrong way to do the Super Bowl if you ask me. But, for the record, his favorite ad was the Victoria’s Secret Super Bowl commercial. I’m just happy that he got something out of the game.
Anyway, here are my 6 top Super Bowl commercials.
6) Liam Neeson for Clash of Clans
I really don’t know much about Clash of Clans but this commercial made me laugh because this is how I’ve always imagined Liam Neeson passes the time between Taken movies.
5) Pierce Brosnan for Kia
This is actually one of the few car commercials that I actually enjoyed. Pierce is aging well and appears to have a pretty good sense of humor about how his career will always be defined by James Bond.
4) Nationwide — Invisible Mindy
Everyone was so traumatized by the Nationwide Dead Kid commercial that the Invisible Mindy commercial kinda got lost in the shuffle. That’s a shame because it’s actually pretty clever. What really made the commercial, for me, was the Matt Damon cameo at the end. It was appropriate because Mindy first came to prominence when she and a friend wrote and performed a play called “Ben and Matt,” which told the story of Matt’s bromance with Ben Affleck.
3) The Snickers Machete Bunch Commercial
Danny Trejo and Steve Buscemi! Need I say more?
2) The Budweiser Puppy Commercial!
This one made me cry.
1) NO MORE’s Official Super Bowl Ad
And finally, here’s my top ad. This one was powerful and important and all it was selling was hope for a better future.
And finally, here’s one final Super Bowl preview to share with all of you. Now, I have to be honest. I never watched Heroes. That guy who was always screaming in the commercials got on my nerves. I did however enjoy bugging Dazzling Erin by continually saying, “Save the cheerleader, save the world” during the entirety of the show’s run.
Awwwww …. good memories.
Anyway, in the form of a 13-episode miniseries, Heroes is making a comeback on NBC and a lot of people online are excited about it. Me, I’m still trying to get caught up on Agents of SHIELD…
Here’s a preview for the latest TV show about zombies! iZombie is set to premiere on March 17th on the CW. To be honest, I’m not so sure that Rose McIver looks like a zombie as much as she just looks like me during my senior year of high school. Seriously, I used to really go overboard with the mascara.
On the plus side, this show was developed by Rob Thomas, of Veronica Mars fame.
So, I’m sitting here and I’m trying to make out my annual list of good things that I saw on TV over the previous year and I’ve just realized something.
I did not watch as much TV as usual last year.
It wasn’t a conscious decision on my part. Up until this very moment, I was actually thinking that I watched too much TV last year. But, honestly, 2014 was a busy year for me. Between work and dance and family and romance and writing and seeing movies and shopping and being sick and getting well and the manic states and the depressive states, I just didn’t have as much time as usual to devote to television.
In fact, the only shows that I always made it a point to watch were two reality shows and that was mostly because I write about them over at the Big Brother Blog and the Survivor Blog.
That takes me by surprise because I love television. I’ve never made any secret of that fact and I’ve never felt guilty about it. When I’m writing, I find it helps to have the TV on in the background. As well, knowing that a certain show is always going to be on at a certain time tends to help me deal with my Obsessive Compulsive tendencies. I’ve always felt that, in a perfect world, I would have my own TV network. It would be called the Lisa Marie Network (LMN) and I would be in charge of programming every single minute.
But, for whatever reason, in 2014, I didn’t watch as much as usual. So, don’t consider the list below to be a comprehensive list of everything that was good on television last year. Instead, consider it to just be 20 good things that I was lucky enough to see.
So, here’s the list!
1) Too Many Cooks on Adult Swim
You knew that I’d have to start out with this one, especially considering that I still find myself randomly singing the theme song. “When it comes to the future, you can never have too many cooks!”
2) Figure Skating at the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics
I actually enjoyed watching most of the 2014 Winter Olympics. (Except, of course, when Bob Costas was there with his fucked up eye.) But what I especially loved was watching the figure skating. How couldn’t you love the chemistry between Charlie White and Meryl Davis or the amazing grace of Yulia Lipnitskaya or Ashley Wagner’s refusal to hide her disgust with the judges?
3) Veep
Without a doubt, the funniest show on television. Anyone who idolizes a politician should be forced to watch it.
4) Community ended its network run on a decent note
After a rough fourth season, Community made a comeback of sort during the fifth season. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to keep NBC from canceling the show but still, it was good to see a few more decent episodes of Community before the show moved over to Yahoo.
5) True Detective
True Detective has been praised so much that I really don’t have much more to say about it, beyond the fact that I found it to be endlessly fascinating.
6) Sharknado 2!
So, I wasn’t necessarily a huge fan of the first Sharknado. (I was even less of a fan of the way the media seemed to believe that Mia Farrow was the first person to ever live tweet a movie, especially considering how lame most of Mia’s Sharknado tweets were.) But I loved Sharknado 2! Sharknado 2 was everything that the first Sharknado was supposed to be and more!
7) The Old People TV Networks
This is the year that I really made an effort to explore all of the channels that I have available to me. What I discovered is that there are a lot of stations that are apparently dedicated to exclusively showing shows that were made long before I was even born! For a history nerd like me, coming across these networks is a bit like accidentally digging up a time capsule. Add to that, I’ve discovered that old TV shows make for perfect background noise. I call these networks the Old People TV networks but I do so with affection.
8) Seeing my friend and fellow movie blogging Irish gal Kellee Pratt in the audience whenever TCM rebroadcasts that interview with Maureen O’Hara.
9) Opposite Worlds on SyFy
Opposite Worlds was a reality show that was broadcast on the SyFy Network. Contestants were divided into two tribes. One tribe lived in the luxurious future, complete with a fully automated house. The other tribe lived in the past, which basically meant wearing furs and staying in a cave. The two tribes competed every week. Many contestants were seriously injured. I was hoping that Samm would win, mostly because I share her struggle. But I was okay with Frank eventually winning. He turned out to be a nice guy.
(By the way, SyFy, I’m still waiting for a second season…)
10) Bates Motel
Bates Motel got better and better during its second season. I still think Olivia Cooke needs a spin-off where she solves crimes.
11) True Blood ended before it totally went the way of Dexter.
To be honest, True Blood was definitely showing signs of its age. I wasn’t really happy with the final season but I was relieved to see that it still ended on a better note than Dexter did.
12) Flowers in the Attic
2014 got off to a great start with Flowers in the Attic, one of the best movies to ever show up on Lifetime.
13) Lizzie Borden Took An Axe
In fact, the only that kept Flowers in the Attic from being the best Lifetime movie was the fact that Lizzie Borden premiered a week later.
14) The Way The Saved By The Bell and Aaliyah Movies Brought Us Together As A Nation
For two nights, our often troubled country was united by the power of mass snarkiness.
15) Coverage Of The Fact That Paul Rosalie Was Not Eaten Alive
There was something greatly satisfying about how, after spending weeks promising that he would be, Paul Rosalie failed to be eaten alive by an anaconda. I think one reason I especially enjoyed this fact that I didn’t actually watch the special. I thought the whole thing sounded stupid and crass. That made the subsequent ridicule all the more satisfying.
16) Key and Peele
Without a doubt, the funniest sketch comedy program on TV today.
17) Talking Dead
To be honest, the only reason I watch The Walking Dead is so I’ll be able to understand what they’re talking about on The Talking Dead.
18) Daft Punk At The Grammys
It was great to see the Robots enjoying themselves.
19) Weather On The Local News
“Folks, we’ve got a storm system approaching but don’t worry. Channel 4 will keep your 4warned…” Some things never change. I’ve reached the point where I can find the humor in watching our local meteorologists panic every time that it starts to rain. This past year, whenever I was stuck inside while a light drizzle fell outside, I knew that Pete Delkus, Larry Mowery, and David Finfrock would be there to amuse me with their dire warnings of a weather apocalypse.
“A storm’s coming!”
20) Degrassi!
Degrassi endures. And we’re all the better for it.
On one final note: GetGlue, R.I.P. For five years, I enjoyed checking into tvs, movies, books, and emotions on GetGlue. Sadly, GetGlue (or TV Tag as it came to be known) went offline on January 1st. Goodbye, GetGlue. It was fun while it lasted and I’ll always remember that week when me and that guy from Indonesia were violently fighting over who would get to be the guru of pepper spray. (GGers will understand.)
Tomorrow, my look back at 2014 continues with my ten favorite novels of the year!
Through the Shattered Lens 