Same Jay, Different Time

They said "The Jay Leno Show" wouldn't feel like going to bed really early, that it would feel new.

But it's like going to bed really early. It feels old. For a lot of people, "The Jay Leno Show," which premiered Monday in its game-changing 10 o'clock weeknight format, it might feel perfectly comfy.

There was an uncomfy moment with a chastened Kanye West, who 24 hours earlier acted like a jerk by interrupting Taylor Swift's acceptance speech at the MTV Video Music Awards. "What would your mom have said about this?" Leno asked the rapper, who sat frozen at the mention of his mother, who died in 2007.

What was weird about this was how quickly West stammered through his repentance ("Obviously, I deal with hurt"), saying he needs to take a vacation from performing and the celebrity grind under which he lives, then recovering immediately to perform with Jay-Z and Rihanna, proving that really, after all the talk, Jay's show is still a place to promote your product, your song, your movie -- and in special guest Jerry Seinfeld's case, your "Seinfeld" reunion on HBO's "Curb Your Enthusiasm." Leno and his producers kept saying it wouldn't be like this, this usual shill game.

The jokes are the same. (Why wouldn't they be?) The theme song is different but the same, accompanying opening-title pictures of Leno as a young man, the all-American boy who grew up to love cars and tell jokes. The guest spots take place sans desk, in easy chairs. Seinfeld came on and made playfully condescending jokes about the Leno "farewell" show in May on "The Tonight Show": "In the '90s, when we quit a show, we actually left," a tuxedoed Seinfeld said. "But not in the Brett Favre-Lance Armstrong double-oh's."

There was Oprah shtick. There was Obama shtick. There was singing car-wash shtick provided by the creepily talented lounge stylings of comedian Dan Finnerty and the Dan Band (the show's cleverest bit).

The jokes on opening night were about everything you'd expect Leno to tell, the funniest of which were about Vice President Biden and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi looking, while perched behind President Obama during his health-care speech to Congress last week, "like the couple sitting outside in bathtubs in the Cialis commercial," and about his own hype:

"Before we get started," Leno said at the opening -- after he came out for awkward-looking high-fives with audience members on his supposedly more intimate set -- "this is not another annoying promo. This is the actual show."

It is. Armchair critics almost never talk about whether Leno's good, and instead acknowledge his universal appeal, his role in the national chitchat and buzz. Talk about Leno of late has mostly been about ratings and affiliates and formats -- subjects that really matter not a whit to the viewer. The viewer wants to . . . laugh.

So was it funny? Was it new? Was it worth all that? Will it last?

Amid some lame-same comedy bits (including a "Cheaters" spoof where Leno discovers and confronts his bandleader, Kevin Eubanks, in a park with a Leno impersonator, which felt exactly 10 years old, and the "Headlines" sketch, which either does or doesn't make a case for saving newspapers), certainly there's potential. Nobody makes it seem as though everything's hunky-dory better than Leno. No civility crisis here: Life is merely always ridiculous.

But what are we looking for in all this -- a new network business model or passing entertainment? Or some sort of variety show from our imagined glory days of vintage TV, something that will refocus our ideas about comedy, celebrity and frivolity?

Anymore it's hard to tell. Leno, of course, would say he's but a humble funnyman and there is no pressure for "The Jay Leno Show" to do anything other than fill the air with mirth.

But we've been trained by the infotainment industry for nearly two decades now to believe in a fictive epic battle known as the "late-night wars," with its ancestral Jack Paar and Johnny Carson cave etchings, a story fomenting itself since David Letterman's exodus from NBC and Leno's ascendancy. This story unfolds as if any of us are the network honchos, as if our own salaries and stock investments were somehow on the line: Is Conan O'Brien any good at Jay's job? Was Jay better than Dave? What are the numbers like after Jimmy Kimmel comes on after "Nightline"? Can you even wait to find out?

No. So set aside the ratings game and instead engage the viewer on the subject of Leno's talent. Then what sort of conversation are we having? Leno's funny, but in the safest way. He's adheres to the center of the exact middle road, so it's wrong to expect a revolution here. He has all the draw of buy-one-get-one-free smoothies. His comedy is bubble-wrap; its appeal needs no explaining. He goes with Dan Brown novels and Marriott Rewards points and repeat viewings of the cinchy CBS crime procedurals he now finds himself programmed against: Who doesn't like all of those things?

And who won't watch Jay when nothing else is on, or when the nurse won't come change the channel?

Reviewed by Hank Steuver, Washington Post

A Wacky and Satirical Erin Brockovich

The Informant!
Directed by Steven Soderbergh
Four Scoops of Bosco

Steven Soderbergh’s The Informant! is a clever, unconventional comedy about corporate greed in the 90’s and the highest-ranking executive whistleblower in U.S. history. The wacky sibling of the more serious Erin Brockovich, Soderbergh’s latest strikes a satirical tone on the timely, true events. Perhaps the exclamation point in the title gave it away.

The story focuses on the agricultural business of corn byproducts used in a variety of foods. “It’s all very scientific, but if you’re a stockholder, all that matters is that corn goes in one end and profit comes out the other.” But a criminal conspiracy means “everyone in this country is a victim of corporate crime by the time they finish breakfast.”

Though the cast is loaded with recognizable comedic faces, Matt Damon (in his fifth collaboration with Soderbergh) makes this funny film worth the watch. The accomplished, charismatic actor shows tremendous versatility by playing a bumbling fool for plenty of laughs.

Wearing dorky glasses, a thin mustache, and 30 extra pounds, Damon transforms into a goofy, delusional businessman named Mark Whitacre. The middle-aged biochemist has a family, a rising career at the agricultural conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), and a rehearsed orphan background he tells to anyone who will listen.

Then, inexplicably at first, Whitacre turns whistleblower. A routine phone monitoring to catch an extortionist snowballs into revealing a global price-fixing scheme among industry competitors orchestrated by ADM. Soon he’s spilling the beans on the entire scam to the FBI and wearing a wire to meetings.

Whiteacre imagines himself as a secret agent, enjoying the undercover operation with a boyish grin and a naive sense of purpose. One day he’s a vice president monitoring food additive numbers, and the next he’s a covert informant setting up secret meetings with the FBI. Whitacre tells his gardener, who obviously isn’t supposed to know about the case, to call him 0014 because he’s “twice as smart as 007.”

The film is at its best when Whitacre is transporting wiretaps to various business dealings, narrating every step in obvious detail. “Entrance breached” as he walks through the office door. People are greeted with their full name and title and then reiterated into his chest mic much to the chagrin of his frustrated FBI handlers (Scott Bakula and Joel McHale).

Hilarious, intermittent voiceovers indicate what Whiteacre’s wandering mind is thinking at the exact moment, and it’s rarely focused on the intense task at hand. Life changing moments or important connections are narrated by thoughts about polar bears and ideas for TV shows.

Soderbergh skillfully tells an entertaining, complex story as Whitacre’s story unravels and the FBI discovers there’s more than just price-fixing going on. You can’t help but laugh at The Informant! (and feel a little sorry for him) as the loud-mouthed, pathological liar digs himself in a deeper hole to the baffled looks of his allies. Damon delivers again.

Reviewed by Jeff Leins, News In Film

We're Off To Download The Wizard

By Allen Bacon, Editor, The Daily Bosco

When I was a kid, one of the highlights of my year was when I used to go over to my Grandparents house to watch the Wizard of Oz. It was a special event. The television network...I believe it was NBC... would show it only once a year.

I had watched the movie on my parents black and white television, but it was more special at Grandma and Grandpas. They had a color televison. And as you know, one of the interesting things about the movie is when it transforms from the black and white landscape of tornado-ravaged Kansas to the colorful and magical land of Oz.

And, somehow, the Jiffy Pop tasted better from Grandma's stove. She had a knack for not burning a single kernel. Something I could never quite get the hang of..even with the microwaved popcorn. And the other thing...Grandma was there to run to whenever the Wicked Witch would make her appearance.

I read this week that Netflix, in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of the release of the Wizard of Oz, is going to make the classic movie available as a free download.

I would be the first to applaud the ability to be able to download television programs and movies at will. I wait till the weekend usually and watch my favorite programs that way now. I love Hulu...I can watch a lot of shows on demand that way. But, at the same time, it takes away a bit from the specialness of the event.

With technology as it is...we can watch any program, anytime we want it. I pass cars all the time where the kids are in the back watching cartoons or movies while traveling.

That's cool but that can't beat going to Grandma's house once a year to watch the Wizard of Oz.

Green Day Grows Up

Green Day
21st Century Breakdown
Five Scoops of Bosco

One of the many very sticky songs from Green Day's new opus, 21st Century Breakdown, got stuck in my head the other day. It was "The Static Age," a bouncy little number named after a rant by New Jersey punk elders the Misfits. Green Day's ditty doesn't sound at all like that other "Static Age." Instead of being sludgy and hard, it's peppy, with a big kick-drum beat, machine-gun guitars and a melody that . . . reminded me of something.

What was it? Perhaps one of the inspirations the band and its critical supporters have mentioned -- like Queen, Bruce Springsteen or the Who? Or maybe the original writers of the Green Day playbook, the Beatles?

No, it was Buddy Holly. The looping melody of "The Static Age" brought me back to the hiccup-prone rocker's 1957 song "Everyday."

This sonic link to the dawn of rock and roll provides a useful corrective to the gravity with which some fans have greeted Green Day's maturation into the concept-loving champions of album-oriented rock. When Holly was first crafting his relentlessly inventive songs, the divide hadn't yet arisen between good-time music and stuff that qualified as art. Creativity was something that happened in your basement, it was a big plus if it sold, and it didn't need to trumpet itself: rock and roll's innovations were bright, shiny and easy to love.

Punk, the movement to which Green Day still claims fealty, had many agendas, but one was to strip away pretenses and get back to the snappy, confrontational fun of early rock. That attitude is what made Green Day a good band in the first place, and it's still what puts it a cut above the rest with an album that will surely earn its spot among the top rock offerings of the year.

The story line that unites the 18 songs on "21st Century Breakdown" is easier to grasp than the one on American Idiot, the award-winning 2004 release that turned this trio of smart-alecks into a bona-fide classic-punk band. It's also less obtrusive.

On Idiot, Billie Joe Armstrong and his mates struggled to find the form that would suit their big ideas. The result was an album with some outstanding songs and some awkward, clunky ones. The general project hangs together much better on "Breakdown." Its musical and lyrical themes recur without fuss, and each track has its own strong identity that speaks to but isn't weighed down by the larger (and beneficially looser) narrative.

"Breakdown's" action centers on two archetypal ragamuffins, Christian and Gloria, who respond to the hollowness of modern-day America the way kids do -- by shutting down, breaking out, taking off and fighting back -- but the plot seems more like an organizing device for Armstrong's thoughts on religion, love, technology, oppression and revolution. If he needs to create this kind of framework to access his serious, ambitious side, then bring on the fiction workshops. Christian and Gloria's journey matters less, ultimately, than the one Green Day itself makes -- and that one is dazzlingly musical.

Having a narrative concept is hardly a distinguishing mark in pop these days. Recent purveyors of concept albums include bar band the Hold Steady, metalheads Mastodon, R&B smartie Janelle Monae and, don't forget, Eminem. "21st Century Breakdown" stands out in this crowd because it's so damn masterful as music. This trio couldn't be tighter or more flexible, and aided by the radio-smart but also headphones-sensitive Butch Vig on production duties, it confidently navigates a wide but cohesive stream of rock music, starting with Holly and his peers and extending through the British Invasion, glam, punk, power pop, emo and, of course, Green Day's own catalog.

Oh, and did I mention gypsy music? "Peacemaker" has a party in the mosh pit by borrowing from Gogol Bordello. "Christian's Inferno" lets drummer Tré Cool show his muscle with an opening rhythm reminiscent of industrial music. "Horseshoes and Handgrenades" is sweet, vicious California popcore, and "Know Your Enemy" is revolution rock that's making Joe Strummer dance in his corner of heaven right now.

Several luscious ballads allow Armstrong to show the softer side that's given the band its biggest hits, but the best love song is "Last of the American Girls," another sock hop number with lyrics about that New Wave sweetie for whom punk rockers always fall. Armstrong's specifics are ripe here; he knows this kind of woman, since he's been married to one for years.

Elsewhere, though, the lyrics prove to be a weak point. It's not because the alienation they express is outdated in the age of Obama. This world is still plenty messed up, and besides, does the political mood of 1975 define how we hear "Born to Run" now? Armstrong's problem is a typical punk one: he loves a good slogan, and too often his broadsides dip into cliché.

But the most common phrases can feel fresh when shouted out in an arena, and that's exactly what thrilled rock fans will be doing all summer as Green Day reasserts its dominance. Every kid should rediscover the language of questioning and self-assertion that Armstrong mines. Everyone should have a chance to yell "Revolution!" while a rock band plays.

It's wonderful that, after all this time, Green Day is still finding new ways to make that possible.

Reviewed by Ann Powers, Los Angeles Times