The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

The Awesome Berbaslug!!! wrote:

Modern family is brilliant. It's a comedy of embarrassment, that works really well because they actually get you to care about the characters.

I love 'Modern Family'. We picked up on it on a flight last month and we're now onto season 2. Fantastic stuff.

[G-Man]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

The Exploding Vole wrote:

Wasn't he the mayor in Hill Street Blues?

Jon Cryer the elder was Chief Daniels in HSB. Jon Cryer the younger was Ducky in Pretty In Pink and Sheen's sidekick in that shit show.

[ursus arctos]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Vigoda still performs on the stage occasionally.

He's a national treasure.

Also an excellent candidate for "Dead or Canadian?" (neither)

[Ray de Galles]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

G.Man wrote:

The Exploding Vole wrote:

Wasn't he the mayor in Hill Street Blues?

Jon Cryer the elder was Chief Daniels in HSB. Jon Cryer the younger was Ducky in Pretty In Pink and Sheen's sidekick in that shit show.

Daniels is listed on imdb as being played by a Jon Cypher and wiki has Cryer's father (if you meant that) as a Donald David Cryer. I can't vouch for either's accuracy, of course.

[ursus arctos]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

(Douglas) David Cryer's IMDB page.

[WOM]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Not the most robust resume, is it?

[hobbes]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

He appeared in Spenser for Hire. That makes him ok by me.

[Ray de Galles]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

It always takes a real effort of will for me to remember that Jon Cryer isn't married to Sarah Jessica Parker.

[Renart]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

I like Bill Maher's take on Charlie Sheen's road show:

It's time working Americans told Wall Street the same thing that the good people of Detroit told Charlie Sheen last Saturday night. "This is bullshit and I want my money back."

Now, two interesting things are happening in America right now. Charlie Sheen, a millionaire armed only with a few catch phrases and two porn actresses who smell like ammonia, launched a self-pity tour because he can't have a TV show. While the Republicans, the party of millionaires, are shutting down the government because they can't have a tax-free world. As Paul Ryan says, it's not a budget, it's a cause. Like slavery. Like supporting one of the luckiest guys in the world in his quest to get all that's coming to him.

Folks, if you go to a show, and the guy on stage says, "Sorry, dude, I got your money already," like Charlie said, you're not IN on the joke, you ARE the joke.

You're not his friend or one of his chosen people, and you're not going to be him someday in paradise if you drink his tiger blood. That's Jesus you're thinking of. This is the guy from the sitcom about making dirty jokes to a fat kid.

So, you can know that a rock makes a shitty pet, but if you buy a pet rock, you're still an idiot. Ask your dentist. A shit-eating grin doesn't change the fact that you've been eating shit.

And that's the difference between being Charlie Sheen's girlfriend and Charlie Sheen's fan. If you're his girlfriend and you get fucked, he pays you!

And if you think a guy living large, and rubbing your nose in it that you're not, is funny, oh, here's one you'll really love.

You have to pay your taxes next week, and General Electric doesn't. That's right, GE, America's largest corporation, employs 975 people just to work on their taxes, which, it turns out, is a really great way to handle your taxes. Way better than what you have, a Vietnamese guy at the H&R Block who's using an abacus. Yeah, GE paid no taxes on $14 billion in profit. Why aren't people mad at them?

If I had to pick a phrase that encapsulates the American economy in the last decade, it surely would be, "I've already got your money, dude."

There's a law now forbidding credit card companies from screwing you with fine print and sudden unjustified rate hikes. To which the credit card company said, "I already got your money, dude."

Or maybe you lost your job in a recession caused by already rich people who bundled horseshit loans, and then took "too big to fail" pity money from Uncle Sam. "Already got your money, dude."

Americans need to have a Detroit moment where they realize they're pooling their money, and wasting it on the richest guy in the room. The richest 1% hoard an obscene amount of the wealth, while the average American has to save up to eat at Red Lobster on his birthday.

Wake up! Because somehow, they're banging the porn stars, and you're getting the crabs.

[bovril]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

superb

[West End Zuma]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Oh yes, great piece.

According to Joseph Stiglitz (article in Vanity Fair) 25 years ago 13% of the population controlled 33% of the wealth. Now It's 1% controls 40% of the wealth.

[WOM]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Just watched my first Parks & Recreation. Crap. Crap. Crap.

[Incandenza]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

What episode was it? What season? Season 1 wasn't great, but it got really better.

[dalliance]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Yes, I'd agree with that. The second season is longer and better than the first. That said, it's never better than a second tier comedy compared with the likes of The Office and others.

That said once more, one of my other first tier comedies is Modern Family and I'm finding the third series very disappointing so far.

[WOM]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Uh...the vague outline was that they were in court because some blond woman and some guy were having an inter-office affair and Rob Lowe was a lawyer pushing an ethics case against them. In the end they end up kissing on a snow-covered front lawn and the court stenographer is there.

My take is that it's one of those comedies that's not funny. Well, it's funny but it doesn't make you laugh. It's a lot of awkward pauses and fucking around with the camera/zooming in/zooming out in that way that The Office did, but they could get away with it because it was supposed to be a documentary.

It also reminds me a lot, style-wise, of Arrested Development. And I really didn't like that.

[Heliotrope]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Worn Old Motorbike wrote:

My take is that it's one of those comedies that's not funny.

We had free Showtime this weekend, so I tried to watch Episodes, which critics raved about last year, but it's hard to believe it's called a comedy. Nothing the least bit amusing or entertaining about it, and the (non-Leblanc) main characters are devoid of charisma. I quit after two episodes.

[WOM]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

In very much the same vein, I gave Modern Family a shot last night. I have to be honest, I found it laugh-out-loud funny in parts.

But it's still from that same Arrested Development school of comedy where there's a lot of awkward pausing for 'hilarious' effect, and constant fucking around with the camera, over-panning and then jerking back, and zooming in and out. What's this supposed to do? Why is everyone in love with this technique? It's just horribly distracting.

It's like when standup comedians go "But um..." after dropping a really funny line. As if they were going to say something even better, but the laughter interrupted the line and now they're courteously stopping so you can laugh.

You want to scream "Don't do that! You're wrecking the funny bits!"

/endrant

[dalliance]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

The first couple of seasons of Modern Family were excellent, the third season which is airing at the moment is pretty dreadful.

The characters were quite interesting before because they were all fairly warm and human with identifiable foibles that were never overplayed. Now the writers have gone down a route of each character just being a big, fat, exaggerated stereotype who never venture outside the parameters of to their defined traits. It's grim watching.

I would think it shares that certain quick fire feel of Arrested Development but not a whole lot else. It is much more mainstream, it lacks the surreal touches, it always has a schmaltzy ending and there is not a single unsympathetic character in it - most of the cast of Arrested beyond Michael and his son are deliberately objectionable characters.

[Mitch]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Really, him? Even Michael Bluth is pretty objectionable. The only difference is that he's convinced himself he's a self-sacrificing nice guy.

[dalliance]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Objectionable, really?

He is the normal, straight up guy in a carnival of grotesques.

[Mitch]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Nah, not really. And he is definitely the only 'normal' one.

But I think the humour in his character is that he's far more selfish and devious than he perceives himself to be.

You could argue that Buster is the only nice character, and he's as grotesque a character as you'll find ouside of The League Of Gentlemen.

[dalliance]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

Well Michael is the straight one at least, the closest to a moral compass the show has along with the charminhly naive George Michael.

I suppose we should be thankful we got 3 seasons of Arrested, I just can't imagine how it ever got beyond pitching stage with so few characters who could be described as likeable or identifiable with conventional target audiences.

"You have Michael and his son on one side, Michael's two brothers, his sister, brother in law, mother, father and uncle all on the other side. All the auxiliary characters were freaky too, from Kitty who showed off her breasts at every opportunity to the one armed guy that the father used to scare his kids into being good.

Can you imagine explaining to a studio exec how Tobias has a medical condition which means he is a never-nude?

[Ginger Yellow]

The continuing adventures of Mr Sheen

I suppose we should be thankful we got 3 seasons of Arrested,

We're getting four. And a movie.