Niles: Excuse me. Has a young woman been in here this evening approximately five foot nine and three quarters, with skin the colour of Devonshire cream and the sort of eyes that gaze directly into one's soul with neither artifice nor evasion?
We move away from embarassing relationship troubles for a bit, for a brief romp through poor character judgement and trust issues. Structurally speaking, “You Can’t Tell A Crook...” seems kind of slapdash and rickety, like the script was supposed to go one way at some point but ended up going another. Still, it’s consistently fun enough for it not to matter, and it illuminates relationships in the Crane household in an entertaining way. Memorable would be the wrong word for it, but it’s the kind of story that leaves a nice impression.
After an exchange at the station, Martin and Frasier make a bet over whether the latter can identify the ex-con in his dad’s poker group. Frasier attempts to use his psychological expertise to profile Martin’s buddies, but ends up getting the guess completely wrong. In the meantime, Daphne has ended up making a date with the felon, a prison snitch named Jimmy (Tony Abatemarco). Frasier and Martin have an argument over whether she should date him or not (pro and con, respectively), which Daphne settles by telling them to butt out. She ends up going with Jimmy to a place called the Topaz Lounge, and while Frasier is for her choice at first, he ends up tagging along with Niles to “rescue” her when he hears about the place’s shady reputation, specifically, the fact that it’s still open after multiple shootings.
It’s good to focus on Daphne for a bit (as Niles would agree), and in some ways the episode is about her relationship with the men she lives with. Though I forgot to mention it at the time, “Guess Who’s Coming For Breakfast?” ends with a scene in which Frasier and Daphne, two single people with a night free, decide to use that time to get some laundry done. A pre-emptive kibosh is put on any romantic entanglement, and so Daphne becomes more of a den mother to the Crane men. Here, Frasier and Martin temporarily put her in a daughter role by trying to decide whom she’ll date. (We learn that Daphne never took such advice even as a schoolgirl.) She quickly breaks out of that role, and the climax, in which she uses her skill with a pool cue to hold her own at the Topaz Lounge, establishes that she’s not just the show’s requisite “wacky” character, but a strong figure in certain situations. If Frasier has the book smarts and Martin provides worldy wisdom, Daphne’s more of a wild card- you never know what she’ll be good at or what story involving her childhood in Manchester will be used to justify it. (And now I am thinking of the FRASIER cast as an RPG party, and should probably stop.)
Jimmy, interestingly enough, is disposed of off-screen; a bartender (Ivory Ocean) tells Frasier and Niles that he tried to get fresh with her and she showed him the door. In some ways this is a cheat; the character who seemingly drives much of the action is really only in one scene. Indeed, the last act really isn’t about the bet that kicked off the story, or the underlying question of Frasier’s alleged God-given gift to intuit. Daphne’s unexpected control of the situation at the Topaz Lounge may be a thematic link- another example of not judging someone by appearances, to say nothing of the trust issues involved- but if there is a connection it’s underplayed.
This is more just a series of funny events, though the plot is logical and the conclusion satisfying. What it lacks in structural elegance it makes up for in just being funny, and though I doubt anyone learns a lesson at the end, it’s still a fun climax. Daphne gets to shine again, Frasier and Niles get to look out of place, and keep an eye on that red-haired waiter who hears a bit of their conversation at Café Nervosa. He’ll be back.
No Guest Caller
Written by David Lloyd
Directed by Andy Ackerman
Aired January 27, 1994
Frasier: You know dad, he’s so judgemental.
Niles: He is, and I’ve often condemned him for it.
(Quotes via IMDB and John Masson's Twiztv.com transcript. Again, caveats about heavy advertising on the latter site apply.)
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Frasierquest 1.15: You Can't Tell A Crook By His Cover
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Frasierquest 1.14: Can't Buy Me Love
Frasier: I may surprise you, you know. I'm probably more “with it” than you think I am...
We come to another episode that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to. Vicarious embarassment is something I can be prone to, which makes you wonder why I’m blogging about a sitcom, and in the course of “Can’t Buy Me Love” Frasier probably has one of his least-good hours. It’s not entirely his fault, which perhaps makes it worse: I can enjoy a character getting just comuppance for hubris or some other personal flaw, but when a character just gets outright screwed by circumstance it’s less fun. The main trouble is, going into detail about all this requires the use of spoilers. I’m not really sure why I hold to spoilers regarding a show that’s been out of production for over 5 years now, but it’s just the style I picked up, so I’ll do the normal summary and THEN reveal the rest of the story.
Martin’s old precinct is holding a charity benefit, and he ropes Frasier and Bulldog into offering themselves up at the bachelor auction. Frasier gets snatched up for five hundred by a lovely model Kristina Harper (Claire Stansfield), while Daphne, shill-bidding near the end, accidentally purchases Bulldog for a c-note. Unfortunately, Frasier’s date is postponed when Kristina gets a last-minute modelling assignment, and leaves him looking after her 12-year-old daughter Renata (Ashley Bank), who isn’t thrilled about the situation either. Over the course of the evening, Renata tells Frasier that her mother is vain and neglectful, leaving her daughter in the car to get tattoos and constantly lying about both their ages.
The big twist to all this is that Renata is lying- Kristina spends lots of time with her daughter and at the very least doesn’t have a tattoo in any place that shows. Frasier takes the girl at her word and confronts Kristina when she comes back, which needless to say pisses her off and kills whatever relationship may have come into being. It still seems a little unbelievable to me that Frasier leaps right into his accusation without questioning what he’s just been told, even though he admits that adolescent psychology is not his strong point. (There’s the old adage that you shouldn’t use adult psychiatric evaluations on adolescents because they’ll all test as narcissistic sociopaths.) Of course, knowing this beforehand, you start to REALLY hate Renata, who sabotages a potential relationship for her mother- with a guy she finds out is not entirely uncool, no less- on the basis that she wasn’t allowed to stay home alone that night. Then again, she’s 12.
If all of this is a little wince-inducing, the episode is still more or less salvaged by the utterly brilliant scene depicting the end of Bulldog’s date, in which a sloshed Daphne manages to insult him several times and start a fight in the middle of a traffic jam. Jane Leeves owns this sequence, establishing Daphne as a hilarious, dangerous, yet still kind of adorable drunk. I love this side of her character, and when it resurfaces in a few later episodes it’s still hilarious. (Roz probably gets the episode’s second funniest moment, homing in on her own bachelor with an eye towards getting value for money.)
The denoument definitely helps take some of the sting off, as Frasier starts to dread what his own son will be like when he reaches that age. Overall it’s mostly the middle I have a problem with; Renata’s stories probably work on the viewer the first time through, but rewatchability suffers. But there’s always something to love, and if the A story is weak, it’s still worth watching to see how Daphne handles her champagne.
Guest Caller: Ken Levine as M.C.
(Note: M.C.’s actually a caller on Bulldog’s show)
Written by Chuck Ranberg & Anne Flett-Giordano
Directed by James Burrows
Aired January 20, 1994
Daphne: Oh, you are a naughty boy. Now don't go getting any ideas. Oh, look who I'm saying this to. You don't have an idea in your head!
(Quotes again are from John Masson's transcript at Twiztv.com. Careful of all the ads on that site- it's annoying, but, well, IMDB is slacking in this department.)
Friday, December 11, 2009
Frasierquest 1.13: Guess Who's Coming to Breakfast?
Frasier: Now listen Niles, I’m having a young lady over on Friday night, I was hoping you could take Dad out for me.
Niles: Oh, I wish you’d said Saturday.
Frasier: Why, you have plans Friday?
Niles: No, I have plans Saturday.
Some episodes are harder to write about than others, and “Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast” has been a tough one for some reason. It’s not a weak episode, per se, but I find it less memorable than the ones surrounding it. Still, after a few episodes it’s good to get back to the dynamic between Frasier and Martin, and a thin “A” plot is surrounded by lots of extraneous funny business to sustain our interest. It’s also a Hell of a lot lighter than the episodes which came before it, focusing on sex, the generation gap, English breakfasts, and other frivolities.
After Frasier persuades Martin to clear out on Friday night so he can have a date over, Martin asks that Frasier do the same on Saturday. He’s meeting with Elaine Morris (Linda Stephens) from 1412, and that date goes unexpectedly well, leading to Elaine popping up at breakfast on Sunday morning. Frasier is flustered and embarassed, but gets over his awkwardness at realizing his dad still has a sex life, and goes on to use the experience as an example to one of his callers. He names names, which infuriates Martin no end and scares off Elaine, which forces Frasier to go public again in an attempt to reunite the two.
I suppose the major problem I have when it comes to this episode is that Frasier acts even more foolishly than usual, and it’s not entirely clear why. He doesn’t have a surfeit of common sense, but he isn’t totally absent-minded either, and I think just about anyone should realize that not only discussing your father’s sex life on the radio but naming names is crossing a line, and it’s not even necessary in order for Frasier to make the point to the caller. He could simply say that his dad is dating again and this has once caused complication the next morning.
Then again, he wouldn’t be the first person to dole out too much information to people he think wouldn’t care, and of course Frasier also spent a long time before this in private practice. Sure, psychiatric patients aren’t bound by confidentiality, but it’s still unlikely that any one thing said in the office will spread too far. And he’s alone with his producer in that booth, and the idea that one of the people on the other end of that conversation may in fact be Martin or Elaine maybe just didn’t sink in.
In any case, this is one of those episodes where I can’t help but feel the embarassment the characters go through a little, and these episodes are sometimes hard to watch. That said, Frasier goes a long way towards redeeming himself with his efforts to get Elaine talking to Martin again, and the last couple of scenes are quite sweet on that level.
I’d actually forgotten that this is the episode which introduces Noel Shempsky (Patrick Kerr), KACL’s resident dweeb. Noel is a series fixture, with the show from start to finish, and he never actually changed that much from his first appearance. He’s always kind of sweet but kind of creepy, and though it’s not the most three-dimensional of characterizations, Kerr gives it a life beyond the stereotype. (The frequent jokes at the expense of his STAR TREK fixation are something of an in-joke- this is, after all, a Paramount series, and Kelsey Grammer once had a prominent guest shot on THE NEXT GENERATION as the ill-fated captain of a past Enterprise.) And as we see here, his sensors are locked on Roz, something which will not change for some time. It says something that Roz is at least willing to give him a chance, thinking it might be fun to date a guy with substance for once, but it’s just not meant to be.
The episode reaches its comic peak early with Frasier’s glorious awkwardness at breakfast with Elaine; quoting it would do no good since it’s all in the delivery. (That Daphne made bangers for breakfast does not help matters.) But the climactic scene, where Frasier has to fend off a crowd of drama-hungry tenants (and the doorman) in order to get Elaine and Martin talking, is also clever, and reminiscient of an early moment from Sam and Diane’s courtship in CHEERS. I also suspect the scene is partly a parody of how devoted fans can get to these ongoing love stories, even though this show’s most famous romantic arc is still in its infancy. (More on that as it develops.)
Again, this is a solid episode, and though Frasier seems to go out of his way to put his foot in it, it won’t be the last time. (I’m not even sure it’s the first.) In any case, one at least hopes he won’t make this specific mistake again. The moral of the story is, do not kiss and tell vicariously. At least not on city-wide radio.
Guest Callers: Piper Laurie as Marianne, Henry Mancini as Al, Elijah Wood as Ethan
Written by Molly Newman
Directed by Andy Ackerman
Aired January 6, 1994
Daphne: The way you were carrying on, I think we can be thankful I didn’t make Toad in the Hole!
(Again, captions helped by John Masson's transcript at Twiztv.com)
Monday, December 07, 2009
Save vs. Bad Movie?
More self-promotion time! I've gone and written another piece for The Agony Booth, this time recapping the legendarily dull and crappy Dungeons & Dragons movie. For some reason this ten page epic took me about a year to write and revise, so enjoy!
Sunday, December 06, 2009
Frasierquest 1.12: Miracle on Third or Fourth Street
Frasier: Well, as we head into our second hour, I'd like to lighten things up a bit. Although, Ned, we were certainly glad to hear from you, and how you got mugged on your way home from the soup kitchen.
So, the show’s first Christmas episode, and it’s quite possibly the single bleakest thing of the entire season. It’s not entirely inappropriate; the holidays can be as much about depression and anxiety as about togetherness and joy, and this show manages to swing us wildly between both extremes. But even though FRASIER was a show with a built-in audience from CHEERS and a big push from NBC, something this dark was a risk for the first year. But it taps into a lot of the feelings that this time of year can drudge up, and maybe it works a little better than the more cheery seasonal episodes we’re used to.
Frasier starts off thinking his Christmas is going to be good; he plans to see his son for the first time in a long while, and spend the holiday at a cabin with Martin, Niles, and Maris. (Daphne is spending Christmas with her transvestite uncle Jackie in San Francisco- sadly we never actually got to meet this character. Would’ve been a natural fit for Jim Broadbent.) However, at the last minute, Lilith calls to say that she’s planned something much better for Frederick (see below), and Frasier’s anger with that, plus further tension with dad, causes him to decide to fill in for Bulldog on December 25th. The result is the psychiatric call-in show of the damned, with depressing story after depressing story delivered to an ultra-casual Frasier and an increasingly sad Roz, until Frasier lets his producer go and winds up wrapping up the holiday disaster himself, before limping into the one eatery that isn’t closed or booked up. Needless to say, it’s not the most cheery place either.
We get yet another angle on Frasier’s job here, which is that there is something inherently taxing about listening to other people’s misery. Depression is contagious, and while it can help to unshoulder our burdens on someone else, that person takes it up on a diminished level, ends up feeling a little sadder. Which isn’t to say that we shouldn’t offer to listen, but Frasier’s in a bad state going into the show, despite an attempt at cheer and hope that he can give someone, somewhere a merry Christmas. This patina of chirpiness crumbles under stories that border on the outright macabre- I thought about quoting the worst one, but it really is that awful. Of course, the couple of upbeat stories Frasier hears in his four-hour slog don’t really perk him up either.
This worst-Christmas-ever is also a good opportunity for Roz to get a little more spotlight time. Her initial hostility to the man who inadvertently ruined her Christmas is broken down, and we see her in a rare vulnerable moment when Frasier sends her off. It’s a nice picture of the rapport these two are developing; they’ve been working together for a while, but they’re more surely becoming friends.
Basically, the episode is Frasier making concession after concession to the holidays, a grudging generosity being the only thing he has. The climax of all this is very subdued and low-key, which was probably a very good idea. The gist of it all is that Frasier ends up eating at a greasy spoon diner frequented by a few of Seattle’s homeless, who mistake him for one of their own because of how bad he looks. As it happens, he’s lost his wallet, and over his objections Bill (Hawthorne James) takes up a collection to pay his tab. His act of generosity and his explanation (“Christmas belongs to guys like us”) could potentially push the whole thing into sentimental claptrap territory, but the subtlety and continued good humor of the final scene make it something that really sticks with the viewer.
Looking at odds and ends, I also really like the joke in an early scene where Frasier agrees to give the lovely-yet-imposing Bonnie Weems (Kathryn Danielle) a drive home from the office Christmas party, which amuses everyone else to no end. I don’t even know why, but it’s a nice callback to having heard the character mentioned back in “Oops”. The family cabin also does get shown a few times eventually, though I’m not immediately sure it’s the same one each time. (I’ll have to watch out for this.)
The show would go on to have more cheery and comical Christmas shows, and those are no less good for being easy on the viewer. But there’s something cathartic about being shown the misery we can sometimes go through trying to make something of the season when circumstances are poor. Halfway through season one, FRASIER is doing some rather ambitious things, still trusting the audience to go along with it.
Guest Callers: Mel Brooks as Tom, Rosemary Clooney as Gladys, Dominick Dunne as Jeff, Ben Stiller as Barry, Eric Stoltz as Don
Written by Christopher Lloyd (again, not the Doc Brown guy)
Directed by James Burrows
Aired December 16, 1993
Frasier: Well, Merry Christmas, everybody! Lilith isn't sending Frederick!
Martin: What? Why not?
Frasier: Well, apparently he has this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for an incredible Christmas. A friend of hers has rented a home in Austria.
Martin: What's the matter with the good old U.S.A.?
Frasier: Well, apparently it's the same house that they filmed “The Sound Of Music” in, and that happens to be Freddie's favorite movie. Well, Julie Andrews is singing with the Salzburg Choral, they're having dinner with her afterwards, and some nonsense about a horse-driven sleigh ride through the snow, and a toboggan, and a balloon trip through the Alps, and apparently on their way back they're gonna spend an entire day at Euro-Disneyland!
Niles: ...Well, up at the cabin, there's an old stump that the local children seem to enjoy kicking.
(Quotes assisted by John Masson’s transcript at twiztv.com)
Saturday, December 05, 2009
In Theaters: Fantastic Mr. Fox
The problem with calling your movie FANTASTIC MR. FOX is two fold. If it’s bad, or even mediocre, or even just kind of good, the critic’s temptation is to harp on just how un-fantastic it is. And if it is fantastic, then, well, I can’t go and use the word fantastic without seeming cheesy or uninspired, can I? Sure, I could work in it via a rhetorical device like this one, but that’s not really much better, is it?
Ah, well, they got the title from a book, anyway.
Ahem. So. Wes Anderson is one of my favorite directors, and I’ve enjoyed everything he’s put out so far. He’s got a real visual style and an empathy for his characters, and both of these turn out to be positives when it comes to venturing into the realm of children’s animation. Anderson, with co-writer Noah Baumbach and a host of animators who apparently didn’t approve of his artistic direction, has turned Roald Dahl’s beloved tale of survival into a charming and inviting story about aspiration and responsibility, and how these two get in each other’s way.
We first meet Mr. Fox (George Clooney) when he and his wife (Meryl Streep) are doing what foxes normally do, i.e. stealing chickens from farmers. But Mrs. Fox is pregnant, and so in a cut-away past twelve fox years, Mr. Fox is now a newspaper columnist living safe at home and helping raise his... eccentric son Ash (Jason Schwartzmann). Sick of living in the ground, he buys a home in a large tree overlooking the property of three surly farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean (Robin Hurlstone, Hugo Guiness, and Michael Gambon, respectively). Ultimately, the chicken hutches, goose smokehouses, and cider storehouses of the farmers prove too great a temptation, and Mr. Fox goes on midnight raids with his possum pal Kylie (Wally Wolodarsky). This raises the ire both of the farmers and of Mrs. Fox when she finds out. And Ash is getting no easier to live with now that the overachieving cousin Kristofferson (Eric Anderson) has moved in while his father recovers from double pneumonia. So Fox has a lot to deal with.
Before release, there was a lot of apprehension about the extra-crude brand of stop motion used in this film (complete with cottonball smoke effects and what technicians apparently call “boiling fur”), and even the effects people apparently had a dim view of Anderson’s insistence on doing things his way. But from the first scene, not only did I become accustomed to the film’s style, I began to see what he was doing. While most 3-D animation focuses on form, the film’s style places equal emphasis on texture, from fur to fabric to plasticy fruit. The effect is that we’re reminded of every object’s physical existence, and the frequent straight-on camera angles give the visuals a picture window quality, as though we’re looking at a series of dioramas. Stop motion has always had that hand-crafted spark of vitality, and FANTASTIC MR. FOX goes a step further to make it seem like we could reach into the picture. (This actually would have been a good 3-D film.)
The film has a lovely autumnal shade to it, everything in pale oranges and fiery reds. The soundtrack also leans heavily on unpolished guitars and folksy vocals, including an original song by Jarvis Cocker. It’s relaxing, a kind of mellow experience for the filmgoer, with nothing to get too hung up about.
The writing is really sharp, and the cast is so good with the material that even minor exchanges sparkle. Whether it’s Owen Wilson as a coach explaining the rules of Whackbat (which is basically cricket from the perspective of everyone who’s tried to understand cricket), Gambon as the sardonic brains of the farmer trio, or Willem Dafoe as one of Fox’s former partners-in-crime, everyone is just on form. Obviously George Clooney does the most, and pulls it off with his usual quirky suaveness, and there’s Bill Murray as a Badger lawyer, but seriously if I start listing everyone who’s awesome I will never stop.
There’s not a whole lot of what one would call suspense to this picture, at least not until late in the game. But there’s a nice, subtle conflict going on under the main story, and that’s the one between Fox and his own ambitions. He always wants to push forward, to have more than he does, not out of greed but out of a sense of underachievement. There’s a message here about appreciating what you have, but also one of coming to terms with what you are, and with Fox it’s his animal nature; no matter how much he civilizes himself, he’s always going to want to steal chickens and cider, and he has to find a way that he can be himself and not put his family in danger.
In the meantime, though, there are farmers to outwit and chickens to eat, and good times to be had. In a year of fabulous children’s movies, this may actually be the best yet. Sure, it doesn’t have the tearjerker value of UP or WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, but it’s not aspiring to that, and what it does deliver is a just plain pleasurable experience, one worth watching and sharing. See this film. It’s... really very very good.
Based on the book by Roald Dahl
Screenplay by Wes Anderson and Noah Baumbach
Directed by Wes Anderson
Grade: A
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Frasierquest 1.11: Death Becomes Him
Aunt Bobbie: We always cover mirrors at a Shiva, so those grieving don't have to be concerned with their own appearances.
Frasier: Ah. Oh well, you look very nice.
Aunt Bobbie: Oh, thank you. It's been driving me crazy!
The next couple of episodes here go in a grim direction. Relatively speaking, of course, but darker than you’d expect a sitcom to go, especially one in its freshman year. As one might expect from the title, “Death Becomes Him” is about mortality, and Frasier’s increasing awareness of it. But in between the short bursts of serious business is some very sharp comedy writing, and the episode manages to be funny without being glib.
When Martin misses a doctor’s appointment, Frasier takes it upon himself to drag him to a physical at an office in Niles’ building. However, after a long wait, they find that the doctor- a man of Frasier’s age (41), in good health- died suddenly of a heart attack. Frasier is troubled by the thought that the same might happen to him, and goes about setting his affairs in order, but even that doesn’t put his mind at ease.
I don’t recall if CHEERS ever gave Frasier’s age, but now we know he’s just about ripe for various midlife crises, and this is one he’d have to face up to sooner or later. To his credit, he handles his fear in an at-first sensible manner, making sure his relatives could access all his personal information, bank accounts, etc. in the event of his death. But then he brings out the stickers to try and pre-distribute his worldly belongings, and we realize that he’s taking rationality to irrational extremes.
I guess that’s why this episode is as funny as it is- the humor is drawn not from death itself, but from the panic response it evokes. Frasier goes into defensive mode because of the death of someone he never even knew, to the extent that he ends up attending the man’s wake and trying to pretend he has some legitimate reason to be there.
The other regulars, unaffected by what’s happened, give us some great light moments in between Frasier’s broodings. Niles is really starting to consciously try to impress Daphne, who, while apparently not understanding why he’s trying to open jars and talking about pumping iron, still humors him with a smile. (Part of the fun of rewatching FRASIER is looking at the reaction shots, and seeing how the actors subtly convey their characters’ attitudes towards each other.) Roz, in her one scene, firmly gets established as a woman with a very active sex life, and she is apparently very good at what she does.
The final lesson that Frasier has to learn here is no surprise: life is fleeting, and we have to learn to treasure it rather than focus on its inevitable end. But even when we know that consciously, we can still be thrown for a loop by the instinctive realization of, and fear of, our own mortality. But since we can’t actually do anything in response but draw up some documents and maybe talk to an insurance representative, our fear can be pretty damn funny.
No Guest Caller
Written by Leslie Eberhard
Directed by Andy Ackerman
Aired December 2, 1993
Martin: Look son, let me tell you something. There was this time, a while back, seven or eight of us were on this drug bust. We get the order to go through the front door, and the first guy took one. He was dead before he hit the ground. When you're a cop, you've got to be able to handle things like that, but I... I just couldn't get over it. Every time I had to go in a blind alley, or in a dark building, I just froze. And I knew if I kept being afraid to die, I'd never be able to do my job.
Frasier: So what did you do?
Martin: I just forced myself to forget about it.
Frasier: Just like that?
Martin: Just like that. Next time I came across one of those doors, I went right through it... The fact that I got shot in the hip was purely coincidental.
Frasier: You were this close to helping me there, Dad.
