HBO photo: John Tsiavis
The Apple announcement of its iPhone came today, and was characteristically heralded by TV news with the fanfare reserved for terror alerts and cellphone video of dead dictators or live celebrities. (I'll leave it to my pal Lev Grossman to explain the details, but apparently you can speak to people on it, even if they are not physically in the room with you. This is a game-changer, folks.)
I'm continually impressed with Apple's ability to generate free advertising disguised as news. As CNN interrupted its newscast to report the announcement of Steve Jobs' amazing distance-talking machine, a tech reporter declared that "When [Apple] introduces a new technology, it's not only stylish, it's also easy to use... not just lifestyle but life-changing for a lot of people." When Apple has news to announce, reporters have a way of turning into iPorters.
Overshadowed by the iPhone was the newly announced Apple TV, which, roughly described, is an attractive white box that zaps video from your TV to your computer. I'm not sure if this quite qualifies as a revolution, though if it will allow me to see Monkey Washing a Cat as it was meant to be seen, so much the better.
Unfortunately, though, it marked another year in which Apple has not gotten into the DVR business, as I and other videophiles have hoped. The plausible explanation is that TiVo already has the glamor product in the field, and Apple doesn't like to enter markets where it can't be the coolest. On the other hand, as Lev writes, Apple likes to fix products that are broken--which certainly describes the non-TiVo DVRs from cable companies more consumers are using--and even TiVophiles like myself are perpetually worried that the company may not be long for this world.
I'm sure there are ways of jerryrigging Apple TV into a pseudo TiVo device as some have done with the Mac Mini; but most people buy Apple for plug-and-play convenience, not to become hobbyists. Here's hoping that after the phone, Steve Jobs sets his eye on the next household appliance that needs fixing.
What did drama teachers ever do to the entertainment world? The job has become a shorthand for vain, deluded, imperious, frustrated hack—look at High School Musical, Hamlet 2 and (at the community-theater level) Waiting for Guffman. Or they’re vampiric, insulting predators, like Frank Langella’s acting coach in HBO’s Unscripted a few seasons back.
I don’t get it. Do all actors and screenwriters have such bitter memories of their youth? My high-school drama teacher wasn’t such a bad guy. On behalf of Hollywood, I apologize, Mr. Haysley. You have been traduced.
To this pantheon of portrayals we can add HBO’s new Summer Heights High (debuting Sunday at 10:30 p.m. E.T.), an Australian import comedy whose writer-star Chris Lilley plays three characters, including, yes, a self-important high school drama teacher. If you’re hearing “Australian import comedy,” thinking of Kath & Kim and recoiling in terror, let me reassure you: this one is rerun in its original version, not remade with American stars, and this one is quite funny.
Set at an Australian public high school—and shot at a real one, with real students in the cast—High is a mockumentary that follows three storylines, each starring Lilley. His drama teacher is “Mr. G.,” a fussy, ambitious drama queen who dreams of striking it big in musicals and is now writing one based on an Ecstasy overdose at the school. (His previous work includes Ikea: The Musical and Tsunamarama ’06.) No, it’s not the most original character or situation in comedy (cf. Nothing Ever Happens in Blaine or Rock Me, Sexy Jesus), but it’s a pretty reliable one, and Lilley plays Mr. G with clueless, egocentric relish. Even as he starts writing ditties that brand a dead student as a slutty drug user—”I’m a party girl with a bad habit / A bad habit for drugs!”—his face carries a wide-eyed bliss, believing that this will be not only his masterwork but a catharsis for the school.
HBO photo: John Tsiavis
I'm traveling today to California on vitally important TV-critic business. That means I've been spending time on research, such as studying up on the new Transportation Security Administration rules to see if they allow me to bring an In-N-Out burger on a plane as a carry-on for the return trip. Don't you judge me.
So I haven't taken the time to review Armed and Famous, the CBS reality show in which low-tier celebs such as Erik Estrada, Jack Osbourne and LaToya Jackson go on petty drug busts with the Muncie, Indiana police department. Suffice it to say it's not as bad as you think: it is actually slightly worse--not just exploitative and dumb, but with cheesy production values. Worst of all are the attempts to rationalize the show with little moments of moralism; I'm sorry, but I don't need the little person from Jackass telling me that driving intoxicated is irresponsible. I'm pretty sure so is getting overturned in a port-a-potty.
Anyway, I do need to note that the show debuts just before President Bush's speech making the case for the troop "surge" in Iraq. Which gets me thinking... d-list celebs doing law enforcement in Indiana... the Bush administration trying to provide security in Baghdad... has no reality producer out there put two and two together?
What America needs,
now, is a reality show in which has-been celebs get shipped off to Iraq to put down the insurgency. It would give them a chance to serve their country--or someone's country, anyway--while testing the proposition that minor celebs will do anything for another chance to get on TV. And I hear
The Nuge is a great shot.
One student in need of catharsis is Ja’mie (pronounced Ja-MAY), a similarly tightly-wound exchange student from a private school. (“I’m, like, the smartest non-Asian in Year 11… And I’m good at sport and everything that Asians can’t do.”) She’s an old character for Lilley (who created her for an earlier show, We Can Be Heroes), though the fact that he’s clearly a grown man squeezed into a teen girl’s jumper makes it hard to lose him in the character. But he gets the mannerisms of a stuck-up teen with a worldview seemingly entirely informed by Gossip Girl convincingly.
HBO photo: John Tsiavis
PASADENA -- Oooh! I love bylines! Makes me feel all reporter-y!
People who say that being a TV critic involves nothing more than sitting on your can and pretending to care about TV shows don't know what they're talking about. Sometimes it involves sitting on your can and pretending to care about the people in TV shows. This week is the cable TV critics' winter press tour, where cable networks hold wall-to-wall press conferences about their winter and spring offerings. The assembled "critics" (which often as not are actually TV beat reporters or trade-magazine journalists) are plyed with free food, drinks, coffee, smoothies and such, in exchange which they pretend to be deeply engaged in, for instance, "High Maintenance 90210," the new E! reality show about a butler.
Currently, we're questioning the panel for "Paradise City," the Ryan Seacrest-produced E! reality show about Las Vegas business. (Yes, they do use the Guns 'n' Roses song, and no, I will not be able to get it out of my head for the next 4 days.) The compact here is for us to pretend to be interested in a Seacrest project other than American Idol, questions about which would be in poor form. (Questions about The Ryan Seacrest Show, even more so.)
Seacrest did graciously offer his opinion of being called "the devil" in a men's magazine profile: "I guess it's flattering." Beyond that, the assembled writers are doing a yeoman's job filling the awkward silences with questions. One asks a cast member if there's any benefit to doing the show beyond TV exposure.
There is no benefit greater than TV exposure, sir! Someone seize that man's press credentials!
Lilley’s best character, however, is Jonah, a sullen, foul-mouthed, hip-hop-obsessed Tongan student. With a hardass father and a none-too-bright future, Jonah is a little like a teenage Tongan Eric Cartman, swearing at his teachers and claiming a bullying incident was just “punking.” (“I said, ‘You got punk’d!’ afterwards and he didn’t even get it!”) The difference being that when you make Cartman a 13-year-old, a few years from a life on his own with his options dwindling, there’s an added level of poignancy. While Jonah’s story isn’t exactly maudlin—his scenes are usually the funniest of the three—it does add a depth of character sometimes missing in Lilley’s other two, broader personae.
Like the original Kath & Kim or The Office, Summer Heights High relies heavily on cringe humor. In this case, the cringes come partly from the fact that High is shot in an actual Australian high school, with actual students in the supporting cast. It’s uncomfortable, yet funny, to see Lilley as Ja’mie, flirting with a 12-year-old boy (she has a thing for younger men), then “breaking up” with him in a jealous rage: “You’re a f_cking a__hole and thanks for breaking my heart you f_ckface!”
Summer Heights High is not a perfect comedy, and those offended by crossed boundaries will feel their boundaries crossed. But it’s a welcome, if sometimes familiar, HBO comedy while we wait for the return of Flight of the Conchords. Just don’t tell your high-school drama teacher.
