Previously, we had one of the best overall Snatch Games, Gia left, and Laganja reminded everyone of why she should have been the one to go. [Read more…] about RuPaul’s Drag Race Recap: I Got The Flow, You all Gotta Go
ENTERTAINMENT
Friends with Better Lives Is Bland And Lifeless
Friends With Better Lives: Mondays at 8:30 on CBS
It’s amazing the degree to which companies will go to replicate something that was successful. For example, before Lebron James rise to primacy in the NBA, there was a long search for who the next Michael Jordan would be. In TV, weirdly enough, this concept is best applied to every network struggling to find the next Friends. NBC tried it with Coupling, ABC tried it with Happy Endings, You could argue that Fox’s New Girl is a reinterpretation of the concept, and now CBS is trying it with the similarly titled Friends with Better Lives.
Friends with Better Lives deals with the classic neuroses that come with thinking that someone else has it together better than you. It does this by contrasting friends in different stages of emotional maturity, from single to engaged, to married to divorced. The show has a number of familiar faces such as James Van Der Beek (as divorced Will), Brooklyn Decker (as newly engaged Jules) and Kevin Connolly as happily married Bobby.
The grand flaw with Friends with Better Lives is painfully simple: when you close your eyes and listen to the jokes for a minute, you would very easily mistake it for 2 Broke Girls. Both feel reliant on stock tropes and and both have a tendency to turn blatant setups into even more blatant punchlines. This can often be groan worthy when it goes into rapid-fire mode (often a Will specialty), relying on hacky wordplay. Making this wordplay even worse is the omnipresent laugh track, which seems to fill every silence on the show, even in some instances coming in before the actual punchline of the joke.
Friends with Better Lives doubles down on old and tired with it’s incredibly goofy plotting. In order to put all of the pegs in all of the right holes, it uses the most ham-handed of methods to get it’s engaged couple engaged and Will officially divorced. However, because we’re not really acclimated to the characters or their stories, both scenes feel incredibly empty, denying the sort of emotional resonance that these wham moments typically tend to have.
What saves Friends with Better Lives is it’s cast. James Van Der Beek in particular seems to be having a blast launching one-liners in rapid fire fashion whenever the occasion allows. Similarly, Rick Donald manages to hit the tone of Lowell, a smug-yet-progressive Australian with a rare sort of touch that tends to elude these sorts of shows, not allowing the character to completely devolve into the caricature that some of the main characters end up turning into (the show’s lone single character at the outset, Kate tends to be victim to this sort of treatment).
The Final Verdict: Friends with Better Lives is what would happen if you throw every CBS comedy into a blender and spit out a shiny new sitcom (to the extent that I’m surprised Chuck Lorre’s name isn’t attached to it). Unfortunately, where those other sitcoms have distinctive features that can at least make their pitch “CBS formula PLUS “insert X here” EQUALS “New Show”, Friends with Better Lives is “CBS formula” PLUS “Friends clone formula” EQUALS “A bunch of stuff we’ve already seen before”. Skip this one, and may one day the comedy gods find the right home for James Van Der Beek.
Album Review: Perfect Pussy – Say Yes To Love
Perfect Pussy: Say Yes to Love
Similar Artists: No Age, Screaming Females, Bikini Kill
Genre: punk, noise rock, lo-fi
Label: Captured Tracks
Alright, let’s get this out of the way before anything else: Perfect Pussy isn’t trying to shock anybody with their name. Any band to name their self as such knows that they’ve solidified themselves as a non-commercial act (just ask Fucked Up), so trying to incite uproar by including a potentially vulgar slang word in their name wouldn’t seem to be part of their agenda either. What’s more, there’s so much more degrading reference that particular female body part in so many media-accepted pop songs in this day and age, that it’s actually more of a relief to find an female-fronted indie act would adopt such a name. It’s far more likely that the band intends for their risqué title to be funny, ironic and cute, and if you’re offended by it, then what the fuck are you doing listening to this shit in the first place?
That said, the band in question, a five-piece from the upstate-New York town of Syracuse, might still shock people in that it only took them one LP to make even the most casual music listener prospect that they might very well be the new face of arty punk! An ironic fact in itself, as the band was formed sort of accidentally. Back in 2012, film maker Scott Coffey asked Merdith Graves (former lead singer of a Syracuse-noise-rock band called Shoppers) to appear in his movie Adult World, and assemble a new band for the film. Enlisting the talents of drummer Garrett Kololski and bass guitarist Greg Ambler, Graves seemingly realized that she was onto something big. After completing their work on the film, they added guitarist Ray McAndrew and Shaun Sutkus to their line-up, and they released a very well-received 4-song demo tape in 2013. Now a year later, refining their sound even more so for the proper debut, Say Yes to Love, the band might very home take home the honor of releasing the most simultaneously pretty and brash album of 2014.
I feel that the best punk albums are those that are as concerned with personal issues as they are with societal ones, and Say Yes to Love is that in every regard. Front-women Meredith Graves’ lyrics tend to bring up romance and self-admonishment (“and I want to fuck myself, and I want to eat myself”), and it’s clear that life hasn’t always been kind to her. Still, her songs are also life-affirming, and her presentation is often prophet like. While she does often scream her vocals (frequently in an manner that’s hard to hear out, but more on that later!), often we get the sense that we are hearing monologues, not unlike the style that was popularized for American indie rock by Slint’s Brian McMahan. Ms. Graves is so singular a performer, that she practically screams alt-rock icon, not unlike Liz Phair or Kathleen Hannah did in their earliest releases
As powerful and abrasive a front woman Graves is, the band really earns it’s keep through the dichotomy of all five of the performers. Choosing to use lo-fi production, the band’s affinity for noise rock really comes out in how chaotic their songs can suddenly become, albeit in a controlled sense. While Graves has said that she and keyboardist Shaun Sutkus are the really reason for the band’s heavy degree of noise, it’s hard to imagine it being quite as loud without the other three members, particularly with the occasionally dronish six-strings from Ray McAndrew. It can be hard to make out what Meredith is saying much of the time, and more for her accompanying music than for her lyrics crypticism, and it’s a band that encourages their listeners to paddle harder. It’s a most challenging listen, and for that reason we can be grateful that the album only comes to about 22 minutes, as it invites it’s audience to come back and re-listen again and again, enticing up to really feel victorious whenever we succeed in making out another line from Meredith, or discovering another cool new musical backdrop.
Only time will tell whether Say Yes to Love makes it as influential as I hope it does, but I feel it’s obligatory that this record will find a rather large niche audience throughout the year. Whether you’re an art-school student, a pro-feminism type, or just an appreciator of great music, Perfect Pussy will not only speak to you, but also encourage you to go to the next level in every regard. Perhaps this lyric best sums it up: Because I’m an advance upon the real/ Not a step up from the others, but a step away.
Track Listing
1). Driver
2). Bells
3). Big Stars
4). Work
5). Interference Fits
6). Dig
7). Advance Upon The Real
8). VII
Boys Like Me Like Boys Like Courtney Act- Review
If you’ve been following RuPaul’s Drag Race, you probably know who Courtney Act is. Some of you might also know her from her videos with Willam or there might even be a few of you who recognize her from Australian Idol.
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Guild Wars 2 Feature Pack – Part 2- The Review
You’re gonna like the way you look. I guarantee it.
Welcome to Part 2 of our coverage of the Guild Wars 2 feature patch! After last week’s reveals focused on game balance, traits, and gear upgrades, this new round of changes are mostly cosmetic. Not to the official site, of course, but revolving around dyes, the new wardrobe feature, new ways to earn gear, and general quality-of-life improvements. If you’re a guild leader, there are some improvements headed your way too!
We’re going to start things off this week with the new wardrobe feature, which was arguably the most demanded part of the feature patch. You can click here to watch a short video explaining some of the functions. Whenever you gain a weapon or piece of armor in-game, whether through drop, trading post, cash shop, or vendor – you permanently unlock the skin for that item as well. If you’d like to swap skins, you can do so from a new panel on your equipment screen. Doing so costs transmutation charges, which is a re-work of the current stone/crystal system already in place. Those items will be disappearing and players will receive one charge for every crystal in their inventory, and another charge for every three stones they possess. In a sense, it’s a similar system to the already-present Gear Locker in PvP, but it’ll now be game-wide. As a result, all of the PvP gear you’ve unlocked will also be a part of this system, so you may now apply those skins to your PvE/WvW gear as well. This feature will keep collectors busy for a long time to come!
Another heavily demanded change that ArenaNet is delivering is an overhaul of the dye system. Instead of being soulbound (per character), dyes will now be account bound, which means that all characters you’ve made can choose from the same pool of dyes that you’ve unlocked. In addition, if you have the same dye available on multiple characters, you’ll receive a free unidentified dye for each unique color you’ve consumed twice or more. To balance this, dyes will no longer be on the loot tables, and instead only available through the Mystic Forge, crafting (specifically the cooking profession), laurel merchants, and other special rewards. As a further bit of balance, the legendary staff known as The Bifrost, which currently requires 250 unidentified dyes as an ingredient, will now only need 100 unidentified dyes to craft the Gift of Color used to make it. Other changes to the system include making previewing colors easier and more streamlined confirmation of changes.
The next reveal involved the quality-of-life changes for guilds, and even though I’m currently a one-man guild I appreciate ArenaNet’s efforts here. Not being able to see the last time a guild member logged in was inexcusable, and that will be rectified when the feature patch hits on April 15th. The LFG (looking for group) system will also be getting some new bells and whistles, allowing players to group up for not only open world content, dungeons, and Fractals of the Mists, but after the feature patch hits, World vs. World will also become available. There will even be separate channels in the tool for each map, including all three borderlands, Eternal Battlegrounds, and Edge of the Mists! The LFG tool will also include specifications for language, as many of the European servers are multi-lingual. Throw in some backend support for guild members themselves, and Guild Wars 2‘s social abilities figure to be better than ever.
In what is sure to be welcome news for the battle-hardened folk who frequent WvW, world experience will now be account bound instead of soulbound. Points can still be spent differently on your various characters, so you won’t get stuck with the same bonuses across your entire account. This will allow players to change styles of play simply by switching characters, as you can be a supply master on one and a catapult master on another, for example. This reveal also came with news that any legendary or ascended gear possessed by one character will become account bound as well. So if you like, you can craft an ascended dagger and simply move it between characters using the bank as you see fit! You’re still restricted by the weapons and armor that potential recipients can equip, so don’t think you can make a spiffy piece of plate armor for your mesmer, for instance.
Speaking of armor, repairing your damaged or broken armor will now be free of charge! ArenaNet felt that the damage from dying is punishment enough and is removing repair fees from the game. The NPCs will still exist and I assume you can still sell items to them if you choose. While we’re on the subject of free things, players who like to experiment with builds will be glad to know that the new instant trait refund system I talked about last week will also be free! Simply click and tinker away, mad scientists!
The final reveal from this week is one that I’m sure will get many people interested in PvP. Reward Tracks are being introduced, and they’re a secondary achievement system of sorts, except that instead of rewarding points towards milestone chests, they reward items, armor, and weapons! Every major region of Tyria will be featured in these Reward Tracks, so players who like to stick to PvP can get drops that would normally come through PvE play by accomplishing given objectives. Dungeon-specific armor and weapons will also be made available through this feature on a rotating basis, or players can complete the story modes of the eight dungeons to allow them to complete the tracks at their leisure. In addition, future Living World and holiday events will be added as they are released. While I’d love for this system to be added on the PvE side too, PvPers have been getting the short end of the stick in this regard ever since release. They deserve the bone they’ve been thrown. To go along with this update, PvE/WvW gear will now carry over to the PvP side, as it previously did not.
In next week’s reveals, ArenaNet will be talking about “facilitating friendly play” in Guild Wars 2, as it currently says on the official site. Check back here for the latest news about the upcoming feature pack!
For Part 1 of our coverage, click here. For more information regarding the April 15th feature pack, click here.
Theater Review: “Beyond Therapy”
It’s hard to believe that, not too long ago, in days pre-dating OkCupid, eHarmony, and other smart phone apps, that our means of meeting Mr. or Mrs. Right were limited to a newspaper clipping and blind optimism. Those days were the eighties, the era in which Christopher Durang’s Beyond Therapy is set. Currently, the Actor’s Company Theatre (TACT) is diving head first into the crazy pool with this send-up of psychiatric madness.
Bruce (Mark Alhadeff) and Prudence (Liv Rooth) are two bags of nerves who meet at “The Restaurant”, a dining spot in which couples maintain so much privacy that they are completely ignored by the wait staff. Shortly into the date, Bruce takes every wrong turn imaginable by crying (to show his sensitive side), and admitting to a relationship with his lover, Bob (Jeffrey C. Hawkins).
Bruce and Prudence plead for guidance from their psychiatrists; both are who are irreverent and completely insane. Bruce attempts to find meaning in life’s madness with Charlotte (Cynthia Darlow), a spacy crackpot who can’t remember simple words, details about her clients, or where she placed important files. Furthermore, she converses with a stuffed snoopy dog and uses it to speak in a doggie voice with Bruce. Darlow is outstanding and her comic timing is impeccable.
Prudence attempts to gain insight with Stuart (Karl Kenzler), but that is a sure fail. Stuart and Prudence were once romantically intertwined and Stuart can’t seem to cut the string. In his twisted mind, the best way to win back his lost love is to force himself on her and belittle her. It makes no sense that anyone tolerates this nonsense. Come to think of it, there is very little here that makes sense in the entire play. But that is the point. Rather than offering a seminar on the meaning of life, Durang suggests that it is all a collision of confusion and chaos, all of which is completely funny.
Under the direction of Scott Alan Evans, TACT once again manages to score a breezy and winning production. It is a complete diversion from the group’s mounting of last fall’s serious and somber Natural Affection, but it is equally as well crafted and entertaining.
Beyond Therapy is now playing off-Broadway through April 19th on Theatre Row, 410 W. 42nd St. between 9th and 10th avenues. For tickets, call (212) 239-6200, visit www.telecharge.com, or go the box office.
Then She Fell: Third Rail’s Immersive Dance Project
Before seeing this show, I had a lot of people tell me it was like “Sleep No More.” I haven’t seen “Sleep No More,” so, that reference really doesn’t do a whole lot for me, though I have a general idea of what an immersive theater project is.
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What the Muppets Most Wanted was Time to Think
2011’s The Muppets came with a big question mark for most fans over whether any post-Henson treatment could be up to snuff. As it stands the movie managed to capture a closely studied and caring revival of the franchise. The creative team behind the movie fought for the old Muppet magic against fan doubts, the financial question of a neglected franchise, and even Frank Oz’s dismissal. Nevertheless the movie not only managed to win the acceptance of fans, but also has managed its first sequel.
Muppets Most Wanted returns The Muppets director James Bobin and co-writer Nicolas Stoller, and switches out the warm and quirky presences of Amy Adams and Jason Segal with slightly sharper-edged comedians Ricky Gervais and Tina Fey. Those are promising indications going into a movie that starts right out with the Muppets’ surprise and slight confusion at the metajoke that they’ve been selected for a sequel, which they sing and dance about being not as good as the original (and also take some time to remind you that many other movies came before). Whereas the Muppets have always been self-aware, this metajoke is also laced with the slight sarcasm of the costar comedians.
Darker hues descend as a froggy criminal mastermind named Constantine (who looks just like Kermit, save for a big mole and sour face) engineers a break-out from a wintery gulag somewhere in Siberia. This intro is madcap and frantic, and from there the movie whisks its way into a meeting between the fleece troupe and Ricky Gervais playing a one “Dominic Badguy” (the latter is pronounced ‘Bahd-gwee,’ though the character may be lying). Dominic offers the Muppets an opportunity to go on a European tour, a trip Kermit is somewhat hesitant about but quickly drowned out by the enthusiasm of his friends.
Before the scene even ends Dominic is revealed to be working for Constantine on a scheme to set the Muppets up for a great heist. Dominic is Constantine’s ‘Number 2’, a status made much of and bluntly by the egomaniacal Constantine. It’s not long before Constantine manages to dispatch Kermit as himself back to the gulag, and wind his way into the troupe under the claim that his strained Russian accent is ‘a cold.’ The Muppets, too excited by the new allowances they have for their acts and the suspiciously sold-out venues on their tour, hardly notice anything is amiss, and the intricate workings of the heist begin.
Now it’s up to Kermit to find a way to escape passed Tina Fey’s gulag security guard with a second comical Russian accent (and a crush on Kermit), while the ever wide-eyed Walter begins to suspect Constantine and his comical Russian accented attempt at a comical Kermit accent, all while the crew is chased down by a strange partnership between Sam the Eagle, the comical American-accented CIA agent, and Jean Pierre Napoleon, the comical French-accented Interpol agent.
Am I going too fast for you? Because this movie goes fast. Jaunty musical numbers cover up demolitions. Strained comical accents talk over each other. And Kermit spends most of the playtime either getting physically yanked and jerked around or yelling in frustration to be heard. After an hour and change, Muppets Most Wanted begins to make you wonder if Bobin and Stoller forgot to add the Muppets’ brand of introspection to this otherwise monotonously bombastic movie.
Luckily the movie eventually finds its way (possibly a little late in the game), and it’s also hilarious. Despite its loudness, Muppets Most Wanted manages to plaster a big dopey grin on your face, and the payoff is that the frenzied antics and comical German, Spanish, Irish, and English accented location jumping eventually lead the gang to realize they should probably stop talking, settle down, and listen to each other once in a while. Eh, form follows function, possibly.
It’s another crowd pleaser. Hopefully, however, the next film will have a lot more breathing room and few less comical accents. And by the way, Frank Oz still thinks it sucks.
Theater Re-Reviewed: “After Midnight”
Honey is drippin’ from the stage of the Brooks Atkinson theater. Since opening in November 2013, After Midnight has been blowin’ the proverbial roof off of the building, mostly in part to the Jazz at Lincoln Center All-Stars, handpicked by jazz genius Wynton Marsalis. A tribute to the legendary Duke Ellington, After Midnight highlights some of his finest arrangements, blended with first rate vocals and dance.
American Idol’s Fantasia Barrino opened the likeable revue (and will incidentally return to the show on May 13th), portraying the role of Special Guest Star. This, as an ode to the Cotton Club tradition, the posh Harlem nightclub where Ellington made his mark. Each week, jazz greats including Judy Garland, Lena Horne, and Bessie Smith would take to the microphone, amidst the glamour and brass accompanying them. The tradition continues here on Broadway. After Fantasia, k.d. Lang stepped into the role, and soon, Vanessa Williams will soak up the spotlight prior to Barrino’s return.
But now, 6 time Grammy award winning Toni Braxton is infusing her own R&B style on the work-and giving new life to already iconic songs. Braxton’s interprets “I Can’t Give You Anything But Love” and “Stormy Weather” with a delicious mix of vulnerability and sass. Her dulcet tones combine her established sound as a pop artist with the flavor of Blossom Dearie. It doesn’t hurt that she can sell both numbers with ultimate grace and sexiness. Braxton makes a dazzling Broadway debut.
Joining her in this juke joint is Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds, a 10 time Grammy award winning artist, who is also appearing on Broadway for the first time. Edmonds replaces television’s Dule Hill as the Host, a role which drives the show through the poetry of Langston Hughes. Edmonds is making a much smaller splash here and appears uncertain of his next line and choreographed move. His tentative delivery pales in comparison to his predecessor’s more self-assured manner.
Most of the original cast remains, as well as members of the best orchestra Broadway has heard in years. Braxton alone is worth the price of admission (she appears only through March 30th) , and the ensemble continues to pour their souls into the footlights. Adriane Lennox’s scene stealing numbers remain my favorite, as well as the trio of beauties (Bryonha Marie Parham, Carmen Ruby Floyd, and Rosena M. Hill Jackson) who melt the house, specifically with “Beyond the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea.”
After Midnight now playing on Broadway at the Brooks Atkinson theatre (256 W. 47th between Broadway and 8th Avenue). Tickets available at the box office, online at www.telecharge.com or by phone at 1-800-745-3000. Toni Braxton and Kenny “Babyface” Edmonds appear through March 30. Vanessa Williams succeeds Braxton beginning April 1- May 11 and Fantasia returns May 13- June 8th