I have seen "Flight of the Conchords" about 6 times now. It is easily one of my favorite shows at this point. The music is just phenomenal. How many episodes are there this season?

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I hope a bunch. I really really dig this show.

Watched FotC last night. I can see why people like it, but I'm not sure I'm going to be able to get into it. I didn't like new wave music (not sure that's even the correct category; anyway, whatever it is) in the 80s, it hasn't grown on me. It's funny, but may not be funny enough.

I didn't like the second FotC as much as the first. But I liked the third JFC more than the second.

I finally saw Idiocracy last night. It had its moments and was celber and well-paced but it was no Office Space.

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Agreed on the JFC opinion 100%.

From a previous thread (I was about a week late)
My wife and I are completely hooked on JFC. We can't seem to get enough even though we don't REALLY know what the heck is going on. I love the fact that the Deadwood spirit and some Deadwood actors are in the mix too. Deadwood was far and away one of the best shows around. As for the dialouge comparison from Deadwood to JFC, there are similarities. I seem to remember an interview with David Milch where he said that the every episode of Deadwood was written in Iambic pentameter. Well JFC doesn't use that same format, it is apparent that some of the characters dialouge
is written in the same style.

I had hoped they would show the interesting culture of sign twirling on FotC. Those guys are nuts.
When did this start? I noticed about 6 months ago but it must have been sooner then that.

JFC continues to grow on me but it still is missing something. The kids legions of friends would have descended upon that house to mourn his accident and the instantaneous text messaging of that world would have told the story. The story as written might have worked 20 years ago but in todays age it just didn't work for me. The central story is still compelling enough for me to keep me coming back so far but there was not enough John/Butchy in episode 3.

Jon, any comments/reviews on the Showtime show "Dexter"? I mentioned something over at Dodger Thoughts earlier today and a few folks that replied all seemed to like it.

9 – I haven't seen Dexter but have heard only good things.

8 – I agree with you about JFC. I think there is something missing, as much as the show may draw you in. I think it's a weird show in that it challenges you to pay attention but at the same time challenges you not to look too carefully at its plot.

I definitely think sign twirlers have reached the zeitgeist.

I liked the second FOTC more than the first. The JFCs by me are ranked in inverse order as well because I'm understanding more of what's going on.

JFC has a very good theme song.

Will there be an open chat thread for the last "Studio 60" episode on Thursday?

11 - Yeah, great opening credits for JFC.

It's a pretty stupid thing to judge a show on, but the HBO shows do have some really impressive opening credit sequences. Ranking them from best to worst:

The Sopranos
The Wire
Carnivale (although I dislike the show itself)
John From Cincinnati
Six Feet Under
Deadwood
Big Love
Entourage
Flight of the Conchords
Curb Your Enthusiasm

The JfC opening credits are fantastic. I'm really liking the show as well. The drug dealer with a heart (?) is a fascinating guy, as are Mitch and Butchie. Not feeling the Luke Perry character. It's just Luke Perry as an opportunist.

The sign holding thing was awesome. I am completely into the show.

Brett, show her how you hold the sign.
I'm just holding it
Exactly

I switched to FotC halfway through my ramblings there. Hope that was clear.

I didn't think the second FotC was as funny as the first, but it still had its moments. The songs weren't as clever and the ex-girlfriend plotline worked better than the job vs. gigs one did. This is definitely a show that I'll give a long leash to, though, considering even a lesser episode will have a few truly hilarious moments.

6 The problem I had with Idiocracy was how over-the-top they went. I get it, people are now dumber in the future, you don't have to fill every second of the movie with another joke showing how dumb they are. Sure, Office Space was over-the-top as well, but it was rooted in an all-too-real environment that most people can relate to.

FotC second episode had weaker songs, but it had a better plot. Replacing Brett with a tape, sign-holding as a career and New Zealand's inferiority complex about Australia were all excellent plotlines. The show is so deadpan some of the time, with the only plot line that I can see getting old is Mel, the weird obsessive fan. Lines like:

"Does that mean I'm not in a band anymore?"
"I'm afraid so. Could we get two tissues in here?"

Entourage is painfully repetitive, but FotC is just so different than anything I have seen before.

18 - "Idiocracy" was scarcely about how dumb everyone was, it was about how dumb everyone is. The movie "Ass" is the endpoint of the culture of "Jackass" and "Flavor of Love", and in general I see a culture of anti-intellectualism in America today. Summer movies are supposed to be stupid, and are unfairly criticized if they have a thought in their heads (Superman Returns). There was a great line in Walter Chaw's review of "Evan Almighty" and "FF2":

"What's troubling is the underlying inference of this philosophy: that people deserve and want entertainment that's beneath them. It's easier by far to condemn the audience as morons, forking over their cash like roughneck flyovers voting for Big Business, but I prefer to look at the situation as a tragedy--a by-product of a generation of fervent anti-intellectualism that's made smart people afraid to question their own judgment."

"Idiocracy" was such an angry movie, a voice of real outrage from someone who has spent a lot of time in the business, that even though it had some problems in the plot and effects, but I just loved it.

I'd like to hijack the open thread portion of today's proceedings to thoroughly praise Live Free or Die Hard. The scene with the plane is a little over the top (okay, a lot). Otherwise, it's a consistently good Die Hard movie. I'm realizing now just how few outright stunt movies get made with all the CGI aliens and stuff.

I saw Superbad tonight. Wow.

Idiocracy was angrier and preachier than it was funny. And the point it hammered, like an autistic carpenter, is alarmist and warmed over. There's always been low culture. Despite warnings from the intelligentsia and the clerical class, it hasn't destroyed the world yet.

I didn't think Idiocracy was particularly angry or preachy. It had a comic premise and pushed it all the way, with some amount of success. There was social commentary in it, but it was hardly a sermon from on high. I seriously doubt that Mike Judge expects his movie to change people's ways, and I'd be surprised if he can't accept that.

22 Good to hear. Until it fails me, I'm going with the mantra that anything that Seth Rogen is involved in will be awesome.

Isn't playing the dystopia card inherently preachy? How do you have a theory of the world becoming rotten that doesn't involve something that you're railing against?

The Corporate America is destroying your brains to sell you garbage thread of the movie wasn't subtle. If it was a joke, it didn't tickle my funny bone.

26 - The Brawno for the plants was a funny send up of corporate greed. The family tree of the selfish smart people versus the idiots killed me conceptually. I thought it was plenty funny, besides which, I hate that any movie with a message is called "preachy." It had a thought or two in its head, I don't think that is a bad thing at all.

I think there's a difference between having a point and being preachy. I didn't feel I was being talked down to.

Speaking of movies with a point, "A Mighty Heart" is completely uninteresting to me. Angelina Jolie could have the talent of Meryl Streep, but it would be impossible to see her as anything but Angelina Jolie, no matter what the role. Put her in a movie like this and it seems like an exploitive and self serving rendition of a tragic story. If/when she is nominated for an Oscar I will be very disappointed, even though I have no desire to see for myself how she is in the movie.

29 - I should add, that I don't dislike her at all as a person and I very much admire her activism and role in the world. Simply put, she is too much of a circus to bring any nuance to a role.

One of the benefits of paying as little attention as is practicable to celebrity news is that Angelina Jolie is associated in my mind exclusively with her part in Girl, Interrupted, which, thankfully, I've more or less forgotten. I think that's the only movie of hers I've seen. I'm dubious about this new one because I don't like the trend; why not tell the Pearl story through the eyes of the protagonist, instead of through his wife's eyes? It stops being about what it was about, and starts being about one woman's struggle against bureaucracy. Which is fine, in general, but would seem to miss the point, here. Like Harrison's Flowers. Or all the movies about Africa where somebody somewhere decided that I couldn't be relied upon to find genocide compelling, so the story is about some pair of white lovers. Because it's a real tragedy when Leo doesn't get the girl.

Back on Idiocracy, it's possible I'm using the hacky "if I don't like the message, then it must be preachy," standard, but I don't think so. I think it's a hazard of building the moral of the story into the premise; every time any character who isn't one of the two leads does or says anything in this movie, it's a reiteration of the point. So, every joke is a pile on. It's why SNL sketches are only three minutes long. Or, you know, however long they are.

31 - The movie is an adaptation of Daniel Pearl's Widow's book. That said, your point about white lovers in Africa is damning. I am so tired of framing every story about Africa through the eyes of some white protagonists journey to understand that it is bad there. The tragedy in Africa isn't that the West doesn't know, it is the failure to do anything about it. "Last King of Scotland" was painful to watch for this reason (we follow the bruised and bloodied white protagonist for an eternity, but the THOUSANDS of massacred blacks are given a brief mention) and I just ignored "Blood Diamond" altogether.

29 - That seems surprisingly prejudicial for you, Benaiah. It's one thing to say that after seeing the movie, but to not give her the chance to convince you - and then say if she is nominated for an Oscar you'll be disappointed - is unfair. It's not as if she's Paris Hilton.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but a colleague raved about it.

33 - Yeah, I know. It is bad, but I hate biopics, and the preview just looks miserable. I can't see getting to it in theaters, maybe I will catch it on DVD. That is usually how it goes with these pics.

A Mighty Heart doesn't seem all that appealing to me in the sense that I already know the outcome will be tragic and that I'll be spoon-fed compassion for his widow. I prefer a movie like Hotel Rwanda where I didn't really know the story behind the whole thing, so I was able to go in fresh and let the events unfold naturally. I'm not saying it won't be a good movie, just not one I'm particularly interested in seeing.

31 I agree with the SNL analogy. The premise was kinda funny for the first 10 minutes they were in the future, but after that it grew thinner and thinner to the point where I was just waiting for the movie to end.

Ice Cubs is doing a film version of Welcome Back Kotter.

And I cringe.

Ice Cube

Ice Cubs would have been cooler.

23. Captured my problems with Idiocracy much better than I could say.
I don't think any movie with a thought or two in its head is necessarily preachy, but the alarmism imbedded in this movie about how stupid people are just drives me crazy. I hate, hate, hate, the laments of the supposedly intelligent people about how stupid people are now, it's the same thing with cranky old people complaining about how schools aren't as good as they used to be. I could not enjoy the movie very much because I found the premise just entirely without merit. The only thing that makes me more angry are those TV snobs who say that the only good TV is on HBO.

38 - The point isn't that people are stupider, it is that culture is stupider. I think that the difference between say the literary culture of the late 1800s and the television culture ("Flavor of Love" for example) is obvious. There is plenty of gradation in between but this seems like an obvious point. Consumer culture and the huge business of entertainment (basically four or five companies produce almost all of the entertainment we enjoy) has led to the lowest common denominator experience in a lot of media. Obviously there are wonderful exceptions, and HBO is a great example, but the most popular stuff is usually the worst and least intelligent.

39. You see, that is exactly what I disagree with. I don't think that the culture is really that much, if at all, that much stupider. The literary culture that we get from history is really the best of the best, have you ever read the dregs of literature from this time, what about the plays, puppet shows and whatnot? Where the Punch & Judy type shows on the street for the common man that much more stupid than Flavor of Love? I really don't think so. It is like Andrew said, there has always been low, disposable, stupid culture. The thing is, that it is so disposable, that it is not kept around or remembered so that all we are left with is the best and thus we think that culture then was only made up of the best.
I also think that your comparison between 1800's literary culture and today's television culture is extremely flawed. Given the fact that large portions of the population were still illiterate even in the late 1800's, the people that were possible market for literary works were disproportionately the better educated and more intelligent as opposed to TV today in which the population as a whole. Your argument really seems to be that culture is only good when it is geared towards the elite and not the masses and that culture was ruined once we allowed regular people access and leisure time.

There are still good writers whose work is widely popular. One of them, if not my favorite, was knighted the other day. Any era that can boast Martin Amis and John Updike, plus Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, and, I'd argue, John Irving hasn't got too much to apologize for. And, though it probably betrays a fault of mine, I find much of the best regarded literature from the 19th century really awful. Lots of the poetry was good, and I won't say a word against Austen or Twain, but I knew I'd had enough Hardy after the first ten pages.

If the movie had been about how there won't be any poetry worth paying attention to in the future, that might have raised the hair on my neck. There are still really good jazz musicians, who don't play nonsense and call it jazz. The same is probably true of poets, but I couldn't name three living poets whose work means much to me.

41 - Poetry has no popular audience anymore, so the significant poetry is a masturbatory exercise where only other poets and academics are even give a chance to read a lot new work. If anything this points back to how intellectually bankrupt our culture is.

By the way Andrew, the late 1800s also featured the great Russians and Proust, though I haven't read any of his stuff.

Don't say that! There's still an audience. It's not the same as it was, but the Atlantic Monthly, and the New Yorker, and the Economist still run poems, in addition to the usual suspects. I sometimes wish they'd stop trying to find new ones, and just publish good ones, to remind people that poetry is good. But it's not dead. It's only resting.

I never think of Proust as 19th century. I guess he was born before it, but the big stuff came after the turn of the century. The Russians I'll plead guilty to omitting, with the caveat that I haven't read nearly enough to get away with pretending to have a legitimate opinion. One lousy high school English teacher can do great violence to a young man's taste; I hope to recover some day, but I'm not ready to have a second go at them, yet. My list wasn't exhaustive (I liked Moby Dick very much), but, anyway.

43 - I am a big Tolstoy fan, but I haven't read much Dostoevsky or Chekhov. Beyond that, I am not saying that the late 1800s were the pinnacle of culture, just that they blow the early 00s out of the water. And I think the 00s aren't bad compared to the 90s and 80s.

An academic I have met, who is borderline crazy in his paleo-conservativism, told me that he believes that education has collapsed in this country. What a person has to learn to graduate from high school is nothing compared to the first half of the century when Latin was a requirement for example. I don't necessarily agree with him (about anything) but I thought it was an interesting idea.

44. That second paragraph is what I was trying to point out in my response as the terrible attitudes towards our time. Yes, current high school graduates do not learn latin, but they know much more science that most college graduates knew at that time. They also know much more about cultures outside of Europe than they did as well as well as understanding of so many different parts of history. The scope of knowledge is just so different as to what people need to know now that what they knew then that these comparisons are just stupid. Would your average high school graduate not pass those exams from the turn of the century that you sometimes see in the paper. Probably, but just as likely students then would not be able to pass the exams of today. Why is the fact that our culture emphasizes different things mean that it is bankrupt? Would "One Hundred Years of Solitude" have even been available for a high schooler to read at the turn of the century?

In the first half of the century, an absolute majority of kids didn't graduate from the eighth grade. Something like three quarters, now, graduate from high school. The method of picking which kids got more school wasn't so efficient that it can be said that the new graduates represent growth only at the bottom of the pool, but it wasn't completely haphazard. Anyway, a bigger pool usually means some degradation of standards; for example, baseball expansion means that Mark Hendrickson gets paid money to pitch. There are a lot of reasons to oppose this in baseball, but not nearly so many in primary education. Although, when the revolution comes, if I get to be in charge, you can bet I'll be throwing significantly more hoodlums out of school. The world needs ditch-diggers, too.

Also, since women weren't allowed the career options they are now (as, of course, they ought always to have had every right to), there was a functional subsidy for women to teach school. There may be some aspects to teaching that don't correlate with the sorts of competencies associated with achievement in other fields, but, it seems reasonable to guess that picking teachers off the top of the pool of women interested in having careers yields better teachers than forcing education to compete with every other field for workers.

There should also be some kind of shout out to the text book cartel, even if their effect on education levels is minor, which it probably is. Once text books stopped being picked by people making good faith efforts to pick the best ones, and started being picked by having publishing companies buy off the people in charge of the picking, I suspect they got worse. There was probably never a time when text books were good (and Ch-ispeed the day when they just vanish altogether), but it seems plausible that when quality stopped mattering, they got worse.

"some aspects to teaching that don't correlate with the sorts of competencies associated with achievement in other fields"

Wow. Sorry about that. Smarter people probably make better teachers. Reading back through some of my comments in this thread, I seem to have let my snobbiness get the better of me more often than can be becoming. I blame Benaiah! Sure, I'll defend the proles and their so called culture, but I'm not one of them! I'm one of the good ones!

Now that is what I call a dialog. Being part of the ignorant masses I can only partake from a distance.

47 - Ha. I think Socrates (or was it Aristotle) pointed out that we all think we are one of the good ones.

I am sitting on my couch watching "The Inferno 3" which is my guiltiest pleasure show, so I drink deep from the well of intellectually bankrupt culture. Even if I reap the meager benefits of having so many stupid people around I can't help but have no faith in the intelligence of the average individuals. I meet too many idiots and too few people who really excite me to think otherwise. I am willing to admit that survival of the fittest might be why the culture of the past seems vastly superior to the culture of the present, but the prevalences of literature as a medium versus television today still seemingly gives the past a leg up.

Linking is not an endorsement (some dirty words; click at your own peril):

http://tinyurl.com/2egg6k

I saw Arj Barker do stand-up this weekend (he plays Dave on Flight of the Conchords). He was pretty good.

Goodness. I missed quite an exciting conversation. I especially enjoyed the discussion regarding high culture. Considering the majority of Enlightenment era people were illiterate and fending for food, and that this decade has brought the greatest propagation of information sharing and communication in human history...Well...Needless to say, things are a little bit better.

It's not as though French peasants were reading the philosophes, or Russian peasants were analyzing the works of Tolstoy. The pessimist in me should lament the decline of high culture. The realist in me understands that this is simply not the case.

Anyway...I though this week's JfC was weak.

Best episode of FOTC though.

I would just like to add that I re-read this entire thread, and the people that lament the death of intellectualism are, to be honest, insane.

Flight of the Conchords is amazing, it is my missionary show at this point. I tell everyone how good it is in hopes of sparking some new interest.

Oh, and Greg, I believe that and I might be wrong, but not insane. At least not for believing that there is an feeling of anti-intellectualism in the present U.S.

55 - I should also mention that I have personally encountered anti-intellectuals who derisively called me an "intellectual" and pointed out where I went to school as some black mark on my character. There are plenty of people in America who hate high culture, dismiss art and vote for... RULE 5 VIOLATION... That people like that exist is indisputable, my contention is that they are prevalent or even the majority, you disagree. Mine is a pessimistic and snobby belief, but it isn't irrational.

Of course there is anti-intellectualism in the US. There has actually been a strong under-current of anti-intellectualism throughout the history of the country. Pretty much every country has a decent proportion of its population that is anti-intellectual. Look at the Le Pen supporters in France and other far-right movements in Europe.

55 I apologize.

55 My comment was more out of frustration and a knee-jerk reaction. Poor form on my part. It just seems as though, to me, it has become very hip to broad brush Americans as dumb. They are not. Of course, there is a sizeable portion of the populous that aren't very well informed, or seems detached. Where is this not the case?

Industry, medicine, scientific research, literature...We've done pretty well for ourselves.

Just to top it off, I realize that I fail at subject-verb agreement.

59 - It isn't even that I think most Americans are dumb, I think they are willfully ignorant and unwilling to challenge themselves. Not to break out the overused "unexamined life is not worth living", but I feel like the average person is sleep walking through life. Maybe I am just pointing out the splinter in everyone else's eye to avoid the log (get off the internet and do something!) jutting out of my own, but I am American enough to take the easy way out.

61. But that is the case everywhere and everytime. I don't know if you are idealizing some culture or place in time when you believe that most people went through life constantly trying to challenge and improve themselves, but pick any country with a reasonably large population or any period of time in human history and I'd be willing to argue that at least 60-70% of the people were sleepwalking through life.

"I'm here on orders from my bird."

now let's talk John from Cincy.....

It took my until episode 3 to come around, but I am firmly behind JfC at this point. The show has such phenomenal potential, it could be about the second coming or an alien invasion. Who knows? The dialogue is a little tough on the ears at first, but after a few episodes it starts to get stuck in your head. I would expect no less from David Milch, but I am going to be disappointed if he doesn't get a few seasons to do whatever he wants to do.

53 I can't wait to get back to the states to see the episode. FotC is one of those shows that's pretty funny while you're watching, but certain parts just stick with you for days after you've seen them and make you chuckle every time you think about them. Subtle humor can be crazy like that.

John from Cincinnati is my favorite show now. I have no idea where it's going, but I'm enjoying the ride. At this point, I'd watch a clown show if Milch wrote it.