In Which We Are Hung From The Heavens

The Man In Me

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Cool, handsome, and very well endowed. This is how Kenny Powers sees himself. Hung's Ray Drecker is not so self-assured, although he shares some strong similarities with Kenny, including employment as a high school gym teacher. Yes it's hard to be a big swinging dick in a castrating emasculating modern world.

After the non-stop bodice ripping romance novel that is True Blood, it's interesting that Hung cares so little about titillating the audience. The women in Hung are horny harpies sure, but they are complicated characters first. For a show named after the lead character's penis, it's so far been considerably chaste. There's nudity and sex to be sure, but nowhere near the amount of gratuitous boobs in Bon Temps.

On the commentary track for Boogie Nights, P.T. Anderson blisses out discussing Thomas Jane's performance as Todd Parker in the pivotal drug deal scene. A small incredible performance in a movie full of incredible small performances, Jane comes in and makes you believe that he could easily talk anyone into anything. Hung's Ray is not much of a talker, and even less of a doer, and it's here that the great actress Jane Adams comes into play. 

All of the praying I do in my coven with Lauren Bans has paid off, and there's finally a show about a really hot guy and an average looking smarter woman. Considering that the opposite has been the norm across media forever it's nice to see it flipped. Jane Adams goes far beyond caricature and makes her character Tanya a believably neurotic temp with an MFA who would consider dating Kenny Bania. She gives me flashbacks to writing workshops.

And although Hung bears similarities to many other cable shows, the chemistry between Jane and Adams turns it into something new, a buddy sitcom crossed with a serious hourlong drama. Alexander Payne directed the pilot, and his penchant for setting scenes in the parking lots of big box stores fits perfectly here. Anne Heche is believably nuts as Ray's beauty queen ex-wife. The two weirdest looking kids I've ever seen are cast as their offspring and styled to look like "midwest starter alts".

Did I mention that Thomas Jane is incredibly hot? I really can't emphasize that aspect enough. Yes, women are as stupid as men when it comes to sex, and just as easily led by beauty. Maybe Hung will inspire some copycat hot male hookers the way Fight Club inspired all those fight clubs. Plenty of women could use a Happiness Consultant. It can only be good for society. He just wants his goddamn kids back. 

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here and twitters here.

"Molly's Chambers" — Kings of Leon (mp3)

"Soft" — Kings of Leon (mp3)

"Taper Jean Girl" — Kings of Leon (mp3)

In Which Cassandra's Dream Is The Name Of The Boat

The Real Thrill? Almost Losing

by MOLLY LAMBERT

It was Woody Allen who supposedly said "99% of life is showing up." Only nobody can ever remember what the percent is, I think it's actually 80%. And people almost always fuck up when quoting jokes that are not their own. Anyway I failed 80 to 99 percent of Woody Allen week by not showing up. I was waiting to see Whatever Works, but then Will reviewed it so I decided to watch Cassandra's Dream. Whatever works!

Comedy often comes out of a place of discomfort and frustration. Punchlines develop out from awkward truths. Rodney Dangerfield's catch phrase "I can't get no respect" is funny because sure, in a world that worships alpha males, Clint Eastwoods and Don Drapers, how is your average Rodney Dangerfield type schmuck supposed to catch a break? By being funny, of course. By mocking themselves before you get the chance, thereby setting themselves up as harmless, amicable, and clued-in.

Colin Farrell: "I think I did as many takes for this whole film as I did for one scene in Miami Vice" OOH MICHAEL MANN, YA BURNT!

The problem is that most of these dudes are still not that comfortable being themselves. Having won admiration through the alternate route of humor, they still long to be tall, handsome, and taken seriously. Perhaps Woody wishes he'd been blessed with the natural directing talent of somebody like Hitchcock, or that he'd been born with the good looks of Ewan McGregor or Colin Farrell.

"Oi Colin, look here" "Wot?" "I love you" "Wot?" "Nuffin."

Woody writes lower class UK characters like he's doing British Kitchen Sink film fan fiction. Which to be fair is exactly how I would write lower class UK characters. I believe the brothers are supposed to be Cockney, but Colin Farrell's clearly Irish accent slips out a lot. As a crime thriller, it's suspenseful enough, if not necessarily all that believable. As many of our reviewers noted, Woody's movies have never exactly taken place on a plane of realism. Why start now?

Some Things Woody Allen Loves

drives out to the country for a picnic

illicit sex during a party

chance encounters

climactic rainstorms

Scarlett Joho's bobolobos

adultery

mocking the craft of acting

small talk

murder

freshman psych

beautiful women

philosophy 101 bull sessions

In England Woody can more readily address the class issues that bubble up underneath America, which is otherwise mythologized as a meritocracy. Uncle Howard is the classic "wealthy relation" of fiction. The British discussion of class relations has always been public. In the fifties the discussion of "U and non-U" speech patterns, led by Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh, newly compounded traditional British class consciousness.

Woody is obsessed with rich people, but his obsession is still one of petty jealousy mixed with hostile admiration. (You may have noticed this implicit worship of the wealthy in its trickledown to nineties indie scene auteurs like Noah Baumbach, Whit Stillman, and Wes Anderson).

Ian: Would you sleep with a director to get a part?
Angela: Well, that depends on the part, and who the director is, and how much I'd had to drink.
Ian: It's not a very comforting answer.
Angela: I didn't like the question.

Mostly Cassandra's Dream movie looks beautiful. Woody's recent European movies glow like the best soft-core porn ever made. There is a general haze of eroticism in this film too, as pervaded Match Point and Vicky Christina Barcelona. It's as if Woody, freed from the self-imposed constraint of making art about himself, becomes an entirely different filmmaker while speculating about the lives of beautiful people.

And it was really much better than I expected, perhaps because I expected so little. Colin Farrell really won me over with his role. I finally get his lunkhead shtick. Ewan McGregor was good too (is he ever not good?) and Tom Wilkinson gives a great menacing performance. Philip Glass's score is fantastic and there's nary a victrola needle to be heard. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She twitters here, and she tumbls here.

Woody Allen Week

by THIS RECORDING

Emily Gould on Manhattan...

Joan Didion and Woody Allen bickered like little keeds...

Karina Wolf welcomed us to the man we call Woody. That's him on the left.

Eleanor Morrow took on Melinda and Melinda:

Before Tyler I feel like we didn't really understand Annie Hall...

Sarah LaBrie handled the intricacies of Match Point...

The multi-talented Yvonne Puig on Crimes and Misdemeanors...

Molly went over a bunch of sequel talk...

Julie Klausner on Hannah and Her Sisters...

Chad Perman on Husbands and Wives...

Pauline Kael on Interiors...

Alex Carnevale on Mighty Aphrodite...

Woody Allen on his Jewish heritage...

Ben Arfmann on Radio Days...

Richard Corliss interviewed Woody in Time...

Marco Sparks on Manhattan Murder Mystery...

Jacob Sugarman on Broadway Danny Rose...

Georgia Hardstark on Hannah and Her Sisters...

You can visit the This Recording tumblr here, and the This Recording twitter here.

"Birds (live in Vienna)" - Sophia (mp3)

"Where Are You Now? (live in Vienna)" - Sophia (mp3)

"So Slow (live in Vienna)" - Sophia (mp3) highly recommended

In Which We Are Proto Liz Lemons

You Can Have A Town, Why Don't You Take It

by MOLLY LAMBERT

Proto-Liz Lemon Selma Diamond wrote for Groucho Marx, Ms. Tallulah Bankhead, and Your Show Of Shows. Some of her peers didn't take her seriously on account of her gender and diminutive size. We have no idea what that's like.

A ravishing beauty in her youth, Ms. Bankhead was well known for being a totally awesome slut who fucked everybody.

Carl Reiner based his (proto-Curb Your Enthusiasm) sitcom The Dick Van Dyke Show on his experiences working as a writer on Your Show Of Shows. Selma Diamond was reputedly the inspiration for the indelible character of Sally Rogers, as portrayed by Rose Marie.

Rob Petrie (Dick Van Dyke) and Sally Rogers (Rose Marie) were writers working for The Alan Brady Show, and Carl Reiner played Alan Brady. Brady was based on Reiner's former boss at Your Show Of Shows, Sid Caesar. Rob's wife was Laura Petrie, played by then unknown Mary Tyler Moore.

Later, when Mary starred on the groundbreaking Mary Tyler Moore Show, her single woman character was originally a divorcée, but the suits at the network feared viewers might think that Mary had divorced Rob Petrie. It became a broken engagement instead, her ex-fiance Bill played by Angus Duncan.

Test audiences for MTM's pilot HATED the Rhoda character. She was seen as too "pushy", too "loud", too "Jewish", and worst of all "mean to Mary". Apparently the writers got around it by having Phyllis complain about Rhoda, and her daughter Bess defending her.

Layout of Mary Richards' Apartment

One thing I really love about TV is how you can accumulate so much breadth of knowledge about characters. It approximates knowing a person in real life. It's more like serialized novels than movies.

Valerie Harper, not even a little bit Jewish in real life. She's a Catholic from Oregon! Nevertheless, she is Golda Meir.

The MTM Show was ended while the ratings were still high, because the staff didn't want to risk diluting the quality with further seasons.

This is a great formula that more shows should follow. I think Arrested Development was great, but by the end of the third season I didn't see where else it could go. I think it finished at the right time.

As much as I would have loved a second season of Freaks And Geeks or My So Called Life, I think that having one perfect season is preferable to say, six or seven progressively more mediocre ones. On the other hand, some shows get better with age. Friends didn't hit its stride until very late, and I like the weirder seasons of Seinfeld.

Head Betches In Charge: Rhoda, Mary, & Phyllis

I'm a big fan of the British system, where shows will do only a few series and then copious specials. It stops people from flogging dead horses (there are a finite number of dramatic situations in any environment) and creates demand for their next projects.

It also allows room for comedy that is more ridiculous and absurd, and for characters that have no real depth or redemptive qualities. I can't believe they produce such awesomely weird things like Garth Marenghi's Darkplace and Nighty Night over there and it airs on BBC Two or Channel Four.

I didn't realize until now that Dick Lemon (father of Liz) was (legendary screenwriter) Buck Henry! It's not a Lemon party without Old Dick!

LOU: Divorced?
MARY: No.
LOU: Never married!
MARY: No.
LOU: Why?
MARY: Why?
LOU: Do you type?
MARY: Mr. Grant, there's no simple answer to that question!
LOU: Yes there is! How 'bout 'no I can't type' or 'yes I can'?
MARY: There's no simple answer to why a person isn't married.
LOU: How many reasons can there be?
MARY: 65.
LOU: Words per minute. My typing question!!
MARY: Yes.
LOU: Look miss! Would you try answering the questions as I ask them?

Molly Lambert is the managing editor of This Recording. She tumbls here.

"A Man Needs A Woman or A Man To Be A Man" - Bill Callahan (mp3)

"Night" - Bill Callahan (mp3)

"Day" - Bill Callahan (mp3)