Tag Archives: TV

The Maturation of Jimmy Fallon

Posted on by
Reply

Until relatively recently, whenever I thought of this guy here, Jimmy Fallon, I thought of the weakest link I’d ever seen in a Saturday Night Live cast.

Having been a fan of the show since the beginning, when it breathed irreverent, raw, experimental, hilarious new life into American television, introducing comedy legends like Chevy Chase, John Belushi, Dan Aykroyd, and Bill Murray, I admit that I have high standards.

But Fallon? It seemed that every time I watched the show he was in at least one if not several skits that he could barely get through, cracking up like a high school kid stumbling through his first theater production. Granted, he had to share the stage with some incredibly funny people, people I’d imagine it would be very difficult keep a straight face around, difficult if not impossible for me for sure, but I’m not getting paid the big bucks to be on a prestigious franchise series like SNL.

And so, when Jimmy Fallon took over as the new Late Night host in 2009, filling shoes once filled by David Letterman and Conan O’Brien, I actually couldn’t believe it, much less envision him as a success. How could this weak link in an ensemble cast actually helm his own show?

But then, because Late Night continues to attract guests that I’m interested in seeing, I started watching clips every now and then, and…

…slowly but surely, it became clear to me that Jimmy Fallon had grown up, he’d become a mature television personality. As a talk show host, he proved a surprisingly good conversationalist. Many of his guests are people he obviously admires tremendously, and yet he avoids getting star struck or slipping into cheesy hero worship.

By the time I saw his stunning Neil Young impersonation, singing the The Fresh Prince of Bel Air theme song, all of my doubts about his talent were swept away, and when yesterday I watched him as Jim Morrison, singing the theme to the PBS children’s series Reading Rainbow, I realized that Jimmy’s greatest strength is how much of a product of pop culture he is.

While he’s actually 10 years my junior, his references to TV shows like The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and Reading Rainbow register immediately with me, and his juxtaposition of those shows with classic rock icons is just brilliant comedy.

You can keep your HD & 3D! Give me my 2D, please.

Posted on by
2

This post has been a long time coming.

Short Version
Though many, if not most, technophiles will react with shock and disapproval when I say this: I really prefer old school 2D TV and movies over high-definition (HD) and 3-D.

Less-short Version
Ever since I saw my first 3D movie, some IMAX thing or another, I thought it was an OK novelty. But, the earth didn’t move, I didn’t care for having to wear uncomfortable, supposedly but not really one-size-fits-all eyewear, and I didn’t leave thinking that it would be a boring step backwards to go home and watch my old analog TV or see my next normal movie wherever and whenever that might be. Years later, watching James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar, despite admittedly more comfortable eyewear and the latest, greatest 3D technology, I had largely the same experience.

Impressive and fun, but nothing I couldn’t live without.

On the TV side of things, the experience wasn’t that different.

After 40 years of watching analog, low-definition television, of course the giant flat panel TVs that are now all the rage looked at first like a huge improvement in viewing pleasure.

And yet, when I finally pulled the trigger, brought home my first HDTV, and watched my first HD movie, I was really disappointed. It and other movies I watched later — from action flicks with tons of special effects to romantic comedies — looked too real to me.

Why is that a problem?

Well, I don’t know about you, but most of the time I turn to movies for a break from reality, and throughout my life I’ve been able to do so watching old school, low-definition 2D. The real art of filmmaking, it always seemed to me, was the ability to transport the viewer to another time or place, no matter how outlandish, using skill more so than technology, the latter a simple tool that, without its operator, could not make the magic happen.

For me, the two-dimensionality of the big screen, or even the not-so-big screen, is a big part of what differentiates the movie experience from my day-to-day reality. The fact that I can’t just walk up and step into the movie means that this alternate reality is enticingly out of reach.

In addition, to my eyes, the subtlety of the cinematographer’s art — the composition of a scene, the lighting, camera angles, motions, and exposures, those elements that create ambiance and mood — is sabotaged by HD, diminished by it. And the inherent graininess in the picture quality of the old technologies is part of the overall illusion.

I suppose none of this will be a surprise to anyone who has read my occasional paeans to low-fi vinyl records — e.g. Nostalgia: Vinyl Records Edition, Vinyl Update. Along with my grainy low-def, 2D movies, give me the hiss and the pops of a gently used vinyl record spinning on a record player any day.

Please.

Star Trek Freaks Me Out With iPhone Scene

Posted on by
4

So, I just came through a few days of self-imposed bed rest in order to fight off one of the many bugs going around, a fight, I’m happy to report, that I won, and for kicks during my non-sleeping hours, thanks to Netflix streaming, I went back in time and watched some Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes.

And there I was, watching Season 3, Episode 8, and in one scene Commander William Riker is sitting alone at a table in Ten Forward, the Starship Enterprise bar and lounge, he’s sipping on a shot of the hard stuff, and he’s staring down at a tiny device on the table, poking at it with his finger, reading and stroking his beard, and…

…it just utterly freaked me out, because that’s exactly what I look like everyday at lunch, only I’m assuming the same posture, making the same motions, totally absorbed by technology in a room full of other people, using the latest iteration of a device that was first sold in 2007, 18 years after that Star Trek scene was broadcast.

Like the iPhone itself, the theme of this post is hardly original. Just Google “Star Trek + Apple” and you’ll see. Rather, this is merely how I experienced this topic.

Summary: Not long after the iPad came out, Trekkies and Apple Haters posted YouTube clips from Star Trek episodes showing crew members and other characters using tablet devices, like this one:

 

Now, that scene came just three episodes before the scene I mention above, I also watched it during my convalescence, but I didn’t react to it nearly the same way only because I don’t own an iPad.

Anyway, along with the clips were articles and blog posts making the claim that Apple simply stole the idea for the iPad from Star Trek. But then someone went back a further 20 years in time and discovered that the iPad was first brought to life by Stanley Kubrick in his 1969 classic 2001: A Space Odyssey:

 

The latter got considerable attention, when Samsung, who was trying to bring their own tablet to market, but were being blocked by Apple who claimed they got there first, sited that scene from 2001 as proof that Apple stole the iPad design from Kubrick and had no right to claim it was their original idea.

While the late Steve Jobs was no doubt a visionary, his company’s considerable accomplishments were less about inventing than about bringing long-envisioned dreams to life, as Jonny Evans at ComputerWorld points out:

With its claim that the iPad looks like the tablets used in “2001: A Space Odyssey”, Samsung has conceded that Apple is transforming science fiction into science fact…

After all, it’s one thing to make a prop for a movie or a TV show, and it’s another thing entirely to make a working device, and I can’t recommend highly enough a great Ars Technica piece from a year ago that traces the history of the original Star Trek designs, including a discussion with the designers themselves, who talk about the gadgets in relation to the iPhone and iPad.

Video Fridays: Monty Python

Posted on by
1

It’s been an unusually weighty week here at Fish & Bicycles, what with all the talk about politics, economic inequality, and the environment, so I thought I’d lighten things up a bit, with something completely different.

I haven’t posted a Monty Python clip for Video Fridays since April 2010, so it’s about time, isn’t it?

Of course, picking a particular video from the many available on YouTube takes some time and focus, but it was a sacrifice I was prepared to make, and I settled on a sketch that I thought was rather fitting, given there was a bit of disagreement in the comments on my post from Wednesday.

So, here it is, the famous argument sketch, in all its glory!

Tweet of the Day: @TheAtlantic

Posted on by
Reply

So, I’m 47, but I remember when our family got our first color TV.

I’m no math wizard, but the data seem to suggest I come from a long line of late adopters.

Video Fridays: Walk on the Wild Side

Posted on by
2

Ok, so maybe every single person with an interwebs connection has seen one or more clips from the BBC show Walk on the Wild Side already, but I personally can’t stop watching them.

I’ve always had a serious preference for British humor, so much so that I tend to consider Monty Python to be in a class all by itself, above and beyond anything else I’ve seen. And, there are certainly generous helpings of Pythonesque surrealism and absurdism at play in these voiceovers.

Something I didn’t know is that a total of 14 30-minute episodes of Walk on the Wild Side were produced, which explains why there are literally thousands of clips available on YouTube, offering hours of procrastinating fun!

Still, the first compilation I ever saw remains my favorite.

Happy Weekend, everyone!