Smash: "The Callback" and "Enter Joe DiMaggio"

"Let's make ourselves a Marilyn"Since so many of you seemed to be watching Smash judging on response to the pilot episode, and since its a fictional show about a possibly real musical about a very real departed movie star, I thought I'd write it up weekly. But Oscar is a needy lover and hogged all my time. Now there are so many episodes to discuss! To get caught up we'll do two doubles, so here's the first of them. 

1.2 "The Callback" 
In the second episode, we were both thrilled and shocked to find that they didn't drag out the "who will they cast as Marilyn Monroe?" drama for weeks on end. Though obviously they could and will revisit it since we're a long way from opening night. Both girls, Ivy (Megan Hilty) and Karen (Katharine McPhee) endured torturous waiting and callbacks while the power players made up their mind. Ivy it was. The best sign that the show is serious about being an actual show about the business of Broadway theater rather than a show about whatever the hell it feels like being about in any given scene (Glee... sigh) was that we actually see Julia and Tom (Debra Messing and Christian Borle) toiling away at work wondering about structure and characters and arguing about song order and even the process itself. You can't just write a musical by stringing songs together.  The worst sign for the freshman show is the insistence on Julia's adoption subplot. Isn't birthing a brand new musical enough parenting?

Jack: It's a big risk
Eileen: Nothing's Bigger Than Broadway!
Jack: I'm aware.  

Set List: Blondie's "Call Me" (McPhee), "Let Me Be Your Star" (McPhee/Hilty), "20th Century Fox Mambo (McPhee), Carrie Underwood's "Crazy Dreams" (Hilty)
Pop Culture and Movie References: vampire craze, Clash By Night, Monkey Business
Best Moment: Ivy practicing her Monroeisms "thank you ever so" 
Anjelica Awesomeness: Huston's condescension towards her ex's new blonde plaything "We've met" / "I don't think so" / [mocking her with squeaky bimbo voice] "I doooo"
Gay Gay Gay "Nothing's bigger than Broadway!" 
Curtain Call: Megan Hilty does a stunning cabaret rendition of "Crazy Dreams" to close the episode.

1.3 "Enter Joe DiMaggio"
In the third episode Karen gets invited to participate in the workshops as part of the chorus and she takes a trip home to Iowa for a babyshower. Things get more complicated when Michael (Will Chase), a rising actor, signs on as Joe DiMaggio and Tom's assistant Ellis starts feeling proprietary about the musical (his casual comment in the pilot sparked the whole thing) and steals Julia's notebook. The best thing about both of these developments is that they make Julia (Debra Messing) way more interesting as a character because she has such irrationally strong reactions to both, one being an ex-lover the other being someone she just bristles at instinctually. In fact, Messing really steps up in this episode making her own case for an Emmy run. (Julia is a surprisingly thorny and multi-faceted character by episode 3. Not at all what we were expecting after the pilot.) Emmys for everyone!

Megan Hilty as Ivy Lynn as Marilyn & Will Chase as Michael Swift asJoe DiMaggio

We're noone you've ever seen
Movie stars don't live anywhere here
Except on the local drive-in screen ♬ " 

Set List: Bruno Mars "Grenade" (Chase), Gretchen Wilson's "Red Neck Woman" (McPhee) "Mr and Mrs Smith" 
Pop Culture and Movie References: Gone With the Wind, The Seven Year Itch, My Fair Lady, Sinatra, Siegfried & Roy
Best Moment: Julia's intense jarring switch from painful confession to Tom to bitchy showdown with Ellis
Anjelica Awesomeness: Huston's Eileen Rand is really a marvel of a character creation. She has Huston's usual dragon lady severity but there are so many exquisite playful beats that the character feels unpredictable even when she's working a repetitive "bit" like throwing drinks in her ex-husband's face. Their dinner scene together is filled with weirdly flirtatious hostility, giving off the distinct impression that they once had great sex but always enjoyed pissing the other off. "You have exquisite taste. When you weren't cheating on me it was one of the things I really enjoyed about you." 
Curtain Call: "Mr and Mrs Smith"... I'm more and more convinced that this needs to be an actual musical on Broadway. Can this series be about a different new musical every season and put it on Broadway directly afterwards? I mean... many new musicals don't have songs as uniformly strong as the ones this show is cranking out.

LATER THIS WEEK... we'll discuss "The Cost of Art" and tonight's episode "Let's Be Bad". If you're not watching, start. Good show. You can get caught up on Hulu or iTunes. 

Smash 1.1 "Pilot"

NBC's new musical drama "Smash", a behind the scenes showbiz drama about Broadway musical theater and our enduring Marilyn Monroe obsession, premieres tonight. If pilot quality and series promise equal ratings, the show will make good on its title. The internet has had a good laugh about its relentless ad campaign and the absurd "Introducing... Katharine McPhee" angle (American Idol being underground experimental television that only 5 people have ever seen, don'cha know) but the show is smartly written enough to use McPhee's familiarity as an opening gambit to throw you into an unfamiliar world.

Reintroducing... McPhee's "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" is long since the most oversung song in the popular canon and a song McPhee was already known for from her original introduction years ago.  But this cozy dreamy showtune reverie is interrupted by a cel phone, snapping us back to plainclothes everyday New York where McPhee's "Karen" is auditioning for god knows what. The casting director is decidedly unmoved and takes the call. 

Dreamy musical outbursts screeching to a halt for reality-check comic purposes is as familiar a cliché as Somewhere Over the Rainbow but "Smash", as it turns out, isn't actually going to coddle us. Continued after the jump.

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50/50

Joining the very slim ranks of Cancer Comedies, 50/50 must surely number among the best of them. The film begins with a long shot of 27 year-old Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) jogging. It's unclear why the film begins this way (we never see him exercise again) but it's telling. Adam is about to embark on a sweaty exhausting journey with no set destination and it takes him awhile to come into focus.

As protagonists go, Adam is a passive blurry character. He lets his loud friend Kyle (Seth Rogen) control their friendship. Even though he's only just given her a dresser drawer, his girlfriend Rachael (Bryce Dallas Howard) is calling all the relationship shots - including no blow jobs which infuriates Kyle on Adam's behalf. Adam seems content to sit back and take whatever life does or doesn't offer him. Enter: Cancer...

...read the full review at Towleroad

P.S. Are you visiting JGL in the hospital this weekend or do you have other movie plans?

P.P.S. I didn't spend much time on her in the review but Anjelica Huston is just a marvel in her very brief role (2 ½ scenes?). She's had plenty of (unfortunate) time now to hone her skills at delivering full characterizations in mere moments. She gets two of the biggest laughs in the movie but it doesn't end with comedy. She's fierce and touching, too. Brava.

Small Screen Season

Nathaniel. Home again from a relaxing weekend offline. My last for the next six months as it's all prestige movies and Oscar hoopla from now until March.

I've had a lot of fun writing up True Blood during the summer (finale writeup tomorrow). I have no intention of turning the blog into The TV Experience but a little variety never hurt anyone and I might add a briefer small screen column -- possibly with guest bloggers on occasion-- or maybe just continue with the odd "TV at the Movies" episode. I'm cancelling HBO when True Blood ends. Why? Budget reasons and a clear lack of interest in their slate of original programs. I never thought I'd say the latter but it's too man-centric for me now, as if their entire programming directive is "get me more Sopranos / Entourages ... literally. put them in period garb or relocate the action. whatever". I miss the Sex & The City / Six Feet Under / Sopranos days when the network felt more equal opportunity thrilling and more original ... as if their goal was to corner every market that was demanding quality television. The point: I have a lot of DVR openings now given cancellations, loss of interest in longrunning shows, delays, etcetera... so I may take a deeper looker (offline) at the new season offerings -- which basically start tomorrow with RINGER -- than I normally do.

Christian Borle, Debra Messing and Anjelica Huston in SMASH (2012)

The new show I'm most interested in is Smash, the first television series (to my knowledge) that's ever used Broadway musicals as its topic. In one of those daydream fantasies where one imagines oneself a tv creator this is always the topic I dreamed up for MY series that I would direct and produce (fantasizing remember... I do neither of those things). I imagined just such a show so many times. I wish they had gone with Broadway musical stars in the major roles (it'll be weird that Glee uses more of them given the respective topics) but Katharine McPhee (from American Idol) has a good voice and I'm intrigued to see how Oscar winner Anjelica Huston will fare in the key supporting role -- can she finally win the Emmy that's eluded her for the past 22 years despite frequent nominations?

But Smash doesn't premiere until 2012 so here are some shows I'm considering sampling -- which usually means just the first episode unless it's very intriguing --  primarily chosen for topics or actresses I like. As I do. 

CLICK AHEAD FOR THE LIST AND READER POLLING -- I'm curious about your watching habits from none to too much.

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