Emmy Wish List 2012

I got to wax poetic about Enlightened some more for a top 10 most wanted Emmy nominations list for Indiewire. Also Eden Sher, Adam Driver, Kathryn Hahn, and more, so check it out.

The Newsroom: Chattering class speaker

Watching an Aaron Sorkin show is like having a waiter tell you with a straight face there are no bathrooms at this restaurant before finally curling into a smile. Yep, you got me, now can I go pee? The Newsroom represents a fantasy, how a news organization could operate under an ideal confluence of contacts, research, and trust. But after that opening tirade, where Jeff Daniels’ Will McAvoy bellows about how America isn’t the greatest country in the world anymore but it could be, it’s hard not to think of The Newsroom as prescriptive. And I can’t think of many people mistaken for intelligent that I’d less like to hear fix America than Aaron Sorkin.

DOA: Social suicide

After the radical portraits of The Passion of Joan of Arc and the Romantic drizzle of Foreign Correspondent, it's no surprise to see cinematographer Rudolph Maté bring the same sturdy expressionism to his directorial work. The surprise is how black DOA is, not mean like Ulmer or sleazy like Aldrich but deathly weary. I mean, the hero spends the film pumping invincible poison through his body. This isn't a film of hope.

Low-Class Comedy: Shameless vs. 2 Broke Girls

Shameless is like if 2 Broke Girls actually gave a shit. Sure, there’s a perverse charm to the way every little piece of 2 Broke Girls is singing in unison, “Fuck off,” from the stained, yellow costumes to the insulting puns. Even the hand-me-down multicamera set-up is ill-fitting. With the missing wall and the stilted rhythms of self-conscious performances, a universe open to disembodied laughter, those groaners take on a near-Lynchian aura, like this is all some unsettling experiment in alienation. The stereotypes don't help. At first they feel raw and gritty and expressive of Max’s prickly personality, but ten hours later they fester in your chilled stomach until you’re queasy. At a certain point, 2 Broke Girls isn’t illuminating its character or saying jack shit about an every-man-for-himself level of poverty. At a certain point, it’s just asking us to laugh at short Asians who are bad drivers with small dicks. At a certain point it’s Jeff Dunham.

Top 10 LGBT Scenes of the Season

I gay-wrote this list of the best LGBT scenes of the past TV season for Indiewire, banging a lot of my usual drums: There's more to gay life than victimhood; Modern Family is conservative nonsense crossed with progressive back-patting (hence the president's endorsement); I want to see gay sex on television 1) to balance all the erotic heterosexual romances, 2) to give gays that visceral thrill for once, and 3) to normalize everyday gay life for viewers of non-niche programming. The best social activism is treating gay people like everyone else, funny, romantic, insufferable, evil, and beyond, and the list covers a range of scenes (from topical tragedy to fantasy romance), a range of characters (from Big Bad to teen drag), and a range of gay experiences (coming out to going to a gay club). The list also features all I've ever written about Southland and Girls (aside from a stray tweet or two about the monstrous deluge of writing about a comedy that aims slightly higher than The Hills). It also anticipates two pieces I'm working on about the sophomore renaissances of Shameless and Game of Thrones. You haven't seen horniness until you've seen Renly.