Day Three Hundred and Thirty-eight - Chuck: Season 2, Episode 4, "High School... Sucks for Everyone."

I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I didn't have the greatest of times in High School. That said, seeing Yyvonne Strahovski all dweebed up and not enjoying her time as a teenager, playing the role that I did (just gender swapped) back then, is a bit of a stretch.

Still, in spite of this episode's shortcomings, it's still a fun time.

The whole plot revolves around a chance encounter that Sarah and Chuck have at the Buy More with a ghost from Sarah's path... a former tormentor who remembers her from days gone by, a cheerleader who married another dweeb. It seems this cheerleader (who looks suspiciously like that gal Paris Hilton pal'd around with back in the day) has both the skinny on Sarah's past and a darker angle with the Russian mob.

Meanwhile, Chuck has the dubious pleasure of wowing Nicole Richie's dork of a husband (whom she's betraying) with the mystique of Agent Carmichael's reputation as a "mad dog" courtesy of John Casey's awesome CQC skills and some convenient timing/misrepresentations. That's not all on Chuck's mind, though, as this brush with Sarah's past has him pressing her for more info... facts that she is less than willing to divulge.

Then there's the silly Buy More B-plot where Morgan, Lester, et al. almost ruin the store by bartering away all of their profits by all but giving away big-ticket items for pennies on the dollar. Really, there's no reason to have this bit other than to justify paying Gomez, Sahay, and the rest.

While not the strongest of episodes, it doesn't manage to sneak in some good moments of emotional intimacy for Chuck and Sarah, as he flails about trying to break down her defenses concerning her past and the secret of her criminal father that she tries to keep wrapped up tight with hostility and mental barriers. Most of the tension comes to a head during a cathartic fight between Sarah and Nicole Richie which seems more than just a little justified. At the end of the day, though, the best moment for me was that little bit of denouement that we get at the end where Chuck just accepts Sarah for who she is now, that being all he needs to know. If only Sarah could do the same (don't worry, she will... spoiler alert).

Silly, schlocky, b-movie spy action and drama... but Chuck is still darned fun. Plus there's plenty of wish fulfillment as the nerd getting the girl (without the help of copious amounts of Silicon Valley cash) is delicious.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day Two Hundred and Ninety-two - Carrie, "They're all going to laugh at you~"

You know, it's hard to find this classic Stephen King story scary. Sad, a bit painful, and a little clever in its depictions of fundamentalism, bullying, and teenaged angst, but never scary. Maybe it's just that times have changed and I've grown jaded over the years. Most of my scares come from personal demons of late.

The film itself has this weird "after school special vibe." It vilifies teenage sex  even while it revels in sexual imagery for the first half of the film. It's villains are openly sadistic and avid alcohol drinkers, and sloppily so. Watching John Travolta dribble Pabst Blue Ribbon while driving is more comical than cautionary. It's hard to imagine how his character has the brain power to operate a vehicle if he cannot master the rudimentary motions of drinking from a can.

Still, it's a brave film... simulating oral sex during the necking scene and, perhaps most importantly, that opening locker room sequence that is replete with full frontal nudity, however brief. It's an odd kind of saturnalia, that scene, which follows up with Sissy Spacek almost masturbating to the camera in the prologue to the infamous and traumatizing "plug it up" bit. I can't quite tell if De Palma was going for titillation or artistry... either way, it's suitably disturbing, if only from a social aspect.

The horror elements, though, are actually really, really tame. Carrie's powers are simple parlor tricks, even when she goes on her telekinetic rampage. And whether it's corn syrup or electrocution or death by car accident, there's nothing groundbreaking about the effects. In fact, when Travolta and Nancy Allen buy it in the rollover trying to mow Carrie down, the spinning camera trick is completely comical.

I think the only redeeming moment in that regard was when Piper Laurie (whom Couchbound readers will recognize from Twin Peaks where she plays Catherine) recreates the martyrdom of Saint Sebastian in her kitchen thanks to Carrie and quite a few knives and other sharp objects.

In regards to that death, she did kind of deserve it... even if she seemed orgasmic and rapturous as she died. Maybe she thought she was righteous enough, trying to kill her daughter, that she'd get into heaven.

Honestly, the only thing that creeped me out in the entire movie was that little Saint Sebastian figure with the glowing eyes in Carrie's prayer closet. I don't know if it was electric or if those eyes were the Devil's Hellfire themselves, I just know that I wouldn't want that thing anywhere near me.

Quick shout out to P.J.Soles who, for the life of me, looked like Carrie Fischer in this film. Bugged the heck out of me.

On the whole, Carrie feels more like a cautionary tale on bullying and fundamentalism than anything, a "worst of both worlds" message that evil comes in many guises. You can't help but feel sympathy for Carrie as she's damned if she does, damned if she doesn't with a mother and classmates like hers.

It's funny, I'll be watching the 2013 remake this weekend for A Review Too Far/The Void Zone. I wonder what the update is going to do to raise the stakes?

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~

Day One Hundred and Ninety-seven - Assassination of a High School President, "Feels occasionally like Rushmore, but is more like Gossip Girl"

St.Donovan's is a hotbed of white privilege and it's up to Bobby Funke to get to the seedy underbelly and root out the cancer in pure journalistic brilliance a la Woodward and Bernstein.

Or so he would like to think.

I think that Assassination of a High School President would very much like to be Rushmore in terms of satire and attention to detail and Election when it comes to taking down spoiled, WASPy metrosexuals that seem to be the norm of this generation's zeitgeist.

With Funke the would be whisleblower to a grand conspiracy of lies, embezzlement, drugs, sex, and even attempted murder, the film does its best to portray both the popular elite and burnout delinquents as cut from the exact same nihilistic narcissism. The only thing that seems to separate the two subsets is a will to power that the student council blithely operates with and "the usual suspects" don't seem to care about.

It's easy to both like and hate this film. There's lots in the way of cinematography and color design that really makes me happy with their art director, but none of the oomph in the script that I would want to go with it.

The quirky asides and misdirects that should win me over feel tacked on and more than a bit pretentious. Like when one of the burnouts plays around in the background while Funke is on the phone. It would be a brilliantly funny thing in a Wes Anderson pic, but here it's just unnecessary and distracting.

And the film can get so random at times... like when the patch-girl get's seduced by another of the burnies. It's so superfluous and only might have something to do with what's going on elsewhere.

Might.

Despite it's shortcomings (Bruce Willis being one of them), AoaHSP is actually a pretty interesting satire on prep school life. Not exactly a diatribe on high school in general, it nevertheless has quite a bit to say about teens in the upper middle crust.

I found it particularly hilarious (and pointed) when Funke tracks down an old buddy in a public school which is much more noticeably Black and Hispanic in population and much less fashionable. Sure, everyone's in uniform at the private school, but they also have a crap ton more product in their hair and have drunken, drugged out parties, and (aside from a few tokens) are very, very white. It's a subtle but quite poignant message about the dividing line of privilege.

I'm not exactly thrilled with Mischa Barton's (or anyone's, really) performance... as she stares blank-eyed for the grand majority of the film, but it's an interesting piece.

It just never goes beyond the base "good" to become something better.

Until tomorrow, Potatoes~