BLAH BROCK LESNER

Emmy Comments

As a strange lame gimmick experiment for this site, I have written down my picks for this year’s Emmy drama nominations before they were announced.  And I will go back and comment on my picks and see if the Emmy voters agree with me.  I skipped on the comedy side because in the last few years those nominations have tended to suck making them sort of irrelevant Modern Family fest in my view. 

            BEST DRAMA OF THE YEAR

1. Breaking Bad.:  Maybe the best show on TV at the moment, Breaking Bad had another awesome year as Walt and Jesse had one final showdown with  loveable chicken/meth entrepreneur Gus Fring.

2. Mad Men:.  The AMC hit has won best drama for the last few years and with another good season it most likely will win again. This is the kind of show the voters love; it is set in the past and is about urban professionals. 

3. Game of Thrones:.  My favorite show was a little less even in season two than in season 1 (mostly due to Dany being all WHERE ARE MY DRAGONS????) but the Tyrion and Theon storylines alone should earn it a nomination.

4. Boardwalk Empire:  A pretty good sophomore season that led to the somewhat shocking end of “mommys boy.” Jimmy Darmody earns a nomination for the HBO show, even if the series itself has not turned into a pop-culture hit on the level  of fellow HBO show Game of Thrones.

5.Treme.  The Emmys overlooked David Simon’s previous show for reasons unknown to normal human beings and will likely overlook this show as well.

6. Downtown Abbey: This is the first year that the popular British series will be in the drama category instead of the mini-series category. The show became much more popular in its second season but a lot of critics felt that it was a much weaker season (it was felt that the melodramatic storylines were more out there than the melodramatic storylines from the first season).  However the show still has its charms so it is my number six pick.

Me a few days later: Except for me picking Treme instead of Homeland (I do not get Showtime so I have not really seen the show so stop yelling at me) all of my other picks were nominated.

                         BEST LEAD ACTOR

1.Bryan Cranston as Walter White on AMC’s Breaking Bad.  Simply the best lead actor on the TV at the moment.  Cranston has won best lead actor for the past few years (except for last year when Breaking Bad was not in the running) and has the best chance of winning again. Also he may or may not be the man who knocks.

  

 2.John Hamm from AMC's Mad Men.  Poor John Hamm, in any other universe Hamm would have won multi-Emmys by now but the voters seem to prefer Cranston.

Other people they I would like to see nominated include Steve Bushemi on Boardwalk Empire, and Timothy Olyphant from Justified. I could not think of two other people for this category so sorry internet world.

Me a few days later. Except for Olyphant all of my picks made it. 

 I am less interested in the best female award (since most of the female actors I like on TV tend to submit themselves for the best female supporting category for some arcane reason). Therefore I will skip to the supporting actor’s awards.

             BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR MALE

1.Peter Dinglage  from HBO’s Game of Thrones. Dinglage won the best supporting actor emmy last year and he may win again as he continues to play one of the most fun roles on TV. It is true that it would make more sense for him to summit himself in the lead actor category but he is more likely to win in this category so in a way he is similar to the pragmatic Tyrion.

2.Aaron Paul from AMC’s Breaking Bad. Also someone who should really be in a lead category, Paul is in a race with Dinglage to win in my view

.

3.Alfie Allen as Theon Greyjoy from HBO’s Game of Thrones.  Likely will not be nominated (God’s help you emmy voters now you are truly lost) but he maybe led Game of Throne’s best story this season.  

Also on my list are Giancario Esposito as Gus Fring from AMC’s Breaking Bad, Jared Harris as Lane Price on AMC’s Mad Men and John Slattery as Roger Sterling on AMC’s Mad Men.

Me a few days later: Most of my picks were in line with the Emmys voters.  However they did not recognize Alfie Allen (knew that would happen) and John Slattery and instead picked two supporting players from Downton Abbey. 

 

 BEST SUPPORTING FEMALE

1.Christina Hendricks : Mad Men. This could be the year that Hendricks wins a Emmy.

2.Lena Headey, Game of Thrones. She was awesome and brought some subtlety to the role of the villainous (but good check-boned) Cerisi Lanester.

3. Massie Willhams :HBO’s Game of Thrones. A really big long shot I know but she was entertaining as Arya who had kind of a summer camp adventure from hell.

My other picks Anna Gun as Skyler White from AMC’s Breaking Bad, Kelly MacDonald from Boardwalk Empire, Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess on Downton Abbey

Me a few days later: This was the one category where the nominations differed the most from my picks, with the exception of Hendricks, Smith, and Gunn.

POLITICAL AFFILIATIONS OF SUPER-HEROES

Political affiliations of Superheroes

Spider-Man: I think the fact that Spider-Man is a young person from NYC who comes from a maybe lower-middle class background and always seems to be having cash
problems would make him a liberal Democrat

Superman: Grew up in the heartland and seems to be a law and order type
so I think he would lean to the GOP. On the other hand he is a illegal immigrant and works for the MSM

Batman: Also a law and order type but his insistence to never use a gun
or kill criminals may make him a Democrat or at least a moderate
Republican. Perhaps he would like Ron Paul.

The Green Arrow: As us superhero fans know, Ollie is on the left. In
real life he would  have been a member of OWS and love the Rachel Maddow show. And conservatives would always use him as an example of left-leaning celebrities.

The X-Men: Well as a persecuted minority, X-Men would
be liberals. However I could see some people on the far-left thinking
that The X-Men never really do anything for mutant rights and just
fight other Mutants. I could see seem some bloggers writing negative
things about them and also being a little bit more supportive of Magneto.

The Hulk: HULK MISSES OLD TIME MODERATE REPUBLICANS LIKE NELSON ROCKERFELLER. HULK DOES NOT AGREE WITH LARGE PARTS OF TEA-PARTY AGENDA.  TRUE THAT HULK WANTS A LIMITED GOVERNMENT BUT HULK ALSO FEELS THAT SOME THINGS THAT PUNY PUBLIC SECTOR DOES CAN NOT BE REPLICATED BY PUBLIC SECTOR.

Iron Man: Sure he sells weapons but at times he feels very bad about it. Maybe a swing voter.

Captain America: His politics was formed in WW2 so he remains a new deal democrat.

Thor: Yeah I can't see Thor really caring.

 The Punisher: I have a feeling he was the one that was writing Ron Paul's newsletters.

Daredevil: Trial lawyer.

Edgy Comic Strip Reboots

The carbs will get ya in the end buddy.

Nowadays nobody would accuse newspaper comic strips as being hip and edgy.  In fact as  superhero movies based on comic book characters make billions and the graphic novel has become a respected art, newspaper comic strips remain bland or even worse ( IE: facing cutbacks thanks to the declining influence of the newspaper) here are some storyline ideas that can make old stodgy comic strips hip again.

Blondie: Dagwood wakes up one day and figures out that his life is a repeating series of the same gags over and over again and that his family has not even aged in decades. Then his wife puts him on a low-carb (no sandwiches) diet and Dagwood cannot take it anymore so he leaves his family without warning to become a drifter/hobo and travels the nation looking for meaning in today's Lana Del Ray and Doritos Locos Tacos kind of world. Meanwhile absent her husband‘s salary, Blondie is forced to sell the house and movie in with a devious Mr. Dithers who wants her all to himself.  Also Dagwoods’s mailman misses his routine of running right into Dagwood when he is leaving for work and starts to run in to random people as a way to find HIS own search for meaning his life. The first year of comic strips would end with a divorced Blondie agreeing to marry Dithers. Dagwood later sees a story about it in a newspaper that he was using to sleep on. Will he make it on time? Will the mailman find the help he needs?

Dennis the Menace: Since Breaking Bad has become so popular how about a story where Mr .Wilson finds out he has cancer he wants to make sure that his wife Martha will be financially secure so he does the only sane thing and starts cooking meth with Dennis. Along with Dennis’  pal “skinny Joey” they have a number  of loveable adventures that will make you believe that Mr. Wilson is the man who knocks.

Peanuts: This classic comic strip ended in the year 2000 and has been reprinting strips ever since that time, but how about a hip version for today’s internet kids?  Instead of Charlie Brown being hated for being a blockhead he is hated for his lackluster Tumblr page and the bad lighting in his pro-brony youtube videos. Instead of Schroeder liking classical music he is into dubstep.  Instead of Lucy pulling away the football from Charlie Brown she beats him in various online zynga games.  And of course Snoopy would be a lolcat.  And over time we would have animated specials like “lol ur acting like a noob Charlie Brown”   

RIP Christopher Hitchens

               The world has lost a great thinker/drinker.

Family Matters

Ah Family Matters, the anchor of the TGIF lineup. Without Family Matters giving them a lead in at eight, would Step By Step have been able to stay on the air for like 20 years? I think not. What makes Family Matters differ from other bland family TGIF shows is that what started out as a simple down to earth sitcom about a middle class African-American family in Chicago later turned into a show about that family’s relationship with a 14 year old nerd that lived next door.

When Family Matters started way back in the year of our lord 1990, the show was a average sitcom about a fat ass cop named Carl Winslow who has to deal with his wacky kids (Eddie, Laura, and Judy,) his bitch of a wife Harriet, (seriously all she did in eight years of the show was make bitchy comments to her husband) Harriet’s sister Rachel and her son, and last but not least Carl’s sassy mom. The average plot would be something along the lines of “Eddie changes his report card so he gets all A’s!! Will he tell his parents?! But later in season one, everything changed. We saw the debut of Steve Urkel (played by Jaleel White), a 12 year old kid with a cartoon 1950’s nerd outfit on and a cartoon sounding voice to match who liked to stalk Laura. The character was a big hit with the kinds of people who makeup sitcom studio audience's and it was clear that the world would be seeing more of Steve Urkel.

Normally in a situation (Not THAT situation) like this you would think that the powers at be at Family Matters would see that Urkel was a interesting character, a foil for Carl/Laura and decide to make Urkel a recurring character who would maybe someday make the opening credits. This was the case for the rest of season one which had Urkel pop up a few more times. However at the start of season two of Family, the direction of the show totally changed. Not only was Jaleel White added to the opening credits, but almost every episode of the show revolved around Steve Urkel somehow (“Urkel burns down the restaurant, Urkel does the “Urkel dance” Urkel builds a fucking Urkelbot that fights crime). With the show revolving around Urkel most of the other characters (except for like Carl, Eddie and Laura) seemed to come and go/change into other people as they please.

As the years went on the show started having many sci-fi based storylines. For example Urkel invented a transformation chamber where the nerd could change into different personalities such as Stefan Urkel (A cool version of himself), Bruce Lee Urkel, and we can not forget Elvis Urkel. Steve also created a time travel device called an “Urkpad” (hey better name than IPad). The strange thing about those inventions is that the other characters on the show did not act like Urkel creating those inventions was a big deal. Nor did Urkel become rich and famous for inventing time travel for fucks sake.

Next time I will go over some of the characters on the show one by one. I will also try to get to the bottom of what the hell happened to Judy Winslow.

A last note on Lost.

We just have about 24 hours until the last episode of Lost. With the state of network drama (procedural shows about cops and lawyers and navy people who act like cops and lawyers) this is likely to be the last pop culture moment for network drama for a long time. So what will happen? Will we find out that Clare was really twin autistic sisters in a Clare suit all along? Will Vincent the dog be the one to take down MIB? will MIB get a name? Will we find out why Miles is still alive? Will Ben find out that Jeff Goldblum is dating Alex in real life? We will all know the answers to this tomorrow night when the internet will be yelling about how they messed up the whole series.