The Grammy's

The worlds most out of touch and irrelevant award, the Grammys, once was short for gramaphone, but could very well now stand for the award show equivalent of an uncool grandparent trying to be hip.

To be fair, the grammys try. But they've never been relevant. Some non-Jethro Tull highlights:
1960: Kind of Blue not nominated for anything. The other two greatest Jazz albums of all-time, A Love Supreme and Mingus' The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady both lose all their nominated categories in subsequent years.
1965: Gale Garnet beats out Bod Dlyan, Peter Paul and Mary, Harry Belafonte, and Woody Guthrie for best folk recording.
1966: Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass' A Taste of Honey beats Yesterday for song of the year.
1969: Bobby Russell's Little Green Apples beats out Hey Jude and Mrs. Robinson for song of the year.
1972: What's Going on? goes o/2 losing to Lou Rawls and Paul/Linda McCartney.
The 1976 Best Record of the year category:
The Captain and Tenille, Love will keep us together (winner)
Barry Manilow, Mandy
Glen Campbell, Rhinestone Cowboy
1981: Christopher Cross sweeps the 5 major categories.
1983: Toto wins 6.
1992: Nirvana loses best Alternative Album to REM's Out of Time. REM's my fav band ever, but that's not even close to their best work. REM subsequently gets shut out the following year for their masterpiece Automatic for the people getting 0 noms.





What makes the grammy's admirable is the fact that they give an award out to every since facet of the music/recording industry. From liner notes to polka to music video, they have about 500 categories, seriously that's not much of an exaggeration. I think the Oscars should follow suit, and add categories like Best DVD liner notes or Craft service provider. Seriously though, the Oscars don't reward the people who have the hardest parts in creating movies. I am among the many who feel its a shame they don't have an Oscar for stunt work, and I think a case could be made for a Unit Production Manager. Anyway, back to the Grammys, the only thing that doesn't make sense is they have like 20 variants of pop/vocal performance, but only one award for all of alternative music.

If you don't have a few days to kill to read over the list of nominees, here are my top 10 most embarrassing attempts this year by the grammy's to seem relevant:

1) I'm on a Boat, Lonley Island (best rap/sung performance) Novelty songs aren't new to the grammy's but really? Can we get some love for Cartman's performance of Poker Face?
2) Perhaps the most representative case of the oddness of the grammys? Best Pop performance by a duo or group with vocals. The Nominees? Bon Jovi, Hall and Oats, MGMT, The Fray, The Black Eyed Peas
3)The Ting Tings for best new artist. Please win. This is the kiss of death award, anyone remember Paula Cole, meaning that whoever wins is never heard from again. And since the Ting Tings are the most annoying band in music, and even though I'm pretty sure this album came out like 2 years ago, I sure hope they win. Maybe the Grammy's hear what the kids are listening to through Ipod commercials?
4)Neko Case getting hosed. A universally praised album, that is her at her most grammy friendly gets two nominations: contemporary folk album (wtw?) and album packaging. I kid you not. How the woman with the best voice in popular music didn't get a vocal nod is one of those only at the Grammy's things.
5)Wilco for best Americana album? Americana? Really?
6) Nominations for things that are debatably albums: Eric Clapton's Live At Madison Sq. Garden, Coldplay's Prospekt's March EP, Willie Nelson's Christmas Album in a general pop category?
7) The Kanye West Memorial Award: The Grammy's always have trouble with Rap, and this year they did marginally ok. There was K'naan's Trubador, Jay Z's, Brother Ali's Us, Raekwon's Cuban linx 2, heck even The Blueprint 3. They got Mos Def right, but Eminem's relapse?
8) Anachronisms pt 1: Best Metal Performance: Judas Priest, Megadeath, Ministry, Slayer, Lamb of God. Aside for the last one, I would have guessed this was 1985.
Anachronisms part 2: Best Solo Rock Vocal Performance: Bob Dylan, John Fogerty, Prince, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young. Now, 2 things. First off, I love all these guys. But, once again this could have been 20 or 30 or 40 years ago (sans Prince). And second, this is for a vocal performance right? I mean I love all these guys, but Dylan, John, and Neil don't come to mind when I think of a great singing voice.
9) U2. Yes, the kids love their U2 but this is like the 15th straight year they've been nominated for a slew of awards. And we get it, you like the band, but, there are other bands out there.
10) Gripe of the year: No love for Leonard. Leonard Cohen's Live in London was the best reviewed album of the year. He's a musical treasure, probably the greatest lyricist in pop music history. And he gets no nominations.


Congrats to Bill Miller for getting a nod in the Native American Music album, and Duke Robillard for best traditional blues albums.

Also, Colbert better win best comedy album for the inspired soundtrack to his Christmas special last year.

End of Decade Readers Poll

It's not that I don't value input, I wish I got more of it, but I didn't think I had enough people who read this thing to conduct a poll until now. Since its the end of the decade (it's really not, but oh well) here's a ballot for an end of the decade Reader's Poll. Fill it out and send it to floydfortnightly@gmail.com. I will announce the results the first week of January.


Ballot:
(feel free to give as many answers as you feel like for each category, and fill out as many as you want to)

Music:

• Band of the decade:
• Best album of the decade:
• Voice of the decade:
• songwriter of the decade:
• most epic guitar solo:
  
• Favorite song of the decade:
• Song that you most associate with the decade:
• Musical Moment of the decade:
• Band from the decade you hope most your kids/grand-kids won't discover and love 30 years from now:
• Band you'll try and get your kids to like:
• Guilty pleasure (song/band):
  
• Worst song of the decade:
  
• Favorite live show you saw:
  

Film:

• Best film
• Favorite film, or film you've seen the most of dec:
  
• Filmmaker/Producer of the decade:
• Actor (male and/or female) of the decade:
• Iconic movie moment (scene) of the decade:
• Movie line of the decade:
• Worst movie you've seen this decade:
• Scariest movie:
• Funniest movie:
• Most forgettable Oscar-bait/winner/hyped film:
  
• Tear-jerkiest:
• Worst trend in movies:
  
• Movie that most embodies the decade:

Television

• Best TV Show:

• Network of the decade:
• TV Personality (host, creator, actor, a real person)of the decade:
• TV Character (fictional) of the decade:
• TV moment:
• TV show/event you will associate most with the decade:
• TV show that most represents the demise of our civilization:
• TV Theme song of the dec:
• Most annoying trend in tv:
• Guilty pleasure:
  
• Cancellation outrage of the decade:
• Commercial of the decade:

Lit & drama:

• Best book you read:
• Book not from this decade that feels like it represents life in this decade:
• Writer/poet of the decade:
• Book that you will remember most as tied to the decade:
• Fav. Newspaper you still read:
• Columnist/opinion/essayist of the dec:
• Play of the dec:
• Musical of the dec:
• Shakespearean play that fits this decade best:
  

Sports

• Team of the decade
• Athlete of the decade
• Upset of the decade
• Most-overrated person/team:
  
• favorite Non-Athletic Personality
  
• Best game ever played (of the decade)
• Play of the decade:
• Bad call of the decade:
  
• Most memorable sporting event of the decade
• Craziest athlete
• Moment where sports transcended itself
• best development in sports
• worst development in sports
  

Tech

• Non-computer related Invention from the last decade you're not sure how you've lived without:
• Computer-related invention/internet development you're not sure how you ever lived without:
• Internet sensation of the decade:
• Video game that has sucked the most hours from your life:
• Best video-game:
• Non-video program/app:
• Thing you never thought you'd be able to do on a cell phone:
  

People, Politics, Misc.

• Catch-phrase/buzzword of the decade:
• Fad of the decade:
• If in X amount of years your kids/grand-kids go to "dress as the 00's day" at school what will you tell them to wear?:
• Most annoying thing from the past 10 years you wish would go away:
• Most trusted person from the decade:
• Most annoying person:
• Most crush-worthy male:
• Most crush-worthy female:
• Person we lost too soon you miss the most:
  
• Hero you will remember most from the decade:
• Person who most shaped the decade:
• Aside from 9/11 the most historic event of the decade:
• On a scale of 1-10 rate the decade:
• 1 wish for the 'teens (next decade):
  

The Road

The Road
Dir. John Hillcoat
****



The Road was one of the most powerful novels I've experienced, a sparse and specific tale of a father and son making a trek to the sea as the earth is dying. Since picking it up several years ago, I saw both a promise and a trap in terms of a film version. The book employs a style reminiscent of a Robert Bresson film, where mundane acts in the shadow of larger forces at some point of existential pressure lead to a transcendence, where the most boring acts are as suspenseful as something from Hitchcock. Similar to Camus' The Plague, the novel was an existential tour-de-force set around a natural phenomena of death and dying. Both works can simultaneously be as depressing and inspirational as anything (though The Road probably has a claim to being the darker of the two).

When I read that Hillcoat was slated to direct I was excited. Of all the directors working today, he was probably the best choice. More than a feeling of relief at not getting someone like Spielberg (who would have done an able but more mainstream approach), I had already thought that Hillcoat was one of the most promising directors working. His previous work, the brutal Australian western The Proposition was a tremendous display of his talent, though it wasn't consistently great film. In a play of irony, this film does the exact opposite. There's really nothing immediately special on display; yet its a consistently great film.

This is about the most faithful adaptation of the novel that could have been made. I would have loved to have seen more of the monotony, the cold, the walking, but here's the thing: for those familiar with the book at 2 hours the film is too short. For those who aren't familiar with the book it will feel too long. For those who bought into the ad campaign that was so misleading I'm waiting for legal action, where the film was presented as Mad Max 4, it will be the longest 2 hours of their life. Similarly, I was a bit surprised to hear so much talking, since the book has such little dialogue. Yet, I'm sure others were frustrated by how quiet the film was. What is certain is that this is as faithful an adaption than Hollywood could give us. Then again, the guy behind me exiting the theater said to his girlfriend "that wasn't at all what I expected, but wow, that was really...emotional." Hopefully that scene repeats itself.

The director's cut will likely be an even greater film; Hillcoat gave into a voice-over, a decision reminiscent of Ridley Scott and Blade Runner, but he seems to have negotiated a properly ambiguous film that leaves the ending unchanged, and while the voice over doesn't help, changing the ending would have been disastrous, and no doubt the studio would have liked things to have gone different. But unlike those famous films that gained new life indirector's cuts (Brazil, Blade Runner) this film really doesn't revolutionize anything, except that Hillcoat essentially made an art-film out of a big-budget Hollywood film.

The film makes an economical choice, jumping in about a third of a way into the novel. Just like the novel, Viggo Mortenson (who once again demonstrates his uncanny ability to do accents and should be the front-runner for an Oscar for this)plays a nameless father protecting his son from the elements and evil doers in a post-apocalyptic landscape caused by some unknown disaster. Unlike the novel, a great deal of time, proportional to linear time, is spent on flashbacks. I felt that the flashbacks played too much a role, breaking up the atmosphere just as it was getting established in the linear action, but I think they actually work for the most part. The score by Nick Cave wasn't as dissonant as I'd expected; it's basically an adaptation of Part's Speigel im Speigel, which suggests something I'll get to shortly, but like nearly every element of this film, from major actors in the few bit parts of the film, to the special fx it seems that just as an element is about to come out and overwhelm the rest of the film, it restrains itself. In the book, things felt urgent, and realizations came rather immediately through that dire feeling. The film, on other hand, takes the approach of immersing you into a way of life, a world, philosophical questions, and then letting things unfold for and haunt you long after you've left the theater. Not that the book didn't stay with you, its that the film just seems like a faithful adaptation until it resonates to something greater.

Hillcoat's previous work had strong Christian imagery and allusions. Like Cave's music it marries the spiritual ideal directly with the profane and visceral real. Hillcoat's The Road is actually a religious film, not really like Bresson's films, and even in ways that at times may feel explicit for what those who read the novel may be prepared for, but in its own understated and brutal manner. The novel's devastating power was in its denial of yet affirmation of the things that may be called spiritual or religious, the film differs in that it isn't explicitly resisting the religious; Hillcoat trusts (correctly) that the dark imagery will do that on its own. When Robert Duvall (The Apostle, Tender Mercies), in some clever inter-textual casting shows up as an aged traveler, his performance is staggering in itself, but the lines he delivers straight from the novel take on a profound and new found power within this different emphasis, as do some of the last lines of dialogue.

Miscellanologies: Totally! The Myth of Cinema

(I found this among my things, written months ago but never published. So since I haven't written much new in a while, here it is...)

I was reading my usual IMDB hot links or whatever they are at the bottom of that familiar page, and came across this link to The Times (UK) 50 biggest movies of 2010 preview. So, there I am, eating my pop tarts and reading along and suddenly Im wondering if I got stuck in a time warp. I had to check the calendar, not for the date, not to see if I got daylight savings time right, but to make sure I was in the right decade. Heres why:

Red Sonja, Red Dawn, Clash of the Titans, Highlander, Predator, Wall Street, Tron, The A-Team.

No, that is not the highest grossing films from 1980-87 nor is it Carl Weathers filmography. Those are some of the titles you can look forward to seeing at your local movie theater this coming year. To be fair, Wall Street and Tron are sequels, but the rest are remakes. Why? Hollywood has run out of ideas. Now, that doesnt mean that Los Angeles, or the rest of the world has. But the studios are too afraid to lose any money, and have devised a very self-sufficient and safe way to make returns on sub-par product. There are plenty of great original ideas out there, but that would be risky, and thats not in the vocabulary of Hollywood.

But why these very Regan-era films? Why V on ABC? What in our world has suddenly seen the need to replay all of our anxieties from three decades ago? Sure, Red Dawn is now about a Chinese invasion, but seriously, why? All films are political and all films are historical. Political because people spend money on things which either relate to what is on their minds, or do the opposite and help them avoid the pressing issues. Historical because all films document and capture a moment of collaboration and audience reception in a given period of time. What does all this re-hashing say about us?

To further that point essentially all of the films the Times listed were adaptations in one form or another. Most probably because anticipate seeing our sequels, books, comics, and video games on the big screen.

Film has become an exercise in brand recognition, and if that becomes the approach it wishes to take it will be obsolete in 25 years if not much sooner when a new technology comes around which is able to immerse us further into familiar worlds. The question is where exactly does the film live? Where is the site of the creation of the film?

Film is fatally limited, just as any physical medium, when it comes to embodying or housing a kinetically ephemeral thing as creativity. It cannot pretend that it is self-sufficient, even if it equips itself with things like 3-d. In the 50s, 3-d was part of a wave of ballyhoo created mostly to differentiate watching a movie in a theater from watching a program on a television at home. Its revival in the early 80s coincided with the advent of home video. So, why is it returning again? The reactionary answer has been the Internet. But the internet has been around much longer, and the practice of watching video on computers has been around for a decade, far longer than the time it took for film to react to TV or video players. Why has it only reacted in the last 3 or 4 years with 3-d or Imax as an important part of film going?

Part of film has been the adaptation of new technologies. Color, sound, stadium seating. But 3-d and Imax are not new technologies. Sure they've grown leagues above what they were 25 years ago, but I think there is something far more personal here. I've already referenced Bazin and Barthes, so I'll only nod here to Benjamin, but why go to a physical space to view a film?

Now, I am not talking about genre, in fact I think that genre is the most vital element of narrative film. What I'm talking about is the branding of the cinema. Adaptation has always been a problem in cinema: to succeed in faithfulness to the work undermines the ability of cinema as a legitimate artform while success in making the work filmic usually fails to satisfy the audience and by extension the studio.

So, when a film is a brand, it bows to canon. In the early days of fanboy culture there was all sorts of cross-medium conversing, and creation in the universe of the world of the film. Star Trek fan-fiction, Star Wars action figures played millions of times in worlds not related to the films, for instance. The problem is that the fanboy culture has developed a literal view of the canon: It doesn't happen unless it happens on film. Film has somehow developed a supremacy in pop-culture over all other mediums, and place that can only end in its own destruction. Film trumps everything in terms of the canon of the universe of the text. You don't go to see a Harry Potter film to see what the director has done with it, you go to see if they got it "right," because if they got it wrong, they just ruined the book. I have a feeling that these remakes most likely aren't made to enter into any sort of dialogue with the previous work but to clean up and "fix" the problems in the first one, which might cause distress to such a view of film. his literalism has created an audience that has their imaginations marginalized rather than piqued or celebrated. And let's face it, your imagination is always better. It's not that the book is necessarily better, but that you're imagination is far more vivid than any image. Darth Vader was always more interesting when we had to create our own origin story. We still could, but it'd be a different practice.

Cinema can only survive in so much that it embraces a model where it finds a place to celebration the simultaneous mutual creation of a work. When a film is self-sufficient, when it so literal, you don't miss much when you watch it at home. In fact, the picture's better, you have a better seat, and the popcorn is 500% cheaper. You don't get people to go to the theater out of gimmicks for very long. Gimmicks, by their very nature are short-lived and are more and more easily translated to a personal version. You have to use the film as a spark to light their imaginations, and get them to interact, something that is far less fulfilling alone than it is with a crowd.

Quick Links

• Huckabee speaks out as voice of reason in GOP
• GOP continues shift to extreme right: McCain may face tight primary race from Talk radio host. Poll finds Republican Arizonans feel Sara Palin represents their values more than McCain.
• Militia groups grow. Nine people killed from January to June by Right-Wing terrorists.
• Majority of GOP believes Acorn stole election. Sure, because that election was so close, all McCain needed to do was win a measly 127 more electoral votes...and sure Obama got the highest percentage of the popular vote since George HW Bush was elected and one percentage point lower than Reagan's re-election, but that must have been Acorn too.
  

The 100 Great Songs of the Oughts (00-09)

In Alphabetical Order: Song: All These Things That I've Done	Band: The Killers	Album: Hot Fuss
Amazing Glow	The Pernice Brothers	Discover A Lovelier You
And No More Shall We Part	Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	No More Shall We Part
B.O.B.	Outkast	Stankonia
Be	Common	Be
Bin Laden Remix (Street)	Immortal Technique	Bin Laden Remix (Bin Laden Pt. 2) - EP
Black Tambourine	Beck	Guero
The Bleeding Heart Show	The New Pornographers	Twin Cinema
The Blower's Daughter	damien Rice	O
Crawling	Linkin Park	Hybrid Theory
Crazy	Gnarls Barkley	St. Elsewhere
Crown Of Love	The Arcade Fire	Funeral
Daylight	Matt & Kim	Grand
A Distorted Reality Is Now A Necessity To Be Free	Elliott Smith	From A Basement On The Hill
Distortions	Clinic	Internal Wrangler
Do You Realize??	The Flaming Lips	Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
Don't Give Up On Me	Solomon Burke	Don't Give Up On Me
Empire State of Mind F The CC	Jay-Z + Alicia Keys Steve Earle	The Blueprint III The Revolution Starts Now
Fake Empire	The National	Boxer
Falling Slowly	Glen Hansard & Marketa Irglova with Marja Tuhkanen and Bertrand Galen	Once (Music from the Motion Picture)
Fight Test	The Flaming Lips	Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots
Final Straw	R.E.M.	Around The Sun
Fistfull of love	Antony and the Johnsons	I am a Bird Now
Float On	Modest Mouse	Good News For People Who Love Bad News
Forever Lost	The Magic Numbers	The Magic Numbers
Formed a Band	Art Brut	Bang Bang Rock & Roll
Get By	Talib Kweli	Gorillarms
Gold Day	Sparklehorse	It's A Wonderful Life
The Hardest Button To Button	The White Stripes	Elephant
Hey Ya!	Andre 3000	The Love Below
Hip-Hop	Dead Prez	Lets Get Free
How My Heart Behaves	Feist	The Reminder
Hunter	Portishead	Third
Hurt	Johnny Cash	Unearthed V: Best Of Cash
I'm Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman	The White Stripes	White Blood Cells
I am trying to break your heart	Wilco	Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
I Thought You Were My Boyfriend	The Magnetic Fields	I
In the Sun	Joseph Arthur	Come to Where I'm From
It's Going Down	Blackalicious	Blazing Arrow
Jesus, etc.	Wilco	Yankee Hotel Foxtrot
John Wayne Gacy, Jr.	Sufjan Stevens	Come On Feel The Illinoise!
King Without A Crown	Matisyahu	Shake Off the Dust... ARISE
Kookaburra	John Vanderslice	Emerald City
Laser Beam	Low	Things We Lost In The Fire
Last Nite	The Strokes	Is This It?
Lord Can You Hear Me	Spiritualized	Let It Come Down
Love Me Like You	The Magic Numbers	The Magic Numbers
The Mariner's Revenge Song	The Decemberists	Picaresque
The Middle	Jimmy Eat World
A Minor Incident	Badly Drawn Boy	About A Boy
The movers and the shakers	Herbert	Scale
Ms. Jackson	Outkast	Stankonia
My Favorite Mutiny	The Coup	Pick a Bigger Weapon
Naked As We Came	Iron & Wine	Our Endless Numbered Days
National anthem	Radiohead	Kid A
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)	The Arcade Fire	Funeral
New Slang	The Shins	Oh, Inverted World
No Cars Go	The Arcade Fire	Neon Bible
No Danger	The Delgados	The Great Eastern
North American Scum	LCD Soundsystem	Sound of Silver
Notes On Air	Alejandro Escovedo	The Boxing Mirror
O Children	Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds	The Lyre Of Orpheus (Disc 2)
Ocean of Noise	Calexico	Intervention / Ocean of Noise - Single
Oh My God	Michael Franti & Spearhead	Stay Human
Paper Planes (Blaqstarr Remix)	M.I.A.	Paper Planes (Homeland Security Remixes)
Passing Afternoon	Iron & Wine	Our Endless Numbered Days
Photograph	Weezer	Weezer (Green Album)
Pills	Primal Scream	Xtrmntr [Bonus Track]
quicksand	Travis	12 Memories
Reckoner	Radiohead	In Rainbows
Roscoe	Midlake	The Trials of Van Occupanther
Run	Snow Patrol	Final Straw
Say Hello To The Angels	Interpol	Turn On the Bright Lights
The Scientist	Coldplay	A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Seven Nation Army	The White Stripes	Elephant
Sing Me Spanish Techno	The New Pornographers	Twin Cinema
Sister Jack	Spoon	Gimme Fiction
Skinny Love	Bon Iver	For Emma, Forever Ago
The Snow Leopard	Shearwater	Rook (Bonus Track Version)
Spanish Doll	Poe	Haunted [Bonus Track]
Such Great Heights	The Postal Service	Give Up
Take Me Out	Franz Ferdinand	Franz Ferdinand
There Goes The Fear	Doves	The Last Broadcast
This Low	Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova	The Swell Season
Tired Of Being Sorry (AKA Spanishfaster)	Ringside	Ringside
Trying Your Luck	The Strokes	Is This It?
Two Weeks	Grizzly Bear	Veckatimest
Unless It's Kicks	Okkervil River	The Stage Names (Bonus Track Version)
Up The Bracket	The Libertines	Up the Bracket
Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood	Clap Your Hands Say Yeah	Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
Vindicated	Dashboard Confessional	Spiderman 2
Violent Past	Low	Drums and Guns (Bonus Track Version)
Wake Up	The Arcade Fire	Funeral
Walk into the Sea	Low	The Great Destroyer
The Way We Get By	Spoon	Kill The Moonlight
We Want Freedom	Dead Prez	Lets Get Free
Wolf Like Me	TV On The Radio	Return To Cookie Mountain
Writing To Reach You	Travis	The Man Who
Your Ex-Lover Is Dead	Stars	Do You Trust Your Friends?

Kicking Television: I'm Just Asking Questions

Last night's episode of South Park started out with the show's darkest bit ever, and for a show that's used everything from AIDS to Cannibalism for gags that's saying something; a deeply uncomfortable scene involving a triple homicide which I was surprised made it to air after the recent string of high profile shootings. After that the show did a spot on imitation of Glenn Beck that occasionally ventured into satire but didn't really do as much as it could. Partially because Beck is such a parody of himself that its hard to out do him.

What this did signal is that South Park, one of the last libertarian voices in the media, is asserting itself in a more directly political way, by going after a self-proclaimed libertarian but a talking points spouting Republican in Beck. Lest liberals feel too comfy, the show also featured a jab at the ACLU.

The show's punchline was hillarious, but took forever to develop, and seemed an odd parallel that didn't work with the main thrust of the episode; Dances With Smurfs being the inspiration for a major hollywood film coming out next month.

While South Park hasn't been very funny the second half of this season, at least aside from its mid-season opener, a warmly transgressive farewell to Michael Jackson and Billy Mays, the last few episodes have really shown how important the show is in terms of a television show being part of a dialogic conversation. Last week's episode, The "F" word, may have not been as great as "Apologies to Jesse Jackson," but it did, once again, return the show to one of its strong motifs, the distrust and attempted re-situating of a semiotic signifier.

Kicking Televisions: November Sweeps edition

The news today is that Fox has cancelled Dollhouse (aka Eliza Dushku in tight fitting clothing). I find it a mild surprise, or perhaps am wondering how it is that Whedon seems to have all these fans, yet keeps having trouble getting people to watch his shows.

But there is something here of note. The show didn't have a chance; being put in the Friday night line-up. There was a time when Friday had actual shows on: The X-Files, TGIF in its glory days. But now unless your Dateline NBC it means that your show is a priority in the eyes of the network in that it would be even worse to have dead air. The exception is with cable: USA and Syfy, both NBC networks, have their best shows on that night.

Speaking of bad time-slots and Sci-fi shows, Fringe is in trouble. I watched the show most of last year, didn't really get into it, but its really gotten good this season. So I think everyone was surprised when last weeks episode saw the largest decline in a shows ratings since The Chevy Chase show. Seriously. What happened? Fox forgot to tell people it was going to be on that week if the world series didnt go seven games. But the shows ratings are in decline in general. Its safe for this season, but may not get a third season. The thing is that Fox moved the show from Monday night to Thursday night for no other reason than theyre fox and they have no idea how to handle a TV lineup. Thursday, its up against The Office, 30 Rock, Greys Anatomy, and CSI. Where as monday it was up against Monday Night Football, whatever drama NBC is going to cancel at 9, and 2 comedies nobody watches on CBS but are cheap and reliable. So unless Fox was scared of Gossip Girl stealing viewers, why on earth move it to Thursday?

Speaking of mishandling a show, ABC is really trying that patience of Lost fans and its creators. ABC has not given a time or date for the shows return, though it appears they may move it from their wednesday time slot because of the whole comedy thing they have going on then. They also have not stated yet, how they will deal with the show being interrupted by the Winter Olympics for 3 weeks.

NBC has had some interesting news. Its new-er comedies are doing better than and old favorite. Community had its best week since its premiere episode, and Parks and Recreation had its highest ratings so far. However, The Office, which has struggled creatively, is reflecting its issues in its ratings, which are getting lower each week as it appears more viewers are abandoning ship.

Oh, and ABC canceled Eastwick. Not that anyone cared, except for maybe John Updike who will get one less royalty check in the mail each month.