The Middle

Last week I wound up having to watch the first two seasons of The Middle, a sitcom I previously did not know existed, despite it now being in its fourth season. After watching an episode, I knew why. This show takes the basic setup up for a sitcom by centering on a supposedly average American family and manages to water it down into an unfunny, cliche, and unrealistic mess. It centers on wife and working mother Frankie, her stoic husband Mike, and their three kids Axl (the athletic one), Sue (the awkward one), and Brick (the nerdy one). Though they are supposed to be a middle class family living in a small Midwestern town, they seem to be constantly teetering on the brink of financial ruin, as indicated by them being unable to pay their electricity bill for four months, and live exclusively on fast food with the occasional frozen processed meal to add variety. Frankie is the main character and narrates the show which mostly consists of her complaining about her family and with good reason. Their kids are spoiled rotten, needing constant nagging to accomplish things as simple as picking up their socks to tasks that are obviously their responsibility like doing their schoolwork. They consistently flout their parents' wishes, occasionally showing levels of disrespect that most parents wouldn't put up with but the Hecks excuse or try to justify. Frankie, of course, lost her right to complain since she always comes to her kids rescue so that they never have to face the consequences of their poor choices, the impetus of many of the episode plots.

All this would be forgivable if the show had any wit or originality. The jokes that don't revolve around Frankie complaining often contain baffling lapses in logic. For instance, when Frankie is taking a bath because of her bad back, nine-year-old Brick wanders in and she asks him to turn on the hot water. Brick reminds her that he is not allowed to use the hot water (bringing up some disturbing questions about how he takes showers) but he turns on the hot water anyway. When Frankie asks he to turn it off, he winds up turning it up because apparently hot water faucets are so different than cold water faucets that when given two options of how to turn it off, he repeatedly chooses the wrong one. This and dozens of other ill-conceived jokes make me question whether the writers have so little imagination they couldn't come up with realistic jokes and they simply forgot they weren't writing for the Disney Channel. The whole tone of the show is toothless, lacking the guts to realistically make fun of anything (like Modern Family) and unwilling to alienate anybody by being absurd enough to get away with more ridiculous elements (like Arrested Development). I'm completely at a loss for how this show is still on the air and wouldn't recommend it for anyone, especially when there are shows like Parks and Rec, Modern Family, Community, and The Mindy Project. They may not be perfect but at least they have some guts.

American Horror Story: Murder House

Larry Harvey: I'm trying very hard not to judge you.
Ben Harmon: Me? You murdered your entire family!
Larry Harvey: Yes, but I was never unfaithful. 

In its first season, American Horror Story, an FX show created by Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, follows the Harmons, a family that has unwittingly moved into the Murder House. They move there to get a fresh start after the wife Vivien has a miscarriage and the husband Ben has an affair, but the house, haunted by its own gruesome past, threatens not only their safety but their sanity. In addition to the house, they must contend with the machinations of their unwelcome neighbor Constance, a horribly disfigured former resident Larry Harvey, and Tate, a young psychopath wooing their daughter Violet.

While this is a very well-scripted show that relies on psychological horror rather than shock value, the truly interesting thing about it is its structure. Because it is a cable show, each season is twelve episodes long and each season is a different, unrelated story, that uses the same cast. While season one is the story of the Murder House, season two is set in an Asylum in the 60s. Murphy and Falchuk have taken what I consider to be an underused format in American television, the mini-series, and rebranded it into something marketable and cool. It allows them to delve into a story and characters for longer than a two hour movie but does not weigh them down with an obligation to always leave the story open-ended to allow for unlimited future seasons. So many interesting shows struggle after their first or second season simply because they must stretch a good story past its breaking point, but if the format of American Horror Story catches on, we could be looking at a whole new type of television show that's already told some very interesting stories in the UK. Hopefully the success of this show helps to change the way producers and viewers think about mini-series so that we can get shows that recognize the value of resolution as much as set-up.It would have gone a long way for shows like Lost and Heroes.

Wanted

Sloan: It a choice, Wesley, that each of us must face: to remain ordinary, pathetic, beat-down, coasting through a miserable existence, like sheep herded by fate - or you can take control of your own destiny and join us, releasing the caged wolf you have inside.

Wanted, based on a graphic novel I haven't read, is the frequently mocked film by Russian director Timur Bekmambetov. It stars James McAvoy as Wesley, an office drone who discovers he comes from a line of elite weaver-assassins when he is recruited by sexy assassin Fox (Angelina Jolie). The head of this group, known as The Fraternity, is Sloan (Morgan Freeman) who shows Wesley the Loom of Fate, a piece of fabric who tells them who to kill next to keep chaos in check. When the Loom of Fate tells Wesley to kill the man who killed his father, he discovers The Fraternity might not be all it's cracked up to be.

First off, you have to know that when you're watching a movie that involves a group of weaver-assassins and a Loom of Fate, the plot is a secondary consideration. It's not going to be very deep or original and in fact may even stretch the bounds of credulity. In a lot of ways, it's essentially a poor man's Fight Club. But you read the plot description and you watched it anyway, so stop complaining. What's really great about this movie is the action. Bekmambetov, the director of Russian blockbusters Night Watch and Day Watch and more recently Abraham Lincoln:Vampire Hunter, was born to direct action movies. He really has a way of creating memorable and innovative effects (even if they do laugh in the face of physics). This is not a movie with a plot. This is a kick-ass action sequence strung together by some snappy one-liners. And also, some stunningly engraved bullets and cool-looking guns.

In conclusion, people need to stop making fun of me for owning this movie. If you don't like it, you're watching it wrong.