Fangs For The Memories

When Teen Wolf first premiered on MTV last summer, I watched the first 15 minutes and immediately gave it a big, fat, "NOPE!" I can't remember exactly what I took such an instant dislike to. I suspect it was Tyler Posey's inability to have a facial expression. But when my Twitter friend Cathy (@bluedaisy16) compared Scott and Stiles to Joey and Chandler last week, I decided it was time I give the show more than 15 minutes to win me over.

As usual, the main character is the least compelling person on the show. You would think that a kid navigating high school and life as a newly minted werewolf would be interesting but...Tyler Posey. I'm never quite sure what emotion he's trying to convey because his face always looks the same. Which is to say he always looks like he just found a piece of steak between two of his molars and he's trying to remember the last time he ate steak. I have it on good authority (I asked my teenage cousins) that what Posey lacks in acting talent, he more than makes up for in having a face/body that appeals to 15 year old girls so, there's that. Fortunately for me, Scott doesn't need to be interesting or likable because most of the other people on the show are kind of fantastic.

If you haven't watched Teen Wolf, I encourage you to do so. All 12 episodes of the first season are available on Netflix instant and there are a lot worse ways to spend 12 hours of your life.  If you have seen the show, let's recap season one shall we?

Scott McCall is your basic high school also-ran. He's on the lacrosse team as a bench warmer, a mediocre student with one friend and maybe some child-of-divorce issues. Oh, and he really wants us to know up front that he's "severely asthmatic" but that matters less to the story than what brand of shampoo he uses so whatever. Scott's best friend is Stiles and Stiles has the inside track on when weird shit goes down in town because his dad is the sheriff. When someone finds half a girl in the woods, Stiles and Scott sneak out to see if they can beat the authorities to the other half, because they're teenage boys and therefore gross.

Instead of finding half a girl, they find trouble in the form of a werewolf that bites Scott. So now Scott is a werewolf and he really doesn't deal with or even comprehend it, like, at all. Stiles, on the other hand, is all the fuck over it because Stiles is smarter and better than Scott in every way. Oh, except for lacrosse because Scott's new lycanthropy has turned him into a star lacrosse player and you can bet your sweet ass that team captain and all-around BMOC Jackson is not amused.

Scott meets and instantly falls in love with new girl Allison who conveniently falls for him as well. I mean, of course she does because her family are werewolf hunters so naturally she's going to get all schmoopy over the first werebeasty she meets just to complicate things. This is why you need to let your kids on on the big family secrets early, folks. That's the only way to avoid the awkward "sorry honey, but I have to kill your boyfriend" conversation.

Meanwhile, Scott and Stiles meet Derek, a heaping helping of hot, mysterious weregoodness who really can't believe that he's stuck with Scott as his only werefriend. Derek drops some knowledge on Scott - some people are born into the lycan life and others have lycanthropy thrust upon them. The thruster is called "The Alpha" and he's a real pain in the ass. The Alpha needs his betas to join the pack to help him reach his full potential as a power player in the dog-eat-dog world of werepolitics. Derek isn't up for being Alpha's little lap dog so he'd like Scott's help in tracking this jerk down and killing him. Derek clearly isn't used to having to explain shit to morons because he has no patience for Scott and is fucking TERRIBLE at sharing useful information. That's ok though, because he looks like this:

Stiles does not care for Derek's attitude and secretiveness so he teaches his BFF how to be a better wolf all by himself and, he is pretty great at it considering he's not a wolf himself. But the full moon turns Scott into an unbearable douche.

Allison's aunt Kate comes to town and the woman is 10 pounds of psychotic crazy in a 5 pound bag. Derek is hot on the heels of Ol' Alpha when Kate shoots him in the arm with some kind of magic bullet that infects him with werecancer or something. Derek heads to the school to find Scott. He tries to ask Jackson for help locating his little buddy but they have a breakdown in communication that results in Derek embedding his claws in the back of Jackson's neck. It happens. Scott goes to a super awkward dinner at Allison's house where he slips into the guest room, creeps through Kate's unmentionables and finds a mystery bullet that holds the cure to Derek's mysterious wereillness. And none too soon because Derek was about to force Stiles to SAW OFF HIS ARM. It was completely traumatizing in a really fun way. Turns out that the bullet was full of wolfs bane and the cure was to...add more wolfs bane. Yeah, I don't know.

With the werecancer in the rear view, Derek sets his sights on identifying the Alpha and he thinks it's Scott's boss, the local vet. In all fairness to Derek, the vet does give off a ridiculously creeptastic vibe. Derek kidnaps the vet and meets up with Scott and Stiles and then the vet disappears just as Alpha makes an appearance (dun dun dun!). Derek gets stabbed in the back and vomits about 3 gallons of black blood out of his mouth leading Scott and Stiles to believe he is dead. They lock themselves in the high school at night where they're later joined by Allison, Jackson and Jackson's girlfriend Lydia.

Jackson and the girls are like, "wtf?" and Scott says that Derek is loose in the school and on a murdering rampage. Stiles is all, "uh...nuh uh." But Scott just thinks that since Derek is dead, it's easier to blame him and his penetrating eyes for all the bad stuff than to try and explain the giant man-mutt who's out to make them all kibble. Scott tries to save everyone but instead the Alpha finds him and forces Scott to wolf out with, like, the power of his manly roar. The roar also causes Jackson's neck would to flare up. He gets a screaming migraine, and crumbles to the ground where Stiles gets a good look at the claw marks and is like, "oh shit, not again!" Sheriff Dad arrives and rescues the kids and finds the vet who's all, "I just, you know, got away." Then Scott tells Stiles that the Alpha doesn't want to kill his friends, he wants SCOTT to kill all his friends and now that the Alpha has given him the tingles, he kind of wants to. Allison doesn't appreciate the way Scott just left them all for dead in the school so she dumps him.

Post-break up, Scott is the worst. He's pouty and annoying and a huge jerk to Stiles. Scott makes out with Lydia even though he knows Stiles has been in love with her since he was in diapers. Lydia makes bad choices. Jackson finally goes to see a doctor about the wounds on his neck that haven't healed in weeks and have also been giving him vivid and crazy nightmares. The doc tells him he has aconite poisoning which is a thing you get from ingesting wolfs bane. The lesson here is that when Derek is suffering from wolfs bane-induced werecancer, he should wear protection over his claws before he sticks them into people. I guess it's really more like wereHIV.

Whatever, the point is that Jackson has now put 2 and 2 together and figured out that Scott is a werewolf. Jackson feels like being popular, athletic, attractive and rich aren't enough. He'd also like to be able to run really fast, shed and have accidents on the carpet when he gets excited. So he insists that Scott find the Alpha and get him turned into a wolf with a quickness.

Derek returns from the dead a wanted man so he hides out at Stiles house which makes no sense at all unless you consider that Derek and Stiles are kind of the best characters on the show so they should obviously be in as many scenes as possible together. Then Danny, the other best character on the show, comes over to do homework and Stiles accidentally stumbles on the fact that a shirtless Derek is a really good carrot to dangle when you want your gay lab partner to help you out with some minor law breaking. I can't really convey exactly how perfect the scene is but I did watch it 27 times.

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, so Stiles uses Derek's body to get information because Stiles knows what's up and then Stiles and Derek go to the hospital where Stiles does some investigatin' and Derek waits in the car because he's a wanted murderer and stuff. Derek is on the phone with Stiles and he's all, "while you're there, will you stop in and say hi to my uncle?" Stiles would do anything for his new bestie but the uncle is gone and Derek smells something fishy. Turns out the Alpha is Derek's uncle who...ok, wait. I forgot to tell you about the fire. Six years ago there was a fire at Derek's house and most of his family died. They were all werewolves except I guess there were some kids in the basement who weren't. Or would be but weren't yet? I'm fuzzy on the particulars. Anyway, this fire killed everyone in the house except Derek's uncle who somehow got out but not before half of his face was burned. Derek and his cousin weren't home so they remained alive and beautiful. That is until "some people" found Derek's cousin and RIPPED HER IN HALF which lured Uncle Burn Victim out into the woods where he bit Scott and became Uncle Alpha.  

Derek is pissed. Uncle Alpha explains that he's been, like, real mad about his fugue state and his melted face and stuff. So he was just sitting there for 6 years thinking about how unfair life is and then this whole Alpha thing happened and he took the opportunity to get a little revenge on the people responsible for The Fire. So he killed the insurance adjuster and the...person who sold the matches? Whatever, all the people he killed were, in some small way, connected to the fire. Except none of them were the person who actually SET the fire because that was Aunt Kate. Derek feels like Uncle Alpha is talking some sense with this whole "kill the bad people" thing so he takes Jackson hostage, as you do.

Scott goes out to Derek's place to save Jackson who is like, "no, don't save me! Let him nibble my ear, er, I mean bite me and turn me into a werewolf." You guys, I kind of think Jackson has a crush on Derek. I'm just saying. But Scott has this whole history of kind of hating Derek on account of how Derek keeps saving his bacon and Scott is really super stupid. So they fight and then the hunters arrive and open fire and Derek sacrifices himself so Scott can get away. Scott scurries off, the hunters capture Derek and everyone just leaves Jackson laying around the filthy, decrepit house to get a staph infection in his still-not-completely-healed neck wound.

Kate holds Derek hostage, trussed up in the basement with his shirt off and electrodes attached to his side where they won't obscure our view of his magnificent torso too much. Kate is all kinds of crazy but I have to hand it to her, when she chains a hot, half naked dude up for a little torture, she takes the opportunity to lick his fucking stomach like any right-thinking person in her position should. Just ask Jackson and Danny. Anyway, like all bad guys, her torture consists mostly of talking a whole bunch to her victim. She starts with the exposition and then tells him what her big plans are. Seems that she and Derek used to date and he fell in love with her (talk about your poor life choices) and she used his feelings for her to gain access to his family whom she lit on fire. Now she wants to kill all werewolves everywhere even though it's against the strict code of conduct for hunters which says they can only kill werewolves who've killed innocent people. Do you think there's an official oath they have to take?

All this time Kate and her brother, who just goes by Argent (played by JR Bourne who can get it, btw), kept trying to figure out who the other werewolf was. They thought it was Jackson then Stiles then Jackson again. Finally they put Scott in a position where he had to...jump really high to save himself and that caused him to wolf out and Allison saw and oh the tragedy of true love and fate and blah blah blah.

While out on the lacrosse field, Alpha attacks Lydia and Stiles is like "I'll trade ya, leave her alone and I'll help you track down Derek." Alpha's a smart dude and he knows that the sensible trade is always going to be Stiles and Derek for everyone else on the show. Stiles calls Jackson who takes Lydia to the hospital and through all these circumstances Alpha, Scott, Allison, Derek, Argent and Kate all end up out at Derek's house. Kate tries to get Allison to kill Derek and Scott but then Argent steps in and is like, "slow your roll, little sister." But too late because Alpha does not like how his plan is falling apart so he rips Kate's throat out and before he can break his promise to be nice to all the people who didn't barbecue him, Stiles and Jackson speed up and fire bomb Alpha. As he lays dying in front of the house, Derek is filled with a white hot rage so he slashes his uncle's throat and I guess killing the Alpha turns you into the Alpha which, ok, fine, whatever. Derek's eyes glow red, DUN.

After Allison and Scott have made up and made out and everyone else has gone home, Jackson shows up at Derek's house and begs the new Alpha to love him. Or maybe to turn him. Either way, Derek gets quite a twinkle in his red eyes before we cut away to black for the season.

When it's all said and done I kind of love the show. It's campy and ridiculous and lot of fun. But I think it would be even better if it were called, like, Putting Up With All The Shit and were mostly about Stiles.

Weekend In Reviews

The Avengers - This movie is insanely Whedony and you either know how and why that's high praise or you don't. If you don't then I'll just tell you that the movie is tons of fun with a well-executed, complex story, excellent action sequences, a ton of interesting character interactions and so much humor. It reminded me a lot of the first Iron Man movie in that whether or not you're prone to enjoying super hero movies, you can almost surely find something to like because the film is just pure entertainment. 

If "Whedony" is a critique that means something to you, then you've probably seen the movie and we can just sit here together and bask in the glow of the "rest" of the world finally taking notice of what we've been saying for 15 years: Whedon is awesome.

Fast, funny, serious and full of action - what more cound you ask for from a super hero movie?

The Ides Of March - I wanted to love this movie but instead I found it fairly predictable and maybe just a little too fond of itself. It was a pretty movie but for every scene packed full of whispered dialogue, there were 4 scenes of Ryan Gosling walking and looking pensive. I mean, I'd actually watch an entire movie of Ryan Gosling walking and looking pensive as long as I knew up front that that's what I was getting.

So it was kind of boring and then when something did happen it was always someone doing something super dicky. And worst of all, the movie wanted me to believe that Evan Rachel Wood is 20. She is not at all believable playing 20. In fact, at this point she's barely believable playing her actual age of 25. It seems like the story could have easily been rewritten for her to play older but instead they kept reminding me she was 20 and I kept thinking they were full of shit.

The movie was ok but on the whole everyone involved has better things to offer.

Revenge - I'm all caught up now. I like that they're beginning to make Daniel complicet in the horrible things that his parents do/have done because I think it'll be that much more enjoyable when Emily finally gets her revenge if no one in the family is merely collateral damage. But I still kind of wish she would not marry him and instead marry Jack because he's the dreamiest.

Minus a marriage to Emily, I just really want Jack and Nolan to hug. And, you know, for Emily and Jack to save Nolan from White Haired Man's murderous clutches.

I'm still waiting for Ashley to become interesting. I had hoped that her job at Greyson Global would help with that situation but sadly, no. Charlotte is still super annoying but she did just buy all the drugs in New York so either she'll get interesting or she'll OD. Shocking development alert: I kind of like Declan now. Connor Paolo toned the "accent" way down and stopped being a childish shithead and just like that, he's bordering on useful. Bring on the season finale craziness!

Summer Lovin'

I love my traditional fall-to-spring network shows but by this time every year I am ready for a break in the action, stress, drama and insanity. Fortunately, cable networks and a handful of big nets have just the antidote with a summer slate full of fun, pretty shows that are the televisual equivalent of a great beach read. Here's what I'm looking forward to this summer.

Old Favorites:

White Collar (USA, premiers July 10th) - My favorite summer show for sure. Matt Bomer's super-human beauty is a huge selling point but my favorite thing about this show is the Neal/Peter bromance. When last we saw the boys, Neal was skipping town with the stolen booty and seemingly leaving Peter to face possibly severe consequences for ever trusting Neal. It stresses me out SO MUCH when these two fight. Like, I'm not sure I've ever been in a fight of my own that was as hard on me as their fights are. But their manly love is not the only thing I enjoy about the show, it's slick and shiny and smart and fun and the supporting cast is aces (I truly adore Moz, Ellie and Sara).

So You Think You Can Dance (Fox, premiers May 24th) - The only reality show I care about at all and the only competition show the world ever needs (I know, they're fighting words). My exhaustive dance-by-dance recap/reviews of every episode should really tip you off to the fact that I love everything about this show and I really can't wait to start boring you all to death with my opinions about it once again. This year I might talk more about Cat because she deserves it.

Rookie Blue (ABC, premiers May 24) - I love it and I don't care who knows it. It's so Canadian and preposterous (seriously, why does every major crime in the whole of Toronto happen when Andie is on duty?) but who gives a shit because Sam Swarek is the swoon-worthiest TV cop since...well I can't even think of any other swoon-worthy TV cops right now. In conclusion: SAM SWAREK!

Awkward (MTV, premiers June 28th) - So funny and so much better than you'd expect from the network that brought you The Jersey Shore and 16 And Pregnant. I'm Team Matty all the way and I do think ellipses are the sluts of punctuation.

Suits (USA, premiers June 14th) - You know what USA does better than probably any other network? Bromances. As if they know that bromances are just inherently better than all other relationships, they fill their schedule with shows that could easily be called "Bromance: Art Crimes" or "Bromance: Lawyers" and if you want to complain that their shows are generic you go right ahead. I don't care if they are. I love the shit out of 'em. And I can not get enough of Gabriel Mact as Harvey Spector.

Necessary Roughness (USA, premiers June 6th) - Even when there isn't bromance involved, I'm still fairly susceptible to the type of show USA is offering up this time of year. And God help me, I really like Marc Blucas on this show. Mechad Brooks is not terrible to look at.

Jane By Design (ABC Family, premiers June 5th) - Beach read! Fluffy and silly and filled with fashiony goodness.

Leverage (TNT, premiers July 15th) - I like to watch people steal stuff. I dig heist movies and TV shows so Leverage just makes me happy. But can Parker and Hardison just be boyfriend and girlfriend already? Please? 

Melissa & Joey (ABC Family, May 30th) - Don't judge me. 


What's New: 

Bunheads (ABC Family, June 11th) - I'll be honest, the commercials that ABCF has been running for this show do not fill me with excitement. I loved Gilmore Girls but I don't really want to see "Lorelai Gilmore Teaches Ballet." And I certainly don't want to see "Lorelai Gilmore Teaches Ballet and is Played By Someone Who Isn't Lauren Graham." I'm sure Tony Award Winner Sutton Foster is going to be excellent in Bunheads but I don't want her character to be Lorelai minus the teen pregnancy, plus dancing. I hope the show surprises me and is more than just Stars Hollow, CA but I'm not feeling terribly optimistic.

Dallas (TNT, June 13th) - Obviously. Bobby, J.R., Sue Ellen, Lucy and Ray Krebs are all going to be back and portrayed by the same actors who played them in the '80s. Brenda Strong, Julie Gonzalo and Josh Henderson will join them. I mean, OBVIOUSLY.

Breaking Pointe (CW, May 31st) - I just really like watching people dance.

Common Law (USA, May 11th) - This one already premiered so I know I'm going to be watching. Not because it's particularly great, but because it's two attractive guys in a snarky bromance. I hope they spend more time in the therapy sessions in future eps though. I dig the dynamic where they just sit around and argue while the other people in the session ask questions and judge them.

Saving Hope (NBC, June 7th) - Daniel Gillies is in it. If you need more reason than that to watch, you make decisions much differently than I do.

Political Animals (USA, July 15th) - I want to live in a world where Adrian Pasdar is the President, Dylan Baker is the Vice President, Sigourney Weaver is the Secretary of State (and former First Lady) and Sebastian Stan, James Wolk, Ellen Burstyn, Dan Futterman and Carla Gugino are also present and doing things. Since that's not going to happen in real life any time soon, I'm sure as hell not going to pass up an opportunity to watch it happen on my TV.

Armchair Programing Executive

(Lennon Parham, Jessica St. Clair, Luka Jones - Best Friends Forever, NBC)

There isn't a TV addict alive who hasn't second-guessed the decision making of network programming executives at least once (or, you know, every time a schedule is announced). We all think we know better than they do. Remember when Jeff Zucker gave Jay Leno a primetime talk show five nights a week at 10:00pm and we all took to the internet to talk about how that was a colossal mistake (because when we're all puffed up with scorn and superiority, we really do sound like Felicity's dad. You know it's true)? When it failed spectacularly, it only made us more certain that any one of us would be better at running a network than the clowns they had doing the job now.

With the networks rolling out their fall programming plans for advertisers and TV journalists at the annual Up Fronts this week, it's time again to talk about what we'd do differently if only we had the chance.

Personally, I'm not about to question what CBS or ABC are doing because their ratings pretty well prove that the people in charge of those networks know what they want and how best to go after it. Not all of their programming is for me but between them they're grabbing the vast majority of viewers who watch television live and, for now anyway, that's still where the money is so good on them.

(David Walton and Amanda Peet - Bent, NBC)

Trying to fix what's broken at NBC is so hard I'd almost be tempted to trash everything and start from scratch. (Slight exaggeration - there are probably 5 shows that are worth salvaging and building a whole new network around.) I'm not entirely sure I know what demographic Fox is after and I don't care much about most of their shows so my opinion of their schedule can best be described as "yay, they renewed New Girl."

The network I do find myself thinking a lot about is The CW. The CW knows exactly what demographic it wants (women 18 - 45) and most of its programming is a great fit for some or all of that segment of the population. But in the past year, I've had the following conversation with at least 6 women between the ages of 30 and 50:

         Me: Do you watch The Vampire Diaries?
         Them: No, I've never heard of it. What channel is that on?
         Me: The CW.
         Them: The what?

That conversation continues with me telling them what TVD is about, why they'd like it and how they can watch it. In in 5 of the 6 cases, the person has watched the show and fallen in love with it. Every one of them has spent money on TVD DVDs, books, digital downloads, etc. And before The Vampire Diaries I had similar conversations about Veronica Mars, Everwood other shows on The CW or and/or The WB. The problem that this network has isn't convincing viewers to like their shows, it's getting the attention of viewers at all.



(Danneel Ackles, Jessica Lucas, Ryan Hansen, Zach Cregger, Andre Holland - Friends With Benefits)


Since I don't actually run the network (or work in television in any way), I was not privy to scripts or pilots and therefore can't really say which of the shows they had in development should have been picked up. I know which ones I was interested in and which I couldn't care less about based on what I know of them (who's in them and a brief plot summary) but that's hardly enough to make the big call. So putting that aside, the main thing I would have done differently if I were in charge of The CW is this: I would have cancelled 90210 and Gossip Girl and gotten back into the comedy business. 

The other networks all seem to agree that we're in the midst of a TV comedy renaissance and I can't really argue with them. With NBC throwing both Bent and Best Friends Forever onto the spring schedule with little fanfare only to quickly cancel them, there are two very good shows in need of rescuing which come with a starter audience built right in. Speaking of NBC, they gave Friends With Benefits a similar treatment last summer and that's a funny show with a likable cast that would fit very well with the two they shit-canned this season. Finally, there's a little web series called Dating Rules From My Future Self. The title isn't great but it's a charming and adorable show that would make a great half hour series and already stars a few actors from the network's stable. 

(Alison Becker, Shiri Appleby, Mircea Monroe - Dating Rules From My Future Self)

With Bent, Best Friends Forever, Friends with Benefits and Dating Rules From My Future Self The CW would have a solid two hours of smart, funny, single camera comedies squarely targeting their ideal demographic and could bring a few NBC viewers who wouldn't otherwise know the net' even existed.

This concludes the 2012 edition of "If I Were A Network Executive." See you next year!

Weekend In Reviews

The Lucky One - If the best scientists of our time worked together around the clock, with unlimited resources, in the greatest lab in the world to create a man that the vast majority of women between the ages of 16 and 60 found sexually attractive, their creation would pale in comparison to Zac Efron.

The appeal of The Lucky One is that women of just about every age want to see tight closeups of his dreamy blue eyes and impossibly long lashes revealing his damaged soul. We want to see him doing physical labor, playing with dogs and children, helping with the dishes, playing the piano. But mostly we want to see him passionately kissing and making love to a woman that could be us. Let me be clear with you - Zac Efron does all of those things in The Lucky One and when Taylor Scilling's Beth FINALLY gives into her desires and marches over to Logan's artfully dilapidated house with the shower on the porch, he also gets wet and nearly naked. Worth the price of admission.

And if you happen to see it in a nearly empty theater with a smartass friend who'll make vaguely inappropriate commentary with you throughout, so much the better.

New Year's Eve - Like Valentine's Day but worse. If this movie had been entirely about Zac Efron's Paul and Michele Pfeiffer's Ingrid, it would have been a million times more interesting.

Things Zac does in the movie: dances, finds creative ways to make a woman's dreams come true in one day, wears a suit, kisses a woman that could be us. Other things that happen in the movie: Katherine Heigl and Jon Bon Jovi lack chemistry, Halle Berry lacks purpose, Lea Michelle lacks the ability to act, many other people who should have had better things to do with their time show up to collect a paycheck.

This movie is terrible. If you heard it was bad, believe it. It was actually worse than you heard. If you really have to watch a movie with 37 stories running concurrently and uninterestingly together, watch Valentine's Day instead. It's slightly less bad.

Safe - Because sometimes all you really want is to see Jason Statham put on a crisp white shirt and dark jacket and shoot and/or beat the shit out of people. The excuse for him to do so in this movie is that he's an ex-cop, turned ex-cage fighter, turned homeless sad sack whose wife was killed by the Russian mob. He's given a renewed sense of purpose when he sees the Russian thugs menacing an 11 year old Chinese girl causing him to swoop into action to rescue her.

If what you're looking for is Jason Statham being Jason Statham you've come to the right place. Bonus: there is one shot of shirtless Statham and his glorious back muscles. (I'm just here to tell you what's IMPORTANT so you can make your movie viewing decisions accordingly.)

21 Jump Street - With a wink and a nod to the television show, this movie is very funny. It's fun to see a movie that features more than one running gag that manages to stop just short of running any of them into the ground.

I feel a little bad for all of the young people who saw this movie but never saw the television show because that Hanson/Penhall moment was amazing and beautiful and hilarious and, look, I'm just going to say it, I still think Peter DeLuise can get it.

It's weird that Jenko and Schmidt never kissed though. The sexual tension between them was ridiculous.

The Change-Up - This is easily the worst movie I've seen in the last 5 years and that's really saying something since I saw it only hours after I saw New Year's Eve. But while New Year's Eve was merely pointless and stupid, this was actively offensive to all people everywhere.

Two minutes into the movie Jason Bateman's baby projectile shits in his mouth and it's all downhill from there. Yeah, there actually is such a thing as downhill from that. IN HIS MOUTH, you guys. Everyone in the movie is insultingly stupid and a horrible person in general. I hated them all so much that I started to hate myself for not turning it off.

I still kind of hate myself for that.

Wild Child - Emma Roberts as a spoiled bitch who gets sent off to boarding school in England where she continues to be a bitch until making friends and realizing that since her mom went to the same boarding school, she can obviously be happy here. Her love interest is Alex Pettyfer who may be the blandest bit of blandness ever.

Bottom line: this is like an ABC Family original movie but with swearing. Naturally I enjoyed it. Don't judge me.

Abduction - If Zac Efron is the perfect guy to appeal to the largest number of women between 16 and 60, Taylor Lautner is the perfect guy to appeal to the largest number of girls between the ages of 10 and 17.

But wait, before we talk about Taylor Lautner, let's talk about the plot of the movie. Taylor's character, Nathan, is the child of two CIA agents. When his mother is killed because of something his father has that the Russians (isn't it cute how the Russians are still the enemy in this movie? Like it was originally written in '87?) want. Nathan is given to two other CIA agents who pretend to be his parents and keep him safe. But then he sees himself on a missing persons website and shit goes terribly wrong. You know what never happens in the entire movie? No one is abducted. Ever.

Nathan does run away and his neighbor, Lily Collins, runs with him. The two of them either made out or had sex once the summer before 8th grade and then when school started he never asked her out so it's been super awkward for everyone everywhere ever since. But with their lives in peril, they've got a lot of time to talk about stuff and work things out so they make out on a train for a while. This is a good time to talk about Lautner's demographic. Guys, Taylor Lautner can not act. His face does not emote and his voice has one level. He has a nice body and a nonthreatening face so to girls who aren't yet ready to have naughty thoughts about the emotionally damaged guy with the beard and calloused hands, he's swoon-worthy.

This movie seems like the perfect thing to get the middle school contingent interested in what I like to call Arm Porn Action. From here they're ready to graduate to The Transporter series and the action section of Mark Wahlberg's resume.

What's Your Number - I'm not going to lie, this movie was dumb. It wasn't funny and it wasn't interesting and it wasn't easy to stop staring at Anna Faris's lips because WHY DID SHE DO THAT to them? You know what the movie has going for it? Chris Evans spends a lot of it without his shirt of and he's not terrible to look at.

Moneyball - I enjoyed this movie quite a lot. It's kind of a dense slog through a lot of facts that don't make a very interesting movie.

So Brad Pitt is Billy Beane, the General Manager of The Oakland A's who've just lost their two star players to teams who can afford to play star players out the ass. He's got to rebuild a winning team with no money. Working with Yale mathlete Peter Brand, he goes after cheap, mostly useless players who get on base enough that they, mathematically, give them the best chance to win. So getting there is interesting but then they get these guys on the team and for several weeks or months the manager just...doesn't play them. And the team loses. A lot.

So this huge chunk of the movie is about how the manager, Art Howe played by Phillip Seymore Hoffman, is a total dick who won't do what he's told and therefore the team sucks. But Billy finally trades all the players that Art is playing instead leaving him with no choice but to play the team Billy built. And they win. A lot. They win more games in a row than any team in history. But just when you think this will be the triumphant story of how one man used math to win everything against all odds, you remember that it's a true story and the Oakland As didn't win anything. They finished their 2002 season in the exact same place they finished their 2001 season.

Billy got offered an assload of money to be the GM of the Red Sox but he turned them down. Billy Beane doesn't really look like Brad Pitt so in the end I don't think he ended up ahead.

You're Meant To Dance And Cry

Dance Academy will fool you. As the series begins it seems like something cheesy and soapy and inconsequential. An incessant voice over that's treacly as often as not leads you to believe that the series will focus entirely on the many embarrassments of a country girl trying to make it in the big city, and her struggles as the worst dancer at the prestigious National Dance Academy. It tricks you into thinking that it's small. 

It is not small. One by one seeds are planted with no apparent rush to amp up the drama or speed through the story. Seeds that, before you know it, grow and blossom into stories that have been done before but are rarely treated with the level of sensitivity and grace that they're treated with on Dance Academy. 

Eating disorders, teenage rebellion, fist love, coming out, triumph over adversity - these are stories that are well-worn on TV, especially in shows that focus on the lives of teenagers. We've all seen them played for laughs or shock value. We've seen them rushed through and overblown. We've seen them done well and we've seen them done badly. We've come to expect them all. What I didn't expect was the delicacy with which they handled every aspect of every trope they trotted out. 

Each story had ample time to develop at a natural pace over multiple episodes. The writing never tried to outsmart itself or the audience and it never tried to be clever. It gave the characters room to breathe and grow in their moments without asking them to behave or speak in a way that would require the viewer to suspend disbelief. When one girl struggles with feelings of inadequacy, some of her classmates try to help. Some say the right thing, others don't. Nothing anyone says fixes her, she has to fix herself. When a student wrestles with a realization that he may be gay, he has a hard time accepting himself and settling into the new reality of his life but he has friends who give him the time to figure things out without insisting he define himself. 

The actors never seem to be forcing emotion out of themselves or the story. When someone cries, I believe that they are crying because they're overcome with emotion and not because the script called for it. The plot rarely requires the actors to make fools of themselves in service of delivering a flashier story and in turn, the actors never fail to give the story punch with their quiet, thoughtful, honest performances. Even those who were clearly cast more for their dancing than for their acting have, by the second season, risen to the occasion and settled comfortably into a rhythm of acting instead of over-acting. 

And make no mistake, the kids on this show were cast in part because they could dance. The dancing is as important to the story as anything and they've clearly taken great pains to make sure that the audience can see them dance. No tricky edits or tight closeups of only feet and faces. We can see these actors dancing in wide shots in every episode. The actors are doing the work. 

Every character is interesting in his or her own way and everyone adds something to the story - from the core group of Tara, Kat, Abigail, Sammy, Christian and Ethan, to second season additions Ben and Grace, and the secondary cast of Miss Raine and the parents. It's only a half hour show so lingering shots of contemplative faces are used sparingly and they move from one plot to another economically while never feeling choppy. The direction doesn't get fancy, just unobtrusive and seamless and the pacing is brisk but never rushed which results in 24 minute episodes that feel neither too short, nor too long. 

I keep trying to pinpoint the exact moment that Dance Academy went from being a show I enjoyed somewhat ironically, to being an excellent show that I loved on its merits. Was it the second season? The coming out? Sammy and Abigail's relationship? But it wasn't one moment. It was the way the show did all the small things; the way it hinted at something rather than coming right out with it; the way it cared enough to subvert your expectations without waving your expectations in your face first; the way it embraced subtlety even while sticking with a voice over that bordered on the obvious. I don't think the show was ever small. I think it was just carefully laying the foundation for the exquisite show it was always meant to be and I deeply admire not just what they built but how they built it. 

I spent a lot of time on Twitter this week comparing Dance Academy and its characters to other shows - Australian Pacey, Australian Maureen, Australian Dawson. It's a lot of fun to find the similarities between a new favorite show and those that have come before but the truth is, this show is something unique unto itself. Someday I'll watch another show and dub someone the American Sammy or the American Kat because these characters are more than just the Down Under versions of great characters who've come before. They're important, interesting, wonderful characters all their own. And I love every one of them.