Going to break from the original plan and talk about a TV series I've been watching instead of a movie, and offer up my review of it. My preference is to avoid the delay that comes from watching television series through the networks, and instead wait for the DVD packaging of the entire season. I do this for a couple reasons: I hate commercials and if I can avoid supporting the practice I will, and I don't wish to wait for the next episode, preferring instead to immerse myself completely in the show.
The last couple days have been spent enjoying a series I saw the first episode of when it was originally aired, then walking away while I patiently waited for the DVD's to arrive. I then completely lost track of it until now. It has since been canceled in regular syndication, but the seasons that were made, as of this writing, can be conveniently seen on Netflix, which I have been doing.
“My Name is Earl” was a brilliant premise: A guy, who has lived his life doing 'bad stuff' because he is self indulgent and lazy, finds a winning lottery ticket only to be hit by a car during his initial celebration. His time spent in the hospital in traction, watching Carson Daly talk about a blessed life led with the knowledge that Karmic Destiny will ensure what comes around goes around, becomes a moment of refection for Earl, and the impetus of an epiphany. Earl makes a list of all the things he has done in his life which were 'bad' and is now on a quest to set right all the wrongs made by his hand. Each episode is another number on the list, as he picks and chooses, at random, which wrong to right today.
The moral and ethical dilemma's are fun, especially when pondered by the group of white-trash, racist, criminally pathological and down-right idiot characters that comprise the cast. Earl doesn't just have to deal with a car he stole during his days of mischievous debauchery; no, he must deal with the one-legged one-night-stand he drunkenly took to bed and ran out on when the fog of beer wore off the morning after, and who's car he made his terrified get-away in, shotgun blasting behind him by the hopping one-legged victim. He doesn't just need to decide how to handle an ex-wife, but one who duped him into marriage while she was pregnant with another man's baby, and who's second child was not only also not Earl's, but a different race as well. And all through this show we get to see the rationale that led to Earl's original sin, and the trials he must endure to pay back for those choices now. It is all tongue-in-cheek, taking race relations, petty crimes, emotional/physical abuse and ignorance in stride while it reaches down and finds the heart behind the harmfulness.
What makes this show work is a combination of brilliance from many directions. The writing is wonderfully rude and caustic, hilarious and base, yet grounded in integrity and sincerity. The characters are drawn with brash colors, but there are subtleties that grant them more than one dimension. The artistic direction holds onto the trailer-park chic of the characters and setting, giving us working examples of the pool Jerry Springer dips into daily. The concept is simple, yet sincere. And it was designed to carry the message of the show effortlessly, which it does.
Jason Lee plays Earl, a rogue looking for the enlightened path. With an untrimmed Burt Reynolds mustache and eyebrows that dance like ballerinas on his brow, Jason breathes life to a character at once flawed and full of heart. He is the moral compass of the show, yet he doesn't quite know how to read his new-found compass, and Jason allows this ignorant innocence to shine through brilliantly. Earl is unkempt, brutish and driven, naive and sincere. The rest of the cast add equal genius to their respective characters, each one showing the worst of a white-trash caricature while pulling from deep inside a heart that can touch us profoundly. Of special note is Jaime Pressley, who's character Joy is so caustic, so rude and repugnant, so deliciously racist and repulsive and lacking any 'polite' setting on her dial. Her beautiful face is rubber when she calls on it to be, reminiscent of Jim Carrey. Constantly twisting into grotesque emotional roadsigns that don't just enhance the attitude of this powerful woman but often turn her into the gargoyle she is portraying, Jaime's lovely face is always flipping from feigned indulgence, unchecked aggression, and cherubic evil by turns. Wrapped in the daisy-dukes of her particular species, she is at once heart-stoppingly beautiful and horrendously aberrant. The entirely of the cast carries some form of this dichotomy with them in their characters
The show is a treasure. I laugh continuously while I watch it. It is filled with subtle nuance, after-school-special life-lessons, and jaw-dropping inappropriateness. It reminds me of what was done right by such shows as Arrested Development. It is a great series, on every level.
No comments:
Post a Comment