Deja Fu

Americans aren’t big on accolades for the second person to do anything. We don’t remember the second Pope (it was St. Linus); the second man to invent the telephone (Elisha Gray), and never mind the silver medal winners in the Olympics. Gold medal winners get their faces on a Wheaties box. Silver medal winners, not so much.

Much to my chagrin, I would be forced to admit I felt much the same way about our second president: John Adams. Of the first three presidents, he always seemed to be the least interesting when I was a kid. As I got older and studied history more and more, I would find interest in the events during which he lived, but not the man himself.

Well, that’s at an end. Over the last six weeks, HBO has been airing a seven part mini series on the life of John Adams, drawn from historian David McCullough’s book by the same name. The conclusion aired last night, with Adams and Jefferson both dying on the same day, July 4, 1826, the last survivors of those who, fifty years before, signed the Declaration of Independence. So it seems appropriate to write a bit about it.

Paul Giamatti (American Splendor, Sideways) gives a powerful performance as Adams, in turns brilliant and passionate, vain and arrogant, tired and bitter. Laura Linney (Love Actually, Mystic River) gives an equally wonderful performance as his wife, Abagail who also served as his most valuable counselor and friend throughout fifty-one years of marriage.

Both the book and the mini-series draw heavily from the extraordinary correspondence maintained between John and Abagail over the course of their relationship. As fortune would have it, the letters have been preserved and are even available in collected form. It is a singular window into one of the collected minds of our founding fathers. It’s also a prime reason why, although it has its own inaccuracies, John Adams is one of the most accurate depictions of the early history of our country. I have always been fond of quoting a history professor of mine when he said, “Never get your history from a movie.” While the rule still holds, Hollywood could certainly do a lot worse than to use this mini-series as the new watermark of achievement.

John Adams won’t be for everyone. There’s very little in the way of battles or action. It is a biopic, and this particular subject wasn’t a general in an army. He actually spent most of the war in Europe. However, for anyone with a modicum of interest in early American history, it is highly recommended. If your view of Adams is changed as much as mine, that should be counted as a success.

-K

Here we are with another set of videos making the rounds.

You’re going to need background for this one. Jimmy Kimmel has a running gag on his show where he apologizes to Matt Damon because they ran out of time. The joke, of course, is that Matt Damon was never scheduled to appear and that he’d never be scheduled at the end. They even went so far as to bring Damon on one time, where Kimmel apologized for running out of time and Damon lost his temper, swearing at Kimmel repeatedly.

The next move came when Kimmel’s girlfriend, Sarah Silverman, debuted this video on Jimmy Kimmel Live! along with its shocking revelation.

Now that’s hilarious. However, Kimmel decided to strike back on his post-Oscars show. It is a worthy example of revenge done right, taking the original gag and just pushing it right over the cliff’s edge.

Just classic.

(FYI – Just in case the names of the videos weren’t clue enough, they aren’t exactly safe for work, unless you work from home.)

-K

That’s been the question over the last few days between Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert and Conan O’Brien.

It all started innocently enough, with Colbert and Conan both asserting they “made” Mike Huckabee through their mentions of him on their programs. Then Stewart stepped in with a piece of footage from his MTV show where Conan was the guest, so he “made” Conan. Then Conan showed a picture of him delivering Colbert and Stewart as babies, then announced the feud was over and demanded it never be mentioned again.

However, that wasn’t good enough for Stephen Colbert.

Then it spilled over onto the Colbert Report:

And finally, the conclusion occurred on Late Night:

Hilarious.

However, I do wonder how much of this was accomplished because the WGA is on strike. If the writers had been in residence, could they have pulled off this kind of cross-channel bit? Or would union rules and regulations interfered because the shows are on competing networks?

For whatever reason, it was a great bit and even got me to stay up and tune into Late Night without being on vacation at the same time.

-K

Seriously.

But funny. Very funny.

-K

These are good years to be getting back into television.

I don’t mean that from a writing point-of-view, obviously. I mean as a viewer. I spent a good while using my TV as a monitor for my XBox, or my DVD player. Over the last few years, however, I have slowly started watching more TV programming than I ever have. The secret? Wait until the seasons are available on DVD.

See, with the series on DVD, I can watch whenever I want, without all the commercials and without having to wait a week (or more) for a new episode. I’m not at the whim of networks who decide to move a show and don’t tell anyone, or cancel a new episode so that they can air re-runs of Murder She Wrote. I can watch one at a time, or I can pull a marathon “all-night” viewing if I please. Since I started doing so, I’ve seen past seasons of Battlestar Galactica, Lost, House, M.D., The Office, Smallville, Heroes and even Grey’s Anatomy, to name a few. Good stuff indeed.

So what does this have to do with the title? Because House is my favorite character right now. I’ll probably write up something more extensive later. For right now, that guy just cracks me up when other people are looking horrified at what comes out of his mouth. I’m not sure that’s a good thing for me, but it makes me laugh.

-K