February went by fast. This first week of March is going by too. Can’t believe we’re losing an hour to Daylight Savings by this weekend. Has spring almost sprung now?
Coming soon to the tv nearest you: March Madness – NCAA. Or more like April Antics, considering how late it’ll be this year. Honestly, Cornell’s men’s team is already in? I’ll salute a fellow Ivy League team and wish them the best of luck (Alma Mater didn’t do so hot, but better than in the past this season). But, really, are you really going past Round 1?
Saturday night: Peking Park for APA alumni group’s lunar new year dinner. Didn’t think I’d make it, but I did. Food was better than last year, strangely enough, and it’s the same place as last year’s.
Creator of “Family Ties” (and many other shows, including “Brooklyn Bridge” – which I mention because I liked it – and “Spin City” – during which I enjoyed the Michael J. Fox years), Gary David Goldberg, on who he thinks Alex P. Keaton would vote for (if Alex were real, and face it, he isn’t). As noted previously on triscribe, Michael J. Fox did have his own theory on what happened to his former alter ego, and I noted what I thought too (see the previous link). Considering that Goldberg believes that Alex would have ended up doing pro bono work for the Children’s Defense Fund… well, that’s a nice thought. Hard to believe, but nice anyway. Alex as a lawyer? Hmm!
Watched “New Amsterdam,” since I’m a sucker for shows about detectives who don’t die. The NY Times’ Ginia Bellafante (surprised that Bellafante gave away plot twists) and Newsday’s Diane Werts haven’t been too negative – NY Post’s Linda Stasi got glowing, really (her crush on Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, as “John Amsterdam,” got too much). I agree with David Bianculli – New York City is the best character – as seen in the glimpses of the past of John Amsterdam, the 400 year old cop who’s been in NYC since it was New Amsterdam (the title of the show isn’t just his name or that he’s going to be a new man in finally finding the love of his life, but it’s really about how “Old New York was once New Amsterdam…” as They Might Be Giants sang in their song, “Constantinople”).
The actor Coster-Waldau was a bit wooden in the first episode. From what I could tell of the second episode (aired on Thursday), he’s a bit better. Plus, it’s a bit creepy that the 400 year old guy was fathering children for such a long period of time, and so he’s going to bump into his descendants a bit more than I would have thought, but that actually makes the show a little funny. The cop stuff and the mysteries don’t seem that intriguing (John Amsterdam was once a Dutch soldier of New Amsterdam, a carpenter famed for classic antique desks that sell like hotcakes at Sotheby’s, and once a lawyer named John York. Yeah, okay…). The woman shown to be the possible love interest didn’t seem all that interesting to me. Amsterdam’s cop partner, played by actress Zuleikah Robinson, needs a personality – probably no fault of the actress, more because of the weak writing of her character. Amsterdam’s bar-owning sidekick, Omar, has more chemistry with him.
Amsterdam also seems too casual about tossing references to his being alive way too long. Does the NYPD know they’ve this really old-but-young looking guy on the force, or do they think he’s just crazy because he watched the Yankees play before they were even called the Yankees and actually mentioned it to one of the guys in the precinct, while in a debate over who was the Yankees’ best pitcher?
My advice: umm, Amsterdam – you might want to keep your secrets a little more secretive unless you want to end up in Bellevue or something.
The show as a mystery series – well, needs to be a bit more gripping. Then again, I speak as someone who found the episodes on “Angel” where Angel thinks about his 300 year past as good stuff (well, Angel was once an irritating Irish lad named Liam (and those flashbacks didn’t do that well, because the actor David Boreanaz couldn’t maintain the Irish accent too long), but otherwise had to deal with the whole redemption thing for about 100 years of misery…) — But, “New Amsterdam” as a show on modern romance – a romantic in a city where romance is hard? That’s persuasive to me.
There’s also that bit of controversy because the plot of “New Amsterdam” is apparently similar to Pete Hamill’s book “Forever.” I haven’t read Hamill’s book; nonetheless, I think the tv series is more inspired by series like “Angel” or “Highlander.” It shouldn’t detract from Hamill’s book – if anything, I think I now want to get a copy and read it, in hopes that Hamill did a better writing job than the tv writers did. (they clearly mean to do better, and maybe they will, but it felt like the at-the-time’s looming writers’ strike didn’t help them).
So, do I like “New Amsterdam”? I don’t know. But, as my history of tv watching goes, I’m a sucker for weird cop/hero shows, and shows that I have a fondness for have a sad way of just not lasting. FOX may or may not renew it (it has renewed its lame sitcoms, and it has kept its crappy reality games on the air), but I hope FOX keeps it going to keep us mildly entertained in Broadcast Network TV land.
Missed a good chunk of “Law and Order” the other night. What I can say of what I did watch of the episode? — Moira Kelly as the defendant played crazy very well. She’s aging naturally, which is good, really (I can’t take the too-obvious Botox actresses), but I almost couldn’t recognize her (she barely looks like her “The Cutting Edge” or “West Wing” roles). Plus, if Detective Lupo does end up getting his J.D. from our Alma Mater Law School, his watching how Exec. ADA Cutter acts in action might convince Lupo not to enter the field of prosecution. He got a little disgusted with how Cutter treated a teenaged witness; Cutter got all “well, stick to your lovely law books, ’cause practicing law ain’t that pretty.” Jack McCoy got his own hands a little dirty too, in helping Cutter nail the defendant’s expert witness on cross (McCoy getting a little personally vindictive, because he didn’t like it that the shrink – who has helped the DA’s office in the past – wasn’t helping them this time). ADA Connie Rubirosa ended up saving the day.
And, last but not least: Jack Mathews, most recently a Daily News movie critic and previously a Newsday movie critic, is moving on from the industry to head west and enjoying a different view. Beginning his last column with an anecdote of his first movie critic job in Detroit (how kids touring the newsroom were amazed that he was paid to watch movies), and Mathews closes:
When I began reviewing and seeing everything, I was warned by a veteran critic that for every movie that would inspire me, nine would drain my soul. I thought, “He just doesn’t like movies as much as I do.”
Some 6,000 screenings later, I’d say he had the ratio about right. But those exceptions – that “Pulp Fiction,” that “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” that “No Country for Old Men” – kept my glass half-full and the passion alive.
That passion has been with me since I was younger than those kids in Detroit, and I get as excited by movies now as then. But as I return to civilian filmgoing, I will be counting on other critics to do for me what I’ve tried to do for you: cut through the hype and publicity and tell me which films are actually worth seeing.
On your own dime, you have to be selective.
I remembered reading Mathews’ reviews back when I read NY Newsday (when there was a NY Newsday), and then was pleased to see him in the Daily News (’cause I was reading the hometown newspaper again). Things change, I guess, and we have to move with the times. Still – reading movie reviews just won’t be the same. Best wishes, Mr. Mathews!