Reviews

As a foodie, shows like this make me realize why the term has become a pejorative. The concept here may sound simple, yet the execution manages to be both complicated and tedious. A group of pseudo-young people who have escaped a J-Crew photo shoot, travel to farms, wineries, etc in various parts of the country, while they "oversee" a grand dinner hosted by a chef, where the dinner guests appear to be of the "people with money" variety.

Prior to the meal we see variety of tasks, yet none of it seems to accomplish much. During a typical episode, our intrepid hosts visit farms, farmers markets, cheeseries, wineries, etc, to yield ingredients, techniques, and more importantly, speeches, soliloquies, and "wisdom". For an alleged cooking show, there is a lot of talking going on here. When we finally see this meal come to fruition, it's almost an afterthought. Tables are set up, wine is poured, we see the chef chop up a few vegetables and sear some meat, there are a couple of brief shots of people trying the dishes and....credits roll! For a show called The Endless Feast, the feast lasts all of 3 minutes.

This show suffers from one fundamental problem: It has a major identity crisis. Is it a cooking show? Food porn? A "message" show? I imagine it it thinks it's all of these things, and more. Let's just be clear, this is NOT a cooking show. For the record, very little actual cooking and preparation is shown on The Endless Feast. Looking for recipes? Don't hold your breath. Scratch food porn too. That is unless you consider watching a well-to-do woman with a $2000 handbag ohhh and ahhh over a glass of wine and a rack of lamb. "Message" show....I think we have a winner, sort of. But even the most ardent foodies will want to pull their hair out with all the insufferable prattle about organic, farm-to-fork, sustainability, blah blah blah.

When it's all said and done, The Endless Feast is talky, pretentious, overly earnest, and has absolutely NO sense of humor. PBS is known for it's array of quality cooking/food shows. This is not one of them.

I recently rented Fay Grim for two specific reasons: 1) I simply adore Parker Posey as an actor & 2) I had heard good stuff about Hal Hartley and his style of film. I must admit though that after my viewing I was slightly disappointed. When I first heard about the film it was described as an "action satire", something which sounded very intriguing. For the record though the "action" in the film is rather limited. Also for the record I am not very familiar with Harley as a filmmaker, I have never seen any of his stuff, that includes Henry Fool.

To start off with I really enjoyed the films quirky style, from the bizarre camera work to the odd reiteration of certain jokes. The films writing is quite good, it's sharp, funny and witty without at all being pretentious. As usual Posey does an excellent job here. Her performance is understated yet still very funny and she plays off the other actors quite well. Jeff Goldblum is also noteworthy as a CIA operative who draws Poseys character into a world of secrets and spies.

The films theme is definitely a left-of-center satirization of the world of spies & terrorists. And although the film is quite funny there are a couple of injections of seriousness which just seem to throw the proceedings off. The films characters and plot lines are often extremely confusing. This is of course done on purpose to convey the absurdity of the world of espionage, but even I found the overflow of information kind of annoying.

I have to admit I didn't care for the ending. The viewer basically spends the majority of the film waiting for Fay & Henry to finally come face to face, this unfortunately never truly happens. I suspect that this may be a hint at yet another sequel. Overall I found the movie fairly enjoyable, but it definitely isn't for everyone.

Where to begin. Designing Women has always been one of my all-time favorite sitcoms. For the record I am also a huge fan of The Golden Girls. As many know these two shows have been heavily compared and contrasted for the longest time. The two shows do have striking similarities and many out there have accused Designing Women of ripping The Golden Girls off (And I do believe there is a hint of truth to that, but we'll save that for another time) but Designing Women stands completely on it's own. In many ways I think there is a sense of humanism & realism in Designing Women that is lacking in The Golden Girls, but enough about them.

I fell in love with the show straight from the Pilot. I was still in grade school but I thought it was hysterical. I enjoyed the great cast of characters and how beautifully they played off of one another. And the actresses who played those characters were amazing. Whether it was the kooky yet vulnerable Charlene (Jean Smart), the confidence and dry wit of Julia (Dixie Carter), the semi-neurotic girl next door Mary Jo (Annie Potts) or the over the top drama (And silliness) of Suzanne (Delta Burke), these characters made me laugh and laugh. They were all great performers but Delta Burke as Suzanne truly stood out as a one of a kind comedic talent. Burke surprised critics and viewers alike by showing she could bring a self absorbed former beauty queen (With a secret heart of gold) to new heights of hilarity. The show also benefited from the strong political sensibilities of it's creator/producer Linda Bloodworth-Thomason as the show often took liberal political stances during a time when it was relatively taboo for sitcoms to do so. The show did struggle during it's last couple of seasons primarily due to a revolving door of cast changes. First, it was the very abrupt departure of Burke, which from a viewer stand-point was somewhat jarring. What I mean by that is that we had one of the strongest (And funniest) characters literally vanish in thin air without ANY explanation, it really kinda threw things off for awhile. After Burke departed we than saw Charlene leave. At least this time there was an explanation, her military husband had suddenly been permanently transferred to the UK. Next was the truly AWFUL casting of Julia Duffy as Sugarbaker cousin, Allison. Though I hold no ill-will towards the acting talent of Duffy, the character of Allison Sugarbaker was dreadful. She was completely unlikeable and had NO redeeming qualities. Someone must've thought the same thing as she too vanished without a trace after just 1 season. Let us also not forget the season 6 finale "Shades of Vanessa" which attempted to set up black comedienne Jackee' as a possible partner in the Sugarbaker firm for the upcoming 7th season. This idea never panned out, for whatever reason. Although it never "Jumped The Shark", the Allison character came pretty close to pushing it over that edge. I think Jan Hooks should get special mention as someone who continuously elevated the show. With a few years of Saturday Night Live experience under her belt she managed to create a funny, memorable character in that of Carlene Dawber, the sweet yet strange little sister of the departed Charlene. Eventually another character hopped on board, that of BJ (Played nicely by Judith Ivey) a wealthy widow who, in it's final season, became a partner to save the ailing Sugarbaker firm. I will always remember Designing Women as a genuinely funny show with quirky yet believable characters and great writing, despite some of it's messy cast changes. My all-time favorite episode is "Pearls of Wisdom", just for the laugh-til-you-cry hilarity of the salad bar scene.

At the time of this writing (June 07') a season-by-season DVD release is pending. Sony (The studio that will release DW on DVD) initially intended to release Season 1 in the summer of 06. However, a season-by-season release has been stalled due to music clearances. This is completely plausible considering the dozens (and dozens) of songs/pieces of music used throughout the series. Sony has stated that due to a market saturation of TV to DVD releases, the music industry is taking advantage of this by demanding big bucks for music licensing. Sony says that the music fees are so high that if they were to go ahead with the shows release it would mean a much higher than usual retail price for the sets. Sony has repeated that they are committed to releasing the show on DVD but want to keep the price point low so that casual fans and hardcore fans alike can enjoy the show without raping their wallets. And so we wait......