Hey, I Just Saw...

Besides his epic "Bacon" take, Jim Gaffigan also has a great bit about how awkward it can be to admit that you just recently saw what was at one time a popular film (Hey, I just saw "Heat." Great movie, anyone want to talk to me about it?)--especially when you then have no one to talk to about it.

C'mon, we've all been there. For whatever reason you didn't make it to the theater. No time, bad word-of-mouth, short of cash at the time, etc. This happened to me a few years back when I saw Fight Club for the first time. I didn't see the film until it had been on DVD for a couple of years, but fortunately no one had told me about the twist ending until I saw it for myself. I was blown away and wanted to tell everyone I saw what a great flick this was, but everybody had already seen it or didn't care anymore. But that's the norm. The only really amazing thing here was that I hadn't heard about the twist ending yet. Compare this to TV Guide ruining A Beautiful Mind for me by describing Paul Bettany as Russel Crowe's imaginary friend--this in an article written very shortly after the film was released on DVD. Horrible.

But this indiscretion pales in comparison to that of the marketing department of 20th Century Fox, whose re-released original Planet of the Apes featured a war-torn Statue of Liberty ON THE FRONT COVER! Maybe not the best idea to give away the brilliant Rod Serling-penned ending before your audience sees the film. What if other films used this "strategy?" "...and Kevin Spacey as Keyser Soze" or "Kevin Spacey as John Doe (the killer in 7even)." "Oh, and Bruce Willis is really dead the whole time. Didn't want you to be confused."

But the real reason for this post (wow, 4 paragraphs in!) is to sing the praises of a show called Boston Legal which aired from 2004-2008. I never saw a first-run episode of the series, but am catching up on re-runs now on the ION channel and can't get enough of them. Incredible writing (it is a David E. Kelley show after all) and a stellar cast combine to produce a hilarious, thought-provoking, and sometimes very poignant show. And every episode features brilliant performances by both James Spader and the one-and-only William Shatner, both of whom won multiple Emmys for their respective roles. I could go on and on about how much I like this show, but since it's been off the air for almost a year, who really wants to know about how many of the show's actors appeared in Christopher Guest films (I count 6) or how many were in one of the many Star Trek series (4 in this category)? Oh well, what are you going to do?