EPISODES (TWO) ON SHOWTIME

In their second week, Californication and Shameless continued to look very good, sharp, original, surprising, and enteraining.

The big surprise was episode 2 of Episodes, which was much sharper and funnier than the pilot first episode.

CALIFORNICATION & SHAMELESS - WINNERS

Emmy Rossum
At the Hamptons International Film Festival, 2009
Photo by Eric Roffman


Showtime led off the Winter Season with three premieres.

The Season Premiere of Californication was as wild and wacky as we've come to expect from this continually surprising and entertaining show.

Episodes was not too appealing. Neither the characters, nor the actors, nor the jokes, nor the story, nor the script were particularly compelling. Matt LeBlanc, "Joey" from Friends, who will be on the show as himself, had more face time in the previews than in the story. The most interesting moments of the show came when an old fat British actor played a scene as himself -- and it worked -- then played the same scene in an American accent and it did not work. Comedy is indeed mysterious.

The Series Premiere of Shameless was quite extraordinarily complex, surprising, depraved, and interesting. Acting was excellent -- Emmy Rossum gets better and better each part she plays: she's in Emmy territory here. Top billed William Macy, though, had little to do but snore. He literally slept through most of his appearance. (NOTE: Irrelevant, but I like how the tilt of the "l" in "shameless" shifts from the beginning to the end of the show.)

Two out of three... Pretty good! Sundays are now committed.

Here's a video interview we did with Emmy Rossum at the
Hamptons's International Film Festival in 2009 --

http://qporit.blogspot.com/2009/11/emmy-rossum-dare.html

CALIFORNICATION & THE HANK HAIKU CONTEST

Californication, the aptly named Showtime program (new episodes on Sundays), is more edgy, more sexy and more together this year than it has been since the first season.

Last year ("coincidently" just before the season started), David Duchovny, who plays Hank Moody, was said to enter a program for sex addicts. This year, with true method acting zeal, he seems to be applying whatever experience he had directly to the story.

The program is funny, serious, sexy and well acted in Duchovny's inimitable style.

Inimitable (ie not imitatable) or not, there is a contest now to imitate -- or reinvent -- Duchovny's acting.

It turns out that many of Hank's best lines are actually Haiku.

(Haiku is a Japanese form of poetry... The English version is usually 3 phrases of 5 7 and 5 syllables. For a full description, see the article on Haiku in Wikipedia.)

For the Hank Haiku contest, go to the HankHaiku site, watch clips of Duchovny delivering Hank's Haiku lines, then make your own video version of the Haiku and upload it.

Your Haiku video may appear on the website, and more opportunities may follow. See the site for the rules and rewards.

The contest ends Nov 29.