REVIEW: How I Met Your Mother, S06E01

The first episode of the sixth season of How I Met Your Mother perfectly sums up the boring predictability of the last two seasons (end already!). It takes place almost entirely in one scene at the bar, in one booth, with some lackluster "riddles" that Barney tells as the "highlights," joke-wise.

Basically:

Barney bemoans summer's end, then oggles some girls again.

Robin looks gross eating cheetos, then "hot," titillating Barney's wein-o.

Ted does not meet the mother.

Lily and Marshall love each other... awwwwwww.



(How I miss the Proclaimers references!)

PROBABLY MY SOULMATE: the guy dressed up as Howard T.J. Moon and pretending to play the trumpet in the Mighty Boosh Live backstage featurette

I'd be the Indian Wife to his Tom Selleck any day.

THE LITTLE THINGS: Nathan Barley (continued!)

Christopher Morris is possibly the only filmmaker for whom obsessive pausing is just as lucrative during re-watches.

(Also some of this shit was impossible to see without going frame-by-frame.)



(S01E01)



(S01E01)



(S01E02)



(S01E03)



(S01E04 and pilot)

You know what makes this somehow even better? These books fracking exist.

things that are "my life":

-Finland
-Bill Haverchuck
-Julian Barratt's moustache

THE LITTLE THINGS: Party Down, S02E08

I'm all "sad face" about the cancellation, but most of the second season was pretty shaky, and at least the show ended with an amazing, oh my god I need to watch Adventureland and Freaks and Geeks and Parks & Rec and Knocked Up and Veronica Mars and The State and everything everything the cast has ever been in except for Glee because oh my fucking Jesus this is that good kind of finale, instead of having a slumpy third season that I stop watching mid-way through and dissuades me from ever re-watching the first two.

The only worry is whether Martin Starr will get regular work in the near future, because how can I live without any new Bill in my life??!

(I'm gonna go ahead and hazard a supposition that it would be a lot like that hypothesized third season scenario above. So I guess I'd have to find something to do with those freed-up ten hours a year. I'm gonna go with watercoloring.)

THE LITTLE THINGS: Eagle vs Shark (Taika Waititi, 2007)

This level of character background detail is why I love this movie.

(Well, y'know, among other things.)

THE LITTLE THINGS: Rentaghost, S01E01 (1976)

THE LITTLE THINGS: My Wrongs #8245-8249 & 117 (Christsopher Morris, 2002)

Christopher Morris makes me feel justified in my obsessive reading of credit sequences.







...But then again, no one else who makes credits is quite like Chrisopher Morris.

(Especially the people who did He's Just Not In You, and I took the time/willpower to watch that all the way to the end.)

THE LITTLE THINGS: Spun (Jonas Åkerlund, 2002)

...Speaking of meth!



(Cos it's about a bunch of tweakers.)

Yeah, the use of fonts in the credits is a little funny, but other than that all the film really succeeds at is making everybody look gross. Which I guess is good...?

THE LITTLE THINGS: Breaking Bad, S01E07 / S02E01

...And due to the fact that those were the only non-terrifying moments the series had to offer, I kind of had to give it up, for fear of developing PHSD*.


*Post-Hal Stress Disorder... who knew the dad from Malcolm in the Middle could play a character compared to whom meth teeth and cancer treatments are funnier...

THE LITTLE THINGS: The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, pilot

The above background poster generated one of the few laughs I had while watching the pilot of The Increasingly Poor Decisions of Todd Margaret, David Cross' new series, slated to premiere October 1st on IFC.

The show concerns the eponymous Todd Margaret, an incompetent, somewhat dimwitted American. While temping at a sales company, Todd stumbles into a job managing a new British division selling the above-pictured energy drinks (because apparently American business executives think that British people love guzzling down thunder and muscles). Once in England, Todd discovers what pounds are, doesn't understand how anything else works, and kind of makes friends with an empathetic cafe owner/Catherine Keener act-alike (Sharon Horgan). Todd's one employee is an assholey British guy (Russel Tovey), who I guess got recast for the actual series, hopefully by someone less assholey. For star-power, Will Arnett plays a douchebaggy GOB/Devon Banks crossover, Kristen Schaal for some reason appears in the background of one shot, and Amber Tamblyn guests because, y'know, she's fucking David Cross. And though this pilot was directed by the Russo brothers (those masterful réalisateurs of some of my favorite Arrested Development episodes) and co-written by Cross and the British comedian Shaun Pye, watching Todd Margaret is not an enjoyable experience.

For one thing, Todd is just too stupid and ignorant, and not in the "likable dunce" or "naive foreigner" way that works for shows like The Flight of the Conchords. No, Todd is one of those characters you don't exactly want to see fail, you just... don't want to see. And the other characters are really not any better. Todd Margaret is populated by the kinds of British people you really only ever see in US portrayals of England. Even with a Brit on the writing staff, and the heritage of the cast (though even that is questionable, what with their Rich Fulcher-like Oxford accents), this representation of England called to mind terrible movies my sister likes to watch -- the Amanda Byne's vehicle What a Girl Wants, the Emma Roberts flick Wild Child (in which British people somehow don't know what cellphones are). Everyone in this England is either trying to make Americans look like dicks, or is a little bit slow, and a little bit too fond of their pints and tea. And okay, okay, I know, I'm not British, nor have I ever been to England, but I'd say I've watched quite enough hours of UK TV to compensate. Also, this show just really isn't funny.

So... I guess IFC thought the pilot was good enough for a greenlighting, but I'm not sure I could stand to watch another episode of Todd Margaret's antics -- let alone the six of the first season -- even for Mr. David Cross. You can watch the pilot and make your own call, but I'd advise just laughing at the above screencap, and then reassuring yourself of your love for England with a little bit of Boosh while eating some Spaghetti Hoops.

a terribly drawn, semi-autobiographical graphic-short story drawn exactly at the same time as it's happening, on a legal pad!

meet the cast of characters:

those bad days

life is a terrifying place.

so is the crosswalk at the intersection of Linn and Burlington.