Jon Hamm | Grizzly Bomb

A couple weeks ago I got excited and told you about the quality of nominations from the first ever ‘Critics Choice TV Awards’. Representation for Community, Parks and Rec, Always Sunny, and Justified made me think someone had finally gotten it right. Then the winners were announced. Most of the good-will they had built with me has since disappeared. Let’s take a look…

BEST DRAMA SERIES

– Desired Winner: Justified
– Predicted Winner: Boardwalk Empire
– Actual Winner: Mad Men

This is about the least inspired choice possible. Way to distinguish yourselves by picking the show that has won this award 3 years running from the Emmy committee. I feel like they mailed this one in for a bid to be taken seriously, and in that bid I think they lose credibility.

It’s nice to see Justified nominated, but it looks like this one was over before it started. Mad Men is obviously not a terrible pick as all the shows were good, just seems uninspired.

BEST ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

– Desired Winner: Kyle Chandler, “Friday Night Lights”
– Predicted Winner: William H. Macy, “Shameless”
– Actual Winner: Jon Hamm, “Mad Men”

This is again predictable. I really like Jon Hamm, but so far this looks just the same as every other awards show out there, giving gold to maybe the most over-rated show on television.

BEST ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

– Desired Winner: Connie Britton, “Friday Night Lights”
– Predicted Winner: Elisabeth Moss, “Mad Men”
– Actual Winner: Julianna Margulies, “The Good Wife”

This is a show that I admit to have not watched, so I can say anything against the pick, but can’t speak for it either. Julianna Margulies is a solid actress and I’ve heard only good things about this show, so I’ll just give them the benifit of doubt and assume this was the right pick, but it’s too bad FNL didn’t get any love from the voters. This is the spot I thought Mad Men would get it’s statue, but obviously they still cleaned up without it…

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES

– Desired Winner: Walton Goggins, “Justified”
– Predicted Winner: Walton Goggins, “Justified”
– Actual Winner: John Noble, “Fringe”

Normally I wouldn’t have any problem with the greatly under-rated Fringe collecting some accolades, except in this case where it costs Goggins a much deserved victory here. Noble is great, I just thought it was Boyd Crowder’s year is all…

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES

– Desired Winner: Margo Martindale, “Justified”
– Predicted Winner: Margo Martindale, “Justified”
– Actual Winner: TIE: Margo Martindale, “Justified”/Christina Hendricks, “Mad Men”

Well HOLY SHIT, I almost called one right! Justified almost took the spotlight, but instead had to share it with – You Guessed It – Mad Men. Now I love Hendricks from her days on Firefly, but come on. This is a sham. A tie? BOOO. Martindale should’ve had this one to herself.

BEST COMEDY SERIES

– Desired Winner: “Parks and Recreation”
– Predicted Winner: “Modern Family”
– Actual Winner: “Modern Family”

I really have no issue here. Parks and Rec I thought deserved it, but Modern Family is a great show. And to be honest, with the quality of nominees here, so long as it didn’t go to Glee or The Big Bang Theory I was gonna be ok with it. That being said, Modern Family would’ve been 3rd on my list, behind Community at 2nd. Anyhow, who can complain about a show that stars Sofia Vergara and Julie Bowen, with Al Bundy to boot?

BEST ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

– Desired Winner: Charlie Day, “It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia”
– Predicted Winner: Steve Carell, “The Office”
– Actual Winner: Jim Parsons, “The Big Bang Theory”

This is without a doubt the biggest issue I have with this list. The Big Bang Theory is unbelievably stupid and keeps getting rewarded for it’s formulaic CBS assembly line style of comedy. Nothing against Parsons personally, but this just seems to be a show about who non-nerd imagine real nerds act. And his character is annoying. I hate this show. And when you take into account the other 4 nominees, this decision makes even less sense…

BEST ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

– Desired Winner: Martha Plimpton, “Raising Hope”
– Predicted Winner: Amy Poehler, “Parks and Recreation”
– Actual Winner: Tina Fey, “30 Rock”

Not it’s not unusual to hear me praise Tina Fey, I’m a huge fan of her’s. The problem I have here is that this was easily the weakest season of 30 Rock to date, while Amy Poehler’s Parks and Recreation really took off this season and I just don’t get the choice. Sure, in 2009 – Fey over Poehler is a no-brainier, but this one just seems like a reputation win…

SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES

– Desired Winner: Nick Offerman, “Parks & Rec”
– Predicted Winner: Nick Offerman, “Parks & Rec”
– Actual Winner: NPH, “How I Met Your Mother”

If Jim Parson’s won is my #1 issue, this is my #1B issue. I like NPH, but as we’ve talked about in the past HIMYM isn’t what it once was, and this was without a doubt Nick Offerman’s award. Offerman’s ‘Ron Swanson’ is the best character on television and he was absolutely robbed here. It makes me wonder if the voters even watched Parks and Rec this season. As much as I like Harris, he actually would’ve been last on my list of the 5 nominees…

SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES

– Desired Winner: Julie Bowen, “Modern Family”
– Predicted Winner: Jane Lynch, “Glee”
– Actual Winner: Busy Philipps, “Cougar Town”

I was rooting for Bowen because I think she gets overlooked, but I can’t badmouth Busy Phillips. I don’t watch Cougar Town, but she was a principal character on Freaks and Geeks, and was in Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles so she’s ok in my book…

This could’ve gone anyway really, all the nominees were deserving.

Where I will give them credit is that they awarded the first Critics’ Choice Television Icon Award to Danny Devito, star of Taxi and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia.

Take the setting of One Flew Over the Coocoo’s Nest, add the underlying theme of Inception, and a bit of style from The Watchmen. Then combine with a cast that looks like that of Coyote Ugly and a Kill Bill level of female sword play, you should have a movie that any dude will love.

Now on the flip side for the ladies. Imagine a Moulin Rouge type of setting, a Buffy-like level of girl power, and wardrobe department that could make any girl look good. Sounds sweet right?

So why wasn’t Sucker Punch?

It had all the above elements, but was missing a key component. The story is what makes the movie. Director Zack Snyder nailed all the visuals, his pacing was good, and he inserted a really good soundtrack. Hell, even the story in its primal stages is promising, we just don’t see it develop fully.

Some Minor Spoilers Ahead, Tried Not to Ruin It…

We open the movie strong. The music is good, the slow motion is fitting, and despite the film speed the pacing is fast. Our principal character, Baby Doll is like the subject of a Fairy Tale – dead mother, evil Step-Father, tragedy strikes, and she is thrown into an extraordinary situation and forced to inspire others.

We are introduced to her new home, an asylum with the aesthetics obviously influenced by Arkham…

The cause of her incarceration there being the accidental killing of her sister, and we see the gears in her head start to turn. As soon as she enters the place she begins to plot her escape. We see clues about how she’ll make her eventual break, and we are hurriedly introduced to the rest of the cast. Her escape has a timer on it as her evil step-father plots to have her silenced. Then – Boom. Our setting changes. Now inside her head, the asylum has become a Nightclub/Brothel, and infinitely less interesting a setting than the actual one we just left.

This is the 2nd level of her mind and this setting gives Snyder excuse to dress all the girls as scantily as he wants, and this is also the point where the Inception comparisons start to pass through the heads of the audience, or at least those who can follow what’s happening. In this setting the girls are no longer inmates at the asylum, but instead sex slaves, forced to dance on stage and pull in cash for the boss, who in reality is the crooked orderly at the hospital who is conspiring with the step-dad.

Baby Doll, going deeper into her own mind, enters another plane of existence. This is the whole Inception ‘dream inside a dream’ scenario. In this plane she is a great warrior. She meets a totally unexplained Wise Man (who I assume is maybe her real father) and he tells her what to do. It was like that scene in Final Destination where the Candyman shows up, has no reason to know whats happening, and then proceeds to explain the entire plot of the movie to the main characters. So now, armed with a sword, a pistol, and an incredibly short skirt, we are given maybe the best action sequence of the film as Baby Doll fights 3 giant robot Samurai. This is all happening to her as she dances in the Nightclub level of her mind. Throughout the movie, each major action sequence in the 3rd level is triggered by her dancing in the 2nd level.

After returning from this fight with the Samurai, the 2nd level dance studio is amazed at her ability to move, but all she cares about is the escape plan she brought back from the deeper dream state. This plan however looked to me less like a plan, and more like a list. It was reminiscent of the Underpants Gnomes on South Park. She convinces 4 of the other girls to help her with her escape, and from there on, each time she dances, and enters that 3rd level in her mind, they are there with her. As the movie progresses we get several more action sequences as the girls try to accomplish the tasks that will make their escape possible.

From here, after the first sequence with all 5 girls fighting, it starts to get repetitive. The mysterious Wise Man is present in all of these delusions, but not in any of the other levels of her mind. In the end however, once Snyder has brought us back to reality (Oh there goes gravity…Sorry) and the movie is about to end, we meet the Wise Man. He is completely out-of-place and seems to somehow be in on all that was transpired earlier…which makes no sense whatsoever.

The we close the movie out with a voice over. Now I know some people don’t like voice overs, and it’s considered lazy storytelling and all, but I’m a sucker for them. Think The Sandlot, where Smalls tells us what happened to all the guys with a voice over at the end, gives me chills. When done right, it can really make for a strong ending. But the voice over writing here was atrocious. It ended the movie with a bad taste in your mouth.

Don’t get me wrong here though, I didn’t hate this movie (even if the people I saw it with did), I felt I got what I expected, and I was entertained. Overall it was actually really cool, but cool doesn’t always mean good. My biggest problem was really just the wasted potential here. They took would could’ve been a great movie, and gave us a mediocre one.

And for that I give Sucker Punch only 2.5 Bears.

Grizzly Bomb

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Critics Choice TV Awards: Results Don’t Lend Same Credibility Nominations Did…