Rob & Big Rule

I haven't watched much of MTV in a long time. I didn't grow up on MTV (although I should have) and I never really understood what it has tried to do in the past 15 years.

So, I was rather surprised when I happened upon a new show called Rob & Big. Okay, it's not so new any more, but it was for me last night when I watch 3 or 4 straight hours of it. I love it!

Is it weird that it's about two guys living in the same house? Not when you consider Entourage. Is it weird that I cannot figure out how they make enough money to live where they do? Not when you consider Paris Hilton.

In fact, the funny part to me, is that these guys are clearly using the show to pay for things they would like to do, but instead of spending their own money, they spend MTV's, film it, and make it an episode.

I love their friendship and their humor. They come across more genuine than any reality show I've ever seen. Once you accept their situation, you really want to hang out with these guys. And essentially that is what you do with the show.

I love it. Season 2 is on the season pass already.

Visualize This American Life

This American Life is a wonderfully quirky radio program (listen here) that I have enjoyed off and on for several years. By chance I found out that the now radio show is being turned into a television show, to be airing on Showtime.

Click here for a delightful video sample.

Ira Glass, the show's host, appears to be as nerdy as I imagine him when listening to his choppy, observational voice. The show's logo treatment is wonderfully simple and fresh. What intrigues me the most, however, is the way that the show is shot. Keeping the storyteller role and staying true to his radio roots, each story seems to be told with voice over beautifully composed images. It seems to be a really nice way to keep what radio fans love about the show (the quirky storytelling, mixed with odd music and a focus on the truth of American's oddball lives) with a visual surprise - National Geographic quality video that explores the subject matter, but not by dramatization.

I'm really looking forward to this new offering. Now, I only wish I was able to get Showtime :-(

The 79th Oscars in Review

So, I stayed up to watch the glam fest that is the Oscars. My friend Chris sent me his thoughts, which I will use as a jumping off point for some of my own.

Best Moment:
Chris: Jennifer Hudson and Beyoncé tearing it up.
Ben: Don't forget about the musical number by Will Ferrell, Jack Black and John C. Reilly. Jennifer and Beyonce's songs were nice, but were you really listening to them 'tear it up,' or watching Jennifer Hudson lose her dress. (later retouched by some photo editors)

Best Speeches:
Chris: (1) Jennifer Hudson, (1a) Forrest Wittaker
Ben: Ari Sandel for Live Action Short. Perfect speech, because no one knew anything about this movie or this guy. Now I want to see it and he got it all done quickly and professionally. Perhaps you do better speeches when you have to work hardest to earn them.

Who got screwed:
Chris: Dreamgirls: too many Dreamgirls songs nominated, too many votes spread around, Melissa Etheridge winning, wtf?
Ben: I agree about too many Dreamgirls songs. Probably split the vote. I actually liked the Cars song the best. The person who got screwed the most however were the Babel nominees in Best Supporting actress. They were amazing and perhaps split their votes as well. It's a shame that all of them were in the same year.

Chris: Glad to see pan's labyrinth picking several awards. I loved that movie. I need to see the german film (title escapes me now). I heard great reviews and interviews on NPR.
Ben: Don't know, don't care too much about that. I will say that it was nice to see a more international set of nominees outside the foreign film category.

Chris: Ellen sucks. Every bit of screen time was painful.
Ben: Totally disagree. After watching the Grammy's I wonder why there needs to be a host at all, but I thought Ellen was fun and Dee loved her. Perhaps it was me responding to Dee's laughter, but I found everything she did to be true to herself, and fun.

Chris: What's with Jack Nicholson's dome impersonating Britney?
Ben: I was thinking it was more like Brando in Apocolypse Now. Although, Britney was apparently on everyone's mind last night.

Chris: Hollywood loves Al Gore.
Ben: Al Gore loves Hollywood.

Chris: Chris Connelly should never ever ever be put in front a camera with a microphone. Good grief.
Ben: I agree, and wonder why was he even necessary. "How's your scorecard at home?" Big surprises tonight. Well, apparently we're all betting on this stuff now.

Chris: They got best actress and actor right on. Whose biography will win next year?
Ben: They did get it right on. I'm thinking Peter O'Toole's biography.

Chris: Are Scorsese's eyebrows for real?
Ben: Are these real? Some questions, you just don't ask.

Chris: I didn't think "marty" would get both director and best picture. My guess was one or the other. I never heard him speak before. I think that was Woody Allen in a mask.
Ben: Departed wasn't Best Picture. Best Director? That's fine. I had my money on Little Miss Sunshine or Babel for Best Picture. Little Miss Sunshine wasn't winning once it won Best Original Screenplay - still very appropriate and cool.

Chris: 4 freaking hours? Come on. Throw out dancers, that's what the Tony's are for.
Ben: Absolutely too long. I'd say cut the host and the seemingly endless montage tributes to American film whose significance I still don't understand (although "The Nominees" was nice). I thought the dancers were great, but the subjects were all over. Snakes on a Plane? Why was that part of this thing?

Chris: I liked the iphone commercial. June can't come soon enough.
Ben: See here.

(Photos courtesy of IMDb.)

A case for donation

In Law & Order Episode 382, "Remains of the Day", Dick Wolf's crew explores an interesting issue: organ donation and the black market for it.

It is supposed to be based on the death of Daniel Wayne Smith, although in the end, that was just a shell of a plot encasing the greater issue of health care and it's availability to America's rich and poor. While the message tip-toed around universal health care, it got me thinking about something else: what happens to our bodies when we die.

I've often wondered (usually when passing a graveyard) when we might reach the tipping point when more of the earth is dedicated to space for the dead then it is for space for the living.

Briefly, what happens in this episode is that a doctor illegally harvests bones and organs from deceased people, and the transplants result in cancer and other fatal diseases being contracted by the recipients. The DA argues that the doctor has murdered these people by performing surgery that could lead to his patient's death, because he can't legally determine the deceased person's health history.

The problem here is that not enough people are able to get the transplant organs they need, as there are not enough donors. Also, the surgery remains too expensive for many, and partially due to a high demand, organ and tissue is highly priced in both legal and illegal markets.

After watching all of this play out in the episode, I began thinking to myself... self... why do we care what happens to our physical bodies once we die, anyway? Most religions profess that we don't take our bodies with us into an afterlife. Our souls or spirits live on without a body. The flesh and blood is returned to the earth, fertilizing new life, presumably.

Well, religion aside for a moment... why shouldn't it be universally true that everyone would be a donor? I'm not saying that a bone cancer patient should automatically become a bone donor upon death, but given a favorable health history, and a knowledgeable doctor, shouldn't all of us be potential donors when we die? Wouldn't this reduce the supply/demand burden, lower the cost of donated organs, and ultimately allow more people to live longer, more productive lives?

It seems to me that the only reason that we put ourselves in the ground sans donation is to appease the living. Others feel some sense of closure when they see someone's body at a viewing. There are, of course, those who believe that a body cannot be touched after death, as it is involved in their religion's afterlife beliefs. This should be the only reason that anyone should be exempt from donation.

And then there is the "they'll take your stuff before your dead" argument. Well, for one, I just don't believe it. I don't think that this really has happened enough to be even measurable. Second, if the supply for donated organs went up, because virtually everyone was a donor upon death, then there would be a far smaller incentive for criminals to harvest organs prematurely.

This should be a touchy enough subject to get some good discussion going. Seriously, why isn't it a law that all persons should become donor candidates upon death (given a religion exemption)?

Doon doon.