I Watched the Unauthorized Full House Movie

Cinema is all about light. From before the earliest days of movies as we currently understand them, before movie cameras allowed even the early luminaries like Georges Méliès to ply their art, there were "magic boxes" and kinetoscopes that allowed light to be filtered through the spinning image to create the illusion of movement. Light gives life to the screen as much as it does to the Earth. Light is absolutely everything.

Last year, I wrote a review of the movie Winter's Tale and complained that when teaching film to students in the classroom, one of the hardest concepts to get them to understand is how important editing is to the final film product. The same is true of lighting, the control filmmakers exercise over the primal element of the medium. Now, having seen the Lifetime Unauthorized Full House Movie, I finally have the appropriate tool to demonstrate what happens when no concern is taken for lighting at all. Scenes seem to be lit by whatever lights were on in a room or location when the crew arrived. There is a scene in the casino where the three male leads are standing at a craps table and there is so much light shining directly on top of their heads that I actually made a comment out loud. When John Stamos is performing in How to Succeed in Business on Broadway, he exits the theater after the premiere performance into what is clearly the middle of the morning. They didn't even get a blackout tunnel to cover the door. Scenes in offices and homes are lit by open windows, and household or office lamps. That plus the brutal combination of extreme hard stops before every punchline, and sight gags so hoary and hackneyed they might have actually appeared on Full House itself, gives the whole thing the vague aesethtic of a Mentos ad.

You can also tell that there was a lot left on the cutting room floor, including, apparently, a sub-plot in which John Stamos is secretly in love with Dave Coulier's wife. Also, the final twenty seconds of the film reveal that there has been a voice-over narrator the whole time, and it is the third to last cast member you would have expected (I would have given a month's pay for the narrator to have been Andrea Barber, who played Kimmy Gibbler), because the role of voice-over narrator carries certain expectations about whose story it is that we are watching. I don't know, ultimately, in whose story Full House, its cast's lives, and their adventures took place, but I would bet that it is not the character who ends up summing up the experience. That would be a hard pill to swallow.

Are these odd criticisms to lob at a Lifetime Movie about a bad sitcom that aired for eight seasons and went off the air twenty years ago? Probably. Part of the reason that I am focusing on them is because despite them I absolutely loved the viewing experience. There is something almost Twilight Zone-esque about the way Bob Saget complains to Dave Coulier early in the film about how all the comics they came up with have hit it big except them, only to discover that the two shows that ultimately made him a household name (Full House and America's Funniest Home Videos) were a Tartarian torture that ate away at his soul and consumed his sensibilities. Nor is he an innocent victim in his own slow destruction. At one point he name checks Richard Pryor and George Carlin to insult Full House "Pryor was funny, Carlin was funny...this is not funny." The implicit statement in that kind of remark is that, left to his own devices, Bob Saget belongs in the class of Pryor and Carlin. He does not. His stand-up, even then, wasn't of the moment, it wasn't artistic and fine in the way that Pryor's and Carlin's were. Saget was a guy who made dick jokes, and the filthier the better. In the end, the movie positions Full House as his punishment for thinking that he was something more that he was. 

Coming in at 90 minutes (with some commercials), I walked away feeling that this would have been better as a five night mini-series then as a made for TV movie. It isn't like cost was a factor, it clearly cost nothing to make. But I would have loved more time on the Olsen twins, Candace Cameron finding religion, ANYTHING involving Jodie Sweetin, an exploration of the Lori Laughlin/John Stamos relationship, the implosion of Dave Coulier's life after the death of his sister and his wife blindsiding him with divorce papers. And ultimately, how can I give a bad review to something that left me wishing there had been more?

Rating: 2.5 / 4

Available OnDemand

TV Review: Fear the Walking Dead

Part of the beauty of  the pilot episode of AMC's hyper-hit The Walking Dead was the way it elided over the collapse of civilization. Deputy Rick Grimes was shot in the mundane world, and awoke from a coma into a nightmare. We hear bits and pieces of the fall of Atlanta, but by the time we are eye-witnesses the collapse of American civilization is fiat accompli. As a narrative device it was riveting. We were forced to learn the rules of the new world along with Grimes. So much so, in fact, that even when the show went off the rails for whole seasons at a time (the farm, the Governor) the turbo charged power of the opening hour was enough to keep audiences locked in. Now, with the 90 minute pilot of the "spin-off" (more technically we might call this a parallel narrative than a spin-off), Fear the Walking Dead has provided us another glimpse into the first hours of the collapse, and a laser focused view on one families attempt to survive it.

It is silly to try to stake strong critical opinions on 90 minutes of television. Fear the Walking Dead could quickly descend into the realm of the painfully dumb, or, worse, into the rote and routine. That is the potential trap of all excursions into the world of genre narrative. In fact, the switch in shooting location from L.A. to Canada for the rest of the season is already a little concerning. There is a certain light and life in L.A. that Canada has been notoriously bad at mimicking, and if the show loses even a little of its panache, that would be a shame.

That being said, the opening episode demonstrated a clear approach and a steady hand. Instead of a world destroyed, Fear the Walking Dead's pilot asks us over and over again how it is that we can ever come to terms with the horrifying images inside of our own heads, and how we separate the horrors that we take in from the world from the ones we invent in our own minds. As one character says "what I saw either came from the dust, or from my mind...and if it came from my mind, then I'm insane." That all of this is happening inside of a civic structure that is still, for the time being, entirely in place is fascinating. At what point does one begin to notice the fall of civilization? At what point does the slide into mindlessness become impossible to stand against. Fear the Walking Dead has set up the questions with a brilliant opening salvo. All that's left is to see if they have any answers.

Rating: 3 / 4

Emmy Predictions! And, Where Appropriate, Corrective Suggestions!

Hey everyone! Emmy nominations were announced today.

Misunderstanding the X-Files, and the 201 Day Countdown

The new trailer for the 6 new six-episode X-Files limited event dropped recently and encourages you, in the days leading up to the new material to catch up on all 201 episodes of the iconic Fox series. But, that kind of encouragement totally misses the point. That is the worst way to watch The X-Files.

My Week in Brief: This Week in Pop Culture as Experienced by Dave

There has been a lot of news this week, obviously. The Court came down 5-4 in favor of marriage equality, upheld ACA subsidies, and let Alito write an opinion on the death penalty (a decision roughly akin to letting a Golden Retriever drive a car, he was so excited by the wind in his face he forgot that he was supposed to be performing a complex task and people will inevitably be hurt). I was also on the road, visiting my grandfather in Wichita, Kansas. Consequently, I didn't end up writing anything for this site. Today, to make up the difference, I'll do a week in brief, a rundown of notable things that I watched, read, or listened to in the last week!

Review: True Detective Premiere

True Detective is that person you know who loves to drop names. Look it’s McConaughey! Hey, there’s Harrelson! Robert W. Chambers! Lovecraft! Cthulu!!!

Top Ten TV Detective Countdown!

The second season of True Detective premiere’s tonight on HBO. The early reviews are in, and they are sharply divided. Among those who thought that the hints at a Lovecraftian world, the second season’s ground bound stolidness has been seen as a weakness. On the otherhand, those who had grown tired of the pseudo-philosophizing of Rust Cohle and the questionable status of Marty Hart as a narrator (the moment you remember that all of his sex scenes are in narrated flashback he becomes almost unbearably creepy) the second season has been like a breath of fresh air. Whichever camp you fall into, the return of True Detective qualifies as a television moment. In celebration, or commemoration, or even in simple recognition of the singularity of the first season’s accomplishment (which I’ll be discussing in greater depth tomorrow), I want to run a simple countdown of the ten greatest television detectives of all time:

TV Review: Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell

Let’s not pull any punches, right from the start, and I will say that Susanna Clarke’s Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2004) is my favorite book of the young century. More than that, it is, to my judgment, one of the best books of the century (competing with Roberto Bolano’s 2666 as the great 21^st century novel). Anyone who knows me knows that these are two distinct judgments. I re-read the book every couple of years (I’d do it more often if it weren’t 900 pages long) in order to be sure that my estimation is not the product of youthful nostalgia, and for eleven years I have been waiting for two things: a sequel and an adaptation. One of those waits is now over.

Blockbuster Women: The Game of Thrones Poison and the Fury Road Antidote

This Post Contains Spoilers from the Game of Thrones Season 5 Finale, Which I Wouldn’t Feel Bad Ruining for Decent Human Beings, but Some of You Nerds Are So Damn Vengeful.

So there we were, twenty million strong, all of us tuned in to the HBO feeds that we all scrupulously pay for, because piracy is not a victimless crime and we know that the Many Faced God does not look kindly on people who take what is not theirs.

Observing or Participating: Game of Thrones, Hannibal, and the Question of Viewer Culpability

THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS ABOUT THE MOST RECENT EPISODES OF HANNIBAL AND GAME OF THRONES.

This week both Game of Thrones and Hannibal raised specific questions about the relationship between televised violence and viewer responsibility. Not in the tired and hackneyed register of Reagan era congressional moralists trying to chart the relationship between violence on TV and violence in life, in hope of a smoking gun, but in the more immediately arresting register of complicity with structures of violence.

A Note on Hannibal's Exquisite Taste

Recently, I wrote about the new Netflix series Chef’s Table, a look into the kitchens of six of the world’s premiere chefs. This week, NBC responded with their own examination of one of the world’s rarest culinary talents: Dr. Hannibal Lecter.

Cinematic Television Countdown, Day Two!

Today is the second day in my five day countdown of the most cinematic moments in recent television. Today I’ll be celebrating:

4. Netflix’s Daredevil, episode two, “Cut Man” :

The idea of cinematic television can encompass a wide spectrum of concepts. Yesterday, for instance, was all about the way that Soderbergh broke with the television convention of shot/reverse shot and elected to instead orbit the camera around Clive Owen during an otherwise mundane scene from The Knick in order to focus our attention away from the procedural dialogue and onto the character. Today I’m interested in a shot from Netflix’s Daredevil, from the second episode “Cut Man.” Anyone who has seen the show will immediately know the shot I am talking about, the furiously kinetic hallway fight scene that closes the episode.

Cinematic Television Countdown, Day One!

I was having a conversation yesterday with a friend who had just started watching the first season of True Detective, and he told me that, to his mind, the show was getting by on two things: the obvious strength of the lead performances and the direction. This is not a novel observation. Nic Pizzolato’s prose occasionally made me think of the Hindenburg. As long as it was precisely contained within the structure provided by Woody Harrelson, Matthew McConaughey, and Cary Fukunaga it was the smoothest and most elegant way to travel, but even the tiniest slip, the smallest unintended spark, and the whole edifice immediately would have gone from majestic to farcical. Watching True Detective’s first season was a like watching Philippe Petit’s 1974 tightrope walk between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center, you could only hope that skill in execution would override absurdity in conception.

The Two Best Shows You Aren't Watching

Two shows are returning to TV this summer that you, if the ratings are to be believed, are not watching, but you should be.

Soul Food; Netflix's Chef's Table

Netflix’s new limited series Chef’s Table demonstrates the painful dichotomy that lies at the root of the search for perfection—and the astonishing demand that high level food places on those who create it.

TV Review: Grace & Frankie

There is a moment in the fourth episode of the new Netflix original series Grace & Frankie that perfectly reflects the show’s thesis. Martin Sheen’s character, Robert, who has left his wife of forty years to marry his law partner Sol, played by Sam Waterson, is attending his first public event since coming out, and begins to realize that the process is more complicated than simply appearing in public with Sol. “I’m never not going to be coming out, am I,” Robert asks a friend.

Narcos, or Pedro Pascal is the Next Big Thing

Late last week, Variety reported that Pedro Pascal, a.k.a. Prince Oberyn Martell of Game of Thrones fame, will be starring in Narcos, the new Netflix original series about the DEAs attempt to bring down Pablo Escobar (who will be played by the interesting Brazilian actor Wagner Moura).

There is a lot to like about this whole thing. The series will be directed by Jose Padilha (the Robocop reboot), and will be produced by Eric Newman (Children of Men) and Chris Brancato (one of the guys who brought us Hannibal ). Padilha is a competent action director, and even if Robocop had more ambition than execution that combination is better than having no ambition at all. Technique can be honed, and Newman and Brancato have demonstrated an ability to oversee and shape ambitious creative types.

Our Technology, Ourselves – A Review of Black Mirror

In 1961, Walker Percy published The Moviegoer, a philosophical novel concerned with how an individual can truly know themselves in a mediated world. His protagonist, Binx Bolling, is a traumatized and disaffected young man who has returned to New Orleans after the Korean War and finds that he is not capable of interacting with other human beings. Instead, he tries to come to an understanding of his life by going to the movies. Movies function, for Binx, as a framework for understanding life, and he is constantly convinced that each new film will give him what he needs to connect in a meaningful way with himself and with others.

Dave’s TV Year in Review

1973 was a phenomenal year for California reds. That was the year that Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars produced the California Cabernet Sauvignon that would go on to win the legendary 1976 “Judgment of Paris,” a blind tasting that pitted the best American vintages against the legendary vineyards of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild, Chateau Montrose, and Chatea Haut-Brion (three of the four original “first growth” vineyards established under the direction of Napoleon III in 1855). The victory by Stag’s Leap was astonishing. The vineyard had only been producing wine for two seasons, and the French vineyards they defeated had been, collectively, producing wine for a millennium. A lot goes into a growing year like that. The conditions need to be just so: just so much rain, just so much sun, just so much nitrogen in the soil. But when those things come together in the proper way, magic can happen.

A Few Thoughts on Network Upfront Week

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks. May is when the semester wraps up here in East Lansing. That means grades have to be submitted, upset students consoled, and sorting through the inevitable set of excuses that accompanies every finals week. At the end of the fall semester the promise of the holiday season and all that it entails gives me the motivation to sort through the meshugas. There are no corresponding holidays at the end of the spring semester. Memorial Day is still weeks away. So I console myself with a pop culture lover’s unofficial holiday season…TV upfront week!