TV Rewatch - South Park - Season Two

So here I am, back again with a review for the second season of South Park, the end of the material I was completely familiar with, and even then I had only seen the first half a decade ago. After this point, I've only seen maybe 10 episodes and the movie throughout the next 15 seasons. Overall, I really liked this season, even if it wasn't as spotless as the first season.

The season started a run of seasons that expanded from the initial 13 episodes to 17-18, which of course means more content per season than before. While at times it does seem like some jokes don't land as well as they could, the season overall was still a fun, raunchy romp through the city of South Park and all it's inhabitants.

One of my favorite bits of the season is actually a continuation of the plot from the finale of the first season. In the last episode of the first season, Cartman is on a quest to find out who his real dad is, and the episode plays on tropes from soap operas about who his dad in town could possibly be. They're just about to reveal who his dad is when they say it'll be concluded in 4 weeks when the next season returns. The joke is that in four weeks, the day the season came back was April Fool's Day, and so they recap what happened in the first season finale and then do a whole episode all about Terrance and Phillip that has nothing to do with the plot. Then 3 weeks later they bring back the second episode of the season which actually concludes the story, and it doesn't even make a whole lot of sense but they promised they'd answer it and they did.

Throughout this whole season there are still a multitude of solid episodes, from Conjoined Fetus Lady, Summer Sucks, Chef's Chocolate Salty Balls, Clubhouses, and my particular favorite, Chef Aid. Each one has some sort of actual message about our culture as it is and really brings home the point they're trying to get across while still being absolutely ridiculous and overblown. In my favorite episode of the season Chef Aid, Chef finds out that Alanis Morrisette has come out with a new hit song that it turns out Chef had written in the 70's and goes to a record company executive merely to have his name put on the credits on the song, not looking for any money or anything. In response, the comically evil Record Exec. sues Chef for harassment, hires Johnnie Cochran to win his case and Chef must pay the record executive 2 million dollars. Unable to come up with the money, the kids go around to all these music legends that knew Chef back in the day and ask for their help. In the end, everyone from Elton John to Meatloaf to Ozzy Osbourne show up in South Park to play a benefit show for Chef to raise the money, and in the end he wins. The great part of the episode is that all the musical characters who are there to help Chef are the actual people. Elton John, Rancid, Meatloaf, Joe Strummer, Ozzy, Rick James and others are all playing themselves in this 20 minute animated cartoon and they even sing the songs they're singing. As someone who is a big music fan and understands the fight artists have with record labels like this, it really connected with me on that level and then I was also just impressed with how many famous musicians they actually got to appear on the episode.

The episode I liked the least was definitely City on the Edge of Forever, which plays like a clip show episode. While some ideas in the episode were still funny, it just felt too forced overall, trying to make fun of a clip show while kind of being one limits the jokes you can do, and at the end of the day I was real tired of Ms. Crabtree's voice before halfway through the episode.

In the end, the season did a lot of try and expand the world of South Park. Bringing in all the parents more, as well as introducing more kids into the world of South Park and not relying on the same gags over again.

TV Rewatch - South Park - Season One

So I decided I would do an experiment for the blog, to review, season by season, South Park. South Park, the animated Comedy Central series by Trey Park and Matt Stone, has been running since 1997 and is currently at 17 seasons, with an 18th coming September 24th, a little under two months away. I want to watch and review all 17 seasons before September 24th and be completely caught up with South Park, from the very beginning to the most recent episode.

As a kid, I saw the first season and half of the second at a friend's house around 2003 or so. After that, I saw a handful of episodes, which I estimate to be from Season 4-5 and that's it. So this will be familiar, but mostly new territory for me. I've never undertaken a show marathoning of this much content, nor in this short of time. The last marathon I did similar is size was watching Scrubs from season 1 to season 8, and that even took me several months of watching. So I don't know if I'll make it by September24th, but I'll try.

So as of this writing I've finished season one and am just about to finish season two, so I'll do my write-up of season one and in the next day or so do my write-up of season 2.
So the basic premise of South Park, in case you don't know, is that we're following the lives of four 8 year old boys and their lives in the small, weird-ass town South Park, Colorado. Our boys are best friends and average 8 year olds Kyle and Stan, and then their poor redneck friend Kenny and their spoiled, overweight, conniving friend Cartman. Cartman usually has a scheme that gets them into trouble, and Kenny is always wearing a parka that muffles everything he says, leading to in-jokes where the audience can only imagine what Kenny is saying but in-universe characters understand exactly what he's saying.

The real conceit of the show is that the age of characters doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, Parker and Stone use the show as a platform to get across ideas in popular culture in a way that no one else would convey them in. The perfect example of course is the classic season one episode, Big Gay Al's Big Gay Boat Ride, an episode where Stan gets a new dog and discovers the dog is gay. Throughout the episode, Stan and all the neighborhood kids ostracize Sparky the gay dog throughout the episode until Sparky runs away to the gayest character in the show Big Gay Al's gay animal sanctuary. When Stan realizes his dog has run away, he discovers the sanctuary and Big Gay Al gives Stan a lesson on homosexual understanding and equality. At the end of the episode, Stan comes to understand that Sparky is just like any other dog, except he likes males instead of females.

In a 20 minute episode of a crudely made cartoon, Parker and Stone at once made an incredibly rude but incredibly simple and eloquent point about how being gay doesn't make someone any different than anyone else except for what gender they're interested in. And that's the heart of the show and what has kept it going this long. With an animation style that is slightly better than an 8 year old's drawings, Parker and Stone largely make content that is both unafraid to tackle any subject as well as effortlessly simplify down real world problems and break them down to how they could effect a young kid, or how it might look to a young kid. Another perfect example is the episode Death, in which Stan's grandfather turn's 102 and he spends the episode following Stan around in a wheelchair demanding that Stan kill him. The whole plotline revolves around the topic of assisted suicide and when and if it is ever okay, told through the eyes of 8 year old boys.

These season one episodes are pretty much all classics. I was surprised with how well I knew the majority of the episodes, considering I had seen them only once about 11 years ago. An incredibly enjoyable 13 episodes, where I got to reaquaint myself with the community of South Park and all the quirks and odds and ends to it. I can't wait to see what happens in the 14-ish seasons I haven't seen.

TV Review - Fargo

I'm a little late to the game on this one, but I just finished watching FX's Fargo, the show based on the brilliant Coen Brothers movie of the same name and thought I'd give it a recommendation if anyone out there was on the fence.  You need to see this show.

The Fargo film is a personal favorite of mine. Set as a "modern" film noir, about a down on his luck man who, through a series of unfortunate events, ends up in the middle of a murder spree, and the unlikely cop who is tasked with bringing the perpetrator's to justice. The twist is that it's almost by definition the opposite of what Film Noir represents. Instead of everything looking dark and gritty, the story is told in the vast landscapes of Minnesota winter, being almost completely white. In place of everyone talking directly and with purpose, the film is filled with "Minnesota Nice" a term to describe the ridiculously and overly polite dialect people take on in the area, despite being mad, sad, angry or any other feeling, they always talk in this absurdly polite tone. It's beautiful, engaging and different from any other crime movie I had ever seen.

The Fargo tv show is much the same as the movie, borrowing the best elements and using the most of their tv series length to explore what made the movie such a hit, We start the show with Lester Nygaard, played by famous Hobbit and troubled Watson Martin Freeman. Lester is plain and simple, a loser. He's a man with no self-confidence, no ambition, just drifting through life with his unhappy wife and mediocre job of selling insurance. On the day we meet him, he has a run in with a man who bullied him in high school, who causes Lester to get his nose broken. While he's in the hospital waiting to be helped, he runs into our baddest of bad guys, Lorne Malvo, played by Billy Bob Thornton. Lorne is a hired gun who is at the hospital to treat some wounds he got while on a mission to kill his last target. Sitting next to each other, Lester tells Malvo about the bully, and Malvo straight up offers to kill him if Lester says yes. Though they get interuppted, and when answering a question to a nurse at the same time says yes, and never clarifies no to Malvo. The next day, the bully is found dead, and now realizing what's happened, Lester finds himself in-between the unflinching, inhuman Malvo and the cops who are trying to track down the killer.

There is so much more that happens, even in the first episode, but to give it away would be a disservice to the show. The show is pretty much split three ways, the viewpoint of Lester and him trying to distance himself from any crimes committed, Malvo and his continual murdering and debauchery and Deputy Molly Solverson, a relatively young cop on the local police force who is trying her best to figure out all the missing pieces of the puzzle. This follows pretty much the same formula the film had, of following our unfortunate man Jerry, the two hitmen he's in contact with and Marge, the pregnant police chief who is determined to put it all together. At all times, each person is just one step behind another, but which one it is is always shifting and keeps the film and the show tense, wondering who is going to get away with what or if that will be the thing that gets them caught by the cop.

One thing that I absolutely love about the show is that it isn't serialized, that is to say, it's not like a regular tv show where each week something new is happening in the town and all the characters react to it. No, Fargo plays out like a 10 hour movie, split into hour long blocks for easy tv viewing. It's one single, solid story that starts, escalates, climaxes, and resolves it's lose ends by the time it's done. It's truly a masterpiece in long-form storytelling. Much like the film, you don't go in knowing everything, and not all questions are answered at the end, but every piece of the puzzle has been put together. The immediate problem that was the reason for the show's existence has been resolved. If this was the only season this show gets, it's perfect in exactly the way it is and it stands as a shining example of what creative minds can do with a good story basis. However, this first season has been nominated for 18 Emmys, among other awards, so chances that they'll make a second season are fairly high. However, much like my other favorite newcomer show of the year, True Detective, a second season has been stated by the creator to focus on soley a new story and not the people we followed this season. One of the strongest aspects that the film and tv show share is that it's just a slice of life view. We're introduced to these characters as they are, we see them run into problems, we see those problems resolved, end of movie. Without knowing immense back stories and spending excess time in these characters lives, we just see one little chunk out of it, which adds to the believability factor of it all. Both the movie and the show run on the false premise that the events that occur actually happened, but it just reinforces what the movie makes you think, that this could happen, that this totally happened and you just never heard about it. That's part of what makes the show so special, I believe, that you can believe this has happened.

The acting in this show is phenomenal. As much as I liked Martin Freeman, it's really Billy Bob Thornton that shines in this show. He's always been an interesting actor, but he's been flying under the radar for a while now, much like Matthew Mcconaughey until not too long ago, and he's the stiffest competition he'll have for tv awards this year. They both deserve them for outstanding performances. Thornton really captures the demeanor of a sociopathic hitman, from the cold ruthlessness of the acts he commits to the calm demeanor he goes about them, to the fake personalities he adopts to get around society. While Freeman gives a fun and well done performance as our loser Lester, every scene with Thorton has him stealing the scene from whomever he's with. Allison Tolman, the woman who plays the Deputy Solverson is an absolute delight and I hope she wins every award she''s nominated for, and her chemistry with Colin Hanks is delightful and fun. Gotta shout out to Bob Odenkirk for keeping up appearances in good tv shows, as well as sketch comedians Key & Peele as two FBI agents.

Alright, I gotta stop gushing about the show, I'll just end up repeating myself. But please, if you like the movie, if you like crime dramas, check out the Fargo TV show, it'll have you shouting "Aww jeeze!" at every turn.

Music Review - Judas Priest - Redeemer of Souls

It's been awhile since I made a post. Partly it's because I moved to my first apartment, but that was a month ago. I've been tempted to write several times and come up with no motivation, but after listening to the new Judas Priest album I figured I could finally figure out something to say. I was originally going to review Mastodon's new album Once More Round The Sun, and I still will, but I'm thinking of doing a whole career review, album by album, so that's been put on hold until my copies of the other albums show up. Well, without further review, here is Redeemer of Souls.

Judas Priest exists in this odd Classic Rock time vortex that a lot of older rock bands from the 70's and 80's have been thrown into, where the band is at once celebrated for the majority of their back catalog, yet ignored when they release anything current. Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, hell even Whitesnake and Deep Purple have this problem. The bands don't retire, but they can't seem to catch anyone's attention with the new releases. Part of the problem I think has to do with subject matter. When you've been around as long as Sabbath, Priest, Maiden, you've pretty much written everything you wanted to write. What do you do after that? Well you create something new, and it seems that new effort is often lackluster.

Iron Maiden's latest The Final Frontier was ultimately a disappointment for me because it's one long epic song after another, until it all blends into same-y territory. As much as I enjoyed the return of Ozzy fronted Sabbath, this was my biggest problem with 13 too. The shortest songs on Sabbath's 13 are 4 1/2 minutes long, and that's you know, decent, but roughly half the songs on the album are 7-9 minutes long, and most of these songs were slow, trudging pieces. Though they're enjoyable, when you're hit with 7 minute song after 7 minute song in the same tempo it gets exhausting.

So when I put on Redeemer of Souls I was immediately delighted to see the longest track is Halls of Valhalla at just over 6 minutes, and the rest of the album ranges in length and tempo. While the album still feels a little large overall, it's really enjoyable, and doesn't feel like a slog through familiar territory.

Redeemer of Souls is largely treading familiar waters, but it doesn't feel old. It in fact feels like a throwback to their 70's offerings like Stained Class with a hint of my favorite album, Painkiller. Songs about fighting, swords, fire, steel most certainly, war, battle, it's cheesy in just the right ways. If anyone were to make the overbearing machismo on this album tolerable, it's Halford and company. The lyrics are nothing revolutionary, but they're the kind of campy fun you come to expect from a legacy band like Priest. Things like Metalizer's "His immortal soul at stake, hear the storm clouds break." It's exactly what you expect at this point in their career. Halford's taken the pitch down in his songs a bit and sings in a lower register, but that's what you expect for a singer in their 60's. He proves throughout the album he can still hit the high notes, just not as high, and not as often, but he hits them all the same.

This is the first album without founding guitarist KK Downing, who has been replaced by Richie Faulkner, and it doesn't sound that different. If anything, much like Brad Wilk's drumming on Sabbath's 13, Faulkner sounds like he is doing his best to channel what the band sounded like in their prime, and it works. Tipton and Faulkner sound great in tandem, and bring life to the riffs that sounded overblown and tired on 2008's Nostradamus.

This album marks 40 years since Rocka Rolla, Judas Priest's first EP, and while they don't sound as young and energetic as they did then, they still are able to deliver a fun, hour-long romp into campy, machismo-filled Metal territory. I can't even find a song I dislike on the album, it's a solid 13 tracks. Though I would have preferred a few more quick-burning numbers over the long headbang-chanters like Secrets of the Dead, it's a pretty good mix between the styles. My favorite album is and will always be Painkiller because Priest experimented with the sub-genre Speed Metal, and even if half the songs are cheesier than well, a block of cheese, it was loud, fast and aggressive. A side of Priest that had been missing in the late 80's. It was a direction they never quite attempted again, the closest being 2005's Angel of Retribution, an album I love dearly. However, you can hear bits and pieces of the style still in Redeemer of Souls, with songs like the opener Dragonaut and Battle Cry.

If you like Priest, I think you'll like this album. If you're not really a Priest fan or haven't gotten into the back catalog, check out albums like Stained Class, British Steel and Painkiller first, then check this one out. It's a fun, solid album from a band who are proving that they're not too old to rock, but it's not as good as the albums of old.

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