TELEVISION! Scrubs (2001-2010)

Back when I was in high school, one of the shows to watch was "Scrubs." Before Zach Braff became the subject of hipster ire, he was the indie heart-throb. Both charming and introspective, he had the acting chops to pull off the comedic and serious elements of his role. The thing is, most actors on the show were as well. That is a large part of what made the show great for a long time.

The show is centered around Braff's character John "JD" Dorian, a young intern who works his way to becoming a great doctor, ruining relationships, and trying to fix them. The strange thing about JD is that as a protagonist, he is both very compelling and entirely annoying. Self-absorbed, he's also likeable. It does get frustrating, especially later in the show, how frequently his redeeming moments come after he was a giant jerk, but at least he did figure it out, right?

In many ways, he is a lot like his tough-love mentor, Dr. Perry Cox (the always enjoyable John C. McGinley).  Dr. Cox is every bit as self-absorbed as JD is, but he's less secretive about it. He openly berates his interns, is almost always hostile towards his friends and loved ones, and rarely shows affection. At the same time though, he is watching over these young doctors. He usually does the right thing, but he won't pat anyone on the back.

All of the characters are really like that. Carla is a prideful nurse who evidently gets insulted fairly easily by her superiors just because they claim to know better than she does. Elliot Reid is also easily thrown off, borderline psychotic when thinking of what others think of her. Turk is the hotshot surgeon who thinks he's the best at pretty much everything. Jordan is somehow even more hostile towards people as her husband (Dr. Cox). And the Janitor is literally in his own little world. Every one of the main characters is flawed and has elements that are totally unlikeable. And yet, they are likeable and do have redeeming qualities. In this way, they are surprisingly realistic, despite their goofy names and borderline caricature behaviors.

The strength of "Scrubs" is in how all of these disturbed and messed up individuals cultivate and grow their relationships, beginning as co-workers and eventually growing into a close-knit family. As the show progresses, they eventually work on some of their flaws through the typical aging process. Turk and Carla get married and start a family. Elliot comes into her own in a private practice. Even JD has to grow up as he watches his brother become successful, his father pass away, his friends marry and have kids. He even winds up with a child of his own! It's not just the young people growing up either. Dr. Cox has a family of his own and must struggle to find the balance between the tough-love act he has with his interns and being a relatively supportive father to his own kid. All the way at the top, Chief of Medicine Dr. Bob Kelso eventually has to deal with his forced retirement at the age of 65.

Like all great shows, there is a solid cast of background players as well. Ted is easily one of the most painful and hilarious characters on the show. Similarly, The Todd is every bit as funny as he is stupid. And there's also Doug, the intern who keeps screwing everything up to the point where he works in the morgue due to his ability to determine a patient's cause of death (since he has likely caused it at some point). Frankly, the Janitor and JD could have been its own thing, perhaps as little webisodes, as it was always entertaining to watch and seemed to happen outside of everything else.

It's easy to think of the show as one that jumped the shark after a few seasons. Most shows do (sorry, but "The Office" jumped after season four - how they pulled out another four seasons is beyond me). Indeed, the show does become less entertaining as time goes by. Come season six, you start to get a little bit tired of Turk and JD's immature antics. By season seven, you kind of just want JD to grow up. After all, he's been talking about it for a bunch of episodes already! Still, to say nothing interesting happens in later seasons isn't quite right. It's true, seasons one through three, as well as season five are clearly the best of the bunch, but the final season of Scrubs isn't all that bad itself. Apart from the general fatigue of some of these JD antics, they do some interesting things with Elliot. Additionally, the way that JD and Elliot reconnect after Sam is born is surprisingly organic. You see it coming, but you don't really sit there waiting for the moment, the way you used to wait for their typical moments in earlier seasons. Come the final season of "real Scrubs," you realize they aren't having one of those "moments." They're now older and more mature (in some respects), and as such, they are finally ready to actually form a relationship.

Note that I specific "Real Scrubs" because the actual final season of the show is so strange and different that it's only recognizable by the fact that McGinley and Donald Faison are regularly in it, with Braff making a few appearances. It's not necessarily bad, but it's profoundly less compelling with none of the supporting cast to make up for the main character deficiencies.

"Scrubs" is also a show that shouldn't age well, but it actually does. The format of having JD narrate can be a little tedious at times, and normally I don't much care for narration, but at times, they do use it well. They sometimes are a bit innovative with it as well. And it's always nice to see the occasional episodes where JD takes a back seat to another character. Additionally, a lot of the comedy is silly and almost Family Guy-esque with its use of cut-away fantasy sequences. Those get old, but they never feel quite as random or as stupid as in the aforementioned cartoon show.

The balance between comedy and serious content makes it both a funny and poignant show, with life lessons thrown into each episode. A lot of the jokes can be memorable, but more often than not you wind up remembering the sad ones. (For me, I always remember the episode when Brendan Fraser guest stars and has leukemia, or the one where Dr. Cox is ecstatic to find organs for a number of different patients, only to realize too late that those organs came from a patient infected with rabies.) These moments are usually made more powerful with effective use of music. "Scrubs" - at the same time as the classic "Orange County" - really popularized a lot of those indie acts, but that's also a staple of Braff fare.

I must admit, I didn't remember "Scrubs" being all that great when I went to rewatch it. I'm glad I did though. I do think seasons four, six, and seven are fairly forgettable, the one, two, three, five, and eight are surprisingly good. They definitely stand up better than other Bill Lawrence shows, and it didn't jump the shark nearly as hard. To be fair here though, Lawrence was essentially forced to keep dragging the show out for the final couple of seasons. He had intended to end it earlier, but faced pressure from the networks, especially after it uncharacteristically swapped from NBC to ABC.

MOVIES! The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005)

It's been a long time since I've seen the 2005 adaptation of the Douglas Adams book. My initial memory of the film was that it was generally enjoyable, but otherwise somewhat forgettable.  What's nice is that Douglas Adams did have something of a role in writing the screenplay though he died several years before production. Though there are a good number of story and plot elements that were not in the book, the tone and sense of humor are fairly consistent.

The film starts with a goofy musical number sung by all of the dolphins in the world. "Thanks for all the Fish" is a good way to begin the film and set the tone. This is going to be a goofy British sci-fi comedy. It generally follows the same story of the book: Ford Prefect rescues his Earth friend Arthur Dent just before the planet is destroyed to make way for an intergalactic bypass (similar to how Arthur's house was unceremoniously destroyed for a bypass). They then find themselves aboard the Heart of Gold spaceship, a state of the art ship powered by an improbability drive, stolen by galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox. Zaphod and his Earth-fling Trillian. Together with Marvin the depressed robot, Ford, Zaphod, Arthur, and Trillian search for the super computer Deep Thought, which once upon a time was constructed to find the answer for Life, the Universe, and Everything in it. The answer, as is well known, was "42," which annoyed and frustrated everyone in the universe. Another super computer was built to figure out the ultimate question to the ultimate answer. Turns out that Earth was that super computer.

The visual style of the film is a much appreciated change of pace from the typical sci-fi films. Instead of relying so heavily on computer graphics, they utilizes rubber suits and actors inside them. With Henson's Creature Shop, the film has a visual look not unlike The Fifth Element which further solidifies it's humorous tone. There is, of course, a good amount CGI as well, particularly when Slartibartfast shows Arthur around the rebuilt Earth. It's visually refreshing to see so much "analogue" effects.

Overall, the film isn't all that funny. There are the classic moments from the book, such as the sperm whale randomly being conjured up in the sky, and some of the entries in the Hitchhiker's Guide itself. It's not a hilarious film, but it has its laughs. The scene on the Vogons' homeworld in which a sentient flyswatter slaps them if they get any ideas is silly and simple, but is effectively very funny.

The draw to the film is in the cast. For a film that often gets ignored or forgotten, it has one of the best casts one can imagine. Martin Freeman is the perfect Arthur Dent while Mos Def is awesome as Ford Prefect. (Mos Def is clearly the best actor/rapper out there.)  Adding to it is Sam Rockwell, who is brilliant in the role of galactic president Zaphod Beeblebrox, seemingly mixing the swagger of both Elvis Presley and at the time president George W. Bush. Alan Rickman is perfectly cast as the voice of Marvin the constantly depressed robot, whose body language is well performed by Warwick Davis despite a huge and bulky suit. The weak link of the main cast might be TV sweetheart Zooey Deschanel, who is a bit underwhelming though still solid as Trillian. It doesn't just stop there though. Helen Mirren gives voice to the super computer Deep Thought. Bill Nighy shows up at the end as Slartibartfast. John Malkovich has a memorable scene as former president Humma Kavula. For more keen nerds, the voice of Bill Bailey appears briefly, voicing the internal monologue of the doomed whale. Thomas Lennon (of "Reno 911" fame) also appears as the voice of the Heart of Gold's computer, cheerfully and amusingly announcing things like oncoming missiles. And then of course, in another perfectly cast role, Stephen Fry gives voice to the actual Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which is often accompanied by visually interesting animations. (And to the really keen observer, Edgar Wright and Jason Schwartzman can be found briefly.)

It's not a perfect film, and it fails to capture some of the charm from the book, but it's still largely similar. There's no real reason if one likes the book, one would dislike the film adaptation. Perhaps you might not like the way they dealt with Zaphod's two heads (it's a lot different than I imagined, and different than how the BBC series depicted it), and certainly the unresolved plot lines linger at the end. It does finish feeling like a sequel is in order. Still, it was a lot better than I remembered it being, and I actually feel a little bit bad that I always forget about it. Perhaps it's not worth going out and buying, but it's worth a replay every once in a while.

MOVIES! Ponyo (2008)

Everyone has their favorite Hayao Miyazaki film. Often it's Princess Mononoke or Spirited Away. People particularly nostalgic will often go with My Neighbor Totoro. One of his films though tends to be generally regarded as particularly "meh" and is almost never on anyone's list of favorites. That movie is Ponyo, Miyazaki's colorful and whimsically loose take on The Little Mermaid. 

By no means is Ponyo a bad film, of course. Even the weakest Miyazaki film is a strong film overall. Still, one of the possible reasons it generally gets ignored is that it's targeting a notably younger audience. The story follows five year old Sosuke as he befriends a strange goldfish with a human head who he promptly names Ponyo. The two fast become best friends. Meanwhile, Ponyo's father is trying to keep her from going to land. He is keeper of many magical elixirs and uses them to help protect the oceans, which are heavily polluted by the land-dwellers.

The movie is a story about five year old children and it's aimed at pretty much that demographic. The relationships are relatively simple, with Ponyo and Sosuke being pure and loyal to each other (as only children can be). The film does take a number of usual Miyazaki cues though. For starters, even though Fujimoto seems like the "villain" of the film, he's not really a pure villain. Yes, he harbors a grudge against humanity for polluting the seas, but he's ultimately trying to look after Ponyo. Though many are very simple, there are complex relationships throughout though. Lisa is often angry at her husband Koichi, who is a merchant sailor and often out at sea. This leaves Lisa mostly caring for Sosuke alone.

Ponyo is full of magic and is another strong female character, even if she does happen to be a bit simplistic. She's supremely entertaining. 

Late in Miyazaki's career, he started to delve more into the strange, colorful, and magical worlds. Of course, he's always had a penchant for that stuff (lest we forget the catbus), but it was in smaller doses. From Princess Mononoke to How's Moving Castle, he began taking full advantage of animation. Ponyo is very much the epitome of this style. Everything in the film could only exist in an animated film. Never mind all of the time spent underwater; there's also all of the creatures, the Mother of the Sea, the wave monsters, and all of Ponyo's magic. It is perhaps Miyazaki's most "animated" film of all.

For all of its whimsical and epic visuals, it's essentially more in the same vein as My Neighbor Totoro. Miyazaki himself even stated that he wanted to make something else kind of like Totoro, but for a younger audience. Ponyo is a bit simpler in themes as a result, but retains the strong female characters and complexities that make a typical Miyazaki film great. At times though, it's a bit more intense than Totoro. 

Ponyo takes a bit of flack sometimes from older audiences for being too simple or not compelling enough, but I'm not sure what really makes it different than things like Kiki's Delivery Service. It's not his best film, but it's still a great film. It's probably middle of the pack. Overall, I'd argue it's better than Castle in the Sky and possibly Howl's Moving Castle. But really, it's every bit on the level of all of his other works. It's just targeting a younger audience.

That, and our overly nostalgic generation really loves to hate new things.