You guys, don’t judge a Charlie’s Angels movie by its cover. As in, Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle might look terrible, but it’s actually really good.

To explain why Full Throttle is an overlooked masterpiece, I’m pleased to welcome Critical Condition reader Collin Hamrick. (You may remember his spin on the Michael Jackson commemorative plate.)

Take it away, Collin!

Oh Brawling Love!: Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle
by Collin Hamrick

The wild kingdom is a dangerous place, but Mother Nature protects her children with warning signs. Wild colors, alarming noises, and offensive odors are all very effective ways for the natural kingdom to say, “STAY AWAY! YOU WILL BE HARMED.”

For movies, these warnings exist in the form of actors, directors, and subject matter, and when I saw a poster for Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle, all I could see was a brightly colored frog, hourglass symbol on its belly, covered in thorns, emitting a loud rattling noise. And so I gave the wretched beast a wide berth, avoiding even exposing myself to the trailer for fear of a most painful death.

In doing so I almost missed out on something wonderful. How could I have known that my instincts were lying to me? Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is fantastic and I am here to explain why.

Suspension of disbelief is a major part of any film, and most movies want you to believe that things make sense.  Full Throttle, however, offers no explanations, no grounding to justify anything that happens in its world. The Angels have an impossibly vast set of skills and knowledge, and almost every problem they encounter is something they have been perfectly trained for, no matter how bizarre. They’re expert martial artists, gymnasts, surfers, dirtbike racers, masters of disguise, welders, and world class dancers. They’re also living CSI labs with an encyclopedic knowledge of everything from limited edition Air Jordans to the chemical origin of contents in bird droppings. The movie so aggressively and intentionally defies logic, reason, and reality that the only thing I can do is laugh.

In a way, Full Throttle manages to parody action movie ridiculousness without condemning it, and that has a lot to do with the performances. The whole cast is amazing in that they are able to say and do the cheesiest things without winking at the audience, which is vitally important to maintaining the movie’s integrity. If the characters felt separated from the (un)reality of the movie, then they would become our avatar in a world that doesn’t make a damn bit of sense. It would change the vibe from a celebration of goofiness to a mockery of it. It is because the characters accept the insanity of their world as normal that we are able to as well.

But as important as the quality of the performances are, they aren’t the only reason this movie is great. Credit also goes to everyone working behind the scenes. This is a movie that is essentially composed of wildly different set pieces joined together by the flimsiest of transitional exposition, yet it all fits together into an understandable plot with cohesive storytelling. Director McG should send some notes down to Michael Bay so that maybe the next Transformers movie won’t be so disjointed.

Speaking of Transformers, nothing is more infuriating that a big action scene rendered unwatchable by poor camerawork or editing. Full Throttle was filmed so that the audience can actually see what the hell is going on at all times. There is no lazy shaky cam to hide shoddy choreography. Instead, punches, kicks, and flips are all performed, shot and edited so that the flow of each fight is easily followed.

Full Throttle also features one of the most well-chosen soundtracks of any movie I’ve ever seen. McG’s history as a music video director shines, as he exhibits a keen sense of how to marry the right song with the right scene. There’s an action scene set to an Elton John song covered by Kid Rock and Nickelback, and it actually works. It’s absolutely baffling, but in the context of the movie it’s perfectly fine. In a time when most compilation-style soundtracks are chosen for what’s new and popular, Full Throttle‘s soundtrack is exciting because so many of the tracks are so unexpected that it feels that every song in the movie was chosen for a specific reason, and not just because they needed to have any old song playing.

Before I wrap this up, I have to take a moment to point out what I feel are the two standout performances of the movie. The first is Crispin Glover as the immaculately dressed, mute, hair-sniffing Thin Man. His role in the movie is fairly small, but he steals every scene he’s in due to just how freaking weird his performance is. Secondly, I have to give props to Demi Moore as the retired Angel Madison Lee. Perhaps the most over-the-top character in a movie that redefines what over-the-top means, Moore chews the scenery so magnificently that I found myself wishing that she were in every scene. She gets all the best hammy lines like “I was never good… I was great.” She lounges around in Victoria’s Secret underwear while wearing a full length fur coat and idly holding gold plated pistols large enough to be considered WMDs. She uses a sexy Wile E. Coyote flying suit. Everything about her character is pure genius.

Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle should have been awful. It was a sequel to a movie I didn’t care about, based on a TV show I never watched, by a director I didn’t like, and had a cast I had no faith in. Yet, despite all of these warning signs, it won me over with it’s direction, cast, humor, and action. Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle is a fun, well-made movie that will unfortunately forever struggle against people’s preconceived notions about it. It’s great people, go give it a chance.

Now that the Michael Jackson uproar has died down a bit—at least until that concert movie gets released in October– perhaps it’s time for a bit more reflection on Farrah Fawcett.

For Rossi, the fantastic writer, humorist, and radio host, the best way to remember Farrah is with an entry for Oh Brawling Love!

After the jump, please join Rossi on her journey from Farrah Hate to Farrah Admiration.

Learning to Love Farrah
By Rossi

For me, one of the great tragedies of 2009 is that Farrah Fawcett’s death got maybe one hour of airtime before it was obliterated by Michael Jackson’s.

I’m not taking anything away from Michael here, but give the lady her due. A whole generation of girls changed the way they did their hair because of Farrah.  She at least deserved her own day of mourning.

I never would have believed, while I was trodding down the hallways of Rumson Fair Haven High School in New Jersey in the late 70’s and early 80’s, that I would ever give a hoot about Farrah Fawcett. Never mind The Omen or Rosemary’s Baby:  To the teenage me, she was the anti-Christ! While the snobby girls of Rumson put Sun-In in their hair, parted it down the middle and feathered it back, becoming an army of mini-Farrahs, I dyed my hair pink and tied a black bandanna around it. Joan Jett was more my cup of tea.

At sixteen, Farrah Fawcett symbolized everything I hated: Perfect teeth, perfect body, all-American vibe. If I hadn’t preferred to spend the money on a new coke spoon, then I might have used one of her posters as a dartboard.

Then something staggering happened. I grew up. Farrah grew up, too. I watched her in Extremities and The Burning Bed and was amazed to find out the babe could really act!

Then she turned 50, and at a time when a former Angel might start dressing conservatively and designing clothes for K-Mart, she celebrated by posing nude for Playboy.

As my mother might have said, “That’s chutzpah!”

When I heard the rumors that Farrah was suffering from anal cancer, I first wondered, “What in the hell is anal cancer?!?” Then I thought that the only thing worse then cancer would have to be anal cancer—deadly and friggin’ humiliating! I figured Farrah would go into hiding. I mean, wouldn’t you?

But no. Farrah Fawcett did the unthinkable. For two hours on prime time TV, she let the world see a documentary of her cancer battle. I’m talking the full shebang here: Losing her hair, losing her looks, and losing her life, right before our eyes.

It was brave. That’s all there is to it.

I’ve done a lot of gutsy things in my life—moving to NYC, alone, as a teenager is on the top of my list—but no way, no how could I let the whole world watch me succumb to anal cancer. I’m Jewish. We don’t do anal!

Farrah Fawcett leaves behind a soft breeze, a hint of Texas sunshine, a killer smile, and the knowledge that the woman who may very well have been America’s last great pin-up queen was a whole lot more than a pretty face.

I normally ask guest critics to write the Oh Brawling Love! feature, but this week, I just had to do it myself.

That’s because I no longer hate Bravo’s Make Me a Supermodel.

After the jump, I’ll share my tangled tale.

First, let me reitereate that I “don’t hate” Make Me a Supermodel, which is not the same as loving it. If you’ve seen even fifteen seconds of a single episode, then you know that it’s a terrible series. That’s mostly because the judges, the producers, and our charming hosts Tyson Beckford and Nicole Whatsername take everything so damn seriously. As I’ve noted, Top Chef has this problem, too, but the folks on MMAS are so humorlessly arrogant that they make the stone-faced solemnity of a quickfire challenge seem like a kid’s birthday party.

I mean, just watch the following clip, where the judges critique a model who was forced to walk down the runway in a bonnet made of trash bags.

Poor Laury. You can actually see her dignity pooling at her feet. Yet does the show acknowledge that it might be ridiculous to chastise a woman for not being bitchy enough as she flounces around like Little Red Recycling Bin? No. Instead, it presents a panel of adults dressed in costume-piece sunglasses and fussy blazers who passive aggressively insult each other as they strain to prove their own superiority. You get “international model scout” Marlon (just Marlon) calling on his years of experience to discuss Laury’s walk, as though she’s wearing a damn Chanel gown.

Moments like these make me love Rupaul’s Drag Race even more, because if some queen had to strut down RuPaul’s catwalk in a Cinch Sack, Ru would not only make a joke about it, but she’d also tell a charmingly self-effacing story about her early drag days in Atlanta, when she had to wear a paper bag trimmed in measuring tape and call it “Poverty Realness.”

But even the above clip isn’t the ne plus ultra of the Make Me a Supermodel‘s audacity. No, that would be fashion photographer Perou, who is a regular judge. I’ve never encountered someone so obviously desperate to bury his self-loathing in a succession of bitter insults and aggressively idiotic fashion. Here’s a picture I took off my TV:

For a while, frankly, I was watching the series merely to sate my morbid fascination with this pretentiousness. (And to see the weekly parade of naked hunks.) I kind of hated myself for tuning in, you know?

But in the last few weeks, the judges have eliminated all the contestants who mirror the show’s own joyless sensibility, leaving only competitors who seem like actual people. Without any preening freaks around to steal their focus, folks like young Branden, with his sweetness and insecurity; sex-on-toast Jonathan, with his lovely devotion to his family; and cherubic Salome, with her aw-shucks naivete, can offset Perou with their humility and kindness.

Until they were the only ones standing, I didn’t realize how much I like the remaining contestants. Now I tune in because I want to see what happens to them, and not just because I want to gasp at their idiocy. They can’t completely overcome the show’s irritating tone, but they come close.

I especially dig the top three: Branden, Jonathon, and cocky-yet-charming Sandhurst. No matter who wins, he’ll be a decent guy, and for Make Me a Supermodel, that’s a miracle.

It’s an age-old conundrum: What do you do when you prefer something fun and silly over something hip and “meaningful”? How do you make amends with your impulse to choose Outback Steakhouse over that totally wicked bar that’s hidden behind a fortune teller’s shop?

For this installment of Oh Brawling Love!, guest critic Raven Snook—who reviews theater for Time Out New York and also performs in a sizzling burlesque act—explains how this dilemma recently confronted her. You see, Raven (that’s her pictured up top) didn’t expect to love the hair-metal musical Rock of Ages, especially with the celebrated  revival of Hair playing just down the street. But she did love Rock of Ages, y’all. She did.

After the jump, she’ll explain why…

The Hair Up There: Why Rock of Ages Rocked My World… More Than Hair

By RAVEN SNOOK

When Rock of Ages—the shockingly entertaining jukebox musical of 80s rock anthems—opened on Broadway mere days after the lauded revival of Hair, it was inevitable that reviewers would compare the two. After all, they both feature casts rocking out with shaggy ‘dos, and both shows enjoyed successful Off-Broadway runs. Plus, their plots—which are really just excuses for parades of high-energy, emotionally-charged numbers—hang on love triangles: In both cases, a shy boy falls for a nice girl while a grandiose guy gets in the way.

Both musicals are also very much rooted in their respective eras. For all its timeliness (the war, general dissatisfaction with the world), Hair is stuck in the 60s, with its catchy (but at this point quaint) odes to drugs and freaky sex. “Sodomy, fellatio, cunnilingus, pederasty: Father, why do these words sound so nasty?” Well… in a world in which the lyric “I want to fuck you like an animal” seems passé, they don’t. Hair‘s entire vibe seems kind of tired. Act II’s war sequence is chilling, but the first act, all acid trips, orgies and self-empowerment, works best as a portrait of adolescent narcissism. Yes, the audience relishes cheering the performers on—mainly because we’ve all been there, done that, and kind of wish we could do it again. But now we’re over eighteen now, and most of us paid 100 bucks to get into the show. No can do. (Awful admission: I actually found myself relating most to Megan Lawrence’s overbearing but sensible—except for the war stuff—Mother character. When she told her son to get a job, I thought, “Right on, honey!”)

Meanwhile Rock of Ages celebrates being a time capsule and doesn’t pretend to have any particular relevance. One of the show’s biggest laughs comes when Drew cracks open two wine coolers. If you’re between the ages of, say, 30 and 55, that will mean something to you. (And Drew is played by adorkable American Idol alum Constantine Maroulis, who’s always seemed like a throwback.)

Does Rock of Ages trade in on nostalgia? Big time. But what’s wrong with that? The folks behind Broadway’s The Wedding Singer stumbled by replacing beloved 80s hits with newly penned approximations. Rock of Ages delivers where that tuner died. In addition to being great escapist fun, the show pulls off a really neat trick by managing to charm both the folks who grew up loving cheesy Bon Jovi, Poison and Asia tunes, and those of us who absolutely despised them. Somehow, I don’t think a musical of my 80s favorites—Siouxsie and the Banshees, The Smiths, The Cure—would have such mass appeal.

Rock of Ages sends up the excesses of the mainstream ’80s—the styles, the sounds, the silliness—without resorting to snarkiness. I actually found myself invested in the characters’ journeys and their rendition of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” The show is campy, but never cold. In other words, Hair has hormones but Rock of Ages has heart. And really awesome fake lighters! (The fake lighters really are awesome. They hand them out in the audience before the show starts. — MARK)

I know that saying I enjoyed Rock of Ages more than Hair makes me sound middlebrow or, worse, like an old fogey. What can I say? There comes a day when you realize that you can pick New Jersey over New York, and your life, as Steve Perry might say, will still go on and on and on and on.

Welcome to Oh Brawling Love!, where guest critics describe things they thought they’d hate but ended up adoring. This week, Rae L. Hanson, editor of the fantastic and influential TV blog Ramblings of a TV Whore, describes her wild night seeing the New Kids on the Block on their reunion tour. (She was there on March 13 at the Amway Arena in Orlando. Were you?)

Kick it, Rae!

(Note: Rae took all the concert photos herself. Awesome!)

The New Kids on the Block Concert

By Rae L. Hanson

Old Sweaty Men on the Block.

That’s my friend’s new nickname for the New Kids on the Block. Her way of mocking me for going to see NKOTB live last month. But I’m not going to lie. Hands down the best concert experience I’ve ever had.

Go ahead. Scoff if you must.

I mean… I did when I first heard about NKTOB going back on tour. Really? The boy band from my pre-teen years actually taking to the stage again? Preposterous!

A friend joked that we should get a group together and go. I agreed it’d be funny (and I didn’t mean that in a good way). Then some friends in other cities went and, oh, the raves! They loved it. It was awesome. Best! Concert! Ever!

Yeah. I wasn’t sold. But I was intrigued and, when a friend got me tickets for my birthday, I was eager to see if they could live up to all the hoopla. Even if it was bad, it was bound to be hilariously bad. With someone else footing the bill, I couldn’t go wrong.

Only, here’s the thing. My friends? Weren’t wrong. The concert was AMAZING. 20 years later and these guys still know how to put on a hell of a show. They’re reliving their glory days and the joy they’re getting out of it is infectious. Watching them on stage, loving it, you can’t help but love it right along with them.

I was never a diehard fan. Yes, NKOTB posters graced my walls in middle school. and I remember practically swooning while discussing my favorite with friends. (Donnie, by the way. And before you ask, yes… I loved Marky Mark, too.) But honestly, my interest in the boys was directly proportionate to how cool it was to like NKOTB. A fact that became obvious when I could only really sing along to, at the very most, four songs during the concert. As my friend noted, “I don’t think I’m as big of a NKOTB fans as I thought I was…”

There was a part of me that went into the concert expecting to bear witness to a train wreck more than anything else. The gussied-up women arriving in their limos to wait in line for hours before the doors opened only seemed to support this theory.

That’s not what happened. Sure, some of the fans were a bit too invested in the moment. No matter how much I enjoyed it, if you admit to me that you cried I am going to mock you for all of eternity.

And the screams… I may be scarred for life. I honestly don’t know if they played the background music so loud to cover up that these guys aren’t quite the vocalists they may have been in their younger years or because the screams were so deafening it was almost impossible to hear anything else. Either way, a month later and my eardrums are still recovering from the assault.

But looking beyond that, this was entertainment at its best. The guys’ level of interaction with the crowd is just impressive. It helps it’s not just the guys who are reliving the glory days. Every one of the girls in the audience is doing the same. There’s a kind of mutual understanding in the air that, for one night, we were all leaving our current responsibilities behind and taking a trip back in time. This tour isn’t just for NKOTB; it’s for all the fans too. And because of that they have a lot of fun playing to the crowd and joking around with them. It works. I might have laughed at the idea of them on tour again, but it’s obvious they appreciate all the fans making it possible.

Although, I’m not gonna lie, I could live with never again seeing Donnie Wahlberg pick up a handful of panties (you heard me right, PANTIES THROWN ON STAGE) and sniff them. It’s possible Donnie may be enjoying this experience most of all, what with the panties and giving his water bottles to people in the crowd and KISSING girls on the sidelines. I guess you gotta take the opportunities where you can get ‘em.

My favorite moment of the night, though, was when Jonathon Jordan, wearing an unbuttoned sheer white shirt over dark pants, ascended from the depths of the dark stage. I can’t even tell you the song he was singing. But that’s insignificant because the spotlight shines on him, a weird psychedelic pattern swirls around on the screen behind him, and the fans kick on… Oh, yeah, baby. FANS. Blowing his shirt off him in the most dramatic way possible. And damn if the sight of his bare chest and his shirt flowing behind him isn’t almost enough to distract you from the fact that the dude really can’t sing these songs anymore. I about died. Literally fell into my seat I was laughing so hard. And I’m not knocking it. It was perfection. An early ‘90s music video come to life on the stage in front of us!

There’s more, of course: The guy  singing “Tonight” while alternating positions on top of a piano. The guys joking about their age when performing some of the dance moves from their past. The sing-along version of  “Hangin’ Tough” with an arena full of fans. The boyfriend of the girl next to us, who is clearly the best boyfriend ever, but  who I think secretly had the time of his life based on how often he was laughing.

Simply put, it was a blast. I’m grateful I didn’t let my cynicism rob me of the experience.

The boys are on their final leg of their tour now. If your town is on their route, I recommend you suck it up and give ‘em a shot at entertaining you. You might be surprised by how much you enjoy it.

Welcome to Oh Brawling Love!, in which guest critics write about things they thought they’d hate but ended up adoring. 

This week’s entry comes from Amanda Wilburn, author of the fantastic Southern culture blog AppyLove. She’s here to describe her tumultuous relationship with the beautiful, clog-dancing, alt-country singer-songwriter Elizabeth Cook (pictured above.) 

And let me tell you, you haven’t lived until you’ve heard this one song Amanda describes, which is all about balls.

Take it away, Amanda!

Oh Brawling Love: Elizabeth Cook

By AMANDA WILBURN

I watched Elizabeth Cook perform as part of a wonderful live-broadcast radio variety show on New Year’s Eve, 2008. Right away it looked like the odds weren’t in her favor in terms of reeling me in as a fan. She’s tall, thin, blonde, and gorgeous, and she was wearing a short black size-two dress with cowboy boots. On top of that, I’ve slowly put down roots on the opposite side of the split-rail fence that is contemporary country.

Not that she cared what I thought, since there were about 900 other audience members drooling and sweating over her already.
The show’s host blathered on about Cook’s talent while I waited for the set to begin, so that it would end, so that I could get another drink from the bar at the commercial break.

Then something interesting happened. Elizabeth Cook started talking, and she seemed funny, and humble, and happy to be there. She is a female country singer whose most recent album includes nine songs written or co-written by her. As she pointed out during her set, that’s not the norm for female country singers, and she mentioned she was thankful for that.

I realized that not only is Elizabeth Cook good-looking, she’s also smart and hardworking. But that’s only the beginning of my conversion to Elizabeth Cook fandom. I’m not blown away by her voice, or even her remarkable beauty, but I am thoroughly impressed by her songwriting and her dedication to music and to her audience (which I’m prepared to tell you much more about.)

I also realized that I appreciate people who devote their time to doing something they love, and through that devotion become really, really good at it. And Cook is really, really good at writing and performing country songs.

As her set progressed, we learned that she was runner-up to Darrell Scott at the Americana Music Awards for her song “Balls.” The song’s lyrical hook is the line “Sometimes it takes balls to be a woman.” Now, normally hearing an expression like that makes me run the other direction screaming, or gives me nightmares in which I’m trapped in a room filled with kitschy wall-hangings that say things like “A Woman Needs a Man Like a Fish Needs a Bicycle” or “I am woman! I am invincible! I am pooped!”

But the song feels familiar, written as—and destined to become—an upbeat country standard. It’s not a feminist lament or a redneck holler of outrage, just a statement of fact. And when Elizabeth Cook sings it, it’s like hearing your best friend say just what you needed to hear about something that’s been bugging you for a while. Maybe after a year of Hillary Clinton, Sarah Palin, and ceaseless media pontification on race and gender, “Balls” was a welcome down-to-earth commentary about what womanhood means, delivered by a woman who can sing it with pathos.

So even though it was New Year’s Eve, and her set was totally impinging on my next trip to the bar, Elizabeth Cook hooked me like a summer morning bluegill within the space of three songs.

Then, something kind of amazing happened. She put down her guitar. She said, “Now Tim [Carroll]’s going to play a song for y’all that he wrote. It’s about the TGV.” For those of you who may not know this, the TGV is the high-speed train in France, and something I was pretty interested in and had many conversations about in my eighth-grade French class. Totally random topic for a country song, and utterly irresistible to me.

Then Elizabeth Cook said, “While he plays that, I’m going to do a little dance for you.” Suddenly, Mr.-Rogers-style, she was sitting down to change her shoes. So that she could clog to the TGV song. You know how they say there’s no zealot like a convert? Well, when I saw Elizabeth Cook flapping her clog-shoed feet to a song about a high-speed train in France, I saw the light. On the stage before us was a woman genetically designed to entertain.

There probably won’t be another musician in my life of whom I can think “She had me at TGV.” But as far as I can tell, I’m hanging on that fishing line, suckered in—along with Rolling Stone, CMT, Rodney Crowell, and the Americana Music Association—and headed for the live well on Elizabeth Cook’s pontoon boat. Come on in, the water’s fine.

This week’s installment of “Oh Brawling Love!” comes from the brilliant and talented Kyle Barisch, who is a singer, performer, and co-host of AfterElton.com’s hilarious vlog Sounds Like a Hit!  He’s also the co-star A Touch of Vegas, a crazy-awesome cabaret of the damned. (That’s him up there in the novelty bowtie.)

In keeping with the Oh Brawling Love! theme, Kyle will explain why he started out hating American Idol, then grew to love it. 

Hit it, Kyle!

Idol Hands, Devil’s Tools? or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love American Idol

By KYLE  BARISCH

What was it about American Idol that drove me crazy? It seemed like a no-brainer that I would love it. I mean, it’s an over-the-top weekly pop music spectacle, the likes of which haven’t been seen since Solid Gold. (I’m talking to you, Marilyn McCoo.) And I loved Solid Gold! AI’s got the same borderline-embarrassing choreography, the same chart hits from every decade, the same guest turns from washed up 80s musicians. . .basically, it’s got stuff that has been desperately missing from primetime television.

Plus, I’m a singer. What could be more fun than assuming the role of armchair critic, chiming in with vocal critiques and song suggestions?

It wasn’t so simple. To begin with, I came to AI a little late in the game. My friends were already getting together to watch every week, and I felt separated by my lack of interest. It was kind of like in high school when all the popular girls started having lunch at the Juice Club, and I didn’t get the appeal. Orange Dreamsicle smoothies? Yuck. (P.S.: Juice Club is now called Jamba Juice, and it’s another pop culture landmark at whose delicious altar I finally worship.)

I didn’t sit down and watch a full episode of American Idol until late in the first season. I had caught glimpses of the auditions and performances, and what I saw didn’t exactly encourage regular viewing. In fact, it literally sent shivers down my spine. I basically audition for a living, and anyone who auditions can tell you what a NOT delightful, NOT enjoyable experience it is. And the first few weeks of the AI season are like the world’s most hideous audition experience blown up to life size and broadcast to millions of people. The waiting in line with thousands of other anxious, desperate hopefuls? I can’t even fathom it, let alone work up the nerve to watch it as entertainment!

And then there are the audition-round performances themselves. I was totally shocked to find that AI features, nay, CELEBRATES, the most truly terrifying and terrible performances of all! The worst and most embarrassing performances are the ones that make it to the air in the first weeks of the season, and then they get repeated ad nauseum. This was the biggest hurdle for me to overcome. I thought it needlessly cruel to take these people, most of whom were already clearly deluded about their chances for success in showbiz, and spin their whole-hearted attempts at success into COMEDY!

I found this shocking and offensive, and for sure I looked like a giant dork for saying so at the aforementioned AI weekly watching parties.

Thank the gods of music that I eventually turned a corner. It was at the start of the fourth season, home to such vaunted contestants as Bo Bice, Constantine Maroulis and eventual winner Carrie Underwood. It was during this season that I finally forced myself to endure the first few episodes—the painful fragmented auditions, the unnecessary personal stories about people we will never see again, and the Hollywood week, which annually seems to be the most poorly produced episode of the season. And yes, they were still prime examples of torture TV.

But lo and behold, once the show got down to the final 12 contestants, once they were permitted to sing a full song, once they were actually allowed enough material to show glimpses of true artistry. . . that’s when it all started to come together for me. See, having auditioned so much in my life, I know exactly how little of one’s talent you can demonstrate in 10 bars. And it was really driving me crazy to see people constantly slipping through the cracks in both directions—mediocre singers given a barely passing grade, and the truly gifted being sent home because of a forgotten word or single botched note.

Once the show began to kick in that season, however, I got sucked in because the concept hit home with me—the audience gets to catch a rising star. You know everyone has got something to show, and now the drama surrounds who is going to last the longest on the ice. It was electrifying to watch Carrie Underwood come out of her shell with Heart’s “Alone,” and now I’ve realized that each of the Top 12 episodes has at least one moment like that. Not to mention the fact that the house band rocks, and that means a regular space for live music during millions of people’s weekly TV routines.

I know the music industry is having one of the worst years in its history, but AI in its unique way is bringing pop music back into the mainstream. And I am a devoted fan of anything that elevates singing to this level of importance.

Now, I happily cringe along with the rest of America as we endure those horrid dance routines. And I scream at the screen when one of the judges gets it totally wrong (this season,  it’s usually Kara DioGuardi) or when someone really worthwhile gets sent home early. I definitely get it now, guys. Can I come back to those viewing parties??

BTW, the secret to the show’s success will always be Miss Priss, Simon Cowell. Without his acerbic and, yes, mostly dead-on commentary, the whole ship might sink under a tidal wave of treacle. And he’s just one of the many reasons why I will no longer miss an episode.

Welcome back to Oh Brawling Love!, where guest critics discuss a pop culture item they thought they’d hate, but ended up really enjoying.

This week’s post comes from Madeleine Martin  That’s her up top there.

You may know her as Becca Moody (daughter of David Duchovny’s Hank) on Showtime’s Californication, or from her starring role in Broadway’s kick-ass, Pulitzer Prize-winning play August: Osage County.

Today, Madeleine (or “Mad Dog,” as her friends call her) will explain her brawling love for Skins, a soapy teen drama on  BBC America. In an interesting twist, part of her frustrated love for the show comes from her irritiation with season three… but I’ll let her tell you about it.

Take it away, Mad Dog!

 What Happened to My Favorite Show?

By MADELEINE MARTIN

I am completely bummed about my favorite show, the BBC’s Skins, because I just found the third season online. Judging from the first episode, they have replaced the entire cast from Season 2—with the exception of Effy—with a group who is, so far, less than inspiring. And as if to taunt the show’s previous fans, a loutish new character flings open Sid’s old locker and tosses out Sid’s trademark knitted cap!

Sid was a favorite character on the show. He was earnest, direct, and complicated… everything this new incarnation of the show is proving not to be. To see a neanderthal boor in possession of the contents of Sid’s locker is too symbolic for me. The subtle, sensitive and real characters I have grown to love have been taken over by cartoonish imposters. And in this first episode, the beloved Effy appears to have become a slut.
So now, anything I write on the subject of ‘brawling love’ is really just a post mortem on a show to which I once looked forward. What first drew me in was the storyline about Cassie’s anorexia. Sure, it could have been more clear whether she was imagining those text messages admonishing her to eat, or if someone who cared (Sid?) was actually texting her. And also, why did we never get an explanation about the menacing car-service driver?

Plot questions aside, though, Cassie was a dreamy, poetic girl, and she lived in her own world until she met Sid.

The characters on the first seasons of Skins have real flaws like people do in reality. Sid is no heroic dreamboat. He’s unmotivated and flunking out of school, but he has the sense to see through Tony’s self-importance and insensitivity towards Michelle. I also love Sid and Cassie’s erratic fashion sense. I wish I could find that animal print skirt of Cassie’s or the animal necklace, or that long-sleeved yellow squeaky t-shirt Sid wears. They clearly belong together, and when they ended up in NYC, their relationship alone had me wishing for a sequel.

My friends never watch Skins. They are all Gossip Girl fans. I tried to watch GG so I could follow their references, but I just couldn’t relate like I could to the characters on Skins. I guess as a Queens native, I’ve never understood GG‘s apparent contempt for the boroughs. I mean it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said “the city seen from the Queensboro bridge is the city seen for the first time.” But on Gossip Girl, one family has the unfortunate plight of residing in Brooklyn, a real estate faux pas which confers permanent outsider status on the entire family. People always talk about the rigid hierarchical structure of society in Britain, but on the BBC’s Skins class is barely relevant, while on Gossip Girl class is really the main character.

On Skins, Anwar’s father is a cabdriver. (And Anwar is played by Dev “Slumdog” Patel. Take that, classists! — Mark)  Most of the characters on Skins are from working or middle-class families, which for a girl from Queens means they’re easier to relate to than the GG real-estate barons of NYC’s upper east side.

Also, I guess I just can’t buy into the world view on GG that human beings are primarily motivated by fear of slander and innuendo. Skins, on the other hand, portrays a group of friends who are struggling sometimes alone, but often together, to find fulfillment in their lives. For example, each character’s reaction to Tony’s brain injury reveals his or her struggle as an individual to come to terms with suffering and loss. Whether it is Maxxie patiently cutting Tony’s food, Michelle and Sid refusing to accept Tony’s fall from grace by ignoring him completely, or Effy warding off the female predators who are after her brother, Tony’s plight reveals where each character is in his or her own life.

On GG, a story arc in which the show’s lead character is blackmailed over a sex and overdose video is shocking, but that story doesn’t reveal the same depth of character development. And that is why I used to look forward to Sunday nights on BBC America… to be lured into the lives of these teens across the ocean. Maybe I’ll give season 3 another try, hoping that Effy may redeem what I’ve seen so far. As for my own friends and GG, their legacy may be Yale 2013, but I’d rather cast my lot with Sid’s “Wild World,” a Cat Stevens song I never liked until I heard Sid sing his version in the Season 1 finale.

Welcome to the first edition of Oh Brawling Love!, the newest regular feature here at The Critical Condition. Here’s the idea: For each installment, a guest critic will write about a piece of pop culture that they thought they would loathe (or did loathe), but eventually came to love.

To kick off this feature, I’m pleased to welcome guest critic Mike McComb, who has posted around The Critical Condition as Rube Goldberg. He’s here to explain why he eventually fell for the movie Galaxy Quest. 

Kick it, Mike!

Tim Allen is a deal-breaker for a lot of people.  I’m pretty ambivalent about his stand-up, and I’ll watch Home Improvement if there isn’t anything else on, but I’m not setting up online fansites for Jungle 2 Jungle 2 or setting his man-grunt as my ringtone. 

I supposed what can be gleaned from this is that for many people, Tim Allen is okay in small doses: A half hour sitcom with commercials is okay, but a ninety minute feature is just too much. Unfortunately, this has resulted in Galaxy Quest not reaching its proper status in our cultural lexicon.   

I’m not claiming innocence here.  I’m pretty sure that when Galaxy Quest came out back in 1999, I tuned out the commercials as soon as Tim Allen was mentioned.  Also, I’m not overly enthusiastic about science fiction, so something with Star Trek parallels isn’t going to activate my nerd receptors.  The only reason I saw the movie in the first place was that one Saturday, somebody returned the DVD to the library where I worked. I checked it out because I vaguely remembered my brother saying he liked it (he does have the Star Trek-attuned nerd receptors). 

Had I known how brilliant this movie would be, I probably would have made the effort to watch it on the big screen.  Here’s the gist of the story:  A group of aliens tracks down the cast of the long-cancelled show Galaxy Quest  and asks them to help save their civilization.  The aliens have mistaken the show’s episodes as “historical documents”, but since the actors from the cast haven’t had real work for years, they go along for the ride.  The movie is both a satire and homage to the goofier conventions of the science fiction genre, from the rabidly obsessed fan base to the fate of red shirts.  For those who don’t speak Nerd, Guy Fleegman (Sam Rockwell) describes “red shirts” the best: “I’m expendable. I’m the guy in the episode who dies to prove how serious the situation is.” 

The story is clever and genuinely funny, but it is the cast that makes this movie shine.  Alan Rickman plays a dejected actor whose somewhat prestigious career went down the tubes after playing the Spock-like “Dr. Lazarus.”  Sigourney Weaver rocks a blonde wig and plays Gwen DeMarco, the actress behind “Lt. Tawny Madison,” the love interest/repeat-everything-the-computer-says person/default female.  Tony Shalhoub, back when he was still a quirky character actor instead of Monk, plays Fred Kwan/”Tech Sergeant Chen,” who is eerily sedate throughout the entire experience.  The best surprise in the cast is a really young Justin Long (the Mac Guy) playing an obsessed fan of the show — the kind that asks actors questions about the propulsion physics of engines and such.  Even Tim Allen does a fantastic job channeling the Shatner persona into Jason Nesmith/”Commander Peter Quincy Taggart.” Honestly, I am having a difficult time thinking of a better candidate for that role. 

I have yet to find anyone, aside from some film critics, who has seen the movie and disliked it.  Instead, the difficulty I have encountered is getting people to see the movie in the first place.  Back in college, I was part of the campus group that did weekend film screenings.  For eight semesters I tried to get Galaxy Quest through the process, but the mere mention of Tim Allen caused the “no” votes to multiply.  I even tried describing the movie and cast by omitting Tim Allen, but someone caught on just before the vote and Galaxy Quest didn’t get through.   

It is a shame that such an entertaining ensemble film is mired in semi-obscurity because one person in the cast, who is actually an asset in this case, is an obstacle for so many people. 

Mike McComb is (im)patiently awaiting to start his Masters program in Television, Radio and Film at Syracuse University.  In the meantime, he is living outside of The Cleve, managing, coaching and bowling at a six-lane center.  You can usually find him wandering the interwebs as “Rube Goldberg” and occasionally airing his id over at his blog (rubegoldbergsdevice.blogspot.com).