Shiny Things
By BOP Staff
July 31, 2008
Ace of Cakes
The television landscape is littered with shows that bear little or no resemblance to their promotional campaign. Some of these programs died on the vine, while others endure despite the mishandling by the network promo department. Thankfully, Ace of Cakes is one of the lucky ones.
As memory serves, the first promo I saw for Ace of Cakes sought to portray custom cake maker Duff Goldman as some kind of fierce biker or mob enforcer and the show as a Monster Garage/Miami Ink ripoff. I'm willing to bet that the creative brief for the spot said "EXTREME CAKES" somewhere (probably several times) in all caps. And boldface.
When the guys from Mythbusters do the "tough guy" act in their promos, it's easy to see the irony. In the Ace of Cakes spots Duff just comes off like a huge douche - which is fantastically unfortunate. While the guy loves to blow things up, he's just a big, giggly, dork - not at all the "Bad Boy of Baking" the Food Network was trying to setup.
That said, I skipped the first season or two of Ace of Cakes – you know, because I thought the driving force of the show was a huge douche. When I finally stumbled across an episode it was immediately obvious that the show was not in fact a Mountain Dew commercial about cakes, but instead a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at some very endearing artists executing their craft and having a blast doing it. And Duff was not a mindless Jesse James clone, but one of the most genuinely likeable people on TV.
When Duff started Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, he recruited not the industry's best cake decorators, but instead local artists and college friends. The result is a really laid-back vibe ripe with quirky and funny moments all caught on tape.
Duff's right and left hands are business manager Mary Alice and cake engineer Geoff. Mary Alice keeps everyone on track and Geoff makes sure that the cakes are bigger and more accurately reflect their intended influence. To call Geoff's humor dry is to not know the definition of "arid". The dude is positively dehydrated. But he's the perfect foil for Duff's wide-eyed exuberance.
What I love about the Charm City crew is their passion and dedication to what they are doing. The make decisions not based on how much time they have left before delivery or how much the client is paying them, but based solely on what will make the coolest looking cake. Just because the client didn't ask for working lights and moving parts doesn't mean the cake won't have them if the team thinks it will help pull off the concept.
But perhaps the most impressive feats attempted on the show is not the construction of the cakes themselves, but the delivery. Each cake is carried by hand to the street out front, loaded into the back of a rickety-ass white van and driven as many as hundreds and thousands of miles where the cake is then taken back out (hopefully without having sustained any travel damage) and carried by hand again to wherever it is going to be displayed. Again, the vast majority of these cakes are massive and structured more to look like stuff than support its own weight. I'm still frankly baffled that no special gear or even a cart of some kind is used in delivery.
That said, the cakes are almost always delivered without incident and the show always delivers as well. I'm happy to say that Duff is truly the Ace of Cakes and not a huge douche. (James Wood/BOP)
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Graph Jam
Face it. There are way too many blogs out there. And we basically have sites like Blogger and WordPress to thank, right? What with their attractive, ready-made templates and so-easy-to-use-even-your-grandma-can-figure-it-out software, it's no wonder you can align yourself with any sort of niche - ferret hunting, knee fetishes - and easily find an online counterpart (or more) to your liking. But for the thousands of items of blog schlock that find their way online, there's always one or two ideas that turn out to be irresistibly great. And Graph Jam is one of them.
Taglined as pop culture for people in cubicles, Graph Jam, located at graphjam.com, simply takes pop culture items - song lyrics, movie quotes, general current events, whatever – and translates them into graphical form. A particular favorite of mine, posted in June, is titled "Status of Alanis Morisette's Hands." The left pie chart, called "One Hand," is completely filled in by the color representing "In My Pocket," while the right chart, titled "Other Hand," is equally split in four parts by "Giving a High-Five," "Giving The Peace Sign," "Playing The Piano" and "Hailing a Taxi Cab." Simple? Yes. But song lyrics, like this example, are surprisingly hilarious when displayed in visual form.
And what works here is that all graph ideas are user-submitted. The site supplies the template - whether it be a world map, Venn diagram, bar graph, etc. - while bloggers perform the rest of the leg work by translating their ideas into a chart and then sending it back to the site. This way, posted items tend to come from a wide array of pop culture areas, instead of a more limited scope mustered by one or two site contributors. (Eric Hughes/BOP)
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Psych
USA Network's tagline of "characters welcome" is wholly accurate. They have a stable of original programming that works because the shows are character-driven and character-focused. Since love has already been justifiably lavished on Burn Notice, I would like to throw some equally due praise at Psych.
For the unfamiliar, Psych is a comedy about a Santa Barbara psychic detective agency run by lifelong friends, Shawn and Gus. The twist is that Shawn has no psychic abilities whatsoever but possesses an extraordinary sense of observation, which spawned from his cop father's insistence during childhood to pay attention to even the most minute details around him. Shawn's lack of supernatural powers is known only by Shawn, Gus and Henry, Shawn's dad.
The previous two seasons created a well-established history of the characters that owes itself to the strong chemistry between the cast members, namely James Roday as Shawn and Dule Hill as Gus.
Both Roday and Hill hit the right notes for their characters. Roday perfectly portrays Shawn as confident and cool when working a case but conveys realistic exasperation when dealing with his critical father. Hill gives Gus the right amount of rationale to keep Shawn in check but with the occasional outburst of fear and irrational behavior. This makes you understand how these two guys would be best friends because they balance each other and aren't really that different. Simply, they are fun to watch play off one another.
While secondary to the Shawn/Gus relationship, the father-son dynamic is frequently a factor for moving the plot and characters forward. Corbin Bernsen as Henry captures the right blend of parental authority, gruffness and support toward Shawn. Roday and Bernsen make a believable father and son. With the addition of Cybill Shephard in a recurring role as Shawn's previously unseen and virtually undiscussed mother, the show can answer some questions that have loomed, like "When and why did his mom leave?" Also, Bernsen gets to explore a softer side and embraced the chance to convey the unresolved emotions Henry has.
Every episode is ripe with pop culture references, but the writers and actors don't take it too seriously. It avoids the pitfall of having an arrogance that says, "Look at us making obscure references that only cool people will get." Psych offers the types of quick TV and movie references that give the characters more believability and viewers can easily relate because they've likely thrown out a similar comment about Mrs. Keaton from Family Ties or Ferris Bueller.
With only two episodes into season three, Psych is already making strides to further develop the characters and propel their lives beyond the stagnant case of the week formula. For example, Shawn has shown flashes of humility and appreciation for Gus' contribution to their business despite Gus essentially having the less-showy straight man role. Similarly, the season premiere nicely addressed the impact their business has on Gus' fulltime job as a pharmaceutical sales rep. So far, the guest stars, like Christopher MacDonald and Rachel Leigh Cook, have added to the fun and haven't been the focal point or attempted to replace the real reason the viewers love this show, which is Shawn and Gus.
The highest compliment that can be given is that after the credits roll, I actually find myself a bit saddened because I have to wait a week for a new episode. Luckily for the uninitiated viewers, multiple reruns of Psych play throughout the week, so you can easily catch up without having to rent. Do yourself a favor and give Psych a chance. (Daron Aldridge/BOP)
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Locke & Key
While several D.C. and Marvel titles seems to be getting a little stale, IDW Publishing, a comic book company that claims less than 5% of the market share in the industry, is steadily putting out excellent product and fostering fresh ideas. Angel: After the Fall, Everybody's Dead, Doctor Who and Dead, She Said are on my regular pull list, but in my mind, they all pale in comparison to Locke & Key. Simply put, it is the best thing going in comics right now, and this is your official notice that you need to go to your local comic book store and buy the entire series. Right now.
This is actually made easier by the fact that the six-issue series completes its run today. Locke & Key is a six-parter that started back in February. Written by Joe Hill (more on that in a moment) with art by Gabriel Rodriguez and Jay Fotos, the first issue sold out on its first run and has since been reprinted. It's just that good.
The story is a bit supernatural, macabre and occasionally horror-driven. For those who know Joe Hill's roots, this probably will make some sense. For those who don't, this is the time when I tell you that he is the son of some guy named Stephen King. Perhaps you've heard of him.
Don't imagine for a moment that Hill uses his famous father as a crutch, though. Hill has been entirely successful in his own right, publishing an acclaimed first novel titled Heart-Shaped Box prior to his work on this comic. And frankly, Locke & Key stands alongside anything King has done. The comic is a suspenseful, intriguing page-turner.
The story moves back and forth as we see the points of view of three members of the Locke family. I'm not going to delve too deeply into what happens, because it simply spoils a lot of the story. Let's just say that there is a horrific event, and the Locke family is forced to move across the country to a house that has some mystical and terrible aspects. What happens from there is some good storytelling, and many moments that are scary enough to give you chills.
I've been reading this book since it debuted, and I can say with all honesty that I hate it when an issue ends, because I want the story to keep going. Hill is a masterful writer, and the art is consistently top-notch. If you haven't gone out and purchased the single issues yet (and since you haven't you are now my mortal enemy), the collection will be available in hardcover in September. But you shouldn't wait. (Kim Hollis/BOP)
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Watchmen
Who watches the Watchmen? Now is the time to discover on your own.
If you are one of the 73 gazillion people who saw The Dark Knight or watched the trailer for Watchmen online, you are probably wondering what in the world this is. The answer lies in going to Amazon.com and spending $10 (probably less than you paid for your Batman IMAX tickets) to buy one of the most heralded books of the 20th century. And you'll note I said books instead of graphic novels. Time Magazine agrees with me as they named Alan Moore's masterwork one of the 100 greatest novels of the past 80 years. This is lofty praise for a comic book, right? So, the obvious question is what makes Watchmen so special?
Alan Moore may be crazy (and I think we're all pretty sure he is), but the man has one of the most impressive talents for deconstruction in the world today. What the iconoclast did with Watchmen was evaluate the most popular comic book characters and find a way to re-interpret their behavior in a way that had never been successfully attempted before. DC Comics favorites such as Superman, Batman, Blue Beetle, The Question and The Black Canary (as well as some older, lesser known characters from Charlton Comics) were the impetus for his character studies with the idea being, "What would it take for an ordinary person to dress up in a costume every night?" Circling back to those of you who have been celebrating The Dark Knight in recent days, this idea may seem familiar now, meaning you have Mr. Moore to thank in some small part for your celebration of an evolutionary successor to his premise.
Set in a dystopian version of 1985, Watchmen has two eccentricities. The first is that after winning the Vietnam War emphatically, Richard Nixon effectively has become President for Life of the United States. The second plays into the first. A scientist named Jonathan Osterman, the son of a watchmaker, is accidentally disintegrated in a freak lab experiment. His essence continues on beyond this tragedy, causing him to return in relatively human form (albeit with blue skin). The catch is that he has developed borderline omnipotent abilities. He can split into multiple forms, he can grow gigantic in stature, and he can exist in multiple time periods at once. Effectively, he is a deluxe version of Superman in terms of power. His strength is so overwhelming that he almost single-handedly wipes out the Vietnamese army. Such a potent force creates a strange sort of détente across the world as people grow fearful that if they anger Nixon, he will unleash his weapon as a countermeasure. The problem is that the presence of this "superhero" named Dr. Manhattan is that his existence is equally uncomfortable for Americans. His potency makes others feel...impotent.
Seeking to dissuade such concerns, the government constructs a group to join forces with Dr. Manhattan. These six people lack metahuman abilities. Instead, they are ordinary people whose primary abilities are less obvious. The Comedian is effectively The Joker as a "good guy". He's just as malevolent but as a government tool, his violent tendencies are accepted as a necessary evil. That is not the case with Rorschach, an exploration to the logical extreme of the Batman vigilante archetype in combination with the paranoia of The Question. Rorschach accepts no illicit behavior of any sort and will emphatically punish any and all wrong doers independent of whether the level of punishment fits the crime. These two are kindred spirits while the rest of the group is more positive in tone. There is The Nite Owl, a financially wealthy man who feels like more of a man when he wears a costume; there is Ozymandias, the smartest man in the world; there is Captain Metropolis, the leader of the group who happens to be a closeted homosexual and oddly indecisive for a commander; and there is The Silk Spectre, a woman in slutty attire who takes on the burlesque superhero title made famous by her mother.
Together, they are a bunch of freaks and a mutant. Their struggles are shown in a combination of fractured time for back story coinciding with a murder mystery involving the seemingly systematic execution of former members of the group. What follows is Rorschach and The Nite Owl's joint investigations into the crimes that have ended the lives of their friends. The journey itself is engaging but the depth of backstory is what sets Watchmen apart. Moore implements a fully realized world wherein the behavior of all the characters is understandable even when it's morally reprehensible. Watchmen will be released into theaters on March 9, 2009, and BOP has high hopes for the theatrical adaptation given the fact that it is directed by Zach Snyder. His work on the Dawn of the Dead re-make as well as 300 has been striking for such an inexperienced movie maker.
Even so, BOP strongly recommends that you do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of the book first. It's a much deeper and more robust exploration of the world of Watchmen than a two and a half hour movie could hope to be. We had hoped that this would eventually be developed into a limited series on HBO or the like in order to give a respectful treatment of the source material. Read the book and you'll better appreciate why we feel so strongly about this. (David Mumpower/BOP)
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