Re: Night Out

Last night's Office was a glimpse of what could've been the overriding plotlines of season four: Ryan becoming a corporate chach whose blind faith in Web 2.0 amounts to little more than old dogs, new tricks, and a club-drug habit; Michael dating (revisiting David Brent's search for a Date to the office Christmas party in the Special); and Jim finding out that, despite his best intentions, no one in the office actually likes him that much.

I enjoyed the episode because it toned down the zaniness of season four. Pretty much every element could've been transplanted into the sort-of-more-real season two universe, as even the most zany element - Ryan's growth-stunted friend - didn't pull it away from plausibility. The Michael plotline also veered into some Brent territory, and Dwight making out with that basketball chick reminded me of Garreth meeting a certain "loose woman" at Slough hot-spot Chasers; but seeing the office weirdo get some action without even trying was fun in both cases.

Jim and the others getting stranded in the Parking Lot of Doom was a nice throwback to episodes such as "The Fire," though having split Scranton-New York plotlines didn't allow us to witness too much of their boredom outside of Toby supplying Pam with a football to throw at Meredith's face. That, and Jim trying to contact and failing to remember the security guard's name, which Creed, of all people, knew correctly (probably because a small-time smuggling operation involving after hours and office supplies). There was also another Jim-is-becoming-Michael moment when he pulled Oscar aside to talk to the cleaning people on the assumption they'd speak Spanish.

So I liked the episode, since the stakes were pretty low. The next three need to have some zing, and something other than Jim's proposal needs to happen. If Toby makes good on his declaration to move to Costa Rica (first mentioned in season three episode "Branch Closing," in which he fantasized about moving there and learning how to surf), his leaving will open up a position in HR. Will this introduce the new character(s) that will be part of the spin-off that will also probably feature Andy Bernard? Even so, there's still some unexplored territory that could make for an interesting next three episodes, even with the season being only half as long and thus twelve episodes short of developing any sort of poignancy that could equal the end of "Casino Night" or, to a lesser extent, "The Job."

Re: Chair Model

The Office, in a word: meh. No big laughs and no real thrust.

The Michael plotline just relayed a little between-episodes backstory (leaving Jan), while also treading some sloppy done-before ground; the death of the Chair Model was not unlike the off-screen, unimportant death of former Scranton boss Ed Truck's death in early season three. Keyword is unimportant.

The Andy-Kevin plotline, like many recent season-four episodes, was all setup and no payoff. The "Five Families" sat in a room and that was it? Was the montage of their introductions supposed to be the joke? They gave Kevin a moment at the end, though, which was fairly unfulfilling; have a character be a one-dimensional, monotone loaf for four seasons, then show him on the verge of semi-tears? But as per Andy's small victory, this might, in some way, be a lead-up to The Office Spin-Off, which is heavily rumored to star Ed Helms.

So all that's left is a Jim-Pam bit that threatens the next four episodes. Of course, it probably won't resurface until the second-to-last or last episode of the season, and then I imagine we'll have to wait another shark-jumping season until the obligatory Jim And Pam's Wedding episode.

John K. in the AV Club

Just when I think I get out, it pulls me back in. Here's an excerpt from an AV Club interview with John Krasinski, in which he gives a sort of different perspective (than mine) of the American Office and the British Office regarding dark humor and wackiness:

AVC: The British version of The Office emphasizes the whole bleak, soul-sucking nature of this kind of job, but the American version seems freer to be whimsical. Is there a lot of discussion about whether the show should be more realistic, or whether it's okay to move into wackier tangents?

JK: I think you have to go into wackier tangents to make it more palatable, in a way. The way the British Office got away with being so dark was that it only had 13 episodes. There are realistic elements that people obviously enjoy, but they don't necessarily want to relive the trials and tribulations of their average workday.

AVC: Do you ever worry that you stray too far from that? That you need something solid and relatable as well?

JK: Yeah, I think that's always the fear. But then again, we rely so heavily on the writers, and they do a great job of writing episodes that have really wacky stuff in them, but don't cross the line. As long as it's really funny and as long as it's not jumping the shark*, or whatever that weird term is. I think we put all our trust in them.

AVC: So how was Jim Halpert's character conceived in relation to Martin Freeman's original character on the show? How has it evolved beyond him?

JK: [Freeman] put in a perfect performance, so there's no way he didn't influence me in a huge, huge way. I still, to this day, watch those old Office episodes, and am totally jealous of what he does. I think all I tried to do is bring my own thing to it. The parts were conceived exactly the same from the British version to the American, but knowing that we were going to go on a bit longer than they did, I just wanted to dole out those feelings of desperation and contempt, which could be punishing. All these things, I start to pull back a little bit. I might not be more likeable by any means, but a little more hopeful, maybe?

*If Michael standing on the roof of the Scranton office park threatening to fake suicide by jumping onto a bouncy castle isn't jumping the shark, what is? I guess the problem with the American Office is it keeps jumping back and forth over said shark.

The Best Film of Last Year

I hate to make faux-definitive statements like this, but There Will Be Blood was unjustly buried by the hype of No Country For Old Men last year. Both are great films, but There Will Be Blood is much, much greater. I imagine, fifty years from now, when I dust off the few of my old DVDs or Blu-rays that I keep around (since movies with be beamed directly into our skulls, obviously), at the end of the day I'll still have 2001: A Space Odyssey, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, and, among others, There Will Be Blood.

I watched it on DVD last night, even though I saw it in the theater a scant few months prior. And I finally pinned down why I vastly prefer it to No Country.

No Country For Old Men is good because it picked a tone and stuck with it. It's sparse, quiet, and tense. But it's just a trick. The film ends exactly where it started. It follows a formula; the easiest indicator is how everyone in the film speaks in near-monotone, indifferent. Some would say it's a regional thing, but I think it simply follows a few hard-and-fast rules that the Coens wrote down before they started production.

Also, the ending is terrible. The whole film prior works as a non-verbal experience, and the last fifteen minutes are simply people sitting around and talking.

But There Will Be Blood? That's a thrilling film, both organic and methodical. It grows with a sort of terrifying undercurrent. I like it the same reason I like The Godfather, and that's because of the amazing performances. But while the triumph of The Godfather is the ensemble, here it's two men: Daniel Day-Lewis and Paul Dano, sparring the entire film up to its strange-but-necessary climax.

Both There Will Be Blood and No Country are also gorgeous films; the former's cinematography by Roger Elswit (which won the Academy Award) and the latter's by Roger Deakins. There Will Be Blood has a sort of sparse, haunting elegance to its visuals, which is the same reason why I list 2001 as one of my favorite films (a film that doesn't center around any particular performance or any particular character).

So it's strange when two great films come out in a single year and, in the popular consciousness, the winning of a few awards of one makes the other obsolete. In this case, No Country won Best Picture, so most people browsing the shelves at Blockbuster will probably pick it up instead of There Will Be Blood. (Then again, most casual moviegoers I know who saw both films because of my recommendations found each too slow to enjoy. I don't entirely blame them.)

Another thing: While I enjoyed Hard Eight, Boogie Nights, and Magnolia, Paul Thomas Anderson made an inspired career move to go from sprawling dramas to intensely focused films, such as Punch-Drunk Love and There Will Be Blood. And the man is only 37! I consider him up there with Terrence Malick as one of the best directors in modern American cinema. He might be my next Stanley Kubrick.

Re: Dinner Party

From now on, I'll save my obsessive Office knowledge for each episode's Wikipedia page. Under "Notes," those last four are my additions. I'm not sure how I feel about that, knowing this much about a fictional television program, fictional characters and, also, the fictional minutia of said characters.

As I mentioned a long while back, I sort of "was over" The Office once the strike started. Last night was too much of a countdown waiting for the airtime, and with the show being Eh instead of Great, I think I'll just ride out season four and wait for season five on DVD. Not worth whittling away an entire Thursday evening for twenty-two minutes of mixed expectations.

The news of the spin-off is just too much; and yeah, I own the Dunder-Mifflin warehouse shirt and the World's Best Boss mug and the Dunder-Mifflin robe (as seen in "A Benihana Christmas") and the Dwight Schrute bobblehead (three out of four were gifts, in my defense), but it's also too much that, as soon as the episode aired, Jan's candles were for sale at the NBC Universal store. That's American broadcast television: as long as you can squeeze a buck, you beat that dead horse, not unlike if said dead horse were a money pinata. It's nothing new, but for a show that trusts its audience intelligence, that once went for dark satire instead of wacky zaniness and zany wackiness (there's a difference) instead of making lame, obscure, rabid-fan-pleasing references to past episodes (Hunter's band, etc.), it's still disheartening.

With the original, Gervais and Merchant got in and got out in two three-hour seasons and said everything they needed to say; I'm starting to think the special was unnecessary (same with Extras). It was called "The Office" and it took place in an office, and it was about the soul-draining day-to-day of wearing a tie and working with people you don't like in a place you don't want to be. And now, four seasons into the American version, and with a full fifth season ordered by NBC, I imagine we'll have more "field trip" episodes to characters' wacky houses (though I prefer the Scott-Levinson Condo much more than the shark-jumping Schrute Farms). I'd rather be wanting more than wishing it ended at season two its peak. I guess I'm now one of those fuddy-duddies that, now that The Wire and Deadwood are over, is saying TV Is Dead, etc. Case in point, I've read two books this week and, god forbid, I actually enjoyed myself.

But if next week's episode is really funny and if the finale hooks me back into the show, all the above is void. That is, until another Eh episode brings me back to all this gloom and doom.