Raymond's Rejects

When did Fox's Wednesday night lineup turn into a foray for washed-up actors from NBC and CBS? I work for a local Fox station and yet I rarely watch television, so I must admit that I haven't consistently watched "Back to You" or "'Til Death," so maybe my observations are made in haste after only a couple viewings. However, I have seen a lot of television in my lifetime, and there is a certain truism in the field that, as a general rule, seems to play out: if you have acted in a long-running series (especially those which might be labeled "successful" or "cult" shows), you are pretty well barred from acting outside of that character again for any sort of major role.

The problem is, we've been with you for ten years as a character. Movies are usually much more forgiving. We can see you for two hours as somebody and then believe you are somebody else a year later. We can even handle a trilogy now and then and still accord you the privilege of participating in further projects.

But this? Scooping up old actors from long-accustomed roles and shoving them into new situations? Fox didn't even have the decency to make pathetic spin-off shows so that the actors could continue their characters--those might be just as short-lived, but at least they would have been believable. Could Kelsey Grammer have survived moving into a non-spin-off show after Cheers? Probably--the format of the show was understated enough and Grammer is a good enough actor that he likely could have done it. And heck, when he's all up in blue fur I can even lend him the credit of being Beast. But to launch into a main role after 20 years of playing Frasier Crane? It's just a bit hard to swallow. Quite honestly, in another sitcom lead-role situation, it just looks like Frasier Crane and Debra Barone doing newscasts. Funny dialogue? Perhaps. But alarmingly distracting, because I keep expecting them to return to the beloved home-fronts we knew so well.

"'Til Death", perhaps because it has had some shakedown time, doesn't distract quite as much. Though I will note that an exception to the movie-actor forgiveness rule above is somewhat suspended in extreme cases of character--like Eddie Kaye Thomas, who always screams Finch in everything he does. I love Brad Garrett--it's hard not to--but I'm just not convinced he's Eddie Stark. It's a prejudice, I know, but a very real one and one that is hard to overcome.

Fox has a habit of getting rid of shows, whether they are bad or good, so I don't pretend like I will have to put up with these forced puppet shows for long. But next time, do us all a favor and at least put up a cheesy spin-off for the Nielsen families to ignore. "Joey" failed because it wasn't funny--but at least it was believable. Jason Alexander should have "listened up" and followed a cue from cohorts Seinfeld and Richards (well, maybe taking cues from Richards isn't the best idea) in working behind CG bees in the movie industry.

If Sean Hayes starts to front TV's newest ladies' man, I might let it slide. As for the rest of the successful actors with successful shows that have been honorably put to rest: my advice is to sleep comfortably in the bed of achievement that you've made, and be satisfied in simply knowing that everybody loves Raymond.

The Mummy Returns

We are all fascinated by the Ancient Egyptian culture because we just like mummies...or really, anything wrapped in toilet paper.

Water of Life

I walked into the break room tonight at work. Nobody was in there but me. I spent a period of a couple minutes putting my food away and washing out my cup, and nobody entered the room during that time. I looked over to the water cooler, with the intention of filling up my cup, and I saw that the water in the water cooler jug was moving, as if it had been jarred. I approached it, and I couldn't discern any vibrations in the floor or wall near the cooler, nor were any perceptible movements being produced by the mechanics of the water cooler itself. I watched it for a while, and it seemed to clearly possess a life of its own.

I drank about a quart of the stuff. I haven't died yet, so it's possible I am the Kwisatz Haderach.

The Brendan Fraser Corollary

So, the other day I had to record the movie "Bedazzled" for work. I didn't sit down and watch it or anything, and I had the sound turned off, but I glanced over every once in a while, and a thought began to occur to me. It struck me that Brendan Fraser may not actually be the worst actor in the world.

Now, don't get me wrong--"Bedazzled" wasn't screaming for an Oscar nomination on any level. But Fraser clearly displayed some level of flexibility and versatility within the (very limited) allowed acting constructs of the film. Too, one might recall his performance in "The Quiet American" alongside Michael Caine, which was highly praised. I have to admit, I despise the majority of Graham Greene's works, on whose novel the movie was based (with the exception of some of his earlier writings--and even those I have points of contention with in places), and having to watch a seemingly endless movie formed from the progressively communist propaganda that leaked into Graham's works was too much for me to handle (even if Graham's politics were not wholly represented in the adaptation). That is to say, I didn't make it through the entire movie. To be honest, though, it was mostly boredom that held me back in that regard. I am all for the long, internal character-developing movie, don't get me wrong. I was just not in the space to endure that particular film at the occurrence which gave me opportunity to watch it.

I do remember the first movie I watched entirely with Fraser. Well, it's possible that dubious honor belongs to "Encino Man" from a time when HBO or some such station showed it multiple times a day for weeks on end. But, while I imbibed the entirety of "Encino Man" over the course of time, I can't honestly say I ever sat down and watched it reel to reel. Perhaps I did, but I cannot say with certitude. The first movie I know I watched all the way through was "The Mummy Returns."

First of all, I can't tell you how utterly embarrassed I was to have to walk up to the ticket counter and say, "Two tickets for 'The Mummy Returns.'" I wasn't just going to see a mummy...no, no--I was going to see him return!! It was a bit like ordering a dish in a foreign restaurant where you emphatically know you are pronouncing the name of the dish incorrectly. If my situation had left me with recourse to see anything else, anything at all, I would have done so simply to avoid having that ridiculous sentence escape my lips.

But escape it did, and after seeing Fraser in previews for countless gems such as "Blast from the Past," I was naturally very excited to see a master thespian tend to his craft. Despite his breakthrough performance in the inaugural movie of the illustrious "Mummy" franchise, which garnered him a nomination for an oh-so-coveted Saturn Award for Best Actor, this sequel performance (and the film in general) left much to be desired.

All the same, though, I have had a hard time strongly disliking Fraser. I can't quite place why that is. I do get the distinct impression, though, that he would be a good, normal actor if given proper opportunity. Sure, he looks a little goofy, and that is certainly a Hollywood handicap, but if Jim Carrey can be handed serious roles (which I feel were both well-deserved and well-played), then surely Fraser should be allowed to try his hand at a well-crafted screenplay.

So why is it that this has not been the case? The problem derives from a theory that was developed by a legal scholar in Arizona; a theory that he has labeled "The Brendan Fraser Corollary." The notion is that Fraser is consistently, and what I would label now as almost recklessly, cast as an outside player. That is to say, his character is always the odd-man-out in the group. This truth is quite obviously grasped in films like "Encino Man", "Blast from the Past", and "Bedazzled." Perhaps more subtly, movies such as "The Quiet American" and "Still Breathing" house the same notion of an outcast. Don't get me wrong--these movies are not juxtaposing Fraser as an in-depth, three-dimensional character with a surrounding of flat ones. These flicks set up the poor man as, on some level, a dysfunctional misfit (even if a three-dimensional misfit) amongst his peers.

A certain amount of blame must fall on Fraser, I admit. If you take the roles that he accepted in "George of the Jungle", "Dudley Do-Right", and "Monkeybone", you are just asking for a certain amount of professional punishment in the entertainment industry. But I seem to recall some other actors enduring some rather ignominious parts, yet being given opportunity to both star in a capacity of normalcy and to do so in a well-written screenplay. Such a combination has yet to reach Fraser's doorstep. Or perhaps such a role has been offered, and the Chazz Darvey in him has rejected the proposition. Either way, with Fraser's upcoming releases like "The Mummy 3" and "Big Bug Man" on deck, it looks like, for now, The Brendan Fraser Corollary lives on...