Reviews

TBS's "very funny" new comedy, "My Boys," may be the best new comedy on television since "Everybody Loves Raymond" -- certainly, since "The Office." After a middling start, the show is beginning to really gel, and so is the cast. In fact, the ensemble program is the first worthy successor to the storied "Friends." Its premise is both straightforward and modestly subversive. P.J. is a beat writer for a Chicago newspaper, covering the Cubs. But -- and here's the interesting part -- she's a girl. (And, btw, far more masculine than any of her costars. In a good way.) She lives in a cool but not unrealistically over-sized (in a refreshing departure from most television sets) "bachelor pad," complete with comfy chairs and the primary feature, a decked-out poker table.

Her pals -- old college buddy and possible flame Brendan ("Brendo"), a heavy-metal deejay; heart-on-his-sleeve Mike, a sports public relations flunkie; somber, mildly neurotic, romance-impaired Kenny; and the newest addition to the gang, Bobby, a fellow Cubs reporter -- and P.J.'s older, wiser, melancholy brother, "Fun" Andy, perpetually complaining about his ball-and-chain half-existence... and she are inseparable, going to dinner together, hanging out at Crowley's (a cross between Bennigan's and Mother's) together, and, most importantly, playing poker together. A lot. P.J. is, though she'd never admit it, both "den mother" and social glue to the gaggle of late-twentysomethings. P.J. is also best friends, improbably, with would-be debutante Stephanie who, like Brendo, first knew "Peej" at Northwestern, where Stephanie seems to have studied men, mostly.

The show is laugh-out-loud hilarious, and getting better as it goes on. The chemistry between the cast is exceptional, and after a sometimes inconsistent beginning to the first season, the male costars and their characters -- particularly Andy, but also Brendo and, surprisingly, the reserved Kenny -- are beginning to come into their own. Nominal series "star" Jordana Spiro -- unfortunately, btw, saddled with a voice that's part Swedish Chef, part Terry Griffith from "Just One of the Guys" -- but otherwise pretty damned hot -- generously allows her "boys" to snag more than their fair share of exceptional lines and pratfalls. It seems that ad-libbing is encouraged on the show, and becoming even more so, and that's a very good thing. Clichéd zaniness is kept to a minimum -- these are "real" people, here -- and that's also a very good thing. Much of the credit, of course, needs to go to the writers, but the cast makes their characters -- and the show -- appealing, delightful, lovable.

Let's hope "My Boys" has a long, successful run. It deserves it. Bravo.

It goes without saying that with the final chapter in the now-legendary "Rings" cycle, director Peter Jackson has concluded the most breathtakingly ambitious, staggeringly detailed, monstrously epic film trilogy in the history of the art form. But the scope, intricacy, and eternal relevancy of these three films -- really, a single work, delicately divided into three equally stunning parts -- is almost too obvious, too oft-recognized to even comment on, especially when there are so many other things to praise, so diverse a palette of achievement to choose commendations from. Consider:

In "Rings", Jackson has not only managed to successfully adapt a literary work most learned scholars of film deemed unadaptable; he has arguably created the best filmed adaptation of a source novel in motion picture history;

Jackson put together a cast comprised not of above-the-title "stars", but veteran and journeymen character actors, who both individually and as an ensemble so perfectly inhabited their characters and the artificial world those characters were a part of, that they will forever -- for good or ill -- be indistinguishable from their Middle-Earth counterparts;

Jackson put together a film trilogy that has, like "Star Wars" a generation before, redefined the standard by which superlative special effects will enhance and magnify the film experience... ...There is almost too much to say, too much to admire. This is Jackson's Sistene Chapel, his Iliad, his "walk on the moon". Like "2001: A Space Odyssey" for science fiction, "Citizen Kane" for drama and "The Godfather" for crime epics, The "Lord of the Rings" filmed trilogy will forever stand as both watershed and high-water mark, inspiration and albatross, invitation and warning, to both future filmmakers and filmgoers. It will both redefine the standard by which other films, aspiring to a certain degree of meticulous execution and artistic perfection, are measured, and intimidate all who bravely attempt to conquer the thematic, visual and dramatic landscapes that Jackson, like an earthly Sauron, has so thoroughly and inarguably conquered. James Cameron once, having scaled the peaks of cinematic achievement, declared himself "king of the world", but with these films, Jackson must be coronated king of *ALL* worlds. To quote Gandalf the White: "Now come the days of the King. May they be blessed."