Here's another great Showtime show. Actually, this one follows right after WEEDS every Monday...so if you're watching one show chances are you're watching the other.Californication.Awesome name for a show. I'm a bit shocked they aren't using the brilliant Red Hot Chili Peppers song (which I THOUGHT is where the word came from)...but whatever. Awesome show.David Duchovny is perfect as the book author with the "rock star" personality. I can't imagine any other actor that encapsulates that unique mix of geek, sexy, and asshole. I missed the first 2-3 episodes, so apparently I missed Duchovny fucking a bunch of hot wannabe Hollywood ladies. Shame on me. I don't mind, though, because the show's become a wonderful mix of characters exploring relationship and sexuality on a variety of levels (adolescence to middle age).The "Hollywood" angle is glamorous enough to have you coming back (everybody on the show is beautiful) but nothing is as shallow as it initially appears. I love that.Here's the brilliant sequence Jerry Frissen sent me that inspired this whole post:

What a weird and funny show. Now, I've just seen 2 episodes...so I'm really ignorant to how much weaker Season 3 is to the first 2 Seasons (as Jerry adamantly assures) but I'm enjoying this wacky Showtime Television Series.The basic premise is a Single Soccer Mom deals drugs in the Suburbs. In the midst of the 3rd Season, she can no longer deal drugs because Federal Agents are supposedly watching her.The show finds a shaky balance between tragedy and comedy. I sometimes feel it moves too far into the realm of caricature. But when it seems the writers are lazily using racial and cultural stereotypes, a brilliant idea is introduced to makes it all worthwhile.Here's one of my favorite moments from the last episode:

A friend recommended that I watch "Mind Control With Derren Brown" on the Sci Fi Channel. I immediately added it to my Tivo Season Pass and recently finished watching an episode of the show.Derren Brown is an English hypnotist/illusionist who's a skeptic of paranormal phenomena. The show is a weird mix of magic tricks, hypnosis acts, and attempts to show the farce behind the paranormal. It's all fascinating, but by hiding secrets to many tricks, Mr. Brown doesn't convincingly disprove the paranormal...he simply demonstrates that he, himself an atheist and skeptic, is able to successfully perform them.Here's a fun clip about voodoo dolls:

Back in 1993 Sam Kieth joined Image with a nifty book called The Maxx. Somehow that led to a really solid Animated adaption that debuted on MTV two years later (in 1995).The Maxx was really ahead of its time. I regard it as one of the first successful attempts at doing an American Anime. I'm super disappointed I never picked up a VHS copy of the series. Why isn't there an official DVD version?!

MTV'S ROOM 401 is attempting to fill the TV void left by SCARE TACTICS. Yeah, the host is pretty lame...but the premises of the first 2 episodes have been rock solid. I just wish they'd reveal how these neat tricks are pulled off. Here's my favorite from the first episode:

I hesitated to post about this show...but, what the hell! I HATE American Idol. I refuse to watch that piece of crap with all it's sappy wannabe singers with no sense of taste or artistry. But I LOVE it's bastard child: So You Think You Can Dance.The third season is in it's 4th or 5th week and it continues to amaze. Here's the beautiful piece Hok & Jaimie did last night. It's choreographed by dancing genius WADE ROBSON. Words can do this number no service.Man, I never realized how much I love the art of dance. There's a purity to conveying emotion through movement. It's visceral, sexual, cathartic, religious...a really powerful art form when done right.