Remember Andrew Dice Clay? I honestly don't remember him during his rise in the 90's but was a fan of action-comedy starring vehicle The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. The outrageous and inappropriate comic was banned by MTV (wussies) for reciting X-rated nursery rhymes before being branded a homophobic misogynist by middle America yet performed for 100,000 people a week at his height. After a few quieter years, Dice has experienced a steady resurgence after appearances on Celebrity Apprentice, Entourage, Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, stand up special Indestructible, autobiography The Filthy Truth, Martin Scorsese's Vinyl and his own current Showtime series Dice. All six episodes were released simultaneously on Sho's on-demand platform but thanks to a free year long subscription, I'm watching the show every Sunday night. And you know what? It's pretty funny.
Created by Old School co-writer Scot Armstrong, Dice sees the Diceman living a quiet life in Las Vegas with live in ladyfriend Carmen (Natasha Leggero) as he tries to keep his career going and stave off bankruptcy. He takes long lines of credit from the local casino, in the hole for $100,000 then going on a hot streak and winning $200,000 when he's supposed to be at his lady's brother's homosexual marriage. Character ace Kevin Corrigan plays buddy/assistant/confidant Milkshake and we meet him drinking a cup of gravy. The second episode finds Oscar winner Adrien Brody hilariously shadowing Dice to build his character for an off Broadway show and it's simply fantastic. Brody is a talented actor and pokes fun at the Method Actor dynamic, soaking up all he can from Dice, eating Combo's, interacting with people, trying on fingerless gloves and even wants to watch Dice "do the f*cking". The Vegas setting sets up some fun cameos and scenarios like Chriss Angel mind freaking Dice and a bachelor party on a bus gone wrong. Dice's fading celebrity and past are used for the show, creating an amusing self deprecating humor that at once gives you a glimpse at the human side of the comedian while reminding you why he was famous with bursts of angry, profanity laced observations on modern life. All in an enjoyable 30 minutes that I wish extended beyond six parts.
Stumbled across a random Facebook post showing off a violent clip from a new Amazon pilot, Edge. It caught my eye for many reasons; it was a western, it was really violent, it starred Max Martini (Pacific Rim & Sabotage) and directed by Shane Black. With those ingredients, how could you go wrong? Apparently it's Pilot season on Amazon where they produce a handful then viewers rate/vote/review to help them decide which series to move forward with. Based on a series of novels by George G. Gilman, Edge opens up with the murder of Jamie Hedges (Nate Warren), brother to thought dead Union solider Josiah Hedges aka Edge. Big Brother shows up to town, under the harsh rule of Big Bill (William Sadler). His son Little Bill served with Edge along with former comrade turned baddie Harknett (Ryan Kwanten). Edge gets hired on to help shepard the town, learning who's in control while meeting the locals like trophy wife Pilar (Alicja Bachleda) and Pinkerton detective masquerading as a working girl Beth (Yvonne Strahovski).
By the end of the 60 minute pilot, Edge has wasted plenty of fools with a straight razor, six shooter and a gattling gun. The violence is amped up and earns it's MA rating. Lots of blood, dismemberment, head shots, brutal beatings and a branch through the abdomen. The final shootout gets a bit over the top with Edge running across roofs and awnings, flying through the air and blasting every baddie in sight. Along with blood you also get Martini's muscular butt shot and some breasts so all bases are covered. Written by Black and former partner Fred Dekker, the show switches between hardcore violence and funny quips about dogs, sex and whatnot. Martini looks near unrecognizable with a mess of hair covering up his face and grumbles out his dialog but it's good to see the likable supporting player in the lead. Production value is high end with a great looking western town, huge natural vistas, dusty and crusty attire along with a couple of explosions. The episode's epilogue sets up the series as baddie Harknett is a sadist and a racist on the hunt for a fortune, ensuring his paths will cross with Edge once again. With no interest in any other Amazon show besides Ron Perlman's vigilante drama Hand of God, here's hoping we get more Edge.
Back in the 90's, New York based independent filmmaker Edward Burns made a splash when he elevator pitched Robert Redford while working for Entertainment Tonight. Burns' family drama The Brothers McMullen was well received at The Sundance Film Festival and off he went trying to make his mark. Subsequent star making turns in front and behind the camera teamed him with the likes of Steven Spielberg, Robert DeNiro, Dustin Hoffman and Angelina Jolie didn't quite pan out. But Burns has kept making films on the independent level and now hits cable TV with a regular series. Reteaming with Spielberg, Burns is behind TNT drama series Public Morals based on his family's past as cops during the 1960's where officers walked a thin line between morality and criminality. Figuring I liked Burns' work, cops and the 60's, I set the DVR to record Morals.
Terry Muldoon (Burns) is a hard working, tough talking, big thinking cop in the Public Morals division. He knows people want to have a good time, he just wants to make sure they don't have too good a time between gambling, drinking and finding female companionship. The relative truce between mobsters, crooks, hookers and cops is shattered when a local boss played by Timothy Hutton gets deaded. From there you get punks trying to usurp power, the family trying to find the killer, cops trying to keep the peace and lots of backstabbing and stand offs. Wow, that all sounded really interesting yet I just deleted the remaining episodes off the DVR and turned off the series recording. Even with a terrific cast headed by Burns that includes Michael Rapaport, Neal McDonough and Brian Dennehy, there's just not much to bring you back to Public Morals. The production value is quite handsome with your period attire, hair and cars, the actors are all fine, it's just not overly exciting or interesting. Broadcast on Tuesday nights starting back in August, I always had 3-4 episodes to catch up on and never felt like viewing more than one at a time. I'm not even sure how many episodes I got through before calling it quits. Probably a good 4-5. My biggest issue with TV is the multiple storylines. You have your star doing stuff over here but you gotta give some time to the unknowns and build up a world and have them intersect, etc. Only problem is, most of the time those little detours don't go anywhere. I remember trying to watch 24 to catch Peter Weller but there were 3-4 storylines going on and I was shocked that star Kiefer Sutherland was in so little to justify being paid so much.
It turns out I'm not the only one who isn't sticking around 1960's New York as Morals debuted to a soft 2.14 million viewers in August. The show lost much of it's lead in audience from Rizzoli & Isles and didn't compare to channel anchor The Last Ship. Since then, ratings haven't improved with the show falling nearly every week with only a quarter of the audience who saw the pilot tuning in for last week's episode. With The Player canceled and lack of interest in Morals, it's up to The Muppets to keep me watching a new series. We'll see where Burns goes from here.
Back in July during San Diego Comic-Con, Wesley Snipes was on hand to promote his new show on NBC, The Player. #ActionMovieBro David J. Moore snagged a quick interview with the man and when I went to try and catch the panel it was already cashed out. Cut to a few weeks ago when The Player started it's run on NBC Thursday nights at 10:00 PM where we are greeted by a dead body and a disappointed Wesley Snipes before meeting Alex Kane (Philip Winchester), a former security, black ops, something something badass looking to start over. His wife gets killed, he gets caught up in some crazy game set up by the shadowy Mr. Johnson (Snipes) and run by his British, tech savvy assistant Cassandra King (Charity Wakefield). Something about a Game set up by high stakes gamblers where they bet on if The Player can rescue/complete an operation in a given time period. After the mysterious murder of his wife, Kane reluctantly goes to work for Johnson and King, protecting abused wives, hackers, drug cartel targets, etc. I never saw Strike Back on Cinemax where Winchester co-starred on an action centric series for several seasons but here he's just a bit bland. He looks the part of course, blonde, buff and stoic but he just doesn't hold your attention much and tends to overcook his dialog. A few online peeps seem to like him but it's kind of like Jon Hamm and Mad Men, people loved him on that show but I never saw it so seeing him in anything else he just came off BLEEP-ing bland.
Fans tuning in for some Wesley Snipes action will quickly tune out since the man is just a supporting character. Each episode contains a one on one scene with Kane to discuss their crazy world and the fact that thought dead wife might not actually be deceased. So if Kane wants Johnson's help, he's gonna have to play it Snipes' way. Of course the main draw of the show is the action and there it delivers quite handily. The Player basically goes into "action" mode with loud, heavy metal style music accompanied by onscreen shooting, fighting, chasing, kicking and mayhem. It's entertaining and you don't have to pay too much attention. Of course the mystery of Kane's wife comes in giving it all a little more heart and backstory. Snipes has quietly gotten to do a little more action each episode with this past week culminating in a sparring match turned exposition filled duel with Will Yun Lee that showed off a few flashy kicks before going into joint and wrist locks. Fights need more kicks, they're much more cinematic and visually impressive than Steven Seagal style joint manipulation. Five episodes in and the show is just starting to find it's groove as Kane protects a hacker from government double agents and Chinese mobsters. There's shootouts, car, motorcycle and foot chases, a knife fight on a helipad, geeky tech talk galore and a quick appearance from Chi Muoi Lo from Vanishing Son! Now where's Russell Wong?!
Sadly The Player has not been able to keep it's lead in audience from The Blacklist and premiered to a soft 4.68 million viewers but received an additional 2.5 million watchers from DVR. Since then the show hasn't picked up much steam, reviews were never kind and it was just announced that NBC is cutting the season from 13 episodes to 9 which just finished shooting, effectively canceling it. I'm not much of a TV guy but I've enjoyed The Player as it gave you a bit of high octane, brainless fun filled with a little snazzy tech that didn't require you to pay too close attention or listen to endless, would be dramatic droning as is most television. I'm not sure if the show would have done any better with Snipes in the lead role but I'll be sure to check out the last four episodes. At least NBC has the intention of showing the final chapters rather than yanking it off the air so my initial investment hasn't been in vain.
