Adored and desired by women, respected and feared by men -- Gary Coleman was the actor's actor. We all aspired to be like him in the way that we all aspire to be like James Bond or Neil Armstrong. Gary Coleman was, to all of us, a walking embodiment of the Human Spirit. A man who rose from lowly beginnings to great heights...of about four feet. Yes, this June, the world weeps for you, Gary Coleman.
Gary may be best remembered as the adorable child star of the classic sitcom, Diff'rent Strokes, but I shall keep him in my heart for other reasons. Indeed, his career took him to far more interesting places than a simple 80s television series. For instance, who could forget Gary's appearance in the Norm McDonald comedy, Dirty Work? That moment really made the movie for me. What'chu talkin' about, Satan? HA!
Then, there's Gary's role in the 2003 PC game, Postal 2. I automatically respect anyone who will allow themselves to be digitized in a mass murder simulation. I dunno, maybe you feel differently; I'm just talking about ME here, OK? I thought it was cool!
Oh, and remember when Gary was a candidate for governor in California? The 2003 recall of Gray Davis was the most hilarious political spectacle I've ever seen, and there was Gary Coleman, right in the middle of it, running against porn stars and marijuana advocates. He got over 14,000 votes, for goodness sake! Had I lived in California, I seriously would have supported him. I mean, why not? What if Gary Coleman had been elected governor of California?? What's the worst that could possibly have happened???
But my very favorite Gary Coleman memory is one that seems to have been virtually forgotten by the Internet community (which is really frightening, if you think about it). See, around 2003-2004, Gary used to appear on one of my all-time favorite television programs, Unscrewed with Martin Sargent. Unscrewed was like a late-night talk show for internet geeks. It aired on the late-great TechTV network in the early to mid 2000s, getting canceled shortly after the vastly inferior G4 channel took over. One fairly regular segment on the show was called "Coleman Confidential," and it featured Mr. Gary Coleman fielding questions from viewers.
See, basically, Unscrewed host Martin Sargent would sit in a park with Gary, and read him absurd inquiries that had come in through the old TechTV e-mail bag. For instance, I remember one installment in which Gary was asked if he thought mankind should work to destroy the Moon. Gary paused for a moment...looked confused...then looked annoyed...and finally answered No. Martin Sargent pressed Gary for more information, and Gary snapped at him, explaining that "everything would get all messed up" if the Moon were to be taken out.
(A dramatization -- the closest thing we'll get to a tape of Coleman Confidential.)The whole segment was comedy gold, and yet I cannot find any record of Coleman Confidential online, save for a few vague references in random archive sites. No videos of Gary's Unscrewed appearances are available on YouTube. What a jip. I should have saved all of my old tapes. Gary Coleman's best work is lost forever!
And that actually reminds me of my sitcom idea. Yes, I wanted to produce a sitcom starring Gary Coleman. It would have been called "Gary Gets Mad." Here's the premise:
Gary Coleman is your average suburban man, living in a nice middle-class neighborhood with his family. But here's the problem: Gary's family is full of idiots, and they're constantly doing things to upset him. Therefore, Gary must lose his temper in each episode and yell at everybody. There you have it -- Gary Gets Mad.
Like, in one episode, Gary's wife could decide to give his laptop a bath. Gary Gets Mad! Maybe in another, his kids would trade the family car for a new kitten. Gary Gets Mad!! And hey, how about that one where the nutty neighbor (played by David Leisure) schedules Gary two job interviews at the same time??? Gary Gets Mad!!!
This would have been a great show...but of course, it's dead in the water, as Mr. Gary Coleman is no more. UNLESS we can find another Gary to star....
Anyway, the untimely demise of Gary Coleman has also been the subject of some controversy, as observers question the behavior of Gary's wife on his final day. A 911 tape shows that Shanon Price was less than helpful when poor Gary collapsed. Give it a listen. That woman needs to be investigated. Let me state, for the record, that if I had been there, I would have at least handed Gary a towel. That's more than his lousy wife can say....
Oh, well. Life sucks and then you die. Few people understand that better than Gary Coleman. Perhaps Gary Gets Mad could have revived his faltering career. After all, some actors really do belong in television, not movies. Michael J Fox and George Clooney could make the transition to film, but many others simply cannot. Take the star of this next motion picture, for example....
The Eye (2008)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0406759/
Netflix description:
With help from her doctor (Alessandro Nivola) and her sister (Parker Posey), blind violinist Sydney (Jessica Alba) learns to see again after undergoing a corneal transplant. But the surgery leaves behind some creepy side effects, including the ability to see supernatural beings. Trouble is, no one believes her, drawing her sanity deeply into question. This thriller is a remake of the Hong Kong spine-tingler of the same name.
Yeah, good old Jessica Alba. She used to be hot on some TV show, and now she's trying to be hot in movies. Personally, I've never really bought her in that second medium.
In The Eye, Jessica plays a blind woman who gets a cornea transplant in order to see again. That part of the movie was the most interesting to me. You know -- examining how a blind person might adjust to suddenly having eyesight....Kinda neat. This picture could have made a rather compelling drama, actually.
Instead, of course, it turns into one of them paranormal, I-see-dead-people deals. Yes, Jessica's new eyes are haunted.
She gets help from a therapist in figuring out the situation behind her new found psychic powers, and a bunch of other stuff happens (including an explosion in the very end...SPOILERS). A pretty standard supernatural thriller, really.
The Eye is your average major studio, TV-actress-does-a-horror-movie sort of production. It's not BAD on any technical level; in fact, the film is actually well-made and fairly engaging. I found it stylish and nicely-paced, and Jessica Alba as our heroine does a fine enough job. The problem here is simply that the movie is sort of...unimaginative. Plot twists were easy to call well in advance, and the whole deal ends quite predictably. Since The Eye is based off a successful Hong Kong-ese (???) film, I was hoping that maybe it would bring something new to the table, but that didn't end up being the case.
What else is there to say? Not a whole lot. If you're looking for some passive entertainment, then The Eye will fill a couple of hours for you, and you won't find anything offensive about it. One complaint is that Jessica fails to do in this picture what she really does best: be ridiculously good-looking. Here, she takes the more dramatic, "I can act" approach and, as noted, she does OK. STILL, she could have offered us a little more posing. I mean, c'mon now, Jesse. Why not do that one thing you did in Sin City? That would have been a refreshing surprise!
Anyway, give The Eye a rental when you've run out of other options. It's...you know...there for you when you need it.
3 out of 5.
b.
Oh, NOW I get offered some work!
ReplyDeleteI want in!
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteTwo celebrities!
Damnit. No one legit responded to this post.
ReplyDelete