Turkish Coffee Deficit, B -

As the fame of the coffee plant spread to other lands, its centuries long voyage was about to begin [sic].

The resentment of America can be understood in light of the success of Three's Company, even if everyone understood the irony of Suzanne Somers' cluelessness, nascent innocence, which hearkens back to James's success with the novella Daisy Miller, but Somers' only claim to recognition illustrates the exhaustion of capital. The comedienne has lost her telegenic appeal and cuts a rather sad figure. She looks like an Irish alcoholic and should consider transforming herself into a silent partner. If you look closely at Ritter in Bad Santa one feels the same queasiness around the sickbed. We may not be able to internally cue ourselves onto silent heart valve death waiting for a fatal tear, but he looks and sounds seriously ill against the  unwitting Thorton, not that my comparison is exactly complimentary: Ritter had some talent beyond farce and timing for studio audiences. Somers has a decollete. She markets what she has, but still, do we ever ask why we don't close the door at some point? Time's up? Sunset Boulevard is mythic on this particular point-- not currency, everyone dims, but the ability to adapt. I imagine sooner as opposed to later our physical deaths will be virally milked into a virtual immortally which raises its own ethics.

I was correct to assume Judith Light honed her line readings on Soap Opera, wrong as to which one. Not Bobbi on General Hospital, but another character on CBS, an illustration of queer limits. She is forceful on SVU, but cannot follow through her lead in A Strange Affair. Jay Thomas, like my ex, was a cruel bastard, minus the uncouth porcine stupidity, which speaks to the convenience of intelligence, and a merciful, dignified end. My would be brother in law may not have known what to do after Frank nearly died from three strokes in succession, but up close, its aftermath was a grotesque lingering for which video rarely has the courage.

Monsters We Dance With

"All some animals have ever known is a life of constant abuse."-- Roberta Flack, aging out of transcendent range

Ever reliable Billy Bob. To the extent that dwarfism is representative of industry conventions, Tony Cox adds an additional layer within Bad Santa, particularly juxtaposed against John Ritter's deliberately colorless attitude being caught off guard, made to look bad when he is simply invested in upholding a modicum of decency. (Yours truly used the same phrase "you people," as a deliberately scathing scold with minority building manager, no clueless naivety here to be trampled by a thieving drunk.) The dialogue is slightly too soft as an expose of the underside of American optimism, but Cox uses the jester to conceal a latent ruthlessness which ableism necessarily engenders. Any atmosphere of the macabre is dispensed with, replaced with street wise betrayal which has its own justification, no conscious remorse, in this case foiled by nominative dork to jackass mode, filling the need for a role model wherever it might turn up.