The Ramen Girl (2008, Robert Allan Ackerman)

There’s not much good to say about The Ramen Girl, except the Japanese cast does pretty well. They don’t get actual story arcs, and they’re only around to service the vanity of narcissist protagonist Brittany Murphy. But their acting is good, even though director Ackerman is terrible with their scenes too.

Murphy is a trust fund Barbie who runs off to Japan pursuing bro Gabriel Mann, who throws her aside after one night together. While Mann seems quite the villain, once the film gets into Murphy’s behaviors more, it plays just as likely she’s a stalker. Becca Topol’s script is godawful to be sure, but the film’s literally about Murphy not learning anything and being rewarded for it. So any time there’s a moment of character development or revelation, it’s simultaneously obviously accidental and also mildly interesting what it unintentionally explains about Murphy’s character (and the film’s mentalities).

After Mann runs out on her—leaving her with nothing but a sad pair of ex-pats (Daniel Evans and Tammy Blanchard)—Murphy finds her way to the neighborhood ramen shop and starts insinuating herself into the lives of the owners. Nishida Toshiyuki is the depressed, drunken chef, and Yo Kimiko is his tolerant wife. Murphy decides Nishida will teach her to be a ramen cook, which is a big deal for Nishida. He’s sad because his son didn’t want to be a ramen chef, making him feel less of a man than pseudo-competitor Ishibashi Renji. It doesn’t matter. It’s all background to Murphy being cloying and clingy. And bad. Her performance is atrocious. Again, Ackerman’s directing is awful throughout, but when it comes to directing Murphy, Ackerman manages to get worse and worse at it as the film progresses.

Maybe because her character arc is all being mad at Nishida for expecting her to understand Japanese. And if not Japanese, to understand the secret ramen chef camaraderie he’s convinced is a thing. More, he’s convinced Murphy is his heir apparent even if she doesn’t ever understand what he’s trying to tell her about it. At one point, she magically understands someone else’s Japanese. The magical realism aspects are Girl at its most inventive, so it’s too bad Ackerman entirely bungles them.

Technically, it’d be too nice to call it a mess. Ackerman’s composition is lousy, and he doesn’t seem to understand how DV works, which is fine since cinematographer Sakamoto Yoshitaka doesn’t know how to light it. Bad music from Carlo Siliotto and bad cutting from Rick Shaine lump things out.

It’s possible a better editor would’ve helped—better music definitely would’ve helped—but there’s only so much anyone could’ve done. Murphy’s performance and Ackerman’s direction are incompetent.

Though Blanchard’s also risible. Every time she shows up, it reminds Ramen Girl could be worse, actually. She could be in it more.

The only engaging aspect—besides the Japanese actors, who just get screwed over, so they’re a wasted investment—is trying to figure out if Murphy’s a narcissist, sociopath, or just a solipsist (doesn’t believe anyone exists outside her own mind).

Ackerman can’t even shoot the food. It’s ostensibly a cookery picture, and Ackerman can’t even shoot the food. Ramen Girl is less filling than a Cup o’ Noodles

Becker (1998) s02e02 – Imm-Oral Fixations

This episode has a really strong guest star performance from Marjorie Monaghan. She’s an old model friend of Terry Farrell’s, in town for a few days, wants to hang out. Except Farrell’s trying to get her greasy spoon’s freezer fixed and she’s got to deal with people in New Jersey, which is what passes for a joke in Ian Gurvitz’s script after a while.

It’s too bad because the opening sequence has a lot of funny jokes during Ted Danson’s rant to Alex Désert and Farrell, ending with him deciding to quit smoking. Again. Most—maybe all—of the rant jokes are mean-spirited, but it comes off amiably enough. Andy Ackerman directs the episode better than Gurvitz’s script deserves, especially once we get to the main plot development.

Monaghan’s decides to help Danson out with the quitting smoking, revealing she used sex to get through her quitting and she’s apparently down to help him do the same. But since Monaghan doesn’t have a character or any motivation, there aren’t a lot of stakes. Actually, about the only thing with stakes in the episode is Farrell’s freezer. If the episode didn’t waste everyone in it—though Farrell gets a very good joke and has an excellent delivery on it; she’s not much funnier than usual, but she’s a lot more comfortable in the show.

The problem’s Gurvitz’s script and how little it actually does with the cast. Hattie Winston’s funny, Shawnee Smith’s funny, they’ve got a decent team-up scene when they don’t believe Danson’s sleeping with ex-model Monaghan… but they’re just there. Gurvitz has got the A plot of Danson quitting smoking and the B plot of the broken freezer but everything else is just a bit. Like whiny patient William Sawyer or Danson making fun of an patient’s old person body.

This episode’s doing nothing to reassure me the second season’s going to be the one where things get better. I’m scared to look how many more episodes with Gurvitz script credits.

Becker (1998) s02e01 – Point of Contact

I’ve had some trepidation about “Becker” season two. Season one did not impress as I remember it (eventually) doing—worse, it made me worry the only reason I liked it the first time I watched it was because I was able to go with all the blind jokes and white guy doctor Ted Danson punching down far jokes. And seeing Michael Markowitz on the writing credits for the second season opener did nothing to reassure me.

Though Andy Ackerman directing certainly did. “Becker” (on CBS) is very much the red-headed step-child of the (all NBC) “Cheers”-verse sitcoms and not just because of Danson.

Anyway. Second season opener… pretty solid. There’s a lengthy joke at blind guy Alex Désert’s expense but it’s not particularly mean-spirited and the script kind of implies it’s okay too because Désert’s just trying to make jokes at someone’s expense, which is additionally problematic because jokes at someone’s expense is the show’s point and the subject is objectively terrible person Saverio Guerra’s expense and Guerra’s literally just on the show to give everyone an okay target.

Guerra’s a regular now (I think), semi-stalking old high school crush Terry Farrell in the diner where everyone hangs out. Guerra’s great and adds the necessarily flash to the diner. Désert gets no real second season changes, other than getting to mock Farrell and Danson’s lack of love lives in the opening joke, but it’s better than Farrell. Apparently the big note the network had on Farrell for season two was no bras and less midriff coverage.

Back at Danson’s office, Hattie Winston and Shawnee Smith are just around for punchline duty, which isn’t great but it’s fine because they’re both good at it. Winston gets a little more to do because it’s “we don’t say the A-word” atheist Danson freaking out at religious lady Kim Darby being nice to him after he saves her life in the diner. She’s choking and he does the Heimlich.

Darby’s really, really good. She stands off quite well—at least a foot shorter too—against Danson.

It’s a simple enough sitcom plot. Danson thinks she’s stalking him, she escalates, there’s a resolution, fade out. Thanks to Guerra, the B plot about him bouncing a check is magically not too flimsy—Ackerman probably helps a lot, just making sure the thing is running smoothly.

I’m not sure the episode would’ve gotten me watching back in 1999 but if it certainly wouldn’t have kicked me off.

Though I went through the entire first season waiting for “Becker” to all of a sudden get quite good and every episode was surprised when it didn’t so we shall see….

Frasier (1993) s02e15 – You Scratch My Book…

It didn’t occur to me to chart writers when I started this “Frasier” rewatch but then I naturally did it anyway. Writers, directors, guest callers. Joe Keenan writes this one, which has Shannon Tweed guest-starring a pop psychologist who loves Kelsey Grammer’s work—and even more, reads David Hyde Pierce’s, which is an aside but more interesting—while Grammer is hot for every cubic centimeter of Tweed’s bod except her brain.

Keenan goes for some easy laughs regarding voluptuous Tweed while not really giving her much of a character, which isn’t a great combination, but Tweed at least gets essentially redemptive material in the resolution. See, Grammer lies to Tweed about thinking she’s a good pop psychologist—now, there’s also the very wink-wink, silly women nineties thing with Tweed’s fanbase, which includes Jane Leeves, and it’s incredibly problematic; exceptionally.

But there’s not very much of it because most of the episode has Grammer trying to write a forward for Tweed’s next book but he hates the book and just wants to go to bed with her. It leads to Hyde Pierce having to help Grammer and Keenan’s really good writing for the two of them.

Hyde Pierce has a subplot about getting Leeves investing with his broker but also wanting to make sure Leeves never loses any money… it eventually works into this comparison to Grammer and Tweed but it’s a passively mean one, dehumanizing Leeves and Tweed a bit.

There’s a lot of funny stuff in the episode and you never quite cringe at the shallow characterizations but it’s not bad the sitcom tropes on display here have been sunsetted. Andy Ackerman directed the episode; I feel like he’d have kept some of it in check.

Sadly nothing for Peri Gilpin outside introducing Grammer to Tweed and getting to roll her eyes at his Tex Avery wolf impression.

Frasier (1993) s02e10 – Burying a Grudge

David Lloyd wrote a John Mahoney-centric episode last season so he seems the right fit for this episode, which is about Mahoney having to bury the hatchet with his ex-partner and best friend, Lincoln Kilpatrick, as both men have long retired and experiencing health issues. David Lloyd is father of fellow “Frasier” writer Christopher Lloyd (no relation to the other Christopher Lloyd) and the episodes both have Kelsey Grammer very much in the son role… I wonder whose idea it was to have Lloyd père do the father and son episodes.

Anyway.

The episode opens with a long radio bit—and Peri Gilpin’s sole appearance—and the final punchline is only for folks who know celebrity callers Betty Comden and Adolph Green, who play a bickering couple, were a night club act, a Hollywood screenwriting duo, and Broadway lyricists. It’s a deep cut, especially when the show aired in 1994 and you couldn’t just Google.

The Mahoney plot line starts off with David Hyde Pierce asking for some emotional support; Maris is going in for some plastic surgery and would Grammer and Mahoney come along. When Grammer gets there, he discovers Mahoney’s old pal Kilpatrick, leading to he and Hyde Pierce figuring out how they can interfere; it’s pretty epical from there.

And quite good.

Mahoney’s great. It helps there’s a punchline to the conflict more than a reveal, even though it takes the combine nagging of Grammer, Hyde Pierce, and Jane Leeves to get it out of Mahoney.

Leeves has a great scene, Hyde Pierce has a great scene or two—lots of just letting Hyde Pierce do a bit but it’s such a good bit it’s a win—and Grammer’s very good at being sincere in his concerns while still annoyingly neurotic.

Nice direction from Andy Ackerman, who gives the episode a relaxed pace but never a slow one. It works quite well with the script.

Becker (1998) s01e22 – Regarding Reggie

I’ve been dreading the “Becker” season finale. I was initially enthusiastic about this rewatch but the first season’s been a slog. I’m not sure why exactly I was dreading this episode—other than the Regarding Reggie title being a little ominous—but it was the appropriate expectation.

If this episode, which is about Ted Danson daydreaming about how if he asks Reggie (Terry Farrell) to a fundraising benefit she’s going to fall madly in love with him and it’s going to ruin his life. Even though the entire show’s about how Farrell can’t stand Danson.

And there’s really nothing else to the episode. Just Danson and this date. There’s Hattie Winston telling him to ask Farrell, Shawnee Smith telling him to ask Farrell, building super Elya Baskin telling him to ask Farrell. The show’s got an experienced writers room. You’d think someone would’ve told writer Russ Woody the joke wasn’t getting funnier the more times he made it. It’s more appropriate as maybe the second episode than the season finale.

There’s also the optics to it. Sure, former supermodel Farrell is thirty-six or whatever, but she certainly doesn’t look like she wants or needs definitely fifty-something Danson serenading her from across the lunch counter. It comes across as this weird ego trip from the show and Danson.

Like the painful flashback to his childhood when he’s too spectrum-y for a girl in elementary school. And it’s like, yeah, Farrell would at most be a newborn while Danson was already creeping out the ladies. They’re perfect for each other.

Whatever the show was trying to do with the first season and its finale—like, you know, encourage the network to pick it up for a second season—it doesn’t. The episode doesn’t just not compare to the season’s best episodes, it doesn’t even compare to its most middling ones. Woody’s script is… well, it’s actually not wooden so much as rotten.

Way to not leverage your show’s cast in your show.

Blah.

Frasier (1993) s01e15 – You Can’t Tell a Crook by His Cover

Would it be a spoiler to comment on the presence of always a cop character actor Ron Dean being in a “line-up” of three people where two are cops and one’s an ex-con? It’s fun to see Dean in a slightly different context, especially since he gets a punchline (he knows about a fancy serving plate in the apartment).

The episode’s got two big set pieces, first being Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) trying to identify the “bad apple” in dad John Mahoney’s group of poker buddies. The opening has Mahoney visiting Grammer at work and Peri Gilpin just having gotten fleeced by a con artist; Grammer’s sure his Harvard degree would undoubtedly help him identify criminals so he’d never be a victim… Mahoney bets him otherwise.

So poker night is Grammer loitering around and staring at his suspects, making accusations and asking pointed questions (he’s not allowed to ask direct questions but he can do context ones). When he finally gets to his big Agatha Christie reveal, turns out he’s wrong, but also Daphne (Jane Leeves) has set up a date with the actual criminal. Mahoney forbids her to go, Grammer encourages it, Leeves tells them both to butt out.

After a quick scene with David Hyde Pierce in the coffee shop—where we learn their decaf lattes with skim milk are called “Gutless Wonders,” which is mean, yes, but also accurate if you’ve got a ginger stomach, after all—Grammer and Hyde Pierce (who’s terrified for Leeves’s safety once informed of her plans) are off to the dive bar where she’s on her date.

The script, from David Lloyd (frequent writer and co-executive producer Christopher Lloyd’s dad), has a fine sense of balance. Grammer gets a lot in the poker game sequence, ditto Mahoney, then in the bar, Leeves gets to show off her comedic skills—not slapstick or screwball this time, but dramatically—and Hyde Pierce gets this truly marvelous bit where he describes Leeves quite poetically. Lloyd’s script is jazzed, packing in a joke everywhere it can. If the jokes didn’t land, it’d be a problem. They do, so it’s endearing.

The ending, which has the Crane boys getting into trouble in the dive bar, delivers everything the concept promises and more, with a particularly nice last laugh… making the cute but nothing more end credits joke a bit of a disappointment.

But it’s a good episode, with a nice showcase for Leeves. Though it’s unfortunate we—again—don’t get to see natural buddies Gilpin and Mahoney hang out.

Frasier (1993) s01e13 – Guess Who’s Coming to Breakfast

It’s incredible how well Kelsey Grammer is able to play Frasier making social faux pas. It should run counter to his character, but never does. When Grammer’s digging himself his deeper and deeper hole this episode—as Peri Gilpin looks on, astonished—it just makes sense. Of course he’s going to do it. What else would he do.

After the opening radio show sequence—with Elijah Wood calling in and complaining about being bullied for being too smart, which is a wonderfully twisty call and very funny but does have a mean punchline, and then Gilpin going out on a date with “Noel the Mole” (Patrick Kerr)—she’s giving nerds a try because her lucks been bad with the Chads—Grammer goes hope and tries to arrange for an evening alone so he can have a date. In return, dad John Mahoney wants him to clear out the night before.

There’s also the requisite phenomenal David Hyde Pierce crushing on Jane Leeves scene, with Hyde Pierce doing a complicated and hilarious bit of physical comedy.

But then it’s full steam ahead to the aftermath of Mahoney’s date night. The date (Linda Stephens) slept over and Grammer just can’t handle it. No matter what he says, it’s something embarrassing at best and humiliating at worst. The episode’s already established Hyde Pierce and Grammer as… comically crude when discussing their potential sex lives.

On the radio later that day, Grammer gets a caller upset about her daughter having sex—Piper Laurie as the caller, she’s fantastic—and Grammer turns Mahoney and Stephens’s sex life into an anecdote for the radio show. Here’s where Gilpin’s looking on in shock.

Neither Stephens or Mahoney find Grammer’s anecdote amusing, with Stephens dumping Mahoney. But does Grammer learn his lesson? Will he leave the situation alone or will he fix it….

Great performances from Grammer and Mahoney this episode; Stephens is a good guest star; Leeves gets a very funny moment or two.

There’s also an odd bit when Grammer appears to be flirting with Leeves, which doesn’t go anywhere, but does remind about Grammer’s date, the whole reason the episode started with the date night business. Grammer doesn’t have the date. Or they did have it and didn’t show it. But it doesn’t seem like he had it.

It’s a very weird oversight.

Oh, and great third celebrity call from Henry Mancini. As he drones on, Grammer and Gilpin do an excellent bit of physical comedy to keep themselves awake.

Very, very good episode.

Frasier (1993) s01e11 – Death Becomes Him

I’ve got to stop being so surprised when Kelsey Grammer basically gets an episode to himself. It’s his show, it just happens to have a phenomenal supporting cast. I was going to say scene-stealing but they aren’t. No one crowds anyone out in “Frasier,” it’s exceptionally balanced.

This episode is all about Grammer getting neurotic about death because, after the family finds out John Mahoney hasn’t been going to his doctor, Grammer takes him to see a guy in David Hyde Pierce’s building. Only the doctor dies and sends Grammer on a spiral of death preparations, like his will. Only he doesn’t know what everyone wants so he gives them labels so they can affix their names to wanted items.

Leading to a running joke through the rest of the episode about Grammer finding everything Hyde Pierce has already claimed.

It also leads to a nice conversation between Grammer and Mahoney, where Mahoney gets to do a reasonably dramatic scene but then get in a good punchline. Good script from Leslie Eberhard.

The episode resolves with Grammer crashing the dead doctor’s shiva and bumbling his way through as he bullshits. He’s pretending he knew the doctor, trying to figure out why the guy—who was the same-ish age as Grammer—has died.

It’s during Grammer’s visit with the widow, Stephanie Dunnam, where everything in the episode clicks, thanks to Eberhard’s script, and Grammer gets an excellent moment of acting and character development.

Peri Gilpin gets a good scene dealing with Grammer during his ranting with a nice punchline about why they talk about her sex life as opposed to his. Then Hyde Pierce has this running joke about trying to appear buff for Jane Leeves’s benefit, which is predictably ludicrous. Some very good laughs with that one. There’s some amazing physical comedy from Hyde Pierce this episode—he’s got to open a jar for Leeves and you can feel his muscles strain and suffer at the effort.

So, excellent episode. No surprise. Though I guess a little surprise because I forgot Grammer could protagonist excellent episodes on his own.

Frasier (1993) s01e09 – Selling Out

Selling Out is a Kelsey Grammer episode overall—Frasier gets into the lucrative world of on air endorsing and finds himself tempted further and further way from his professional ethics as a psychiatrist—but it’s Harriet Sansom Harris who makes it so special. The Grammer stuff would be funny no matter what, as his behavior gets more and more absurd (not to mention Grammer’s voice being so perfect for the on air schilling), but Harris is a revelation. She’s Frasier’s new agent, Bebe Glazer. She talks him into representation (she’s fellow radio personality Dan Butler’s agent already), kicking off Grammer’s descent, and she’s the devil on his shoulder.

Harris kind of does a Katharine Hepburn thing, but with a whole bunch of energy. It’s like Katharine Hepburn playing Wile E. Coyote playing Katharine Hepburn. The Harris manipulating Grammer scenes are absolute gold. This episode, scripted by Lloyd Garver, might be the funniest episode so far. There are a lot of big, long laughs in it, which doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the case at the beginning, when Butler gives a super-racist read of a Chinese restaurant ad. The joke is Butler’s a terrible racist and to laugh at him, but it’s… ick. Though the discussion of whether public racism is more or less accepted in 1993 or 2020 is a depressing one.

But once Harris shows up, the laughs start and they don’t stop. Garver’s got them for Grammer, he’s got them for Harris, he’s got them for Peri Gilpin, for Jane Leeves (who gets a great monologue about her time as a tween TV star in the UK), John Mahoney—David Hyde Pierce doesn’t show up until the very end of the episode and he’s there to cut Grammer down to size regarding his professional ethics. Grammer has spent the entire episode working himself through hoops to make it not unethical to shill on his radio show, with the breaking point being Harris lining him up a TV gig, and he runs to Hyde Pierce for a sounding board.

Hyde Pierce’s scene is phenomenal stuff. With a Maris joke—related to Basic Instinct of all things—getting the visible longest laugh in the episode because Grammer’s got to sit and wait through the audience before his next line.

It’s a fantastic episode, minus the Butler ad read. Celebrity caller is Carl Reiner, who has a boring story for the show and Grammer gets in a funny diss when hanging out… which also raises a question about professional ethics, I suppose. Anyway. Truly great episode, thanks to Garver’s script but more Harris’s Bebe. She’s incredible.