Seth Green

Question: What did polite city-dwellers do, say, the weekend of November 2, 1929, with the markets fully imploded but the world-historical ramifications not yet clear and the breadlines not yet formed?

Answer, if that depression was great like this one: Attend a screening of the latest teen sex comedy (or is that teen-sex comedy?) at the Tribeca Grand.

This past Sunday it was Sex Drive, an oddly restrained little composition in the American Pie school whose craftsman-like simulation of raunch almost made up for its workmanlike impression of heart. The thrill might be gone (surely as much the Daily Transom's problem as the film's), but the mileposts were reached with unimpeachable alacrity: virginity, semen-involving hijink, astonishingly attractive best-friend girl understood as edgy due to darkness of hair, improbable set-up of road trip leading to sex-opportunity (sexportunity?), execution of said road trip, sight gag involving an elder gentleman's scrotum, an imbecilic Seth Green as Amish mechanic, complications to said road-trip and said sex-opportunity, mutual realization of unspoken more-than-friend status with best-friend girl.  read more »

Attending the premiere of Warner Brothers’ Batman: The Dark Knight at AMC Loews Lincoln Square on Monday, July 14: the film’s stars Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal (wearing charcoal Dries Van Noten splashed with flowers and accompanied by husband Peter Sarsgaard), Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman and Aaron Eckhart; actors Ethan Hawke, Edie Falco, Josh Hartnett, Seth Green and Emile Hirsch; plus Gossip Girl’s Blake Lively, Penn Badgley and Ed Westwick.

So whom did we nab? Screenwriter David Goyer! “This film is intense intense,” he said. “It’s about escalation, both good and bad.” What’s new about this Batman? “He’s the most realistic.  read more »

MONDAY

There’s hope! Striking writers and the networks that loathe them have agreed to resume contract talks after Thanksgiving. But then, it's kind of a TV weekend. How to avoid the many repeats this holiday week? For starters, Ellen Degeneres may have canceled her trip to New York City this week—being protested would be such a bummer!—but she (and her contract with Warner Bros.) promise all new shows this week (NBC, 4:00 PM). Today: her guests are the Backstreet Boys! Oh, joy. Who needs writers?

Seriously, though. Tonight, you can avoid the networks and the work of writers all together and just stick to that old-school reality programming: documentaries. The Sundance Channel will be showing the Maysle brothers’ masterpiece Grey Gardens (7:15 PM) for the millionth time, while I Am an Animal: the Story of Ingrid Newkirk and PETA (HBO, 8:00 PM) will debut. It appears Sheila Nevins is starting to blur the lines between the titles of her Real Sex documentaries and, y’know, the ones that nobody watches.

TUESDAY

ABC kicks off Tuesday with the repeat to end all repeats! It’s a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving (8:00 PM), written in 1973. They follow that up with He’s a Bully, Charlie Brown (8:30 PM), based on the last original script penned by Charles Schulz. Of course, a dead writer can’t strike. He's hired!

Truth be told, most all network programming is brand new tonight, including House (Fox, 9:00 PM). But if you’re finding Tuesdays a bit tedious—I surely am—perhaps it’s time to invest some money in—gulp—Showtime, which is sporting the promising programming trio of Brotherhoood (8:00 PM), Dexter (9:00 PM), and Weeds (10:00 PM and 10:30 PM). Whatever happened to Shannon Tweed? Oh, right, that’s Cinemax. (Whatever happened to Cinemax?)  read more »