Mr. Tobar

Not that there are many other daytime talk shows worth watching, but the Rosie O'Donnell Show is definitely one to avoid. Arguably the highlight of Rosie's entertainment value (over that of any person off the street) is her ability to sing the theme song of nearly all of the TV series that have ever been broadcast.

The best that she can do in the way of entertainment is show off a skill that one can only gain through rigorous, almost religious TV viewing over an entire lifetime. Do we really need to spend our time watching someone's TV show, who is so entrenched in a television centered world view? It seems like a dangerous reinforcement of the repulsive contention that it is acceptable for people to sit in front of the TV as their sole pastime.

No one should subject themselves to any demonstration of such a deeply ingrained acceptance of the idea that a normal lifetime is one that's spent largely parked in front of a box that displays moving pictures on its screen, as the Rosie O'Donnell Show seems to openly advocate.

In engaging in such trivialization of a seriously mentally and physically debilitating lifestyle for Americans, the Show subtly glorifies a lifestyle that does not merit glorification.

From a TV producer's standpoint, it makes perfect sense for the host of a show to openly advocate such television worship.

Other shows, such as the Oprah Winfrey Show are more justifiable, as they advocate things such as reading books, exercising, and other concerns that are not so directly connected with television and the entertainment industry. True, there is marketing that's mixed in with the advocacy of almost anything, but almost anything is preferable to what amounts to advocacy of Couch Potatohood. Other daytime talk shows more actively advocate activities other than watching television.

I was hoping that this movie would be just outrageously funny, but fearful that it would be mostly flat, with a few good jokes, and that's it. Well, without discussing the jokes, there were only a couple of them that really got me good. Far too few to justify even a suggestion that you watch it. I enjoyed my time at the theater when I went to go see the movie, but the people I was sitting around were cracking better comments than the movie itself, and without them, I know I would have been bored.

At some point, not far enough into the movie, it was pretty clear to me what the outcome would be. Maybe it was just me, but after the ending was clear to me, the movie just seemed to drone on, and dramatize on. It seemed determined to take the long way around to the ending.

Maybe I'm just unfortunate in having my idea of how it would end up be exactly what happened. To me, it seemed like a lot of attempts to dramatize a thin plot, and put touches on it to make it seem profound. Apparently, it worked for many people, unfortunately not for me.