tbyrne4

Adam Rifkin's small-screen spin off of "Look", his brilliant 2007 film about lives in L.A. being filmed through surveillance cameras is more of the same. The stories are strong but not quite as compelling or as tight this time around. We follow various groups as they pinball around the city, stumbling into or out of trouble.

There are two teenage sexpots who shop obsessively and are privately torn apart by their mutual desire for the same guy, a lawyer whose nagging, cokehead wife cheats on him with a slimy auto mechanic, a group of stoners who monitor the security cameras at a mall and skateboard in their off-hours, a homeless man with a strange and tragic past, a taxi cab driving rapist, a mini mart cashier who dreams of being a rock star, a group of teens who do drive-by shootings with paintball guns, a cop with anger issues, and a young, hip television executive desperate to fire an aging weatherman who works at his station.

Some of the characters, like the two sexpots and the mini mart clerk are retreads from the big screen. The sexpots are also played by different actresses and were infinitely more believable as high school students in the movie (though Sharon Hinnendael creates one of the most odious teenagers in recent memory as the creepy and manipulative Hannah)

There is always the sense that danger is lurking just around every corner. The plot threads may feel random at first, but if you stick with it Rifkin brings the whole thing together full circle in an amazing way.

I had the pleasure of seeing this Laurel and Hardy short recently at the Old Town Music Hall theater in El Segundo, Ca. Totally brilliant comedy has Laurel and Hardy as Christmas tree salesmen in Los Angeles going door-to-door trying to peddle their flimsy products. They come up against a particularly cantankerous older man and hijinks ensue.

The genius of this one is the way the situation builds upon upon a single small incident until things reach truly catastrophic proportions. When you think it can't get any worse, it does. And when you think they've gone far enough, they go even further.

Watching this with a large audience of all ages really was proof that great comedy is timeless. Everyone in the theater was roaring with laughter by the time it was through. Just wonderful.

I found Surfwise to be a compelling watch. It's all about Dorian Paskowitz, a Stanford educated doctor who, after two failed marriages, decides to travel the world as an organic- living surf bum. With him is his wife Juliette, and their brood of nine (yes, nine) children. All boys and one girl. They travel everywhere in a camper, living poor and off the grid, going from wave to wave.

The Paskowitz family found some fame in the 70s and 80s, when their kids were young and winning surf contests. But as each child hit their late teens or early 20s, they wanted to go their own way, and this was considered treason by Dorian.

We meet each of the Paskowitz kids (now in their 30s and 40s) and Dorian "Doc" (in his 80s) and they each recount the adventures of traveling around like nomads and being the envy of normal, school-going kids wherever they went. That's the other thing. Dorian didn't send his kids to school. Whoops.

Bizarre as it may sound, this Stanford-educated guy actually rationalizes his unbelievably poor decision to not school any of his children. His attitude towards everything is self- serving. Did he never once pause and think "what if one of my children wants to become a doctor?". Maybe, but he didn't seem to care.

In fact, he rationalizes A LOT of self-serving decisions. Like trying to have sex with a 100 different women as fast as possible. Like having sex with his wife every night in the camper while his children were forced to listen.

As a result of the lifestyle they grew up with, the Paskowitz's seem fairly bitter. Like they were forced to stay on vacation for a decade. If you think about it, what would a childhood spent riding in the back of a camper with nothing but your siblings to keep you company be like? After the first few weeks, it would seem LIKE HELL!!!!!!!!!!

And Dorian's wife is eerily complicit with everything. The kids admit that they were beaten and that Dorian was basically a dictator. Did she say nothing?

I found the surfing aspect to the story fascinating as I can certainly understand Dorian's love of the sport and desire to drop out of mainstream existence. But in between his flights of poetic description in comparing surfing to "the jaguar, and the leap of the gazelle" (admittedly enticing) is his creepily propulsive swearing and messiah complex.

Frankly, Dorian just struck me overall as kind of a creepy weirdo who I wouldn't let near kids in the first place. Him and his wife. Their blank stares as they gaze at the cameras reminiscing about how they told their daughter to always thank someone for having sex with her. Bizarre.

Anyway, good surfing footage, and watch this movie for a good examples of how not to raise kids.