dreamloom

Tag: jon hamm

  • Mad Men: “Meditations on an Emergency”

    Like a nautilus shell, we’ve spiraled out over 13 episodes, but finally circled back on ourselves, bigger, stronger, and more beautiful than before.

    No, let’s try this instead. Matthew Weiner is composing and conducting a symphony, each of the players his instruments. As it is a modern symphony, he is unrestrained in choosing his instrumentation. Representing tradition, Roger and Bert are his woodwind section: Roger a high, melodic, occasionally erratic oboe and Bert a reliable, confident bassoon. The junior admen – Paul, Harry, and Ken – are a chorus of brass. Sal, poor sweet Sal, picks out a simple line on the tenor sax, unaware of the world of opportunities open to him if only he were to play with soul.

    Peggy and Betty are dueling cellos. Each can be bright and lively and each can tear apart the heart of the men in their lives.

    Pete, as tone deaf and tuneless a man as ever there was, beats out a rhythm on the drums. While he lacks subtlety, his timing is solid and he pounds out a beat consistently.

    Don, he is the pianoforte. The most versatile of traditional instruments, he is percussion and string, rhythm and melody.

    (more…)

  • Jon Hamm hosts SNL


    Jon Hamm hosted the old warhorse SNL last night and I didn’t know what to expect. As expected, there was a lame Mad Men sketch, made only barely palatable by the presence of Elizabeth Moss and John Slattery, but whether Hamm could do comedy or not was up in the air. Plus, with Amy Poehler on the verge of dropping Will Arnett’s love bundle…

    Oh, she dropped. ((I’ve got Saturday Night Live Poehler-Arnett in the babyname pool.)) With musical guest Coldplay, that sadly meant more faux-angsty music so gay that it makes me feel like a red-stater when I jam out to West Side Story. But they had to do something to plug up Amy’s crack.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men: “The Mountain King”

    Don has nearly come through the other side of the hero’s quest. Last week’s sojourn to the desert saw him tempted by worldly pleasures which he tasted but did not succumb to. In the end, his fever broke and he sought out the one person who could guide him back onto the right path.

    Turns out everyone was right guessing who Don called. It was a former wife (sort of) and it was the Real Don Draper’s™ wife. It was the woman in the used car dealership and it was another pretty blond. It was his savior and his mother.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men: “The Jet Set”

    What started 10 episodes ago, with a copy of “Meditations in an Emergency”, appears to be coming to a head in one more week as Dick Whitman pays a call on his past. Director Phil Abraham framed the penultimate shot of Don on the couch in Palm Springs as a mirror-image of the reverse angle of Don that ends the opening credits. As surely as Mad Men is about Don Draper, next week will be about his alter ego.

    But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. There was a beautiful hour of television between those two shots.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men recap: “The Inheritance”

    The only thing anyone can be sure of inheriting from their parents is their genes. We can also be sure of keeping scars as reminders of the ways in which they failed us – ways in which their parents failed them – growing up. Those of us who are lucky have only a few, faded scars. Then there are the Petes and Betties of the world.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men recap: “Six Month Leave”

    If you ever wondered what happened to Happy Loman, he ended up pissing his pants before a big Samsonite meeting and getting kicked to the curb.

    Joel Murray’s always worked in his older brothers’ shadows, but tonight he showed he has all of their skills at mixing comedy with pathos. Freddy Rumsen’s always been a joke around Sterling-Cooper, in both the show’s reality and ours. But Murray’s full range was in play tonight letting us see the most human person at SC.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men review: “The Gold Violin”

    “I saw one at the Met. It’s perfect in every way. Except it couldn’t make music.” – Ken Cosgrove

    Salvatore and Kitty are the model of a modern couple. Sharing common interests and household chores in their boldly decorated apartment, on the surface they’re everything Pete and Trudy, for example, are not. But we know who Salvatore is, and no matter how hard the mama’s boy from Baltimore tries, his interests lie elsewhere. Seeing in Ken the soul of an artist, it’s no wonder his interests are drawn that way.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men review: “Maidenform”

    Reflections and appearances.

    How we see ourselves is rarely how others see us. Sometimes the differences are small but sometimes they are cutting: a despicable woman seeing herself reflected in us; undeserved worship from a child; the judgment-free gaze of a dog. These cut deep, showing us the darkness beneath our public facades.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men review: “The New Girl”

    You’re never going to get that corner office until you start treating Don as an equal. And no one will tell you this, but you can’t be a man. Don’t even try. Be a woman. It’s powerful business when done correctly. – Bobbie Barrett.

    The boys in the office might think the new piece of eye candy sitting outside Don Draper‘s office is the new girl, but we know it’s Peggy. Peggy is Don’s protege, his wingman, and his project, but tonight she asserts herself as her own woman. It takes a kick from a former dancer, but she finally knows she has to treat Don as an equal.

    That’s easier to some extent now that she and Don have both covered for each other and both helped each other through trying times. We have a much clearer picture of what happened to Peggy after last year’s finale, finding her in the hospital unable to accept or comprehend why she was there. Don’s words of advice, as true to his nature as any he’s ever uttered, could have been stolen from the hobo’s code.

    (more…)

  • Mad Men review: “Three Sundays”

    My father beat the hell out of me. All it did was make me fantasize about the day I could murder him…And I wasn’t half as good as Bobby. – Don Draper.

    For those viewers completely turned against Don Draper after last week’s events, I doubt three weekends in church and some time in the confessional are enough. Particularly as it wasn’t Don asking forgiveness.

    The confession from Peggy’s sister was more about indicting Peggy than seeking absolution, more about a jealous older sister complaining about her baby sister is treated by everyone else. Peggy lives with remarkably few repercussions from her actions, almost unheard of today, let alone in a conservative Catholic household of 1962. Her mother is proud of Peggy’s accomplishments and never touches on her failings, though she’s too happy to apologize to Father Gil (Colin Hanks) for Anita’s overcooked chicken.

    (more…)