Just Dicking Around

TV’s 25 greatest villains, according to TV Guide

Hmm. Enticing enough of an idea for a list since lists are all the rage nowadays. Oh wait, we're not in November/December 08 anymore...

25. Wilhelmina Slater, Ugly Betty (Vanessa Williams)
24. Eric Cartman, South Park
23. Angela Channing, Falcon Crest (Jane Wyman)
22. Newman, Seinfeld (Wayne Knight)
21. Dr. Gaius Baltar, Battlestar Galactica (James Callis)
20. Cigarette-Smoking Man, The X-Files (William B. Davis)
19. Boss Hogg, The Dukes of Hazzard (Sorrel Booke)
18. Nina Myers, 24 (Sarah Clarke)
17. Dr. Michael Mancini, Melrose Place (Thomas Calabro)
16. The One-Armed Man, The Fugitive (1963 TV series)
15. Star Trek villains: Borg, Klingons, Q, Kahn
14. Dr. Robert Romano, ER (Paul McCrane)
13. Arvin Sloan, Alias (Ron Rifkin)
12. Leland Palmer, Twin Peaks (Ray Wise)
11. Angelis, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV series; David Boreanz)
10. The villains of the original Batman TV series (1966)
9. Theodore “T-Bag” Bagwell, Prison Break (Robert Knepper)
8. President Charles Logan, 24 (Gregory Itzin)
7. Benjamin Linus, Lost (Michael Emerson)
6. Sylar, Heroes (Zachary Quinto)
5. Montgomery Burns, The Simpsons
4. Amanda Woodward, Melrose Place (Heather Locklear)
3. Lex Luthor, Smallville (Michael Rosenbaum)
2. Alexis Carrington, Dynasty (Joan Collins)
1. J.R. Ewing, Dallas (Larry Hagman)

Now naturally I cannot attest to the merits of shows I haven't seen for any of the following reasons including but not limited to: being too young, not caring, not being gay, disliking television that obviously looks like it sucks, and also having a life away from television. I do have some thoughts though. I've seen Smallville. I caught the first few seasons on dvd before deciding that it was a hopeless waste, and while I can only imagine that the merit to Michael Rosenbaum's Lex Luthor is primarily that you get to see him as a man rather than just a super-villain, youthful, struggling to make good choices and falling prey to the increasing negativity that spawns around him, but the show is weak and that character fits right in with the atmosphere of weakness and has no place on this list. Especially when a venomous bastard like Marlo Stanfield from the final seasons of The Wire is left blowing in the wind. I could probably go on and on about who might be more deserving based on shows I've seen but then I'd be just as biased as the composers of this list, because there's a bunch of shows that I never watched listed here. Suffice it to say, I feel they probably aced the #1 spot with JR Ewing, though they faltered in the next step by not moving C. Montgomery Burns into a close second. For twenty years, Mr. Burns has been one of the only truly reliable Simpsons characters and it is because he has never changed and each episode that tried to evolve him would end with that evolution being little more than a flash in the pan as he reverted back to his natural form, a heartless old man with all the money in the world and whose only affection is seeing others slave beneath him. Way too many 'hot, trendy' shows on this list to really take it seriously. I mean Heroes? It's been on for like a total of two seasons worth of episodes and I've heard that everything after the first season is horrible. I'll defend Lost's Benjamin Linus as one of the greats, always ten steps ahead of everyone else, and even when you like him you're waiting for the other shoe to drop. But again I'm biased. And I outright love the Buffy show, and Angelus was certainly a villainous high point, but were he to make the list it would have been in the twenties rather than just barely outside the top ten. And Nina Myers from 24? Cut me a break, she was useful for the first season then a mere plot device afterwards. She seemed like something the producers felt obliged to continue including for the next two seasons, rather than occasionally giving her a break, then bringing her back allowing her to screw everyone again and then fade away until they just straight put her ass down the next time. Actually technically, that's exactly what they did do, but by setting each of 24's seasons apart from each other by months or years (they've been through at least five presidents at this point that I can think of off the top of my head) she was a victim of the timeframe not mattering much when the viewer is seeing each season consecutively one year to the next. Still, she was a plot device. My last thought is that if you include someone like Dr. Romano from ER, is that really a villain? I'll agree that Eric Cartman is a villain because every motive he has is based on hate or greed, but Romano wasn't a tool all the time. He was just another doc, albeit an overly harsh critic more concerned with the hospital bottomlines than the patients and a general creep, but he put in his time trying to cure what ailed people because he was still a human being and a doctor. If you open the door to a character like Romano being a villain rather than just a douche, you open the door to let your anti-heroes populate the list, and I guaran-damn-tee that Tony Soprano, Vic Mackey, Omar Little, and some of the other heroes of villainous enterprise would reset the upper echelons of the 'villains' list. And finally, anyone else think Boss Hogg should have pulled down a higher rank, and for nearly the same reasons as Mr. Burns?

Shit Used to be Cooler.

No art in this post, at least none of mine anyway, but I have been looking into a couple of friends' blogs and perhaps I have underused this interweb contraption. I like to talk and to think like most people who actually learned something in school rather than going about it thinking that I knew everything from K through 12 through drive through. So I suppose I may just open up from time to time. Today's itch: shit used to be cooler than it is now.

I came upon this thought while perusing an upcoming dvd/blu-ray forum and catching sight of the cover art for the upcoming Goldfinger release which I am anticipating purchasing on blu-ray. I already have From Russia with Love and have been waiting til the price is right to purchase Dr. No on sale or from Book and Music exchange but I had paid little attention to the homogenous cover art until the Goldfinger release. This may have something to do with the lead females featured on the previous two Connery releases being Natasha Romanova and Honey Ryder, while the third is Pussy Galore, and despite the name, she is undoubtedly the weaker visual of the three ladies. This spurred me onward to realize that the cover artwork for all the releases is really weak. Bond front and to the left, insert female back and just to the right of him, internal gun image with small central image from the film dominating the rest of the cover background, wash, rinse, repeat for all incarnations of film and character.

I'll give minor credit, it's not an eyesore, but that doesn't really draw in the accolades does it? You don't win praise for not having a third nipple when you could be less physically attractive with one.

So the thought hit me, art over photography. Not a profound thought, mind you, but hit me it did. Look at this cover of the Goldfinger novel from a recent Penguin books re-issue.

That shit is baller! I'll grant that it relies on the old ad principle that Sex Sells, but then sexy has always been part and parcel to the entire Bond film enterprise. This cover just reminds me of the cool covers that have been occasionally produced for Criterion collection dvds rather than the mainstay explosive action scene/brooding or otherwise over-emoting character portraits that grace other dvd covers ad nauseum. Now this novel is a part of a series of re-issues that all feature a homogenous theme ot titles scrawled across the female form, and that can be pretty darn droll too, but it works for a release like Goldfinger, what with the famous scene of a vixen murdered by being smothered in gold, her perfect chrome form left lifeless on the bed. All it takes is a slight touch of imagination and the cover jumps to life rather than resting in the company of its clones on the dvd rack. And this is art from a retro re-issue. So what did book covers to similar novels look like back when retro was just the style of the times?

These are just some of the covers for Casino Royale over the years but how sweet would it be to have either the left or center art pieces as DVD covers. I even like this later yellow cover with the silhouette. The fonts on that one pretty much suck ass but the idea itself is still a stark contrast to the lazy photoshop work of 90 % of the dvd covers out there. For the older releases they could at least dig up some of the fresh poster art that was produced at the time and use that as the box-cover but I'm really just sick of the same old thing when there's so much mor creative and eye-catching options. Of course, I'm an artist so perhaps I'm biased. But I'm also a bad artist so perhaps I'm not as biased as I think.