If it’s Sunday night, that can only mean one thing- time to digest some awesome TV. Well, that used to be true until very recently. This fall both Mad Men and Curb Your Enthusiasm were the best one-two punch you could ask for on one night. Going from Don Draper’s morally ambiguous adventures in the 1960’s to Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld spitballing about Muffin Tops and turns of phrase was a reminder of how great TV can be when it tries. Yet both these shows still got creamed in the ratings by Keeping Up With The Kardashians (I just can’t keep up!).
But Sundays weren’t the exclusive property of Mad Men and Curb for me until recently. Shows such as The Simpsons (1997-2003 versions), The Sopranos, “Entourage” (2005 to “I still can’t believe I’m watching this”) and Band of Brothers, which Craven and I watched religiously early this decade at my house because I was the only one who had HBO (still proud of this).
So this Sunday I settled onto the couch to watch anything that grabbed my interest off the bat, and the winner of that prize was Taken, the 2008 action movie starring Liam Neeson with “a very particular set of skills”. Neeson plays a bad-ass ex-CIA officer who plays by his own rules…and loves his daughter very much. Taken was just about the perfect cable movie. It has Liam Neeson cartoonishly kicking ass all over Paris, super sleazy euro trash villains and scenes that come out of nowhere to move the plot forward quite hilariously.
My favorite one of those scenes was towards the beginning of the movie, where after we have established what a caring, loving father Neeson is. The scene opens, someone knocks on his door, and out of the blue it’s his ex-CIA buddies! They then proceed to drink beer and talk like no actual human being would about Neeson’s shady CIA past and how he should come back out of retirement. Nothing like drinking some beer and speaking in Exposition! Needless to say Taken gets a thumbs up from me and if you catch it on cable even better.
GMODT Bonus Round!
Inspired by all the “best of the 00’s” lists out there, for the rest of the month I’m going to drop some of my favorite songs/clips/moments of the past ten years at the end of my posts. Just to leave wanting more, let’s take a trip back to 2004 today. Here is Jon Stewart personally canceling Crossfire.
“The show before me is puppets making prank phone calls”
[fvplayer src=”https://youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE” splash=”https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aFQFB5YpDZE/hqdefault.jpg” caption=”Jon Stewart on Crossfire”]
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About the Author: Mitch is the resident music wrangler, lifestyle guru, and all-around well connected LaxAllStars insider. The lacrosse playing ended but the friendships never did. Known as the prima-donna of the writers. Still not sure about this whole “internet” thing. Would love to be called “Sir” without the following: “You’re making a scene”. Read all his lifestyle articles here.
