What's Alan Watching?: Freaks and Geeks Rewind: 1.5 Tests and Breasts

How do you think it feels to be told you're dumb... when you're eleven years old?"
The first time James Franco delivered that line -- in the middle of a monologue to keep Lindsay from confessing to their cheating scam -- he all but sewed up his role in that TNT James Dean biopic. The second time -- in the middle of an identical monologue designed to sway Mr. Kowchevsky and Mr. Rosso -- he proved that he has better comic chops than he's usually allowed to show in the movies.
Though it has a very funny subplot about the geeks' first exposure to hardcore pornography, this is Franco's episode, our first extended look at how Daniel operates, and the episode that essentially ends any crush or hero worship Lindsay had for him.

...two brilliant, largely wordless sequences: the geeks watching the porno as Sam and Bill get progressively grossed out by it (Neal is, of course, enthralled); and then Coach Fredricks, alarmed by a porno-informed question Sam asks in class, giving Sam a very candid, non-technical private lesson on the birds and the bees (scored to "Love's Theme" by Barry White's Love Unlimited Orchestra). It's the first hint we get that Fredricks -- introduced in the pilot as, essentially, Biff Tannen 20 years later same actor from Back to the Future -- is a human being, and not that bad a guy.
yeah that was nice, I kind of wanted to know what they were saying (what was shown in the film that so disgusted the boys?!? that coach began talking about by saying "some men - not me"??) but I really liked the silence while watching their rapport ... and no disillusioning joke like coach coming on to him or anything like that.
-
Labels: Freaks and Geeks

Tuesday, June 19, 2007
I've come up with a more concrete summer plan for this blog. I'll still be writing about HBO's Sunday shows, and "Rescue Me" and the other usual suspects as they pop up, but rather than try to analyze shows I don't feel much passion for (i.e., "Big Love"), I'm going to revisit some old favorites starting on DVD, starting with "Freaks and Geeks."