He’ll probably kill his family over this.

Seinfeld

2.3: The Busboy

Premise

After George accidentally causes the firing of a restaurant busboy, he attempts to make amends. Elaine has an unwanted would-be boyfriend to stay.

Observational

An early example of mixing things up, as George and Kramer team together to visit the titular character. This also stands out as the first not to have a “Jerry” plot. And it’s an episode Larry David cites as inspiring his most successful structures; two (or more) disparate plotlines that converge in the final stages.

If Jerry is in incidental, somehow he still manages to get many of the best lines; perhaps because he’s even more reactive. This is particularly acute during the diner scene the day after the restaurant incident. Not only is he cheerfully flippant regarding the consequences of the busboy’s firing (“He’ll probably kill his family over this”) but he shows complete indifference towards George’s pangs of guilt (“Maybe I’ll try that pesto”).

There are the usual incidents of small talk (“Where was pesto 10 years ago?” spotting someone with a hair transplant) that probably didn’t make it into one of the improv bits (this time we begin with Jerry riffing on the bills placed in a book at restaurants). But the episode really picks up when Kramer sallies forth from his apartment for the first time to visit Antonio (David Labiosa). George’s nervousness and insecurity is perfectly mirrored by Kramer’s exuberance and unselfconsciousness.

The scene is all the more amusing because Labiosa makes Antonio such a dangerous presence; squat and pugilistic, glowering with anger. Michael Richards is on fire, launching into pigeon-Spanish (“Agua?”) and generally making matters worse for George and Antonio; he leaves the door open allowing the busboy’s cat to run off, then he breaks his lamp (and attempts to “re-fix” the broken ceramic). Then, when Antonio asks who left the door open, he makes eye gestures implicating the hapless George.

Elaine’s plotline is all prelude to a scene of magnificent physical comedy as she attempts to get not-boyfriend Eddie (Doug Ballard) packed and dressed so he meets his flight on time. She’s already detailed to Jerry how she can’t stand him, pretending to be on her period so she doesn’t have to sleep with him, with a misanthropic bent that epitomises the show (“He’s a wonderful guy, but I hate his guts”). Her berserk rampage in a huge nightie, attempting to get Eddie into his trousers and throwing his clothes randomly into his suitcase, is a tour de force (Louise-Dreyfus may tut that she could have done it better, but she’s just being picky).

The dovetailing conclusion occurs off-screen, as the now grateful Antonio (an exploding gas main at the restaurant means that George’s act of selfishness saved his life!) has an altercation with Eddie on the stairs to Jerry’s apartment. Jason Alexander plays George’s fear-then-relief that Antonio doesn’t intend to kill him perfectly, while Kramer’s giddy excitement captures his lack of awareness of the potential repercussions for George (“The busboy’s coming! The busboy’s coming!”) And, of course, George and Elaine must suffer the fall-out from the set-to (George has to look after Antonio’s cat, while Elaine is stuck nursing Eddie back to health).

Quotable

George: I didn’t know he’d get fired.

Elaine: I said I’d never eat here again.

Jerry: I didn’t say anything.

Jerry: Kramer, George wants to know when you want to go look for the cat again.

Kramer: Well, it’s been a week. It’s up to the cat now.

Verdict:

Comments

She writes Twilight fan fiction.

Vampire Academy (2014)
My willingness to give writer Daniel Waters some slack on the grounds of early glories sometimes pays off (Sex and Death 101) and sometimes, as with this messy and indistinct Young Adult adaptation, it doesn’t. If Vampire Academy plods along as a less than innovative smart-mouthed Buffy rip-off that might be because, if you added vampires to Heathers, you would probably get something not so far from the world of Joss Whedon. Unfortunately inspiration is a low ebb throughout, not helped any by tepid direction from Daniel’s sometimes-reliable brother Mark and a couple of hopelessly plankish leads who do their best to dampen down any wit that occasionally attempts to surface.

I can only presume there’s a never-ending pile of Young Adult fiction poised for big screen failure, all of it comprising multi-novel storylines just begging for a moment in the Sun. Every time an adaptation crashes and burns (and the odds are that they will) another one rises, hydra-like, hoping…

My name is Dr. King Schultz, this is my valet, Django, and these are our horses, Fritz, and Tony.

Django Unchained (2012)
(MINOR SPOILERS) Since the painful misstep of Grindhouse/Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino has regained the higher ground like never before. Pulp Fiction, his previous commercial and critical peak, has been at very least equalled by the back-to-back hits of Inglourious Basterds and Django Unchained. Having been underwhelmed by his post Pulp Fiction efforts (albeit, I admired his technical advances as a director in Kill Bill), I was pleasantly surprised by Inglourious Basterds. It was no work of genius (so not Pulp Fiction) by any means, but there was a gleeful irreverence in its treatment of history and even to the nominal heroic status of its titular protagonists. Tonally, it was a good fit for the director’s “cool” aesthetic. As a purveyor of postmodern pastiche, where the surface level is the subtext, in some ways he was operating at his zenith. Django Unchained is a retreat from that position, the director caught in the tug between his all-important aesthetic pr…

Whoever comes, I'll kill them. I'll kill them all.

John Wick: Chapter 2 (2017)
(SPOILERS) There’s no guessing he’s back. John Wick’s return is most definite and demonstrable, in a sequel that does what sequels ought in all the right ways, upping the ante while never losing sight of the ingredients that made the original so formidable. John Wick: Chapter 2 finds the minimalist, stripped-back vehicle and character of the first instalment furnished with an elaborate colour palette and even more idiosyncrasies around the fringes, rather like Mad Max in that sense, and director Chad Stahleski (this time without the collaboration of David Leitch, but to no discernible deficit) ensures the action is filled to overflowing, but with an even stronger narrative drive that makes the most of changes of gear, scenery and motivation.

The result is a giddily hilarious, edge-of-the-seat thrill ride (don’t believe The New York Times review: it is not “altogether more solemn” I can only guess Jeannette Catsoulis didn’t revisit the original in the interven…

No time to dilly-dally, Mr Wick.

John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum (2019)
(SPOILERS) At one point during John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum, our eponymous hero announces he needs “Guns, lots of guns” in a knowing nod to Keanu Reeves’ other non-Bill & Ted franchise. It’s a cute moment, but it also points to the manner in which the picture, enormous fun as it undoubtedly is, is a slight step down for a franchise previously determined to outdo itself, giving way instead to something more self-conscious, less urgent and slightly fractured.

She worshipped that pig. And now she's become him.

The Girl in the Spider’s Web (2018)
(SPOILERS) Choosing to make The Girl in the Spider’s Web following the failure of the David Fincher film – well, not a failure per se, but like Blade Runner 2049, it simply cost far too much to justify its inevitably limited returns – was a very bizarre decision on MGM’s part. A decision to reboot, with a different cast, having no frame of reference for the rest of the trilogy unless you checked out the Swedish movies (or read the books, but who does that?); someone actually thought this would possibly do well? Evidently the same execs churning out desperately flailing remakes based on their back catalogue of IPs (Ben-Hur, The Magnificent Seven, Death Wish, Tomb Raider); occasionally there’s creative flair amid the dross (Creed, A Star is Born), but otherwise, it’s the most transparently creatively bankrupt studio there is.

Isn’t Johnnie simply too fantastic for words?

Suspicion (1941)
(SPOILERS) Suspicion found Alfred Hitchcock basking in the warm glow of Rebecca’s Best Picture Oscar victory the previous year (for which he received his first of five Best Director nominations, famously winning none of them). Not only that, another of his films, Foreign Correspondent, had jostled with Rebecca for attention. Suspicion was duly nominated itself, something that seems less unlikely now we’ve returned to as many as ten award nominees annually (numbers wouldn’t be reduced to five until 1945). And still more plausible, in and of itself, than his later and final Best Picture nod, Spellbound. Suspicion has a number of claims to eminent status, not least the casting of Cary Grant, if not quite against type, then playing on his charm as a duplicitous quality, but it ultimately falls at the hurdle of studio-mandated compromise.

I mean, I think anybody who looked at Fred, looked at somebody that they couldn't compare with anybody else.

Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (2018)
(SPOILERS) I did, of course, know who Fred Rogers was, despite being British. Or rather, I knew his sublimely docile greeting song. How? The ‘Burbs, naturally. I was surprised, given the seeming unanimous praise it was receiving (and the boffo doco box office) that Won’t You Be My Neighbor? didn’t garner a Best Documentary Oscar nod, but now I think I can understand why. It’s as immensely likeable as Mr Rogers himself, yet it doesn’t feel very substantial.

I think, I ruminate, I plan.

The Avengers 6.5: Get-A-Way
Another very SF story, and another that recalls earlier stories, in this case 5.5: The See-Through Man, in which Steed states baldly “I don’t believe in invisible men”. He was right in that case, but he’d have to eat his bowler here. Or half of it, anyway. The intrigue of Get-A-Way derives from the question of how it is that Eastern Bloc spies have escaped incarceration, since it isn’t immediately announced that a “magic potion” is responsible. And if that reveal isn’t terribly convincing, Peter Bowles makes the most of his latest guest spot as Steed’s self-appointed nemesis Ezdorf.

Our very strength incites challenge. Challenge incites conflict. And conflict... breeds catastrophe.

The MCU Ranked Worst to Best

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

Search This Blog