The Sarah Silverman Program that premiered on Comedy Central on Thursday is my new favorite TV show, I'm pretty sure. When I saw Jesus Is Magic, I didn't laugh as much as I should've because I was familiar with so much of the material already, but this format works really well. A really great cast, and a really great creative voice, and in the premiere at least, there was really cool Rob Schrab animation. The tone forsakes ironic bigotry almost completely in favor of a tone that is basically that of the Stella TV show but with more obvious jokes. (And now that I think about it, the structure, with the larger supporting cast, helps it out too in contrast with Stella's focus.) And on the next one Zach Galifianakis plays a homeless person! I love it!

I also love the internet Maria Bamford Show:




I saw the movie Brick, which, at the time of its release, seemed like the criticisms people were having were pretty valid. Then it made some end-of-the-year top ten lists which made me check it out. I think it's a bit overstylized and kind of doesn't work in terms of actually creating a world. It takes cliches and then recontextualizes them into a place where they don't make sense.

I also got the Saturday Night Live Best of TV Funhouse DVD, which has a handful of great special features but is on the whole really uneven. If I were to take the time and go through the DVD I could probably edit together a sweet hour-long VHS tape, with all of the point of view and conceptual hahas and none of the unfunny sexual innuendo.