8A - Monday, January 10, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com 8A - Monday, January 10, 2011 The Michigan Daily - michigandailycom Hot and crazy 'HIMYM' Sixth season suits up for a strong showing By Proma Khosla I Daily TV/New Media Editor In its sixth season, CBS's "How I Met Your Mother," a sitcom about how Ted (Josh Radnor) meets his wife, returns to its roots with ample plot and character devel- How I Met opment, and end- YourMother less hilarity along the way. Season Six Season six Midseason sees Robin (Cobie Smulders) get- Mondays at8 p.m. ting over a serf- CBS ous breakup, Barney (Neil Patrick Harris) unwillingly learning about his father, Lily (Alyson Hannigan) and Marshall (Jason Segel) trying to have a baby and Ted working as a Columbia professor and architect for Goliath National Bank. After the stagnancy of Ted's dating life and Lily and Mar- shall's married life in season five, romance is more than welcome in the landscape of the new season. The babymaking process is get- ting a little tedious, but the fact is, that's just how long it takes. Meanwhile, the sexual tension grows between Ted and his new frenemy, Zoey (Jennifer Mor- rison, "House"). Morrison plays Zoey as someone who is clearly used to getting her own way and is enraged when Ted doesn't com- ply; the result is awell acted, albeit - annoying character composed of equal parts sass and sweetness to set the hopeless romantic in Ted reeling. Is Zoey our mother? Only time will tell. It's always fun to watch Ted fall into a new relation- ship, but not knowing if he marries "Dammit, Hurley! Zoey is half the suspense (OK, all the suspense). that can stand alone. "Glitter" Despite this anticipation, either guest-stars the Pussycat Dolls' way, the answer won't be very sat- Nicole Scherzinger in the titular isfying. The anticipation of Ted and role and introduced a new Robin Zoey's will-they-won't-they rela- Sparkles video - though in all tionship is one of the most intrigu- fairness, the episode belongs to ing elements of the new season. Alan Thicke ("Growing Pains") None of Ted's previous girlfriends and his creepy-or-just-Canadian have started out with vendettas cameo in the girls' lives. "Natu- against him, let alone been married ral History" may be the funniest to slightly sinister billionaires dur- episode the show has ever had, ing the flirting. But if Ted reveals with serious and pivotal conversa- that Zoey isn't the titular mother, tions interspersed between pairs there goes any audience investment of main characters. Also, wieners in their relationship. If he confirms and gonads. The Thanksgiving epi- that she is, that gives the show an sode, "Blitzgiving," guest-starred a undeniable sense of finality. Even if hilarious Jorge Garcia and served there's still romance and marriage as the producers' quiet tip-of-the- to look forward to, the fact will be hat to "Lost" and its ensemble. unchanged: I've met your mother. The thing that people either There you go. love or hate about "HIMYM" is Season six also boasts episodes its uncanny resemblance to a cer- tain '90s sitcom about half a dozen 20-somethings and their own adventures in New York City. Some see this similarity as negative, a cre- ative copout that uses the "Friends" formula to recreate success. Maybe so, but it's more than that. "How I Met Your Mother" is exactly what we need in a world that still finds itself craving Central Perk too often. It's "Friends" for our time; "Friends" with more sex and alcohol, corporate jobs, non- linear storytelling and smaller cell phones. And yes, it's formulaic, but it works. Barney, Robin, Ted, Mar- shall and Lily feel as much like our friends as Chandler, Ross, Rachel, Joey, Monica and Phoebe. And thatlevelof success fromthe "HIMYM" team is nothing short of legendary. 0 'Travels' crashes "You may be blonde, but are you legal?" Drab comedy a no- Know' By EMILY BOUDREAU Daily Arts Writer The cinematic combination of Reese Witherspoon ("Monsters vs. Aliens"), Owen Wilson ("Lit- tle Fockers"), Jack Nicholson ("The Bucket List") and Paul How Do Rudd ("Dinner for Schmucks") You Know? sounds like it AtQuality16 would go some- and Rave where - they're all talented, Columbia funny actors. But no such luck. Instead, in "How Do You Know?" this cast of accomplished actors is forced onto a rather dull host of char- acters who bumble around the screen in an awkward mix. Witherspoon plays Lisa, an out-of-work softball player, who is dating Matty (Wilson), a suc- cessfulbaseballplayer. ThenLisa meets George (Rudd), a business- man who is being indicted thanks to the wrongdoing of his father (Nicholson), and soon finds her- self caught in a love triangle with Matty and George. Basically, it's another typical romance - it just has an attempted sports angle. Athletics is in no way relevant to the general plot of the movie; it seems that every single career possibility for women in roman- tic comedies has been exhausted. But that's the thing - as much as the film tries to be fresh and relevant, it can't. Lisa doesn't know if she can settle down, get married and have children. So at first, we think that maybe this movie might be different. Maybe she won't end up with either guy or, who knows, maybe she'll end up with both. Instead, surprise, surprise, the "normal plan" works for her and she finds love and most likely lives happily ever after. The whole movie ends up being a disappointment. It's not like we should have expected much else. The pre- views pretty much gave away any funny parts and Jack Nicholson's character (by far the most inter- esting) is relegated to a minor role. "How Do You Know?" remains an incredibly, average movie about seemingly average people with very nice apartments whose lives are infused with some lukewarm romance. But this is often a problem with all those PG-13 romantic comedies - it's not as though the movie is completely unbearable, just unbearably uninteresting. Part of it probably stems from the fact that the two lead male characters (played by Wilson and Rudd) are completely flat. They're not even funny. And forget about realism. Rudd's character is too busy being the "better guy" to develop a person- ality of his own, while Wilson's character is too busy being an asshole. Just as Witherspoon's character falls into the trap of being an ordinary heroine, the men end up as romantic stereo- types as well. Witherspoon withers, Rudd's a dud, Wilson is a dick. And sometimes, the ordinary romance works for movies. But for some reason, it just doesn't work in this one. Part of that problem could be because no one wants to see these actors in these roles. It's unnatural. Most peo- ple want Wilson like he was in "Zoolander" or Rudd like he was in "Knocked Up." No one wants to see them acting like average guys with no sense of humor. Movies are supposed to take an audience somewhere else, to make them realize something they didn't know before. "How Do You Know?" doesn't do that, making the film as questionable as its title suggest. By TIM RABB DailyArts Writer Ladies and gentlemen, after a storied legacy spanning near- ly 300 years, the unthinkable has occurred: "Gulliver'sTrav- els" has become a romantic com- Gulliver's edy and a chil- dren's movie, Travels and it's even At Quality16 lazier and more and Rave juvenile than what audiences 20th Century Fox have come to expect from both genres. It's not one of those bearable romances, either, but an outright tawdry one. Jonathan Swift's masterpiece was never meant to be interpreted with such a shal- low lens - it is a political and social satire with implications far more profound than anythingcthis movie has to offer. In short, this "Gulliver's Trav- els" finds Jack Black ("Year One") playing a lowly mailroom clerk who is enamored with Darcy (Amanda Peet, "2012"), a journal- ist in his office building. When he finally works up the nerve to talk to her, she sends him on an assign- ment to the Bermuda Triangle to write a travel article. It's a.con- temporary rendition of a timeless classic that completely misrepre- sents authorial intent. The discrepancies are never- ending. For one, save the names of Gulliver's travel column ("Gulliv- er's Travels") and the town of Liliput, this adaptation bears no resemblance to the original. It's impressive when an adaptation improves on an original, like Eric Roth's take on "Forrest Gump," but it's another thing altogether when a script ignores an abun- dance of quality source material and strays one step too far off the beaten path. Considering Swift's vision, this remake is no more LOTTO From Page 7A entertainment: two more books and three films. I also discovered a new, potentially favorite author who will (hopefully) produce many more awesome books in the years to come. But, most importantly, I played the literature lotto in the first place. I'm sure I'm not the only bookworm who's bogged down by school work, life and the internet, and sometimes lets pleasure read- ing fall by the wayside. Too often, I don't like to play the lottery when it comes to packing vacation reading material. I love reading so much and have so little time to read that I don't want to risk taking a bad book and wasting my time. SoI resort to re-reading, or reading slowly to make one great book last for a long time. Case in point: I'm saving two-thirds of "The Passage" for my next vaca- tion at the end of February. As a result of this tendency, I'm sure I've missed out on a lot of great than a skeleton of the novel's live- ly commentary. It's not even good asa children's movie. After all, the greatest chil- dren's movies throw a bone to the parents as well. Pixar's master- pieces appeal to the entire spec- trum with subtle innuendo for adults and obnoxious slapstick for the kids. But Jack Black's dull wit takes "obnoxious" to absurd new levels. Imagine a Manhattan ston- er who gets super-high, falls into the Atlantic, and wakes up to find himself washed ashore on Brit- ain's beach - and there you have it. Even the kids will be scratching their heads. Furthermore, Jason Segel ("I Love You, Man") is a Liliputian with a British accent? That has to be one of the worst miscast- ings of the decade. In the minds of elitist James Bond fans world- wide, English connotes "proper," and the awkward, lackadaisical characters Segel plays are gen- Jonathan Swift must be turning in his grave. erally anything but. It evokes an upwelling of discomfort, the feeling that something's not quite right. He's great as a love- lorn Marshall, and even better as a lovelorn Peter Bretter, but no one's buying his act as a lovelorn Englishman. Writer and director Rob Let- terman should have stuck with animated films, like his beloved "Shark's Tale" and "Monsters vs. Aliens." Instead, he tried to turn a beloved classic of exceed- ing complexity into a children's movie with a lazily implemented romantic twist, and he failed * miserably. reading. I sometimes forget how much fun the literature lottery can be. It can be nice to just wander through * a bookstore on a lazy afternoon, inhaling the distinct new-book scent and browsing the selection. It's an exhilarating feelingto zone in on a cover that catches your eye, pick up the manuscript and read the back cover description. Will the book be intriguing enough to merit a purchase? Will it fail the test? Only that indescribable, immediate connection between paper and person can tell. So, I guess I'll make one more New Year's resolution: I'll learn a lesson from my winnings atthe literature lottery and play again soon. I'm fully prepared to make a few misjudgments and start reading some truly awful books. I can't win all the time. But I'm also excited for the possibility of winning again. In the big scheme of things, what doI really have to lose? Burgin has an intellectual gambling problem. To bet on her recovery, email her at Irburgin@umich.edu.