Karry
Best movie of this year hands down!
Chirphymium
It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional
FirstWitch
A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.
General_G
Oliver Beene was a great, funny show. It upsets me that they went to Fox though. Fox isn't exactly the best network to go to for new shows. If they had gone to CBS this show would have probably been successful. Fox doesn't even give the shows a chance. Oliver Beene, The Pitts, The Jury, Quituplets..... Anyway, what I liked about this show was the time setting and also I have always seemed to like shows with weird or goofy families. Jerry was my favorite. Hes always mad at someone and trying to get even with them or coming up with some strange idea. My all time favorite episode was the parking space episode where Jerry was fighting Mr. Novogroder to get the best space out in front of the building. It was funny at the end where Novogoder won and kept that old Ford Galaxie there for eternity.
liquidcelluloid-1
Network: Fox; Genre: Single-camera comedy; Content Rating: TV-PG (some crude humor); Classification: contemporary (star range: 1 - 4)Season Reviewed: Complete Series (2 seasons) I've never agreed with anything with the names of executive producer Steven Levitan or creator Howard Gerwitz on it. Their works, such as the unbearable 'Just Shoot Me!' (complete with unbearable exclamation point) are constructed more to please the network quota than to please an audience. Unlike 'Shoot', which siphoned itself from the tidal wave of the abstractly constructed "New York Single Girl Works at a Magazine" sitcoms or 'Jenny' (a senseless star vehicle for Jenny McCarthy), 'Oliver Beene' is more specific in the material it's stealing from. This time, a hired gun for the Fox network, Gerwitz surfs in and attempts to capitalize on the success of Fox's hit 'Malcolm in the Middle' with some very obvious digs from 'The Wonder Years' mixed in for insurance. Complete with flashbacks and a slamming door sound effect that takes us to commercial. It's kind of an oddity to see so much effort put into just another cookie-cutter comedy.Gerwitz has, without much leg work at all , taken the cookie cutout from Linwood Boomer's 'Malcolm' characters and re-cast them, transported them to the '60s and, 'Wonder Years'-style, given it's young lead an elder narrator in the form of an uncredited David Cross. Gerwitz could have easily taken this formula and done something with it, 'Malcolm in the Middle' and 'The Wonder Years' are far from untouchable works of greatness. Instead, he has these characters played straight for camp, going back to the 60s nostalgia well over and over. Grant Shaud works feverishly to shed his 'Murphy Brown' Miles Silverburg image and still falls on a peg just below the over-the-top man-child father that Bryan Cranston has cornered the market on. If there's anything more embarrassing than the cartoonish excesses of Cranston on 'Malcolm' it's that other people are now inspired to copy it. Else ware it's a mixed bag as Andrew Lawrence ('Recess') noticeably does his best Justin Berfield and Wendy Makkena is quite cute as the classic 60s mom. The biggest impression made out of this cast is Grant Rosenmeyer as the lead. His Oliver makes troubled Malcolm Wilkerson look like a standard cute sitcom kid. Rosenmeyer has a gift for the deadpan and may have a real future.What Gerwitz has working for his bold-faced theft are, for once, solid scripts. Some of the stories, are downright cute (such as when Oliver seeks to propel himself off a swing and over a schoolyard wall) and its observations on middle school life are fairly on the mark (such as when Oliver desperately tries to avoid being saddled with a nickname the rest of his life). Although, there isn't any middle school kid as flamboyantly gay as the offensive stereotype on this show (played horribly by Taylor Emmerson). Some of the 1-liners are quite clever and if you're in the right frame of mind might even elicit a laugh. Something embarrassingly rare on TV. Plus, any show that is cynical and real enough to let our hero not get the girl or have a happy ending gets a point in my book. In that sense, 'Oliver Beene' just might be Gerwitz's 'Fight Club'. You could say that had this show come along a few years ago it might have really been something. Of course, it wouldn't have come along a few years ago. The show doesn't have an original idea or the slightest bit of imagination and that's hard for me to get out of my head. Now so many sitcoms are jazzed up with cinematic visual handstands that just being another single-camera series with no laugh track and a cynical outlook on life isn't enough anymore. We've seen this all before, even if it was only slightly better. * *
jk90
I totally disagree with the other user comment. I think this show is great. Yes it is a mix of "Malcolm In The Middle" and "Wonder Years" (in fact, the narrator sounds exactly just like Daniel Stern, the narrator from WY), but it's still funny as hell. The characters are fun to watch and the actors seem to have a great time with them. I say take a look.
monica555
come on people, this is a good show. yes, it may be similar to the wonder years, but its different. And just as good. Its a generally funny show and its nice to see andrew lawrence (ted) again. I hope this series lasts more then one seaon, its gunna be good.
