Downloaded - The Austin Chronicle

40 divya srinivasan 56 film listings@ACScreensFurther r e A ding ‘TheRevoluT ion Was Televised’The sitcom isn't the only television artform to undergo a seismic shift in the lasttwo decades. TV critic Alan Sepinwall examinesthe so-called “millennial dramas” in hisself-published The Revolution Was Televised:The Cops, Crooks, Slingers and Slayers WhoChanged TV Drama Forever. Careful TVwatchers already know the impact of HBO’sOz and The Sopranos and their trickle-downeffect on AMC, FX, and even the occasionalnetwork (NBC’s Friday Night Lights); whereSepinwall’s 12-case study really distinguishesitself is in the many revealing interviews with the major playersbehind the TV drama revolution.– Kimberley JonesGoodbye to This Millennium’sMust-See TVHow ‘30 Rock’ ResHaped tHe sitcom foR tHe digital ageby Aleksander ChanThere was a blink-and-you-miss-it moment in 30 Rock’s secondseason that made it obvious Tina Fey’s show about ashow had become a millennial-age banner bearer. It’s amoment so tossed off as to seem inconsequential, and yet:It announced that 30 Rock is – and soon to be was, when theshow goes off-air Jan. 31 – a comedy made from and for theInternet age.It was in the season’s second episode, “Jack Gets in theGame.” Tracy (Tracy Morgan), the outré star of fictional sketchprogram The Girlie Show, has just been thrown out by his wife.As he recounts memorabilia collected throughout his career,the show lends immortal potency to an ephemeral detail:Tracy: “This is my key to the city of Gary, Indiana! … Andmy gold record from [my] novelty party song.”Cut to Tracy, dressed in a haphazard werewolf costume,shown singing and performing the song “Werewolf BarMitzvah” in a cheap, “Thriller”-like Halloween video: “WerewolfBar Mitzvah! Spoo-ky! Scare-y! Boys becomin’ men ... menbecomin’ wolves.”It was a mere seconds-long cutaway – long enough foryour senses to register its creative genius, but brief enoughthat if you looked down at your phone, you missed it. 30Rock, which debuted in 2006, produced so many bitsprimed for YouTube immortality, where the show’s archhumor could live intact online, in isolation and removed fromcontext. In that moment – among so many rapid-fire nonsequiturs, pop culture callouts, and general Simpsons-ianmania – you didn’t need to know what episode “WerewolfBar Mitzvah” was from, or even that you were watching 30Rock, for it to register as funny.30 Rock – and really all of NBC’s rotating lineup of criticallylauded but often lousily rated sitcoms, which includes TheOffice (also signing off this year), Community (its prospectsdimming after showrunner Dan Harmon’s ousting), and Parksand Recreation – rose mightily to the challenge of making episodicTV in an era where the Web has made every facet ofentertainment episodic. Because online, everything is in bitsand pieces: on one site, but not the other; fabulous on itsown, and even better together.These shows became comedies of the Internet’s deconstruction,easily disassembled into their defining catchphrases:“Blurgh.” “That’s what she said.” “Treat yo self.” “Darkesttimeline.” But there’s an Internet-era complexity to thisdeconstruction: Each of those individual zingers, memes, andviral moments, their individual ingredients, work completelyon their own and as assembled by their creators. Just as aWeb page is made up of its individual bits of code, an episodeof 30 Rock could play like YouTube clips sequencedtogether by Tina Fey.30 Rock also stood out because its movements mimickedthe constant, speedy clip of the Web. Seconds after Tracy’s“Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” interlude is another, different aside.And then another one. And after that, more still – for a full 22minutes, it’s a continuous succession of punchlines, visualgags, and perfect retorts. While we may be living in a goldenage of television drama, for a time no other shows were ableto understand and reflect the high-speed Internet generation’ssense of humor in as fundamental a way. (New showslike Happy Endings, Don’t Trust the Bitch in Apartment 23,Raising Hope, and New Girl have since expanded the field.)30 Rock and its NBC brethren not only riffed on the goofy,pop culture heavy nature of the Web, they did it by replicatingthe way it works – meta, in the funniest way.nJogging Toward MarchsXsw film announces opening nigHt film,teXas film Hall of fame picks 2013 inducteesOn Tuesday, the South by Southwest FilmFestival announced The Incredible BurtWonderstone (pictured) as its 2013 opening-nightfilm. The comedy stars SteveCarell and Steve Buscemi as Vegas illusioniststhreatened by an upstart magicianplayed by Jim Carrey. Also announced werethe world premieres of Fede Alvarez’s warilyanticipated Evil Dead remake; JoeSwanberg’s comedy Drinking Buddies, starringAnna Kendrick and Olivia Wilde; andAlex Winter’s Napster doc, Downloaded. Formore on SXSW Film, which runs March8-16, and the first wave of programming,see austinchronicle.com/blogs/screens.Preceding SXSW Film’s kickoff is theannual eve-of party, the Texas Film Hall ofFame Awards. Also on Tuesday (busy day,eh?), the Austin Film Society announcedthis year’s actor inductees: Henry Thomas(E.T., Gangs of New York), Robin Wright(The Princess Bride, Forrest Gump),Annette O’Toole (Superman III, Smallville),and character actor par excellenceStephen Tobolowsky (Groundhog Day).Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confusedwill receive the Star of Texas Award, to beaccepted by Parker Posey. For more on theMarch 7 event, see www.austinfilm.org.– K.J.a u s t i n c h r o n i c l e . c o m JANUARY 18, 2013 T H E A U S T I N C H R O N I C L E 39