Cool News
Herc Calls CANE Inane!!
SPOILER ALERT !!
I am – Hercules!!
It’s a “Dallas”-like nighttime soap, from screenwriter Cynthia Cidre (“Fires Within,” “The Mambo Kings”) about South Florida Cuban-Americans dealing with threats from within and without the family sugar-and-rum business. “Cane” stars Jimmy Smits, Nestor Carbonell, Hector Elizondo, Rita Moreno, Polly Walker and Ken Howard.
I thought it slow-moving, cliché-riddled, logic-challenged and dull, but I never cottoned to “Dallas” or “Dynasty” or “Falcon Crest” either, so I may not represent the sought demographic.
A big part of the plotline involves using the family’s sugar to replace oil as a fuel source. This struck me as plenty odd, and perhaps it belies my ignorance, but aren’t we more likely to consider solar and hydroelectric and even Jericho’s windmills before we start putting a sugar derivative in our cars?
Annoyingly, Nestor Carbonell, who plays the Fredo of the Duque family, is a lot more interesting on “Lost.” I suspect we’ll see him back there soon enough, and this suspicion pleases me.
USA Today gives “Cane” two stars (out of four) and says:
… Latinos of all stripes are absurdly underserved by network TV, but surely they deserve a more potent cocktail than Cane. … As much as CBS may yearn for the days of J.R. and Bobby Ewing, those days have passed, and you certainly can't bring then back with a show that feels more dated than Dallas. There's nothing more useless than a heat-free soap, and Cane is practically frozen. …
Entertainment Weekly gives it a “B-minus” and says:
… the drama all feels a bit familiar, as if someone used the find/replace function to trade "oil" with "sugarcane" on an old Dallas script. The end of the pilot, however, hints at a more ruthless side of Smits, which could give the series a needed boost. …
The New York Times says:
… “Cane” has sex, rum and salsa and still manages to be plodding. …
The Los Angeles Times says:
… in most respects a class act, albeit one whose energy so far derives largely from a real star turn by Jimmy Smits. … he gives "Cane" at least an illusion of speed and substance and soul …
The Washington Post says:
One of those slack, campy throwbacks that really ought to be thrown out, "Cane" tries to bring grand-opera soap opera back to prime time and ignominiously fails. …
The Boston Herald says:
Jimmy Smits makes his long-awaited return to prime time - playing perhaps the stupidest businessman in TV history. How else would you describe a successful family man who hires a virtual stranger - and then invites him to bring along some of his buddies - to kill an enemy? … At times it has the pacing of a telenovela - which wouldn’t be so awful if it were on five nights a week. For a one-hour show (presented Tuesday night with limited commercial interruptions), the endless shots of couples stepping to a Latin beat are better suited for “Dancing with the Stars.” …
The Boston Globe says:
… a night-time soap opera throwback to the 1980s. The CBS series, also known as Jimmy Smits's new vehicle, has none of the psycho-dynamic family confrontation of the state-of-the-art soap "Brothers & Sisters." No one in "Cane" is deep enough for that kind of Freudian shtick. And then it doesn't lean on comic wit like "The O.C.," which ushered the genre into the 2000s with ironic quotes around every plot twist. Indeed, "Cane" is humorless - "Falcon Crest" sans shoulder pads. … My sense is that "Cane" will survive for at least a year, perhaps only thanks to Smits's appeal. So if you're one of those suffering from a fear of TV commitment, you probably won't be able to blame it on "Cane."
The Hollywood Reporter says:
… slick and earnest soap … The dialogue in Cidre's teleplay has a propensity for stiff pronouncements that too often finds the characters talking at, rather than to, each other. …
10 p.m. Tuesday. CBS.
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Yeap. You are wrong. The New York Times recently did a piece on hybrids where the head of GM confirmed that ethanol is the number one priority for its alternative fuels program.
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Then again from what Herc has implied this show has a lot of it.
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"Sugar cane not only has a greater concentration of sucrose (about 30% more than corn), but is also much easier to extract." From Wikipedia. Tho' I don't know why I bother. I must super bored at 6:43 am.
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Sugar cane can be used to produce ethanol. It's much more efficient than corn (energy production per square foot), but due to all the corn subsidies in place within the U.S., it's not being used.
It is being used extensively in Brazil where there are cars that can work on both regular gasoline and on ethanol. I believe they are called flex cars (flex for flexible).
The funny thing is, the best plant for energy/sq ft production is actually hemp. And even though hemp doesn't contain much THC, people still equate it to the THC bearing cannabis plants and don't use it (yet).
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Are they trying to convert the George Lopez crowd?
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Well, so far I believe you that "Cane" sucks (haven't seen it yet, don't wanna see it anyway). But I like Carbonell. Smokin' Aces, The Tick, Kim Possible, his guest appereances in Monk and Scrubs, fuck, he even was one of the 2 or 3 good things I can say about Suddenly Susan! I hope he'll have enough screentime in The Dark Knight.
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if this show got canned just because everyone wants to see Nestor Carbonell back on Lost?
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Now if it JLo and Roselyn Sanchez engaging in some illicit lesbianism, then count me in.
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Seriously Herc; someone apparently watches those new Grey's ads, and thinks they are original. I AM INDY, HERC! I AM FREAKIN INDY! So... get to know your Ethanol, homes.
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Doesn't sound encouraging
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The answer is Corn! That would make for a far more difficult pitch though.
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L&O will crush this and it was fade away a la "Smith".
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I hope it finds a home.
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NOT getting the axe. This, Viva Laughlin and Moonlight are all too far out of the norm for CBS. i hope people give Moonlight a chance, but i really can not picture this "Cane" business to go on for too long. which is a shame because i really like hector elizondo and the man can't seem to find success on tv these days.
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and it's nice to have him back in his old NYPD Blue time slot... but I'll be watching Boston Legal. Denny Crane! Not to mention Candy Bergen, James Spader and now with 100& more John Larroquette!
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Herc, if you have a few minutes check out the top story on Wired news today: http://www.wired.com/science/planetearth/magazine/15-10/ff_plant
Basically, sugarcane in cars is the same idea as ethanol fuels from corn. It's much more realistic and efficient than solar or wind power. However, the Wired article explains how corn is not the ideal source either, but instead using switchgrass or polar trees is better. Corn is too valuable as an actual food source, as I'm sure sugarcane would be. But grass or trees- much more economically viable. The hard part is converting those plant's cellulose to sugar. From there it's an easy~ish step to powering cars. -
Depends on your definition of efficient I suppose. The reason GM is going for ethanol is because their buddies, the gas companies, can still sell 90% gasoline in these "ethanol based" fuels. Same for "hydrogen based" fuels. True, wind and solar are still expensive on the front end, and not yet a realistic alternative. But people tend to forget that Ethanol, while lowering ozone and getting better milage, doesn't have much of a net effect on greenhouse emmissions. Same for "biodiesel". Not to mention the pollution from the additional subsidized crops. I'll be the first to admit that a little help from the government is necessary to keep farms from going under in the lean years, but not even Karl Marx would like the looks of todays farms-run-by-lobby.
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knockoffs ended a few months after 'Kingpin'...or maybe it was 'Donnie Brasco' no wait, I mean 'The Black Donnelys' or was that a 'Departed' knockoff?
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Those sugar lobbyists are liars! :P
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The end.
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get the women"
"You see bees usually make noise. NO NOISE suggests NO BEES!" -
But maybe the dancing on "Cane" will keep me watching.
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Duque sounds an awful lot like dookie. Admittedly, I snickered like a 4th grader.
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Before CBS approved the pilot for "Dallas," wasn't the show idea titled "Oil"? I thought I read that bit of TV trivia somewhere.
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I'm sick of seeing this word misused. It means kind of the opposite of what you think it means. A more appropriate synonym would be "contradicts."
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.. be induced into a coma!Ok, Smith brings credibility but I still say that the actors are only good as the story, and this show seemed to waste my time.Heck, I switched to the golf channel and they were talking about how to keep the lawn neat and tidy, and that show was more captivating and had more suspence, "Will the grass turn yellow? Who made those divits and did not place them back? The answer to these questions in next weeks episode of Golf Grass and You!" .. *shivers* I can't wait for next week!
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In that I'm hoping that Nestor can return to Lost>
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