I watched a half hour of CSI Miami last night. I have no idea why. Because it entered my line of sight, I guess. Because using the remote is hard, pippa! Because my book was upstairs and using the stairs is hard, pippa! I’m sure it’s one or all of the above. Whatever. All I know is that’s the longest stretch of that show I’ve ever watched, ever been able to stomach. Because the show is basically unstomachable.
I blame David Caruso. Now obviously, he cannot help that he looks like a leprechaun and, obviously, a nicer person would not call attention to it. But he is a leprechaun, a glue-faced leprechaun, much more glued-faced than my long ago Glue-Faced Boy. He seems like a half-baked cake or like he was raised in a cave with Romulus and Remus. His face screams Vitamin D deficiency. I have loathed the man since the moment I first laid eyes on his drained undead face, in Jade, a movie I remember watching and hating, but a movie about which I could tell you nothing else today, other than those two things. Watched it, hated it. Particularly David Caruso. I know he was some kind of big deal in NYPD Blue, a show I never watched, but he was good enough, apparently, to be nominated for various awards here and there. Fine. I have no opinion about his days on that show. And if he really has the potential to be so good, so noteworthy, then what in the name of sweet baby Jesus is his excuse for his ongoing wretched performance as Horatio (pleease) Caine in CSI Miami?
If I string together all the minutes I’ve watched this show, it might equal one entire episode. Some might think that’s not enough to render an opinion and, well, those some would be oh-so-wrong. Trust me. It’s plenty. It’s plenty because whenever I’ve watched, he’s done the same exasperating thing the entire episode. It’s what Joey Tribianni on Friends called “smell-the-fart acting.” (Remember when Joey was on Days of our Lives and one of the other actors was teaching him “smell-the-fart acting”? Hahaha. I loved Joey. God bless Matt Le Blanc.)
Basically, “smell-the-fart acting” is a form of posing. Actor’s “vogue”-ing, if you will. A kind of don’t be in the moment, be outside the moment watching yourself be awesome acting. Have an arsenal of tics and expressions rather than letting reactions happen organically in the moment. It’s a self-consciousness. A cheat. And a kind of insecurity, too, in my opinion. You pose and strut and mug when you don’t know what else to do or how to make a moment work. You know, I mugged up a storm when I was in my first play in 5th grade but eventually I was forced to grow out of it by professors and directors who cared for me too much to let me continue on my artistically destructive path. And, to me, to my eye, David Caruso does nothing but pose on CSI Miami. I’ve watched enough of it — I have — to tell you exactly what he does, too, and it would drive me crazy to be in a scene with him.
Because he doesn’t look at people.
He doesn’t.
For instance, from last night’s episode:
Caruso as Horatio is questioning a suspect who is seated at a table. Horatio stands looking out the window, remembering a long-ago fart, perhaps. He says his line. The suspect answers. Horatio, still looking out the window, slowly puts his hands in his pockets, furrows his brow, asks another question. Suspect answers. “H” turns, looks at the floor, starts another question, and on the last few words of the question, for maximum impact, finally looks at the other actor in the scene.
Later, “H” is out in the dreaded sunlight, talking to a colleague. He murmurs intensely, stares down at the sunglasses in his hands. Finally, he looks up, glances sideways at the person while slipping his glasses on and walking away.
Now I’m not saying actors have to be looking at each other at all times. No. That would be ridiculous, wouldn’t seem real. But every single one of Caruso’s scenes has this same detached rhythm to me. I’ve yet to see a scene where he doesn’t look out the window, look at the floor, look to the side, all while talking to someone …. only to turn his face — slowly — to make brief intense eye contact the split second before the scene changes. Maybe Horatio is just aloof. Maybe that’s the character. Fine. Incorporate some other ways to show that, something other than this predictable, slow-motion ballet he’s got going on. What he’s doing makes Horatio a cartoon. He’s not real. He’s a series of moves and furrows and mumbles. When I watch, I am aware of David Caruso. I’m aware of his movements. I am aware of how he curls his deep rich voice around certain words for no apparent reason. I am aware of him working at a different speed than the other actors, as if they think the scene should take 30 seconds and he thinks it should take 3 hours. It seems calculated. Like an affectation. It seems like something David Caruso chooses to inflict on the other actors, rather than something organic to the character of Horatio Caine. Caruso is not in the moment at hand. He’s in some solitary and everlasting moment of his own choosing. A slow-motion scene-stealer, busily stretching one hour into 24.
And the posing! Joey Tribianni would be proud! He remembers long-ago farts, wistfully. (Gaze out the window.) He smells a suspect’s fart, judgmentally. (Furrowed brow.) He smells a colleague’s fart, empathetically. (Meaningful glance.) He smells his own farts, furtively. (Extreme interest in the floor.) Watching CSI Miami feels like being on a bus tooling along at a decent speed, when suddenly, the bus slows way down and the driver says, “Hey everyone, if you look out the right side of the bus, you can see David Caruso, acting.”
Weeks ago, before the season started, I saw a commercial that seemed to promise the death of Horatio. Alas. It was a hideous falsehood.
He has lived to smell again.
Great and oh so accurate description of David Caruso. It made my day. Thank you!
I agree for the most part, Tracey. Everything DC does seems calculated and carefully planned, not natural. It’s like he’s constantly trying to say to the viewing audience “Look at me – I’m deep! I’m conflicted! I’m mysterious!” And he also tries too hard to be a study of contradictions – Horatio is jaded, yet empathic. Hard as stone, yet needy. Unrelenting, yet compassionate. It can get exhausting, you know??
“Hey, everyone, if you look out the right side of the bus, you can see David Caruso, acting.”
A-BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
My wife and I have borrowed sarahk’s phrase about this show – it is not CSI:Miami but “Sunglasses of Justice.” (Justice must be bold, by law.) And you’ve already hit on the only possible way to enjoy the show at all – it’s a cartoon! “SoJ” is a live-action cartoon. Even without Caruso the writing and over-simplified plots would mark it as such.
Re: Caruso… unto every generation, a Shatner is born – David Caruso is our Shatner.
NF — /David Caruso is our Shatner./
Hahahaha. Although Shatner seems to have a sense of humor about himself and has actually become an able comic actor. Caruso seems decidedly humorless to me.
I know how to fix it: Dude needs to do a comedy. Lighten up, Horatio. Enema power, activate!
Have you seen the movie Zoolander? Remember the scene where they talk about Ben Stiller’s character basically only has one look and he gets all upset and starts yelling “One Look?!?” “One LO-OK?!?”
Well, that’s my family’s reaction to David Caruso on CSI: Miami. Every time he delivers one of his rejoinders, “ONE LOOK?!?” echoes through my house.
My sister-in-law is a huge CSI fan. Loves ’em all. She cannot sit in the same room when we watch CSI:M. She did once. I’ve never seen her more upset. Which, of course, only made it funnier.
Fellow Caruso-hayta here. I’ve despised him since his storied NYPD days. I thought he was a bloviating blowhard then. He’s done nothing to change my opinion.
But the fart-smelling? That image will NEVER. AGAIN. LEAVE. MY. MIND. Thank you, Tracey, for all the future guffaws that come out of nowhere.
GraD — I can’t take credit. It was Joey Tribbiani!
Why was Matt LeBlanc never given proper credit for just how damn funny he was in “Friends”??
It’s amazing the clarity w/ which you write! Not having a TV and not having watched NYPD Blues when I did, I can still picture exactly how this guy acts w/o having seen him act. I would hate to be acting in the same scene w/ this guy and having to “smell all those farts”!
You really should have issued a warning regarding how funny this post was!! I have bronchitis, and am now barking like a seal, laughing at all the fart smelling. And I whole heartedly agree with your thoughts regarding Matt LeBlanc. Hopefully, we have not seen the last of him.
I’m with just1beth- you may have cured my cold.
DC was just cited as one of the ’10 Worst Actors on Television”. Right up there with the guy from “One Tree Hill” and Jennifer Love Hewitt. Thespians all
“Sunglasses of Justice” Ha!
this is comedy gold.
beth and Sal — Sorry you guys are sick, but happy to be of whatever assistance possible. 😉
So …. just WHAT was so great about Caruso in NYPD Blue? Can anyone tell me??
I hate to be all Debbie Downer here, but the whole premise of the CSI series is so laughable as to make all three of them unwatchable. I can suspend disbelief right along with the next gal, but dadgum these shows are ridiculous.
First off, most crime techs have no idea of what’s going on during the investigation of a crime, much less actually GOING AND INVESTIGATING on their own. I caught a snippet of CSI:NY (I was temporarily blinded by Carmine Giovinazzo’s INCREDIBLE hotness. It is a force to be reckoned with.) where Gary Sinise told the dark-haired girl from Providence to “go get a search warrant.” Um, for what, dumbass? YOU’RE NOT THE POLICE. You don’t get to search anything.
Good heavens.
Re: NYPD Blue – first off, it was an excellent show. Second, Caruso wasn’t a “huge name” yet, and he was up against solid, underrated actors playing great characters. He couldn’t get away with being so heavily mannered. He WAS odd and twitchy, but he wasn’t nearly this bad. So all of that conspired to make him raise his game; that plus the superior material and craft pretty much explains it.
One could make a flimsy case that Caruso, recognizing what he’s working with now, is this bad ON PURPOSE. SoJ wouldn’t work if the lead were well-acted – the show is way too cheesy. He’s got his Velveeta-smooth game going on.
Needless to say, I don’t buy that for a minute. I credit the producers for hiring the perfect guy to shlock his way through.
Agreed with all on Matt LeBlanc. He’s excellent. Joey is a deceptively simple-looking character, and I think he fooled people into thinking it was EASY to bring him to life so well for so long. In fact, it’s much easier to be a neurotic twit like Chandler or Ross, and much harder to just be the natural, well-meaning goof. “How YOU doin’?” Poor Matt.
By the way, my sides hurt from laughing at this whole thread. The fart-smelling is a riot.
Horatio: [standing sideways, looking away from crime scene] “I think, Frank… that somebody has farted over there.” [Whips on sunglasses] “And we’ve got to SMELL HIM OUT.” [runs off]
Roger Daltry: YEAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!
Lisa — And all the high-tech screens and monitors and information just HANGING in the air. These shows are not set in the future, but each one is equipped with a full-on Minority Report headquarters.
And, I’m sorry, /Um, for what, dumbass? YOU’RE NOT THE POLICE. You don’t get to search anything./
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! I love that you’re so irritated. “Dumbass” is such a great word.
NF — The emphasis you put on Horatio’s line, yes, that’s EXACTLY how he’d say that. I can hear it. I don’t want to, but I can.
And on “Friends” in general, I think I want to start buying seasons on DVD. I miss it. Each actor had his or her own brilliance, you know? Matt LeBlanc was so genius at sweet stupid. I think it’s easy just to assume an actor playing a part like that isn’t acting. Oh, he’s just naturally stupid, so it’s easy or something. No. He’s smart and he’s talented. THAT’S the only way it looks so easy.
I am Red Foreman — I love “dumbass.”
The joke here at the courthouse is that we can barely get our crime lab people to answer freaking subpoenas. They want us think they’re out there questioning suspects? Dream on.
The show’s produced by Jerry Bruckheimer. That goes a long way toward explaining its problems.
How he lasted this long is beyond me.
I have no clue why he didn’t just quietly die and fade to purple. Some people get a lead role and figure that the show just can’t go on without them. Conan Obrien could take his place and make the show bearable again, all the while mimicking Caruso and turning it into a sitcom.
I think David learned his dipping and swaying from too much hula hoop and double dutch bus with his girlfriends as a kid. Only thing missing so far from mr sweetlips is his regulation pompoms.
I’m sure, some day soon he’s gonna walk into a bar somewhere and a real man is gonna teach him what real is.
Face it, this turd is about as macho as a nacho, and deserves the unemployment line more than any actor on TV.
Even his director made fun of him on youtube.
Followed by Jim Carey on Letterman and a few dozen others.
I just googled David Caruso + aloof and found your hilarious blog. ROFLMAO!!!
I’m a big fan of David and love CSI Miami and in my opinion he is a great actor and without him CSI Miami wouldn’t have lasted for the ten fab years it did. To all you very rude people above if you didn’t like CSI Miami do you not have a remote control enabling you to change channels. I have no doubt that none of you bird brains know David personally so who the hell do you think you are and what gives you the right to judge him on what I call your comments of a personal nature. So just shut up and watch another channel, and leave the man alone.
Suzette — Hahahahahahahahaha! OMG, these are people’s personal opinions. Stop being a big fat baby and get over it. I’m allowed to have my opinion; you’re allowed to have yours. He’s a public figure. The public gets to comment if they want. Them’s the breaks of celebrity.
Poor rich David Caruso having to deal with a handful of “meanies.” How will he ever go on? How will YOU ever go on?
Sure, there’s a remote but it’s much more fun to watch his crappy acting on this show. (Says me, an ACTRESS.) Sorry we hurt your delicate fweeings with personal opinions. (And, peaches? Only “bird brains” don’t know how to punctuate. May I suggest proofreading your comments? Bugger off now, Slappy.)