Anyway, in the interests of offering yet another opinion to the overflow of currently existing speculation, here are my thoughts on casting choices for the third film in the series, The Batman Is A Badman On The Run With His Bike (official title). Luckily, I don't have to think about who could play Robin. Nolan has pretty much ruled out his inclusion, which is good news for all who have yet to get over the painful memories of Chris O'Donnell in The Schumacher Debacles (which was also the title of an unpublished Robert Ludlum novel). I've got nothing against the character (the current incarnation, Tim Drake, is terrific), and right now I think Nolan, Nolan and Goyer can make even the lamest character relevant, but I do recall the amazing Batman Animated Series becoming about 13% less amazing when Robin was introduced, so I'm fearful of the impact he would have on the series. This is in no way linked to the fact that DC Comics have made Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, and the tragic Jason Todd all look so generic that it's utterly pointless trying to come up with suggestions for who could play any of them. Any chisel-jawed and nimble brown-haired male aged between 15 and 24 could play them. So that's no fun.
Though Catwoman seems to be one of the main choices for an appearance in Batman 3: Growly Growly PunchSneer, I reckon there are other possibilities for a female antagonist, something the franchise would benefit from now that the only female character in the series has been vaporised (and barely registered onscreen prior to said vaporising). Though The Joker has been incarcerated (and probably won't ever appear again, due to unfortunate real world events), his moll could still turn up. If so, who better to play Harleen Quinzel (aka Harley Quinn) than prat-fall specialist Anna Faris?
If I were to be honest, I was so impressed by the treatment of Ra's al Ghul (and Ducard) in the first movie, that I was almost disappointed at the end of that film when we were given a hint that the next film would feature The Joker instead of Talia al Ghul, which seemed to be a more natural progression. Of course, upon seeing Heath Ledger's performance, I forgot my objections. Still, the character could be a great addition to the Nolan-TheBatmaniverse, and who better to play the perfect woman than internet search engine hit magnet Moon Bloodgood!
Not all of the females in the Batman comics are antagonists, of course, and one of our hero's biggest allies was Dr. Leslie Thompkins. Until she went all unhinged and angry and became responsible for the death of poor Stephanie Brown. Except she was actually keeping her alive and hidden somewhere. Ah comics, if you were sensible half the fun would disappear! If this longrunning character was brought to life, I can't think of anyone better than Frances Sternhagen, last seen throwing things at Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist.
Of course, the success of The Dark Knight, and the amount of money it has made, will make the studio even more interested in the making of the third film, leading to the inevitable interference from suit-wearing coke-hoovers who think their job is to get in the way of "Creative". In which case, aged and kindly Dr. Thompkins will be played by acting colossus and pretty-clothes-wearer Jessica Alba.
Speaking of allies of The Batman, after Bruce Wayne was knocked out of action during Knightfall, his role as Gotham's protector was taken over by Jean-Paul Valley, who eventually became Azrael and then died or something. I don't know. I'm not the biggest The Batman fan, and only read him when he has a good writer on, like Grant Morrison. Anyway, there is a possibility (mooted by crazed Azrael fans, of which there are probably legion) that Azrael will appear in The Batman 3, and if that happens, there is only one possibility to play the long-haired foreigner; supermodel Fabio!
His name is Foreignese for Fabulous, you know. Of course, Jean-Paul Valley took over the Batman mantle after Bruce Wayne's back was snapped by the evil Luchadore of Lameness, Bane, who sadly appeared in Batman and Robin and Batgirl Too, which is of course one of the ten worst films ever made. Let's just say my response to the mention of Bane is similar to The Batman's reaction here.
Bane is ass. But, if we're going to have to put up with him stinking up the next movie, let's get a real luchadore to play him. Nacho Libre!
And Nolan needs to make sure Bane gets his ass handed to him by a weird goatboy thing just like in this photo, because there is no way he would beat the Dark Knight. It's just so wrong. Besides, there is a much more interesting villain mastermind out there (it's the brainy ones that stick in the collective memory, not the lumps of muscle). Many have suggested that Bats needs to go up against the evil genius Hugo Strange, whose slight frame hides a keen intellect. Who better to play such a character as late-period Richard Dreyfuss?
Of course, the chances of the movie featuring multiple villains are high, which means Bats would need some new allies. If Nolan is serious about resisting the temptation to include Robin on the team, perhaps he will end up with someone different. Helena Bertinelli (aka Huntress) has promise, being just as tortured as Bruce Wayne, and tripping along the line between good and evil just like Catwoman, though coming down more readily on the side of justice. Who could play such a dark and haunting character? A man in an expensive suit says, "What about that Eva Longoria chick that's on that Desperate Housewife Swap thing?"
Another suit would leap up, spilling his cocaine everywhere. "Fuck that, you jag-off. It's got to be Megan Fox. She's on the front of Maxim and GQ and Esquire and Loaded and Sports Illustrated and Boobs Not Covered By Clothes Monthly. I get an erection when I see pictures of her."
A battle would inevitably rage about which vapid and inexplicably lauded shell of a human should get the part, with Longoria losing out due to age (sorry Eva!), and Fox being disqualified because no one is sure how well she can work without cue-cards, which means the suits play safe and hire thespian powerhouse and smiling addict Jessica Alba.
That she is the wrong ethnicity as well as being about six inches too short to play the character means nothing. Warner will be happy with the inevitable slew of lad's mag covers featuring Alba wearing her "intense" face. Nevertheless, this is a better outcome than if Nolan decided to introduce Kathy Kane (aka Batwoman), whose deviant sexuality and liberal mindset is so disgusting to God-fearing folk that DC have had to disappear her character (and cancel plans for her own comic) as if she was a red-headed, gay, crimefighting Jimmy Hoffa. Is this because someone somewhere blames the last couple of Crises in the DC Universe on God taking vengeance on it for not heeding his fictional call? Only Pat Robertson can tell us, as he has friended God on MyopicassholeSpace.
Speaking of despicable real world people who have an iron grip on the minds of millions and who use that power to make them hate people who have never done anything to harm anyone else their whole lives, many people have noticed the similarity between The Penguin and trigger-happy Vice President Dick Cheney. Though it would give me great pleasure to imagine that he (non-fatally) shot Harry Whittington with a gun hidden in the handle of an umbrella, I have to say I think he is much better suited to play the obscure villain Kadaver.
If you don't believe me, check out this passage from his DC Database page.
Mortimer Kadaver is a murderous criminal possessing a morbid and sadistic obsession with inflicting pain and death. His hideout is filled with a wide variety of means of murder and torture, including an iron maiden, a guillotine, a hangman’s noose, and even a pool of quicklime. Kadaver enjoys feigning his own death by methods such as dressing as a vampire and emerging from a coffin, but he takes even more pleasure in meting out suffering and death to others who cross his path.
Except that Nolan would be smart enough to make sure Kadaver would never refer to what he does as torture. It's just Exxxtreme Question Asking.
To be honest, casting speculation about The Batman's gallery of amazing villains can be a lot of fun, but it often means we end up going over the same villains again and again, many of which have been portrayed in the previous Batman movies, with varying degrees of success. Do we need to see Mr. Freeze again, after being definitively portrayed by Arnie? Or Poison Ivy? Maybe as a cameo with her as a crazed eco-terrorist, as hinted at by Uma Thurman in the Schumacher movie, except this time played by actual redhead Amy Adams. One fan, whose dedication to the cause is to be saluted, has even posited an appearance by The Riddler as a Zodiac-style serial killer, which is an amazing idea. That's the kind of thinking I really respect. It's not the kind I use myself, though, so here are my thoughts on using some of the more obscure (or not-so-obscure) The Batman villains just to mix things up.
Cassius Clay Payne, aka Clayface, a blob of sentient shape-changing clay (perhaps reimagined as a master of disguise) could be played by human chameleon Mike Myers (well, if chameleons were very good at pretending to be different kinds of camera-hogging lech).
Tragic scientist Kirk Langstrom (aka Man-Bat), whose desire to heal ends up dooming him, could be reimagined as a Goth romantic whose desires lead to murder. Who better than Nick Cave?
Drury Walker, aka Batman mirror image Killer Moth, could be played by Jake Busey, because their chins are kinda similar.
That rationale also applies to Nathan Finch, aka the second Gearhead, whose cryogenic freezing and subsequent life as a cyborg could be reflected by Nolan's effort to use manipulated footage of Jack Palance to play this villain. Surely the enduring popularity of this character demands this level of effort and CGI wizardry.
Mark Desmond, aka Blockbuster, is a scientist who took drugs to become stronger, and ended up becoming an irrational brute, and so adding him to the new movie's roster of villains means we can have someone like Bane without having to have Bane in it. Therefore, bonus points. However, when I say he should be played by acting genius Nick Nolte (seriously, I <3 him), I'm inspired more by his terrifying performance as The Faux-Absorbing Man in Ang Lee's Hulk than any real life resemblances. That this mug-shot echoes Blockbuster's appearance is merely a coincidence.
Paul Dekker, aka Crazy Quilt, can control people using a helmet that manipulates colours and light. As lookalike John Waters once offended me with the excessive use of pastels in Hairspray, I say he should get the part of a murderer who incapacitates his victims using bright lights, just like the Princess Diana conspiracy theorists believe.
Bat-Mite, aka Bat-Mite, is a crappy reinvention of Mr. Mxyzptlk that no one really likes much, though Grant Morrison has just reinvented him as a possible figment of Batman's imagination. Typically bold Grant Morrison stuff. Could Nolan do such a thing? Recreate this nuisance in such a way as to make audiences like him? Only with a further, even more radical, reinvention.
You know I'm right.
Tom and Tad Trigger, aka The Trigger Twins, a pair of cowboys riding around Gotham and creating mayhem in a way similar to that of Woody Harrelson and Kiefer Sutherland in the mostly unwatched action comedy The Cowboy Way. As those guys are busy working with Paul Schrader or saving the world, The Trigger Twins, who surely need no Nolan-esque reinvention, should be played by two Owen Wilsons, because I really like Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon and Shanghai Knights.
Arthur Brown, aka Cluemaster (the father of female Robin Stephanie Brown), is a bit like The Riddler, only less interesting. Nolan could make him more interesting by changing him from a mere murderer into a band of evil psychedelic musical murderers played by The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown.
Otis Flannagan, aka Ratcatcher, is often considered to be a gamma level threat (he is targeted by an OMAC in the current continuity in order to negate the possible complicating effects of his incredible powers), but why would Nolan choose to add someone like that to his movie? Instead, let's just hire someone who looks a bit like a rat. Jon Heder. That'll do. (N.B. I hate Napoleon Dynamite like it was a sickness.)
If any of these casting predictions come true, I trust I will get my due for being prescient. Of course, I could be horribly wrong with all of them, and as I'm prone to reflexively hedging my bets, let's just assume Warner Brothers suits have no imagination but lots of power, and replace all of those possible actors with Johnny Depp.
Is the Great Dame free at the moment? She needs to clear her schedule, as do Karl Urban and Thandie Newton, because they need to be ready to turn up for the next two installments of The Chronicles of Riddick, which Vin Diesel has announced are in the works right now.
Yes, we are as shocked as you are, Dame Dench. To many people (including at least one reader of this blog, and she knows who she is), this news is baffling, risible, proof of the delusions of Mr. Diesel. To others, me included, this is THE BEST NEWS EVER. Even better, judging from the enthusiastic responses on these pages, I now know I'm not alone. It's astonishing to find out that The Chronicles of Riddick, which has been used as a punchline for so long, actually has a fanbase. I really thought no one liked it. It's not like it set the world on fire, unlike what happens to the surface of prison planet Crematoria during daytime, if you know what I'm talking about.
Of course, Diesel is in the entertainment news a lot right now, as trailers for the fourth Fast And/Or Furious film has recently debuted, and his new movie Babylon A.D. is coming out on Friday. This is a cause for celebration for me, even though writer-director Matthieu Kassovitz is the man behind the appalling Gothika, a movie so utterly forgettable that all I can remember is that Halle Berry is in it as a ghost, or someone who sees ghosts, or as the girlfriend of a ghost, or as the lawyer/doctor of a ghost, or something ectoplasm-related. Whatever. It has ghosts in it. That much I know. Still, at least that shoot was where Robert Downey Jr. met his wife Susan, so something good came out of it (if you've seen RDJr's Inside The Actors Studio you will know how adorable they both are). As for director Kassovitz, he has been aiming his stinkeye at the cretins at Fox, blaming them for ruining his film with Diesel backing him up. Commenting on the state of the movie following its butchering in the editing suite:
It's pure violence and stupidity. The movie is supposed to teach us that the education of our children will mean the future of our planet. All the action scenes had a goal: They were supposed to be driven by either a metaphysical point of view or experience for the characters... instead parts of the movie are like a bad episode of 24... I should have chosen a studio that has guts. Fox was just trying to get a PG-13 movie. I'm ready to go to war against them, but I can't because they don't give a shit.
Ouch.
Babylon A.D. has been publicised pretty poorly by Fox, so it has very little chance of doing well, something I had originally figured was related to lack of confidence in Diesel's box office pull, before I read about the difficulties the crew had. It's an easy mistake to make. Diesel is often treated like a muscular lunkhead, but in interviews he has always struck me as an interesting guy (code for "he's a gamer, leave him alone"). That he draws ridicule so readily is one of the reasons, I suspect, filmgoers have been ready to point and laugh at The Chronicles of Riddick. If they don't like it, fair enough, but it's been laughed at in much the same way David Caruso's post NYPD Blue film career was. "Look at where your hubris and arrogance took you, Diesel", seems to be the cry. Screw that. It was a crazy-bold adventure filled with imagination and demented vision. I'd never argue that it was perfect, or a great film, but it was much better than many will give it credit, and it finishes on a perfect note. I've been eager to see the next installment ever since, and would have taken it in any format, be it comic, game, or animation. I can't wait, and I know for a fact that Brian Michael Bendoom is happy about it too. Upon hearing about the potential sequels, he said:
And no one would dare argue with... BENDOOM! (For background on Brian Michael Bendis' ill-treatment of the ultimate Marvel comics villain, check out thesefunny pages.)
Sometimes blogging feels like a meaningless exercise, a futile, insignificant self-indulgence, read by few and cared about by even fewer, absurd, trivial, unnecessary, fruitless. No fruit for Shades Of Caruso. Thank the benevolent constellations for moments like these, then, when we find evidence – concrete evidence – that all this isn’t just pointless gratification. The world reads; the world understands; the world takes action.
In February this year, I reviewed Heat magazine, the publication that arguably triggered the explosion in celebrity culture in the UK as it exists today. While generally in favour of the magazine’s attitude towards famous people, its readers and itself, I highlighted one or two aspects of Heat that were not so likeable, and suggested that these were responsible for its reputation as a force for social destruction and source of negative body image issues. The Circle Of Shame section was one such.
It’s unsettling the way Heat seems to relish identifying all the tiniest celebrity flaws and mistakes and foibles in this section. This is a fairly tame instalment, but the mag still finds time to rag on Eva Mendes for wearing – gasp! – a white bra under a black top and Serena Williams for having – no! – a perceptible sweat patch (an athlete!). Some of them are just ridiculous – a picture of Kelly Brook with one sunglass lens missing and evidently giggling about how silly it looks has zero to do with shame – but it’s easy to perceive an undercurrent of malice in all these pictures, a desperation to point out that not only are celebrities flawed just like us, they’re risible, moronic creatures who don’t know how to dress themselves.
I think it’s the use of the adjective “shame” that I object to most. Most of the mockery in the mag is lighthearted, superficial, harmless – but describing these trifling gaffes as sources of shame suggests contempt, disgust, even humiliation. The editorial line would no doubt be that readers lap this sort of thing up, and they’re just giving their audience what it wants. If Heat didn’t give the readers these pictures, would readers be calling and emailing demanding to see celebrities called out and shamed? Although one of the less vicious editions, this is still unpleasant, and it sits uneasily alongside the soft ribbing found elsewhere in the mag.
... [T]here’s an overall sense of fun that runs through the whole mag, and it certainly doesn’t leave the sour taste that reading, say, the Daily Mail does. The disagreeable Circle Of Shame is the exception to the general rule. Perhaps Heat would do well to quietly ditch it.
In calling for this action, I naturally assumed I was just shouting into an abyss, with no hope of ever being heard. But I recently picked up a copy of Heat again and was astonished at what I found.
Readers, Circle Of Shame has been quietly ditched! Granted, the essence of the concept has not disappeared – Heat is still gleefully pointing out celebrities’ shortcomings and sniggering behind its hand – but the part to which I objected most strongly, the ludicrously harsh term “shame”, has been dropped. (By the way, I am pretending that I did not describe said noun as an adjective in my previous post, and I’m sure you’re happy to do the same.) The feature has also shrunk in length by a third and, although I don’t have the issue I originally critiqued to hand, I believe the point size of the captions has decreased as well. These now seem almost hesitant, as if distancing themselves from the previous, “shaming” incarnation of the feature. They didn’t mean it. They’re sorry. It’s just a bit of fun.
Hoop Of Horror is far more appropriate, a silly bit of obvious hyperbole – no-one is actually horrified by anything on these pages, least of all Amy Winehouse with some white powder around her nose – and fits much better with the mag’s tone. Naturally, though, the best thing about the change is that it is clearly a direct response to Shades Of Caruso’s criticisms. Heat didn’t want to remove the feature altogether, so closely is it identified with the magazine’s brand, but it has excised the nauseatingly judgmental aspect of it, and reined in its shrieky excesses. Well done, Heat. And thank you.
Of course, the truly great thing about blogging on an occasion such as this is that I can blithely assume that someone in Heat’s Very Important Decision-Making Department read my blog, choked on his cigar smoke, underwent a combination of a moment of clarity and a crisis of conscience, and passed an edict to the editorial staff insisting that they come up with an alternative toute de fricking suite. If I was any sort of conscientious professional journalist, I’d have to phone up Heat and try to ferret out the reason why the offending section was altered – if, say, it was a decision from the outgoing editor Mark Frith, who stepped down earlier this year, or the first action taken by new editor Julian Linley (who takes over officially in September), trying to put his mark on the mag. Or indeed if it was summarily demanded by the stereotypical cigar-chomping executive I invented a couple of sentences ago. But the happy fact – or as we bloggers say to make things truer, FACT – is that it was all down to Shades Of Caruso. We did it. We were the agent of change. We made a difference. And the world will never be the same again.
Unrelated media news factoid of the day: Heat’s circulation dropped 15.8 per cent year-on-year in the recently announced magazine sales figures for the first half of 2008.
Those lovely chaps at Film 4 are currently hosting Frightfest in the West End, which features numerous interesting film choices, including Frank Henenlotter's Bad Biology, the UK premieres of The Strangers and Paul W.S. Anderson's Death Race, and the poorly distributed Midnight Meat Train, which probably won't reach our shores until it's on DVD, thanks to some truly perplexing choices by Lionsgate. It's a crying shame it's been treated so bad, though my condolences go to poor Clive Barker, whose film career never really took off (and yes, I am one of the few who would have loved to see a sequel to Nightbreed). That said, Ryuhei Kitamura is responsible for at least one appalling movie that I wish I had never seen (Versus), and I've not yet seen anything else by him (an attempt at Azumi faltered about twenty minutes in out of sheer boredom), so who knows if it would be any good? Hopefully he has improved a lot. If anyone has any reliable info on that, let me know.
Due to time constraints, I have only managed to get a ticket to see Los Cronocrímenes, aka Time Crimes, written and directed by Nacho Vigalondo, the man responsible for the Oscar-nominated short 7:35 de la mañana. Time Crimes revolves (and I mean that in the temporal sense) around Hector (played by an increasingly confused Karra Elejalde), a man whose nosiness is piqued by the sight of a woman (Bárbara Goenaga) undressing in the woods near his new house. Upon investigating Hector is assaulted by a mysterious man in a long coat and a pink bandage around his head. It's an arresting image, but sadly it makes the strange attacker look like a camp Darkman, a realisation that robbed the character of some of his menace.
Chased by this crazed slasher, Hector hides within a nearby complex, and from that point on, "things" happen, "things" I cannot reveal for fear of ruining the film. I will say that while I enjoyed it a lot (and it becomes pleasantly twisty at about the halfway point), it suffers in comparison to Shane Carruth's Primer, easily the most head-bending time-travel movie yet made. That film will confound me forever more, I reckon, and as a result I'm still not sure how much emotional power it has. It's such a perplexing movie, almost alien in its savant-like dedication to its own obscure rules, that it might be really moving behind all of the cognitive dazzle, but it might not. Guess I should watch it again. And again and again and again and again and again.
Time Crimes, while more conventional than Carruth's experimental mindfuck, wears its capacity for emotional manipulation more readily on its sleeve, and yet the final moments, while pleasingly circular, don't convey the shock I think they are meant to, undercutting them with a teeny bit of humour (of which there is quite a bit throughout). Certainly Hector's resignation to the whims of fate struck me as a bit too comical, and I appreciate that is no kind of criteria to judge a film by, but that's how I have to call it this time. It's still an impressive movie, and I recommend it without hesitation, especially as the time twisting plot is presented very clearly and has been thought through with great rigour, but I couldn't help but keep wondering what the rumoured Cronenberg remake will be like. I can imagine he would make it even more clinical, but perhaps the final twist will be more shocking. Who can say? We don't even know that he's making it, after all.
So, to why I made a fool of myself. The festival is partly curated by film critic Alan Jones, whose reviews were hugely important to me when I was a kid. His erudition and enthusiasm for all genres treated by the mainstream as beneath contempt gave me enormous pleasure, and shaped my viewing habits to a great extent. There are innumerable movies that I have chased down as a result of his recommendations, and my love of film can be at least partly attributed to him. After leaving the screening, I saw him deep in conversation with other noted genre critic Kim Newman, and even though I didn't want to be a jerk I still decided to be rude and interrupt. Though I feel bad about that, I had to shake Alan Jones' hand and tell him how much his work had meant to me. Sadly, as I do not react well in situations where I have to think fast while nervous, my speech about his wonderful criticism and support for the horror and sci fi genres ended up sounding like this.
I also feel a bit bad for not saying anything to Kim Newman, but then I'm still pissed at the drubbing he gave Alien 3 on release. Two stars out of five? Looks like it was filmed through a bowl of oxtail soup? Yeah, I still remember that, sonny, and I can hold a real grudge. That grudge does not remove the embarrassment of the encounter though. Blurg.
...But this was too weird not to share. Last week I tore into Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky as it had made me so very very angry midway across the Atlantic, and after kicking it around a bit, I mentioned one of my favourite movies, Theodore Flicker's The President's Analyst, a demented and joyous satirical classic from the 60s. I had no idea at the time why I did that; the combination of movies just seemed to make sense somehow. Anyway, after mentioning it, I was gripped with the desire to get a copy, having found out during my trawl for images that it had been released on DVD a few years back. It's a barebones release, sadly, but it needed to be bought.
So tonight I went to HMV Oxford Circus on my way back from work, and thankfully they had a copy left. As I was leaving, I noticed the shop had been partially closed off. And which cinematic titan had caused this?
Yes! There he is, signing copies of Happy-Go-Lucky for his adoring fans! I obviously made that connection last week using some primitive and confusing form of precognition. It's not a very good picture, as I had a feeling I would be mobbed by those fans if they thought I was disrespecting him, so I was kind of rushed. Also, I got very self-conscious. This also explains why I didn't run past him clutching copies of Con-Air and X-Men 2: X-Men United, screaming, "Balls to your movie! This is art!" Plus, you know, rude.
I will say this, though. He looked miserable. Leigh fans, if you stumble across this, feel free to disabuse me of this notion.
Yes, I have added two new polls to this blog, even though I still have one going. I've dragged out my superhero poll for ages because I'm enjoying watching the battle between Christian Bale and Robert Downey Jr. so much, though I am predicting a late flurry of votes for Halle Berry, whose involuntary reaction to a blob of catnip moved me so much in Catwoman. Though I should end it soon so as not to clutter the sidebar so much, I felt compelled to gauge the opinion of our readership now that the summer movie season is ending, and what better way to do that than by starting two new polls, for favourite and least favourite films of the past few months.
I'm genuinely curious about how people felt the season went, and so please ignore my childish namechanging and give me some hard data. I know The Dark Knight split opinion down the middle (not helped by the pre-release enthusiasm), and some were angry about Indiana Jones (though I thought it was probably not as horrible as The Last Crusade). I also know that one regular reader will be tempted to vote for Hancock as worst summer movie about fifty times. Don't do it, man!
Anyway, I am aware that this blog is getting awfully busy, but I hope to rectify that soon with some nifty XML alterations that will get rid of this dreary Tic-Tac Blue template. That will, of course, involve effort and understanding of code, so it won't be happening too soon, but it will. As demented genius AV Club commenter Z0diac M0therfucker would say, "THIS SHIT IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE", as former Police 5 host Shaw Taylor would say, "Keep 'em peeled," and as Diddy would say, "Vote or die." (Apologies to Sean Combs fans if I got his name wrong; I lost track of it a couple of years ago and even Wikipedia is unclear, if you can believe that.)
While visiting family in the US, we made an effort to see the truly bizarre Step Brothers, a very funny movie that feels like it might be the final stage in the Ferrell/McKay/Reilly comedy experiment, so effectively did it stretch narrative logic and audience sympathy with its wilful disregard for the rules of storytelling, hewing close to them only to satirise them (at least, that's how I saw it). It was not quite as good as we had hoped (though perhaps good enough to silence some crazy haters), and it's already been eclipsed as comedy event of the year by the genre-bending brilliance of Pineapple Express(aka the American Hot Fuzz), but memories of it are still making us laugh; I'm still occasionally saying, "Boats and Hos" with no prompting. Plus, the finale, spoofing happy cinematic final act resolutions with Dada-esque rigour, was worth the ticket price alone, and it finally made us totally embrace Adam Scott (aka Palek The Vulcan Inseminatron from Tell Me You Love Me). His insane performance as Ferrell's asshole brother is possibly the highpoint of the film.
After the film we conducted a post-mortem (punctuated by uncontrollable giggling over Richard Jenkins' dinosaur impersonation), and realised we needed to rewatch both Anchorman and its "sequel" Wake Up Ron Burgundy for, like, the trillionth time. Due to complications in life (i.e. playing Half-Life 2 and Mario Kart Wii) we only managed it this weekend, and it was much fun. As we are that type of couple that enjoys randomly quoting films we love in out-of-context ways, Canyon has been shouting, "I'm gonna... rip the lid off of it!!!" ever since, and I've been saying of just about everything in the house, "It's the pleats, it's an optical illusion," referring of course to Ron's explanation for why he appears to have an enormous erection while talking to his soulmate Veronica Corningstone.
So why am I bringing this up now, and what has it got to do with Mad Men?
Holy Secret Beatnik Sympathies, I don't think that's attributable to the pleats. My God, Don's packing! No wonder everyone defers to him. This sight totally distracted us for the next few minutes of screentime, which is probably a good thing as not long after that the recording went flooey and we missed the rest. Damn. I guess our modern machinery is no match for Don's fearsome 60s-era genitalia. As for the rest of the episode, he amused us greatly with his weariness and existential ennui caused by too much booze and sex and not enough spiritual and aesthetic nourishment.
Poor guy. Truffaut! Hurry up and make Jules et Jim! We want Don back on top, and pronto.
Another swift post, this time about my belated discovery of a new project by Lib-Dem youth affairs advisor Brian Eno and secret Scot David Byrne, called Everything That Happens Will Happen Today (I'm a sucker for long album titles). It's their first collaboration since the ground-breaking My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts, and here is the opening song, Home, as a taster.
If that whets your appetite, it can be downloaded from this site, in such a way as to bypass the music industry and its evil grasp. Indeed, they have put their album out there in a way similar to Radiohead's In Rainbows (and I love that they are following in the footsteps of a band named after a Talking Heads song), though the difference is you can't elect to pay what you want for the album. That's not really that much of a problem, though. I think they're aware that, despite their Amazing Powers Of The Brain and the exponential talent co-efficient that exists because of that fearsome combination of hyperintellects, they're not going to sell as many copies as Radiohead did, and besides, it's still cheaper to get it via their site than it would be on iTunes, and you can choose to purchase the actual-not-virtual CD copy when it comes out in November for a couple of $s more. Besides, this is all part of Byrne's plan to save music itself from exploitation by corporate scum. What a guy.
Is it worth downloading? I've only listened to it once, and it is certainly pleasant enough, and a far cry from their more discordant collaborations, with high praise going to the lovely Life Is Long, which is adorable, but then their recent albums have been fairly muted in comparison to their early works, so it comes as no shock. It reminds me of Paul Simon's underrated Surprise, released a couple of years ago with "sonic landscapes" by Eno. I'm confident that is an example of his computer-generated wit.
Speaking of Eno and his other projects, I'm kind of nervous about dipping my toes in the official website of The Long Now Foundation (a typically forward-thinking project from the great man, and several other great men), though my research has inspired me to get a pack of Oblique Strategies cards. However I did have a good look around David Byrne's less imposing and highly entertaining site, and was filled with regret that while in New York a few weeks back I didn't get a chance to check out his Playing The Building installation. Whenever I ponder the works of men like Eno and Byrne, I realise how much I envy and admire people who have such creative energy and confidence and education that they can just sit around conceptualising crazy shit all day long, and then implement it with the help of other intelligent and ambitious people. It would be a much better life than one spent in a gray office like the one I was stuck in today.
And yes, I'm aware that I'm being particularly whiny and pessimistic this week. Apologies. This post, written in Byrne's trademark innocent and guileless voice (as familiar to anyone lucky enough to have seen his wonderful directorial debut True Stories) really did make me smile though. Please read it. It's quietly funny, and perceptive.
It gives me no pleasure to tell you a tale of waking to a grey day, of almost no sleep (goddamn Joker nightmares) and a miserable commute on a damp train to find my job is going flooey at a faster rate than I had previously thought. Obviously this is a typical morning for many. Perhaps mine seemed worse knowing that today was the day Happy-Go-Lucky came out on DVD, which meant more people becoming exposed to Poppy Fever, which is just like overdosing on heroin except with no beneficial side-effects. It also meant, yay, more of Mike Leigh's sunny, benevolent interviews.
I don't want to become one-note at all, especially after really going off on one last week, but I thought this was worth quoting, as it made me verbalise on the train loudly enough to wake up the Monday morning slumberers:
Q. Why do some people say Poppy is irritating? A. I don’t know. I think she’s delightful. Right at the beginning, you could be forgiven for thinking she might be irritating but, once you get to know her, she isn’t like that. I don’t know why people say that. Maybe it’s lazy journalism.
Perhaps Leigh said it while laughing, and then pointed out, "Oh, I don't mean you, dear boy, you're very clever," but I doubt it. Beyond the fact that he seems to assume that disliking Poppy can only be caused by some kind of inability to engage with his incredible vision, he really is rude to his interviewers. While trying to find that online I stumbled across this old interview, conducted when he was directing the stage version of Abigail's Party.
Q. You studied at Rada. What made you move from acting to directing? A. I was never an actor in any proper sense, so the premise of the question is ridiculous.
Later on:
Q. Because nothing's written down beforehand, when I bought the screenplay for Naked, was I buying someone's transcription? A. Oh, don't misunderstand, as you obviously do, the whole thing.
Dear God, where does he get off? He has to be just chuckling all the way through, right? I mean, there's this question and answer as well. This tends to suggest he's not just being an incredibly rude, pompous, conceited jerkoff, right?
Q. If you were an actor, would you relish the chance to work with yourself? A. Oh, I'd love it. It would be fabulous, great. But it's a very academic and slightly looking-glass question [laughs].
See? Laughter. He's like Santa, if Santa thought the lower classes were composed entirely of stylised stereotypes. The quote that interested me most, however, is this [italics mine]:
Q. Which directors influenced you when you were studying? A. I came from up north, where I never saw anything except Hollywood and British movies until I was 17, when I came to London. It was the early 1960s, the time of the French Nouvelle Vague, so I discovered French cinema - Renoir; Italian cinema - Fellini and De Sica - who are influences in different ways; the Japanese cinema of Ozu and Kurosawa; and Satyajit Ray, the Bengali film-maker, who made fantastic family films, domestic studies of real life.
This is relevant as Canyon, who read my previous rant after I had finished it, commented on Leigh's dismissive attitude to having a bike stolen (where he said, "If they’ve nicked something, there you go basically. What are you going to do about it?"). In furious anger, she asked aloud if Leigh, the great film buff, had seen The Bicycle Thief, a movie about how an entire life can be ruined by the theft of a bike. And here he is praising Vittorio De Sica. I'm beginning to think he would say anything to defend his movie, including being pissy with interviewers and maintaining that he is a lot like Poppy in order to pretend such a sunny outlook is possible and not just a thought experiment gone horribly wrong. Still, I could be miles off base, and interviews with Mike Leigh could be a joyride, but even if I fluff that one, I was weirdly on the ball with this one. Again, italics mine:
Q. Do you rate any directors working at the moment? A. Oh yeah, sure. I love Quentin Tarantino. I like Steven Soderbergh and I think Lynne Ramsay's great; I like her new film [Morvern Callar]. Todd Solondz's Happiness is a film I absolutely resonate with.
I''ll let you, the reader, make up your own jokes about his love of Happiness, but perhaps Morvern Callar was an influence after all. Shame he can't use his considerable clout to get Ramsay working again, seeing as how her IMDb page is depressingly static.
So yeah, that put me in a bad mood this morning, a mood that was surface-level and would have evaporated if I hadn't arrived at work to find out, the literal instant that I walked through the door, that my job had become a galactic-level clusterfuck the types of which are written in the holy books of aliens. This would have carried on for a while, but thankfully the cosmos heard my cries of misery and delivered this news to me; Laurence Fishburne will be the new lead in CSI after William L. Petersen leaves! Here he is investigating a freeway shoot-out, looking for shell-casings using a metal detector that looks suspiciously like a samurai sword.
If I were a religious man, I would sing hosannahs! Apparently:
Fishburne will play a former pathologist who is now working as an itinerant college lecturer, teaching a course in criminalistics. His focus is on understanding criminal behavior, how and why people commit acts of violence -- tendencies he disturbingly sees within himself. In the course of a murder investigation, he comes into contact with the CSI team and ultimately joins the Las Vegas Crime Lab as a Level-1 CSI.
Though today's woes were real and worrying, this news about something as inconsequential as a TV show still brightened my day, simply because I am crazy about Fishburne. He IS gravitas. Though many haters and fools think the cod-philosophy of The Matrix was risible and simplistic, it worked because when Fishburne says something, you damn well better take it seriously. Along with Hugo Weaving, the dialogue that annoyed so many worked just fine as far as I was concerned. Endless chatter about what purpose is, wordy threats of violence, discussions about the difference between knowing the path and walking the path; this stuff makes my heart soar when said with that booming voice. Seriously. So the thought of Fishburne talking about evidence, CODIS, and chemical residues is almost too much for me. I CANNOT WAIT! ::hyperventilates:: Here he is saying, "Meet my wife. Yeah, my hott wife. That's right. I walked the goddamn correct path, alright."
The fact that he has never seen the show doesn't faze me in the slightest. It's going to be The Balls, and will totally make up for him having to appear in one of the worst movies of the year (even though he was the best thing about it by some distance). Believe it.
Some quick thoughts on Dave Filoni's Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Episode Two and Three Quarters: Battle Of The Space Wars: In Space, which I just saw along with a lot of old people and their grandkids.
It's not terrible.
It's not particularly brilliant either.
I appreciate that this could have something to do with me having a baseline level of nerdery that means I get something out of even the most wretched sci fi movies, but seriously, this is not a catastrophe. It's a leaden but passable kid's film with a couple of fun action scenes. I'm glad I saw it, but I probably won't ever watch it again.
The animation is quite stiff; characters move less fluidly than most in CG animated movies, but it's not a deal breaker. It might account for all of the cut-scene comparisons the film has been getting, though.
I did like the character designs, though. Screenshots made their stylised features look silly, but seen on the big screen you can see lovely details. They look like moving clay statues that have been roughly painted, and as such almost have an analogue charm to them.
The clouds of the various planets also look painted, resembling the slowly morphing backgrounds in the superb Xbox Live Arcade game Braid, though they are not as expressionistic. It's not a spectacular visual orgasm or anything, being made for TV and therefore being cheaper than Pixar movies, but the budget constraints haven't stopped Filoni and his animators making the most of what they've got in order to create something that looks interesting.
The dialogue is quite dreadful, mostly comprised of flat exposition, bland jokes, and first draft clunkers, which is a very clever move on the part of the writers, as it exactly matches the dialogue in the Star Wars prequel trilogy. I have a feeling that a lot of the vitriol poured on this movie for having dialogue that works on a Age 5-8 level is that it reminds the audience that the prequel films, heavily anticipated and watched avidly by original prequel fans, were meant for kids first, adults second. Fans probably don't want to be reminded that they had invested a lot of energy in something that was not meant for them.
Disclaimer: I was one of those fans. I'm right there with you, nerd brethren, but I'm over it now, thank God.
All of the nerd-hatred poured out about Ziro the Hutt (i.e. the hatred not inspired by his perceived sexuality) might be justified if you are steeped in Star Wars continuity and are furious that he is meant to be the uncle of Jabba but ZOMG Hutts procreate asexually and only have one child each so how could Jabba's father have a brother?!!!?11!!?1!!@/@1!#???!! However, it's a really accurate impersonation of Truman Capote, which has struck many as a derogatory statement against homosexuals, but besides that is so out-of-place and eccentric (actually, "demented and immune to logic or rationality" sums up Lucas' decision-making processes) that it momentarily transcends sexual politics and ends up getting an astonished laugh from the audience (well, me, anyway).
Ziro is a godawful and poorly-judged caricature, though. What the hell were they thinking?
Lucas is apparently quite insane, and I think the Star Wars movies and forthcoming TV show would benefit from other celebrity impersonations, especially if it stops him creating characters that sound like awfulracialstereotypes. Why not have a Neimoidian who sounds like Ed Sullivan? A Mon Calamari who sounds like Bette Davis? A Kaminoan who sounds like Groucho Marx? The Star Wars movies would have been so much more entertaining with more of these inexplicable whims from Lucas, the beardy-weirdy.
Hey, Lucas, Amidala was boring, is boring, and always will be boring. Plus she gets rescued by C3PO. Space fail!
Too! Much! Boring! Plot! (Again, keeping in line with the other prequel movies.)
The biggest crime of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, one that I can't blame the actual filmmakers for, is that it is not Star Wars: Clone Wars, which, if you are filled with nerd blood, makes more sense than it seems. This movie, The Clone Wars, is unremarkable and overplotted (though watchable), while Clone Wars, directed by the incredible Genndy Tartakovsky, was magnificent. It moved as fast as a rocket, almost entirely eschewed lumbering plot discussions, and featured many of the most innovative and exciting sequences of the entire filmed Star Wars series.
In fact, this might rank among my favourite moments of nerd cool ever committed to film and accounts for why my favourite Jedi ever is Mace Windu (well, that and the casting of Samuel L. Jackson, who I won't hear a bad word said against). Whenever people complain about ADD editing in action movies, complaining about Michael Bay and his ilk, I want to show them that clip to prove that there are still people who understand how to construct, block, and edit an action scene so that it not only makes sense but also generates the majority of its emotional charge through rhythm and escalation.
There is nothing even vaguely as cool as that in the new movie, and by the end of the film I was falling asleep from the repetitive fight scenes, but early on there are some fun moments. As I said, I probably won't ever rewatch this, but I keep watching the Tartakovsky version over and over again because it is so unbelievably cool and fun and fast-paced and even, at times, epic in a way even the live-action movies forget to be. It's kind of an insult to the great man that Lucas never thought to bump his work onto the big screen, but was happy to do that for something that is bland and underachieving in comparison.
It struck me mid-way through the current Clone Wars movie that it's very odd to be watching a story told in this order. First the last three films, then two prequels, the previous Clone Wars series, the last prequel, and now another story set between the series and Revenge of the Sith. As a result we've had to deal with a lot of cognitive dissonance as we are expected to feel empathy for a bunch of Clone Troopers we know have been subconsciously programmed to kill Jedi on command, and overlook the fact that the hero of The Clone Wars, Anakin, has been given a Padawan trainee, the obnoxious Ahsoka Tano, who is only a little older than the "younglings" he massacres in Sith. I doubt that introducing a young character is a way to foreshadow that, as the film never hints that that is to come, and she seems merely to be an audience surrogate for the kids the film is aimed at, but it did make me a bit uncomfortable.
Nice touch getting Christopher Lee back to play Count Dooku. He added some class to the proceedings. Sam Jackson, on the other hand, got to say nothing particularly interesting. Wasted opportunity.
The conversations between Anakin, Obi-Wan, and Ahsoka are endlessly dull, going around in circles and never containing even an atom of wit. Midway through one of these seemingly infinite back-and-forths (many of which repeat information from earlier on, betraying its multi-episode TV origins), I realised that if the terrifying hyper-sensitive Political Correctness Gone Really Mad future world of Demolition Man ever came to pass, Lucas-style banter would be what replaces humour. It was an epiphany that chilled me to the bone, and made me want to see Pineapple Express and Tropic Thunder even more than I already do (i.e. a lot).
Clone troopers know martial arts? Whuh?
Er...
That's it.
Oh, and Moriarty continues to be the best thing about Ain't It Cool News. Lucas should send him a bunch of flowers or a few hundred thousand unsold action figures for treating with such childish disdain. Lucasarts, though it might occasionally strike gold, has no class. ::Prepares for hissy fit from visionary director of THX 1138::
As I said on Tuesday, it's Anger Week here on the international network of computer people (abbr. InterNetComPeeps), and on that day I figured I should offer an alternate perspective by jumping up and down on the spot about yet another book about how the Republicans have spent the past eight years secretly carving chunks out of the planet so that it resembles a big Space Dollar Sign. Though these books are ten a penny, if they're written by Thomas Frank they are essential reading. His humour and intelligence set them apart from the rest.
However, seeing posters for Mike Leigh's Happy-Go-Lucky in almost every Tube station in London (that I have visited), it has now become too much effort to appear jolly or attempt to hold off the tidal wave of heated commentary and subsequent opprobrium that has replaced the internet's usual blend of celebrity schadenfreude, leaked pictures from Transformerators 2, and George W. Bush blooper updates.
Time to add a little drop of Grouch Juice to the ocean that is the internet. A couple of weeks ago we were unfortunate enough to watch Happy-Go-Lucky (which is coming to DVD in the UK next week and opening in the US soon), and though I will admit we were watching it on a flight that was running nearly two hours late, with the seats in front of us pulled so far back they were almost inside our heads, and the air conditioning drying my eyes out so much they squeaked when I blinked, I'd like to think that I was still able to objectively assess Leigh's experiment in testing audience patience to destruction.
I may have said in my overlong Dark Knight post that seeing it in such uplifting conditions may have influenced my feelings towards it, but I've enjoyed several movies in similarly cramped and unpleasant circumstances, such as Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, Breach, Kung Fu Hustle, and, on the last two transatlantic flights I've taken, The Brave One and The Spiderwick Chronicles. Chronicles in particular is a beautiful movie, with autumnal colours lovingly captured by Godlike Genius Caleb Deschanel, and the intricate detailing on Phil Tippett's character designs apparent even on a tiny screen, so Dick Pope's bright photography was going to be perfectly fine.
I've sat through some stinkers on planes too, but nothing of the magnitude of Happy-Go-Lucky. I can sit through real dreck, really dire films made by people with no understanding of how to tell a story or approach a subject from a new and interesting perspective, and merely shrug. Happy-Go-Lucky, on the other hand, might not be as bad as Cassandra's Dream or the flabbergasting 21 (a film that is 100% recycled and utterly dishonest), but it made me angrier than any movie I've seen in a long time. Yes, even angrier than Southland Tales.
It seems pointless to give a rundown of the minimal plot, which is summed up with pith at IMDb, but it's worth looking at several key scenes. The movie follows the adventures of a primary school teacher called Poppy, whose relentless upbeat twitterings are exhibited in the first few minutes as she parks her bike outside a bookshop, wanders in, makes insipid, content-free comments to the shop owner (who is either rude and dismissive or probably busy doing something and unhappy to have someone come in and ruin his concentration, depending on your interpretation of the scene), and finally walks out to find her bike gone. Her response? "Oh, I never got to say goodbye!" This, my friends, is not the reaction of a sane person.
I'm not saying looking on the bright side of life is not a healthy way of approaching this setback. I'm saying that the human being, built as it is, would react to the theft with a mixture of emotions, the majority of which would be negative, and not a sentimental anthropomorphisation of the lost object. To react like that instead of being flushed with anger that someone had made a conscious decision to steal an object that belonged to you, with all of the feelings of frustration, disappointment, and violation that go along with that anger, would take a conscious effort to suppress those negative emotions which, as I'm sure anyone who reads this post will have experienced, flash up instantly with no cognitive effort involved. If Leigh is saying we should replace those feelings with acceptance, then I agree, it almost certainly is healthier than stewing over it indefinitely, but if he is saying we should never feel like the nasty feelings and must suppress them immediately, he doesn't understand human beings, and is touting a pure fantasy, and a cloying one at that. In fact, he does say that explicitly.
Q. How much of Poppy’s happy-go-lucky philosophy do you take on yourself? If someone stole your bike, would you shrug your shoulders? Mike Leigh: Oh, yeah actually I suppose I would if I’m honest. If they’ve nicked something, there you go basically. What are you going to do about it? But I wouldn’t want to make too much of that.
Thankfully he then follows that up by admitting he also shares character traits with Scott, the furious driving instructor, otherwise I would have to think of him as some kind of saint. In a revealing Guardian Q&A that I shall be going back to later in this post which has expanded way out of control like a big blob of Oobleck, host Sarfraz Manzoor asks:
SM: I found Poppy slightly annoying at the beginning - sort of unnecessarily and overly perky. Even when her bike gets stolen that doesn't faze her.
ML: Why is that "unnecessarily, overly perky"? She's cool, philosophical. The bike gets nicked, but what else can you do about it, life goes on. So defend your statement.
[Audience laughs]
SM: Initially, I thought she came across as a bit one-note - as in she's perky and nothing fazes her. But over the course of the film, she does become more complicated and reveals different levels.
ML: As far as I'm concerned, you could be forgiven, especially with the scene where they've gone clubbing and they're being silly having had a few drinks, you could be forgiven for thinking at that point, "Can I actually spend a couple of hours with this person?"
SM: You almost agree with me then?
ML: I am agreeing, but I'm saying that it's pretty much straight away that you start to get the hang of what she's actually about, and I don't think there's any real reason to go on thinking that [she's one-note]. When she gets into the car with Scott - I mean, he's so ludicrous that she just deals with it, her sense of humour takes over.
SM: He's a fascinating character - he comes across as somebody who's just a joke but ends up like the love-child of Richard Littlejohn and Melanie Phillips.
ML: I don't know them.
SM: Probably better off that way.
Beyond his snippiness (yes, the audience laughed, but the rest of the interview features other instances of him losing his patience with his adoring fans), and his ignorance of those hateful columnist scum mentioned by Manzoor, which must be a joke, the fact that he says there is nothing you can do about having your bike stolen startles me. You could report it to the police, obviously. Will that get results? Almost certainly not. Will it be a waste of your time? Very probably. However, we're talking about the loss of property, the violation of your space by some ne'er-do-well, and you're just supposed to shrug it off? Though I understand that forgiveness is far healthier than seething over a slight and becoming a bitter jerk (I speak from experience), doing nothing is a dereliction of your duties to yourself and those around you. Though the odds are against the return of your property, there is still some chance your actions following the theft will generate some chain of events that might be beneficial to many, not just yourself. Perhaps Leigh thinks this because, oh well, it's just a bike. If you can afford to just lose one, congratulations. How about if your car was stolen? Or your house broken into and an item of personal significance was taken? What about if Leigh finished a movie and the only print of it got stolen? Would he shrug then?
As for the later points he makes after fronting on Manzoor, he admits to making Poppy hard to like in those opening scenes. In this interview he reiterates the point that Poppy is meant to be irritating at first, and he succeeded at that by making her seem like a parody of a human whose personality is one step away from some awful form of mental aberration, but finding her lovable by the end of the movie? I think not. Here is the trailer. If this annoys you, avoid avoid avoid.
We're not the only ones driven to distraction by Poppy, played, by Sally Hawkins, with an impressive method dedication that eradicates every vestige of actual humanity from the character. While the majority of press and user reviews appear to have fallen under her spell, there are still some, like us, who were of the totally opposite opinion. Many of Poppy's exploits drove us to paroxysms of fist-clenching fury, and if that wasn't bad enough, Leigh throws in a few more caricatures for good measure, my least favourite being her older sister Helen (played by Caroline Martin). Settled down and pregnant, lumbered with a mortgage and immature husband (this immaturity expressed as a wish to play on his Playstation, a machine that is demonised throughout as if responsible for the dreadful state of The Youth Of Today), Helen is quite obviously miserable, and takes this out on Poppy.
In one of the most poorly performed and written scenes of the year, the sister needles Poppy with talk of babies and mortgages and responsibility and growing up, talking of them as duties that all adults must face. When Poppy laughs that off and says she's perfectly happy as she is, her sister screeches, "You don't have to rub it in!" and storms out of the room. Thank you, Mike Leigh and his repertory of actors, for illuminating the malaise of those who follow the mandatory rules of life laid down by The Man in such elegant and eye-opening terms. It is truly a lesson I would have to have been in some kind of suspended animation to have not absorbed. This is the great British artist Mike Leigh at work? I could have sworn it was an amateur dramatics group run by pre-teens.
That angered me enough, but the final scene was the one that, in retrospect, irked me the most. As the anti-plot reaches its natural denouement, Poppy realises that her driving instructor Scott (an excellent performance from Eddie Marsan) has been stalking her, his addled, paranoid brain unable to see that her depthless chirpiness is an automatic and unthinking state of mind and not a come-on. He rails against her for "leading him on", Marsan's performance lending conviction to a pretty basic speech, not helped by his character seemingly being a lazily constructed (but brilliantly performed) hybrid of the unpleasant men played by David Thewlis in Naked and Mark Benton in Career Girls. Though I was glad something had finally happened, and was pleased to see what seemed to be some reflection in Poppy as she ponders his reaction to her personality. Sadly, after about 30 seconds of shots of Poppy looking ruminative, the film ends on her reverting to type, merrily rowing a boat with her equally silly flatmate and blithering on about her usual content-free nonsense, unchanged and determinedly jolly to the last oompah-oompah drenched frame.
Before I continue to discuss the movie in Shouty Mode, I have to address the opinion of its many fans. Lots of people have been warmed and uplifted by the film, and of course that's great for them, and it makes me happy to know others are happy. Obviously. However, critics of the movie have been painted as unduly negative and riven with fashionable cynicism, nothing more than cranky-pants who have forgotten the simple pleasures in life. Daring to suggest that the film is muddled, poorly made, vapid, cloying and pointless is considered evidence of a malfunction of the joy chips that Leigh and Hawkins have kickstarted in the rest of the audience. While I will admit to a mostly negative worldview, and a personality that just last night Canyon compared to Cartman (it was his rant against Family Guy that triggered the comparison, though I wish I had been able to articulate my feelings for that show so eloquently), I am capable of joy, and sometimes my critical faculties can be so overwhelmed by the experience of a work of art or popular culture that I turn into a leaping, gurning Poppy-esque parody of a human being.
Disliking Happy-Go-Lucky and the character of Poppy might well be a matter of personal taste and disposition, but that doesn't mean I can't have an objective, unemotional response to her and the movie as well. Though I'm a believer in a lot of what McKee says about story structure, I'm not so firmly wedded to it that I blindly think all stories have to follow some formula to be considered artistically valid. Happy-Go-Lucky might start with what could be seen as an inciting incident (the theft of her bike), and it might feature a showdown with an antagonist who exactly mirrors her, but otherwise the plot, such as it is, meanders back and forth, sometimes for little apparent reason. Again, though I could see little point in that other than the possibility that Leigh was being purposely obstreperous, it's certainly not a strike against the film.
However, Poppy's ultimate reaction to Scott's meltdown, to ponder it for a couple of minutes before blithely returning to her default position of chirpy simpleton, was a step too far. Once more, I'll stress that the antagonist doesn't necessarily have to learn a lesson at the end of a movie, or undergo much in the way of change, but it certainly helps, and doesn't have to be a big, "My God, this adventure has shown me how to love!" revelation either. What Poppy does is remain the same throughout, even when faced with evidence that her behaviour, innocent though it may seem, might have a negative impact on the world. Scott's psychosis is certainly not Poppy's fault, but a moment of reflection earlier on in the story might have shown her that purposely goading the man, making unfunny quips, and ignoring his instructions - the instructions of a very volatile man who is excessively anal about the following of said instructions and has shown a propensity for intemperate flashes of hostility - would eventually lead to a confrontation. She also upsets her sister, disrupts a flamenco class, and generally pesters people who are just trying to go about their day without being hassled by a hippy with a mouthful of witless, useless banalities.
Some fans of the film have commented on Poppy's wisdom, but I saw very little evidence of this. Again, I'll stress that Poppy doesn't have to learn. That said, surely an actual human being would finally realise upon being confronted by Scott that having a happy outlook is one thing, but having blundered along, oblivious to the consequences of a persona that might be negative as often as it is positive, is an entirely different matter, just as the expression of any other personality type would potentially have a range of consequences between positive and negative. That she laughs it all off as less than an inconvenience shows monstrous arrogance on the part of Leigh. We're being asked to side with someone who is oblivious to the feelings of those around her, other than to note that they are different from hers and must be altered immediately, preferably through the insistent and reflexive use of trivial, wit-free quips and cloying, unthinking platitudes. How is this laudable? I'm all for a bit of cheering up now and again, but if this half-wit tried to make me smile with her eye-rolling and intrusive questioning I would be calling the constabulary in a trice.
Such an confounding ending and ultimately impenetrable character reminds me of the far superior Morvern Callar, with Samantha Morton at the height of her power as the blank and amoral eponymous heroine. However, whereas Poppy is compelled to interact with everyone she meets, Morvern is utterly uninterested in the world, preferring to grab any advantage life gives her while hiding from almost all interaction, ears filled with headphones, becoming little more than a self-sufficient anonymous clubber on the continent. She's a perfect encapsulation of modern isolationist tendencies in some anti-social section of The Youth Of Today, and remains an enigma even after repeated viewings (or readings). Though I think Hawkins deserves praise for her total commitment to the role, on an aesthetic level I'd much rather watch Morton's icy, enigmatic performance than sit through the endurance test that is Happy-Go-Lucky. Morvern Callar is a true work of art by a true artist, one who is sadly undervalued.
Now that I think about it, Lynne Ramsay's movie is the perfect antidote to the forced chirpiness of Leigh's film, with its perplexing and compelling main character. Plus, that soundtrack, inspired by the tracklistings contained within Alan Warner's remarkable book, is a lot better than the upbeat comedy farty noises that pass for a score in Happy-Go-Lucky. Can + Boards of Canada + Lee Hazlewood > random cloying hurdy-gurdy any day of the week. I wish it had been on Virgin Atlantic's roster of films so that I could cleanse my mental palette.
Just as Morvern Callar appears to be a character study of a person whose motives and emotions are as mysterious to us at the end of the movie as they are at the start, Happy-Go-Lucky could be taken merely as a portrait of an alien being, the eternal optimist, a Pangloss wearing lipgloss, a hypothetical state of mind given form but no reason just to show what would happen if someone had a brain malfunction that made them perpetually chirpy.
There's even an argument that the movie is a study of psychosis. If I were to be uncharitable about her, which I intend to be, Poppy certainly seemed to be unhinged, being unable to comprehend the consequences of her actions or the ramifications of things that happen to her, like a sociopath overdosing on Prozac. Scott is paranoid, racist, and so socially stunted by his own self-loathing that he cannot understand what others are thinking. Leigh has had characters like this in his movies before, so there's a possibility he thinks all men (of a certain class and background, which I will charitably leave hanging in the air for fear of offending his fans) are prone to fantasising about women and/or the Illuminati, but I'm willing to grant that he does think this behaviour is evidence of mental health issues and not just what men are like (Neil LaBute, take note).
The tramp that Poppy meets midway through the movie, in a scene that many people thought was superfluous, is another broken human who cannot function in society. It's debatable that Poppy's attempts to communicate with the tramp are successful, which is a good thing. Having her even partially cure him would turn it from a character study into a weird Camden-based messiah tale. Poppy heals the sick and teaches man and woman to embrace happiness! I would have hated to see her Sermon on the Mount, filled as it would be with tic-like eye-rolling, reflexive chuckling, and exhortations to just cheer up, it might never 'appen, innit! We can be grateful for small mercies.
However, though that alternate interpretation is a potentially interesting take on what is otherwise a Sesame Street song about happiness dragged out to feature length, I'm unsure about whether Leigh really is trying to paint a picture of what a fractured, unfriendly society has done to us and the differing ways our brains have tried to cope with it, as only a handful of characters show any signs of mental malfunction. That is, unless you add Poppy's elder sister and husband, who have turned their back on pure anarchic, heedless joy for that most poisonous of mind afflictions, Leigh's pet peeve since Abigail's Party, class-jumping aspiration! Look at them in their grotty suburban home, with their grotty suburban mortgage, arguing about Playstations and resisting Poppy's stream of unconsciousness which would save them from their pit of misery! Burn the bastards at the stake!
These alternate explanations, giving Leigh the benefit of the doubt, might work if Leigh didn't insist on claiming that Poppy's manner was admirable. While I am not so desensitised by playing Grand Theft Automatic on my Gamebox and listening to that modern Gangster Ramp stuff with the witches and ho-bags that I can't see the benefit of maintaining a brighter outlook, Poppy's blinkered viewpoint is not an option anyone should consider. Being a flighty gurning happiness machine might work out okay if you're a primary school teacher, but I don't want a policeman or a doctor to be incapable of serious interaction.
::rolls eyes:: I dunno, getting mugged for your phone? Who needs 'em anyway? More trouble than they're worth, eh? Hur hur! All that money you'll save, not paying for calls, save up and buy yourself a nice sweater, innit! Hur hur! Or a wheelchair, seeing as how you've been terribly injured by your attacker. Still, mustn't grumble! You can still play basketball in one. I seen it on the telly! Ooooh, it was dead exciting! Hur hur!
::rolls eyes:: Yeah, we got your x-rays back, and look, it's your bones! The left bone's connected to the right bone! Hur hur! Look at 'em! Look at how many there are! Millions of bones! Wow! Bloody brilliant, innit. So yeah, that smashed-up one there, that's called a vertebra. Ooh! Big word! Hur hur!
And yes, I appreciate she does have the nous to recognise evidence of abuse in a bullying child, but whereas many critics have pointed this out as evidence of a greater wisdom and maturity in Poppy than we had previously assumed, it's not backed up by any other displays of seriousness anywhere else in the movie, and tends to suggest it was slotted in as a means to prove her capacity to be high-functioning and capable of constructive compassion, as a pre-emptive riposte to arguments that she's just a halfwit who doesn't understand the hardships and cruelties of the world. Even if I bite, and accept that, she's still reckless and thoughtless in other contexts, as I complained earlier, like the miserable life-hating bastard I am.
Plus, the other alternative explanation for that scene is that Leigh added it so that she could meet someone in a professional manner who she could have a cloying and sappy relationship with, the alternative being meeting someone at one of the nightclubs she goes to with her raucous friends, which Leigh would never have countenanced for fear of making Poppy seem like one of those tawdry working class hussies having a drunken shag like the Daily Mail says they do. And hey, Leigh surely wouldn't want to come across as someone making uncharitable comments about entire classes of people that are dissimilar to his own, now would he.
Of the many comments Leigh has made about the film, the one I find the most interesting is this, from that Telegraph article linked to earlier:
It's about education: how we learn and how we teach. It's about responsibility. About trust, about men and women, and about commitment. I felt it would be a good time to make a film that would be, in some way, anti-miserabilist. These are tough times we're in; we are destroying ourselves and the planet, but there are some people who care enough about the future to be teaching kids.
Ignoring the fact that I don't think the human race has become so suicidal and reckless that it has decided not to even bother teaching kids anymore, thus making anyone who decides to do it part of some dying breed, the movie does hint at some interest in exploring what education is, and Scott has some things to say about it that, when stripped of their crazy conspiracy trappings, might amount to a rare moment of insight, but I do think a lot of his grumbling about modern education concerns gaming and gadgetry, and how kids are reacting to them. There are numerous other problems with modern education beyond that, which is the sort of feeble argument trotted out by the handbag-clutching readers of the Mail who have no understanding of what the technological age can offer. There is a place for Leigh's Ye Olde Worlde thinking, and I would never argue it doesn't. However, saying "those games is bad for the kids" is not an intellectual position, at least as expressed in Happy-Go-Lucky. There are grave problems with education in England, but lumping the blame almost exclusively on gaming is a dead end, and is intellectually lazy.
Speaking of which, remember the obvious connection I made earlier between Scott and David Thewlis' character Johnny in Naked? As you can imagine, I was not the only one who thought there was a similarity between the biblical rants spouted by both misanthropic characters, and this poor chap tried to ask Leigh about it at a Guardian Q&A.
Question 10: The taxi driver, Scott ...
ML: He's not a taxi driver, he's a driving instructor. Loads of people keep calling him a taxi driver, but there's nothing that suggests he is that. It's a very strange thing. You're about the 70th or 75th person who's said that. However, please continue.
Q10 add: Well, the way Scott made reference to 666 conspiracy theories, it just made me think of Johnny in Naked talking about a similar thing. Just wondering if there was a connection at all.
ML: There is, only in so far as they're talking about the same thing. But the huge difference between Scott and Johnny and Brian, the night security guard in Naked, is about as massive a difference as between Poppy and Beverly in Abigail's Party, I would say. Johnny, and indeed Brian, understand what they're talking about. They've made connections, they've got ideas on the go, and they're perceptive. Scott is none of those things. He doesn't understand anything that's in his head at all. It's all this stuff slopping around in the tank of his brain but he hasn't added it up at all. It's a very superficial experience for him, which isn't the case at all for Johnny.
But how are we supposed to know that? One biblical rant sounds much like another, and never really seem to be connected or unconnected, sounding more like a series of shouty quotes from old books linked in with some contemporary references. Scott sounded no more or less connected than anyone else, and the movie gives no hint that Scott is having a "superficial experience". While many critics and Leigh fans are quick to praise him for his method of generating plot and character by getting his actors together and thrashing out ideas prior to writing a script (though only a few seem to think the actors should get more credit for their contribution, weirdly enough), that process is not available for us to view.
While Leigh can bat away criticisms by commenting on the true feelings of his characters, it seems to me he is not remembering the events of the movie, but remembering the inner life of the characters that he and the actors have constructed. Though I understand the movie is open for interpretation, I can see no evidence in the movie that would lead me to believe what he is saying is correct, and not just a way of avoiding critical comment (or a inaccurately retrieved memory). Even worse than that, his rude comment to this questioner beggars belief. [Italics mine]
Question 5: I was looking at Poppy's character in that scene with her sister and brother-in-law. Should she have gone down the path of being a proper adult, having a family and so forth, do you think she would have any similarity to Beverly in Abigail's Party?
ML: I think Poppy's extremely grown-up, but she's being measured about it. There's no way, as I read her, or indeed as Sally Hawkins read her, that she's somebody that's going to stay juvenile forever. She's not. She's simply a mature but measured person who's taking life steadily and enjoying it and being fulfilled. It's only her sister Helen's perception of her that she's not being responsible, that she's not being sensible. I hate to say this, and don't take it personally, but it's really a silly question, and I say it with the greatest respect. [Translation: "You're an idiot. I say it with all due respect, and please don't take it personally, but you're a drooling imbecile who can never understand my art."] She won't stop being an intelligent, sensible person with a sense of humour, politics, life and a sense of values and a love of children - none of which is Beverly. Beverly hates children, and hasn't got any of the perception or applied intelligence or education or the ability to care that Poppy has. They're absolutely chalk and cheese.
There are two options: Leigh is lying and being a bit of a jerk about it, or Leigh and Hawkins really attributed these inner feelings to their creation during rehearsals. If it is the latter, that's perfectly fine, and I'm curious to see the DVD extra that shows them creating Poppy. However, in the film, there is no hint that she is going to mature. Saying that she is and treating his audience like fools for not reading his and Hawkins' minds and understanding that is sheer arrogance. If he wants us to interpret the movie any way we want, let us do that. If not, then don't be so rude about it. Cheer up Mike, it's all gonna be alright in the end, innit? Hur hur.
Still, it was not such a traumatic experience that I have not become immune to happiness in film form. Just yesterday I suddenly remembered my deep and abiding love for Theodore Flicker's satirical hodge-podge The President's Analyst, with James Coburn playing Dr. Sidney Schaefer, on the run from various evil-doers after giving up his job as the psychoanalyst of the President of the United States, and coming across a wide selection of 60s cultural icons, all of which are mercilessly lampooned. Coburn, who could portray joy with more enthusiasm than almost any other actor (and not just because he had an incredibly bright and wide smile) is the perfect person to play the doctor who tunes in and drops out, set free to just go crazy on stage with his beloved gong.
You should look pleased with yourself, Don Draper. Not only are you the archetypal Alpha Male, but the show you appear in just got good. Really really good.
Just as Six Feet Under and Big Love really hit their stride in their second seasons, Mad Men just kicked off the last scraps of its metamorphonic cocoon and properly fluttered its wings for the first time. I've had issues with itin the past, but most of them are resolved now. The season premiere disappointed me, losing some of the goodwill the end of the first season had generated, but the last two episodes have pushed us past "like" and into "love".
Things that pleased me greatly include:
Don's showdown with the obnoxiously confident Bobbie Barrett, played with singular odiousness by Melinda McGraw, last seen being almost as odious on Journeyman as Dan Vassar's sister-in-law. It was shocking, graphic, erotically confusing (I thought he had stubbed his cigarette out on her leg or ladyparts or something equally awful), and amazing. He sure has got his mojo back at last.
The weak link in the show for us remains Betty Draper, an interesting character played by an indifferent actress (January Jones), who is either underplaying horribly or overplaying someone who is meant to be dead in the soul. While she looks the part (Grace Kelly-esque is insufficient to describe her perfect 60s blonde ice queen aura), she murmurs her dialogue in the most unconvincing way. To make things worse, her scenes are often almost parodic in their silliness. Last season she was almost having an affair with a young boy (well, not rally, but she did seem awfully drawn to him). Her confrontation with Arthur, the supposedly handsome horse-riding student who looks more like Judge Reinhold's consumptive kid brother to me, was overbaked, with the words "profoundly sad" bandied about way too often (though her response, that it was down to her people being Nordic, was a gem). Maybe the scene was meant to run as a parody of seduction speak, especially with a previous scene featuring Don and Bobbie being so slick as a consequence of their experience with extramarital dalliances, but no matter. It ended with the return of Betty's Shaky Hands! They've been missing since the second episode of the first season, but they're back, and shakier than ever!
The reveal that art is becoming Don's kryptonite. After his experiences with Miles Davis' Sketches of Spain last season, and Frank O'Meara poetry collections in the second season premiere, he's now sneaking out to catch La Notte in the afternoon. Next time he goes after Bobbie, she should throw a copy of Catch-22 at him. He'll shriek, fall to his knees, and then start reading it, oblivious to the world.
Actually, there is a bit of a back and forth on The AV Club Mad Men talkback about whether it is La Notte or La Jetee that Don is secretly watching on company time. It's probably the former, but Chris Marker's sci-fi slideshow is a good fit too, as the movie Don is watching looks like a series of static shots. If so, is this linked to Don's seemingly growing realisation that he is lying to himself if he thinks he is an out-of-time 50s businessman and not a 60s hippy? Or a psychopath, which is also possible. Even more shocking, perhaps he is a time-traveller! Only those pesky season one flashbacks with him hanging around with Ryan Chappelle from 24 disguised as a hobo renders that theory invalid.
The reaction of Harry after realising Kenneth was being paid far more than him was almost as good as his hesitant slapstick attempts to open his payslip and then reseal it. And then, to put a cherry on top, Harry makes the error of going to see Salvatore, whose withering sarcasm was beautifully judged. Though I had enjoyed the second episode, this scene in the third episode was the one that pushed me over the edge. It was spot on.
Don's awful demotion of his secretary in an act of sublimated rage and shame after Roger Sterling criticises him for sneaking off to watch a movie. Lois' responses, a mixture of fear and grudging acceptance, were superbly played by Crista Flanagan, whose demotion hopefully won't cut her out of the show altogether. What was most pleasing about the scene was that Don's monstrous behaviour was borne not just of his inherent 60s-era sexism (which has always seemed to be in conflict with his attraction to powerful women), but because of a character moment; his weakness for art (or the promise of some foreign erotica, if indeed La Notte contains any) is something he is truly ashamed of. His other vices of infidelity and drinking, are accepting as normal behaviour by his colleagues, whereas this could be seen as a sign of weakness or, more probably, evidence that he no longer fits in with the boys (several of whom seem to be evolving as the decade progresses without him being aware of it). And so he takes it out on Lois. It was horrible and hilarious at the same time.
The jawdropping scene from Flight 1 featuring Joan's racism and cutting criticism of faux-boho Paul made my head spin, and sat in stark contrast with the thoughtless racism of previous episodes. Joan isn't someone who takes African-Americans for granted; she is actively hateful. Plus, she still doesn't look quite the same as she did on Firefly and I can't put my finger on why. Good to see that the show has given us an unrepentant bitch to root against. Moral haziness is one thing, but right now she's just a horrible person, who is either unforgivably dreadful or entertainingly catty depending on the context. Paul's revenge (posting a photocopy of her driving licence on a bulletin board with her birthday highlighted) was fun too.
For the first time ever, despite Canyon's continued aesthetic annoyance over Don's flat butt, we're looking forward to next week's episode, which features Don and Betty taking the kids away for a weekend of awkward silences, chain-smoking, and maybe even some tears from Betty due to her Bottomless Nordic Sadness. Let's hope this newfound enthusiasm of ours isn't thwarted.
I'm all a-dither with excitement. In the past I have railed against the iniquities of The Market, and the peculiar popular belief in its impassive, emotionless benevolence, which is something that has irked me long enough that I can remember being very uncomfortable watching pretty much any movie or TV show from the 80s featuring Michael J. Fox in a shirt (i.e. almost all of them). Maybe that discomfort is why I have such a problem with money, and talking about money, and any kind of economic thinking. Or maybe it's the other way around. It's hard to say. What is obvious to me, though, is that my understanding of what money is and how to make it work is so embarrassingly immature that any kind of balance sheet or bill or bank statement looks to me like this.
In an attempt to get over this I read two books that I have mentioned before; The Lexus and The Olive Tree, by Thomas Friedman, and One Market Under God, by Thomas Frank. The utter worthlessness of the first book was obvious even to someone like myself who once thought that newspaper headlines about the IMF were referring to The Impossible Mission Force (I really really wish that was a joke). One of Friedman's arguments, that The Market is riddled with democracy-germs that rub off on countries that make out with it, is backed up with statements barely more substantial than, "this is what will happen because... because... just because, damn it!", not to mention conjuring up the image of goat-herders in the Middle East giving up on their traditional work in order to sit on a rock with a laptop and trying to eke out a few tiyin here and there by day-trading (an exaggeration, but not much of one).
There was a lot of other unconvincing stuff in there, but don't take my word for it. My man Paul Krugman dishes out an entertaining review of it here. My dislike of Friedman's populist drivel is such that recently I potentially alienated a friend of Canyon's after seeing a copy of The World Is Flat on her shelf, which triggered a ten minute rant from me that scared her cats and made her back away from me while reaching for a baseball bat. If you ever read this post, Friend of Canyon, I apologise profusely. The anger management classes are going well, you'll be glad to hear. The point I was trying to get across, behind all of the "GRAAAAR!" and "Noooooo!" and "Banish him to Uzbekistan!" statements, was that if Lexus was anything to go by, I wouldn't be surprised if Friedman was actually trying to argue that the world really was flat. That's how little I respect him.
One Market Under God, on the other hand, was a revelation; funny, angry, and filled with shocking examples of pro-Market propaganda hurled at we, the people, by those who would benefit most from our mute acceptance of the status quo. It was just the tonic I needed. His next book was called by two names What's The Matter With Kansas? in the US, and, rather uncharitably, What's The Matter With America? in the UK, because we Brits have never heard of Kansas and might think he is talking about some village in Greenland or something. It might be even better than One Market. I don't know. I tend to have internal debates about which book is better, like the comic fans who debate whether Superman or Thor would win in a fight (it's Thor, obviously). That said, while One Market made me angry, What's The Matter just made me depressed. Recently I read Matt Taibbi's disappointingly slender but undeniably hilarious The Great Derangement, and it conjured up similar feelings of desperate misery of a "Hell in a handbasket" kind of way.
The Wrecking Crew might make me feel just as bad, but I can't wait for it anyway. I thought it was coming out next week, but it's out now, and I've already ordered it, though my eagerness for it is so intense it's even made me crave a Kindle so I can immediately download it and read it instead of chunter on about it. Until then, check out Frank's homepage, and watch the interview with Stephen Colbert. As a big fan of both of men and their Amazing Powers of the Brain, it was a treat to see that last night (what? Our PVR is full of old Daily Shows and Dexters and we got behind with watching!).
Is it fair to say that sci fi fans are split into two factions over the best genre shows on TV right now? In my time reading talkbacks and comment sections online, Lost talkbacks are often invaded by hardcore Battlestar Galactica fans dissing the island-based dissertation on free will for "making it up as it goes along", and Battlestar Galactica talkbacks feature, well, less attacks, but perhaps that's because Lost fans are more polite. Yes, I am firmly in the former category, and so my perception is distorted by that fandom. Lost pushes all of my buttons, whereas BSG makes me angry almost as often as it makes me happy. This picture expresses the chasm between the two fanbases (at least as far as I see it).
It was not always this way. The opening mini and the first season were as good as TV gets. It was relevant, it was exciting, it was cleverly referential with regards to the original series, and it featured the most incredible effects yet shown on TV. It's shallow of me to love the show for that, but Zoic's effects work was simply staggering. That was merely the cherry on top of a lot of really terrific drama. I was absolutely thrilled that SciFi was making something so challenging and clever.
Over time, my opinion changed. By the end of season two we had had way too many placeholder episodes, which meant the finale crammed in several episodes' worth of drama into an hour of TV. It was good drama, but rushed through in an unsatisfying blur of action and revelation and unconvincing fatsuits. The other sin of that season (and the subsequent season) was the amount of time spent focusing on possibly the least interesting couple on TV at the expense of a lot of other exciting avenues. Yes, no Apobuck 'shipper am I. Or Starders, or Apoulla, or any combination.
Apollo and Starbuck bore me to tears, and we have spent way too much time watching them come up with reasons not to just start spacehumping. My least favourite Apobuck moment came when Starbuck used religion as a reason to not just bang Apollo's grumpy brains out. We have no idea what the provisions of her religion are, as none of these details have been explained convincingly (more on that bugbear later), so this just smacked of contrivance. The main reason for their inability to just get it on (other than that they are boring, badly written teenagers who love the drama of their relationship) is that Starbuck was involved with the now "dead" Zack Adama, Lee's brother, who looms over them and Apollo's dad, the flat-out AWESOME Bill Adama, from "beyond the grave".
The amount of time spent agonising over a character who is not actually on the show is dead air, and as such seems odd. Unless, of course, Zack is the final Cylon. The fact that the prequel series Caprica seems to revolve around the Adama family's connections with the scientist who created the Cylons suggest it might be. The arrival of Zack will justify all of the attention on two boring-ass flyers at the expense of so many other more interesting relationships. How the son of a human could be a Cylon has yet to be explained, but we're convinced it will be him (kudos to the AV Club commenter, whose name escapes me, who suggested it a few months ago). If not, why the hell are we devoting this much time to these guys? Now that they've reached earth together will they become Adam and Eve? Surely a show as smart as this one won't be so stupid as to do that.
If I had problems with season two, season three tested our patience to the limit. After a very very strong opening featuring some of the most astonishing drama on any show last year, the show got into a funk, with Baltar doing something something on the Cylon Basestar, Tyrol staring at a carving for two episodes, Apollo and Starbuck getting pissed at each other, and lots of other truly dreary nonsense that I'm blotting out because those empty scenes are taking up space in my head I could use to get excited about the Watchmen trailer (shut up over-sensitive fanboys, it looks great). By then, even some top quality space explosions couldn't keep me interested. An attempt to watch the Razor TV movie faltered in the middle of a huge battle sequence due to lack of interest (and I've yet to finish it). How is this possible? Usually I live for this stuff.
I thought it would take a miracle to make me give a damn about Battlestar Galactica again, but in the end something less dramatic but equally as wonderful happened; Jane Espenson wrote two episodes of the show and introduced some quality writing, something the show was sorely in need of. That's not to say that the fourth season of BSG was instantly made flawless, because there were plenty of annoyances, longueurs, and poor performances. That's also not to say the rest of the BSG writing team are uniformly dreadful; Ronald D. Moore, Bradley Thomson and David Weddle (and Mark Verheiden, occasionally) still do sterling work, but we still get some horrendous dialogue, cringe-making dramatic devices, and confusing expansion of the BSG mythos. If you don't believe me about the terrible devices, consider Gaeta and his lost leg. A strangely dramatic plot-thread for a minor character, but made almost unwatchable by the conceit that, in his post-op delirium, he keeps warbling tuneless, pretentious songs reflecting that episode's moral dilemmas. Even more improbably, anyone walking into the recovery room was obligated to comment on how lovely it was. Gah! I know you've been living without music for a while, but it didn't used to sound like that. Oh well, at least it wasn't a Dylan song.
However, even at its best (and its best is very very good), the show has lacked a spark in its writing, possibly due to budget and network pressures, or, as I sometimes suspect, the mythology of the show has been insufficiently worked out in advance. I once started a huge post about my frustration with the show, and perhaps I'll get back to that soon. Right now, I want to go apeshit over Espenson's expanded role on the show, which saw her get solo credit on two episodes, a step up from co-writing a season three episode with former 24 producer Anne Cofell Saunders (who has left BSG to work on Chuck). Her first episode was dismissed by some talkbackers as a placeholder, and though it didn't feature space battles or mythos-defining weirdness, it did have words coming out of people's mouths that didn't sound like they were written by a robot. Or an infinite number of Grace Parks working away on an infinite number of archaic typewriters.
If I never warmed to BSG the way I warmed to Lost or Deadwood or Friday Night Lights or anything from the Mutant Enemy Factory of Awesomeness, it's because the dialogue never came alive. Even when I was really enthusiastic about it (from the opening mini-series to about the halfway mark in season two), I wished the dialogue had some sass, or spunk, or surprise. When spoken by the show's best actors (I'm thinking Edward James Olmos, Mary McDonell, James Callis, or Tricia Helfer) that dialogue sounded just fine, but then talented performers can transcend something flat. However, when handled by some of the less polished performers (it gives me no pleasure to aim my stinkeye at Grace Park, Katee Sackhoff, Michael Trucco, and some of the other random actors playing minor characters littering the screen), the shortcomings of the writing becomes all too apparent.
With Espenson on board, even that placeholder episode felt fresh and entertaining and relevant. Even better, her second episode, the penultimate one of this mini-season, had all of the visual wow and big drama that the talkbackers thought was lacking before, and even though she was lumbered with the kind of poorly explained dream sequence stuff that so often irks me on this show (by which I mean Laura Roslin's visions of her death), she imbued them with humour and humanity, and avoided the purple melodrama that can often seep into these moments. I just wanted to ambush the rest of the writers with a screening of it, all the while yelling, "This is how you do it!"
Even better, the finale, written by Weddle and Thompson, was infinitely better than the dire season three finale, and though it flirted with the same Dylan nonsense that blighted that previous episode, mainly it was concerned with getting on with telling the story and blowing our minds. Which it did, with five minutes of exultation, heightened emotion, and finally a total loss of hope. As shocked as I was by the final shot of Jeremy Bentham in Lost, BSG's bravura pan across the leaders of the human/Cylon coalition and the desolate surface of a ruined earth might have been even more astonishing. In that moment I was relieved that I had stuck with the show even when the third season had annoyed me so much.
Of course, the ten episode mini-season wasn't exclusively Espenson-level writing and mind-blowing reveals. The quality level still rose and fell rapidly, often within the same episode. Though I was grateful that the focus on Apollo/Starbuck, the plot that had derailed the previous season, had been dialled back, we still had her and Anders acting out their risible and dreary psycho-drama. Even knowing that she is unwittingly the number one Cylon pin-up (with both Leoben and Anders obsessed with getting into her unflattering space-pants) didn't make it any more interesting. Having the two of them stuck on a garbage scow with the cream of the fleet (a plot device that made absolutely zero sense) was televisual torture, made worse by the histrionic performances from the entire crew.
Back with the fleet, things were sporadically interesting with patches of blurg. The Tyrol/Cally plot was resolved with Cally getting blasted out of an airlock, a turn of events that pleased us greatly. Aaron Douglas and Nicki Clyne had been lumbered with the worst kind of kitchen-sink drama, with Tyrol hiding from his shrill wife and horrible kid, a domestic situation complicated further with the revelation that he was a Cylon and their child was a human/Cylon hybrid. That fact alone created immensely important drama that changed the whole direction of the show, and...
Oh, that's right. Their hybrid baby is seemingly nowhere near as important as Athena and Helo's kid. Ron Moore pretty much admitted that at last year's Comic-Con, but has yet to explain why one is important and the other is not. You'd think that the decision to make Tyrol a Cylon was a spur of the moment thing, but BSG would never just make it up as they go along, would they? That's Lost I'm thinking of. [/bitter] That said, Tyrol's reaction to Cally's death was terrific, and brilliantly written by Espenson. His breakdown in the Galactica bar was a season highlight. As Tyrol was also well-served by Espenson (and Cofell Saunders) last season, it's fair to say I only like him when she writes him. Fingers crossed we get more of that in the last ten episodes.
Baltar's transformation into opportunistic messiah was also welcome, after he was reduced to a wibbling loser last season. Seeing him stumbling into his destiny as ineffectual self-help guru with his customary mixture of bluster and self-loathing was great fun, as was his growing influence within the fleet, as his monotheistic religion becomes more appealing to the increasingly desperate refugees. One of the aspects of BSG that has interested me the least is the slowly building focus on religion. The show has always had a religious aspect, but I tended not to pay much attention to the details of the conflicting religions of the humans and Cylons, thinking them little more than signifiers of the shows comment on contemporary tensions, but as the fourth season wore on I had the horrible feeling that I should have been paying attention all along, and we were going to get to the final stretch of the show without a proper working knowledge of the significance of all of that guff about the twelve Gods and what have you. Was I going to have to go back and rewatch the whole show to catch all of this stuff?
By the time the finale had rolled around, I felt almost certain that the Cylons and the humans are all worshipping the wrong thing, that there is a force shaping their destinies but it is not the God we think of, but some force of physics or space/time or multi-dimensional space (Roslin's visions during FTL jumps makes me wonder about that) that is beyond comprehension, and certainly beyond the superstitious teachings of the twelve tribes and the Cylons. At least, I hope so. I find the religious plotline far more interesting as a tool to dramatise tensions between the characters than as a complex but ultimately uninteresting mythology running through the show. That way lies The Sacred Scrolls of Borzon and The Temple of Astroculite and much other silliness that doesn't fit into this plot, though regrettably it has wandered in that direction from time to time. Thankfully the show appears to be using God as a source of conflict, which is believable and way more interesting.
Plus, as an added bonus, James Callis has been fantastic as a reluctant messiah winging it in front of an adoring following and coming up with a philosophy even more vapid than Oprah's latest pet belief system The Secret, if that's possible. At the end of last season he was walking around in robes looking like Future Space Jesus, which was amusing but sledgehammer subtle. At least now he just looks like a cult leader, which is pretty much what he is.
I've been bitching about a large proportion of the plotlines, but there were stories within the mini-season that I really liked. While I was irked by Ron Moore's admission that Roslin's cancer remission was another spur of the moment writing choice (a choice that AICN BSG talkbackers were in denial over, having spent three years making snotty cracks about Lost being made up on the fly), it's given Mary McDonnell yet more chances to show off her considerable acting skills. Confession time: before BSG I couldn't stand McDonnell at all, finding her rictus grin performances in Donnie Darko and Grand Canyon unwatchable. I could just about get over my antipathy in Sneakers, but that's because Sneakers is the awesomest. Setec Astronomy! Yeah, that's right, bitches.
In BSG, however, she has been uniformly magnificent. This season has provided her with some of her best acting opportunities, as Roslin's humanity and morality get tested by the ever-worsening situation within the fleet, the continuing fallout from the occupation on New Caprica, the urge to overrule the council as they vacillate and bicker, and her wavering faith, which has caused her to misinterpret signs and omens, as well as damage her empathic connection with those around her. Best of all, she almost killed Baltar after he finally confessed to accidentally betraying humanity, before a vision of her own death showed her the error of her ways. It was an acting tour de force that made the regular PointyShouty moments look even more feeble by comparison.
If that scene amazed me, a few minutes later I blubbed like a perspective-free fanboy as Roslin was reunited with Bill Adama, and finally told him she loved him. His response, "About time", is only beaten by Ben Linus' emotionless, "So?" from the Lost finale. Edward James Olmos has been my favourite actor on BSG from very early on, and his stoic decision to wait for Roslin in a Raptor with only her favourite book for company was a season highlight. Of course, in the finale the breakdown he has probably been fending of for years finally happened upon finding out that his best friend, Saul Tigh, was (improbably) a Cylon all along. Olmos performed the shit out of the moment, meaning poor Jamie Bamber was forced to brace himself against the acting maelstrom next to him.
The Cylons finally achieved their full potential, having previously been mysterious monoliths of force with only hints at their inner turmoil. Slowly we've seen cracks emerge; Leoben's obsession with Starbuck, D'Anna's breakdown, the rebellions of the Six's and Athena's. Sadly those moments were often sidelined in order to return to yet more Apollo/Starbuck angstifying, a narrative choice that drove me to distraction. This season flirted with the same lack of focus, as a Cylon civil war broke out for thirty seconds in the middle of an episode and then went unmentioned for a couple of weeks while we got to watch Tigh hallucinate at a Six instead. It was a tad frustrating.
The other thing that has bothered me over the last couple of seasons is how the show spends less time focusing on the mechanics of the fleet, how the humans are attempting to retain their connection to their history by creating a system of government and law, and how that system is unable to cope with the demands of life on the run. As we approach the finale we're dealing more with more "sci fi" elements, such as time looping and the possible intervention of a god-like force. Last year I was bummed out by the increased focus on prophecy (a bit of a bug-bear of mine, as it can lead to some lazy plotting in all kinds of fiction), but this season has been promising, especially as potential messiah Baltar is still pretty much the same horndog as ever, except now he has new ways to justify his sleazy behaviour.
Prophecy, when used to do little more than foreshadow future events, is a crutch for lazy writers. This half-season has hinted that there is more to the religious plot than we thought. Prophecy is still a key factor, but that wonderful final shot hints that the rails that our protagonists are running on might not be heading in the direction they expected. That's what I've been waiting for since the mini-series "prequel", so many of the reservations I've had over these ten episodes faded. I will still hold onto my coveted memory of the less glamorous aspects of the show, the politicking, the debates, the worrying about water or food or power. I loved that stuff almost as much as the explosions.
Funnily enough, it was that stuff that made Lost a trial to watch sometimes. I didn't mind it all in the first season, but Robinson Crusoe-esque food gathering and water collection drama has been done before, and for the first season there was a lot of that. It was perhaps a lighter and more fun show as a result, but I only really started loving it once Desmond appeared with tales of the Dharma Initiative. BSG, on the other hand, has followed a similar arc, but my interest has dwindled the further we've moved from the nuts-and-bolts tales. I guess it's because it's more interesting to me to see how the human race would struggle to survive following mass extinction and exile on spluttering spaceships than it is to see people chasing boars through a jungle.
That increasingly dense mythology isn't the only similarity BSG shares with Lost. We also have the exploration of the concept of fate via the sci fi trope of distorted time (if the "This has happened before, and will happen again," line is as important as it seems), reluctant leadership (Jack and Apollo), suspicion, and, most importantly, a refusal to reduce conflict to a Manichean battle, preferring instead to show good and bad and all the infinite gradations between through a distorted lens. By now we have multiple factions within both human and Cylon camps, and now both races are having to join forces, just as the Losties and the Others are moving closer together. Of course, they're not the only shows to explore what it's like to live on the hazy line between right and wrong. The Sopranos, The Wire, The Shield, Mad Men, and Dexter all do it too to varying degrees of success, but it's good to see genre TV do it while remaining genuine sci fi and not some watered down amalgam of genres or another bratty child of the late-70s space opera movies that fathered the original version of this show. Plus, we get all of that moral ambiguity and ethical curiosity while retaining the large explosions. When has Dexter ever offered a spectacle as exciting as this? When has Mad Men? And no, I'm not talking about the insanity taking hold of Don Draper's brain.
The long and short of it is, the fourth season of BSG featured many of the annoying things that have made the trip so far such a slog, but the new focus that has come with the definite end-date has re-ignited my interest in it. When I'm feeling uncharitable, I'll bitch about it even now. Most of the sub-plots still hold no interest for me. Anders, Gaeta, at least one version of Boomer, Starbuck, Helo and Dualla could be written out (Dualla pretty much has) and I wouldn't even notice, unless it meant more screentime for the sorely under-used Doc Cottle or the magnificently oily Zarek, in which case I would rejoice. It can often look so dark as to be almost impossible to comprehend, though I will grant that sometimes that choice pays off. The peculiar pixellated imagery on the Cylon Rebel Baseship was a lovely touch. (This picture also features Tricia Helfer being awesome, as usual.)
The biggest variable on the show is Michael Hogan. Will he be amazing this week? Or will he make my head hurt with the growly line-readings and scenery-chomping? I think his acting ability is determined by some astrological event or something. In this season he let his inner crazy out a bit too often; the scenes featuring him and the Six he keeps hallucinating at were simultaneously creepy, incomprehensible, and moving. Still, he gets a Shades of Caruso Free Pass for his superb work during Tigh's Al-Zawahiri period. I'll just choose to forget subtlety-free moments like the one below in honour of those fine performances in the past.
All of that remains, and yet my interest in the show has been totally reawakened. I'm even considering rewatching it from the start in prep for the finale. That's a lot of watching to pack in on top of The Shield and Wonderfalls and maybe Buffy and all of the other shows we were going to watch during Summer hiatus that we didn't get around to. Not that I consider it a hardship. Roll on the final ten episodes, the spin-off show, and the follow-up movie, which is written by Jane Espenson and therefore will be awesome. You have my word on that.
Before I venture any further, let me get a few things straight. I don't think Doctor Who deserves to be dismissed as just a kid's show. I also don't think it's healthy that this is regularly the best British TV has to offer, though that's down to some sloppy habits among TV commissioning editors and writing teams in general. I don't think the show peaked with Genesis of the Daleks, and I don't think Torchwood should ever have been commissioned. I also don't think Russell T. Davies is the worst thing that ever happened to the show, don't think he's a hack, and don't hate him for bringing a sliver of LGBT content and naughtiness to mainstream teatime TV.
On the other hand, I do think Martha is the best companion since Leela, or maybe Turlough. I also think the season three finale was the best one yet, featuring some of the strongest performances and best written drama of the entire revamped show. I also think the show is much better now Billie Piper is not around, though I never went so far as to actually dislike her.
If you're one of one of those Whovians who would fit the description of "mosquito" that RTD makes here, you'll probably be disgusted by at least one of the statements above, so consider that a warning. Considering the poorly behaved fanboys on some of the talkbacks I've frequented over the last year or so, I'm keen to stay off their radar for fear of somehow being infected by their humourless and didactic worldview, especially those who whined about the non-regeneration in this episode, which ended up being a clever idea opening up some surprising story opportunities.
Right, now that's out of the way, time to wonk on about the fourth season, which was a disappointment after the highs of season three. RTD has stated he wanted to leave the show when it was on a high, but for this fanboy, he was a season too late (unless next year's specials are life-alteringly good). That's not to say I thought this season was bad, but last year we had Blink, the amazing Paul Cornell Family of Blood two-parter, and the finale (I won't apologise for loving all of it, and thinking The Master's decision not to regenerate just to spite The Doctor was the highpoint of the show so far). This year we had a less wonderful two-parter from new showrunner Moffat, and maybe RTD's Midnight, which was most notable for showing how a large budget can be unnecessary when you have a great idea to build from. Other than that, there was little to get excited about.
That said, it's still good TV, and the Beeb should be proud. Certainly the show has benefited greatly from some increased confidence from the show's directors, who, for the most part, have toned down the frenetic and garish excesses of the first couple of seasons (Euros Lyn, I'm pointing a wizened finger at you). While Who stars two actors who are not afraid to do what can only be described as ACT-ING! when given the chance, they've wisely dialled it back as much as possible this year. Most of the best moments this year were reflective, a sign that the Who team know they can do more with less.
Also great this year was Catherine Tate as Donna, who seems to have confounded expectation and won over most of the sceptics, me included. Her previous appearance in the 2006 Christmas special had not outraged me as much as I thought it would; by the end of the episode I had started to like her. Much the same thing happened this year. The thought of 13 episodes of her shtick was unappealing, and early trailers hinted that she was going to honk away ad nauseum, but it was not long before I had begun to enjoy the chemistry between her and Tennant (who has, yet again, been a marvel this year). Her lack of tolerance for The Doctor's usual dismissive line of bullshit was a breath of fresh air for the show. And by that, I don't mean, "Martha was shit because she loved The Doctor soooo much," because I don't hold to that opinion and Martha was so awesome she can even break the fourth wall. When has any other companion done that? Eh?
The casting of Tate confirmed for me the suspicion I've had for a while now, that the Who team are that rare thing in UK TV; a bunch of talented people who know what they are doing and actually give a shit about it. Whereas a lot of UK shows seem to have been made by people who consider it beneath them (this is not a provable fact, merely a hunch), Who showrunners seems to really care about the show, and care about making RTD proud. It's the jewel in BBC Drama's crown, and everyone working on it is determined to keep it that way. Though I was one of the doubters who thought that the appointment of Tate as companion was a populist move that would ruin the show, it was clear just a couple of episodes in that she was hired on the basis of the stories that could be told with her onboard, not to mention her ability (shared by Tennant) to swap between comedic and dramatic as if at the flick of a switch. Besides, if the showrunners were only interested in doing what they thought would be popular, they could just as easily have hired Amanda Burton, or Fearne Cotton, or (God help us) Lily Allen. They played it smart, and from now on I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. This does not extend to the Torchwood team, nor the actual Torchwood members, who refused to follow the example of Tosh and Owen and just die already.
And yet it was an underwhelming year despite that effort. I'm not going to attribute this to anything other than a dissipation of the energy that the team must have felt last year knowing that they had an international hit on their hands. RTD has done what I consider to be an excellent job on the show, but his control over the show, which often involves Whedon-like rewriting of episodes and total control over almost everything, has slipped a little, perhaps becoming a bit self-indulgent. The season finale packed in a lot of back-slapping references to episodes past, as well as wrapping up everything he had set in place, not to mention adding about fifteen dei ex machinis of varying credibility.
Fair enough, but the show was still going to carry on without him. Though Steven Moffat is hoping start afresh, it nevertheless felt like RTD had constructed the season more as a goodbye to himself than as his goodbye to the show. This also meant that, with lots of ground to cover, some plots were rattled through with undue haste. The much-bally-hooed return of Rozzzzze didn't work at all, with her presence insufficiently explained and her perfect arc ending (which was, shall we say, "borrowed" from Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy) revisited with a semi-happy ending that needed an hour of fantastical preparation, retconning, and merry contrivance to actually work. I don't really mind it that much, but I liked the way the Rose/Doctor relationship was left at the end of season two, so this felt a little like pandering, even though it did give Tennant a chance to emote brilliantly. Plus, returning to the same locale and acting things out differently was a nice touch.
Mind you, that downer season two ending couldn't really stand anymore, what with the fates of the other companions being even more tragic. If Rose remained Doctor-less and alone, being a companion would be the most awful thing that could happen to a person. One of the other highlights of the season (if you could call it that) was the horrible fate of Donna, every memory of her exploits removed prior to being returned to her miserable existence as a gobby temp with a narrow worldview and the worst mother ever. Though her fate had been signposted throughout the season (the daft alternate history episode hinted at it, as did the "We're not a couple" running joke that foresigned the DoctorDonna twinning and separation), it was still a wrench to see it happen. And if you think that's the worst thing that could happen, Martha is doomed to an even worse fate; working with Torchwood full-time, now with hapless Mickey around as well. I know, Martha, I feel like crying too!
As for the rest of the season, not much of it stood out, sadly. Though Masticator maintains that the Adipose were a grave error of judgement, I thought the first episode was a strong and entertaining start, lengthy and not very interesting scenes of window-washing peril notwithstanding. After that, though, the show got into a rather dreary groove. The Pompeii episode was notable for some impressive production values, plus Peter Capaldi and Phil Davis giving it some proper thespianic effort, but then we were stuck with the silly Ood and their detachable brains, the hopelessly overlong Sontaran two-parter that squandered Martha's return (a cardinal sin!), and then something about Agatha Christie being terrorised by a giant alien wasp, which is the sort of idea that must have been scratched onto the writer's bedside notepad in the middle of the night.
There was also the one where The Doctor got cloned, creating a young female version of himself who liked fighting. At the time I thought the not-that-great idea of a "daughter" flying around was done as well as it could be done, and that the twist at the end was nifty, but you know you're in trouble when the episode was ultimately so forgettable that I just had to look up which episode came after the Sontaran one.
None of them were bad, per se, but they were a bit dull, though enlivened by the committed performances of the leads. As I'm sure was the same with many fans, we had high hopes for the Steven Moffat two-parter, but the first part, though filled with clever detail, was sadly familiar. Screened after the announcement that Moffat was to become the showrunner in 2010, it was unfortunate that the first episode was littered with ideas cribbed from his previous episodes. The shuffling antagonist repeating a phrase (The Empty Child), the alien menace carefully adopted from a creepy and ubiquitous real-world thing for maximum scare-the-kids impact (shadows are piranhas, statues are Quantum Assassins), glitchy technological deus ex machina introduced early on in a way that makes it seem like a threat (nanobots in The Doctor Dances, the hard drive containing the survivors in The Forest of the Dead), the introduction of a significant supporting character who becomes attracted or drawn to the Doctor while never becoming a full companion (Captain Jack in The Empty Child, Madame de Pompadour in The Girl In The Fireplace, Sally Sparrow in Blink), etc. etc.
Though the first part showed more flair than any of the previous season four episodes, and though the Vashta Nerada were a great enemy, it still felt like a rehash of better episodes. Luckily, the conclusion was as strong as any Who episode yet, with Donna's incarceration in a virtual world leading to another unhappy ending for her, and The Doctor racing to store the memory of his future wife/companion/something inside the world computer in a bravura sequence that had me bawling. Thematically it was more confident than most, dealing as it did with memory and fate, though perhaps it could have tied theme and plot together a bit tighter, but who am I to carp (seriously, blogger vs. Moffat = FAIL on my part). Forest of the Dead was easily one of the highlights of this TV year, as will be reflected in our forthcoming Shades of Caruso Awards (basically, the Emmys, but good).
The following episode, Midnight, featured a monumentally creepy performance from Leslie Sharp, as well as a bleak message that felt like The Mist but with more parroted dialogue. It was a terrific, economical conceit, and well-played, but the thing I liked most about it is that it not only did it show The Doctor's estrangement from humanity (nicely foreshadowing the final moment of the season), it also upended his obnoxious belief in the wonderfulness of we hairless apes. In another internet venue, Masticator once explained his problem with RTD, which I will quote here, if he doesn't mind:
RTD-penned episodes, while perfectly well written, almost always include some kind of moralising bollocks about duty or family or how BRILLIANT humans are or something. It's not that it's a bad choice necessarily, but it smacks of trying too hard to make the show Important and Memorable and For The Ages and suchlike, whereas what it often makes it is No Fun.
I'd like to think my co-blogger will have been happy seeing RTD taking a torch to that concept. Oh, and in case you're wondering, he then said:
And fucking Voyage Of The Damned was very nearly inexcusable, especially as it had seemingly been written as a vehicle for Kylie. Kylie!
Amen, brother.
That was the start of a four-episode run by RTD, the last three comprising that homage to himself mentioned earlier. The follow-up to Midnight, featuring a alternate history revolving around Donna, was almost another highpoint, though undone by the time-altering space beetle effect. As much of Who looks very professional this practical effect stood out as glaringly as the papier-mâché monsters of olden days, and though I'd like to think I can look beyond surface flaws and appreciate the show for its ideas, I have to draw the line at a big plastic beetle, especially when the episode ended up being as drab (and illogical) as it was. Or maybe I just wasn't that excited to see Rose back. For her legions of adoring fans, I'm sure she made up for the deadly alien/novelty rucksack Donna was wearing.
The return of Rose and her surplus teefs was part of RTD's effort to bring back pretty much every supporting character who had spent a lot of time with The Doctor, and it was fun to see them all (he even managed to make Ianto funny, which bodes well, considering he will be scripting some Torchwood in the future), but no one really got to do much. I gather viewers outside the UK were not bothered about the return of Davros, but it's a big deal for Whovians. The blind, paraplegic, alien Hitler was good value for money, though, with a nutzoid plan (destroy everything ever), rampant monologing delivered at a decibel level dangerous to human ears, and the temerity to accuse The Doctor (or rather his peeved human clone) of genocide. Dude, you were just going to obliterate reality itself! I think that, on a scale of naughtiness, Davros and his clone-cronies are a mite worse. Still, even though he is now supposedly dead, he was around long enough to treat us to this fantastic moment.
Unfortunately, he has been betrayed by Dalek (James) Caan, a Dalek even more berzonkers than that spats-wearing freak Dalek (Triple) Sec. Though I was sick to death of the sight of Daleks by the time Dalek Caan delivered his treacherous smackdown of his former boss, I did appreciate that RTD was willing to portray his favourite villains as occasionally self-loathing individuals instead of just hive-mind space Nazis. That said, they're gone, right? Does this final fate of them really count as a really really proper real final fate for realsies? Steven Moffat says so, so fingers crossed. Because seriously, when you've been given a final judgement on your superevil philosophy by a Dalek wearing his balls on his head, you have been definitively served.
Concerns about the treatment of the Daleks and the companions all fade when considering the best scene in the episode, and possibly the season full-stop/period. After saving Donna's life by wiping her mind clean and returning her to her miserable suburban drudgery, The Doctor explained the situation to her odious mother Sylvia and adorable grandfather Wilfrid (Jacqueline King and Bernard Cribbins), and the mess of emotions coming at the end of an already grueling finale finally got to me. The flash of anger that The Doctor aimed at Sylvia and her oblivious and arrogant hostility was so perfectly judged I wanted to write a letter to David Tennant with love hearts all over it.
This was followed by a scene I watched through a veil of tears, as The Doctor and Wilfrid eulogised the Donna that could never be again, and Wilfrid promised to keep an eye out for the Tardis. It was just a teensy bit moving. ::choke::
So what next? Christmas specials, a new showrunner, possibly a new Doctor (please God not The Nesbitt). All I know is that right now I'll just have to cherish the tenure of Tennant in the lead role. It's considered so gauche to seriously praise someone who is beloved by the masses without making some kind of mealy-mouthed justification, but screw that. He is a marvel. The final shot, with The Doctor alone and pondering the seemingly endless fallout from The Time War, was perfect.
You'd better believe I'm going to get tickets to see his Hamlet.
I come not to bury Hellboy II: The Golden Army, but to praise it, and it comes as an enormous surprise. Don't get me wrong, I like Guillermo Del Toro's movies a lot, and think he is a stand-up tip-top A-1 kinda chap, with the nerdery and the vision and the amusing personality. I would like to have a beer with him and shoot the shit about pressing nerd issues. However, and this is a piddling thing to be bringing up but it has to be said, as much as I've liked his movies in the past, I've never loved one. Not even my personal favourite Del Toro movie Blade II, even though it featured Dr. Wesley T. Snipes hanging out with Donnie Muthafukken Yen and fighting a superpowered and evil version of that chap from Bros.
Of course, I appreciate his imagination and attention to detail, and love his committal to fantastical cinema, but especially with his English language films, I've always been unable to fully embrace them. I've agonised over it, as everyone fell over themselves to praise Pan's Labyrinth, which I thought was very good but not great (on the other hand, Canyon loved it to pieces). My suspicion is that his pacing, which can be bordering on lethargic, is the key to my resistance. Slow pacing is fine, but it still has to have a proper ebb and flow, and his movies often stop when they should start, and bolt forward when the audience is ready for a rest. It's not a total dealbreaker, but it does bug me.
With the world in his pocket following Pan's success, it was a pleasant surprise to see he was willing to use that cache to resurrect his Hellboy sequel project, that had languished for so long that I figured it was pointless to wait for it. Mind you, it would have been an even more pleasant surprise had Del Toro used that clout to get his At The Mountains Of Madness project up and running. Though there are some interesting film adaptations of Lovecraft's work (especially the wondrous From Beyond), right now the best visualisation of squirming Lovecraftian gods is in Hellboy itself, hinting that Del Toro has a better grasp on what constitutes a squamous, undying monstrosity from beyond space and time than the makers of The Dunwich Horror, a filmic nightmare I endured recently that reduced the sickening and vast terror of the multitude of unholy Old Gods to a bunch of rubber snakes filmed in negative and waved at the actors. I guess Del Toro is more attached to working on Mike Mignola's creations than those of a despicable sexist, racist Luddite fucking prick asshole of a person (who wrote a bunch of entertaining and influential novels, but still).
(Quick note: it seems The Dunwich Horror, featuring a hatstand performance from Dean Stockwell aiming the full force of his Aleister-Crowley-esque lechery at Sandra Dee, was co-written by Curtis Hanson. I am aware that this might only be interesting to me, especially as who on earth has seen The Dunwich Horror? And who else would own up to it? Wicked Les Baxter soundtrack, though.)
It's been said many a time that Hellboy represents Del Toro's most personal movies, which I always thought to be a bit rich seeing as how Mike Mignola created the character, but his passion for the character (of which the effort to bring the sequel to the screen is proof enough) certainly seems genuine. That still meant that I was not excited about The Golden Army. The first movie was busy but lifeless, filled with pleasing moments that amounted to not that much. It was a movie I wanted to love but just couldn't, though I did like the casting of Ron Perlman as the titular character, and some of the imagery was stunning. At the time, prior to my realisation that Del Toro's movies didn't affect me as much as they seemed to affect others, I figured it was just that I wasn't a fan of the comic, and had trouble warming to the character, whom I just could not picture as a living thing in my head. Is he humourless? Is he tough? Compassionate? Though Mignola's art is rightly lauded, the stories lay dead on the page in front of me. (I know, heresy, right?)
Perlman's incarnation of Hellboy as a cocky and insecure teenager in a large demon body was good enough for me to finally understand where Mignola was coming from, meaning I now read the comics with Perlman's voice in my head in much the same way as I read Batman comics with Kevin Conroy's voice in mind. Nevertheless, the appeal of the character eludes me. He's big and strong, sappy and impulsive, and will probably destroy the world one day. That's all fine, but though numerous other characters with those traits entertain me, Hellboy still strikes me as the germ of a good idea that has not yet been fully fleshed out.
To make things worse, the first movie was saddled with the distracting casting of David Hyde-Pierce as the voice of Abe Sapien ("Why does that fishman sound like Niles Crane?"), Rupert Evans as the deeply unlikeable Myers, and Selma Blair as Liz Sherman (her monotone grates on my ears). Even Jeffrey Tambor's inclusion as the officious Manning and a lovably sincere performance by John Hurt wasn't enough to make the difference. Just like the comics, the movie refused to come alive. I've seen it a number of times, and I never have the good time I am hoping for.
It was a slew of good reviews, and an early preview screening cleverly scheduled by Universal to generate word of mouth, that prompted me to try the sequel out, though I will say that even if I'm not as crazy about Del Toro's movies, I don't think there will ever be a time when I decide against seeing them at some point. As usual, though, I had reservations. Uninspiring jokes fall flat throughout, dialogue sounds like first-draft fill-ins instead of polished lines, the pace is stop-start (and, disastrously, grinds to an almost total halt one scene away from the big reveal of the Golden Army), too many events are packed in, and the transparent first act set-up of the final showdown doesn't mitigate the fact that the heroes "triumph" because of a deus ex machina-like get-out clause that is desperately overused in fantasy and sci-fi cinema. The best that can be said of that is that, as Hellboy II is about the death of myth by modernity, hewing so closely to a tried-and-true folk tale plot is understandable, but that didn't stop a groan from escaping my lips as it was introduced.
What's worse, there are some horribly difficult choices made by the characters in the final act, and the last scene, with the BPRD coming to a decision about their future, may be intended as a response to the aftermath of their choices, but it's not enough to balance out the consequences of their actions. Considering how overstuffed and stretched-out the movie is, it's ironic that the final scene, which really needed time to breathe, is suddenly over almost as quickly as it started, crashing into one of the ugliest end-credit crawls I've seen in a long time. It was like being woken up with a bucket of hot water in the face. Plus, the amount of editing wipes used was only exceeded by the amount of times Luke Goss, as Prince Nuada, swishes his big extendy-spear around like a big show-off. Yes yes, he's very good with his big stick thingy, but we don't need to see him flashing it about in ever scene. He can't even pull it out of his belt without adding some flourish or other. Stupid cocky elf-prince thing.
And yet, and yet... This might be the first Del Toro movie I love. I'm not sure yet. I need to see it again, partly to test out the hypothesis, and partly to see what the movie is like without one of the worst audiences ever assembled. If the crowd I saw The Dark Knight with was one of the best ever, this was the polar opposite, with noisy assholes, eardrum-splitting amounts of snack bag rustling, the presence of a woman wearing all the bangles in the free world walking in and out (thus generating a sound like the concept of jewellery having a fight with itself), and, best of all, the thoughtless slimecreep sitting in front of me whose phone rang four separate times about an hour into the movie and who offered to knock my face off when I poked him and told him to just, please, pretty please, just shut the fuck up goddamnit!!! Luckily he left before the end of the film, so I didn't have to have a bigass ruck. I may not be the streetfighting kung fu panda/human hybrid I imagine myself to be at times, but I can kick balls like a motherfucker.
Why did I love it even though it frustrated me continually? It's pretty simple. The slapstick tone of the movie, though not actually backed up by many functioning jokes, is endearing, and with Doug Jones doing an excellent job voicing Abe, Selma Blair offscreen for the majority of the movie, and Myers exiled to Antarctica (hah!), the good-natured chemistry between the non-human freaks wins out. Even better, though I am no fan of Family Guy, Seth McFarlane's work as ectoplasmic tight-ass Johann Krauss charmed my socks off. His inclusion provides many of the film's highpoints. Sadly Jeffrey Tambor doesn't get much to do, and what little he does is not that amusing, but it's enough just to have him around. Whenever the movie relaxes its grip on you, or a joke falls flat, the enthusiasm of the cast and the jovial air will win you back. At least, until things get more serious.
It's been noted that the tone shifts a lot, and that can't be denied, but the darkening of the film, at the end of a huge setpiece next to the Brooklyn Bridge, doesn't overwhelm the rest of the movie, serving instead to depress Hellboy enough to make him reckless enough to battle Prince Nuada without realising he is outmatched, setting in motion the final act. That crisis of conscience also sets up a terrific scene between Hellboy and Abe, drunkenly singing along to Can't Smile Without You. Sure, having tough hero characters crooning a Manilow song is nothing new (see also: Angel and his love of Mandy), but it still works beautifully. With this movie, you're never far away from a light moment that will leave a smile on your face, even if it never makes you laugh all that much. And yes, I'm aware that is the most faint-praise comment either, but I mean it sincerely. If you see the movie, you might see where I'm coming from.
The thing that definitively tipped me over into affection for the film, however, was what the astonishing design, from the costumes and sets to the menagerie of incredible creatures. Yes, this is what Del Toro does best, but what Hellboy II represents is Del Toro doing what he does best about 500 times more than he usually does. I cannot believe how much there is going on in the movie, with almost every scene filled with jaw-dropping detail, all of it rendered with such love and care that it is impossible not to be drawn in. Even better, the use of physical effects and practical make-up means the world is much more appealing than the thin 2D CGI worlds we usually see. Now, I love CGI and am excited to see it used properly, but the physical effects on display here (enhanced by some elegant CGI, of course) are utterly magnificent. You can tell those scenes have been crafted with pure love from everyone involved. I especially liked the faux-stop motion sequence in the opening fairy tale, which must have been CGI but looked hand-made. It's an aesthetically perfect sequence.
The rightly lauded Troll Market sequence is where I stopped being annoyed and began to fall in love with the movie. The cascade of fantastical imagery is overwhelming. When I buy the DVD (yes, it's a certainty), I'm hoping there will be a five hour documentary about the making of that scene. There are so many astonishing creature designs, flashing past the camera faster than the eye can comprehend, that I need to spend time picking out every detail. There is so much going on, much of it on set (as far as I can tell), that I cannot begin to figure out how the crew could have made it work, and that's before we get onto the subject of the $85m budget. How did Del Toro manage this wealth of imagery on that (relatively low) budget? Every other film I've seen this year, many of which are far more expensive, look pitiful next to this. Only The Fall (directed by... TARSEM!!!) stands a chance of being more ravishing, but I will have to wait until 3rd October to catch that (yes, it finally has a UK release date). I'm hoping that, next year, Hellboy II sweeps the technical Oscars. I certainly think it has Visual Effects, Make-Up, and Production Design sewn up.
Speaking of CGI, the best scene in the film comes right after the Troll Market sequence, with Hellboy battling a huge and beautifully realised forest god under the Brooklyn Bridge. I had spent the majority of the Troll Market scene trying to figure out how it would be possible for me to adequately express how breathtakingly beautiful and surprising the film had suddenly become, knowing that words could never hope to sum it up. It was just as Hellboy and his team leave the market that a shorthand way to describe it came to me; it's like a live-action Miyazaki movie. Seems I'm not the first person to make that leap; A. O. Scott said much the same thing here. The bizarre fairytale logic of Del Toro and Mignola's world was reminiscent of the unique but seemingly familiar rules that govern the worlds of Spirited Away and Princess Mononoke, though sadly Hellboy II's rather formulaic plot seems all the more disappointing considering the peculiar turns Miyazaki's movies take (at least to this Western mind).
That was okay, though. The forest god design evoked the forest spirit Daidarabocchi from Mononoke (just as the Tooth Fairies reminded me of a hostile version of Miyazaki's design for the Kodami tree spirits), and the battle between this enormous ethereal yet deadly green monster and Hellboy is already entertaining before the misguided and murderous Prince Nuada pricks our hero's conscience, playing off his fear of rejection by humanity, and his seemingly unstoppable loneliness. For the first time in the movie, Hellboy's actions have real weight. It's at that point that the movie becomes about his growing understanding of his untenable situation, torn between two worlds that don't welcome him. It's only fitting that he spends the next few scenes trying to get drunk, not realising that he is soon to find out that not fitting in is the least of his problems, if the beautifully realised Angel of Death is to be believed.
Hellboy II's wondrousness is so great that I'm strongly considering reappraising the comic and maybe even getting the second animated Hellboy DVD (even though the first was merely okay). It has made me hesitantly excited about The Hobbit, which I thought would be a flawed prequel to one of my favourite movie trilogies ever. As I said earlier, Del Toro's scripts are never as good as his visual flights of fancy, and so I'm hoping the two movies will be scripted by the killer team of Jackson, Walsh and Boyens, which would increase its chances of being super-awesome. In the meantime, if you're in the US, you should have seen this by now. If you're outside the US, the movie is being released internationally at a snail's pace. As soon as it lands on your shores, go see it immediately. Even if the narrative leaves you cold, and that exasperating pace jolts you back and forth like a bus with a faulty engine, those stunning visuals will make your eyes vibrate with joy. Hopefully the international box office is sufficient to get a third movie greenlit. I never thought I would want another Hellboy movie, but this flawed yet thrilling installment has changed my mind on that. When it is released properly, I look forward to watching it again, hopefully this time without the threat of violence from phone-wielding assholes.
We've been mean to Mark Wahlberg this year. His memorable performance in The Happening has inspired us to make mock of his doofy reactions to imminent lethal plant-flatus. Also, in a previous post, Canyon's dissection of James Mangold's passable Walk The Line has been seen by some as a full-on assault on both Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix, which is certainly not the case. In order to make up for the criticism (either actual or perceived), may I say that Wahlberg and Phoenix were both magnificent in James Gray's endearingly old-fashioned We Own The Night. (N.B. Canyon has asked me to stress her objection to the use of the phrase PWN in the title. Apologies to anyone offended by its presence.)
It's not a perfect film, with many plot elements feeling second-hand, and certain third act developments feeling rather contrived, but Gray has nevertheless created a Lumetian family/crime drama about loyalty and sacrifice with a careful pace, lovely compositions, subtle period elements (it's set in the late 80s but doesn't bombard the viewers with tacky references a la The Wedding Singer), and uniformly impressive performances. It might not be Prince of the City or Q&A, but it held my interest throughout.
While Wahlberg's performance was good enough to make me forgive him for his peculiar choices in The Happening*, and Eva Mendes makes great work of a meatier girlfriend role than is usual in these movies, Phoenix gives possibly a career best performance as the black sheep of a cop family headed by a stern Robert Duvall (excellent as ever). For the first half of the movie his bluster and rejection of his law-enforcing family seem like a poorly constructed shell in order to impress the Russian immigrants he does business with, a necessary mask enabling him to maintain control over his nightclub operation. That confidence, and his plan to expand his business across New York, is shattered by a war that breaks out between the cops and a ruthless drug dealer who has ties to his nightclub that he had been oblivious to. As his family is torn apart by the hostilities, his arrogance disappears, leaving behind someone as lost and pathetic as a teenager in over his head, who then has to figure out what is really important to him and find a way to fight for it. His journey from cocky kid to panicky avenger was beautifully portrayed.
That's not why I'm going on about the movie, though. I liked it a lot even while recognising its flaws (it does follow a well-worn cop movie track, with only the surprising final line differentiating it from a lot of other similar movies), but I loved that James Gray added two excellent set-pieces, both of which felt like they had been created by 70s-era Friedkin or DePalma. The first, a drug bust with Phoenix wearing a wire and heading into a seedy coke lab, is great and tense, though it does feature some cliched developments ("Why are you sweating so much?" "Safe word! Safe word!"). It works because Phoenix sells it, and Gray wisely films it almost exclusively from his point of view, with an achingly slow pace to drag out the tension. It ends with one of the most painful looking stunts I've ever seen.
The second setpiece, with Phoenix trying to gain control of a car during a rain-soaked ambush, is even better. Echoing Friedkin's French Connection chase, the camera rarely leaves Phoenix's car as the convoy of police-cars is knocked off the road by a murkily filmed assailant. The agonising close-ups of him as he realises the horror of what is about to happen are what sell the scene, instead of purotechnics and stunts. While we're watching action, it's grounded in emotion throughout. If you want to see the chase on its own, this kind chap has YouTubed it, but I recommend you take the plunge and watch the whole movie. Out of context, it's not as effective. (I might win an award for stating the obvious with this post.)
Storyboarding obviously still goes on today, with pre-vis allowing filmmakers to plot out scenes in full prior to shooting, but action sequences are often so chaotically edited and re-edited in the months (or weeks) prior to relase that they never quite feel like they have a beginning, middle and end. Though I loved the insane carnage at the end of Transformers, that was despite its unformed, unclear nature, not because of it. I don't have a bug up my ass about the "ADD" editing of many modern action scenes; often they are so well shot or staged that I can still enjoy them and am willing to fill in blanks in the action narrative that should have been included but haven't because the editors are overworked and don't have the time or footage to get things under control.
However, I still love a well-crafted setpiece, and the car chase (if you can even call it that) in We Own The Night is one of the best I've seen in years, and all the better for being short and sweet. You can tell Gray sat down with his fellow filmmakers and worked out every shot in advance, knowing that each one had to appear for the scene to work, that cutting any shot short would ruin the rhythm and dampen the impact of the sequence, and then making sure that it all went off without complication or substitution. It sounds like I'm just praising Gray for doing something really basic, when in fact I'm glad he constructed what amounts to a homage to old-school filmmaking. Once upon a time this was how you thrilled an audience; pure cinema, as Hitchcock might have thought it, a suspense scene built on the manipulation of the audience's hopes and fears through image and sound but not dialogue (Phoenix's cries of terror are there to crank up the tension, not impart information, other than, "This shit is fucked up").
That said, I'm still looking forward to the next CGI-gasm from Michael Bay. What?!?! I can enjoy both kinds of films. Don't box me in, daddio.
* Speaking of forgiveness for The Happening, Zooey Deschanel is also off the hook for her poorly judged performance now that she has teamed up with M. Ward for the She and Him project. I'm not a fan of 60s Mary-Wilson-esque girl singers, but that style, when fused with alt.country, and Deschanel's charming vocals, works pretty well. I think the album is a teeny bit weak, but it's stuck in my head pretty well, and keeps getting played by me when tired and unable to resist, so it's got to be doing something right. Here's the video for their first single, Why Do You Let Me Stay Here?
Holy shit! Zooey smiles and looks engaged! Miracles can happen.
It's been over a week since I saw The Dark Knight, and yet I have not blogged about it, mostly because of the bizarre reactions to the movie as expressed all over the internet. It's the fastest backlash I've ever seen, which garnered an equally fast backlash against the backlash. As of now, with a worldwide box office gross that stands at the approximate figure of $597,387,000 after seventeen days (after being released in only a few countries), and IMDb users voting it the best movie of all time (as of today's date), there are seemingly only two available opinions about it: "it's a masterpiece", and "no it's not".
Warning to the four people who have yet to see The Dark Knight: Spoilers ahoy!
From my obsessive trawl through the heated debate which is popping up everywhere like weeds in a poorly tended garden, the opinion of the blogospherical joint consciousness seems to be bouncing back to an overall negative view of the movie's merits. Over the last couple of days I've seen The Dark Knight lambasted for not featuring enough Joker, for showing too much Joker and not enough Batman, for rushing Harvey Dent's transformation, for being too violent, for not being violent enough, for spending too much time on Dent at the expense of the Joker, for being too long, for not developing its ideas far enough, for not explaining the Joker properly, for smelling of rotten eggs, for being too loud (because Christopher Nolan is going from screen to screen adjusting the volume), for being badly lit (!!!!!), for not generating genital-obliteringly powerful spontaneous orgasms in those who see it like we were all promised, etc. etc. etc.
The question I pose myself, though, is can I do that? If some critics had an overwhelmingly negative reaction to the movie, then that's the experience they had. Obviously there's nothing wrong with that. And yet, my gut response to these criticisms, from paid reviewers and unpaid bloggers, is "What the fuck is wrong with these people? It's a work of unbelievable integrity, vision, and genius!!!" I'm not leaving insulting and poorly written comments on people's blogs, but still, I've been pissed. It's only once I've stopped gripping my Batman action figures with all the force of my frustration that I realise I've gone fucking crazy. What is going on here? Why have I taken leave of my senses in the same way that the Batman fanbase has? And why would I do that when Batman isn't even my favourite superhero? Or even in my top ten? It's deeply worrying, and a few days ruminating on it leads me to believe we (the fanboys) are all being silly, losing our perspective, but that we do have reason to be irked by some of the negative remarks, i.e. those that have been made from either a position of ignorance or snobbery. The problem with that is, how can I tell genuine, justifiable dislike from expressions of that critic's bias against movies of this type?
First, I'll address my craziness. One of my fears (an unprovable one) is that the negativity is just a reaction to the crazy praise it was getting prior to release. If this is one explanation, I understand, considering Peter "Shill" Travers was first out of the gate with the line "the haunting and visionary Dark Knight soars on the wings of untamed imagination", which is beyond parody. The IMDb vote craziness certainly justifies a slapped forehead of horror, even if you really loved the movie. Not that it matters much in the scheme of things, but it can make a viewer predisposed to disliking the film just because the fanboys are crazy (I gather this is one of the reasons people reject Joss Whedon; his fans are often seen as too enthusiastic). As I say, there's no way I can prove this, but it happens.
Another part of my frustration is definitely rooted in my nerdiness, and the reflexive defensiveness I have towards myself and those of my ilk (I make it sound like we're a put-upon ethnic group, for crying out loud), hoping for some validation from the critical establishment that the superhero genre (or the sci fi genre, or the horror genre, etc.) that I love so much is not just treated as the low-quality flotsam and jetsam of modern culture, that they are understood to be tools and canvasses for telling stories and exploring modern life, and not just whizz-bang-zoom spectacles that overload the eye but avoid the heart and brain. I realise that that defensiveness is my problem, not anyone else's. However, how can I take the thoughts of a critic seriously is his or her dislike of a genre is not backed up by anything other than a sense that it is not worthy of serious appraisal?
I get that critics might have biases against filmmakers; hell, I get angered to the point of localised space/time warpage at Lars Von Trier's experiments in audience baiting. But an entire genre? Canyon and I once had a long conversation about romantic comedies, and she made me see how crazy it is to dismiss every movie in a genre just because it doesn't appeal to me. She was right. We both think the genre has been ill-served over the last few years, but that's not the genre's fault. The movies have just often been uninspiring. That's not a criticism that can be levelled at the superhero genre (which bleeds into the action and sci fi genres, or the crime genre as in The Dark Knight). This year has already seen the vastly entertaining Iron Man and the bold failure Hancock (which tried to approach the genre from a different angle, though it didn't really succeed the way I had hoped), though the unambitious but amusing Incredible Hulk didn't help my argument. Luckily, The Dark Knight reaches higher than all of them. Which is where the difference of opinion seems to fall most often.
Sure, a lot of people are down on the movie for the filming of the action. To be honest, I only had a problem in the hostage sequence toward the end of the movie, though that could have been because I was trying to get my head around the moral quandary at the heart of the scene and I was freaking out a little (because, emotionally, I'm like a small child). Others think some actors didn't get much to do (I'd say Gyllenhaal definitely got the short end of the stick), and that Batman was sidelined (I'm not sure about that, but if that's your take on it, then... well... that's your take on it, I guess). Some hated the palette (totally! It really needed some garish reds and oranges and maybe some lemon yellows!). I'm sure someone out there hated it because the Scarecrow didn't get enough to do, or Killer Croc wasn't introduced, or because Batman contradicted something he said in a Denny O'Neil issue from the 70s. I would be crazy to have a problem with any of that opinion (except the palette criticism).
That’s not the kind of thing I want to rail against, though. I don’t agree with much of that, but it’s someone else’s opinion. However, what really does gall me is that UK critics seem to hate the movie mostly for trying to expand its ambition beyond the parameters of the superhero genre that they have decided upon, thinking it incapable of being more than a reductive and nuance-free depiction of a black and white battle between opposing forces. If you think no critic would ever dismiss an entire genre like that, read this wilfully nasty and unfair review by Michael Atkinson.
Somehow the entirety of American culture, young and middle-yeared and old, is embracing the childish universe of superheroes – which is structured around the easily-distracted worldview of kids, not around the reasoned, complex worldview we would hope children would grow into. Does America need that badly a post-post-9/11 big Daddy to vanquish danger so we can slumber in our cradles? The much-lamented infantilization of the mass populace continues, and at what cost?
As you can imagine, I have no truck with that opinion, nor with the rest of his pissy review, especially his comments about there being no story there, which baffle me. He must have been scribbling “HATE HATE HATE” in his notebook during it and forgot to watch it. That said, fair play to him for nailing his colours to the mast. UK critics exhibit similar bias, but don’t go as far in expressing their hatred. Superhero movies represent the most obvious example of dumbing-down in modern culture? Is he serious? The wish-fulfilment aspect of the genre is definitely an important part of it, but it’s not the most important, especially when a movie like The Dark Knight comes along and challenges that specific notion. Is he angry because once the genre is legitimised by this and, hopefully, Watchmen, he will have to go to the trouble of finding a new knee-jerk enemy of culture to hate on (I doubt this would happen, somehow)?
If you have read this blog before, you'll know that I have a bee in my BatBonnet about possible bias against genre movies (and all of the Shades of Caruso team has a problem with the possible bias against genre TV). I had hoped that The Dark Knight, directed by a Brit, would avoid that kind of thoughtless dismissal, but sadly not. I'm not saying the UK reviews are proof of a definite bias, and I'm certainly not saying it amounts to any more than a hill of biased beans in this crazy mixed-up world, but if I'm ever going to take the work of a critic seriously, I don't want to have to work around their preconceptions about an entire genre. Michael Atkinson in particular is someone I cannot bring myself to read again, not because he insulted me and my brethren, but because he is incapable of seeing the merits of a large proportion of popular culture, the best examples of which often become cultural signifiers or benchmarks of artistic quality over time. It’s not I'm having a hissy-fit just because his worldview doesn’t tally with mine 100%; whose does? It’s that he refuses to grapple with these pop-culture phenomena in a serious manner. I may not like comedies that do little more than spoof other movies in the most flat and obvious way possible, but I’ll at least engage with them, a position that once led to an unexpected fit of giggles experienced while watching Scary Movie 4 (bravo, Anna Faris. Bravo).
Anyway, here are some examples of what I see as an obnoxious bias against the superhero genre in the UK press, which was far more negative than the US press. Sukhdev Sandhu, in the Daily Telegraph, liked the movie, and yet still had to get a dig in [from this point on, italics mine]:
anyone who prefers their entertainment with less rather than more of a message may wish to shield their ears during the dialogue about the "cost of power"... Other reservations: shouldn't Nolan, marvellous as his directing here is, be creating original films rather than rebooting and retooling franchise fare? Why can't Hollywood put a tenth as much of the craft and vim into its average releases as it does into what is ultimately only a superhero movie?
The Dark Knight is a clever, loud, technically brilliant film, superbly designed by Nathan Crowley and dramatically lit by Wally Pfister. Whether such a movie can bear the increasing moral weight imposed upon it is another matter.
Peter Bradshaw, whose Iron Man review annoyed me earlier this year, seemed to thoroughly enjoy The Dark Knight, but even so, is under the impression Christopher Nolan is doomed to do nothing but make nothing but summer superhero movies for the rest of his life:
Nolan has made an enormously profitable smash with the Batman franchise, but at the risk of sounding priggish, I can't help thinking it may be a bit of a career blind-alley for the talented director who gave us brilliant and disquieting movies like Following (1998) and Memento (2000), whose inventions still linger in the mind. The Dark Knight's massive box-office success has surely given Nolan the means to write his own cheque, and in addition something sweeter still - clout. I hope that he will use it to cultivate movies that are smaller and more manoeuvrable than that great armoured Batmobile.
Art and entertainment feel locked in a deadly struggle, which accounts for the movie's peculiar schizoid personality. Just when it poses its most heart-stopping question – how do you tell a loved one facing imminent death that "everything's going to be all right"? – it swerves into a maniacal car chase, with our hero now hot-rodding a vehicle known as a Batpod, a kind of monster-truck tyre with a seat. The ear-lacerating volume and the automotive mayhem that attend these action sequences seem to be doing everything possible to shake whatever subtleties that may have entered one ear straight out of the other.
Dude! The shots of the BatPod racing through the streets are not part of a chase, but a tension-cranking cross-cut between the imminent death of two characters and Batman's attempts to save one of them. Surely this is self-evident, unless you're trying to score points against it. Fellow Independent reviewer Jonathan Romney also seems to have not been paying attention:
Played again by Christian Bale, he now speaks, when masked, in a gravelly synthetic bass; he also has an eerie habit of suddenly appearing out of and vanishing into shadows.
He now speaks and hides in shadows? What was he doing in the first movie, then? His comments about the Batmobile in the next paragraph suggest he didn’t see Batman Begins at all:
This is an impressive film in many ways, and Nolan directs with real confidence, yet the overall result feels cumbersome. The tenor is set by Nolan's conception of the Batmobile – a clanking all-terrain engine of war, a chunk of brutalist engineering that manifestly weighs tons. There's something comparably tank-like about the film, and despite several genuinely head-spinning moments, it all comes to feel grimly overwhelming, a vision of total war you fear will never end.
For goodness' sake, no one expected a return to Adam West and bad puns, but this cocktail of ultraviolence, artillery and pessimism makes for a gruelling, even depressing experience. Perhaps Warner Bros could offer the next episode to Werner Herzog, just to cheer things up a bit.
You can take a character out of a comic-strip, but you can't take the comic-strip out of the character. Batman is not a tragic hero at all, but an adolescent action-figure with the kind of problems most of us can only dream of having. This may make him good box-office - especially among males who feel ineffectual, impoverished and lacking in even one personality - but it doesn't give him the depth of Hamlet.
Oh Tookey, you little bitch!
This summer blockbuster explores grand themes: whether it can be right to use torture on terrorists; the conflict between public and private morality; and whether the public prefers to be told lies rather than deal with the truth. The Nolan brothers are clearly determined not to be confused with the Nolan Sisters [ZING!]. I appreciate their ambition, but they've over-reached - and lost their sense of humour... Their film is compromised by the perceived demands of its audience. It's grimly sadistic. It doesn't fight terror, it embraces it. Ledger becomes, in a curiously twisted way, the moral centre of the film, and this makes The Dark Knight an unintentionally sick spectacle, pretending to justify law and justice, but in reality celebrating violence and chaos.
Perhaps when you're a critic sitting in the dark with a bunch of similarly disgruntled men and women whose heads have been filled with talk of movie genius, it's easy to think that, but how does that account for the reaction of the audience I saw it with, comprising a demographic of men and women of differing ages, ethnicities, and cultural expectations, who reacted most strongly to Tiny Lister's disposal of the detonator during the ferry scene. I know I choked up at his decision, and the room erupted into applause and cheering. Sorry, Tookey. The Joker actually lost completely, both in Gotham and the real world. Rail against the Hypothetical Idiot all you like, but he/she is HYPOTHETICAL! Get used to it.
This is essentially an adult action thriller, in which the action itself is often difficult to discern from the darkened screen, a roaring tangle of crashes and explosions and muttered imprecations. Added to this is a jumbled sprinkling of philosophy on the nature of heroism, villainy and the necessary lies it takes to keep the public believing in something grander than selfish survival.
If the meaning behind the mayhem is difficult for an adult to perceive, it would be well nigh impossible for a child. But then, despite the heavy marketing and the almost inconceivably indulgent 12A rating (meaning that any under-12 can see it with an adult) this is not a film that pre-adolescent children should watch.
The Independent ran a piece about the rating that put the BBFC's decision in a clearer light, but I'm still pissed that the BBFC chose to do that (either in a fit of liberalism or due to pressure from Warner Bros.), if only because this adult movie now ends up being treated as Public Enemy No. 1 Child Corrupter (knocking Grand Theft Auto IV off its perch of evil) when it is plain to see it is not a movie for children. It's an adult movie dealing with adult themes (in a manner I found easy to follow, UK film critics, and I'm not alone in that judgment, I'm sure), and that it came during the summer months, when film critics froth at the mouth at the lack of substance to Hollywood movies, has served to confuse panicky critics who were expecting nothing more than BOOM BANG.
Yet what do we get? Relief that it is possible to fuse serious subject matter with the expected number of WOW moments? Of course not. Just anger that something from such a tawdry genre, designed merely to appeal to children, would be crazy enough to try to address a serious subject in a thoughtful manner, when it should only be full of explosions and bright colours and two-dimensional motivations and not be seen by anyone who has the complete Bergman collection at home, because liking genre movies means you are a simpleton and emotional retard who is incapable of seeing more than two sides to a conflict.
Of course, if The Dark Knight was like that it would be hated for not having any ambition, but what are you going to do? American culture is morally corrupt and intellectually dead, anyway. Oh, if only Christopher Nolan could return to the country that recognised his talent and threw money at it all those years ago! Then he could make another version of Northanger Abbey or Jane Eyre! Or a comedy about two mis-matched Islington professionals trying to find love in the middle of a multicultural city that conspicuously fails to show any significant characters of non-white ethnicity! Or Happy-Go-Fucking-Lucky!
Even worse than all of that, some writers are reading the film as a pro-Bush, pro-rendition, pro-phone-tapping argument. It's not pro-phone tapping or rendition. These actions undertaken by Batman are shown to have negative effects. Lao, captured by Batman and dragged back to Gotham to testify against Maroni, is brought into immediate danger and killed by The Joker. Batman raises the game with his bold actions and loses the love of his life, the way out of his psychic torment (though he was deluding himself all along with that), and even his support from the world, having to paint himself as a villain, a martyrdom that must have been borrowed from the little bits of messianic symbolism left over from Wall*E.
Yes, Batman prevails, but the Joker is still around, and to just capture him he has to betray himself and isolate himself from everyone, symbolised by the switching off of the phone-tapping program (which I thought was a nice nod to Brother Eye). If it is a straight reading from this to America and the War on Terror, it's saying, "if you're going to play as dirty as the bad guys, you're going to have to give up everything that you are and everything that you have, and even then you're not going to win. The only way the battle can be won is if we all agree to not lose our heads, to remember on an individual level that we are human". The battle rages between two men high above the city, but it is won with two simple choices by two "mortal" men, one “evil”, one “good”.
That's how it is done. We're not meant to approve of Batman's actions; Morgan Freeman, as the audience surrogate, proves that with his displeasure over "Brother Eye". Critics seem to have missed that point, thinking that because it's a superhero, he is the one we should be automatically applauding, which means the Nolans are expecting us to accept his immoral tactics, but that's not the case. We're meant to be horrified. Considering all of this talk about the movie not being as deep as people thought, it seems it was too deep for those who couldn't appreciate that glaringly obvious fact. The only writer who seemed to understand that the movie was loosely playing with War on Terror tropes without actually transposing them directly from our world to the world of Batman was Moriarty’s customarily excellent take from AICN. Some of the other cultural commentators would do well to read that.
Why should I care what anyone else thinks? Why would I get so monstrously obsessed with the experiences of people I'll never meet, and I regularly both agree and disagree with? And, perhaps most pertinently, why would I doubt the opinions of others, thinking them the product of some innate snobbery or inherited bias, and not just their actual opinion made from a point of view that is merely different from mine and not caused by some form of voluntary cultural myopia? Possibly because of all of the films I've seen recently, this was the one that moved me the most, more than almost any movie I have seen in the last few years. Believe me, I was as annoyed by the relentless hype as anyone, and tried to keep as open a mind as possible, fully expecting to like the movie but not love it, especially after a pre-Dark Knight viewing of Batman Begins revealed that I had increased reservations about it since it was first released.
Those efforts were futile. The Dark Knight amazed me more than I could ever have hoped, leaving me emotionally drained even before the final, heartbreaking scene. The escalation of The Joker's campaign of psychological torture, the city's response to it, and Batman's final sacrifice shattered me. Is that merely because I love superheroes and superhero movies? Maybe, but for the most part I forgot I was watching one. It was more like watching L.A. Confidential than a "popcorn flick".
Was it because I saw it in IMAX? Possibly. We were lucky enough to see it at the Leows IMAX in New York, with a mostly fantastic audience (except for the shrieky woman sitting in front of us who refused to turn off her phone and tried to kill the guy who asked her). Every big moment in the movie was greeted with laughter or applause; the pencil trick, the BatPod, the end of the big chase sequence, The Joker shuffling out of the hospital, and best of all, Tiny Lister and the detonator. I'm not ashamed to say that made me cry. What I suspect would have already been an overwhelming moment was made even more moving by the elation around me.
While critics have carped about the action scenes and what they consider to be faux-profundity, the only flaw in the movie that I could see was that Heath Ledger’s performance was of such an otherworldly nature that it overshadowed Aaron Eckhart’s excellent work as the inspirational Harvey Dent, and the twisted psychotic Two-Face. In the middle of a superb cast taking the subject matter as seriously as possible, he was a stand-out. Even better, those incredible IMAX shots of Gotham, shot with glorious precision by Wally Pfister, took our breath away. On that vast screen it was like looking through a window at a real world (I know it was filmed in Chicago, but surely there were buildings added in post-production). As we left Loews and walked around New York, it felt like we were still in the movie, so much so that I expected Batman to zoom past at any moment.
That feeling lasted all day, keeping the movie running through my head long after we left, riding past a construction site covered in signs featuring the word Gotham, and on to the Lincoln Tunnel, with its art deco spires. I didn't just see a movie; I had an amazing experience, and New York was only half of it. I've proselytised about IMAX before, and been obnoxious about it on message boards, but really, if you want to see The Dark Knight in such a way as to make it hard to care about the flaws or shortcomings of the film, you need to see it on a bigass screen. Maybe it won't work for me on a small screen. Maybe in time my high opinion of it will fade over time just as it has for Batman Begins. Perhaps critics who were agnostic about it would love it in IMAX, seen with an enthusiastic audience, especially one that isn't baying for blood like The Hapless Tookey imagines. Who can say? All I know is that for now at least, it might not be the best film I've ever seen, but I can't imagine 2008 offering up anything superior. It was everything I had hoped for and much much more. Now we have to see if it holds up to further viewings, as soon as IMAX Waterloo has some tickets spare.
I'm the worst procrastinator I know. I just spent an hour pootling around on the internet instead of washing up dishes and sheets. Fair enough, but I also did that because I'm too lazy to reach over and pick up a 360 controller and play Half-Life 2, possibly because I know starting that up will mean I definitely do nothing else for the rest of the day. Nevertheless, that's some outrageous laziness, so I'll make myself feel better by writing about it. I guess this is what it is to be a blogger.
Anyway, while looking for Watchmen Comic-Con footage after being inspired by these incredible posters, I stumbled across this trailer, for Barry Levinson's new movie What Just Happened:
I'm in two minds about Levinson, who hasn't made anything I've wanted to see since Wag The Dog. He's made some stuff I hope to never see again (especially Sleepers), but Diner remains a favourite of mine, and Bugsy and Tin Men are fantastic. He does seem to have a strange selection of projects on the way, though, including yet another TV series based on Leslie Charteris' Saint novels, this time starring Thomas-Jane-clone James Purefoy, and an adaptation of Bill Bryson's A Walk In The Woods, with, get this, Robert Redford playing Bryson. I know!
It's written by producer Art Linson, adapting his own book. I have a copy of that somewhere, stuck under a pile of cheap second-hand sci fi and popular science books. I got it back in the days when I would read pretty much any book about the film industry, and yet that remains untouched. Even I had no stomach for something that appeared to be as self-pitying as that, and we're talking about not bothering to read a teeny-tiny 192 page book. Seriously, Art, if you don't want a job as a successful Hollywood producer, I'll trade you right now. I bet the best day on my crappy job is far less gratifying than even your worst day trying to prise the latest hot actor off the wall of his trailer.
Anyway, the movie looks like little more than the usual Hollywood navelgazing silliness, which is galling as Levinson has already plunderedthis well a couple of times previously. That said, there are interesting things about it, such as the cast, featuring Stanley Tucci, Catherine Keener and Robin Wright Penn who, from the trailer, looks like she gets to play yet another miserable wife, just like in Unbreakable and Beowulf. Levinson has also managed to get the terrifying Michael Wincott to cry like a baby. For that precious image, I thank him. But hey, check it out! Is Bruce Willis channeling genius singer/songwriter Will Oldham?
Excellent. And ZOMG! It's internet search term sensation Moon Bloodgood!
Sadly, from what I can tell from the trailer, she has been cast as Miscellaneous Superhottie Doing Sexxy Things With Chopsticks, doing little more than making Art Linson feel better about himself by flirting with his onscreen representative (aka Robert De Niro). Still, at least appearing in the excellent-but-doomed Journeyman and the not-at-all-excellent-yet-equally-doomed Pathfinder is not stopping her getting work. She's also going to appear in McG's Terminator Salvation in a frighteningly good cast that includes Christian Bale, Bryce Dallas Howard, and Helena Bonham Carter, which is great news.
In less great news, she's also in Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun-Li, which is an early contender for worst film of 2009. In the middle of a frighteningly uninspiring cast, Moon plays second fiddle to Kristin Kreuk as Chun-Li, Michael Clarke Duncan as Balrog (I can see that, but Grand L. Bush will probably remain the definitive Balrog), Neal McDonough as Bison (??!?!?!?), and Chris Klein as Nash. Plus, it's directed by hapless Doom helmer Andrzej Bartkowiak; Paul W.S. Anderson was obviously too busy doing post on Death Race to take the job. It's rare that a nerd-film is announced that I have no interest in, but they managed it. If it's good, I'll eat my words, lightly braised in a vowel sauce, but I don't hold out much hope.
::sigh:: I guess I should do that washing now. In the meantime, knock yourselves out with the first animated installment of Get Your War On (beware, NSFW).
Episode 17: Science special
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We visit the Planet Science website, try a Horrible Science experiment, and
review some of the best new science books for children. The Quick Review The
Sc...
Fox: Nothing inaccurate about our 120% poll graphic
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Fox sees nothing wrong with this on-screen graphic claiming that 120% of
Americans have an opinion on global warming:
[image: Fox graphic]
As Jon Stewart...
AVATAR Review
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[image: AvatarInvite.jpg]
*[Big thanks to Mike Sizemore for the following review.]*
I just got back home from the world premiere of *Avatar* here in Lond...
Libel Reform
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Yesterday morning I helped to launch the libel reform campaign in parliament
with Index on Censorship, English PEN and Sense About Science. To be fair,
the...
Walt Disney's son busted for gun possession
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More spawn behaving badly! Walt Disney's grandson busted for gun possession.
You can't own guns in California if you are a felon, and reports say he is a
f...
The Most In Common With The Afghans
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Anup Kaphle just put up a video profiling the British Gurkha fighting in
Afghanistan. Kaphle embedded with British forces in June and July:
[image: Email t...
NBC promotes Fox's 'Glee' and 'Idol' (video)
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NBC's new promos for its a cappella competition "The Sing Off" are pretty direct about admitting competitors rule this space: "Take the music of 'Glee,'" goe...
Gallery searches for stolen brick
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A London gallery is looking for a £3,000 brick by artist Gavin Turk which
went missing and was replaced with a worthless equivalent. Revolting Brick,
signe...
ComicsAlliance: Dr. Doom’s Christmas Letter
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Today at ComicsAlliance, Dr. Doom sends holiday wishes to his subjects:
With Doomsgiving behind us, It is once again the Holiday season! The tree
has...
I'm Sayin' Son...
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Ta-Nahesi Coates. Fuckin' Althouse. My name's at the top of the blog and I
still can't get Ann's respect. It's alright though--one of her numerous
black co...
Awesome SOLOMON KANE clip: "The Hall of Mirrors"
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The official Solomon Kane website has launched an action-packed new clip
from Michael Bassett's yet-to-find-US-distro fantasy flick. As a major fan
of dark...
Naomi Klein Does Not Know "Hopenhagen"
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Naomi Klein. What a downer! Look at her refusing to be optimistic about
meaningful changes to environmental policy around the world happening in the
Copenh...
Film: Review:The Lovely Bones
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Everything about Peter Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s bestselling
book *The Lovely Bones *is worked out to an excruciating fault. The décor is
prec...
On teaching me to slow down
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There's this really lovely checker at our grocery store, an older man who
has to take his time as he rings up every item in the cart, and by that I
mean ...
Links for 2009-12-09
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Open the Future: A Cold War Over Warming"What happens if global efforts to
set and abide by strong carbon emissions cuts fail? The standard answer to a
que...
Walking in a Winter Brrrrrrr-Land
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Hello. Here are some things I changed up today: straight hair instead of
wavy – no big deal. flax seed treats for breakfast instead of cereal – easy.
packe...
Blech
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I seem to have hit a bit of a dead spot when it comes to the blog lately.
The brain, she's just not firing this week. I don't know what it is, but it
seems...
The Scarf Manifesto
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So I've been thinking (hush!) and I've decided to put down in writing why I
make scarves the way I do.
1. No fringe: I hate fringe. It's useless and frays ...
This is gonna be the best World Cup ever!
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So I am looking at the World Cup draws and MGK was complaining about how
“fucking Italy gets a walk to the semis,” and he doesn’t like Italy because
he thi...
Supporting the ACLU
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As *The New York Times* reported yesterday, the ACLU this year, largely
without warning, lost its single largest source of funding as a result of
the fin...
Deja Vu and Vu
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At exactly what point is a joke considered overdone and beaten into the
ground? (Is there a committee that votes on stuff like that? Can I get on
this comm...
Walt Disney Slept Here - and it’s For Sale!
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Talk about your “D-23″ - here’s the real thing! The house Walt Disney lived
in when he first arrived in LA is up for sale. It’s Uncle Robert’s place on
Kin...
BADASS at Secret Headquarters Thursday
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Friend-of-Blog artist Matt Haley and author Ben Thompson will be signing and
talking about their book BADASS, a collection of illustrated essays dealing
wi...
The Vine: December 9, 2009
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The Ask The Readers Holiday Gift Jam continues! At a loss/not feeling it
this year? Let the TN readers help! ***** Hey Sars, I need some help from
the read...
Visualizing empires in decline
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Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo. This video timeline
was sent in by Bryan Campen and covers the last 200 years of major world
powers...
hello again
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You remember my younger self, right? It's been a while. The younger self
comics aren't around much because they're so uh, different. They're odd, I
writ...
Google Goggles - Google’s AR app for Android phones
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Tech Crunch has all the gory details, but this video gives you the gist -
the heavyweight that Google now is just entered the Augmented Reality world,
with...
The Cove
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I didn’t know much about THE COVE (out on DVD today) except that it wasn’t
the type of movie I go out of my way to see. Sorry, I’ll do it for ninjas,
I’ll ...
Santa Versus The Vultures
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We're back on the hunt for bad-guys: The cesspools of finance are kicking up
more stuff that needs serious investigation. So we're begging Santa: please
he...
Dear Headliney Person: You're not clever -_-;;;
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Whoever wrote this headline should be shot... out of a canon...
*Is hostility Bruin for Kessel?*
It took me a few stares at that headline to realize they w...
WriteBlack’s Twitter updates for this week
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RT @mat_johnson My man Eric Battle is doing an exhibit of black Marvel
superheroes in NYC http://www.marvelouscolor.com/ # Powered by Twitter
Tools.
Gift for the Star Wars Geek in Your Life
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Last year when I had just barely started this blog, I had a few posts that
were gift ideas for the holidays. What worked out nicely in my favor because
my ...
The 2009 Good Gift Games Guide
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The 2009 Good Gift Games Guide appears in The Morning News today. Watch this
space–by day’s end I will post the 10 honorable mentions, as well as provide
a...
Why won’t you look at me?
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A new comp for you guyz! (Why Vincent Price? This why Vincent Price!) (Needs
spotify, I’m afraid.) As always, thanks to all the people on Twitter who
point...
11.26.09: Thanksgiving
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On this day we sincerely give thanks for life, for being alive — an experience unlike any other. Well, we don’t know any other anyway, most of us. The floats...
Alaska Surprises a Great Indoorsman
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[image: homer]
I was recently interviewed for a travel Q&A by Tribune Media Services. The
piece should be making its rounds this Sunday in various newsp...
BUG 16 LAST MINUTE TICKET NEWS!
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HELLO FROM THE BUG TEAM! Just a note to anyone coming along to BUG #16 The
Director’s Cut tomorrow: the show will start at the
slightly-earlier-than-publis...
Adventure Comics #4.1 Review
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*What Happened That You Have to Know About*:
After the events of *Final Crisis: Legion of 3 Worlds*, Blok is kinda
falling apart. He heads to the Sorcerer'...
The Revenge Society
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Not much to say. Too busy. Doc and I are about to finish our collaborative
script for the finale of season 4.2 and I'm literally on my way out the door
t...
Hey Y'all
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I'm still alive. I've got about a million deadlines I'm trying to make and
just keeping my head above water at work is making me wanna holler. So keep
your...
No Horizon
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I just realized that the movie is *really going to happen*, that it will be
in theaters on Friday, *this* Friday, that there's no way it's not going to
hap...
do you remember sargasso planet?
-
here's one cult show we forgot to reference on "the middleman" - maybe in
our next incarnation!
http://www.sargassoplanetfan.com
(i couldn't help but noti...
Immigrants, of course, are laughing
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*The story: Bonuses for doctors: How GPs are earning up to £380,000 a
year... and £200 an hour for work they used to do for free*
**
This stinks! Last visit...
It's my birthday - I am now officially old
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Since I am aging and becoming Totally Old, I would like a throbbing forehead
vein like Clint Eastwood and various telekinetic manga characters. A
throbbi...
Red Robin - #1 Review
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*Red Robin - #1*
*Synopsis:* In Spain, bad guys have kidnapped the daughter of an outspoken
Spanish politician. They get their ransom demand but have no ...
Arise my Book Blog
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You may have noticed that this blog has lain dormant for quite a while.
Mainly this is because I no longer had the mental energy to devote to
capsule revie...
Needs More Glitter.
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Oh, hey! It’s been a while! You see, I was under deep cover in an
undisclosed location. By “deep cover”, I mean “the duvet”, and by
“undisclosed location”,...
Quickies
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Due to being buried in work and being messed about to the point of insanity
with my new degree on top of being a new father I have been a little
distracted...
Just So's You Know What I'm Up to These Days
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I'm still blogging, just doing it over here. And editing the rest of the
site, too.
................................ Feed footer! You sit here so faithfull...
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