500 Days of Summer review

Finally saw 500 Days of Summer today. Plenty of others have had their say - both good and bad - since the film opened but I have a few thoughts I'd like to share.

First off, let me establish up front that like any sentient straight man, I've got a crush on Zooey Deschanel. It's not even just her eyes. She's got an edge to her few ingenues possess. She'd mess you up in a bar fight if you weren't careful. The cynicism and frankness in her Summer are terrifically appealing qualities too rarely found in women. She doesn't want a relationship, doesn't believe in love, and doesn't believe in games. It's as though the tough female sidekick from a teen romcom grew up to be the star of a love story. Or, as is the case here, the traditional male and female personas were switched in a romcom.

Let me continue by saying I'm a huge JGL fan. In this role he's given room to breathe (a bit; it does tend to the emo end of the spectrum) and gives a nuanced and subtle performance. Contrasting Deschanel's manga-eyes, his are narrowed to slits throughout; nonetheless, he expresses a variety of emotions solely with his eyes. Oddly enough, I'm reminded of Clint Eastwood and the way he lets so much of his inner life show through infinitesimal variations in his squint.

In many of the two-shots, the camera subtly favors JGL over Deschanel, drawing the eye to him. (Or, I've got a secret man-crush of which I'm unaware.) This, more than the film's POV, makes the audience attempt to relate to him. Which is good, because in every other way the film's structure forces the audience to be less emotionally engaged in the story.

The too-clever third-person narration serves to separate the audience from Tom quite a bit and the time-jumping structure - with the end a given - pushes the audience even further back. I found myself watching with a far more critical and clinical eye than I normally would for a first viewing: breaking down the movie, each scene, noting editing choices, and paying close attention to the use of music (more on that in a moment.) I actually found myself bridging my fingers during most of the screening, so intellectually engaged was I. I suspect that wasn't the desire or intent of the filmmakers and isn't the reaction positive reviewers seem to have had.

I liked the movie but didn't love it. I found the willingness of the filmmakers to throw a lot of different ideas on the screen refreshing, a bit like watching a grown up version of a Savage Steve Holland movie.¹ The time jumps allow for some good jokes and juxtapositions but also hide a fairly conventional story. And while they make some poignant moments really pop - the pair of Ikea scenes and the two views of the record store scene both come to mind - they mostly served to keep me at arms' length. I saw the movie as a puzzle to be put together more than a love story; that engaged my logical faculties far more than my emotional ones.

Mostly I found joy in the smaller things like the tiny shout-out to Ferris Bueller's Day Off in the musical number and the split screen party and the performances by all parties. Geoffrey Arend - clearly the manliest, most awesome man alive² - and Matthew Gray Gubler were particularly good as Tom's best friends, providing perspectives that were more traditionally male without veering into caricature. Even Minka Kelly was good, something I've never said before. She had so few lines, it seemed their only purpose was to show how full her lips are.³

And now, the reason this movie is striking a chord with so many people: the soundtrack. Not the choice of songs, certainly. I'm frankly tired of hipster kids who are alleged to listen to the music of my youth. No, the star of this film is the score. I didn't try timing it, but it seemed the majority of music in the film was diegetic. There was an extremely spare score but - and this is the key - it was silent during all the significant moments. Instead of the constant stream of music cues we're inundated with in most features and TV shows, here nothing got between the actors and us.

That silence is powerful because it is so unusual in film yet common in life. More than anything else, the silence of the score highlights the reality of Tom's situation. Those few moments that break from reality - the dance sequence, the French film, the erasing of the world around Tom - are all scored, as are lighter moments in the film and most of the scene cuts. But when we're in the moment, almost nothing takes us out of it. This is where the film shines.

As a whole it is so-so. In each of those moments it is universal and profound.

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1. Yes, you have. Better Off Dead, One Crazy Summer, and How I Got Into College. My love for SSH is deep and profound and while I love that he gave us Eek! The Cat after he stopped making movies, the Disney Channel portion of his career hurts me.
2. Those who know who his fianceé is already know this.
3. And to deliver a silly joke.
4. I'm a prick.

Chuck wore Chucks

Didn't get a chance to watch Chuck on Monday night because of a conflict, so I recorded the Saturday night replay. NBC has really done something right this time, because after an hour of high-octane television watching I can guaran-fucking-tee I will never have to waste my time with this piece of over-hyped shit again. NBC: Bringing you the worst over-hyped garbage EVER! What's that you say? You liked Chuck? Well, retard, go to another blog. You obviously only got here searching for naked pictures of Maria Sharapova (there aren't any: I don't like steroid junkies) or "sex with teacher" or the health benefits of blow jobs.

How many ways did Chuck go wrong? Let's start counting. I'll try to organize the points as well.

Techno-bullshit

1. The single magic computer with all the combined secrets of the NSA and CIA. In a room straight out of an IBM server ad.
2. The awesome vid screens in said server room.
3. The fact that the room was in a basement in an almost completely unsecured building in what was, I imagine, supposed to be Georgetown or downtown DC.
4. Umm, no backup?
   
5. The data that took, what, a full minute to transfer over a USB or FireWire connection but emailed from a wireless device in about three seconds.
6. Let's discuss the data itself: how is it more efficient to "encode the secrets in a series of pictures" than in, you know, files and words and pictures and video and normal ways? Look, steganography is cool and all, but its purpose is obscuring a message's existence, not encoding information.
   
7. The super-virus that makes a computer blow its brains out in mere seconds.
8. The NSA-super-ninja-lady doesn't grab the hard drive on the computer after it crashes to the floor? It would have survived the fall.
9. Oh wait. Apparently, that hard drive was constructed from Pringles, so it actually broke from the fall. It's a shame there aren't techniques one could use to recover data. Then again, I would not have expected the Nerd Herd to possess that knowledge or ability. They're buffoons, in real life and the show. I'd hope the CIA could afford to contact one of the many services that exist to do that, however.
10. Back to the data, again. Chuck gets the intel that the general is going to be killed, by bomb, in the Bonaventure. So that data was encoded in the pictures. Who put it there? Presumably, some agent had to receive the intel, process it, encode it, file a WI-912 form in triplicate, and enter it to the super-computer (I assume at the terminal since it appeared to be detached from the network.) Maybe right after his coffee break, he might have mentioned to someone the fact that he just entered information about a terrorist/assassination plot that was going to occur within the week.
11. This isn't really a technical quibble, but one about intelligence gathering: his accumulated knowledge is going to be stale and useless in about...three months. Also, the historical data...did it get destroyed in a warehouse fire right after being encoded by that guy up in (10)?
12. Again, this isn't exactly a technical quibble, but it fits best here. When did the NSA start assigning weapons with LED sights? Because that wasn't a laser Ricky Linderman was holding. Lasers don't spread when they hit a surface at an oblique angle.

Casting

13. It's pretty clear the studio or producers were looking for a Christine Taylor-type. Anyone who's seen the pilot for Heat Vision and Jack knows what I'm talking about. In fact, anyone who's seen that Ben Stiller/Jack Black bit of television genius knows that Chuck is a sad, sad shadow of that unproduced classic. So we're looking for a Christine Taylor-type. In Hollywood. Where every girl is blonde, pert, and beautiful (except the ones who are brunette, pert, and beautiful because they want to stand out from the crowd.) So they reach to the antipodes to find an actress. To her credit, only once did her piss-poor American accent really shine through, so she's doing a lot better than the male and female leads on Moonlight (the only new show this fall that compares to Chuck in terms of suckitude.) However, little miss bottle blonde has the blackest, coarsest eyebrow hairs I've ever seen on a lady. And that was not in HD. I'm very afraid for the poor people who had to see her in HD. Sure, she's cute. Sure she's got a cute body. She also appears to suffer from hypertrichosis. Of course, only her waxer knows and she's not talking.
14. Sidekick. There are, surprisingly, people out there who continue to compare this show to the excellent Reaper. Technically, they are similar. Here's an SAT-style analogy:
    Chuck : Reaper :: AM/PM burger : Steak at Morton's.
    Some of those people further discuss the Battle of the Sidekicks. Many don't like Tyler Labine's channeling of Jack Black, preferring the "style" of Joshua Gomez. Please see the analogy above and substitute "Joshua Gomez" for "Chuck" and "Tyler Labine" for "Reaper" for my thoughts on that.
15. Chuck's sister. So, they cast a wax-addicted werewolf as the super-sexy spy, and uber-hot Lisa the Gift Shop Girl as the sister? Oh. Okay. Smart. It's like a clever feint. I get it now. Cast the actual hot girl as the hero's sister and not the romantic interest. Genius.
16. Adam Baldwin. Actually, Jane's awesome here. I would definitely be watching this show if it were Adam and Sarah Lancaster as a young married couple trying to make it in...wait. That's a different show. But it does include two people from the cast of this abortion.

Random Thoughts

17. Bryce goes rogue. He emails all the ultraviolet, top secret, code red, mountain dew combined secrets of the NSA and CIA to his slacker buddy (presumably because he didn't have time to pick the correct recipient before Jane cut his parkour career short with a shot through the heart. So the CIA doesn't think it might be a good idea to bench his gal pal and see if she's an enemy of the state?
18. Chuck's been working alongside an insanely hot potential slayer and hasn't found a way to get over getting dumped five years earlier? Yeah, well, if I worked with Julia Ling day in and day out, sweating and slaving to fix the computers of the terminal stupid, I'd have forgotten my ex's name. Open your damn eyes, boy!

So there. It's not so bad. Only 18 items on my list. Of course, I've left out all the times I yelled at the screen because of the three women in the pilot's cast, the one cast as the "hot one" is the one least hot. I left off all the times I yelled because the CIA/NSA agents did something inane. I yelled because of misused and misapplied technology. But mostly, I just seethed for an hour because this was the best new show the Peacock could give me. Put on a fucking sitcom, you jackasses. Oh wait, just call Leslie Nielsen's agent and pick up Lipschitz Saves the World. If you do it for mid-season, I think the Man in Red will be free from his commitment to FOX.

By the way, about the title of the post...I played tennis in Chucks once in high school. Ripped my feet raw. I don't recommend it. So I wouldn't say Chuck wore tennis shoes, no.

Dreary Woman

There's video above, FeedReader
This new season sucks. Bionic Woman was k-rap. Alright, maybe I shouldn't judge everything on a show I already knew would suck. After all, Reaper rocked, people say Chuck was good, and I'm really looking forward to Pushing Daisies and Dirty Sexy Money.

But 'sblood!!! Bionic Woman was awful. It's hard to put it out of my head right now. Hence the real Jaime Summers above to cleanse the palette.

The Amazing Adventures of The Escapist

Look out, Boys it's Here!
THE FIRST BOOK COLLECTION EVER of the original Amazing Adventures of The Escapist, the legendary yet seldom-seen comic book feature that riveted generations of readers for decades--and served as the secret inspiration for Michael Chabon's Pulitzer-Prize winning The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Thrill to over sixty years' worth of carefully selected stories from the classic days of comic book industry production, when men were men--and there was still money to be made. Included rare art and stories by Howard Chaykin, Jim Starlin, Gene Colan, Michael Chabon, Glen David Gold, and Kevin McCarthy, this is no collection to miss by any serious student of comic book history or fan of contemporary literature. But it now!

Fortunately, the arbitrarily bold backcover sales pitch is only more entertaining than a small portion of this book's contents. Chabon's story - the Escapist's origin story from The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - is the high point of the book. Sad, as he's not the comics guy, but he's not alone in producing a good read.

There are a couple of other decent tales: Kevin McCarthy's "Divine Wind" and "Prison Break"; McCarthy's Luna Moth story, "Old Flame"; and Glen David Gold's "The Lady or the Tiger" which closes the book on a bittersweet note that echoes the opening's. In between there are some other good stories and a few very silly efforts.

The conceit of the book and the subsequent volumes is that The Escapist was a real funnybook character, created by Kavalier and Clay, who were then loosely fictionalized by Chabon in his novel about the birth of the comics industry. This volume then collects decades worth of stories of various quality, including the many years when the intellectual rights on The Escapist were disputed and the stories were anything but classic. Conceptually, this is brilliant. As an art installation, I'd be amused and entertained. As a collection of comics, I'm far less so. Especially when I see what could have been when reading the masterful first and last stories, or imagine the Kane-inspired comics Chabon could have scripted for these fine artists to bring to life.

That's the one constant throughout (excepting two stories where bad art was part of the joke): the art is top-notch. In particular, the three Luna Moth stories are quite beautiful. This makes sense, as Joe Kavalier's art for the character was supposed to be revolutionary. Bill Sienkiewicz does a masterful job with McCarthy's "The Mechanist" and Dan Brereton's colors pop off the panels of McCarthy's "Old Flame". Christie Scheele's Luna Moth, while not as painterly, juxtaposes light and dark to good effect.

The most evocative art for me comes with the final tale...and now that I've taken the time to reflect, it might even be better than Chabon's origin story. But I'm a sucker for bittersweet. And I was blown away by Gene Colan's layout. More than anything else about his art, the way he blows up panels and uses whitespace between them for effect is striking. He generates a real sense of claustrophobia when The Escapist is underground, and heightens the tension of a protracted chase sequence while Tom Mayflower pursues the mysterious Lady of the title. When Colan finally comes at you with the full-page full-bleed, its impact is that much more profound.

For comics folk who've never read Kavalier and Clay and probably never will, I'd say skip the book. You'll just find it an odd and pointless exercise. In fact, you're probably better off hanging out at DC message boards arguing about whether Renato Guedes has made Kara fat or not. For those who have read K&C and hate comics...I think you missed the point. Go reread K&C. For the Chabon fans who also like the funnybooks, this slender volume should be a treat.

Mad Men

Last night saw Mad Men's premiere on AMC. In tone, cinematic style, and even editing choices - long cuts, long scenes - it feels a bit like a drama of its time, the cusp of the '60s. The story of Madison Ave. ad men - the Mad Men of the title - is deliciously sexist, racist, and true to its time.

Matthew Weiner's writing is crisp and elegant and the cast - led by the excellent Jon Hamm^* - shines, though I wish Bryan Batt's character of closeted Salvatore had been written a bit more subtly. Particular standouts for me were Vincent Kartheiser, whom I did not recognize as Connor from his run on Angel, channeling a young Dave Foley (albeit a misogynistic and somewhat sociopathic Dave Foley); Rosemarie DeWitt (whose work in Standoff I called "uninteresting, implausible, and unappealing" proving me a terrible critic) as a free-spirited artist; and the ever-beautiful, ever-effervescent Christina Hendricks playing a vixen composed of equal parts Traci Lords and Tina Louise. My god, that woman's appealing!

All-in-all, a fun hour to fill the summer doldrums. But I guess that's not quite true anymore, is it? There's an awful lot of good summertime tv off the major nets. Maybe as much as during the "regular" season. Anyway, Tivo has a new season pass for Mad Men.

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^* In a just world, WB would be begging Kevin Smith to dust off his superior script and stalking Jon Hamm's agent to get him to replace that cardboard cutout, Brandon Routh, for the next Superman flick.

Lunchtime Book Review: Kavalier and Clay

Not exactly a lunchtime review, as I haven't had a chance to read at lunch but once in the past three weeks. My lunchtime read is still A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially English, which I hope to get back to at some point soon. But Kavalier and Clay...wow.

This isn't exactly a timely review. For that, I'd be telling you about The Yiddish Policemen's Union. Still, I figure not everyone's gotten around to 2001's Pulitizer Prize winner. Better late than never.

Anyway...where to start...maybe with the end of the book and Michael Chabon's thanks, specifically calling out Jack Kirby as inspiration for this, and everything he's ever written. As Chabon was born in '63, in the heart of the silver age, I can see how this would be the case. I was born right near the end of the silver, so I got the crappy mid-to-late '70s comics instead. Ah well.

On its surface, K&C is about boys becoming men, following and achieving (some of) their dreams, and realizing how boyhood wishes aren't always perfect. Interwoven with the fictions they create - primarily The Escapist¹ - sometimes the magic leaks into reality. Only a few times, and very subtly, Chabon moves between coming-of-age story (of the boys, the comic book world, and America) and magical tales of heroism from a union suit-wearing golem and an actual golem. The power to spark lifeless form to life with a word is central, as is the value of escape - from pain, torment, and guilt.

Though it should have been Lolita, Alfred Appel's annotations ruined that for me. K&C is the best book I've read in 2007. If you haven't read it, do. If you hate literature and love comics, read this. If you hate comics and love literature, read this. If you hate broccoli and love Bugles, read this.

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1 I'm stoked to learn that Chabon actually worked with Dark Horse to produce an Escapist comicbook. I'll have to hunt that down. Amazon's got some used ones for sale, but I'll probably have better luck on eBay.

Lunchtime Book Review: V.

Finished up my bday present from Earl's Donuts the other day and figured I'd try to sputter out some inconsequential ramblings on it. First though, I wanna cry. Thomas Pynchon was 24 when this book was published. When I was 24 I hadn't yet mastered a really good hangover (I don't drink that much or often, but I've got hangovers down pat now). If I'd been around in the early 60s, I'd have pooh-poohed him as yet another early bloomer, flaming out like a supernova before 30. So at least I don't look like an idiot for saying that prior to Pynchon's long and magnificent career.

I hadn't read any Pynchon since my teens? early 20s? somewhere around there. About 20 years ago I pushed through Gravity's Rainbowand remember very little about it to this day. When I think about it, I recall a scene making banana pancakes (which, honestly, could have been in Catch-22instead, as I read them around the same time) and an overwhelming connection to the TMBG song Road Movie to Berlin. Clearly, I've got to reread GR.

A huge cast of characters, multiple interconnected stories spanning 60-odd years, and a central, mysterious figure tying it all together. My first take after closing the book up Thursday at lunch (and I'm still sticking with that gut reaction today) is that V. is the apotheosis of the mechanization and dehumanization of the 20th century. As a humanist, Pynchon's most sympathetic characters are the ones out of place in the modern world: Benny the schlemiel, always at odds with the inanimate world; Stencil and his quest to live out his father's life of intrigue as he tracks the scent of the elusive V.; Stencil-pater and Hugh Godolphin, the Victorian and Edwardian servants of Britain. V. is not sympathetic. In every tale and incarnation, she is shrewd, cunning, manipulative, and increasingly less human. Hers is the cold, clockwork heart of the 20th century.

Malta plays a key role in the quest for V., so it is interesting that Pynchon describes it as timeless, a rock, unchanging, eternal. Obviously untrue in some regards, she does seem untouched by time until Messerschmidts drop their payloads:

Don't touch them, these walls. They carry the explosions for miles. The rock hears everything, and brings it to bone, up the fingers and arm, down through the bone-cage and bone-sticks and out again through the bone-webs. Its little passage through you is accident, merely in the nature of rock and bone: but it's as if you were given a reminder.

The vibration is impossible to talk about. Felt sound. Buzzing. The teeth buzz: Pain, a numb prickling along the jawbone, stifling concussion at the eardrums. Over and over. Mallet-blows as long as the raid, raids as long as the day. You never get used to it. You'd think we'd all have gone mad by now. What keeps me standing erect and away from the walls? And silent. A brute clinging to awareness, nothing else. Pure Maltese. Perhaps it is meant to go on forever. If "forever" still has any meaning.

Earl's Donuts and I had a brief IM chat when I'd finished. He hadn't read V. in years, but his take had been (and I'm over-simplifying here...elaborate in comments if you'd like, N.) that V. was Pynchon's symbol of time itself. Of course, that makes Malta's eternal nature even more significant.

Certainly it does make sense: V. is ever-present. V. is felled in an eternal place by machines that may be harbingers of an end to time. As V. lay dying, her body is picked over by children (those who have no sense of time). If the world is to end in a fire of our own design, it was dreamt of because of those bombers and because of that war. The children picking over V.'s corpse will be the generation to ignite that fire. But those children are Pynchon's contemporaries. What does that say?

Obviously, with as playful a writer as Pynchon, any first-pass analysis is going to be too facile. I could spend hours merely analyzing his character names, rich with meaning: Benny Profane; Herbert Stencil; Dudley Eigenvalue; Mélanie l'Heuremaudit. I could also spend hours at the V. portion of the Pynchon Wiki. Instead, I'll just cycle V. back into the bottom of my pile of books to read and go through it again in the next year or two.

Next up for the lunchtime read and review, the far more straightforward A Mouthful of Air: Language, Languages...Especially Englishby Anthony Burgess. I read it back when I first bought it, but it obviously came to mind recently...I should give it a reread.

Knocked Up: Split Decision

Shockingly just one week late, the wife and I dragged ourselves to the theater to see Judd Apatow's latest paean to traditional values. We were expecting more. After the movie, the wife asked if I thought the movie was as good as its overwhelmingly positive buzz, because she didn't think so. My first reaction was that I agreed: Apatow crafts his films out of natural, honest stories about characters he knows and cares about and the mixed-in juvenile humor serves as counterpoint to the serious topics on hand. On reflection? I won't be buying this on DVD.

Obviously, the fact that the movie is about a pregnant woman is a pretty big problem for us. We hate children and find pregnancy revolting, so trying to ignore that and concentrate on the relationships is difficult. Humor-about-pregnancy isn't funny if your stomach is churning. The requisite scene with Seth Rogen's Ben Stone trying unsuccessfully to have sex with Katherine Heigl's pregnant Alison Scott had a couple of chuckles, but mostly I just felt sympathy for the poor slacker forced to touch the parasite-laden gut.

I'm not kidding.

Toss in a house of stoner-slackers with zero ambition and you've got a movie filled with people we don't care about. Had Apatow included a Regent "University" grad in the mix, he'd have created a perfect storm. At that point the movie would have collapsed in on itself, of course, so I applaud his discretion. Thankfully Kristen Wiig had a few minutes of screen time as our proxy, opining that she finds pregnant women disgusting.

The stoner house was apparently quite like a place Apatow shared with friends when he moved to Hollywood, but missing the work ethic. Why he thought it would be funnier to show them without jobs or ambition is beyond me. That didn't make them funnier, it made them less likable. I didn't even like Jason Segel in this movie, and that takes some doing.

Apatow's real-life wife Leslie Mann, as Alison's sister Debbie, played her usual harpy (making me understand why Apatow works so hard...who wouldn't want to avoid that shrill beyatch?). Her strained marriage to Pete, played by Paul Rudd - looking much less puffy here - was the most compelling aspect of the movie to me. Had Apatow focused on that story I'd have been happier with the end result. Then again, other than the presence of children, I could relate to that story. I fortunately can't relate to pregnancy.

My final problem with the movie was also one of its bright points. I like Seth Rogen. The wife, not so much, but I'm a fan. That said, I like him in small doses. He was great in The 40-Year-Old Virgin, but there he was just part of the ensemble. He was funny in this movie, but doesn't have leading-man charisma. Swapping Rogen for Segel might have had a big positive impact for me. Marshmallow, he's got charisma.

I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Take one pregnancy - with sonograms, pregnant sex, and a baby crowning - throw in a bunch of slackers, and a miscast lead and you've got a recipe for an interesting failure. I laughed and was moved a few times, but overall come away unimpressed.

I am looking forward to Apatow's final film in his family values trilogy, though. He's done sex and marriage, and now birth. Next has got to be death. Maybe he'll do that movie about Pete and Debbie and have Pete kill Debbie in the first act. Now that I'd own.

A slight slip of the scarab: Blue Beetle #15

It's not news that I've been loving the new Blue Beetle. Even within the constraints of the N52WO (New 52-World Order) imposed by DC's editorial board, the Keith Giffen/John Rogers take has been refreshingly fun and light-hearted. The Crisis/52/OYL architecture provided the launching pad for Jaime's time with the scarab, but it didn't seem to have much impact on story; however, I'm worried Countdown might. Or it might just be that guest writer J. Torres isn't my cup of tea (or blows).

The dialog was comicbook-y, the plot weak, and Jaime's first encounter with Supes was tone deaf. Cully Hamner's cover - close to the above, but changed so Supes is frowning, looking away from Beetle, and face in shadow - does a great job of capturing Jaime's excitement of meeting the Boy Scout. The facial expression Hamner pulled off in the armor gets the look of a star-struck teen. The guts of the book? Well the artwork's serviceable.

This was billed by DC as a standalone, and Rogers will be back with Rafael Albuquerque's great art next month, so I'm not going to worry much. I'm pretty sure that even with the Countdown tie-in that issue will click. I guess I've just gotten so expectant about this book that any miscues are going to jump out at me.

NBC announces fall schedule

NBC can't find a way to put any new sitcoms on its fall schedule (they've got The IT Crowd on the books as the inevitable mid-season replacement) but they sure can fill the hours with a lot of dreck. First up, here's Chuck, a comedy-thriller that I enjoyed a lot when it was called Jake 2.0. Of course, that was actually a good show. This? I won't even watch for Jane, aka My Bodyguard.

Then, the great mystery of our time is answered: who is the creative genius behind BSG? Ron Moore or David Eick? Clearly, Ron Moore. This crap makes me long for Oscar Goldman. Again, it really doesn't matter that the pilot features Katee Sackhoff in all her sexy glory. I'll just watch a BSG ep on dvd instead of wasting an hour with not-Lindsay Wagner and this bad, bad show.

How Language Works

Finished reading David Crystal's latest this weekend passed. It's a great linguistics primer, but not so basic that I wasn't able to learn a few things. This book, or one like it, should be required reading in high school.

Running the gamut from the anatomical bases of speech and hearing, through an overview of the study of grammar, all the way to the preservation of nearly-extinct languages, Crystal gives a pretty complete overview of the entire scope of linguistics. While the coverage is necessarily light in order to provide such breadth, it rarely feels shallow. There is enough detail throughout to whet the (hard? soft?) palate and provide entree to the topics under discussion. Further reading is, of course, encouraged.

While I'm not particularly interested in foreign language teaching techniques or children's acquisition of language, Crystal's breezy style made those relatively interesting. Of course, that means his coverage of my interests - language and grammar evolution, migration patterns of languages, the formation of pidgins and creoles - was really appealing to me. I'd have to think anyone else with interest in any of these topics would likewise be well-served.

I'd first read Crystal's The Stories of English which was a great read for me. That book pretty much hit my sweet spot. While How Language Works is broader, I still gleaned interesting information in reading it.

One caveat: Crystal is a descriptivist grammarian. For the hard-core, immovably prescriptivist out there, this might be a deal killer.

He'd kick Nite-Owl's ass

The obvious review for this week should be Buffy: Season 8. The third issue was out yesterday, the penultimate of this initial story arc, and Joss is firing on all cylinders. Or I could talk about his second, awfully cool issue of Runaways, also out yesterday. Instead, I'm going to sing the praises of Jaime Reyes.

I'm coming to the scarab's party late and feel like a chump for it. I'm a fan of John Rogers and read his blog religiously - dude wrote the Global Frequency pilot, come on - but I just paid no attention to the new Beetle. Rogers was co-writing with Keith Giffen through issue 6, taking over solo scripting chores with issue 7. Because I've picked it up late, I bought the first bound volume and will get the second when it comes out in a couple of months, but from here on out BB's on my pull list.

So what's so great about the Beetle?

Jaime's 17, his best friends and family know his secret, and he's both stoked and freaked by being a cape. Plus, in issue one he goes toe-to-toe with Guy freakin' Gardner. However, as tough as Honor Guard Gardner is, Jaime's mom is an order of magnitude tougher. When Jaime returns from his lost year (all part of the OYL silliness) his moms has some problems adjusting, particularly to the alien battle suit with a mind of its own.

There's a sense of (forgive the irony of this comment) realism to Rogers' and Giffen's portrayal of the Reyes family and friends that's missing from most funny books. If a real teenager found an ancient blue scarab that latched onto his spine giving him super powers, he might behave a lot like Jaime. At least I hope he would. Especially if that scarab keeps giving the kid very bloody and destructive suggestions during battle. I wonder what that's about? :)

One more great thing about BB: the artwork. I've seen prettier comic art and I've seen more exciting comic art, but the sense of proportion and movement are quite natural here. Rogers sums it up best: "You will notice the distinct lack of massive, levitating breasts, a choice further marginalizing us in the mainstream comics community."

The Riches: A Wealth of Headline Puns

FX ran a marathon of the first four episodes of The Riches last Friday and I figured I'd have the TiVo grab them. We weren't sure we'd be too interested, but could spare one hour for the pilot and have the rest around just in case. Four hours later...

Okay. I'm coming way late to the Eddie Izzard party, I know, but damn why didn't anyone tell me he's a frickin' genius?! Or did I just not listen?

Izzard plays Wayne Malloy: father; husband; Traveller. The ever-appealing (and sexier by the year) Minnie Driver stars as his wife and mother to their three children. Fortunately, I had enough secondhand knowledge of Izzard's career to appreciate his cross-dressing youngest son. From my limited exposure so far, the artist of whom Izzard most reminds me is Ricky Gervais. Like Gervais, there's a real pathos underlying even his zaniest moments and great intelligence in all his choices. Wayne is a "half-breed" - abandoned by his mother when his father died, left to be raised by Jesuits and bandits - on the run from his extended family and sociopathic cousin Dale, the new Malloy patriarch. He pines for his lost, idealized youth amongst the "buffers" and thinks he's found a way to steal that life back.

Some mighty bad driving by a tool in a Beemer lets Wayne, Dahlia, and their children steal the lives of Doug and Cherien Rich. While Wayne does have some big shoes to fill (literally: Izzard's stature is always a visual element and he is filmed to make his 5'7" frame seem much smaller) a lifetime of conning and conniving have well-prepared him for his new role of lawyer. A quick 18 holes here, some Russian roulette there, and Doug Rich has a nice, cushy gig as in-house council. Well, not cushy or there wouldn't be much story here, would there?

Dale's still tracking Wayne, crazy Ginny Dannegan wants to marry her...slightly slow...cousin to Wayne's daughter to forge an alliance with the Malloys, new boss Hugh Panetta is a gun-toting asshole, Dahlia's got some bad habits left over from her time in the stir, and the kids aren't sold on the notion of school. Life might have been easier in their RV.

Special kudos to Dmitry Lipkin who created this original and brilliant show. It's pretty rare for someone to become a show runner without any television experience, but he's made the transition from the stage seamlessly.

Watch this show. Catch up quickly, here, then watch this show.

When he is risen, he's going to want bacon and coffee

Now, just in time for the Abominable Bunny to show up with a Chocolate Jesus (available in milk, dark, and white chocolate for ye of differing race) for each good girl and boy, and okra to leave in the shoes of the bad little children (or whatever it is those wacky xtians do when they should have been eating matzo and bitter herbs), here comes my thumbnail review of Christopher Moore's blasphemous little tome. I know. The interwebs are a-crackle with the excitement.

I hadn't read any Moore before, and only picked this up on a recommendation.¹ After slogging through Alfred Appel's wearying, soul-crushing, pleasure-draining annotations of Lolita², I wanted a light, fun lunch read. Can't get much more fun than the life and death of Jesus, right? At least as told by Levi who is called Biff.

Now, I'm a lot of things. As David Cross would say, 'cause my mom's vagina is Jewish, I'm Jewish. I'm also an atheist. I'm a cold, scientific rationalist. I'm also considering becoming a Comedist. One thing I am not is spiritual. I don't believe in god, gods, or God and have never really understood why others do. I've got no empty space in my psyche to be filled, and no fear of the great nothingness that comes after our short wicks flicker out. Sucks that good people suffer and the evil thrive, and it sucks that those good people have to die, but I don't need to believe in an afterlife, or reincarnation, or nirvana³ to get me through the day. Of course, it doesn't help that the Big 3 western religions are preached by and about the unfunny and self-righteous.

Where's the self-mockery? Where's the irony? Where's the awareness of life's great jokes?

If Christ were like Moore writes him (and if his best friend really had created sarcasm) it would be a much easier sell.

With a great heart (and clear faith in the divinity of his subject) Moore presents Jesus (Joshua) from a small boy reviving a dead lizard - so his little brother can repeatedly off it - to the moment of his death on the cross. This is the Gospel of Biff - nicknamed for a "slang word for a smack upside the head" - who accompanies Josh on his quest for knowledge and wisdom in the east, in order to learn to be the messiah to his people. Best friends from childhood, Biff's primary role is "to teach him to be human."

Chinese food on Josh's birthday (still a Jewish tradition), the study of Jew Do, and clever biblical references made me laugh aloud many times while reading. I was also shocked by how moved I was by the very pure love and devotion Biff felt for Joshua and the agony over his failure to alter his fate. The bittersweet love triangle between the two friends and Maggie (Mary of Magdala) adds a third color to the palette. Eros, philia, and agape are intertwined and intermixed in varying degrees throughout, making this a great love story. Plus...an elephant learns yoga, there are Chinese concubines, and Biff invents the latte.

A Douglas Adams-like comedy that made my throat tighten a few times? With Chinese concubines??? A perfect book for the spring.

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¹ Shockingly, the recommendation came from a waiter at a restaurant I used to frequent (out of business, sadly). Normally, I'd be a super-snob and skip a rec like that, but it came after a decent, short discussion about what I was reading at the time and I figured I'd take a bit of a flyer.
² At the end of which, I wasn't even able to fashion a review as short and shallow as the current one. Suffice it to say that Appel ruined Lolita for me. I hope I can go back to it in a few years without the annoying, endless commentary and find some pleasure in Nabokov's linguistic acrobatics.
³ Or Pearl Jam.

The Freeway's Long

I don't like The Office. Specifically, I don't like the American version. I like Steve Carell, but I dislike his interpretation of Michael Scott as a fool, a tool, and an ass. As a talented comic actor, I'm sure his choices are intentional, but they completely miss the target set by Ricky Gervais with his sad, pathetic David Brent.

I've watched about a half-dozen episodes of the American version (and even blogged about it when Joss Whedon was directing) and have never had more than a couple chuckles. I don't care about Jim-Pam or Pam-Jim or whatever it is the 'shippers call that star-crossed couple, and other than the pranks, find nothing compelling at all. I know I'm in a small minority amongst tv-philes, but I just don't dig it.

I'd heard for years about how funny the British version was and how much I'd like it. Last year, visiting friends, in went episode 1.4 - "Training". Hell yeah! This is what I wanted from the American version! I finally got around to getting the DVDs and ripped some episodes to my Zune this weekend past. I've been watching while working out and my initial sense of Gervais' version stands. David Brent's not just a fool and tool. Gervais played him with such subtlety that I can see the little boy who was, running around the house with a towel for a cape and a colander for a helmet, or telling jokes at his parents' parties, trying to get laughs. And key to Gervais' performance is believing that David Brent could get those laughs and could get that attention. In an interview earlier this year with critic Alan Sepinwall, Gervais indicated just that:

Brent's motivation was fame and glory. That's why he's acting like that. He's in free-fall, in a bit of a breakdown, and he's going, "I'm going to show the world now that I'm not just this jerk. I'm a philosopher, I'm a philanthropist, I am a singer/songwriter, I am a poet." He can't get to it quick enough. And, of course, the lesson learned is, if someone's filming you all the time, they're going to show the bad bits, too. Through the power of editing.

But what were the good bits for David? Do you envision there were times when he successfully delivered a joke?

Yeah, but why would a documentary team put that in? The important thing there is, you're not in charge. TV's in charge. TV's in charge.

I don't think Steve Carell has that much confidence in or sympathy for Michael Scott. And because of that, I don't. Why should I care about a character when the actor portraying him doesn't seem to?

Stranger Than Fiction

I've been cursing Will Ferrell for a while now. I've found his comedy stylings to be much broader, yet more limited, than many of his SNL alums. Amusing in supporting roles, his whiny everyman shtick grows tiring fast in lead roles. And while it's true that great comedians make greater tragedians, I've never thought him that great.

So it was with low expectations that we popped Stranger Than Fiction into the dvd player Sunday night. We had planned on seeing it in the theater last fall, but like so many of our grand ideas about going out in public, we never did get around to it. Plus, while it had looked like a sure-fire winner in previews, by the time it opened, the reviews were a bit mixed. Renter.

But after four days - approximately 40 hours - of basketball it was time for something different.

I'm happy to say it was a very pleasant surprise. Ferrell was a revelation. This was a role custom-tailored to his strengths, in a film confidently directed by Monster's Ball's Marc Forster. What Forster brought to the table was a sure hand, a bit of whimsy, and the almost magical ability to rein in Ferrell's excesses. No whining, no overacting. Ferrell perfectly captured the ennui, pathos, and hope of Harold Crick, even as his life descended into absurdity.

The conceit of the film should be familiar to anyone who recalls the ads from last year: Harold's life is being narrated by a woman "...accurately; and with a better vocabulary." The woman - Emma Thompson's Karen Eiffel - is a writer of some renown who has not published a book in ten years. Karen's writer's block stems from an inability to find a way to kill her hero - Harold Crick.

Fundamentally, the film is about lost souls trying to connect. Karen is a chain smoking ascetic, living in a sterile, empty apartment. Harold's apartment looks more like a motel and his life's routines are as rigid as his job as an IRS auditor. Both find companionship and friendship in others: Karen with an assistant (Queen Latifah) thrust upon her by her publisher; and Harold with an earthy, lusty Maggie Gyllenhaal and sweet, nerdy coworker Dave (Arrested Development's Tony Hale).

Despite the compassion and depth of the piece, there is quite a bit of humor to be found: Karen's narrator speaking with the detached irony of Douglas Adams' Hitchhiker's Guide; Harold's propensity to count everything depicted through clever animations; Harold's serene acceptance of his odd lot in life; and a sentient watch. Add in the odd comic touches, like the Sonic Guys (T.J. Jagodowski and Peter Grosz, Chicago improv pros) appearing as math-quizzing coworkers¹, and Dustin Hoffman's off-putting performance as a literature professor, too accepting of Harold's tale, and this film succeeds at being quirky, charming, and heart-breaking.

The film is not perfect, of course. But for a pleasant, moving two hours, I'd still highly recommend it.

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¹ Remember. We'd just gotten through 40 hours of NCAA basketball. Do you have any idea how often we saw those annoying Sonic ads?!?

Once More, With Feeling

The musical episode of Scrubs a few weeks back reminded me of the far superior OMWF episode of Buffy. Somewhere, I've got a bootleg cd that a guy I know made the night it aired off the broadcast audio, but I couldn't find it and figured I'd toss a few extra bucks Joss' way since he done lost the WW gig. Finally got around to placing an Amazon order this week and it arrived on Thursday.

Friday morning, the cd supplanted my bootleg of Dean Gray's American Edit in the batmobile's player and I cruised to work groovin' on the mixed bag that is this semi-masterpiece.

Turns out the weakest voices are the heart of the Buffyverse - Buffy, Xander, and Willow. I mean, they're game and give it the old college try, and they manage to hit all of their notes in approximately the correct order...but the arrangements are carefully tailored to their limitations. That's good. Not being forced outside of their comfort zones - about a fifth for Nicholas Brendon - allows the three to do their parts professionally and not embarrass themselves. The heavy lifting is left to the three talented singers - Tara, Spike, and especially Giles.

Anthony takes after his brother Murray, don't you know.

And here he is doing something a little bit different...Sweet Transvestite

Open Up and Say Tra Laaah

Last night was the long-awaited (by metros like me) musical episode of Scrubs. And just like Dawn Summers, I wish I lived in a world where people routinely and spontaneously broke into song. I guess it would take a massive aneurysm or a demon to make that dream come true, though.

Guest star Stephanie D'Abruzzo from Avenue Q suffered from the aforementioned aneurysm in her temporal lobe which caused her to hear singing (and see dancing) when people spoke. Ironically, the songs she heard and sang herself were penned by the Avenue Q guys. What are the odds of that?

Each of the songs was a winking tribute to a classic (though I'll have to re-watch a few times to get all the references,) and I'd guess that even the anti-musical crowd will have gotten one or two of them. Clever lyrics, particularly in "Everything Comes Down to Poo", smoothed over some of the rougher spots - Zach Braff's voice being the 40-grit sandpaper of the night.^* In contrast, Johnny C's voice isn't anything to write home about, but he's still a trained and accomplished stage actor who sings well enough. Nonetheless, most of his singing was isolated to a G&S-style number while Zach howled away. This is, I imagine, how Matthew Broderick sounded before the months and months and months of voice lessons he took daily in order to play J. Pierrepont Finch in the mid-90s revival of How To Succeed...

Speaking of that revival, I'd have liked to have seen some different stunt-casting. D'Abruzzo's voice is fine, and she's got the Avenue Q association, so I understand why she was present. Still, it'd have been a nice time to see Megan Mullally return to Thursday night on NBC. Her voice is significantly better than "fine".

The numbers served character and plot, as they should in all good musicals, with some developments having (presumably) long-lasting impact being introduced in song. That the writers were able to pull it off without a single fantasy sequence was impressive. After a rough start to this season, the show's found its groove again. For creator Bill Lawrence's thoughts on this ep, the show's groove, and its future, check out this great interview with TV Squad.

The biggest disappointments for me were from two of the superior voices in the cast. Donald Faison held back a lot in his man-love tribute duet (as well as "Poo") so as not to overpower Zach and Sam Lloyd's Ted didn't get a showcase for his beautiful tenor. His few lines in the Judy Reyes+company number just didn't satisfy. Otherwise, I had a smile on my face and a tap in my toe throughout the episode.

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^*I don't watch American Idol. I gather there are worse performances available there.

The Children of Men All Talk Alike

With the release of Alfonso Cuarón's interpretation of Children of Men, I figured this was as good a time as any to read P.D. James' dystopian novel. And, like so many of its little SF^* sub-genre, it is veddy British.

I'd never read any James before, as I'm not big on her usual - the mystery/procedural genre - so I didn't know what to expect...though I should have. The book is presented in two narrative voices that sound almost identical. There are diary entries from Theo Faron, our protagonist, and 3rd-person narrative from a partly omniscient observer who stays close to Faron. For a professor of Victorian History at Oxford, his speech comes off as very hard-boiled. Fitting, and in retrospect quite obvious, from an author of mysteries.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

There are a few places where James lets her language loose, but they're frighteningly purple. For those who've read any of my poetry, you know I know purple. These scattered attempts at setting mood felt false to me. I accepted the narrative voice (as out of place as it initially seemed) and wanted the book to be consistent in its tone. It's one thing when she had Theo describe a death scene vividly, wholly another to describe an idyllic forest setting.

One last note on language...one of the central characters is described (from Theo's biased point of view) as a bit rough and crude. He's an engineer by trade. Now, I know the Brits are all word-y and shite, but seriously, does this dialog fit in this character's mouth? "I've been exploring. This isn't a proper wood, more a copse."

It sounds like it would fit in P.D. James' mouth perfectly. Not so much this character.

The story, language issues aside, is interesting. Told from such a narrow point of view, the tale of the infertility of the human race - and the first pregnancy in a quarter century - takes on a great intimacy. It's unknown whether this is a fluke occurrence, a harbinger of the return to fecundity, or if the child born is to be a new Adam. England is an island, and Theo's fellows are an island within its borders: a man and his pregnant wife; an Anglican priest; a black midwife; and Theo, that fictionally common combination of musty old academic and man of action.

A decent read, but far more intriguing for the questions it raises and thought experiments it engenders than for its style or content.

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^* Yes. Science fiction. That's right. When you read 1984 or Brave New World or even Utopia you are reading genre fiction. Painful to accept, I know. There are ways around it, though. For example, if you're the Nobel committee and you want to award the literature prize to an SF writer, you can always create a fake name for its style (see: Gabriel García Márques and Magic Realism)

Collapse: Light reading on starvation, cannibalism, and death (and a few success stories)

I first read Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel about five years back at the suggestion of my friend O. While I didn't buy into all its arguments - particularly the way he seemed to gloss over the out-sized impact of bovine-based diseases on unexposed populations as compared to porcine- and avian-based diseases of Asia and Melanesia. I also continue to wonder how important it is that wheat provides more protein than other cereal grains when so many older societies (not to mention modern societies) meet most of their protein needs from animal sources. These minor complaints aside, GG&S was a great read that brought Diamond's keen mind and broad knowledge to an ongoing 9000-year-old story.

I picked up Collapse a couple of months back, and after I finished reading DFW's Everything and More(which I recommend to none but those as aspergerlicious as I) I moved it into my lunch-time slot. Whereas GG&S tells the story of growth, expansion, and success, this companion piece tells the story of failure; however, this book kicked its predecessor's ass from here to the New Guinea highlands. Most significantly, gone is much of the ecological determinism from which GG&S suffered. The subtitle says it all: "How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed".

From Easter Island to Greenland, the Yucatan peninsula to modern-day Australia, Diamond weaves a compelling tale of ecological disasters and the resulting societal collapses. What struck me most was how (at least in Diamond's interpretations of events) so many of the collapses happened almost overnight. Reaching a tipping point beyond which their environments could no longer support the weight of their societies, they truly did seem to collapse, rather than slowly decay.

Offering some tales of societies that succeeded, this is happily not a threnody for Mother Earth, but a warning. Diamond's own feelings on our future makes him "a cautious optimist", and after reading Collapse I think I'm in that camp as well.