Show of the Week

Been watching Firefly, Joss Whedon's aborted masterpiece. For quite a few of my loyal readers, I can best describe it as a live-action version of Cowboy Bebop. The setting, the characters, the situations are all highly reminiscent. With a little bit of Trigun thrown in for good measure: every planet they visit looks like the Old West, and the soundtrack is all violins and guitars. Pretty good so far; if I continue to think so to the end, I'll probably have to go see the movie that's coming out.

Edit: I almost forgot the most awesome thing. The characters all speak English, except when they swear, which is always in Mandarin. Hee.

My apartment building has an old shopping cart residents' use living under the stairs. Yeah, it's ghetto, but it was also handy when you had a carload full of stuff to haul upstairs. Couldn't have moved in without it. So imagine my horror today when I saw that it was broken. Wheel snapped off; now it sits crippled in the corner. How the heck do you break a shopping cart? The things are damn near indestructable; they're not popular with the homeless set for nothing.

Movies that suck, but only for me

In the past month or two I've gotten around to seeing a pair of films that my friends have been after me to see for ages. I didn't particularly care for either. And this is a sufficiently unusual occurence that I thought I'd blog about it.

The first was Garden State. On all the usual technical levels, it was a perfectly decent film. True, I didn't flip over the soundtrack, probably because I wasn't previously familiar with the bands involved. But that's a minor quibble. Mostly, it just didn't resonate. I couldn't empathize with the main character, couldn't imagine myself ever doing or feeling any of the things he did.

He comes home to discover that all his friends are basically the same even though he's drastically different. Meanwhile I've found that it's usually quite the opposite - my friends have changed even more than I have. He exhibits a near-total, and understandable, inability to function in normal society - and simultaneously an uncanny insight into people. The hell? As far as I'm concerned it's basically the same skill. I thought I was a disaffected loner at one point in my life. But it apparently doesn't hold a candle to some of you, dear readers, if you saw yourself in this catatonic idiot.

And then there was Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I've loved all of Charlie Kaufman's previous works, and like all the rest, it was endlessly inventive, both visually and narratively. And yet.

It suffered from what Roger Ebert calls the "idiot plot": the plot won't function unless otherwise seemingly intelligent people make unbelievably stupid decisions. I cannot for a moment believe that any rational adult would make the choice that the two main characters do in this film. It goes way past the point of comic farce and lands somewhere near disgusting psychopathy. It strains my suspension of disbelief way past the breaking point.

I also took away a very different impression of the ending. Most reviews I've seen say that it's hopeful: even knowing how it ended the first time, the couple decides to try their relationship again. Yet the whole message of the film, repeated over and over in the secondary characters, is that those who do not remember their history are doomed to repeat it. I don't have the slightest doubt that their relationship will end the same way the second (third?) time. It's Romeo and Juliet on a tape loop.

So yeah. Two critically acclaimed films that didn't win me over in the slightest, because I couldn't for a moment picture myself in the characters' shoes. Yeah, that's not the only way to make a good movie, but it's an important one...

May the Force be with you

(I'm going to try to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, in that curious sort of way that Episode III dictates: you already know perfectly well what's going to happen, just not how it will happen.)

Overall? Relax. Exhale. It's pretty darn good, almost up to the standard of the original trilogy. Even in those moments when it richly deserved some MST3King, I couldn't take my eyes off the screen long enough to snark to my neighbor. And by the end, I felt myself sighing with relief as we arrived back on familiar ground.

The bad? Everything you've heard about the awfulness of the dialogue, and the acting in general, is true and then some. It's way beyond Lucas just not knowing how to direct; it's as if he sucked the life and talent out of otherwise excellent actors. Suddenly they're on stage for the first time in their lives. It's hideous. The audience laughed at a number of points where they clearly weren't meant to.

And the writing itself... well, it's hard to explain. The overall script has been trimmed down to the barest essentials; every line serves to advance the plot. And yet there's still too much talking. A lot of things are said with words when a simple look would have surficed. I was reminded of something I learned in my first journalism class: never tell when you can show.

Random musings and ponderings follow. These are NOT meant to be rhetorical: I'm hoping for feedback.

• My, but Lucas is in love with his CG. Was the (helmetless) Clone Army general a computer creation, or was it just me? Wouldn't putting the actor in a costume have been cheaper and more convincing?
• I did notice the scene that people were saying was heavy-handed political commentary by Lucas. It's hard not to. But if you think carefully about who represents who and who's saying what, it's all so scrambled that it's useless as metaphor.
• Yoda's final words to Obi-Wan: the hell? Where did that come from, and how does it relate to anything in Episodes IV-VI? A friend suggests that it might help explain the non-vanishing of dead Jedi Masters in this film, but I'm not sure if that theory holds up in all cases.
• If you've ever seen the behind-the-scenes footage of Empire, you'll know about a certain lie that was told to the cast. Ponder the degree to which it wasn't a lie at all.
• Interesting choice of stories for Palpatine to tell Anakin; remarkably truthful in fact. Too bad he didn't pay attention to it himself.
• I'd often wondered what, in particular, they would have as the temptation that drove Anakin to the dark side. Luke's presumably parallel story offered several choices, but Lucas picked the saddest and most tragic of them all. Episodes I-III in general seem to suggest that whatever hope and idealism Lucas had in his youth is long gone.
• Did you notice what Obi-Wan took away from his final battle? It's extremely important later on.
• As a purely political and strategic matter, do Palpatine's orders to the droid army make the slightest bit of sense? I'm not sure how the places he sent them or the things he had them do advanced his agenda in the slightest.
• It seems as though for the Jedi and Sith alike, there is a difficult and very personal trial to go through before one can become a Master. It's just a bit more disfiguring for the Sith.
• Who was Darth Sidious's master, anyway? Now that the movies are done, will LUcas open the Extended Universe to books that are set before Episode I?
• It's cute and all to have distantly related characters turn out to know one another in Episodes I-III, but it's also distracting. It means that certain people should have commented on it in Episodes IV-VI, but didn't. Not to mention that certain cases of random chance become unbelievable coincidences.
• Prophesy and foresight are the most horrifically misleading things imaginable in these films; I swear that it was almost a nod to Dune.

Good triumphs over evil, 2X

What are the odds? For the second season in a row, a team I actually like won the Amazing Race on Tuesday night, instead of the assholeish team that had already won a million dollars on Survivor. Karma's a bitch. On a related note, Alex & Lynn are getting married! Yay.

Finally made it through the first season of Alias. It's been strange watching the show "inwards", forward from the first season and backward from the current (fourth). I dunno if anyone else reading this watches the show, but I'd like to make a speculation that'll be a SPOILER if you aren't up to date: the mysterious boss who everyone seems to work for? Milo Rambaldi himself. Just wait.

Watching all this TV is exhausting stuff; I have no idea how James and Stolee watch season after season of Stargate end to end. Firefly next, I guess, and if it's good enough I'll go see Serenity.

FLASH: Woohoo! A federal court finally saw fit to overturn the ridiculous Initiative 416 that Nebraskans saw fit to pass a few years back. Here's hoping it holds up.

Just another weekend in paradise

Drove back to Kansas City through pouring rain for the second time in a row. Curse? Oh, and a highlight: the second pair of giant glowing pillars on the way into town is now active. Still don't know who built them or what they mean.

As amusing as Family Guy is, it's even funnier when accompanied by Lincoln DeMaris's insane, terrifying scream of a laugh. I Heart You, Lincoln.

Bob's heading to Colorado, which is sad. Jesse's almost done with another batch of beer, which is happy. Rusty's heading to Phoenix, which is sad. I'm head-over-heels in love, which is very happy. Life's always a mixed bag, I guess.

Haven't posted any long philosophical rants here in a while, unlike my better half. I will eventually, I promise, I just need to get up the right head of steam.

Artistic Linkorgy

Random encounter of the weekend: some two thousand members of "United Notions", banqueting in Union Station's great hall. Apparently some sort of arts and crafts organization. Wonder who won Doily of the Year?

Ever since I got here, people have been loaning me TV show boxsets, and now I'm totally backlogged. In the near future, in no particular order, I need to make it through Tales of the City, Alias, and Firefly. That's a lot of hours of DVD.

My other expedition this weekend was to the Brookside Annual, a rather huge outdoor art fair. I didn't have nearly the time or money to buy much of anything, but I did manage to grab business cards from the booths that interested me. I'm sure to lose them soon enough, so for my own future reference this is a linkorgy of all the cool ones. Might make for interesting browsing if you're really, really bored.

• Audrey Heller Photography


• Chris Dahlquist: Photographic Mixed Media


• Chris Honeysett, Photographer


• Damian Velasquez: Modern Handcrafted Furniture


• Jeffrey Zachmann: Kinetic Sculptures


• Kelvin Schartz: Celestial Ironworks


• Kevin Sink Photography: Designs from Nature


• Kyle Osvog: Ceramic Sculpture


• Michael Bryant: Transfers with Prose


• Michael D'Andrea Studios


• Mike McMullen: Black & White Fine Art Photography


• Mitch Yung Ceramic Design


• R. Henry Design


• Susan & Kelly Nolan: Impostors