You had to know this was coming.
In honor of the 517th anniversary of the beginning of one of the greatest democides in the history of the Earth, I have surfaced from the morass of grad-school applications and work that my life has become to talk about…(wait for it)…movies!
When last we spoke in August, I was quite a bit off my pace for movie-viewing compared to 2008. I’ve made up a little of the gap, having now seen 17 features in a theater, compared to 19 at this point in 2008.
Since my last update, I’ve also seen what are probably my three favorite films of 2009 thus far: District 9, Inglourious Basterds, and A Serious Man.
District 9: I doubt very much that I have anything to add to the rapturous reception that the South African alien-refugees-as-apartheid metaphor film had from every quarter. I will say that I concur with the critics who say that the latter half devolved somewhat as protagonist Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley, in a staggering feature debut) became embroiled in a running battle with the military and local gangsters. That said, this portion of the film was still an excellent action set-piece, and coupled with the raw, subversive tone and subject matter of the first half, made for a worthy addition to the sci-fi canon.
Inglourious Basterds: I first heard that Tarantino was working on a WWII epic sometime in college, and have been on tenterhooks for it ever since. It was, as with most of his work, nothing like what I expected while still being everything I’d hoped for. Tarantino’s mythologizing of the war speaks to his love for yet another genre, the combat film, while his fetishization of the power of the movies to change the world is perhaps the truest expression to date of the ethos that has driven his entire career. I was also intrigued by the way in which Tarantino engaged with Judaism as a powerful, aggressive force rather than its stereotypical portrayal in most films – it was like his remake of Munich. Plus, Eli Roth beats Nazis to death with a baseball bat. The shot of (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) the glowing projection of the face of Shoshanna (Melanie Laurent) floating on the smoke as she carried out her vengeance on the Nazi high command (SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS) is now one of my favorite filmed images, uh, ever.
A Serious Man: I saw the Coen Brothers’ latest exercise in technical brilliance last night, and I’m still chewing on it. Unquestionably excellent, it might be their darkest film to date, which is saying something given No Country for Old Men, Miller’s Crossing, etc. Don’t get me wrong – it’s funny as hell, but everything in it amplifies the suffering and the lack of control of Larry Gopnik (Michael Stuhlbarg) until the concluding scenes deliver an ominous one-two punch.
Coverage will continue as time allows…
Because I have only a loose approximation of a social life, I have some weird nerd habits, one of which is tracking movies that I see in theaters. My annual record is 37, set in 2007. I fell far short of breaking it last year, with a paltry 28. 2009 is not shaping up to be much better.
Still alive, two-month silence not withstanding. Twitter (@patrickhume) eats most of my transient thoughts, and any impetus I have for substantial discursion has been routed into my screenplay. I completed work on the first draft on August 2nd, and promptly collapsed into a useless heap of self-loathing and bloated junk-food consumption from which I am slowly attempting to recover.
The script is called Northeast Kingdom, and it is not very good. Crucially, I feel I understand why it isn’t very good. The pacing is off. The story engine doesn’t propel it along like it should. There’s a snag in the transmission, so the words are just sitting there on the page, a rusted-out hulk decaying alongside a county highway.
Or something. Try not to step in the florid, it’s hard to get it off your shoes.
Anyway. The pacing is off because I didn’t outline the script prior to writing it, which is a big no-no in the highly structured world of screenwriting. At the time, I couldn’t articulate the story because I didn’t know it well enough yet. A hundred-odd pages later, I’ve got an idea of what I don’t want it to be, so that’s something. I’ve started outlining the second draft in a detailed treatment format, which should assist greatly in molding the script from the dull mess it is now into something that a human might want to read.
Or use as a basis for admitting me into a graduate program. You know, whatever.
Anyway, anticipate some further updates over the next couple of days, at least. I hope to be writing here on a more regular basis (weekly?) to record my second-draft process, and everything else. But I’ve said that before, so clearly I can’t be trusted.
Neither Blueprints Nor Warnings
Published June 6, 2009 Books , Comics , Miscellany , TV , Theatre , Writing Leave a CommentTwo weeks and change. Good work, Pat. Recent highlights:
Some notes on recent television happenings:
- I think the time has passed for giving my detailed thoughts on “Omega”, the season finale of Dollhouse. Briefly: I enjoyed it very much, and would have been extremely irritated if it was the series finale. Happily, that is no longer a concern, since…
- Fox announced Monday that Dollhouse would be renewed for a second season, to begin airing in the fall. It’s still stuck on Friday nights at 9, unfortunately, with the execrable Brad Garrett sitcom ‘Til Death as a lead-in. I’ll take what I can get, however, and hope that Joss Whedon has enough sense to know he probably won’t dodge the bullet twice and wraps everything up next year.
- Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles will not be rejoining us, which I’m not as upset about as I thought I would be. When it was good, it was great, but it couldn’t pull it off consistently. The last run of episodes was fantastic and ended in a reasonably satisfying and resolved way, so maybe it’s better that the series went out on a high note instead of overstaying its welcome.
- The best non-genre series of the spring, and maybe the best of the spring, period, has unequivocally been AMC’s Breaking Bad. Bryan Cranston (the dad from Malcolm In The Middle) plays Walter White, a genius chemist reduced to teaching high school to make ends meet. With a teenaged son with cerebral palsy and another, unplanned child on the way, at the beginning of the series Walt is diagnosed with aggressive lung cancer. Desperate to leave something behind for his family, Walt partners with a former student to start cooking and distributing crystal meth. As the series progresses, two things become clear: Walt and Jesse are not very good at being drug lords, and Walt is using his cancer as an excuse to reclaim agency and authority in his own life. The first season was only seven episodes, cut short by the Writers’ Strike, but Cranston’s work was enough to earn him last year’s Emmy for Leading Actor in a Drama. The second season has really ratcheted up both the stakes for the characters and the adroitness of the writing and cinematography. Cranston’s searing portrait of a man addicted to whatever tiny morsels of novelty, danger and power he can claw out of the world, however, is reason enough to watch. Get the first season on NetFlix or OnDemand; you will not regret it.
- The “official” fall/spring television season is over as of this week, which can mean only one thing: the summer series are about to start. Except…I’m not going to be watching anything except Mad Men, which doesn’t start till August, and my current guilty pleasure, True Blood. If you can’t stand the sanitized, desexed, female-disempowering pox that is the Twlight franchise, then True Blood is the cure. Sex, violence, vampires, sex, shapeshifters, telepaths, violence, sex, exploration of social issues via the integration of supernatural beings into modern culture, sex, an improbably attractive cast, the South at its grimiest, sex…like I said, guilty pleasure. In my defense, the acting is solid, the production values are top-notch, Anna Paquin is delightful, and the writing is better than you think it is.
- Of the new series for next year, I am actively interested in none and vaguely intrigued only by ABC’s Flash Forward, based on the novel of same name by Robert J. Sawyer; Happy Town, a Twin Peaks-esque murder mystery, and V, a remake of the mid-80s alien invasion miniseries, both midseason replacements, also on ABC; and NBC’s post-apocalyptic Day One, which won’t be starting till midseason either. Lost won’t be back until January, so the fall is looking mighty sparse for your intrepid reporter: Mad Men, Dollhouse and…that’s it. Of course, at that point hopefully I’ll be neck deep in grad school applications, so it should work out.
Lost 5.15-5.17 – “Follow The Leader”/”The Incident”, Parts 1 and 2
Published May 14, 2009 TV Leave a Comment“I’m sorry this happened to you.”
Since I have been remiss, as ever, in blogging in a timely fashion, I’ll be covering both “Follow The Leader” and “The Incident” in this entry. This works out, since “Follow The Leader” served primarily as a prologue to the finale.
And what a finale it was. The particular events that transpired, particularly in 1977, had an air of inevitability about them, which befits a series so concerned with the question of destiny versus free will. What made “The Incident” such a great episode, though, right up there with “Exodus” and “Through The Looking Glass”, was the game-changing shift in scope, coupled to small details and touches throughout that capitalized on everything we’ve come to know and love (or hate) about the castaways over the years.
Also, the contents of the metal box. That took it up a notch.
Continue reading ‘Lost 5.15-5.17 – “Follow The Leader”/”The Incident”, Parts 1 and 2′
“One day a year, she’s going to laugh and laugh and shake our bones.”
Damn it.
I felt like I’d reconciled myself to the fact that “Dollhouse” probably wasn’t going to be back next season. Aside from the excellent “Man On The Street” and “Spy In The House Of Love”, most of this initial run has been of middling quality, with occasional glimmers of brilliance. I was sad that Joss Whedon’s hopes and dreams would once again be dashed by Fox, hungry for ratings and too ignorant to take the time to nourish their burgeoning cult series, but I didn’t take it personally. The unevenness of the show prevented it from getting its hooks into me.
And then, “Briar Rose”.
“I’ve just been shot by a physicist!”
The landmark 100th episode. The return of Daniel Faraday, and the promise of much revelation.
And yet, I was strangely underwhelmed.
