TV and Streaming

The end is the beginning is the end

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HBO has been known to do some killer season finales – no pun intended, although it would be a perfectly accurate one in the case of the last episode of Rome‘s first season. The lead-up to the murder of Caesar is masterfully composed and reminiscent of another plot to have a leader and father figure killed in another HBO series: Livia Soprano’s planned killing of that disappointment of a son. (Is it a coincidence that Livia was named for another larger-than-life mother from ancient Rome?)

Throughout the season I’ve been impressed with Ciaran Hinds’ layered portrayal of Caesar, a man whose fierce intelligence, pride and ambition inspire awe even when he’s at his most arrogant and dismissive. His death, even though it’s clear that it’s coming, is startling in its force and brutality – not just in terms of blood and gore, but in terms of the story and the characters. Another favourite of mine (other than Titus Pullo, of course, who’s just a big sweetie when he isn’t murdering people in a jealous rage) is Brutus, who is portrayed by Tobias Menzies with a fascinating mix of hurt pride, bitterness, self-loathing and, strangest of all, genuine love for Caesar.

Another HBO series finale that pushed all the right buttons with me was Generation Kill‘s final episode, “Bomb in the Garden”. It’s rare for a series that is so documentary in its approach to manage its story and character arcs so deftly, but David Simon and Ed Burns have done a brilliant job. The final scene recalls another work by Simon and Burns, namely the ending of The Wire’s season 2, both scenes using a Johnny Cash song (in both cases making me think that perhaps, just perhaps, I ought to check out that Cash guy’s music). And yes, I am quite okay with admitting my considerable man-crush on Alexander Skarsgard.

With all these endings, it’s only fitting that I finally finished Grand Theft Auto IV. So much has been written about the game already that I won’t add anything other than this: I enjoyed the latest installment of Liberty City. If there’s a more convincing, living and breathing city in any game, I haven’t played it yet. Take it away, Philip.

More series business

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How many different series can a person watch and still keep them all apart? Right now we’re watching Angel, House  M.D., Carnivale and Heroes and Grey’s Anatomy, I’m rewatching Six Feet Under, Battlestar Galactica and Life on Mars, we’ve just finished Fringe and we’re waiting to continue The Sopranos and Buffy. Well, at least no one can accuse me of being a total elitist snob when it comes to telly series…

I enjoyed Fringe because it fulfilled my post-X-Files FBI-investigating-weird-shit cravings. Is it a good series? Not particularly – it’s repetitive, some of the acting is dubious and with half the episodes I think that I’ve seen them before, only Mulder and Scully did them better. It’s great turn-off-your-brain TV fast-food, though, and I’m looking forward to more Leonard Nimoy in season 2. “It’s all lies. But they’re entertaining lies. And in the end, isn’t that the real truth?” (Damn you, YouTube, for not having a clip of that scene!)

The answer is, "No."

Grey’s Anatomy has been something of a guilty pleasure of mine, and throughout much of season 4 it wasn’t all that much of a pleasure, to be honest. The series’ problem – well, main problem – is that they’ve got a number of very good actors and even the middling actors know their parts by now, but the writing (especially with respect to character development) covers the whole range from maudlin to obvious to plain bad, with the occasional strong scene. If the series could decide to be a comedy, it wouldn’t matter that most of the characters are written to be highly unprofessional so much of the time (typical example: some patient is dying and needs urgent care, and doctor X decides that this is the right moment to ask doctor Y why they didn’t have sex the previous night – remind me not to get ill in TV Seattle…). It takes very good writing to make the constant jumps from quirky comedy to serious (melo)drama work if the characters aren’t to come across as nincompoops at the mercy of the script. Season 5 had many of those weaknesses, but it had enough strong moments to keep me watching. Still, there are some developments and storylines that just annoy the hell out of me: a resident at a big Seattle hospital going more or less bankrupt from one day to the next because Daddy cuts her trust fund? Swapping one interesting lesbian character for cute but eternally bland blondie because you want eye candy rather than an actual character? Derek Shepard yet again going all pompously self-righteous, and still no one takes one of those circular saws to his perfectly coiffed head?

If we all gang up and stab him with scalpels, it shouldn't take too long...

In the meantime, I’m rather enjoying where Angel season 3 is taking us. Yes, there were a couple of false steps – Gunn and Wesley going all mooney over Fred wasn’t cute, it was just annoying, and having it go on for several episodes made me want to go Angelus on them all – but it’s fascinating to see how Angel, Cordelia and especially Wesley develop during the season. Just 2-3 more episodes to go until season 4 – and I’m ignoring all those people who say that it’s one of the worst seasons ever in the Whedonverse, because it’s something we have to get through before season 5 and “Smile Time” and the (wait for it) bitter-sweet finale. (Yes, Lucy, I put that there just for you…)

Oh, before I forget: gotta love this recent article in The Onion: Next Tarantino Movie An Homage To Beloved Tarantino Movies Of Director’s Youth.

Fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight, fight. How many fights is that? A lot.

And finally: I’ll be writing a weekly entry at The Best Shows You’re Not Watching, alternating between Six Feet Under and Life on Mars. You can find the first one here. Let me know what you think!

I like strong women

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Just when my frustration at Firefly‘s premature cancellation was starting to abate:

Yesterday evening we watched the last episode of Veronica Mars. The series definitely went out on a very strong episode – but why did it have to go out to begin with? Okay, the answer is simple: not enough people were watching it. Don’t ask me what they were watching instead; probably some reality TV crap with barely one percent of the wit of Veronica Mars, not to mention the wonderful acting by the lead and the great supporting characters. I’ve said it before (somewhere) and I’ll say it again: the relationship between Veronica and Keith Mars is the best father-daughter relationship I’ve ever seen on TV.

Yes, there were weaker episodes, one of the banes of series that require 20+ episodes per season. Yes, season 2 was a muddled mess in terms of its overarching plot. And yes, Duncan Kane was largely a boring waste of space. But the main character was one of the funniest, strongest female characters this side of Joss Whedon’s work. And I don’t see anyone much having replaced her.

Veronica & Co.

Talking of strong women: one of the games I’ve been playing lately, Mirror’s Edge, is one of the few A-list titles whose protagonist Faith is a woman – and, more unusually, the game is played from first-person perspective, so the mostly male players aren’t even invited to ogle Faith’s assets. (No Lara Croft, her.) The game takes the trendy sport Parkour as its main inspiration, but it’s much more than a gimmick – in fact, it’s perhaps the most exhilarating first-person game I’ve played. Mirror’s Edge is flawed, mainly in its humdrum plot and storytelling, but when it works, it works amazingly well. I’ll let the visuals speak for the game:

Smell disfunctional marriages, can ya?

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It’s good to see Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet in something that wasn’t written by an author whose ideas of romance (and class) are those of a 16-year old. Revolutionary Road is a beautifully, if at times somewhat archly, acted study of a marriage stifled by society and by individual cowardice.

The film could easily have gone wrong – the script isn’t particularly strong, with a number of oddities (e.g. where are the Wheelers’ children? they seem to exist only when it’s deemed necessary, whereas the rest of the time they seem to be locked away in a stasis chamber), clunky lines (“You’re the most beautiful and wonderful thing in the world. You’re a man!” Excuse me, but WTF?!) and hackneyed characters. The mathematician son of a friend of Frank and April’s is basically that old chestnut, the wise fool – but the acting makes him into something more real than the script would warrant.

It takes the film a while to spin on all cylinders and move beyond its conventional story of societal pressures and marriage as an exercise in mutual resentment, but once it does it’s gripping and moving, thanks mainly to Di Caprio and Winslet’s acting. And the ending is effectively devastating as Frank Wheeler surrenders to the quiet dispair, the “hopeless emptiness” of his life.

I was less taken with last night’s episode of Grey’s Anatomy. The series has never been particularly good at introducing new characters, and it’s even worse at giving a send-off to regulars. Dr Erica Hahn’s leaving was handled especially badly, coming across very much as a spur-of-the-moment decision by the producers to axe her and the budding lesbian relationship she’d started with Callie Torres. Similarly, the two new characters weren’t given any lead-in – they were just there suddenly. Especially with Sadie this was done quite insultingly badly; obviously we were supposed to think, “Eh, she really comes out of the blue, which doesn’t make sense if she’s supposedly Meredith’s former BFF, but she’s hot, so whatever…”

And her character Virginia Dixon, a heart surgeon who has Asperger’s Syndrome, highlighted one of the things I’ve come to hate about the series: its manipulative use of music. It’s okay if it’s earned, and they often have a good hand at choosing songs to underline sad moments – but the jaunty comedy music is annoying, especially when what we’re seeing simply isn’t very funny. It’s just a step away from canned laughter. And when the series invites us to laugh at the weird new doctor (after all, the music tells us that this is a comedic scene) to then turn around and have her say that she doesn’t particularly like being made fun of, chiding us for what the episode suggested was the intended reaction? Well, that strikes me as more than just a tad hypocritical.

Skeletor is not a crook (and our little Brad’s finally gone and grown up)

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Sorry for that post title. I was going for something clever and intertextual, but after staying up for the Academy Awards I simply don’t have the brains for it.

Did anyone else see them? I was doubtful that I’d enjoy them – but I did, not least for the huge grin on Danny Boyle’s face that grew with every one of his mates winning an Oscar. And his Tigger impression was sweet. I always knew that the man who directed 28 Days Later had to have a genuinely sweet side to him.

Incidentally, the last two films I’d seen at the cinema were among the most nominated titles: Frost/Nixon and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. A lot has already been said and written about how the latter is practically a remake of Forrest Gump; my only comment on that is that yes, in terms of plot this allegation is absolutely true. But David Fincher, thank the celluloid gods, is no Robert Zemeckis. It’s not his best film, not by a long shot, but it’s a poetic, not a little surreal story about the things and the people we leave behind. As such I found it very effective and another illustration of Brad Pitt growing as an actor with every year.

All things considered, though, I was more taken with Frost/Nixon, perhaps more so because I didn’t expect to be. The first film I’d seen Michael Sheen in was Underworld, which ranks high in my list of worst films ever. (No, Kate Beckinsale in tight leather doesn’t stir my, ahem, imagination any. Sorry, Kate.) I wasn’t prepared for his strong, nuanced performance as David Frost – but I was doubly not prepared for Frank Langella’s sad, pathetic, tragic Richard M. Nixon. Who’d have thought that the guy who played Skeletor in the film version of Masters of the Universe would be this good? I should probably go back and watch those early Deep Space Nine episodes he was in.

What next? Well, I definitely want to see Revolutionary Road and quite possibly Milk and The Reader. And at some point I should check out The Visitor, which garnered Richard Jenkins (yes, that’s right – Nate the Elder from Six Feet Under) a nomination. Ah… something isn’t right if you don’t get to go to the cinema at least once a week!

Cold off the press

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Yes, I’m afraid I have to admit that I have been somewhat amiss in updating the blog. My boring, sad excuse? Work. Work, work, work. (I could write an entire scene just using variations of the word, but I think we can all do without that one.

But there are a number of things on my list of Things to Blog About. Even if some of them go back months, they’re definitely not forgotten.

Now, if only I could remember what they are…

The Wire, season 5. Most of the reviews I read were almost a bit embarrassed – yes, the final is good but it’s widely agreed to be the weakest of the series. If it had come earlier it would have been less of a disappointment, but after the potent tragedy, the incisive satire, the sheer all-round greatness of the earlier seasons – well, it felt like The Wire light.

This was perhaps clearest in how the season may just be the funniest of the five, but it lacks a strong tragic counterpoint. Yes, there’s sadness in what happens, even in McNulty’s harebrained scheme, but not to the level of Frank Sobotka’s tragedy, or Bunny Colvin’s, or that of the kids in season 4. And what tragedy there was felt like more of the same, not the deepending of previous seasons. Michael, Dukie, Prop Joe, Omar – they didn’t really bring anything new to the table. As such, season 5 felt less like the last chapter and more like an epilogue. Arguably, the only truly new aspect – the media – lacked the complexity of the series’ earlier depictions of deep flaws in the system grinding up people who try their hardest to get by.

Nevertheless, season 5 worked well as a sendoff to the series and its characters, not least due to its final episode and its uncharacteristic hopefulness. Yes, the system still sucks but – suprisingly optimistic for The Wire – our heroes, the McNultys, Danielses, Michaels, Bubbles, have a chance of surviving, of getting out. Which, in hindsight, may be a touch sentimental… but damn, if it didn’t bring a tear to my eye as I watched it.

Late to the Party: Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog

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Mwhahahahahaha!

I know I’m once again half a year (or more) behind the rest of the internet – but I finally got around to watching Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, done by the Whedon brothers and some of their mates for a song and a half.

So that's coming along well then...

A lot has already been written about Dr Horrible, perhaps the world’s first internet-spawned super-villain musical starring Doogie Howser, M.D. So, not to bore people too much, let me fast-forward through the important bits (skip to the end!): I liked it a lot, the songs are infectious, it does have rather major tonal shifts, to the extent where some people thought that the ending sucked because it turned a light-and-frothy lark into something dark and depressing. Several critics accused Joss Whedon of doing what he always does (make the audience care about characters only to do horr- erm, heinous things to them) and of creating a female character that was supposedly a sexist cliché with no life or meaning of her own beyond what she meant to the male protagonists/antagonists.

While clearly some people might not enjoy Dr. Horrible, I do think that those who were surprised by the darkness of the ending weren’t really watching this. While the tone of the first two acts is largely fun and witty, there are some major scenes (and, perhaps more importantly, songs) that hinted at less fun things to come. I mean, honestly, people! Didn’t you watch the beginning of Act II? Or Penny’s song?

That’s also where my problem with the second main complaint comes in, namely that Penny (or “Whats-her-name”, as her close friends of the press know her) isn’t so much a character as a plot device. For one thing, clearly all of the three main characters are primarily stereotypes (with a couple of individual quirks, because otherwise it wouldn’t be Whedon). If Dr. Horrible is bad because Penny isn’t a character of Chekhovian richness, what about Captain Hammer, corporate tool? If any one character remains barely one-dimensional, it’s him. And yes, Penny is definitely also a projection pane for all the “nice guys” out there who secretly carry a torch for the nice, shy, somewhat nerdy girl with the cute smile, just as Billy is a perfect identification figure – which makes the ending more effective, in my opinion.

But what makes her a richer character than some have acknowledged is how, to some extent, she is complicit in what happens. Penny isn’t blind to Captain Hammer’s less charming qualities, but she projects her own needs onto him as much as Billy projects his onto her. Listen to her laundromat song and look at her face while she sings it, and it’s obvious that the character isn’t some Mother Theresa of the Laundromats: her niceness, her need to help others, these are a self-willed resignation that she’ll never get what she really wants, so the best she can hope for is to try and make things better for others while she’s pretty much given up on herself and her own wishes. Once the Hammer-man enters the pic, she can pretend that he’s her means of being happy, until even she can’t ignore his downright idiocy and vulgarity. But all of this is an act of will on her part: to do for others what she cannot do for herself, to resign herself to Captain Hammer because, well, it’s not as if she could do any better, could she?

I could spout some more pseudo-psychological drivel here, but I’m going to spare you. If you haven’t seen Dr. Horrible (and my post so far hasn’t turned you off it), do check it out. Get the DVD and you’ll even get Commentary! the Musical, Wiccan subtitles (?!) and fan-submitted application videos to the Evil League of Evil, such as this one:

It was you, Bodie. You broke my heart.

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Life (and Death) on the Streets

I feel old. I been out there since I was 13. I ain’t never fucked up a count, never stole off a package, never did some shit that I wasn’t told to do. I been straight up. But what come back? Hmm? You’d think if I get jammed up on some shit they’d be like, “A’ight, yeah. Bodie been there. Bodie hang tough. We got his pay lawyer. We got a bail.” They want me to stand with them, right? But where the fuck they at when they supposed to be standing by us? I mean, when shit goes bad and there’s hell to pay, where they at? This game is rigged, man. We like the little bitches on a chessboard.

Poor Bodie. Poor loyal, misguided, tragic Bodie. Like so many on The Wire, we’ve seen him do terrible things ever since he and Poot shot Wallace back in season 1 – yet he wasn’t a bad guy. He wasn’t evil. He was just one of those little bitches on a chessboard, just like another tragic player who decided that enough was enough and ended up hanging from a prison doorknob with a belt around his neck.

Poor Randy. Screwed over by the stupidity of a cop who doesn’t get that he’s betraying this kid – but screwed over even more by a society where talking to a cop is much worse a crime than putting a bullet in someone’s head, it seems, and by a system that at best can keep an account of the people it’s failing – but actually helping them? Sorry, no. Not enough money, not enough people to do the work, not enough of an incentive to cut through the red tape.

Poor Carver, trying so hard to do right by those under his care. Poor Dukie, for whom a day in high school is more frightening than a life on the corners. Poor Michael, killing his soul to protect his little brother. Poor Bubbles, saddest of all. You all broke my heart… and I know I’ll be back for more.

bubbles

I’d thought that season 2 of The Wire was as tragic as it would get. Frank Sobotka going to his death, thinking that he had even the tiniest chance of patching things up for himself, his nephew, his union, for the men he felt responsible for. But the slow, drawn out death of the working stiffs’ union doesn’t hold a candle to the perpetual, systemic sickness which The Wire, season by season, evokes for us, and the way it infects the youngest already.

With “Final Grades”, the season 4 finale, The Wire may just have topped Six Feet Under as my favourite series. The care and intricacy with which the characters are developed, the interconnecting themes play out – has there ever been a series as perfectly constructed yet feeling so right and so true? I could point to episodes, plot strands and even characters in Six Feet Under that didn’t add anything much to the overall series. The Wire? Everything adds to the whole, coming together with dizzying precision, affecting me to an extent that I never would have expected from what looks like a naturalistic cop series about drugs and crime.

Chris, Michael and Snoop (shudder...)

All of this might sound like The Wire is too complex, too constructed for its own good, but the scenes and the characters breathe with a lightness of touch that has to be seen over a number of seasons to be appreciated. It’s only when you take a step back that you can see just how perfectly wrought the series is.

Okay, enough of this clumsy attempt to put into words the effect that “Final Grades” had on me. Unless you’re scared of spoilers, you may want to check out this page (http://www.theguywiththeglasses.com/2008/03/wire-top-scenes.html) as it deftly picks some of the best scenes of the series up to the end of season 4.

And, apart from anything else, it’s good to see a quality series that actually makes it to the end without being cancelled prematurely. (There is something cruelly ironic about releasing a DVD set called Deadwood – Complete Collection. Be honest, cocksucker, and call it what it is: Deadwood – Dead Before Its Time or Deadwood – We Killed It Because We Had To Pay For This Weirdo Surfer Dude Series or Deadwood – Because A Good Novel With The Final Chapter Ripped Out Is Still A Good Novel, Right?)