Saturday, October 22, 2011
Friday, October 21, 2011
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Game of Thrones Season 1: Episodes 6-7 Review
Back again with a double header of "Game of Thrones" reviews as we now inch ever closer to the dramatic close of the first season. Am I finally being won over to Team Stark, embracing the sometimes overwhelming Westeros Universe and letting go of my petty "this is basically just softcore with more piping hot alloys being melted over main characters' faces" complaints? Let's find out... EPISODE 6: A GOLDEN CROWNAs you'll recall from Episode 5 (or at the very least, my recap of Episode 5), Ned was stabbed in the leg by one of Jamie Lannister's personal soldiers. Now we cut to him convalescing in bed, only to find both the King and Queen staring him down. Cersei is still feeling vindictive over Lady Stark's arrest of her brother Tyrion, but King Robert feels more sympathetic towards Ned and, before all is said and done, he gives the Queen a good smack. (Hey, he apologizes later for being "not kingly"! That's about as good as you're likely to get from this guy, ladies.) Anyway, there's some genuinely well-written dialogue here between Ned and the King. For the first time, we're starting to understand just how dependent Robert's entire reign is on his wife's family and their wealth. He's massively indebted to the Lannisters; he has no choice but to keep them happy or risk losing his throne. He's practically begging Ned to have Tyrion released, but disguises it with his usual bluster. ("I'm the king. I get what I want.") Anyway, Mark Addy plays it just right, and it works. Switching over to Vaes Dothrak, the Khaleesi is again obsessing over her family's ancestral dragon eggs. This time, she's resting them on some hot coals. (I guess she really is tired of eating horse meat!) When she's able to pick up the flaming-hot dragon eggs without burning her hands, it becomes clear that... I'm not sure... she's somehow connected with the dragons? Like Harry Potter with snakes? I'm sure this is going somewhere, but it sure has been a long time developing this "the blonde lady really likes preserved fetal dragons" sub-plot with not much payoff so far. (OK, OK, it does get paid off later in this very episode, but I didn't know that while I was watching it, you guys.) 
We're going to need an assload of Tapatio. And maybe some shredded cheese. Back in Winterfell, Bran Stark yet again dreams of that creepy three-eyed crow. This time, in his dream, it's perched atop the head of a wolf statue. This seems like a bad omen, what with the dire wolf being the symbol of the Stark Family and all. I mean, sure, I'm making a leap here and assuming that a three-eyed crow is a BAD omen rather than a happy omen. (The whole "third eye vision" thing suggests that we're seeing an omen of SOME kind.) Maybe it's a happy crow - like one of those racist crows from "Dumbo" - and it's just coming around to cheer Bran up. This is high fantasy... George RR can do whatever the fuck he wants! Anyway, Bran tries out the special saddle Tyrion suggested, and it works beautifully. But it does lead him into the forest where he's set upon by creepy forest people. His older brother Robb attempts a rescue but it doesn't come off so well, and it eventually falls to Theon Greyjoy (who secretly hates the Starks and has been pulling for a Stark/Lannister conflict) to save the day. He does, and wants to kill the last remaining woman from the Forest People group... but Robb stops him. (As an aside, I didn't have to learn Robb Stark's name or anything about him until this episode. Up until now, I've been calling him Stark Jr. in my notes and I never had to actually look it up. It's Episode 6.) Back at King's Landing, Arya has another swordfighting lesson with Father Guido... uh, her swordfighting instructor who is not at all a crude-a Italian stereotype-a. The Situation of Swashbuckling is full of little gems of wisdom like "There is only one God, and his name is Death." Which is all well and good, but Bill O'Reilly would argue that still doesn't explain the tides going in and out. Back in Vaes Dothrak, the Khaleesi is performing some kind of weird pregnancy ritual that involves eating - and not throwing up - an entire horse's heart. Which is every bit at unpleasant as it sounds. Plus it comes with a site of bleu cheese fries, and those are so good that you can't eat just one, even if you also had an entire horse's heart. Khaleesi keeps it all down, once again proving that she is kind of a badass. She also decides during the ceremony that her baby will be named Rhaego, which is a shame, because Buster Khal really does have a nice ring to it. Viserys, clearly growing concerned about his tenuous position with the Dothraki, makes the case to Mormont that the baby won't be "a real Targaryan." (It's totally not going to be invited to play on the softball team at the family reunion next month. ) Viserys is also trying to make a case for stealing the dragon eggs, and offers Mormont his sister's sexual favors in exchange for letting him escape with them. This is basically Viserys' only currency. He doesn't believe in paper money or coinage at all. Just offers of sex somewhere down the road with his sister. It makes going to the market a considerably more awkward task, especially on double coupon day. Mormont refuses the generous offer. Back at the castle of Lady Stark's creepy sister, Lysa Arryn, Tyrion Lannister is being held in a "sky cell," of which he's not a huge fan. To get inside, he claims to want to confess, but ends up just telling disgusting stories instead and making a mockery of the proceedings. (That rogue!) Next comes, honestly, one of the silliest scenes I can recall seeing in an otherwise dramatic series. Tyrion argues that he wants a Trial by Combat, which I guess means he gets to just fight someone and if he wins, he's innocent. But then, he argues that he should be allowed to pick someone else to fight on his behalf, to which Lysa agrees. Really? She agrees to letting him order some other guy to fight for him, and if that guy wins, he gets set free? If the goal was just to get a bunch of strangers to kill each other for no good reason, then yes, I'd say this is a perfect way to dispense with justice. But if the goal is actually to figure out if someone is guilty of something, and maybe prevent them from doing the same thing over again with impunity... then this won't do at all. Why even hold a trial if you're willing to just replace the outcome with random strangers trying to kill each other? Honestly, this whole bit just feels like the writers were in a corner and needed a way to get Tyrion Lannister out of this situation, so they invented a legal code that proceeds about as orderly and rational as a game of Calvinball. Anyway, Tyrion's champion wins the fight and thus, he walks, which is the sort of thing that probably happens all the time in this universe. Next, we're back at King's Landing where a whole string of fairly confusing things happens all at once, and I had to look up what was going on just to be able to write a summary.Basically, Ned fills in for the King at court, while the King is out on a hunt. Ned hears a grievance against Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane (the big guy who fought with his brother at the tournament in Episode 5), who has apparently been attacking villages we've never seen before. Through research online, I was able to piece together that Ser Gregor is loyal to Tywin Lannister, the father of all these other Lannisters that have populated the show, and Gregor's attacking these places (called "The Riverlands") in retaliation for Tyrion's arrest by Lady Stark. I'd argue there is no possible way anyone could have put this together just from the material as presented in this episode. It all is described too quickly and the references are all to obscure things never depicted previously on screen. 
This guy is Ser Gregor! You might remember him from that ONE OTHER TIME we've seen him, in the whole show, when probably someone might say his name aloud I bet! Anyway, Ned orders him stripped of all his titles and property and orders him brought in to face justice. This seems to be playing in to what everyone wants, which is for the Lannisters and Starks to fight it out, thus creating a vacuum on the throne that someone else can come in and fill. But who knows... maybe Ned has another plan in mind. We get a scene where Prince Joffrey goes to Sansa Stark to apologize for his behavior up until now and give her some jewelry. This interaction would be almost sweet if they weren't already established as the two worst people in the world. Speaking of horrible people, we cut back to Theon briefly, who's seeing his favorite prostitute leave him en route to King's Landing. He gives her a coin to see her vagina one last time. This is romantic by "Game of Thrones" standards. Back in King's Landing, Ned studies the lineages of all the great houses of the Westeros, focusing his attention on the King's House, Baratheon. (This book seems handy. They should really give out a copy to everyone who subscribes to HBO.) He then notices that... wait for it... all the Baratheons have BLACK hair. And Prince Joffrey has BLONDE hair, which apparently he never noticed before. So this means Joffrey ISN'T ROBERT'S REAL SON! This is, without a doubt, the dumbest scene in the show so far. It make the "I want that random guy to fight for my innocence" bit feel like "Inherit the Wind" in comparison. No one ever noticed before that Joffrey was the only one in the family with blonde hair? ROBERT, his supposed father, who obsessed over maintaining his family's hold on the throne, hadn't picked up on it? No one thought anything of it until Ned got this book out? The episode ends with Khal Drogo holding a feast in honor of the Khaleesi, which Viserys interrupts, drunk. Worst of all, Viserys openly threatens young Rhaego. Drogo reacts the only way he possibly could, by coating Viserys with molten gold, killing him in the most ghastly manner imaginable. Khaleesi looks on, coldly... "He was no dragon." See? Now it makes sense why she has the dragon eggs and can hold them and stuff. She... is a dragon? Hang on, I think I missed something...EPISODE 7: YOU WIN OR YOU DIEWe get our first look here at Papa Lannister, played by Charles Dance, whom acute film fans will remember from his roles in classics like "Alien 3," "Ali G In Da House," "Scoop" and "Last Action Hero." Yeah, he's really in all of those. When we first see him, he's gutting a stag. Is this symbolism, because the stag is the symbol of House Baratheon? Or is it just gross to be gross? You decide. Tywin's giving what is, by now, such a recognizable "Game of Thrones" stump speech, they really don't even need to bother writing them any more. Just have a chime go off and we'll imagine someone talking about how individual lives don't matter, but it's the family name that lives on. We also gather from this discussion that, even before the grisly events of Episode 6, the Targaryans were seen as a "nothing house." The whole system is really starting to remind me of college fraternities. ("So, you guys pledging Tully House?") Ned and the Queen have a real heart-to-heart following his blonde hair/black hair revelation. (Seriously... still not over what a stupid plot device this is. Does the entire kingdom have a learning disorder?) The truth finally comes out... Jamie and Cersei Lannister are brother and sister, but they have sex to preserve the purity of the family bloodline (and, let's be honest, because they dig it.) Prince Joffrey is their child, not Robert's. Cersei also gets in some taunts at Ned, implying that, following the death of the Mad King, he had a chance to take the throne and passed on it. She explains: "When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die." Hey, that's the title of this show! 
It honestly doesn't look all that comfortable. You think, if you sit down wrong, one of the points of those swords might poke you in the ass? We cut to the brothel of Petyr Baelish, where he's giving seduction lessons to two naked prostitutes in a scene that clearly has a great deal of relevance to the main plot and isn't at all gratuitous. We do get a little backstory mixed in with all the candelit sideboob. Petyr was in love with Lady Stark, but she had put him firmly in the Friend Zone, opting instead for Ned Stark's brother. When Ned's brother died, she jumped beds and ended up with Ned himself. And now Petyr's the Medieval version of butthurt about it. Next we get another terribly silly scene in which Theon Greyjoy hangs out with the mysterious woman who attacked Bran in the woods. She refers to the northern home of the Starks as "the south," and claims to be from north of the wall. She also fails to understand the traditional concept of "lordship" and together, they re-enact the "Constitutional Peasant" sketch from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." But taking it all SUPER seriously. "Ooh, Theon, there's some lovely filth down here!"Also, big surprise, forest woman brings news from north of the wall that there is an evil there that was sleeping but has now awoken. No duh. They've been saying that since Episode 1, lady. Where you been? Meanwhile, the King has been mortally wounded by a boar during the hunt. He appoints Stark as Lord Regent to rule in his stead until Joffrey's old enough to become king. Acting quickly, Stark puts "rightful heir" on the document instead of Joffrey's name, thinking that he can resolve the situation without having to tell Robert the boy isn't his. Poor dumb Robert signs without reading. He also tells Ned not to have the Khaleesi and her baby killed, and asks him to train Joffrey to be a better man. Then, dead. Up at the Wall, Jon Snow was hoping to be named a Ranger, which is really what you want to be, but instead he's made a steward. This is basically dooming him to a life of servitude, where he will be a ranger's squire. He's clearly depressed and humiliated by this turn of events - it's the Night's Watch version of being put into Hufflepuff. Back at King's Landing, now we're concerned with who will ascend to the throne in Robert's place. There's a lot of talk all of the sudden about a guy named Stannis Baratheon, who has not been shown yet, but who is apparently next in line for the throne. The King's other brother, Renly Baratheon, asks to be put in charge until Stannis can be located, but Ned doesn't go for it. Petyr also makes his play for power, arguing that Ned should take the crown for himself, and kill Joffrey when the boy comes of age. Back in Vaes Dothrak, we see an assassin posing as a wine merchant, trying to poison the Khaleesi but failing miserably. Drogo, incensed by this attempt on his beloved's life, now finally seems convinced and decides to make a play for the Iron Throne. He also promises to rape a bunch of women in front of his wife, which is certainly a big thing to just throw out there. But before any of these other people can throw their hat in the ring, Joffrey jumps the gun and has himself declared king. He and his mother demand fealty from Stark, who refuses, thinking he has the palace guard on his side. But alas, it appears that Petyr has double-crossed him. And... SCENE! Things are certainly heating up a bit here, as we're now starting to see how the actual power play for the throne might come together. Sure, it's a bit convenient that Robert just happened to get gored by a boar right at this moment when all the other situations with other potential monarchs was just coming to a head... but I'm willing to forgive that, if only because things are finally starting to HAPPEN. With 3 episodes left, there may be hope for this show yet... goofy missteps and all.
We're going to need an assload of Tapatio. And maybe some shredded cheese. Back in Winterfell, Bran Stark yet again dreams of that creepy three-eyed crow. This time, in his dream, it's perched atop the head of a wolf statue. This seems like a bad omen, what with the dire wolf being the symbol of the Stark Family and all. I mean, sure, I'm making a leap here and assuming that a three-eyed crow is a BAD omen rather than a happy omen. (The whole "third eye vision" thing suggests that we're seeing an omen of SOME kind.) Maybe it's a happy crow - like one of those racist crows from "Dumbo" - and it's just coming around to cheer Bran up. This is high fantasy... George RR can do whatever the fuck he wants! Anyway, Bran tries out the special saddle Tyrion suggested, and it works beautifully. But it does lead him into the forest where he's set upon by creepy forest people. His older brother Robb attempts a rescue but it doesn't come off so well, and it eventually falls to Theon Greyjoy (who secretly hates the Starks and has been pulling for a Stark/Lannister conflict) to save the day. He does, and wants to kill the last remaining woman from the Forest People group... but Robb stops him. (As an aside, I didn't have to learn Robb Stark's name or anything about him until this episode. Up until now, I've been calling him Stark Jr. in my notes and I never had to actually look it up. It's Episode 6.) Back at King's Landing, Arya has another swordfighting lesson with Father Guido... uh, her swordfighting instructor who is not at all a crude-a Italian stereotype-a. The Situation of Swashbuckling is full of little gems of wisdom like "There is only one God, and his name is Death." Which is all well and good, but Bill O'Reilly would argue that still doesn't explain the tides going in and out. Back in Vaes Dothrak, the Khaleesi is performing some kind of weird pregnancy ritual that involves eating - and not throwing up - an entire horse's heart. Which is every bit at unpleasant as it sounds. Plus it comes with a site of bleu cheese fries, and those are so good that you can't eat just one, even if you also had an entire horse's heart. Khaleesi keeps it all down, once again proving that she is kind of a badass. She also decides during the ceremony that her baby will be named Rhaego, which is a shame, because Buster Khal really does have a nice ring to it. Viserys, clearly growing concerned about his tenuous position with the Dothraki, makes the case to Mormont that the baby won't be "a real Targaryan." (It's totally not going to be invited to play on the softball team at the family reunion next month. ) Viserys is also trying to make a case for stealing the dragon eggs, and offers Mormont his sister's sexual favors in exchange for letting him escape with them. This is basically Viserys' only currency. He doesn't believe in paper money or coinage at all. Just offers of sex somewhere down the road with his sister. It makes going to the market a considerably more awkward task, especially on double coupon day. Mormont refuses the generous offer. Back at the castle of Lady Stark's creepy sister, Lysa Arryn, Tyrion Lannister is being held in a "sky cell," of which he's not a huge fan. To get inside, he claims to want to confess, but ends up just telling disgusting stories instead and making a mockery of the proceedings. (That rogue!) Next comes, honestly, one of the silliest scenes I can recall seeing in an otherwise dramatic series. Tyrion argues that he wants a Trial by Combat, which I guess means he gets to just fight someone and if he wins, he's innocent. But then, he argues that he should be allowed to pick someone else to fight on his behalf, to which Lysa agrees. Really? She agrees to letting him order some other guy to fight for him, and if that guy wins, he gets set free? If the goal was just to get a bunch of strangers to kill each other for no good reason, then yes, I'd say this is a perfect way to dispense with justice. But if the goal is actually to figure out if someone is guilty of something, and maybe prevent them from doing the same thing over again with impunity... then this won't do at all. Why even hold a trial if you're willing to just replace the outcome with random strangers trying to kill each other? Honestly, this whole bit just feels like the writers were in a corner and needed a way to get Tyrion Lannister out of this situation, so they invented a legal code that proceeds about as orderly and rational as a game of Calvinball. Anyway, Tyrion's champion wins the fight and thus, he walks, which is the sort of thing that probably happens all the time in this universe. Next, we're back at King's Landing where a whole string of fairly confusing things happens all at once, and I had to look up what was going on just to be able to write a summary.Basically, Ned fills in for the King at court, while the King is out on a hunt. Ned hears a grievance against Ser Gregor "The Mountain" Clegane (the big guy who fought with his brother at the tournament in Episode 5), who has apparently been attacking villages we've never seen before. Through research online, I was able to piece together that Ser Gregor is loyal to Tywin Lannister, the father of all these other Lannisters that have populated the show, and Gregor's attacking these places (called "The Riverlands") in retaliation for Tyrion's arrest by Lady Stark. I'd argue there is no possible way anyone could have put this together just from the material as presented in this episode. It all is described too quickly and the references are all to obscure things never depicted previously on screen.
This guy is Ser Gregor! You might remember him from that ONE OTHER TIME we've seen him, in the whole show, when probably someone might say his name aloud I bet! Anyway, Ned orders him stripped of all his titles and property and orders him brought in to face justice. This seems to be playing in to what everyone wants, which is for the Lannisters and Starks to fight it out, thus creating a vacuum on the throne that someone else can come in and fill. But who knows... maybe Ned has another plan in mind. We get a scene where Prince Joffrey goes to Sansa Stark to apologize for his behavior up until now and give her some jewelry. This interaction would be almost sweet if they weren't already established as the two worst people in the world. Speaking of horrible people, we cut back to Theon briefly, who's seeing his favorite prostitute leave him en route to King's Landing. He gives her a coin to see her vagina one last time. This is romantic by "Game of Thrones" standards. Back in King's Landing, Ned studies the lineages of all the great houses of the Westeros, focusing his attention on the King's House, Baratheon. (This book seems handy. They should really give out a copy to everyone who subscribes to HBO.) He then notices that... wait for it... all the Baratheons have BLACK hair. And Prince Joffrey has BLONDE hair, which apparently he never noticed before. So this means Joffrey ISN'T ROBERT'S REAL SON! This is, without a doubt, the dumbest scene in the show so far. It make the "I want that random guy to fight for my innocence" bit feel like "Inherit the Wind" in comparison. No one ever noticed before that Joffrey was the only one in the family with blonde hair? ROBERT, his supposed father, who obsessed over maintaining his family's hold on the throne, hadn't picked up on it? No one thought anything of it until Ned got this book out? The episode ends with Khal Drogo holding a feast in honor of the Khaleesi, which Viserys interrupts, drunk. Worst of all, Viserys openly threatens young Rhaego. Drogo reacts the only way he possibly could, by coating Viserys with molten gold, killing him in the most ghastly manner imaginable. Khaleesi looks on, coldly... "He was no dragon." See? Now it makes sense why she has the dragon eggs and can hold them and stuff. She... is a dragon? Hang on, I think I missed something...EPISODE 7: YOU WIN OR YOU DIEWe get our first look here at Papa Lannister, played by Charles Dance, whom acute film fans will remember from his roles in classics like "Alien 3," "Ali G In Da House," "Scoop" and "Last Action Hero." Yeah, he's really in all of those. When we first see him, he's gutting a stag. Is this symbolism, because the stag is the symbol of House Baratheon? Or is it just gross to be gross? You decide. Tywin's giving what is, by now, such a recognizable "Game of Thrones" stump speech, they really don't even need to bother writing them any more. Just have a chime go off and we'll imagine someone talking about how individual lives don't matter, but it's the family name that lives on. We also gather from this discussion that, even before the grisly events of Episode 6, the Targaryans were seen as a "nothing house." The whole system is really starting to remind me of college fraternities. ("So, you guys pledging Tully House?") Ned and the Queen have a real heart-to-heart following his blonde hair/black hair revelation. (Seriously... still not over what a stupid plot device this is. Does the entire kingdom have a learning disorder?) The truth finally comes out... Jamie and Cersei Lannister are brother and sister, but they have sex to preserve the purity of the family bloodline (and, let's be honest, because they dig it.) Prince Joffrey is their child, not Robert's. Cersei also gets in some taunts at Ned, implying that, following the death of the Mad King, he had a chance to take the throne and passed on it. She explains: "When you play the Game of Thrones, you win or you die." Hey, that's the title of this show!
It honestly doesn't look all that comfortable. You think, if you sit down wrong, one of the points of those swords might poke you in the ass? We cut to the brothel of Petyr Baelish, where he's giving seduction lessons to two naked prostitutes in a scene that clearly has a great deal of relevance to the main plot and isn't at all gratuitous. We do get a little backstory mixed in with all the candelit sideboob. Petyr was in love with Lady Stark, but she had put him firmly in the Friend Zone, opting instead for Ned Stark's brother. When Ned's brother died, she jumped beds and ended up with Ned himself. And now Petyr's the Medieval version of butthurt about it. Next we get another terribly silly scene in which Theon Greyjoy hangs out with the mysterious woman who attacked Bran in the woods. She refers to the northern home of the Starks as "the south," and claims to be from north of the wall. She also fails to understand the traditional concept of "lordship" and together, they re-enact the "Constitutional Peasant" sketch from "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." But taking it all SUPER seriously. "Ooh, Theon, there's some lovely filth down here!"Also, big surprise, forest woman brings news from north of the wall that there is an evil there that was sleeping but has now awoken. No duh. They've been saying that since Episode 1, lady. Where you been? Meanwhile, the King has been mortally wounded by a boar during the hunt. He appoints Stark as Lord Regent to rule in his stead until Joffrey's old enough to become king. Acting quickly, Stark puts "rightful heir" on the document instead of Joffrey's name, thinking that he can resolve the situation without having to tell Robert the boy isn't his. Poor dumb Robert signs without reading. He also tells Ned not to have the Khaleesi and her baby killed, and asks him to train Joffrey to be a better man. Then, dead. Up at the Wall, Jon Snow was hoping to be named a Ranger, which is really what you want to be, but instead he's made a steward. This is basically dooming him to a life of servitude, where he will be a ranger's squire. He's clearly depressed and humiliated by this turn of events - it's the Night's Watch version of being put into Hufflepuff. Back at King's Landing, now we're concerned with who will ascend to the throne in Robert's place. There's a lot of talk all of the sudden about a guy named Stannis Baratheon, who has not been shown yet, but who is apparently next in line for the throne. The King's other brother, Renly Baratheon, asks to be put in charge until Stannis can be located, but Ned doesn't go for it. Petyr also makes his play for power, arguing that Ned should take the crown for himself, and kill Joffrey when the boy comes of age. Back in Vaes Dothrak, we see an assassin posing as a wine merchant, trying to poison the Khaleesi but failing miserably. Drogo, incensed by this attempt on his beloved's life, now finally seems convinced and decides to make a play for the Iron Throne. He also promises to rape a bunch of women in front of his wife, which is certainly a big thing to just throw out there. But before any of these other people can throw their hat in the ring, Joffrey jumps the gun and has himself declared king. He and his mother demand fealty from Stark, who refuses, thinking he has the palace guard on his side. But alas, it appears that Petyr has double-crossed him. And... SCENE! Things are certainly heating up a bit here, as we're now starting to see how the actual power play for the throne might come together. Sure, it's a bit convenient that Robert just happened to get gored by a boar right at this moment when all the other situations with other potential monarchs was just coming to a head... but I'm willing to forgive that, if only because things are finally starting to HAPPEN. With 3 episodes left, there may be hope for this show yet... goofy missteps and all.
Monday, October 17, 2011
Sunday, October 16, 2011
Thoughts on the "Walking Dead" premiere
Tonight is the second season debut of the AMC zombie series "The Walking Dead." I got a chance to see the first two episodes of the season a few weeks back (yes, legally... a friend loaned me an advance screener...) Some quick thoughts:The show is exceedingly well-made. The art direction, make-up effects, music, cinematography... all top drawer, pretty much as good as anyone can reasonably expect from a TV series. You can't really tell this wasn't made for, say, HBO, except in the general reluctance to impressive sets or crowd scenes. But the show is deft enough in how it develops to distract from that. Here's my issue, and it's less a problem with the show "The Walking Dead," I suppose, than with horror TV in general. The story doesn't ever go anywhere. The basic premise of "Walking Dead" - the episode-to-episode plot arcs - has remained completely unchanged since the first episode. Honestly, I don't even need to put a spoiler warning on this review (not that I'd summarize what actually happens specifically in this episode regardless.) It's still about a group of survivors of a zombie apocalypse who have banded together for the common defense even though there are lots of little personality clashes and conflicts along the way. These people are essentially wandering around aimlessly, and the show has by now fallen into a rhythm that's considerably, noticeably repetitive. And it's starting to impact my enjoyment of the series. The group wanders around, thinks they come up with a good idea for a new location to settle, they head there, run into trouble along the way, stop and make friends with a new group, then get attacked and watch a few people - particularly their new friends - get picked off. These cycles take about 2 episodes or so, usually, to play out before we're on to the next destination. 
The character development and interpersonal relationships on the show have utterly stagnated. We've got the same weak love triangle playing out as always, and then the sort of forgettable "we should hold up here vs. we should go take the fight to them" arguments you'd see in any zombie genre film. Over and over again. I don't mean to sound churlish. I get that people just love seeing well-executed scenes of zombies attacking and killing people, and "Walking Dead" has at least 1 or 2 of those per episode. And that's enough. And yes, I do prefer it to a good many shows on television right now, and like the atmosphere and zombie effects enough to stick with it. But in terms of being compelling - "appointment TV," as they used to say - the show doesn't even remotely compare to the best dramatic series of TV, many of which surround it on AMC's schedule. (Can't be easy to draw immediate comparisons to "Breaking Bad" and "Mad Men," in my opinion the two best contemporary series on television.) It's good at being a zombie show. But so far, that's about it.
Sunday, October 09, 2011
Game of Thrones Season 1: Episodes 3-5 Review: The Catchupening
After vowing I'd return to blogging regularly and catch up on all of Season 1 of HBO's epic fantasy smash hit "Game of Thrones"... I completely got distracted and dropped the ball.Here's what I discovered. When watching a certain TV show entails writing copious notes along with it, and watching other TV shows entails staring ahead blankly and eating 8-12 cookies... I will usually watch that second show. BUT I'M BACK! Sheer mental fortitude and gritty determination have urged me to push on and complete my task. I may even only eat 5 cookies while I'm writing. Because I'm in control here, people.What I am going do to make things easier on myself is condense the project a bit. Rather than writing blog posts roughly the length and scale of a Dostoyevsky novel about each episode, I'll write a bit less and push through a few episodes at a time until we're all caught up. EPISODE 3: LORD SNOWThe third episode opens with Ned Stark arriving in the capital to serve as the King's Hand, and meeting immediately with the king's inner circle. As is the show's custom, we get a BIG chunk of backstory all at once here, and considering how important all of these characters and their various positions of power will become in the rest of this episode and the next, it's weird that we speed through the introductions so quickly. If this first scene with them had been a bit more patient at revealing who these guys were, I think I'd have enjoyed a lot of subsequent encounters with them more. A prime example is Aidan Gillen as Petyr Baelish, a guy who has a big role to play in Season 1 and who also really looks a lot like an older, Medieval version of Cameron from "Ferris Bueller." 
Pardon my French, Prince Joffrey, but you're an asshole!The gist of it is this: The King is an idiot and has bankrupted the kingdom through a series of needless, self-aggrandizing extravagances. This includes a tournament he wants to hold in honor of Ned Stark's appointment as his Hand. Like I said, kind of an idiot, this king. Meanwhile, the Queen and her son, Prince Joffrey (who continues to look a lot like Draco Malfoy) have a heart-to-heart. He's feeling bad about being a big weenie and getting attacked by his girlfriend's pet wolf, you see. But the Queen assures him that he's got to focus on more long-term evil, like revenging his enemies once he becomes king, rather than petty short-term evil. It's sort of a super-villain pep talk, and it's all a bit much; the whole scene feels like it was written with a sledgehammer, or that it's made up of lines originally written for Sith to say in a "Clone Wars" episode. I know were contrasting the effete, elitist, entitled Lannisters with the noble, hardy Starks but this is over the top. They already killed the little girl's pet just last episode... They suck ass. We get it. Jon (the "Lord Snow" of the episode's title) and Tyrion Lannister arrive at the great Northern Wall - with Jon staying on permanently as a member of the Night's Watch, and Tyrion basically stopping by out of curiosity. They get an earful from the First Ranger about the intense, spooky dangers on the other side and the importance of the enlisted men's commitment. The very first scene in the series, located on the other side of the wall, was definitely one of the most exciting thus far, so I get why they wanted to keep it where they did... but I can't shake the feeling that it kind of spoils scenes like these a bit. We in the audience already know the First Ranger is at least somewhat correct - there definitely do seem to be monsters in them thar forests. It's still an above-average scene just because (now Emmy-winner) Dinklage is so great as Tyrion and brings a bit of personality to a show that can sometimes be very dry. But there's not a lot of actual tension in this debate; we've already seen the White Walkers. They exist, unless the show was blatantly deceiving us. Which wouldn't be very nice. We cut to the Dothraki Army marching along and find that the Khaleesi has become preggers, which seems pretty quick, but hey... they were making eye contact during sex... So what did you expect? We discover this information in the course of a long, drawn out conversation about how the Khaleesi shouldn't have to eat horse meat, as is the tribe's custom. Which sounds unpleasant, but some fresh tomato, maybe a couple avocado slices... not terrible. It helps to distract yourself by staring longingly at some dragon eggs while you eat it, though. This episode also FINALLY gives us some insight into exactly how seasons work in the "Game of Thrones" universe. Up until now, we've heard vague discussions of how "winter is coming" (and believe me, there's yet more of that this time around), but now we actually get a sense for the unpredictable nature of this world's climate, as seasons can last a short while or extend to years, even decades. Kind of a... <sunglasses>... chilling notion. EPISODE 4: CRIPPLES, BASTARDS AND BROKEN THINGSEpisode 4 is significant in these blog posts, because it is the last episode I watched the first time around. After this, we're in unexplored territory, people. Savor the moment. The episode opens with young Bran Stark having a dream in which he sees a crow with 3 eyes. So... that happens. As with most HBO series, dream sequences seem to be a chance for the director to kind of show off and give us a weird, creepy moment that will look good in the commercials for the show's latest season. It's moderately effective here. Next up, we get a lot of backstory all at once about a character I had previously assumed was, in fact, a member of the Stark family. Wikipedia tells me that this is Theon Greyjoy, whose family tried to rebel against the Starks and who is now a servant in their house. This is a PRIME GRADE-A EXAMPLE of what's wrong with "Game of Thrones," people. We start the show getting occasional glimpses of this guy, but not even enough to get a sense for who he is, and certainly not enough to learn his name. Then we're expected to follow a conversation other characters are having about his FATHER, and to connect that to the original person, all without seeing him for more than a moment? Why should I care about his father when I don't even know who he is? I know there's a lot of characters but surely they can do better than this. 
You're certain we've met before? Are you the kid who looks like Draco Malfoy, grown up and dying your hair brown now, maybe in an attempt to look less like Draco Malfoy? You're sure?We cut to Jon Snow now in training at the Northern Wall. In a bit seemingly inspired by "Full Metal Jacket," he takes an overweight fuck-up under his wing and defends him from his abusive cohorts and commanders. Again, not sure if this is a failure of the writing or Kit Harrington's performance, but I feel like we get very little insight into who Jon Snow is or what his motivates are for acting this way. Does he take pity on this kid? And why? (The guy is so pathetic, it's near impossible for even the audience to root for him.) It certainly doesn't SEEM like Snow sympathizes, and yet we intuit that he must because he's behaving that way. But I want to see him care, not just go through the motions. It's like we're waiting to find out his REAL motivation but it never comes. Now across the sea, where the Dothraki army returns to their capital city, Vaes Dothrak. The little snot Viserys, who apparently thought he was marrying his sister into a race of Beaux Arts-inspired architects, rather than barbaric horsemen, expresses his disappointment, reminding us again that he's a little snot. We also get some backstory about Jorah Mormont, who has been advising Viserys and the Khaleesi and we know learn was a knight exiled by Ned Stark for selling slaves. (As one does...) He continues to worry, as we have heard before, that the Dothraki will refuse to cross the sea. Got to wonder if this is going to be an issue down the road... <reaches for sledgehammer> Then Viserys has an almost human moment with the prostitute who also serves as the Khaleesi's lady in waiting, and who is apparently really turned on by dragons. The show is now at least 2/3rds of the way to making Viserys an almost mildly sympathetic character, but then has to go ruin it by being randomly cruel and evil. Ooohhhh, you guys were so close to three dimensions! It was RIGHT THERE! Back at court, there's a lot of intrigue surrounding the death of the PREVIOUS guy who had Ned Stark's job, Jon Arryn. It's confirmed that King Robert has a bastard son who is now working as a blacksmith, and Arryn may have had to die because he discovered this secret potential heir. OK, I'm calling it. This episode is officially a slog. The story is totally DOA, especially as it pertains to the Jon Arryn mystery, which is totally obscure and concerns a bunch of characters we haven't even seen before. Plus, the council is obsessed with a tournament that sounds awesome but that we see none of, and every conversation is pure backstory. (There's even more random chatter about Theon Greyjoy awkwardly shoehorned in in the episode's second half.) This is precisely why I tuned out. 6 month ago Lon, I take back everything bad I've said about you. The episode ends with its best moment, Lady Stark having Tyrion arrested, believing that he hired the assassin who tried to take Bran's life. It's a good scene, an example of how women can wield power in this world. (A theme for the whole episode really, which is about how women can negotiate with and turn the world of knights and soldiers.) We need more like this, giving us a shorthand understanding of this world in a way that's exciting as well as informative. I'm pressing forward this time, and really really hoping things pick up from here... EPISODE 5: THE WOLF AND THE LIONFirst observation here: We really get no sense for what the king actually does, and the method in which he actually governs his kingdom. The only thing we've yet actually seen him do is boss people around in his immediate circle. We get no real sense for his power. Seeing as the entire series revolves around everyone wanting to be King, you'd hope there was more to it than just a license to be a drunken, womanizing boor. Perhaps that really is the gist of it. Each kingdom only has the wealth to provide one man at a time with the drunken, womanizing boor lifestlye, and King is it, so everyone wants to be that. (No, wait, Tyrion also lives that lifestyle and he's just the Queen's brother. So never mind.) We finally get an actual look at the tournament that we've heard discussed repeatedly by the council in full-on "Civilization" mode. 
"Sire, a tournament would raise the citizen's happiness level, but we'd have to raise taxes to fill the treasury. What would you like to do?"Two brothers fight after one of them slays one of the competitors' horses and goes after him, but the king puts an end to it. Can't have something exciting happen, after all. It might interrupt the backstory! (Oh, I'm kidding around with the "Game of Thrones"! Ha ha, we've having fun!)We see Lady Stark on the road with her new prisoner, Tyrion Lannister, and it's basically made clear that everyone already thinks he's innocent. Later, Bran Stark - back in Winterfell - is getting a lesson in all the different Houses of the kingdom. Normally, I'd whine about this being YET MORE backstory, but this was actually quite helpful and fills in a lot of gaps that were troubling me up until this point. We also find out that Lady Stark was a Tully. Where have the Tullys been all this time? They're like the Hufflepuffs of Westeros. Also we've got to catch up with Theon Greyjoy, who now appears to be a main character by a force of sheer will. He's bragging about his family to a prostitute and it's clear that this character is, yet again, an angry egomaniacal narcissist obsessed with his family's name and honor. Seemingly the only kind of character Mr. R. R. Martin cares to write, at least judging from this adaptation. It's all kind of tiresome. Tyrion is essentially the only male character who doesn't spew this hateful claptrap whenever the script gives him an opening. By embracing that character so whole-heartedly, aren't audiences basically saying they find the rest of the series' male characters to be charmless oafs? Next we get a lot of intrigue at the King's Court, most of it having to do with Lord Varys (or the bald eunuch guy, as I have come to know him). Check out this guy's typical day:- First, he tells Ned that the person who killed Jon Arryn also hopes to poison the king, and it could be Ser Hugh. - Then Arya Stark also overhears Varys speaking with Illyrio Mopatis about a plot against the King, counting on an upcoming war for power between the Starks and Lannisters. Dun dun duuuuunnnnnn. - WE ALSO learn that Varys knows about Petyr Baelish's illegal brothel in town. - PLUS Varys then returns to the King's council to ensure that King Robert pushes for war against the Targaryans, whom he knows have a new baby and heir on the way uniting their family with the Dothrakis.Basically, it's a busy afternoon. But he has no genitals! So there are few distractions. Ned's so disgusted with the goings-on, he quits his position as Hand. King Robert is not pleased.We then follow Lady Stark as she brings her prisoner, Tyrion, to her sister Lisa's castle. Lisa, it turns out, is crazy now, which we discover when she starts breastfeeding her grown son. (Say it with me now: "As one does...") Tyrion is locked in the high tower, which is realized in a very pretty, cinematic manner. (Maybe the most visually pleasing sequence in the show thus far, honestly.) We then meet up with the Knight of the Flowers (whose exploits we followed at the tournament) to discover that he has a gay lover - whom he's in the process of shaving - with a reasonable claim to the throne. (He's 4th in line, apparently.) The scene ends with the Knight of the Flowers telling his beloved "you would be a wonderful king" before giving an implied (though off-screen) blowjob with realistic sound effects. I think we can all agree that all oral sex should really begin this way. We get a nice scene with King Robert and Queen Cersei looking back and coldly summing up their miserable, failed marriage. It's well-written, and Eddy does a nice job, though Lena Headey plays the entire scene with one arched eyebrow, and it gets SUPER distracting. She's giving probably my second-least favorite performance thus far, after Kit Harrington as the laconic Jon Snow. Finally, Jaime Lannister ambushes Ned Stark, killing all his men. One of Lannister's soldiers stabs Ned in the leg with a spear, injuring him but leaving him alive. Jaime then punches the guy out and we fade out. Overall, this was an above-average episode with some really nice moments. (Everything at Lisa's castle with her creepy son was solid. Nice to see characters behaving in ways that are unpredictable, mixing up all the more heavy, droning "Winter is Coming" tone of the rest of the show. Still, we're halfway through the season by now... really feels like things should be picking up at a faster clip, certainly by Episodes 6 or 7.
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Game of Thrones Season 1: Episode 2: "The Kingsroad" review
We're back for the second installment of my return to the Seven Kingdoms of Westeros, watching all of Season 1 of "Game of Thrones" and seeing if I can figure out why it worked for so many people but not me. At least, not me the first time around. (If you missed the introduce and the review of the pilot, they're both right here.) Once again, I would be remiss if I did not include a spoiler warning:
Some dragon eggs, a little butter, maybe a piece of rye toast or something... Not bad. Just because we're riding with a barbarian horde doesn't make us SAVAGES. The subtext here is genuinely creepy, and not particularly sexy at all, though the scenario unfolds with the sort of dewy, overripe premium cable eroticism you'd expect from a title like "The Busty Cops Go Hawaiian Part 3." At least the sex scenes from this point on (at least, as far as this couple goes) can get away from the ickiness of Emilia Clarke being tormented and softly weeping, which was kind of killing my buzz. But it's not all braids and dragon eggs and abrupt doggy style-to-missionary conversions in "The Kingsroad." This is also the episode where Peter Dinklage's Tyrion Lannister, the cynical, blunt dwarf brother of Queen Cersei, became everyone's favorite character, providing a sardonic and significantly more modern take on the events than the rest of the stuffy, defiantly Medieval-minded characters. We find out early on that Bran, the youngest Stark who was shoved out an open window at the end of the previous episode, has lived, though he will most likely never walk again. The Queen - whose twin brother/lover was responsible for the crippling - shows up at the boy's bedside to offer her condolences, and actually seems to reveal a bit of genuine grief over her own lost child to Lady Stark. It's arguably the most interesting scene in the entire series to this point, because we know enough about the scenario and the characters to start asking questions and thinking more deeply about the subtext and the character's motives. Is the Queen genuinely opening up to Lady Stark, mother-to-mother, or is this all a fake show of sympathy to deflect any suspicions that she might be responsible? Is she just using it as a pretext to start a conversation, and get more information about what the boy remembers and what exactly he saw? Usually, I'm too busy trying to connect all the pieces and figure out who's who to even look for this kind of thing, so it's refreshing to get a scene that plays more straight-ahead as drama and less like a history lesson about a fake universe. There's also an fun sequence in which Ned and King Robert first learn about the unification of the House of Targaryen with the Dothraki horsemen, and debate the severity of the threat to the throne. One peculiar bit of dialogue, though... Just as the two finish discussing the threat that may be growing across the Narrow Sea, the King says “There’s a war coming, Ned. I don’t know when, and I don’t know who we’ll be fighting, but it’s coming.” Which is odd because they've only really been discussing ONE threat this whole time. From the Targaryens, who still feel they have a justifiable claim to the throne and who now have the power of a massive army on horseback on their side. Why would The King feel the need to add in another bit about not knowing who he's going to be fighting? Meanwhile, Jon Snow - the bastard son of Ned Stark - is preparing to head off to The Wall to dedicate the rest of his life to protecting the Seven Kingdoms from the monsters that live on the other side. Snow is arguably the series protagonist, and yet I find it hard to really take a strong interest in his fate. He's not really COMPELLING, and though it's not entirely the fault of actor Kit Harington, he's not really helping matters. The character, after two full episodes, remains almost entirely defined by his bastardy. He doesn't have much of an inner life. Other characters will occasionally challenge him about his decision-making, and he always demurs. I sense this was meant to express his mysterious, unknowable nature, but it comes off like he doesn't know why he's doing what he does, and just isn't particularly introspective. (In future episodes, this trend continues, and he basically seems to act heroic at times because it is required of him due to his role in the story, not because he's actually brave or heroic by nature.) 
Needs no education nor thought control.Finally, this episode makes the case both for and against the whole "give a wild dire wolf as a gift to each Stark child" scheme from Episode 1. When young Arya Stark and her commoner friend are play-fighting with wooden swords, the foppish Prince Joffrey decides to teach them a lesson and ends up getting mauled by one of the aforementioned wolves, only to see the beast escape and its brother executed for its crimes. Oooooh, that Prince Joffrey! So, anyway, one anti-wolf point. But then, an assassin attacks Lady Stark and tries to kill young Bran, before being thwarted (and gruesomely murdered) by another wolf. So, one point in favor. The jury's still out on this particular parenting maneuver. So, all in all, a far superior effort to Episode 1, but I don't know... I remain unconvinced. There's far more incident and dramatic heft this time around, which makes the proceedings far more entertaining. But I'm still not really loving any of the characters, save possibly the witty Tyrion Lannister. Even the Arya Stark character - who's played in lively, spirited fashion by Maisie Williams and who clearly is one of the more likable characters in the novels - comes off as more of a "type" (the headstrong girl who wants to be a hero, not a wife) than a three-dimensional person. I will naturally continue to press on, but I was really hoping this episode would sell me on the show this second time around, as I remember it being the highlight of my initial "Game of Thrones" experience. We shall soon find out...
WARNING: I fully intend to spoil each episode along the way as I go. This blog is designed for people who have (1) seen "Game of Thrones" Season 1 already or (2) intend to watch along with me as I go. So from now on, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS.
OK, on with Episode 2, "The Kingsroad," which on the whole, I found much more interesting and dramatically satisfying than the first episode. It's, naturally, still bogged down with exposition and backstory, and I noticed something else about the way the show handles all the odds and ends and details that fill in the corners of George R. R. Martin's world: It's clunky. To put it another way, the show is obvious and sort of plodding about getting as much of the history and custom of this place in to each hour-long episode as possible. Worse yet, for all the copious detail that gets brought up and explained during the episodes, there's a ton of vital information that's simply left out. This is one of the first series I've seen that absolutely requires Wikipedia to follow everything, unless you have already read and digested the source material. (But don't read TOO MUCH Wikipedia, as there's spoilers-a-plenty.) Even the OPENING CREDIT SEQUENCE is complicated and requires some backstory. I know this is high fantasy and the crazy worldbuilding detail is part of the charm... but the show sort of had to choose between just being dull for those unfamiliar with the world but faithful to the books, or disappointing hardcore Martin fans but keeping us n00bs in the loop. It's pretty obvious which decision was made. The episode itself begins with the Dothraki horde on the move. I now know they're headed for their hometown of Vaes Dothrak, but it's not very well established where they're going at this point, and I only know their final destination because I'm a few episodes ahead of this by now. The new Queen (known as a Khaleesi) is still a bit sore - literally and figuratively - after the whole "being sold by her brother into sexual slavery and then repeatedly raped by a guy who looks like The Rock starring in 'Aladdin on Ice'" thing. What a Drama Khaleesi she is. Beginning with this episode, it starts to become clear that the show is kind of getting off on watching this fair-haired, very pretty actress being repeatedly raped on camera. The plot excuse is that she begins to distance herself from the experience by fantasizing about dragons, leading to a conversation about dragons with her new lady-in-waiting, Doreah (Roxanne McKee), who just happens to be a former prostitute. Hence, Khaleesi learns to better please her new husband, thus encouraging him to treat her more tenderly, like a wife, rather than a slave. Symbolized by turning her around to look at her during sex, and also by buying Raisin Bran at the local Horde Mart, even though he personally prefers Frosted Flakes. Some dragon eggs, a little butter, maybe a piece of rye toast or something... Not bad. Just because we're riding with a barbarian horde doesn't make us SAVAGES. The subtext here is genuinely creepy, and not particularly sexy at all, though the scenario unfolds with the sort of dewy, overripe premium cable eroticism you'd expect from a title like "The Busty Cops Go Hawaiian Part 3." At least the sex scenes from this point on (at least, as far as this couple goes) can get away from the ickiness of Emilia Clarke being tormented and softly weeping, which was kind of killing my buzz. But it's not all braids and dragon eggs and abrupt doggy style-to-missionary conversions in "The Kingsroad." This is also the episode where Peter Dinklage's Tyrion Lannister, the cynical, blunt dwarf brother of Queen Cersei, became everyone's favorite character, providing a sardonic and significantly more modern take on the events than the rest of the stuffy, defiantly Medieval-minded characters. We find out early on that Bran, the youngest Stark who was shoved out an open window at the end of the previous episode, has lived, though he will most likely never walk again. The Queen - whose twin brother/lover was responsible for the crippling - shows up at the boy's bedside to offer her condolences, and actually seems to reveal a bit of genuine grief over her own lost child to Lady Stark. It's arguably the most interesting scene in the entire series to this point, because we know enough about the scenario and the characters to start asking questions and thinking more deeply about the subtext and the character's motives. Is the Queen genuinely opening up to Lady Stark, mother-to-mother, or is this all a fake show of sympathy to deflect any suspicions that she might be responsible? Is she just using it as a pretext to start a conversation, and get more information about what the boy remembers and what exactly he saw? Usually, I'm too busy trying to connect all the pieces and figure out who's who to even look for this kind of thing, so it's refreshing to get a scene that plays more straight-ahead as drama and less like a history lesson about a fake universe. There's also an fun sequence in which Ned and King Robert first learn about the unification of the House of Targaryen with the Dothraki horsemen, and debate the severity of the threat to the throne. One peculiar bit of dialogue, though... Just as the two finish discussing the threat that may be growing across the Narrow Sea, the King says “There’s a war coming, Ned. I don’t know when, and I don’t know who we’ll be fighting, but it’s coming.” Which is odd because they've only really been discussing ONE threat this whole time. From the Targaryens, who still feel they have a justifiable claim to the throne and who now have the power of a massive army on horseback on their side. Why would The King feel the need to add in another bit about not knowing who he's going to be fighting? Meanwhile, Jon Snow - the bastard son of Ned Stark - is preparing to head off to The Wall to dedicate the rest of his life to protecting the Seven Kingdoms from the monsters that live on the other side. Snow is arguably the series protagonist, and yet I find it hard to really take a strong interest in his fate. He's not really COMPELLING, and though it's not entirely the fault of actor Kit Harington, he's not really helping matters. The character, after two full episodes, remains almost entirely defined by his bastardy. He doesn't have much of an inner life. Other characters will occasionally challenge him about his decision-making, and he always demurs. I sense this was meant to express his mysterious, unknowable nature, but it comes off like he doesn't know why he's doing what he does, and just isn't particularly introspective. (In future episodes, this trend continues, and he basically seems to act heroic at times because it is required of him due to his role in the story, not because he's actually brave or heroic by nature.)
Needs no education nor thought control.Finally, this episode makes the case both for and against the whole "give a wild dire wolf as a gift to each Stark child" scheme from Episode 1. When young Arya Stark and her commoner friend are play-fighting with wooden swords, the foppish Prince Joffrey decides to teach them a lesson and ends up getting mauled by one of the aforementioned wolves, only to see the beast escape and its brother executed for its crimes. Oooooh, that Prince Joffrey! So, anyway, one anti-wolf point. But then, an assassin attacks Lady Stark and tries to kill young Bran, before being thwarted (and gruesomely murdered) by another wolf. So, one point in favor. The jury's still out on this particular parenting maneuver. So, all in all, a far superior effort to Episode 1, but I don't know... I remain unconvinced. There's far more incident and dramatic heft this time around, which makes the proceedings far more entertaining. But I'm still not really loving any of the characters, save possibly the witty Tyrion Lannister. Even the Arya Stark character - who's played in lively, spirited fashion by Maisie Williams and who clearly is one of the more likable characters in the novels - comes off as more of a "type" (the headstrong girl who wants to be a hero, not a wife) than a three-dimensional person. I will naturally continue to press on, but I was really hoping this episode would sell me on the show this second time around, as I remember it being the highlight of my initial "Game of Thrones" experience. We shall soon find out...
Monday, August 29, 2011
Game of Thrones Season 1: Intro and "Winter is Coming" review
HBO's "Game of Thrones" debuted to great acclaim and excitement from the critical and online nerd communities this past Spring. I was one of the few people I knew who gave it a try and didn't really enjoy it. But let's back up...I'm a casual fan of fantasy, as a genre, but had not read the George R. R. Martin novels upon which the show is based. It's not from a lack of familiarity. I spent many years working in book stores and would come across the "Song of Ice and Fire" novels from time to time. But like Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" series, I always kind of dismissed these books as sub-Tolkein rip-offs that weren't worth the serious commitment it would take to read a full cycle of 6+ lengthy novels. Of course, that was many years ago and I'm perfectly willing to admit that it was wrong to judge books by their covers (although it works more often than not.) Anyway, I awaited the TV adaptation with great anticipation. [Quick backstory for young people: Once there were places called book stores that primarily existed to give homeless people a convenient place to use the restroom. They also provided coffee and terrible scones and occasionally would sell people physical, bound versions of e-books that they could lug around with them. Weird, right?] ANYWAY, I got about 4 episodes in to "Game of Thrones" during its initial HBO run before tossing down the remote and declaring, aloud, "That's it! I'm out!" It was progressing, I felt, at an excruciatingly slow clip. I can be a very patient TV viewer when I feel like a show is earning my attention. Many of my favorite series take a "slow burn" approach, particularly in early episodes. But "Game of Thrones," to me, felt like the Tristram Shandy of episodic television. Obsessed with world-building and lineages and backstory, uninterested in moving any of its various plot strands forward. At times, I'll also admit to feeling kind of embarrassed to be watching this with my girlfriend around. Every time she'd enter the room, there would be some glossy, lovingly-shot Aryan nudity. It was like I had just recorded 48 solid hours of some white supremacist offshoot of Cinemax and was purposefully watching it only in mixed company. I'm not prudish by nature, but the sex and nakedness in "Game of Thrones" felt prurient, and even a bit trashy. Like when Penn and Teller randomly invite naked women to the "Bullshit" set and then spend an entire 4 minute segment celebrating the fact that Showtime lets them get away with standing next to naked women. But less tasteful. After I had already given up the show and missed a few weeks of episodes, I discovered that nearly everyone I knew whose televiewing tastes I respected was loving the show. "You should have stuck with it" was a common refrain. As was "I can't believe you didn't like this! What's wrong with you!" I would have suggested "How can you possibly defend making time for 'Jersey Shore' every week but not giving 'Game of Thrones' a chance?" But amazingly, no one called me out on my bullshit. Perhaps they were looking out for my feelings. Which brings us to my little "Game of Thrones" project. I will watch each episode of the show's first season, starting over at the beginning, and blog my experiences with each episode.WARNING: I fully intend to spoil each episode along the way as I go. This blog is designed for people who have (1) seen "Game of Thrones" Season 1 already or (2) intend to watch along with me as I go. So from now on, THERE WILL BE SPOILERS. Starting with the pilot.EPISODE 1: WINTER IS COMINGThe series opens with a group of soldiers from the Night's Watch, who have traveled to the mysterious lands north of the wall they are duty-bound to protect. One of them looks a lot like Matt Damon, and then he dies pretty much right away, leading me to question - when I first watched it - whether it really had been Matt Damon. It wasn't. 
You have to admit, it's sort of uncanny...
They're all killed by the monstrous White Walkers, save one soldier who escapes back to the other side of the wall, and civilization. But it's not TOO civilized, because as soon as he gets back home, Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean) declares that he's a deserter and orders his execution. Stark - the head of the Stark family, which rules the northern land of Winterfell - then requests that his youngest son watch as he personally beheads the guy. It's a pretty tough way to introduce the hero of your new TV series, showing him cut off a guy's head in front of his kid for the crime of almost getting eaten by monsters. But the fact that it's Sean Bean doing it pretty much makes up for the nastiness factor. The guy's just likable. Next we see Stark and his sons happening upon a litter of orphaned baby dire wolves. The kids all split them up, one wolf per Stark. Ned's illegitimate son, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), gets the runt of the litter, which is treated like some sort of cruel insult, overlooking the fact that HE WAS JUST GIVEN THE GIFT OF A WILD, UNTAMED WOLF. You'd think a smaller one might be preferable, no? Next, King Robert (Mark Addy) comes to Winterfell to ask Ned to become his "hand," or chief advisor. He brings along with him the conniving Lannister family. They include the king's wife, Queen Cersei (Lena Headey), her twin brother Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and their younger brother Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), a dwarf known as "The Imp." Plus they bring the king and queen's children, including heir to the throne Prince Joffrey (played by Draco Malfoy.) OK, it's a lot of names. Everybody keeping up so far? This is basically the experience of watching Season 1 of "Game of Thrones." It's like those parts of the Old Testament where you're just reading page after page of names that begat other names, and you start to actually wish they'd get back to obsessing about which meats are okay just to break up the monotony. I will say, I didn't notice my first time through that the names of these two houses mirror those of the English War of the Roses. That war was fought between the Lancaster and York families. Lannister/Stark, Lancaster/York. I see what you did there, Martin... OK, then we get a little MEANWHILE IN PENTOS! graphic and we're off across the Narrow Sea, to where the very very blonde and very very evil Viserys Targaryen (Harry Lloyd) is plotting to overthrow King Robert and return his house to the throne of whatever the hell country this is. In order to achieve this goal, he has arranged for his very very blonde and very very frequently nude sister Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) to marry the shirtless and muscular warlord Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), who will then in exchange provide Viserys with his army of Dothrakis. Daenerys is afraid to have sex with Khal Drogo, and it's pretty understandable. He looks like he probably has a penis the size of a George R. R. Martin novel. (Yes, hardbound.) But Viserys doesn't seem too concerned, and explains matter-of-factly that his own ascension to the throne is more important than the sanctity of her lady parts. The show, during the Winterfell segment, does a halfway decent job of presenting characters who seem at least somewhat nuanced. Ned Stark is obviously a hardened man in a lot of ways, but he loves his wife and children, and he seems rational and humane enough to root for in a pinch. Viserys is basically just a dueling scar or German WWI helmet away from cartoonish super-villainy. Soon enough, Daenerys and her barbarian are married, and we get a look at a Dothraki wedding. It involves a live sex show, snakes, fights to the death and ample piles of rotting meat, which you've got to admit does sound more appealing than a beer-and-wine-only open bar, a dry overcooked chicken breast and The Electric Slide. (We also learn in this segment that "there is no word for 'thank you' in Dothraki," which sounds like a nice little bit of detail enhancing your understanding for this complex warrior culture... until you think about it for a moment and realize it's totally fucking stupid. "Hey, brother, I saved you a piece of rotting meat." "Um... I have no linguistic way to respond to this gesture. I suppose we should fight to the death.") In case you didn't catch what was coming from the previous 15 minutes of the show basically repeating the idea on a non-stop loop, Khal Drogo then basically rapes Daenerys on screen. Cause pics or it didn't happen, I guess... Finally, the youngest Stark is enjoying his favorite pastime, climbing. (This kid and I don't have a ton in common, I can tell right off the bat.) He accidentally spies the queen and her twin brother having sex, which apparently is kind of taboo even in the "anything goes" world of "Game of Thrones." So to protect their dirty, dirty little secret (which would have probably been even better protected by just not committing incest next to an open window in the home of a key political adversary), Jaime Lannister pushes the kid out the window, presumably to his demise. Annnnnd scene!OK, it's at least moderately entertaining as a show, and some of the performances - particularly Bean's and Dinklage's - are not without their charm. But I have to say, I'm still not LOVING this first episode. It certainly sets up a lot of different plotlines, and it's clear how these three dynasties are going to be pulled closer and closer into conflict over the course of the season. So it's getting the job done as a pilot, I suppose. But most of the characters are just kind of flat, and there's this tendency to paint a lot of these conflicts in black-and-white. Which works for, say, "Lord of the Rings," but that doesn't ask you to emotionally invest in Sauron's incestuous romance with his sister. I have to believe that further episodes deepen these characterizations and add more nuance into the mix that I'm not seeing now. Because how else would everyone be getting so into it? Just going to have to give it more time...
They're all killed by the monstrous White Walkers, save one soldier who escapes back to the other side of the wall, and civilization. But it's not TOO civilized, because as soon as he gets back home, Lord Eddard "Ned" Stark (Sean Bean) declares that he's a deserter and orders his execution. Stark - the head of the Stark family, which rules the northern land of Winterfell - then requests that his youngest son watch as he personally beheads the guy. It's a pretty tough way to introduce the hero of your new TV series, showing him cut off a guy's head in front of his kid for the crime of almost getting eaten by monsters. But the fact that it's Sean Bean doing it pretty much makes up for the nastiness factor. The guy's just likable. Next we see Stark and his sons happening upon a litter of orphaned baby dire wolves. The kids all split them up, one wolf per Stark. Ned's illegitimate son, Jon Snow (Kit Harington), gets the runt of the litter, which is treated like some sort of cruel insult, overlooking the fact that HE WAS JUST GIVEN THE GIFT OF A WILD, UNTAMED WOLF. You'd think a smaller one might be preferable, no? Next, King Robert (Mark Addy) comes to Winterfell to ask Ned to become his "hand," or chief advisor. He brings along with him the conniving Lannister family. They include the king's wife, Queen Cersei (Lena Headey), her twin brother Jaime (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau) and their younger brother Tyrion (Peter Dinklage), a dwarf known as "The Imp." Plus they bring the king and queen's children, including heir to the throne Prince Joffrey (played by Draco Malfoy.) OK, it's a lot of names. Everybody keeping up so far? This is basically the experience of watching Season 1 of "Game of Thrones." It's like those parts of the Old Testament where you're just reading page after page of names that begat other names, and you start to actually wish they'd get back to obsessing about which meats are okay just to break up the monotony. I will say, I didn't notice my first time through that the names of these two houses mirror those of the English War of the Roses. That war was fought between the Lancaster and York families. Lannister/Stark, Lancaster/York. I see what you did there, Martin... OK, then we get a little MEANWHILE IN PENTOS! graphic and we're off across the Narrow Sea, to where the very very blonde and very very evil Viserys Targaryen (Harry Lloyd) is plotting to overthrow King Robert and return his house to the throne of whatever the hell country this is. In order to achieve this goal, he has arranged for his very very blonde and very very frequently nude sister Daenerys (Emilia Clarke) to marry the shirtless and muscular warlord Khal Drogo (Jason Momoa), who will then in exchange provide Viserys with his army of Dothrakis. Daenerys is afraid to have sex with Khal Drogo, and it's pretty understandable. He looks like he probably has a penis the size of a George R. R. Martin novel. (Yes, hardbound.) But Viserys doesn't seem too concerned, and explains matter-of-factly that his own ascension to the throne is more important than the sanctity of her lady parts. The show, during the Winterfell segment, does a halfway decent job of presenting characters who seem at least somewhat nuanced. Ned Stark is obviously a hardened man in a lot of ways, but he loves his wife and children, and he seems rational and humane enough to root for in a pinch. Viserys is basically just a dueling scar or German WWI helmet away from cartoonish super-villainy. Soon enough, Daenerys and her barbarian are married, and we get a look at a Dothraki wedding. It involves a live sex show, snakes, fights to the death and ample piles of rotting meat, which you've got to admit does sound more appealing than a beer-and-wine-only open bar, a dry overcooked chicken breast and The Electric Slide. (We also learn in this segment that "there is no word for 'thank you' in Dothraki," which sounds like a nice little bit of detail enhancing your understanding for this complex warrior culture... until you think about it for a moment and realize it's totally fucking stupid. "Hey, brother, I saved you a piece of rotting meat." "Um... I have no linguistic way to respond to this gesture. I suppose we should fight to the death.") In case you didn't catch what was coming from the previous 15 minutes of the show basically repeating the idea on a non-stop loop, Khal Drogo then basically rapes Daenerys on screen. Cause pics or it didn't happen, I guess... Finally, the youngest Stark is enjoying his favorite pastime, climbing. (This kid and I don't have a ton in common, I can tell right off the bat.) He accidentally spies the queen and her twin brother having sex, which apparently is kind of taboo even in the "anything goes" world of "Game of Thrones." So to protect their dirty, dirty little secret (which would have probably been even better protected by just not committing incest next to an open window in the home of a key political adversary), Jaime Lannister pushes the kid out the window, presumably to his demise. Annnnnd scene!OK, it's at least moderately entertaining as a show, and some of the performances - particularly Bean's and Dinklage's - are not without their charm. But I have to say, I'm still not LOVING this first episode. It certainly sets up a lot of different plotlines, and it's clear how these three dynasties are going to be pulled closer and closer into conflict over the course of the season. So it's getting the job done as a pilot, I suppose. But most of the characters are just kind of flat, and there's this tendency to paint a lot of these conflicts in black-and-white. Which works for, say, "Lord of the Rings," but that doesn't ask you to emotionally invest in Sauron's incestuous romance with his sister. I have to believe that further episodes deepen these characterizations and add more nuance into the mix that I'm not seeing now. Because how else would everyone be getting so into it? Just going to have to give it more time...
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Originality is Overrated
Many of you have probably already seen podcaster and commercial director Dan Trachtenberg's "Portal" fan film, "No Escape." It made the rounds today and won near-universal acclaim. Deservedly! It's really well put-together for a "fan film," with impressive effects and a setting that felt very authentic to the Aperture Science HQ fans of the games have come to know. Here it is: After it became the toast of Twitter this afternoon, blogger Devin Faraci of Badass Digest wrote a post criticizing the film for borrowing a conceit and a setting from the "Portal" video games rather than coming up with an original idea. Here's the key graph:It also looks like a zillion other movies and all of the best parts are just lifts from the game Portal. It probably cost a dollar and a cent to make this short, but you know what? It doesn’t cost anything at all to come up with a new idea. This, to me, is just as bad as Battleship from Universal or the remake glut or whatever else. Isn’t the whole point of making some small short to showcase your own creativity?
Trachtenberg isn’t even making a comment on Portal, or using Portal to address another interesting issue or idea. It’s just a straight up Portal movie. There’s no deeper thought than ‘This is what a Portal movie would look like.’
I responded briefly on Twitter, explaining that I didn't feel an Internet short had to aspire to much more than "No Escape," and that it would likely be an effective "calling card" or showcase for Trachtenberg's abilities as a director.
But I wanted to unpack my thoughts a bit more, because I feel like - Dan's film and Devin's post aside - this is a discussion that I see going on every day in some way, shape or form.
The idea that "there are too many remakes" or "Hollywood is out of ideas" has become a cliche, and there is some truth to the statements. I'm as sick of the never-ending retreads of established brands and franchises as anyone, mainly because these films tend to be flat and unimaginative, slaves to the built-in fanbases and owners of those properties rather than exciting new takes on classic material. But "Hollywood is out of ideas" is a HUGE oversimplification of what's really going on, and the idea that a movie has to have an original story or setting to be good is a fallacy.
After all, how many movies - even classic movies - are truly ORIGINAL. What does the term even mean? Christopher Nolan's Batman films are based on a character with decades of established backstory, but it's hard to criticize "The Dark Knight" for being derivative. The Indiana Jones films are revisiting the classic style and tone of adventure serials, yet you rarely hear anyone dismiss "Raiders of the Lost Ark" as a lame retread. Hell, the iconic Humphrey Bogart version of "The Maltese Falcon" is an adaptation of a novel that had already been filmed TWICE before - in 1931 as "The Maltese Falcon" and again in 1936 as "Satan Met a Lady." Was John Huston being unoriginal? Should he have instead made a comment on "The Maltese Falcon" or used Sam Spade to address another interesting issue or idea? Of course not.
[This isn't limited to cinema either. Any medium based on narrative storytelling is going to be filled with ideas that have been cherry-picked from other people's ideas. Shakespeare wasn't the first person to tell the story of King Richard II. It's just the nature of creative expression - people are frequently influenced to create art after experiencing other art made by their peers.]
This is acceptable to audiences because movies (and TV shows and books and video games and music...) are about so much more than just the story. Otherwise, hearing someone quickly summarize a film would be as satisfying as watching the film yourself.
I don't mean to pick on Devin, who is a writer whose work I enjoy and value (which is how I found the post in the first place!), but this sentence is just baffling to me:
It’s just a straight up Portal movie. There’s no deeper thought than ‘This is what a Portal movie would look like.’
But there has NEVER BEEN a "Portal" movie! There is no way to define "what a Portal movie would look like." Trachtenberg had to invent it from scratch! That's sort of the whole idea!
Dismissing him with a wave of the hand is taking hundreds of hours of work for granted, and ignores the thousands of decisions that had to be made on every level in order to produce the finished film "No Escpae." How does a Portal Gun look in a real three-dimensional world? What would a fleshy Chell do upon waking up in a cell? How would Aperture Science guards be dressed? This isn't automatic. You don't wake up and say "I want to make a Portal movie," fire up your XBox and then just export all the details for your finished film. It had to be written, cast, storyboarded, filmed and then edited together. A person BUILT that Portal Gun. Someone else fashioned those costumes. Just because they had a video game world to model it on doesn't mean their work required no skill, or has no inherent value, artistry or even insight.
That stuff IS the deeper thought. It's how "Hey, I should make a Portal movie!" becomes "Here is my Portal movie!" Maybe you think it's a stupid idea to make 'Portal' into a short, or that the tone was wrong, or that the sets were designed poorly, or that the pacing was off. But to dismiss it entirely just because the basic scenario is taken from a popular video game title makes no sense. It's valuing the initial, conceptual stage of filmmaking ("Hey, let's make a ______ movie!"), and ignores everything else.
In this same way, people who claim "Hollywood is out of ideas" just because there's another filmmaker adapting the "Conan" novels or doing "Clash of the Titans" is missing the real point. It's not the stories themselves that matter. It's how you tell them. (In the case of "Clash of the Titans"... POORLY!)
Devin ends his piece with the statement: "Originality is king." I respectfully disagree. Skill, craft and artistry are king. Originality is overrated.
Monday, August 08, 2011
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" Review
SPOILER FREE VERSION:
"Rise of the Planet of the Apes" is far, far better than it has a right to be considering the potential for extreme camp. A prequel to the classic '70s sci-fi franchise, "Rise" has the unenviable task of setting up a rather ludicrous premise - a planet that was once our Earth but is, in the future, devoid of humans and ruled by talking apes - while also having to take itself at least semi-seriously. (A previous film in the franchise - "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes" - also flashed back to when the apes took control, but told a totally different story and didn't fare quite as well.) "Rise" succeeds admirably, linking up neatly to the other "Planet of the Apes" films while also telling a satisfying, thought-provoking narrative of its own. Having said that... I think the hype we've been hearing lately about the film is a bit over-the-top, though, and is more about the motion-capture animation used on the titular primates and how far the technology has come rather than anything about the film itself.The plot in broad strokes: James Franco plays a researcher for a pharmaceutical company, working on a treatment for Alzheimer's that he hopes will help his ailing father (John Lithgow). Testing on apes leads him to conclude that not only can his new gene therapy be used for its intended purpose, but it can also cause the animals to become super-intelligent. At first, it seems great, and he brings one of the intelligent apes - Caesar - home to live with him as a regular member of the family. However, after Caesar is treated cruelly by humans, he begins to have second thoughts about his station in life, and the treatment of the other apes around him. Caesar is portrayed by motion-capture veteran Andy Serkis (perhaps best known for inhabiting Gollum in the "Lord of the Rings" films). The Serkis performance here and the resulting animation on Caesar is tremendous, and probably the best use of CGI this year. Not just because the Caesar character and a few of the other apes are giving a full-fledged, emotional performance (though they are). But also because now this is Serkis inhabiting a believable real-world creature. We know how an ape looks and moves around, so seeing animators and Andy Serkis capture that essence, while also exploding it to make an ape do things an ape WOULDN'T do, impresses in a way that most movie effects don't. (John Lithgow also has a really natural ability to interact with the "ape." There's a shot that's partially in the trailer of him comforting a scared and confused Caesar that's remarkable - you TOTALLY believe what you're seeing, and that these two characters have a backstory and a relationship. It's great stuff.) The movie surrounding these effects is capably made, though better when it's a more conventional sci-fi story about science run amok than an action/horror film. The Third Act has a major lack of direction. We don't have a strong sense for the parameters of the "battle" between the apes and humanity, so it's hard to get too caught up in their success or failure. Also, the film WAY overuses the same basic pattern in these late scenes. An ape startles a human. Said human reacts angrily, striking or threatening the ape. The ape then reacts to the human's display of aggression with even greater anger, raising the stakes and attacking the human. The need to get a PG-13 rating also hurts the film a lot in these later scenes. We get a feeling early on for the POWER of these creatures, so we wonder why they only ever seem to knock humans over, or slap them around. It's hard to envision a scenario whereby super-intelligent, ferociously angry and terrified primates armed with military strategy, spears and other weapons just mildly injure unprepared human civilians. It'd be a fucking BLOODBATH. (Remember that woman who got attacked by a chimp who had normal intelligence and no weapons? She needed to get a new FACE!) There's just no way to accomplish this and make it feel real without earning that R rating, I'm afraid. OK, NOW THE SPOILER PARTSIt all goes wrong, basically, once the apes escape. Yes, it's sort of fun to see them lay waste to Draco Malfoy (though the symbolic gesture of having him electrocuted using not one but TWO devices he had used to torment Caesar was a bit much). But after the escape, they've sort of won. There's no real need to have them face off against humans a few more times en route to the forest. I get why the movie wanted to have a big action climax where the apes get to give humans what for after an entire film of being tested, prodded and abused. But the film doesn't do a good job of establishing their goal, and their need to have this standoff against the SFPD. And again, the lack of visceral violence kind of hurts the film - it starts to feel a bit cartoonish because no one's actually ever dying, save a few folks being tossed gingerly off the side of the Golden Gate. Also, this is perhaps the first film ever made in which the total annihilation of the human race is an overlooked, disinterested B-level subplot. Such a lazy afterthought, and a cheap device. I get that it's a prequel and they need to figure out a way to deal with both the "super-smart apes who can talk" storyline AND the "humankind is all but exterminated" storyline. But the decision to make a movie that's 99% "super-smart apes" and 1% "virus that kills every human" just makes no sense towards the end. Why should I care about a few people getting knocked around on the Golden Gate Bridge when the movie has made it abundantly clear everyone will be dead within a matter of weeks?Finally, the camp factor. The movie does a good job at being sincere and genuine and deeply-felt, such that things which would ordinarily get laughs in the first half (like a chimp going for a walk on a leash) don't. But by the conclusion, the pace has quickened and things get pretty over-the-top and the audience I was seeing it with was busting up at how ludicrous a lot of it was. (Particularly once Caesar starts talking.) If the whole movie was like the last 15-20 minutes, I don't think the reviews would have been nearly as good. I think some critics are taking the first 45 minutes or so and pretending that's the movie.Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Did Roger Waters Get Inceptioned?
So, after seeing "The Wall" on stage tonight, I was checking out some of the animation on YouTube. And I came across this sequence from "Empty Spaces":
I noticed a segment of the animation, at around 1:57, looked oddly familiar. It featured an endless city skyline stretching off into the horizon, on a shoreline, under some dark clouds. Where did I know this image from?
Then it occurred to me. It's very similar to the a shot from "Inception" that was used a lot in the marketing. Here are the two shots side by side:
Weird, right? So, you tell me...Is this just an odd coincidence? Is it an intentional tip of the cap to the 1982 film version of "The Wall"? Or am I just seeing things?
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
LonsTV Episode #2: The Expendables
Below, find the second full episode of LonsTV, in which I review "The Expendables" and note the ridiculousness of recording one of these videos at night, when the lighting is bad and my dog is alert and noisy.
Monday, November 22, 2010
LonsTV Episode 1 is Out Now!
Just put up the first regular episode of my new daily YouTube show, LonsTV. It's a review of "Fable 3" and a lot of meandering discussion about trying (unsuccessfully) to redesign my YouTube channel. Came out a big longer than I was hoping. In my head, this was a 2-3 minute show, and I managed to keep the "Introduction" video nice and lean. But now this one has ballooned to 5 and a half minutes. Not HORRIBLE, but it should be tighter. Gonna work on that tomorrow. Any other thoughts or feedback are, of course, welcome.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Hey, it's my new YouTube channel!
So, at the urging of a few friends on Twitter, I have decided to start up my own YouTube channel dedicated to doing daily reviews. I'll pick a different thing every day - a movie, a TV show, a book, an album, a song, a nice piece of fish - and throw a video of me chatting about it up on the Web for all of you (well, 3 of you) to enjoy! Maybe I'll occasionally just post rants or other stuff I want to talk about there as well, but it's not gonna be one of these Ze Frank-style Vlog Of 10,000 Cuts things. Because I don't really have the talent or dedication to do that 5 days of week, and all these Blu-Ray's I bought despite not having any stable income aren't going to watch themselves. Here's my brief intro to the project:Find the channel here:http://youtube.com/lonstv Thanks!
Sunday, October 03, 2010
The Social Network review
Before we go any further, a small and probably obvious but still essential clarification...This review will deal with "The Social Network," which is a fictional movie based on some real incidents, as recounted in a popular non-fiction book by Ben Mezrich called "The Accidental Billionaires." I have read this book, and the movie does not diverge from its account of events significantly, but still, who besides the key players can really attest to its accuracy? So when I say things like "Mark Zuckerberg is an asshole," I don't mean the actual person Mark Zuckerberg, who created the actual site, Facebook. I've never met the guy. Maybe he's a non-stop delight and Mezrich's book/Sorkin's screenplay are full of lies, contemptible lies. I mean the character of "Mark Zuckerberg," played brilliantly in the film by actor Jesse Eisenberg. Ditto when I reference other characters in the movie who are based on real people. OK, let's move on.
"The Social Network" is not a movie about building a website. "The Accidental Billionaires" recounts, in detail, how Facebook came to be, the backstories of those who were instrumental in making it a reality and, finally, the disputes regarding ownership of the site. Many of these people and incidents find their way into the movie, but they are not its focus. Instead, screenwriter Aaron Sorkin and director David Fincher have made a film about loneliness and isolation. Mark Zuckerberg's inability to relate to others made Facebook possible, they seem to argue, but also made enjoying or benefiting from its success impossible. Multiple times in the film, we're told that "money doesn't matter to Mark," and there seems to be no reason to doubt his assertion. (He also tells us, flat out, that he once turned down an offer from Microsoft to purchase one of his sites, only to release it to the world for free.) But if he's not in it for the money, or his co-founders, or the trappings of success (like girls or parties or drugs)...what's in it for Mark? Is it possible to invent something that's beloved the world over and changes the way we see ourselves...for no good reason? We learn two things quickly about Mark in the film. He's too focused on himself and his own inner monologue to carry on a proper conversation, and he has no idea how the things he says will be interpreted by other people around him. When we first meet Mark, he's on a date with Erica (Rooney Mara), who sticks around for a surprising amount of time, considering that Mark talks non-stop, mostly about how he doesn't respect her or the school she attends (Boston University). When she finally does leave, he's surprised. Not only surprised, but hurt! Not only surprised at hurt, but angry! And it's this anger that spurns him to create FaceMash.com, a snide little website that presents Harvard men with two photos of female students and asks them to choose the more attractive one. (He also blogs about how Erica is a bitch, how her family changed their last name, and how he finds the notion of comparing women to farm animals amusing.) FaceMash brings Mark some amount of infamy on campus, which in turn attracts the attention of wonder twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss (both played by Armie Hammer), and their business partner, Divya Narendra (Max Minghella). [A small aside here...the clearly, visibly Caucasian Max Minghella has been cast as a clearly, visibly Indian-American man for no apparent reason. Were no talented young actors of Indian descent available? Fincher is typically such a stickler for strict authenticity in his films. (It's said that, in the San Francisco Chronicle set from his movie "Zodiac," the desks were all outfitted with authentic '70s supplies and equipment, even though this would never be visible on camera). Surely, he must have cast Minghella in this role for a REASON, beyond just liking the guy's take on the character...but I'll be damned if I can puzzle that reason out. Personally, I thought it was distracting, and one of the film's few real missteps.] The Winklevosses - privileged, attractive, confident - and Narendra have an idea for a website, and they need a talented programmer. The genius behind FaceMash seems like just the guy, so they sort of informally hire Mark to help him with their site. In his own inimitable, purposefully frustrating and distant way, he agrees. At around the same time, he comes up with his own idea for a social network called TheFacebook, which builds off of the Winklevosses concept while adding some elements of MySpace, Friendster and even FaceMash. Whether or not these two circumstances were directly related will form much of the conflict of the film. More incidents from the founding of Facebook occur - Zuckerberg brings in his friend Eduardo Savarin (Andrew Garfield) to help fund his new project, he begins bringing in roommates and fellow coders to lend their talents, the site grows and comes to the attention of Sean Parker (Justin Timberlake) and other Silicon Valley types, etc. We start to wonder how someone who seems to lack an understanding of what "friendship" means can have such an intuitive understanding of its mechanics, and how these could be applied to the Web. Does Mark truly grok interpersonal relationships because he has spent so much time OUTSIDE them, studying their intricacies? Many well-observed little moments all reinforce the central observation that Mark can't understand people, and that he resents them for it. His mannerisms, his body language, even his words seem to express the notion that "I don't like you, and that's your fault." We sense perhaps this is a defense mechanism gone horribly, horribly wrong. Mark feels incapable of truly "fitting in," so he has convinced himself that people are loathsome and stupid and not worth fitting in with anyway. But clearly, he's not entirely won over to misanthropy. A part of him still wishes he could be a part of something; he just doesn't know how, aside from building a website that everything wants to use. Something "cool." Eisenberg's pretty magnificent here, ably suggesting Mark's awkwardness, his rapid-fire but clumsy speaking style, his arrogance tinged with insecurity, without going too far and turning the character into some kind of savant. It would have been easy to go "Rain Man" on Mark, present him as some kind of stunted genius, but Eisenberg keeps things level and balanced. His Zuckerberg is not mentally ill, or cartoonish or villainous. For all his apparent flaws, Eisenberg makes it hard to actively dislike Mark Zuckerberg. We're baffled by him at times, and pity him at others, but he remains a believable, three-dimensional human being in every scene. Much of the credit for this also goes to Sorkin, who deftly anchors the film's narrative in not one but two simultaneous lawsuits. We see bits of Zuckerberg's deposition in the Winklevosses intellectual property suit, and moments from his deposition in Savarin's suit for part-ownership of Facebook. It's a clever device, not only because it helps to explicate and clarify the sometimes-complicated goings-on in the span of a fast-paced 2 hour film, but also because it gives us a flavor of Mark's experience of the world. In his mind, he's always facing off against a panel of hateful peers and disappointed elders. His whole life to this point has been one long deposition. Fincher, who has made a career out of studying frustrated, isolated, claustrophobic characters, turns in possibly his most careful and subtle work to date. Gone is the showy provocateur of "Seven," the hyper-kinetic mindfuck artist behind "Fight Club" or "The Game" and even the detail-obsessed cinephile of "Zodiac." Instead, he's sort of turned this entire movie over to Mark himself, letting the character and his work speak for themselves. (Perhaps he's TOO subtle here? It took me a while before I even realized how frequently the movie cuts back and forth between shots of large groups of people and shots of Mark alone, even though the second sequence in the whole film is a montage cutting between a lonely dorm room and a bus full of drunk co-eds.) Finally, I have to stop and praise the excellent score by Trent Reznor (who previously collaborated with Fincher on "Seven") and Atticus Ross. The film is graced by warm, piano-heavy, but vaguely sinister electronic music that beautifully offsets Zuckerberg's personal desperation, the frigid Boston setting and the cruel rivalries of the central characters. (It's oddly fitting for an examination of a fun, engaging site for friends created by a cold, calculating, largely humorless genius.) Interestingly, the music seems to clash with the Harvard setting of the film's first half, only to then compliment the San Francisco scenes towards the end. Is the implication that Mark truly belonged in Silicon Valley all along? Or that as his work on Facebook gains more ground, he becomes a bit more confident in his own skin, the drive to create a social network finally supplanting the drive to simply be social? Though we all really know how this story turns out (Zuckerberg pays off his enemies to go away! Facebook gets really really popular! He's a billionaire now!), I'll still avoid "spoiling" the movie's last scene. Suffice it to say, it's beautiful and heartbreaking, and includes possibly the best closing song choice of any movie in recent memory. "The Social Network" overall is a movie that's more thought-provoking and interesting than emotional or wrenching...until that final scene. Then all bets are off, and Fincher decidedly goes for the gut. The result is about as close to perfection as movies get, and worth the price of admission alone.Saturday, July 17, 2010
Inception review
The worlds of writer/director Christopher Nolan and science-fiction author Phillip K. Dick blend seamlessly in "Inception," a cerebral summer entertainment that will almost assuredly require multiple viewings to pick up on all its careful details and clever asides. (The film's not actually based on a Dick novel, but the author's influence bursts through every confused, layered, mind-bending sequence.) The story of a brilliant but troubled thief who invades the minds of his marks via a process called "group dreaming," "Inception" combines pretty much every film genre into one tangled, complex, provocative 160-minute experience. It's a well-executed caper, an over-the-top action film, a trippy science-fiction fantasy, a brooding romance, a psychological thriller and even, at times, a far-out comedy. All Nolan really needed was a cowboy and a hockey game and he'd have every category of American filmmaking represented.
If all that sounds like a recipe for an overcrowded film, well...it is. And part of me thinks that this is actually a far superior screenplay than it is a film. But at the same time, the intensity of the viewing experience, the excitement of seeing so many brilliant ideas brought together and the polish that Nolan and his more-than-capable crew (particularly cinematographer Wally Pfister, composer Hans Zimmer and editor Lee Smith) bring to the material completely won me over. This is destined to be the most ingenious, and quite possibly the most entertaining, film of summer 2010. (Which is really saying something, as "Toy Story 3" was significantly ingenious and entertaining.)The aforementioned thief is Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), the world's foremost expert on group dreaming who has been using his skills at invading people's dreams to steal corporate secrets for profit, a process known as Extraction. That is, when he's not being haunted by visions of his mysteriously absent wife (Marion Cotillard) and the children he left behind in America. Cobb is then approached by a Japanese energy tycoon, Saito (Ken Watanabe), who asks him to use his team and abilities for a far more complex task than Extraction. Saito needs his main corporate rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), to make a business decision running contrary to his own financial interest, and wants Cobb to "plant" this idea in Fischer's head. This is known as Inception (hey, that's the title!), and most in the field of group dreaming (a surprisingly large field, now that I think of it) consider to be impossible. This sets the stage for the 'heist' storyline I alluded to earlier - in which Cobb must assemble a team to design and execute a layered dream for Fischer that will lead to the executive changing his mind about the direction of his company - and it also leads to the film's extended conclusion, in which the inception must actually be carried out. This is a complicated idea, and Nolan somehow manages to continually make it more complex and demanding, while keeping everything fairly brisk and relatively easy to follow. I wasn't 100% certain I always knew exactly what was going on in every moment of the film, but I rarely found myself having to go back and "get my bearings." The dream Cobb and his crew design for Fischer involves 3 different "levels" - an initial stage in a rainy city, a deeper dream set in a large hotel, and a final sequence set in a snow-capped mountain fortress - and Nolan cleverly allows the sets and costumes to visually cue us to which portion of the dream we're currently viewing. The layered dream conceit also allows for the film's best action sequences, in which the physics of one dream level (such as a van in which the characters are sleeping plummets off of a bridge) impacts the physics of the next dream level (causing people running down a hotel hallway to suddenly fly up into the air). To avoid spoilers, I can't fully articulate the inventiveness of Nolan's screenplay, one of the most intricate pieces of writing I've seen brought to the big screen in years. (Nolan surely only got the budget to make this movie because he is Nolan.) There's a lot of talking and exposition in the movie, which I know has turned off some reviewers, but the ideas here are so fascinating and so well-established and considered, it really didn't bother me. Take a sequence in which Cobb and his new "dream architect," Ariadne (Ellen Page), discuss the nature of the tactile world of dreams while sitting at an outdoor cafe. It takes a bit of chatter just to explain all the concepts that Nolan needs to get across in this scene - what it means to "create" the world of a dream, who these people are that are populating the dream world, what happens when someone is injured or dies in a dream, and so forth - but the dialogue itself is advancing our understanding of things we've already seen, and it all builds to a visually dazzling sequence in which the dream world itself begins to collapse. (This is a recurring motif in the movie - dreams crumbling and imploding on themselves - that's in some ways reminiscent of Alex Proyas' similarly-brilliant "Dark City" from 1998). It's heady and takes a while to get everything across, but it's nonetheless compelling, and there is a certain amount of brevity and efficiency in the explanations. Nolan doesn't take the time to tell us about anything he doesn't bring back later in the film for dramatic effect. And even when the film is just two characters talking, there's a lot to love about "Inception." Hans Zimmer's score, for starters, is completely captivating, exquisitely framing both the unthinkable scale and the underlying sadness of Cobb's day-to-day life. It's his best work in years. The cinematography by Wally Pfister (Nolan's collaborator on the similarly beautiful "Prestige" and the Batman movies) is simultaneously elaborate and stark. The "dream worlds" are each given their own personalities, but there's also a gray, claustrophobic urbanity that runs through the entire film, as if Cobb is stuck in an endless, inescapable city, with unknowable secrets hiding behind every door. The effects work is also tremendous, and surprisingly subtle, considering this is a movie in which city streets fold in on themselves and skyscrapers crumbling in the background become an expected, almost quotidian, sight. The sound design also warrants mention. Part of the conceit behind entering and exiting dream states in the film has to do with repetition. Hearing dialogue and sound from reality will often jar people out of dreams, and small noises like the breaking of a wine glass or the spinning of a top take on great significance within the movie. All of this is handled delicately and with an attention to small observations that's unexpected from a big summer entertainment of this size. Having said all of that...the final "inception" scenes tended to feel a bit long-winded, particularly in terms of the action. Putting together an effective action sequence has always been Nolan's Achilles Heel. (My one fault with his two "Batman" films is that the action never quite lives up to the visual flair of the movies around them.) He fares better here, and at least 2 of the action scenes here - a foot chase through the streets of Mumbai and the fistfight down the zero-gravity hotel hallways I mentioned before - are among the movie's highlights. But there's an awful lot of random punching and gunplay as the inception wears on (largely used to break up scenes of expository dialogue down the stretch), and it feels a bit unnecessary. The movie starts to drag a bit just as it should be picking up steam. Though we're always clear, as viewers, on which level of the dream we are seeing at any time, we're jumping between dreams so frequently that it tends to kill the tension of the shootouts or car chases. (How can you stay involved with a car chase if you're only seeing 2 out of every 10 minutes of that chase? That's one kind of action set piece you can't really "pick up" in the middle.) There's so much that's great about "Inception," I feel like this is something of a minor quibble. Still, it's a 160 minute movie that probably would have been tighter as a 140 minute movie. And delightful as Tom Hardy is as Cobb's "forger" (and the film's comic relief), I don't really need to see him take out 30 dream soldiers when 10 would have done just as well. "Inception" feels both like a natural extension of the major themes that have dominated Nolan's films up until this point - particularly in how it explores the subjective, even fraudulent, nature of what we perceive as "reality" - and a major step forward for him in terms of scope. If he wasn't already on the list, it ranks him among the most significant, interesting Hollywood directors of the moment. And though it's only July, I predict this will EASILY be the best, most imaginative screenplay we'll see brought to the cinemas this year, if not necessarily the best overall movie.
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