Every year when I write my Top Ten lists, I also write a companion piece to discuss some of the other major films that garnered attention from the critics and awards folks that year, to give some context to my own choices and to give a sense of where and how my opinions diverged. I will not be discussing films that appeared among my honorable mentions, such as "Drive" and "Melancholia," or films that were hyped up, but had little actual support that I could suss out, like "J. Edgar" and "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close." This year several of the major favorites, including "Midnight in Paris," "The Artist," "The Tree of Life," and "The Descendants" did end up among my Top Ten, but there were several others that didn't even come close.
Let's start with Martin Scorsese's "Hugo," which I liked when I saw it in the theater, but grew less and less enchanted with the longer I thought about it. I loved everything involving Georges Melies, but the rest of the story is pretty labored, and it doesn't help that the dialogue for the kids frequently falls flat. The trouble with "Hugo" is that I didn't care about the kid. Asa Butterfield did a fine job overall, but there are a couple of scenes where he looks completely lost, and I don't think it was his fault. And as with "The Adventures of Tintin" there were a lot of overly-busy, complicated visuals that often got in the way of the immersiveness. I wish that Scorsese had spent less time on the spectacle and more on his storytelling.
There was nothing wrong at all with Spielberg's "War Horse," except that it was a film of the 1930s produced about eighty years after its time. It wasn't nearly as cloying as those early trailers made it out to be, but the sentiment was still laid on pretty thick. I think this might have worked better as a smaller, sparser film, instead of something so grand-scale. While "War Horse" was certainly impressive, it wasn't very entertaining, and this is the kind of feel-good fable that really should be more worried about being entertaining than being something epic. Now "The Help" had the opposite problem, in that it was very entertaining thanks to a bushel of great performances, for which it was rightly rewarded. Unfortunately, it was also a remarkably shallow film with a lot of problematic messages, and painted a picture of 1960s race relations that left me cringing.
Some films were simply not to my taste, like "Moneyball," the baseball film starring Brad Pitt. This was not your traditional sports movie, but really more a character piece about Oakland A's general manager Billy Beene, and frankly I found him to be a bore. It took me a while to work out that my mixed feelings on "Bridesmaids" did not mean there was anything wrong with my sense of humor. It's a decent comedy with some good impulses, and I understand why it was so popular and so widely embraced, but it is in no way a great film. And then there was David Fincher's adaptation of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," which was doomed from the start. I liked it fine, and I liked Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, but there was no way in hell it was ever going to get out from under the shadow of its popular Swedish predecessor, released barely two years earlier. It didn't help that while Fincher's version was slicker and more polished, it didn't really seem to get the point of the "Millennium" books.
Perhaps the most disappointing film of 2011 was "Martha Marcy May Marlene," which was a very promising debut feature from Sean Durkin, but made some choices that I found unsatisfying and, honestly much too easy. I walked away feeling a bit cheated. I had similar feelings towards "The Ides of March," which had so much potential with all the names involved, but tread an all-too familiar path. There's no shame in doing something safe when you do it well, but it's not going to get you top marks either. One of the lower profile, but highly praised titles that some of my favorite critics championed was Mike Mills' "Beginners," the one Christopher Plummer won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar for. I did not connect with that film on any level, and found it pretty slight.
Finally, it was a pretty poor year for animated films, and the consensus was that the best of the lot was "Rango," Gore Verbinski's reptile western for ILM. I thought "Rango" was gorgeous, that it had great ambition, and managed to find a style and a look that was different from what everyone else was doing. It was a little sick and very weird, which I fully support. That said, the imposter story has been done to death, and "Rango" hardly offered much of a variation on it. Also, I wish studios would stop booking Johnny Depp for animated films, because he's not very well suited to the job. I ended up spending most of "Rango" wishing I were watching the live action reference footage that was shot featuring the primary actors.
All in all, 2011 was a perfectly good year for the movies. Some of the bigger, more anticipated titles crashed and burned on arrival, but there were plenty of gems if you were willing to go looking for them.
---
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Saturday, October 6, 2012
The Top Ten Films of 2011, Plus One
It's October, and 2012 is quickly coming to an end. And do you know what that means? I'm writing my best films of 2011 list! Yes, I've finally reached that point in the year where I'm fed up with tracking the remaining DVD releases of films everyone else talked about months and months ago, and my completist tendencies have been assuaged enough (after viewing 151 titles) for me to put out what I'm satisfied is a mostly thorough and well-informed list of favorites. And also, there's nothing like distracting yourself from all of this year's upcoming titles than looking back on last year's.
As always, my criteria for eligibility requires that a film must have been released in its own home country during 2011, so film festivals and other special screenings don't count. Picks are unranked, previously posted reviews are linked where available, and the "Plus One" spot is reserved for the best film of the previous year that I didn't manage to see in time for the last list.
Midnight in Paris - Remember when romantic comedies were about more than just endlessly contrived meet-cutes and misunderstandings? Perhaps no one makes them better than Woody Allen, and though he isn't as consistent as he used to be, his highs are higher than most directors could ever hope to match. Here, his penchant for fantasy, for nostalgia, and for picturesque European cities all converge for the benefit of a beautiful little romantic fable about dreamers in Paris.
The Artist - Though often described as a throwback, what director Michel Hazanavicus accomplished was not simply making a silent film, but using silent film techniques to make a silent film that never could have never been made in the silent film era. This was also my favorite theatrical experience of last year, because "The Artist" depends so greatly on the intangible atmosphere of the theater, and I cannot imagine that the film would work nearly as well being viewed on television or a computer screen.
Project Nim - The year's best documentary relates the woeful tale of the famous Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was raised as a human and taught sign language in an experiment that followed few scientific protocols. He then passed from well-meaning caretaker to caretaker until his death at the age of 26. Particularly illuminating are the profiles of Nim's various trainers, teachers, and the people who helped to raise him. As they speak about their experiences with Nim, we learn as much about the nature of the humans as we do about the nature of the chimp.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - The one I've had to defend the most vehemently, because contrary to all the marketing copy, this adaptation of the celebrated John le Carré spy novel is not a typical thriler, but actually a character piece with an impressive performance by Gary Oldman at its center. So cerebral and so intricate that a viewer may wish to take notes, it confounded and disappointed many audiences. I had the opposite reaction and am hoping fervently for a sequel.
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Here's a new spin on the old genre tale of the evil child, told from the unreliable perspective of his tormented, guilt-wracked mother after an unspeakable tragedy occurs. Tilda Swinton's performance was one of the year's best, and director Lynne Ramsay crafted an unsettling, ambiguous, and deeply disturbing fever dream around it. This is a rare psychological thriller that draws its blackest horrors from the largely unexplored realms of parental guilt and paranoia.
The Descendants - Alexander Payne and his collaborators find a way to make the tragic funny and the ridiculous moving, as George Clooney, delivering a knockout performance as a recently widowed father, navigates the difficult waters of grief and regret. So many others have tackled this kind of material and so few have managed to find the right balance of humor, heartbreak, and ukulele music that makes "The Descendants" such a genuinely touching and memorable bit of cinematic catharsis.
The Skin I Live In - Celebrated Spanish director Pedro Almodovar explores all of his favorite themes, including transsexuality, gender roles, and obsessive love, but this time through the creation of a remarkable science-fiction horror film. It is astonishing how well this shocking tale of a mad scientist and a most peculiar monster fits the pattern of Almodovar's previous work, while at the same time marks a clear departure from the lively melodramas and stirring tragedies that he is best known for.
Win Win - Thomas McCarthy has always made films about oddball characters coming together to form their own makeshift families. "Win Win" starts out with a traditional nuclear family, and then watches it get a little bigger when the father, played by Paul Giamatti, gets tangled up in the affairs of an elderly client and his grandson. It's a genuinely sweet comedy about a collection of very imperfect people. And it's also a high school wrestling movie for a while, which I admit I did not see coming.
Shame - In many ways 2012 was Michael Fassbender's year, and the highlight was his appearance in Steve McQueen's latest feature, their second collaboration. In "Shame" Fassbender plays a sex-addict living a lonely, alienated double-life in New York. It's a haunting portrait of a man battling his demons, trying to escape an addiction that is portrayed as destructive and all-consuming . Never have so many starkly NC-17 rated sex scenes seemed so hollow, empty, and cold.
The Tree of Life - One of the most anticipated cinematic events of the year, and it met all expectations. I've concluded that Terrence Malick should have left off the confounding bookend sequences, but the central story is so strong and so spectacularly rendered that it makes up for any and all of the film's deficiencies. Malick touches true greatness here, because he is in possession an utterly boundless ambition that I haven't seen from any other director in a very, very long time.
Plus One
Venus Noire - An unflinching French language biopic of a remarkable woman, which includes many snapshots of humanity at its worst. Sarah Baartman, originally from South Africa, toured Europe in the early 19th century as the Venus Hottentot, and was subjected to endless humiliation and exploitation as she struggled to earn her way. The film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche and starring Yahima Torres is gripping, provocative, and occasionally devastating. At the time of writing, the film is only available on Region 2 DVD.
And finally, a couple of honorable mentions:
Submarine
Drive
Pariah
Meek's Cutoff
Jane Eyre
Melancholia
A Separation
Take Shelter
Perfect Sense
Margaret
And tomorrow, what didn't make the list.
---
As always, my criteria for eligibility requires that a film must have been released in its own home country during 2011, so film festivals and other special screenings don't count. Picks are unranked, previously posted reviews are linked where available, and the "Plus One" spot is reserved for the best film of the previous year that I didn't manage to see in time for the last list.
Midnight in Paris - Remember when romantic comedies were about more than just endlessly contrived meet-cutes and misunderstandings? Perhaps no one makes them better than Woody Allen, and though he isn't as consistent as he used to be, his highs are higher than most directors could ever hope to match. Here, his penchant for fantasy, for nostalgia, and for picturesque European cities all converge for the benefit of a beautiful little romantic fable about dreamers in Paris.
The Artist - Though often described as a throwback, what director Michel Hazanavicus accomplished was not simply making a silent film, but using silent film techniques to make a silent film that never could have never been made in the silent film era. This was also my favorite theatrical experience of last year, because "The Artist" depends so greatly on the intangible atmosphere of the theater, and I cannot imagine that the film would work nearly as well being viewed on television or a computer screen.
Project Nim - The year's best documentary relates the woeful tale of the famous Nim Chimpsky, a chimpanzee who was raised as a human and taught sign language in an experiment that followed few scientific protocols. He then passed from well-meaning caretaker to caretaker until his death at the age of 26. Particularly illuminating are the profiles of Nim's various trainers, teachers, and the people who helped to raise him. As they speak about their experiences with Nim, we learn as much about the nature of the humans as we do about the nature of the chimp.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - The one I've had to defend the most vehemently, because contrary to all the marketing copy, this adaptation of the celebrated John le Carré spy novel is not a typical thriler, but actually a character piece with an impressive performance by Gary Oldman at its center. So cerebral and so intricate that a viewer may wish to take notes, it confounded and disappointed many audiences. I had the opposite reaction and am hoping fervently for a sequel.
We Need to Talk About Kevin - Here's a new spin on the old genre tale of the evil child, told from the unreliable perspective of his tormented, guilt-wracked mother after an unspeakable tragedy occurs. Tilda Swinton's performance was one of the year's best, and director Lynne Ramsay crafted an unsettling, ambiguous, and deeply disturbing fever dream around it. This is a rare psychological thriller that draws its blackest horrors from the largely unexplored realms of parental guilt and paranoia.
The Descendants - Alexander Payne and his collaborators find a way to make the tragic funny and the ridiculous moving, as George Clooney, delivering a knockout performance as a recently widowed father, navigates the difficult waters of grief and regret. So many others have tackled this kind of material and so few have managed to find the right balance of humor, heartbreak, and ukulele music that makes "The Descendants" such a genuinely touching and memorable bit of cinematic catharsis.
The Skin I Live In - Celebrated Spanish director Pedro Almodovar explores all of his favorite themes, including transsexuality, gender roles, and obsessive love, but this time through the creation of a remarkable science-fiction horror film. It is astonishing how well this shocking tale of a mad scientist and a most peculiar monster fits the pattern of Almodovar's previous work, while at the same time marks a clear departure from the lively melodramas and stirring tragedies that he is best known for.
Win Win - Thomas McCarthy has always made films about oddball characters coming together to form their own makeshift families. "Win Win" starts out with a traditional nuclear family, and then watches it get a little bigger when the father, played by Paul Giamatti, gets tangled up in the affairs of an elderly client and his grandson. It's a genuinely sweet comedy about a collection of very imperfect people. And it's also a high school wrestling movie for a while, which I admit I did not see coming.
Shame - In many ways 2012 was Michael Fassbender's year, and the highlight was his appearance in Steve McQueen's latest feature, their second collaboration. In "Shame" Fassbender plays a sex-addict living a lonely, alienated double-life in New York. It's a haunting portrait of a man battling his demons, trying to escape an addiction that is portrayed as destructive and all-consuming . Never have so many starkly NC-17 rated sex scenes seemed so hollow, empty, and cold.
The Tree of Life - One of the most anticipated cinematic events of the year, and it met all expectations. I've concluded that Terrence Malick should have left off the confounding bookend sequences, but the central story is so strong and so spectacularly rendered that it makes up for any and all of the film's deficiencies. Malick touches true greatness here, because he is in possession an utterly boundless ambition that I haven't seen from any other director in a very, very long time.
Plus One
Venus Noire - An unflinching French language biopic of a remarkable woman, which includes many snapshots of humanity at its worst. Sarah Baartman, originally from South Africa, toured Europe in the early 19th century as the Venus Hottentot, and was subjected to endless humiliation and exploitation as she struggled to earn her way. The film directed by Abdellatif Kechiche and starring Yahima Torres is gripping, provocative, and occasionally devastating. At the time of writing, the film is only available on Region 2 DVD.
And finally, a couple of honorable mentions:
Submarine
Drive
Pariah
Meek's Cutoff
Jane Eyre
Melancholia
A Separation
Take Shelter
Perfect Sense
Margaret
And tomorrow, what didn't make the list.
---
Friday, October 5, 2012
"Doctor Who," Spoiler, Spoiler, the Ponds, Spoiler
Okay, so it's been about a week since the last episode of "Doctor Who" before it went on hiatus, and if you don't want to know anything about it or anything else that's happened during this last cycle, please stop reading now. Though considering how this set of episodes has been promoted, I don't know how you could have missed hearing about the biggest spoiler if you're even a casual fan of "Doctor Who."
Anyway, to business. "The Angels Take Manhattan" brought back the Weeping Angels again, and was the last episode to feature Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as Amy Pond and Rory Williams, collectively known as The Ponds, the Eleventh Doctor's chief Companions for the last two-and-a-half series. The pair got quite the sendoff, an emotionally charged hour full of terrible choices, big sacrifices, leaps of faith, and tearful goodbyes. I loved every minute of it. I've heard a few complaints that the retirement of the Ponds was too abrupt, but Stephen Moffat and his crew have spent these last five episodes giving Amy and Rory a far fuller and more developed story than most of their prior counterparts. One thing I've always liked about Moffat is that time is always a factor in his "Doctor Who" stories. Though the Ponds only debuted in 2010, at least a decade has elapsed in the timeline of the series, and their relationship has gone through major ups and downs, including a brief and rather contrived split. That suggests years of other adventures happening offscreen, and in the last series there was ample evidence that the Ponds were quietly building an ordinary life together when the Doctor wasn't around.
From this latest five episode little half-season, the penultimate episode, "The Power of Three" was my favorite, because it finally showed Amy and Rory living that ordinary life, which is not something most Companions manage to do while still being Companions. Also you can really sense the timeline accelerating, and large amounts of time seems to pass between each individual episode. So, when the Doctor lands on their doorstep in "The Power of Three," suddenly Amy is a successful travel writer instead of a model, and Rory's father, played by Mark Williams, has returned from his extended globetrotting stint that we only saw him begin two weeks ago in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." The events of "The Power of Three" take place over a whole year, during which time the Doctor briefly moves in with the Ponds and samples the stationary life. Throughout the hour, we see the clash between the Ponds maintaining a normal life and the adventuring with the Doctor that frequently upends their plans. I was expecting Amy and Rory to choose to leave on their own, but in the end they can't give him up, just as the Doctor can't give them up. And that set up the traumatic parting in "The Angels Take Manhattan."
It took me a long time to warm up to this set of characters. I liked Amy's forwardness, but she got a little too forward until the Doctor roped Rory into traveling with them. Then Rory was awfully bland and prone to getting himself sidelined (and killed) all the time, until the Pandorica adventure that cemented him and Amy as the best "Doctor Who" couple of the modern era. As for Matt Smith as the Doctor, I didn't find myself fully accepting his take on the character until late in his second year, but the same thing was true of my experience with David Tennant. I liked the way that the tensions among the three characters worked out, though, the way it was established that Amy and the Doctor had a special relationship, but Rory loved her more, and when push came to shove, Amy would choose Rory. It just took a while for everyone involved to work this out.
I wasn't thrilled that their last adventure together would involve the Weeping Angels, which worked so well in "Blink," but quickly became less effective in their later appearances. However, their ability to separate the inseparable trio proved they were the right choice. Nobody died, but the Ponds, or perhaps they would prefer to be called the Williamses, get involuntarily sent back in time to a point where the Doctor can't follow them, to happily live out their lives together in the past. The real kicker is how close they came to avoiding that fate, and how much they had to go through in vain, only to be confronted by those final goodbyes. As much as Moffat's scripting tried to soften the blow, there's no denying that this was a dark chapter in the Doctor's adventures, one that's likely to leave a considerable mark. And yet, thanks to all the legwork in the previous episodes, we know Amy and Rory will be just fine living out normal lives together. It's the Doctor, with all his guilt, that we need to keep an eye on.
Jenna-Louise Coleman will debut as the Doctor's newest companion in the Christmas special. Can't wait!
---
Anyway, to business. "The Angels Take Manhattan" brought back the Weeping Angels again, and was the last episode to feature Karen Gillan and Arthur Darvill as Amy Pond and Rory Williams, collectively known as The Ponds, the Eleventh Doctor's chief Companions for the last two-and-a-half series. The pair got quite the sendoff, an emotionally charged hour full of terrible choices, big sacrifices, leaps of faith, and tearful goodbyes. I loved every minute of it. I've heard a few complaints that the retirement of the Ponds was too abrupt, but Stephen Moffat and his crew have spent these last five episodes giving Amy and Rory a far fuller and more developed story than most of their prior counterparts. One thing I've always liked about Moffat is that time is always a factor in his "Doctor Who" stories. Though the Ponds only debuted in 2010, at least a decade has elapsed in the timeline of the series, and their relationship has gone through major ups and downs, including a brief and rather contrived split. That suggests years of other adventures happening offscreen, and in the last series there was ample evidence that the Ponds were quietly building an ordinary life together when the Doctor wasn't around.
From this latest five episode little half-season, the penultimate episode, "The Power of Three" was my favorite, because it finally showed Amy and Rory living that ordinary life, which is not something most Companions manage to do while still being Companions. Also you can really sense the timeline accelerating, and large amounts of time seems to pass between each individual episode. So, when the Doctor lands on their doorstep in "The Power of Three," suddenly Amy is a successful travel writer instead of a model, and Rory's father, played by Mark Williams, has returned from his extended globetrotting stint that we only saw him begin two weeks ago in "Dinosaurs on a Spaceship." The events of "The Power of Three" take place over a whole year, during which time the Doctor briefly moves in with the Ponds and samples the stationary life. Throughout the hour, we see the clash between the Ponds maintaining a normal life and the adventuring with the Doctor that frequently upends their plans. I was expecting Amy and Rory to choose to leave on their own, but in the end they can't give him up, just as the Doctor can't give them up. And that set up the traumatic parting in "The Angels Take Manhattan."
It took me a long time to warm up to this set of characters. I liked Amy's forwardness, but she got a little too forward until the Doctor roped Rory into traveling with them. Then Rory was awfully bland and prone to getting himself sidelined (and killed) all the time, until the Pandorica adventure that cemented him and Amy as the best "Doctor Who" couple of the modern era. As for Matt Smith as the Doctor, I didn't find myself fully accepting his take on the character until late in his second year, but the same thing was true of my experience with David Tennant. I liked the way that the tensions among the three characters worked out, though, the way it was established that Amy and the Doctor had a special relationship, but Rory loved her more, and when push came to shove, Amy would choose Rory. It just took a while for everyone involved to work this out.
I wasn't thrilled that their last adventure together would involve the Weeping Angels, which worked so well in "Blink," but quickly became less effective in their later appearances. However, their ability to separate the inseparable trio proved they were the right choice. Nobody died, but the Ponds, or perhaps they would prefer to be called the Williamses, get involuntarily sent back in time to a point where the Doctor can't follow them, to happily live out their lives together in the past. The real kicker is how close they came to avoiding that fate, and how much they had to go through in vain, only to be confronted by those final goodbyes. As much as Moffat's scripting tried to soften the blow, there's no denying that this was a dark chapter in the Doctor's adventures, one that's likely to leave a considerable mark. And yet, thanks to all the legwork in the previous episodes, we know Amy and Rory will be just fine living out normal lives together. It's the Doctor, with all his guilt, that we need to keep an eye on.
Jenna-Louise Coleman will debut as the Doctor's newest companion in the Christmas special. Can't wait!
---
Thursday, October 4, 2012
What's With All the Horror Cartoons?
If you're a fan of animated films, you might have noticed that we're in the middle of a glut of horror-themed cartoons. Laika's "ParaNorman" arrived last month, Sony Pictures Animation's "Hotel Transylvania" came out this past weekend, and Tim Burton's "Frankenweenie," based on his 1984 live action short, is due in theaters tomorrow. Of course, this could all be a coincidence. Looking at the producing studios' prior output, Laika's last film, "Coraline," was horror-themed, and all of Tim Burton's animated work has had more than a tinge of the macabre. "Hotel Transylvania," which is really more comedy than horror, spent years in development hell before finally emerging as a finished film, and no one could have predicted it would be at the same time as the other two. And it makes sense for all these projects to be released close to Halloween to take advantage of the spooky holiday spirit.
But still, it's a heck of a coincidence. We've had a "Monsters vs. Aliens" here and an "Igor" there, but rarely more than one or two animated horror titles a year, and usually spaced well apart. I have a couple of theories, one of which is that more than one creative genius decided to try their own spin on a kid-friendly horror cartoon, as it's a promising little genre with plenty of material waiting to be explored. There are so many animated films being released now, and it can be a struggle to make any single picture stand out from the crowd. There's definitely an increasingly famiiar pastel-hued, children's picture book aesthetic that a lot of recent CGI films have adopted. Horror films are a license to get away from that, with a more extreme color palette and wilder designs. It's no surprise that "ParaNorman," "Hotel Transylvania," and "Frankenweenie" are all very visually distinct, tell completely different stories, and are difficult to confuse.
Or maybe it's something a little deeper than that. The American feature animation industry has blossomed in recent years, and we have multiple studios that are thriving financially. The competition among the major players, including PIXAR, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, Sony, Disney, and Illumination, has really heated up, and we keep seeing the bar for quality pushed higher and higher. PIXAR landed two Best Picture nominations at the Oscars in 2010 for "Up" and 2011 for "Toy Story 3," which were lauded for being more thematically serious and challenging. And yet, American animated features have always been limited to very family-friendly, mainstream pictures. We saw some experimentation with more adult ideas for a while, when animators were still seeing what CGI was capable of. This lead to some interesting features like the dystopian "9" and action-adventure "Beowulf," but none of these did particularly well. However, foreign animated films for grown-ups have had more success, and we're regularly seeing gems like "Persepolis," "Waltz for Bashir,” and "Chico & Rita" in the art houses.
Animation fans have often traded theories about how to make Americans more accepting of more adult animation, which would allow for a wider range of stories. However, the conception of animation being children's media is so deeply ingrained, I think any change in attitude is going to be incremental over a long period of time. So how do you push at the boundaries and do something challenging if you don't have PIXAR level talent, and you want to stay kid-friendly enough to attract a paying audience? You make something scary. You create something that parents have to think twice about bringing the littler kids to see, because the warnings are implicit in the choice of material. If you're a smaller studio like Laika, you make "Coraline," a stop-motion horror film that was genuinely frightening. Horror is one of those few genres that can straddle the line between kid-safe and truly adult, that can tap into some very dark themes while still maintaining a friendly exterior. "Coraline" has lots of great visual spectacle, but it also features a sinister doppelganger of the young heroine's mother, who lures the girl into a fantasy world full of disturbing doubles of people from her real life. And when "Coraline" does well, you follow it up with the ghosts and zombies of "Paranorman."
In 1993, Disney took a major gamble backing "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas," which has become a cult classic and probably the defining Halloween-themed animated film of this generation. All the other horror cartoons that followed since owe "Nightmare" a major debt. It's fitting that Burton's back with "Frankenweenie," which looks to be another very risky film. It's a monochromatic homage to older horror flicks that its target audience probably won't be familiar with. But then again, who can resist a new spin on the classic boy and his dog story? As we go into opening weekend, the box office forecasters are predicting that "Frankenweenie" is going to get crushed by "Taken 2" and the much more accessible "Hotel Transylvania," but there's a lot be said for he fact that the "Frankenweenie" feature actually got made. And there's always the chance that like "Nightmare," it'll find its audience over time, because it's been established that the audience for these slightly older-skewing films does exist.
I doubt that there are many people who want to see all three of the latest animated horror films in such quick succession, but there are clearly a lot of people who are game for one or two of them. And that's enough.
---
But still, it's a heck of a coincidence. We've had a "Monsters vs. Aliens" here and an "Igor" there, but rarely more than one or two animated horror titles a year, and usually spaced well apart. I have a couple of theories, one of which is that more than one creative genius decided to try their own spin on a kid-friendly horror cartoon, as it's a promising little genre with plenty of material waiting to be explored. There are so many animated films being released now, and it can be a struggle to make any single picture stand out from the crowd. There's definitely an increasingly famiiar pastel-hued, children's picture book aesthetic that a lot of recent CGI films have adopted. Horror films are a license to get away from that, with a more extreme color palette and wilder designs. It's no surprise that "ParaNorman," "Hotel Transylvania," and "Frankenweenie" are all very visually distinct, tell completely different stories, and are difficult to confuse.
Or maybe it's something a little deeper than that. The American feature animation industry has blossomed in recent years, and we have multiple studios that are thriving financially. The competition among the major players, including PIXAR, Dreamworks, Blue Sky, Sony, Disney, and Illumination, has really heated up, and we keep seeing the bar for quality pushed higher and higher. PIXAR landed two Best Picture nominations at the Oscars in 2010 for "Up" and 2011 for "Toy Story 3," which were lauded for being more thematically serious and challenging. And yet, American animated features have always been limited to very family-friendly, mainstream pictures. We saw some experimentation with more adult ideas for a while, when animators were still seeing what CGI was capable of. This lead to some interesting features like the dystopian "9" and action-adventure "Beowulf," but none of these did particularly well. However, foreign animated films for grown-ups have had more success, and we're regularly seeing gems like "Persepolis," "Waltz for Bashir,” and "Chico & Rita" in the art houses.
Animation fans have often traded theories about how to make Americans more accepting of more adult animation, which would allow for a wider range of stories. However, the conception of animation being children's media is so deeply ingrained, I think any change in attitude is going to be incremental over a long period of time. So how do you push at the boundaries and do something challenging if you don't have PIXAR level talent, and you want to stay kid-friendly enough to attract a paying audience? You make something scary. You create something that parents have to think twice about bringing the littler kids to see, because the warnings are implicit in the choice of material. If you're a smaller studio like Laika, you make "Coraline," a stop-motion horror film that was genuinely frightening. Horror is one of those few genres that can straddle the line between kid-safe and truly adult, that can tap into some very dark themes while still maintaining a friendly exterior. "Coraline" has lots of great visual spectacle, but it also features a sinister doppelganger of the young heroine's mother, who lures the girl into a fantasy world full of disturbing doubles of people from her real life. And when "Coraline" does well, you follow it up with the ghosts and zombies of "Paranorman."
In 1993, Disney took a major gamble backing "Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas," which has become a cult classic and probably the defining Halloween-themed animated film of this generation. All the other horror cartoons that followed since owe "Nightmare" a major debt. It's fitting that Burton's back with "Frankenweenie," which looks to be another very risky film. It's a monochromatic homage to older horror flicks that its target audience probably won't be familiar with. But then again, who can resist a new spin on the classic boy and his dog story? As we go into opening weekend, the box office forecasters are predicting that "Frankenweenie" is going to get crushed by "Taken 2" and the much more accessible "Hotel Transylvania," but there's a lot be said for he fact that the "Frankenweenie" feature actually got made. And there's always the chance that like "Nightmare," it'll find its audience over time, because it's been established that the audience for these slightly older-skewing films does exist.
I doubt that there are many people who want to see all three of the latest animated horror films in such quick succession, but there are clearly a lot of people who are game for one or two of them. And that's enough.
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Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Miss Media Junkie vs. Brit Marling
Brit Marling makes the kind of films that I'd like to think that I would make if I were a filmmaker - thoughtful, heady genre pieces that feel very personal. She is known primarily as an actress, but also co-wrote and co-produced 2011's "Another Earth" and 2012's "Sound of My Voice." Thus, she has become one of several young female filmmakers who have been making waves in independent film recently. I just finished "Sound of My Voice," and it confirmed for me that Marling is extremely talented, has a strong voice, and lots and lots of potential to do bigger and better things. The trouble is that I really dislike both of the films she's made.
In "Another Earth," Marling plays a young woman named Rhoda, who lives in a world where a parallel Earth that has mysteriously appeared in the sky, a perfect double of our own world down to the inhabitants. There is significant time devoted to discussing what this means for humanity, but the film is more interested in Rhoda, who caused a fatal car accident on the night of the discovery, and deals with her guilt by starting a very ill-considered relationship with the lone survivor of the crash. In "Sound of My Voice," she plays Maggie, a charismatic cult leader who claims to have traveled back in time from the future, and displays a frightening degree of influence and control over her followers. Both films are very low budget, but do a good job of selling their central concepts. There are some gorgeous visuals, particularly in "Another Earth," with its scenic views of the parallel Earth gleaming on the horizon.
However, both films have the same problem, which is that they're just not very well put together on a fundamental level. Marling's protagonists tend to be moody, intense, self-absorbed creatures who make irrational decisions based on the flimsiest pretexts. The genre elements, such as the parallel Earth in "Another Earth," and the time travel in "Sound of My Voice," function mainly as metaphor, as springboards to ask various existential questions that are never answered. The heroine considers the possibility of an alternate version of herself who did not experience profound tragedy in "Another Earth," while "Sound of My Voice" questions the value of belief and cynicism. Both stories have intentionally ambiguous endings that suggest many interpretations, but are unsatisfying because there's not enough time spent on really engaging with the major themes.
"Another Earth" comes off as the better piece because it has such a minimal story that relies heavily on mood and atmosphere. However, it still has little to say and doesn't offer much beyond some nice visuals and clammy catharsis. Rhoda has some interesting moments, but remains a fairly flat martyr figure, a construct instead of a genuine person dealing with her grief and guilt. "Sound of My Voice" has a more conventional narrative, and is far more problematic. One of the biggest flaws is that the two protagonists, documentary filmmakers Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius), are completely underwritten and don't get nearly the amount of attention and development they need to make the film work. Instead, it's Marling's Maggie who stays in the spotlight, spinning her tale of a future dystopia that she refuses to provide any proof for.
It's apparent that Marling likes playing these deeply emotional, intense, damaged women who you're supposed to empathize with, and unfortunately they can get overly maudlin and bathetic real quick. I think Marling is a reasonably good actress, but the roles she creates for herself come across as a little ridiculous and indulgent. So much of the effectiveness of "Sound of My Voice" depends on buying how convincing and compelling Maggie is as this doomsaying prophet, and Marling just can't quite pull it off. I'm not sure that anyone could, considering how the character is written as a combination of ascetic monk, whimsical earth mother, and passive-aggressive psychopath. I did manage to catch Marling's supporting performance in the recent white-collar thriller "Arbitrage" with Richard Gere, where she comes off quite a bit better playing a normal, well-adjusted human being.
There is something intriguing about Marling's work, though, and I'm hopeful that she'll manage to improve over time and make some better films in the same vein. Science-fiction is one of my favorite genres, and I've been so happy to see these smaller, more conceptually ambitious indie sci-fi films popping up lately. However, "Another Earth" and "Sound of My Voice" also reveal some troubling bad habits, and that doesn't inspire much confidence. The big question is whether it's worth my time to keep following Marling's development as a filmmaker. I want to support her and to see her succeed, but at the same time, I think the movies she's made so far have been disappointing and I can't bring myself to recommend either of them.
--
In "Another Earth," Marling plays a young woman named Rhoda, who lives in a world where a parallel Earth that has mysteriously appeared in the sky, a perfect double of our own world down to the inhabitants. There is significant time devoted to discussing what this means for humanity, but the film is more interested in Rhoda, who caused a fatal car accident on the night of the discovery, and deals with her guilt by starting a very ill-considered relationship with the lone survivor of the crash. In "Sound of My Voice," she plays Maggie, a charismatic cult leader who claims to have traveled back in time from the future, and displays a frightening degree of influence and control over her followers. Both films are very low budget, but do a good job of selling their central concepts. There are some gorgeous visuals, particularly in "Another Earth," with its scenic views of the parallel Earth gleaming on the horizon.
However, both films have the same problem, which is that they're just not very well put together on a fundamental level. Marling's protagonists tend to be moody, intense, self-absorbed creatures who make irrational decisions based on the flimsiest pretexts. The genre elements, such as the parallel Earth in "Another Earth," and the time travel in "Sound of My Voice," function mainly as metaphor, as springboards to ask various existential questions that are never answered. The heroine considers the possibility of an alternate version of herself who did not experience profound tragedy in "Another Earth," while "Sound of My Voice" questions the value of belief and cynicism. Both stories have intentionally ambiguous endings that suggest many interpretations, but are unsatisfying because there's not enough time spent on really engaging with the major themes.
"Another Earth" comes off as the better piece because it has such a minimal story that relies heavily on mood and atmosphere. However, it still has little to say and doesn't offer much beyond some nice visuals and clammy catharsis. Rhoda has some interesting moments, but remains a fairly flat martyr figure, a construct instead of a genuine person dealing with her grief and guilt. "Sound of My Voice" has a more conventional narrative, and is far more problematic. One of the biggest flaws is that the two protagonists, documentary filmmakers Peter (Christopher Denham) and Lorna (Nicole Vicius), are completely underwritten and don't get nearly the amount of attention and development they need to make the film work. Instead, it's Marling's Maggie who stays in the spotlight, spinning her tale of a future dystopia that she refuses to provide any proof for.
It's apparent that Marling likes playing these deeply emotional, intense, damaged women who you're supposed to empathize with, and unfortunately they can get overly maudlin and bathetic real quick. I think Marling is a reasonably good actress, but the roles she creates for herself come across as a little ridiculous and indulgent. So much of the effectiveness of "Sound of My Voice" depends on buying how convincing and compelling Maggie is as this doomsaying prophet, and Marling just can't quite pull it off. I'm not sure that anyone could, considering how the character is written as a combination of ascetic monk, whimsical earth mother, and passive-aggressive psychopath. I did manage to catch Marling's supporting performance in the recent white-collar thriller "Arbitrage" with Richard Gere, where she comes off quite a bit better playing a normal, well-adjusted human being.
There is something intriguing about Marling's work, though, and I'm hopeful that she'll manage to improve over time and make some better films in the same vein. Science-fiction is one of my favorite genres, and I've been so happy to see these smaller, more conceptually ambitious indie sci-fi films popping up lately. However, "Another Earth" and "Sound of My Voice" also reveal some troubling bad habits, and that doesn't inspire much confidence. The big question is whether it's worth my time to keep following Marling's development as a filmmaker. I want to support her and to see her succeed, but at the same time, I think the movies she's made so far have been disappointing and I can't bring myself to recommend either of them.
--
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Almost Super "Looper"
Rian Johnson's movies aggravate me to no end. They have such interesting concepts and ideas, employ lots of actors that I enjoy, the filmmaking itself is polished and eye-catching, and I even like Johnson's sense of humor. However, they always seem to fall just short of accomplishing what they set out to do, and "Looper" probably comes closest to being a really good, solid, memorable film, but still falls a few steps short. And it's frustrating because "Looper" does so much right, and I really, really wanted it to work.
"Looper" is a time travel film, and like all time travel films deals in paradoxes and alternate timelines and other complicated concepts that tend to leave plot holes everywhere and inspire continuity Nazis to write reams of text either pointing out all the flaws, or explaining them away, or both. Rian Johnson is not particularly interested in the mechanics of how his story should work as he is in simply telling it, and admits as much. In the year 2044, time travel has not been invented yet, but it will be several decades further into the future, where it is outlawed. Only a few criminal organizations use the technology in order to dispose of people who are in their way, sending them back in time where assassins called Loopers kill and dispose of them in 2044, where they cannot be traced. Occasionally the aged Loopers in the future are also sent back to be executed by their own younger selves, a practice known as "closing the loop." The Loopers are handsomely paid and know the risks in advance, most of them perfectly willing to take a life of wealth in exchange for a violent end. Also, the consequences of not following through on this contract are extremely unpleasant.
However, there are the cases where things go wrong and the older version of a Looper gets away from the younger version. This happens to Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose older counterpart from the future, played by Bruce Willis, returns to the past with an unknown agenda that somehow involves a young mother, Sara (Emily Blunt), and her six-year-old son Cid (Pierce Gagnon). And as innocuous as that bit of summary sounds, I'm worried that I may be saying too much already. The fun of "Looper" is its twists and turns, and the way the filmmakers play with causality in clever ways. Unfortunately, Rian Johnson, who scripted and directed the film, has some gaps in his storytelling that I felt really undermined what he was trying to do. I liked the way the film resolved, and I liked all the characters and how the narrative was going up until a point. However, there were a few dots that didn't get connected, a few lines of exposition left missing, a few more glimpses of the future that were necessary to hammer home what the stakes were at a crucial juncture. It honestly felt like Johnson had run out of money before filming a few small, but vital scenes that would have helped give the film the emotional impact he wanted.
The parts that Johnson gets right, though, he gets very right. The cast especially deserve kudos. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is made up with latex prostheses to resemble a younger Bruce Willis, and though he occasionally looks a little rubbery, the effect works. Both Gordon-Levitt and Willis deliver fine performances, heavy on the action, especially the handful of scenes that they get to play together. The supporting cast is great, and includes Jeff Daniels as the villainous employer of the Loopers in 2044, Paul Dano as one of Joe's colleagues, and Noah Segan and Garret Dillahunt as mob enforcers. I suspect that many viewers who are unsatisfied with "Looper" may point to the later segments with Sara and Cid as the problem, but I can find no fault with Emily Blunt's performance, and Pierce Gagnon turns out to be surprisingly good.
I also liked the worldbuilding. The business of time travel is portrayed as wonderfully seedy, controlled by seedy men in seedy professions. “Looper” takes place mostly in an unnamed American city in its decline, but we see enough of the rest of the world to establish that this is not a dystopia. Most of the telltale signs of the future setting are small - popular drugs are taken with eyedroppers, and beat-up old cars sport solar panels. The stylistic affectations of the mob, however, are pure film noir, which is very appropriate. “Looper,” like so many science-fiction films before it, is best when it echoes noir, and less so when it edges closer to horror and melodrama.
I just wish that story was a little stronger and had the finesse to match its ambitions. I am very glad that "Looper" exists, and I'm glad I saw it, but Rian Johnson has still got a ways to go as a filmmaker. He is getting close to being a heluvah good director though. He is getting very close.
---
"Looper" is a time travel film, and like all time travel films deals in paradoxes and alternate timelines and other complicated concepts that tend to leave plot holes everywhere and inspire continuity Nazis to write reams of text either pointing out all the flaws, or explaining them away, or both. Rian Johnson is not particularly interested in the mechanics of how his story should work as he is in simply telling it, and admits as much. In the year 2044, time travel has not been invented yet, but it will be several decades further into the future, where it is outlawed. Only a few criminal organizations use the technology in order to dispose of people who are in their way, sending them back in time where assassins called Loopers kill and dispose of them in 2044, where they cannot be traced. Occasionally the aged Loopers in the future are also sent back to be executed by their own younger selves, a practice known as "closing the loop." The Loopers are handsomely paid and know the risks in advance, most of them perfectly willing to take a life of wealth in exchange for a violent end. Also, the consequences of not following through on this contract are extremely unpleasant.
However, there are the cases where things go wrong and the older version of a Looper gets away from the younger version. This happens to Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose older counterpart from the future, played by Bruce Willis, returns to the past with an unknown agenda that somehow involves a young mother, Sara (Emily Blunt), and her six-year-old son Cid (Pierce Gagnon). And as innocuous as that bit of summary sounds, I'm worried that I may be saying too much already. The fun of "Looper" is its twists and turns, and the way the filmmakers play with causality in clever ways. Unfortunately, Rian Johnson, who scripted and directed the film, has some gaps in his storytelling that I felt really undermined what he was trying to do. I liked the way the film resolved, and I liked all the characters and how the narrative was going up until a point. However, there were a few dots that didn't get connected, a few lines of exposition left missing, a few more glimpses of the future that were necessary to hammer home what the stakes were at a crucial juncture. It honestly felt like Johnson had run out of money before filming a few small, but vital scenes that would have helped give the film the emotional impact he wanted.
The parts that Johnson gets right, though, he gets very right. The cast especially deserve kudos. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is made up with latex prostheses to resemble a younger Bruce Willis, and though he occasionally looks a little rubbery, the effect works. Both Gordon-Levitt and Willis deliver fine performances, heavy on the action, especially the handful of scenes that they get to play together. The supporting cast is great, and includes Jeff Daniels as the villainous employer of the Loopers in 2044, Paul Dano as one of Joe's colleagues, and Noah Segan and Garret Dillahunt as mob enforcers. I suspect that many viewers who are unsatisfied with "Looper" may point to the later segments with Sara and Cid as the problem, but I can find no fault with Emily Blunt's performance, and Pierce Gagnon turns out to be surprisingly good.
I also liked the worldbuilding. The business of time travel is portrayed as wonderfully seedy, controlled by seedy men in seedy professions. “Looper” takes place mostly in an unnamed American city in its decline, but we see enough of the rest of the world to establish that this is not a dystopia. Most of the telltale signs of the future setting are small - popular drugs are taken with eyedroppers, and beat-up old cars sport solar panels. The stylistic affectations of the mob, however, are pure film noir, which is very appropriate. “Looper,” like so many science-fiction films before it, is best when it echoes noir, and less so when it edges closer to horror and melodrama.
I just wish that story was a little stronger and had the finesse to match its ambitions. I am very glad that "Looper" exists, and I'm glad I saw it, but Rian Johnson has still got a ways to go as a filmmaker. He is getting close to being a heluvah good director though. He is getting very close.
---
Monday, October 1, 2012
A Visit to "666 Park Avenue"
There have been many television shows about the agents of the Devil, including procedurals like "Brimstone" and "Millennium," and more lighthearted takes like "Reaper." The Devil is never explicitly mentioned anywhere in the first hour of "666 Park Avenue," but all the earmarks of the genre are apparent. The unsuspecting residents of the luxurious New York Upper East Side's fictional 999 Park Avenue are tempted and seduced by the building's owners, Gavin and Olivia Doran (Terry O'Quinn, Vanessa Williams), into committing some capital sin in exchange for their heart's desire, and then the pair collect on the price with the aid of supernatural forces, usually manifesting through the building itself. In the pre-title sequence, we see a violinist unsuccessfully trying to flee the scene, but he only gets a few feet away from the beautiful residence before being literally sucked back inside.
The show's protagonists are a young couple, Jane Van Veen (Rachael Taylor) and Henry Martin (Dave Annable), who have been hired as the new on site co-managers of the building, responsible for day to day upkeep. Henry keeps his day job as an attorney who works for the mayor's office, while Jane is an unemployed architect who takes an interest in the building's history. As soon as they move into their posh new apartment, delighted at their good fortune, Gavin and Olivia start working their claws in. This is clearly a long con, and we are only in the very early stages of the seduction phase, but the Dorans' tactics are clear. Henry has political connections they wish to exploit while lovely Jane has caught Gavin's eye. Jane is positioned as the show's central figure, who not only digs up several ominous historical documents during the hour, but gets a major supernatural warning as well.
Meanwhile, other residents are a little further along in the process. Among the show's regulars will be another young couple, playwright Brian (Robert Buckley) and fashionista Louise (Mercedes Masöhn), who are headed for a dangerous love triangle when Brian's roving eye lands on Alexis (Helena Mattsson), Louise's new assistant who is also a resident of the building. Then there's the thief in the building, Nona (Samantha Logan), a teenager who lifts small trinkets, but is clearly courting big trouble. Finally, two characters who we may never see again after the pilot are John and Mary Barlow (James Waterston, Lucy Walters). Mary is quite dead from an apparent suicide, but Gavin brings her back for John on the condition that he kill a few people on the Dorans' behalf. This arrangement is brief and doesn't end pleasantly. However, from the long list of future recurring characters on the show's roster, the vacancy should be filled pretty quickly.
"666 Park Avenue" is going to follow the format of a late evening soap, full of illicit betrayals and other bad behavior by beautiful people, except with supernatural consequences. Unfortunately, I don't think the horror elements really do much for the show. They're not campy or toothy enough to be much fun, and not scary enough to offer any real thrills. Though they feature heavily in the promos, the special effects are a bore, and the atmosphere is sorely lacking. I like seeing Terry O'Quinn and Vanessa Williams as an evil Mephistophelean power couple, but you don't need to be an agent of the Devil in order to pull that off. The rest of the cast is going to have to hustle to catch up to them, though. I'm already far more interested in how the Dorans met and got themselves into this soul-collecting racket than I am about the Barbie and Ken doll hero and heroine who have stumbled into their little web.
However, there is something fascinating about seeing a parade of hapless, weak-willed television creatures fall victim to their own worst natures week after week, and I can see this series becoming something like a gleeful "Touched by an Angel" in reverse. With so many anti-heroes running around these days, it is nice to see a show with more old-fashioned definitions of good and evil, of right and wrong, where we know the comeuppances are coming. That element, more than any long-simmering romantic tensions or any murky series mythology, is going to be the show's best chance at attracting and keeping an audience. At this point most of the show's regular players are simply too generic, and are going to need a few more shades of gray if their fight to stay uncorrupted is going to actually be a proper fight worth watching. It'll probably take a few weeks of spotlight episodes to tell one way or the other.
I think I'll stick around for another episode or two, at least long enough to see if Vanessa Williams will get to cast a few people into Hell the same way that Terry O'Quinn did in the pilot. I admit that was the part I was really looking forward to.
---
The show's protagonists are a young couple, Jane Van Veen (Rachael Taylor) and Henry Martin (Dave Annable), who have been hired as the new on site co-managers of the building, responsible for day to day upkeep. Henry keeps his day job as an attorney who works for the mayor's office, while Jane is an unemployed architect who takes an interest in the building's history. As soon as they move into their posh new apartment, delighted at their good fortune, Gavin and Olivia start working their claws in. This is clearly a long con, and we are only in the very early stages of the seduction phase, but the Dorans' tactics are clear. Henry has political connections they wish to exploit while lovely Jane has caught Gavin's eye. Jane is positioned as the show's central figure, who not only digs up several ominous historical documents during the hour, but gets a major supernatural warning as well.
Meanwhile, other residents are a little further along in the process. Among the show's regulars will be another young couple, playwright Brian (Robert Buckley) and fashionista Louise (Mercedes Masöhn), who are headed for a dangerous love triangle when Brian's roving eye lands on Alexis (Helena Mattsson), Louise's new assistant who is also a resident of the building. Then there's the thief in the building, Nona (Samantha Logan), a teenager who lifts small trinkets, but is clearly courting big trouble. Finally, two characters who we may never see again after the pilot are John and Mary Barlow (James Waterston, Lucy Walters). Mary is quite dead from an apparent suicide, but Gavin brings her back for John on the condition that he kill a few people on the Dorans' behalf. This arrangement is brief and doesn't end pleasantly. However, from the long list of future recurring characters on the show's roster, the vacancy should be filled pretty quickly.
"666 Park Avenue" is going to follow the format of a late evening soap, full of illicit betrayals and other bad behavior by beautiful people, except with supernatural consequences. Unfortunately, I don't think the horror elements really do much for the show. They're not campy or toothy enough to be much fun, and not scary enough to offer any real thrills. Though they feature heavily in the promos, the special effects are a bore, and the atmosphere is sorely lacking. I like seeing Terry O'Quinn and Vanessa Williams as an evil Mephistophelean power couple, but you don't need to be an agent of the Devil in order to pull that off. The rest of the cast is going to have to hustle to catch up to them, though. I'm already far more interested in how the Dorans met and got themselves into this soul-collecting racket than I am about the Barbie and Ken doll hero and heroine who have stumbled into their little web.
However, there is something fascinating about seeing a parade of hapless, weak-willed television creatures fall victim to their own worst natures week after week, and I can see this series becoming something like a gleeful "Touched by an Angel" in reverse. With so many anti-heroes running around these days, it is nice to see a show with more old-fashioned definitions of good and evil, of right and wrong, where we know the comeuppances are coming. That element, more than any long-simmering romantic tensions or any murky series mythology, is going to be the show's best chance at attracting and keeping an audience. At this point most of the show's regular players are simply too generic, and are going to need a few more shades of gray if their fight to stay uncorrupted is going to actually be a proper fight worth watching. It'll probably take a few weeks of spotlight episodes to tell one way or the other.
I think I'll stick around for another episode or two, at least long enough to see if Vanessa Williams will get to cast a few people into Hell the same way that Terry O'Quinn did in the pilot. I admit that was the part I was really looking forward to.
---
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