It's time again for those Golden Globes, the award show that means exactly as much as you want them to. I'll be liveblogging this evening. Here we go -
5:00 PM - Really, you're going to go with that same musical sting again? Here comes Ricky Gervais!
5:02 PM - Ooh, I don't know if he's going to be invited back next year. We all expected jabs at "The Tourist" and the HFPA, but Tom Cruise may sic the Scientologists on him for that "Phillip Morris" joke.
5:05 PM - Mel Gibson joke #1.
5:08 PM - Scar Jo fresh off her recent split is looking lovely. Best Supporting Actor - Bale wins. Haven't seen "The Fighter" yet. Is Bale's Welsh accent getting thicker, or is it just me?
5:09 PM - Bale's shout-out to Robert DeNiro was just cut off. Second time the delay's been used already. It's going to be an interesting evening.
5:10 PM - Best Actress in a TV drama. I haven't been watching any of these shows. Katey Sagal wins! Yay for Leela!
5:17 PM - Best TV Miniseries or Movie. Wow, "Carlos" ended up in this category? "Temple Grandin" may actually have competition - yep. "Carlos" takes it for Assayas.
5:21 PM - Gervais skewers Bruce Willis, who comes out to present "RED" as a Best Picture nominee. I'm still not sure how this happened.
5:23 PM - Best Supporting Actor in a TV Series. David Strathairn's in here, so it looks like miniseries and movies have been lumped in too. Whoa, the kid from "Glee" wins! That's a nice surprise. And a great speech.
5:30 PM - "Alice in Wonderland" nomination clip is presented by Michelle Pfeiffer. Helena Bonham Carter's shrug really says it all.
5:31 PM - Gervais, what would we do without you? Eva Longoria is stuck with introducing the HFPA prez.
5:35 PM - Best Actor in a TV Drama. Come on, Steve Buscemi! Woooooo! And the classiest speech of the evening.
5:37 PM - Best TV Drama goes to... "Boardwalk Empire." I would have been tickled if "The Walking Dead" took it, but "Boardwalk" will do.
5:44 PM - Andrew Garfield trips over a very badly written "Social Network" nomination clip intro. Poor guy.
5:46 PM - Alec Baldwin and Jennifer Lopez present Best Original Song. Baldwin is shameless, but he can get away with it. Er, didn't "Country Song" just come out last week? Not in this country, apparently. And the Cher song wins. Diane Warren dedicates the award to Ronnie Chasen. Sweet.
5:49 PM - Best Original Score goes to... Trent Reznor for "The Social Network"! Awesome!
5:55 PM - Here comes Best Animated film. Mixed messages about animated films being kid stuff, as usual. To nobody's surprise, "Toy Story 3" wins. Lee Unkrich gets in a good dig at Bieber and Stanfield being presenters. I'm still kinda ticked off the Golden Globes barred animated films from Best Picture consideration.
5:59 PM - Gervais has fun with Robert Downey Jr's intro. And Downey is hitting on Julianne Moore. And Angelina Jolie. And Annette Bening. I love this man. Every male in the room is now imagining a six-way with the Best Actress in a Comedy/Musical nominees. (Er, how is "Blue Valentine" a comedy?) Annette Bening wins! Too bad she's in a different category than Natalie Portman, so this is really indicative of nothing about the Oscar race. Not a great speech, but she got in a good laugh line thanking Beatty.
6:10 PM - Here comes Stallone to present the nomination clip for "The Fighter." Good to see him here to cap off another good comeback year.
6:11 PM - Best Actor in a TV Miniseries or Movie. Swinton and Pacino deliver it to Al Pacino. I have no idea if he deserves it or not, but it's always great to hear Pacino speak.
6:15 PM - Best Actress in a TV Miniseries or Movie. Yay for Claire Danes! And Temple Grandin came with her to this show too. This is the end of the line for the picture's contention for major awards, so I hope they enjoy it. Danes had a great speech. I hope this gets her more work.
6:23 PM - Zac Efron presents "The Kids Are All Right" clip. Why Zac Efron?
6:24 PM - Gervais is never going to stop ribbing on Steve Carrell over "The Office." And Carrell is milking it for all it's worth. Carrell and Tina Fey work so well together. Why was "Date Night" so awful?
6:26 PM - Okay, Best Writing goes to - Aaron Sorkin for "The Social Network." Yes, David Fincher is a national treasure. And Sorkin gives Zuckerberg his props and references the criticisms of hostility toward women in his script. Hmmm.
6:29 PM - Oh look, it's Thor and Captain America for some corporate synergy. Best Supporting Actress for anything on TV goes to - Jane Lynch for "Glee." This is leading up to something, I bet. Lynch is so awesome.
6:30 PM - Starting a new post. Stay tuned.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Have Rossio and Elliot Split?
You've probably seen a film written by Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot even if you've never heard of the pair. Rossio and Elliot are the screenwriters responsible for all the "Pirates of the Caribbean" films. Their first big hit was "Aladdin" in 1992, followed by two other films for Disney animation, "Hercules" and "Treasure Planet." They also wrote "The Mask of Zorro" for TriStar in 1998, the first "Shrek" film for Dreamworks, and had a hand in both "National Treasure" films. The duo has been one the most consistent writing teams in Hollywood for the past twenty years, give or take a "Godzilla" reboot. Now comes the news that Terry Rossio will be writing the fifth "Pirates of the Caribbean" film by himself. Ted Elliot, to use the obvious pun, has jumped ship.
I try my best not to get caught up in the endless cycles of Hollywood gossip over breakups and relationship troubles among movie stars, but this is different. Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot have a creative partnership has been very good to us over the years and left its mark on the popular culture. Of course this isn't the first time the two have tackled projects separately, and there's no sign of any permanent break here - they're still producing another project together, "Jingle," over at Nickelodeon films with Sandra Bullock. Elliot passing up the next "Pirates" might mean nothing. However, this is definitely the highest profile film where either of them are going solo, and in image-conscious Hollywood, that sends a certain message. And I do not have the self-restraint to keep myself from speculating as to whether this means something else is up.
It's perfectly understandable why Ted Elliot wouldn't want to write a fifth "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, since he and Rossio have devoted the better part of a decade to this franchise and there has to be a sense of creative stagnation setting in by now. Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparow is great fun, but by the third "Pirates" film I got the sense that the filmmakers were running out of things for him to do. Hopefully having a new set of characters to play off of will help breathe some new life into the fourth "Pirates" film. Then again, Eliot's exit may have nothing to do with creative boredom. It could be the money. Or it could be studio politics, or personal reasons, or needing a break from writing, or "creative differences," or any other number of possibilities.
I've really enjoyed Rossio and Elliot films over the years, so much so that they were the first screenwriters who I could recognize as being screenwriters, who were not also directors or actors or whatnot. I've kept an eye out for their work, especially after their involvement in one of the many failed attempts at a "Sandman" movie back in the mid-90s. Their draft is still online over here. Having sat through more than my share of bad mainstream movies, I appreciate what they do. There's an art to putting together a piece of major studio spectacle, that can be just as difficult as putting out a serious prestige piece. I won't name names, but there are some great writers out there who should never be let within a hundred miles of another genre film.
Yet, I also can't help but wonder what would happen if Rossio and Elliot did branch out beyond big budget action and kids' films. What would happen if they tacked a historical drama? Or a comedic farce? Or one of those little indie films about miserable families? Terry Rossio wrote an original script with Bill Marsilii a couple of years ago for "Deja Vu," a Denzel Washington science fiction thriller I haven't seen. Maybe now it's Elliot's turn to get a pet project off the ground. That's the best case scenario I can think of.
In the short term, Terry Rossio handling scripting duties solo is unlikely to change much. Ted Elliot's name is still going to be all over the fifth "Pirates" film because he's contributed so much to the existing universe of the "Pirates" franchise already. And after four films, I don't think it's going to impact the quality of any future installments if only one of the pair is onboard. Heck, I don't know if either of them need to be there - maybe Captain Jack Sparrow would benefit from a new writer or two on his crew.
Okay, I'll stop with the nautical puns now, but it's just too easy, dammit!
I try my best not to get caught up in the endless cycles of Hollywood gossip over breakups and relationship troubles among movie stars, but this is different. Terry Rossio and Ted Elliot have a creative partnership has been very good to us over the years and left its mark on the popular culture. Of course this isn't the first time the two have tackled projects separately, and there's no sign of any permanent break here - they're still producing another project together, "Jingle," over at Nickelodeon films with Sandra Bullock. Elliot passing up the next "Pirates" might mean nothing. However, this is definitely the highest profile film where either of them are going solo, and in image-conscious Hollywood, that sends a certain message. And I do not have the self-restraint to keep myself from speculating as to whether this means something else is up.
It's perfectly understandable why Ted Elliot wouldn't want to write a fifth "Pirates of the Caribbean" film, since he and Rossio have devoted the better part of a decade to this franchise and there has to be a sense of creative stagnation setting in by now. Johnny Depp as Captain Jack Sparow is great fun, but by the third "Pirates" film I got the sense that the filmmakers were running out of things for him to do. Hopefully having a new set of characters to play off of will help breathe some new life into the fourth "Pirates" film. Then again, Eliot's exit may have nothing to do with creative boredom. It could be the money. Or it could be studio politics, or personal reasons, or needing a break from writing, or "creative differences," or any other number of possibilities.
I've really enjoyed Rossio and Elliot films over the years, so much so that they were the first screenwriters who I could recognize as being screenwriters, who were not also directors or actors or whatnot. I've kept an eye out for their work, especially after their involvement in one of the many failed attempts at a "Sandman" movie back in the mid-90s. Their draft is still online over here. Having sat through more than my share of bad mainstream movies, I appreciate what they do. There's an art to putting together a piece of major studio spectacle, that can be just as difficult as putting out a serious prestige piece. I won't name names, but there are some great writers out there who should never be let within a hundred miles of another genre film.
Yet, I also can't help but wonder what would happen if Rossio and Elliot did branch out beyond big budget action and kids' films. What would happen if they tacked a historical drama? Or a comedic farce? Or one of those little indie films about miserable families? Terry Rossio wrote an original script with Bill Marsilii a couple of years ago for "Deja Vu," a Denzel Washington science fiction thriller I haven't seen. Maybe now it's Elliot's turn to get a pet project off the ground. That's the best case scenario I can think of.
In the short term, Terry Rossio handling scripting duties solo is unlikely to change much. Ted Elliot's name is still going to be all over the fifth "Pirates" film because he's contributed so much to the existing universe of the "Pirates" franchise already. And after four films, I don't think it's going to impact the quality of any future installments if only one of the pair is onboard. Heck, I don't know if either of them need to be there - maybe Captain Jack Sparrow would benefit from a new writer or two on his crew.
Okay, I'll stop with the nautical puns now, but it's just too easy, dammit!
Friday, January 14, 2011
Things I Picked Up On My Third Viewing of "Inception"
My favorite film of 2010 is probably going to be "Inception," because I am still totally enamored with it six months and three viewings later. There are still little things I'm picking up with each viewing and I thought I'd share some of them to show where I am in the process of breaking down and getting to know the film. Here's a quick list of observations I made while watching "Inception" for the third time. Spoilers are everywhere, so be warned.
During the preparatory and planning scenes for the Fischer job, the characters hold discussions in the dream architecture for the first two levels. First, we get to see the car chase environment when it's not raining and then the office building environment empty, and with different lighting. It's wonderful foreshadowing.
The wine glass breaking in the bar during the "Mr. Charles" sequence is a visual and aural reference to Cobb stepping on a glass in the hotel room before Mal's suicide. You can really see the way Christopher Nolan added all these recurring motifs throughout the film upon rewatch, and I'm still finding new ones.
Is the snow fortress Eames' dream or Fischer's? I figured out the reason why I got confused was that Cobb tells Ariadne that they're going into Fischer's dream to clarify that they're not going into Browning's. This doesn't mean he's the Dreamer, to use the film's terminology. The entire time, Fischer remains the Subject, while the other team members are the Dreamers constructing dreams for Fischer to populate. That's why all the projections are hostile all the way down - they're all part of his subconscious. The other people sharing the dream can also affect the environment and bring things in, which is why it's raining in Yusuf's level and Cobb is stalked by Mal and a freight train.
Also, I still can't figure out why there should be a loss of gravity in the second dream level, but not in the third. Saito's injury still affects him as he goes deeper into dreams, but the effects are delayed. So the loss of gravity should still affect the third dream level, but maybe to a lesser extent. Wouldn't it have been fun to see the assault on the hospital base if the gravity was similar to the moon's? Then James Bond fans could have had "Moonraker" references instead of the ones to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."
There are a few other inconsistencies with the second level that I spotted. Arthur has to retrieve the explosives, get his floating teammates into the elevator, reset the charges, and then blow them for the kick, all in the space of about five minutes according to Cobb's math. I find that unlikely. Also, the projections are supposed to get worse the further down into dreams you go, but Arthur fights off far fewer projections than Yusuf does a level above him, few enough that they can be dispatched by hand-to-hand combat. Maybe his level is better designed and only a few projections managed to find him?
I no longer have any trouble understanding Ken Watanabe or Marion Cotillard's dialogue. As non-English speakers, they're actually being very careful with their pronunciation. However, I want to watch "Inception" with closed captioning for a fourth viewing because I'm still missing Tom Hardy's lines. He tends to blurt things out quickly, and his British accent gets pretty thick.
Isn't the whole team still stuck in the car chase level for a week after the van goes off the bridge? The reason the team wasn't going to wait out the sedative once they realized Fischer's subconscious was militarized it because they would have had to survive in the first dream level for a week to wake up naturally, and even longer the farther down they went. Everyone except Saito and Cobb only wake to the first level at the end of the film, because we don't see a kick in the real world to bring them all the way back up to reality. Does this mean Fischer's projections were placated after the inception and the team waited it out for a week? What were they doing for all that time?
And why did they just leave Cobb in the van underwater? Not being conscious might mean you can't drown in a dream, or killing yourself in Limbo might automatically bring you all the way back to reality. The rules about death and limbo still elude me. If suicide was always the way out, why didn't Dom and Mal kill themselves earlier when they were stuck in Limbo the first time? My guess is that no one had been to Limbo before so nobody really knew the rules of the place yet. Or something.
I love that the film ends in LAX because I'm frequently at that airport, groggy, have just woken up or having been awake for too long. I think the filmmakers fudged some of the interiors because I never remember going through any sort of security to go from the baggage claim to ground transportation. Or maybe coming in from Australia you get a different terminal. Did they ever mention what Fischer was spending so much time in Australia for? He doesn't have an accent.
On the subject of accents, Michael Caine's character, Professor Miles, is identified as Dom's father-in-law, but why does a professor with a British accent have a daughter with a French one? There are lots of possibilities here. He could have divorced her mother, or been a step-father, foster father, adoptive father, or simply an absent one - in the military or living in England separately for work. There are hints in the film that Mal didn't have a happy childhood. Some interesting backstory is lurking in there.
Too many unanswered questions. I'd better go watch the movie again.
During the preparatory and planning scenes for the Fischer job, the characters hold discussions in the dream architecture for the first two levels. First, we get to see the car chase environment when it's not raining and then the office building environment empty, and with different lighting. It's wonderful foreshadowing.
The wine glass breaking in the bar during the "Mr. Charles" sequence is a visual and aural reference to Cobb stepping on a glass in the hotel room before Mal's suicide. You can really see the way Christopher Nolan added all these recurring motifs throughout the film upon rewatch, and I'm still finding new ones.
Is the snow fortress Eames' dream or Fischer's? I figured out the reason why I got confused was that Cobb tells Ariadne that they're going into Fischer's dream to clarify that they're not going into Browning's. This doesn't mean he's the Dreamer, to use the film's terminology. The entire time, Fischer remains the Subject, while the other team members are the Dreamers constructing dreams for Fischer to populate. That's why all the projections are hostile all the way down - they're all part of his subconscious. The other people sharing the dream can also affect the environment and bring things in, which is why it's raining in Yusuf's level and Cobb is stalked by Mal and a freight train.
Also, I still can't figure out why there should be a loss of gravity in the second dream level, but not in the third. Saito's injury still affects him as he goes deeper into dreams, but the effects are delayed. So the loss of gravity should still affect the third dream level, but maybe to a lesser extent. Wouldn't it have been fun to see the assault on the hospital base if the gravity was similar to the moon's? Then James Bond fans could have had "Moonraker" references instead of the ones to "On Her Majesty's Secret Service."
There are a few other inconsistencies with the second level that I spotted. Arthur has to retrieve the explosives, get his floating teammates into the elevator, reset the charges, and then blow them for the kick, all in the space of about five minutes according to Cobb's math. I find that unlikely. Also, the projections are supposed to get worse the further down into dreams you go, but Arthur fights off far fewer projections than Yusuf does a level above him, few enough that they can be dispatched by hand-to-hand combat. Maybe his level is better designed and only a few projections managed to find him?
I no longer have any trouble understanding Ken Watanabe or Marion Cotillard's dialogue. As non-English speakers, they're actually being very careful with their pronunciation. However, I want to watch "Inception" with closed captioning for a fourth viewing because I'm still missing Tom Hardy's lines. He tends to blurt things out quickly, and his British accent gets pretty thick.
Isn't the whole team still stuck in the car chase level for a week after the van goes off the bridge? The reason the team wasn't going to wait out the sedative once they realized Fischer's subconscious was militarized it because they would have had to survive in the first dream level for a week to wake up naturally, and even longer the farther down they went. Everyone except Saito and Cobb only wake to the first level at the end of the film, because we don't see a kick in the real world to bring them all the way back up to reality. Does this mean Fischer's projections were placated after the inception and the team waited it out for a week? What were they doing for all that time?
And why did they just leave Cobb in the van underwater? Not being conscious might mean you can't drown in a dream, or killing yourself in Limbo might automatically bring you all the way back to reality. The rules about death and limbo still elude me. If suicide was always the way out, why didn't Dom and Mal kill themselves earlier when they were stuck in Limbo the first time? My guess is that no one had been to Limbo before so nobody really knew the rules of the place yet. Or something.
I love that the film ends in LAX because I'm frequently at that airport, groggy, have just woken up or having been awake for too long. I think the filmmakers fudged some of the interiors because I never remember going through any sort of security to go from the baggage claim to ground transportation. Or maybe coming in from Australia you get a different terminal. Did they ever mention what Fischer was spending so much time in Australia for? He doesn't have an accent.
On the subject of accents, Michael Caine's character, Professor Miles, is identified as Dom's father-in-law, but why does a professor with a British accent have a daughter with a French one? There are lots of possibilities here. He could have divorced her mother, or been a step-father, foster father, adoptive father, or simply an absent one - in the military or living in England separately for work. There are hints in the film that Mal didn't have a happy childhood. Some interesting backstory is lurking in there.
Too many unanswered questions. I'd better go watch the movie again.
Thursday, January 13, 2011
In the Home Stretch With "Babylon 5"
This post will contain spoilers for the fourth season of "Babylon Five."
Since my last post, I've finished off Season Four and now I'm about five episodes into Season Five, the show's final year. My worries about "Babylon Five" jumping the shark after the conclusion of the Shadow War turned out to be unfounded. After a brief transition, the show moved right into the struggle to free Earth and Mars from a corrupt tyrant, and Season Four ended in a totally different place than I thought it would. So I'm giving Season Five the benefit of the doubt, even though the action has slowed down again and we've lost two more major cast members.
What I really loved about the latest batch of episodes at the end of Season Four was that the story maintained such a broad scope and really felt like the climax to a full-fledged space opera. I love science-fiction stories that aim for the moon, tackling big ideas and big conflicts that require a tremendous stage to fully explore. In "Babylon Five" battles are fought over planets and wars can engulf galaxies. You have dozens of different alien races in the mix and the main characters are constantly searching for common ground with multiple, disparate cultures and peoples. And then there's one of my favorite science-fiction tropes: giant leaps in time. One episode, which would have been a great coda for the show if Season Four was the final season, charts the effects of the characters' actions over millennia. It was a little clumsy in execution, which is how I feel about "Babylon Five" in general, but you have to admire the guts and ambition it took to put it on television.
At the same time, the personal stories also saw some major advancements. One of the central arcs of "Babylon Five" is the romance between Captain Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) and the Minbari Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan) I was a skeptic in the beginning, but their relationship progresses so naturally over time, by the end of Season Four when they reach some major commitment milestones, it feels right. And then there was the unrequited love story between Commander Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and Ranger Marcus Cole (Jason Carter) that had been playing out since the middle of Season Two. Boy, what these two lacked in screen time they sure made up for in emotional trauma. And then there's the ongoing "Odd Couple" re-enactment that Ambassadors G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Mollari (Peter Jurasik) have been treating us to. Since the major fisticuffs seem to be over between them, they're mostly acting as comic relief now. But they're so good at it, I don't mind.
There were some missteps in Season Four. Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) had a very involved subplot that took him to Mars to confront some of his personal demons. It wasn't a bad concept, but the what they did with it was lousy. To say that Garibaldi's actions felt forced during this whole adventure is an understatement. I never bought for a second that he was ever going to turn traitor or leave Babylon Five behind forever, so his storyline got pretty tedious as I waited for events to play out. Fortunately Marcus and Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) were also on Mars - I complained in the last post that they weren't getting enough to do, but they got plenty of action in the second half of the season. These episodes also introduced one of my favorite minor characters so far - Number One (Marjorie Monaghan), the leader of the Mars resistance.
Season Five is still in the process of ramping up toward a new conflict and has introduced two new major characters. First there's Captain Lochley (Tracy Scoggins), who is brought on as the new commanding officer of Babylon Five. Scoggins replaced an actor who didn't return for the new season, and her transition was actually handled much better than I had expected. I like the character and her actress is decent. I'm less impressed with Byron (Robin Atkin Downes), the leader of a group of telepaths who are trying to establish a telepath colony on Babylon Five. Every time these telepath characters are onscreen, I feel like I'm in the middle of a very bad early 90s acoustic rock video, with all the long-haired men, the candles, and the new-agey spiritual schtick. Good Grief. Downes isn't a bad actor, but he does not make a credible messiah figure.
I hope Byron's budding relationship with the troubled telepath, Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman), and all these heavy forewarnings of a "Telepath War" lead somewhere interesting. Lyta's the only one of the show's regulars who still seems to have any pressing issues left to resolve. For most of the others it's business as usual running the station, and a few like Londo Mollari and G'Kar seem to be taking a break from any strenuous activity before destiny inevitably catches up with them.
The end is in sight. I hope "Babylon Five" still has a few surprises for me in these last twenty-odd hours. I'll post again after the last episode with some final analysis.
Since my last post, I've finished off Season Four and now I'm about five episodes into Season Five, the show's final year. My worries about "Babylon Five" jumping the shark after the conclusion of the Shadow War turned out to be unfounded. After a brief transition, the show moved right into the struggle to free Earth and Mars from a corrupt tyrant, and Season Four ended in a totally different place than I thought it would. So I'm giving Season Five the benefit of the doubt, even though the action has slowed down again and we've lost two more major cast members.
What I really loved about the latest batch of episodes at the end of Season Four was that the story maintained such a broad scope and really felt like the climax to a full-fledged space opera. I love science-fiction stories that aim for the moon, tackling big ideas and big conflicts that require a tremendous stage to fully explore. In "Babylon Five" battles are fought over planets and wars can engulf galaxies. You have dozens of different alien races in the mix and the main characters are constantly searching for common ground with multiple, disparate cultures and peoples. And then there's one of my favorite science-fiction tropes: giant leaps in time. One episode, which would have been a great coda for the show if Season Four was the final season, charts the effects of the characters' actions over millennia. It was a little clumsy in execution, which is how I feel about "Babylon Five" in general, but you have to admire the guts and ambition it took to put it on television.
At the same time, the personal stories also saw some major advancements. One of the central arcs of "Babylon Five" is the romance between Captain Sheridan (Bruce Boxleitner) and the Minbari Ambassador Delenn (Mira Furlan) I was a skeptic in the beginning, but their relationship progresses so naturally over time, by the end of Season Four when they reach some major commitment milestones, it feels right. And then there was the unrequited love story between Commander Ivanova (Claudia Christian) and Ranger Marcus Cole (Jason Carter) that had been playing out since the middle of Season Two. Boy, what these two lacked in screen time they sure made up for in emotional trauma. And then there's the ongoing "Odd Couple" re-enactment that Ambassadors G'Kar (Andreas Katsulas) and Mollari (Peter Jurasik) have been treating us to. Since the major fisticuffs seem to be over between them, they're mostly acting as comic relief now. But they're so good at it, I don't mind.
There were some missteps in Season Four. Michael Garibaldi (Jerry Doyle) had a very involved subplot that took him to Mars to confront some of his personal demons. It wasn't a bad concept, but the what they did with it was lousy. To say that Garibaldi's actions felt forced during this whole adventure is an understatement. I never bought for a second that he was ever going to turn traitor or leave Babylon Five behind forever, so his storyline got pretty tedious as I waited for events to play out. Fortunately Marcus and Dr. Franklin (Richard Biggs) were also on Mars - I complained in the last post that they weren't getting enough to do, but they got plenty of action in the second half of the season. These episodes also introduced one of my favorite minor characters so far - Number One (Marjorie Monaghan), the leader of the Mars resistance.
Season Five is still in the process of ramping up toward a new conflict and has introduced two new major characters. First there's Captain Lochley (Tracy Scoggins), who is brought on as the new commanding officer of Babylon Five. Scoggins replaced an actor who didn't return for the new season, and her transition was actually handled much better than I had expected. I like the character and her actress is decent. I'm less impressed with Byron (Robin Atkin Downes), the leader of a group of telepaths who are trying to establish a telepath colony on Babylon Five. Every time these telepath characters are onscreen, I feel like I'm in the middle of a very bad early 90s acoustic rock video, with all the long-haired men, the candles, and the new-agey spiritual schtick. Good Grief. Downes isn't a bad actor, but he does not make a credible messiah figure.
I hope Byron's budding relationship with the troubled telepath, Lyta Alexander (Patricia Tallman), and all these heavy forewarnings of a "Telepath War" lead somewhere interesting. Lyta's the only one of the show's regulars who still seems to have any pressing issues left to resolve. For most of the others it's business as usual running the station, and a few like Londo Mollari and G'Kar seem to be taking a break from any strenuous activity before destiny inevitably catches up with them.
The end is in sight. I hope "Babylon Five" still has a few surprises for me in these last twenty-odd hours. I'll post again after the last episode with some final analysis.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
"Wicked" the Movie vs. "Wicked" the Miniseries
I love it when Hollywood gets themselves into these situations. For years now we've been hearing about the potential development of a film version of "Wicked," a take on "The Wizard of Oz" told from the point of view of the Wicked Witch of the West. Originally a Gregory Maguire novel published in 1995, "Wicked" became a wildly successful Broadway musical in 2003, and a film version of the musical is supposed to be in the works with Universal Pictures. There's been plenty of speculation about possible directors and stars, but the project has been stuck in development hell for years. This may be about to change.
Enter ABC. On Sunday, the Disney-owned network revealed that they're considering an eight-hour "Wicked" miniseries. Salma Hayek's production company Ventanarosa, best known for "Ugly Betty" (which had an episode devoted to the "Wicked" musical), would partner up with ABC Studios for the project. Though Universal may own rights to the musical version of "Wicked," they don't own the rights to the original Gregory Maguire book that it was based on, so ABC could make their own non-musical adaptation. Can't you just hear the execs at Universal freaking out? If ABC's "Wicked" makes it to air before Universal's "Wicked" make it to multiplexes, it could potentially take the wind out of the movie's sails. Or would it?
The "Wicked" musical is pretty well known as musicals go, so ABC runs a risk of alienating viewers who might be show up expecting showtunes. However, I suspect there's also a pretty big potential audience that isn't familiar with the musical or simply wouldn't care. Going back to the Maguire novel as the basis miniseries also helps, because it's very, very different from the "Wicked" musical. It's darker, much more serious, and has a huge chunk of material in it that never reached Broadway. I seriously doubt ABC would be all that faithful to the book, but they could use it to go in a different direction with the story. ABC and Disney actually adapted another Maguire novel for television a few years back, "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister." They turned a gloomy book into a much lighter, family-friendly TV movie. It wasn't bad either.
Then again, why adapt the "Wicked" novel again when the "Wicked" musical already did such a good job the first time around? Admittedly the songs aren't great, but I thought their take on the story was fantastic - especially the way they added humor and girl power themes and many, many visual references to the classic MGM "Wizard of Oz" musical. I like it far better than the book, which was too morose and tragic for my tastes. I've been anticipating the new film version because I think the "Wicked" musical would translate very well to the silver screen. A new version based on the "Wicked" novel could be good, but it's not the "Wicked" that I've been waiting for. I welcome the news of the miniseries version primarily because it might push Universal to get the film into production faster. And for the inevitable schadenfreude if the two productions do end up clashing, but that's a given.
Disney also has another Oz project lined up, "Oz: the Great and Powerful," a feature film about the adventures of the Wonderful Wizard before he met Dorothy, that might star Robert Downey Jr and might be directed by Sam Raimi. Since "Wicked" is also a prequel, hypothetically the two could be tied together in the same universe for a nice bit of corporate synergy. Also, depending on how their "Wicked" miniseries is written, ABC could go ahead and adapt the subsequent Gregory Maguire Oz books if the first series is a success. Currently there are two sequels to the "Wicked" novel, "Son of a Witch" and "A Lion Among Men." The "Wicked" musical changed certain story elements that would make it difficult to do any follow-ups, something the ABC version can take care to avoid.
The best case scenario is that both versions are produced, and we end up with two different, quality adaptations of "Wicked." The worst case scenario is that the projects are rushed or compromised and we get two lousy versions. Or both studios lose their nerve and neither get made. It'll be interesting to see how things play out. For the moment, though, the moral of the story is this: in Hollywood, good ideas should be capitalized on quickly, or they're liable to be capitalized on by your competition - especially when you don't have all the rights to the source material locked up.
Enter ABC. On Sunday, the Disney-owned network revealed that they're considering an eight-hour "Wicked" miniseries. Salma Hayek's production company Ventanarosa, best known for "Ugly Betty" (which had an episode devoted to the "Wicked" musical), would partner up with ABC Studios for the project. Though Universal may own rights to the musical version of "Wicked," they don't own the rights to the original Gregory Maguire book that it was based on, so ABC could make their own non-musical adaptation. Can't you just hear the execs at Universal freaking out? If ABC's "Wicked" makes it to air before Universal's "Wicked" make it to multiplexes, it could potentially take the wind out of the movie's sails. Or would it?
The "Wicked" musical is pretty well known as musicals go, so ABC runs a risk of alienating viewers who might be show up expecting showtunes. However, I suspect there's also a pretty big potential audience that isn't familiar with the musical or simply wouldn't care. Going back to the Maguire novel as the basis miniseries also helps, because it's very, very different from the "Wicked" musical. It's darker, much more serious, and has a huge chunk of material in it that never reached Broadway. I seriously doubt ABC would be all that faithful to the book, but they could use it to go in a different direction with the story. ABC and Disney actually adapted another Maguire novel for television a few years back, "Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister." They turned a gloomy book into a much lighter, family-friendly TV movie. It wasn't bad either.
Then again, why adapt the "Wicked" novel again when the "Wicked" musical already did such a good job the first time around? Admittedly the songs aren't great, but I thought their take on the story was fantastic - especially the way they added humor and girl power themes and many, many visual references to the classic MGM "Wizard of Oz" musical. I like it far better than the book, which was too morose and tragic for my tastes. I've been anticipating the new film version because I think the "Wicked" musical would translate very well to the silver screen. A new version based on the "Wicked" novel could be good, but it's not the "Wicked" that I've been waiting for. I welcome the news of the miniseries version primarily because it might push Universal to get the film into production faster. And for the inevitable schadenfreude if the two productions do end up clashing, but that's a given.
Disney also has another Oz project lined up, "Oz: the Great and Powerful," a feature film about the adventures of the Wonderful Wizard before he met Dorothy, that might star Robert Downey Jr and might be directed by Sam Raimi. Since "Wicked" is also a prequel, hypothetically the two could be tied together in the same universe for a nice bit of corporate synergy. Also, depending on how their "Wicked" miniseries is written, ABC could go ahead and adapt the subsequent Gregory Maguire Oz books if the first series is a success. Currently there are two sequels to the "Wicked" novel, "Son of a Witch" and "A Lion Among Men." The "Wicked" musical changed certain story elements that would make it difficult to do any follow-ups, something the ABC version can take care to avoid.
The best case scenario is that both versions are produced, and we end up with two different, quality adaptations of "Wicked." The worst case scenario is that the projects are rushed or compromised and we get two lousy versions. Or both studios lose their nerve and neither get made. It'll be interesting to see how things play out. For the moment, though, the moral of the story is this: in Hollywood, good ideas should be capitalized on quickly, or they're liable to be capitalized on by your competition - especially when you don't have all the rights to the source material locked up.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
What the Hell Was "Werckmeister Harmonies" All About?
Let me try to explain what happens in Bela Tarr's "Werckmeister Harmonies." First, there's a village in the dead of winter. Sinister things are happening there, and some terrible cataclysm seems to be looming on the horizon. The primary harbinger of doom seems to be the arrival of a mysterious circus, the star attraction of which is a giant stuffed whale in a corrugated metal shipping container. The whale is accompanied by a figure known as The Prince, who intends to give a "blasphemous" speech that has incited terror and destruction in other places.
However our main character is not The Prince but a young man named Janos (Lars Rudolph), a resident of the village who bears silent witness to many of the strange events that are to follow. Janos's elderly Uncle Gyorgy (Peter Fitz), a pianist, may hold the key to the film's story. Gyorgy has a theory that past mistakes by certain musical theorists inadvertently caused all music on Earth to become out of tune with the greater, purer celestial harmonies. Perhaps this is why darkness has descended on the village, like the eclipse that Janos illustrates in the film's opening sequence by creating a model of the solar system with a trio of obliging bar patrons.
Have I mentioned yet that the film is shot in black and white and is in Hungarian? The black and white part doesn't faze me in the least, but the Hungarian part does, because I know nothing about Hungary or the Hungarian culture. Without that context, I can't tell if Janos is supposed to be a simpleton or if his interactions with the other villagers, usually addressed as Auntie or Uncle, is normal. I'm not sure what year it's supposed to be, whether the helicopter that appears near the end of the film is supposed to be viewed as an anachronism or if it's perfectly contemporaneous with the more dated-looking tanks and hospital equipment we see earlier. I don't know if the violence that erupts in the village is a reference to something in the local Eastern European history, or perhaps it's meant to be a more allegorical event.
And then there are the musical references. The title refers to Andreas Werckmeister, a 17th century composer who developed a tuning system called the Werckmeister Temperament. I know a little about musical theory, but not enough to fully comprehend Uncle Gyorgy's criticism of Werckmeister's work. Music is certainly important in the narrative of the film itself, especially the haunting string and piano theme that recurs throughout the film at its most important moments. If the music of humanity being in discord with the music of the heavenly spheres caused the events that occurred in the film, does this mean that the situation was corrected by the ending? Was this something that could have been avoided or prevented, perhaps if Werckmeister had caught his terrible error? Or was it predestined, like Janos's eclipse?
And speaking of Janos, his fate may be the most confounding part of the whole film. What happened to him? At one point we see him running, being chased by unknown forces. Then there's a quick cut to Janos at a later point in time that reveals his ultimate fate, but nothing to explain how he got there. Exposition is often sacrificed for mood in the film, and the lack of information adds to the atmosphere of unease. It's a fine artistic choice, but left me grasping for straws. Janos's fate is echoed in the fate of the stuffed whale, a massive physical and psychological presence in the film that also seems to represent something important, though I'm still struggling to figure out what it is. I have a dear Hungarian who friend who often makes jokes about Hungarian navigators, a great irony since Hungary is utterly landlocked in all directions. Surely it's the last place on Earth that a whale should ever find itself. But what does it all mean?
"Werckmeister Harmonies" is a great film. I find myself unable to write a traditional review of it, because I haven't been able to process it yet. It has all these mesmerizing visuals, composed entirely of long, long shots that can last several minutes apiece. I found myself having strong emotional reactions to what I was seeing, even though I couldn't understand what was going on or what it was exactly that I felt. The famous hospital sequence where the dread and violence reach their peak is a stunning piece of filmmaking. I'm fascinated by the way director Bela Tarr finds images of beauty in unconventional subjects - an old man, a room full of drunks, a shipping container. I only wish I could figure out how everything fits together - or maybe the point is that it doesn't. I just don't know.
This post has been pretty incoherent, but I guess that's a testament to the film itself. "Werckmeister Harmonies" left me confused, frustrated, emotional, and very impressed.
However our main character is not The Prince but a young man named Janos (Lars Rudolph), a resident of the village who bears silent witness to many of the strange events that are to follow. Janos's elderly Uncle Gyorgy (Peter Fitz), a pianist, may hold the key to the film's story. Gyorgy has a theory that past mistakes by certain musical theorists inadvertently caused all music on Earth to become out of tune with the greater, purer celestial harmonies. Perhaps this is why darkness has descended on the village, like the eclipse that Janos illustrates in the film's opening sequence by creating a model of the solar system with a trio of obliging bar patrons.
Have I mentioned yet that the film is shot in black and white and is in Hungarian? The black and white part doesn't faze me in the least, but the Hungarian part does, because I know nothing about Hungary or the Hungarian culture. Without that context, I can't tell if Janos is supposed to be a simpleton or if his interactions with the other villagers, usually addressed as Auntie or Uncle, is normal. I'm not sure what year it's supposed to be, whether the helicopter that appears near the end of the film is supposed to be viewed as an anachronism or if it's perfectly contemporaneous with the more dated-looking tanks and hospital equipment we see earlier. I don't know if the violence that erupts in the village is a reference to something in the local Eastern European history, or perhaps it's meant to be a more allegorical event.
And then there are the musical references. The title refers to Andreas Werckmeister, a 17th century composer who developed a tuning system called the Werckmeister Temperament. I know a little about musical theory, but not enough to fully comprehend Uncle Gyorgy's criticism of Werckmeister's work. Music is certainly important in the narrative of the film itself, especially the haunting string and piano theme that recurs throughout the film at its most important moments. If the music of humanity being in discord with the music of the heavenly spheres caused the events that occurred in the film, does this mean that the situation was corrected by the ending? Was this something that could have been avoided or prevented, perhaps if Werckmeister had caught his terrible error? Or was it predestined, like Janos's eclipse?
And speaking of Janos, his fate may be the most confounding part of the whole film. What happened to him? At one point we see him running, being chased by unknown forces. Then there's a quick cut to Janos at a later point in time that reveals his ultimate fate, but nothing to explain how he got there. Exposition is often sacrificed for mood in the film, and the lack of information adds to the atmosphere of unease. It's a fine artistic choice, but left me grasping for straws. Janos's fate is echoed in the fate of the stuffed whale, a massive physical and psychological presence in the film that also seems to represent something important, though I'm still struggling to figure out what it is. I have a dear Hungarian who friend who often makes jokes about Hungarian navigators, a great irony since Hungary is utterly landlocked in all directions. Surely it's the last place on Earth that a whale should ever find itself. But what does it all mean?
"Werckmeister Harmonies" is a great film. I find myself unable to write a traditional review of it, because I haven't been able to process it yet. It has all these mesmerizing visuals, composed entirely of long, long shots that can last several minutes apiece. I found myself having strong emotional reactions to what I was seeing, even though I couldn't understand what was going on or what it was exactly that I felt. The famous hospital sequence where the dread and violence reach their peak is a stunning piece of filmmaking. I'm fascinated by the way director Bela Tarr finds images of beauty in unconventional subjects - an old man, a room full of drunks, a shipping container. I only wish I could figure out how everything fits together - or maybe the point is that it doesn't. I just don't know.
This post has been pretty incoherent, but I guess that's a testament to the film itself. "Werckmeister Harmonies" left me confused, frustrated, emotional, and very impressed.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Here Comes "The Cape"
NBC's new superhero adventure show "The Cape" premiered last night. Before seeing a frame, I thought it had a lot in its favor, including a strong cast featuring some familiar faces - Keith David, Summer Glau, James Frain, and Vinnie Jones. The promos have been full of fancy CGI cape effects and slick villains with names like Chess and Scales. I'm not familiar with David Lyons, who plays the hero Vince Faraday, but he's got the right look for a superhero.
Every caped crusader needs a city, and sunny Palm City is a hotbed of crime. Its police force is replaced by the sinister ARC Corporation after the police chief is mysteriously murdered by a villain named Chess. Vince Faraday is a dedicated cop with a loving wife Dana (Jennifer Ferrin) and young son Trip (Ryan Wynott). When Vince discovers that his new boss at ARC, Peter Fleming (James Frain), is Chess, Vince is framed for the murder. He narrowly escapes and is presumed dead, left to figure out a way to bring down ARC and clear his name from the shadows. All this happens in roughly the first fifteen minutes, and it's pretty rote exposition, dispensed with quickly. Then we get to the fun stuff.
Vince is taken in by Max Malini (Keith David), the leader of a gang of circus folk who rob banks. Soon enough, Vince gets the bright idea to assume the guise of his son's favorite comic book superhero, the Cape. Max just happens to have a legendary magician's special, super-strong, super-light cape in storage, and he and his gang are perfectly willing to train Vince in the arts of fighting, illusion, legerdemain, and all sorts of other fun circus skills in an improbably short amount of time. He also finds an ally in Orwell (Summer Glau), a gonzo investigative reporter and technology wizard, bent on exposing corruption in Palm City through her eponymous blog.
So far, "The Cape" is very uneven, but I can see potential here. The show's biggest problem right now is that far too much time is spent with Vince's wife and kid. The second hour of the premiere was saddled with scenes of them struggling to cope with his absence and a few sentimental flashbacks, exactly the kind of melodramatic dead weight that killed "FlashForward" and is severely hampering shows like "V" and "The Event." If "The Cape" is meant to be a superhero action show, it needs to be less mopey and more exciting. Sure, having a tortured hero is fine, but there's only so far you can go with domestic drama when it's only going to be a minor part of Vince's adventures. Checking in every week with the miserable family is going to get tedious and repetitive really fast.
The show is much better when the focus is on Vince's interactions with Orwell and Max, or when he's out fighting crime and tracking down the show's villains. This is where the pace picks up, and we get some good action and humor. In the premiere I didn't think there was enough of either. I'm not sure why all of the recent genre shows produced by the major networks are keen on being so serious in tone when their fantasy premises call for a lighter touch. Vince Faraday may not have superpowers, but he's essentially running around in a magic cape and boarding with circus folk. "The Cape" isn't as thematically heavy as "Watchmen" or "The Dark Knight," so there's no reason why it has to be so dark and gloomy. The creators would be better off aiming for something a little more tongue-in-cheek like NBC's own "Chuck."
Where "The Cape" is the most successful is in its special effects and other fancy visuals. Vince can use the cape to vanish into thin air, to smack bad guys around, or to grab objects like an octopus tentacle. Orwell and Chess both have holographic displays for their computers, and the villains all get distinctive makeup enhancements. There were also some fine explosions and fight scenes, though I don't know if they'll carry over to the regular episodes, since they don't look cheap. The comic book motif is the most apparent in the stylish credits sequence and act breaks, which I thought was a nice touch.
As for the acting - well, it's a mixed bag. David Lyons as Vince isn't bad, but he gets hampered by a lot of awkward dialogue and multiple scenes of broody angst. It's the same with Jennifer Ferrin as his wife and Ryan Wynott as the cute kid. Genre show alums Keith David and Summer Glau are far more entertaining as the larger-than-life supporting characters. With television shows, fortunately, there's plenty of time for the kinks to get worked out and for the actors to improve and settle in. I'll probably give "The Cape" a few more episodes to see how it shapes up. There's plenty here that works, but I don't think it's quite where it needs to be yet.
"The Cape" airs Mondays at 9PM on NBC.
Every caped crusader needs a city, and sunny Palm City is a hotbed of crime. Its police force is replaced by the sinister ARC Corporation after the police chief is mysteriously murdered by a villain named Chess. Vince Faraday is a dedicated cop with a loving wife Dana (Jennifer Ferrin) and young son Trip (Ryan Wynott). When Vince discovers that his new boss at ARC, Peter Fleming (James Frain), is Chess, Vince is framed for the murder. He narrowly escapes and is presumed dead, left to figure out a way to bring down ARC and clear his name from the shadows. All this happens in roughly the first fifteen minutes, and it's pretty rote exposition, dispensed with quickly. Then we get to the fun stuff.
Vince is taken in by Max Malini (Keith David), the leader of a gang of circus folk who rob banks. Soon enough, Vince gets the bright idea to assume the guise of his son's favorite comic book superhero, the Cape. Max just happens to have a legendary magician's special, super-strong, super-light cape in storage, and he and his gang are perfectly willing to train Vince in the arts of fighting, illusion, legerdemain, and all sorts of other fun circus skills in an improbably short amount of time. He also finds an ally in Orwell (Summer Glau), a gonzo investigative reporter and technology wizard, bent on exposing corruption in Palm City through her eponymous blog.
So far, "The Cape" is very uneven, but I can see potential here. The show's biggest problem right now is that far too much time is spent with Vince's wife and kid. The second hour of the premiere was saddled with scenes of them struggling to cope with his absence and a few sentimental flashbacks, exactly the kind of melodramatic dead weight that killed "FlashForward" and is severely hampering shows like "V" and "The Event." If "The Cape" is meant to be a superhero action show, it needs to be less mopey and more exciting. Sure, having a tortured hero is fine, but there's only so far you can go with domestic drama when it's only going to be a minor part of Vince's adventures. Checking in every week with the miserable family is going to get tedious and repetitive really fast.
The show is much better when the focus is on Vince's interactions with Orwell and Max, or when he's out fighting crime and tracking down the show's villains. This is where the pace picks up, and we get some good action and humor. In the premiere I didn't think there was enough of either. I'm not sure why all of the recent genre shows produced by the major networks are keen on being so serious in tone when their fantasy premises call for a lighter touch. Vince Faraday may not have superpowers, but he's essentially running around in a magic cape and boarding with circus folk. "The Cape" isn't as thematically heavy as "Watchmen" or "The Dark Knight," so there's no reason why it has to be so dark and gloomy. The creators would be better off aiming for something a little more tongue-in-cheek like NBC's own "Chuck."
Where "The Cape" is the most successful is in its special effects and other fancy visuals. Vince can use the cape to vanish into thin air, to smack bad guys around, or to grab objects like an octopus tentacle. Orwell and Chess both have holographic displays for their computers, and the villains all get distinctive makeup enhancements. There were also some fine explosions and fight scenes, though I don't know if they'll carry over to the regular episodes, since they don't look cheap. The comic book motif is the most apparent in the stylish credits sequence and act breaks, which I thought was a nice touch.
As for the acting - well, it's a mixed bag. David Lyons as Vince isn't bad, but he gets hampered by a lot of awkward dialogue and multiple scenes of broody angst. It's the same with Jennifer Ferrin as his wife and Ryan Wynott as the cute kid. Genre show alums Keith David and Summer Glau are far more entertaining as the larger-than-life supporting characters. With television shows, fortunately, there's plenty of time for the kinks to get worked out and for the actors to improve and settle in. I'll probably give "The Cape" a few more episodes to see how it shapes up. There's plenty here that works, but I don't think it's quite where it needs to be yet.
"The Cape" airs Mondays at 9PM on NBC.
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