"The Swimmer" begins with lovely views of the wilderness, including a striking crane shot. Then we come upon a backyard swimming pool, and a figure dressed only in swim trunks walks out from between the trees and dives in. This is Ned Merrill (Burt Lancaster), and the pool belongs to his friends, who live in an affluent neighborhood in Connecticut. He's greeted warmly when he emerges, and it's clear that it's been some time since they've last met. Merrill is in his early 50s, but the picture of health, and well-liked by the old friends who exclaim over his appearance. The conversation turns to swimming pools, and Ned hatches the idea to do a length in every single pool between him and his own house on the other side of the county, with the notion that they form a metaphorical river like the ones he swam in his youth. And thus begins one of the strangest and most fascinating existential journeys ever to find its way to the silver screen.
Each pool brings a new encounter, and each encounter is representative of a part of Ned's life. There's Julie Ann (Janet Landgard), who used to babysit Ned's daughters, but is all grown up now. There's Shirley Abbott (Janice Rule), who he had an affair with that she's still bitter about. There's Kevin (Michael Kearney), a lonely little boy ignored by his parents. And then there are the Hallorans (House Jameson, Nancy Cushman), who appear about half-way through the film, who are the first to greet Ned without much enthusiasm. They've clearly heard something about Ned that we don't know, and as the film goes on, we start getting a very different picture of Ned Merrill. The closer and closer Ned gets to home, and the people he meets become more intimately familiar to him, the clearer that picture gets. The strange, twisting narrative creates all sorts of metaphysical and existential questions to puzzle over, but the simplest is this: who is Ned Merrill?
At the center of the movie is the performance of Burt Lancaster, and this is one of his best. The journey of Ned in "The Swimmer" is a microcosm of a man's life, and we dig deeper and deeper into his psyche with each swim. On the surface he's attractive and charismatic, always talking proudly about his wife and daughters. He's the kind of man you look up to and perhaps envy. Then the flaws emerge, the way that he subtly propositions Julie Ann after she confesses she had a schoolgirl crush on him. There's the mountain of promises that he makes to Kevin, that Ned probably has every intention of keeping, but somehow we know he won't. Then there's Shirley, who he has clearly hurt, but Ned behaves as though there's nothing wrong between them. The central defining characteristic of Ned Merrill seems to be self-delusion, as he so earnestly seems to believe in everything he says, and appears genuinely confused when met with any contradiction. Lancaster plays a gamut of emotions, encapsulating all of Ned's highs and lows, and sustaining that wonderful ambiguity about Ned's curious state of mind.
The production of "The Swimmer" was famously contentious, with Lancaster and director Frank Perry constantly at odds until Perry finally quit the picture. However, it's Perry we have to thank for the remarkable look of "The Swimmer," a pastoral evocation of idyllic affluence that slowly becomes more satirical and cynical as the film goes on. In early scenes, there's lots of picturesque foliage and open countryside, reflecting Lancaster at his athletic peak as he travels from pool to pool. Later, as he tires, the frame gets more crowded and noisy, and the forests recede and give way to roads. Colors become more garish. However, all the pools remain an inviting, glimmering blue. The camera is also noticeably mobile and dynamic. There are a couple of great POV shots and close-ups on Lancaster's face that play up the psychological intensity.
I also love the little jabs that the film takes at its subjects. The Hallorans are a pair of elderly nudists who claim open-mindedness, but are quick to deliver staunch disapprovals. A lavish party thrown by another couple is marked by ostentatious decorations and food, but their hospitality comes up short. And then there's the chaos of the local municipal pool, where everyone who isn't rich has to congregate to escape the heat. The dialogue initially seems a little inane and old fashioned, until you realize that it's a reflection of Ned Merrill's worldview, and then it sharpens up in a hurry. I came away from "The Swimmer" marveling over how cleverly it had been constructed, was, how the unlikely sounding plot created such a wealth of metaphors and mysteries to discuss and dissect.
It doesn't surprise me that "The Swimmer" did not do well upon its initial release, but that it's become quite a cult film since. I wholeheartedly recommend it as one of the most unique film experiences I've had this year.
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Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
Here Comes Amazon Prime
I've had access to Amazon Prime for a while now, because my household pays the $79 yearly fee for the shipping discounts. The selection's okay, with a couple of significant offerings that Netflix and Hulu don't have, but the interface is a real pain in the neck, and most of the service is geared toward getting you to rent or buy other titles from Amazon’s streaming service. Most of the time I end up browsing through the Prime catalog through the Amazon site on my computer. Still, since content providers are so much friendlier with Amazon, there's always been a strong likelihood that Amazon Prime might become a significant competitor to Netflix and Hulu one day. That day just got a little closer, as Amazon has announced that it is now selling monthly subscriptions for Amazon Prime, priced at $7.99, exactly what Hulu and Netflix also charge.
So how does Amazon Prime stack up against its competitors? Aside from the issues I pointed out, very well at the moment. Prime's streaming selection is smaller than Netflix or Hulu's, but tends to have more new titles. There are no commercials, and I've never had any difficulty with the video quality. The yearly subscription fee won’t change, so if you sign up for the long term, the monthly cost is actually cheaper than Netflix and Hulu. Amazon also lets you buy and rent individual titles through its streaming service. If you want to watch something immediately and are willing to pay for it, there's no need to wait for the DVDs to show up in the mail. And of course there are the perks, which include a sizable library of free Kindle books and the free two-day shipping on most Amazon purchases. If you're a regular Amazon customer, Prime is a very good deal. However, it's not quite good enough to substitute for the other services, which is why I still use Hulu and Netflix even though I already pay for Prime.
Hulu's big advantage is that it has deals in place with almost all the major terrestrial networks to get their content almost immediately after it airs, and presents it for free for a couple of weeks. On Amazon, the same content shows up in the streaming service, but you have to purchase the individual episodes. I had a mild argument with the significant other a few days ago, when he was trying to watch CW’s "Arrow" through the Amazon site. "But it's on Hulu," I kept saying, when he mulled over paying $2 to stream the latest episode. We briefly debated over video quality, and putting up with the annoying Hulu advertisements, and the ability to watch the episodes on our flatscreen, something we can do with our Amazon content, but not with Hulu content yet. In the end, Hulu won. If you're trying to replace your television with a streaming service, it's much more expensive to use Amazon Prime to access current television shows. Paying to rent a measly four episodes of “Arrow” would have bought a full month of access to the entire Hulu Plus library.
Then there's Netflix. I have managed to find several films available for download on Amazon that I haven't been able to find anywhere else, like Roberto Rossellini's "Stromboli" with Ingrid Bergman. However, the overwhelming majority of the older classic films I like watching are available on DVD, and the bundled rental plan that Netflix offers is much more cost effective for me than renting titles individually through Amazon. Newer films especially are marked up to the point where if I want to see a new release before it becomes available on Netflix, I head for Redbox or even the lone remaining Blockbuster in town. I'm not a casual movie viewer who is content to just watch whatever's new on streaming, so selection is extremely important for me. And making me wait an extra month to rent "Moonrise Kingdom" from Redbox or Netflix still doesn't make me want to spend $4 to rent it from Amazon or Itunes.
For the less picky and demanding viewer, though, Amazon Prime is a perfectly good option, and I expect that it’s going to become an even better one now that Prime is being positioned as a real competitor in the streaming business. I fully expect that Amazon will start fixing some of those interface issues, add proper queuing and searching functions, and add some more titles to its library. And it’ll probably become much more popular as a result. One issue I hope they address soon is being able to buy subscriptions for other people, a problem I ran into last year when I tried getting my parents set up with a Prime account. I wasn’t getting them Prime for the streaming service, mind you, but for the free shipping. I still think that’s the best feature of Amazon Prime by a wide margin.
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So how does Amazon Prime stack up against its competitors? Aside from the issues I pointed out, very well at the moment. Prime's streaming selection is smaller than Netflix or Hulu's, but tends to have more new titles. There are no commercials, and I've never had any difficulty with the video quality. The yearly subscription fee won’t change, so if you sign up for the long term, the monthly cost is actually cheaper than Netflix and Hulu. Amazon also lets you buy and rent individual titles through its streaming service. If you want to watch something immediately and are willing to pay for it, there's no need to wait for the DVDs to show up in the mail. And of course there are the perks, which include a sizable library of free Kindle books and the free two-day shipping on most Amazon purchases. If you're a regular Amazon customer, Prime is a very good deal. However, it's not quite good enough to substitute for the other services, which is why I still use Hulu and Netflix even though I already pay for Prime.
Hulu's big advantage is that it has deals in place with almost all the major terrestrial networks to get their content almost immediately after it airs, and presents it for free for a couple of weeks. On Amazon, the same content shows up in the streaming service, but you have to purchase the individual episodes. I had a mild argument with the significant other a few days ago, when he was trying to watch CW’s "Arrow" through the Amazon site. "But it's on Hulu," I kept saying, when he mulled over paying $2 to stream the latest episode. We briefly debated over video quality, and putting up with the annoying Hulu advertisements, and the ability to watch the episodes on our flatscreen, something we can do with our Amazon content, but not with Hulu content yet. In the end, Hulu won. If you're trying to replace your television with a streaming service, it's much more expensive to use Amazon Prime to access current television shows. Paying to rent a measly four episodes of “Arrow” would have bought a full month of access to the entire Hulu Plus library.
Then there's Netflix. I have managed to find several films available for download on Amazon that I haven't been able to find anywhere else, like Roberto Rossellini's "Stromboli" with Ingrid Bergman. However, the overwhelming majority of the older classic films I like watching are available on DVD, and the bundled rental plan that Netflix offers is much more cost effective for me than renting titles individually through Amazon. Newer films especially are marked up to the point where if I want to see a new release before it becomes available on Netflix, I head for Redbox or even the lone remaining Blockbuster in town. I'm not a casual movie viewer who is content to just watch whatever's new on streaming, so selection is extremely important for me. And making me wait an extra month to rent "Moonrise Kingdom" from Redbox or Netflix still doesn't make me want to spend $4 to rent it from Amazon or Itunes.
For the less picky and demanding viewer, though, Amazon Prime is a perfectly good option, and I expect that it’s going to become an even better one now that Prime is being positioned as a real competitor in the streaming business. I fully expect that Amazon will start fixing some of those interface issues, add proper queuing and searching functions, and add some more titles to its library. And it’ll probably become much more popular as a result. One issue I hope they address soon is being able to buy subscriptions for other people, a problem I ran into last year when I tried getting my parents set up with a Prime account. I wasn’t getting them Prime for the streaming service, mind you, but for the free shipping. I still think that’s the best feature of Amazon Prime by a wide margin.
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Monday, November 5, 2012
The Odd Longevity of “Boy Meets World”
You can never tell which pieces of pop culture are going to last and which just going to fade away. I’m at that age where I’m starting to see the twenty-somethings a few years younger than me getting nostalgic for media that I was aware of when I was younger, but too old to have much interest in, like the "Power Rangers" and "Pokemon." And then there’s the inexplicable fuss over the 90s ABC sitcom "Boy Meets World."
Everyone I knew as a kid watched ABC’s Friday night block of family shows, home to "Full House," "Family Matters," and "Step by Step." "Boy Meets World," chronicling the growing pains of a boy named Cory Matthews (Ben Savage), premiered in 1993 and ran for seven seasons until the TGIF block went kaput. I remember liking the first season when Cory was in junior high. The years with Cory in high school got sillier and more pandering to younger audiences. Finally, the last two seasons with Cory in college got so ridiculous, that I stopped watching with any regularity. I hold "Boy Meets World" in about as much esteem as I hold "Full House" and "Family Matters," which is to say that I’m not embarrassed to have watched them when I was a kid, but I remember them frequently being terrible enough that I’m sure they’d be unbearable to sit through now as an adult.
"Boy Meets World" sticks in my mind because I remember being fascinated with how it deteriorated over the years. There was a major format change between the first and second seasons that eliminated major cast members and made the show less about the Matthews family and more kid-centric, focusing on Cory and his best friend Shawn (Rider Strong). Further cast changes were frequent, adding and subtracting siblings, teachers, friends, bullies, and love interests. The regular characters’ personalities also changed drastically. Cory started out as a mischievous kid and ended up as an insufferable goody two-shoes. His older brother Eric (Will Friedle) seemed to lose IQ points with every subsequent season, until he was a complete dolt who was only around for comic relief in the last season. Shawn went from being slightly rougher-edged than Cory to someone with an unstable home life from the wrong side of the tracks, though there was some backpedaling later on.
So I found it very strange that younger viewers currently in their teens and early twenties consider "Boy Meets World" a childhood favorite, even though they should have only been around for the tail end of its original run. And they love it enough that Disney recently announced that they were in the early stages of developing a new spinoff/sequel series, tentatively titled "Girl Meets World," to follow the adventures of Cory’s preteen daughter. Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel, who played Cory’s girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned-spouse Topanga, are being courted to return to their old roles. The last I heard of "Boy Meets World," the show was in a ratings decline after the TGIF block went through some serious pruning in 1997. I wasn’t alone in not liking the college episodes, and I was pretty sure that after the last episode where Cory and Topanga tied the knot, that would be the last I’d ever see of them.
But I had forgotten about cable. Once "Boy Meets World" finished its first run on ABC, the off-network syndication of the earlier seasons on terrestrial networks stopped at about the same time. However, the first six seasons were picked up to run on the Disney Channel from 2000 until 2007, also popping up on ABC Family, where the reruns are still airing in an early morning timeslot. "Boy Meets World" is one of the only TGIF shows that Disney and ABC own outright, and it fit both the Disney Channel and ABC Family audiences, so they kept it on the schedule. Thus, "Boy Meets World" ended up outlasting just about all of its sitcom contemporaries like "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch." More importantly, it managed to attract an entirely new generation of kid viewers, long after its original run had finished.
I always wondered how some mediocre shows like "Gilligan’s Island" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" always stuck around in reruns for so long while so many of the better ones never made it through more than a year or two in syndication. Looks like who’s holding the rights and what they choose to do with them has a lot of impact on where your favorite shows ultimately end up in reruns and for what duration. And the audience matters. Even though I don’t think much of "Boy Meets World," it makes sense as something that Disney viewers would latch on to, and the potential spinoff would fit right into the ABC Family lineup of slightly retro family sitcoms.
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Everyone I knew as a kid watched ABC’s Friday night block of family shows, home to "Full House," "Family Matters," and "Step by Step." "Boy Meets World," chronicling the growing pains of a boy named Cory Matthews (Ben Savage), premiered in 1993 and ran for seven seasons until the TGIF block went kaput. I remember liking the first season when Cory was in junior high. The years with Cory in high school got sillier and more pandering to younger audiences. Finally, the last two seasons with Cory in college got so ridiculous, that I stopped watching with any regularity. I hold "Boy Meets World" in about as much esteem as I hold "Full House" and "Family Matters," which is to say that I’m not embarrassed to have watched them when I was a kid, but I remember them frequently being terrible enough that I’m sure they’d be unbearable to sit through now as an adult.
"Boy Meets World" sticks in my mind because I remember being fascinated with how it deteriorated over the years. There was a major format change between the first and second seasons that eliminated major cast members and made the show less about the Matthews family and more kid-centric, focusing on Cory and his best friend Shawn (Rider Strong). Further cast changes were frequent, adding and subtracting siblings, teachers, friends, bullies, and love interests. The regular characters’ personalities also changed drastically. Cory started out as a mischievous kid and ended up as an insufferable goody two-shoes. His older brother Eric (Will Friedle) seemed to lose IQ points with every subsequent season, until he was a complete dolt who was only around for comic relief in the last season. Shawn went from being slightly rougher-edged than Cory to someone with an unstable home life from the wrong side of the tracks, though there was some backpedaling later on.
So I found it very strange that younger viewers currently in their teens and early twenties consider "Boy Meets World" a childhood favorite, even though they should have only been around for the tail end of its original run. And they love it enough that Disney recently announced that they were in the early stages of developing a new spinoff/sequel series, tentatively titled "Girl Meets World," to follow the adventures of Cory’s preteen daughter. Ben Savage and Danielle Fishel, who played Cory’s girlfriend-turned-fiancee-turned-spouse Topanga, are being courted to return to their old roles. The last I heard of "Boy Meets World," the show was in a ratings decline after the TGIF block went through some serious pruning in 1997. I wasn’t alone in not liking the college episodes, and I was pretty sure that after the last episode where Cory and Topanga tied the knot, that would be the last I’d ever see of them.
But I had forgotten about cable. Once "Boy Meets World" finished its first run on ABC, the off-network syndication of the earlier seasons on terrestrial networks stopped at about the same time. However, the first six seasons were picked up to run on the Disney Channel from 2000 until 2007, also popping up on ABC Family, where the reruns are still airing in an early morning timeslot. "Boy Meets World" is one of the only TGIF shows that Disney and ABC own outright, and it fit both the Disney Channel and ABC Family audiences, so they kept it on the schedule. Thus, "Boy Meets World" ended up outlasting just about all of its sitcom contemporaries like "Sabrina the Teenaged Witch." More importantly, it managed to attract an entirely new generation of kid viewers, long after its original run had finished.
I always wondered how some mediocre shows like "Gilligan’s Island" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" always stuck around in reruns for so long while so many of the better ones never made it through more than a year or two in syndication. Looks like who’s holding the rights and what they choose to do with them has a lot of impact on where your favorite shows ultimately end up in reruns and for what duration. And the audience matters. Even though I don’t think much of "Boy Meets World," it makes sense as something that Disney viewers would latch on to, and the potential spinoff would fit right into the ABC Family lineup of slightly retro family sitcoms.
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Sunday, November 4, 2012
"Wreck-It Ralph" Brings It
What happens to all your favorite video game characters when the arcade is closed for the night? "Wreck-It Ralph" imagines that they can travel to different games via their power cords and interact with each other when they're off the clock. The games themselves form their own separate little universes, where the characters live and work. One such game is "Fix-It Felix Jr.," an old-school "Donkey Kong" style action game where the villain, Wreck-It Ralph (John C. Reilly), tries to bust up an apartment building while the hero, Fix-It Felix Jr. (Jack McNabray), races to repair the damage. But on the 30th anniversary of the game's debut, Ralph is getting tired of being the bad guy and being treated like a menace. So he decides to break the rules and prove he can be a hero.
"Wreck-It Ralph" was made for multiple generations of video game lovers, the grown-ups who remember the days of 8-bit graphics and quarter-eating machines, and the kids more familiar with first-person-shooters and high-definition CGI avatars. The movie is full of references and cameos from dozens of different video games, some that only the older gamers who were around for the 80s are going to pick up on and appreciate. The big question is whether non-gamers and younger gamers are going to enjoy the movie. I think they will, because the Disney Animation artists have done a great job of constructing a full and fascinating universe to explore, with some very appealing conceits. In the "Wreck-It Ralph" world, like "Toy Story," the game creatures are aware that they exist to follow their programmed code and entertain the gamers, and their worst fear is that that their games will become "Out of Order" permanently, and unplugged.
Despite all the advertising featuring so many familiar game characters like Sonic and Q-bert, they only have minor cameos. Ralph and the film's original characters stay firmly center stage. Most of the action takes place in three games created for the film: "Fix-It Felix Jr.," a violent first-person-shooter called "Hero's Duty," and a candy themed go-cart racing game, "Sugar Rush." Ralph sneaks into "Hero's Duty" to try his hand at fighting aliens, meeting the tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch). Later he ends up in "Sugar Rush," where he befriends a bratty little wannabe racer named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). "Sugar Rush" is especially eye-catching, a world where everything is made of candy and sweets. And the writers do not hold back with the candy-related puns.
Where "Wreck-It Ralph" is weakest is in its writing. The story is fairly simple and predictable, with a lot of old clichés and few surprises. I found the characters were strong enough to keep my attention, though. Ralph is a loveable, big-hearted galoot, but his frustrations with his lot in life lead him to make some rash and selfish decisions. I think Vanellope is going to be the hardest sell, since she's the kind of aggravating little moppet who some viewers will find too grating to take, but the inevitable friendship that develops between these two misfits is genuinely touching. The minor characters are also used very well, especially when Felix and Calhoun get paired up trying to track down Ralph.
And then there are the visuals, where "Wreck-It Ralph" is a constant delight. Even if you don't care about the story, it's hard not to be impressed by the abundance of inventive little details. Several of the characters in "Fix-It Felix Jr.," notably Felix himself, have some frame-skipping pose-to-pose motions and vaguely blocky designs to reflect how they appear on the game screen, though most of the time they're rendered in typically flawless CGI animation. "Sugar Rush" has a full roster of racers for Vanellope to compete against, who I fully expect to see as a line of dolls in time for Christmas, along with countless candy citizens filling the stands during their races.
I can't think of too much to take points off for. Okay, the use of a certain pop song in a training sequence was pretty groan-inducing. And I don't think that Vanellope's creative insults are going to go over well with some parents. However, this is a major accomplishment for Disney Animation. I don't think I've ever seen a video game film that's come off as well as this, combining potent nostalgia with cutting edge technology. I've never considered myself a gamer, but there weren't many of the references that went over my head entirely. Video games have worked their way so deeply into modern pop culture, I think this one is going to appeal to a much wider audience than people might expect.
And though it wasn't based off of an existing property, there's no denying that "Wreck-It Ralph" is a video game film, made by exactly the right crew of gamer nerds and geeks who understand and love them best.
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"Wreck-It Ralph" was made for multiple generations of video game lovers, the grown-ups who remember the days of 8-bit graphics and quarter-eating machines, and the kids more familiar with first-person-shooters and high-definition CGI avatars. The movie is full of references and cameos from dozens of different video games, some that only the older gamers who were around for the 80s are going to pick up on and appreciate. The big question is whether non-gamers and younger gamers are going to enjoy the movie. I think they will, because the Disney Animation artists have done a great job of constructing a full and fascinating universe to explore, with some very appealing conceits. In the "Wreck-It Ralph" world, like "Toy Story," the game creatures are aware that they exist to follow their programmed code and entertain the gamers, and their worst fear is that that their games will become "Out of Order" permanently, and unplugged.
Despite all the advertising featuring so many familiar game characters like Sonic and Q-bert, they only have minor cameos. Ralph and the film's original characters stay firmly center stage. Most of the action takes place in three games created for the film: "Fix-It Felix Jr.," a violent first-person-shooter called "Hero's Duty," and a candy themed go-cart racing game, "Sugar Rush." Ralph sneaks into "Hero's Duty" to try his hand at fighting aliens, meeting the tough-as-nails Sergeant Calhoun (Jane Lynch). Later he ends up in "Sugar Rush," where he befriends a bratty little wannabe racer named Vanellope (Sarah Silverman). "Sugar Rush" is especially eye-catching, a world where everything is made of candy and sweets. And the writers do not hold back with the candy-related puns.
Where "Wreck-It Ralph" is weakest is in its writing. The story is fairly simple and predictable, with a lot of old clichés and few surprises. I found the characters were strong enough to keep my attention, though. Ralph is a loveable, big-hearted galoot, but his frustrations with his lot in life lead him to make some rash and selfish decisions. I think Vanellope is going to be the hardest sell, since she's the kind of aggravating little moppet who some viewers will find too grating to take, but the inevitable friendship that develops between these two misfits is genuinely touching. The minor characters are also used very well, especially when Felix and Calhoun get paired up trying to track down Ralph.
And then there are the visuals, where "Wreck-It Ralph" is a constant delight. Even if you don't care about the story, it's hard not to be impressed by the abundance of inventive little details. Several of the characters in "Fix-It Felix Jr.," notably Felix himself, have some frame-skipping pose-to-pose motions and vaguely blocky designs to reflect how they appear on the game screen, though most of the time they're rendered in typically flawless CGI animation. "Sugar Rush" has a full roster of racers for Vanellope to compete against, who I fully expect to see as a line of dolls in time for Christmas, along with countless candy citizens filling the stands during their races.
I can't think of too much to take points off for. Okay, the use of a certain pop song in a training sequence was pretty groan-inducing. And I don't think that Vanellope's creative insults are going to go over well with some parents. However, this is a major accomplishment for Disney Animation. I don't think I've ever seen a video game film that's come off as well as this, combining potent nostalgia with cutting edge technology. I've never considered myself a gamer, but there weren't many of the references that went over my head entirely. Video games have worked their way so deeply into modern pop culture, I think this one is going to appeal to a much wider audience than people might expect.
And though it wasn't based off of an existing property, there's no denying that "Wreck-It Ralph" is a video game film, made by exactly the right crew of gamer nerds and geeks who understand and love them best.
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Friday, November 2, 2012
The Fair Weather Viewer
I watched the first season of Showtime's "Dexter" when an edited version aired on CBS one summer. I loved it, but there was no way I was paying for Showtime, so I left it at that. A couple of years later, I heard a lot of fuss about the fourth season, the one that featured John Lithgow's performance as the Trinity Killer. So I waited for the season to hit DVD, and I rented my way through that one. The reviews of the fifth and sixth seasons were not so glowing, but season seven has gotten a huge amount of buzz, and it looks like I'll be hunting down the DVDs next summer. Thus, "Dexter" has become my prime example of fair weather television viewing, the kind of show that I tune in for when it's good, but tune out when it's not.
In the past, this kind of viewing pattern would have been impossible to maintain. Television reviews on an episode-by-episode and season-by-season basis weren't nearly as accessible and prolific. You couldn't pick and choose between seasons before the advent of DVD box sets and on-demand streaming services. Heck, Amazon and iTunes let you purchase and rent specific episodes, if you really want to split hairs. I prefer watching shows I'm heavily invested in like "Mad Men" or "Breaking Bad" episode by episode, but when it comes to more casual viewing, sometimes I don't want to deal with the mediocre seasons or more often I just don't want to trudge through a sizable backlog of episodes for a show I've fallen behind on in order to get to the more exciting developments that have happened recently. This is what happened to me on "Merlin," which I stopped following at some point in the middle of the third series, because the storylines were moving at such a glacial pace. Now "Merlin" is in the middle of a much more promising fifth year, and I'm mulling over how much of the fourth I'd actually need to watch to catch up. From what I've read, probably just the first two episodes and the last two episodes. The DVDs should show up Stateside in January, and all the episodes are available for purchase already on iTunes.
The other big piece of this is that I no longer mind waiting for shows to become available. There's so much good television available on home media or streaming, that there's always something waiting in the wings for my attention. I can't watch the seventh season of "Dexter" or the fifth series of "Merlin" right now as they're currently airing, but I've got a growing list of other shows I'm supposed to be checking out or keeping up with to ensure I'm busy in the meantime. I've been letting myself fall behind on more and more shows this year, including "Grimm" and "Person of Interest." "Person of Interest" has been a particular hassle to watch because it's a rare network show where the current season is not available online in any form whatsoever. However, I know that the whole season will be on disc and streaming by next fall, and then I can watch it at my leisure, with the added bonus of skipping through the filler. There are several episode guides that have conveniently pointed out which are the more important mythology episodes that advance the larger plot and which are just standard cases-of-the-week. I like "Person of Interest" enough as a procedural that I would probably watch every episode like I did last year. But it's nice to know I don't have to.
I used to be a serious completist. I would expend considerable time and effort making sure to catch every single episode of the shows I liked. I could program a VCR in my sleep and hoarded empty VHS tapes. The uncertainty of possibly never being able to find a particular episode again after it had aired, and missing something vital, drove my obsessiveness. I can still be this way about the programs that I really care about following, but more and more television is no longer nearly as ephemeral or inaccessible. If I'm uncertain about whether a show is going to be worth my time or not, I can wait until the reviewers weigh in. I can drop a show midseason and come back to it a few years later without too much hassle. This is bad news for content producers because now there is a lot more riding on the quality of their product, and the need to hook viewers early and keep them involved is becoming more and more important.
I know that not everyone has the means or the temperament to watch television shows this way, but I think my mindset is becoming more common, especially as there are so many alternatives to traditional appointment viewing now. Out of all the pilots I watched this year, I'm only following one new show regularly, "The New Normal." The rest, if they develop into anything interesting, are just going to have get in line with everything else on my "to see" list.
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In the past, this kind of viewing pattern would have been impossible to maintain. Television reviews on an episode-by-episode and season-by-season basis weren't nearly as accessible and prolific. You couldn't pick and choose between seasons before the advent of DVD box sets and on-demand streaming services. Heck, Amazon and iTunes let you purchase and rent specific episodes, if you really want to split hairs. I prefer watching shows I'm heavily invested in like "Mad Men" or "Breaking Bad" episode by episode, but when it comes to more casual viewing, sometimes I don't want to deal with the mediocre seasons or more often I just don't want to trudge through a sizable backlog of episodes for a show I've fallen behind on in order to get to the more exciting developments that have happened recently. This is what happened to me on "Merlin," which I stopped following at some point in the middle of the third series, because the storylines were moving at such a glacial pace. Now "Merlin" is in the middle of a much more promising fifth year, and I'm mulling over how much of the fourth I'd actually need to watch to catch up. From what I've read, probably just the first two episodes and the last two episodes. The DVDs should show up Stateside in January, and all the episodes are available for purchase already on iTunes.
The other big piece of this is that I no longer mind waiting for shows to become available. There's so much good television available on home media or streaming, that there's always something waiting in the wings for my attention. I can't watch the seventh season of "Dexter" or the fifth series of "Merlin" right now as they're currently airing, but I've got a growing list of other shows I'm supposed to be checking out or keeping up with to ensure I'm busy in the meantime. I've been letting myself fall behind on more and more shows this year, including "Grimm" and "Person of Interest." "Person of Interest" has been a particular hassle to watch because it's a rare network show where the current season is not available online in any form whatsoever. However, I know that the whole season will be on disc and streaming by next fall, and then I can watch it at my leisure, with the added bonus of skipping through the filler. There are several episode guides that have conveniently pointed out which are the more important mythology episodes that advance the larger plot and which are just standard cases-of-the-week. I like "Person of Interest" enough as a procedural that I would probably watch every episode like I did last year. But it's nice to know I don't have to.
I used to be a serious completist. I would expend considerable time and effort making sure to catch every single episode of the shows I liked. I could program a VCR in my sleep and hoarded empty VHS tapes. The uncertainty of possibly never being able to find a particular episode again after it had aired, and missing something vital, drove my obsessiveness. I can still be this way about the programs that I really care about following, but more and more television is no longer nearly as ephemeral or inaccessible. If I'm uncertain about whether a show is going to be worth my time or not, I can wait until the reviewers weigh in. I can drop a show midseason and come back to it a few years later without too much hassle. This is bad news for content producers because now there is a lot more riding on the quality of their product, and the need to hook viewers early and keep them involved is becoming more and more important.
I know that not everyone has the means or the temperament to watch television shows this way, but I think my mindset is becoming more common, especially as there are so many alternatives to traditional appointment viewing now. Out of all the pilots I watched this year, I'm only following one new show regularly, "The New Normal." The rest, if they develop into anything interesting, are just going to have get in line with everything else on my "to see" list.
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Thursday, November 1, 2012
The Delights of "American Horror Story"
I wanted to write up a post on the first season of TNT's "American Horror Story" for Halloween, but didn't quite make the deadline. However, I enjoyed the show so much, I still want to recommend it for all your non-Halloween horror needs.
What I like about "American Horror Story" is that it's so unrepentantly exploitative and trashy, every opening shot slapped with a TV MA rating. The content level goes beyond anything else on basic cable. Adultery! Crimes of passion! Devious maids! Burn victims! Children with birth defects! The pilot features a kinky sex scene set to music lifted from Hitchcock's "Vertigo." And of course there's the show's mascot, the guy in the black rubber gimp suit. Every episode has some juicy twist, or some licentious new secret to reveal. The characters are completely over the top, but so much fun to watch, you don't want to stop. So while "American Horror Story" is often a spectacular mess, it's immensely entertaining. It's also one of the only properly horrific pieces of horror television currently on the air.
The bones of the plot are as follows: The Harmon family, comprised of psychiatrist father Ben (Dylan McDermott), mother Vivien (Connie Britton), and teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga), move into their new Los Angeles home, a palatial Victorian with a dark history. Their new neighbors include the very friendly, manipulative Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) and her daughter Addie (Jamie Brewer), who has Down's Syndrome. Ben is treating a troubled teenager named Tate (Evan Peters), who takes a liking to Violet. Other regulars include a horribly burned man named Larry (Denis O'Hare), who claims to be a former resident of the house, and a maid Vivien hires named Moira, who appears as a sweet old woman (Frances Conroy) to Vivien and Constance, but men see her as a provocatively dressed young woman (Alexandra Breckinridge).
The series borrows bits and pieces from dozens of horror stories and murder mysteries. The history of the "Murder House" spans nearly a century, and the series spends a lot of time tracking what happened to the various inhabitants who met terrible misfortune within its walls. Home invasions, school shootings, tragic accidents, mad doctors, and a few monsters all make appearances, and the series even recreates a few famous, real-life slayings. Even though the creators didn't know at the time that "American Horror Story" would continue in an anthology format, the first season is a compendium of different horror tales all by itself. The early episodes are the most bizarre and the most intriguing, because you never know what you're going to see next. We learn the origins of some things, like the guy in the gimp suit. Others, like the thing in the basement, are never really explained.
I want to reiterate that the series is really not very good on a fundamental level. The writing is wildly uneven, and the characters are little more than cyphers. All the women are prone to hysterics. All the men have roving eyes and are easily provoked. Ben and Vivien end up in shouting matches about every other episode. The wild twists and salacious content often comes at the price of bad characterization and shoddy logic. I don't think I've seen a show with so much convenient amnesia since "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It often feels like the writers take the kitchen sink approach, just dumping more and more characters and horrible events into the mix every time things slow down. It's only well into the second half of the season that we start getting decent chunks of character development and proper through lines.
In many episodes, the biggest saving grace is the performances, particularly of Jessica Lange as the tough old Southern Belle, Constance Langdon. She's a twisted woman who does monstrous things, but it's hard not to sympathize with her. Constance could have so easily been another caricature, but Lange imparts her with a steely, knowing awareness and aura of tragedy. No matter what she claims, there's never a doubt that she knows better than anyone else what's going on. The kids, Evan Peters and Taissa Farmiga, are also very good. In a show where all the emotion is cranked up to operatic heights, it makes sense that the hormonal teenagers are the ones who seem the most emotionally genuine.
The only thing I did not like at all about the first season of "American Horror Story" was the ending, which felt like the creators were leaving things open-ended for another season with the same characters. This didn't happen, as the new "Asylum" storyline started over with an entirely new setting and characters, though several of the actors stuck around to play new parts. So I'm really looking forward to the next chapters of "American Horror Story," since the creators don't have any reason to hold back this time.
---
What I like about "American Horror Story" is that it's so unrepentantly exploitative and trashy, every opening shot slapped with a TV MA rating. The content level goes beyond anything else on basic cable. Adultery! Crimes of passion! Devious maids! Burn victims! Children with birth defects! The pilot features a kinky sex scene set to music lifted from Hitchcock's "Vertigo." And of course there's the show's mascot, the guy in the black rubber gimp suit. Every episode has some juicy twist, or some licentious new secret to reveal. The characters are completely over the top, but so much fun to watch, you don't want to stop. So while "American Horror Story" is often a spectacular mess, it's immensely entertaining. It's also one of the only properly horrific pieces of horror television currently on the air.
The bones of the plot are as follows: The Harmon family, comprised of psychiatrist father Ben (Dylan McDermott), mother Vivien (Connie Britton), and teenage daughter Violet (Taissa Farmiga), move into their new Los Angeles home, a palatial Victorian with a dark history. Their new neighbors include the very friendly, manipulative Constance Langdon (Jessica Lange) and her daughter Addie (Jamie Brewer), who has Down's Syndrome. Ben is treating a troubled teenager named Tate (Evan Peters), who takes a liking to Violet. Other regulars include a horribly burned man named Larry (Denis O'Hare), who claims to be a former resident of the house, and a maid Vivien hires named Moira, who appears as a sweet old woman (Frances Conroy) to Vivien and Constance, but men see her as a provocatively dressed young woman (Alexandra Breckinridge).
The series borrows bits and pieces from dozens of horror stories and murder mysteries. The history of the "Murder House" spans nearly a century, and the series spends a lot of time tracking what happened to the various inhabitants who met terrible misfortune within its walls. Home invasions, school shootings, tragic accidents, mad doctors, and a few monsters all make appearances, and the series even recreates a few famous, real-life slayings. Even though the creators didn't know at the time that "American Horror Story" would continue in an anthology format, the first season is a compendium of different horror tales all by itself. The early episodes are the most bizarre and the most intriguing, because you never know what you're going to see next. We learn the origins of some things, like the guy in the gimp suit. Others, like the thing in the basement, are never really explained.
I want to reiterate that the series is really not very good on a fundamental level. The writing is wildly uneven, and the characters are little more than cyphers. All the women are prone to hysterics. All the men have roving eyes and are easily provoked. Ben and Vivien end up in shouting matches about every other episode. The wild twists and salacious content often comes at the price of bad characterization and shoddy logic. I don't think I've seen a show with so much convenient amnesia since "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." It often feels like the writers take the kitchen sink approach, just dumping more and more characters and horrible events into the mix every time things slow down. It's only well into the second half of the season that we start getting decent chunks of character development and proper through lines.
In many episodes, the biggest saving grace is the performances, particularly of Jessica Lange as the tough old Southern Belle, Constance Langdon. She's a twisted woman who does monstrous things, but it's hard not to sympathize with her. Constance could have so easily been another caricature, but Lange imparts her with a steely, knowing awareness and aura of tragedy. No matter what she claims, there's never a doubt that she knows better than anyone else what's going on. The kids, Evan Peters and Taissa Farmiga, are also very good. In a show where all the emotion is cranked up to operatic heights, it makes sense that the hormonal teenagers are the ones who seem the most emotionally genuine.
The only thing I did not like at all about the first season of "American Horror Story" was the ending, which felt like the creators were leaving things open-ended for another season with the same characters. This didn't happen, as the new "Asylum" storyline started over with an entirely new setting and characters, though several of the actors stuck around to play new parts. So I'm really looking forward to the next chapters of "American Horror Story," since the creators don't have any reason to hold back this time.
---
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Disney Buys Lucasfilm?!
Huge news out of Hollywood today, something I don't think anybody saw coming. The Walt Disney Company is acquiring Lucasfilm Ltd for $4 billion, roughly the same amount they spent to acquire Marvel and its properties three years ago. The deal will include the rights to the "Star Wars" franchise, and Disney has wasted no time in announcing that they will be producing a new "Star Wars" trilogy, the first installment projected for release in 2015.
A couple of preliminary thoughts here. George Lucas has long been pointed to as an example of a filmmaking maverick. After the success of the original "Star Wars," he set up shop in Northern California, shunning the Hollywood establishment for decades. Though the "Star Wars" films were distributed through 20th Century Fox, he retained almost total control over his productions, including the all-important merchandising rights that made him a fortune from "Star Wars" toys and other products. He founded one of the most famous effects houses, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which is still a huge player in the effects industry, and recently resurrected its own animation division and made the Oscar-winning "Rango." ILM, along with gaming company LucasArts, and Skywalker Sound will be part of the acquisition. Lucas turning over his companies to one of the largest entertainment corporations in the world can be seen to represent a further consolidation of filmmaking resources, a trend that some may find troubling.
This falls right in line with Disney's recent strategy of acquiring major brands, including Marvel, PIXAR, and the Jim Henson Company. And I suppose it makes the most sense for Lucasfilm to have been sold to Disney over any of the other Hollywood behemoths, considering its existing ties to Disney and PIXAR. PIXAR originated as a Lucasfilm division before being spun out into a separate company, and Disney and Lucasfilm have partnered together before for "Star Tours" and "Captain EO" at the Disney theme parks. But after holding out for so long, why would George Lucas decide to sell now? Does this means he's quitting the film business? Maybe he's just saying goodbye to heading the corporate empire and going back to the little experimental films he made back at the beginning of his career. Maybe he got tired of starships and aliens, and figured Disney was in the best position to look out for the "Star Wars" franchise. Or maybe the money was just too good to pass up. We'll never know.
The new "Star Wars" trilogy in the works is a big announcement, one that I find myself inexplicably happy about even though we know absolutely nothing about it right now. I disliked the prequels, but I I still think the "Star Wars" universe has a lot of potential with the right talent involved. And after a twelve year break since "Revenge of the Sith," I think I'm ready for someone to take another shot. I liked the Extended Universe novels when I was in high school, but part of me is hoping for a really radical reinvention that will put some significant distance between the new "Star Wars" films and the older ones. I wouldn't even be opposed to a reboot at this point. However, the major caveat is that George Lucas may still be involved with the new movies creatively, and the greater the extent of his participation, the less interested I'll be.
I have to wonder how this is going to affect the current plans in place for the franchise that we already know about. Are we still getting more 3D conversions of the first six "Star Wars" films? What about that "Star Wars" universe live action television show? Are Marvel universe cross-overs a possibility now? I guess "Clone Wars" is moving to the Disney Channel if it continues. Also, is there a possibility of Disney doing anything with some of the other Lucasfilm properties like "Willow" and "Monkey Island"? Of course the other big Lucasfilm franchise is "Indiana Jones," but Paramount still has a piece of that one, which will probably complicate matters. Also, I don't think the fanboys have quite gotten over "Crystal Skull" yet. It may take a few more years.
And what about the existing films? I think Fox still controls the distribution rights for now, but if Disney is at the helm, does this mean an end to all the special and upgraded editions that have swapped out the old practical effects with CGI? Will we finally be getting decent releases of the original, unaltered films? Disney is pretty notorious about home media releases itself, with the Disney Vault and all. They've also edited some of their own films for content over the years, but never as drastically as George Lucas did.
So many questions and so many possibilities.
But first, to find the inevitable commemorative mash-up fanart. Vader Mickeys, here we come!
---
A couple of preliminary thoughts here. George Lucas has long been pointed to as an example of a filmmaking maverick. After the success of the original "Star Wars," he set up shop in Northern California, shunning the Hollywood establishment for decades. Though the "Star Wars" films were distributed through 20th Century Fox, he retained almost total control over his productions, including the all-important merchandising rights that made him a fortune from "Star Wars" toys and other products. He founded one of the most famous effects houses, Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), which is still a huge player in the effects industry, and recently resurrected its own animation division and made the Oscar-winning "Rango." ILM, along with gaming company LucasArts, and Skywalker Sound will be part of the acquisition. Lucas turning over his companies to one of the largest entertainment corporations in the world can be seen to represent a further consolidation of filmmaking resources, a trend that some may find troubling.
This falls right in line with Disney's recent strategy of acquiring major brands, including Marvel, PIXAR, and the Jim Henson Company. And I suppose it makes the most sense for Lucasfilm to have been sold to Disney over any of the other Hollywood behemoths, considering its existing ties to Disney and PIXAR. PIXAR originated as a Lucasfilm division before being spun out into a separate company, and Disney and Lucasfilm have partnered together before for "Star Tours" and "Captain EO" at the Disney theme parks. But after holding out for so long, why would George Lucas decide to sell now? Does this means he's quitting the film business? Maybe he's just saying goodbye to heading the corporate empire and going back to the little experimental films he made back at the beginning of his career. Maybe he got tired of starships and aliens, and figured Disney was in the best position to look out for the "Star Wars" franchise. Or maybe the money was just too good to pass up. We'll never know.
The new "Star Wars" trilogy in the works is a big announcement, one that I find myself inexplicably happy about even though we know absolutely nothing about it right now. I disliked the prequels, but I I still think the "Star Wars" universe has a lot of potential with the right talent involved. And after a twelve year break since "Revenge of the Sith," I think I'm ready for someone to take another shot. I liked the Extended Universe novels when I was in high school, but part of me is hoping for a really radical reinvention that will put some significant distance between the new "Star Wars" films and the older ones. I wouldn't even be opposed to a reboot at this point. However, the major caveat is that George Lucas may still be involved with the new movies creatively, and the greater the extent of his participation, the less interested I'll be.
I have to wonder how this is going to affect the current plans in place for the franchise that we already know about. Are we still getting more 3D conversions of the first six "Star Wars" films? What about that "Star Wars" universe live action television show? Are Marvel universe cross-overs a possibility now? I guess "Clone Wars" is moving to the Disney Channel if it continues. Also, is there a possibility of Disney doing anything with some of the other Lucasfilm properties like "Willow" and "Monkey Island"? Of course the other big Lucasfilm franchise is "Indiana Jones," but Paramount still has a piece of that one, which will probably complicate matters. Also, I don't think the fanboys have quite gotten over "Crystal Skull" yet. It may take a few more years.
And what about the existing films? I think Fox still controls the distribution rights for now, but if Disney is at the helm, does this mean an end to all the special and upgraded editions that have swapped out the old practical effects with CGI? Will we finally be getting decent releases of the original, unaltered films? Disney is pretty notorious about home media releases itself, with the Disney Vault and all. They've also edited some of their own films for content over the years, but never as drastically as George Lucas did.
So many questions and so many possibilities.
But first, to find the inevitable commemorative mash-up fanart. Vader Mickeys, here we come!
---
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