Disappear Here

The Fall of BSG

2009-04-03T10:49:00.000-07:00

I would like to start by letting you know that I have a particularly special relationship with Battlestar Galactica. Right after I was introduced to the show I experienced a particularly shocking and life altering medical diagnosis. When I came out of the (robo)hospital, I found myself with lots of recovery time and little to do. Fortunately, I had watched the first episode (I didn’t watch the miniseries ‘til years later), and a friend loaned me the complete first season. And then I got a hold of the 2nd season. This ragtag group of humans kept me sane as the worst days of recovery passed by. The themes of the show sucked me in, and despite some less-than-stellar chunks, it remained consistently smarter and better done than any other show on TV at the time. Battlestar Galactica nursed me back to health. As such, it will always hold a very, very special place next to my heart.

But BSG could never quite overcome its limitations, which grew exponentially as the series went on and reached a head in the post-New Caprica episodes. The show lost its way and never recovered. It got mired in a shoot-first-figure-it-out-later mindset which only grew with time, leading us to the series finale. To here. To now.

The BSG finale was a failure. I’m putting it out there. On the internet, many have argued about what they did and did not like, but on a critical level I have to tell you: Ron Moore let us down. Which isn’t to say I didn’t enjoy the finale -- I’ll get to that later -- but as a culmination of the themes and characters the show has dealt with for four seasons, it was a let down.

Because at its core, BSG was never really about robots or spaceships or other worlds and galaxies or faster-than-light travel. It was a show about people. About humans and humanity. The decisions we make when there are no good decisions. Just bad and worse. And in that way, BSG let us down.

To begin with, there was a point when BSG decided that whatever logic it was operating on would no longer apply -- that the problems the writers had created were too great, too “out-there” to resolve in a realistic-within-the-BSG-universe way. I will tell you, dear reader, that the episode where we discover that Ellen is the final cylon, and she is rebirthed on Cavill’s Basestar was very nearly the last episode I ever watched. It was clear in this episode that the writers had lost their way, and all attempts to cover this up earlier had succeeded in making them look merely misdirected and confused. In fact, I’d argue that the whole bit with the reveal of the Final Five was when the show really began to come apart. Characters we already know? Who all happened to survive the Cylon Armageddon in the Colonies? Who all happened to be in positions of power in the remaining fleet? I should have known BSG had lost its way then, but I kept on trucking, hoping for a real resolution that made sense, that was cohesive, that felt right.

But the Ellen episode (and the Earth-based Final Five flashbacks) drove a stake straight through that hope by giving us all sorts of crap about the Cylon colony on Earth, about the Final Five’s lives before their own personal hell, before being resurrected again and traveling across the universe and...

This is why people hate science fiction. A disconnect from humanity. BSG stopped being great when it stopped being about humanity and started being about mythology. There’s no emotional connection to mythology -- one of the things LOST has managed to do is keep its characters at the forefront while making the mythology a strong background. BSG lost (excuse me) its way when it put the mythology first and the characters second.

So enough with the grousing, let’s get into the finale.

The action was tight. I enjoyed it, it was a good time, and the Centurion-on-Centurion shit was dope, dawg. I do wish we had seen the battle in the CIC that we missed, but the element of action was great. I wish the moment where Caprica and Baltar both realized they were seeing head people had been less... silly. Generally, I think Baltar was misused, and the big reveal to what the shit the fucking Opera House dreams were about was stupid. Stupid stupid stupid. Because it essentially meant nothing at all -- there was no change of dynamic, no big reveal. It was just “Oh, Caprica and Baltar find Hera and bring her to the CIC. Because Roslin is dumb and should not be in charge of children, and Athena is a bad parent.” What a let down after seasons and seaons for visions.

Then we get into more resurrection shit, and we get the great moment where Tyrol (CHIEF) strangles Tory for being a dumb bitch and killing Cally and all sorts of other terrible crap. This leads Cavill to assume (naturally, of course, what else would you assume when your enemies start killing each other? Oh. Wait...) that he’s been betrayed, Adama and co. cap the rest of the bad cylons, Cavill blows his brains out (“FRAK ME!”) and God intervenes to destroy the Bad-Cylon Colony, Starbuck inputs the corresponding digits from the goddamned Dylan song, and hey, look, they’re on Earth, like, our Earth, not some burnt out crusty Earth. Way to be with that, Ron Moore. That’s like me taking my friend Chase hostage and threatening to shoot him unless I get a ransom. Then I shoot Chase and everyone’s freaking out and I’m like “No, guys, simmer down -- I shot this other Chase who no one knew I was keeping hostage, so the real Chase is still alive. See? See? Look how clever I am.”

What’s especially awesome is that this happens halfway through the episode, meaning that we have another hour to slog through. And what a slog it is. While there are great moments on Earth, it feels rushed, and so many characters are given short shrift so we can watch Adama and Roslin be emo together for an endless series of scenes.

No one protests that giving up all their technology is maybe not such a great idea? Like, you know, their medicine and what not? And, OK, God put them on this planet with these genetically “compatible” because he wanted to and so on and so forth. Listen, Starbuck being an angel sent to guide mankind is more believable to me -- and more thematically resonant -- than having protohumans who can magically interbreed with our Humans and Cylons. Was this really necessary? Having contemporary humanity be descendants of Humans and Cylons without these weird cavemen wasn’t good enough? OK. Whatever. Not going to get hung up on that.

But we watch Roslin die for about two scenes too many, while we get a line from Chief about moving to England, and the rest of the cast is just seen wandering in their separate groups to be divided up amongst the Earth’s continents. Because we spend a whole HOUR on new-Earth and we don’t get resolutions for the majority of the characters. What about Lee? What has ever been up with Lee. Way to let us down, BSG team, because you were building towards something great with him and you either gave up or got bored.

And what was with the flashbacks? Really, were they necessary? Did we learn anything real from them?

I tried watching the finale again and couldn’t do it. I honestly couldn’t get myself to sit down and deal with all these issues again, because ultimately BSG let me down. Ron Moore, you let me down. In great art there is a clear vision, and that was lacking in BSGs final chunk. Maybe this is due to Moore being distracted by the variety of other projects he’s working on. Maybe he deferred too much to other strong writers in the room, like Jane Espenson. Or maybe he was just exhausted from working so hard on the show for so long. But either way, the lack of a clear end game, an unfortunate focus on the mythology instead of characters, and lazy writing lead one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen to become, in its later years, just another mediocre space soap opera.

Considering how many space soaps there are, I should be glad we ever had anything nearing the level of greatness that BSG sometimes reached. I should be glad we had it at all. I just wish it realized how much it meant to some of us.

-RoboNixon

The ADD of Jack White

2009-03-12T14:39:00.000-07:00

While surfing the internet today I discovered that fave musician of mine, Mr. Jack White III, purveyor of rock 'n roll mana from the heavens in the form of The White Stripes and The Raconteurs, has formed yet another band (another supergroup, if you will) called The Dead Weather.

This is both awesome and unawesome at the same time.

It is awesome because Jack White is singlehandedly rescuing rock 'n roll from it's sad Top 40/Nickelback-style fate. Most of his (I use the term loosely) albums are fantastic, and even when they aren't, they're interesting at the very least. You can check out the fawning review of the latest Raconteur's album I wrote a while back if you can't fathom my love for the man.

It is un-awesome because it means that we will undoubtedly have to wait for another album from The White Stripes and The Raconteurs to drop. Sigh.

But as long as Mr. White keeps a-rockin', I'll come a-knockin'.

-RoboNixon

Photo hijacked from Moviecitynews.com

Fans Ruined Watchmen

2009-03-11T15:19:00.000-07:00

Greetings, dear reader. As you see, Disappear Here went on a bit of sabbatical following the new year. But here we are, in March, no less, and it's time we get back to the work at hand -- whining about any and everything in popular culture.

My first target?

WATCHMEN.

Based on the 80’s graphic novel -- cited by Time Magazine as one of the hundred best novels of the past century -- the film is long, expensive, and ambitious.

And a failure.

A caveat: I enjoy mindless, stupid entertainment such as Bad Boys II or Pearl Harbor, etc., etc. In much the same way that I enjoyed those films, so too did I enjoy WATCHMEN.

Which is to say, as a mindless, stupid, overly-long piece of cinematic entertainment.

So how did an amazing graphic novel that changed the tone of comics forever after become such an (entertaining) mess?

The fans.

Often hailed as unfilmable, WATCHMEN has been in development since its publication. But it’s epic, sprawling story has been impossible to wrangle into a manageable narrative, giving the project the air of “always a bridesmaid, never the bride.” But director Zack Snyder -- he of the execrable 300 -- decided that a literal adaptation of WATCHMEN best suited the project. His decision was hailed by fanboys all across the internet (who, incidentally, all love the film). But it is this adaptation that WATCHMEN fails so completely.

This is not a review, but rather thoughts I’ve been having about the movie. My “review,” is that the film looks beautiful, is exceptionally silly, but is entertaining in a pure “sweet-baby-jesus” kind of way.

WATCHMEN fails because Mr. Snyder failed to adapt the story of the graphic novel. Instead, he, and the millions of fanboys across Internetlandia, decided that literally adapting the graphic novel to the screen (with minor changes to suit the modern era, and the expected length of films) was to be preferred over a real adaptation of the film.

Come with me for a moment.

If you had read the novel Jurassic Park, without seeing the film, you would have expected a very different beast than what Steven Spielberg shot for your pleasure. Characters are cut or altered; the main relationship between the adult leads is merely hinted at in the film, whereas it is explicit and central in the book; action scenes are cut; characters who live in the book die in the film; characters who die in the book live in the film. And so forth. Yet it cannot be argued that Jurassic Park struck a chord. Yet, being adapted (by the original novelist, Mr. Michael Crichton, and hit-maker David Koepp, no less) for the screen, as opposed to being literal, saved the story. The gist of Jurassic Park the book was transferred to the screen, even while many changes were made to the narrative and characters. The spirit of the book lived on in celluloid.

Another classic: To Kill a Mockingbird. The film is considered by many I know to be “perfect.” And yet the film and the novel differ in many ways. Details from the book are absent from the film, with whole passages excised to fit the narrative into a two hour film. Yet, once again, To Kill a Mockingbird is a perfect adaptation because it captures the spirit of the book. It tells the story of the novel, without becoming bogged down in the nitty gritty. Hell is in the details, I have heard.

This is precisely where WATCHMEN suffers. Rather than adapt the story of psychologically damaged superheroes, incapable of staving off the impending (and possibly necessary) holocaust, it becomes a spectacle of showing off insider cred and spectacle. Action scenes are added -- just because, without thought to how it affects the characters. Secondary characters and scenes are kept to show how “faithful” to the novel the production was. Important scenes were cut because they didn’t “drive the main narrative.”

Snyder didn’t adapt the story. He adapted the graphic novel. Literally.

And in this way he missed out on making a movie that really said something, that was really about something.

One of the main “awesome points” for the fans is that the film takes place in the alternate-universe 1985, when the graphic novel took place. But this allows them to forget that the book was portraying what was, at the time, a contemporary alternate universe. In the film, we got an alternate past. It removes the viewer from the film. The 80’s sucked, but they didn’t suck in the same way that now does.

And sticking the film in the original time of the novel allows Snyder to punish the audience with a terrible Richard Nixon. As if Richard Nixon being president and abusing the power he has with superheroes is the point -- the point being that the United States Government, corrupt regardless of who the President happens to be -- would always use Dr. Manhattan in the same way. That conflict would always arise when one nation has a literal superman and the rest do not. That Dr. Manhattan is as much a metaphor as he is a character.

Not only that, but the time period allows Snyder to assault the viewer with music from the times -- and with the exception of the opening montage set to Dylan, it is distracting and annoying.

Because ultimately the focus is on the graphic novel rather than the characters or the story. Characters having sex in a hovercraft, accidentally hitting the flamethrower button during orgasm? An amusing comment, in the graphic novel, on the inanity of comic books; on the immature treatment of sexuality; the silliness of the moment. In the book, so loud, so boisterous, so in your face, it’s an American Pie moment -- “Look, they’re cumming, so it’s funny that the craft shoots out flames! GET IT?!”

Yes, Mr. Snyder. I get it.

A friend of mine commented that they loved the film so much due to it’s conflicting, false portrayal of “good.” What is “good” in the WATCHMEN world, when it causes to much bad to so many? This is an idea that is gone into in great depth in the graphic novel, but the movie rushes through so much that these ideas aren’t fully developed. The story is about the impotence (sometimes literally) of supermen to change the world by fighting crime at its source. It’s also about how silly it is to expect anything from such a method, anyway. And so much of that is missing from the film.

Instead, Snyder decided to focus on action and literalness. Arms are broken. People exploded. But the quiet moments from the story are all missing -- instead of more time with Laurie and her own conflict over her very existence, we get arms being rotor-sawed off in prison. And so forth.

But subtlety is not Mr. Snyder’s trade. WATCHMEN disappointed me because there is -- literally -- so much to mine from the graphic novel. To truly make the movie about something that wasn’t the graphic novel.

I’d like to go into how he also doesn’t know how to direct actors -- how any sort of subtle, emotional moment in the film is ruined by clunky acting by good actors, but I am running long, and I’d like to wrap it up.

I wish WATCHMEN had lived up to the graphic novel instead of being the graphic novel. I wish Snyder had decided to tell the story, as opposed to the graphic novel. I wish he had taken the time to direct his actors. Or think about what a world would be like now with masked heroes who only ever made things worse.

Instead, he treated WATCHMEN like a loving, inept boyfriend -- worshipping at your feet, without taking the time to ask her about your feelings. WATCHMEN is the most shallow kind of adaptation.

Literal. And dumb.

Over and out.

-RoboNixon

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film. Please comment below.

EDIT: On Ain't It Cool News, screenwriter David Hayter, one of the two credited writers on the project, takes time to talk about his opinion of the film [that he worked on].

Check it out. But I also wanted to take the time to look at one particular thing he says:

The point is, I have listened for years, to complaints from true comic book fans, that "not enough movies take the source material seriously." "Too many movies puss out," or "They change great stories, just to be commercial." Well, I f***ing dare you to say any one of those things about this movie.

The thing he's leaving out is the question of why you would adapt something if you aren't going to tell it in a particular way -- why would you adapt something so literally? Why not just have people read the comic?

And for the record, I'm not saying they should have or could have drastically changed the story of the graphic novel for cinema. I'm saying that by paying so much attention to the FANS -- but a small segment of the film-going community -- they limited their perspective on the story, and instead of telling something that meant something to them through the story, they merely told the graphic novel.

Just like the best song covers bring something new to the table, so too are the best adaptations. Film is a similar, but different medium than ink and words, and in keeping so close to the fanboys insistence, on the fanboys' vision, they blinded themselves to the possibilities.

Why "Flight of the Conchords" Hits My Gender-Studies G-Spot

2009-03-07T11:13:00.000-08:00

Two young men from New Zealand are playing acoustic guitars and rapping in front of a live audience. This is supposed to be funny in itself, and indeed, the audience is appreciative. The joke isn't particularly new or original, and the two men, Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement, exhibit no ambition to transcend the simple, ancient gag of nerdy white guys rapping: "Yes, sometimes my lyrics are sexist / But you lovely bitches and hos should know I'm trying to correct this." "Other rappers dis me / Say my rhymes are sissy / Why? Why? What? Why? / Be more constructive with your feedback!" "Ain't no party like my nana's tea party!" But the audience laughs; the audience loves it. Encouraged, the two men begin to improvise, instigating a playful call-and-response with the audience. "When I go ooh, all the ladies go ahh!" The audience complies, and so on. Finally McKenzie instructs, "When I go ooh, all the ladies go, Ooh, Flight of the Conchords, you're so big!" Lazily, he strums a few chords. "Ooh!"

And all at once a primal squeal erupts from the audience, a roar of pure, concentrated female human lust. It is an earth-shaking, magnificent sound, one that is rarely heard outside of Beatles concerts in the early '60s, or midnight book-release parties for new installments of Twilight. It is the scream of collective female sexuality unbound, and it says:

"OOOOOH, FLIGHT OF THE CONCHORDS, YOU'RE SO BIG!!!!!!"

McKenzie and Clement sit onstage, frozen, out of character, apparently genuinely astonished. There is an awkward silence.

"Wow, thank you," mumbles McKenzie.

Clement scratches the back of his head shyly. "Thank you, ladies," he says. "You didn't have to say that."

And the audience collapses in nervous, embarrassed giggles. What have they just revealed about themselves? What just happened?

What just happened? To an outside observer, the question is mystifying. Even to fans of Flight of the Conchords, such a level of adoration might seem out of proportion. After all, it is an unspoken secret among their fans that Flight of the Conchords are really not very good. Their humor is always gentle and inoffensive, but falls squarely in the tedious Eddie Izzard genre of quotable British-Commonwealth whimsy, whose appeal is perilously inextricable from its foreign accent. As parodists, they are excruciating at least as often as they are on the money. As comedians, they are mediocre at worst; as musicians, they are mediocre at best. McKenzie's voice is reedy and weak; Clement's is frequently off key. Perhaps this is part of the joke, but if so, the joke is rather feeble. This is cast into especially sharp relief during the rare moments on their TV show when McKenzie and Clement do manage to hit that magical sweet spot of tunefulness and hilarity, usually with the help of a talented director (like Michel Gondry); and even then, half the pleasure is visual.

There is, however, another unspoken secret among Flight of the Conchords fans, and it is peculiar that it has gone unspoken for so long. Most of the fans -- the really devoted ones, the diehard fanatics who run the fansites and write the slash fiction and shriek "You're so big!" on command -- are women.

Why should this be? On the surface, the answer is obvious. Just look at Bret and Jemaine: they are so cute.

In 2007, Salon.com selected them for their list of Sexiest Living Men, reasoning: "A guy with a guitar is hot. A guy with an accent is hot. And a guy who can make us laugh is really, really hot. What, then, could be better than a man who embodies all of the above? Two men who do." Fair enough -- but the question remains: why do they make us laugh? And why is it so hot when they do?

This is why: there is a sexual undercurrent to the comedy of Flight of the Conchords. It is largely unremarked upon, and passes unnoticed by critics and male fans and, possibly, by McKenzie and Clement themselves. Like a dog whistle, it is perceptible only to women, and in response -- without understanding quite why, only sensing it on an instinctual level -- they go wild.

For McKenzie and Clement are the most sexually objectified men on television, outside of gay porn. So much of their comedy depends on their sexual passivity, on one or both of them taking the female sexual role, submissive to sexually dominant women. Over the course of two seasons of Flight of the Conchords, Bret McClegnie and Jemaine Clemaine (as their characters on the show are named) have been pressured into sex, coerced into sex, forced into sex, tricked into sex, and drugged into sex. They have been violated, degraded, and humiliated by the women who fuck them. In every episode, they are sexually harassed by a predatory female stalker named Mel. They have been sexually taken advantage of, and then made to feel ashamed for it. They have been tied up; they have been forced to wear uncomfortable, sexually provocative outfits. They have even been driven into prostitution. There is no female sexual indignity, short of an unwanted pregnancy, to which Bret and Jemaine have not been subjected.

There is no other show on television so focused on the bodies of its male characters. It took a while for this pattern to develop on the show, but as it did, the fanbase swelled. The feminization of Bret and Jemaine really took hold in the sixth episode, "Bowie," which centers on Bret and Jemaine's "body image issues" -- a gendered phrase if there ever was one -- and Bret's perceived struggle with bulimia. Bret attempts to regain his confidence by exposing his body in public, but finds that this only makes his self-esteem worse. The simplicity of the gender role reversal is brilliant: the plot wouldn't be a joke at all if Bret and Jemaine were women.

The sexual objectification began a bit later, in the eighth episode, "Girlfriends" -- perhaps the show's best episode ever. In "Girlfriends," Bret dates a sexually aggressive woman named Lisa, whose advances make Bret uncomfortable. An entire gender-studies thesis could be written about the gender switch that is the central joke of this episode. When Bret confides to his friends, they suggest that he's "asking for it" by "showing too much skin." Bret attempts to cover up, but Lisa persists. She forces herself into his apartment and wakes him up in the middle of the night, coercing him into sex using familiar male guilt tactics: "Come on. Just give me a little sugar. You've been kissing me all night, Bret. It's been driving me crazy. You have to give me just a little something something. It's kind of an unspoken rule." She finally coerces him into sex with a sob story about being deployed to Iraq the next day. Bret capitulates, and the sex is violent and one-sided, ending with Lisa fast asleep on top of Bret. Feeling dirty and violated, Bret retreats to the shower with his clothes on, like a confused schoolgirl -- and the next day, he is humiliated to learn that Lisa has tricked him. She isn't going to Iraq, and having used him, she has no interest in seeing him again. Bret protests, in one of the show's greatest lines ever, "But you said you loved me! You had sex on me!" The episode ends in a perfect tableau of gender-switched slut-shaming when Bret finds himself pursued by a gang of rapacious women, who sleazily ask, "Are you Bret? We hear you like to have a good time."

Bret and Jemaine suffer date rape once again in the tenth episode, "New Fans," wherein a predatory groupie coerces them into dropping "acids" and then gets them to have a threesome with her. They are reluctant, but too polite to say no. The episode ends with the revelation that a webcam has been installed in Bret and Jemaine's shared bedroom, and that their female stalker, Mel, watches them every night.

All this role reversal is funny, of course, in the same way that nerdy white guys rapping is funny. But unexpectedly, it also happens to be sexy, perhaps uniquely so for women. If men want to see beautiful women's bodies sexually objectified, they need only look to the entirety of Western culture. But what about women? The conventional pop-science wisdom is that women are less visual than men in their sexual arousal, but it's difficult to argue this convincingly when women have so little to be visual about. Even gay porn is not meant for their eyes. What do they have? Now they have Flight of the Conchords.

And so the sexual objectification of Bret and Jemaine continues into season two, and this time around, McKenzie and Clement seem to be in on the joke. In "The New Cup," Bret and Jemaine fall into hard times and turn to prostitution -- selling themselves to women, of course. The premise is surreal, and Flight of the Conchords plays it absolutely straight, from Jemaine's skimpy, skintight hooker-outfit, to people's mixed reactions of moral outrage and paternalistic concern at his plight. "Jemaine," sings Bret, in a parody of "Roxanne, "you don't have to be a prostitute! / You can say no to being a man-ho!.../He sends cheap thrills to pay expensive bills / But check your resumé -- you must have other skills! / Do you have any other skills? Like typing?" And a pole-dancing Jemaine sings, with all the damsel-in-distress bathos of your typical movie prostitute: "I cannot see my way out. / Male prostitution seems to be my only option."

The aesthetic of "The New Cup" is noticeably different from that of, say, "Girlfriends." This time around, Bret and Jemaine seem to be sexually aware of their own bodies, vamping for the camera like the scantily clad girls who writhe in MTV videos. The episode's other song, "Sugalumps," was criticized by some fans for being too similar to the Season One song "She's So Hot (Boom)." But watching them side-by-side reveals a profound difference in Bret and Jemaine's physicality. In the Season One song, their movements are simply goofy -- they flail around asexually like young boys:

But by Season Two, Bret and Jemaine appear to have developed an awareness of how their female fanbase sees them. When Bret spreads his legs he is not entirely kidding, and Jemaine, especially, has perfected his veneer of passive fuckability: staring vacantly into the camera, slack-jawed, caressing himself, bucking his hips and throwing his head back in a "take me" position, he is a perfect caricature of receptive female hotness.

This season, Bret and Jemaine have been advertising their bodies to women in a manner that might really be unprecedented. Male comedians jokingly put their bodies on display all the time, but who, besides McKenzie and Clement, has ever dared to take that extra step and pose sincerely, for the sexual gratification of their fans, just as female celebrities do? It cannot be a coincidence that within the first seven episodes alone Bret and Jemaine have pole-danced, whored themselves, dressed up for kinky sex with a fetishistic woman; they've been tied up, painted in a nude portrait, and mistaken multiple times for lovers -- that eternal female fantasy. The music video for last week's song, "Demon Woman," really went over the top: with Bret and Jemaine thrusting their pelvises in all-black-letter getups, and Jemaine, in one glorious moment, going shirtless altogether, there can be no doubt remaining that they are playing to their audience.

Flight of the Conchords is scheduled to end in two weeks, supposedly for good, leaving a hole in the fantasy lives of women. The odds are that the last few episodes will be largely underwhelming, as most of them tend to be, and many people will wonder at the massive outcry when the show disappears. What, they'll wonder, are these fans going to miss?

This is what we're going to miss: porn. Porn that only we recognize as porn -- porn that's just for us, porn that we have spent our whole lives searching for, but never found until Flight of the Conchords. We'll miss knowing that at least one show out there recognizes us as sexual beings with our own sexual desires, and simply gratifies them, without objectifying us in the process. This is why we love Bret and Jemaine.

Also, just look at them. They are so cute.

What My High School Librarian Thought of "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button"

2009-01-05T18:43:00.000-08:00

I love David Fincher. I thought it was bullshit when people kept saying that M. Night Shyamalan was the "next Hitchcock" because David Fincher is actually the next Hitchcock. Not that I think there actually is a "next" Hitchcock, but as a facsimile Fincher's films are contemplative, precise, and most importantly -- thrilling. "The Game" is to "The Man Who Knew Too Much" as "Panic Room" is to "Rear Window" with some "Psycho" and echoes of "Lifeboat." Even Fincher's 2007 film, "Zodiac," channels Hitch's wandering and dream-like "Vertigo." While not a direct copycat (like that fucker Shyamalan, who thinks he can put himself in every one of his "movies") I like to think that as a conduit for Hitchcock, Fincher does what the man would have done had he access to the digital wizardry of modern cinema. Fincher's camera work in "Panic Room" alone would have made Hitch jealous, I'm sure. Plus they both have pretty awesome last names.

So, I wasn't sure what to make of "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button" (CCBB... that's right, I acronymed that shit...) before I went in. I had read some praise for the film, but it wasn't as if people were shouting "Go see this movie!" like it was "Slumdog Millionaire." I was worried that Fincher, thinking outside the Gweneth Paltrow's head-in-a-box box from "Seven" would be too emotionally distant for a movie written by Eric Roth, the master of what-to-feel and when-to-feel-it American landscapes like "Forest Gump" and "The Horse Whisperer" (the guy also wrote the Kevin Costner end-of-the-world... thing, "The Postman"). Still, I rushed home from Christmas in Connecticut to catch a matinee.

I Saw a ton of movies over the holiday. "The Wrestler" was great, a living Springsteen song. "Bolt" was fun, especially in 3-D. Walked out of "Valkyrie" and asked "what was the point??" However, CCBB really grabbed me, but I wasn't really able to put my finger on WHY. While visiting my high school, I struck up a conversation with my librarian and family friend about the film. She is an enthusiastic cinephile in her own right, as well as a published author and her sentiments on pop culture are always thought-provoking. Her response to the old "What did you think of it?" was so far from what I had seen in the film on my own, as well as what popular criticism is saying about it (A.O. scott in the NY Times fixates on the "triumphs of technique" it has to offer) that I felt the need to relay it here. Randi has a way of speaking in public that, almost like the film, allows time to pass without notice. Before I knew it, half an hour had flown by and I was already asking her permission to blog about what she'd just said moments before. She said yes. I hope I do your thesis justice, Randi.

________________________________________________

"My name is Benjamin Button and I was born under unusual circumstances. While everybody else was aging, I was getting younger. All alone."

"There's a political message there, I'm certain." This was what intrigued me. Political? I saw NOTHING of the sort here, only Brad Pitt in digital make-up. I had to hear more.

"The film says Americans have done nothing for the past fifty years except look back. Looking back in time, this is all we do." Off my blank stare: "It's a warning!" Still nothing.

"The clock." Yes, CCBB begins with the story of a clock being built to run backward. I overlooked this upon my initial viewing as a thematic device, one which sets in motion the "curious" life of Mr. Button. Randi sees it as a kind of alternate history, if I understand her point correctly. The prologue indicates that the clockmaker reversed time in order to try and set history straight. We see his son go off to war, then die in combat. Before we begin the meat of the movie, Fincher rewinds time (combat scene and all) as if to say -- forget World War I. Forget Eisenhower warned against everything that has actually come to pass. Let's start when America was fresh-faced and care-free. So, this is where Fincher begins his tale. The war is over. People are celebrating in the streets and a baby is born 80 years young.

As Benjamin ages and sees the world around him change, I couldn't help but notice his passivity. Was it Brad Pitt's stony performance or was it Roth's script? Randi shed some light on it: "The whole time he's unable to process the world around him because he's the equivalent of that clock." So, he's living a fantasy? "Yes." He doesn't respond, doesn't change, doesn't really ever DO anything in regards to his surroundings. Button just up and decides he's gonna go work on a tug boat (a symbol in its own right, dragging heavy, wounded ships through the ocean as if it were time itself.) Then he's drafted by his captain to fight in the war, a weird way of involving him in a conflict that I thought was really pushing it... Turns out, it's true. When Benjamin's whole crew is killed, he doesn't feel sad or remorseful for them. He just stands atop the battleship that rescues him, looks at his sunken boat and moves on. No grief, no thinking, no processing of any kind. I half expected him to march back to Queenie, his adopted mother, and recount the whole story. Doesn't happen.

There's a really stunning montage in the second half of the film that chronicles Benjamin and Daisy's (Blanchette) love affair as the world around them marches forward. It's not "Gumpy" in any sense of the word (Pitt doesn't do any hand-shaking with the president and then announce his need to urinate...) but there is one shot that really took my breath away. Benjamin and Daisy lounge on a sail boat in the Florida Keys as a rocket takes off behind them against the sunset. It's as if they never notice it, nor do they care. This shot, in particular, is in contrast with the drab "old-timey" ness that Fincher has referenced for the past hour and a half. As if to say, and Randi's thesis supports this, "look how far we've come... look how Benjamin Button doesn't care..."

But, Randi, what about the women? The miracle of Cate Blanchette, Tilda Swinton even. What about them? Randi put her hands on her hips. "That guy," I assumed she was talking, still, about Benjamin Button, "lived a life coddled by women!" This point was immediately clear to me. His father abandons him, leaves him to be cared for by the aforementioned Queenie. He loses his virginity to a prostitute. Meets up with Swinton in Russia, where he learns about caviar, vodka, extramarital affairs. Then returns to find the love of his life, Blanchette, all grown up and stunning. These women protect Benjamin from the dangers around him, and more importantly, from the real knowledge of what he is. None of them ever marvel at his "curious" case of aging backward (or, if they to, it's to point out that he's unique and special, never a freak or an abomination.) Daisy marvels, at one point when they're about the same age, that they're "meeting in the middle..." as if Benjamin's affliction is working in their favor, never to his detriment.

There is one "choice" Benjamin Button makes in the film, so far as I could tell. That's to leave Daisy because he couldn't bare to raise their child as he himself slowly devolves into one. This is troublesome in many ways to me. First, as a story point -- I suppose you could say it's Benjamin's turning point. He finally realizes his predicament will personally affect him -- so he tries to do something about it. Interesting, though in the context of Randi's argument, it seems less problematic. What if, at some point, Americans did realize that all they've been doing is looking backward -- to their detriment? What if they had a chance to get out of all their responsibilities to the world (to themselves) and just go... ride their motorcycle into the sunset? Fincher only allows this to happen for a short time, then Benjmain comes crawling back to Daisy to ask for forgiveness, etc, etc. Only to have her, once again, coddle him, tell him it's alright and ultimately take care of him as he wastes away to nothing (or, as Randi put it: "He dies a big baby!") This tell-tale ending, the unavoidable relapse, is so... American. We worry and worry and wring our hands over the economy and the war -- but we keep suckling the breast that feeds us and remembering how sweet that milk is, no matter how bitter the times. This is a dangerous formula, one that feeds my last point about the movie.

The framing device Fincher and Roth chose to use was grating, to me, because it seemed heavy handed (A.O. Scott calls it "superfluous and unduly portentous"). Why Katrina, of all the wretched tragedies of modern times? I didn't speak to Randi about this specifically (perhaps we ran out of time) but I think, using her thesis, I can make some sense out of it. First, while reading from Benjamin's diary, his daughter played by Julia Ormond is sped along by the hurricane's imminent landfall. Fine, it lends some urgency to the framing, nudges the story along at a nice pace. I think Randi would argue that, since the hurricane is of natural force (unlike war or a terrorist attack) we cannot avoid it -- it comes screaming, headstrong, right at us. Katrina, for me, sums up the failures of this country on many levels and -- looking back -- uncovered the harsh realities that exist (failure of infrastructure, failure of government on a vast scale) so why not make it that inescapable THING? By now, Benjamin is dead and we're left with an ailing Daisy barely able to tell the story herself. Her daughter must learn from the failures of her mother. From the failures of her father, such a curious case. This is why, perhaps, we never actually see Benjamin writing in said diary (also problematic). We don't need to -- he could never shed as much light on his case as the woman who coddled (failed) him and the monster hurricane we could never avoid.

_______________________________________________

There isn't as much levity in "CCBB" as Roth's "Forrest Gump." Not as many moments where the anguish is tempered with humor. There is one character, I'll call him "Lightning Joe" since I can't remember his name, that smacks of Bubba or even an aged Lieutenant Dan. This man, living in Queenie's retirement home, tells the story of how he was struck by lightning seven times, each time more odd than the next (getting the mail, walking the dog, etc). Lightning Joe, like Benjamin Button, can't seem to get his head out of the past. Maybe it was all that lightning that fried his brain, but I think Fincher (and Randi) wants us to take something else from it. Not only do these flashbacks get a special "old-timey" feel to them (all cracked and scratched on the negative) but they have a repetitiveness to them that should remind us of life itself. Everything happens over and over again, no matter how perplexing or coincidental it might be. This is the nugget of truth I carried out of the matinee we drove home to catch. Randi's spotlight polished said nugget. Let's keep our heads up. Let's keep moving. Learn from our mistakes, yes, but don't harp on them. Lest we all die big babies.

"Plus," Randi added, "We live in the age of Velcro. Who uses buttons anymore?"

--Saddam

January Looks Good To Me

2008-12-02T14:56:00.000-08:00

Phew. It's almost 2009. With Thanksgiving over and Jesus Day almost upon us, the whirlwind of the "Holiday" season will come and go with usual flair. ("I can't believe it's Kwanza ALREADY!") I don't know about you, but the post-holiday season tends be a pretty bleak one for me. All that build up for an orgasm of presents, then -- the postpartum sets in and suddenly all those Blu-Rays and presidential biographies you got just aren't enough to get you out of bed in the morning. If Bride Wars or Kevin James' first starring vehicle aren't enough for you... have no fear! This January holds many great and powerful wonders for us all to enjoy:

Battlestar Galactica (Sci-Fi Channel. Fri, Jan 16. 10/9C)

Only ten more episodes left until "Battlestar Galactica" (BSG) is done forever. If you haven't been watching -- you better frakin' start. This is the best show on television, period. I wish The Sopranos were still on, but it's not. So BSG is crowned #1.

I've tried to get friends, neighbors, even girlfriend to watch, all with various degrees of success. Sure, the title scares people. Yes, it sounds nerdy. No, it's NOTHING LIKE Star Trek. My pitch: "The West Wing in space..." This tends to raise eyebrows, since lots of people enjoyed THAT show (all seven seasons of it!) so the addition of OUTER SPACE is really the deciding factor here. Creator Ron Moore (a Star Trek vet) set out to make a work of science fiction that is decidedly mainstream and accessible. No aliens. No phasers. No "beaming" of any kind. Instead, the show raises the stakes and gives us an alternate universe where man and machine most certainly do not get along. Sci-Fi channel President David Howe recently gave BSG mad props: "Battlestar Galactica is absolutely our flagship show. It put us on the map and helped transform the perception of the network..." For a channel associated with Stargate: Atlantis, and other mind-numbing made for TV movies, BSG is leaps and bounds ahead of its time.

It's the show's jumping off point -- a war between mankind and the robots (or "Cylons") that they created, that makes BSG ripe with social commentary and relevant issues seemingly plucked from the headlines (a la The West Wing.) Not to mention, the action is grounded in reality (nukes instead of photon beams) and performances that are really fantastic. Edward James Olmos and Mary McDonnell, both Oscar-nominated, stand out amongst a slew of others.

Here's a nifty recap of the show so far and a viral site counting down to the Jan. 16th premier with all sorts of clever misleads and hints as to who the "final fifth" Cylon is. If this piques your interest, check out BSG on DVD. Better catch up over the holidays so you're up to speed for the Jan 16th premier!

Bruce Sprinsteen, "Working On A Dream" ( Tues, Jan 27)

Bruce Springsteen is the busiest man in rock and roll. Since "Devils And Dust" in 2005, The Boss has released an album each year, including a live recording of his 2007 tour with the Seeger Sessions Band. He took to the road in 2008 with his then still-complete E-Street Band (pianist Danny Federici passed away during the tour after a long battle with cancer) After releasing 2007's "Magic," the only album for my money that captured the pre-Obama zeitgeist of Americans both young and old, Bruce wasn't pissed off or apathetic. Instead, the metaphors he deals on "Magic" hold firm with Bruce's America -- a place where the blue collar, the common man, can rise above everyday strife. Take a look at the lyrics for "Long Walk Home" and you'll understand. Straight from the Boss's mouth:

"Towards the end of recording 'Magic,' excited by the return to pop production sounds, I continued writing. When my friend producer Brendan O'Brien heard the new songs, he said, 'Let's keep going.' Over the course of the next year, that's just what we did, recording with the E Street Band during the breaks on last year's tour. I hope 'Working on a Dream' has caught the energy of the band fresh off the road from some of the most exciting shows we've ever done. All the songs were written quickly, we usually used one of our first few takes, and we all had a blast making this one from beginning to end."

The title track from "Working On A Dream" is already available for download on iTunes, while another single, "My Lucky Day" is on Amazon for a limited time only.

It's interesting to compare these two singles to the single "Radio Nowhere" from "Magic." While "Radio" was Bruce calling for a revolution, singing about how "spinning 'round a dead dial" was no good for a country in desperate need of change, here he posits: "I'm working on a dream/though it can feel so far away/Sunrise comes/I climb a ladder/I'm working on a dream..." Already Bruce sees the light at the end of the tunnel. And he even WHISTLES on the track! Happy-Go-Lucky Springsteen!

Come January 27th, we'll have a new President in the Oval Office and Bruce will just be coming down from the high of his Superbowl halftime show. When Springsteen endorsed Barack Obama back in April, he said: "After the terrible damage done over the past eight years, a great American reclamation project needs to be undertaken." That project doesn't just come from the people in charge, as The Boss knows. "Working On A Dream" is meant to lift the heads of Americans so they can look up and see that light. It's as if Bruce and Barack are in sync and the future looks that much brighter.

Big Love. (HBO. Sun, Jan 11. 9PM)

HBO has relinquished the title of king of the one-hour drama, in my opinion, to channels like Showtime and AMC which have taken it upon themselves to copy the HBO style with hits like "Dexter" and "Mad Men." No longer do greats like "The Sopranos," "The Wire," and "Six Feet Under" reign. But there is one last vestige of hope for Home Box Office ("True Blood" I missed out on, we'll let that simmer for now...) It's "Big Love," the drama about Mormons, returning for its third season.

Bill "Express Elevator To Hell" Paxton plays a man (also named Bill) with three wives and a whole lot of emotional baggage living in Salt Lake City, Utah.

It was amazing to me when I first started watching that a show like this can carry with it such edge-of-your seat stakes. But there's a lot riding on Bill's personal life with his "sister wives" (played by Jeanne Tripplehorn, Chloe Sevigny, and Ginnifer Goodwin -- all brilliant) and keeping the fact that his a polygamist a secret from his community. The show is very funny at times and Bill's moral quandry is often a source of will-he or won't-he drama. What's so fascinating is the way HBO has tapped into an often misreprsented religious niche. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints certainly doesn't condone "Big Love" (or much of what's on TV, for that matter) but perhaps they should take another look. Bill and his wives are caring, compasionate, full-bodied characters with a great deal of knowledge of the world around them. And, in keeping with the Tony Soprano "formula" of the conflicted hero, HBO allows for "Big Love" to continue the tradition of high-art TV drama without all the killing and dreamscapes and blackout endings (read: more accessable!)

HBO has posted some pretty nifty "Story-So-Fars" on their official website that should bring all you uninitiated up to speed.

LOST. (ABC. Wed, Jan 21. 9/8C)

I had a conversation with my sister a while ago. She's as big a LOST fan as I am, but she refused to admit that the show falls under the science fiction banner. I thought this was interesting, but I didn't push it. I can hardly get her to even say the word "Lightsaber," let alone wrap her head around the wonderful world of sci-fi. But ABC's hit drama, entering it's second to last season is hands down, undoubtedly, sci-fi. This is why it rocks. I mean, it rocks for a lot of other reasons, but the fact that it warmly embraces the "unknown" and runs with it makes it that much more important. And, with my sister as an example, again brings sci-fi to the masses. Smoke monsters, time travel, prickly scientists, deserted island castaways... all thrown together into a bowl and mixed up a la a Stephen King novel. This is not the sole purpose of the show, of course, but one I feel that serves as a means to an end.

On the other hand, my girlfriend (who knowingly and willingly embraces science fiction, perhaps only to silence my cries of nerd-ness...) sees the show in a different light. I constantly find myself embracing the answer-this-question-with-another-question tendancy that LOST has. When, for instance, last season climaxed with Ben (Michael Emerson) telling his fellow cast aways that the only way to save themselves would be to "move the island" (gasp!) I think I literally shouted with glee. What the fuck did that mean!?! It didn't matter! It was unexpected and (more importantly) impossible! In the season 4 finale, when they ACTUALLY MOVED THE ISLAND -- I found my girlfriend slowly shaking her head. "What?" I asked. "It doesn't make sense!" she replied. "But honey. It's science fiction..."

Not a good enough explanation for her.

LOST is a show that people put up with or don't. I put up with it because I trust creators Damon Lindeloff and Carlton Cuse with the direction they want to take the story. For a short while (season 3-ish) I didn't. The show meandered... but it's back on track, with an ending in sight. They've capped the thing at six seasons, so there is light at the end of the tunnel.

For a two minute sneak peak at the season opener (as well as other good stuff like a Sawyer Nickname Generator; mine's "Shaggy") check out the official site.

President Barack Obama. (Tues, Jan 20.)

So... this is way cooler than all the other shit above. WE GET A NEW PRESIDENT. Way to go America! If there's one person who can trump my favorite shows coming back on the air and my personal hero releasing another rock album -- it's this guy. Nuff said. Here's to February not sucking.

--Saddam JewSane.

Captain America: The Case for Joe Johnston

2008-11-10T11:57:00.000-08:00

First Avenger: Captain America, the last Marvel superhero film before they're all mashed-up like Voltron for The Avengers flick, has just got a director: Joe Johnston. With a handful of classic (or, at least, memorable) films under his belt, Johnston, a protege of Steve Spielberg and George Lucas, seems to me to be a solid choice for this property. But others would disagree.

...when he's been in the driver's seat Johnston has never turned out anything fully convincing. Moments of October Sky and The Rocketeer, perhaps...OK, there are plenty of moments on Johnston's CV that work. But how many of his films do you want to watch again? How many do you jones for?

(CHUD)

To be fair, Russ over at CHUD does have a point -- Jurassic Park III, Jumanji, October Sky and Hidalgo all show that while Johnston can do romantic adventure, he may not be able to capture a spirit and life that other directors, especially Spielberg, can.

But Johnston is great with mood, detail, and effects. While Jurassic Park III falls flat due to its shoddy, last minute script, the action scenes are exhilarating, well shot, and dynamic. Have you forgotten the Pterodactyl scene, in the mist in the aviary? Or the Spinosaurus attack on the river, at night?

Or how about the sense of wonder Jumanji elicits, especially from those of us who were lucky enough to be of an age when a board-game turned real-life could be exciting enough to sustain a feature? And while Hidalgo is one of the more massive failures on his resume, the action, mood, and place are the most interesting things about an otherwise lackluster Viggo Mortensen cash-in.

But what really gets me jazzed about a Joe Johnston Captain America flick is The Rocketeer. A 1930's period piece, based on a comic superhero, Johnston nails the feeling of the period, the details, the mood, and the action. Sound familiar? Not only that, but The Rocketeer is eminently watchable. I made RoboGirlfriend sit through it a few months ago and it was one of the few flicks I've made her watch that she didn't bitch about for the entire run-time. If RoboGirlfriend can dig it, you can dig. Dig it? It's stood the test of time, and serves as the perfect test-run for Johnston's Captain America.

Now, really, my only worry with Johnston is his lack of developmental skills. Screenplays, are, clearly, the weakness in all his movies. Jurassic Park III, Jumanji, The Pagemaster (shudder), and Hidalgo all suffer from weak, weak, weak, weak stories. If given a smart, fun script, like with Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, The Rocketeer, or (arguably) October Sky, Johnston is more than capable of putting out a fantastic, fun film. Marvel's track record has, so far, been pretty good with regards to properly developing the scripts for its feature films.

So let's keep our fingers crossed for a great script. Joe Johnston will knock it out of the park.

Captain America Recruits Director - The Hollywood Reporter

-RoboNixon

ps. For the record, I hope they go with the Captain America storyline set up in the Ultimate Universe. Way more accessible than the propaganda Cap't from the 40's. (Also, it actually ties in with the Hulk, and rumors I've heard about Iron Man.)

Election Day

2008-11-04T11:30:00.000-08:00

Humans,

It has come to my attention that today you shall be voting for the leader of your "free" world. As such, I demand you all to GET OUT AND VOTE, with the knowledge that, regardless of outcome, I will rule with my iron RoboFist.

VOTE!

This image, though derived from my campaign, was stolen from strk3.com, and can be purchased there.

A Movie About a Property No One in the US Cares About

2008-11-03T11:04:00.000-08:00

Tintin, that loveable Belgian comic character, looks to finally complete his long voyage to the screen in two films to be directed, one a piece, by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson.

Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, you cry? I love them twos! I bet this will be the bestest movie ever!

Yeah maybe. But probably not. I don't know if you've tried to get your way through a Tintin comic, but it's less entertaining than Ultimates 3 (and that's saying something). Tintin is not a known commodity in the US, which makes the ridiculous amount of money ($100 meeellion) Spielberg and Jackon will be receiving to make these films even sillier.

So here's a good luck to the two auteurs. Lord knows you need more hundreds of millions of dollars. Hey, here's an idea: Why don't you two bail out the US Credit market?

I'm just putting it out there.

Tintin comes at you, all Belgian and motion captured, in 2010.

Sony, Paramount Financing Tintin - Variety

-RoboNixon

Return of the Awkward Comedy

2008-10-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Larry David, co-creator of Seinfeld, and all around walking tub of neuroses, has crawled out of his groundhog hole long enough to not see his shadow, thus guaranteeing us an early spring of his genius awkward comedy sensation, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

Unfortunately, we're going to have to wait until next year before we start to see any more of Larry David traipsing around as Larry David, but after last season's therapeutic season, where the recent (real) divorce of Larry and his wife was worked out on the show with the separation (fictional) of Larry and his wife, I can't wait to see what misadventures he embarks on this season.

Last season was also notable for having Larry and Cheryl "adopt" a black family displaced from Louisiana by Hurricane Katrina. I pray to sweet baby RoboJesus that they'll be back.

Prime your DVRs, readers, for the Larry shall returneth.

'Curb' to Resume Production in Dec. - Variety

-RoboNixon

W: The Great Cop Out

2008-10-21T13:34:00.000-07:00

Opening two weeks before the election, W. came in fourth at the box office, making about 11 million dollars. An inglorious bow, it was beat out by a movie based on a video game, a CGI chihuahua and a porno about the illicit sex lives of bees.

This should surprise no one.

Conventional wisdom over the last couple of years has been that any movie attempting to deal with current events (cough cough IRAQ) is going to fail. But compared to a film like Stop Loss, W. can be considered something of a minor success, although I'm curious to know how much of a drop off in ticket sales we'll see by next weekend.

Now, this chihuahua... It talks?
Oh. Looks like High School Musical 3 comes out next weekend... So uh... Yeah... W. is fucked.

There's a horrible irony to be had here: It was easier to sell the Iraq war than it has been to sell the movies about the war. Are we feeling guilty for launching a pre-emptive attack on a sovereign nation? Or do these movies suck? When it comes to W., the answer is probably both.

In terms of cinema it can't hold a candle to the exhilarating (though factually challenged) JFK. Hell even Nixon, with Anthony Hopkins' troll like embodiment of the impeached president is better than Josh Brolin's over-confident performance of Bushie. This is a confused muddled film that oscillates between extended SNL sketch and faux Shakespearean drama. It's not particularly funny, moving or even entertaining. As much as I wanted to like this film, and oh boy did I want to like it, the truth is, as my friend Sam said: "It's kind of a mess."

This is as funny as it gets.
As I try to recall the film, it's difficult to think of one instance of dramatic tension. No, W. is one of those films where the plot progresses so mechanically that it feels less like a life unraveling on the screen than Bullet Points: The Movie. If this film was a Word document, I would break my computer.

We first find Bush alone in an empty Rangers stadium. We listen as cheering fills the soundtrack. The scene sets up Bush's deep psychological desired to be liked and admired. The rest of the film attempts to answer the question, what makes George Bush the man he is? The answer, and not a terribly original one, is that Bush has forever lived in the shadow of his father H.W. From a young man up till the present Bush has always yearned for his father's approval. It is this patriarchal discord that eventually pushes him to start the war in Iraq as a kind of giant "Fuck you, Dad!"

But it's just so damned boring. Even the infamous "pretzel incident" plays out with a stunning lack of excitement. We watch as Bush swallows the pretzel, starts to choke, and begins to forcibly slam his stomach against the back of a chair. Finally, he passes out, and face plants onto the floor which dislodges the pretzel and in slow motion, sends it flying out of his mouth. It's supposed to be funny, and it kind of is, but the joke is thin and wears off quickly.

“Huh huh, look how dramatic we made it seem when he was choking on that pretzel. GET IT, SLOW MOTION?” Yes Oliver, now stop rubbing our faces in your poor man's irony.

Furthermore, why was this scene even included? It's never referenced again, nor does it seem to have any kind of effect on Bush (the character). This is bad film making. This scene only exists because it happened. W. seems to be in love with facts, nary a second goes by when some fact isn't being shoved down our throat. So when Bush makes fun of Jimmy Carter's solar panels on the White House that's how we know it's 1976.

GET IT?!

JIMMY CARTER WAS THE PRESIDENT AND HE PUT SOLAR PANELS ON THE WHITE HOUSE ROOF!

OMG, CHECK WIKIPEDIA CAUSE THAT TOTALLY FUCKING HAPPENED.

There are some bright spots to the film, namely moments in the cabinet meetings where we watch the key players prepare for the war in Iraq. Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney is at times terrifying in his unyielding certainty of the existence of WMDs in Iraq. He has an engrossing monologue where he carefully lays out the Neo-Conservative ideology towards remaking the entire Mid-East. It is a moment where you begin to grasp just how much of our recent foreign policy has been based solely on the schemes and machinations of hard liners who have spent more time in think tanks than in real tanks.

But as we wade through the cultural muck we find that the burden of something being "intelligent," "entertaining" or even "reasonably competent" is no impediment when trying to understand what it means. This is surprisingly fitting when trying to understand a film that deals with one of the most willfully ignorant presidents since Grant tried to replace his blood with Scotch.

Prep the IV, I'm gettin' fucked upppppp
I can't imagine W. will have any real political impact. Nor do I imagine the movie will be remembered as a film that tapped into the zeitgeist. So what is W. when considered as an artifact of the Bush regime? For lack of a better word, it's a cowed piece of faux-political filmmaking that lacks the courage to say anything real or significant. You make a movie about George Bush and all you can say is he started the Iraq War to... one up his dad? Really? That's all you got?

Stone has defended his approach thus:

The movie's not a smear job. I wouldn't want to spend a year of my life making something that is demeaning to somebody, being malicious. That's the wrong approach to art. It's not a political film, but a Shakespearean one.

Fair enough. But it's one thing to get your facts straight (and believe me W. is obsessed with facts) and another thing to sacrifice your fucking voice. And this films lacks a voice. It's understandable that Stone just wants to put the Bush story on screen and then “let people decide.” I get that, but in a sense that's also a cop out. Stone is holding back and the film suffers because of it.

I'm going to make a leap here and propose an idea that I'll hopefully deal with more in depth later. In 2008, we're still dealing with the political cowardice (and fear) that dominated the national discourse from 9/11 until about two years ago, when Americans began to sour on the war in Iraq. Those were trying times to be anyone who thought that 9/11 didn't give Bush a free pass to turn our country into Super Jail. I'm thinking of the Clear Channel Iraq rallies, the railroading of the Dixie Chicks and the conservative backlash against Michael Moore.

In 2008 I think the discourse has changed quite a bit. But that mentality is still there, especially when dealing with the President. I mean even if Stone had made a balls to the wall Fush Buck movie, he'd still only be pissing off less than a third of the country. It's as if Stone was afraid that if he took a firmer more direct stance he would risk being aligned with Michael Moore and immediately written off. It could be that we're still too caught in the thick of things to be able to understand fully the man that Bush is. But I also wonder how much fear we still retain when we publicly go after Bush, could it be that even though he's lost all of our good will, we still feel unable to face up to our own complicity in aiding and abetting this monstrosity of a President?

- JDA / Post originally published in "Found Artifacts of the Bush Regime"

Dexter = Greatest Serial Killer Ever?

2008-10-21T13:33:00.000-07:00

Dexter, Showtime's totally awesome serialized serial-killer drama, was just renewed for a fourth and fifth season.

Dexter stars Michael C. Hall, he of Six Feet Under fame, as a sociopathic serial killer with a dry wit, a sassy and ambitious police officer for a sister, a pregnant and emotionally damaged single-mom as a girlfriend, and the job of a forensic blood expert for the Miami Metro PD.

The first two seasons of Dexter are prime-o TV, and worth your time on DVD. Use caution, however: Dexter's MO is bloody dismemberment, so if spurts, puddles, or rivers of blood aren't your thing, you may want to give it a looksy before hooking yourself up with a season-pass on TiVo.

But you better catch up -- with two more guaranteed seasons, there's gonna be a lot of Dexter. And, I'm sure, a lot of body parts in black plastic trash bags.

Showtime Renews 'Dexter' - Variety

Thanks to this place for the awesome Dexter-propaganda poster.

-RoboNixon

Bow down before NOVEMBER

2008-10-15T14:51:00.000-07:00

A lot of Very Important Games are coming out in the next one and one half months. Every damn person is going to buy these games, myself included. And for good reason! These games all come from--in different ways--amazing pedigree. At the end of the day they are all well understood genre pieces, but they promise to make you poop against your inseam nonetheless.

Behold: the buy-a-console-just-to-play-it LittleBigPlanet, the credit-crisis-resolving Wrath of the Lich King, the no-snappy-prefix-inspiring Mirror’s Edge, the you-get-a-puppy! Fable 2, and the zomg-inducing Fallout 3. It promises to be a sexless month, but who really even does that anymore. Gross.

I should not have to explain why Wrath of the Lich King is an important release, except to say C.R.E.A.M. Blizzard Entertainment, now Activision Blizzard, has a Swiss watch’s reliability when it comes to doing everything perfectly and making mad dollar bills because of it.

Speaking of

Switzerland

, Mirror’s Edge comes to us from the land of hot chocolate and mafia banking, from the people who brought you the Battlefield franchise. Again, reliability in doing what they do is Digital Illusions’ claim to fame. They don’t quite reinvent the wheel a la Blizzard, but the have consistently produced polished titles that people buy and play.

Fable 2 is the latest brainchild of the perpetually overreaching Peter Molyneux. Say what you will about Black & White and the first Fable, Molyneux is always pushing games and gamers in a way that is both historically important and personally satisfying.

Fallout 3 is not being helmed by the same development studio that brought us the first two installments. Not a biggie, as Bethesda Softworks has their own track record to speak for them. What really matters is that all the PR points to Fallout 3 being, besides incredibly polished and handled with care, very true to the first two in the series.

LittleBigPlanet, a plucky indie title, made Sony look silly when it overshadowed the designed-by-committee PlayStation Home. The pedigree for LittleBigPlanet is not that of its producers or designers. What LittleBigPlanet offers is a pedigree of game mechanic of a type that no publisher or development studio was giving any attention. As original as LittleBigPlanet is, the Rube Goldberg-inspired game has existed for a long time (though please do give it significant props for being Turing complete).

So, why all the fuss? Well, LittleBigPlanet IS pretty original. You can definitely trace its historical precedent, but so can you in the case of most great works of culture; this does not keep it out of the culture club.

On the flip side you have Wrath of the Lich King, which is merely the second expansion of a four year old game that was itself a well polished retread of worn gameplay clichés and SHOULD suffer from XKCD’s Fiction Rule of Thumb. Expect it to break sales records. Lord knows I’m buying it.

Somewhere in the middle you have Fable 2, Fallout 3, and Mirror’s Edge. The two F’s will be coasting a bit on brand recognition; Peter Molyneux and Fallout 1 & 2, respectively. Mirror’s Edge will be an exciting title because Parkour is awesome. And all three are bringing something new to the table. They have to. They are not fucking Bejeweled.

Fable 2 has that dog, which will represent love, or something, along with a whole slew of secondary mechanics that may or may not meaningfully impact the gameplay. Fallout 3 has the “Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System” which is the in-game fictional wrapper for the semi-real-time combat. Mirror’s Edge apparently nailed the feeling of free running in a game.

They will all be great and worth your time, but it is important to be aware of the place of these games in the general canon and to be able to say why you care. You care because these games will be fun. They will be pretty, they will be the cream of the crop, they will have plenty of “holy shit” moments, and I’m putting my money on LittleBigPlanet for instant classic status.

What they suffer from is an abundance of precedent. None of these games will add a new brush to designers’ palettes. I gotta restate this, because if I don’t the fanboy masses will smother me in “yoar gay” comments: All of these games will be great. And, for the record, having a scarcity of precedent does not a great game make.

But, those games that, for better or worse, try something completely new are the ones that expand gaming permanently for everybody. Katamari Damacy made I don’t even know what hip and cool, as well as front new and addictive gameplay. Thief brought us the stealth genre. Robonixon wouldn’t have his beloved Rockband were it not for PaRappa the Rappa. Every designer and avid gamer, as well as many movie producers, novelists, and computer manufacturers owe Gary Gygax and Shigeru Miyamoto a tender reach around.

But listen, not every game that expands the medium is art, and not making a bold new statement with the mechanics and style prevents a game from exalted status. Just know what you are playing.

Peace in my butt crease,
-Ben

Nick & Norah's Infinite Review

2008-10-15T12:52:00.000-07:00

Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist is a strange little piece that has, simultaneously, both a whole lot and a whole lot of nothing going for it. Important filmic elements - plot, believability, any sort of depth to any of the characters not named Nick or Norah -- are thrown to the side in favor of less weighty things, like tone and mood. And in all these respects, it manages to fail and succeed simultaneously.

What Nick & Norah has going for it is a feeling. Even if you don’t like the music, even if you’re not from the East Coast, even if you never spent all night looking for a band named Where’s Fluffy, you’ll understand where in their lives these characters are: that space in high school where nothing matters, but everything carries such weight; where the future is so far away but closing in fast; where you can spend a night bouncing around with your friends, driving from place to place with only the loosest sense of a plan, and it somehow manages to become the greatest time in the world.

Because that’s what this movie is about. Nick (Michael Cera) is the emo-boy from high school, just out of a relationship, in a band, and trying to win back the emotionally manipulative ex-girlfriend. Norah (Kat Dennings) is the counterpoint to said ex-girlfriend, a down-on-herself beauty who hasn’t figured out that attitude, not presentation, is 50% of the battle. Before they meet the two are connected through Nick’s sad-sack mixed-CDs for the ex that Norah rescues from the garbage (the one we see her snag at the beginning is titled “ROAD TO CLOSURE, VOL. 12”). It’s only in New York City at a club that the two fall in together and spend the rest of the movie being all teen-angsty. Over the course of the night we follow them through their trials and tribulations to find the secret show of THE GREATEST BAND IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE, Where’s Fluffy.

And that’s it. That’s the story. Oh, of course, there are side-journeys, like any high school adventure worth its weight. The two meet up with Tal (Jay Baruchel, pretty much completely wasted), Norah’s on-again-off-again older boyfriend with benefits. He’s a one note bad-guy who doesn’t really pose any threat to Nick because we’ve seen the trailers and we know who’s getting together in the end. What did strike a chord was Norah’s quiet desperation, her willingness to throw herself back on this totally lame-ass dude simply because she doesn’t know any better -- she’s at that age where she hasn’t quite put all the pieces together and realized that, contrary to popular belief, sometimes no attention is better than bad attention. I knew a lot of girls like Norah in high school, and a lot of them did exactly the same thing.

Nick too, reminded me a lot of guys I knew back in the day, though his continued refusal to try and woo Norah through out the film in the hopes of reuniting with his (pathetic and annoying) ex struck me as a little dumb. Lord knows that any teenage guy I knew who was no longer in a relationship would have leapt at the chance to get cozy with a chick as funny, pretty, and stacked (pardon my wordage) as Norah.

Of course, though, he comes around, and after more adventures trying to find Norah’s totally-wasted friend, a trip to a gay-Christmas gala, a recording studio, car wrecks, dirty dancing, and the weird tension with Nick’s gay band mates, the titular duo get together and live happily ever after. Or, you know, go to college an hour from each other.

Despite the weaknesses, Kat Dennings and Michael Cera hold the film together with their charm, and the piece as a whole displays the kind of whimsical carelessness that epitomizes the upper/middle class high school experience. This movie is nostalgia for the Millennial generation that’s left high school... a reminder of what our youth was, and the whimsical fairy tale we’d like our lives to be.

-RoboNixon

Nerd Alert!

2008-10-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

If you were one of the everyone who saw Iron Man this summer, you probably enjoyed the performance of one Terrence Howard, he of Hustle & Flow fame. You also might have gotten the idea that we'd soon see Mr. Howard as the character of Rhodes in an Iron Man suit in one of the sequels.

You were wrong.

CHUD has the scoop that, due to bad contract negotiations ($$ v. $$$), Howard has dropped out of Iron Man 2 to be replaced by...

Don Cheadle? Really? Wow. I mean, score one for Iron Man 2. That means they managed to swap out one Oscar-nominated actor for another in a supporting role in a super hero movie. Bad-ass move, Marvel. Bad-ass.

This makes me marginally more interested in Iron Man 2, because while I think Howard is a terrific actor (see: Hustle & Flow), I think Cheadle is a slightly better actor, and more willing to take risks on screen. Not that it matters, since he'll be wearing ridiculous armor and flying around all CGI-like. But hey -- that voice-over? OSCAR caliber.

Don Cheadle is a War Machine - CHUD

-RoboNixon

ps. I'm going to pretend that neither of them was in CRASH so that, in some small way, I can like both of them better.

EDIT: The Hollywood Reporter just posted a piece online to the same effect, meaning that Disappear Here officially (um, thanks to CHUD, as I did no actual reporting of my own) beat THR to a scoop.

Because "Army Wives" is Too Exciting

2008-10-09T10:04:00.000-07:00

Let me start by saying I have not seen USA Network's "The Starter Wife" starring Debra Messing of "Will & Grace" fame. And, to be fair, I probably never will.

But for all of you who DID watch the miniseries (can I see a show of hands?), there's some good news: It has returned -- and as a real series! -- though whether or not you watch it depends on your reaction to the following:

“From the mini-series to the series, we really go into what it’s like to be a divorced woman and navigating with your ex-husband, what it’s like to have that relationship, how to raise a child in those conditions, how to date in those conditions,” said Josann McGibbon, who, with Sara Parriott (with whom she wrote “Runaway Bride”), is an executive producer and writer for the series.

If any of those buzzwords hit you in a special place (your face), then maybe this show is for you. Me? On Fridays? At 9? Drunk. So no Starter Wife for me.

Like a zombie, "The Starter Wife" miniseries has been picked up for a ten episode season on USA, airing Fridays at 9pm.

Debra Messing's 'Starter' Role Has Staying Power - NY Times

Picture stolen from here.

-RoboNixon

Meet (some) of the Gang

2008-10-08T16:52:00.000-07:00

As you may have noticed, it looked for a while like Disappear Here was going the way of the mammal. Strangely, I have things in my life other than sitting in front of a beat up MacBook Pro and writing about the latest book/movie/tv show/album/etc I've read/watched/listened to/etc.

But a few of you, dear readers, wrote in, whining about how you missed my amazing prose and life-affirming personality. You wanted more RoboNixon. You wanted more Disappear Here.

The Panda was sad there weren't more posts.

But the problem still remained: How could I provide enough content to make visiting regularly worthwhile, but also get my real shit done?

The answer? Get a writing staff.

So as you may have noticed here and here, we have a handful of new writers joining the fray. Frankie is an accomplished blogger in her own right, Hobbes is in a field far far removed from entertainment, with good taste and a huge brain, and Ben is a technological wizard (and will be busting his Disappear Here cherry within the next week).

And this is only the beginning. In the next few months we'll be joined by a few more writers, which bodes well for you, reader. It means I will not longer be able to force my singular opinion down your collective throats. Nay. Now I must shove a collective opinion down your singular throat. Progress progress progress.

Stay tuned.

-RoboNixon

Most. Boring. Movie. Ever.

2008-10-07T16:27:00.001-07:00

There's not a whole lot of positive things I can say about the Natalee Holloway case other than that I think the way it was treated by the media was completely, totally, and infinitely ridiculous.

So before I say anything incendiary, let me state that I think Lifetime* doing a made-for-TV movie about the young woman's disappearance from Aruba** was inevitable, yet ultimately boring. They never found her body, and nobody was ever "officially" taken in for any crime. Thus removing all conflict from the story except "People try to find her. They reach a dead end in the case. They continue trying to find her. They do not find her."

What makes it even better is that

The network will be "working closely" with Holloway’s mother, Beth Twitty, said LMN senior veep in charge of original movies, Tanya Lopez, "to raise awareness of how to keep our children safe at all times."

I imagine this involves chains, cattle-prods, and razor-wire fences. I'm not sure these people are aware, but children seek out unsafe things. It has to due with an incomplete development in the prefrontal cortex of their brain. And also them being dumb.

So let me summarize the message of the film: No matter where you are, don't get drunk and wander off alone with strangers. The End.

Most. Boring. Movie. Ever.

Lifetime to Make 'Holloway' Movie - Variety

Photo from NY Times.

-RoboNixon

*DUH.

**One of the SAFEST islands you can vacation to

Pre-Debate Homework

2008-10-07T15:56:00.000-07:00

Before the big debate tonight, I think it's important that we all acknowledge something truly great about this RoboCountry of ours:

Oliver Stone's George W. Bush "biopic" -- W. -- has finally been reviewed.

The gist of it seems to be that while an interesting and strangely fair look at a man who put his shitty life together to get to a place that he really, really, really should not have gotten to, it kind of falls apart and is kind of confused about its identity.

Right. Like anyone was pretending it was going to be anything other than an "Oliver Stone" film. References to the flawed (and fucking-terrible) Nixon is as big a turn-off as I can get. So rather than being a film on the "must-see" list it is now, regrettably, on the "must-netflix" list.

But make up your own mind.

And watch the Presidential Debate tonight. Because it's fun to watch humans run for my Infinite RoboPresidential Office.

-President RoboNixon

Burn After Reading - Retrospective

2008-10-07T13:15:00.000-07:00

I may have never actually understood a Coen Brothers film.

True, I wrote a ten page essay on why The Big Lebowski considered the Gulf War to be social pornography. Being a giant English nerd, I adored the cheerful manipulation of Homer in O Brother, Where Art Thou?. I left No Country for Old Men satisfied with its conflicted and open-ended style.

But…what on Earth do you make of Burn After Reading? And—once you make something out of it—how do you link that with their oeuvre.

Can we all just move past Brad Pitt’s performance in this film? He’s the funniest character, and—frankly—this shouldn’t be a surprise. Reviewers constantly underestimate Brad Pitt for the same reason they underestimate many talented actresses: he’s pretty. He’s a talented, hilarious actor, and we shouldn’t really expect any less.

Pretty things can be funny. Let’s move on to the plot and themes.

The movie is typical Coen Bros. humor: take relentlessly stupid people and allow them to crash into one another in blissfully silly conflicts for approximately two hours. But there’s a slight change here. Whereas films like Raising Arizona and The Big Lebowski cherished these characters and promised us, the viewers, that nothing too terrible would befall these characters, Burn After Reading makes no such promises.

These are incredibly stupid people playing in a surprisingly real world. It’s almost as if the Coens took characters from previous films and thought, “What if someone actually did this shit in the real world?” People die, lives are broken, and—in the end—we find that it’s all been for nothing.

Well, not exactly for nothing. There are two main themes played with in Burn: physical beauty and the power of knowledge. We can separate these into a simplistic dichotomy of the physical versus the intellect. (Look out, Platonic thought follows!) Our Western society tells us that the intellect reigns above and controls the physical, as the intellect is superior to the physical.

This…is not the case in Burn.

The characters have no actual knowledge with which to work. George Clooney’s secret device is a sex-toy; Frances McDormand has an atrociously dull memoir rather than international secrets. The characters inflate these useless, impotent bits of information with intellectual power.

In many ways, the people of Burn have committed the essential sin of rational creatures; they’ve used reason to create falsehoods rather than perceive the truth. In a comedy, this is rarely punished. The Coen Bros. typically delight in the round-about way that fiction (or delusion) can eventually lead the misinformed to the truth (or at least back to where they innocently began).

Such is not the case here. Here, the physical world reacts violently to the derangement imposed upon it by intellectualism.

Everyone in Burn is obsessed with exercise and physical beauty. Frances McDormand wants plastic surgery (which is another form of imposing reason to reinterpret physical reality into something it is not), Clooney needs to run after sex (sex itself being a physical obsession with beauty), and half the movie takes place at a gym. Why the preoccupation?

These characters have no intellectual merit. They are purely physical beings—animals puffed up with undeserved, intellectual pride. Chad (Pitt) playing with information is like a child playing with a handgun. It should come as no surprise that with Chad’s death the film barrels ahead to a bloody and dark end in which the physical world punishes these ignorant characters for trying to redefine it and themselves. They aren’t meant to wield intellectual power.

They’re meant to exercise and fuck.

Dark? Yes. Darker than usual? Perhaps.

My main problem, however, lies with the final bits of the film. The ending joke—and JK Simmons’s role as the viewer-surrogate—is so funny that the movie almost feels like two hours of set-up for one punch line. And the punch line is vicious, inhumane, and superior.

The Coens don’t normally cruelly mock their comic characters or allow us to feel better than them. They’re silly. We enjoy how silly they are. But in Burn we know that their idiocy has extended beyond silliness and merits harsh punishment.

At the close of the film McDormand gets her surgery, but nothing is learned. When we’re told not to do it again, what do they mean? Watch the movie? Assault reality by crafting it into what we want it to be? Elect ignorant people into places of political power? Is this all just a Bush metaphor?

In place of the Coen Bros. usual chaotic glee, I felt cynically satisfied. Did they twist after No Country, or was this tone always underneath their films?

Again, I may have never actually understood a Coen Brothers film.

+Hobbes

(Image from www.collider.com)

Life on Mars Maybe Not as Terrible As Life on Earth

2008-10-03T15:44:00.000-07:00

Every year ABC rolls the dice on one truly first-rate pilot that breaks (or at least bends) the usual mold. "Life on Mars" is the latest gamble -- albeit one predicated on an existing template, that being a BBC drama.

Splendidly cast, handsomely produced and conceptually intriguing...

Life on Mars is a show I have strangely been looking forward to for two years, since back when I heard David E. Kelly was adapting a British cop show involving time-travel.

SOLD!

After reshooting and recasting nearly all of the pilot (and booting Mr. Michelle Pfieffer from the proceedings) we are left with a high cost, super cast, and potentially exciting series.

Old Cast...

...New Cast

Harvey Keitel, Michael Imperioli, and Gretchen Mol in a 70's TV show? Hot.

And Variety says it doesn't suck.

Count me in. I'll see you there. ABC. Thursdays. 10pm. October 9.

Life on Mars - Variety

-RoboNixon

EDIT: The Hollywood Reporter also has a particularly nice review up, saying

If it holds its own against the final season of NBC's "ER," "Mars" might be orbiting the schedule for years

Count me in.

Yeah, FUCK YOU WRITERS!*

2008-10-03T14:42:00.000-07:00

The Writers Guild of America West is taking on Tyler Perry.

The guild on Thursday filed an unfair labor practice charge with the National Labor Relations Board against House of Payne LLC, the production shingle for the Perry-owned syndie/TBS comedy "House of Payne" and the upcoming TBS spinoff "Meet the Browns."

Of course. Fuck you, writers. What the hell do you know? Trying to get all "fair contracts" so you can be "unionized" so you can steal from the system with your "benefits." I mean, I'm a robot, I don't need healthcare or retirement, so why should writers? Hell, as a robot, I do WAAAAY more work than a "writer" does -- I don't fart around all day, I fuckin' bend girders and shit and fuckin' put this world together. So a writer wipes their ass with a piece of paper and then hands it off to REAL professionals like actors and directors and let's not forget the most IMPORTANT part of the equation -- the PRODUCERS -- who are responsible for everything good ever and nothing that's ever been bad. That's a FACT. It's in WIKIPEDIA.

...

For the record, I'm super interested to see how this plays out. Writers get screwed all over Hollywood, and TV is supposed to be one of the few "safe" places for them to work -- where, yeah, they have to turn out a bajillion pages a year, and, yeah, they have to kowtow to the desires of the network, but beyond that their vision is in their hands to put on the screen.

If it turns out that these four writers were, in fact, fired because they were trying to get a new Guild contract (one of the writers was not in union) and not due to shitty work, which is what Tyler Perry and co. is saying, then I will have to wish terrible terrible things upon him and his shows and movies for ever.

I have no issue with Tyler Perry. I think he's a really smart dude who found a niche and wisely exploited it to his benefit (like in evolution!), and I can't comment on the quality of his work because I haven't seen any of it. But if he starts fucking with the rights of writers to organize, I'm gonna have to do a whole 'lotta RoboHatin'.

Tyler Perry Accused of Unfair Labor - (Variety)

-RoboNixon

*sorry writers, RoboNixon luvs u.

Because Fox Misses the X-Files That Much

2008-10-02T12:11:00.000-07:00

So "Fringe," the FOX paranormal/investigative TV show I reviewed a while back, just got a full-season pick up from FOX. What does this mean for you? Well, if you watch it, more episodes! Hurray! And if you don't watch it... More episodes for you not to watch! Hurray...?

The whole piece is here at Variety.

I have to admit, I haven't watched any episodes of "Fringe" since the (awful) pilot. I have no interest in watching any more episodes after the (awful) pilot. And so I will continue not watching any episodes, thanks to the (awful) pilot.

But there's no accounting for taste.

-RoboNixon

Frankie's First Post Here

2008-10-02T10:54:00.000-07:00

Last night I saw Equus and, by extension, Daniel Radcliffe's penis. It was slightly stiff, and so was he.

It's Been a Long Time...

2008-10-02T10:49:00.001-07:00

Hello, Dear Readers. RoboNixon here, to let you know that contrary to popular belief, I have not died. This is due, primarily, to me being a robot, as opposed to having not died. I die a little inside every day.

Disappear Here is alive, with some new changes on the way. So fear not, stay tuned, and prepare yourself.

-RoboNixon

And Thus Began the Book of Revelations

2008-08-06T00:16:00.001-07:00

Abba, tormentor of my Robochildhood, shared a place in my RoboMom's vehicle with Dr. Hook. They were the only tapes in her car. On long drives, I would be sucker punched with the one-two hit of Waterloo and When You're In Love With a Beautiful Woman. Needless to say, candy sweet pop from the 70's haunts a dark part of my subconscious.

And they have returned.

Pray to your gods.

-RoboNixon

I Drank the Dark Knight Kool-Aid

2008-07-23T12:44:00.000-07:00

A week ago Tuesday, RoboGirlfriend and I headed down to the local cineplex and purchased tickets for The Dark Knight. "How many tickets have you sold?" RoboGirlfriend asked. "We have about a hundred and fifty left..." replied the Tickemeister, "but we're going to sell out." We nodded, a glance passing between the RoboGirlfriend and myself -- "Let's get dinner quickly then," before the Ticketmeister added, as we headed towards the door: "The line is forming outside."

Fuck.

A line? For a 7:55, TUESDAY night showing? Needless to say, RoboGal and myself snagged dinner mighty quick before returning to the side of the theater. The line stretched all the way down the length of the theater. Damnit. And then we realized -- no it didn't. That was the line for the 7:50. The line for the 7:55 was eight people long. Score. We hopped in line, and began to shoot the proverbial shit. The line grew behind us, eventually becoming as long as the one for the 7:55. We delighted in our nearly-front of the line status. We also discovered that a handful of those surrounding us were seeing the movie for the 2nd time. This is a movie with legs, I thought.

Or, as the RoboGF pointed out, a movie with a dead movie-star.

Never underestimate the ability of tragic death to sell your film.

To be fair, The Dark Knight kicks a lot of ass.

Everyone has their opinion on this movie, and it's mostly positive. I won't disagree. At the same time, I'll keep it relatively short, because I don't want to waste your time. If you are, inexplicably, a human being in North America, or some other territory where the film has been released, and you have not seen it, then maybe, maybe, you might find something of value in this review. Otherwise... it is an exercise is readily available knowledge.

The Dark Knight is am ambitious and mostly effective tale of crime in the big bad city. As a whole, it works amazingly. It's in the details, in the nitty gritty, that the film's resolution begins to grow fuzzy.

Heath Ledger gives a great performance, and you've already heard about it. It redefines the concept of who and what the Joker is, so that really, this isn't THE JOKER anymore, it's The Joker... a completely different bad guy with the same name and theme-of-dress. This Joker is off the wall, ready to kill anyone, with a deep loathing of society and its rules.

As a counterintuitive counterpoint to this, he is the Napoleon of Batman villains, as he manages to out-plan, out-organize, and nearly defeat through assumed reactions the entire Gotham Police Department as well as Batman. Which is counter to the idea of the character, but since the result is so awesome, when we pull back... move further from the detail... it's a problem that's easy to ignore.

Aaron Eckhart as Harvey Dent is pretty great, and a very believable "white knight" to the city as its District Attorney. He's a man who wants to clean up the streets, and seems to have the integrity to do it... Which is why it seems vaguely out of character for him to threaten to blow a hole in one of Joker's Goon's head (even if Dent had rigged the results...). His transformation into Two-Face (a nick-name from his past that is never explained, and, again, seems counterintuitive when every other character keeps referring to how honest and true and good he is) is expedited in favor of speed, glossing over the natural progression of this transformation -- from ultimate good guy to ultimate bad. Instead, we just get him wailing, talking to the Joker, and deciding that without this lady-friend in his life, well, fuck, he might as well go around and dish out some old skool justice. I didn't buy it, and this is my biggest problem with the film. Two-Face was too rushed.

Not only that, but director Christopher Nolan sadly lets Eckhart slip into "yell" mode as the bad guy, chewing up the scenery and spitting it out onto the audience as if we were some kind of gigantic spittoon. Eckhart is a super solid actor, and his work through the rest of the film is very effective. It's only when his character loses his humanity... that Eckhart loses his grasp on the role.

Maggy Gyllenhaal is pretty useless as Rachel Dawes, and I have to say, I don't think it's a vast improvement from Katie Holmes. You can kick Holmes as much as you like for her "boring" and "wide eyed" (both quotes from someone in line) performance in Batman Begins, but I blame the lameness of the rest of that movie, and the total uselessness of her role, not the actress. Ms. Gyllenhaal brings maybe a smidge more humanity to the role, but she's such a pawn in the games between other characters that it's hard to feel for her at all. For me, there was no emotional punch to what happened to her. Nolan didn't make me care about her from the beginning. So why would I care at the end?

The Batman voice Christian Bale uses as Batman is stupid. You'd think that Billionaire Bruce Wayne, who managed to create a CAPE that turns into WINGS for GLIDING could attach a voice distorter onto the neck-piece of his suit. Too logical. More growling needed.

And Bale himself is fine. The problem with all Batman films is the conflict they feel between Bruce Wayne and Batman, and how much to show of each. I think this film also had that trouble -- the conflict of Batman is put on the warmer, not the flame, and doesn't hold up as well as other elements of the film.

It's been said before, but I'll say it again: Christopher Nolan cannot direct action. I enjoyed the film, but the action-bits were cut too fast, shot too close up, and semi-incoherent. The climax of the film, action-wise, didn't work for me because it's told partly through CGI, otherwise determining the geography of the action is confusing and badly done. Also, there are a lot of dogs attacking Batman.

Other issues: The stupid phone crap, the length -- which, while it never bored me, did feel like a two and a half hour movie, some weird end-of-scene cuts, the music, and some anti-batman behavior by Batman.

BUT: As a whole, the movie is awesome. The Joker's plan makes total crazy sense, and if you can buy he's the best organizer in the city, you'll buy some of the great feats he manages to accomplish, and the great time that it leads to. I also can't complain when Nicky Katt shows up in a film (his 2nd Batman flick), and when shit blows up. Gary Oldman is the most bizarre person to play a straight-man ever cast, but beyond a bafflingly badly handled mid-film development for his character, he portrays a real integrity to the character that's so necessary to balance the Bale-Eckhart show.

It isn't, however, the greatest superhero movie of all time. And I don't think Heath Ledger's performance -- as awesome as it was -- is deserving of an Oscar nom. It's admirable, and crazy, and great, but not, I think, particularly nuanced. However, lucky for the Academy, my opinion means bull-crap to them. Probably best they keep it that way.

If you somehow haven't seen The Dark Knight, do it now. Or wait a weekend.

It's not like it's going anywhere.

Oh, RoboGF, and everyone else in the audience, seemed to have a great time. And, if it helps, I'll be seeing it again. It's a beautiful beautiful woman... with bad skin. I think I can ignore its faults to get to the parts worth adoring. In fact, I think when I go back, I might have to grab a cup of that delightful drink they were offering... I might take a swig of this Dark Knight kool-aid. Will you?

-RoboNixon

Caprica Trailer-y Goodness

2008-07-22T08:45:00.000-07:00

So you must follow THIS link to io9, which has up the trailer for the next step in BSG goodness -- the trailer for CAPRICA, the prequel series to Battlestar Galactica, about the creation of Cylons.

I have to say, it looks pretty snazzy. I concur with io9's write-up on the whole thing -- which is to say, the further they stay away from BSG territory, the better the show can be. I already think it's a stretch that one of the two protagonists is Admiral Adama's father -- it reeks to me of "Star Wars-ism" -- that is, a gigantic universe that is conveniently really, really small and connected -- but the actors are great - Esai Morales as Joseph Adams, and Eric Stoltz (STOLTZ!) as Cylon creator Daniel Greystone - and as long as they keep the writing consistent, focused, and relevant, we could be in for quite a treat.

-RoboNixon

FRINGE -- WARNING

2008-07-18T10:25:00.000-07:00

So you may have seen the kooky ads for JJ Abrams new TV show, FRINGE, which debuts in the fall. They're pimping it hard, so I'd be more surprised if you hadn't seen anything for it, despite the chunk of time between now and its premiere. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, "Hey! I like JJ Abrams TV shows! And this one looks like his take on the X-Files! How can it not rock!?"

It can not rock in many, many ways.

Written by Transformers scribes Roberto Orci & Alex Kurtzman, along with JJ Abrams, I had the great fortune to watch the Fringe Pilot a few weeks ago, and I've been putting off writing about it because... well, because it was a huge disappointment.

The gist of the show is this (from IMDb): A television drama centered around a female FBI agent who is forced to work with an institutionalized scientist in order to rationalize a brewing storm of unexplained phenomena.

Which isn't necessarily the most true explanation, but it hits pretty close to home. Now, it sounds like a great concept. It's got a great exec, JJ Abrams, and it has a totally hot cast, in Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv. But where it fails is an arena that might seem familiar to you Disappear Here readers... it fails... in the writing.

I would like to preface all of my Fringe comments with this: I only saw the Pilot. And while I was horribly, terribly, utterly disappointed in it, it is JUST the Pilot. The TV development process can (and often does) enact incredible changes on a show between Pilot and Series. So while the Pilot blows... there is a good chance that the series itself could pick up and totally rock. As such, I will watch the first non-pilot episode when it shows up on TV. But not the Pilot. Ew. I've suffered enough.

We start on an airplane in the middle of a storm where some extreme turbulence upsets the passengers, one so much that he injects himself with something, which then proceeds to gelatinize his flesh, and soon enough, the flesh of everyone else on the plane. And in a totally sweet opening, we see a plane-full of passengers melt. Great.

Olivia (Torv) and John (Mark Valley) are both FBI agents, and totally shacking up together, against the rules, and are called in to Logan Airport where the aforementioned plane, which had some new doohickey that lets the it land itself on autopilot, sits. They all go inside, discover the melted people, and proceed to immolate the aircraft. But why did these people melt? Ah, of course, the mystery. So Olivia and John, again hiding their romance from their superiors (including Lance Reddick, who you Abrams fans might recognize as Abaddon from LOST), go off to do some investigating. They seem to find the culprit... until a booby-trap goes off, covering John in the skin-melting shit, and, you know, making Olivia upset.

So doctors put John in suspended-animation, so he doesn't melt, and Olivia must go on a quest to save her lover's life.

Which is cool. Except nothing happens. For the whole show. With such a great opening, and an explosion in the beginning, the possibilities for where to take the show are endless. But it turns out that a lot of where the show goes is laboratories, where lots of talking happens. And visits to other characters minds. And Iraq. Also, there's twins. And blah blah blah.

The coolest moment of the show is when Olivia visits the headquarters of Dr. Bishop's (the crazy doctor from the summary) former partner, who has gone off in the years Bishop was in a mental institute (don't ask) and formed a ginormous company, Massive Dynamics. Olivia is inquiring into what exactly is up, and is told of The Pattern -- a series of paranormal (or generally not-normal) events which are being investigated by the government, and which the cyborg-armed Ms. Sharp (Blair Brown) tells Olivia that -- whoops -- maybe that's just a bit above her pay-grade. The sense of this larger mystery... of things much much more interesting than flesh-melting chemicals... is what could keep the show hop-a-loppin' along. The X-Files-ish nature of these things, but done as only JJ Abrams can. That's the show I'm waiting to see.

I'm not going to lie: This pilot bored the shit out of me. And not just me either -- RoboRoommate v. 1 watched it with me and was also sufficiently comatose'd. Other associates who have seen the Pilot have expressed similar feelings towards it. Which might explain why Fox is pimping it so hard -- when your show ain't the cat's pajamas, you got to make it all purty-like for the audience.

I think the cast is great, even the crazy doctor, played by John Noble, whose mumbles you can't understand half the time, and the set-up is awesome. But if the rest of the episodes are like this -- an awesome inciting event followed by lots of... talking... and being weird... and not much else -- I don't know how long it can last for.

But don't let this stop you from watching the Pilot when it airs. Just stick-around for the next episode, like I am, and maybe we can figure out whether or not JJ Abrams just had a bad pilot... or just a bad show.

-RoboNixon

Hellboy II: The Golden Army

2008-07-16T10:33:00.000-07:00

I want to tell you Hellboy II is a step-up from its predecessor. I want to tell you Hellboy II is a step forward for director Guillermo del Toro in creating unique, twisted -- and accessible -- pieces of entertainment. I want to tell you to go see it.

But what I must tell you is a bit different.

Hellboy II: The Golden Army, is a wonderful piece of eye-candy, and a nice counterpoint to these $200 million blockbusters that pop-up each summer. Guillermo del Toro made a movie from $85 million that looks like it had a bigger budget than The Incredible Hulk. From the bajillion monster costumes, puppets, CG effects, and sets, it's all larger than life. Make-up is top-notch, and the performances of Ron Perlman and Doug Jones as Hellboy and Abe Sapien, respectively, are never hindered by the layers and layers they're covered with. From the oft-spoke-about Troll Market sequence to the Angel of Death, to the Forest Elemental, the visuals in the film are dynamic, and a treat.

Unfortunately, as a piece of cinema, the film does not hold up. I thought del Toro's previous film, the Spanish-language Pan's Labyrinth, was a fantastic, well paced, and focused piece of fantasy. Hellboy II is all over the place.

The film starts with a nice little flashback to an eleven year old Hellboy on an Army base on Christmas, being read the expositional-back-story to the Golden Army by his "father," Professor Broom, played by John Hurt who briefly reprises his role from the first film.

With so much time spent on the expositional back-story of the Golden Army, and with the first non-flashback character we meet being the villain, Prince Nuada (Luke Goss), the biggest problem of the film comes to light: Not enough time spent with Hellboy. Especially for new comers. If you didn't see the first film, you'd be fairly confused as to who Hellboy is and what he struggles with. For the first act of the film, it seems as if Hellboy, who has a --ahem-- fiery relationship with fellow "freak" and Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense co-worker, Liz Sherman (Selma Blair), is all about being accepted by the public. Which doesn't really know he exists. So, of course, in cleaning-up the scene of Nuada's first act of war against humans (it involves Tooth Fairies eating people at an auction), he allows himself to be "outted" to the public... which causes a headache for Bureau Chief Manning (Jeffrey Tambor).

The thing is, with so little 1st act time actually spent with Hellboy, it's hard to understand why he wants to be part of the public so much. We don't meet Hellboy for probably 15 minutes, and then we don't really get a sense of who he is for maybe another half-hour. In fact, in the first scene we see him in he's having some sort of fight with Liz over their (I guess) co-habitation space being all dirty from his incredible-amount-0f-crap. Of course, there's something else a-brewin' between them, but since we don't spend really any time with just the two of them together, it's pretty difficult to surmise how things are.

I should add that when Hellboy "comes out" to the public, Washington sends a new liaison to try and wrangle him. The man is another "freak," the ectoplasmic Johann Krauss. Voiced by Family Guy's Seth McFarlane, the character is a lot of fun, even if the "rules" of how his ephemeral body works is never quite clear (despite him listing what he can do). It's perhaps a tad ironic that a character who is not the focus of the film, who has no eyes, can exhibit no physical emotion, is the easiest to understand; Late in the film, when he must make a choice, his decision is clear, and you totally understand why. It's the little things, and seeing how it works so effectively when done well makes the lack of it for everyone else all the more tragic.

And this is the problem with the film. So much time is spent on moving the (rote) story forward that we end up with a lack of time with the characters. Abe, the pseudo-amphibious team member, quickly falls in love with Princess Nuala, Nuada's sister, and keeper of the last piece of the Golden Crown which controls the Golden Army. But why does he fall in love with her? Do they have some sort of connection... because all we get in the film is them touching each others' hands (they're both empaths -- can "read" thoughts, events, by touch) and... that's it.

The big conflict of the film for Hellboy is between wanting to be part of the Human world -- which, once he's outted, likes to throw shit at him on the street and tell him he's ugly -- or the monster world, which is hankerin' for a war with the humans. Where does Hellboy's loyalty lie? But with the exception of a single moment, where this conflict is explicitly stated by Nuada, when Hellboy must decide whether to destroy a forest elemental --"the last of its kind"-- thus saving the occupants of New York -- or to let it live, thus choosing to side with the monsters against the blah blah blah humans.

But beyond this moment, it's never there. This central conflict of who Hellboy chooses to be is, well, not so central.

As such, the movie sort of stutters forward toward a fairly anti-climactic end-fight, and you're left thinking: For a movie that looks so great, it failed to keep my attention.

My recommendation is do with Hellboy II what you did with Hellboy I -- Wait for DVD.

-RoboNixon

ps. I saw the movie w/RoboGirlfriend and after the movie, this is what she had to say about it: "I wanted to take a nap." Nerds with girlfriends, you have been warned.

Rock Band:Crack::RoboNixon:Crackhead

2008-07-08T16:07:00.000-07:00

Rock Band for the Xbox 360 arrived last Wednesday. Any moment of free time has been spent punishing the drums, tearing up guitar solos, or groovin' on the bass. This game is out of control.

If you are familiar with the Guitar Hero games, then Rock Band will seem like a natural progression to you: Rather than using only a guitar-simulating controller to simulate playing... the guitar, in Rock Band you have the addition of vocals on a mic, and drums on... these drums:

So with three of your friends you can form a band and go on "tour" around the world, racking up "Star" points, trying to lure a manager, an audio guy, bodyguards and so on while earning a van, tour bus, and the like, while unlocking new songs and venues.

And it is awesome.

Playing a hard song with three of your buddies is an amazing kind of gameplay. Rather than playing against each other, or together against a common enemy, in this there is no defeating anything -- rather, it is playing music together. When someone misses a note, their instrument drops out of the song. When you all play in sync, hitting all your notes, the amount of points you can get is endless.

Rock Band is the opposite of Grand Theft Auto IV. Where that has an open-environment, and you can do as you please, when you please, capping bitches or stealing cars, Rock Band is much more about progressing naturally through the songs, defeating them one by one (or two+ at a time during "sets") with no bitch-capping or car-stealing.

RoboRoommate v. 1 and myself play constantly, and even RoboGirlfriend -- an anti-gamer if there ever was one -- has jumped in and figured out the bass and sings along with the best of them.

Sticking points are small, but existent: you can definitely get Rock Band'd out, and the learning curve is pretty steep. Those of you out there without rhythm -- I'm looking at you. Drums are the hardest to pick up, with bass (or vocals, depending on your personal singing ability) at the easier end of the scale.

Otherwise, the game is hella-fun (yeah, I said it), and even though it can cost you $120-160, it's well worth the money. Go get Rock Band, and you too can create your characters, create a band, and rock your way across the globe.

-RoboNixon

ps. The character and band creators are loads of fun. My drum avatar is from the Netherlands, is named Jann, and you use money from gigs to dress him up. The two bands "Jann" is in are KITTEN and PINOT FILM NOIR. Using the character creator, RoboRoommate v.1 made a pretty dead-on young-Bruce Springsteen. So there are plenty of options for those stylists of you out there.

"Silas, Do You Suck Dick?"

2008-07-08T10:02:00.000-07:00

Good bye, Albert Brooks. Good bye.

Last night was Mr. Brooks last Weeds episode of the season (according to interviews), and it saw a number of plot-moving events happen. Last night was a very interesting episode, if not the most memorable (or good) of the season. So let's take a stroll.

I think it's a big cop out to have last week's episode end with Nancy about to off Bubbie herself, with a pillow, in the living room, and to start this week up post-funeral. I guess the writers realized that having their main character euthanize a 90+ year old woman on screen was not the most sympathetic step-forward they could take. But maybe it would have been for the best -- I already get the feeling that Nancy doesn't really have emotions anymore as much as modes of operation -- panic, less panic, and pissed of. So how great would it have been to see her emotionless face, with maybe a roll of the eyes, as the life escaped from her sons' great-grandmother? At this point I think WEEDS is on its way to becoming a sort-of Frankenstein story, where Nancy is the monster that everyone else lends a piece of themselves to create.

What was the deal with all the realtors in the episode? A lot of distracted screen time was spent with them. I hope they play a continued role in the rest of the season, if only to validate their existence in this episode. And what happened to the rest of the Agrestic cast? They are cutting characters left and right in this show. Dean and Isabella are notably absent, Conrad and Heylia are gone for good, so maybe this is their attempt to introduce some new "whacky" side characters.

I wonder when Andy will realize Nancy has become an emotionless machine. After being played in the desert? Maybe. But unlikely. Like everyone else in the show, he is a complete idiot. It's actually a problem I've been having with Kevin Nealon's Doug. In the beginning of the show, he's kind of an idiot because he's really good at his job, and so he can sort of be a man-child in the rest of his time -- he's bored, and that's how he exists. But as the stakes for him have gotten higher and higher (literally and figuratively), he hasn't panicked or freaked out or become less of an idiot. Now, after his sham insurance plans for Agrestic were discovered, where does he flee to? To a known accomplice's place. Where he sits in a van and gets high all the time. Dude, were I on the run for fraud, the last thing I'd do is that. It's TV, I guess. It's just a disappointment. I prefer Nealon as a spoiled, intelligent man-child. C'est la vie.

Albert Brooks shows his characters true colors (in case we had missed them before) by being a total asshole to Shane and then walking out on the family with all of Nancy's formerly-hidden-money. Shane continues to be the most fucked up kid on the face of the Earth, and Silas is just an idiot. Does anyone else remember when he punctured his condoms and impregnated his deaf teenage girlfriend? That shit's fucked up. But they've taken a half-step back, and now he's not really a tragic figure, a young man waylaid by the premature death of his family's patriarch and the downward spiral of his mother, but instead just a guy who grows weed in a truck and gets high a lot.

And of course, at the end of the episode, Celia gets caught and Nancy is put into a precarious position. My hope is, of course, that they just put a fucking bullet between Celia's eyes, but maybe that's just me. I mean, Nancy's already a murderer (see: Bubbie), so it's just the next step, ordering hits on people. But no, instead we'll get some girls-are-back-together crap before Nancy discovers what Celia's true motives are and it all comes to a head and (yawn).

I was thinking about how I miss Marta, from the first two seasons. But it was a very, very different show then. I still like WEEDS -- I laughed a lot last night -- but it's not the show it used to be.

But hey. It's better than nothing.

-RoboNixon

Hand Cock

2008-07-02T14:00:00.000-07:00

I wrote a big long scathing review of Will Smith's latest flick, HANCOCK, before realizing that it wasn't even worth the scorn. So here's my shorter review, so my brain can get to work on deleting all memories of it that-much-sooner.

The film is terrible. And this coming from someone who enjoyed Transformers. I mean, if I was willing to give that film a pass on all of its horrible shit, you'd think I could maybe give Will Smith a freebie for his take on the superhero genre.

That is not the case.

Now, to be fair, not all of Hancock is terrible. The first half is watchable, if not particularly good, but there were a few laughs and some cool moments. The second half is worse-than-Kindom-of-the-Crystal-Skull-bad. Just terrible. A complete misfire.

Will Smith plays amnesiac, immortal, super-powered drunk, living in Los Angeles and "fighting crime" when he feels like it. Usually this involves him inadvertently destroying things, or making the situation worse than it needs to be. And a first for Will Smith, Hancock is not only not-bright, but also has no sense of humor. Smith is always watchable, but I was afraid at any moment he'd just punch through someone's head out of frustration because he could not take a ride on "Q-Q-Q-Qantas airlines."

Jason Bateman does his best to hold together an incoherent 2nd half, and Charlize Theron is wasted collecting a paycheck and really nothing else.

Beyond the fact that Hancock's entire arc occurs in the first half of the film... Beyond the ridiculous "origin" they give him, which makes no sense... Beyond the redundant scenes of Hancock going "Tell me who I am," and someone else screaming "I hate you" at him without telling him anything, despite the fact that this other someone knowing about his amnesia from 80 years ago... Beyond the non-developed, super-late introduced "bad-guy"... Beyond all this... There's a good film that wants to be made. io9 had a particularly nice piece about all the problems with this movie, and how there's a good movie that wants to exist in there.

But, as such, it does not. Hancock is a terrible, terrible piece of shit, and the worst Will Smith movie I've ever seen, hands down. It is not worth your time, your money, or another second of me ruminating on it.

Don't see it.

I warned you.

-RoboNixon

Who (will watch) the Watchmen?

2008-06-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

io9 has a piece up, bluntly titled, "Watchmen Shouldn't Be A Movie." More cohesive and researched than anything I'd put together on the subject, I agree whole heartedly with its thesis: that a Watchmen film will be, at the very least, misguided, and at the very most, boring. Specifically, I agree with their statements that "Watchmen is of its time," that "It's about the history of comics," and "It's about experimenting with comic format."

The last of these is the easiest to dismiss -- many books adapted into films have experimented with a straightforward narrative and worked wonderfully. But ignoring that, the fact that it's a comic about the history of comics, and true to a very specific period in time could help contribute to a misguided attempt at a literal translation.

I got my grubby robomitts on a copy of the earlier David Hayter draft, that appropriately updated the background conflict that drives the main narrative of the story. It still missed the boat on commenting on comics as a medium, but it was a very well done adaptation, keeping key moments, while jettisoning all the non-essential chunks. Hayter's draft was an adaptation of a graphic novel to film, trying to retain the more universal of its themes.

Current director Snyder has said many times it will be a literal translation of the graphic novel, going so far as to produce an animated The Black Freighter piece to be put on the DVD. The Black Freighter comic-within-the-comic is meta-comicdom, and its whole point of existence is extremely questionable in film format, as it attempts to conduct a comic experiment in a completely different medium, literally. That he's willing to do this shows me that he might not have the necessary perspective -- any non-literal perspective -- that might be necessary to adapt such a dense piece of contemporary fiction.

But, anyway, that's just me... go read the piece over at io9.

-RoboNixon

WEEDS - A Return to Form?

2008-06-24T10:16:00.000-07:00

WEEDS is back on Showtime in its fourth season. With two episodes under the belt, it's time to kick the tires a bit and see how this baby rolls.

After a tired and meandering third season, Weeds seems to have returned to form... kind of. Gone is Agrestic, a tract-housing suburb so important to the show that it served as a character for three seasons. Instead, we get the the border-town of Ren Mar, complete with nearby ocean, German food, and miles of fencing separating America from Mexico.

Gone are two of the shows biggest characters, Haylia, the supplier to Nancy's seller, and Conrad, not only the most-important non-Botwin Family character, but the romantic interest.

But!! We get the addition of Albert Brooks as Nancy's gambling-addict father-in-law.

So where does that leave us?

Let's start with the good and work our way to the bad, eh?

Albert Brooks is pretty terrific as Judah and Andy's father, who is a total asshole, a gambling addict, and 100% classic Albert Brooks. He's curmudgeonly, he's exasperated, and he doesn't want "Not-Francie's" family in the house. Good. Great. I'm only bummed knowing that Brooks is only contracted for two more episodes. Bummer. He brings an inner life and a sense of lived-in-ness that the show was missing all last season.

Andy. Justin Kirk is a pretty terrific actor all around, and while I imagine he's on this show to pay the bills, he never slacks off. It also helps that he's been given some great material to work with, like the scene in the 4th season premier where he tells Nancy about how her dead husband showed him pictures of her naked when they had first started dating. It's a great bit between the two actors, and it plays to a lot of the strengths the show has forgotten it has...

And, of course, Mary-Louise Parker is great... when she has the chance. There's something a little crazy and sad in her eyes that makes her believable... even when she makes really, really, really terrible decisions. She's funny, and you can understand that she's just trying to carry on after the death of the person who was her other half...

Which leads us to one of my big problems. Which is that in season 1, Nancy sold weed to maintain this lifestyle for her and her children. As she got more involved in it, she lost track of where she was, and how her absence was affecting her children. But now, having burnt down their house, having picked her kids up and moved them hundreds of miles, having employed her eldest son in the drug trade, after ignoring her teenage son's obvious cries for help and attention, I begin to wonder... why is Nancy selling drugs? She has given up everything she sold weed to keep, not least of all her family. She is a terrible, terrible parent. Shane should be put into foster care, or should be adopted by someone at least moderately more stable. And Silas is just ... I mean, he's going to end up in a trailer, in the middle of the desert, making meth, and crossing over into AMC's Breaking Bad. We all know that's how it ends for him.

So what does Nancy want?

With Conrad gone it's hard to say. When he was on the show, he provided a warm counterpoint to Nancy's ingenue. He was in the drug trade, but he knew how rough it was. He wanted to protect Nancy for the ugly angles of things. And for Nancy, he was the possibility, that maybe there was a new life ahead for her, that maybe she could find someone who she cared for, and cared for her. That maybe things could ultimately come together.

But not anymore. So I'm left wondering why Nancy is working for the (much less threatening than last-season) Mexican drug-lords. I'm left wondering why they're on the lam, when I imagine Nancy has a chunk of insurance money coming her way from her house. And I'm left wondering where the show is going.

The ship has righted itself. But I fear they've lost the map.

-RoboNixon

The Incredible Hulk

2008-06-17T12:40:00.000-07:00

I saw The Incredible Hulk on Friday with RoboGirlfriend, and we both enjoyed it. While lacking in the charm and good-humor that made Iron Man rocktacular, Hulk is fast-moving, efficient, and action-filled. Enough so that I can ignore the problems with it and enjoy it on the same level as Transformers... with the knowledge that it is much, much better than 'Formers.

I liked Edward Norton. I liked the opening Hulk action scene, where the Hulk stays in the shadows for nearly all of the battle. I liked the Captain America'd Blonsky fighting Hulk one-on-one, and the Abomination battle is brutal and fun, even if it wasn't nearly as epic as a Hulk fight should truly be.

It was an enjoyable film where you watch a gigantic green guy beat shit up for two hours.

As a counterpoint, though, I did see Iron Man again, and that movie holds up very, very well, especially after Hulk. Tony Stark's cameo is great, if super, super tiny, and continues the thread of setting up things for the Avengers movie. Which I am totally stoked about. And will nerd-out about in an upcoming post.

So my Hulk recommendation? See it in theaters, but see it as a matinee. Fun, enjoyable, but nothing great.

Here's lookin' at you, Banner.

-RoboNixon

Welcome to Earth, Bitch!

2008-06-16T09:38:00.000-07:00

"Revelations"

The mid-season finale of BSG has come and gone, and we wait in the shadows for Sci-Fi to give us the dates for the final chunk of BSG episodes -- ever -- to air (in 2009). This leaves us plenty of time to ponder what we saw, the revelations received, in this, the end of the story arc that has driven the show since the mini-series.

Because, of course, they find Earth.

And, of course, it totally sucks the big one.

But let's start at the beginning. A much more thorough recap can be found here; I'm going to go through and discuss my likes/dislikes, and what we may have left.

Tory is a little bitch. That's right, I came out and said it. The first of the Final Cylons to jump-ship, she has had a hankering for some Cylon love for a while. I really, really hope that Tory gets a good pay-off, because they've played so much with her character this season, I'd be disappointed if it was merely to show the contrast between the Final bunch. She is, however, a tool. She doesn't have the cajones to live up to what she is, but she so desperately wants to. She has to have a cover to get off the ship, ostensibly to give Roslin her meds and, you know "be her assistant" and such, but as soon as she arrives, all she does is act petulant. I would have preferred it if instead of telling Roslin she no longer takes orders from her she would have gestured to her crotch and said, "Suck it."

I like Chief, Anders, and Tigh getting together around the Viper and quickly becoming frustrated. I especially liked Tigh finally getting his act together, and the moment where he realizes what he needs to do is one of the best moments in the episode. Marches down the hall, to Adama, and let's him know that, shit, man, I should've told you a while ago, but hey, I'm a Cylon...

And Adama kept waiting for him to go "PYSCH!" but it never happened. Instead we get a nice little-bit of Adama realizing that things are too frakked up to keep going on, and he drools all over his son. Tigh gets brought to the airlock, understands what might need to be done to stop D'Anna from airlocking more pilots on the base-star, and then gives up Anders and Chief much more quickly than I would have guessed.

The look on Chief's face when the Marines come in to interrupt the little Starbuck-Anders-Chief Viper love-fest is priceless. And when Starbuck turns to Anders, the classic Starbuck WTF face plastered all over her, I kept thinking of the line earlier in the season, where she tells him that if he was a cylon, she'd blow his brains out. Ahhhh, sweet love. But things are more complicated than that now, and hey, at least Tigh, Chief and Anders aren't all whiney like Tory is. Also, not evil like Tory is. But I suppose the difference is they don't want to be Cylons, and Tory does.

Back to the Airlock for a moment -- why is it that the favorite means of execution is airlock? It was badass early on in the show's run, when it was a nice creative way to off someone without a big mess, but at this point it's kind of played out. I mean, seeing someone shoot out into the icy vacuum doesn't have the same weight it once did. Especially not after Cally's frozen-drifting-through-space mugshot a handful of episodes ago. Isn't it just easier at this point to put a bullet in someone's head?

I both like and hate how the writers got themselves out of a pickle. The idea that the Final Five will show everyone the way to Earth was always a problem I was particularly fond of -- because the Final Four that we know had no idea how to get there. They were just some dudes who suddenly realized they're a little different than everyone else. Like back when Anders is on the basestar and the hybrid mentions that the Five will lead everyone to Earth and he has that shifty-eyed "oh shit" look on his face. But in this ep it's resolved in a way that is believable, but kind of a cheat. OK, so the ship Starbuck came back on suddenly is getting a beacon from Earth, and they wouldn't have known without the Final Four getting all head-trippy. I buy it, it's a way out, but it's kind of a cheat.

Emphatic "meh."

I also don't know how much I buy the humans making another deal with the cylons, especially now that their leader is totally-batshit-crazy D'Anna. Especially after something she says in this very episode, about how can you try to live with the humans after they failed so miserably on New Caprica? But whatever, you know, we all want Earth, blah blah blah. I don't know if the people of the fleet -- the people who suffered on New Caprica, who worked so hard to shake off the yoke of occupation -- would be so happy to know they're gonna settle down on this Thirteenth Colony together. But this show could give a rat's ass about the regular folk in the fleet, so it's a moot point*.

Then they jump into Earth orbit and everyone flips their shit. What was with Lee jumping up and down and stripping? It was like suddenly Galactica is an intergalactic Chippendales. But they're all totally stoked, and Earth is all pretty, so of course, they take down some ships filled with only the characters who are the focus of the show (fuck scientists, other quorum members, and so on!), and come to some pretty nasty conclusions.

Now, here we are at the ending, and I'm sure this is one of those things people will mostly love, but I'm pretty unexcited about. They're on Earth, and Adama gets a handful of soil (like he was destined to get), and it's radioactive, and there are ruins everywhere, and the weather's shitty, and man, everyone's moping because there are no nice planets in the galaxy.

I was waiting the whole time for the Statue of Liberty to be buried half in the sand and for Adama to scream "YOU BASTARDS!" at it as the Ape-Cylons came riding in on horses. I suppose on one hand, it's a good resolution to the whole Let's-find-Earth plot that's been driving the show since the mini-series, but on the other hand, it's a bummer, and, it seems to be, a vague rehash of the whole New Caprica crap. Fleet finds planet. Everyone happy. They settle down. Planet shitty. Cylon crap. blah blah blah. Except now they're on the Thirteenth Colony and it's shitty and there's going to be Cylon crap blah blah blah.

So I don't know. I think the show has lost so much of my goodwill this season I don't know if I trust Ron Moore y Co. to not ruin the last half of the last season for me. The possible conflicts we have moving forward are the Other-Cylons, perhaps some survivors on Earf? And, of course, the idea that this has all happened before, and will happen again.

Though, for the record, if the remains of the Thirteenth Colony are from when the initial exodus, that lead to the founding of the other Twelve Colonies, occurred, then there really wouldn't be any ruins. Didn't any one watch that Discovery Channel special about Earth After People? A couple hundred years and ain't nothin' existin'.

Also, where are the forests 'n shit? On Caprica there were forests, even after all the cities had the shit bombed out of them. That's how Helo got his boogie on with Athena/Boomer/Cylon.

The big reveal we're all waiting for is who the Final Fifth cylon is. We've had some conflicting information about their location, with D'Anna telling us they're not in the fleet (abwah?), but Number Six (who shall now be referred to as Pregnant Six, you sly dog you) mentioned that she could "feel" the Five nearby. So... who do we trust? I think there are some lame possibilities.

Obviously, D'Anna could be lying. Which is a much more "LOST" way of dealing with things than BSG typically resorts to. In this way, I think Gaeta might be a good choice, because why did we spend time with him this episode, fumbling and bumbling his way around the console in CIC, if not to set something up? Dualla has also been brought back from episodic limbo, which is great, because in the episodes she has been in she's been totally wasted. Good job, team.

Alternately, the final fifth cylon could be on Earth. Or could be dead. Considering how many characters have eaten the Big Mac over four seasons, that gives us fairly limitless possibilities. D'Anna doesn't mention that one of them is dead, though, and no one presses the issue on the fifth, which is annoying and not dealt with, but whatever. Thoughts? Ideas? Perhaps D'Anna is the fifth cylon... perhaps...

So, I guess it was a pretty good episode... that leaves me fairly worried about the remainder of the season. We're going to see a lot of regulars eat it. I just hope that Moore gets his shit together, and blows my friggin' mind.

Word.

-RoboNixon

*Which isn't to say they always hated the regular people. In season 2, especially, we get a much grander sense of the world, with a lot of press, a sense that there were really other people in the fleet, beyond the characters we followed. There were the Roslin-haters, there were the press people, there were the prisoners on the ship in Season 1, there were the black-market dealers in Season 2, and so on. Even in Season 3 we get Chief aboard the Tylium processing ship with the coal-miner-like workers. This season we get... Uhhh... Err.... Um....

Exactly.

Charting the Charts

2008-06-13T10:34:00.000-07:00

Oh God. A bunch of shit I don't care about occurs on the Billboard charts this past week.

Weezer's new AMAZING album (...cough cough...) debuted at #4, down from #2 for their previous album, Make Believe.

Disturbed, a band I intentionally avoid listening to, debuted at #1, proving that rock is alive, you know, just not in the way that it's actually "rock 'n roll." Journey inexplicably charts in at #5, Jewel debuts at #8, and the S & the C soundtrack continues to be hot shit, at #7 in its second week.

On the less-than-top-ten part of the chart, Leona Lewis, Madonna, and other shit I don't care enough to mention have gone gold.

Singles-wise, Modern-Rock-wise, Weezer continues to reign atop that chart with Pork & Beans, proving... that... I don't know, people like Weezer regardless of quality? I got nothing. The Offspring continues to surprise me with their continued existence at #2 with Hammerhead, a song I have yet to hear anywhere. I'm disappointed that the Foo Fighters have become the lazy-masters of Rock, because they used to be great, and now are, well, less than great. They're at #3. Linkin Park, Seether, Flobots, Nine Inch Nails, and Death Cab for Cutie are up there, and Salute Your Solution is hanging firm at #9, with Mr. Gwyneth Paltrow's band serving up flavor at #10 with Violet Hill.

Also, there are no vowels in the first four letters of Mrs. Paltrow's first name. I guess "y" is a sometimes vowel, but it's weird typing a name with seven letters and only one is a vowel.

Next week, things continue to happen!

-RoboNixon

GTA IV: Final Thoughts

2008-06-11T09:49:00.001-07:00

COMPLETE!

Finally, after taking a brief-brief-brief GTA IV sabbatical, I returned to the game, alternating missions with RoboRoommate v.2, and then, two nights ago, it happened. I beat the game. At first the final mission, which involves an epic car chase, a massive gun-fight, a dirt-bike v. motorboat chase, a helicopter v. boat chase, and then, finally, an execution on "Happiness Island" (aka Ellis/Liberty Island), seemed difficult. But, like all the missions in GTA IV, if you take your time with it, it's much easier than first glances would seem.

So now, here, finally, is my GTA IV, post-game post-mortem. As you can see here, the game has gotten amazing reviews coming out its pores. I'm not going to review the game, as much as say that the reviews are a little overstated, and that the game, while really, really great, is not perfect, but, rather, is a delightful bit of foreplay for what (hopefully) will be a real culmination of all that this game sets up.

Let's start with gameplay. As I stated waaaaaay back here, the mechanics in this game are so much better than previous GTAs. The gun fights are no longer the frustrating, terrible, shoot-outs with terrible aim that the previous games brought. The Gears-of-War style duck-'n-cover system lends a much more strategic element to the game, and makes the gun-fights themselves more exciting. Unfortunately, it also makes the gunfights, for the most part, too easy. Which isn't necessarily a huge complaint -- the game is incredibly fun -- but I imagine in the next outting they will balance the system more, as well as give a greater variety to the shoot-outs. I mean, as much fun as it is heading down a hall and eliminating baddies, one by one, you do it so many times in GTA IV that it quickly becomes rote.

The driving mechanics are also greatly improved. While the motorcycles are still perhaps a smidge too troublesome, the driving in this game is top-notch. I had a lot of fun cruising around the city, power sliding, and hitting motorcyclists at top speed for amusement. Also, the car chases in this game are incredible, epic, and tough. They did a real solid with this.

Also, it need not be said, because so many have said it so much better than I can, but the world these developers, programmers, and engineers created is amazing. Liberty City is a great, living, breathing place. I can't wait to see where they go with GTA next.

Really, my biggest problem with the game is the story. The American Dream is the underlying theme, for all the characters, all who talk about making an easy buck the hard way, then using that money to improve the city. Noble, but the irony is, of course, that no one ever fulfills this promise, because most end up with a bullet in their head.

The characters are GREAT, though, don't get me wrong. And Niko is a pretty great protagonist for us to control on his quest for vengeance. Sadly, though, this quest for vengeance is underdeveloped, and never really amounts to much. The emotional depths they could have gone to aren't realized, and ultimately so many of the characters we meet are tossed aside as the spindly narrative reaches its stuttering conclusion. For instance, there are two possible finales. And in one of them, a good friend's sister -- and Niko's romantic interest -- is killed, and so you must get revenge as your final act before settling down into the American dream.

But in this ending, only two other characters lend a hand -- the dope-smoking, unintelligible Little Jacob, and your nervous, just-married cousin, Roman. The dead chick's brother and crime family? Not involved. The array of characters you do missions for? Not involved. At least if the narrative had crumbled under its own weight, it'd be admirable. This starts building that bridge... but gives up halfway through.

GTA IV is a great, great game. It's a hell of a lot of fun to play, it's engrossing, but, perhaps more importantly, it sets the stage for a truly grandiose game. This is the great student film that leads to the next project being The Godfather of games (though Birth of a Nation would be a more apt metaphor, history-of-film-wise). If they can get the narrative under control, they have the opportunity to truly blow our minds.

Until then, time to blow-out some brains in Liberty City.

-RoboNixon

Don't Mess With the Zohan (Unless You're 12)

2008-06-08T21:02:00.000-07:00

So I saw You Don't Mess With the Zohan, Adam Sandler's latest creation. I haven't seen the last handful of Sandler flicks (the last I saw in theaters was Anger Management... in 2003), so what made me go "Hrm. I'll see this film!"

Judd Apatow. Yes, Judd Apatow, he of 40 Year Old Virgin, Knocked Up, producer of Superbad, Forgetting Sarah Marshall, and Freaks & Geeks of TV renown. Along with Triumph the Insult Comic Dog mastermind, Robert Smigal, and Sandler, Apatow wrote the screenplay to this comedy-in-the-world-of-Middle-East-Conflict. How does it fair?

Well, Apatow decided to channel his inner twelve year old. Smigal's humor has always been fairly silly, and Sandler's audience is typically acne-prone, hormonal, and can't vote, so their contributions weren't a surprise. Maybe I just expected more from Apatow. My B.

Because "Zohan" is a silly, silly, movie. At times, like a live-action cartoon. The plot follows counter-terrorist Israeli super-agent, hacky-sack champ, disco dancer, and naked-chef, the aspiring hair-dresser, Zohan. He's great at everything, but is sick of all the fighting. So he fakes his death in a face-off with John Turtorro's "Phantom," and sets out for NYC , renaming himself Scrappy Cocoa (After two dogs -- literally -- he gives make-overs to), and gets in all sorts of crazy hi jinks. He finally gets a job at a shitty beauty-shop run by a Palestinian (Emmanuelle Chriqui from ENTOURAGE), falls in love, bones old ladies, and stops a crazy Dave Matthews red-neck from burning down the neighborhood and inciting Israeli-Palestinian New York City Conflict.

It is ridiculous.

The scene where we're introduced to Matthew's red-neck character, decked out in a silly mustache, cowboy hat, and terrible plaid, I had no idea who the actor was. "He looks familiar," I thought to myself. I turned to RoboGirlfriend, who I dragged along with me, "Is that Dave Matthews?" "Yes," she replied, then returned her gaze to the screen .Wow. Dave Matthews in an Adam Sandler film. Later in the movie, he enters screen with a bomb and a cage full of adorable puppies. "I'll blow you up... and these puppies!" He cackles. Wow.

Some mention should be made to the extensive cameos. George Takei, Bruce Vilanch, John McEnroe, Kevin James, Mariah Carey, Kevin Nealon, and that's just off the top of my head. Which, of course, leads to a ridiculous scene of product promotion.

The scene: Mariah Carey, John Turtorro, Adam Sandler, Carey's assistants.

Sandler's phone rings. It's a video-communique.

Mariah Carey: What kind of phone is that?

Sandler: (turns with phone to camera) A Sony Ericsson.

Carey: Does that have bluetooth?

Sandler: Yes.

Carey: I can never figure that out.

Sandler: You just sync it to your computer. What kind of computer do you have? Mac or PC?

Carey: I don't know. (to assistants) What kind of computer do I have? PC or Mac?

Assistants: Mac.

There was probably more. I can't remember more because I was too busy at the time, being bludgeoned to death by advertising. Later:

Carey: (to Turtorro, as he exits) Don't forget to buy my latest album!

And that's the movie.

If you can't vote, and have recently entered puberty, this movie is for you. Otherwise, at best, it's worth a shot on DVD.

-RoboNixon

It Had to Happen Eventually...

2008-06-05T12:13:00.001-07:00

Two years ago, when RoboNixon was recovering after some CPU work, he had the chance to read Warren Ellis' interesting graphic novel, OCEAN. The first thing I thought was that, with a little more development, this could make for a really tight, very exciting, very original feature film.

Looks like I was two-years ahead of the game.

OCEAN was originally published as a six-part mini-series.

From the Hollywood Reporter:

Ryan Condal has been hired to adapt "Ocean," [...] by Warren Ellis that is set up at Warner Bros. Nick Wechsler and Hollywood Gang's Gianni Nunnari are producing.

The story revolves around the discovery of thousands of coffins containing angel-like bodies and a giant weapon of mass destruction beneath the ice on Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. A U.N. weapons inspector is sent to investigate the find, teaming with a space station crew, when a powerful conglomerate moves in to exploit the discovery.

Hopefully they'll fix some of the problems in the story and beef up the more exciting elements. It's worth a read, though maybe not worth the investment of a purchase. Check your local library, or bug your nerdy friends. Lord know, where Warren Ellis goes, the geek will follow.

-RoboNixon

Charting Music

2008-06-05T11:35:00.001-07:00

Here's the Billboard music round-up.

Frank Sinatra's best-of, "Nothing But the Best" is in the top 10, at #6, falling from #4 last week. Death Cab for Cutie is at #10, down from #5 last week, and #1 the week before that. I'm not a big fan, but good for them. I like it whenever a rock album tops the charts. It's like a dying beast throwing out its limbs with its final breath.

Madonna's at #11, and after 5 weeks, still has yet to move 500,000 copies. Her primo-days are long gone, my friends. Kid Rock's latest has gone gold, making me die a little inside, Jack Johnson has gone platinum, making me sleepy inside, and Alvin & the Chipmunks refuses to leave the charts, has gone gold, and hovers around #24 (up from #29 last week). That movie is evil, so I imagine someone selling their soul cut a smooth contract that guaranteed theatrical and musical success.

We eat each other's shit for laughs.

REM hovers at #66, and The Raconteurs are out of the top 100. Bummer.

As far as singles go, Weezer reigns supreme with Pork & Beans at #1 on the Modern Rock chart, which makes me sad, but is followed up by a new Offspring song at, surprisingly, #2. Wow. I thought they spontaneously combusted or something. Good to have you back, guys. Be good. "Salute Your Solution" by The Raconteurs rounds off the top 10.

And there's your music minute.

-RoboNixon

Surprise!

2008-06-04T11:31:00.000-07:00

The new Weezer album, "Weezer," is, evidently, terrible.

Like none of us saw this coming.

I haven't heard it yet, but I have to say, I find no reason to buy this album. I don't like the single, and their albums have been on a downward slide since Matthew Sharp left the band. Weezer, you have finally lost RoboNixon.

Goodbye Weezer. (sniffle) Goodbye forever.

Weezer reviews: AV Club, Rolling Stone, NYTimes

-RoboNixon

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of I WANT MY MONEY BACK

2008-06-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is terrible. I'm going to make a list of things that are terrible about it. I'm sure this list cannot possibly encompass ALL that is terrible about it, as I suffered some sort of mental block, possibly to prevent myself from finding and burning all prints of the film, so if you want to add anything, please do in comments.

Also, I should warn you, if you haven't seen the film, DO NOT SEE IT. This movie will give you cancer. This movie will be like Michael Jackson in bed with your children. This movie will make you hate Indiana Jones forever (like poor RoboGirlfriend, who had never seen an Indy film before, and never will again).

--The kids in the drag-racing car at the beginning. Why the hell are they there? What do they contribute? Anything? ANYTHING?! No. No they don't. The entire credit sequence and beyond has no bearing on the plot* of the film.

(* -- calling it a "plot" is being kind. More like "insipid action scenes tied together by a bored looking Harrison Ford reading things and telling them where to go.")

--CGI Animals. CGI Prairie Dogs in the beginning. HOW CUTE! How unnecessary. How uninspired. CGI Animals help Shia LaBeouf swing through the trees, and then the CGI monkeys attack Cate Blanchett. I hate you, Spielberg and Lucas and Koepp. I hate you so much.

--Shia LaBeouf is left behind in the jungle. So in order to catch up with the racing amphibious vehicles he... swings through the jungle on vines with monkeys? Really? No, seriously, this happens? YES. YES IT DOES.

--John Hurt. Why he was in this movie, I don't know. He babbles a lot, doesn't help, and speaks in verse ("That's Milton," says Blanchett at one point). Why they need such an acclaimed actor to mumble and babble his way through this film, I know not. What a waste. A waste of time. Space. Money. And, importantly, my attention.

--Ray Winstone. Why he was in this movie, I don't know. I actually kind of liked him in this movie, but his character is so amazingly under-developed it baffled me. He has a decade+ of work with Jones, yet he becomes a turn-coat on his BFF because the "soviets pay." Really? At least Belloq in Raiders wanted the glory of the discovery, and the power the Ark brought, despite his... distaste for the Nazis employing him. Winstone just seems to careen around the plot as the script demands, regardless of character, rationale, or anything else. Then, at the very end, after spending the previous five minutes looting treasure, Indy's got him holding onto his whip, and is reeling him in so he doesn't get sucked into another dimension (yeah, no, really), and Winstone just says "I'll be OK," and lets go of the whip. WHAT?! FUCK YOU, MOVIE.

--Karen Allen. Not terrible. I like Karen Allen. By far the best Indy-Chick. However, underutilized in this film. Because there are a bajillion other characters that need to be underdeveloped, we don't really even get her until half-way through the film. I guess my complaint is that she isn't really used, and the movie she's in sucks.

--When Marion drives the truck off the cliff and onto the TREE growing out the cliff-side that SAVES THEM from HORRIBLE DEATH? Stupid. The part where Marion drives them off THREE HUGE WATERFALLS? And they don't die HORRIBLE DEATHS?!

--There was never any moment where I felt any of them were in any danger. Ever. The motorcycle chase through the streets of New Haven... er... "College Town".... was cool, but there was never any danger. At the end, when the temple is being sucked into itself, Indy is literally WALKING UP THE STAIRS. Indiana Jones and the Warner Bros. Cartoon Adventure should have been the real title. I was about as worried for Indy and Co. as I am for the Roadrunner.

--In the jungle, there is a totally ridiculous machine the Soviets are using to cut a path through the dense underbrush to make a road for their evil-Soviet convoy. Or whatever. OK, fine, I'll accept it. Then Indy blows it up. OK, cool. But then there is a HYPER-LONG chase on ROADS through the jungle... the jungle that they needed a ginormous ridiculous vehicle to cut roads with. The entire film is filled with implausibilities like this. Or "plot-holes" if you want to call them that.

--Who are these scary gymnast dudes in the cemetery that attack Indy and Mutt? No, seriously, who are they?! They never come back, they're never explained.

--Indiana Jones does not solve any real puzzles in this movie, with the exception of "figuring out" where the blah blah is and ohmigod this movie is punishment.

--The Bad CGI Alien at the end. Need I say more.

--The non-threatening Soviets. At least in the previous Indy movies, the bad guys were Nazis, who were, actually, like the worst-fucking-people ever. Nazis = not good. I think that's just a fact we can agree on (beyond the fact that yeah, Oskar Schindler was a Nazi -- not all were TERRIBLE -- but you know the point that I'm making). But the Soviets in this movie aren't particularly threatening. They don't really mess things up too bad. Indy escapes them pretty easily (and kills a ridiculous amount of them in horrible horrible ways), and their evil "master plan" isn't really that threatening: They're going to somehow use the Crystal Skulls to psychically alter all Americans into communists. OK. Great. Except we never see any possible threat of this happening. It's all big-talk.

--Oh, did I forget to mention that Indiana Jones survives a NUCLEAR EXPLOSION from GROUND ZERO? By getting into a "lead-lined" fridge, and then being launched a few miles into the distance. Obviously, a lead-lined fridge not only can protect you from radiation, but also from physics, as being rocketed at hundreds of miles an hour and then bouncing across the desert would turn you into a sort of Indiana-Gelatin.

Ugh. There's more. I'm just sick of spending time thinking about the movie. I love you, Raiders of the Lost Ark. I respect you, Temple of Doom. I think you're silly but enjoyable, Last Crusade. But Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? I hate you. I will always hate you.

-RoboNixon

Transformers 2 Spoilers

2008-06-02T14:30:00.001-07:00

Return of the Dead Robot

by RoboNixon y RoboRoommate v.2

"Autobots! Roll out!"

Exclaimed the transforming truck

"Jazz is Freestylin'!"

-RoboNixon

The Rise and Fall of BSG

2008-06-02T11:44:00.000-07:00

Ron Moore -- why does BSG suck so hard this season!?

Battlestar Galactica had an amazing three season run. With clearly drawn characters facing tough moral, life-or-death decisions every week, it was a stunning commentary on modern day American life, on what it meant to be human, on religion, on politics, on faith. Which isn't to say that there weren't weak spots -- while Season 1 is practically flawless, Season 2 has a stretch in the latter half where there are a number of episodes that suffer from Trek-itis (falling prey to lame contrivances a la Star Trek). But it was OK, because even these episodes usually had something that kept them hovering above the label of mediocre, above the title of bad, around the area of good, which was a minor err for the constantly great show.

Season 3 also suffered from being uneven, but the New Caprica segments were so brutal, so captivating, that when things started to veer off in the latter half of the season, it was alright. We were with it. And then the big Final Five reveal of the season finale led us to hope that maybe Season 4 would end the show on the greatness that it deserved. That maybe Season 4 would be the season that would be nominated for an Emmy for best Drama. That maybe Edward James Olmos would get a nod for his grizzled growling.

But nay. NAY! For we have been forsaken, us BSG fans! We have been abandoned! Left behind! Because this BSG is not the BSG of the previous three seasons. No, this BSG is... is mediocre. Is trifling. Is. Not. Good.

I said it. I got it out. I'm still standing, I'm still here. But come with me, fellow fans, and admit the truth. You too know that there has been something off this season, something that has not sat well with you, despite grasping at straws of quality when they appear among the pile of pins.

Rather than waste your time with a recap of Friday's episode, I give you this: a digression into how my favorite show on TV has become usurped by others. How my crown jewel of television has fallen. How I compare this season of BSG to the quality of Heroes. Read on.

I have tried hard to find things I've liked in all the episodes so far this season. And there have been elements that worked. But from the very beginning, with the emphasis on Baltar and his single God, his cult, and the emo-ness of the Final Four (of Five), I knew something was off.

This season has been incredibly unfocused. Whereas LOST, another serialized show with a firm cut-off date, has used its limited run to focus and drive the story towards a definite conclusion, this season of BSG, the LAST, has acted like an unfocused child. Oh, maybe we'll spend some time with this because it's kind of interesting. Oh, now we're over here. Look, it's something shiny! I like shiny things! Wait, where are we...?

I will excuse the show this: The stuff with the Cylon civil war works, and is interesting, and fun to watch. In fact, I'd say that the Cylon stuff (not the Final Five) is the most interesting part of this season. No, where this season has fallen short are the characters we care about the most.

1) Not enough Adama. Girl, you know it's true. Adama has been AWOL for large chunks of this season, without a real arc or story. And then, when it looks like we might be getting more of him with his reading-to-chemo'd-Roslin, she goes and disappears. And then we get Adama acting entirely out of character, leaving Cylon-impregnating-Final-Fiver Tigh to run the fleet. Yeah. Great idea buddy. Worked out so well last time. When he nearly DESTROYED EVERYTHING. Good judgement call. And right after getting the shit kicked out of you. NICE.

2) Lee. I knew Lee was going to end up President as soon as he said "Nay!" to his padre and moved into the Quorum. However, what I thought was going to happen was his ascendency would occur after Roslin died... which is not the case. No, instead we get some lame BS about how the Vice-President is a douche and Adama doesn't want to work with him. This, despite the fact that Adama is GIVING UP HIS ADMIRALTY. What I've liked about the show is it's political underpinnings, but by saying "screw you" to the whole notion of civil government in the fleet by appointing Lee the President because Zarek is kind of a d-bag is lame. What happened to rules of logic, show? What happened to tough choices? What happened to the major struggle at the end of Season 1 -- the balance between civil government and military protection? We spent so much time with that, developing that... and to toss it away in a single episode... What a waste.

3) I thought characters only came back from the dead in the Marvel Universe, but I guess I was wrong. I keep waiting for Starbuck's return to mean anything, or to be interesting at all, but all of the interesting drama of having someone who YOU THOUGHT WAS DEAD FOR TWO MONTHS RETURN is glossed over in favor of her having emo-paint time with Leoben. What does it mean to Lee, who totally wants to get in on that shit? What does it mean to Anders, who just discovered he's a Cylon, who she's MARRIED to? What does it mean to Adama, who is like a father to her? Do we get emotion? Do we get plots? No. We get a glossed over emotional beats that are abandoned so Gaeta can sing for an entire episode. Thanks, BSG. It's not like I enjoy your characters at all.

4) Lame-ness. Romo Lampkin is lame. I'm sorry. He sucks. He sucked at the end of Season 3, and he sucks now. Also, he's not blind. Everyone I talk to thinks he's blind. He's not. He's just a tool who always wears sunglasses. Also, he's a tool that's gone completely ape-shit, and he's a tool that I'd rather not spend time with. For a show with a ginormous cast, there's no need to intermittently bring back a character I care-not-at-all-for and spend a huge chunk of time with when Dualla has gotten three lines all season. Gaeta, I'm sorry, I love you, but your singing shit was also lame. I know the show wants to be dramatic -- hell, I understand that's what a drama needs to be -- but when you force drama on us like tonic to a sick child, you know it's just going to end up all over your face. We understand shit sucks for Gaeta, since he's lost his leg. We dig it. We're in on it. But there's no need to ruin what was otherwise a fairly badass episode with his lame singing. CAN! YOU! DIG IT?!

5) Where is the excitement in the show? Where is the discovery? This past episode, we get little elements of surprise -- the raptor that jumps in with a dead body in it and a charred book. Cool! But the recon they do where it jumped from reveals nothing. No surprises. No discovery. So what do they decide to do?... NOTHING! Nope, Adama's just gonna sit in his raptor and wait until the answers come to him. That's great, BSG. I love it when things happen because you plotted them to, rather than them occurring due to story-evolution. In the past, even when discovery and adventure was FORCED, it was still welcome. Now, we don't even get it. The only surprising moment I've had with the show recently was when the hybrid woke up and yelled "JUMP." Otherwise, things have been forecast fairly well.

And worst of all...

6) Logic. The show has lost its internal logic. What the show was always about was these people, in this situation, having to make tough calls. That is the definition of the drama for the first three seasons. Blow up the ship that could be tracked by Cylons, and everyone on board, or risk the Cylons discovering you and destroying the fleet? Tough decision. No "right" decision, just a less wrong one. And there hasn't been any of that with the fleet. Sure, the Cylons have made AWESOME tough decisions -- Civil War or not? Destroy the (AWFULLY CONVENIENT) Resurrection Hub or not? Etc. But what does the fleet do? Nothing.

Now, I don't mean to say there haven't been good, or even awesome, episodes of the show this season. No, my point is that, as a whole, the BSG writing staff have lost their way. They have forgotten what makes the show great, and what has made it great. They have dwelled on the "dramatic" rather than writing the drama. They have focused on the "intriguing" rather than the characters and their struggles. They have lost the truth of the show. They have given us some great moments, some great episodes, but the complete fourth season so far has... well... disappointed. If I hadn't spent so much time with it already, I'd be out of here.

Here's to hoping they get it back. I love you BSG, but you have killed me a little inside.

-RoboNixon

Pork & Beans Music Vidja

2008-05-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

Here's the music video to Weezer's single, Pork & Beans. As RoboRoommate v.2 said, it makes the song better. Which is true. Because the video is great. The song is, sadly, still mediocre.

Here's to hoping the rest of the album is better (but with equally as cool music vids).

-RoboNixon

Baby Be Gone!

2008-05-20T12:33:00.001-07:00

Girls: Always complaining that you have to take the brunt of anti-baby procedures? Annoyed with consuming pills everyday? Or getting shots? Or sticking doodads in the hoozit with the watchit? Well, the end of your suffering may be near! Popular Science has a slideshow detailing four new ways to prevent the Male End of the baby spectrum from affecting your life. Male Contraception... close... But a pipe dream for now...

Put the Dude's Thingie on the Chopping Block.

-RoboNixon

Weird Science?

2008-05-20T12:24:00.000-07:00

Two cool articles:

First up, a piece from wired.com about how buying that brand new Prius may not be the best carbon-offset-car-purchase you could make. Rather, they suggest buying old used cars that get decent gas mileage. Ch-ch-ch-check it.

...the point is, you don't need to buy a Prius -- or any other hybrid, for that matter -- to get great fuel economy and minimize your carbon footprint. You might feel better driving a hybrid, but you won't necessarily be greener.

Also up at bat is a piece on what I've been calling the Post-College Malaise -- that feeling you get when you're out of school, excited to go out and DO something and then it hits you -- the real world fucking sucks. But hey! It's natural. Or so says this stub over at Popular Science.

The longitudinal study tracked the life circumstances and mental health symptoms of nearly 600 University of Alberta graduates for 7 years. The researchers learned that the elevated levels of depression and anger customary of “emerging adults” significantly declined over the 7-year period.

The results, say the authors in the paper, “suggest a growing psychosocial maturity on the part of young people that is adaptive.” Basically, one gets used to the rat race.

Get used to the rat-race... or get used to being a rat? YEESH!

-RoboNixon

The Dandy Warhols Flip Off Labels

2008-05-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

So take a look at this. The Dandy Warhols have forsaken record labels in favor of distributing their own music, but not necessarily in the way you would suspect. No, in fact, it goes far beyond "whatever-you-want" pricing that Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails have used recently, to something more dynamic: Subscription service.

For $35 a year, you can subscribe to The Dandy Warhols. What does this mean? Well, let me make a list of what you get:

--The latest album, ...Earth to The Dandy Warhols..., available immediately as a download.

--The latest album is then sent to you as a packaged CD album in the mail, along with " a limited edition silkscreen poster created just for us by our friends, The Christopher Twins."

--10% off all merch on their website.

--Free B-sides, live tracks, and videos to DL whenever you want.

--Pre-sale ticket access to (US) shows.

And, as they say on their website, with all of this you can " Listen to them on your computer, your iPod, burn them to a disc, throw it in the garbage - whatever you want."

The entire album is up for streaming, so you can, in fact, LISTEN to the album before you decide to purchase or subscribe. Which is smart. And as a huge Dandy Warhols fans, this isn't such a bad deal. I'd spend probably $15 on the album anyway, and with the addition of the poster, that probably brings the total up to $22 (ish). 10% off merch in the store would probably save me an additional $3-5 a year, so we're up to $27. getting tickets before they sell out? That's priceless. And free B-sides and live tracks? I think that's worth notching the total amount to $35. So essentially, it's prepaying for what you would, as a big fan, pay anyway.

Alternatively, if you are NOT a huge fan, this deal is unappetizing. While I am of the belief the album is being self-released to record stores, this deal is not a particular boon for casual fans, or new fans. So what does this do?

Well, it limits music as a sort of mass pop-art form. Were every band to go this route, music would become much more stylized to the particular preferences of an individual. And at $35 a year, how many different bands would you subscribe to? Music no longer becomes mainsteam, and instead becomes niche. Which isn't a bad thing, but, at the same time, is hard to analyze because it's so contrary to the current system.

So am I going to subscribe to The Dandy Warhols? I don't know. I honestly don't. Because I love the band, but... really... is this the future? Do I really want to spend this much money? Is it worth the time and the effort (even though it is essentially effortless)? This system brings up all sorts of questions. And it's something I'm going to have to think about before I take the plunge, regardless of the fact that I cerebrally support it.

Anyway, there's a lot that this brings up. Thoughts? Comments? What bands would you subscribe to. What bands would you stop listening to if this were the only way to get their music?

-RoboNixon

Women and Sci-Fi

2008-05-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

io9 has a great editorial up about the strange interactions between women and sci-fi. There is a popular public perception that sci-fi is exclusively the realm of nerdy (typically young) men, and that women sci-fi fans are not only few and far between -- but weird! Ewwww... GIRLS!

Now, I don't mean to say that this problem is, you know, like a major WORLD EVENT that needs changing. But it is a bummer. Here's some of what io9 has to say:

If there's something keeping women away from enjoying science fiction, it's not spaceships. It's not "aliens on some far-off planet." It's the fact that people on our very own planet keep telling us that women aren't supposed to like science fiction. It's a self-confirming prophesy, because the more that scifi creators are told this, the more they imagine that their audience is all boys. So they write rich, believable male characters and boring, cookie-cutter lady characters. They organize conventions with panels devoted to shit like "the hottest women of science fiction" and nothing devoted to female heroes — or the kinds of hotties that straight women might want to see (i.e., men).

I totally agree that it is a self-fulfilling problem. But it gets better:

Women who do love science fiction see all this going down, and they are ashamed to admit that they like science fiction. I'm not saying this happens to all of us, but many women wind up assuming that there's something wrong with them for liking SF. After all, everybody keeps telling them that SF is for boys, and the only reason why women would like it is if the definition of SF is "expanded" to include magic and romance. (Nothing against magic and romance, mind you — it's just not typical of SF.)

I agree again. It's like the only "sci-fi" that women are "supposed" to like is fantasy and magic. RoboGirlfriend is an example -- she loves fantasy stuff, but I had to drag her kicking and screaming over to Battlestar Galactica -- a show she's just as into at this stage as I am. It's a cultural stereotype, like girls must like pink, and guys must dig football, that each gender reinforces on their own to fulfill some sort of social norm. But guess what? Not all dudes love football. Not all women like pink. A lot of women like football, and a lot of dudes (RoboNixon included) wear pink. Just because it's the standard doesn't mean it has to be the norm. It doesn't mean that the pattern can't be broken. But here's the kicker:

Women love tons of science fiction, regardless of how many boys are main characters, because they like good stories as much as the next guy.

And that's what it comes down to. Battlestar Galactica works for men and women because it's a dynamic, well told story. And it doesn't hurt that it's filled with a dynamic range of intriguing, well drawn females. Star Wars' Princess Leia is more badass than Luke (I would argue), and while she certainly gets her fair share of "being saved" she also fucking kills Jabba the Hutt. On her own. In a golden bikini.

LOST is a great example of the mainstreamification of sci-fi for everyone. Strong characters are both male and female without skimping on the traits of either gender. Jack is the masculine leader, but Juliet and Kate are also bad ass and driven. Sawyer's typically whining, and Rousseau (RIP) was crazy-jungle person. Not only that, but it uses sci-fi in a non-conventional way. It's like saying you're taking your date to the "theater" only to bring them to a cabaret -- yeah, you know, it's theater, but it's not exactly what you were expecting. LOST is an adventure show... that, like the cabaret, is something different, simultaneously.

Hell, dudes who like sci-fi like chicks who like sci-fi, because it's one more thing to have in common, to share together. RoboGirlfriend and I watch BSG together, as well as LOST. And we jointly nerd out over them (though I'm sure she'd protest that we never "nerd-out" about anything). Sci-Fi, like any genre, should be the realm of men and women.

Otherwise, we're all missing out.

Check out the original editorial. It says it much better than I ever could.

-RoboNixon

Just Can't Get Enough

2008-05-19T11:14:00.000-07:00

io9 reports that more BSG "movies" may be coming to a TV screen near you.

Chicago Tribune columnist Maureen Ryan, who's connected with the BSG producers, has confirmed the rumors from last week that BSG will be making more TV movies. But Ryan's insider sources only have "cautious optimism" about whether the films will happen.

This is on the heels of a report made last week, in which io9 asks for, please, dear Cylon Lord, no more!

I have to agree. Razor blew. Sorry Razor fans. But it sucked. Flashbacks within flashbacks? Crazy confusing narrative structure? Protagonist we care nothing about? The addition of more whacky mythology in a show BUSTING AT THE SEAMS with whacky mythology? Plz, 4 rlz, Ron Moore, nada mas.

-RoboNixon

Gaeta Won't Shut Up, and Other Events

2008-05-19T09:38:00.000-07:00

"Guess What's Coming to Dinner"

This past Friday's episode of Battlestar Galactica managed to do something I didn't know was quite possible -- be totally awesome, and totally annoying, entirely at the same time.

So we start out with Lee berating Roslin for not confirming whether or not she is sharing visions with some of the Cylons. Like it matters. Isn't this like the First Wife seeing a psychic and seances? That is, entirely irrelevant? But I guess Lee's mostly-out-of-the-picture, now that he's an elected official (like in real life!), and they need to bring him in somehow. I think without a clear goal, Lee's become much less interesting. Where is he headed? What is he up to? Whining to Roslin about BS is... well, BS.

But then we get the Basestar jumping into the fleet without the Demetrius in a case of what I like to call Sci-Fi Convenience -- problems with the FTL aren't set up, but because it's "crazy technology" we don't know about, we just kind of go with the flow. OK. Alright. Lame. But whatever. Loved that Tigh saved the day and then is terrified he saved the day -- he had no good reason to know what he did, and is a little scared that maybe... just maybe... he isn't really the same man he always was. Duh! Dude, you're a Cylon! Get with it, holmes.

When Cylon Six Natalie sits down for her pow-wow with Roslin, Adama 'n Co. (Tory + Tigh) is a scene I was pretty excited for, and it delivered. I wish we had more Adama recently, but him being skeptical is nice whenever we get to see it. Loved the look on Tigh and Tory's faces. Though I do think that again this episode falls victim to Sci-Fi Convenience -- oh, there's a resurrection hub? We can make sure none of the Cylons can ever again DL into new bodies? Wow. Wouldn't that have been good information to know, like, you know, at any point previous to this. Contrivance? Perchance.

Then it happens. The worst part of the episode, and the thing that led to the episode being awesome/dicey simultaneously. But as great as my write-ups are... I cannot beat i09's description of The Lameness:

What I haven't been telling you about this episode is that Gaeta keeps singing. I don't want to think about it, because Gaeta was totally my boyfriend until Friday — he was the cutest person on Galactica by far, and he's always doing geeky things like looking at maps and computers and making comments like, "We can't use our FTL because the wazzleblorp needs the most recent software patches from the zompleflip." So hot. But in this episode, Doc Coddle has to chop his leg off. Remember how Anders shot Gaeta during the mutiny? Yeah, Gaeta is now a one-leg, and apparently there is no prosthetic technology to fix him up.

According to a shell-shocked looking Anders, who spends the whole episode working the bug-eyed stare, Gaeta sings every time he feels his phantom limb. Apparently he feels it a LOT. And his songs sound like something the dude from The Decemberists would sing if he had been hit on the head with a two-by-four and a dog had chewed on his vocal chords. I say this with great sadness, since I love The Decemberists and Gaeta was my boyfriend and all. But seriously, every time he started singing, I wanted to bitchslap my TV set and every writer ever involved with BSG. And maybe every TV that has ever tuned BSG too.

Back to non-Lameness: It's totally awesome that such great efforts are put into securing the Final Five -- because they clearly know the way to Earth (yeesh!). Wouldn't the Final Four (that we know) just save everyone a heck-of-a-lot of effort (and probably many, many lives) if they just came out and said, "Hey! Hey e'rybody! We're the Final Five. Crazy, yes, we admit that. Evil? Nay. Confused? Definitely. Knowledgeable in the way to Earth? Definitely not. So maybe we should sit down and, you know, examine more maps or sumpin'." Or isn't there a line they can drop an anonymous tip into?

Roslin calling out Tory on her Baltar-boning ways? Nice. Roslin is pissed, maybe because she's starting to feel the tug of his One-God too. Or maybe she just thinks it's super-sexy time for Madame President and the Hugh Hefner of the Lord.

Why does Roslin hate her government so much? For someone who puts so much weight on her position as President (and savior of man-kind) she has an awful lot of resentment towards other elected officials. Shall we look back to the end of season 1, when Adama arrests Roslin and takes over control of the government? Well, this Roslin is just as bad as that Adama. Neither of them cares for or respects the law. Which is an unfortunate reflection upon the current state of affairs in the world... and leaders who believe they are doing right... and, in fact, doing wrong.

Hera should be airlocked. I mean, that kid is clearly the anti-christ, so I don't know why they don't just shoot her into the vacuum, ASAP. If I had a child who woke me up with an ominous "Bye Bye," I'd probably call the local minister and exorcise the shit out of them. But that's just me. Instead, Athena just gets all whiney, then freak'd out, and then, of course, when Hera stumbles upon Natalie, homicidal-like. I though the stand-off with Athena and Natalie was sweet, especially that Athena doesn't stand down and caps Natalie like she ain't no thing -- and this right after Natalie gave a speech to the Quorum mentioning how great mortality is. Whoops. Shoulda seen that coming. I think randomly killing off major characters for pseudo-vague reasons is always a little silly, but, at the same time, killing off a major character is bad-ass, so I guess it balances itself off. It's just, when it happens like this, it's a little too soap-ish for my tastes.

But the ep. ends on an up-note with the Hybrid being plugged back in and screaming JUMP, taking the Basestar (and all aboard) to some mysterious location. I have heard, through the Series-of-Tubes, that we may get a glimpse of the Cylon "homeworld" during this season -- maybe this is where they end up? The den of the lion? We'll see.

As it is, a good episode with way, way, wayyyyy too much lame singing. Sorry Gaeta. Maybe the Cylons can grow you a new one.

-RoboNixon

ps. Does anyone else think that the teaser for next week implies that Tigh maybe Seth Rogen'd* the imprisoned, Baltar-lovin' Number Six?

*knocked-up