The Fall of BSG

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

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

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

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"

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

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

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.)