We return you to your regularly scheduled programming...of nothing.

For the scant souls who inquired (bless you)...I have been using (abusing) this blog for a school project and had to lock the 5 or 6 people that blog rolled or (ha) read it out.

SO, what up?

SICK AS FUCK

The title accurately reflects the current physical state of the author. My head feels like it's full of ectoplasm...sloshing to and fro between sinus cavities, ears, and then dripdripdripping down the back of my throat. Mucinex, Sudafed (the realshit, the kind Cletus and Earlyne make Meth out of), and Kryptonian antibiotics are the weapons of choice for the good ol' meatship.

What does this have to do with movies/pop culture? I started watching Buffy from Season 1. I kinda watched it as I could during it's run and some here and there in syndication, but have never seen every ep in order so forth and so on. It's funny watching the first few eps, because Whedon's voice isn't quite as established. Or maybe, his actors hadn't figured out how to make it sound colloquial yet? I've always pegged Xander as the Whedon surrogate and he's the worst offender. I mean, later it all works out but it's interesting watching it stumble around.

Where Buffy never falters AT ALL. And I will go to work on you with a baseball bat laden with railroad spikes if you disagree. Joss Whedon knows from hot chicks. Oh my god, just about every stripe, from adorable (Willow) to spontaneous pants igniters (Cordelia) is wonderfully represented. I'm almost too distracted by Charisma Carpenter to even follow the plot.

The one thing I just can't fully commit to wrt Buffy is the awful vampire design/make-up. I don't get the allure of these Klingon vampires. I'm more of a Near Dark, less-is-more vampire guy. And on that note, check this shit out:

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN

The Epic Fail of

I'm a total sucker for superheroics. In fact, I have such a deep reservoir of nostalgia for them I tend to relax some of my critical faculties and let some supershit slide. The past 10 years or so has seen a superhero renaissance, from films to cartoons (sadly comics themselves are still content to live in the intellectual ghetto) to television. In general the stories are more complex, for better or worse darker, and they're not seen as genre garbage anymore since Spider-Man webbed up billions. Compare Justice League Unlimited to Superfriends, much more sophisticated storytelling. Even a piece of shit like Smallville has more going on dramatically than say Wonder Woman or The Incredible Hulk of TV yore. Well, the girls are cuter anyways.

Which brings me to NBC's primetime take on superpowered folk, HEROES. After watching the first three episodes of this current (3rd) season, I have to abandon ship. I really wanted to like show. I watched the first season on dvd, and relatively enjoyed it. My thinking was, yes, there's some terrible plot fuckery, abysmal acting, and seemingly no internal logic...BUT...at it's core it's an interesting take on the genre. What if real people all of a sudden had special abilities? And through the 1st season and the second the showrunners proceeded to take the "real people" out of that equation and replace them with convenient plot cyphers who betray any logic or established character traits to serve an ever murkier larger arc.

What's even more frustrating is that, usually, there's one or two good moments! And up until this season, the character of Sylar (a serial killer/cannibal who takes powers from other supers by eating their brains) was great. Of course, this aspect of his character has been totally expunged and he's inexplicably turning "good"(or not...who knows...but he doesn't eat brains and that's a dealbreaker!).

I don't even mind that the creators are cribbing from mainstream comic lore. Watchmen, X-Men and others being recontextualized for a mainstream tv viewing audience doesn't bother me at all. But they don't honor those stories by giving them any dramatic weight. There are currently TWO characters that can time travel AT WILL. And there have been more than a handful of moments where they pop into the future see some global disaster and come back to the present to fix it. This has happened more than once (and is happening again this season). Yet, one of the characters won't go back in time 10 MINUTES to stop a badguy from getting some all-important Maguffin because of some half-assed "not messing with the past" ideology. That is just one example, the show is littered with stuff like that.

So, watching the last episode, I became aware that it just wasn't fun to watch anymore. It's tedious to watch these people do incredibly stupid things over and over with no rhyme or reason, underscored by one of the most ham-fisted narrations in the history of ham-fisted narration (it rarely makes any sense with what's happening on-screen, btw). Basically, I think people continuing to watch this are watching superhero porn. It's just a bunch of non-sequitur superheroics with no deeper cultural/critical value: PORN.

(PS: One uniformly great thing about HEROES, that I'd be remiss in not mentioning is Tim Sale's artwork used throughout the show. Simple, classic, elegant. See above.)

The Godfather Restoration

This hit the street last week, but it's taken me a few days to go over it. The Godfather Restoration Blu-Ray just may be the title to warrant dropping (at least) $500 on a PS3/stand-alone player. One thing that's always concerned me about this shift to pristine digital clarity is the elimination of classic films textural quality. Film grain is to cinema what brushstrokes are to painting. Physical evidence of the creative, chemical process. This set achieves a perfect level of appeasement by rendering a faithful transfer, but not polishing to the point of obscuring it's age.
The films themselves are in a perpetual cycle of discovery and review. It seems every new generation of filmmonger comes upon them and falls in love. The Godfather films are truly an integral part of our American culture. So, suffice it to say, they're really fucking good. And, you know what, Part 3 isn't as bad as you remember. Yeah, Sofia Coppola is ill-equipped to be the emotional fulcrum of the movie. But it's still as operatic as it's predecessors. I love that Michael is so thoroughly chewed-up.
Critically, the most amazing take on The Godfather is how it's one of the greatest examples of a film being better than the book. The book is trashy. I mean, there's an entire pointless subplot about a woman's vaginal reconstruction surgery, for Christ's sake! Ick. Moreso, it's not about anything. Coppola went all alchemical and turned shit into gold. It's THEE lesson screenwriters should learn about adaptation.
There's a bounty of new supplements (all in HD, which is nice) and I think I'll post something later on about them.
NPR nerds: Sarah Vowell appears quite a bit talking about her particular affinity for the films. SO SMITTEN.

Feast on FRINGE

So, being a major fan of LOST (and FELICITY, I won't lie) I was down for some new JJ Abrams. Bring on writers du jour Kurtzman and Orci, mix in Denethor, and some Anthony Michael Hall-less weird science and voila: FRINGE.

The premise: Agent Dunham, an FBI liason (the way Lance Reddick says "lee-aye-ZOHN" is hilarious), to the Department of Homeland Security is drafted to investigate a reoccuring pattern (or The Pattern in official descriptions) of incidences of "fringe science". This includeds strange bio-weapons (the pilot has people's skin turning clear and melting into a gelatinous ooze), artificial advanced aging, cloning, teleportation. Oh and Blair Brown plays a cyborg.  Agent Dunham recruits the scientist who purportedly advanced a lot of this science and is now batshit insane for it.  That's John Noble.  And being he must be supervised for release from the cracker factory, enter his estranged son, Pacey from Dawson Creek.  Who is some kind of supergenius like his pops.  Or something...

The recurring complaint is it's a rip of The X-Files.  And on paper, that's a fairly reasonable diss.  Except in reality it plays like everyone is actually awake.  Sorry, I was never fan of The X-Files.  I found it hilariously dour and self-important.  Even down to the way it was filmed: drab, drab, drab.  I know it was shot Canada, so that couldn't be helped, but still!  Fringe is so alarmingly emotional it could easily keel over into a melodrama-induced coma.  But so far, it hasn't.  There's humor and deeper sense of playfulness with the scenarios.  Take the opener of the pilot:  a planeful of passengers are infected with an airborne contaminate and skin starts melting, people are screaming, and a guys jaw falls off.  I was immediately in love.  When our loveable mad scientist Denethor proposes Agent Dunham take an overdose of acid in a sensory-deprivation tank in order to communicate with her comatose lover...how can you not be in for THAT?

So far the show hasn't crossed that line from good to great.  It's doing it's legwork.  And I can see it happening.  also, knowing television (on FOX, esp.) it may never get there.  

The first 3 episodes are on Hulu (free of charge).  

Michael Beck DID thrill me in The Warriors!

I love this movie. And the soundtrack gets constant play on my iPod. ELO and obligatory Don Bluth animated sequence FTW!

Movie Meme 4: The Curse of Merchan

Drug trafficker George tagged me. Shouldn't you be tagging an overpass somewhere?

- Which actor do you think hasn’t gotten the attention he/she deserves?
God, I don't know how to answer this. I mean, the nature of the question assumes that actors don't have much control over their careers and are at the whims of a fickle audience. To some extent, that's true...but ultimately an actor is responsible for his/her own choices. The Rock is a perfect example. He's not being swept by the way side into the family film ghetto...he's INTENTIONALLY selling himself as a brand for that market. I read a recent interview with him and he seemed to have the uncanny ability to speak in marketing lingo. Mr Rock has chosen commerce over art, so don't waste any tears. But anyways...that's not my answer. I would like the old Nicolas Cage back. While he gets plenty of attention...it's the wrong kind. I don't know what happened, but I'd like Leaving Las Vegas, Raising Arizona, Vampire's Kiss Cage back. I imagine he's got a bottom line to satisfy with employees and whatnot, but man, give The Coens a call. Finagle a way into Ridley Scott's orbit. Stop taking Jon Turtletaubs's calls.

- What is your favorite movie line?
Han Solo: "...I know."
No matter how much tarnish stains Star Wars that line still works. Two little words lift that movie up far above what it deserves.

What are the absolute worst movies you’ve ever seen?
I've gotten pretty good at not seeing bad movies. However, I knew it could either be wonderful or 10 car pile-up but i saw it anyway...ACROSS THE UNIVERSE. Easily the shittiest movie I'd seen in years. And it's an actual affront to The Beatles music to have it used so sloppily and literally. Here's to Zombie John Lennon coming back for vengeance.

- What is your biggest guilty pleasure movie - the one you’re ashamed you enjoy?
If I like it, I like it, and that means it's good. I've got no shame, James.

Francis: 1999-2008