3 short paragraphs: I Love You Phillip Morris

2009, Glenn Ficarra & John Requa -- Netflix

There was a small rumbling last year about how good Jim Carrey was in this film, although I can't remember the source, so it was probably from somewhere that still considers Carrey to be that Ace Ventura rubberfaced funnyman rather than the capable actor from Eternal Sunshine or Man in the Moon. He's effective here in a light comedy/drama/gay romance but it's not his strongest role because it's not the strongest film.

This is not to denigrate the film, which is actually rather enjoyable, it's just a little fluffier than I think it could have been. The premise is a keen one though, with Carey playing Steven Russell, a police officer/father/husband who gets into a serious car accident, decides to embrace his homosexuality, and goes on a crime/grifting spree where he gets arrested, goes to jail, busts out, gets arrested, goes back to jail, meets the love of his life in Phillip Morris (Ewen MacGregor), gets freed, poses as Morris' lawyer, frees him, cons his way into a job as CFO of a large company, embezzles, gets arrested again (as does Morris), and fakes his own death. Russell is portrayed as a compulsive criminal without malice, but unable to stop lying, even to the man he loves. The romantic angle of the film is soft and sweet, perhaps too much so, although Carrey and MacGregor seem committed to the characters and their relationship.

The execution of the cons and Russell's general audacity are highly entertaining and more the focus of the film. The outline of the film is actually based on a real-life person, and it's surprising how few of the beats are fabricated for entertainment value.... Oddly, I don't really have much else to say about the film. It's cute.

Further reading:
The Guardian interview with Steven Jay Russell
The Great Escapee - Esquire

31 Days of Horror: Red State

2011, Kevin Smith (yeah, that kevin smith) -- download

Damn damn damn, I am a bit annoyed at the extremely lenient application of word Horror that some people use.  This movie was not, even in the furthest stretch, a horror movie.  The even further stretch might connect it to that thin line of torture porn that I refused to include in this project.  Oh well, c'est la vie.  Movie watched, no harm no foul.

This is a movie about a wackjob religious cult that is also doing a Waco style isolation on a walled compound.  They hassle the residents of a small town protesting everything the same way Westboro does. We are introduced to them via a classroom discussion that refers to them as nuckin' futs.  And then almost immediately we are connected to them via a trio of horny teenagers who want to do something internet raunchy with an older woman. Unfortunately the woman is a daughter of the church and the whole charade was to draw sinners to the church.  And the sinners are systematically murdered in front of the congregation. The capture and terrorizing of the kids is the only element of horror in the whole bloody movie.

It quickly devolves into a Waco style government vs wackjobs standoff with guns ablazing.  Honestly, despite incredible cinematography and typical Kevin Smith dialogue (which i adore) it really just felt like a high budget movie of the week.  There was no draw into the story of cult vs government agents. In fact there seemed to be no real direction to the plot, just the standoff and subsequent resolution.  Its a movie where you can really enjoy the execution of the elements but not enjoy the whole.  The whole was lacking in the long payoff.

I just wish the movie had followed through on it's attempt at a headspin.  There is a misdirect that I really wished had not been just a misdirect.  Stop reading now if you don't want to know where the movie takes a tangential turn. You see, just when we think the whole standoff is going to end up in one massive clusterfuck, the trumpets sound -- literally.  There are massive trumpets sounding that almost deafen the agents around the compound.  The nuckin' futs think it is the Rapture and all come out, guns dropped and completely gleeful that there time has come.  We almost believe them; the agents almost believe them. But no, alas, it was not to be. In a closing scene the agent in charge of the affair (John Goodman) explains how the hippies living on the farm next to the compound were fucking with the cult, hoping to just mess with their little minds. No Rapture and no real close for the movie but that the cult gets to go to jail.

3 Short Paragraphs: Fall 2011 (pt 7)

And then there are those sessions where I regret choosing to complete this session of watching all the 2011 fall premieres.  There is some really bad TV out there but most is just painfully mediocre.  Take Hart of Dixie where we have a smart and pretty doctor from NYC who finds her life not going exactly as planned.  She ends up in the Alabama town where an older doctor has been trying to convince her to move since her graduation from med school. I find it very hard to take this character seriously as a doctor should be intelligent enough to not wear fashion clothing in a swamp. The only thing that made me smile was the ex-football player, now mayor, who refers to himself in the third person and has a pet gator named Burt Reynolds.

Then there was Ringer and I admit, I have the weak spot for Buffy and I like watching the rich people do rich things.  This one has her as twins, one rich & powerful and the other a down & out drug user on the run from the mob.  When rich sister commits suicide, the other steps into her life. How the heck does she expect to pull that off??  She knows nothing about her sister's fucked up (but wealthy!) life. Of course, she will begin to realize that her sister's perfect life was not so perfect and have to buy her way out of it. It wasn't horrible but WTF with all the soap opera level green screen work?!?!

And then there is a show I wanted to just turn off.  You know that character that Kevin Dillon plays in Entourage? You know how he is trying to break into acting and ends up with all these terrible roles?  Well imagine this show as the sitcom THAT character is saddled with. Other than Dave Foley's antics as the boss, nothing about this show made me even grin let alone laugh. It just stank stink stunk, making me regret this stream of watching. Oh yeah, it was called How to Be a Gentleman.

31 Days of Horror: Acacia

2003, Ki-hyeong Park (whispering corridors) -- download

Years ago at Fantasia Fest, the renowned horror & specfic film festival in Montreal, we saw his first movie Whispering Corridors.  We loved its spookiness and the chance to see how other cultures explore suspense and terror. We more enjoyed watching the elder Korean ladies sitting near us who shrieked and jumped at every scare tactic.  I will say I grinned with glee when they actually tossed popcorn in the air and one particularly starting scene.

Asian horror is a mixed bag affair. It explores elements of a culture that may not be as prevalent or even exist in our own but at the same time, they may not even have the same weight in ours. There are scares and styles that were not present in our own western horror, but with the popularity of The Grudge and the Ring movies, they have started appearing here and there. What I do like about all asian horror I have seen is that the sense of suspense is often more important than any real scare. Long scenes drawn out by grating music or discordant sounds can build up a stress where none should exist.  The jump is coming but the build up is more important.

Acacia is definitely an exploration of something not completely apparent in our culture. On the outside, it is a bad seed movie, where a young couple suspecting they cannot conceive, adopt a young boy who shows signs of being an art prodigy.  His reserved nature is expected but not his fascination with the acacia tree in their yard. The family seems to bond well with the boy but there is always the stress of him and that tree.  There is also the mother in law who thinks the whole adoption was a mistake. Adoption carries some small stigma in our culture but there seemed to have been an entirely different problem here. It is almost as if adopting shames the family.

But things begin to go really bad when the wife gets pregnant and suddenly there is a new baby in the family's life. At this point, you would think that the cute but unnerving little boy would start being a danger to the child. But no, he is nothing but an average kid who is being presented with the new feelings of being second fiddle. The actual tension seems to grow from the family truly changing directions in their own feelings for him. And thus begins the theme of the movie -- guilt, and how it affects people.

But always that tree.

In the end there is a murder and a cover up and the supernatural release comes from the tree being the tool of revenge. The tree kills off grandpa with ants and puts the mother in law in the hospital with a .. poisonous whiff of blossoms?  As things escalate we find that the family is tearing themselves apart, from the guilt of accidentally murdering the young boy and burying him beneath the tree.

It didn't do much for me.  It left me feeling flat. The kid was not really a bad seed at all and the supernatural elements of the story were more of an afterthought if not really there at all.  There was no real history as to why the kid was weird other than someone telling him his birth mother had become a tree. There were some fantastic scenes of suspense and fantastical horror but they were always imaginary. In the end we just have a story of some not so nice people killing the kid they probably shouldn't have adopted.

31 Days of Horror: The House of the Devil

2009, Ti West -- download

The House of the Devil is one of those horror movies that is trying to reflect on its predecessors of the 70s and 80s, the ones that had a lot of suspenseful, mundane build up.  The setup always involved adding fear to a very common, banal element of life.  Really, did babysitters ever feel nervous before the horror movie told them to beware the empty house?  The movie is not only set in the 80s but is shot as if it was done back then, using washed out grainy film and music that sounds like a bad attempt at AM radio rock.  The credits are especially well set up, large and yellow on white.

It's a devil worship movie if the opening text is saying anything, based on real events, but what events we will never know.  A college girl is in need of money and takes a job babysitting at a spooky, old house (but gorgeous of course  -- someone really needs to do a thesis on why previous era houses are automatically considered spooky) in the countryside.  Her friend drives her out and promises to pick her up in a few hours, as the job is quick and is only really housesitting the elderly mother while the spooky couple goes out for a night. The fun thing is that while the couple is obviously spooky (what IS that death's head lapel pin?), they are genuinely warm and friendly.  Unfortunately, Tom Noonan will always be scary especially when dressed like an undertaker.  The couple leaves and the girl is left to her own designs.  The last scene before we focus on her time in the house is seeing her friend get her head blown off by a bearded stranger.  We know something nefarious is going to happen but not what.

The babysitter's time in the house is a combination of boredom and curiosity with the usual bumps and creeks on the upper floors. Everything is quiet, uneventful and pregnant with anticipation.  She calls for a pizza and, of course, it is delivered by the bearded stranger. She roots through a closet and sees an entirely different family in a photo, but next to the same car the spooky couple left in.  In the back yard is a lonely van. Our babysitter is nervous but determined that it is nothing but her own imagination.  We know different.

The movie escalates when we are show the actions the spooky couple have taken (pentagrams, sacrificed bodies on the other side of a door) and after the babysitter realizes the pizza is dosed.  Her subsequent awakening to sacrifice in a satanic ritual is both familiar and creepy. There must be a dozen movies that were MST3K'd that had this theme.  But it is the 2000s and our heroine babysitter is a bit more resourceful getting out of her bonds soon after being fed the blood of the demonic looking leader of the ritual.  She does escape but is having hallucinations of the demonic face.  It all ends when we see her shoot herself, tormented to hysteria.

Last scene, in a hospital bed. She survived a through and through headshot?  She lies there recovering and a nurse comments that she will be alright, both of them.  And pats the girl's belly.  Insert sequel.

I have to wonder what makes a good horror movie. Is it originality? Is it faithfulness to the tropes of the genre? Is it bringing something fresh to the table?  This one is definitely a labor of love, being written, directed and edited by Ti West. He obviously loves the classic horror movies of young girls running away from antagonists in big, empty houses.  Our fun is in watching these mundane events play out seeing whether the usual scare tactics will play out. There is no cat in the closet, no one throws a bird at her and the dead guy doesn't pop up in a the final scene. I honestly don't think there will be a sequel as that was just another play on the genre.

31 Days of Horror: Trick 'r Treat

2009, Michael Dougherty -- download

And then there was a breath of fresh air in the room.

This movie is just Halloween glee, four stories that cross back and forth over each other in a small town that just loves to celebrate Halloween.  It starts up weaving in a comic book style with overlaid pages and comic bubbles.  It smacks of those anthology shows that were popular in the 80s and 90s showing limited gore and its low budget showing through with cheap special effects.  No matter, it is so much fun that we don't care.

We open with a couple returning from Halloween partying and she wants the whole scary decorating torn down before her family arrives the next day. He goes upstairs to get ready (wink wink, nudge nudge) while she starts tearing the sheets off her faux ghosts. Immediately we are awaiting something unexpected to be under the sheets. A few fake outs and suddenly she is attacked by something child sized. BF comes out later and finds her, as expected, dismembered with a Halloween sucker in her mouth.

Earlier.  Principal Wilkins poisons the annoying fat kid in the neighborhood and starts to bury him in the yard, along with a few other kids, some not quite dead yet. Next door, the curmudgeon neighbour is complaining about the noise and the stink.  He doesn't catch on but is more likely so grumpy he doesn't care.  Evil Principal goes in to carve things with his Chucky looking kid.

Later, some kids are collecting pumpkins to sacrifice to the local urban legend.  Thirty years previous the school bus driver for the short-bus drives his busload of costumed not-quite-right kiddies over the quarry edge. Legend tells that you have to sacrifice something to the kids or they come back on Halloween. Of course, the pumpkins actually dredge the kids out of the swampy quarry.  Munch munch.

And then there are  the girls who come to town to party.  One girl seems the virginal and is left alone to find a date to bring to the party in the woods.  Dressed as Red Riding Hood she wanders around annoyed until she is stalked by the local homicidal pervert (the vampire!).  She is attacked on the lonely road but suddenly shows up, vampire wrapped up in her cloak, at the party in the woods.  If we pay attention we will notice the men seen in previous scenes are oddly absent.  Boo!  They are all werewolves and shed their skins, literally, and eat all the slain men at the party.  Vampire is revealed to be Principal Wilkins before he is torn apart.

This town really has too many boogie monsters, perverts and homicidal maniacs.  I am not sure how they could have more than a couple of Halloweens before people would notice.  We have the Principal, the schoolbus driver who survived the drop into the quarry all those years ago, we have the visiting werewolves and we have that lil child sized creep seen wandering around the entire movie, wearing the creepiest spherical scarecrow costume I have seen.  Really, if Sack Boy from Little Big Planet was a murdering spirit, he would look this creepy cute.

The last story is about the curmudgeonly neighbour who was last seen being jumped by the evil Sack Boy, in the last bit from the evil Principal's point of view, before said Principal was eaten by she-wolves.  The kid has got into the house and he is prowling around creeping out the old man. A few failed shotgun blasts later and the old man has the kid blasted to bits on the floor, all pumpkin guts and fluff.  Under the sackcloth is a weird carved pumpkin face.  This is the spirit of Halloween come to life and murdering anyone not fully into the night, thus the poor girl in the opening sequence.  Old Man Curmudgeon almost dies but gives the kid a candy bar, which lets him off the hook.  Unable to be killed, the evil Sack Boy wanders off into the Halloween night.  Old Man Curmudgeon doesn't take any more chances and starts handing out candy.

Oh wait, did we mention that he happens to be the school bus driver?  And remember those kids who came out of the swamp, all undead and murderous?  Heh heh heh... munch munch munch.

Seriously, this was a movie for Halloween fans, the night not the movie.  Its not scary, just a little creepy. Its silly and fun and shot through with sugar. Like the night.

Drive

2011, Nicolas Winding Refn

With near universal praise from the critics comes the obvious backlash from plebeian filmgoers.  You know the type.  The kind of film goer who basically watches anything with a big celebrity in it (because if it has Robert De Niro or Jennifer Aniston in it, it must be good) but will also see many of the Oscar nominated films because they want to appear "film literate", intelligent, and not left out of the conversation.  Drive is currently scoring 93% on Rotten Tomates which means it's getting largely favorable reviews from critics, and while it's not always the case, such resounding praise has (no pun intended) driven "those people" to the theatres, left them scratching their head and, in one case, filing a lawsuit over their disappointment.  Let's get this straight, Drive is not a crossover hit. Drive is a film made by a Danish filmmaker (read: European) for the avid film goers (a small point posited as an in-joke by one of the characters).  It's a film that speaks the language of "movie", utilizing every aspect from actors, to lighting, to soundtrack to create cinema in the artiest-fartiest sense of the word.

The disappointing thing is, despite all the resounding positivity, and despite the attention-getting backlash against it,  Drive is merely a good movie, and not so much a great one.  It should be the great films that inspire such a backlash against them and such a groundswell of praise behind them, not something that's basically an homage to Michael Mann's Thief, itself another good-but-not-great film.*

Drive is a methodical movie, it takes its time, it lingers.  In juxtaposition to its title and its lead character's, erm, hobby, it's not in any hurry to get anywhere.  It's a character study of Ryan Gosling's "Driver", a man of few words who works at a body shop, moonlights as a stunt-car driver, and takes getaway car driving jobs on the side.  For the latter, he has a strict set of rules, which is a weird "honor among thieves" kind of thing, since he seems to think that if bad guys don't follow his rules then he's clear of any repercussions.  It seems to be the way he lives in general, thinking he's free of repercussions and that thieves still have honor.

Bryan Cranston plays Shannon, Gosling's boss at both the body shop and his show-biz handler, and has a helping hand in his underworld drivings.  Shannon is pure small-time in every respect, his shop barely support itself, the show-biz thing is a bit of a wash, and he's not quite cut out for the whole criminal thing.  His dream is to get Gosling into a stock car and let the kid's natural talent take them to the big time, but to get even a clunker of a racecar requires serious investment, leading him to Albert Brook's Bernie Rose who takes a chance, in spite of his partner, Nino (Ron Perlman), questioning his decision.

Gosling meets his neighbour, Irene (Carey Mulligan), and her son Benicio.  She's seemingly a single mother, but it's because her husband, Standard (Oscar Isaac) is in prison.  Gosling and Mulligan slowly form a bond, and as it appears to get real, Standard is on parole, but he's also in trouble, owing a tremendous debt which he's never likely to repay, one that's going to be taken out on his wife and kid.  All these disparate elements start winding together, as Gosling agrees to help Standard out, only to have things go horribly wrong, and he's left on the hook for it.

A startlingly violent and potent game of cat and mouse unfolds, Gosling seeking to give Mulligan her liberty at his own sacrifice, perhaps realizing for the first time that his actions have consequences that will come back to haunt him.

Tasked with a largely silent role, Gosling shows his power as an actor, able to hold the screen through the nuances of his mannerisms.  There's a single-focus headshot sequence where we see Gosling transform from a boiling rage, simmering down to a calm, demure even keel.  What takes millions of dollars in effects money for an Incredible Hulk movie, Gosling is able to do with sheer talent.

Any success that Drive achieves is a result of a true amalgamation of directorial talent, acting ability, cinematography, editing, score, soundtrack, credits (done in a neon pink cursive, again owing to Mann and Thief) and the building blocks of film, pretty much everything but a script.  As was revealed by Cranston in an interview with Marc Maron, the cast was given a large amount of control and influence over their characters and scenes.  The script was the bed but the actors provided the blankets and Refn the silk duvet cover and pillow shams.

The score from Cliff Martinez features heavily a a retro synthesizer-pop aesthetic, not all that dissimilar from what accompanied Michael Mann's films in that era.  It's a calculated sound, befitting a movie which seems as if it's from a different era of film making, where storytelling took an aside to the romantic sensibilities of the person behind the lens.

But in succeeding so well at recapturing an old style, it also loses out on any modern sensibility... and thus the patience of a modern audience (to that I should add if you want the Fast and the Furious, there's a new one out on DVD).  While as a film fan, I was certainly impressed, it's as a modern film goer that I felt I wasn't as entertained as perhaps I should have been.


*A note I found of my reaction to Thief after a viewing about a years ago: "I like Michael Mann movies sometimes because of, and sometimes in spite of their exceptionally deliberate pace. But Thief was at times too deliberate, and on top of, too unflinchingly 80’s in its presentation that I found it a chore to watch."

I'm sure that were I to watch Drive at home, instead of "trapped" in the theatre, I would have had a similiar "chore" reaction to it. 

31 Days of Horror: Teeth

2007, Mitchell Lichtenstein -- Netflix

Last night we didn't have any movies downloaded and were sticking to the guns to watch only what we have not yet seen. So, onto Netflix and through the Horror genres over and over, when finally we settled on this little indie flick. I remember Ebert giving it an OK nod so I thought, why not?  It's about vagina dentata which as Marmy puts it, is really only a horror to men.

The problem is that it wasn't really horror but more black comedy. Sometimes a black comedy can be a horror but really this one wasn't.  Oh well, it's not like I am getting scored for how Horror the horror movie is.

Basically a young girl is into the whole abstinence movement and therefore has not explored her body nor had promiscuous sex.  She knows very little about what's down there.  Then she meets a boy and boy is horny and less than honest about his desire to stay celibate.  He attacks our heroine and... well, gets his penis chomped off.  Thus she is introduced to her stress induced shark teeth and we are given our first view of many rubbery penis tips.

The thing with low budget indie movies, that makes them appealing, is that they are willing to do things that big budgets are not. They take chances and make choices a Hollywood blockbuster wouldn't.  Or they don't.  And if they don't, they fade away.  This was pretty fade worthy with a few chuckles and not even enough dismembering (heh, he said member) to consider itself a b-grade gorefest.

Meh.

31 Days of Horror: Vanishing on 7th St

2010, Brad Anderson (The Machinist and a bunch of Fringe episodes) -- download

You are on your way to work, in the wee hours of the morning when it is still dark, when suddenly the power goes out. Lights flicker and systems shut down and when it all comes back on, you are alone. All around you where there should be commuters there are sacks of clothing. I mean, everywhere.  Cars have crashed, planes have fallen from the sky but the most amazing thing is the deathly silence. Amazing how quiet it can get when you remove all those people.

But in the returning dark, just out of the edge of your lights, are shadows.  The shadows creep and reach and moan and whine.  They are reaching out to you, trying to grab hold. You don't know what they can do or what they want but you know it's not good.  But as long as you have a light on, you are safe.  Somewhat.

That is the world we are introduced to almost immediately after the title sequence rolls. John Leguizamo, Hayden Christensen, Thandie Newton and a few kids are the only people there when the lights come back on. The trouble is that the lights are flickering and the daylight hours are reducing, dramatically.  The shadows are everywhere and they are getting bolder and louder.  Our protagonists gather in a bar downtown where a resourceful survivalist had set up a generator and tons of gas.  If only gas was what was needed to keep the physics of the world working as they should.

This is paranoid post-apocalypse horror, where you have little clue of what is going on and no clue on how to survive it.  Seriously, if daylight is diminishing and even glow sticks are losing their ability to light up, what chance of survival is there?  Things are damn grim.

I know what you are thinking; this is a Rapture, right?  If it is a Rapture then it doesn't seem to be about saving the faithful at all.  The people "left behind" are not all that bad, just average people with crappy lives. And if they are left behind while the faithful went Up There then why are they now being taken?  If this is a Rapture movie then there is no resolution about it.  We don't know the actual rules of the event and in the end, we are only left with two kids alive.  Oh no, did I just think they are the new Adam & Eve for this dark world?  Please, no, not that. That will reduce a stylish, well played out creepy movie into something where Hayden is the new Kirk Cameron.

31 Days of Horror: The Midnight Meat Train

2008, Ryûhei Kitamura (japanese director of Versus and Azumi) -- Netflix

This is based on the non-descript little Clive Barker short story, right?  Yeah it is.  Its a blood & guts movie about a guy killing people on subway trains for nefarious reasons.  Take a director from Japan known for his fun & stylish gore flicks (thought not as schlocky as Tokyo Gore Police) and toss home some recognizable faces like Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones and Brooke Shields.  You get a stylish, capable horror movie that some people will just love to bits.

Bradley Cooper plays the obsessed guy very well. At first he is disturbed by his role as photographer of the violent moment. He is not sure about where it will take him. But it is much further than just following thugs into the subway to see who they will assault.  Connect a few dots and suddenly he realizes that there is something else up with the well dressed butcher with the doctor's bag. Vinnie Jones is basically playing himself, the recognizably controlled scary guy with a grim visage.  And that is it, that is the crux of the movie, the interaction between the photographer and the murderer.

Vinnie's butcher does nasty nasty work. He has a massively heavy hammer and a sharp carving knife. He has a grim determination to do his required work quickly.  He obviously has little concern for his victims. That Bradley's photographer is able to set aside his concern for people in order to catch the perfect shot, shows a similar determination.  It's only a matter of time before the two paths sync up.  It's mystical but not completely explained.

Kitamura really plays up the gore, going beyond the knife hacking and hammer smashing. Eyes get knocked out of heads and heads even knocked off their stumps.  The view through the latter victim's eyes as she gazes on her own body is eerie.  By the time we get to the butchering of humans, we are immune to the  blood.  At least we don't have to smell it.

But what are the motivations of all of this?  Like in the original short story, they are never really explained. So what if we have ghouls living under the city?  So what if there are determined roles in serving those ghouls, so the outside world doesn't have to know? Unless these humanoid flesh eaters serve an even more horrible master, then there is no reason humans wouldn't just hunt them down and kill them.  There should be no reason for a small conspiracy that has been killing for as long as there have been subways. We never really get any resolution, just the transition from Vinnie to Bradley, which was seen a mile away, at the beginning of the movie.

3 Short Paragraphs: Fall 2011 (pt 6)

I am not sure what kind of person may have watched The Girls Next Door and thought, "That's the kind of girl I wish I was."  I am not narrow minded about such things but they were not exactly the best role models in the world. So, then who in their right mind would devise a show (The Playboy Club) where the monologuing dialogue of Hugh Hefner makes us reminisce about the good ol'days where girls who dressed up in bunny costumes were the kind of girls who "could be anything they want".  Rhetorical question.  At least the faux married girl/beard claims its all about the money.  Not even the mobster story can drag this mess out into a proper drama. I guess this is the show for people who don't get that Mad Men is a critique of that period.

In the same ilk of worshipping something going on in a previous era is Panam.  Remember when the world was smaller and going from one continent to another was something only the rich did? Or soldiers.  A stewardess would have been truly the only way for some to travel, to see cities around the world.  But of course we have to add spies and revolutionaries and infidelity to that plot to make it appealing.  I suspect this is a show for grandmothers to watch with their granddaughters and wax nostalgic about when they had fewer choices of independence.

So we had girls who were bunnies and girls who were stewardesses.  Now what else do the girls of TV want to be when they grow up?  WITCHES !!  The Secret Circle is a CW production of sexy witchcraft in a small coastal town.  Where I thought Suburgatory was based on teen novels, this one definitely is. Cassie's mom just died and she drives up the coast to live with her grandmother.  Almost immediately she is tossed into the secret circle, that doesn't seem all that secret, of other local teens who are witches with meagre powers --- Cassie is welcomed because she completes the circle and enhances their power.  BTW, her mom was killed by a creepy guy who turns out to be the daddy of one of the girls.  This is the Twilight of witches with dreamy forest scenes and longing looks, dressed up in the expensive clothes of The CW where girls wear full faces of makeup to bed and wear clothes outside their highschool non-budget.

31 Days of Horror: The Fades & Bedlam

Once again I play the this-is-my-game card and state that it didn't have to be movies, did it?  So, last night we watch some of british TV's latest scary/horror shows.  The Fades is about a teenage boy who can see ghosts and a group of people calling themselves Angelics, who fight evil ghosts.  Bedlam is another story about a boy who can see ghosts but is more for the pretty people living pretty lives but experiencing ghosts demographic.  Is there a demographic for that in the UK?  I guess it could be snarkily summed up as Big Brother with Ghosts? But they cannot be exactly that as there was already Big Brother with Zombies; literally.

The Fades is the better of the two.  It's a story about ghosts and the people who see them. But not just any ghosts but those nasty, angry types who are hanging on long after they should for whatever angry reason they need. Others, those who aren't as angry, get glow sticks installed on their chest until they burst into a flock of glowy birds.  The angry ones are led by this nasty ghoul-like one that has an agenda. That agenda involves the end of the world, if the dreams of our teenage hero are any indicators.  So, teenage boy, and his movie obsessed bestest buddy plus his cute lil new GF are going to be wrapped up in this ghostly agenda.

That snarkily said, it is a very atmospheric show with truly creepy ghosts and a dark future.  Like all british specfic shows, the plot could go in any direction so the end of the world is truly a possibility.  The main character, while given a dose of his ghostly awareness and other... powers early on is upset and nervous about what he is wrapped up in but still understands their is something very important going on.   It will probably morph into a story more of adventure and super powered entities duking it out, but that will not temper my interest. As long as we don't have to watch Paul the angelic teenager wank and grow wings again.

Meanwhile Bedlam is truly annoying.  Yes, we have a bunch of attractive people living together in a renovated metal asylum that was shut down when the owner was caught doing unseemly things to the patients. The new owner, son of said looney and his daughter, have started setting the place up as a condo site.  Yep, they call the place Bedlam.  Add to that the adopted nephew returning from his vacation in another asylum, after "getting better" from seeing ghosts.  The nasty daughter is allowing some of her friends stay with them, gratis, so she can exercise her power over them.  She also has sleep walking dreams where she interacts with the horribly treated patients from her granddaddy's days.

So, each week, a new tenant with a dark past will be introduced.  That tenant, all female so far, is haunted by a ghost of someone who stayed at the asylum, someone angry at the tenant and whatever terrible way she screwed up in the past.  And Jed, the ghost whisperer, gets to save the tenant.  Or sleep with them. Or both.  And also, condo developer daddy is probably also murdering girls.

What bugs me the most is actually how contemptible the female lead is.  She is manipulative and controlling of her friends, jealous of anyone who talks to Jed and has no concern for anyone but herself.  And yet the reason Jed is there is to save her. Or save us from her?

31 Days of Horror: The Ward

2010, John Carpenter (if you don't know, i ain't tellin ya) -- download

It's nice to see Carpenter back to doing a horror movie considering one of the best of the genre is attributed to him.  It's also nice to see him back since the last flick he did was 2001's less-than-stellar Ghosts of Mars.  This time we have another ghost story and once again, a ghost story with a gimmick.

Its the 60s, and if you cannot tell by the washed out cinematography and long, wide shots then the police car and grannie panties should give it away. Kristen is in a night gown running through the wood when she stumbles upon a farmhouse. The cops, in said car, are looking for someone, probably her.  When we see her light the curtains of the farmhouse on fire, we are confirmed it's her.

She is taken to the typical out of the way county asylum that probably has seen better days as a luxury hotel.  She doesn't remember who she is nor what brought her to burn down that house. But the friendly psychologist, the only one seemingly on staff, tells her they will figure it out.  He also gives a sense that he knows her, but Kristen is new here, as is apparent by the newly chalked name written outside her room.  Kristen is introduced to the other girls of the lockdown ward, all young and pretty and a bit damaged.  Oh, did I mention that Kristen now occupies the room where the previous occupant was strangled by a shadowy figure?

This is the strangest asylum I have seen depicted.  The doctor seems genuinely concerned for her, the nurse is stern but non-abusive and the orderly actually doesn't seem pervy & seeking to abuse her.   Babydoll wished she had been locked up here instead of the Lennox House for the Mentally Insane.  The odder parts are the lack of other patients & staff.

Kristen is the instigator, the planner and is determined she is leaving. But when she almost immediately recognizes a ghost is killing off her room mates one by one, and the staff & doctor are not responding to said deaths, she enlists the rest of the staff to help her.  Nope, no dancing, swords or bunny battlesuits.

It was unfortunate that right around the time Kristen decide to leave was the time Marmy & I guessed what was going on.  It's a trope indeed but an enjoyable one nonetheless.  It's not always in the originality of the play but how skillfully it is done. And Carpenter does is wonderfully. You see, Kristen is Alice Hudson is Emily is Sarah is Zoey is Iris. The flashbacks of the little girl chained and abused were Alice as a child where she was horribly tortured for a few months before being found.  To save herself she fractured into all the other girls. And the friendly psychologist is attempting to draw them all together again.  The murdering ghost is the psyche of Alice trying to merge them all together again.  And she succeeds.

JUMP !!  Or so we think.

31 Days of Horror: Feast

2005, John Gulager -- Netflix

And then there is the monster gore flick.  Monsters as a genre are a line straddled traversing from horror to adventure.  While even in the adventure flick, there is the palpable sense of fear in the protagonists, they always move away from the fear to begin a focus on the battle between the characters and the monster. In a monster horror, the fear is always present, the monsters always winning, the untrained characters always aware of the ever present chance they will die next.

Feast is a Project Greenlight (the side project started by Ben Affleck & Matt Damon to support young film makers) winner that builds the self aware gory monster flick.  It plays with the structure immediately as each person in the desert tavern is introduced with a character card designating them the Hero, the Bozo, the Slut, etc. and noting the chance they have at surviving the movie. We see faces we recognize immediately such as Balthazar Getty (the Bozo), who's IMDB listing tells me that he has not done as many bad horrors as I expected, Jason Mewes (the Actor) playing ... himself, Henry Rollins (the Coach) and Judah Friedlander (Beer Guy) playing himself as a beer delivery guy -- well, does Judah ever play anyone other than himself?  The setup is immediate as The Hero enters the tavern with the head of a monster, explains the situation and is immediately eaten.  Enter his wife as the Heroine who is given a bit longer to last.

There we have it, a mixed up bunch of contentious no-goods trapped in a bar in the desert with no phone, no cell reception and mysterious monsters laying siege to the place. Origins are unimportant nor are, apparently, the actual appearance of the creatures as they spend most of their screen time wearing cow skulls and heavy fur blankets.  These things are smart, witty and have the nastiest reproduction methods I have ever seen.

Though the humor is in the setup, the actors play everything completely straight. They are in a horror movie and aren't aware of it.  We catch the tropes and chuckle as they turn them upside down.  The Kid doesn't survive by hiding in the closet; he is gobbled down like spaghetti.  The heroes are picked off one by one till the unlikely one emerges. Even the Bimbo gets away unscathed if a bit bloodstained.  And the Bozo survives and even shows a bit of heroism.  And apparently, you can choke a toothless monster on your forearm.

This movie is a gore fest, excuse the pun, the kind my brother would rent off the shelves of neighbourhood video stores.  It has blood and guts and decapitations and plenty of those aspects of gore movies that don't appeal to me (maggots, eewey goo) and even some aspects that begged for a need at  all -- seriously, did we need to see a "baby" monster spew semen as it humped the head of a bound biker? Characters are chomped, beheaded, have their faces ripped off, their guts torn out and one is even used as a battering ram.  In spite of the less savoury aspects, the movie goes along at an enjoyable clip until the survivors drive off into the sunrise and the inevitable sequels.  And I felt I had seen something fresh in the genre.

31 Days of Horror / Fall 2011 (pt 5): America Horror Story

You might say this is a cop-out because it's a combo of the two themes I have been working on. But I didn't say that the 31 Days of Horror had to be a movie, did i?  I think this is a perfect example of synchronicity.

American Horror Story is the latest creation from Ryan Murphy and Brad Falchuk, the team responsible for Glee.  I will preamble by saying that I am not influenced by the fact that I hate Glee but ...  well, I didn't like this much either.

This is a haunted house story, as the Harmons move from the east coast to LA, to live in the place we saw twin boys murdered in the opening sequence by something that can only be described as a evil little person in a christening dress.  That was the 70s and I guess it was just one example of the Evil That Houses Do.  Of course, all Evil Houses are gorgeous and more expensive than the focus family can afford.  And of course, even after they find out that the most recent owners had a murder-suicide, it doesn't deter their expectations for the house that will fix their marriage.

You see, they are a couple in trouble.  She had a miscarriage and it left her understandably damaged. He cheated on her. Their daughter is all messed up over all of it. So everyone has moved to  the west coast to start again.  The problem, at least through my eyes, is that no one is very likeable.  Ms Harmon is moody and visibly hostile to her husband. Mr Harmon is horny as all hell and angry at his wife for not forgiving him. And daughter is just an angry annoying cutter.

So, forgive me for not being all that broken up when the soothsaying ("Yer all gonna die!!!") girl next door (Down's Syndrome) and her even creepier mother (Jessica Lange), who seem to have keys to the place, appear to add to the already stressed family's troubles.  And the creepy old lady / masturbating young lady redheaded (evil!) housekeeper shows up demanding to either clean the house (her way, her clothes) or .... well, fuck Mr Harmon.  Said housekeeper must be a ghost or a hallucination or ... something. But she/they are quite the disruption so I don't see why she/they are not kicked to the curb immediately. But Evil Houses need two legged antagonists so...

Not entirely sure what I disliked about it but it just felt like all those aspects of shows with people I get annoyed with.  Seriously, kick the annoying neighbor out and change the locks.  Ban the creepy housekeeper from returning. Tell her sexy young thang counterpart to put some clothes on and masturbate at home.  Transfer the Columbine Kid to another therapist and tell the Burning Man to go confess his murdering tendencies to someone else.  This family is going to have enough to deal with when the ghosts of confirmed dead people start showing up, especially that clawed  thing in the christening dress.  That thing wigged me out.

Oh yeah.... a gimp suit.  Seriously?  What's next, a dwarf who talks backwards?  Maybe, wearing a christening dress?

31 Days of Horror: Orcs!

2011, James MacPherson -- download

Oh for the love of the genre, I don't even remember where I bumped into this, inspiring me to download what I thought was a send-up on slasher films but using some bad makeup monsters that can only be described as orcs.  In my head, it even lent itself to the D&D conversation where you relate that even the least dangerous monster could be the protagonist of a horror movie.  I expected some campy, gory fun that I could laugh at.  Yeah, ahem.

Unfortunately that is all the director expected as well so they did a bad farce of the campers being killed by monsters in the dark along with ... well, too many fucking stupid references to Lord of the Rings and a few from Aliens just for the fun of it.  This movie literally must have been born of a napkin treatment where the owners of a bunch of orc costumes tried to come up with something to do with them, "Let's make a movie!!"  I would kick the person who laughed hilariously when they made the connection, "Get it, they're PARK rangers fighting orcs!!"

It's only horror in that it borrows the convention. I apologize for including this in the lot but it was the choice of the night.  Next up we actually watch a few from our own collection.  Then back to Netflix or the local DVD store... if I can find one in our neighbourhood anymore.

31 Days of Horror: Insidious

2010, James Wan (the original Saw guy) -- download

Ignore the misleading poster art which, I believe, depicts the son that is only a background character.  Insidious is not another bad seed movie but, surprisingly, a Poltergeist for the 21st century.  Well in structure, at least, if not... about ghosts.  Well, kind of ghosts. Its all semantics.

The Lamberts have just moved into a gigantic house, arts & crafts style and gorgeous, with their two boys. Josh (Patrick Wilson, who is not seeing the ghost of his wife) is a teacher and Renai is a ... song writer?  The house is one of those big, empty feeling places that just begs to be haunted and the music, discordant conceptual stuff, sets us in that mindspace.  And I don't know what had me on edge so quickly, but the movie was pushing my buttons very early on.  Not only does their son Dalton see something in the shadows of the attic but soon after he falls off the ladder, he is found in a coma.  No explanations.

Three months pass and Dalton still is in the coma. He lies in his bed because the medical establishment has no understanding of his condition and has sent him home. And his mother begins seeing and hearing things that just had me crawling up on the sofa.  Nope, no feet hanging over the edge for me. Ghostly figures walking on her balcony and reaching through the window. There is no real explanation why one thing has you starting and squeaking "eeep!" where another movie would have you rolling your eyes. The sound, the state of of suspense and the effects actually had me nervous. I was into the movie.

Completely terrified of the haunted house, the Lamberts move to another smaller place but alas, the spirits seems to have followed them. She sees a small child running from room to room, laughing, more giggling evilly and when she tries to confront it, she sees not a child but something... else.  Josh's mother has joined them, helping them settle in, and states emphatically she believes Renai. She explains she has been dreaming and seeing a dark creature. Things escalate violently which lead to a paranormal investigation team being invited in.  Of course, they get their pants scared off them.

The movie takes a strange twist in this act as the comic relief of the two ghost chasers with their (homemade) ghost busting equipment and competitive nature releases the tension of the movie's first act.  Add in their own additional expert; she explores Dalton's room using directed drawing and a mystique reminiscent of Tangina Barrons from Poltergeist.  She then explains that this is not a straight haunting but that Dalton is astral projecting, a traveller, who has lost his body.  And the malicious entities present are from that world where Dalton is lost. They see an opportunity of an empty body and want it.  Not only this but Josh Lambert is also a traveller, who as a child was stalked by a haunting image of an old woman.

What I don't get is that Josh wants to deny this is going on.  Maybe its too much for him, maybe he is doing his typical running from stress, but he rejects their offer and wants them gone. Not until he sees the evidence in Dalton's drawings, including the evil entity with a flaming face, is he convinced.  And into the Further he goes, chasing his son.  Here the movie is less scary and more adventure as we know he will rescue his son and all will come out OK.  The Further, and its inhabitants is less scary and more just disturbing and creepy.  Even the dark man with the red face looks more like an old man in bad makeup, albeit with tale & hooves, and less the terrifying shadow with glowing eyes and long claws from earlier.  And of course, John does succeed and gets his son back into his own body.

But guess what happens to Josh once he is reunited with that old lady from the photos of his childhood?

Fall Pilots 2011: A Gifted Man/Suburgatory and those two I couldn't watch all the way through

The "An [Adjective] [Noun]" title has cropped up far too frequently in recent years, to the point where I can never properly remember the title to this show.  Perhaps if I write it down a few times it'll stick.  But the show's name is the least of A Serious.. A Beautiful.... A Gifted Man's challenges.  It's chief obstacle is in it's curious genre mix of medical drama, ghost story, with a sprinkle of romance.  It's House meets Ghost Whisperer but it takes itself more seriously than the pithy former series and strives to avoid the campy melodrama of the latter.

Patrick Wilson plays what he plays best, a bastard (although he did manage to swing sympathetic in Watchmen), and it's no surprise that he's really good at it.  He's also pretty good at letting his bastard guard down in moments too, showing clearly that his character is able to come out of his own ego.  It's a chance encounter Dr Michael Holt has with his ex-wife, Emma, which triggers this transformation, having not seen each other for nearly 8 years since he left her doing clinic work in Alaska for NYC where he's become a preeminent neurosurgeon.  His high profile clinic has led to high status clients and the show is effective at establishing his organization, establishing his type of clientele, and establishing his talent.  It's a little clunkier in establishing the other aspects of his life, specifically the introduction to his sister, his problem-child teenaged nephew and Emma, all who enter the show rather abruptly, though each serves a distinct purpose in how Michael relates to the world.

Obviously Michael is the focus character of the pilot, but there's little room for any other characters to make an impact.  The actors involved include the great character actress Margo Martindale as Michael's long-suffering personal assistant, and Pablo Schreiber as Anton Little Creek, a spiritual adviser set loose on Michael by his flighty sister (Julie Benz) are both highlights in the cast but, again, in supporting roles only.  There almost seems to be no room for anyone else in the pilot or the series, which is also loaded with no less than four cases for Michael to juggle in the midst of perhaps losing his grip on sanity once it's revealed that Emma died two days before he had his chance run-in with her.   Jennifer Ehle as Emma is the weakest link of the show.  Her choice to play the ghost as somewhat patronizing, perpetually sympathetic, a little cloying, and always painfully smiling is kind of grating, and I kept hoping there would be a more sinister twist to her attachment to Michael, and intent that would have been made painfully clear during Michael's "treatment" with Anton.

The pilot was directed by Jonathan Demme so it has a rather cinematic feel to it, but that cinematic aspect really makes me wonder why this wasn't a motion picture, as it seems like the idea of a spirit guide to personal transformation would suit a 2-hour screenplay far better.  I wonder how long a series about a man talking to a ghost can last without getting repetitive especially when the only journey for the show seems to be Michael's spiritual transformation.  I'm not certain what the week-to-week episode format will be or if it will be at all interesting, though hopefully it does something more interesting than a case-of-the-week slant (which judging by the synopsis of the second episode, it's not going to).  I'm intrigued by the show, but I think I'm only going to be let down.

While Cougartown is on hiatus ("EHHHHHHHHHHH" - Abed) Suburgatory is the substitute, a single camera sitcom about a teenaged girl and her single dad moving from NYC to the surreal suburban wasteland of plastic people.  The setting has been mined by films and television since the days of Clueless, so it doesn't feel familiar, but practically exhausted.  And yet, Suburgatory has found an angle that I haven't seen yet, that of the single father, having raised his daughter on his own after her mother abandoned her shortly after birth.  Of course, the show is realized from the perspective of Tessa (Jane Levy who just may be the next Emma Stone), but it's her father (a wonderfully cast Jeremy Sisto) as the handsome, single dad (fresh pickin's in the suburban jungle) that the show finds energy, for as unfamiliar as Tessa is with her surroundings, it's George that's even more out of place.

The cast is bolstered a host of comedic actors and actresses including Curb's Cheryl Hines, Firefly's Alan Tudyk, SNL's Ana Gasteyer and Mad TV's Arden Myrin, though it's the father-daughter chemistry between Sisto and Levy which is its strongest aspect and hopefully is utilized more than it was in the pilot.

Though obviously a convention of the high school comedy genre that it's exploring, Tessa's narration I found to be a tad overbearing in the pilot, serving the purpose of exposition often but not adding much to the comedy.  It's not an essential but if the show learns how to use it as a stronger comedic voice then it can become a stronger facet to the show.  Hopefully though the high-school aspect is less prevalent than Tessa's observations on the adult world around her

It's a good looking production, with set design and wardrobe aiding much of the humour's execution.  Bringing it back, it's actually not far off from where Cougartown started in its first few episodes, which isn't to say we have another Cougartown on our hands with Suburgatory (because some might construe that as an insult) but it's strong, funny and charming and hopefully develops a more unique voice from its cinematic predecessors (see also Mean Girls, Easy A).

And in my final (for now) pair of pilot peeks, I watched about 8 minutes of Pan Am before I just couldn't stand to watch anymore.  The show obviously had a good chunk of money sunk into replicating sets and costumes of the era, while digitally recreating the planes and cityscapes of the 1960s, but where Mad Men (its obvious inspiration) lives in its environments, nudging the era's gender politics and naive advancements towards the audience, Pan Am throws them in all in the audience's faces.  It's just so overbearing and, frankly, unbelievable.  It's definitely trying for a lighter, loftier tone than Mad Men, but in not taking itself seriously (introducing one of the Pan Am girls as a spy, and having another encounter her lover's family on her flight) I lost all interest.  I don't want another substandard, ridiculous soap opera, I already have Ringer.

Terra Nova, I was expecting to hate more than I did, and managed to last ten minutes longer through the pilot than I thought I would.  The network sci-fi shows (basically anything that's not on Fox) have rarely succeeded in the past 20 years, from Jeremiah to Dark Skies to Earth 2 to V, all cancelled within 2 seasons, while the sci-fi (and fantasy) shows that run on Fox, or the CW seem to be granted a much longer shelf life.  In North America, sci-fi and fantasy, no matter what the box office returns tell you, are niche products, specifically those that partake in long-form storytelling.  Why Transformers 3 and Super 8 make boffo cash at the box office is easy, spectacle, something which the genre programming on television can't afford to provide on a week-in, week-out basis.  On a network willing to take risks, which isn't the big three of NBC, CBS, or ABC, you will get a show with a focus, or at least a showrunner with a vested interest in the final product.  On the "big three" networks you get a product that's trying to satisfy executives perceptions of what the show should be as well as what network executives think the public wants to see.  What the public wants to see, I tell you now, is not Terra Nova.


Jason O'Mara, having survived another short-lived genre show (Life on Mars) is a cop in a dying future, where overpopulation has finally taken its toll and the ecosystem of earth in on the verge of total collapse.  O'Mara and his wife are busted with a third child (immediate guess, give his extreme over-protectiveness, is that the child isn't actually his and he's overcompensating) and he's scuttled off to 22nd century jail.  His wife gains a pass to Terra Nova, where the future of all mankind is set to inhabit a new civilization a few billion years in the past, coexisting with the dinosaur times.  O'Mara's wife orchestrates his jailbreak and he escapes with them to the past, where he's found out as a escaped con, but kinda sorta pardoned because his doctor/scientist wife is something of a big deal.  The future setting is intriguing, but poorly realized and ultimately disposable (we spend no more time there than we absolutely have to), while the dinosaur world looks, well, kind of like so many other major network sci-fi sets: dull and expected.  There's some interesting seeds of drama but none of the actors seem either skilled or invested enough in delivering them with anything remotely approaching subtlety.  Having seen a dozen other shows with a settling in a strange new world vibe, I basically felt like I've seen the show before and I knew where it was heading.  Shows like these are meant to be familiar, unchallenging, and, I believe, are purposefully unexciting, giving an audience who doesn't know any better something that will pass time quickly and without any fuss.

31 Days of Horror: Heartless

2009, Philip Ridley (writer, photographer and occasional director) -- download

Demons. Definitely a subject of the horror genre. Demons from Hell or demons haunting your own mind -- whatever the source, they are a horror to those who experience them. Jamie Morgan has more demons to deal with than he should. He is partially covered with a port-wine stain birthmark that lends to his internal demons,  prevalent and overwhelming. The world outside his mom's house is chaotic, violent and upsetting. He doesn't understand it and ever since his dad died, he has even less ability to deal.  So it doesn't help that Jamie starts seeing the actual gnashy teethed demons responsible for a series of brutal murders in his London neighbourhood.

Heartless is one of those movies where you start off wondering if it's all in the main character's head but are told very quickly that.. well, it is.  But that does not take away from the experience of the movie, as Jamie gets more and more wrapped up in the horrible world being made even worse by these hoodied teen thugs with feral shrieks & molotov cocktails.  And don't forget the gnashy teeth.  As if seeing them isn't enough, they kill his beloved mother leaving him more broken than he can stand.

Is her death a catalyst or another step down the stairs into a place he will not get back from?  We are not sure but it definitely leads him into temptation as he is drawn to the projects tower his dad grew up in to confront Papa D.  Papa and the beautiful young indian girl Belle manipulate him into making a deal, a Faustian deal, if the book he was reading in an earlier scene is any telling point. Accept that he world is nothing but chaos, perform a simple act of chaos and Papa D will give Jamie what he wants most -- beauty.  The heart shaped birth mark will be removed and all can be right with the world. What is most disturbing is not that he self-immolates to be reborn sans port-wine but that Papa admits that Jamie's mother's death was necessary for this deal to be made. Jamie is that desperate for some understanding of the world that he accepts the chaos for himself.  And he is made better.

But of course, never trust a deal with Papa D especially if it comes from the voice of a child. Papa D always lies.  And Jamie's simple act of chaos is not spraying blasphemous graffiti but murder.  The cracks in Jamie's psyche are now becoming very very apparent as he listens to Belle walk him through the murder.  And only when another murder is required does Jamie begin seeing the cracks himself -- no miracle cure of his appearance, no demonic faced thugs, just a very damaged young man who has to lose everything to see where he is.

Heartless is as much the way it is shot as it the plot being told. We are carried along with Jamie's descent via his disturbing experiences and the way he sees the world. So much of what we see through his photographer's eyes is decorated by what he grew up with, his mother's religion and his father's travels.  We see Jamie as a very lovely young man which only makes his fall so much more tragic. He doesn't deserve what he was born with an he definitely doesn't deserve what happens to him, but because it is as much his own making, we are left only able to believe he was right in how the world was just getting more terrible.

3 Short Paragraphs: Fall 2011 (pt 4)

Mixed bag this time with Terra Nova, Revenge and one sitcom Suburgatory that I was not even looking out for.

Conventional television specFic is not very good.  Sometimes it surpasses it's genre and becomes good drama, ala Battlestar Galactica, but usually it just falls into templates and formats and gets boring very quickly. Terra Nova is going to be one of those, I can just smell it like dinosaur poo.  The pilot was one of those rare two-hour premieres where we see the dark world of the future and are almost immediately tossed into the dinosaur & big bug filled past so humanity can "start again".  Luckily they cover the time-travel trope of "new timeline" so they don't step on any butterflies -- I commend them for addressing that. The annoying thing is that there has to be uppity teenagers and precocious kids and bad guys who saw The Road Warrior too many times. I will watch another few episodes, at least until it bores or annoys the hell out of me.

Then there is something I never thought I might watch again but... might... just... have... to.  It's Revenge, loosely based on the premise inside The Count of Monte Cristo, a premise I very much enjoy. Here we have a pretty girl returning to the Hamptons where nobody recognizes that she is the daughter of someone they destroyed years ago. She has a fortune given to her by an internet billionaire and connections every which way. The weird thing is that we are going to root for this pretty girl as she destroys lives and probably kills a few people. Its very standard but I am curious if it will get as dark as it could.

Suburgatory seems to be one of those out of the studio sitcoms based on a series of teen novels, but it isn't. It's narrated by our teenage girl lead who, along with her dad, has moved to the suburbs -- dad wants to give her a better life. I grew up in the suburbs of the 80s and they were not this idea of vast houses, boob jobs and plastic kids. And Jeremy Sisto is not the kind of guy I would expect playing a nice, schleppy dad who is a fish out of the pool around all the manicured and orange-tinted men of the burbs. But Alan Tudyk is in it, so it will warrant some more attention before the jaded daughter is converted into thinking every in the burbs is actually ok, afterall.

Fall Pilots 2011 - Person Of Interest/The Ringer

Some nights, my evenings don't start becoming <em>my</em> evenings until shortly after nine, which means, if I'm lucky, means I can cram in two sitcoms and a drama, or two dramas, or four sitcoms, or most of one movie before physiological imperative requires that I get into bed.  As such, much (most) of my television watching doesn't happen as it happens.  My cable company provides an "on demand" service, which has been essential for watching ... pretty much everything.

Of course "on demand" isn't a flawless service.  It doesn't cover every channel, it doesn't have all the programs I'd like to see on demand, and it takes 2 - 3 days to update with the new episode of a new show.  It frequently has problems loading the show, doesn't let you bypass the commercials, and, as is the case with one new episode this week, just stops abruptly partway through the show and won't continue.

But still, for a value-added service which doesn't cost anything extra, it's something I take advantage of more times than I can count (it's especially handy for children's programming), plus it's allowed me to catch up on some fall pilots that I was interested in watching that I would have otherwise missed.

Person Of Interest is the new JJ Abrams-produced show starring JJ Abrams-produced Lost alum Michael Emerson and Jim Caviezel, best known for his role in the father-son time-travel ham radio drama Frequency (oh, and for playing Jesus in some film called Passion of the Christ).  The show isn't however an Abrams show, but instead is the brainchild of Jonathan Nolan, co-writer of many of brother Christopher Nolan's films (oh, like, say, The Dark Knight, The Prestige, Memento).  It's not Batman, magic, or memory loss, but at the same time it does have genre trappings which are almost an essential to differentiate itself from any other sort of investigative or procedural show out there.  In a way it's a throwback to the 80's style of action TV, where there's a hero, or heroes, who avail themselves to the helpless out of the goodness of their heart(s), ala The A-Team or Knight Rider.

Caviezel is Reese, an ex-Ranger who decided to quit the business to be with his lady love, only to have 9-11 happen and draw him back in.  At some point his lady is killed, he becomes despondent and winds a transient, and it is at least implied that he's wanted for assaults all across the country.  In New York, he comes to the attention of Finch (Emerson) who devised an anti-terrorist Big Brother supercomputer for the government that monitors all public cameras, seems to tap all cellular conversations, but in the process of looking for bigger picture security concerns, it also started identifying smaller crimes as well.  Having programmed the computer to ignore the smaller items, guilt, or something else started weighing on Finch and, through a backdoor, he's retrieved the simplest of clues, social security numbers of people either potential victims or perpetrators of crimes.  Finch enlists Reese, needing the both the job and focus, though Reese isn't quite satisfied with how private his new employer is.

There's a third player in the mix, though less consequential and could be written out altogether with next to no impact on the weekly operation of the show at all. Detective Carter, played by Oscar nominee Taraji P. Henson, has taken an interest in the vagrant who got in a fight on a subway and now seems to be cleaned up and helping others out, though in an extremely violent manner.  While I can see the need for setting up a third party interested in Reese's well-doings, Henson is, frankly, not a great actress, or at the very least completely ill suited for the tough cop role. She reminds me of Hooks from Police Academy in her delivery, which isn't much of a compliment at all.

The pilot episode was weak, but gain strength the further it progressed.  All the characters still seem like husks, ill defined, though obviously there's intent behind each of their motivations which will be explored as the series progresses, but it makes it hard to connect with them immediately.  Once Reese turns the corner from confused and skeptical and into complete badass mode, the show actually takes flight in a darkly humorous way.  Reese seems to enjoy hurting people, and it's difficult to tell whether he's aware of that or not, and equally difficult to see if Finch is scared of it.

The show uses to interesting (though occasionally annoying) effect cuts from remote video feeds, security cameras, and the like to really hammer home the Big Brother is watching, but I have to also question whether or not this isn't a story element, that "the machine" that Finch designed taking an interest in and observing Reese and co.  I should also add that Nolan, in The Dark Knight  touched on similar themes when Batman and Morgan Freeman utilized a system which tapped into everyone's cel-phone feeds in Gotham to locate the Joker.  It's no doubt something Nolan has on his mind, about just how private are we anymore.

It's not a bad show, and it fits well into an episode-of-the-week format, like a big network's answer to the surprising success of Burn Notice,  but it needs something bigger, but it (after two episodes) hasn't really shown room as to where a bigger plot could seed itself through.  

Now The Ringer, on the other hand, is pure trash, absolute lunacy, ridiculous and bad to such a degree that its earnestly entertaining.  The cast in the show includes ex-Buffy Sarah Michelle Gellar, ex-Mr. Fantastic Ioan Gruffudd and ex-Bat Manuel Nestor Carbonell (how Carbonell, having appeared in both Lost and Dark Knight wound up here instead of Person of Interest is beyond me) and its pilot features a script that seems like a condensed version of three seasons of a soap opera.

Explaining all the plot twists and turns of the pilot would take up numerous paragraphs, suffice to say ther are a lot, each building upon the last in a delightfully absurd fashion.  The basic premise finds Gellar`s ex-stripper/recovering crackhead Bridget fleeing from protective custody to her estranged twin sister's mansion on the coast, discovering that Siobhan has in the intervening five years done really well for herself.  They decide to go for a boat ride where Siobhan drugs Bridget unconscious and then fakes her suicide.  Bridget, naturally, seeing opportunity, becomes Siobhan, only to learn, and learn and learn again, that Siobhan's life is more fucked up than her own.  And the pilot ends with a hitman coming to kill Bridget-as-Siobhan, only to learn that an escaped-to-Paris Siobhan sent out the hit.

Let's face it, it's trash TV.  The show alternates from looking pretty good to looking cheaper than the original episodes of Doctor Who.  The boat ride takes place old-school, on set imposed onto a backdrop with stagehands splashing water up the side.  It's beyond terrible looking, but it's exceptionally fake touches like that which work for the show.  In fact the hammier, the uglier, the more absurd it got, the more I found myself enjoying it.  It's over-the-top camp that strives to be little more than what it is. I can't say I'll be watching it week-to-week, but I can't say that I wont either.