Merry Christmas

Out: Cold

I went outside Friday morning to snap a couple of pics of this cloud sitting on the lake. It didn't feel any colder than the usual 18 or 20 degrees that it is at 8am. That is, until I took my glove off to snap the photos and realized, less than a minute later, that I couldn't feel my fingers. Turns out, it was -1.

Otis didn't seem to have a problem with it; he romped around like subdegree temps are like, nifty.

2007: Worst of TV

NOTE: I forgot to mention the following three shows in my original post -- they must have been so horrible that I repressed the memory of them.
1. Private Practice: Perhaps this show improved, but after watching the dismal pilot episode, I decided that I didn't need to see another one. (For reasons that I cannot remember, I did end up watching a second episode early in the season, and it was just as bad.) What makes Private Practice so awful is that there is absolutely nothing original here -- the medical humor/drama schtick has been done, ad naseum. PP would have been better if it had focused on the more lighthearted aspects and left the emergencies/patients-who-seem-fine-but-suddenly-code/mystery diagnoses to its parent show Grey's Anatomy (or to ER, which is inexplicably still on the air).
2. Stuido 60 on the Sunset Strip: Another show with tons of promise, Studio 60 was written by The West Wing's Aaron Sorkin, and starred plenty of WW alumni. And I liked the show's concept, following characters behind the scenes of a SNL-like sketch comedy show. But instead of creating its own style, Studio 60 simply gave WW characters new names and a new setting...and stopped there. What's worse, is that seeing its dialog cloned in such an awful new way makes The West Wing a little less likeable.
3. Sleeper Cell: American Terror: The first season of Showtime's Sleeper Cell, which followed an undercover FBI agent who has infiltrated a terrorist sleeper cell -- was great; it was full of action, drama, suspense and some humor. And then came the awful second season, which would've been better named Sleep Well.

Here are my picks for the worst TV shows of 2007. I'm only including shows that I actually watched, so these aren't necessarily the absolute bottom-feeders. Though in a way, they're worse. I mean, avoiding something like 'Til Death is a no-brainer, but these shows actually wasted some of my time, damn them!

The Best of 2007 coming soon...

1. John From Cincinnati – What a pretentious, boring waste of humanity’s time. This show had a ton of potential. It had a great pedigree, coming from David Milch, creator of HBO’s acclaimed Deadwood series. It had a great concept and setting, following three generations of surfers and others in a smallish California beach town where weird things start to happen. On paper, it sounds a little like Lost. In execution, it just was lost. The acting was terrible. The characters were boring. Its mysteries were manufactured and deliberately obscure, its dialog and humor were too self-aware. Well, at least the online debate about the show was entertaining. For those of you who don’t have time to read, I’ll summarize: “JFC sucks, bring Deadwood back!” / “JFC is brilliant, you’re too stupid to understand it (and bring Deadwood back)!”
   

2. Prison Break – The first season of Prison Break was excellent. The second season got a bit tiresome, but was still a mostly entertaining show. So far, the third season sucks, plain and simple. I don’t know what’s happening in the plot and I don’t care.
   

3. 24 – I remember very little from this season, other than how mortified I was at its lame season finale. Dammit!
   

4. Dirt – Although Dirt wasn’t completely awful, it just wasn’t very good either. It earns my ire because it was another show that should have been better. First, because it’s from FX, which may be the next-best-thing to premium channels in terms of quality dramatic original programming (Rescue Me, Damages). Second, because it’s a drama about tabloid news reporters – how do you make that concept this boring? Dirt’s first mistake was to follow the lives of the same couple of mopey, dopey stars in each episode, making them part of the cast, when they should’ve stuck to the staff at the mag and perhaps introduced a new story around a new celeb each week. Its second mistake was to try so very hard to make Lucy (Courtney Cox) a sympathetic character when they could have had a lot of fun keeping her a dirty, greedy villain protagonist.
   

5. The Sopranos – The Sopranos wasn’t actually anywhere near the worst of the year, and I’m not listing it here because of its controversial ending. I’m putting it here because of this unbelievably condescending interview that David Chase, the show’s creator, gave regarding the reaction to the series finale. It’s pompous enough that it deserves to get some flack somewhere, so here goes:

“We knew there would be people who would be perplexed by it and shut their minds to it.”

Ah, so it’s people who had their minds shut to it who didn’t like it. And here I thought it was just people who had a difference of opinion. Silly me.

“And then, all of a sudden, [viewers] wanted to see [Tony Soprano] punished for all that…I thought that was disgusting, frankly…The pathetic thing — to me — was how much they wanted his blood, after cheering him on for eight years.”

Well, Tony Soprano is a fictional character and therefore, viewers can both root for him and root for him to get it in the end. Yes, we can have it both ways. Because when you put something fictional out into the world for the entertainment of others, you give up a lot of your control over it. Viewers can think whatever they want about your characters. And even involved fans still relate to a fictional character differently than they do a real person, so thinking that it’s “disgusting” for people to turn on Tony like that seems pretty weird to me. Frankly.

“There was a war going on that week and attempted terror attacks in London. But these people were talking about onion rings.”

Although I’m sure that there were some obsessed fans couldn’t let the ending go, for most viewers, talking about onion rings was only one of a gazillion things that they did that week. Now, I couldn’t agree more that Americans should be more engaged with current events that extend beyond this week’s American Idol or Spears family trainwreck. But c’mon, Chase has made millions and millions from the show. Are we supposed to take his finger wagging seriously?

We saw: I Am Legend

I Am Legend may have the distinct honor of being the first zombie movie/tearjerker in history. And I mean that in a good way.

Despite a mere 59% tomatometer rating, Anthony and I decided to take our chances and see the film last night. The bad reviews were far from damning, the good reviews were convincing, and we were both in the mood for a big-screen popcorn flick. Plus, I have a soft spot for zombie flicks (right here in my shoulder, bwahaha).

The key to liking this movie is to go in knowing that you're going to see a ZOMBIE MOVIE. No movie with undead CGI creatures is ever going to be in AFI's top 10 films of all time. But in the zombie movie genre (or subgenre), I Am Legend is top-notch.

Okay, the monsters aren't true risen-from-the-dead zombies. They're also not the evolving vampires from Richard Matheson's 1954 novel. For all practical purposes, they're the plague victims from 28 Days Later, infected with a virus that makes them insane, bloodthirsty killers.

I Am Legend also doesn't receive originality points for its survivalist/post-apocalyptic world setting, which goes hand-in-cold-dead-hand with nearly every zombie plague ever created on film (a premise cliche enough to inspire Max Brooks to write the hilariously deadpan and detailed spoof Zombie Survival Guide a few years ago).

But it does deserve serious credit for taking its boilerplate framework and running with it. The zombies are central to the plot but don't dominate it; although there are the necessary scenes where Robert Neville (Will Smith) has to run for his life, his struggles with loneliness and his daily failures in engineering a cure are more gripping.

I Am Legend also has a certain subtlety that is generally absent from horror films. One of the few common points it shares with the novel is Neville's mistaken belief that the zombies have lost all intelligent thought and motivation. Although his error becomes apparent through a couple of scenes, analysis of these scenes is refreshingly absent--at no point does Neville stoop so low as to utter anything about how the monsters are (cue creepy music) becoming smart. You just have to realize it yourself. It's also full of other enjoyable details--Neville's home is decorated with several items from MOMA's permanent collection, while the world outside is full of government-issued posters.

Smith's excellent performance also gives the film a lot more weight than it would've had in some other action hero's hands. (I'm not naming names, but I will mention that a certain governor of my state was once considered for the role in the early 1990.) And the German Shepherd who plays Sam, Neville's dog and only friend on earth, is so adorable and funny and heartbreaking that we both wondered whether there's an Oscar category for animal trainers.

(And I'm not exaggerating about it being hearbreaking--despite my best efforts, a wee tear slid down my cheek at one point.)

As one critic pointed out, the last half hour isn't as enjoyable as the first part of the movie (and features a somewhat annoying part with hints of deux ex machina). But it is a satisfying ending that certainly doesn't spoil the first part of the movie.

At 90 minutes, I Am Legend fits a lot of movie into a pretty short amount of time. The short length works in its favor; the sad parts are wrenching but brief, the chase scenes aren't tedious, and the monster parts stay scary. And it gives just enough back story to keep the viewer interested. All in all, it has way more thrills than a serious character drama, and more depth than a simple horror film.

Inside: We saw MICHAEL CLAYTON

We don't go out to the movies all that often anymore (and if we could download new releases I think we'd stop altogether), but when we do, we pop over to Rotten Tomatoes to see what the critics have to say about the flick before we commit $20 and a couple of hours to it.

Michael Clayton, which we saw last night, has a 90% Tomatoer rating, or 150 positive reviews out of 166. And the critics didn't just like it; they used words like "engrossing," "intelligent," "complex," "brilliant" and "exciting" -- how could we resist?

After seeing it, I'm a little less enthused than the critics. I don't disagree with them completely -- it is, at its core, a very good film, full of superb acting and a straightforward plot that doesn't rely on ridiculous twists, predictable love stories or showy pyrotechnics to carry it (MC's use of a single explosion makes it all that more effective).

But although the film is smart, I wouldn't call it complex. True, the audience has no idea what's going on in the first part of the film, but all becomes clear easily in the second half, without any necessary piecing together by the viewer. I watched the first part of the movie intensely, looking for small but relevant clues, and I found out later that Anthony had done the same. I went in expecting a plot with intricate layers and blink-and-you'll miss-it details. But this is not that type of movie.

And it's actually fine that it isn't. The story, though slow, is interesting. And, again, the acting is excellent. Clooney is almost repulsive here and, although his shaggy appearance may have dimmed down his wattage a bit, most of it is solely thanks to his acting chops; he conveys a tired, sour and resentful man under duress without saying a word. But my favorite scenes belonged to the consistently excellent Tilda Swinton as corporate lawyer Karen Crowder. Her practice speeches in front of a mirror and her nervous attempt to orchestrate a hit are both uncomfortable to watch and dryly enjoyable. Never has being corrupt looked so stressful.

My bottom line on Michael Clayton is that I probably would have enjoyed it more if I had skipped the reviews and watched it without expectations. I also recommend getting it on DVD rather than seeing it in the theater -- it does have some slow stretches that would have seemed a lot faster had I been able to take a bathroom break and stretch out on the couch.

Before the movie, we saw a preview for Vantage Point (due out in February) which, in pretty direct contrast, looks to be chock full of explosions and plot twists. It'll also probably be chock full of Hollywood cliches, but it does look like fun -- basically, this is what I hope the new season of 24 looks like.

Out: This morning at the Lake

Inside: We saw SICKO

For the most part, I’m onboard with Michael Moore. After all, I’m a tree-hugging, bleeding-hearted liberal. And Moore’s shtick—average American guy gets fed up with the powers-that-be and decides to get up and do something about it—is exactly the kind of thing that manages to penetrate my hardened cynical surface and warm my squishy idealistic core. Plus, I love anything that gets conservatives all riled up.

Unfortunately, a lot of the controversy around Moore, especially since the release of Bowling for Columbine in 2002 and Fahrenheit 911in 2004, has had less to do with the issues and more to do with fact manipulation. Which pains me, because even doing some relatively minor truth twisting, like the “South Park”-esque cartoon in Bowling (more on that here) is enough to bring down the whole house of cards. It may make for a more exciting film, but it also gives critics plenty of fodder to work with (and to manipulate according to their own agenda).

In response to his detractors, Moore backed up all of the facts in Fahrenheit on his site, which is nice (especially for people who have a lot of time on their hands). But even if every fact in Fahrenheit is solid, it still has that propaganda-like feel. And this coming from someone who is a solid member of the choir Moore’s preaching to.

Moore may have taken some similar criticisms to heart while making Sicko, his expose of the healthcare industry. Sicko is both straightforward and focused and, instead of aligning the facts to fit its thesis, instead relies heavily on interviews. And the interviews—with victims of the U.S. healthcare industry, regretful purveyors of the industry’s cruel policies, and beneficiaries of socialized medicine in Canada, the U.K., France and even Cuba—are effective. It’s hard to defend our healthcare industry after listening to a woman whose young daughter died because the closest hospital wasted critical time insisting that she be taken to an in-network hospital rather than treating her.

Sicko isn’t squeaky clean, but its faults appear to be mostly sins of omission; primarily, critics agree that Moore paints too rosy a picture of socialized healthcare systems in other countries. It’s a pity that Moore glosses over the downsides of socialized medicine because, frankly, France’s healthcare system doesn’t have to be perfect for it to be exponentially better than the private, profit-driven insurance industry in the U.S. that, inherently, must put money ahead of patient health. Even with some checks in its minus column, socialized medicine is still the clear winner here.

For me, the film’s biggest weakness is its lack of a detailed call to action. There is some discussion about how Americans don’t vote and, although it is a valid point, it just isn’t enough. Sicko is effectively alarming, especially for people like the underinsured self-employed author of this post, but it leaves the viewer somewhat clueless about what to do next. (Note: there are some suggested actions on Moore’s site.)