Bored To Death, Season One
Started: 9/20/09 | Finished: 12/13/09
Meh.
Bored To Death, Season One
Started: 9/20/09 | Finished: 12/13/09
Meh.
The Wire, Season Three
Started: 10/20/09 | Finished: 11/9/09
I was on a roll. I was watching more movies (from start to finish) than I ever had previously. And then you came along and busted it all up.
“Come on, just a lil taste,” you said. ”Everybody’s doing it.” Before long we were hanging together all day in the projects. Things started to heat up, so we took a breather and started chillin’ at the docks. But I needed my fix, so you took it back to streets where it all started. Just a couple of crews trying to make ends meet. Now I’m in so deep I don’t know if I can get out.
I’m glad to see you’re bringing your A-game again. I hear we’ve got some good times to look forward to together. Hopefully they will include less from that fool Brother Mouzone, who sticks out like a sore thumb. I mean, your reputation for reality precedes you. Yet here’s this smooth talking, Nation of Islam gangster that is straight out of a comic book. I just don’t buy it.
You know I need my re-up baby, but I’ve gotta pay more attention to my other people for a bit. I got needs. I’ve been neglecting the feature for quite some time, and I gotta man up and pay her the attention she deserves. So forgive me if I take a break, but you know I’ll be back for you.
Alright this is getting weird so I’ll holler at you later, k? I’m OUT.
P.S. You had me at Hamsterdam
The Wire, Season Two
Started: mid-September, 2009 | Finished: 10/11/09
Second seasons of TV shows make me nervous. They inevitably introduce a slew of new characters, which are difficult to adjust to. Everything that was wrapped up in the first season is long since forgotten, and the gang is off to a new adventure this year. The Wire is keenly aware of these pitfalls of serialized drama, and avoids most of them by giving a broader view of Baltimore’s drug scene in which all of these sophomore season traits are nothing but believable.
The jargon seems easier to follow this season (whether it be my own adjustment, or network execs clamping down after a wordy first season I’m not sure), but the complex interrelationships between an assortment of drug runners becomes the new hurdle to jump over. I’m not sure I grasp the massive amounts of connections going on just yet- and I’m not sure how many are legitimately involved with each other, and which are symptoms of a small(ish) city being run by a handful of kingpins.
In any case, it adds much tension to the season when the detail is always several steps behind the crooks. Despite humanizing the bad guys in Season One, I felt this season was much more tragic, in that neither the cops nor criminals prevail— instead, it’s the people who get caught in the middle of it all who take the worst beating. In doing so, The Wire has sunk its hooks deep into me, and won’t let go until I see how the saga finishes.
A minor beef: Those quotes up front are almost unbearably cheesy. I understand what you’re trying to do, but it’s the punctuation that really gets me. None of these lines would be under Potent Quotables in tonight’s Jeopardy match. It would be much more effective, and much less cringe inducing, to format the quote as a line from a script, or even a play, if need be. Consider:
versus:
It’s just a little classier my way, and a lot less pretentious. (The quote selection still needs work, as you can tell. I mean come on. Does anybody even remember that line??) But if this is your show’s biggest problem, you’re doing a lot of things right. Onward to Season Three…
Brian Greene says the multiverse is like swiss cheese: Our bubble universe is akin to one of the holes, and the cheesy, meaty part is space itself. We can never get to another bubble though, because the cheese is growing faster than our own hole is expanding.
Now in that last sentence replace “cheese” with “movie queue,” and “own hole” with “ability to buckle down and actually start and finish any number of media.” (Perhaps each bubble universe is representative of a different kind of queue: My Netflix list, downloaded premium cable shows, The Wire Complete Series, personal library to-watch, screeners from multiple festivals, submissions for upcoming festivals, and any new releases or second-runs in the theater.)
Some of these options take natural precedence over one another. For example, I have been more compelled to continue The Wire Season 2, as I am smack in the middle of it, than I have been compelled to start watching Dexter Season 4 from the beginning. (Episodic television can be so strenuous!) But I need to watch a stack of 30-some narrative shorts to evaluate for possible recommendation into upcoming festivals by Monday. Oh and don’t forget the Netflix envelope that’s been sitting on my desk for several weeks now— it’s just wasting away, money down the drain. Better knock that one up higher on the list.
And of course there’s the hierarchy of daily life to contend with: If it’s light outside, I try to stay away from television screens. If it’s chilly outside, exceptions could be made. But only after the room is clean, or the couch is unoccupied, and laundry is done and lunch is made (with dishes done) and the cat’s food bowl is disassembled, washed, and reassembled. Emails should also be responded to. Wait, when is the ballgame today? Okay, not for a few hours. NOW it’s time to watch. Unless tempted by video games. (As despair sets in upon realizing my daunting list of to-do’s, it’s very easy to submit to the false satisfaction associated with accomplishing fictional tasks using only my thumbs.)
So, in an effort to at least quantify, if not prioritize, the media I feel obliged to consume, I offer this list of upcoming write-ups to watch for:
The Wire Season 2 Sugar
A Thorn In The Heart Stingray Sam Wholphin Issue 9 (Do I even want to go there?) (no, I don’t want to go there)
Rudo y Cursi
Bored To Death Season 1 The Road Youth In Revolt (Book-(to script?)-to-screen comparison)Up In The Air On the bizarre nature of narrative shorts in general (see Your Awful Short Film)Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo
…and that’s not including the plethora of DVDs and Blu-rays I’ve been sitting on for literally months since their arrival on my doorstop. Oof. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go take out rival fortune-hunters with a grenade launcher from the back of a jetski. At least that universe is finite.
Weeds, Season 5
Started: 6/20/09 | Finished: 9/18/09
Why is this show still on? Or rather, why am I still watching this show? Over the last 2-3 seasons it has become more and more outrageous, and further from anything believable to keep me invested. Yet for some reason, I still am curious. It’s probably just a neurosis of mine—I started it, so now I have to finish it. Because there seem to be little other redeeming qualities.
Weeds has been stretching my suspension of disbelief since Nancy got a U-Turn tattoo. But it has officially (and quite literally) become a caricature of its former self. Imagine the initial pitch for the series, had it incorporated all five seasons thus far: “When Nancy Botwin faces both sudden widowhood and poverty, she’s determined to do anything to keep her kids in suburbia, including taking a job as the neighborhood pot dealer. For some reason, she starts her own growhouse, which the cops catch on to. She joins forces with gang members, and becomes caught in the crosshairs of both the law and the streets. Somewhere along the lines she burns down the town, and moves her kids out of suburbia, but keeps dealing. Splash in some human trafficking, and Mexican drug lords, and a big helping of seedy politics. It’s subversive, it’s hilarious, it’s totally unbelievable.”
Because it stretches its premise so very far— hardly to its logical conclusion (Because you can’t have a show called Weeds about a mom who isn’t in the drug game, right?)— all the weight and drama it successfully balanced in the first two seasons falls flat, especially in Season 5. All of the characters have become more despicable than ever. I suppose this is a good lesson in character development: Just because you introduce your characters and make them sympathetic in Season 1 doesn’t mean they have carte blanche to do whatever they want and stay in our good graces. There’s much more I could write, but I don’t intend to waste anymore time on this show than I already have. (Until Season 6, but only because it’s the last season, and now I have to find out how they’ll all die.)
The Wire, Season One
Started: 8/13/09 | Finished: 9/15/09
People seriously freak out about this show, so I felt obligated to find out why. But 13 dense, hour long episodes is a big commitment for someone with my attention span. Nonetheless, I pushed through the first half of the season as it crawled to a start, my trusty guide Liz explaining who each character is and answering my every question.
This show takes effort. It requires the viewer to follow every word spoken or you might miss the subtext. Oftentimes, subtext is all you get and it’s up to you to connect the dots. And usually, every three words spoken is either cop or street slang. It honestly feels like learning a different language. The learning curve is steep, but once you catch on, it’s easy to pound through 3-4 episodes in one sitting.
While it may be a turn-off to those who like everything spelled out for them, the de facto language barrier aligns the viewer directly with the lawmen and those evading the law. It requires you to be just as quick-witted as the best of them, and soon, you’re as invested in both sides as the heroes are. I’ve never been a fan of network crime dramas and their open-shut cases, but The Wire makes me want to be a detective. Though you may not be able to tell by this bland write-up, I am officially hooked.
Futureworld
Started: 8/26/09
With a tagline like that, I’m kind of disappointed that I turned it off.
Westworld
Started & Finished: 8/26/09
Bless you, TCM, and your Yul Brynner marathons.
The Mighty Boosh: The Complete Series (thus far)
Started: 3/14/07 | Finished: 8/8/09
This one time in 2007, I turned on the TV in a hotel room in Cairns, Australia at midnight after a long-delayed plane ride. This was the clip I saw:
As you can imagine, I was mesmerized. It was Tony Harrison that really sold me. And I’ve been hooked ever since. For the last two years, I’ve been relying on bootleg DVD rips to watch the series, and as a result, never got past the middle of series 2. But finally, series 1-3 came out on DVD in the states, and I’ve spent the last few weeks rewatching those I’ve seen, and finishing out those new to me.
Those who know me know I’m not a huge fan of British comedy— in fact, I tend to downright loathe it in most cases. (Major exception for anything Ricky Gervais-related.) But the Boosh is a different beast entirely: it forgoes a live studio audience and high-quality sitcom sets for low production values and downright absurd scenarios that often offer no explanations. Because Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt know you’re watching to laugh, so why bother explaining the sudden disappearance of the zoo, for example?
While traditional British comedy traits do seep in on occasion (men and/or non-humans dressed in women’s clothing), they are few and far between. Series 3 was a bit difficult to get used to, in that it embraced higher production values that the show intentionally eschewed in earlier seasons. But when the show is at its Booshiest, all complaints are trivial. This is by far one of the funniest shows I’ve seen.
Planet Earth: The Complete Series
Started: 3/2/09 | Finished: 8/6/09
Totally epic. I especially loved Deep Oceans and Jungles. Stunning imagery makes it easy to forgive the repetitive themes of predator v. prey.
I don’t know if I have the stamina to watch Planet Earth: The Future (150 minute companion doc) or the behind-the-scenes features, though. I’m just proud that I watched eleven 50-minute programs in 5 months.
(For the record, I got held up on Disc 3. Turns out there’s a reason not many animals live on the plains: It’s just a really boring place to be.)
