TV & Movie Reviews Omnibus

I've been wanting to write about a lot of things here lately but haven't gotten around to it. So I'm going to keep things brief and discuss a couple recent films I've seen and then even briefer as I discuss various new-ish TV developments.

Three Kings is my defining film of the first Gulf War, capturing the tragedies, the triumphs, and the absurdities that characterized it. The Hurt Locker will probably be the defining film of the second, longer Iraq War. In a lot of ways (but certainly not all) it's a descent into despair, following a memorable character, Jeremy Renner's Sgt. James, who is only at home when he's risking his life. The film is essentially a series of long set pieces, following the various missions of a three man bomb squad in Iraq circa 2004. This is a world where any local could be an Insurgent, and often is. Director Kathryn Bigelow (this a rare movie directed by a woman that almost entirely concerns male characters) understands suspense, that it's not about action but about the threat of action, and some of these sequences are completely masterful. My only caveat is that the shaky-cam takes over a little too much, and I had to look away a few times just to keep from getting a headache. Note to film-makers: no good movie is improved by making it impossible to watch what's happening on screen. There's no longer any artistry in the shaky-cam. I'm not really sure there ever was. Please stop it.

I recently had a chance to watch Away We Go, which I really wanted to like. I liked Garden State and still haven't apologized for it. But I really couldn't, for the simple reason that I found pretty much every character involved grating, with the possible exception of the couple in Montreal. I get that some of them (Maggie Gyllenhaal) are supposed to be. Thing is, I'm not sure what the point of this movie is. I don't need to be spoon-fed a story, but if your movie's about ideas there need to be some ideas. This movie simply observes the existence of a bunch of caricatures and seems to think that by the end it's arrived at some truth that it never reveals.

To really commit blasphemy, I had a better time watching Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, third film in the rather ridiculous Underworld franchise. It features Michael Sheen (he of The Queen and Frost/Nixon), who somehow works as an action star. We also get Bill Nighy and Rhona Mitra, among others, and they all know what movie they're in. It's all shot through a blue filter, vampires and werewolves fight their ancient war, the art direction is ridiculously over-the-top, and it's all played oh-so-deadly-serious. It made me smile.

Okay, TV shows. This is probably the best year for comedies that I've seen. The debate on the interwebs seems to be about which of the two great new shows is better, ABC's Modern Family or NBC's Community, with the corollary of whether the winner is better than some more established shows like The Office or 30 Rock. I'm not sure why it matters, they're both really funny, funny for the right reasons, reasons that come out of the characters. Modern Family is essentially The Office set at home amidst a functional (but just barely) extended suburban family. Community is more like a somewhat more humanistic 30 Rock, set among the quirky characters of a study group at a community college. Both have been uneven at times, but have started to find themselves more and more. Meanwhile, Parks & Recreation has greatly increased in quality in its second year, and many critics will tell you it's the best comedy on TV right now. I haven't quite fallen in love with it the same way as the four shows I mentioned above, mostly because I think it has fewer laugh-out-loud moments. But it is still a lot of fun to watch, and very well done.

SyFy Channel's Stargate: Universe is a strange beast, and it's caused some spectacular fights on internet forums. It is not like anything I've seen, not the previous Stargate incarnations, and not Battlestar Galactica, which it was often compared to initially. It moves at its own pace much of the time, almost floating around the corridors of its vast ship the way the camera balls do on the show. My view is that it started off flailing, not really sure what it wanted to be, but has found itself the past few weeks as an ensemble drama with several interesting, though all flawed to say the least, characters. Thus far, the more I've learned about all of these people, the more I've been interested in them. However, the show has waited too long to do some of this and I think lost a lot of people. Last week's episode, "Time", was a particular bold stroke. I wanted to watch that show rather than the one I saw the first few weeks.

V is not really worth it, I think, and is at the point where it needs to earn my continued viewership. Unfortunately, next week's will be the last episode for a few months, so we'll see where we are after that. This has all taken some work, because it's an alien invasion show with a spectacular cast. This is a show with three different "would watch them read the phone book" actors for me in Elizabeth Mitchell, Morena Baccarin, and Alan Tudyk. But it sometimes feels like one big anti-Obama Tea Partier fantasy, and spends most of the rest of its time just foundering in a lack of imagination. This is a show that seems to fail to realize that the entire point of an alien invasion story is THE ALIENS. Morena Baccarin's alien leader Anna's the best thing about the show, but we don't spend nearly enough time with her. I did like the third episode better than the first two, so maybe there's some hope.

You know what else is back? The Legend of the Seeker. I reviewed it a year ago when it first started and was sort of dismissive of it. However, unlike a lot of shows, I never questioned whether I should keep watching it. It's found itself over time, while growing more and more complex and involved in its mythology. This is a show based on Terry Goodkind's Sword of Truth books, which are sort of okay at the beginning and apparently later descend into objectivist crazytown. I have a feeling the show is much better than the books. We follow a band of heroes riding majestically across New Zealand fantasyland, casting magic spells and sword fighting dark lords. This is High Fantasy, the only High Fantasy on TV right now, and it's actually done pretty well. The second season premiere, currently on Hulu, places our heroes in various morally ambiguous situations caused by their victory at the end of last year, and sets the stage for what looks like it could be a big improvement in the show. And it doesn't hurt that we get what looks like will just be the beginning of a continuing larger dose of the fetishtastic order of hot chick torturers, the Mord'Sith, probably the most infamous aspect of the show. There's even a completely random Charisma Carpenter guest starring role. Basically, this is the closest any of us will ever get to a Lord of the Rings TV show, and we should enjoy it.

And finally, I wanted to mention the latest Doctor Who episode, "The Waters of Mars", which serves as show's return from a several month hiatus and the beginning of David Tennant's final arc in the title role. Gosh, I love this show. I watch TV, in the end, to be entertained, and Doctor Who likes to push all my buttons. This particular episode was pretty interesting, taking the Doctor to emotional places that were completely new and yet felt totally earned. That said, about twenty minutes in I thought I was going to write something about how none of this was working as well as anyone involved seemed to think it was, except for a few good lines for the Doctor. Then things got really epic all of a sudden, and I had to pause the video and hop around the room I was so excited. I could do a spoileriffic deep analysis, but I don't really feel like it right now.

That's all I got in me tonight. I'll do a books one like this in a couple days when I finish my current read. See y'all.