Slusho and beyond

Slusho

So good you can't drink just six ...

First off, let’s get right to this Slusho 1-18-08 thing … I don’t think it’s Godzilla. In fact the theory I like best is the one most discredited at the moment … that it was all a massive promo for “Lost.” That would be just the best idea ever. But, no, it seems unlikely at this stage.

Anyway, the apple trailer is up and it’s definitely a great trailer. HERE

Just some quick notes here –

1. No, I haven’t read the newest Harry Potter book

2. No, I haven’t seen the newest Harry Potter movie.

3. I haven’t seen Pirates or Spiderman 3

4. The only new music I’ve gotten is by old guys – Robert Fripp’s “Churchscapes” finally arrived. It is exactly what I expected, mainly because he's been releasing this material through his website during the tour.


I also got the most recent Church acoustic album of their older songs “El Momento Siguiente.” This pretty good and features a rather interesting "reading" of "Reptile." Despite Kilbey's amazing ability to shoot himself in the foot, I still like the Church.




So, what’s going on?

I'm currently in total Firesign Theatre mode and reading a rather ok biography about them. This started because of my annual listen to the greatest comedy album "Don't Crush that Dwarf, Pass Me the Pliers" ... still marveling at how much is crammed into that mere 40 minutes.

Well, I’m totally into Stephan Moffatt’s “Jeckyll” series and will definitely be buying the DVD. Part 6 is on this Saturday on the BBC. There are so many bad versions of “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” (modern retellings or classic adaptations) that it is truly wonderful to see it being taken seriously.




Double-Dipped



Well, despite my best intentions, I’ve been dipped. A couple of times recently. I allowed myself to be double dipped on the Clint Eastwood and Sergio Leone classics “A Fistful of Dollars”, “For a Few Dollars More” and “The Good the Bad and the Ugly.” “Fistful” is still a classic introduction to Clint Eastwood (and him to us in many ways) and is rather interesting remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961).



Sadly, though the films themselves are presented in excellent anamorphic glory, the extras aren’t distributed very well. Sadly once again suffering is the best of the three – the glorious “For a Few Dollars More.” It is the only film that has a moral backbone or a firm narrative. All are great, but this is pure genius. Lee Van Cleef has never been better used and Clint really seems have stepped into his own career before it had really happened.




“The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” is massive gorge of violence, gigantic set-pieces, and odd characters. It is just too big and long for me (it takes 30 minutes just to introduce the main characters), though it is still a really entertaining film. Eli Wallach is so good as Tuco (the Ugly) that you sort of forget that he isn’t the star of the film.




Also, I got the box for Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Look Back (1965 Tour Deluxe Edition).” While it is a great film, the re-release seems really for the bottom of the barrel crowd. The film has been re-mastered and looks as good as this grainy b/w choppy documentary can (i.e., very impressive both technically and for Pennebaker’s ability to get the shot) but it really isn’t a vast improvement over the previous release. The silly book of the film and the flip book of the infamous “Subterranean Homesick Blues” film are really pointless. So, we are left with the bonus disc of outtakes and these are interesting as they point to even more depth in the “character” we call Bob. There is a wonderful moment when he lets the two girls from Liverpool (the ones he appears to be making fun of during the regular feature) into the show for free. He clearly remembers talking to them earlier, as well. Rather a different side of the enigma we see bouncing from pure iconoclast to jealous paranoid in the feature. All in all, Bob Dylan was an iconoclast and that’s what the film really brings out. If you can find it for a good price, I recommend the upgrade.

Lost - Through the Looking Glass

Into, up and over, and, of course, Through the Looking Glass

As usual, this is totally filled with spoilers, so … you’re warned.

Well … I actually watched the “Lost” 2-part season finale last night on terrestrial television (I usually prefer to grab it off the net from an HD capture … widescreen, you know.) Anyway, it was pretty messed up, apart from the unbelievable amount of commercial interruptions … which I’ll have to talk about as well … But, first, there's this ....

... before the program there was the superfluous and stupid “the Answers” special, which is just silly. The producers and writers, who clearly don’t know what the hell is happening any more than anyone else, just recapping the shows three years. I especially love the part when these two Hollywood dorks, sitting in their chairs, say something like ‘and then Charlie says, “hey, guys, where are we?” in the pilot.’ And then they show the clip of the scene and it is only Charlie saying “hey, guys, where are we?” I’m sorry, but that’s just stupid TV. In fact, this is the first of the recap specials I’ve ever watched for a series (Battlestar Galactica and Heroes has had them, too) and I have to admit they are made solely for the dumbest viewers.

Anyway, the 2-parter was pretty interesting. There is the usual flashback thing driving the undercurrent of the program, but it’s a Jack with a long beard who is drinking and addicted to Oxycontin.



Meanwhile, back on the island, lot’s of stuff is coming to a head. Suffice it to say there is the first major victory on the part of the passengers of flight 815 … but, what is going on with Jack’s flashback? And, then … Kate shows up and we know that it’s not a flashback … it’s the future. They are off the island and have some “golden pass” to fly anywhere. Jack flies around hoping to crash again, saying they never should have left the island.

Woah … What the hell does that mean? If they left the island, then all the stuff with Jack was a flash-forward. When he was on the plane and given a newspaper, he freaked out and was going to kill himself. Then, later, he goes to the funeral and he’s the only person who turns up. Who was it in the newspaper and the coffin? Not his ex-wife, who is pregnant and very much alive.



But, Charlie looks like he might have died. Can’t see him getting out of that, but then again … who knows. After getting to the Looking glass station, the eye patch guy shows up. Desmond shows up and kills him. But, he isn't dead ... and he's got a granade.





They find out that the boat off the coast was not sent by Desmond's girlfriend. Charlie has a breif contact with Penny before seeing eye patch guy with the granade and locks the chamber to save Desmond. So, who is the woman from the helecopter?

Lost is still the weirdest show on TV. You may think it’s all a bit of a gimmick (and it is) but I’d take chaos over repetition any day.




Anyway, a 2-hour program that probably lasts 33 minutes. Every other commercial was for some gigantic truck! I sort of couldn’t believe what I was watching. MASSIVE vehicles in the middle of a gas crisis. What the fuck is that about? I’m not kidding, people are pretty pushed to the limits here and this is the 3rd straight summer for record busting prices. Almost everyone is taking this very seriously. My favorite commercial was for some 4x4 monster called “The Patriot” … What? It’s patriotic to buy a monster vehicle that probably gets like 9 miles to the gallon? David Cross was right: we are a nation of 6 year olds. “The Terrorists hate our Freedom ...”

OK, so you might have noticed a distinct lack of Spider-mania here on the old website. Well, I haven’t seen the film. I’m utterly disinterested, frankly. Something about Spiderman (these movies, anyway) just doesn’t do it for me. I can’t explain can’t explain it. They aren’t bad and they do capture the essence of the comic, but I can’t seem to care about Toby McGuire. He’s just too … weird. Pirates opens this weekend, as well, but school gets out today and it will be mobbed … I’ll let you, faithful readers, know what I see or don’t see.

I’ll try and jot some notes on the season endings of “24” and “Heroes” from the other night. Both were great, but left me feeling a bit flat.

The week that was … Roundup

I think we are into a sweeps period because it certainly seemed like television got a bit better. Obviously, I can’t be everywhere or all things to all people. In fact, I don’t watch a lot of prime time shows (and most of the time I catch up “later” on dvd.)

24
Let’s see, last week’s “24” was good, but not quite into the sweeps month, so I’m sure they were holding back.

“As the clock ticks closer to the final hours of Day Six, Jack Bauer copes with the consequences of taking matters into his own hands while Audrey endures what appears to be a post-traumatic reaction to being held captive. Emotions escalate as CTU responds to a setback and the Administration receives an alarming message from Russian President Suvarov.” (TVrage.com) Also, the president’s squeeze is a feed for a Russian spy.

As I said, it was good … not great. As I said before, this show is largely one massive blast at credulity the moment they asked us to believe Jack Bauer could get across Los Angeles in less than 5 minutes. And, it is getting pretty well dumped on by the media and the public.

Heroes




“Five Years Gone” – This was easily the best episode of the season. Hiro and Ando are five years into the future where the bomb has gone off and New York is destroyed. He immediately meets his future self and then the cop Parkman bursts in and takes him prisoner. Nathan is president and Mohinder has been working with him since the bombs went off.




An awful lot happens and frankly it isn’t fair to spoil it. But, it is definitely the best episode of the season. Not only does it contain a hell of a lot of material and very little padding, but it also leaves a lot of possibilities open for future episodes.

Frankly, I’m surprised this show has been a hit at all, beating “24” most nights. The only problem with it is that it tends to take a month off at a time, throwing the viewer off track a bit. I suppose this is the problem with having huge special effects budgets and more imaginative storylines.

House
While the plot might not have been memorable, this episode rang with witty dialogue:

"He has acute scrotum."
"Adorable, at least. Ah, come on, how was not going to go for that joke?"

Lost“The Brig” – Well, we finally get a good Locke episode, with the added bonus of giving Sawyer something to do. Locke comes back from the others (after a really crytic opening) and tells him that he has infiltrated the Others' camp and has taken Ben hostage, and needs Sawyer to kill him. Sawyer questions why Locke would come to him, and Locke explains that, thanks to the files the Others have on all of the Flight 815 survivors, he knows that Sawyer killed a man in Sydney. Locke turns and leaves, and Sawyer reluctantly follows.



In fact, it turns out that Locke’s father (the same man who took his kidney and threw him out a window) was the man who Sawyer has been hunting all these years. How’d he get to the island? Well, of course, we don’t really know that do we. We assume he’s been kidnapped by the “Others.”




And now the theory has been somewhat addressed and teasingly floated out there … “Are they all dead? Is this purgatory or hell?”

Well, probably not either.

Lost has been renewed to 2012, but the number of episodes per year has been cut down to 16 and will run in one chunk. How this will effect the overall quality of the show (Better or Worse?)


Jericho

I’ve been catching up on this show. End of the world. Nuclear war and … yet, a lot of people survived quite well. Well enough to have the usual host of rather banal every day problem. I sort of wish that CBS wasn’t behind it, because it has to be very family oriented. In fact this is a combination of “Survivors” (BBC) and “The Waltons.”



I suppose the problem that continually keeps coming up is the reluctance for the show to deal with real problems. Months and months go by and the issue of the complete breakdown of society is almost never really dealt with (unlike “Survivors” where the question “Would you know how to make something if you had to?” is asked almost immediately.) The mom and pop, down-home, leaving my wife, having a baby, the old values are still the best values stuff drags the story down.

And, is it any wonder that in the Pilot the only black people we see is Mr. Hawkins … the man who turns out to me “not what he seems” ???

The Weekend Roundup

Well, I caught up with Doctor Who reviews and I have to admit I’m still really bummed out on the whole Dalek crater. Man that story was lame. I can’t explain why. I watched the Confidential and although all the production team were ebullient as usual (the words “brilliant” and “marvelous” flow effortless from Russell T Davies mouth) I just didn’t like it. In fact, even though “Love and Monsters” last year must easily rate as the worst story ever, I could still overlook it because it didn’t really matter. But, this a two-part Dalek story and it will probably figure into the conclusion of this season. So, seriously bummed out.


Felt so bad that I ended up watching the PBS “America at a Crossroads” specials that I hadn’t gotten around to from the week(s) before.



An excellent, if very depressing look at terrorism and the rise of fundamentalist Islam in the world. Sometimes it was extremely interesting (the history of the rise of Bin Laden, etc.), sometimes very depressing (the soldiers in Iraq), sometimes a little dull or on the fringe (the transvestite competition in Indonesia???) Mostly it is kind of scary that the world is so on the edge right now and sad because Islam, at one time, was the most advanced religion on the planet, saving works from the pre-Christian period like the Greek philosophers from the burnings.




I also finally got to see “Gunpowder, Treason and Plot,” a two-part BBC production from a couple of years ago. Not the greatest thing in the world. The first part is a fairly straight attempt to dramatize the events of Mary Queen of Scotts, although it lacks any real interest in the choice of actors (particularly Clemence Poesy as Mary Queen of Scots). The second part is about James I and the actual “Gunpowder Plot” mentioned in the title. In a strange decision the cast begin talking to camera and Robert Carlyle clearly thinks he’s playing Richard III. Add in Tim McInnerny (“Blackadder”) and Richard Coyle (Jeff from “Coupling”) and things seem a little more off-kilter. However, overall it was still a good performance.

I caught up with “Lost” – A mostly flashback episode that usually makes me hate the fact that I like the show. It’s so stuffed with padding that sometimes it’s not a show at all. This was a Jin and Sun centric episode and we find out, hey, Jin is the father of the child, but the child and Sun will die. So, it’s a sort of bad news or bad news type thing. Also, she’s the reason Jin went to work for her father as a thug in the first place. Not terribly interesting.



And, a woman fell out of the sky with a picture of Desmond and his girlfriend. But, having fallen out of a helicopter, we didn’t get much chance to chat. She speaks Spanish and Italian, except when she said “Desmond.” Then, the eye-patch guy comes out of the forest and, after Jin kicks his ass, he helps out. We did find out that they found the plane and no one is looking for them … whatever that means.




Mostly the weekend was just resting. I’m still a little sick from last week, though now it has gone to my stomach. Wonderful.