Media Rhaspody

Pretty day today but brisk. The sky a pale robin's egg blue brushed with white. And I suspect at sunset, bits of color will be added, hints of lavendar, orange, pink brushed across the sky haphazardly as if nature were but a painter. The air smells cold with a hint of sunshine in it. I crave to walk a ways, bask in the sunshine's glow, but just after two blocks I feel heavy, tired, the weight of my head cold pushing me backwards. All I want to do is sleep. So homeward I head after just two or three blocks to the DVD store, bodega, bank and back. My body leaden, my head stuffy, cottony. As if it were stuck in or made up of nothing but clouds. Picking up a NY Times on the way - seduced by the headlines: Billowing Gates arrive in NY City, Why We Hate the 80s, and how Million Dollar Baby is Anything but Politically Correct. I'm a sucker for a good Arts and Leisure section. While the more newsy, political events of the day I scurry away from like the plague. Is it the conflict that I avoid? Or just the weariness of being powerless against the oncoming tide of bad events? Or perhaps it is just the pain of seeing how cruel we can and are to one another constantly played out over and over in the headlines, that makes me seek the world of art, the abstract, the conceptual, the surreal. As an escape? Living in NYC - you'd have to be death, blind, and unfeeling not to be aware of these things. You are bombarded by them on a daily basis. I do not need to see CNN, or the main section of the NY Times to know them. So why do I feel this odd sense of guilt for not partaking, for turning my head away from scenes of traversty? Assauging the guilt by donating a dollar each pay check to the International Red Cross Relief Fund.

Watching the DVDs I rented this weekend, it hit me that humans are a species bathed in blood. No matter how many times we wash our hands, they remain stained with the blood of those who came before us. And know matter how often we read our history books or review what came before or is happening now, we make the same mistakes over and over again. As an excuse? Blaming our parents, relatives, or ancestors for them. Looking to them as guides. Constantly seeking their reassurance, their approval, or if failures - stating them as our excuse for being ones. Instead of finding our own way - seeking our own truth - and learning from their mistakes, are we doomed to repeat theirs?
Am uncertain.

The first of the DVD's was Shark Tale - overall? A waste of time. On the surface a busy mess of media meta-narration and ego stroking. Underneath an unsettling series of racial stereotypes and cliches put forward for laughs.
Noisy film. There were times I wanted to switch off the sound. Also this current trend of celebrities voicing animated characters is beginning to grate on my nerves. Sort of like having celebrities go to Broadway to raise ticket sales. Yes, I can understand it if you have someone who actually can do a variety of voices, a natural mimic or voice comedian, a la Hank Azira or Robin Williams. But Martin Scorsese? Will Smith? Robert Deniro? Peter Falk? Renee Zwelliger? Angelina Jolie? These aren't actors known for voice work. That's not their gift. They aren't mimics. And in this film, it felt as if some of them were playing stereotypes of themselves, which may have been the point.
At any rate - I grew bored quickly and halfway through, thought, this is an awfully long cartoon.

The second, Hidalgo about the horse racer Frank T.Hopkins, who championed the cause of the wild mustangs - was a mixed bag. This is the film that made me wonder if humans were a race bathed in blood. In the beginning of the film - we see the battle at Wounded Knee - more accurately the massacre at Wounded Knee. That may be the problem with history - we see what we want to see or rather remember what we want to remember. For the white soliders - it is remembered as a battle where they triumphed over the savages they were fighting - this is played out in Bufflo Bill's Wild West show and in the trades. The Soliders even get congressional medals of honor for it. For the Native Americans or Red Indians - it was a full-fledged massacre. Women, children, elderly brutally gunned down. It lasts but a moment, yet hangs like a shadow over the main character, Frank T. Hopkin's life. Later, when Hopkins travels to Arabia for the Great Race across the desert - the metaphors regarding the underpriveleged continue - we see slaves in shackles. And a woman
wrapped in cloth - who cannot choose her own destiny, cannot ride in the race, cannot choose which man to marry, and must hide her face at all times. The movie itself is meant to be an uplifting one - about a man and his horse succeeding against adversity. And the cause of horses is advanced in the film.
The film also has a few nice little cameos by Malcolm McDowell, Omar Shariff, and C Thomas Howell. But - I left it saddened by the human experience. The horses run free in the end, but the humans appear to remain in shackles...if only the spiritual variety.

The third was The Village - a much better movie than I'd been lead to believe. Not at all what I expected. I expected a movie about prejudice. Rather it was one about the desire to leave behind the baser instincts, the evils of the world, and live simply. And being unsuccessful - because like it or not, those baser instincts, those evils are in every single human being and every single human being must choose for themselves. Hiding from the world will not protect you from them. Nor will creating an external monster to take them on. An interesting, if somewhat flawed film, that incorporates aspects of the little red riding hood story - giving the tale a whole new twist.

I went into it completely unspoiled, surprisingly enough. So - if you haven't seen it - don't read the paragraph below.

( spoilers on the Village )

The flaws in the film are the point of view - which is scattered at times.
It should be more focused. Shalyman tries to have it both ways - with the camera tricks and I'm not sure it works. The over-emphasis on the superstition and the village's uptight suppressed practices. There's a stiffness to the acting and the story because of this I think, making the characters and emotion too remote.

Yet the film is an interesting one and worth a gander. Lots of interesting imagery. Just don't expect a horror tale, it is one in a way, but not quite the one most people expect. I have a confession to make regarding horror films: I don't like most of them. I think they are over the top, too gory, and
way too much emphasis on the monster. The ones I do like, the monster is seldom seen and is more a metaphor for the monster inside the characters. What many would call psychological horror. Yes, it exists, but it is worse in the mind then in actuality.

Television rap, whine and muse

Before I go take a nap or read the NY Times...I feel the oddest need to rap, whine and muse about TV.

TV muse...

Was thinking about my BTVS obsession the other day, or rather my interest in the Spike/Buffy relationship...which continues to fascinate me. Not the relationship, but my interest in it. Also that whole thread, which I didn't read (no time) but ponygirl referred to in her livejournal - about how we are fascinated by the "bad boy." Funny. While flipping channels the other day I caught a glimpse of "I love Lucci" - 35 years of loving Television's perennial bad girl - Erica Kane on Soap Net. OR how Joan Collins made Dynasty the most watched show in the 80's. Or Heather Locklear's bad girl in Melrose Place. It ain't just the bad boy folks, that people are interested in - the bad girl fascinates as well. Why else would so many male and female fans be hot and heavy over Lilah on Angel? Or prefer Illyria to Fred? Or adore Faith? [Now, as an aside, my interest in S/B has zip to do with the bad boy/bad girl thing. ( cut to protect anyone who doesn't want to read about this stuff )

Getting back to the bad boy/bad girl fetish in television and to a degree movies, I honestly think ponygirl was right when she mentioned in her journal that it is about the narrative flow - creating conflict in drama. You need edgy characters. Characters who shake stuff up. That's why the trickster shows up in so many myths - to shake things up, that's his role. Male or female. He or she or it is not necessarily evil per se as much as means of shaking things up, creating conflict. Sometimes the trickster, if we're really lucky, becomes the lead and it becomes about how he/she/it deals with order, how they handle being controlled or boundaries. The need to control the trickster character - I believe is what lies behind the fascination. The need to control our own baser instincts, our own desires, lusts, needs. IT is also the desire to break free of them - what would it be like to be free of the need to control our world?
To have it shaken a bit. To be Faith or Spike or Darla or any number of trickster characters? Our fascination with them is two fold - life is more interesting when it isn't controlled and the natural human desire to experiment with the unknown, to push past the boundaries, to explore - without that desire we wouldn't have computers, the internet, cures for diseases, books, or guns.

TV Rap & Whine...

Bored by most the offerings this week. Felt like rehashed plots. Alias keeps reminding me of La Femme Nikita. ( Alias spoilers )

Medium? The last two episodes have left me sort of blah. Not sure why.

ER? Very good if somewhat preachy episode about Carrie finding her mother.
I taped to watch later - because it was an episode I'd been waiting for and I love Frances Fisher who played the role. And although I think the show may have been a little too heavy handed regarding the message - I wholeheartedly agreed with it. One of the reasons I refuse to attend church any longer (was raised Catholic) is the exclusion of homosexuals. I am not homosexual by the way nor do I believe my sexuality is relevant. I consider Christianity's dismissal of a whole group of people based on their sexual orientation incredibly hypocritical, offensive, and demeaning. This episode hit on the reasons I feel this way succinctly and to the point. I believe in God, I just believe God is unfathomable and does not care about silly things like sexuality. That's a human trait which we've in our arrogance, fear, and egoism imposed/projected onto something unfathomable to us.

Joan of Arcadia - comforting, somewhat sappy in places, but comforting. I like the range of character actresses this show continues to focus on.

Gilmore Girls - also oddly comforting. I enjoyed this weeks episode, even if portions of it grated.

Veronica Mars - not as good as the previous one, where the mother disappeared.
But still fascinating. These characters are definitely growing on me. Veronica's only draw-back is it's on opposite House. Damn Fox and their scheduling. Almost makes me wish I had a DVR (the cable version of Tivo).

BattleStar Galatica - best damn series on TV. Nail-biting episode. Lots of unpredictable twists and turns. And the acting continues to blow me away.
This week's episode - in a fitting tribute to both Arthur Miller (The Crucible) and to the witch hunts of the McCarthy era (which if we aren't careful, we could be in danger of repeating) - the Galatica crew deals with the concept that Cylons, the horrible enemy, may look and be one of them.
It's a lovey take on Serling's the Monsters are Due on Maple Street. The twist? One of the Cylons is one of them. In fact - she's one of their pilots.
Sleeping with the Chief. And if the Tribunal had been allowed to continue, they may have uncovered her. Or maybe not. That question is left unanswered.
The episode poses many questions and answers none of them. What is worse?
Letting the enemy walk amongst us? Or abridging our civil rights, living in a military state of suspicion and rigid rules? Having briefly experienced both scenarios? I'd rather let the enemy walk amongst us. Trust me - you do not want to live in East Germany during 1970-1980s. Seeing the World Trade Center Collasp was preferable to that bleak world. But why live in either? That's the third question posed. Who do you trust? What are willing to sacrifice? Is love worth any cost? Unlike the other shows on this week, Battlestar is the only one that doesn't answer our questions, doesn't give us a neat little morality lesson at the end. Instead, like its predecessors - The Twilight Zone, Star Trek Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Farscape, The Prisoner and Angel - it poses questions.

The irony is that the old Battlestar Galatica - was the opposite. It was a comforting parent to a wayward child. Each episode left us with a nice little morale straight from the mouth of Lorne Green - similar to the morals he left us with on Bonanza. In some ways that was what the old Battlestar was meant to be - a Bonanza in space. Which makes watching the new version all the more enjoyable.