just jen reviews

V

First get the props out of the way--Morena Baccarin was pitch perfect as Anna, the leader of the Visitors. The cast is outstanding--my cousin told me that a journalist called the cast The Love Boat of sci-fi and that about sums it up.  

The pilot was an odd sort of thing--the pacing was relentless.  As a set up for the series it strove to narrate the events of the mini-series that set off the original 80s series and though it sacrificed a bit of narrative pleasure in so doing, the dominoes are thoroughly set up to be knocked down.  The writers seemed to acknowledge and capitalize on the fact that the audience would be familiar with the original sci-fi series. We knew they were lizards under their flawless, bronzed skin.  No need to build suspense toward that inevitable reveal.

What the show lacked in narrative suspense was compensated for in its chilling parallels with current events and a not-so-subtle critique of the sitting administration.  Anna weilds control over a fawning media--characterized by a disturbingly aging Scott Wolf--and though the interview in this episode reminded one as much of interviews with Scientologists as much as presidential candidates, Anna offers the world "Universal Healthcare" as an incentive for devotion and this can't escape hitting the audience as a commentary on President Obama and his cabinet.  The show has already hit trouble in various aspects of production, conflicts with the original creator Kenneth Johnson, work stoppages and now, news has it, it will run for four episodes, be pulled from the line up and then returned in the Spring.  This is typical for a sci-fi series, a genre that the networks never seem to quite trust and in lacking the faith in a potential nerd fan-boy/grrrl audience, it will almost certainly doom its success.  However, rumor has it that the political overtones of the series will be toned down and that it's potential for controversy is a source of trouble for the creative team.  

Though its interesting to note: its political tone is identical to the first--it is anti-authoritarian libertarian in it's philosophy.  The difference between now and then was that it first emerged in the Regan era.  In Hollywood, there is much more comfort in issuing a critique of authoritarian Republicans than authoritarian Democrats.  Though, the fact that they are the same--sacrificing liberty to the cause of Capitalism vs the cause of Socialism--rings true with anti-authoritarian libertarianism which can be anti-authoritarian Left as well as anti-authoritarian Right.  Whether such a clear non-partisan political philosophy will do well with an audience and with a network remains to be seen.  I've already heard the confusion this has caused from fans of the show in the 80s.  

The inheritance of science fiction is always anti-authoritarian as it came to full development in the wake of World War II and often entailed allegorical resistance to authoritarian regimes in Europe.  Ken Johnson's vision was that of a classical Liberal.  By classical liberal I mean that the classical Liberal of the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a liberal by being anti-facist and anti-authoritarian.  It emerged as a reaction to the facism in Europe and Ken Johnson was very clearly thinking of the Nazis when he penned the original series.  This distinction began to fall apart during the Cold War, where socialism in Europe began to eclipse classical Liberalism as an answer to the facism of the previous generation.    

There is a fascinating allegory of our current situation with global Muslim extremism at work, naturally--the Visitor terror cells parallel what we know of Muslim extremist cells, but in being an even bigger threat than Muslims, seem to shrink and eclipse them.  The terrorists the female FBI agent of the show fight are just terrorists so far--they have no one political, religious, or national identity. What's also very interesting about this current format as compared to the first is the theology it espouses. Intentionally or no, the descriptions of the Aliens matches medieval demonology.  Unlike the first series, in the new, the "Visitors" haven't just arrived.  They've been here for a long, long time, working their way into various power positions globally and forming "terrorist" cells.   The leader of the first resistance group to form describes the way in which they distract and create "unnecessary wars"--lest you mistake it's critique of the sitting administration with sympathy for the former, or it's critique of globalism (Anna claims that they are not divided into countries like "us"--they are one unified people), with pro-American nationalist militarism, it clearly sets it self up as anti-government, national, global, or otherwise, and pro-populist resistance.  Regardless, it's description of how the Vs have been working amongst us matches medieval demonology and the narrative of Revelations.  

In the opening scenes, the tremors created by the alien ships, knock a heavy crucifix from a perch in a Catholic Church and a priest--potentially the most interesting character in the series--must save a handicapped parishoner from being crushed.  This falling crucifix intrigues.  It certainly suggests that the "devotion" that the series indicts as the most dangerous weapon of the Visitors is being transferred from traditional religion to the V's.  Yet, the arrival of the Vs inspires more religious fervor rather than less.  Will the show end up accusing religious devotion equally to political or social devotion?  The answer will lie in the fate of our Fr. Too Hot to Be Celibate (my favorite character so far) and his practice of his Faith as a member of the resistance.  The religious leaders of his church are complicit with the Visitors, yet his faith leads him toward resistance.  That will be an interesting narrative to watch unfold.  

A clue, perhaps, is the resistance leader's comment that the Visitors have been twisting legitimate religious devotion to extremism.  It seems that there is room in their dystopia to indict religious extremism while acknowledging the legitimacy of genuine worship and belief. And again, this is a text straight out of Medieval theology, which also acknoweldges that religious extremism is a form of vice and the work of dark forces.  

I'm always curious to know sources and whether this sort of paralell is accidental or intentional.  Either way, it is there and lends a certain gravity to the story-telling for a philosophy nerd like me.  Will they remain consistent?  In the case of the forebears of sci-fi and fantasy, like Tolkien and Undset, for instance, the correlation with theology is intentional or at least natural.  What of the makers of V? 

And is the network ready for a series that sides with neither party in American politics but with classical Liberal virtue?  How about the audience? The metanarrative therein may prove to be interesting than the show itself.  But time will tell. 

the mist (2007)

This is a movie that is all about the ending. I hate to tell you to spend over two hours waiting for an ending but I must.  The ending is philosophically delicious,theologically profound, and well, emotionally it reaches down your throat, turns your innards to outards, and then tosses them in front of you like a noodle salad.   

Which is to say: I liked the ending.  

It is one of those rare cases in which the writer/director re-wrote the original ending and the author was 110% down with it.  Reportedly, Stephen King was so pleased with Darabont's twist, he claimed he wished he had thought of the ending Darabont wrote himself. 

I'm not a spoiler-writer so I won't discuss it in detail.  But to describe what happened in my living room as we watched it, I felt first deep disappointment.  Then, annoyance, then--when the full ending emerged (and yes it emerged, from "The Mist")--exultation.  He not only gave me what I was hoping for he gave it in a moment of sheer beauty.  (Okay, I might have even sprung from the couch and threw some cushions around it was so perfect.  I'm like that with movies and stories. A little too excited.  It's what make my brand of Nerd rather Geeky and maybe a little dorkish.)  

Through the duration of The Mist, I was feeling merciful and charitable toward Frank Darabont, a director and screenwriter whom I adore for being a gifted craftsman and for shedding the proper cinematic light upon Stephen King.  It is the latter for which I give him the most credit;  Stephen King has some serious literary quality that is often dumped in moving from page to screen in favor of the more sensationalistic aspects of his genre.  Some of his books and short stories display the literary aspect of his work more prominently than others.  Among them I'd name (and this list is nowhere near complete) all of the short stories in Different Seasons--the short story collection that has given us Stand By Me ("The Body"), The Shawshank Redemption ("Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption"), and Apt Pupil (um, "Apt Pupil")--Carrie, 'Salem's Lot, The Dead Zone (note to Darabont please re-make this!!), The Green Mile, and The Stand. 

And no one, I say NO ONE is better at catching those elements on screen.  Darabont has a finely-tuned ear for the Ibsenesque (yes I just said, "Ibsenesque," deal) quality of the characters in King stories and the insightful social experiments the supernatural and horrific gives King the excuse to explore.  More simply put, he goes for the human stories in King.  No matter how super-natural. over-the-top, eyeball-squishing horror King goes, there is always a human story going on, a story of relationships, of love, of mercy, of forgiveness, of redemption, of healing.  Or the absence of these--which is horrifying all by itself, even without The Big Bad Monster with Slimy Appendages.  (But I loves me some monsters, just the same, don't you?) 

Up until now, Darabont has stuck with the human stories in The Shawshank Redemption, which had no supernatural or horror element, finding all the horror it needed in the reality of prison life, and in The Green Mile, which had a supernatural element more than a horror element, though certainly "Old Sparky" provides enough real world horror to outdo any souped-up, evil alien King could dream up from the ether.  
So, admittedly, the whole time I was watching The Mist, which had both heightened supernatural motifs and over-the top, horror genre pulp involved, I was thinking; okay.  Darabont is a little out of his element with the horror thing.  CGI is both a blessing and a curse.  Blessing, see: Gollum in The Lord of the Rings, curse, see: stupid freaking alien that ruined M. Night Shyamalan's Signs.  CGI gives us the opportunity to actually see the monsters in resplendent detail and I'm not sure I like that very much at all in the case of The Mist, which by it's very title terrifies because of the opacity of the environ in which the monster emerges.  In this movie, we see a little too much and lose some of the terror as a consequence.

Also, Darabont excels at the epic--he tells story that stretch out over time well.  "The Mist" was a short story and it was dramatic: it had unity of time, place, and action, taking place over the course of 48 hours or less.  

BUT. 

Even with some of the horror special effects not particularly well-done, and the fact that he's always done well with epic narrative as opposed to dramatic,  I was still giving my beloved Darabont his due. Because it was all satisfyingly Darabont-ish, just the same.  By which I mean--slow and long, but the emotional pay dirt in the characters that pacing allows makes you congenial toward it anyway,  even if, occasionally, you are ever-so aware of how time is passing.   Because that awareness is more because we are not used to directors and writers who take loving care of their characters and their inner experiences more than because we are actually bored.  (For slow pacing = bored see: Anthony Minghella.)  

And by which I also mean, like in Shawshank and Green Mile, he has the movie impeccably scored and photographed with tenderness in composition and mood.  He casts gorgeous, ordinary faces and then loves them, hard and unconditionally, with his camera.  And, also like the previous two movies, he has William Sadler being pretty damn awesome and Brian Libby saying "Sh*t" better than any other character actor alive.  

So I started out by feeling indulgent toward Darabont, if slightly disappointed and ended up feeling even more reverence toward his intelligence, depth of feeling, and insight.  His particular talent and sensitivity is rare: he uncovers nuance in moral questions and, "walks the line," never alienating or preaching but always coming down strongly on the side of hope and optimism, even in the bleakest circumstances.  

Darabont's carefulness with material that others have dismissed as cash-cow, grocery-store schlock, blurs the distinction between low art and high. For that, if I were Stephen King, I'd pretty much buy Frankie a lot of cool presents, ply him with steaks, cigars, and liquor,  and, man though I'd be, write him embarrassingly mushy cards on major holidays. 

I might even consider slicing my finger and his and tying them together in the middle of an open field.  

I'd definitely consider an exclusive deal with him as screenwriter and director of my entire estate.  Not every writer gets a Darabont. 

everything is illuminated

An old photograph.  A grasshopper suspended in amber.  A Star of David on an open linked chain. Three objects that propel a phobic, compulsive New York Jew (Elijah Wood) toward the place where a woman named Augustine saved his grandfather's life. Everything Is Illuminated--a movie about language, time and place, and, above all, memory--is Liev Schrieber's debut film, as both writer and director.  It is one of those exquisitely orchestrated films, with painterly precision in photographic composition and performances that are not so much acted but scored, like notes of music adhering to a time signature.  It is the sort of extreme carefulness that makes a movie seem loved into existence rather than simply filmed.  

The protagonist, Jonathan, is met by two, or rather three, of the most unlikely tour guides for his ancestral trek to Eastern Europe: a hip-hop Ukranian (Eugene Hutz) whose English is not quite "premium,"--"My legal name is Alexander Perchov, but all of my friends dub me Alex, because this is much more flaccid to utter"; Alex's anti-Semitic grandfather (Boris Leskin) who, though he is the driver on the tour, claims to be blind; and the blind old man's "seeing-eye bitch," a deranged border collie named Sammy Davis Jr. Jr.  

As this strange stew-like melange struggle to communicate the words "not possible" emerge more than once, and it seems a good description; the possibility of connection between the band of four is ludicrous to contemplate, with canyon sized divides of culture, generation, language, and experience (and in the case of Sammy Davis Jr. Jr. species) keeping the characters apart, even in the tiny, broken-down, old car they use for their journey.  As you may have guessed, Schreiber sees that union happens, and it does so, both palpably and mystically over...a white boiled potato.  

Alex's inapproximate translations are a device Schrieber drew directly form the novel that inspired the script.  Words pop through the dialogue, curious and odd, in their paradoxical inexactitude and precision of expression: a grandfather and grandson are not "close" they are "proximal," things are not "good" or "the best," they are "premium," their hero's quest is described as a "rigid search," and one does not go to sleep but "reposes."  It brings the usual prose of movies to the compressed and heightened level of poetry.  Schreiber collaborates with the original author (Jonathan Safran Foer) in his choice of images, which take on a similar heightened realism.  They are ordinary objects: haloed, naked light bulbs, narrow beds, a pair of glasses, a bottle of hand cream.  Jonathan is compelled to collect these objects; he is A Collector more than A Writer. Unlike the semi-autobiographical Jonathan of the novel, he doesn't write books as much as he catalogues--an intriguing departure which Schreiber selects with signature carefulness and reverence.  It is a departure that represents the best an adaptor can do in choosing to alter; a slight turn to the left or the right of what was in the original, but one that ends up driving the story told to the destination quicker, and leaving us with a curious sense that the adaptor has not changed the author's intent so much as clarified it.  It is true, the adaptor always inserts himself when he makes such selections but Schreiber seems very deliberate about it, rather than pretending he is absent.   As Jonathan our Collector and Cataloguer precisely picks up objects, sealing them hermetically in the American convenience of zip-lock bags, Schreiber presents himself to us as another Careful Collector, collecting objects for us with the camera; ordinary objects that are endowed, burdened even: with hope, anger, confusion, and loss, mixed in all the ordinariness. For what is more ordinary than loss?  It is, perhaps, the most ordinary and ordinal of human experiences.  

 If Schreiber can be accused of anything in this film it would be sentimentality.  Inevitability drives the story, as the various plot lines are drawn together, ironically for Wood, by a single ring imbued with mystic power.  Despite the driving narrative codes, Schrieber flirts with indulgence, as he tends to dwell where others may have just touched and left.  However, for me, the pay off make this not only forgivable but necessary.   The deliberate slowing of the pace makes watching like listening to the long and meandering story of a family elder; it tries your patience, but you persist out of affection and respect.  And in the end you are richer for it, as your patience is repaid, as patience is almost always repaid: for the patient, meaning and connection both are illuminated.  We forget that patience is not a virtue of self-sacrifice for its own sake, it ensures that we don't miss life in our desire to hurry through it, that our fear of struggle and pain don't turn us into the disconnected living dead. 

And speaking of elders and the past, the message of this piece of whimsy and melancholy quietly reveals itself as an authentic Jewish mysticism in disguise. It delivers the ancient message that continually needs resurrecting, particularly in an age that idolizes progress: envisioning our past as behind us, forgotten, and gone is an illusion, a lie in the dark that disintegrates once the light is turned on.  It is in this piece of Kabbalistic that a shirt turned "inside out" suddenly becomes the whole film entire, a fractal.  Within the shirt that is inside out is the coded message of memory, a cipher decrypted for us in Alex's broken English voice over as Jonathan returns home:

I have reflected many times upon our rigid search. It has shown me that everything is illuminated in the light of the past. It is always along the side of us, on the inside, looking out. Like you say, inside out. Jonathan, in this way, I will always be along the side of your life. And you will always be along the side of mine.

Despite the heady mystic philosophy that is undeniably present, the movie has moments of giddy hilarity, punctuating the sentiment of the film and providing release as well as underscore. I hope Schreiber's first attempt at writing and directing won't be his last--but it is possible.  I find it hard to believe that he could find a story and a subject matter he could love quite as thoroughly.