Out of Season

Netflix recently kicked a horror movie recommendation my way, Trick 'r Treat. Made on the cheap a few years back, its distribution deals fell through and the thing finally trickled out directly to DVD. Not a great pedigree, you'll agree. And yet, there are a few interesting faces that pop up in it. Brian Cox and Anna Paquin are featured, along with that fine character actor Dylan Baker (who I'd just seen in Fido). There's even a touch of geek cred in Tahmoh Penikett, of Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse.

So what is Trick 'r Treat, exactly? Well, it is what it sounds like, a horror movie set on Halloween night. And while yes, the definitive movie with that premise has already been made, there's a quite different approach here. The movie is actually an anthology of five different tales, each with peripheral connections to the others. Each story features at least a passing appearance by the creepy little dude in the poster at the left, "Sam." (That's Samhain, the character of folklore used here as the patron-demon-saint of Halloween.)

In a way, this movie is like watching five episodes of Tales from the Crypt stitched together. And for the most part, they're what I'd consider pretty good episodes. Each tale has a fun flavor to it, good moments of tension, reversals, and general horror movie goodness. One story in particular, about a bunch of kids staging a prank related to a fabled fatal bus crash in local town history, is really damn effective.

But the problem is, none of these stories is even given as much room to breathe as an episode of Tales from the Crypt. The entire movie is less than 90 minutes long, and it seems like some of the storylines get short shrift. Once or twice during the movie, I felt myself going "hey, I was watching that!" when one plot would suddenly be abandoned in favor of another. Sure, not all of these stories could actually have sustained a whole film on their own, but they're all presented with enough art and fun that I wished for more than I got.

Perhaps the whole thing would have landed better if I'd actually watched it "in season," closer to an actual Halloween. I think if you like scary movies, you'd probably want to do exactly that. But overall, the "short attention span" approach of the film brings its score down to a C+ in my book. The whole is less than the sum of the parts.

Tobago-ning

It's been part of my board game collection for a few months now, but I just realized that I've never said anything about the game Tobago. It's a rather quick game where players take on the role of archaeologists, digging up treasure on an island.

There are four possible treasures hidden "somewhere" on the board at any given time. To identify the precise location of a treasure, a player can (on his turn) play a "map piece" card to ever-growing columns of cards representing each of the four treasures. For example, I might play a card on my turn that states the black treasure is "not in the mountains," while you on your turn play one that states "it is within two spaces of a palm tree." Eventually, enough map pieces will accumulate so that there is only one possible space on the game board where a treasure can be buried, and then the race is on!

When a player drives his "ATV" to the location of a treasure, he gets a treasure card with a random value between 2 and 6 from a treasure deck. But also, each player who contributed map pieces in defining the treasure location gets one treasure card for each map piece. And it's not quite so simple as dealing them off a deck. Each player gets to look at the number of treasures he is eligible to receive. But then all the players' cards are shuffled together (along with one extra that no one peeked at). Then cards are revealed one at a time and a sort of "draft" ensues. Players elect one at a time whether they want to take the offered card, or press their luck to wait for a possibly better card later in the stack. (Perhaps it's a better card they know is there, from having glimpsed it earlier.)

There are a few more wrinkles that I won't go into, but suffice it to say that the game does have a bit more of a luck element than I'm usually fond of in my board games. But it's definitely not all about luck. Strategy does matter. And the board is modular in a way that allows plenty of different island configurations to add replay value to the game. I might still bristle a bit at the luck factor, except the game is a brisk 30 minutes -- 45 at the outside, even with players prone to "analysis paralysis" -- and certainly sustains enough fun for that length of time.

This isn't one to recommend to hardcore strategists, but strikes me as another good "bridge" game to get any non-gamers in your life over the water from Monopoly to Puerto Rico.

Playing the Blues

I know full well what a strange film maker David Lynch is, even though I haven't seen most of his work. And I know that Blue Velvet is one of his strangest. But I felt motivated to check it out all the same.

Part of the reason was to see the performance of Dennis Hopper. Since his recent death, there's been a lot of talk about this movie as not only one of his most indelible performances, but as the movie that really launched his "comeback" after years outside the spotlight. Indeed, he demands your complete attention in every moment he's on screen. (But for your own good, you'd better not look at him. You know what I mean if you've seen the film.) His performance as a bizarre, unhinged, and dangerous fetishist is powerful stuff, very unsettling to watch, and completely credible.

His is just one of several great performances in the movie too. Kyle MacLachlan stars (as it seems he must in any David Lynch film) as an innocent young man caught in this disturbing web of depravity and crime. He effectively portrays the island of normalcy in the midst of the the insanity... though even his character isn't so straight. (You have to question the thought process of a man whose first inclination upon learning about a possible murder -- after going to the cops, at least -- is to break into the suspect's house.)

Isabella Rossellini is interesting as the object of both men's obsessions. Honestly, her acting is overpowered by others in the movie, as you'd expect, but it is a raw performance that gets you feeling great sympathy for the character. Dean Stockwell shows up in what only amounts to an extended cameo, but it's a part that leaves a strong (and weird) impression.

But for its strong performances, the movie just isn't that interesting. It does creep you out a bit at times. It maybe even makes you wonder what people you know would think of you if they knew you were watching a movie like that. But the visceral thrills are widely spaced by long stretches of artistic-for-its-own-sake dialogue. I'm also not really sure the movie has anything to say other than "can you believe we were able to put this on film in the mid-1980s?"

So overall, I'd call Blue Velvet a middle of the road C. Dennis Hopper fans will want to watch it for sure... but then if you are a Dennis Hopper fan, you probably already have. To everyone else? Well, use your own discretion. If I might be a little uncomfortable at the thought of being caught watching it, I surely won't be caught recommending it.

GenCon Highlights

So, GenCon has been pretty fun so far. As fun as it can be, anyway, when your purpose for being there is to stand on your feet for eight hours straight and talk (above a steady buzz) to people non-stop, giving a game demo over and over again.

It seems to me like there are a lot more costumes here this year than I remember seeing at past GenCons. (I always associated the crazy costumes more with DragonCon or ComicCon.) I've seen a Dr. Horrible, a Captain Hammer, and then the actual Felicia Day, so I've collected that "full set."

I've seen three Links from The Legend of Zelda, which is cute. Every single one of them was holding his sword correctly in his left hand, which is nerdy. I knew that Link is left-haned, which is incredibly nerdy.

I haven't let myself look at too many games. My only luggage is carry-on, and it's fully packed. No room for anything on the return trip, sadly. It does seem like there are a lot of "like Dominion" games this show, which I guess I'm alright with. I like the concept of Dominion, but since I wrote that initial review of the game a while back, my opinion of that game itself has plummeted. I feel it's very imbalanced, and not very fun once you "break it." If another game company can take the idea and make a better game with it, great!

Last day of the show tomorrow, then I get a few days off with family in Indy before returning home.

New. Improved?

I've recently been kinda-sorta considering buying an e-reader. A Kindle, a Nook... I hadn't really gotten that far. (Other than to know that I certainly did not want an iPad -- with its backlit screen -- for the purpose.) But I couldn't really figure out if I really thought it would be useful to have one, or if it was pure gadget lust.

As I was considering pros and cons and coming up neutral, a friend of mine offered to loan me a Nook for a few days so I could try it out. Ah! Clarity! Nothing like a test drive to figure out whether it would be worth it! But the problem is, the experience with the actual thing highlighted both all the pros and all the cons I had imagined about the experience.

On the pro side, it was indeed damn cool to have an entire library of books there in one place. You could take it anywhere and read "anything" (available in e-book format, at least) right there. If you don't already have a certain book, you can buy it and start reading in about a minute. Plus, no shortage of bookshelf space in your home, no lifting boxes and boxes of heavy books next time you move.

I thought I'd miss the tactile sense of holding and reading a book, but I honestly didn't all that much. It was nice being able to read with one hand comfortably, without breaking the spine of a book. (That drives me nuts.) I'm sure that if I had an e-reader, there are still some books I'd want to buy in traditional form -- from favorite authors, for example -- but e-books seemed promising.

But, on the negative side... well, the technology just isn't quite "there" yet. Some of the formatting of e-books with footnotes looked incredibly goofy. The "page turn" buttons respond slowly, and trigger a quick full-screen black flash to render the next page of text. It makes for a less-than-smooth read, and sometimes I found myself actually waiting for a new page to appear. For a fraction of a second, sure, but still noticable in mid-sentence.

So I find myself no more decided about an e-reader purchase than I was before. In fact, flying out to Indianapolis only served to further stress the good and bad qualities of an e-reader. I took a crazy-fat 800 page book with me on this trip. In hardcover. It's two inches thick and then some, easily the fattest thing in my laptop carrying case. Sure, I could have picked a slimmer book, but that's exactly the point. With an e-reader, I wouldn't have had to make the choice, and it wouldn't have been such a pain in the butt to take.

On the other hand, "please turn off all portable electronic devices" during takeoff and landing. A real book? Just read it. But an e-reader can't actually entertain you during 30 key minutes (or more) of a plane flight.

Anyone out there have an e-reader and want to sing its praises?

Going Soft

After The Rainmaker, another film adaptation of a John Grisham novel was recommended to me. Unfortunately, I found this to be a less satisfying movie.

Oddly enough, the most insignificant little detail told me right away that I probably wasn't going to like it. The opening sequence has the main character (played by Tom Cruise) interviewing at a number of law firms, searching for his first job out of law school. We see partners at the firm (should I say The Firm?) he'll end up with ply him with questions about his wife, his children, his other family members. I don't know about you, but I've been on both sides of enough job interviews to know that you are not allowed to ask that kind of stuff. And lawyers should know that better than anyone.

It's funny, because it's not like I was going into this movie expecting a hyper-realistic portrayal of legal procedures. (Good thing; there's not one scene set in a courtroom.) Not do I require such realism to enjoy a story set in the legal profession. (The fact that I loved Boston Legal proves that.) And yet, there was just something about the way this script packed in ham-fisted exposition, overtly hinted at a forthcoming mafia connection through the repeated use of the word "family," and messed up law that basic -- all before four minutes of film time have elapsed -- that I wasn't hopeful about where the story would go.

Indeed, there was nothing unusual about the story at all. Predictable, and slow-paced at over two-and-a-half hours, the plot was a bore. The presentation of it wasn't helped by a strangely inappropriate musical score that was essentially "smooth jazz piano stylings."

And yet, the movie managed not to be a total loss either. Basically, that's thanks to the epic cast. Tom Cruise does what he does, but it fits. Jeanne Tripplehorn manages to turn emotions on a dime without it seeming too much a stretch. Gene Hackman, Hal Holbrook, Ed Harris, Holly Hunter, David Strathairn, Gary Busey... all have a great deal of fun with their roles. Wilford Brimley is entertaining too (though never much of a credible threat; when Our Hero beats the crap out of him at the climax of the film, I think it makes him look decidely less "heroic."). Basically, a cavalcade of fine actors make a meal out of very meager scraps.

Their fun is infectious enough that it distracts you from the lame plot more often than you'd think. So overall, I'd rate the movie a C+. But I still wouldn't give it my recommendation.

Road Trip

I'm off to attend GenCon in Indianapolis, showing off an upcoming release from my company. I'm also staying in town for a couple of days after the show to visit with my extended family in the area. But this is also the first time I've traveled anywhere since becoming even more "dis-disconnected" technologically, having picked up both a laptop and a smart phone.

So between that and a decent backlog of scheduled posts, chances are the blog will keep chugging along even though I won't be back at home until a week from tonight.

Has GenCon changed much since I last attended?

What phone apps are truly useful to a traveler?

How unbearably humid is it in Indy this summer?

I'm about to find out...

Lost Re-view: Walkabout

Whenever a new season of Lost was about to begin -- or end -- you'd inevitably find web sites running stories about "the best episodes of Lost," or "the top 10 Lost episodes," or some such. Every time, Walkabout would make the list, often even placing at number one. I certainly remember that it blew me away at the time. But now that I've seen the whole series, now that I'm going back to this episode for a repeat viewing, is it really that good?

Well, in a word: yes. It's that good. It's that good because there's more to it than the shell game of Locke's secret; it's an incredibly well-structured script besides that, and has a number of great moments for other characters too.

That script was written by David Fury, a "graduate" of the "Joss Whedon writing academy." That is, he wrote for Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, and I liked his work there enough that I was actually excited to hear he was working on Lost. After turning in scripts like Walkabout, I was also disappointed that he decided to leave Lost after just one season, opting instead to become a writer for 24, where he stayed until the bitter end. (He was not in charge for the decline of 24, nor do I think that one person alone can be blamed for the downturn; nevertheless, he was one of the crew that steered that ship into the rocks.)

But now I too am drifting off-course, so back to Walkabout. Of course, what made it brilliant the first time around was the surprising "twist ending," where we learn that Locke was confined to a wheelchair prior to the crash on the Island. The thing about twist endings is that if someone tells you that a story has one, you start paying extra-careful attention to every moment, trying to guess the ending before you get there. The first time around, no one knew a twist was buried at the end of this episode, and so the surprise was masterful. (And I think anyone who claims they figured this one out is at worst bullshitting you, or at best knew ahead of time to be looking for "the twist.")

On subsequent viewings, Walkabout is spectacular for entirely different reasons. First of all, it "plays fair" in dealing with the twist. All along the way, there are little clues dropped: seeing Locke in bed with an electro-nerve stimulation machine on his nightstand; hearing him talk of the double amputee that climbed Mount Everest. The script even tells you that it's misleading you in Locke's first flashback, where his phone call about his lunchtime war game is meant to make you think he might be some kind of military leader or super-spy or something.

Secondly, the emotional elements of this episode actually play stronger once you have the whole context. Terry O'Quinn brings you to tears (of sadness and joy) with his brilliant performance. There's nuance too. Take the moment when Locke is knocked over in the jungle while hunting boar, and you see his disorientation and panic when it seems for a moment like he may have already lost his newfound ability to walk. Or look at Locke's utter humiliation at the hands of his co-worker, Randy. (Why in the hell is Randy such a jerk to a good-natured guy in a wheelchair, anyway?) And then there's his phone call to a "Helen," a woman he's paying to pretend is his girlfriend. As pathetic as that made Locke look at the time, it makes you even more sorry for him in retrospect when you know there really was a Helen, and that Locke lost her and "replaced" her!

Thirdly, you can marvel at the tight narrative construction which achieved all of this. There are actually very few flashback scenes in this episode -- only four that take the action off the Island, I believe. But every scene informs the whole perfectly.

Because Locke's back story is dealt with in such a small space of time, there's room in the episode to deal with other characters too. These early episodes of Lost were truly dense with character development, even for characters who weren't that week's focus. And the subplots here are strong too.

Boone challenges Shannon to catch her own fish, and she responds by buttering up Charlie and getting him to do it for her. The rivalry between the siblings is great -- and carries extra resonance in retrospect, since we know they're step-siblings, not actually a blood relation. And not only is it a fun way to see these two, but it ends up being an even better story for Charlie. The moment where Charlie realizes he's been used is the first truly sympathetic moment for him in the series. Until this point, he's just been "the drug addict rock star." Without a single word of dialogue, Dominic Monaghan shows us just how big a punch in the gut the disappointment is. (Extra added irony on this subplot: we'd later find out that Jin was a fisherman. Shannon asked the wrong man to help her!)

There's also a subplot involving Jack. On one level, it's just setting up for the Jack-centric episode to come, as he sees the "ghost" of his father from a distance in this episode. But within this episode, Claire tries to recruit him to lead a memorial service for the crash victims. He flatly refuses, saying it's "not his thing." There's a lot to make out of this in retrospect. Is he simply raw about the idea of a funeral because he'd just lost his own father? Or is he speaking in more general terms, that faith is "not his thing?" I tend to think the latter, and it's interesting to note that the "science vs. faith" theme that would play such an important role in the series had its beginnings right here.

There's also the Rose subplot in this episode. At the time this episode was written, no one could have known how appropriate it was for her to feature in the same episode as we learned about Locke's miracle; later, we'd learn she experienced a miracle of her own, being cured of a terminal cancer. Within the confines of this single episode, Rose's story of hope to be reunited with her husband is a simple but well-done "faith vs. realism" runner on the plot. Of course, now we know that she was right all along, her husband did survive, and they would even end up living "happily ever after." So her stalwart hope here, in the face of so many others assuming she was wrong, is even more uplifting.

Somehow, one script held all of that without feeling cramped, and still found room for other fun little moments too. The episode begins with a close-up on Locke's eye, the first time of many that the show would call back to the opening shot of the pilot. Jack notes that Kate seems to have a "problem staying in one place for very long" -- and we're just coming off an episode that shows us how true that is. We get Michael making an ass of himself charading to Sun, when we now know she could understand him all along. (Actually, Michael makes an ass of himself on the boar hunt too. The seeds of him being an unlikeable character were certainly planted early.) Claire finds the photo of Nadia and returns it to Sayid.

And of course, that perfect line of Locke's: "Don't tell me what I can't do!"

Other details about the episode aren't necessarily triumphs of great writing, but are just fun to go back and see after the series has concluded. They burn the plane fuselage at night, for example, in the hopes someone at sea might spot it. (Ah, the innocent time when Lost was about trying to get off an island -- lower-case -- rather than the weirdness of The Island -- upper-case.) There's the moment where Claire and Jack are actually introduced to each other. (Funny, since we know they're half-siblings.) There's the first time you get to see Evangeline Lilly's monkey-like skills as she climbs a tree in a single take without a stunt performer jumping in.

For the big "mythology" people, this episode is also the first time that anyone actually sees the Smoke Monster, when it comes across Locke in the jungle and lets him live. The story ultimately unfolded in a way that this behavior does make sense -- Locke was one of Jacob's candidates, and thus could not be harmed by Smokey. (But to think about what a strange connection the two would eventually share!) The only real mystery here is why Locke later lies about encountering the monster -- but that can be explained easily enough if you imagine he didn't want to scare the crap out of anyone else... and/or that he just didn't know what to say about how and why he was allowed to escape alive.

Both the first time around and coming back to it later, from any angle you look at it, Walkabout is a truly brilliant episode. About the only false moment in the entire thing is one lame "gotcha" in a statement by Jack. He says that the bodies of the dead must be burned because with the boars around, "any bodies we bury aren't gonna stay buried very long." ("Aha," says buzz-killing nitpicker, "then how come they made a graveyard for all the other people who died later?!" "Shut up," says I.)

Walkabout is grade A Lost, surpassing the pilot episode, and really proving how special the show was going to be.

Re-Match

I've mentioned it before, but I have a Top 100 Movies list. An actual list, not just an "oh, that's gotta be one of my 100 favorite movies" kind of thing. It's thanks to a co-worker from my days back in Virginia, who dazzled the department when he actually produced a printout of his list one day and got us all thinking about what our own list would look like.

The thing is, my list has gotten hopelessly out of date. I just haven't maintained it as I've seen new worthy movies over the past several years. But recently, I've decided to update it, and to be a bit more methodical about it than I was the first time I put it together. I actually want to watch several of the movies on the list... or that might get onto the list. That's because there are times when my recollection of a film just isn't sharp enough for me to know where I should place it.

So it was with Match Point, a film which I've actually reviewed here on the blog before. The thing is, I wrote what I feel is a completely uninformative review of the movie. So uninformative, that reading it myself didn't really help jog my memory about the parts of the movie I was fuzzy on. So let me try again.

First, let me say that after watching Match Point again, my overall opinion hasn't really changed. I'd still call it a B+. And honestly, that's almost certainly not good enough to make the list -- I have to have seen at least 100 movies that I'd rate an A or an A-. (I'm not that picky, am I?) But I remember liking the film enough that I thought it worth a second look all the same.

The first time I wrote about Match Point, I completely avoided any description of the plot, trying to avoid spoiling too much of the surprises in the movie. That seems a bit extreme to me now. Gotta say something to get your interest, don't I? So here it is:

Match Point is the story of an Irish tennis player from a poor background (played by Jonathan Rhys Meyers). He wasn't quite good enough to be a successful pro, so now he makes his living as an instructor to obscenely rich people with more money than skill (or even interest, really). He forges an actual friendship with one of his students (played by Matthew Goode), who turns out to have a sister (Emily Mortimer) who quickly becomes romantically interested in him. There are also two loving British parents (Brian Cox and Penelope Wilton) who are quick to welcome the young man into the family and hook him up with a sweet job. The trouble is, his friend also has an alluring fiancée (Scarlett Johansson) that our protagonist is more drawn to than the sister. Complications ensue, with the film following the tangled relationships of the characters.

If that description sounds a bit stuffy and British and repressed... well, it sort of is. And that's actually a strength in this film, because I found it to be of a very different character than the work writer-director Woody Allen is normally known for (neurotic and Jewish and... well... okay, still repressed). And in the final act of the film, things grow suddenly much darker and very compelling.

The acting is really strong, even that of Jonathan Rhys Meyers. I must say, I'd been thinking a little less of him lately as I watched him in the last season of The Tudors. (His "transformation" from a shouting tyrant to a shouting tyrant with a slightly wheezy voice was not the texture change needed to keep the drama on that show from being often one-note.) In this film, he really makes you feel the noose close around his neck, even as you disapprove of his character's decisions.

There. I hope that will do better in teasing you into watching the film. Because I do still recommend it. But as I said, my grade of B+ still hasn't changed, and that's really because the middle section of the film drags a bit. The opening is great, with the characters all intriguing as you get to know them, and the situations filled with tension. The ending is fantastic, as things bust loose in a dramatically satisfying way. It's just that the middle bogs down a bit, playing the same dramatic beat again and again. ("You have to say something." "I will." He doesn't. "You have to say something...") Still, while the figurative sandwich might not be very hearty, the bread is frakking delicious.

So if you think you might like a bit of a soap opera with a dark edge, check out Match Point. It may not be top 100 material, but it deserves better than the sloppy review I gave it four-and-a-half years ago.

Who's a Good Zombie? You Are!

A co-worker recently loaned me a movie that he happened across under rather unusual circumstances. I'd never heard of it myself. Basically, cross Pleasantville with Dawn of the Dead... or something like that... and you have Fido.

Set in the 1950s -- but a version of the 50s that you'd see on Leave It to Beaver -- a zombie apocalypse has been thwarted, but leaving a world behind in which anyone who dies comes back in short order as a zombie. Fortunately, a huge corporation has invented a collar you can put on a zombie to essentially domesticate it and suppress its urge to consume human flesh. The result, a helpful fixture in every suburban home of standing, somewhere between a dog and a slave, your own zombie to make like easier.

That's just the backdrop. Fido tells the story of a young boy named Timmy (yes, the Lassie reference is intentional) who befriends the new zombie in his home. But when the zombie collar malfunctions and "Fido" winds up killing someone, Timmy is forced to conceal the murder or risk losing his new best friend.

It sounds dark, but you have to consider the oh-so-nice overtone of the whole thing. This is simply put, a strange little movie. It has an odd cast too. Billy Connolly stars as the titular zombie (and no, doesn't really speak for the entire film). Carrie-Anne Moss plays the loving housewife who lobbies her husband (great character actor Dylan Baker) to get a zombie so their family can "keep up with the Joneses." And a young child actor named K'Sun Ray plays Timmy, always keeping tongue firmly in cheek.

The thing is, Fido is a lot more clever in concept than it is in execution. On paper, the whole "Hi honey! I'm home! What's the zombie put out for dinner?" gimmick sounds great for some laughs. And for a while, it is. But it also seems like it could be a way of packaging a fun and subversive message, for example in the way that Dawn of the Dead satirizes consumerism. Fido doesn't really seize on any such opportunities.

Fido really isn't really a bad movie; it just doesn't really live up to fun premise. A real fan of horror movies in general, or zombie movies in particular, would surely find something to love, and to those people I would recommend it. Overall though, I'd only rate it a C.

Lost Re-view: Tabula Rasa

Time for the next episode of Lost in my grand re-viewing of the entire series.

The second episode of a network TV series is often a rocky one. Pilot episodes are usually made months ahead of time, in order to sell the concept to the network. When the first "real" episode comes along, everyone involved is just getting back into the swing of things months later. For Lost, it must have been an even greater challenge, since the story was an ongoing one, and picked up mere hours (or maybe even minutes) after the conclusion of the previous episode.

When this episode (written by co-creator Damon Lindelof) begins, Kate, Charlie, Sayid, Boone, and Shannon still haven't made it back from their attempt to send out a distress signal from higher ground. This showcased another important element of Lost: episodes wouldn't really be self-contained. Sure, in an hour of Lost, you could get a tale about a character, an emotional arc, with a beginning, middle, and end. But the saga of the Island would often just pause as it was and pick up again next episode. (As a footnote, I think you can credit 24 for paving the road here, making it acceptable for a network show to be written this way as "standard operating procedure.")

It's interesting that Lost's first regular episode focuses on Kate, the character who I noted in the pilot seemed most "off" from how she'd come to be portrayed on the show. Did the writers gravitate to her because they saw the need to adjust the character a bit? Did they go to her simply because of the story reality that the marshal who captured her was dying of a shrapnel wound, and that they'd have to tell Kate's story immediately because he logically would die quickly (and with him, the easy way to segue into the story)? Was it a real-world necessity that they could only get guest actor Fredric Lehne for one episode, so they rushed to kill off his character? Hard to say for sure.

In any case, I probably thought this episode was more interesting the first time around. Knowing the full truth about Kate's history removes a little of the interest, of course. Even if at the time you had somehow just known that Lost was going to be successful and last six years -- without actually knowing Kate's real story -- it would have been less interesting. The central questions of "will anyone learn that Kate is a fugitive?", "what will they do if they learn?", and "what did she do?" were inevitably going to be answered.

Nevertheless, the episode still has a lot to offer even if the suspense is gone. The Kate storyline has a lot of heart to it. We see her on the run in Australia, staying with a farmer named Ray. What we know now that we didn't know at the time was that Kate killed her abusive father (the man who she'd thought was her stepfather for her whole life). That offers a whole new context to her relationship with farmer Ray. This was probably the first person who was anything like a father figure that Kate had opened up to and trusted -- at all -- since she first went on the run. She lives with him for three months.

And then he betrays her, turning her in for the reward money. ($23,000. Heheh, 23. Those damn numbers.) In the full context of Lost, we now know what a real disappointment Ray's betrayal must have been for Kate. And she ends up looking like a better person as a result, because of her reaction to it all. She pulls the unconscious Ray from the flipped-over truck, not leaving him to die even after what he did. And she still says to the marshal that she wants to make sure Ray gets the reward money for turning her in. On some level, this farmer probably reminded Kate of the man she thought was her biological father. In short, this whole plot thread offers a brand new emotional resonance when you come to it with full knowledge of the series, which is exactly the sort of thing I was hoping and looking for in going back to watch it all again.

Just as interesting as the Kate storyline are things going on with the other characters on the Island. There are great little moments, like Sawyer calling Kate "Freckles" for the first time, and also beginning to scavenge and horde things. Locke's wheelchair makes its first appearance. (The writers say they didn't know Locke had been in a wheelchair when they made the pilot, but they obviously knew it by the time they were making this episode.) Charlie's back to what he did in the pilot, writing profound-to-a-drug-addict messages on the bandages wrapped around his fingers. (He changes the message F-A-T-E from the pilot episode into L-A-T-E here.) And there's the moment where Michael stumbles upon Sun topless, cleaning herself up at Jin's command -- a precursor of the conflict between Michael and Jin.

And there are still other character moments that are more than quick fun, carrying more resonance. Claire and Charlie begin to bond in this episode -- and we know what an important relationship those characters would have.

There's also the small but compelling storyline of Locke finding Vincent. He carves the little whistle to bring Vincent out of hiding. And then, showing keen insight, he doesn't bring the dog straight to Walt, but goes to Michael so that he can be the one to save the day.

The most illuminating on-the-Island storyline is Jack's. He's really showing his "fixer" complex in this episode, determine to save the marshal's life and spend as many of the group's limited resources as are needed to do it. What's more, when Sawyer steps in and shoots the marshal to "put him out of his misery" -- and botches the job! -- Jack has to kill the man with his bare hands to save him hours of choking in agony. Major stuff for Jack, even though he is not the focus of the episode. (By the way, how could Sawyer miss like that? Maybe because of the vision problems we'd learn about much later?)

More staples of the Lost format began to appear in this episode. For the first time, we got the "whooshing" sound effect leading into a flashback -- though it wasn't used in every instance, and was never used to get back out from a flashback. Also, this episode ends with the first of Lost's many montages -- only it's not set to a sweet piece by composer Michael Giacchino. Instead, it's a quiet pop song played on a Walkman Hurley finds, in a style very reminiscent of what J.J. Abrams did on Felicity.

We get the answer to a question from the pilot. The "secret" that Locke told Walt was simply that "a miracle" had happened on the Island. He was indeed alluding to regaining the use of his legs, but did not specifically tell Walt the whole truth.

Speaking of truths, the whole episode deals a lot with characters holding information out on one another. Sayid convinces the people who know about the French distress signal to conceal the information, knowing that widespread knowledge of it will crush people's hopes of rescue. Jack finds out the Kate is a criminal, but then conceals that truth from Kate to see if she'll come clean on her own.

Some very interesting things happen right at the end of this episode. Kate comes to Jack and wants to tell him what she did. But Jack shuts her down, delivering the message behind the episode's title, Tabula Rasa. (Fun fact: the philosophical concept of "tabula rasa," being born as a blank slate, was first posited by the real John Locke.) Jack says that every one of the survivors is now a blank slate and that their pasts don't matter.

First of all, this opinion is basically the antithesis of what Lost would stand for in its first season. The first season was all about learning the pasts of these characters, who they were before the crash. And it all mattered very much.

Secondly, I have to wonder just what Kate would have told Jack if he had let her confess. Considering where Kate was as a person at that point in time, would she have told the truth? It doesn't seem likely. Would she have made excuses, telling Jack the whole story about her stepfather? She didn't really know him that well yet. Would she have proclaimed her innocence? If she had, I think it would have made trusting her a lot tougher later, both for the other characters and for the audience.

The episode does end on a bit of a weird note. Literally, in fact. As the montage I mentioned earlier comes to an end, the camera does a slow pan around Locke, moving into a close-up on his face. He watches Walt and Michael with a look that might mean a lot of things, except that it is scored by an incredibly creepy and ominous string accent that leaves you wondering the worst about Locke. Could he be a creepy pedophile or something? I'm not sure what this moment is all about. Is it just artificially trying to create some tension on which to end the episode? At this point in time, did the writers think that the end of every episode should have some sort of "hand off" indicating who next week's episode would be about? Strange stuff.

In any case, the episode overall isn't brilliant like the pilot. But I think that would have been incredibly hard to pull off. There's still good material here in any case, and I'd rate this episode a B+.

But this review needs a post-script, because another one of those 13 "Missing Pieces" mobisodes is tied to this episode. This time, it's a scene called "Jack, Meet Ethan. Ethan? Jack." It's exactly what you'd think from the title, a scene in which Jack meets the undercover Other Ethan for the first time.

Obviously, Ethan wouldn't really appear on the show for a few more episodes. But just as obviously, he's supposed to have been there from the beginning, so there's nothing wrong with the idea of retroactively creating a moment like this. There are even a few interesting things to ponder out of this scene.

Ethan's "in" is that he brings Jack a suitcase full of medicine that he claims to have found in the crash. The audience can have a little fun speculating whether that's true, or if the medications were provided by the Others just so that Ethan could build trust.

The scene has Ethan bringing up the possibility that Jack will have to deliver Claire's baby there on the Island. He then confides that his wife died in childbirth, and that the baby was lost too. Given the fertility problems the Others were having, I think you can take this story at face value -- it's not just an angle in Ethan's masquerade as a crash survivor. And when you take that detail as true, it humanizes Ethan's character a great deal.

So I'd say this mobisode actually does add to and flesh out the narrative of Lost in a small but useful way. Of course, even though it falls chronologically at this point in the series, and you could even watch it for the first time right here (it doesn't spoil anything), it only really resonates with a viewer who has seen the next few seasons. I guess that's the point of these mobisodes. (The good ones, anyway.)

Next up, one of the famously great episodes of the series, Walkabout.

Calling Orville Redenbacher

My last game night with my friends somehow got a bit sidetracked at one point when this talk of a net video came up, in which people ring popcorn kernels with a few cell phones, call the phones, and pop the kernels:



Fake, by the way. And yet, we kind of felt obligated to try it... or at least were really pushed into trying it by one or two people present.

I wasn't really that reluctant a participant, but I think I was drawn to the experiment for an entirely different reason. When you stop and think about the amount of technology you're bringing to bear in one room to try this, it's kind of preposterous. Basically, you need six phones -- three to put on the table, and three to call the phones on the table. Plus, if you want to document your experiment, you might want a seventh phone to record video with.

The thing is, we had all this easily right there in the room. And it's not like there was an epic crowd playing games that night. Ten or fifteen years ago, you couldn't dream of even attempting something like this.

I guess what I'm saying is that we may not have flying cars yet, but we pretty much are living in The Future. A future where I bitch about my phone -- a computer I carry around in my pocket -- sometimes being slow at web surfing when it's still several times faster than by home computer was (by dial-up!) little more than a decade ago.

Turn On the Heat

Another classic movie recently bubbled its way up to the top of my queue, Billy Wilder's famous comedy Some Like It Hot. It stars Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon as a pair of struggling musicians in prohibition-era Chicago who, through happenstance, become wanted by the mob. Their solution to go into hiding? Disguise themselves as women and join an all-women band (featuring Marilyn Monroe) that's traveling down to Florida on tour. Naturally.

I joke, because obviously the level of artificiality here is ridiculously high. But when you think about it, it's no more fake and constructed than most other movies of the period (and, you could argue, many movies made today). Still, there is a bit of a hurdle to get over in the opening of this movie, accepting the crazy premise. And then it's really thrown back in your face with regularity, as you have to overlook the fact that somehow, everyone believes that Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon could really pass for women.

Skipping past all that, the movie is fairly entertaining at times. There's a good "buddy movie" rapport between the two leads, and Marilyn Monroe makes a fine love interest to spice things up. But the movie is also relentlessly predictable and hits all the beats you expect it to. There are a lot of reasons for that.

First, it's a lightweight comedy, and rightfully aspires only to be that. You don't generally thwart audience expectations in a light-hearted comedy.

Secondly, it's a decades-old movie. Screen writing has become more sophisticated over time, and manages to surprise more often than most classic movies could.

But lastly, and most importantly, tons of later movies went back to, cribbed from, paid homage to, or outright stole from this one. Some Like It Hot defines every major convention of a "cross-dressing comedy" that has appeared in every such movie that's been made since then -- even critically acclaimed ones like Tootsie. To some extent, you could call that a lack of creativity on the part of the new writers; but it's also probably true (at least somewhat) that this really is the best formula for telling such a story, and Billy Wilder found it first.

Still, I found myself appreciating the movie more as a pillar of film history than as a movie unto itself. It made me smile a few times, but never really made me laugh. Much less of comedy than tragedy remains timeless. Delivery changes, pacing changes. Societal standards of what's okay to joke about change. (Some of what's in this movie comes across a little close-minded and cheap; though in its day, it was really an amazingly subversive achievement to get some of this stuff into a major film.)

My personal take on Some Like It Hot is that it's a C+. But if you are a lover of movies and haven't seen it, I'd probably give it my recommendation anyway. It really is a "know your roots" kind of thing for a movie fan, a film that really is "Important," even if I didn't find it as entertaining as I'd have hoped.

Fall Off

Besides me loving my new drum kit, there's something else my friend FKL was right about lately. He suspected that while he loved the movie The Fall, I probably wouldn't. I would have trusted that "recommendation," but I'd already dropped the movie into my Netflix queue after his enthusiastic response, and I didn't see him try to steer me clear until it was already on the way to my door.

Anyway, The Fall is a movie made four years ago (but only actually released two years ago) about a 1920s era stuntman who injures himself on a film. Convalescing in a hospital and desperate for morphine to dull his pain, he befriends a young foreign girl also in the hospital, and starts telling her an elaborate made up story to win her trust (which he'll then parlay into having her steal his drugs from the hospital supply).

But what it's really about is the outrageous story he weaves for this little girl. We see it all unfold on screen in what FKL fairly described as a Terry Gilliam sort of way. And the story gets modified as we go, based on suggestions from the little girl, or inconsistencies introduced by the stuntman storyteller. The events we're watching sometimes shift mid-scene.

The first thing you see when the credits roll is that the film was directed by Tarsem (Singh). Had I known this, I never would have watched it at all. This is the director who defined "style over substance" in his very beautiful, very self-indulgent film, The Cell. This movie is at least the equal of The Cell in spectacle and in decadence. It's a series of paintings brought to life. And though I can't claim it has no narrative, it wasn't one that really engaged me. After all, a fraction of the effort that was put into visuals was put into story.

But besides those luscious visuals, there are a couple more good aspects to the film -- the performances of the two main actors. The stuntman is played by Lee Pace, star of the brilliant-but-canceled Pushing Daisies. He manipulates while being sympathetic, conveys sorrow and pain, and even plays one of the characters in the story he's telling too. Then there's the young girl, an unknown named Catinca Untaru. In the last half hour in particular, she just breaks your heart with a very real, very wrenching performance.

Still, I lost patience for the "style over substance" long before it got to the meat in that final act. Overall, I'd rank the film a D+. But this is a film where your mileage could definitely vary. If you're one to be drawn into the spectacle of a film, this movie has it in spades.

A Measured Response

Tonight was my third trip up to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, following King Lear and The Fantasticks. This time it was for Shakespeare's Measure for Measure, officially classified a comedy, but considered by some to be a "problem play." It's certainly a strange one, and my lack of familiarity with it before tonight made the experience a surprise.

It starts off hewing close to many conventions that appear in other Shakespearean plays. The Duke of Vienna announces his plans to leave the city for a time, leaving his duties to his stern deputy, Angelo. In truth, the Duke plans to adopt a secret identity as a friar so that he might see what happens in his absence. Angelo begins a crusade of sorts in the cause of moral rectitude, ordering the death of a man (Claudio) who has impregnated the woman he's engaged to (Juliet). Out of wedlock! Gasp! The man's sister, Isabella, leaves the convent where she is in training to become a nun and beseeches Angelo to commute the sentence. Lustful for her, Angelo proposes a bargain: if she will submit to his advances, he will spare her brother's life.

The "problem play" classification comes from this intrusion of decidedly dark subject matter into what is ostensibly a comedy. But there are jokes, particularly spawned from a subplot in which a braggart character, Lucio, repeatedly badmouths the departed Duke to the friar who is actually the Duke in disguise. But for me, the "problem" nature of this play stems from the increasingly bizarre behavior of the Duke as the play rolls on from there.

First, the Duke could simply come out of hiding and stay the execution. Instead, he concocts an elaborate ruse based around a woman he knows who was once engaged to Angelo. Isabella is to tell Angelo she agrees to sleep with him, under the conditions that it be in total darkness, and that there be no talking. Then this cast-off fiancee will show up to do the deed in Isabella's stead.

Makes perfect sense, right?

Then, when Angelo orders the beheading of Claudio anyway, the Duke could again come out of hiding to set things right, but this time decides to shave the head of another executed prisoner and send it to Angelo, claiming it to be Claudio's head. And then he tells Isabella that Claudio has already been executed, so that she'll be good and angry to lay into Angelo later.

Wait. What?

Then the Duke "returns" to Vienna, whereupon he orders Isabella's arrest when she confronts Angelo. Hearing that "a friar" might bear witness on the matter, he then ducks away to come back in disguised once more. He generally screws with everyone for his own amusement for the entire fifth act before revealing himself and going about setting things right. He then reveals Claudio, whom he kept in hiding, and not executed after all. And since Isabella will naturally be so relieved to see her brother after thinking him dead, and not at all be pissed that the Duke just completely messed with her for no good reason, the Duke naturally proposes that Isabella marry him.

Have we left the planet?

Of this absolutely insane conclusion, I can only remark that at least Shakespeare doesn't actually have Isabella respond verbally to the proposal before the "curtain closes" on the play. Thus, it is a matter of interpretation for the production whether she accepts or not. I gather most productions stay true to what was surely the intent at the time -- that she accepts, and that everyone lives happily ever after. This production has her stride past the Duke and exit the stage. Damn straight, woman!

There were plenty of other things this production got right too. The actors playing the Duke (Robert Sicular) and Isabella (Lenne Klingaman) were both very strong. I can't claim that either of them were able to make complete sense of two roles that have a lot of internal inconsistencies on the page, two characters that the passing centuries have not been kind to. I don't think any actor could make complete sense of them. But the former definitely found the funny moments for the Duke, while the latter skillfully played the profound emotion of poor Isabella in her plight.

There were two other major talents in the cast, both in comic relief roles. Timothy Orr played Lucio, the braggart character I mentioned earlier; Stephen Weltz played another comical character, Pompey. Both managed to get many hearty laughs from the audience. While the moral sensibilities of the play may have seemed really bizarre with the passage of time, these two actors made their jokes as fresh as anything from a modern movie. Very good work indeed.

I suppose that as for play itself, I started off liking it, but my confusion at the course of the plot won out over time, leaving me of two minds about it all. But I think there were enough strong actors in the cast to make it worthwhile. So overall, another good night at the theater.

Primary Woes

I've been a sporadic voter throughout my life. I didn't vote in the first election for which I was old enough, definitely in the throes of teen angsty crap. I voted in some non-presidential elections, but then didn't in the presidential election of 2000, because living in Virginia at the time, it seemed abundantly clear my vote "didn't matter." (But if you lived in Florida that year? Hoo boy!)

But since then I've started to come into a sense of civic-mindedness, that I should vote always anyway "because it does matter," "because you give up the right to complain if you don't vote," whatever, blah-blah. The point is, these days, I try to vote.

Why bring all this up? Well, because a primary election is coming up here. There are really only two compelling reasons I can think of to register officially with a specific political party when you register to vote. One is to cut down on junk mail, because candidates and causes of the other party generally won't waste their time mailing you anything. The other reason is exactly this case: so you can vote in the primary. So that you can say something like "I don't want to vote for 'the other guy,' but I certainly don't like what 'my guy' has been doing either, so let me try and get a new 'my guy.'" Okay, that's a general theory, because when I vote, I do research the issues and candidates to the best of my ability, and I don't blindly vote down the party line. But you get the point.

So here's the problem. I got my mail-in ballot for this primary election. It features around 10 government seats to cast a vote for, at both state and federal levels. And in every instance but one, there is only a single candidate to vote for. There really is no point in voting for any of these people, since they'll move on from this primary whether I affix my 61 cents in postage to this ballot or not.

Now there's pressure being applied to the pleasant little bubble that I'm a civic-minded person. Do I mail in this ballot to cast a vote for this one thing? Does it even matter? Do I lose any and all credibility complaining about people who don't vote if I don't vote in this?

Damn.

Lost Re-view: Pilot

I've decided to watch all of Lost from the beginning, something I explain in greater detail here. Again, a reminder that if you haven't finished the series, I'm going to be spoiling things in these reviews! And the journey begins with the original pilot episode.

...except it doesn't! I mentioned the 13 "mobisodes," each a self-contained scene that slips somewhere into Lost's first three seasons. Well, the last one of those 13 episodes was called "So It Begins," and it takes place chronologically just minutes before the opening frame of the first episode.

I can't be harsh enough about this mobisode. It should be blotted out of existence. If the writers could somehow go back in time with full knowledge of where their own show would end up, able to change only one thing about the journey? I'm confident their change would be to never have made this mobisode.

It's a simple enough scene. Jack's father Christian comes across Vincent the dog into the bamboo forest on the Island. He greets the dog and tells him "my son is just over that way. I need you to go wake him up. He has important work to do." Cut to the first scene of the show, the close-up on Jack's eye as he awakens after the crash.

First of all, this scene is a blatant lie. (Though of course, the truth wasn't known to the writers at the time they made it.) We would would later (much later) learn that "Christian" is really an incarnation of the Man in Black. And while his powers may include turning into black smoke, they do not include any Dr. Doolittle-like power to talk to animals. And even if they did, there's no need for Smokey to lie to the dog and claim that Jack is "his son." And there's no "important work" for Jack to do -- not from Smokey's perspective, anyway. Basically, this scene was written under the assumption that Christian really was some kind of incarnation (or reincarnation) of Jack's actual father, and he behaves accordingly in this scene. Knowing now that's not the case, the scene makes no sense.

Worse, in cheapens the entire narrative structure of the show to include it. We now know the final frame of the final episode of Lost: a close-up on Jack's eye, closing as he dies in the same spot he first awakened on the Island. A perfect bookend to the story. Unless, of course, you drop the other bookend and shatter it!

If you didn't know about this particular mobisode until just now, I'm actually sorry I told you about it. It simply should not exist. Lost begins with the pilot episode, and that's that.

So, on with that!

I would have testified about my happy memory of sitting down to watch the two-hour Lost pilot for the first time back in September of 2004. I'd have bet money on it. And I'd have lost that bet, because every reference I can find says that it aired originally as two separate hours, during two different weeks. It's even two separate episodes on the DVD. Nevertheless, I chose to watch it all in one sitting this time around.

It's remarkable just how much about what Lost would become, what its defining characteristics would be, were present right there in the first two hours. The flashback structure was in place (albeit without the familiar whooshing sound effect to bridge in and out of them), used here to show Jack, Kate, and Charlie's perspective on the plane crash itself. Composer Michael Giacchino began his brilliant work right out of the gate, establishing at least four major musical motifs that would endure for the entire run of the show. "The monster" menaced from the forest, though was not yet revealed as black smoke.

Character was clearly demonstrated to be the major focus, even amidst all the Island weirdness (and there was plenty of that too). For every polar bear in the jungle, every mysterious distress signal on a loop for 16 years, there was a character mystery to keep equal count. What's written on the paper that Sawyer's reading? What did Kate do that had her in a U.S. marshal's custody?

In fact, character was so solid from the outset that many of the characters were already displaying traits that would define them for the bulk of the show. Hurley was already a caretaker looking after others (particularly Claire, in this episode). Michael was already spending almost every moment running around looking for Walt. (His first line of the first episode? "Walt! Walt!!") Sawyer is already calling people names (though he would do a lot better than "Lard-O," given time.)

But one character really stands out as being quite inconsistent with how we would later know her: Kate. The Kate of the pilot is a much weaker woman than the one we would come to know over six years, or for that matter, even by the end of the first year. She's nervous about stitching up Jack's wound. She seems far more terrified of the monster than Jack or Charlie. She's uncertain how to unload a gun (though you could claim that this was just an act, trying to maintain a "cover" at this point in time). Make no mistake, she doesn't come off as a helpless damsel in distress. (No, we had Shannon around for that!) But she's rather mousy compared to the character she would become. Perhaps that just says that no matter how hard killing a man and going on the run is, how much that would change you, being on the Island is harder and will change you more. (And I believe that.)

Some people expressed frustration with Lost over the years at the way that characters would often hold back information. (Well, the frustration I think was more with the other characters, who wouldn't demand the full truth from the info-holders.) This "secret agenda" element was baked right there in the pilot too. When Jack, Kate, and Charlie all head off into the jungle to look for the cockpit, they're all doing it for different reasons. Only Jack is operating at face value, actually looking for a radio to send a distress signal that will help the whole group. Kate's really just wanting to keep close tabs on any potential rescue, to keep her secret safe and make sure no one knows or learns that she's a fugitive. And Charlie's just in it to retrieve his drugs from the lavatory.

Behind the scenes, there were some things set from day one too. Damon Lindelof, one of the two show runners that saw Lost through all the way to the end, co-wrote the pilot episode. But in a key difference between how things began and how they ended, the other head writer, Carlton Cuse, didn't even start on the show until later in the first season.

And then there was J.J. Abrams. This was years before he directed Star Trek, or even Mission: Impossible 3, but he was still a known name from Alias and Felicity. And he got a lot of the credit for Lost for years, long past the point where he was involved with the show on any regular basis. (He was pulling away almost immediately, for the most part.)

Yet Abrams definitely was key in starting Lost on the course it would sail. The writing in the pilot bears a lot of his signatures (as one who watched those other Abrams shows can readily identify), and the entire writing staff would continue to mimic these sensibilities after he was gone. Plus, he directed the pilot episode. It not only established a look and feel that would remain basically consistent for the entire run, but was an awesome achievement just in and of itself. It was the most expensive pilot ever made by ABC, costing upwards of $10 million, and you really see it all on the screen. Sweeping shots of the beautiful Hawaii locations, clever use of visual effects...

...and that opening sequence! It feels like most of that multi-million dollar budget is right there on the screen in the extended opening, the immediate aftermath of the plane crash as Jack rushes around helping different people in the midst of complete pandemonium. What an attention grabbing start to the series!

The two hours contained strong character moments for nearly every major character. Among the highlights that would come back again later in the show: Jack tells Kate the story of his botched spinal surgery, and "counting to five" as a way to accept, but then compartmentalize, fear. Sun submits to the domineering Jin, but defiantly unbuttons the top button of her blouse when he isn't looking. Rose's thread of separation from her husband Bernard is introduced.

Random factoid that wasn't ever important later: did you know that Jack took a few flying lessons?

And yes, the first questions that would never be answered were here in the pilot as well. One is but a trifle. Why was Rousseau's repeating distress signal left running for 16 years? It seems to me like the Others would have wanted to turn that off at some point. Well, like I said, not a terribly important question to consider.

But perhaps more worth consideration: why did the smoke monster kill the Oceanic pilot? Obviously, as a writer's device at the time, it was to make the monster a credible threat to our heroes. But in the full spectrum of the series, we know that the monster was really the Man in Black, and he never acted without a reason. You have to imagine a reason here. Personally, I don't think I have one that I feel holds a lot of water, but maybe something will occur to me as I watch more episodes.

I've saved for last my pick for the coolest scene in the pilot. With the benefit of knowing the full course of the show, I believe that honor goes to the scene in which Locke explains the game of backgammon to Walt. Two opposing forces, Locke says. Five thousand years old. One light, one dark. That is the conflict between Jacob and the Man in Black, expressed in metaphor right there in the very first episode.

Now, I don't believe this was specifically planned. Even if you give the writers credit for thinking in the back of their minds that maybe the Monster might be a He and not an It, I think there's no way they knew who the hell Jacob was at this point in the game, or that the fundamental struggle on the Island was between these two brothers, several millennia old. But I think they did know that good vs. evil, light vs. dark, was going to be a major recurring theme on the show. A character's own past contrasting with his present. Maybe even the idea of "Others" on the Island in conflict with Our Heroes. They lucked out with the "thousands of years old" reference, but I think they did know the scope of the tale they hoped to one day tell, and laid a beautiful groundwork for it here in episode one.

And the scene was capped with the first of many brilliant line deliveries by Terry O'Quinn as Locke: "Do you want to know a secret?" (The miraculous recovery of his ability to walk, perhaps?)

So, wow, that was a lot. But I think it appropriate, since it was clear from the first episode that Lost was going to be a lot, offer a lot, provoke a lot of thought. The pilot episode kicked this off in perfect fashion. I rate it an unqualified A.

Lost Re-Found

It's been about two months now since Lost finished its six year run. Almost as soon as it was over, I started to think about watching the entire series again, from the beginning. I wasn't interested in doing it to see where the various "loose threads" had been left hanging out, or to look for signs of careful planning ahead by the writers. Not mainly, anyway. Really, I wanted to start watching it again as a loving fan, not to pick nits, to experience it all again. After all, Lost would most definitely be the kind of storytelling in which one could find all new layers of depth and meaning on a second viewing.

As I'd been pondering this, and waiting for just a little more "distance" from the finale, I actually had a couple different people mention to me that they actually missed my weekly Lost episode comments and analysis here on the blog. That surprised me a little, I think, since I really wasn't sure anybody actually liked me droning on too much about TV shows. But then, Lost is kind of special that way.

In any case, I decided that when I did start watching the show again, I'd follow along on the blog. So this is the introduction, leading into what I suppose will eventually total to another 100-plus posts about the episodes of Lost. I have no schedule here; it's not going to be a weekly thing, or twice-weekly thing, or any other particular thing. When I watch a new episode, and have nothing else particularly pressing I want to post about, I'll talk about the old Lost episode I watched recently.

I would hope it goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway. The whole point in doing this is to reconsider every episode of Lost with full knowledge of what the whole is. Translation: there will be SPOILERS. So if you haven't yet watched the entire series, you'll want to skip out until you can catch up.

Lost had all sorts of ancillary story bits attached to it. There was the tie-in novel supposedly written by one of the crash survivors. (Well, he survived long enough to get sucked through the engine in the pilot episode.) There was the alternate reality game run between two of the seasons. There was the video game. Plenty of other things too. I'm going to ignore all of that, as I mostly ignored it the first time around...

With one exception. Between seasons three and four, a series of 13 weekly mobile phone mobisodes, Lost: Missing Pieces, was released in a lead-up to the premiere of season four. Each episode was a single scene in a non-continuing narrative, just a little something extra that fit somewhere in the three years of Lost up to that point in time -- almost like a deleted scene. They were included on the season four DVD set, and somehow seem more "official" to me than some of this other side content. I mean, they even feature a lot of the main actors (and recurring guest actors). They're also "dated" online by helpful Lost fans, placed in their chronologically correct places during the show. So I figure I'll watch those at the appropriate times, and comment on them as part of the episode they belong "in" or "near." I mention all this right off the bat, because one of those mobisodes is connected to the pilot itself.

I'd actually planned on just jumping right in with my first review, but of course the pilot episode is worthy of more commentary than most, and I've already rambled on quite a bit just setting this whole thing up. So in the hopes of avoiding the internet pitfall of "too long; didn't read," (too late) I'll pick this thread up soon. (Tomorrow? Next week? Like I said, I don't intend to set a schedule for this.)

And if you aren't a fan of Lost? Well, you can start ignoring a fair chunk of my blog posts all over again.

Minor League

I'm a fan of Jay Baruchel's from the Judd Apatow show Undeclared, but not enough of one that I wanted to see She's Out of My League when it was out in theaters earlier this year. It looked like it could be good for a few laughs, but probably wasn't anything great. So into the Netflix queue it went.

As it turns out, my expectations of the film were a bit off. The film actually wasn't good for a few laughs. I don't know if I was looking for American Pie/There's Something About Mary hijinks and/or gross-outs, or just standard romantic comedy chuckles, but I found the movie to be almost steadfastly unfunny. It wasn't tedious or anything, but it never really rose above a sort of robotic "ah yes, I see how that would be considered funny" kind of humor.

That said, the movie actually tells a pretty decent story regardless. It's standard rom-com fare, but it's very well put together. The guy is likable, the girl is likable. The friends are entertaining. The families are perfectly crafted obstacles. The story covers all the expected, necessary beats for this kind of film. You get exactly what you expect from one of these movies, and no stone is left unturned.

If you've seen any of the series Undeclared, then you know exactly the sort of work Jay Baruchel is doing here. He's perfectly cast for this part, and does a fine job. So's the female lead, Alice Eve, who has the unenviable job of having to believably portray the "perfect girl." Along the way, there are some other faces you might recognize, including Mike Vogel (The Deaths of Ian Stone and Cloverfield), Nate Torrence (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip), and Debra Jo Rupp (That 70s Show). No one's winning awards here, but everyone does well with their roles.

So, totaling it all up -- a sweetly made romantic comedy that does exactly what it should with the romance and falls short on the comedy. "Nice personality, average looks." Or maybe that's "nice looks, bad personality?" In any case, I'd call it a C+. You'll probably think it's alright if you watch it, but it's nothing to clear your schedule for.

The Light Fantasticks

Tonight, I was back at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder, this time to see one of two productions my friend is stage managing this season. This one actually isn't work by Shakespeare, but is quite famous in its own way: The Fantasticks. This musical holds the distinction of being the longest running piece of theater in American history, and the longest-running musical anywhere in the world; it first appeared off-Broadway in 1960, and closed 42 years later, after over 17,000 performances. By comparison, the currently longest running musical on Broadway, The Phantom of the Opera, (which I believe was running when I visited New York for the first time back in junior high!) is only right around half that number.

Why perform it at a Shakespeare Festival? Well, for one, it's stuffed to bursting with references to Shakespeare. There's a traveling player very much in the style of the Player from Hamlet. The character quotes (and mis-quotes) lines from several of Shakespeare's plays. And the plot is an adaptation of a play, Les Romanesques, that is itself a bit of a parody of Romeo and Juliet. In a nutshell, two fathers who want their two children to fall in love and marry pretend to feud with one other as rivals so that their children will stubbornly pursue a love that is "forbidden."

So first, my take on the play itself. I won't sugar coat it. It's plastic, naugahyde... fake, fake, fake. The characters are shallow, their actions broad. The emotions are trite. The songs seem packaged and processed. The characters even speak right to the audience and tell you their enacting a play for your enjoyment. And the whole thing creaks like it's far older than even the half-century it is. It's a simple little confection that goes down like candy and is just as short-lived in offering any satisfaction. This out-classic-musicals any classic musical I've ever seen or heard of.

But -- and I don't say this only because a friend of mine was involved -- this was really a perfect presentation of such a show. The whole theater, walls and ceiling, was coated in odd structures of "found art," strange conglomerations of what you could imagine they just found in prop storage. Some members of the audience were seated on stage, facing back out toward the bulk of the house. A ramp was built from the back of the house to go over seats and lead right up to center stage. The instrumental accompaniment (two instruments only, as is traditional for this show) was seated right on stage too. In short, this production approached the material in such a way that embraced the theatricality of the musical and forced it right into your face. It didn't apologize for anything it was, it celebrated it.

The cast was pretty good overall. In particular, the parents of the young couple (played by Tammy Meneghini and Timothy Orr) were excellent, great singers who had a great rapport on stage with each other. (Note that, as is common in repertory company theater, one of these parents was a male role re-cast as a female, which worked just fine here.) The cast had to work extra-hard to perform a musical essentially in the round, but did well with it.

As for my friend's work on it? Well, to the outside world, stage managing is an unsung role. The director and cast can't get by without a good one. And when a show has a good one, nothing goes wrong -- not that the audience ever notices, anyway. So in running what seemed to be an effortless show, hats off to my friend!

So in summary, a fine production... but of a show I probably wouldn't recommend. A theatrical equivalent of a well-made movie that you nevertheless don't care for much. But in a way, still an entertaining night at the theater.