The Return

Wow it's been a long time since I've been here. I'm really sorry that I haven't updated this thing since May, but life has been very, very busy. I still am busy, but I'm going to try to make an effort to get some new posts up. Sadly for the Rome fans out there, I think I'm going to put that project on hold for now. I may need to rewatch it before I post. Instead, I'm going to move on to two very different shows.

First up, I'll delve into another HBO show, The Wire, which is seen by many as the greatest television show ever made. I wouldn't call it my favorite, but it is definitely one of the smartest, highest quality shows I've ever seen. I will look at how it portrayed the city of Baltimore and how it examined the current state of our nation through the people and institutions of a "broke-ass city."

After that, I will do a run on Avatar: The Last Airbender. I recently watched this in the wake of the new live-action movie, which was universally panned by critics. However, one of the main points in all the reviews was that it was based upon a superb animated series. Eventually I gave it a chance and fell absolutely in love with characters and the world.

Although at first glance it seems like these two shows couldn't be more different, there are more similarities than you'd think. Both are very novelistic in nature; each season tells a story, but the totality of all the seasons make up a greater, overarching story. (I've often described Avatar: The Last Airbender as "the Harry Potter of television" to people in order to pique their interest; in addition to the structure, the character development and themes are very mature for a "kids' show.") They also both deal with very mature ideas, although The Wire does it in a much more real way.

Up next: When you walk through the garden...

The Way We Were

I don't know why I don't watch HBO shows when they are actually running (I mean, aside from the fact that I don't have HBO). During the summer of 2008, I watched the entirety of Six Feet Under, 3 years after it ended, and enjoyed it immensely. The Sopranos and The Wire have been hailed as two of the best series of all time, and based on other things I like, I should love Curb Your Enthusiasm (though I've seen 2 episodes and was not won over, though I may try again, if only to see the Seinfeld "reunion").

I also saw Deadwood that summer, 2 years after it ended, and was once again blown away by the depth of the show, as well as what the writers were able to do without the constraints of network standards and practices. I am currently watching Rome, after it was heavily recommended by some friends, and so far it is incredible. So my next series of posts will be on Deadwood and Rome (hopefully by the time I get to that series, I will have nearly completed it), examining their views on society, politics, and life in general.

Deadwood was about the creation of a society, following a town in a part of the North American continent that was destined to become, but was not yet, part of the United States. The inhabitants initially lived without actual laws, but had to conform to some kind of system in order to avoid pure chaos. Rome starts at the twilight of the Roman republic, a decade or two before the rise of the empire. So far, the class struggle has been a central aspect of the series, and it examines the lives of various types of people in the ancient democracy.

Up next: The wild west...

Going Indie

I think I've said before that the time from the summer before my senior year of high school to the summer before my freshman year of college was a very important period for my current tastes in entertainment. They were certainly developed when I got to college, but I doubt I would have had a chance to develop them if the foundation was laid during those 15 months. The year before, I started watching 24 during its second season, and that was the first heavily serialized show that I watched regularly. Most other things I watched were silly sitcoms that, for the most part, had almost no overarching plot (I think Drew Carey came the closest). But during that time, I started watching Buffy, Angel, Firefly, and Stargate SG-1. The first three are still shows that I adore, and although I have all but abandoned the Stargate franchise (SG-1 did have some incredible episodes, and the new series looks like it could be enjoyable if it can adequately use what made Battlestar Galactica amazing without ripping it off), it was important for me to get in to that show because, in some ways, it served as a springboard into better shows. After all, people could make compelling arguments that if I liked that, I would like other shows. (My freshman year of college also helped because Galactica, LOST, and Veronica Mars all debuted that year.)

But that time was also my introduction to independent films. I doubt I'd seen a single independent film before those 15 months, or if I had, I either don't remember it, or it became so big and mainstream as to not qualify anymore. During the summer before my freshman year of college, I saw three films that opened the doorway to my love of indie films (don't get me wrong, as this site demonstrates, I am by no means opposed to studio films). Clerks, Lost in Translation, and Garden State each introduced me to something new, and made me realize that there was a whole world of film that most people didn't even know about.

Up next: 37 salsa sharks...

Summer's End

I've been back from Europe for about a week (and have been meaning to do posts on the new Mad Men and the original pilot of Dollhouse, but have been very busy) and I start classes again tomorrow. In that time, I've seen three movies, all of which I feel are worth discussing here. Sadly, unlike the other summer movies I talked about, I did not see these ones for free, but they were definitely worth seeing.

Up first is Funny People, Judd Apatow's latest film, which is about the life of comedians, both successful and blossoming. Next is District 9, a science fiction film that came out of nowhere and made huge waves. It is an analogue for apartheid, and tells a very interesting story of what might happen if aliens came to Earth. Lastly is Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds, an alternate history World War II thriller that may be the most entertaining movie I've seen all summer. The film clearly deals in wish fulfillment, but there are genuine themes and ideas behind all the war violence.

I will try to get some Mad Men posts in as the show goes on, and I'm debating whether a discussion on the original and no-longer-canon Dollhouse pilot is necessary.

Up next: Tears of a clown...

Star Wars Intermission

Hey everyone,
I am currently studying abroad in Prague, Czech Republic, which explains why I haven't done any posts recently. I will probably finish my Star Wars series when I get home in mid-August. In the meantime, I have a few posts that will be quick and easy for me to post. First up, as promised, is the post on Humpday, written by my fellow blogger, who took my tickets when I had to duck out of the screening. After that, I will have a brief Comic Con update which is made possible by Ain't It Cool News.

Up next: Straight gay sex...

Worlds Building

My friend said that she will get a post about Humpday, the free movie I had to give up my tickets to, written within a few weeks, so I will post it when I get it. The "Up next" line at the end of my last post has two meanings. The first meaning is that, next Friday, I will be leaving for Prague, Czech Republic for a month-long study abroad program, and I doubt I will do much posting while I am there. The other meaning refers to my next post series, which will probably be different than the style of most of what I have already published. I got the idea on July 4th, when I was over at a friend's house. We were supposed to go to the beach to watch the fireworks at Navy Pier, but the weather wasn't cooperating. Instead, we stayed in and turned on the TV. Return of the Jedi was on, and my friends and I started talking about various aspects of the Star Wars films, from the politics of the Empire, to the moral ambiguity of Darth Vader, to the quality of the prequel trilogy.

I can't believe I haven't done a Star Wars post yet for various reasons. For one thing, it is one of the most "holy" aspects of geek culture. It was the first of the "Trinity of Trilogies" released from the late 70s through the late 80s (the other two have already been covered here [Indiana Jones and Back to the Future]; interestingly, they are all connected through their creators because George Lucas created Star Wars, worked with Steven Spielberg on Indiana Jones, and Spielberg produced Back to the Future). The original trilogy has been referenced, parodied, and studied ad nauseum by filmmakers, scholars, and fans. Kevin Smith probably owes half of his estate to George Lucas, and Darth Vader has become a cultural icon.

In addition, there was a time in my life when I was absolutely obsessed with Star Wars; I saw the original trilogy an inordinate amount of times, I read the Young Jedi Knights books featuring Han and Leia's twin children as they trained to become Jedi (as I recently learned, one of them eventually became a Sith), and I eagerly anticipated the release of Episode I. My birthday is in May (for a long time, I was under the impression that the original film had been released on my birthday in 1977, although I later learned it was released about a week later), and when Episode I was released days after my birthday, my party was a Star Wars extravaganza culminating in my friends and I going to the movie (some of us for at least the second time).

I still highly anticipated the other two prequels, but after Episode I, my fandom decreased dramatically. Years later, after watching Firefly, there was a time when I had actual antipathy for the Star Wars universe due to the sheer "blind faith" that many people had for the series. I have since come to terms with the fact that (1) Firefly will never be as loved and (2) there are plenty of good aspects of the Star Wars universe. However, I certainly don't see the films the way I once did.

This post series will focus on various aspects of the six films (I am not going to venture too far out into the "Expanded Universe" of the multitude of books, games, comics, etc.). I will examine the politics (which were almost non-existent in the original trilogy and an enormous aspect of the prequel trilogy), morality in the galaxy far, far away, including the failings I now see in the Jedi Code, and how the series has influenced me in ways I did not realize until relatively recently.

Up next: Restoring order to the galaxy...

500 Movies of Summer

This has been an incredible summer for me on the movie front; thanks to the website Ain't It Cool News and its Chicago correspondent, I have seen three movies for free, and I won a fourth, but due to family stuff, I had to miss it. In addition to that, someone invited me to see a movie that she had won free tickets to. Finally, although the final movie wasn't free, it does make the list due to the circumstances under which I saw it.

Every now and then, Capone, the Chicago correspondent for AICN holds contests for free screenings in Chicago. He asks questions related to the films and the people with the best answers get tickets. Through that site, I have seen Up, Moon, and Public Enemies (that one was even introduced by its director, Michael Mann) for free. For example, the question for Up asked us to talk about an adventure we wanted to have as a kid. I was able to see Land of the Lost for free when someone offered me a ticket to it after winning a pair from a radio station. And I went to a screening of (500) Days of Summer when it premiered at a Chicago film festival. It wasn't free, but for $25 per ticket, I saw that movie, and incredible short film called The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon, which were introduced by their directors and lead actors, a Q&A session with the directors and stars afterwards, tickets to an open bar after party at Bon V, and possibly the greatest goodie bag I've ever received.

I have already covered Up, so I would skip to the next movie I saw, Land of the Lost. However, that film is not up to the standards of the worlds I talk about here (I'll explain my feelings about Will Ferrell in the next post), so instead, I will talk about a great Will Ferrell movie, Stranger Than Fiction. I will then talk about the other movies I've seen, and I am hoping that a friend of mine and fellow blogger (she writes Adventures of a Grad Student in the Kitchen) will do a guest post. I won tickets to a movie called Humpday through AICN, but I had to give them away when I learned of some family plans. It was a bit of a fortuituous coincidence for the friend who got them because she is from Seattle, and Humpday was filmed there (it uses an actual Seattle-based event as the basis for its story).

Up next: Death and taxes...

A Sampling of Mel Brooks

I wonder why I haven't even mentioned Mel Brooks yet in The Other Worlds. He has made some very iconic films that have influenced films to this very day (however, often with lackluster results). He parodied numerous different genres with spectacular results and proved time and again that he could make light of various cliches, foibles, and icons. He and his talented actors (he had a few people he worked with constantly, like Gene Wilder, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Harvey Korman, and Cloris Leachman) went where few filmmakers had gone before in order to get laughs, and they succeeded admirably.

I am going to focus on at least three of his movies, Spaceballs, Blazing Saddles, and Young Frankenstein (that is the order in which I saw them), and I may possibly go over History of the World, Part I, though I don't remember that one as well as I do the others. He has plenty of other movies, some of which are fantastic (High Anxiety), some of which aren't (Dracula: Dead and Loving It), but I selected the ones that mean the most to me.

Up next: The end for now...

Animation Domination

I have a planned series to do, but first, I wanted to write a brief post on the movie Coraline. I was thinking the other day about movies that I've seen this year and how, for the most part, they've been pretty lackluster. I think the only two absolutely good movies I've seen so far in 2009 have been animated; one of them is Up, which I already wrote about, and the other is Coraline (also, both movies have been in 3D).

I think that I meant to do something about Coraline a little while back, so I have decided to go over it now.

Up next: A dream come true...

The Best of the Best

With Dollhouse finishing its first season and this great comic series from XKCD.com, I've been on a bit of a Joss Whedon kick. So I've decided to take a look back at his first three series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Firefly and do some Top Episode lists. I will do Top Ten lists for Buffy and Angel and a Top Three list for Firefly (that will cover 20% of its episodes... oh, and I'm not counting the film Serenity as an episode, but the episode "Serenity" obviously is).

Now you're probably thinking, Andrew, this is a lame placeholder. Well let me tell you something: ...you're probably right. With law school, I haven't had a lot of time to delve into new worlds, but if I was going to do a place holder about anything, Joss Whedon's worlds are the best places because of my vast affection for them. So get ready for some in-depth looks at some of the finest hours of television ever produced.

Up next: But first...

From A Hospital To High School

When I was writing about the last (?) episode of Scrubs, I mentioned Clone High, a short-lived animated show on MTV from the creators of Scrubs. The series was a parody of melodramatic teen shows like 90210 and Dawson's Creek, but the teens in the show were clones of historic figures. I probably won't do an extended look at the show, but I think that is it fairly obscure and something that most of my readers would enjoy (one of them introduced me to the show while another loathes it, so that assumption is more about me projecting my own likes onto my readers).

Up next: Their angst is entertaining...

Two Rather Unrelated Worlds

I had planned to just do a series on Adult Swim's The Venture Bros. because it tied in with the comic book posts I just did (which had a lot of TV posts interspersed). Venture is a show that parodies things like Johnny Quest, Marvel and DC comics, music, and pulp novels. I still plan on doing a post series on Venture next, but I saw the play RENT for the first time this weekend, and I really enjoyed it. I then realized that it is, in some ways, the opposite side of the coin occupied by Avenue Q (or really, Avenue Q is the opposite side of RENT because RENT came first), and I thought of my comparison of Runaways and Young Avengers. I thought that I had as good an opening as any to talk about the play.

Up next: Go Team Venture!...

The Real and the Young

The Watchmen movie comes out today, and I think that it is time to do a brief Watchmen analysis. But at the same time, I have had the Marvel series Young Avengers on my mind. It started when I lent a friend my collection of Brian K. Vaughan's Y: The Last Man. Vaughan also wrote Runaways, which I tend to associate with Young Avengers for reasons I will explain in the post series, and I wanted to discuss that series.

Up next: There are no heroes here...

The Wizard of England

I don't know why I haven't gotten to this yet. I actually planned on doing a post series on this much earlier (I think I mentioned doing it way back when I was writing about His Dark Materials, and I'm sure I've mentioned it often). But today, I overheard a few of my classmates discussing this series (and dressing up as the characters... these are law students, remember). What am I talking about? Harry Potter.

This series may have started out as a children's series, but it became so much more. The underlying themes were very realistic and heavy parables for racism and hate, and this series tackled these themes better than some adult stories.

In this series, I want to examine the story, the themes, and the mythology of the Harry Potter series. I will also give a few opinions on what I think could have been done if author J.K. Rowling had not been trying to make an all-ages book (though a few of my ideas could have been incorporated into the books in the manner that they are in now), and I will also briefly look at the film series.

Up next: Magic words...

The Insanity of War

I've wanted to write about Dr. Strangelove for a while, but I could never figure out the context in which to do so. Over break, I finally read Catch-22, and I realized that I could look at the two works as examples of the insanity inherent to war. Each world is a satirical look at the idea of war and the people who fight in them.

Dr. Strangelove examines the Cold War, while Catch-22 takes place in World War II. The insanity involved with the Cold War involved mistrust, brinksmanship, and paranoia. World War II (and any other shooting war, for that matter) was insane because people were fighting battles that they would likely die in, because their country told them to. I will grant World War II a slight reprieve; Hitler certainly had to be stopped, but putting one's life on the line probably seemed like not the best idea at certain times.

I don't want to discuss the themes too in-depth in this introductory post because I want to keep them for the actual posts. However, before I start, I want to do one unrelated post. You'll see why.

Up next: Who wants to be a millionaire?...

The Time Has Come

I was thinking about what my next post series should be about (one of my friends suggested doing one on superhero movies, which, if I do, will come after seeing Watchmen), and I have decided to do one on 24. I find this particularly appropriate because in less than 2 days, Barack Obama will be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States, and this actually has two connections to 24. First, 24 was known in its early seasons for featuring a black president (Palmer For President!!), and second, the show was very much a product of the Bush administration. The show dealt with terrorism, torture, and shady politics.

I have not yet started watching the new season, so this series will be more about the rise and fall of the show (oh Season 6, how the mighty have fallen). I will examine how it started out as a novel way to tell a story, how it became a cultural phenomenon, and then, in the eyes of many, a cultural punchline.

Up next: The longest day of his life...

The Fantastic, The Mundane, and The Real

At long last, I have finished Neil Gaiman's magnum opus, The Sandman. The comic is considered one of the greatest in history, usually ranked behind only Alan Moore's Watchmen on the lists of best and most important comic series. I promised that I would do a series on it once I finished, and I am very excited to begin. The Sandman is about life and the importance of stories, and while I don't think it has "changed my life", it has certainly made me think about storytelling and certain aspects of humanity differently.

While thinking of Gaiman's style of mixing the fantastic with the mundane, my thoughts wandered to Fables, a current comic book by Bill Willingham, which is published under DC's vertigo imprint, which was partially created by Gaiman with Sandman. The very nature of Fables combines magic and mundane, as it follows exiled fairy tale characters who must live out their lives in our world after a cruel dictator came to power in their Homelands. Most critics claim that Fables is the best comic in production right now, and it is very hard to argue that. Some have even claimed that it could be as good as Sandman (to that I say that is like comparing apples and oranges because the two books are very different once you get past the whole "fantasy and reality" similarity).

Finally, I want to begin with a brief post on Watchmen. I will probably wait until the movie is released to do a series on Watchmen itself (you know, for one post on comparisons and such), but a certain thing happened the other day that I believe merits discussion.

Up next: Taking the law into your own hands...

Live Fast, Die Young

Up next, I am not going to focus on a theme that covers a few different topics. Instead, I am going to look at two or three worlds that I've been thinking about recently. First up is Freaks and Geeks; this has been a long time coming, and after talking about nostalgia and Biff Tannen and Back to the Future, I figured it was finally time (I considered including Freaks and Geeks in the nostalgia series, but realized that it wouldn't fit the way I wanted it to; also, Thomas F. Wilson, who played Biff, is a recurring character, so that is how he enters into it).

Sadly, as happens too often, Freaks and Geeks was an incredible series that had critical acclaim and ardent support from a small group of fans, but was canceled quickly. The show told it like it was for most people in high school (the taglines were, "Everything you remember about high school... that you wish you could forget" and "What high school was like for everyone else"), and it was both extremely funny and extremely sad. I find it very probable that many people shied away from it because they didn't want to be reminded of such hard times they may have had (also, the networked fucked up the promotion).

I also want to look at two movies, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and The Shawshank Redemption, both of which have been on my mind lately. Eternal Sunshine is sometimes billed as a romantic comedy, but that is a stretch. It is funny and a love story is at the center of the film, but the film examines what it means to love and what our memories mean. And Shawshank is an incredible tale of what hope can do for you.

Up next: Bad reputation...

The Good Old Days Weren't Always Good

Next, I want to look at worlds that examine the past and point out that our nostalgia for simpler times is probably misplaced. To do this, I will examine Pleasantville and Mad Men, a wonderful movie and television series (if I think of anything else, I will include it as well).

Each one points out the downsides of their respective eras in different ways; Pleasantville demonstrates that the 50s weren't as idyllic as we believe them to be, no matter what old television shows like The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet might tell us. The movie is about two teenagers from the 90s being sucked into a 50s-era TV show, and completely ruining the "utopian" setting. However, in doing so, they make the characters human.

Mad Men takes place in the 60s, and is about the change from the conformist 50s to the more liberal 60s and 70s, and is examined through the eyes of advertising executives on Madison Avenue. The series looks at how these men and their families try to be happy, because they believe that they have everything, and should be happy, but under the surface, darkness lurks in everyone. The series points out the radically different cultural norms by specifically not pointing them out, leaving it up to the viewer to expect one thing, only to be amazed when the reaction defies what we consider to be morally right.

Up next: TV Land...

The Televised Worlds of Matt Groening

One of my friends has suggested that I look at Matt Groening's two animated shows, The Simpsons and Futurama. These are two of the most celebrated animated series of the modern era (if not ever); The Simpsons has been on for about twenty years, and for about half of that time, it displayed a brilliance that few shows ever even approach (ok, so the later years have gotten kinda bad, but it's hard to maintain something so good that long, and there is the occasional episode now that harkens back to the show's glory days). On the other hand, Futurama got the "FOX treatment" and was mishandled for the four or five years that it was on the air; frequent timeslot changes and underpromotion made it hard to develop much of a fanbase at the time it was on, but the loyal fans it did amass spread the word, allowing the fanbase to grow as the DVDs were released (sound like a few other FOX shows?) and when reruns started airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim. The post-mortem popularity led to four direct-to-DVD movies that will (presumably) tie up the loose ends of the series.

Futurama had a definite sense of continuity that the writers tried to maintain, which sets it distincly apart from The Simpsons (the fact that three of the main characters are children, and much of the humor is derived from family satire, a sliding timeline is used, thus hindering continuity). One of the things I will examine is the world-building aspect of both shows; The Simpsons may not have an overarching story, but it excels at character development. Springfield, USA is a thoroughly populated town, and we have immense knowledge about everyone from the minister to the local TV personalities, from the convenience store clerk to the school principal. Futurama, on the other hand, builds a world with consequences to actions and ongoing agendas and desires. This isn't to say that either show totally lacks the quality I mentioned for the other (though Futurama has much more character development than The Simpsons has continuity), rather that each show focuses on a different type of storytelling.

Up next: Welcome to Springfield...