Central Cortex

We're having another slow morning today, downloading photos off our cameras, blogging and recovering from our marathon day trip to the big island of Hawaii yesterday. Beth booked a trip with Polynesian Adventure Tours that required us to get up by 4:30 AM and didn't get us back to Oahu until about 9:30 PM. It was a difficult schedule, but worth it for all the ground we covered, and the cool sights we saw. These included: the Mauna Loa macadamia nut farm and factory, an orchid farm, the Kilauea caldera, the black lava plains of Kupaianaha, and a distant view of new land being made where magma is spilling into the sea. It being daytime, we couldn't actually see any red glow, but the huge acidic cloud hovering over the outlet repeatedly pulsed with brownish explosions. Hot stuff!

The other big day trip so far was to the Polynesian Cultural Center just north of us in Laie. It was a total tourist trap, complete with staffers who took photos of each group to be sold later at $18 a pop, some sketchily differentiated "island" areas with timed programming of music and dance, an Imax theater, a buffet-style luau, and a final stage show titled "Horizons" that had some cool fire-juggling at the end. The weirdest thing about the place is that it is owned and operated by Brigham Young University -- a Mormon college with 95% Mormon students. Being a skeptical person, I kept wondering what religious agenda the place was trying to promote, but I never identified anything. It just seemed like a money-making venture.

The rest of our time has been spent in Honolulu at the zoo or various restaurants, hiking, swimming in the deliciously warm ocean at the beach, and driving on roads with names like "Kamehameha", "Likelike" and "Kalanianaole". It's all starting to seem normal. Nice!

I hope to post at least one more dispatch before we leave next week. In the mean time, check out the new Hawaii photo album in my gallery.

tags: Hawaii

I just watched the first episode of Joss Whedon's web musical, Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog. It is hilarious, in the vein of silly superhero creations like The Tick and Mystery Men, but with Sondheim-esque compositions! It stars Neil Patrick Harris, Felicia Day, and Nathan Fillion! It was independently produced by Joss and his relations! It is the future of entertainment financing and distribution!

No joke, I watched it five times already (via iTunes download, because the demand caused the free web site to crash). You will love it. Go see.

And that's not the half of it! I still have a new Hellboy movie to watch; the Batman movie comes out in a few days; the X-Files movie premiers July 25; and my birthday follows two days later. And then I'm going to Hawaii for two weeks. My head asplode. Yay!

tags: Dr. Horrible

I just learned from Making Light that Thomas M. Disch, the author of 334 and On Wings of Song -- two of the best works of SF I've ever read -- killed himself two days ago. Damn. Fucking damn it. Yes, he was a bastard sometimes, particularly lately, but he wrote some amazing stuff that spoke of a larger spirit and artistic sensibility than most people ever know. I wish he had had a better life.

ETA: NY Times Obituary

tags: Thomas M. Disch

It's a couple of days into WisCon, and I'm struggling to keep up with all the programming, people, and basic physical needs like eating and sleeping. But I'm hanging out with Liz and John and getting reconnected with lots of other folks and blogging, and it is good. I plan to write something up after the convention, but in the mean time I've been posting to Feminist SF -- The Blog! Go there if you're interested in up to the minute reports.

tags: WisCon 32

Last night I joined my sister, a friend of hers, and my nephew for a kickass performance by They Might Be Giants at Higher Ground. I saw these guys perform back in the late '80s when they visited my college, and I swear they look exactly the same as they did back then. The cool thing is, they've produced about 20 million albums in the interval, so they had a lot more songs to choose from. The show was great -- full of humor, energy, and unexpected wackiness. Highlights for my nephew included battling me with one of the giant foam fingers that were handed out before the show and joining the conga line that John Flansburgh berated into existence halfway through. There were not one, but TWO encores, the second of which included the ever-popular "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)", introduced with an amazing Spanish-style acoustic guitar performance by Dan Miller.

And if the performance wasn't good enough, I felt completely at home amongst the nerdy crowd. I had a nice chat with Bill Simmon and Emily Stoneking, and saw a number of other people I recognized. And as I was driving out of the parking lot at 10:45, I guffawed at the sight of a license plate that said "TARDIS". Yep, pretty much a perfect night.

Finally, we're officially out of winter. Yeah, we keep getting ice storms and other crapola falling out of the sky, but summer IS on the way. Thank Peep, because 2008 has been one of my least favorite years so far. Relationship distress, a nasty case of work, and an inner ear infection that gave me persistent vertigo all combined to give me an insomnia/anxiety/depression sucker punch disabling enough that I decided to take antidepressant meds for the first time in my life. I'm on the mend now, and seriously looking forward to sunshine, more time off, and having energy to write in this blog again.

So, in honor of the sunny Easter day outside, here's a link to this year's celebration of Just Born products, the 2008 Official Sacramento Peep-Off. The rules are simple: "You have 30 minutes to eat 'em, and then there's a 5 minute "cooling off period" to see if anyone is going to puke 'em up. [...] If you puke, you have to eat the puked Peeps to stay eligible." You gotta respect that "reduce/reuse/recycle" ethic.

tags: Peeps

This blog has been silent for way too long, so I decided to write a series of "best of 2007" posts. Originally it was going to be one piece, but now that I've written up the film and TV section, I realized that if I continued on at such length for the other sections (books & comics, music, and events) it would be one long winded post. So I'm starting smaller.

I'm not a very up to date person when it comes to media, so only a few things in the list below were actually released in 2007. They're just what I happened to watch last year.

The Wire, Season 3 and Homicide, Seasons 1 & 2

These two are grouped together because they are based on the same material, the 1991 book Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets by David Simon.

Last year I watched the first two seasons of The Wire, and liked them pretty well, but season 3 was when the show came together into a truly excellent and groundbreaking story. Many characters and themes from the earlier episodes continued even as the scope expanded beyond criminals and cops into a study of human nature and cultural institutions in general. The parallels between politicians, police officers, and drug pushers are often surprising and educational; after watching this season, I really felt that I understood American society better than I did before -- all while being highly entertained. The relationship between Stringer Bell and Avon Barksdale achieved Shakespearian heights at the end, Omar Little got, if possible, even cooler when faced with some moral quandaries, and Bunny Colvin may have been the most intriguing new character introduced since season 1. I belatedly realized that the guy who actually floated the idea of drug legalization in Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke, was mayor the summer I was working there (1989). To say I was absolutely clueless, about that or any of the rest of city life as depicted in the show, is almost an understatement. I’m glad to be learning it now.

Though based on the same book, Homicide has a very different feel from The Wire. It really focuses on the cops and a series of murder investigations, the episodes are more self-contained, and the cast is whiter. I’m sure this is because it aired on broadcast television rather than HBO. That being said, it’s still a damn good show, at least as far as I have watched (the end of season 2). It is often laugh-out-loud funny, and Andre Braugher is something to see in his performance as Detective Frank Pembleton. The episode “Black and Blue”, in which he demonstrates to his commander how easy it is to extract a false confession out of a suspect, totally blew me away. I think it ought to be required viewing for anyone who argues that “extreme” methods of interrogation work.

Children of Men

Director Alfonso Cuarón opted for subtlety instead of big, shiny visual effects, and the result is a triumph of immersive storytelling. Not since Blade Runner have I seen a movie that so seamlessly put me into a fully-realized future. That future is pretty damn bleak, but the movie is directed with such energy that while watching it I never had time to fall into a depressive state. Instead I found myself in awe of the cinematography and imagery. There is a scene in which the main characters are attacked while riding in a car that had me shivering in appreciation of its long-take artistry. I’ve since learned that it wasn’t actually filmed as a single take, but it’s still exhilarating to watch in a “you are there” way. The performances in the film were also great. I’ve always liked Clive Owen, but in every other role I’ve seen him play he has seemed either a little (or a lot) cold. Here he finally shows some human frailty, vulnerability, and warmth. I really enjoyed it.

When the Levees Broke

This documentary about New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina is over four hours long and worth every minute. Newsreel footage and an eye-opening series of interviews with over 20 main subjects really brought home to me the human cost of this disaster as well as the continuing mismanagement and neglect of various government agencies and politicians. This might be the most mature and important film Spike Lee has ever made, and I hope it finds an ever-widening audience, because the situation in The Big Easy hasn’t gotten any better yet.

The movies of Gurinder Chadha

I blogged about the movie Bride and Prejudice back in May. Since then, I have seen two more movies directed by Gurinder Chadha, Bend It Like Beckham and What’s Cooking? that have made me a bona fide fan of her work. All three of these films take on serious themes of bigotry, sexism, and culture clash, but do it in an unpretentious, playful manner that I think is all too rare. Going into one of her movies, I feel assured that my cultural horizons will be broadened, that I’ll spend time with some likable people, and that I’ll have fun along the way.

Fullmetal Alchemist

This 51-episode anime became my main source of entertainment in the latter half of the year. At first it seemed like a pretty silly picaresque tale of two brothers searching for a magic whoziwhatsit to solve all their problems, but as it continued almost all of the characters’ assumptions (and by extension the audience’s) were overturned in a mind-bending roller coaster ride. The investigation of people’s different perspectives and motives and how they interact in complex ways was really absorbing, as was the commentary on the dangers of power, the causes and brutality of war, and the downside of vengeance as an operating principle. That may make it sound like the show is didactic; it’s not. There’s a lot of action and humor, some occasionally shocking violence, and a collection of really memorable characters. I developed a bit of a crush on the protagonist Ed (I never thought I would say that about an animated person), and the thought of characters like tough-talking grandmother/engineer Pinako, or Major Armstrong, who is apt to transform suddenly into a shirtless muscle pose surrounded by pink shiny diamonds, will never cease to amuse. The follow-up movie, Conqueror of Shamballa, was pretty good, too.

3:10 to Yuma

This remake of a Western from the 1950s featured the best investigation of individual human psychology I saw all year. The plot is simplicity itself: a financially strapped rancher takes the job of escorting a dangerous bandit to the Yuma train station so he can be sent off to prison. What’s complicated is how their relationship evolves during the journey, which is full of ambushes, showdowns, and tense waiting for (probably bad) things to happen. The casting is what makes the movie work: despite my earlier post about Russell Crowe being a jerk, he and Christian Bale are both great, strong-willed actors, and they play off each other in a fascinating way that really brings the movie to life. By the end, their characters have converged to a point of uneasy equality in a world where everyone else is gullible, stupid, cowardly or mean. There’s a hint of romance underneath it all, not the Brokeback Mountain kind (though there's a hint of that in the character of Charlie Prince), but maybe a wild west version of Marsilio Ficino’s amor platonicus. Not that such a highfalutin term would ever come out of these men’s mouths -- and that’s a good thing. As a side note, isn't it interesting that this movie, which has been called the revival of the American western, stars two guys who aren't even Americans? Well, I think so.

2007 movies and TV I wanted to see, but didn’t for various reasons

Mad Men + The Namesake + Michael Clayton + Paprika + Once

tags: The Wire, Homicide, Children of Men, When the Levees Broke, Gurinder Chadha, Fullmetal Alchemist, 3:10 to Yuma

A few weeks ago Entertainment Weekly ran an interview with Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe, who are both starring in the new movie American Gangster. I was reading along, amused at their reminiscences of the only other movie they’ve both been in, Virtuosity (a completely nonsensical piece of trash that I sat through only because I was on a Russell Crowe kick at the time), when I was totally knocked out of the mood by the following exchange:

Russell Crowe: I said a thing to Spike [Lee] one night, and he’s never been the same with me since. He was trying to get me to play Max Schmeling in the Joe Louis story. If I was in it, he’d get this $100 million financing. But it’s just a secondary role. And I said to him, “I want to be Joe Louis. I want to be Muhammad Ali. If you want to work with me, let me be Joe Louis. Can you not dig that, man?”

Denzel Washington: And you haven’t heard from him since?

Crowe: Well, I think he took it the wrong way. And quite frankly, I think there’s no wrong way of taking that. It’s like, You’re the fucking man, you’re going to make the movie, but I don’t want to be there, playing second fiddle. I want to be the thing you’re focused on and I’ll focus on you and we’ll work on this together. But for whatever reason I don’t get any more birthday cards from him.

-- Entertainment Weekly, Nov. 2, 2007

Crowe has a reputation for being an asshole that I used to discount as selective reporting, willful misreading of the facts in pursuit of controversy, whatever… Now I have to admit that he IS an asshole. So he’s only willing to work with someone if he gets to play the lead role? Even if that flies in the face of plausibility and takes a job away from a black actor? He’s not satisfied with all the white boy roles? He wants to take the small sliver of the pie that black people get away from them, too? What an arrogant, self-involved, clueless jackass. Granted, he is from Australia, where the cultural backdrop and history of racial tension is a little different than here in the States, and maybe he doesn’t fully understand how his words will be taken. But he isn’t even willing to try. In his mind, Spike Lee is the one who is at fault for not understanding him. Except that, even if you do understand him, he still comes across as an egomaniac. I can just imagine Spike Lee leveling his patented dead-eyed stare at him in reaction.

Washington’s reaction is a model of restraint. Rather than immediately calling Crowe out on what he just said, he waits until later to point out something obvious:

Washington: Have you been offered any superheroes?

Crowe: (smiling) A couple.

Washington: Ha! “A couple.” See, I haven’t gotten that. I can’t be Superman. I’ll tell you what: if you can be Joe Louis, I’ll play Superman.

Touché. I wonder if Crowe realized how thoroughly outclassed he was in this interview. If not, maybe someday he'll figure it out.

tags: Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Racism

Through the grace of someone else’s DVR, I’ve been watching some of the new TV season. This year there’s a rash of “speculative TV”, which is cool. Too bad so many of these shows seem to be rehashes of earlier ones. I haven’t mustered any interest in either Chuck (rehash of Alias and/or Johnny Mnemonic, but with a geek as the main character) or Reaper (rehash of Dead Like Me, but with a geek as the main character). Come to think of it, maybe I’m put off these shows not by their rehash nature, but by their geeks. After Knocked Up and Superbad, nerds are all the rage, but suffice it to say, I don’t identify with the Hollywood representations of my kind at all.

So what have I been watching? I checked out the pilot of Bionic Woman. One of its executive producers is David Eick, who also works on Battlestar Galactica. Could be good… except that over the summer, he made some comments about the themes of the show that struck me as ominous. (See this Feminist SF Blog entry for details and discussion.) And more recently, I read several accounts of turmoil on the set -- people being recast, production staff leaving, etc. By the time it aired, I didn’t have high hopes at all, but I wasn’t really prepared for how bad it turned out to be. This was trash TV. It said nothing interesting about its subject matter, it was so hurried that it was impossible for me to connect emotionally, the dialogue was embarrassingly bad, the characters were either boring or nonsensical, even the action scenes were crappy. I would call it a complete waste of time except for the fun I had playing “spot the BSG actor”. Katee Sackhoff was billed ahead of time as the psychotic “first bionic woman”, but there were a smattering of others as well. Aaron Douglas (Chief Tyrol) showed up for about 30 seconds as a prison guard, and Mark Sheppard (Romo Lampkin) was the guy he helped spring out of jail. But my favorite catch was Dominic Zamprogna (Jammer) as a medical technician in the helicopter that picked Jaime up after her accident. He was on the screen for about 2 seconds, tops, and we couldn’t get a clear look at him even on freeze frame, but I confirmed via IMDB that it was him. Score!

I’ve given further episodes a pass, and since a friend told me the second one was even worse than the first, I feel no guilt. Instead I pinned my hopes on Pushing Daisies, the new Bryan Fuller show. It got insanely good advance reviews, and stars Lee Pace, who I liked in Wonderfalls (another Fuller show that was canceled after about 4 episodes, but had quite a few others in the can – check it out on DVD if you’re interested). It wasn’t as good as I hoped, but it has promise. My first recommendation is that they dump or severely scale back the voiceover by Jim Dale. It got really annoying, particularly the numerous recitals of exactly how many years, months, days, and hours old each person was. It wasn’t interesting or relevant to the plot the first time, let alone the other five times. I was also surprised by how poorly executed some of the details were. The name of the town that the main characters grew up in is “Coeur d’Coeurs” (which means “Heart of Hearts” in French), but on the town sign, which is prominently featured a couple of times, they spelled it wrong! I can’t remember when I’ve ever noticed such a glaring copy editing mistake on a major TV show. There’s also a scene where Chuck’s aunt doesn’t see her because she has an eye patch and her view is supposedly cut off by a door frame. Except they picked the wrong eye. Basic geometry, anyone?

All that griping aside, I really enjoyed some of the dark humor, and the characters are appealing. There’s a moment when Chuck gratuitously kicks the dead body of the man who killed her (how she is alive to kick him is explained in the show), and the narrator notes that Ned is delighted by the sight. That really made me laugh. If it can tighten things up a little and develop some momentum, the show could be good. I’ll be watching episode two next time I visit my friends.

The other show I’ve been watching is Heroes. I’m not sure how much longer I’ll keep with it. I thought the season finale last year was truly terrible, something the show’s producers really needed to bounce back from. With episode one this year, they didn’t redress the situation at all. Instead, the single element in favor of the finale last year (that there were real consequences for the characters, with both Nathan and Peter presumed dead), was invalidated when we learned that both of them are still alive. And the first episode was so boring and uninspired. The second episode was much better, but number three was again a piece of junk. I’ll give it a few more episodes out of loyalty and because my friends are watching it, but if trends continue I’ll be giving it up before midseason.

Thank god for TV on DVD. I’ve been having a great time with a couple of old shows I’ve been renting from Netflix: Fullmetal Alchemist and Homicide. They’re about as different as two shows can be, and really deserve their own blog entries. But I can say I highly recommend both. Coming up, season 4 of The Wire is finally being released in December. Yay! I’m also looking forward to the DVD release of Mad Men, which has been getting amazing reviews. Given that it’s just finishing its first season, it will be a while before I can see it. That’s OK. When it comes to good TV, I’m patient.

tags: Bionic Woman, Pushing Daisies, Heroes

Back when I slogged through IMDB’s list of “sci-fi” film and TV to pick out my top 25 of the past 25 years, I noticed some stuff with high ratings that I hadn’t seen. Netflix ahoy! Just recently I finished one of these shows, Space: Above and Beyond. It didn’t take too long, because like some other worthies it was prematurely cancelled.

S:AAB (as it’s abbreviated by fans) ran from 1995-1996 on Fox. Produced by Glen Morgan and James Wong (frequent collaborators who had previously worked on The X-Files), it had a large budget for the time, and, apart from a few early exceptions, featured very good CGI. The premise will seem familiar if you’ve seen the Alien movies or Starship Troopers: in the year 2063, humanity is attacked by a previously unknown species of bug-like aliens (soon dubbed “the Chigs”) and must fight a series of desperate space battles to survive. Five of the six main characters start as new Marine recruits (or “maggots” according to their drill sergeant, played by Lee Ermey, seemingly just off the set of Full Metal Jacket), but under the leadership of their new commanding officer, Colonel McQueen, they quickly become hot shit. The 58th squadron, also known as “the Wildcards”, are called in on the toughest, most interesting missions, which conveniently enough are what the audience wants to know about.

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