Lost interest in "Lost"

I have been an avid viewer of the show Lost for quite sometime. I remember being introduced to the show after its first season was on DVD and watching it through and catching up to the rest of the world in what felt like one very confusing hour. With the rest of the world, I wondered what was going on.

Are they in purgatory? Is this a figment of their imagination? What happened to the kids kidnapped? And, "Is that what I think it is, a smoke monster as well as a polar bear? on an Island?"

This show drove me nuts.

In a good way. I was initially intrigued by its new style of storytelling. Showing through flashbacks, how each individual ended up on the island. Some involved in sketchy things, others it seemed coincidental. Either way the questions of morality intrigued me and each week brought me back pining for more.

I have always had a love/hate relationship with this show. After an episode I would make sweeping declarations of my "Breaking Up" with Lost. I did not care anymore, they weren't telling me anything. And if my past relationships with girls are any indication of my level of dedication, I'm surprised I had made it that far anyway.

Well, 6 years later, I'm still a loyal viewer. But, not without my regrets. I feel like a husband looking for an excuse to get out of a mediocre marriage with my only complaint being, its not like the first two years and the wife saying "Of course jackass, it never is, ask anybody."

So what am I left to do?

Here's my problem. I no longer care. The characters no longer interest me. The moral questions that at one time stared you in the face are no longer there. Instead, we are given a puzzle. A big white canvas of a puzzle with no discernible way of deciphering an answer. To many questions left unanswered and not enough time to answer.

I miss the moral ambiguities. The burning questions that live in the gray area.

Sayid: Torture or not to torture?

Jack: What is a good person?

Sawyer: Cynicism

Kate: Torn between 2 lovers.

I could go on. But the more I think about it, the more I am disappointed in the current trajectory of the show and miss the early seasons and the world of potential they held.

At this point I do not see how it can end in any kind of satisfying way, except that it would be over and I would have one more hour back in my life each week.

A defense of Paul Giamatti's portrayal of John Adams

I just began watching the TV mini-series "John Adams", spanning 7 episodes (covering 50 years) tonight. Paul Giamatti’s portrayal of the 2nd president was jaw-dropping. But this blog isn’t going to be a vehicle of praise, but a critique of a criticism. Alessandra Stanley wrote a piece for the New York Times called “Blow Hard, Patriot, President”, which argues that Giamatti’s performance was weak, and that John Adams is the Achilles heel of “John Adams”. Though she may be right, and I profoundly disagree, I found her reasons inadequate.

The real president John Adams was an amazing man among amazing men. He did have a complicated personality filled with overt and latent contradictions. The overall canvass of his personality is brilliantly and lucidly explored in the biography ‘John Adams’, by renowned biographer David McCollough. In the show, you have box seats to the Continental Congress itself. Passions soar, debates rage, and politics smolder. You can see the sagacious humility of Washington, the pugnacious feistiness of John Adams, the reserved and quiet wisdom of Thomas Jefferson, and the wit of a Renaissance man, Dr. Benjamin Franklin.

But what exactly does Stanley think is wrong with the Giamatti performance? First, she thinks that Abigail is reduced to one-word summations of character traits in her husband in an effort to underline some unnoticed – because not sufficiently acted – mannerism. Well, I don’t agree at all. Abigail talks a lot. I mean, just watch the show: she and John have lengthy discussions about a variety of subjects. It’s just false to say otherwise. But even if she did that, what character trait was trying to be emphasized? Nothing is noted.

She further says, “Mr. Giamatti is a prisoner of a limited range and rubbery, cuddly looks — in 18th-century britches and wigs, he looks like Shrek.” On the contrary, if you read McCollough’s biography, Giamatti’s look is exactly what it was in my imagination. He was short, unseemly, dirty, unbecoming, bald, and pudgy. Giamatti took on this look with perfection. A prisoner of limited range? I beg for examples. He is the stern but affectionate father, the loving husband, the concerned husband, the reluctant politician, the insolent debater, the man of conviction, a rival, a friend, an implacable foe, patriot. What else does Stanley want?

Stanley muses about the bewilderment that viewers (ignorant of the biography) will have at the initial visual shock of seeing a Giamatti portray Adams. All I can say is that ignorance is not bliss. An ignorant critic is a scourge on proper artistic enjoyment. All you have to do is follow the adjectives and match them with the visual appearance you see on screen. If you can’t see it, then you’re either lacking in imagination or comprehension of the language.

The only reason Stanley marshals forth is his bias (which he has the right to have!) for another actor’s role as Adams: William Daniels – who played him in a musical called “1776”. I don’t deny he did great: I do deny the implied notion that Daniels exhausts any and all qualities Adams might have had, or that they were exhausted by a solitary performance over 40 years ago. I haven’t seen the Daniels performance. I don’t need to. What Stanley needs to do is give reasons why Giamatti doesn’t have the “power or the flexibility” to pull it off. An incredulous stare isn’t an argument.

So, I disagree with Stanley. Giamatti was perfect for the role, not only because of the look, but for the tone, even the eyes. They bulge with stress and the tenderness of his voice in a calm moment seems like a hindrance. The resulting paroxysms break through believably. He is a man for the law and when that conviction is breached, his passion fumes. Giamatti’s somewhat calm, reserved, and introverted personality resonates with that "Adams’ drive" and passion in a really insightful way.

Science Fiction at its finest: Minority Report

I’ve always thought that Philip K. Dick was a philosopher masquerading as a novelist. Minority Report - starring Tom Cruise - is an excellent film of science fiction, done in the category of film noir, by an amateur of film noir (Spielberg), but nonetheless done very effectively. The premise is an immemorial philosophical problem. Recall the lines (after throwing a ball):

John Anderton: Why'd you catch that?
Danny Witwer: Because it was going to fall.
John Anderton: You're certain?
Danny Witwer: Yeah.
John Anderton: But it didn't fall. You caught it. The fact that you prevented it from happening doesnt change the fact that it was *going* to happen.

You catch your wife of 20 years in bed with your best friend. She has had an affair. You’re in a rage and you form the intention to kill them. All of a sudden, a storm of police barrage the house, and before the intention could grow roots for half a second, you’re under arrest for the future murder of your wife and best friend. But I haven’t done anything yet, you think!

Cruise is John Anderton. He is in charge of the Department of Pre-crime in Washington D.C. It is the year 2054. The city swallows the earth. There is no Nature. This is a dystopia that gives Orwell’s 1984 a run for its money. Technology has reached its zenith. Advertisements follow you around like pop-up ads on the Internet, only they're tailored to suit your every need, and addressed to you personally. Cars race to and fro, horizontally or vertically. Homes are equipped with state of the art technology. Everything seems to be voice activated. Bottom line: this is the future Marty didn’t go far enough to see!

Remember your wife and the best friend you caught in the act? Remember those guys who arrested you before you did anything? Well, that’s the Department of Pre-crime - and Cruise is the ringleader. The Department gets their leads from a very reliable source: the precogs. There are 3 of them, but of the 3 Agatha is the most powerful. They can see the future!

As with any government agency that is both highly successful and morally questionable, the Justice Department has to stir the pot to keep everyone accountable: or are they jealous?

Art direction, production design, and cinematography are spectacular. Nearly every edited scene is full of details that repeated viewings won’t be able to exhaust. Consider the computer Cruise manipulates with his hands like the conductor of a technological symphony. Every image can be moved, adjusted, magnified, closed out, opened, highlighted, superimposed. Classical music plays in the background. Disks are made of glass, inserted in some high-tech CPU, and our imagination just swims and gets lost in all these details. This is a world we can’t wrap our heads around.

A problem happens when the pre-cogs see Cruise commit a murder. The hunter soon becomes the hunted and the story shifts to a fugitive theme. There is a very affective scene of Cruise and Agatha scrambling through a mall away from the cops with insightful directions about where to stand, for how long, who not to look at, where to run: she knows what would happen if you didn’t do what she said.

Another cool scene happens when Anderton is fleeing from the spiders. There is an aerial scene, showing the camera hovering just above all the adjacent apartments, after ‘spiders’ are sent in to do exhaustive retina scans. The jet-pack fight scene strays away from the cartoonish acrobatics of Spiderman or the nature-defying stunts of the post-Matrix era and stands firm in realism. It's actually one of my favorite action sequences. 'Don't run, John', advises his long time partner. 'Everybody runs.', quips Anderton.

This is one of my favorite science fiction movies. It has a great story with an unpredictable twist and all the while juggling some hefty philosophical problems. One can’t help but focus on the paradox in nearly all time-travel movies. If Anderton did something that the pre-cogs didn’t see, then why didn’t they see ‘that’ instead? But I’ll quit there.

Voice in the Wilderness

I am severely depressed with the current state of television.

Two and Half Men is one of the top rated shows and I'm pretty sure there are like 87 new hospital dramas starting.

ER was the best there will ever be, lets just get used to that fact.

A few years ago a few television shows were given their start. Heroes, Studio Sixty on the Sunset Strip, 30 Rock and Friday Night Lights. In my opinion, Studi

o sixty was the best. It was created and written by Aaron Sorkin (Who I have a giant crush on). He wrote movies like A Few Good Men, The American President and created and wrote my favorite show of all time The West Wing. Unfortunately, it was cancelled after a season for reasons beyond me.

Moving on, we have 30 rock. Hysterical. Tina Fey is a genius and super cute. I love her with my whole heart. May it never be cancelled.

Next, Heroes, this show started strong, but in my opinion has tapered out and I have lost interest. I have also lost interest in LOST but that is a whole different discussion.

Finally, the point of this blog.

FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS. I was not interested in this show in the beginning. It is about a high school football obsessed town. Their world revolves around friday nights and they turn 16 year old quarterbacks into gods. The idea of the show did not interest me, it was also based off of a ESPN original movie and it was on friday nights (Attn: Party People! Friday night is my night!). The factors here did not add up to Matt Johnson tuning in.

A year went by and shows were getting dropped like bad habits. Studio's were canceling things faster than Brangelina could adopt kids. During this almost nazi-like extermination, one show was developing a fan base. A serious one. ESPN sports analysts were talking about this Highschool football show, News networks were doing pieces on it. It was bizarre. I couldn't get my head around it, where were the sit-ins and MLK's for studio 60? So I did what any responsible, mature adult would do. I boycotted FNL.

Fast forward 4 years.

Steven King has become one of my favorite authors. I recently read The Shining and a ton of his short stories and I cannot get enough of this guy. He might be the our generations Charles Dickens. Who knows?

Anyway, he writes a column in Entertainment Weekly and he made a case for FNL that I had not heard before. He talked about the tight, clever writing. The moral decisions, watching these students make decisions that are way outside of their maturity level, it's genuinely engaging.

Based on his recommendation, I watched an episode...and then...I watched 3 seasons.

Hands down, with out a shadow of a doubt, it is the best show on television. It is the voice in the wilderness, it is the tether of creativity in a world gone reality mad. It reminds me and gives me hope that truly excellent storytelling can exist in a world of reality TV and CSI: Prostitutes.

I encourage, no demand your attention to this show. You will not regret it. It is the Highschool you would attend now, as an adult. You are reminded how those minor decisions as a 16 year old really were your world. Nothing else mattered at the time.

I applaud the creators and writers for a job well done. I just hope they don't let me down.

Paranormal Activity: truly frightening!

I feel it. I feel it breathing on me. - Katie in Paranormal Activity

It took a decade for a movie to match what The Blair Witch Project did back in 1999. But Paranormal Activity did the trick - at least, for me. I’ve talked to some who weren’t scared in the slightest. Open Water tried to do it, as did Cloverfield and Quarantine. But the shaky camera, discovered footage genre was I think done the best in Paranormal Activity. It is an acquired taste.

This is a movie that uses an atmosphere of dread and spookiness instead of CGI or buckets of blood. It’ll scare a certain type of personality. I don’t see the skeptics of a spiritual world too susceptible to this type of movie. I think they may need to be jarred by the buckets or the all-out monsters. We need to keep that in mind though if we’re going to properly critique this. It’s in the shaky camera genre and it’s a movie about atmosphere and the ‘less is more’ angle. It builds tension very cleverly; and when the tension pops, it’s quite eerie.

After I saw this, those bumps in the night got pretty loud in my own house. I’m talking every little tick and plumbing noise. You want to turn your head around just to make sure.

The plot is simple. Katie and Micah are a normal couple living in a 2-floor apartment. She has been spooked out lately because she thinks some entity is haunting her. It’s been happening in the bedroom. So, they buy a camera to film the goings-on in the bedroom while they sleep. Micah mostly does this to prove nothing is going on. He is the naive skeptic, probably how 99% of us would act in situations like this - up to a certain extent. He is more interested in the footage than Katie. I won’t spoil the footage in the later parts of the movie. But I’ll just say that they are very spooky.

Katie is entirely believable. She seems like your normal college student. Micah acts just like your normal, macho guy.

They go to bed where the timer is in the bottom right part of the screen. The time speeds up to actual paranormal events, which get creepier and more aggressive as the movie progresses. The bedroom door creaks a couple of inches. Thumps are heard downstairs. Lights turn on and off. A sheet ripples and winds up the bed.

They consult an expert, but when he comes in the room he is immediately unsettled. He senses a heavy demonic presence and even as I type that I’m getting goosebumps.

We are trapped wherever Micah moves the camera. It never leaves the house. It has a tight, claustrophobic feel to it. It plays on our fear of the dark, how it symbolizes the unknown. There is a macabre feeling to the idea that the house is your normal suburban home that any of your friends would be living in. When nothing is happening, I wasn’t bored. It’s what is not happening that is the most interesting. Your imagination fills in the blanks.

Ears Wide Open?

I heard a funny story about the movie Eyes Wide Shut. Some random girl tried to watch it but her volume malfunctioned. She had to watch the entire movie with no sound. After she was done, she asked the friend that recommended it whether she missed anything. He replied: a word or two. In an interview, Nicole Kidman said she asked Kubrick what the film was about, but he just looked away in his characteristic way. Did Kidman act out the film without any sound?

The first thing that goes through your mind after you’re finished watching the movie is what the heck it was about. Some critics just overcomplicate the simple and others oversimplify the complicated. Some even thought Kubrick made a gaffe on purpose: that the gag was on us.

Just what was Kubrick up to in the opening scene: Kidman stripping completely naked. I tried to grasp for something less visceral and sexually arousing. I groped for Gestalt psychology and the terms ‘figure’ and ‘ground’. If Kidman’s butt was the figure, what was the ground? Let me explain.

In Gestalt psychology, our conscious minds trick us with figures in our life. The figure is the surface; the ground is subliminal. The ground organizes our senses of the figures and gives us a place in our environment. But it can’t be accessed consciously. According to some theorists, the artist is the one who allows us access to the grounds. The world of everyday experience puts us in touch with figures; and art puts us in touch with grounds. It turns out that Kubrick was familiar with this psychology when he made 2001: A Space Odyssey.

So, the key to understanding EWS is to find Kubrick’s ground; and to find Kubrick’s ground we need to find out what kind of movie EWS is. For that’s what Kubrick did throughout his career: he made certain kinds of movies and strove to make the best movie of its kind.

We all know the genres: action, noir, drama, suspense, horror, science fiction, comedy, war, etc . . . If we focus here, we’ll find that EWS doesn’t fit any of these. Lots of critics thought it was just a bad movie, period. But like I said, it’s hard to call it bad without knowing what kind of movie it is first.

So, why is everyone in the dark? Reviews hate it because they think it’s bad; and no one can agree to a theory as to what Kubrick was trying to do here. Some think it’s a conspiracy! And I happen to agree with this. What kind of movie is EWS? It’s a conspiracy movie. And it’s the best conspiracy movie of its kind.

Conspiracy against whom?: us, the cast, the critics. The movie is manufactured to confuse, distract, and defy traditional tools for movie criticism. A Kubrick worshipper gets tired trying to interpret it. This is Kubrick’s intention. EWS was the last movie of his career and as a testament to his craft, he finally made a movie that frustrated the most dogged of interpreters.

Are there any clues in the script? Is the movie’s title a clue? Is it right in front of our noses but that our eyes happen to be wide shut? Or are ‘eyes wide shut’ a way of seeing? Is it right in front of us, but we can’t see it?

What about starting with the password to enter the secret sex society. It is “Fidelio”, which is oddly enough a opera by Beethoven. Dr. Harford (Cruise) got it from the piano player: but remember it isn’t really the piano player’s password - it’s Kubrick’s. He wrote the script. If we look at the text of the opera, we find themes like deception, imprisonment, rebellion against tyranny. But this doesn’t sit well, because the setting is in Spain in the late 19th century and could just be another smokescreen intentionally put in by Kubrick.

Do “Fidelio” and conspiracy have an affinity? Follow this link: http://www.schillerinstitute.org/fid_97-01/fidelio.html

If you did, you’ll find “Fidelio” is the name of a magazine - it is presided over by Lyndon LaRouche, someone who heads up an organization that gets it’s inspiration from various conspiracies! It was started in the early 90’s, but the question remains: is this reason enough to say there is a connection? Does the magazine inspire the movie somehow?

As you know, Kubrick based the screenplay off a novella called Tramnovelle, by Arthur Schnitzler. It was about a doctor who transforms psychologically over a two-day period. But in the novella, the password isn’t “Fidelio”: it’s “Denmark”. Why is that? Does this mean the novella is a distraction? Is this Kubrick’s masked way of telling us to disregard the novella? Is the password just a figure, rather than a ground?

During the orgy, there’s also a difference in the novella and the movie with the costumes worn. In the novella, they're bright and colorful; in the movie, they’re black and ominous - and the people wear masks.

If you remember, Cruise is the only one wearing red. When he is asked for the password, Cruise gives the correct answer, but is then clued in to the idea that there is more than one (is that a reference to "Denmark"?)! But remember our only clue is the word “Fidelio”.

What’s the significance of the guy in red? Is there significance in the masks? I read that all the masks can be found in Venice, Italy. Do we look into the history of Venice? Is the man in red a Pope, a Cardinal? Is the whole scene an allegory for the relations between Venice and the Catholic Church? Well, if you’ll remember the magazine “Fidelio”, the founder Lyndon LaRouche focuses on a pretty complicated conspiracy involving Venice being the location where the East has been slowly taking over the West over the last 2000 years: an elaborate scheme.

What is this scheme? Well, the East and West have been at each other’s throats since Alexander the Great, when Persia (modern-day Iran) murdered Alexander’s dad. These Persians then migrated to Venice, and LaRouche thinks Venice to be the most powerful city since the fall of Rome until the 15th century. Venice has also been a city at odds with Rome. The writers for “Fidelio” focus on these ideas the most.

According to the theory, when Venice relocated after Florence and Rome began to creep in, they relocated in London. From London, they moved to New York City. Culturally, then, London and New York are Venice, and so ancient Persian.

Okay, enough history. What’s this got to do with EWS? Here is the question: Is Kubrick making a parable about a secret sect, whose headquarters is New York City, who can trace their roots culturally back to Venice? Is the surface of EWS just a distraction from one of the most elaborate conspiracies of all time? Where was the European premiere of the film EYS shown? VENICE.

Kubrick had subscribed to “Fidelio” for years. Lets look at a possible example. Who had a hand in inventing the atom bomb? Leo Szilard. The magazine and LaRouche himself wrote badly about him. Guess what LaRouche called Leo Szilard? Dr. Strangelove! Another Kubrick film. On another note, LaRouche wrote about British brainwashing techniques that were hush-hush. These techniques were what inspired the brainwashing scenes in A Clockwork Orange, and were gathered by a British Intelligence officer.

Watch Eyes Wide Shut again with this conspiracy in mind. Make sure the volume works. Listen to the script - and if you have to have your eyes wide shut, keep your ears wide open.

Inception: a new Christopher Nolan masterpiece?

“What is the most resilient parasite: an idea!” - from the upcoming movie Inception.

I started paying attention to the style and personality of Christopher Nolan’s movies after I saw Insomnia (2002), starring a more serious Robin Williams - with that kind of creepiness we saw in One Hour Photo - and a cranky and sleep-deprived Al Pacino. The distinct impression I remember feeling as I finished the movie was that I had been following a very good story. This is the quality that I think separates Nolan as a director. He is a story teller.

I even remember thinking that The Prestige (2006) was a good movie, but it seemed to stand out in a way other good movies didn’t. There just seemed to be a personality behind the story direction. The story unfolded - as all stories do - in a certain style and with a certain temperament. Memento (2000) was the same way, as was Nolan’s utter revitalization of the Batman franchise.

What I am particularly excited about as of late is the upcoming release of Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio, a secret agent who uses advanced technology to enter into the minds of rich geniuses to find their tricks and strategies for amassing wealth. His name is Dom Cobb. He steals ideas. After the secrets are found, he ‘sells it to the highest bidder’.

If you’ve seen the trailer, the special effects look incredible. In the mind, shapes can shift without warning and people can have powers not had in the real world. In my blog on the movie The Cell, you’ll remember that I loved it because it focuses on a theme I am especially interested in: the inner consciousness, the mind. In the preview, we literally see a cityscape folding back on itself! The soundtrack sounds amazing, with that rhythmic bellowing of the horn.

The movie has been shrouded in secrecy. When Nolan delivered the scripts, there were guards just outside the front door of the actor's homes, not letting anyone get a chance to know anything about the movie. But the testimony of the actors reading the script is enough for me. They are very excited. They were blown away by the story and the twists and turns.

I can’t wait to see it! I’ll probably miss it in theaters - in darn boot camp. Maybe I can sneak off base!