Author: Jandy Page 86 of 145

Haven – Season One Til Now

On August 11, 2010

*No plot spoilers*

Despite Syfy’s rebranding in an ostensible attempt to expand beyond science fiction programming, they appear to be committed to bringing original series with a dash of the deliciously weird, and Haven is this year’s summer debut. Lead character Audrey (Emily Rose) is an FBI agent who goes to the Maine seaside town of Haven following up on a regular investigation, but finds things in Haven to be more than a little freaky – as in, people who create massive storms when they get angry or whose dreams turn into very destructive realities.

She stays around firstly because she’s a little bit fascinated by the crazy stuff going on, but also because it seems her long-lost mother came through Haven decades previously and she has something of a personal quest to find out what she can about that. Meanwhile, she forms a de facto partnership with Nathan (Lucas Bryant), the junior member of the father-and-son police force in town (who has his own oddities, including an inability to feel pain).

Haven is up to five episodes now, and a few longer arcs are already coming to play, notably the rivalry/feud between Nathan and Duke (Eric Balfour), the town’s excuse for a criminal element, which is largely confined to black market trading and pissing off the constabulary whenever he gets the chance. There’s also increasing mention of “the troubles,” apparently a previous outbreak of strange events that seems to be cycling back again.

I hope that the ongoing “troubles” arc addresses at some point what causes all the strange things to happen, because I’m all for weird and unexplained things, but Haven takes its weirdness a little too much in stride. There’s no Scully character here to try to find the logical explanation, yet the show also feels like it’s trying to take place in a “real” world in which the things that happen would be at least looked at askance. The only explanation for why they’re not is that people are used to such things in Haven, but why – and why does Audrey jump so quickly into that mindset when she’s the token outsider? The mundane and the unnatural can meld into some pretty great television, as many sci-fi shows have taught us, but the mix seems unwieldy in Haven.

I’m also not drawn in as much by Audrey and Nathan as characters as I’d like to be – Duke is a much better character both as written and as acted, and I find the part where he’s on-screen much more compelling. Audrey’s not bad, and does have her moments when the dialogue helps her out a little bit (and she’s better when she’s playing off Duke), but Nathan is much too flat and bland for what his role in the show ought to be. He seems to be the main connection to “the troubles” (he’s the one who senses first that they’re back), but he’s so uninteresting that I’m only barely interested in finding out what “the troubles” are.

I’m still watching, but if this weren’t a summer show and had more competition for my time, I doubt I’d keep it up for much longer. That said, I do enjoy the almost lackadaisical quality of cable shows – I’m not sure how to describe what I mean by the difference between cable shows (especially Syfy and USA ones), but they just feel a lot more fun and less stressed than basic network shows. It might be the shorter running time, 13 episodes rather than 22, or it might be the lowered fear of cancellation, or the lack of pressure to appeal to everybody in the world, but I seem to be much more willing to keep watching cable shows lately, even when I have issues with them. I dunno. Maybe that’s the summer talking.

Haven on Syfy.com
Haven on hulu (all five episodes so far still available, but the pilot expires in 2 days, on August 13th)

Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted

By Jandy

On April 2, 2010

In Christianity

Stricken, smitten, and afflicted, see him dying on the tree!
‘Tis the Christ by man rejected; yes, my soul, ’tis he, ’tis he!
‘Tis the long-expected Prophet, David’s son, yet David’s Lord;
by his Son God now has spoken: ’tis the true and faithful Word.

Tell me, ye who hear him groaning, was there ever grief like his?
Friends thro’ fear his cause disowning, foes insulting his distress;
many hands were raised to wound him, none would interpose to save;
but the deepest stroke that pierced him was the stroke that Justice gave.

Ye who think of sin but lightly nor suppose the evil great
here may view its nature rightly, here its guilt may estimate.
Mark the sacrifice appointed, see who bears the awful load;
’tis the Word, the Lord’s Anointed, Son of Man and Son of God.

Here we have a firm foundation, here the refuge of the lost;
Christ’s the Rock of our salvation, his the name of which we boast.
Lamb of God, for sinners wounded, sacrifice to cancel guilt!
None shall ever be confounded who on him their hope have built.

words – “Stricken, Smitten, and Afflicted” by Thomas Kelly (1804)
image – “The Raising of the Cross” by Rembrandt (c 1633)

Happy 100th Birthday, Akira Kurosawa!

By Jandy

On March 23, 2010

In Film, Reviews

Today would’ve been legendary Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa’s 100th birthday, were he still with us. I’m the first to admit that I’m not the biggest Kurosawa fan, and this day probably would’ve passed by me unnoticed had it not been for the writers at Row Three putting together a site-wide review retrospective devoted to Kurosawa films, which has taken up most of the posts over the past week. Reading those reviews has gotten me all enthused to revisit Kurosawa more myself, and the film I reviewed for the series definitely proved to me that I had been missing something the first time around and it’s now time to move more in-depth into both Kurosawa and Japanese film in general.

Check out all the Kurosawa posts from all the writers here; and here’s an excerpt of my review of Ikiru:

Having only seen three Kurosawa films prior to this tribute series (and not “getting” those as much as I would have liked), I embarked on my part of the series with as much a goal of discovery as of celebration. Because the films I’d already seen were all samurai films, I opted to watch and review one of Kurosawa’s contemporary-set films. Review contains some spoilers, but it’s a film that depends far more on mood and character than plot twists, so I don’t think it’ll matter too much.

“The best way to protect your place in the world is to do nothing at all. Is that all life is really about?”

The word “ikiru” translates as “to live,” and Ikiru examines what it means to really live, while also acknowledging the difficulty of actually making any difference with your life. Watanabe-san is a civil servant, the section chief for a bureaucratic city government who spends his days in a mountain of paperwork, always busy without ever accomplishing anything. The narration suggests that he’s been dead for nearly 20 years, because he just floats along without really living – he has no passion or ambition; he’s “worn down by the minutia of the bureaucratic machine.” However, when Watanabe finds out that he’s dying from stomach cancer, he has an existential crisis, experiencing flashbacks of his wasted life and punishing himself with sake (poisonous to him with his medical condition).

Two chance meetings offer him differing possibilities for how to really live in the time he’s got left. A man in a bar takes him out gambling, drinking, and into the red light district. The next day, he meets a young clerk from his office who is resigning her job because it’s so soul-deadening; her joy in life is infectious, and he quickly covets spending time with her – a desire that quickly spreads lascivious rumors though his intentions seem quite benign. When she tells him of the happiness she finds in her new job, he decides to throw himself into his work and really take responsibility for it – to do one really good thing with the position he’s got before he runs out of time.

Read the rest at Row Three, and read all the other Kurosawa entries here (most of them far more knowledgeable and authoritative on Kurosawa than I am, which is not at all).

Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: Woodstock (1970)

By Jandy

On March 11, 2010

In Film, Reviews

[Rating:4.5/5]

“But above that, the important thing that you’ve proven to the world is that half a million kids can get together and have three days of fun and music and have nothing BUT fun and music, and I God bless you for it!”

woodstock-5_thumb[1].jpg Woodstock exists in cultural memory as the quintessential music festival – the festival that brought together the greatest musical acts of the late 1960s with the counter-cultural generation. Every musical festival since aspires to be Woodstock-like (though sadly, most achieve the comparison only by being doused in rain and becoming mudpits as Woodstock famously did). As a current music-lover and festival-goer who is admittedly under-informed about a lot of the history of rock music and its place in culture at that time, I feel very grateful to Michael Wadleigh and others for preserving the event so well on film.

He begins with the festival set-up, interviewing the organizers as they supervise stages being built and fences being set up. The fences would quickly prove useless, as the crowd of young people entering the grounds from all directions more than doubled expectations; rather than hold off a quarter-million non-ticket-holders, the organizers decided to make the festival free and let everyone in. A pretty incredible situation compared to today’s tightly-secured festival grounds.

Read the rest on Row Three

Easy Riders…: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They?

By Jandy

On March 10, 2010

In Film, Reviews

[Rating:4/5]

This film should come with a warning label: “Do not watch if you are already in a suicidal state.” Seriously, I’ve seen some downer movies in my time, but as far as gutwrenching, exhausting, draining, and depressing movies go, this has to be up near the top of the list. That’s not to say it’s not good; in fact, if it weren’t tightly scripted, memorably shot, and compellingly performed, it wouldn’t be nearly as successful as it is at provoking the kind of visceral disgust that it does – there are images and themes and lines of dialogue that I still can’t wrest from my brain a week later, even though, in some cases, I would like to.

It’s the 1930s, the height (or depth) of the Depression, and a bunch of desperate people gather in Los Angeles to compete in a dance marathon. Whichever couple could manage to stay on their feet the longest without passing out and getting tapped out by the judges would win $1500 – not to mention that the radio station sponsoring the event was providing three meals a day to the contestants, not too shabby an incentive itself. At least at first.

Among the participants we get to know over the course of the first several hours of the competition are a cynical but driving young woman played by Jane Fonda, the drifter she takes as her partner when her initial parter is disqualified right off the bat for being sick, a young pregnant couple who just arrived in LA after riding the rails from the midwest, a wanna-be glamorous actress, and a middle-aged sailor. We zero in most on Fonda and her partner, but we learn very little more about their past or their lives outside the marathon – in fact, there basically IS nothing beyond the marathon, which becomes a metaphor for life itself.

Read the rest at Row Three ->