Trade It in for Twinkies

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 12

2011-06-25T23:01:00.023-04:00

These Things I Know

I still have my $50 as my friends have agreed that Councilman Richmond might be innocent. I know that next season I will consult the suspect tracker to confirm that my candidate is on it before I make a new bet. [Damn you, Nathan!]

I enjoyed the season finale because it mirrored in an accurate way how professionals behave. My experience has shown that in real life, professionals seldom finish any undertaking to perfection. We move, get promoted, or receive orders to drop one thing to start another. In real life, a fabricated piece of documentation stuck in a notebook to conclude a project is commonplace. Good enough suffices. In real life, we would thank Det. Holder for wrapping up the case so that the rest of us could begin our new assignments. In real life, Det. Linden might disagree with Holder's method, but she would have shrugged her shoulders, sighed, and stayed on the plane. In real life, we reach a point where advancing our lives takes precedence over getting mired in old responsibilities.

I also know, however, that good enough will not satisfy Linden. If, in the excitement of arresting a mayoral candidate, her lieutenant forgot to take her badge, I assume that she is about to flash her credentials to a stewardess, delay the departure for everyone else on board that plane, and return to headquarters. Poor Jack. And poor Holder, who has some explaining to do!

These Things I Hope Aren't True

I cannot believe that Councilman Richmond killed Rosie. I haven't always liked the character, but as I run through everything I know about him, I cannot find a single good clue that would explain his drowning that girl. He does not have the win-at-any-cost mentality that justifies murder. He doesn't seem upset when Linden discovers his Orpheus screen name and goes about his day as if everything is okay. But we have Gwen saying that he disappeared that fateful Friday night and then returned to the bed & breakfast soaking wet. I'm more inclined to think Darren was suicidal and tried unsuccessfully to drown himself than homicidal and Rosie's murderer. But then we would have the unlikely coincidence that he tried to end it all the same night—and in the same way—that Rosie died.

I still don't believe Rosie was a prostitute, either. Did I miss something? Why didn't anyone search those Beau Soleil records for Rosie's profile? We saw all of Celine/Aleena's information on the computer screen. Why didn't Linden and Holder find Rosie's if she was a girl for hire? Yes, Ms. Sud, I know teenagers have secret lives. In fact, I bet without exception we can all tell you how we misled our parents and behaved in ways that Mom and Dad would have found completely out of character. But still. Good-girl student by day, hooker by night? It won't work for me! And why was she banking her earnings under her aunt's name? Why not hide the cash in the globe with Bennet's notes?

These Things I Wish I Knew

Who is Holder helping to protect? When I think over the season, he has always enthusiastically jumped on a new suspect, without caring who it is. What we thought was Holder's inexperience might have been his intention to divert his partner [and us] from the truth—anyone, just so it's not the person who actually committed the murder. Now who could that that person be?

And who is in that car? I'm betting it's Gil, his Narcotics Anonymous sponsor. That man is the only character Holder owes enough to falsify evidence for. I believe Gil really is an NA sponsor, but does he also have connections to the mob? Mayor Adams? The casino? The Democratic National Committee?

As Linden is rushing through the airport on her return back to the Seattle Police Department, will she bump into Mitch, ready to depart to places unknown, who says, "You know, I found something funny in Rosie's room," providing the clue to the real murderer?

I guess I'll have to wait a year for answers!

I found this whole experience quite fun [but exhausting]. I will continue to watch The Killing even when Mitch Larsen is no longer a character.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 11

2011-06-18T23:01:00.017-04:00

Gettin' Skooled

So mayoral candidate Darren Richmond, more obsessed with the idea of drowning a pretty young girl than winning an election, took time out of his busy campaign schedule—at a time when anyone in Seattle would recognize him—to murder Rosie? And Rosie, a girl so shy that she could not speak up in class, so family oriented that her younger brothers could count on a bike ride with her after school, was living a secret life as a high-priced casino prostitute?

Hmmm. I hear The Killing series creator Veena Sud asking, "Have I taught you nothing, Grasshopper?"

That the councilman had involved himself in inappropriate sexual dalliances would surprise no one, especially this week. But what evidence do we have that he killed Rosie?

We know from the photos that Mayor Adams gave Gwen that Darren had spent time with Celine/Aleena, one of the Beau Soleil girls for hire. And we know that email sent to Orpheus@bockmail.com was appearing on Darren's computer. But Celine/Aleena did not say that the councilman was Orpheus, the creep who wondered what it was like to drown. Could someone with access to both Orpheus@bockmail.com and Darren's campaign email account be forwarding messages from one to the other? I control 4 email addresses from one Gmail account, so it's certainly possible. Campaign staffers, like Jamie and Gwen—and Nathan!—probably know Darren's password, and if they also have connections to the real "Orpheus," they could easily make the link. After viewing those photos, Gwen now has motivation for making Darren look bad.

The best piece of evidence that Darren didn't kill Rosie, though, was being able to face Mitch and have that very moving conversation about loss in the grocery store. [The reason I never suspected Bennet* was that he was able to rescue Mitch from the high school hallway, take her into his classroom, and share Rosie's favorite poetry with her.] That kind of human-to-human connection is not possible if a couple of nights before you were closing the trunk on the mother's bound and beaten—though still living—daughter and then pushing the car into a lake where you knew she would drown.

The second piece of evidence that Darren didn't do it was his loyalty to Bennet. If Darren had killed Rosie, why didn't he embrace Bennet as the suspect? It would have ended the investigation and protected his secret. We all know that innocent men, especially minorities, pay for crimes they didn't commit.

And Rosie as a prostitute? I am more inclined to think that our artistic Rosie was getting paid to take those beautiful photos of the Beau Soleil girls. The best piece of evidence that Rosie is not a prostitute is that Mitch had to reassemble Rosie's room after Stan packed it up. Mitch would have found something that pointed to Rosie's second life—racy underwear, perhaps, or an ATM receipt—if it existed.

Roll Up Your Sleeve, Sir

After all the mystery surrounding Jack's father, we are expected to believe that some doof—sorry, Helo!—from Chicago is the missing parent? My money is still on Darren. When Linden makes another late night visit to the councilman's condo and is studying the photos of Darren and his late wife, I see her thought balloon: "You said you loved me. You said you would leave your wife. We could have been this happy."

Draw some blood. I want a paternity test!

Step Aside, Linden! I've Solved It for You.

The medical examiner discovered that Rosie had floor cleaning solvent in her lungs and under her fingernails. Here's what must have happened: We know that Rosie and billionaire weirdo Tom Drexler have the Wapi Eagle Casino in common. They met there. Drexler invited Rosie over to help refinish the indoor basketball court. He's a weirdo, remember!

As they were working, they began to argue about the merits of Super 8 film cameras vs. HD digital camcorders. Drexler managed to hold his temper until Rosie added that analog recording and vinyl records far surpassed the depth and warmth of music recorded digitally. As a man who had amassed his fortune in software development and the digital revolution, Drexler could not let that remark slide. He struck Rosie, who fell unconscious into a puddle of solvent, snuffling some of it into her lungs.

When Gwen and Nathan arrived—remember, in Seattle you just show up at all hours, and remember, no one has confirmed Gwen's alibi for Friday night!—Drexler promised that he would help the Richmond campaign in any way if they got rid of the body. Thank god, Gwen had Nathan in tow, as her gym time hadn't developed enough arm muscle to wrestle a body in and out of a car.

The two staffers planned just to dump Rosie in the park, but when they opened the trunk, Rosie leaped out. A chase through the woods ensued. Rosie tripped over a tree root and knocked herself unconscious on a rock. Nathan and Gwen could not rouse her and assumed she was dead. Panicky, Nathan pointed out that DNA evidence now existed in the trunk, so they loaded Rosie back in and pushed the vehicle into the lake, assuming that no one would find it. They did not know that Rosie was actually alive. And, of course, they never accounted for Det. Linden's super crime-scene sixth sense.

Sorry, sorry. I'm just punchy after two and half months of having to think too much.

Video Teasers

Michelle Forbes discusses The Killing, among other things, here:

And Brent Sexton indicates that the season finale will surprise us all:

*Now watch us discover that Bennet did do it!

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 10

2011-06-11T23:01:00.019-04:00

If I subtitled this post, I'd call it "So Far out in Left Field I'm on Hockey Ice."

Has The Killing creative team gotten us so fixated on Rosie's murderer that we're not noticing while it sneaks in another big reveal just as shocking? One statement will answer all of these questions:

In "Stonewalled," Det. Linden discovers that son Jack has forwarded Rosie's crime scene photos to his friends. After she reprimands him, Jack asks, "Why don't you send me to live with Dad?" Why does Linden answer, "Your dad left ten years* ago, so that probably won't happen. I'm all you've got"?
In "I'll Let You Know When I Get There," Regi comes home to find Jack and his friends smoking and drinking on her boat. Why does the exasperated Regi state, "It's not like I can call his dad"? And why does Linden say in response, "Of course you can't! It's all on me, Regi"?
In the same episode, why does Linden go in person to Councilman Richmond's condo so late at night to deliver the news that Bennet has been beaten, apologize for being wrong, and share a glass of Scotch?
And, in the same episode, why does fiancé Rick not offer to take Jack to Sonoma so that Linden can solve Rosie's case in peace? [Taking Jack would have guaranteed that Linden eventually arrive!]
In "Missing," when Det. Holder asks, "What about his real dad?" why does Linden shut him down with "Enough with the twenty questions"?
And, in the same episode, why is there no time spent on the campaign storyline?
And what piece of information would really integrate the campaign storyline into the rest of the series?
Councilman Richmond must have a dark secret; all politicians do. I really don't think he killed Rosie, so what don't we know about the councilman?
And what knowledge, in the previews for "Beau Soleil," is Mayor Adams trying to share with Gwen?

The answer? Jack is the secret bastard son of Councilman Richmond. Jack certainly didn't get that shock of dark hair from his mother. You heard this nonsense here first!

Alas, I probably just have former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former US senator John Edwards on the brain. Although I am also thinking that the writers have missed a huge opportunity here. Or maybe they haven't. We'll see.

*The councilman has been in public office ten years.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 9

2011-06-04T23:01:00.005-04:00

Seven Seasons of Homicide: Life on the Street Taught Me Something

One of my favorite episodes of Homicide is "In Search of Crimes Past." A convicted murderer on death row is facing execution, so his daughter, convinced of Dad's innocence, kidnaps Colonel Barnfather to force another look at her father's case. Lieutenant Giardello orders Stanley Bolander, the original primary, to reinvestigate. Bolander learns that a bartender withheld a piece of important information—not maliciously but because Bolander hadn't asked the right question during the interview. The episode ends with Bolander wondering how many times in how many investigations he neglected to ask the right question.

One of the things that I love about The Killing is that we [both the audience and the detectives] get caught up in the action and fail to ask for really simple—though potentially important—information. It's day 10 in the murder investigation, and there's a lot we don't know.

For example, what does Terry do for a living? The first time I saw her, I thought steak-house waitress, a profession that would leave her free during the day to hang with Mitch and the kids. Next, based on her style of dress, I decided bartender, maybe. Then, when her mother came to the house and said to Mitch, "Yeah, some life your sister has!" I wondered if she was an escort, a call girl, a "masseuse"?

Now I'm wondering if she's a blackjack dealer or a cocktail waitress at the Wapi Eagle Casino. Why hasn't anyone asked for Terry's whereabouts that fateful Friday night? I don't think that Terry killed Rosie, but I'm wondering if she has an important piece of information that the right question will reveal.

If Fingertips Had Eyes

I'm still convinced the shoes are important. That evidence bag containing them just sat right in front of Linden all episode. She threw the bag into the box when she learned Bennet was hurt; she obviously handled it again when she spread all of the evidence back onto the table. Would someone please reexamine the shoes and ask, "Where did Rosie get these?"

T.O.D.

Why are we [the audience and the detectives] convinced that Rosie died Friday night? The coroner indicated that her time of death was anywhere from Friday through Monday, the long stretch a result of the soaking in the car trunk. The detectives, though, ask for Friday night alibis. Just because the Richmond campaign car was reported missing on Saturday morning doesn't mean it went into the lake Friday night. Rosie might have been alive Saturday or Sunday, making everyone's Friday night alibi irrelevant!

I loved that an intern found campaign video with the councilman shaking Rosie's hand. Our victim making contact with the candidate in a crowd of supporters was an instant reminder of the photos that emerged after Independent Counsel Ken Starr accused President Clinton of having improper contact with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. Are we supposed to make a connection between Clinton and Richmond? Clinton denied having "sexual relations" with Lewinsky even though the blue dress proved he did. Richmond denies involvement with Rosie. Should we believe him?

Gwen may have provided an alibi for Darren on Friday night, but what about Saturday? Sunday? We've learned that he likes to sneak off by himself. I think the councilman might be the last of the red herrings. I predict the video will get leaked, and we [the audience and the detectives] will have to reinvestigate poor Darren one more time, but he's off my suspect list. There would be no satisfaction in discovering that he murdered Rosie.

Temporal Relativity, Again

Despite what others are saying, Linden is not a bad cop. We've had two months to figure out who killed Rosie Larsen—plus, fly-on-the-wall status that has given us information Linden doesn't know. So who is it, huh? We don't know! Linden has had only ten days, and I'd wager that she figures it out long before we do.

Special Message to Papa Bear

The Stan we know would have "finished business" with the teacher, but I really like you, and Washington State has the death penalty. So I am now happy that you didn't kill Bennet, and I have to hope that he not only lives but also recovers.

Oh, Please, No

The cheesiest ending for Season 1 would be Bennet regaining consciousness during Amber's first visit with their newborn daughter.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 8

2011-05-28T23:01:00.397-04:00

The Adriana Moment

After watching "Undertow" on Sunday, I thought The Killing might have reached The Adriana Moment for me. The Adriana Moment is when a television show makes me feel so disgusted with my species—and with me as a member of it—that I can't follow the story any longer; it refers to the episode of The Sopranos when, on Tony's orders, Silvio executes Adriana. Yes, Adriana had provided information to the FBI. No, she wasn't exactly a civilian; she was involved—at the periphery, not in important ways—in mob business. But still. Sweet, dumb Adriana? Driven into the woods—there we go again—and shot? Her death was nauseating, but I, like the rest of the audience, experienced the story from Tony's perspective. He had a family, a "business," a lifestyle to protect. She had to die. And when I understood that necessity, I quit watching. I was horrified that on one level I agreed with Tony's orders. I didn't tune in again until the series finale when I hoped Tony would get his [while simultaneously praying that he didn't].

So when Stan [my favorite character] killed* Bennet [my second favorite character], I was really upset. Was Bennet's kidnapping and beating plausible? Certainly. Motivated? Yes. Stan didn't know what the audience did, that Detectives Linden and Holder—and Mitch with the discovery of Rosie's actual pink T-shirt—had cleared Bennet of guilt**, and so, as an archetypal figure who had demonstrated perfect grief, his perfect rage should not have surprised me. But still. The poor little frog who just wanted his place at the table? Punched and kicked, his head cracked, no prince magically emerging after the violence? I felt that same disgust with my species that Adriana's death had provoked.

Bloody Lips, Eh?

But then, my interest in the story, my commitment to continue watching, was saved.

I learned early in this project not to read anyone else's thoughts on a work until after I had written my own. Good writers can persuade me to arrive at opinions I wouldn't reach myself, so I avoid their reviews until I have written mine.

With The Killing, however, I have followed the weekly episode recaps/analyses at The Los Angeles Times and New York Magazine. [I rationalize this indulgence by telling myself that these posts of mine are not really reviews.] So on Monday morning, I wanted to see what the professionals had to say. I was shocked to discover that Todd VanDerWerff of The Los Angeles Times and Andy Greenwald of New York Magazine were blaming the series, the genre—not Stan's horrific action, not the consequences of it, not their own willingness to embrace the teacher as suspect—for the bad taste that "Undertow" had left in their mouths.

Obviously, all the fat red herrings, dangled on sharp hooks, had bloodied up these boys' lips. Instead of taking responsibility for swallowing so many of them in the first place, they were now faulting the series for cheap coincidences.

Don't you guys get it? Thirteen [13!] hours on one [1!] murder means that this show is a game, a puzzle, a tussle, like the purchase of a used car from a salesman with a combover. You cannot be a passive viewer, upset that you've been tricked, outfoxed, suckered into a higher price than you needed to pay. You have to expect that your opponent is smarter [in this matter], cheating you, fooling you! This is where the fun is!

And by the way, if this series had been set in New York, no one would find two "I ♥ NY" T-shirts improbable; if this series had been set in Florida, two girls owning pink Walt Disney World T-shirts would not be out of the question. The Grand Canyon and Seattle are both West US; the two T-shirts [not identical—go back and look] do not seem a cheap coincidence. The Grand Canyon is a close enough destination for Washington families to take their kids on vacation.

I think the real reason these writers were upset is that like the unthinking masses they believe themselves too educated and worldly to be a part of, they too had thought the worst of a teacher—one who had a believable explanation every time the evidence pointed his way. I'm not certain why this teacher bashing happens. My theory is that young people are pulled in two directions: where their parents want them to go [same church, same political leanings, same social class] and where their teachers indicate they can go. Most people follow the path their families have laid out, and they later resent their teachers for inspiring dreams they didn't have the courage to pursue. This resentment turns into voting decisions that punish teachers with low pay and little respect—all the while, everyone still expects sacrifices and miracles in the classroom that Jesus himself would tire of performing. For every Mary Kay Letourneau, thousands of teachers leave for school every morning—as Bennet tried to do—to do their jobs, and well.

So I am ready to go head-to-head with The Killing creative team to try to determine who the bad guy is. I don't mind if future episodes prove me wrong. It's all part of the fun.

Plausibility and Satisfaction

I'm still convinced the $2,000 shoes and the end-of-the-line bus rides are important early clues that Linden and Holder did not given sufficient attention. Who has the money to purchase such expensive footwear for Rosie? Who would have an interest in the basketball program?

Councilman Richmond: Darren is the sponsor of the Seattle All-Stars and has a sizable campaign budget, so he might have met Rosie at the All-Star headquarters and could swing the purchase of the shoes. Clues of his involvement include 1) no one checking Gwen's claim that she was with him, out of town, the weekend Rosie disappeared [so he might not actually have an alibi], and 2) the freaky spider-in-a-web reflection when he smashes the bathroom mirror, which inspires that Oh-what-tangled-webs-we-weave-when-first-we-practice-to-deceive rhyme in my head. Plausible? No, I can't see Darren and Gwen pushing that big black car—their own expensive shoes caking with shore muck—into the lake. Satisfying? Only for people who like to see the really virtuous toppled as hypocrites.

Mayor Adams: We know the mayor is a sleaze. Clues of his involvement include 1) shady development deals giving the mayor enough money to buy designer shoes, and 2) the discovery of Rosie's body in a Richmond campaign car, which has certainly helped him pull ahead in the polls. Plausible? Not really. Unlike Stan, for instance, he does not seem capable of getting his hands the kind of dirty that would require chasing Rosie through the woods, tying her up, and drowning her in the trunk. Satisfying? No, we want someone whose sleaziness comes as an unexpected surprise.

Tom Drexler: Our Seattle billionaire seems so numb to regular human pleasures that his stimulation includes illegal cage fights and $5 million free-throw bets. Was he playing midnight pick-up games in the bad part of town to feel something, anything—and there met Rosie? Would his amorality and world weariness inspire him to stage a "Most Dangerous Game," where the wealthy aristocrat hunts another human being for sport? Plausible? Hardly. Satisfying? No. We have only fanciful speculation, no hard clues. Our satisfaction will arrive from seeing where we erred in our interpretation of real evidence.

Michael Ames: Jasper's father has the money to buy the shoes. He doesn't have a connection to the Seattle All-Stars—or to basketball, for that matter—but he does have two connections to Rosie, his son and Rosie's Aunt Terry.*** We know he doesn't mind getting his hands dirty, as we saw him slap Jasper on the first evening. And like Bennet, he came to the wake, was in Mitch's house, ate her food. That the wrong man paid for that affront would be a nice piece of irony. Plausible? If Mr. Ames had "stolen" Rosie from Jasper, it would explain Kris's comment that Jasper hated Rosie. Satisfying? I certainly wouldn't mind the man who raised such an entitled little prick eventually going down.

Okay, creative team, prove me wrong!

*Bennet needs to be dead. Stan knows what he's doing. On life support in an intensive care unit will not work for me, as much as I like both Bennet and Stan.

**That Bennet is the actual killer—his vindication after Muhammed's interrogation the biggest, fattest, juciest red herring of them all—is still possible. Although after chaperoning the dance so late and moving Aisha to a safer location, when would he have had time to kill and dispose of a body? That's too busy a night for anyone.

***I won't be surprised to learn that Aunt Terry inadvertently set up Rosie's death. Even she might not know it yet. Maybe a "girls' night out" while the clueless parents were camping initiated Rosie's meeting with her murderer. Maybe that explains what Rosie's textbooks were doing in Terry's car.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 7

2011-05-21T23:01:00.019-04:00

Fool Me Twice, Shame on Me

"El Diablo," the third episode, had me convinced that Jasper and Kris hurt Rosie. Why? The pink wig in the cellphone video that Bennet confiscated matched the one Rosie wore in the yearbook video from the dance. Now Det. Linden has a pink T-shirt. Actually, just a photo of a pink T-shirt. No forensic evaluation of the garment at all. We're not even sure of its size. Mitch might recognize the T-shirt as Rosie's, but she also admitted that Rosie had lost it. Uh-uh. No way. I'm not doing another Charlie Brown to the writers' Lucy! They can hold that football, but this time, I will not launch a kick at it just so they can pull it away.

Sibling Rivalry

Am I the only one angry at Terry for telling Stan that Mitch almost asphyxiated the boys? On the one hand, I was so relieved that Terry threw open the garage door. But her behavior is typical of a younger sister trying to win points with the authority figure! I am the older of two sisters. Perhaps my own unresolved family issues are keeping me from seeing Terry as the selfless, suffering savior who has dropped everything to help her big sister in this tragedy.

I just get the impression that Terry doesn't have much of a life. She seems to be living vicariously through Mitch because she cannot handle the difficult responsibility of a full-time family of her own. Terry now has three strikes: 1) blaming Mitch for not calling Rosie while the family was camping [when she didn't call either], 2) getting involved with Jasper's father—in what way, I'm not clear, but from the amount of Terry's cleavage I've seen, I'm assuming sexually—and now 3) ratting out her sister, who couldn't help but get distracted in the living room with the local news about to show Rosie's crime scene photos to all of Seattle.

Temporal Relativity

We've been stewing in the Larsens' grief for seven weeks now. I understand that Stan wants Mitch to snap out of it. The only problem is that the audience's seven weeks is Mitch's eight days. Come on, Papa Bear! You can't start removing Rosie's possessions after eight days! I know you box and store things for a living, but please!

Perhaps this scene is a plot device to allow mother Mitch, as she reassembles the bedroom, to find the BIG CLUE that everyone has thus far missed. We're counting on you, Mitch! Keep your eyes peeled!

Got Your Back, Bennet

On the one hand, Bennet says—over a newly wiretapped phone, no less!—"The passports will be arriving tomorrow ... Don't worry about the police. They don't know anything." But does anyone have a translation for the Somali that Bennet speaks before lapsing into the English that conveniently points to his guilt? Does anyone know what this Mohammad is saying at the other end of the line? Do we not realize that Amber is influencing our understanding of this scene as we see her eavesdropping around the corner? We cannot trust her distrust! Remember, poor Amber does not have a cool head. She is exhausted from the pregnancy and worried about the escalating situation and impending birth of her first child. This is the girl who deals with people knocking at the front door by hiding in a corner while clutching a hammer!

Did Det. Holder ever determine why Rosie skipped school to visit the Seattle All-Star gym? Did he find out whom she visited or helped? Or did Holder just see Bennet's photograph in the trophy case and jump to a wrong conclusion?

Tap Your Heels

If The Killing has tapped into an old narrative, the expensive shoes found in Rosie's locker are an important clue, for they are symbolic of transformation. Think Cinderella from the Grimm Brothers and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz. If we knew the type of change Rosie desired, we'd have a better idea who the killer is. Why hasn't Linden or Holder tried to find who purchased those $2,000 shoes? How many stores in Seattle could sell such expensive footwear?

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 6

2011-05-14T23:01:00.034-04:00

A Review of a Review

Dear Ms. Franklin:

When my highbrow friends deign to watch TV, your opinion has way more influence than mine. So when one of them said, "The New Yorker reviewed that show you go on about” and handed me last week’s magazine, the pages folded back to reveal Mireille Enos’s caricature, I knew I could give up trying to sell the show to the eggheads. Nothing I now say can compete with your dismissal of The Killing.

I don’t entertain any fantasies that I can change your mind about the series, but I do want to address a couple of your complaints.

I disagree that the chase scene that opens the series is just “creepy exploitation” of violence against teenaged girls. Rosie’s run through the forest [and those aerial shots showing the West Coast wilds slinking along the city’s edge] awaken our memories of the fairy tales Grandma read to us as children—the ones meant to give us the skills to avoid trouble: stay on the path, don’t talk to strangers, avoid nibbling other people’s possessions.

I now realize that Grandma wanted us to avoid her own mistakes, for everyone must make a run through that forest, either literal or figurative, as a compulsory rite of passage. We could pledge good behavior while we snuggled on Grandma’s lap, a picture book open in front of us, but when our curiosity and hunger for experience took us—inevitably—into the woods, those fairy-tale strategies were wholly inadequate. We didn’t know where to go when we found ourselves in the wrong part of town, what to say [or keep to ourselves] when we engaged that strange man in conversation, what to do when we swallowed something we should have declined.

Sometimes young people get pushed into an oven and roasted, sometimes thrown in a car trunk and drowned. Rosie reminds us of that reality. More often, though, we escape the forest with our lives, though our experience there does do some irrevocable damage. And the extent of that damage makes the characters of The Killing so compelling that I don't understand how you can dismiss them as superficial.

We learn, for example, that Stan Larsen [Brent Sexton], Rosie’s father, spent early adulthood in the belly of a wolf, and that experience gives him not only an instinctual ferocity but also painful doubts about his humanity. We saw him go for Jasper’s throat with the precision of a predator; we saw empathy triumph over violence as he released the teacher rather than deliver the death blow.

Aunt Terry [Jamie Anne Allman], on the other hand, must have encountered an unsympathetic huntsman when she wound her way through the woods. This man left her internal organs intact but removed a metaphorical heart, which now keeps her from making the kind of commitment that would let her marry and raise children as her sister has. [And I hope that we don’t learn that Terry's loss influenced a bad decision with the man who hurt Rosie.]

Det. Holder [Joel Kinnaman] knows the pebble path home, but whatever he consumed to stuff his emptiness allows him to open the mailbox only, not the front door. Poor Bennet Ahmed [Brandon Jay McLaren], like the frog prince, is willing to do the work to get a place at the table—the kingly Councilman Richmond [Billy Campbell] ensuring his rights—when everyone else just wants to smash him against the wall for his differences.

And mother Mitch [Michelle Forbes] has made the evil Queen sympathetic. As she looks through the window of the Ahmeds’ apartment [this story’s mirror], painfully aware of what she has lost [not superficial cosmetic appearance this time], we almost wish she could recover a still-living daughter—even at Amber’s expense. These characters illustrate the successful journey out of the forest in a way Grandma and the Grimm Brothers never did, and we understand the damage and losses these adults suffer because we know them ourselves.

I have no experience with the way television networks promote their series, but I do know that in my profession, the marketing department does not consult those of us in the trenches as it builds an image to sell our services. So I can’t help but wonder if twenty-somethings too young to have watched Twin Peaks thought their provocative question “Who Killed Rosie Larsen?” was an original ploy to generate interest in a new show. You can’t count on the marketing folks having the same background as a television scholar like yourself, and it’s unfair to penalize the series and its creative team for something over which it might not have had any control.

What your review did for my highbrow friends is provide them with a couple of one-liners so that if The Killing ever comes up in conversation—they have to know everything, you understand—I can now count on someone saying, “That show made me feel as if I was in an abusive relationship,” for they do like to plagiarize you without doing the heavy lifting of actually watching the series for themselves.

Meanwhile, my lowbrow friends and I are preparing a series finale beer-and-pizza party—alas, we can’t sit around eating bowls of Fruit Zooms and Bits’n’Pieces—where I am sure I will learn that I have made a foolish $50 bet on Nathan being Rosie’s killer.

My Head Hurts

News of a mysterious Mohammad and the FBI take-down of Linden and Holder have exploded the variables competing for attention in my head. We can’t have a new suspect this late in the game! Not after I have hyper-analyzed the most insignificant bits of conversation and body language. Are blackberries in ditches on the councilman’s mind because he observed them while helping Nathan push the car into the lake? Why does Terry light up at Mr. Ames’s entrance to the wake while his crone of a wife (?) puckers her already sour mouth? I feel like I’m in the middle of a chess game when the size of the board and number of pieces have just doubled! What are the rules now?

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 5

2011-05-07T23:01:00.006-04:00

If I could talk directly to the characters, I'd have some things to say:

For Detective Linden:

I know Bennet is looking guilty [of something], and I know an eyeball witness will give you your all-important probable cause for a search warrant. But really, girlfriend, you cannot trust Mr. Astronomer—who, if you had pressed, would have admitted alien abduction next. FYI, you can't track ultraviolet emissions and radio waves with a telescope, and "gamma-rads" don't exist! This means everything he claims to have seen from his second-story perch is suspect, including two people removing a body from the Ahmeds' apartment.

Did you not notice the big belly on Amber? Do you really think Bennet would have let his very pregnant wife help carry a dead body? Doesn't he seem capable of doing heavy lifting himself?

The audience has eavesdropped on the Ahmeds' lives, and we've watched them happily preparing for their baby girl, not agonizing over their bad decisions last Friday night, not paranoid about when the cops are going to break down the door and haul them off to jail.

We did get to see Amber crouched in a corner, a hammar in hand, while you banged outside on the apartment door. I don't think that hammer is the weapon used to subdue Rosie; I think we just have a scared pregnant girl trying to protect her dreams of a happy future—the one she had before you cops started jumping to conclusions after listening to the wacky, racist neighbor.

We need to see some more of your long, thoughtful pauses. We all know you're not going to Sonoma. Stop letting your departure flight rush your decision making!

For Councilman Richmond:

Your campaign seems to have imploded. I know everyone is going to blame your loyalty to Bennet, which, let's face it, was politically naive. But I was really proud of you. You know first-hand how forces outside of your control can ruin happiness. I'm glad that you didn't unleash the power of your position on poor Bennet.

I can't believe the campaign storyline is over. To resurrect your chances of winning, we need to learn that the mayor [or someone in his camp] killed Rosie.

Mr. Astronomer claimed to have seen someone "kind of like" Linden dump a body into a car. Let's say the body dump did happen. Linden assumed someone "kind of like" her meant a woman, so she jumped to Bennet's wife. But Mr. Astronomer might have meant someone light haired. Gwen is blond, isn't she? You have been resisting a full commitment to her all season. Obviously, you have trust issues with the woman. Did the cops ever confirm that she was with you on Friday night, or did they just take her word for it as proof of your alibi? Of course, Jamie is blond too. And Nathan has light hair. That Nathan, I still don't like him.

Someone "kind of like" Linden might have meant someone not yet probed aboard an alien spaceship, in which case every sane person is back on the suspect list.

To Papa Bear Stan

Have you seen a doctor lately? You're a big guy. I think I can safely assume that salads and steamed vegetables don't make up the majority of your diet. Did the doc prescribe cholesterol-lowering medicine? Are you good about taking it? I can't watch you throw around any more heavy metal boxes. I was so worried that you were going to stroke out or collapse, your hands clutching your heart. Be careful about that.

Now, let's talk about the teacher. Think for a minute! You're going to off someone based on hearsay from a groundskeeper? A friend of Belko, who has already demonstrated his own racial prejudices? You have indicated that you don't harbor the same bad feelings about the Somalis in the city. Please! Pull off the road! Tell the teacher that you got lost in your own head for a moment and missed the exit. He'll believe you, considering the circumstances. Take him home. Living with the guilt of killing an innocent man will make you miserable; you'll have committed the same crime that took Rosie away from your family. If the teacher is guilty, let the cops and court mete out the punishment.

To Bennet Ahmed

Are you aware that you're just a character on a television show? That fact gives you an advantage. As you are the only significant character of color on The Killing, I can't imagine that the writers will make you Rosie's murderer. It would be too politically incorrect. I want you to be innocent because you've impressed me in the classroom and with the Seattle All-Stars. But I think your biggest advantage is that we're going to need a Caucasian to have committed the crime.

I love good music closing a television episode, and I found Neko Case's "Hold On, Hold On" an especially moving song for last week's episode. Of course the even bigger question is why Jasper's father sent Terry into that drunken tailspin.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 4

2011-04-30T23:01:00.012-04:00

Product (Re)Placement

The Killing has done an excellent job inserting me into the world of Rosie's death—until "Super 8." As much as I hate to see television characters promoting products, I also dislike when fictional brands with clever names distract me from the story. Bits'n'Pieces, the cereal atop the Larsens' refrigerator, first got the Kibbles 'n Bits chant running through my head; I wondered why the writers would use dog food as inspiration for a breakfast item. Then, as Mitch was grocery shopping in the cereal aisle, I thought, "Oh, I get it! The Larsens are in bits and pieces as a result of this family upheaval! Or wait! We are getting clues about the murder in bits and pieces! How clever! Now what clue is 'Fruit Zooms' providing that I'm missing?" Eventually, I realized that Mitch and the councilman—where had he come from?—were having an important conversation full of character insight, and I had to back up the episode to catch it all. I want to stay in the story, not have clever details detour me into my own head.

Stan's Head

I once had a colleague who spent a long vacation riding cross country on a 10-speed. He was hit and killed in New Mexico. When we got news of his death, someone said, "Thank god Bob finished X before he left." Now X was indeed important, and only Bob could have completed it successfully, but the comment indicated that Bob's contribution to X was more important than his life. This experience taught me that death doesn't necessarily inspire noble thoughts in the still-living.

When Stan has his meltdown in the bathroom, we see a father's anguish for his dead daughter. But we don't hear what he is thinking. At first, we imagine that "Oh, my poor Rosie" is reverberating in his head. But we watched Stan's business and finances suffer in this episode, and I can't help wonder if "That girl has ruined everything!" or "The children were Mitch's responsibility. Why didn't she keep Rosie safe?" is spinning around in there too. I'm worried that Papa Bear is about to blow, and I don't want to learn that he smacks his wife or children. Mitch did allude to a temper in the first episode.

Let's Ride It Again!

Professional reviewers have begun commenting on the repetitive nature of a weekly suspect dismissed by night's end, but these red herrings don't bother me at all. A who-done-it is formulaic, as is a haiku or sonnet, a Big Mac or roller coaster. We enjoy gauging how successfully the writer, grill cook, or engineer has worked within the constraints. On a roller coaster, for example, I know that once the steep ascent begins—clack, clack, clack, clack, clack—a long, stomach-flipping fall will follow. When I am watching The Killing, the climb to a new suspect fills me with the same anticipation, and the swift twists and turns to his eventual alibi leave me exhilarated. What happens at the end of a roller coaster ride? The same thing that happens at the end of a Killing episode. I want to get on again.

I do hope that Bennett Ahmed [Brandon Jay McLaren], Rosie's English teacher and the new prime suspect, is a quick ride. I get so tired of the inaccurate depictions of teachers—either selfless saviors or slimy seducers. Bennett has brought a realism to the profession: He's not full of flamboyant stunts. He's not unpocketing his secret cool to impress the Jaspers in the room. He's not a burnout oblivious to the spark of potential that he sees in young people. He had the professionalism to start dating the student he married after she had graduated. If he turns out to be Rosie's murderer—or worse yet, a serial killer who dumps bodies in stolen cars—I am going to be really disappointed.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 3

2011-04-23T23:01:00.065-04:00

Get Your Greek On

“He will steal your money and then stab you in the balls,” warns Tom Drexler [Patrick Gilmore], a wealthy, powerful Seattleite. Drexler makes this assessment of Mayor Adams [Tom Butler], the incumbent, but the stab-you-in-the-balls comment calls up Cronos, the ancient Greek god who castrated his father Uranus and took control of the universe. Cronos and Mayor Adams have a number of similarities besides ball stabbing; they both have to worry that younger challengers will grab their place and power. Cronos tried to thwart his own foretold ruin by swallowing each of his children after they were born; Mayor Adams consumes resources/tax dollars in a way that weakens the people who most need help and change.

But the paradigm requires that a young upstart takes down the powerful and corrupt: Cronos's son Zeus, whose mother raised him in secret after feeding her husband a blanket-swaddled stone, usurps his father, just as the handsome and vibrant Councilman Richmond hopes to remove Mayor Adams from office. The details change; the stories never do.

One thought that occurred to me on the first night of the series—one reinforced every episode since—is that my own parents would not react the way the Larsens do. It’s not that my parents don’t love me; my family just doesn’t do such physical and single-minded displays of emotion. My father would never try to barrel his way past a police blockade, nor would he crumple to his knees in tears. My mother would be upset, but her grief would compete with annoyance that my murder had inconvenienced her schedule and embarrassment that I had died in such a public manner.

We love Mitch and Stan because they are idealized depictions of how we would want our own parents to mourn us. Poor Papa Bear, who can’t afford a new dishwasher in the series pilot, now must ensure that his Goldilocks has the just-right casket, for this time her run through the forest did not conclude in a successful return home.

Mitch’s grief follows an even more ancient pattern, that of Demeter suffering the loss of her daughter Persephone, whom Hades kidnapped to the underworld. Like Demeter, she has shut down. If mortal Mitch had Demeter’s power to denude the trees and gray the skies, I believe she would, all the rest of us humans be damned. A nice touch is that The Killing is set in October when the weather has provided the physical consequences of Demeter’s sorrow.

This is the real gift Michelle Forbes brings to a role. Her performance never gives us a filtered or diluted sip from the archetype; it flows straight from the wellspring. Think Maryann of True Blood [chaos personified] or Pen Verrity of Durham County [not an Andrea Yates or Susan Smith, but the intelligent and complicated Medea]. When Rosie's BFF Sterling Fitch [Kasey Rohl] finds Mrs. Larsen in the school hallway, the first embrace shows a prototypical mother nurturing a hurt child, but notice that Sterling does not surrender in the second embrace—"I’ve got to go," she insists. Perhaps she knows more about Rosie’s death than we realize, and her guilt makes her pull away. Or perhaps she hears the unspoken words in Mitch’s head: “Why not you instead of my Rosie?” And if Mitch had the power and divine connections of Demeter, you can imagine her dragging Sterling to Hades as trade for her daughter back. Plenty of precedents for such a negotiation exist in the mythology.

An Aside: That I like Admiral Cain of Battlestar Galactica has always bothered me. To the humans who have survived the Cylon invasion, the Admiral is a bitch boss, not worthy of esteem. But what about the billions of citizens of the Twelve Colonies who died? Statistically, if I had existed in this fictional civilization, the Cylons would have exterminated me along with almost everyone else. I would not be aboard either the Pegasus or the Galactica having to deal with Admiral Cain’s questionable leadership. I would instead be wanting my death avenged. As the Cylons are “children” of humans, what I would need are the Erinnýes, or ancient Greek Furies, creatures who will, for example, chase and punish offspring who have murdered their parents. That is exactly the job Admiral Cain has undertaken in BSG and the reason many fans do not loathe the character. We recognize the vengeance she is providing for the billions who did not survive.

Yet Another Special Message to Mayoral Candidate Darren Richmond

Sorry. I apologize. I underestimated you last week. I'll try not to let that happen again.

Conspiracy at IMDB!

Here's another crazy theory: Rosie's killer will be someone whose episode count is not yet complete at IMDB. As of today [Saturday, April 23], Michelle Forbes as mother Mitch gets credit for all 13 episodes, but Brent Sexton as father Stan gets credit for only 6. The parents are usually together; Stan can't go missing for 7 episodes unless we will have to consider him a suspect for Rosie's death!

Notice that Eric Laden as Jamie Wright is at 13, but Billy Campbell as Councilman Richmond is at 7. We can't have the candidate missing for 6 episodes unless we will have to consider him a suspect for Rosie's death!

That means that Kris [Gharrett Patrick Paon] and Jasper [Richard Harmon] might not have made their final appearances; it's just that their episode count at IMDB is not yet accurate. When Kris dismisses Det. Holder with "That's what you've got?" he implies that more damaging evidence does exist. And when Kris admits that Jasper hated Rosie, you have to wonder if it's because Mr. Ames [who is not even listed on the IMDB page despite that slap he delivers on night 1] stole Rosie away as King Agamemnon does Achilles' slave girl.

Anybody with 13 episodes of credit is now off my suspect list. But anyone with 7 or fewer is on!

I am still wary of tech guy Nathan; Peter Benson's episode count is only 3.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 2

2011-04-16T23:01:00.004-04:00

Five-star Suffering

We seldom turn away from someone else's suffering. We rubberneck traffic accidents and watch Survivor contestants choke down bugs. We stare at the television as the evening news brings us pelicans gooped with oil struggling in the waves or stunned, begrimed earthquake/tsunami/hurricane/tornado/plane crash victims fighting to regain their equilibrium on camera.

Why do we watch others suffer? Perhaps humans are a masochistic species, and when we reach an age when pulling legs off insects is no longer appropriate, we make do with the television spectacle of nature and technology rending limbs/babies/lives from other people. Or maybe the pain of those strangers lets us, the viewers, feel superior; we are special because our homes/loved ones/bodies are still safe. Or perhaps we are indeed connected on a psychic level, and rather than pleasure, a deep empathy draws us to watch.

Mostly we catch drive-thru suffering—five minutes of a reporter covering a story before the network cuts to another commercial. We consume these moments quickly, just as we would the soft bun and meat of a cheeseburger. We don't savor them any more than we would linger over the sandwich in the greasy wax-paper wrap.

The Killing, however, is fine-dining suffering. Its cast and crew are not looking to rush us. They want us parked at the table while they serve up pain so beautifully plated that we can't take our eyes away, so delectably complex that we take another forkful even when we've already had enough.

On the second evening, I found myself hoping for a little palette-cleansing sorbet, especially after the scenes in the Larsen home, only to learn that the other two stories were sauce for the same course. When Linden admits that her own teenage years were wilder than even Regi [Annie Corley] suspected, we know what the detective is thinking: At one point in her own life, she might have met Rosie's fate. At campaign headquarters, when Councilman Richmond countermands the suggestion to send the Larsens white roses, we know that the baskets and wreaths generated by his own wife's death explain his decision. He knows that dying flowers contribute to a family's sorrow rather than diminish it. Just as Linden can see a younger version of herself drowned in the trunk of that car, Richmond can picture himself knocking around lost in the Larsen home. Those insights get garnished with Mitch's realization that her daughter did in fact suffer. For even if Rosie had been unconscious when the car went into the lake, as Linden indicated, Mitch—after her bathtub dunk—now knows that the water rushing into Rosie's lungs would have snapped the girl awake to the terror of impending death.

Should I feel guilty enjoying this delicious human suffering so impeccably served?

Another Special Message to Mayoral Candidate Darren Richmond

Have you not heard the advice, "Keep your friends close, your enemies closer?" Firing campaign manager Jamie Wright [Eric Ladin] 23 days before the election was not a smart move. You have given an ax to grind to someone with intimate knowledge of your strategies and private life. Someone at your level should have enough political savvy to know this. If I were a citizen of this fictional Seattle, I'd be considering the incumbent for my vote, even if he is an environment-raping, money-swindling Republican.

Just-for-Fun Wild Prediction Certain to Be Wrong

Nathan [Peter Benson], the tech guy, killed Rosie after his sexual relationship with Jamie soured.

The Killing :: First Thoughts :: Night 1

2011-04-09T23:01:00.081-04:00

I prefer television series on DVD so that I can avoid commercials and control the pace of consumption. Occasionally, though, I enjoy watching with America, all of us simultaneously devouring the same story, our collective unconscious fueling from the ancient archetypes and narratives. If I must tolerate advertisements and cliff hangers, the series has to wow me. Lost didn't work its magic until the fourth episode; Project Runway took two seasons before it became appointment TV.

Last Sunday night, however, AMC didn't have to work at all to get my attention. The network could have premiered The Knitting—the Larsen family sits at the kitchen table and purls—and if all I got to watch was yarn and needles slipping through mother Mitch's long fingers, I still would have tuned in. Ms. Forbes has made us wait a really long time for something new.

But will I keep watching on Sunday nights, or will I let the DVR catch the next episode and then enjoy it at my leisure? This review project has made me more aware of what a television series must do to seduce me. Sometimes, I am embarrassed to admit, I require little. I watched both seasons of V because such pretty people composed the cast. Usually, though, I need more substantive reasons to watch a show when it originally airs. I have to want to become a part of its fictional world, even when the conditions are harsh and uncomfortable.

The first evening of The Killing impressed me in these ways:

The Family

Professional reviewers see similarities between The Killing and Twin Peaks, especially in atmosphere, and the first night was wet to the point of torture [I watched dry and barefoot but still couldn't shake the sensation that damp socks clung to my feet]. What no one has noted, however, is that the Larsen family shares the same synergy that the Conners had on Roseanne [1988-1997]—only this time, the series trades laughs for gasps.

Blue-collar Stan [Brent Sexton] is the protective Papa Bear who uses his size to bulldoze through problems, a strategy we saw Dan employ for his family. The Larsen boys swap sass just like the Conner daughters, and on the first evening, the psychic presence of dead Rosie [Katie Findlay] hangs shyly on the sidelines as did brother D. J. in the Conner home.

The loss of a child has so devastated Mitch [Michelle Forbes] that we don't yet know if she has either Roseanne's sourness or strength, but in Terry [Jamie Anne Allman], Mitch's sister, we see the same pursuit of individual identity that made Jackie spurn Roseanne's path of convention for mostly directionless and unhappy wandering. When Terry makes that cruel and cutting remark—"Why didn't you call ... I mean, all weekend?"—we see a younger sister refusing responsibility so that her older sibling will take the blame and shoulder the guilt [Terry didn't call all weekend either, and she was in town]. Jackie would have aimed an identical criticism at Roseanne if something had happened to Becky or Darlene.

Sunday's premiere revealed that the Larsen family, like the Conners, is connected. Rosie's bedroom features more photos of family than teen heartthrobs. Her brothers arrive home from school on Monday and expect that Rosie will take them bike riding, indicating that the children do not isolate themselves from each other with various electronic devices. The cluttered state of the kitchen means that the Larsens avoid microwave and to-go meals. We might learn later that Stan parks himself in front of the TV at night, but first, we surmise, he has dinner with his family. Although the Larsens are dealing with a tragedy, although they fix the dishwasher with duct tape because they cannot afford a new part, they are, like the Conners, the family we want to be.

Nonverbal Communication

We can trust actions better than words. One nice touch in The Killing is that the Seattle weather allows characters to confer "umbrella status," a more authentic insight into their feelings about other people. An umbrella owner will communicate either deference or disrespect by how much cover he gives the other person in conversation.

Does Det. Sarah Linden [Mireille Enos] have a good reputation in the department? Of course she does. Notice that a uniformed officer escorts her with his umbrella shielding her from the rain while he gets drenched outside its protective circle. Does Linden like her replacement, Det. Stephen Holder [Joel Kinnaman]? We assume her feelings are conflicted, for she lets water sluice off the nylon of her own umbrella right down the back of his shirt.

Special message to mayoral candidate Darren Richmond [Billy Campbell]: If you want a surreptitious search of the private email of your most trusted campaign staffers, do not let the tech guy hang his ass out in a downpour while you issue orders from the dry bubble of your vehicle. You should have invited him inside the car, even if his wet clothes touched your leather seats. Should the geek take offense [and I would have], he can really mess up your life. After the disrespect you showed him, I no longer find you as sympathetic and win-worthy as I first did.

Seattle Itself

Aerial photography showcases both the natural and architectural beauty of Seattle while having an unintended (?) effect. Notice that these scene changers alternate between pulling away from downtown, for example, and then rushing across an open field. We can imagine the respiration—giant inhale, bit of story, giant exhale—of a living locale, one perhaps that requires a sacrifice as does the village in Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." Or perhaps these "breaths" mirror Rosie's last terrifying moments in the car trunk. Or perhaps I am imagining things, having misspent my youth reading too many Stephen King novels.

Video Teasers

You can see Michelle Forbes discuss The Killing here:

Will I be watching tomorrow at 10 p.m.? Yes.

Brimstone

2011-02-21T23:01:00.053-05:00

The Review

Humans have no proof where they go after death. Perhaps Charon, the ancient Greek ferryman, will require a coin for passage across the River Styx. Maybe the Vikings got it right, and mead and merriment await at Odin's table in Valhalla. We might open our eyes to discover that Anubis of the Egyptian pantheon already has our heart on the scale, ready to weigh against the feather of Truth.

Human afterlife might be a mystery, but we do know what happens when a television program bites the dust. The good ones get replicated on disk [a far more effective preservation than formaldehyde-filled veins] and encased in a box more lovely than a high-end casket. The cast and crew provide commentaries as heartfelt as funeral eulogies, and the series gains an immortality every time one of its disks is loaded in a DVD drive. The demise of a well-loved show can even inspire dedicated fans to flock to annual conventions where they worship story and cast.

Not so lucky are the series that fail to meet expectations. We do not mourn their passing, and their hereafter consists of an occasional marathon on a niche network that only insomniacs or the unemployed are likely to catch.

Brimstone [1998-99] is one such show. The series hoped to follow Det. Ezekiel Stone [Peter Horton] as he retrieved 113 escapees from Hell—five years of work!—but met its demise after half a season. The short life of this program mirrors that of its main character. Before his death, Stone was a decorated New York City detective, but then he killed his wife's rapist and for this transgression finds himself sentenced to Hell and now in the Devil's employ. Like Stone, Brimstone has some praiseworthy characteristics, but the series also sins in ways that have earned it an inglorious afterlife of reruns on the horror network Chiller.

One factor in the plus column is a distinctive look. In the pilot, director/cinematographer Felix Enriquez Alcalá reduces the glitz and glow of modern life to a grainy blue-gray, meant, perhaps, to capture how the now-dead Stone experiences the world of the still-living. In later episodes, when a strong color does make an appearance—a green pear or flowing red fabric—it emphasizes the symbol—a fresh start, for example, or a propensity for violence. The desaturation works well for New York City, where the series begins, but is less effective when Stone arrives in Los Angeles. We imagine that we are still in the cold, dreary Northeast [an idea reinforced by Stone's layered clothing] until we experience the disconnect of palm trees waving in the breeze.

Also to the series' credit is excellent casting. John Glover, for example, makes an especially good Devil. His hawk-like nose and swept-back hair evoke a bird of prey. These avian features—as well as the Devil's distaste for swearing and his use of angelic script in marking Stone's skin—are a nice homage to fallen angels Gabriel [Christopher Walken] and Lucifer [Viggo Mortensen] of The Prophecy [1995], a brilliant study of celestial beings gone bad. We enjoy the Devil's appearances, for he is witty and quick to share insight into the afterlife, but Glover tinges his character with just enough malice that we know better than to trust one word out of his mouth.

The Devil is, however, the wrong character for the series. Creative team Ethan Reiff and Cyrus Voris have diminished what should be a frightening figure by emphasizing his lack of power. The Devil should not be an incompetent unable to secure his own gates. We expect stupid humans like Pandora or the arrogant EPA agent in Ghostbusters to unleash evil on the world. When the Devil does choose to loose the damned, as Lucifer does in the "Season of Mists" storyline in Neil Gaiman's Sandman, his decision is well motivated, not a security lapse.

Better would have been a minor demon whose ineptitude had allowed the 113 sinners to escape. The audience could relate to an underling who, fearing his boss's punishment once the mistake is discovered, is scrambling to rectify the situation. And Stone should be smart enough to realize that regaining his life as a reward for the bounty hunting has no precedent in Christian mythology and likely not within the Devil's power.

At first, Horton seems a bad choice for the main character. He is too pretty. A man motivated to murder his wife's rapist should be pudgy and pockmarked, like Det. Andy Sipowicz [Dennis Franz] of NYPD Blue. We expect that level of rage and revenge from someone who won't tolerate harm to the beautiful woman who saw past his physical imperfections. But Horton sells his character, and we soon believe that Stone did love his wife more than the attention he got for his good looks and would go to extreme measures to avenge her violation.

The real problem with Stone's character is that he needs a partner—not necessarily another detective—to force viewers to consider different attitudes and perspectives. The series provides a number of contenders. Max [Lori Petty], the tech-savvy front desk clerk, would work, but the writers limit her contributions to wisecracks about Stone's shortcomings. Det. Sgt. Delilah Ash [Teri Polo] would have made an excellent Scully to Stone's Mulder, but the writers have other plans for her character [and expect the audience to swallow that Hell's denizens don't make a blip on one another's "damned-dar"]. Assistant DA Julia Trent [Michelle Forbes] could have provided a nice Law & Order cop-prosecutor balance to the program, especially if she had insisted on applying what she considered superior human justice as Stone caught his bounties. In "Executioner," when she and Det. Ash are sizing each other up in the courthouse hallway, we imagine an intriguing triangle developing as the two women compete to save an already damned dead man, blind to the fact that mistakes in their own lives might send them down his same path.

If Stone had a partner who was an atheist or non-Christian, the collision of cosmologies would have given the audience moments to consider the validity of each. Perhaps Horton, whose series work included ensemble dramas like thirtysomething, wanted the full focus on himself, but his lone perspective doesn't get viewers to question their assumptions or flirt with other world views, what should be a goal when a show deals with matters of religious faith.

Despite the lack of partner, some episodes do allow viewers to grapple with moral tangles. In "Repentance," a Dutch SS officer responsible for Jewish deaths, tries to make amends protecting the homeless in present-day LA. Stone must still return this soul to Hell, even though he [and the audience] cry foul. Most episodes, however, have underdeveloped, simplistic plots: 1) The Devil appears with a cryptic clue about Stone's new quarry, 2) Stone investigates, surprising a suspect who flees, usually by shattering a window, 3) When Stone catches up, the two fight, but Stone manages to destroy the escapee's eyes, and 4) The soul, spinning and wailing, resembles a toilet flush of fireflies as it returns to Hell. The repetitive nature of the episodes make us feel we are watching Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? Stone does have Shaggy's scruffiness, but again, where's his Scooby?

Good television should create worlds that challenge us in ways our real lives do not. No one willingly wants to experience the desperation, violence, and poverty of Baltimore as it appears in The Wire or the unpredictability and primitive island conditions in Lost, but those shows ask us to imagine surviving—even succeeding—in harsh circumstances, and as we picture ourselves there, as we watch characters with our same qualities grow or fail, we gain insight into our own strengths and weaknesses.

Brimstone, however, creates a world no one wants to visit, not even from the living room couch. If people really do get sent to Hell as punishment for their behavior in life, then God exists, but in "Encore," we watch the Divine Father allow a serial rapist to violate one woman after another—first in life and then after his return from death—but then reward the man who finally puts a stop to the abuse with eternal damnation. The Devil has pointed out that "God's universe doesn't work like the American legal system," but where is our feel-good moment in that story? We conclude that this God must hate women, and there's enough misogyny in real life that we don't need to see it practiced by the Supreme Being on television. Better to watch The Wire or Lost where we can denounce the human failings of a corrupt government or secret society.

I can imagine FOX executives interested when the idea for this show was pitched. I can imagine those executives pleased by the look and unfolding events of the pilot and green-lighting the project. I can imagine them thinking that here, finally, was the new supernatural thriller to replace the exhausted story in The X-Files. And Brimstone could have been that series. But, as so many of us do, it squandered its gifts—an intriguing idea, beautiful cinematography, and an excellent cast—on thoughtless development of character and story.

To View the Season
At YouTube, "Executioner," the story featuring Michelle Forbes, is now available, along with these other episodes: "Pilot," "Poem," "Heat," "Encore," and "Slayer."

In my market, Brimstone airs in 5-6 episode blocks every 2-3 weeks on Chiller. If you have a DVR, do a search and choose "Record Series." You'll have all 13 episodes in no time.
Cross Post
This review exists at Amazon US.

Homicide: Life on the Street, Season 6

2010-10-31T23:01:00.011-04:00

The Review

My parents were impatient people, so when I asked "Why?" as a child, I often got "Because we said so!" for an answer. As a result, I have grown up hungering for thoughtful explanations, and in the case of television series, careful development. I feel that little-kid powerlessness when I am dismissed with rushed or missing background. Season 6 of Homicide: Life on the Street still manages to tell good stories but has a number of "Because we said so!" moments that long-time viewers will find annoying.

Certain to cause a double take is Luther Mahoney's sister. Muscled and manicured, a crown of cornrows heaped on her head and cascading down her back, the exquisite Georgia Rae [Hazelle Goodman] has arrived from the Cayman Islands to bury her brother, who died at the hands of Det. Mike Kellerman [Reed Diamond] in Season 5. The problem is that Georgia Rae resembles a villainess from a James Bond movie or a comic book superhero come to life, not the authentic characters we have come to expect on Homicide. Her actions cement this resemblance as her spring-loaded thighs deliver crotch kicks that leave detectives—yes, plural—collapsed at her feet. We almost expect her to rip open her blouse to reveal a spandex-clad bosom announcing that Nut Crusher or Nad Knocker has arrived in town to avenge unjustified death. Why would Georgia Rae—the family accountant—leave the Caribbean to break cop balls in Baltimore? The writers answer: Because we said so!

When Georgia Rae brings a wrongful death suit against everyone involved in her brother's shooting, Det. Meldrick Lewis [Clark Johnson] confronts her, only to be felled by a high-heeled blow to his boys. When he breaks her nose in retaliation, the higher-ups suspend him indefinitely. Why does shift commander Lt. Al Giardello [Yaphet Kotto] support this punishment after a criminal has assaulted one of his best detectives? Why isn't Giardello screaming for the new arrest of Georgia Rae? The writers answer: Because we said so!

Georgia Rae isn't the only new woman this season. The writers also introduce Det. Laura Ballard [Callie Thorne], a melding of Detectives Kay Howard [Melissa Leo] and Megan Russert [Isabella Hofmann], two characters written out of the series. In Ballard, the writers hope to soften some of Howard's masculine edges with a dose of Russert's wise-mother femininity. Howard's long red hair may have broadcast her gender, but her most important female assets were secured behind shirts buttoned all the way to the collar, often fastened with a man's tie, so that male colleagues could not determine the color of her bra, let alone get a glimpse of cleavage.

Newbie Ballard, however, is all twenty-something trendy, with bare arms, a cropped shirt flashing a bit of midriff, and breasts tenting shirts cut to flatter her figure. So that we don't think for a minute that Ballard is an unconventional, work-driven brainiac like Howard, we have to listen to her bemoan the ticking of her biological clock in an after-work conversation with Det. Terry Stivers [Toni Lewis]. Sexuality and professional competence are not mutually exclusive, but we are not given the opportunity to watch Ballard demonstrate her skills as a detective; we are instead told that she is good during a press conference. Whereas Howard managed to keep her column black, Ballard's presence in homicide has chased red off the entire board, so much to the delight of Giardello that he hardly notices the return of Detectives Frank Pembleton [Andre Braugher] and Tim Bayliss [Kyle Secor], who have spent their off-season rotation in robbery.

If Ballard managed to wow us with her superior insight into the minds of murderers, we might forgive the writers foisting a Howard/Russert replacement on us, but Ballard is no great detective. She is soft with an AIDS patient who killed the man who infected her. She and her partner let two drug-addled hillbillies outwit them, and when a priest is beaten, bound, and knifed to death, Ballard is convinced that the best suspects are two scared 16-year-old refugees from Guatemala. Although Pembleton notes during the investigation that the murderer must be "a man with ice water in his veins"—a characteristic neither boy has—they remain Ballard's best suspects for two very long episodes. So why should we accept that she is a great detective? The writers answer: Because we said so!

Dr. Julianna Cox [Michelle Forbes], Maryland's chief medical examiner, also behaves in a manner that suits the plot, not the character. Despite her youth, exhausting social life, and penchant for leaving the big-city lab she supervises to do grunt work better left to subordinates, we buy that Dr. Cox is in charge. We are not surprised when she wins a national award for her work, and when her older male colleagues are swapping stories to determine who has solved the most difficult case, we expect that she will one-up them all with her tale of a leaper who was shot during his plummet from the roof, her analysis determining whether suicide or murder had occurred.

So we are perplexed when the confident, composed Dr. Cox behaves like a new-hire novice during the autopsy of a road-rage victim. A State of Maryland employee has run a couple off the interstate, killing the husband and paralyzing the wife. In an effort to minimize the inevitable multi-million-dollar settlement, the Director of Health asks Dr. Cox to fudge a toxicology number, a number which even Dr. Cox admits that death might have altered. As anyone who has watched Lt. Giardello knows, those in charge must be willing to compromise and barter favors as they meet responsibilities and honor loyalties. But Dr. Cox maintains an idealism not suited for someone at her professional level and refuses to change the blood alcohol level. Her insubordination results in her firing, leaving the audience to ask, Why would the accomplished Dr. Cox behave like a newbie who has not yet lost her professional naiveté? The writers answer: Because we said so!

Now if Dr. Cox was trying to escape a life and job that no longer made her happy, we were not given clues to recognize the self-sabotage. We needed to see a little hurt when Kellerman gave her the cold shoulder or when she found Bayliss lacking as a boyfriend, a little fear when she admitted frequent HIV testing.

The men seldom fare better. We have to watch Bayliss, who has never even surreptitiously cruised a guy, explore whether he might be bi- or homosexual [for ratings, we assume, not real character development]. We have to tolerate Pembleton's misjudgment of too many suspects; the most egregious is his unjustified persecution of a hospice doctor who has convinced not only his partner but also the audience that she hasn't murdered anyone. The characters who do get logical development are Kellerman, whose demonization of the Mahoney clan helps him justify his execution of Luther, and Det. Paul Falsone [Jon Seda], whose experiences as a homicide investigator inspire him to strengthen his own family ties by fighting for shared custody of his son.

The threat of cancellation from low ratings or the pull of new projects as the demise of Homicide loomed might have caused the writers to develop with less care. But during the many "Because we said so!" moments in Season 6, I couldn't help thinking—my arms crossed, my lip pushed out in a pout—"It's not fair!"

Video Teasers

At YouTube, you can view the informative PBS documentary Anatomy of a "Homicide: Life on the Street," which chronicles the work and love that goes into a single episode. Part 1 starts here.

For a montage of Dr. Julianna Cox, try this video.

To Own the Season

Homicide: Life on the Street, Season 6, is an easy purchase at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Post

This review exists at Amazon US.

Homicide: Life on the Street, Season 5

2010-09-18T23:01:00.056-04:00

The Review

By cellphone, a gunman demands a six-pack of beer and a pig—a Vietnamese potbellied pet pig, to be exact. Baltimore police respect the request as the lives of 15 middle school students and their history teacher are at stake. Four bodies already litter the grounds. A school shooting as a season opener should grab our attention and excite us about a new year of Homicide: Life on the Street. And it does, but not nearly as much as the return of Det. Frank Pembleton [Andre Braugher], whose mouth and body still stumble from the stroke he suffered in the Season 4 finale.

For a viewer who has followed Homicide from the beginning, Season 5 is different. Detectives still work interesting cases, relying more on their brains than on their guns. And the variety of deaths still make a viewer conclude, as Det. Stanley Bolander [Ned Beatty] points out in Season 1, that any human is capable of murder, whether it is a child firing her father's revolver out the window [the stray bullet hitting a woman loading groceries blocks away] to planned executions by drug lord Luther Mahoney [Erik Dellums]. Circumstances, though, have crippled a number of the characters, and Season 5 inserts us into their shoes so well that we understand how badly shaken are their lives.

Sometimes the damage to a character is physical, as is the case with Pembleton, who returns to half-day desk duty until he can pass his firearms test. We immediately notice the lack of precision—in speech, memory, and small physical tasks like punching the correct numbers to return a call to his wife. The contrast is stark, for we remember the competent Pembleton of past seasons whose movement was as meticulous as his dress, whose voice had more agility than the hands of an archeologist as it excavated the truth. We get to see the indignity of his weakness: His wife Mary [Ami Brabson] doesn't trust him with the baby, Lieutenant Giardello [Yaphet Kotto] doesn't want him at investigation scenes, and the office staff sends him on lunch runs. Even after he returns to the streets, his tape recorder—a crutch for his still shaky memory—makes colleagues wonder if he is competent enough to do the job. These trials play out over nearly three months of episodes, which adds to the reality of the injury. And Braugher depicts a stroke victim with such authenticity that we want to believe, as his character does, that "bagel" is that dark brew people enjoy for a jolt of energy.

Having seen Pembleton at his most vulnerable, his partner Tim Bayliss [Kyle Secor] finally admits wounds of his own—emotional damage this time. We learn that an uncle sexually abused the young Tim, and more devastating than the inappropriate contact was that Bayliss's father accused his son of lying. The admission of the abuse, which brings the damage back to the surface, inspires Bayliss to track down his uncle whom he plans to confront as an equal adult. What he discovers, however, is a frail old man unable to fend for himself. Bayliss, ever the sensitive champion of the weak, ends up buying groceries and cooking eggs. His behavior confounds the audience: Is Bayliss such an exemplary man that he can come to the aid of any fellow human, even his own sexual abuser? Or is Bayliss such a pushover that he is now willing to offer up his homemaking skills, too powerless still to demand that his uncle pay for the sexual deviation?

Season 5 also takes a long look at police corruption and the spiritual damage a cop suffers when wrongly accused. During a grand jury investigation, Det. Mike Kellerman [Reed Diamond] finds himself betrayed on all sides. Kellerman is a man who finds comfort in following rules. So when he worked in the arson unit, he never took a bribe in exchange for calling an intentional fire accidental. Moreover, he agreed to the unwritten code that governs police behavior and did not rat out fellow investigators he knew were dirty. Despite his good behavior, he discovers that he too is under suspicion, for his former colleagues have lied to prosecutors to get lighter sentences for their own misdeeds. Spinning with disillusionment, Kellerman eventually realizes his black and white notions of morality have bled into gray. We are not surprised when he contemplates suicide or when he takes the law into his own hands during the arrest of Mahoney, a man who could have been punished through the courts. We understand Kellerman's predicament: If no one else is playing by the rules, why should he?

Like Kellerman, Assistant State's Attorney Ed Danvers [Zeljko Ivanek] must face the collapse of his own intellectual constructs. If a win means sending a criminal to jail, then Danvers is a successful prosecutor. But he has sought impressive numbers, not real justice, negotiating plea deals that disappointed families of victims, pursing life without parole as the highest penalty because he doesn't believe in capital punishment. Then, during an armed robbery of a bridal boutique, a gunman kills his fiancée, which awakens Danvers' own blood lust. He realizes that his complacent prosecution style is not what he wants for the murderer, that he desires instead the proverbial eye for an eye. His professional reappraisal makes us pause: Are we giving at work as much as we would expect to get?

Season 5 also introduces the new chief medical examiner Dr. Julianna Cox [Michelle Forbes], a character who initially seems the least damaged of the regular cast. In her first episode, Dr. Cox conveys such authority that we never ask how this young snot acquired the medical expertise and political savvy to run a big-city lab, and so we don't question what inadequacies her ambition must be filling. Her authority appears grounded in an appreciation for the big issues in life, not the small stuff too many people sweat. For example, she champions a dead prostitute, firing an established older peer for helping a lazy detective ignore a murder he could pass off as an overdose. She insists on professionalism, disciplining Det. Meldrick Lewis [Clark Johnson] when he moves a body before her arrival at the crime scene, but admits her own fault to another officer as she politely accepts a [deserved] speeding ticket. When she remarks at an exhumation that she likes cemeteries, it's not a goth fascination with death but an evolved recognition that our inevitable demise should inspire better behavior the short time we're alive. Her idealism and edgy beauty attract Kellerman, but when Cox learns the toll of the false accusations against him—his flirtation with suicide and spiral into self-pity—she withdraws, choosing drink and a long-haired poseur over earnest Mike. As many women would rush to fix a broken man, we can only wonder what damage Cox has suffered that makes her retreat in the season finale.

Despite all the crises in the characters' lives, the work still gets done, and done well. The focus of Season 5 might be different, but the stories are still first rate.

Video Teasers

You can view a very moving scene featuring Det. Bayliss and Dr. Cox at YouTube.

To Own the Season

Homicide: Life on the Street, Season 5, is an easy purchase at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Post

This review exists at Amazon US.

The Prosecutors

2010-08-19T23:01:00.023-04:00

The Review

On December 2, 1996, NBC aired The Prosecutors as its Monday Night Movie. Like any legal drama, The Prosecutors has at its center an interesting case: Carly Breen [Amelia Campbell], a repressed, second-grade teacher, meets a man online who "violates" her not with his hands, not with his penis, but with words appearing on her computer. Consider the year before you tell Carly just to change her screen name and get over it: 1996 was the beginning of the Internet explosion. Many people had yet to sign up for an AOL account, let alone venture into a chat room, and so were unclear about what could [or could not] happen in cyberspace. The Prosecutors examines how to punish sexual harassment in virtual reality—at a time when an online life was relatively new.

Intended as a pilot for a weekly series, The Prosecutors failed to get the green light from NBC, despite writer/producer Tom Fontana [St. Elsewhere, Homicide: Life on the Street] at the helm. What went wrong? The real genius of any television series is dropping the audience into the characters' lives at precisely the right moment. The Prosecutors, unfortunately, overshoots its mark by 20 or so episodes.

Writers have four common ways to kick off a series. They can open with a volatile pairing, two diametrically opposed characters whose circumstances require that they work together, their different insights and methods giving the audience a fuller understanding of what's happening onscreen. Fontana uses this technique on Homicide when Shift Lieutenant Giardello [Yaphet Kotto] forces the seasoned Frank Pembleton [Andre Braugher] to partner with the inexperienced Tim Bayliss [Kyle Secor]. The best first-episode combination is FBI agents Fox Mulder [David Duchovny] and Dana Scully [Gillian Anderson] on The X-Files. One character essentially throws down a handful of baking soda as an analysis, and the partner pours vinegar as a retort; the resulting fizzle so mesmerizes the audience that we don't care about either of their lives before the moment when they met.

TV series can also begin with a tragedy that compels the cast to unite and interact, introducing the audience to the players and their idiosyncrasies. Desperate Housewives does this with the suicide of Mary Alice Young [Brenda Strong], Six Feet Under with the death of family patriarch Nathaniel Fisher [Richard Jenkins].

A third common opening is the introduction of a neophyte, someone whose lack of experience matches that of the audience. As the neophyte gets schooled, the audience learns as well. Medical shows like Scrubs and the first season of Grey's Anatomy make effective use of this method as we get to see hapless interns enter the dance of life and death. In Oz, Fontana introduces the horror of prison by allowing us to see through the eyes of newly incarcerated Tobias Beecher [Lee Tergesen], whose freedom ended when he plowed down a bicyclist after having too much to drink.

And sometimes the story requires backtracking. Every episode of Law and Order, for example, begins with a body. The ensuing investigation backtracks through the victim's life to discover the murderer. Medical shows like House, M. D. open with a dying patient, a diagnosis and effective treatment plan initiated only after the doctors discover what happened before the person got sick. The most brilliant use of backtracking is Lost. The life experiences of the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 are so compelling, so insightful about each character's behavior on the island, that we never mind when the story jerks us out of the jungle to visit these past events.

Writers can use these four techniques individually or in combination [Lost = tragedy + backtracking; Oz = newbie + volatile pairing of prison warden and Em City director]. But the choice or coordination must allow the audience to merge smoothly with the story.

And this is the problem with The Prosecutors. Writers Tom Fontana, Lynda La Plante, and Julie Martin give us a potentially volatile pairing in Assistant DA Rachel Simone [Michelle Forbes] and appeals lawyer Ingrid Maynard [Stockard Channing]. The able-bodied Simone commands the attention of any room; reporters respectfully hush when she speaks. Her confident stride is barely contained by the hem of her pencil skirt while stilettos follow after her feet like well-heeled dogs. In the courtroom, she champions her own opinion, twisting statutes and precedents to fit her beliefs. This brash attitude contributes to her courthouse stardom.

Events force the pairing of Simone with Maynard, who is different in many ways. Maynard's equally stellar career ended when an accident made her wheelchair bound. The loss of physical stature also reduced her confidence, and so she now prefers behind-the-scenes work instead of the glamour of trials. Unlike Simone, Maynard sees the law as formulaic. Guilt or innocence is a calculation; evidence determines the variables.

Why is this pairing ineffective? Simone is too gifted, Maynard too damaged. We needed one area of Simone's life not to work—children unhappy with the lack of attention, a husband resentful of his wife's success, pills or alcohol or illicit kisses sneaked in the ladies restroom, something to make the audience see that no one can have it all. NBC is network television, so we don't expect a top-of-her-game character to be as flawed as Showtime's Jackie Peyton [Edie Falco], but we do need an Achilles' heel, not a husband and children so supportive that no one minds how late dinner is even when it's Mom's schedule holding everyone up yet again. And Forbes can always sell a damaged character who has to be high-functioning, a talent this production overlooks.

Maynard would have been a more interesting character if she were unapologetic about her disability. Instead of letting us overhear a complaint about the steepness of an access ramp, what we should have gotten was our charioted lawyer streaking down it, pedestrians in her way be damned. If she had knocked someone's briefcase out of his hand during the ride, then she could have shouted over her shoulder, "I've warned maintenance about that ramp!" Flamboyance and a sense of humor should have masked her insecurities and anger about the handicap. Channing is certainly a good enough actress to communicate the bitterness bubbling underneath.

If the volatile pairing doesn't get the attention of the viewers, then we soon have a tragedy to grab us, as Simone's husband Michael Hall [Clark Johnson] is shot dead during a pizzeria robbery twelve minutes into the film. Unfortunately, Simone's grief is uninteresting. Instead of this death making her question her attitude about family, community, or the law, we get a woman out for revenge, someone who can use her insider knowledge and connections to get a fitting punishment, a perk denied the audience who daily suffers injustice without the resources to do anything about it. A moment of career appraisal would have given Simone an interesting depth—something like Fontana's Homicide episode "Blood Wedding" when ASA Ed Danvers [Zeljko Ivanek] has to acknowledge that his own complacent prosecution style is not what he wants for the murderer of his fiancée.

The Prosecutors also had the opportunity to hook us with a neophyte as Simone discovers that she has a new intern, Maria Valquez [Judy Reyes], who is replacing Bob or Rob, a young man suffering from exhaustion [that Simone cannot remember the name of her former underling is not an endearing characteristic]. Valquez is, however, already up to speed. She knows the case and the arguments; she never falters in an assigned task. As a result, we cannot find our way into the story through a confused newbie whose minimal understanding of procedures matches our own.

The Prosecutors is a season finale, not a pilot. Too many scenes make us aware of how much information we don't have, and the writers provide no backtracking to help. For example, at Hall's funeral, we notice that only his black family sits with Simone in front of the coffin. Is she an orphan? Or have her white parents abandoned her and their grandchildren because she married a black man? If we had a season's worth of episodes detailing how her racist family had refused to acknowledge the marriage, we would have felt anger and sympathy. The small-mindedness of her parents would have drawn us to her corner, but the writers deny us even this entrance into her life. And if the movie meant to show us how the disabled adapt and suffer, we should have first met Maynard at the height of her career, before the accident. If we don't get flashbacks, then what we need is for the story to start at a much earlier point, preferably 20 episodes prior.

That NBC failed to green-light The Prosecutors is probably a good thing. If the cast members found themselves committed to a hit series, we wouldn't have gotten the same Abbey Bartlet on The West Wing, the same Carla Espinosa on Scrubs, or another season of Juliana Cox on Homicide.

To View/Own the Movie

The Blockbuster database indicates that The Prosecutors is available to rent. I tried a variety of zip codes, including ones for New York City, the movie's setting, but could never find a store with an available copy. I searched WorldCat, the largest database of library holdings, but came up empty-handed there as well. Neither Alibris nor eBay had a copy for sale. The "detectives" at World-Wide Videos were also unable to help.

A copy can still be had, however, though its legality is dubious. Email me privately, and I'll tell you what I did to get mine.

Escape from L. A.

2010-07-21T23:01:00.008-04:00

The Review

When Escape from L.A. opens, we find Snake Plissken [Kurt Russell] in handcuffs. This time, his crimes have earned him exile from the United States. But lucky for Snake, his second arrest coincides with a new national security crisis, and the President [Cliff Robertson] wants to make a deal. Our anti-hero can remain a free citizen, his record expunged, if he agrees to retrieve a mysterious black box hijacked by terrorists. The unscrupulous President has Snake infected with Plutoxin 7, a deadly designer virus, and then dangles the antidote as additional motivation for Snake to accept the mission.

The black box is somewhere on the island of Los Angeles. An earthquake has separated the city from the mainland, and now LA is the dumping ground for the country’s undesirables. We learn that the government deports criminals, prostitutes, atheists, and runaways; we can surmise that it ships off homosexuals as well, for the uniforms the national police wear are so lacking in style that only someone who rates 0, exclusively heterosexual, on the Kinsey scale could have designed them. Without the insignia on the sleeves of her jacket, we might mistake Officer Brazen [the tall and lovely Michelle Forbes] as an Oompa Loompa moonlighting from the Chocolate Factory.

One President’s undesirables are another man’s good time, and we hope that the exiled citizens have transformed the rubble of LA into a party place populated by free-thinking nonconformists. We imagine that the Queer Eye boys have coordinated the decor and dress, that vegan pothead surfers have lovingly landscaped the city with marijuana and soybean. With temperature averages in the 70s and the Pacific lapping the shores, we expect a budding utopia where fit and trendy inhabitants travel by eco-friendly skateboard.

But writer/director John Carpenter prefers graffiti to gardens, car skids and breaking glass to hippies strumming acoustic guitars, so his LA is a bleak and dangerous place. If the prisoners in Escape from New York scurried among the ruins like cockroaches, the denizens of LA are more akin to herd animals who squeeze the triggers of their abundant guns as soon as they hear the explosive “bleating” of fellow sheep.

Snake navigates this difficult terrain where he meets inhabitants who provide knowledge or obstacles on his quest for the black box. Noteworthy is Taslima [Valeria Golino], a woman Snake encounters while in the clutches of the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills [Bruce Campbell]. Yes, despite the devolution on the island, LA residents still feed their vanity with plastic surgery, even if they must visit a Dr. Frankenstein dealing in purloined body parts. After their escape, Taslima delivers a thoughtful speech about the nature of freedom, her insight shattered when a stray bullet unceremoniously ends her life.

Disappointing are Map to the Stars Eddie [Steve Buscemi], Snake’s ride, and Cuervo Jones [George Corraface], the island’s power figure. Neither conveys the over-the-top creepiness and camp of their predecessors in Escape from New York. Unlike Cabbie [Ernest Borgnine], whose sweet, simple facade masked dark impulses—Cabbie was in the Manhattan prison for a reason, after all—Eddie is just a banal con man. And unlike the Duke [Issac Hayes], a crazy compilation of stereotypes cemented with the chandelier hood ornaments atop his Lincoln, Cuervo Jones is as flat as warm beer. Also missing is a single relationship with the sincere feeling Maggie [Adrienne Barbeau] had for Brain [Harry Dean Stanton].

Of course, the movie is about Snake, who, despite his criminal record, has real charm. Perhaps we forgive his misdeeds because we like his lion’s mane, bad-boy black leather, and dismissive hiss as he negotiates with captors. Perhaps we admire his cool-headed competence in difficult situations, his ability to handle a basketball or a surfboard with the same ease and skill as a gun or a knife. Perhaps we recognize that his desires—make a buck and avoid interference from others—are our own. More likely, we identify with his predicament: Like Snake, we have leaders in government we cannot trust as well as small-minded and manipulative people in our day-to-day lives who want our productivity to benefit them, no matter the cost to us. That Snake can outwit these folks is his real appeal.

Escape from L.A. improves on its predecessor in a number of ways. The special effects are ambitious and effective; we buy that someone can ride a tsunami on a surfboard in pursuit of a speeding vehicle—at least while we are caught in the momentum of the story. And the sound track includes real music, songs by Tool and White Zombie, for example, not just the Carpenter score, which sounds in places like a cellphone getting cooked in a microwave.

The sequel does not satisfy, however. Snake is so self-centered that he does not inspire anyone except Utopia [A. J. Langer], the President’s airhead daughter, to protest his abuse. We keep looking to Brazen to knit her brow and surprise us [as so many of Forbes’ characters do], perhaps drawing her sidearm and blowing away the dumb-ass President, but she remains the loyal officer. At the end of the movie, Snake, who has since learned the black box’s power, concludes that all of humanity needs a reboot. When he decides to screw us all, we question why we liked him in the first place.

Video Teasers

You can view the trailer at YouTube.

To Own the Movie

Escape from L. A. is an easy purchase at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Post

This review exists at Amazon US.

Guiding Light

2010-06-23T23:01:00.163-04:00

The Review

In 1968, my firefighter father spent four months recovering from back surgery after an explosion blew him out of a building. Stuck at home, he switched on the TV and soon found himself addicted to The Young and the Restless, especially the love triangle of Laurie, Leslie, and Lance. When he returned to the NYFD and could no longer watch the program [alas, VHS recorders did not yet exist], he sidled up to Aunt Marie to inquire about new events in Genoa City.

Dad was a typical viewer, for soap operas entertain the powerless: the stay-at-home mom who has removed herself from the potent world of a paycheck, the unemployed worker who waits for the phone to ring, the latch-key kid who doesn't have the skill or initiative to play football or make the cheerleading squad, or the worker, like my father, who is recovering from an injury.

Circumstances may have sidelined the viewers, but the stories they are watching are ancient and powerful. Soap operas have such a tight grip on their audience because they are replete with archetypes: the hero, mentor, sidekick, scoundrel, and mysterious stranger, to name a few. We recognize these archetypes, says Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung, because they have populated our collective unconscious since birth. Soap operas thus immerse their audiences in primal plots that spin like a yin-yang wheel: the powerful rise, as Oedipus did in Thebes, only to fall, blind to their oncoming demise; the exploited and downtrodden finally get their revenge; prizes won with great difficulty are stolen or lose their value.

These weekday stories are also accessible. They are set in present-day, recognizable locales. The characters—yes, a disproportionate number of doctors, lawyers, and police officers—answer phone calls, drink coffee, brush their hair. The audience can imagine participating in those same powerful lives once the children are old enough—or the job offer arrives, graduation occurs, or the back has recovered.

In the late 1980s, in the fictional Midwestern town of Springfield, such a story unfolded on the soap opera Guiding Light. Josh Lewis [Robert Newman], CEO of Lewis Oil, visits Venezuela, where he meets and marries Sonni Welles y Carerra [Michelle Forbes], a dark Latin beauty in stark contrast to the homogeneous, golden haired residents of Springfield, all of whom blow dry until they are as bushy as squirrels. In a typical soap opera tangle, Sonni "dies" during a hiking accident on the honeymoon but then mysteriously reappears in the States, ready to resume her and Josh's relationship.

This mysterious stranger quickly assimilates: Like the other women in Springfield, Sonni is 80s chic. She wears the big shirts with padded shoulders cinched at a small waist. She too dons earrings the size of Christmas tree ornaments that dance around her head like undisciplined dogs on long leashes. Her credentials as a psychiatrist allow her to insinuate herself in Springfield's professional circle. But she is foreign and for that reason suspect, especially for Reva Shayne [Kim Zimmer], the resident female whom the audience is championing as the best choice for Josh.

This plot is ancient and powerful; these are the same circumstances that spawned the Trojan War, a story that has entertained audiences for millennia. In Greek mythology, King Menelaus refuses to settle for a good Spartan wife and so vies for the hand of Helen, foreign in her legendary beauty. Why does Menelaus overlook someone the caliber of Penelope or Alcestis, a loyal spouse who would willingly accept subordination to her husband? The same reason Josh chooses Sonni over Reva—Sonni offers a more interesting flavor than the vanilla majority who populate town. And like Menelaus, Josh believes that he has acquired an exquisite possession; he doesn't realize that this beautiful trophy is as intelligent as he, with her own agenda and the confidence to act.

And act she does. Like Helen who betrays Menelaus and accompanies Prince Paris home to Troy [starting a 10-year war for her return], Sonni believes that a similar disloyalty will improve her own circumstances. She takes Will Jeffries [Joseph Breen] as lover, and the two plot to kill Josh and take control of Lewis Oil. Her handsome though clueless husband, convinced of his own magnetism and distracted by work, is slow to realize Sonni's independence and danger. Thankfully, Reva is there to protect him, all the while justifying her own moral lapses, like taping a church confessional, as unfortunate sacrifices for a greater good.

Newman and Zimmer spent much of their professional lives playing Josh and Reva; they both came to the show in the early 80s and remained [with small breaks] until Guiding Light ended its run in 2009. For Forbes, whose stint ran just over two years [October 1987 - November 1989], Sonni provided the opportunity to germinate the more prestigious characters who come later in her career. As her Guiding Light co-star Breen said in an interview, "I’m grateful to soaps. You’re paid to learn."

For example, Sonni was good practice for portraying aggression and authority. Unlike many of the sad or silly females in Springfield, Sonni is a serious character who seldom forgets her objectives. She commands the present, avoiding temptations like alcohol or drugs, a problem for Rose McLaren. She does not let minutia, like a spoiled wedding dress or a dead parakeet, ruin her day, as does Harley Davidson Cooper. While Blake Thorpe derails her relationship with Phillip Spaulding by admitting a fling with his father, Sonni usually beds men only if the sex will advance her goals. As a result of her foresight and control, Springfield residents—both male and female—take her seriously, just as the Pegasus and Galactica crews will take Admiral Cain in Battlestar Galactica.

Guiding Light is, however, a soap opera, so the audience can expect the characters to oscillate between extremes. Common practice is that the writers weaken the strong and make the sinister sympathetic. And so Sonni eventually develops real feelings for Josh, and viewers learn that Sonni's bad behavior is the result of childhood abuse and psychological trauma, causing a split personality. When Sonni is bad, she is channeling Solita, her identical twin sister who committed suicide—or perhaps the reverse is true: Solita is channeling Sonni when the character is good. The jury is still out on which sister really survived. Their father believes that rebellious Solita lives, but can we trust a man who takes a bull whip to his teenage daughter when he discovers her normal sexual exploration? The real confusion more likely comes from the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike that benched Guiding Light's head writer Pam Long and allowed less talented scabs to muck up the plot.

We can dismiss the Sonni/Solita split as typical, absurd daytime TV, but that dual role gave Forbes experience depicting psychopathology, an art at its height with Forbes' most chilling character, forensic psychiatrist Pen Verrity of Durham County. Like Sonni, Dr. Verrity can be polished and professional one moment, an asset to the homicide detectives who consult her, but then have her competence erode so completely that she provides the razor blade a suicidal patient needs to kill herself. Like Sonni, Dr. Verrity's disintegration is the result of childhood trauma compounded by a father's abuse.

Despite her strength, Sonni [or Solita, take your pick] is no role model. She is scary not only to watch but also to emulate. The character operates far outside normal behavior, which makes her a good precursor for True Blood's Maryann Forrester. No, the eyes of Springfield residents never turn black, but like Maryann, Sonni transcends the conventions that rein in the behavior of most women. She is physical, pushing Reva into an open grave with the same dismissal as Maryann decking Karl in the kitchen. Sonni also has an uncanny insight into the motivations of others, just as an ancient maenad would. Springfield residents might think they have the upper hand only to discover that Sonni has been manipulating the conversation all along. When Reva hopes to sublimate the Solita persona and get Sonni to reemerge, she digs a hole to represent Solita's resting place. Poor Reva believes she is making real headway curing Sonni's mental illness, but Sonni just scoffs, "That hole over there looks more like a bad landscaping job than it does a grave." There are no orgies [that we get to see] in Springfield, but Sonni makes others aware of their desires. Her presence, for example, inspires Josh and Reva to find their way into each other's arms once again.

The Josh/Reva/Sonni triangle is a delight to watch. Reva, who can fight dirty, really only wants to be a good wife and mother. Sonni sometimes considers convention but usually finds fault with the established roles for women. And poor Josh is so easily manipulated by them both that we conclude either Reva or Sonni would make a better CEO of Lewis Oil.

To View Michelle Forbes on Guiding Light

Before you view any Guiding Light episodes, I recommend reading Sonni's character biography at Soap Central or Nancy M. Reichardt's syndicated soap opera summaries.

Next, watch this episode which explains Josh's feelings for Sonni: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Then watch this clip, which includes Sonni's first appearance on the show.

For insight into Sonni's life after her "murder" of lover Will Jeffries, try the 28-part "Woman in Mind" series, which features Sonni prominently [though not exclusively and not in the first part]: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8, Part 9, Part 10, Part 11, Part 12, Part 13, Part 14, Part 15, Part 16, Part 17, Part 18, Part 19, Part 20, Part 21, Part 22, Part 23, Part 24, Part 25, Part 26, Part 27, Part 28.

And for the height of the Sonni/Solita split, you have several full episodes:

December 30, 1988: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7; February 3, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7; February 6, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7; February 7, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7; February 9, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7; February 10, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5; February 13, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4; February 14, 1989: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.

You can see Sonni's last appearance here.

The Outer Limits: Time Travel & Infinity

2010-06-06T23:01:00.002-04:00

The Review

The Outer Limits: Time Travel & Infinity includes six episodes with one common lesson: Humans, no matter their era or level of technology, cannot disrupt the time stream without altering history in unexpected ways.

The collection opens with "A Stitch in Time," where we meet Dr. Theresa Givens [Amanda Plummer], a frumpy, isolated university professor who has a single-minded mission: As soon as the state executes a serial killer in present time, she uses her portal to visit the past and exterminate the murderer before he can hurt his first victim. Although she is smart enough to build a time machine, Dr. Givens foolishly uses the same gun for each killing, which has brought her to the attention of the FBI with its comprehensive ballistics database. Investigating the murders of these men—killings which span 40 years—is Agent Jamie Pratt [Michelle Forbes]. At first, Agent Pratt is everything Dr. Givens is not: smartly dressed, comfortable in the company of fellow human beings, engaged in the world. But a serial killer derailed Agent Pratt's life when he murdered her best friend, and when Pratt discovers that she can undo this atrocity with Dr. Given's device, her life and values [and even the set of her eyes and smoothness of her hair] change.

Plummer was an excellent choice for a mad scientist as few actors do red-eyed twitchy-crazy as well as she, and this role earned her a 1996 Emmy for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series. In Agent Pratt, writer Steven Barnes gives us more than a suit with a gun, for we learn that the same bad choices Pratt makes about men—preferring the handsome alphas to the sensitive quiet guys—is the female behavior that initially set off the serial killer who later murders her best friend.

Three of the episodes in the collection include Nicholas Prentice [Alex Diakun], a visitor from 2059 with permission from the Chrononics Institute to meddle in the past. Slender and deliberate, Prentice resembles a lizard—one which moved too slowly to escape the uninvited kiss of a girl searching for her prince. Despite his superior vantage and technology, Prentice still has difficulty managing individuals and events during his temporal trespassing.

In "Tribunal," for example, Prentice helps the son of a Holocaust survivor find justice for his father, whose first wife and daughter died at the hands of Birkenau's commandant, now a retired dry cleaner living without penalty in the US. When fetching artifacts from the 1940s fails to convince present-day prosecutors of the old man's true identity, Prentice and the son use time travel to relocate the senior Nazi—dressed in prisoner clothing—to his own camp; there, his younger self metes out punishment in a satisfying way.

"Gettysburg" shows that destiny is a powerful force difficult to escape. In this episode, Prentice relocates a Civil War reenactor to 1863, hoping to teach the young man that war and Confederate values are not glamorous. Prentice has an ulterior motive: If this young man realigns his fundamental beliefs, then he won't grow old and bitter and shoot the first African-American President in 2013. The reenactor does not survive the trip through history, but Prentice's meddling puts other pieces in play that nevertheless cause the President's assassination.

In "Time to Time," the Chrononics Institute snatches a grad student right before death. She can work for Prentice in 2059—a time traveler for hire—or return to 1989 and perish in the car wreck. To help her decide, one of Prentice's subordinates escorts her to 1969, where she learns that her anti-war hippie father died disarming—not detonating, as she believed—a bomb in the ROTC headquarters at Berkley. She must wrestle with preserving her own life, trying to save her father's life, and weighing the consequences to the time stream that her decisions will cause.

Weakest of the six stories is "Déjà Vu." This hackneyed episode chronicles a temporal loop spawned during the botched test of a transporter. The lead scientist realizes the problem and so each new cycle hatches plans to escape. The predictably malevolent military supervisor, whose intentions are to use the transporter for evil, suffers like Tantalus—the off switch to end the loop just out of reach.

The episode with the most moral tangles is "Patient Zero." A plague has ravaged the future; scientists hope to avoid the devastation by eliminating the woman who birthed the virus. The assassin from the future sent to kill her loses his "killing glove" and discovers he cannot perform a bare-handed murder of a woman with whom he strongly identifies [both are recently widowed]. He must weigh the life of one against the millions of sick and dying who are to come if he doesn't act.

Since each episode of The Outer Limits has a new cast in a new place, the stories resemble plays with minimal sets. Those episodes that attempt to capture big historical events are at first noticeably small. In "Gettysburg," for example, the audience cannot experience the magnitude of the 70,000 men who fought with General Lee as we get just a handful of well dressed extras [some affluent gentry, some greasy hillbillies] with a horse or two thrown in for realism. "Tribunal" is cramped as well; scenes at the Birkenau camp are gray, bleak, and muddy, but the prisoners are too fleshy and laundered to be anything but actors in roles. One tight shot after another—without the panoramic sweep of big-budget movies—contributes to the claustrophobia. But then the writers throw in such an effective line that the scene expands. The horror of the Holocaust becomes big and real when the commandant says to a prisoner, "I don't like being here any more than you. But killing a Jew before breakfast is the only solace of this miserable job."

As this collection shows, time travel is fun to consider, but we also learn that no human has the omniscience necessary to determine if the consequences to history will truly benefit or harm humankind.

To View the Season

You can view "A Stitch in Time" at Internet Movie Database or YouTube.

All of the other episodes in the collection are available online: "Tribunal," "Gettysburg," "Time to Time," "Déjà Vu," and "Patient Zero."

To Own the Season

The Outer Limits: Time Travel & Infinity is out of print, but you can easily purchase a new or used copy from a Marketplace Seller at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Post

This review also exists at Amazon US.

Black Day Blue Night

2010-05-11T23:01:00.004-04:00

The Review

A tarantula crawls across a desolate road. An unmarked police cruiser speeds through the desert. When the two travelers finally intersect, the Chevrolet's draft flips the arachnid. The spider rights itself and continues its journey.

This opening scene from Black Day Blue Night mirrors the movie's plot. Writer/director J. S. Cardone puts three characters into purposeful motion. Halfway through the film, an unexpected—and, unfortunately, unmotivated—"flip" occurs. Like the tarantula, the surviving characters get up and continue on their way, but viewers should expect to feel less invested in the outcome. Recovering from the tumble—and trusting the storyteller again—will prove difficult.

The first character we meet is Rinda Woolley [Michelle Forbes], a young woman with impulse control issues. What is good in the moment is what Rinda pursues, whether it is Barbie blond hair with a drugstore bottle of dye [which makes her dark coif orange], passionate sex with a man she hardly knows [whose wife shoots her way through the motel room door], or quitting her job in a rage [and without a polite two week's notice]. Rinda interjects profanity and physical punctuation into every impulsive action, like unleashing fry-cook fu on the patrons and their vehicles as she departs Hop Chung's Cafe.

When Hallie Schrag [Mia Sara], the betrayed wife, asks for a ride, Rinda agrees, perhaps to atone for her contribution to the adultery. With no good music on the radio, Rinda turns to Hallie for conversation and learns that her companion is both an orphan and a victim of domestic abuse. We have our doubts, for Hallie's face does not have the wear acquired from watching a mother drink herself to death, and her body [which we will soon see in all its glory] has not a single mark on it.

When a thunderstorm strands Rinda's ancient Cadillac in the mud, the women encounter Dodge [Gil Bellows], a drifter hugging a mysterious suitcase. Impulsive Rinda invites him along, and the three decide to detour to a spring-fed canyon where they swim, drink, and swap stories about their disappointing childhoods. When Dodge chooses Hallie for sex—perhaps because she bares all in an artless presentation of female breasts—Rinda continues to California alone.

Interrupting Rinda's drive west is Lt. John Quinn (J. T. Walsh). Quinn is a lone-wolf Provo detective investigating the robbery of an armored car and murder of one of its guards. Two suspects died when their getaway car hit a cow, but the third is still loose with one million dollars in his possession. When Quinn discovers Rinda used a marked $20 bill to buy gas and was traveling with a hitchhiker, he offers a $10,000 reward for Dodge's whereabouts. The huge sum seduces Rinda, who leads Quinn back to the canyon.

Once there, without any motivation or explanatory back story, Quinn kills Rinda and a fellow law enforcement officer, reveals that he is the third robber in the heist, and demands his money, convinced that Dodge must have happened upon the accident scene and "stolen" it. As Quinn tries to get Dodge to reveal the money's location [it's not, alas, in the mysterious suitcase], Hallie admits that she has the cash and shoots Quinn dead. The tumble has occurred.

Quinn is not the real villain of this movie—the bad writing is. If Cardone wanted this film to become a low-budget gem for audiences to discover and love, then he needed to give the story, not Sara's breasts, more attention. Logic leaks from big holes in the plot, each of which Cardone could have plugged with a line or two of dialogue.

For example, Rinda needs a compelling reason to betray Dodge for the reward money. She already had a chance to turn him over to law enforcement when, at a gas station, a sheriff was inquiring about hitchhikers, but she protected Dodge by pretending to be his wife.

The plug for this hole is easy. During their get-acquainted conversation, Hallie should have asked Rinda, "So what's in San Diego?" Rinda could have answered, "A woman whose tastes I couldn't afford." Making Rinda bisexual would fit her look: sexy, straight cowgirl from the waist down with the bare legs and work boots, and cute lesbian butch from the waist up with the plaid flannel shirt and short hair. She would then have a good reason for wanting the money, and bisexuality would give the scenes in the canyon much more tension as Rinda competed not only with Hallie for Dodge but also with Dodge for Hallie. With just her acrobatic eyes, Forbes could have had Rinda roll from interest in the boy one moment to the girl the next.

The second problem is that Hallie has not a mark on her despite her husband's beatings and surviving a car wreck that left two people, a cow, and a vehicle broken and bloody. Again, the fix is easy. At some point, Hallie should have disrobed enough for Rinda to notice bruises. That's when Hallie should have asked, "Did he hit you too?" Blaming the bruises on an abusive husband [when she really acquired them from the accident] would have made a nice feint. A seat belt across her torso during the accident flashback would explain why she wasn't thrown from the vehicle as were the other two occupants.

The biggest hole is that Quinn has no motivation to rob an armored car and murder a guard. His boss does worry that he's "gone squirrely" but offers no explanation for the comment. If the chief had just added, "He hasn't been the same since Louise started chemo. I sure wish insurance would pay for that experimental treatment," then we could understand why a good cop had gone bad.

Just as the tarantula crosses more quickly after its tumble in the Chevrolet's wake, we want the end to hurry up and arrive before we get flattened by another big inconsistency racing our way, Cardone at the wheel.

Video Teasers

You can view scenes from the movie at YouTube.

To Own the Movie

You can buy a VHS copy of Black Day Blue Night from a Marketplace Seller at Amazon US or an "all regions" DVD from Amazon UK or Alibris. Despite the "all regions" guarantee, my copy from Alibris would play only in a computer DVD drive.

Cross Post

This review also exists at Amazon US.

Seinfeld, Season 6

2010-04-15T23:01:00.005-04:00

The Review

What does Seinfeld do best? It examines the ways we can protect egos. Think about it: Whenever the fragile human body is at risk, governments and manufacturers spell out the rules. They tell us, for example, to buckle our seat belts; with certain products, we must avoid contact with eyes, refrigerate after opening, and use in a well-ventilated area.

We say the ego can be "bruised," but we mean this metaphorically, for an intangible can suffer no physical harm. Egos cannot, say, slip on icy sidewalks. As a result, no one posts guidelines to protect our inner selves, and people are left to wonder, "Did I just hurt that guy's feelings, or should I be the one to take offense?" Luckily, the writers and cast of Seinfeld explore the rules that even Miss Manners doesn't address, such as how long to date someone after a night of disappointing sex. Season 6 continues this tradition.

Why are we so ignorant about protecting the ego? Seinfeld shows that interacting with our fellow humans is like crossing state lines. Just as an activity might be legal in Massachusetts but outlawed in Georgia, one character will find an opinion or action tolerable while another does not. And when belief systems collide, egos get damaged.

For example, Elaine [Julia Louis-Dreyfus] requires people, especially boyfriends, to mirror her views. In "The Couch," she meets a handsome, unpretentious furniture mover but then breaks up with him because he doesn't share her stance on abortion. Her ego cannot risk constant impact with a different conviction. And in "The Face Painter," she almost abandons Puddy [Patrick Warburton], another great male, because in preparation for a hockey playoff game, he dresses as the devil. To date Elaine, Puddy must endure her irrational requirements, like not painting his face. Angering Elaine with beliefs different from her own can be an unpleasant experience, as restaurateur Poppie [Reni Santoni] discovers when Elaine harangues him so badly over his pro-life opinions that he ends up in the hospital.

Sometimes the Seinfeld characters know the appropriate behavior, but like reckless drivers ignoring the speed limit, they break the rules anyway, hoping their egos will survive the crash. In "The Gymnast," George [Jason Alexander] spies a nearly pristine éclair in the garbage. The trashcan lid might not warn, "Do not consume contents," but George still knows that he shouldn't eat what's inside. When his girlfriend's mother steps into the kitchen and observes his bad behavior, her gasp is just as panic inducing as the lights of a police cruiser in the rear-view mirror.

Getting caught eating garbage deflates George's ego. He looks bad not only to this witness but also to anyone who hears the story, so he tries to rationalize what he's done. He explains to Jerry that the eclair was "above the rim" and "still had the doily," but Jerry—as unsympathetic as a highway patrolman—considers these explanations as lame as "I was just flowing with the traffic." He tickets George with his disapproval. [And the audience's egos feel good, for even if we ate an unhealthy dessert that day, at least ours didn't come from the trash.]

Time and time again, Seinfeld demonstrates that loss of status can crumple an ego like a distracted driver T-boning another vehicle. One guarantee of status is treating other people with such respect that everyone observing the behavior thinks highly of the well-mannered character. In "The Jimmy," Elaine dates a man after a misunderstanding about his name, not because she finds him interesting or attractive. Likewise, in "The Soup," Jerry agrees to take the annoying Bania [Steve Hytner] to dinner as a thank-you for an Armani suit, not because he enjoys the company of his fellow comedian.

On the other hand, when someone points out impolite behavior, the character loses status and scrambles to minimize the damage to his ego. In "The Couch," Kramer [Michael Richards] notes that Jerry should have offered the deliverymen a cold drink. Since furniture movers do not have "Please hydrate" stamped on their coveralls, Jerry obsesses over the unintended offense. He doesn't want either his friend or the deliverymen to think less of him.

An even more interesting loss of status occurs in "The Big Salad." George hopes to acquire a little ego boost by treating Elaine to lunch. At the coffee shop, George's girlfriend Julie [Michelle Forbes] grabs the to-go package and then hands it off without noting who had made the actual purchase. When George later tries to get credit, Elaine cannot understand why he needs her thanks, and when Julie learns that George made a big deal about the salad, she is so annoyed that she walks out of his life. But George has hit on a heretofore unarticulated truth: the person who delivers the gift, not the person generous enough to have paid, gets the undeserved glory.

Why does neither woman understand George's desire for acknowledgement? Both are attractive, and the many admiring glances they get each day reinforce their egos. Elaine draws attention for being cute and flirty; Julie is big-city beautiful, her confidence and sophistication more smartly coordinated than her clothes. George, on the other hand, is short, pudgy, and bald. He needs acknowledgement for that salad because no one is eyeing his physical appearance with appreciation. So give the poor boy a break, girls, and pump him up a little! If his ego psi drops below 6 percent, he could blow like an underinflated tire.

In matters of physical harm, the judicial system will not entertain ignorance of the law as an excuse, for it has collected codes and rules in accessible books. But when intangible egos are at stake, we do not have a set of legally-binding documents that tell us how to behave. Are we wrong to re-gift or even de-gift? Must we kiss hello? When is it okay to date the girlfriend's roommate? Season 6 addresses these and other potentially ego-damaging situations to help educate us all.

Video Teasers

You can view George eating the éclair at YouTube and all of "The Big Salad" at TBS.

To Own the Season

Seinfeld, Season 6, is an easy purchase at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Post

This review also exists at Amazon US.

Just Looking

2010-03-23T23:01:00.022-04:00

The Review

Just Looking introduces Jim [James LeGros] and Mary [Michelle Forbes], a sweet couple with a 4-year-old daughter who is chipmunk cute. Life has so far been kind: They live in a nice home furnished Santa Fe chic. Their community is intimate enough that they share play dates with neighbors and movie recommendations at the local video store. Jim works as an architect, Mary as a travel agent, so the two incomes mean they have few material desires they cannot satisfy. They are so busy managing the family and chasing ambitions at work that they have not yet realized their relationship ennui.

To shake them out of their complacency are the exhibitionist neighbors Jim spies one evening from his second-story deck. What seems to the viewer as passionate but pretty ordinary, missionary-position sex becomes something more for voyeur Jim. His view through the neighbors’ open blinds makes him question his 10-year marriage to Mary. Can he be happy in a relationship where his wife frequently rejects his romantic advances? Can he limit sexual encounters to a single woman? As camouflage on his perch, Jim crawls into his daughter’s nylon tunnel-tent, becoming a giant version of the organ wanting more attention.

To his credit, Jim first tries to spice things up at home. He rents pornography to get Mary in the mood, but she responds with giggles, not ripping off her clothes. Next, he buys Mary sexy lingerie—which she wears as a good sport—but then he ruins the mood when he gets an incisor caught in the lace. As Jim attempts to reignite their sexual fire, Mary becomes aware of his dissatisfaction, and she too begins to appraise their relationship.

Complicating Jim and Mary’s reevaluation of life are Dave [Marshall Bell], Jim’s womanizing supervisor, and Sherrie [Ally Walker], Mary’s coworker, a woman who prefers the insecurity of casual relationships to what she deems the passionless monogamy of marriage. Dave offers Jim commitment-free dalliances with prostitutes named Wicked Wanda or Delicious Debbie. Sherrie and her new boyfriend Craig [Steven Weber] propose a ménage à trois with Mary as the requisite third.

Since writer/director Tyler Bensinger gives equal time to Jim and Mary, the audience ends up sympathizing with them both.

On the one hand, we can understand Jim’s frustrations as our own relationships have shown us that two people are seldom in complete agreement about anything, including a schedule for sex. Moreover, Jim does not appear unreasonably selfish in his desire for more bedroom excitement—in part because his actions and dress give him a number of nonthreatening boyish qualities. He is inept as he asks his boss for a promotion. He is swimming in clothes that look like hand-me-downs from an older brother.

We also understand that Jim's view through the blinds is misleading, for it shows a couple enjoying sex unencumbered by the minutia of daily life. Jim sees only the acrobatics on the bed, not the more mundane problems of too little money in the checking account or too many phone calls from a nagging mother-in-law. The window frames a fantasy, not the complete picture of his neighbors' lives.

On the other hand, we glance around the house and note that the bathroom is pristine white, and no juice box spills stain the carpet or furniture. Mary obviously keeps a neat and tidy house while raising their daughter, working outside the home, and taking professional development courses at night. If she’s tired and wants to wait until the weekend for romance, we can sympathize with her as well. We are also less likely to commiserate with Jim when we realize the beauty of his wife [for costume designer Jyl Moder cannot completely deglamorize actress Forbes no matter how conservative the eye makeup, no matter how many times white socks get paired with white sneakers].

On the plus side, Just Looking shows the range of LeGros and Forbes, both of whom have depicted much less conventional characters in past roles. LeGros, for example, makes Jim such a charming, good-intentioned husband and father that you cannot imagine him screaming—as he does as gunshot Roach in Point Break—"I'll see you in hell, Johnny!" Forbes depicts a typical exhausted wife and mother, complete with body image insecurities, a far cry from confident producer Dawn Lockard of Swimming with Sharks or counter-culture photographer Carrie Laughlin in Kalifornia.

On the minus side, Just Looking is predictable in its eventual happy resolution. And once the DVD ends, we remember the depressing statistics—that 50 percent of marriages end in divorce and up to 20 percent of married couples live in sexless relationships.

To Own the Movie

Just Looking is out of print, but you can easily purchase a new or used copy from a Marketplace Seller at Amazon US or UK. This copy will be PAL encoded, so it will play without incident on a computer with a DVD drive. It will not, however, play on most US DVD players.

Cross Post

This review also exists at Amazon US.

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5

2010-02-25T23:01:00.002-05:00

The Review

Season 5 of Star Trek: The Next Generation contains many predictable elements. Big surprise, the Enterprise encounters new aliens that test the crew's versatility and quick thinking as well as meeting old foes, like the Crystalline Entity and the Borg, who make them debate good and evil, right and wrong. Season 5 includes time travel, body possession, and transporter malfunctions. For a little titillation, the audience can count on Cmdr. Riker [Jonathan Frakes] seducing any pretty young thing in sight, including an extra bumpy Ktarian and a board-flat androgyne.

In addition to its predictable subjects, Season 5 focuses on the senior crew, who are such consummate professionals that the audience can hardly relate. We don’t want the stress Capt. Picard [Patrick Stewart] must feel as he seeks solutions to life-and-death problems. And we certainly don't want our free time spent in a stuffy little ready room reading smelly old books and watching the lion fish swim in its claustrophobic aquarium—not when there's a poker game happening on another deck. We might enjoy Counselor Troi [Marina Sirtis] listening to us, but we wouldn’t want her job of listening to everyone else. We would want the health, safety, and security that Dr. Crusher [Gates McFadden], Lt. Cmdr. La Forge [LeVar Burton], and Lt. Worf [Michael Dorn] provide, but we don't want our days filled with the work and responsibility—not unless we can bitch about the boss and trade porn jokes via communicator, activities the senior crew would never do.

So why aren't we bored? How does STNG still manage to fire up our imaginations? Season 5 captivates its audience with a foolproof formula: It introduces a neophyte who, because of limited experience, thinks like the audience who are just as ignorant. We relate to this character because in our own lives, most of us are not the doctors, lawyers, cops, or starship crew overrepresented on TV. Situations and veteran characters then guide the neophyte to understand issues and responsibilities in fuller, deeper ways, schooling us in the process.

The first four seasons, we had young Wesley Crusher [Wil Wheaton] as our stand-in. For Season 5, with Wes toiling away at Starfleet Academy, the writers introduce Ensign Ro Laren [Michelle Forbes], a Bajoran with Starfleet experience but no familiarity with the professionalism and community that characterize the Enterprise. Ensign Ro does more than give the audience a new neophyte to learn from; she appeals to a different variety of geek.

Geeks—the primary audience for sci-fi television like STNG—fall somewhere on this continuum: At one extreme point are the folks who desire idealized social conformity. They yearn to participate in a cool group—just not the imperfect cliques at school or work. They want a community without pettiness, bullying, and other human flaws. Folks at this extreme desire to be members of the near-utopian Enterprise, and they relate to Wesley because they would love the opportunity to come up in the culture as he has. At the other extreme of the geek continuum are the rebels. During the original Saturday night broadcasts, they were watching STNG because they couldn't bear to attend football games or parties like the mindless sheep they labeled their peers. So they stayed home, ridiculed Wesley for his desire to please, and hoped to identify with the misunderstood aliens the Enterprise was bound to meet. These folks embraced Ensign Ro, whom Big Daddy Picard rewarded with attention despite her being standoffish, disobedient, and untamable.

To explain her atypical behavior, the writers give Ensign Ro this back story: She and her race lost their home planet to the Cardassians. Orphaned and living in refugee camps, Ro grew up feeling discarded and so is herself quick to reject. She abandons her own people to join Starfleet but then disobeys orders with disastrous results, including the forfeit of her commission and personal freedom. Ro boards the Enterprise with a sullen attitude and non-regulation Bajoran earring, happy to throw away a good first impression on Cmdr. Riker. When in 10-Forward Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi ask if she would mind their company at her table, she answers simply, “Yes,” dismissing their offer of friendship.

Forbes does an excellent job communicating the coltish energy of an exasperated teenager. Although her character never utters the word, we hear a "Whatever!" in the way she throws her body around. We soon forget that Ensign Ro is a Starfleet officer as Forbes has Ro assume sloppy, defensive posture, barely able to contain her contempt for the old farts who just can’t appreciate her radical ideas and maverick methods. Whenever Ro knits her brow, either to signify anger or perplexity, those signature eyebrows emphasize the emotion.

Ensign Ro obviously has lessons to learn, and since we have all had occasion to feel that we will never fit in or do things right, we get schooled along with her. In “Disaster,” for example, Counselor Troi finds herself in charge of a ship about to explode. Ro recommends abandoning the drive section despite the survivors it might contain. Troi refuses to separate the saucer, a successful maneuver that teaches Ro that an officer should not so callously abandon her crew.

In "Power Play," however, Capt. Picard demonstrates when an officer must sacrifice life. The Enterprise encounters penal colony escapees who board the ship in the bodies of Counselor Troi, Chief O'Brien [Colm Meaney], and Lt. Cmdr. Data [Brent Spiner]. Picard tricks them into a cargo bay where he can blow the hatch, sacrificing himself and the other officers but taking the prisoners with him and thus saving everyone else on the ship.

In "The Next Phase," Ensign Ro awakens on the Enterprise after a transporter accident. Since no one can see her, she believes she is dead, a suspicion confirmed when she discovers Dr. Crusher filling out her death certificate. Lt. Cmdr. La Forge, cloaked in the same manner, convinces her not to abandon her place among the living so quickly, that another explanation besides death might account for their predicament. Working together, they find a solution to their invisibility rather than haunt the ship as ghosts.

What Season 5 needed was one more episode to show whether Ensign Ro grew as a result of her experiences on the Enterprise. The writers should have put her in a situation similar to the disastrous away mission from the Wellington when her disobeying orders caused the deaths of eight crew members. With flashbacks or another storytelling device, the writers could have given the audience the opportunity to learn the events of that day and make up its own mind whether Ro behaved poorly or not. The Enterprise crew knows the story; it's unfair that we don't. Was her decision a calculated loss of life? Would by-the-book have definitely failed? Was the captain of the Wellington an ineffectual leader prone to giving bad orders? A drunk? The paralleling new situation would have allowed us to observe what Ro had since learned.

If the Enterprise resembles a plastic surgeon's office with its calm pastels, uncluttered surfaces, and recessed lighting, the characters often seem victims of the doctor's knife, sliced a little too tight, as with Ensign Ro. Or perhaps the real characters of the series are the controversial issues each episode addresses, the crew just flat pieces, like plastic checkers, pushed around as the two sides face off.

Geek-O-Meter

Just so you know, owning an Ensign Ro Laren action figure sends the needle to the far right, Hopeless Nerd, on the Geek-O-Meter. On the con side, the doll doesn't look a bit like Michelle Forbes, even with the widow's peak and painted mole. It does, however, bend at the limb joints for posing and comes with a phaser, tricorder, and iPad precursor that fit in her hands.

If you need a talisman to access your own inner Ro, this action figure is just the thing. You can sit her near your computer at work. Then when Mr. Paranoid comes over to ask if you want to hear his latest conspiracy theory about how the bosses are trying to cheat everyone out of rightful compensation, you can touch your Ro doll to draw on her impatience with stupidity and say, "Not right now, Peter." When Ms. Annoying arrives to bemoan how the evil fifth-grade teacher treats her precious little princess like Cinderella—or wants you to order Girl Scout cookies despite your vow to eat better this year—you can glance Ro's way, remember her penchant for directness, and say, "Another time, Jane. I have to finish this report."

Just be careful. My experience in the working world has me conclude that the Captain Picards are few and far between. What an effective leader might see as spunk—an initiative to harness for good—your boss might see as defiance or insolence, qualities that will get you in trouble at your next review.

I have one. You can purchase your own here.

Video Teasers

You can view every Ensign Ro episode at YouTube: "Ensign Ro," "Disaster," "Conundrum," "Power Play," "Cause and Effect," "The Next Phase," "Rascals" [Season 6], and "Preemptive Strike" [Season 7].

To Own the Season

Star Trek: The Next Generation, Season 5, is an easy purchase at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Post

A shorter version of this review exists at Amazon US.

Swimming with Sharks

2010-01-23T23:01:00.002-05:00

The Review

When Swimming with Sharks opens, paramedics are depositing a sheet-draped body in an ambulance. The audience knows that someone has made a bad decision, for the police presence in the residential neighborhood means a homicide, not a heart attack. To explain what has happened, writer/director George Huang uses a series of flashbacks. From these, we learn that Guy [Frank Whaley], a lowly assistant to a powerful Hollywood executive, must choose between power and art.

The first flashback depicts the previous evening when Guy reaches the breaking point. His boss Buddy Ackerman [Kevin Spacey] is ready to fire him, and this news inspires Guy to take Buddy hostage. Guy waves a gun and declares, "It's payback time," and we expect a goofy revolt like the one secretaries stage in 9 to 5.

The next flashback is Guy's first day at work a year earlier. Here we gain two important insights: On the one hand, Buddy is a nightmare boss; he flaunts his power to make or break careers and insults the underlings. But we also learn from world-weary Rex [Benicio Del Toro], Buddy's former assistant, that if Guy can tolerate the abuse, he will eventually win a powerful position in the movie industry.

The rest of the film bounces between the escalating violence during Buddy's kidnapping—we are soon thinking Stephen King's Misery rather than 9 to 5—and the small and large indignities heaped on Guy during his year of servitude. The power Buddy wields is seductive, and he teases Guy with a taste, exclaiming, "You and I are going to run this place" after Guy reworks a script for a potential blockbuster.

Guy has a second powerful force in his life, his lover Dawn Lockard [Michelle Forbes]. The relationship begins with a tongue-lashing when Dawn finds Guy in her parking spot. Once she realizes that Guy works for Buddy, she takes him out for drinks to apologize; as she admits, she needs her calls to get on Buddy's phone sheet, which Guy now controls. Next, she takes the young assistant to bed, charmed after Guy explains the powerful tangle of movies and memories.

Like Guy, Dawn suffered professional hazing while climbing the show business ladder. Now a producer with power of her own, Dawn tries to get Guy to avoid the mistakes she made. She wants him to hone his talents as a writer, not a sycophant. Muse-like, Dawn hopes to inspire Guy to make art, not deals.

Guy's final decision between these two people is so shocking that the movie benefits from a second viewing. Then you can appreciate the loving attention to detail and craft. When the credits roll, you realize that Huang has depicted a busy office in a frantic town with a cast of nine and a handful of well-placed extras. Watch for costuming changes that indicate character development. For example, Guy begins the job with a cowlick and a tied tongue, but as he masters the skills necessary to assist Buddy, he becomes the smooth talker with slick hair. Or watch Dawn go from power bitch, blasting Guy about the parking spot [in an otherwise empty lot], to Zen master in an office-appropriate, wide-sleeved Buddhist "robe" as she attempts to steer her grasshopper away from the authority and affluence Buddy is dangling. Spacey is a master of transitions. Observe how one moment his Buddy is an affable, loose-muscled, enthusiastic manager, and then the next his eyes grow cold, his face freezes, his voice slows as he remembers that the other human being in the room has the importance [or intelligence] of a paper clip.

A second viewing will also let you hear with new insight. Tom Hiel's score, with lots of high-note piano, mimics the way Buddy's abuse plucks Guy's nerves. Abundant dialogue clues indicate the surprising conclusion to come. Listen closely, for example, to Dawn. Like the Oracle at Delphi [but with less ambiguity], she announces the future: "You're going to make a killing in this business."

A real delight about Swimming with Sharks is that Huang, himself an assistant to Hollywood executives, obviously resisted the temptation of power, with all of its left-brain scheming, for he created the art that is this movie.

Video Teasers

You can view the trailer at YouTube. Lions Gate provides a number of scenes: Guy's Revenge, Sweet 'N Low, Rex Gives Rundown, Pencils More Important, and Late Night.

To Own the Movie

Swimming with Sharks is an easy purchase at Amazon US, UK, or iTunes.

Cross Post

This review exists at Amazon US.

The Road Killers

2010-01-02T23:01:00.001-05:00

The Review

Writer Tedi Sarafian and director/brother Deran were awake in lit class, for their film The Road Killers filches from two classic American short stories: "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor. The Sarafians, though, do not have the skill to interweave the horror of those two works into an effective whole.

In the opening scene, we meet 16-year-old Ashley [Alexondra Lee], a sullen, disrespectful teenager. When her family's car overheats on a desolate highway, Ashley stretches her legs—with nothing between the bottom of her bare ass and the cowboy boots on her feet but a few threads dangling from her cutoff shorts. Her style and demeanor indicate that she is learning to own her sexual power, making her a perfect clone of Connie from Oates's story. And like Connie, Ashley attracts her own psychopathic admirer when, at a roadside diner, she escapes to the bathroom and discovers Cliff [Craig Sheffer] peeing at the urinal. After a brief flirtation while Ashley applies lipstick, Cliff says, "If I did what I feel like doing, you'd slap my face and run out of here screaming," reminiscent—though wordier and less effective—of the threat Connie gets from Arnold Friend: "Gonna get you, baby."

Unlike Connie who deals with Arnold Friend alone, Ashley has her family along as they are traveling by car caravan to San Diego. So now the Sarafians fold in elements from "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," which chronicles a family road trip gone horribly wrong. In the O'Connor story, the grandmother inadvertently causes her family to cross paths with the Misfit, a dangerous escaped convict who murders them all. The grandmother's bad choices—like hiding the cat in the car [which causes the accident when the animal escapes its basket] and directing her son Bailey down a desolate dirt road when she's not sure it's the right one—are plausible, for O'Connor has established that the grandmother insists on getting things her own way. The characters in The Road Killers also make a number of poor decisions which put the family in danger, but their behavior is never believable.

For example, while the adults deal with the overheating car, Ashley's young cousin Rich [Joseph Gordon-Levitt] finds a flower growing in a crack on the highway. He bends down to study it, asking with Buddhist concern if he should pick it or leave it for a future vehicle to flatten. A few minutes before, Rich was playing a video game, competing to beat his father's winning score. Boys who play video games grind flowers underfoot; they don't suffer absurd angst over a daisy's potential demise. During Rich's communion with the flower, Cliff and his carful of crazies come tearing down the highway. Maybe the crickets were really loud. Maybe the wind masked the sound of an abused 8-cylinder engine. For some reason, no one hears the Cadillac until it nearly runs down Rich while he is pondering the flower's fate [the flower escapes unharmed].

The near-miss understandably angers the adults on the trip, so when they recognize the Cadillac at the diner, they confront Cliff about his irresponsible driving. When Cliff points out that the boy is, despite the scare, fine, father Glen [Christopher McDonald] throws a glass of water in Cliff's face. Do men throw water in each other's faces? Isn't that something wives do when they learn their husbands are cheating? This girly challenge inspires a game of chicken between Cliff and Glen. Granted, the middle-aged father is driving a red, mid-life-crisis Mustang, but would a character of his age and responsibility believably agree to pilot his car head on into another? When Glen does—but then loses his nerve, crashes the Mustang, and dies in the burning wreck—we have little sympathy.

Instead of returning to the diner where they could contact the police, the stunned family continues down the road where Cliff waits in ambush. Glen's brother Jack [Christopher Lambert] leaves the protection of his vehicle, threatens Cliff with jail, and then stupidly turns his back on three young men with a baseball bat. When Cliff swings that bat with home-run intensity at Jack's head, dropping him on the asphalt, we gasp at the inanity of the situation, not in horror. The movie may have gotten interesting if, with the men out of the picture, the Sarafians had step-mother Helen [Michelle Forbes] tap into female rage to save the day, but instead, they let he-man Jack [Tarzan and the Highlander in other Lambert incarnations] make an improbable recovery from the skull cracking—only to get arrested. Now logically, a man would approach a motel desk and say, "My family has been kidnapped. May I use your phone to call the police?" The blood-stained shirt would lend credibility to his emergency. Instead, Jack assaults the clerk and breaks a window, ending up in jail.

At this point, we are ready to abandon the good guys and root for Cliff, for a well-drawn charismatic bad boy is a delight to watch because he shows us an alternative method for engaging the world. Think surfer/bank robber Bodhi from Point Break or Robin-Hood Omar from The Wire. Unfortunately, Cliff just kills [when he's not twirling his glam-rock hair and sucking on the ends like a tweener]. He murders strangers, friends, his brother, and police, all with equal lack of motivation or a single reasonable explanation for what has set him off.

The actors manage to depict rage, fear, worry, craziness—a whole spectrum of emotion—with competence, but the ridiculous action makes this movie painful to watch until the end. Better to dig out the college lit anthology and read the short stories by Oates and O'Connor, who handle all these same elements with real expertise.

Video Teaser

You can view Michelle Forbes [dubbed in German] screaming, "Get back in the car!" here.

To Own the Movie

The Road Killers is an easy purchase at Amazon US.

Cross Post

This review also exists at Amazon US.

Kalifornia

2009-12-17T23:01:00.003-05:00

The Review

One night I found my two cats and a neighbor's third lying in a rough circle on the driveway, corralling a mole. Each cat seemed lost in his own thoughts, but whenever the mole attempted to capitalize on that distraction and escape the fence of bodies, the nearest feline would take a paw and sweep the rodent back to the center. The mole quivered, wishing, I'm sure, for its protective blanket of earth. I considered rescuing the little guy, but how long could it live in a shoe box? Better, I believed, to let Nature run her course, for I had obviously interrupted an ancient cat ritual, one which, as a human, I did not understand.

The next morning no body adorned the concrete. Had the well-fed felines shown mercy and allowed the mole to return to the safety of its burrow? Had they killed and eaten it? I'll never know—and I didn't think again about the incident until I saw Kalifornia, a movie in which a pair of mole-humans embark on a cross-country car trip with a cat-man.

Brian Kessler [David Duchovny] and Carrie Laughlin [Michelle Forbes] live in Pittsburgh, where big-city sprawl creates familiar, relatively safe, maze-like paths. Moreover, both characters nest in the protection of social obligation; we learn, for example, that good-citizen Brian used a book advance in part to pay the rent. Their work requires that they tunnel into the human psyche: writer Brian explores the impulse to murder while photographer Carrie digs into issues of race and sex. They both compartmentalize these difficult though titillating interests: Brian keeps his serial killer notes on labeled tape cassettes organized in plastic cases; Carrie boxes the provocative subjects of her photos not only with the framing of the camera lens but also by closing her portfolio. The two even look like moles, garbed in black, their sensitive eyes shielded with dark glasses, as they exit their apartment-burrow to begin a tour of famous murder sites. Accustomed to defined, protected physical and mental spaces, they are ill-prepared for the open-to-anything attitude of their ride-share companion Early Grayce [Brad Pitt], who recognizes no limits of morality, conscience, or law.

The dangerous road trip has thrilled audiences since Odysseus made his difficult way home from Troy. A successful update needs to keep us terrified for the well-being of likeable characters. To provoke our terror is Early. Unlike his traveling companions, the audience has witnessed his violence. We've seen a random killing of two people so that Early can procure a birthday present for his girlfriend Adele [Juliette Lewis]—an opportunistic grab of red high heels, the tapping of which will get neither the original nor new wearer safely home. We also know Early has murdered his landlord because, unlike Brian, when the rent is due, he doesn't meet his social obligation with a check.

Brilliant scene transitions heighten our anxiety. In one, Brian pulls into a station to gas the empty Continental. Early, whose turn it is to pay, has pockets just as bare. As the ancient pump dings out the dollars, the audience alone observes Early tracking prey into the men's room where he kills again to fill his own tank.

Brian, the other male in the car, contributes to our misgivings. We can't look to him for leadership as he quickly develops a bro crush on Early after a night out at a redneck bar and the opportunity to shoot a pistol. Early lives in his body, not in his head, and the audience—watching the DVD on TV, not out prowling the world—understands Brian's fascination.

Sweet Adele provides excellent counterpoint. Despite admitting domestic abuse, she sees only the good in our bad boy. And he has his moments of charm, such as when he buys Adele a pink disposable camera so that she too can document the trip. Whether her naiveté is the result of low IQ or a defense mechanism to deal with a childhood gang rape, she spills a little sunshine into the darkening picture. We want Early to live up to the hero status she ascribes him—but we sat down to watch a thriller and suspect that he won't.

Carrie is too edgy, too dismissive, to be immediately likeable. Her style, her photos, her tongue are all sharp, but her disappointment over the gallery rejection and her sincere fondness for Brian, and later Adele, are softening. We have hope that she can save herself and the others as she alone senses danger. Unlike Brian and Adele, both busy in their own heads, Carrie has on occasion engaged the openness where Early thrives. She admits to Adele, for example, that she is both photographer and participant in her pictures—pictures that would inspire a Republican congressman to slash funding for the arts. When Carrie speculates that Early may have served time for murder, Brian explains that a parolee would not be allowed to leave the state. Brian cannot conceive of his traveling companion stepping outside of social restrictions. The more experienced Carrie, however, can imagine it, for she snaps back, "Maybe he wasn't allowed to leave the state. Did you ever stop to think about that?"

The four car occupants are perfectly cast and costumed. The whiskered, grimy Pitt has Early emerge through his skin, not his clothes, like a predator that has just rolled in antelope dung before approaching the herd. Duchovny makes Brian's adoration of Early believable because a trace of exploitable teenager lingers on his face. Brian might narrate the movie in a mature Fox Mulder manner, but the character's ridiculous earrings and immature purchase of a convertible Continental indicate that, despite the intellectual acrobatics, Brian needs props to bolster his young man's insecurity. Lewis keeps Adele consistently childish so that even sex with Early resembles a gleeful four-year-old bouncing on a rocking horse. Lewis's delicate frame and colorful, filmy clothes give Adele a flower-like quality, so we're not surprised when she gets crushed underfoot. Athletic and imposing, Forbes can be unconvincing during scenes when Carrie needs to sound powerless, but we are glued to her steely eyes and cheer her aggression when, as the violence escalates, Carrie discovers claws of her own. More importantly, Carrie wears ass-kicking black boots, not girly shoes, so we trust that she won't trip at an important moment.

We want the four of them to reach California and there part ways, everyone alive and well, but then Carrie and Early catch the news bulletin of the man-hunt for Early, and 40 minutes of white-knuckle suspense ensues. Our own adrenalin pumping, we wonder if Early will deliver the death blow or if our mole-humans, traveling under the open sky, disconnected from their burrow-city, will evolve into creatures who discover in time the the animal instincts they need to survive. It's a good ride.

A Different Opinion

Janet Maslin of The New York Times wrote this review. I don't agree with it, but I wish I wrote as wickedly witty.

Video Teasers

You can view the trailer at The Internet Movie Database. Two versions of "Look Up to the Sky," the song playing during the end credits, are available at YouTube: here and here.

To Own the Movie

Kalifornia is an easy purchase at Amazon US or UK.

Cross Posts

Shorter versions of this review exist at The New York Times and Amazon US.

Love Bites: The Reluctant Vampire

2009-11-29T23:02:00.009-05:00

The Review

Love Bites, a quirky romantic comedy, opens with a powerful lightning strike waking Zachary Simms [Adam Ant], a vampire so heartbroken that he has slept away the last 100 years. Exiting the secret crypt behind the fireplace, Zachary enters a world he is unprepared to understand: the yuppie apartment of Kendall Gordan [Kimberly Foster]. Barbie-beautiful, Kendall is a successful New Yorker who refuses to marry despite the Ken-perfect packaging of her boyfriend Dwight Putnam [Roger Rose]. When Kendall discovers Zachary feasting from her neck, she wards off the intruder with martial-arts moves that would make Mr. Miyagi proud, introducing Zachary to the assertive, modern woman. Much to her annoyance, the approaching dawn causes Zachary to fall asleep mummy-style in her bed, immovable despite all of those hours Kendall must have spent on the weight machines at the gym.

Zachary turns out to be a charming bloodsucker, his feeding habits scold-worthy the way one disciplines a puppy peeing on the hardwood floor. As a result, Kendall quickly warms to his unusual presence in her home. At first she wears a neck brace and carries a crucifix, but she soon abandons these safeguards, won over by the tale of Zachary's broken heart and the challenge of remaking him into the perfect man, someone Dwight is not. "Rehumanizing" Zachary is possible with a "reviving" of his digestive system. So while Zachary acclimates to automobiles, electric light bulbs, prevalent divorce, and a job as a night-shift data analyst, Kendall helps him with the more important transition from drinking blood to eating Ragú over spaghetti.

To disrupt the couple's happiness, we have Nerissa [Michelle Forbes], Zachary's maker and ex-lover, the cause of his heartbreak. Nerissa is long and lean like a mantid, her clothing and hair exoskeleton sleek. Nerissa's dark style—appropriate camouflage for a night predator—is a stark contrast to Kendall's butterfly bright. When Nerissa learns that Zachary plans to renounce her gift of vampirism, she snarls, "I gave you immortality, and you want to trade it in for Twinkies?" [The question makes the audience pause as we consider what gifts we are all trading down.] Kendall considers Zachary's ex an instant rival, but 400 years of existence have made Nerissa too evolved or world-weary to sabotage Zachary's happiness. Her energies go into thwarting jilted Dwight as he attempts to discover who/what Zachary is; she wants to protect the vampire species more than reignite a failed romance.

As Zachary becomes the warm mortal male that Kendall desires, he gains not only blood pressure but also independence. When he discovers an ambition for success, he takes over Dwight's company, meaning that Kendall is now in the same relationship she had before Zachary's entrance in her life—the girlfriend of a wealthy businessman. Kendall wonders if she has made a mistake helping Zachary give up vampirism and become something he's not [at least something he hasn't been for the last 300 years]. Or perhaps Kendall finally realizes that no amount of gym time and Estée Lauder eye-repair serum will keep her young forever, that a vampire could have been her fountain of youth. As atonement, she asks Nerissa to solve the problem of the now mortal [hence ordinary] Zachary, and so the movie does not end as we first expect, with the good blond vanquishing the evil brunette.

If a film goes out of print, does that mean it's bad? The lack of popularity for Love Bites: The Reluctant Vampire might be that it does not target a specific audience. On the one hand, sexual puns and double entendres abound; even so, the movie is pretty tame—tame enough, almost, for children. Cursing is minimal. We see puncture wounds but no running blood and few fangs. The only sexually charged skin is Nerissa's lovely long legs, and they're encased in pantyhose.

Love Bites was released in 1993. Should writer/director Malcolm Marmorstein have revved up the profanity, violence, and sex? Should he have made the precursor to the vampire brutality of, say, True Blood [2008] by using as his model the gory, body-ripping horror of Aliens [1986]? Or would a children's movie have been the way to go?

Love Bites is a missed opportunity. The question that it attempts to answer—how much are we willing to change [or be changed] for love?—together with excellent performances by its four principal actors, could have made this film a holiday favorite, something played every October with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Ant makes Zachary an adorable, likable creature who adapts to modern life with good humor and realizes, as did Reindeer Rudolph, that his difference is special and has its own important use. Being true to oneself is an appropriate lesson for young people—a lesson adults could use a reminder of. In her first film role, Forbes plays Nerissa as the quintessential evildoer, thin and severe like Cruella De Vil, with eyes that can bite like fangs. But we soon learn that looks are deceiving—another valuable lesson—for Nerissa has no intent to harm and a delightful sense of humor. Of all the characters, A-type Kendall is the one who needs to change.

At first, Foster gets us to feel great respect for Kendall, who is independent and successful and does not let Dwight, the man in her life, manipulate how she feels or what she does. Moreover, we sympathize with her having to single handedly manage dangerous supernatural beings. Ant and Foster have great chemistry, and we are rooting for their happiness as a couple. But as Zachary regains his humanity, Kendall starts to lose patience with him, just as she did with Dwight. And we realize that her unrealistic standards of perfection and her desire to bend everyone's behavior to suit her expectations are the real personality flaws, not vampirism, emphasizing again that our initial evaluations—even those of pretty blonds—can be wrong.

Instead of the family favorite Love Bites could have been, we have a movie from a writer/director who wanted the screenplay to be the star. Love Bites began as a play, and in an intimate theater with an adult audience wanting a single night's entertainment, the clever dialogue delivered by competent actors might have been enough. But for a filmed comedy to have longevity and resonate with an audience after its initial cinema run, it must address a timeless question in a new way. Think Groundhog Day, released the same year as Love Bites and still in print. Love Bites poses the question, and its cast brings real life to the characters. Unfortunately, the movie emphasizes bawdy jokes and gags, something done since Aristophanes and thus unremarkable. Maybe Marmorstein didn't expect much from a lipsticked post-punk rocker, one nighttime and one daytime soap actress, and a cartoon voice actor, but the four of them deliver, and it's a shame that their talents weren't put to better use.

To See the Movie

If you don't mind a few commercial interruptions, you can view the whole film at The Internet Movie Database.

To Own the Movie

From time to time, a VHS copy will appear on Ebay or from Amazon Marketplace Sellers in the United States or United Kingdom.

Be careful if you are purchasing a copy to view in the United States. UK copies [significantly easier to find] are encoded for Region 2, which means that they will not play on most US [Region 1] VHS players.

If you don't mind watching the movie on a computer or other handheld device, you can purchase it from iTunes.

Cross Posts

Shorter versions of this review [an interesting editing exercise to make it meet the 5,000-character or 1,000-word limits] exist at The New York Times and Amazon UK.

Before We Get Started ...

2009-11-29T23:01:00.002-05:00

The Project

This site will review the work of Michelle Forbes. I am justifying the project as a way to develop my skills as a movie/television critic. The idea of watching the work of a single actress—and then writing about each piece—sounds like an interesting challenge [or maybe just a cheesy gimmick]. We'll see how it goes. Cut me a little slack if the first couple suck.

The History

Only recently did I gain an appreciation for Michelle Forbes. When I first read her filmography at The Internet Movie Database, I realized that over the years I had viewed quite a bit of her work. I saw Kalifornia, for example, but I went to the theater for David Duchovny as I was an X-Files fan. I remember loose-cannon Ro Laren, but I followed Star Trek: The Next Generation because I adored Captain Picard and his established crew. "The Big Salad" episode of Seinfeld is one of my favorites because it's so true that the person who delivers the gift—not the person thoughtful enough to have bought it—is the one who gets the undeserved credit. I was in George's corner that time, although I did wonder how the little pudge got a Glamazon to date him. I was a casual viewer of 24 and Homicide: Life on the Street. I was intrigued when Maryann appeared on True Blood, purring sentiments poor Tara wanted to hear before unsheathing the claws.

I found all the characters Forbes played striking but peripheral; they were never the reason I was watching. Then I encountered Admiral Cain.

I came to Battlestar Galactica late, watching the entire series on DVD during the summer of 2009. As I traveled along with the Galactica crew, I admired the humane leadership of Commander Adama despite the horrifying challenges he faced. I could work for this man, I remember thinking. When the Pegasus appeared, I gasped at its distinctly different approach to surviving the Cylon invasion. I was alarmed when Admiral Cain assumed command of characters I had grown to love, appalled as I watched her plans unfold to assassinate Commander Adama [and hoping for Starbuck's success in the counter coup]. And then, illogically, I was devastated when Gina murdered her. How could a character cause such conflicting emotions?

I found the performance so riveting that I asked, "Who is that woman?" I typically have little interest in celebrities. I read no more than the cover of People magazine while I am waiting to pay for groceries. I don't watch Entertainment Tonight and could care less whom Brad Pitt marries. But I couldn't stop thinking about Admiral Cain and wondering if the actress who played her was as compelling in other roles.

I'm not sure why the Admiral had such an impact on me. Perhaps it was her beauty despite the unflattering uniform. Perhaps I have had a thing for authoritative women ever since Sigourney Weaver's Ripley kicked some alien ass. Perhaps I recognize that Commander Adama is the seldom attained Platonic ideal of a boss while Admiral Cain is the reality—the bosses we have, the bosses we are—and so offers important lessons about people management. Perhaps I have a star crush and just don't like admitting it.

Whatever the reason, I plan to use this space to examine the work of the actress who so completely captured my attention.

The Name

The name for this site comes from Love Bites: The Reluctant Vampire, the first movie to feature Michelle Forbes. Her character, the vampire Nerissa, learns that Zachary, a man she "vampirized," wants to regain his humanity by "reviving" his digestion. Nerissa snarls, "I gave you immortality, and you want to trade it in for Twinkies?" I love that line because first, Nerissa is unapologetic about what she is and how she survives, and second, I like that she criticizes Zachary for trading down an extraordinary gift—something many of us do all too frequently.

Whether we have a personal connection to the supernatural, as Zachary does to Nerissa or Abraham does to God, whether we believe in a less tangible entity like Destiny or Purpose, whether the only miracle we recognize is the laws of physics organizing our unique biochemical composition, we often choose to ignore what makes us different and desire instead to embrace conformity.

I have not yet seen the entire Forbes oeuvre, but when I think about the characters I know, they all seem to dismiss convention. So my question is this: Does Forbes gravitate toward roles where the characters unapologetically offer an unusual alternative, an unorthodox choice—one that her fellow characters refuse because they are just "trading it in for Twinkies"? Forgive me if I sound like a student, but I like to have a hypothesis to test as I wade into the evidence.

The Design

My plan is to keep this site primarily text. I'm trying to get the writing to pop, so I have chosen the simplest of themes and will only occasionally use images/screenshots within fair use guidelines for movie/television reviews.

The Links

Eventually I hope to work my way through the filmography at The Internet Movie Database.

I've started a collection of links at Delicious.

For news and fun, I recommend the Michelle Forbes Community Blog. The gang there does a fantastic job.