“Thwack”, the season 6 premiere, shows no signs that Nancy’s life is going to get any less complicated or any less dark. Picking up where the fifth season finale left off, Nancy spends much of the premiere gathering her family together and running away in light of her son Shane murdering crime boss Pilar Zuzua after overhearing her threaten his mother. Nancy swiftly realizes no good will come from Pilar’s death and that the Mexican mob will soon be in hot pursuit so she loads her car up with family and shoes and makes a hasty getaway. Nancy’s brother-in-law of sorts Andy also opts to join Nancy during a dicey moment with his new fiancée Audra. Believing things to be doomed with Audra, Andy quickly abandons his life and joins Nancy on the road.

Despite being a comedy, Weeds succeeds as it’s not afraid to delve into the characters and demonize its main character. Nancy’s negligible parenting has often been noted in the show. Now, however, Shane has become a full-fledged sociopath as a direct result to his exposure to Nancy’s lifestyle. The seeds of his downfall were planted as early as the first episode, but it wasn’t until the murder of Pilar at the end of season five that the damage Nancy’s done to him came to fruition. Likewise, “Thwack” didn’t hesitate to underline the damage she’s caused Andy by entrapping him in her web of destruction. Meanwhile, it appears that her eldest son Silas is the only one beginning to realize just how destructive his mother’s influence is becoming as he shows the most insight into Shane’s state of mind post-kill.

The damage caused by Nancy is shown in the eerie closing moments of the show. Trapped in a car with Andy, Shane and Silas, Nancy is listening to a radio show discuss the parasitic wasp. While Nancy disposes of the murder weapon, the radio host explains how the parasitic wasp is capable of turning a cockroach into its mindless slave likening it to nature’s purest form of evil. The description bore more than just a passing resemblance to Nancy, whose family are currently mindlessly following her lead.

Nancy has spent years fighting reality and it can be argued that the entirety of her reckless lifestyle serves no other purpose than helping her avoid mourning her first husband. But if the final scene of “Thwacked” is an indication at the direction this season is taking then it seems Nancy will finally have to acknowledge the effects her selfishness has had on those closest to her sooner rather than later.

All the good things you’ve heard about this film are true. It’s a good superhero film.

So why does it feel like this review is going to be negative?

What Iron Man 2 represents is your standard, lazy superhero film – carefully monitored by the studios so as to be a safe bet come opening weekend.

Fortunately it’s a sequel, so we’re spared a first act dedicated to the origin story. Unfortunately, however, it’s a sequel. So in true three act style, we’re treated to a retread of the Hero’s Journey. If you’ve seen Spider-Man 2, Spider-Man 3 or The Incredible Hulk you practically know how the story goes.

He’s already a hero. So you’re going to see some shots re-establishing him in that hero role. This could take the form of a breath-taking set piece. But the film needs a reason to exist. It has to be different from the first one. The hero has to be tested. Cue: Tony Stark slowly dying. Set up a villain and time their first confrontation at the thirty minute marker. Bingo, you’ve got yourself the first act of a superhero film.

During the second act everything escalates. And then in the third act there’ll be a big set piece, the hero’s arc will be resolved, as will the various other plot threads.

This is fine. It’s textbook. Tells a story.

The problem is it feels like a story I’ve seen a trillion times over since Bryan Singer first secreted X-Men ten years ago.

Superhero films have gone from being a nothing entity in the nineties to becoming a genre all their own. I don’t know which is worse.

Films based on superhero comics shouldn’t have to be a genre. They should be a sub-genre.

Kick-Ass was a step in the right direction. A teen film that just so happened to have a superhero in it. And it was post-modern. And it was non-linear.

The Dark Knight… It felt like a crime film that just so happened to have a superhero film in it.

Ang Lee’s Hulk… Like it or loathe it, it was far less by the numbers than it’s 2008 counterpart.

As a genre, superhero films tend to suck. As a sub-genre, they suck a little less.

They need to shake it up a bit, to coin a phrase from Sue Sylvester.

Iron Man makes a great action movie. And they hinted on a promising character arc: the dying narcissistic hero who can’t take anything seriously.

It’s promising stuff. But in the comics he’s an alcoholic for God’s sake. I want darkness with my explosive set pieces. Never have I been more entertained in my life than when Jack Bauer was crawling around on his office floor, sweating and detoxing from drugs at the beginning of Day 3. That’s an action show. With a drug addicted hero. It was a wonderful combination. Make Iron Man an alcy. I don’t want a gritty knock off of a Dolph Lundgren movie. Just give me a little depth. Tony Stark’s imminent death led to little more than him urinating himself and squabbling with War Machine. I want more, damnit.

Play up the fact he’s created these weapons that he now won’t hand over to the government. It was touched on in the film, but play up the political angle. If the American public can deal with 24 having countless scenes with the president du jour discussing the day with their confidantes, Iron Man can amp up the political intrigue a little without losing box office dollars.

I hear the next Spider-Man is gonna play up the teen movie aspect. This is a good move if done right. It’ll take the emphasis off the usual origin film formula and should place the focus on an interesting character.

Joss Whedon is directing the Avengers film. If anyone can break superhero films out of the formulaic state they’re constantly flirting with, it’s Joss.

Superhero films are getting better as the more daring ones continue to do well at the box office, but it’s taking time. And every time I see a film like Iron Man 2, I see a great cast, funny lines, nice visuals and a weak ass story.

All I ask is that the next time a comic character with some depth is made into a movie I get a bit more than Punisher: War Zone, Elektra, Wolverine, The Incredible Hulk and Iron Man 2…

… even though, don’t get me wrong, it was a fucking entertaining superhero film and you will probably enjoy it.

I never used to watch a lot of television. It used to just be Buffy and Angel. Then in 2003, Buffy ended and Angel began winding down. At this time, hot off the heels of The Shield’s success, FX developed another original series: Nip/Tuck. I didn’t seek Nip/Tuck out. It was a marriage of convenience. Veronica Mars, Battlestar Galactica, House, Weeds, Dexter, The Inside and many others would eventually come along, but it was Nip/Tuck that provided my maiden voyage into a post-Buffy and Angel world.

Needless to say after the pilot I was hooked. For its first two seasons, Nip/Tuck provided a window to a dark world similar to our own, where perfection was all that matters. As the show went on the world that Nip/Tuck inhabited became less similar. Plot holes slowly started to appear, characters would begin acting out of character and the show descended into a level of absurdity that I had never seen before. The only thing that stayed consistently amazing about the show was the production values, which mixed “deco-noir” sets with razor sharp editing and great music.

Nip/Tuck ended this year. Joining a host of other shows this season: 24 and Lost, most noticeably.

While the quality of the show ebbed and flowed throughout the middle of its 100 episode run, the final nine episodes provided a sharp focus and a return to quality more reminiscent of the first four seasons. Old plots were revisited, themes tied up and creator Ryan Murphy’s focus was kept strongly on the two lead characters: Sean McNamara and Christian Troy.

As final seasons go, Nip/Tuck kinda nailed it. It may not have been the show it once was but as each episodes passed a feeling of inevitability permeated the show. These characters, who had steadfastly refused to learn from their various mistakes throughout the series, could not go on as they were. Something had to give – and from the season seven premiere “Dan Daly” onwards, you knew it was going to give soon.

In the pilot, Sean McNamara was introduced as the discontent family man. His wife resented him, his son was a screw up and while his life seemed perfect on the surface he was torn between wanting to leave the hedonistic life of cosmetic surgery behind to help third world countries or be like his suave and adulterous business partner, Christian Troy. Throughout the series, Sean lost his family and dabbled in Christian’s lifestyle, never succeeding with quite the same finesse as his partner. As the seventh season begins, Sean again feels trapped in his life as a plastic surgeon and he’s resenting Christian because of it. When his wife, Julia, returns and announces she’s getting remarried and is moving to London, Sean loses everything. In the finale, “Hiro Yoshimura”, Sean believes himself to be happy in his current life, free of the commitments that were holding him down and becomes seemingly happier spending the rest of his life giving botox and boob jobs to the rich and the vain.

Christian, meanwhile, was a victim of an abusive childhood. His biological father a rapist and his step-father a pedophile, Christian wanted nothing more than to have a family like Sean’s. Time after time during the series, Christian would try and change. But with every attempt to cease the womanizing and settle down with someone, he would fail. In season five, he began a short-lived tryst with Julia, which imploded when he decided that after twenty years of pining she wasn’t what he wanted. He later suffered breast cancer and married Liz, so she’d look after his son Wilbur. Upon being cured they divorced. Then there was Kimber. As damaged as he was, Christian spent much of the sixth season believing him and her to be soul mates despite failed attempts to make it work in the past. This time he thought he could change and it would be different. Needless to say he ended up dumping her and she subsequently threw herself off a bridge. Prompted by Kimber’s suicide and words from Julia, Christian realized in the finale that he was toxic. And with Sean now the closest person to him, he realized no good would come to Sean if their partnership remained. As a result he sent Sean to a third world country, with a recently acquired baby, where he would be able to help sick children, dissolving their partnership.

Both Sean and Christian’s journey throughout the show was mirrored by their final patient, Hiro Yoshimura. Hiro, an elderly porn star, died during after suffering an orgasm induced heart attack while filming his latest porn. The point being: he died doing what he loved. As we’re led to believe Sean and Christian will now both do. The perfect exclamation point to their seven year long midlife crises.

Change. Nip/Tuck was always about change. Each surgery shown in the series was some type of metaphor for change and this theme was most encapsulated in Sean and Christian. By the end of the series, Sean was granted a possibility to actually change – he could use his medical licence to do the work he always wanted and begin raising a new family with his newly adopted baby. Christian meanwhile was content in his self-hatred. Unable to change and not willing to expend the effort to try anymore, the last ever scene of the show has Christian at a bar, picking up a blonde model by using his credentials as a hook. This scene mirrored one of the first scenes of the pilot when he meets Kimber for the first time.

Another character who was unable to change was Matt McNamara, son of Sean, Julia and Christian (long story). After committing a hit and run in season one, Matt went on to do a series of increasingly stupid things: dating transsexual Ava Moore, beating up transsexual Cherry Peck, dating a neo-nazi, joining scientology and marrying Kimber who he later got hooked on meth with, gay porn, dating his new found half sister, trying to become a mime, robbing banks, getting arrested and then killing his cell mate with a bra. You couldn’t make it up. Matt’s series of blunders culminated in the final season when he once again hooked up with Ava, deciding she was the gal for him, and deceiving his dads by running off with her. By the end of the series Matt was as far from perfect or redeemable as any character in television could be.

As a gay man, Ava was different. Her father warned her that to be anything less than normal in such a superficial world would not mean success for Ava. Ergo, after embarking on a relationship with a straight doctor, Dr. Barrett Moore, Ava began a series of gender reassignment surgeries, eventually becoming the “hope diamond of transsexuals.” She even adopted a son, Adrian, in an effort to create the appearances of a normal life. When Moore realized he couldn’t love her even if she was now a woman, Ava fled and went on to antagonize Sean and Christian in season two. She returned in the final two episodes of season seven. This time with a baby, scarred from an illness it had contracted in the third world. Ava wanted normal and asked Sean to fix the baby’s scars. When she learnt they would never fully vanish, Ava abandoned the baby, giving him to Sean. She declared that couldn’t bear to see her child struggle to conform as she had in her life. Matt later met Ava at the airport, offering her what she wanted: a family – him and his daughter, Jenna. She didn’t love him, but it was as close to normal as she was going to get and she took it.

Children. If children are the future, the world of Nip/Tuck is soon heading for an apocalypse. Jenna was shown to be doomed with Matt and Kimber as parents. Similarly, Wilbur, was wetting the bed by the end of the series and seeing a child psychologist because of it. Connor, Sean and Julia’s child, suffered from electrodactyly, with one of his hands normal and the other not. Annie, Sean and Julia’s other child, had already hit puberty, given a blowjob and started eating her hair all before reaching the age of thirteen. None of these children really stood a chance of being able to rise above the sins of their parents.

This brings us to Julia, the personification of wanting what you can’t have. She was with Sean and she wanted Christian. When she was with Christian, she wanted Sean. As the series ends we’re told she’s marrying an unseen character and moving to London. The implication is that she soon won’t be content with that life and will be longing for the melodrama that surrounds Sean and Christian. As she told the pair before leaving for London, “the next time we see each other, it will be as if nothing’s changed.”

Committing suicide in the third episode of the final season, it was the accumulation of both her and Christian’s inability to change that led to her death. Defining herself by the men in her life, Kimber was never able to become her own person, despite a string of occupations that all hindered on her beauty to some degree. Kimber’s character, time and time again, illustrated the tragic consequences of pursuing perfection.

Her counterpart was Liz. The lesbian anaesthesiologist who embraced her flaws and refused to feel bad about them, amidst a cast of characters who were so self-obsessed that they made her look like the second coming at times. Come the final episode, she is pregnant with a child she shouldn’t have by all biological rights and is planning a life as a single parent, continuing to defy social norms – something both Kimber and Ava are unable to do.

For a show about perfection and change, Nip/Tuck became more imperfect the more it tried to change, mirroring many of the character arcs in the show. Meta-commentary or creative misfire? Either way, one thing’s for sure: Nip/Tuck went out on a strong thematic high and it’ll be a long time before another TV show or movie deconstructs the concept of perfection in such a prolific way.

]]> http://www.cold-open.com/2010/05/02/the-imperfection-of-perfection-reflecting-on-niptuck/feed/ http://www.cold-open.com/2010/04/22/exclusive-amcs-the-walking-dead-pilot-script-review/ http://www.cold-open.com/2010/04/22/exclusive-amcs-the-walking-dead-pilot-script-review/#comments Fri, 23 Apr 2010 01:18:29 +0000 Pasha http://www.cold-open.com/?p=187

I’m going to preface this review by admitting that I have only read the first The Walking Dead trade paperback. I read it at the end of last year but resisted reading the second trade as all interviews indicated that the show would be quite faithful to the book. Having read the pilot script I am glad of this.

For two seasons Damages did it. A complex show that spanned various timelines, had multiple characters, an intricate plot and a strong thematic through-line. For two seasons these elements were woven together, nary a glaring plot hole in sight.

Season three focused on Patty Hewes’s struggle to recover money from a Ponzi scheme perpetrated by the fractured Tobin family. For much of the season it looked like the third year would stand up there with Damages’s first two seasons. The dynamics of the Tobin family mirrored that of Patty’s makeshift professional family. Ellen Parson’s and Tom Shayes’s family lives were likewise explored as well. The season was looking very focused, something many wish season two had been.

Then the season began drawing to a close. The show’s trademark flash forward scenes vanished. The finale drew nearer and nearer and there was no sense that things were coming to a close. Suddenly a subplot where Ellen thought she was adopted began emerging. For any other show these would be troubling signs. The viewer might start to worry that things wouldn’t make sense come the end of the finale. Damages had induced a similar feeling of dread during the first two seasons. But it had pulled it off then. Surely it would in its third season.

Not so.

The finale, entitled “The Next One’s Gonna Go in Your Throat”, started off shakily. Within the first minute or so, Keith Carradine’s Julian Decker was revealed to be a character from Patty’s past and not the present day architect we had assumed. This was revealed via flashback. The viewer is to infer that Patty had been hallucinating this character the whole season, which is all well and good, however this was an anti-climactic way to make that reveal. There was no great moment of revelation from Patty with her realizing she’d been hallucinating. The catalyst for her suddenly remembering Julian Decker this season was left vague. It was anti-clmactic.

Then there are the plot holes. The many, many plot holes. I can forgive contrivances. Patty’s son steals Ellen’s car that she was in turn borrowing from Tom? Okay, it’s confusing, but I can go with it. Patty’s son uses said car to crash into his mother at full speed at a crossroads? Sure, why not. What does not make sense is Tom not calling emergency services after being stabbed in the gut yet still making his way across town to his home. Don’t buy it.

Earlier in the season one of the flash forwards mentioned Tom and Ellen planning to start their own firm. We then see Ellen visiting Tom’s wife after his death, asking “who else knew about Tom and I?” Neither plot point was addressed in the finale.

Midway through the finale, Patty randomly decided to drop the case based on very little motivation. This was seemingly done to accommodate a flash forward from earlier in the season.

Then we have Tom’s death. He was drowned in a toilet. A regular since the first season was given a fatal swirly. There is an argument to be made for killing him this way. It was shocking, unexpected and horrifying. Ultimately, however, it felt gratuitous and manipulative.

Despite these complaints, The Next One’s Gonna Go in Your Throat” did boast a slew of nice character moments. During his arrest, Ted Danson’s Frobisher was visited by the ghost of Ray Fiske. The story behind the loss of Patty’s child was a powerful one and spoke volumes about her character, even if the execution of the reveal felt rushed and clumsy. Ellen and Patty’s conversation in the closing few minutes was also great.

Likewise, the acting in the episode can’t be faulted.

What I am left with more than anything else from the finale is the sense that this episode played as a cautionary tale. It highlighted the limitations of making it up as you go storytelling. Damages has always been a structurally complicated show. It was nothing short of a miracle that for the first two seasons everything was tied up so well and in many ways the flaws of the third season were inevitable. Especially for a show that didn’t know if it was returning.

When all is said and done I don’t know what I find more depressing: Tom dying in a toilet, the fact this episode has tarnished what was an otherwise great show or the possibility that this could be the last episode and the show went out on such a low note.

Yesterday the UK Government announced intentions to crack down on internet piracy of films, music and television. While this is a threat the government rolls out on a seemingly bi-monthly basis, one must wonder if anything will ever come of it. And if something does I, for one, do not think it will be a good thing.

I am not going to justify the downloading of movies and music. I think those things should be paid for legally. Nor will I justify the downloading of television that has been released on DVD. My intention is instead focused solely on television that has yet to be released on DVD.

As the internet creates an increasingly globalized world, people from all walks of life are able to meet each other and get in contact to discuss common interests. As technology continues to involve this will become more and more common and cultural divides will inevitably erode as a result. What does this have to do with piracy? It’s simple.

The television business model shows seemingly little appreciation for the notion of globalization. Just this past television season, Joss Whedon’s Dollhouse debuted on FOX in America in February. Coming from the creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer there was much hype and anticipation behind the show and if you’re a fan of cult television that uses the internet the hype and news were unavoidable.

However if you were a British fan, you were royally screwed.

The show didn’t start airing in Britain until at least three months after it aired in the States. By which point, even the most careful of fans who uses the internet would be thoroughly spoiled on all the major plot points.

And what of the aired versions? Sci Fi, the cable station that airs Dollhouse season one in the UK, would change the act breaks, due to OFCOM’s arcane rules about advertising, and cut a couple of minutes out of each episode. As a television purist I’m a big fan of seeing the final product as the creator intended. I like act breaks where they’re supposed to be. I don’t like sloppy network cuts of episodes. So short of waiting even longer and getting even more spoiled until the DVD is released, what is a fan to do but pirate?

With films and music this problem does not arise. Release dates are roughly the same and none are arguably as good for watercooler (read: internet forum) conversation as discussing your favorite television shows. However with television this is very much an ongoing issue.

At this point I will give props to Sky One and Channel Four for airing Desperate Housewives, Lost, Bones and 24 mere days after they are shown in America. But what of the Dollhouses of the world where you have to wait months and months only to be subjected to an edited and diluted version of the show?

If Dollhouse and similar shows were shown within a week of their US airdate… If the act breaks were left in tact… If they were left uncut… If there was a Hulu-esque service on a par to the one offered Stateside… If all these conditions were met, which in this day and age aren’t out of the question, I would condemn people who pirate TV as I do people who pirate other forms of media. But the fact is there is a huge chasm between the wants of fans of US imports and the UK stations’ ideas of what their viewers want and until this chasm is closed I can’t get behind the idea of prosecuting and punishing people who download television.

Singer made a name for himself by directing The Usual Suspect in 1994.  He’s since been associated with comic book franchises such as X-Men and Superman.

And, yes, I’m sure another updating of Battlestar is just what everyone wanted this decade.

AMC are confident that, despite the genre element of the project, it will be a perfect fit on their schedule, which already includes Breaking Bad and Mad Men.

Shawn Ryan assures that series will be different enough from The Shield so that it won’t feel like he’s treading the same ground.  He cites Ridealong as being much more FOX-like than The Shield was.

Should the series go ahead we can expect it to premiere sometime in 2010.