What Dreams May Come

Here's a movie that came out just a little too soon (1998) for me to have seen or understood in its own time. Going in, I knew two things about What Dreams May Come: that it was widely considered to be a visually stunning and imaginative masterpiece, and also that it's become the butt of many jokes about the career of Robin Williams. So the door was wide open here, and I didn't know what to expect. What I got was a partially satisfying, very memorable, but ultimately irrelevant experience. There's a certain innate arrogance that people will be faulted for having anytime they share their own personal idea of what heaven or the afterlife would be like, but I don't like that; I won't call this film pretentious. But I also can't call it a great movie, or even a good one on a technical level. It certainly was imaginative and stunning, but so was Inception, and we all know how riddled with plot holes and pseudo-drama that movie was. Actually, this movie reminded me a great deal of The Fountain, and that's kind of weird, because The Fountain has nothing to do with heaven or an afterlife. I think I liked The Fountain more, even if (or perhaps because?) it was way more vague. This movie was just a little too unoriginal for me. I swear I'm not spoiling the plot any more than the small summary on the back of the DVD case when I say that Robin Williams dies and goes to heaven and then his wife commits suicide and goes to hell and then he goes all the way into the depths of hell to rescue her. It just all felt kind of trite. The takeaway seemed to be a very bland combination of tried and true themes such as "love conquers all" or "the human experience is not bound by mortality." But at least the whole thing was better than the "sideways" universe in the final season of Lost. Ugh. Compared to that wishy-washy cop-out bullshit, this movie was like The Godfather. And at least here the afterlife sequences actually meant something. Remove them from this movie and all you're left with is a horribly depressing half hour in which a man and a woman lose their two children in a car accident, and then the man dies in a car accident, and then the woman kills herself, and then the credits roll. Somebody should cut that and put it up on YouTube or something, because that actually sounds morbidly hilarious. But yeah. Take the afterlife sequences out of Lost, and you're left with... well, you're left with what is probably a much better season. Anyway, in the end I'm glad to have seen this film but I don't think it's as special or meaningful as it wanted to be, and I won't be going out of my way to recommend it to anyone. And seriously, fuck Lost.

The Office: Season 6

So far, 2011 has been no different than 2011 as far as Back-Blogged is concerned; yet again, we've kicked off a month with an enormous lull. It's as if no one likes posting anything when the calendar date is in the single digits. But I digress. Over the past week, I've been watching the sixth season of The Office for the second time, having caught it once before on TV last year. And I think I owe the show a very small apology. I've been bashing it as hard as anyone lately, decrying its fall from greatness and recent poor writing. But the thing is, it's actually still a decent and funny show overall. There are a lot of things I could write about in this post, but I'll use it to pinpoint a few of the big reasons the show has become stale. It all starts with Jim and Pam. When the show began, they were two everymen who you couldn't help but root for. Jim was bored beyond belief at work and depressed about the prospect of working at a middling paper company for the rest of his life. Pam was trapped in an infinite engagement with a man who wouldn't support her dreams. Those dreams involved going to art school and doing something more with her life than secretary work. Jim longed for Pam. Pam saw him as a friend, but occasionally let her own feelings for him become something more. No matter how funny or zany the episode around those two characters was, it was those two characters who grounded the show and gave us someone or something to root for. The British Office featured the same dynamic, and wisely ended with (spoiler alert) Tim and Dawn (their Jim and Pam) finally getting together. But here in the American version of the show, that long-awaited union happened at the beginning of Season 4. Is it any coincidence that Seasons 2 and 3 were this show's strongest? I say no. And things only got worse from there as Jim and Pam became engaged, and then promoted, and then pregnant, and then married, and then parents. And somewhere along the way, as their lives becmae better and better, they became less likeable and harder to root for. This season, the two were borderline insufferable at times with their snarky sarcasm and pissy attitudes. Granted, they did get married and have a baby - but still. Unfortunately, I don't think The Office can undo the character development they've put into Pam and Jim and their relationship, and I see no way in which the two can ever recapture our enthusiasm and support. Another of the show's recent faults is the caricaturization of the entire staff. When the series was young, much of the humor was derived from Michael and Dwight's ludicrous stereotypes, assumptions, and inability to recognize the humanity in many of their coworkers. But somewhere along the way, Kevin turned into an oafish simpleton. Oscar turned into an elitist. Meredith turned into a promiscuous alcoholic. Creed became unabashedly insane. Ryan turned into a selfish fad-seeker without any morals. The list goes on and on. Part of what made the show so great so long ago was that the humor derived from everyday office situations. Now, nearly every character on the show is an unrealistic flat character. And that kind of brings me to my final point, which is that there are far too many characters. Regularly featured main characters this season included Michael, Dwight, Jim, Pam, Ryan, Andy, Stanley, Phyllis, Oscar, Kevin, Angela, Creed, Kelly, Meredith, Toby, Darryl, Erin, and Gabe. That's eighteen people in a twenty-two-minute show. The cast has only grown and never shrunk. That's not even realistic, let alone good casting. The cast is so bloated at this point that most characters are good for just a few lines per episode, and that only further influences the flattening of the characters that I griped about earlier. The only regular character who has ever been written off the show is Karen, who dated Jim back in Season 3 and has been seen only two or three times since then, and not at all in this season. But in a show set during this current economic crisis - and one that uses said economic crisis in so many plot points - the cast just keeps expanding. Toby and Ryan have each been written off at one point or another, only to return. And it's not that I'm wishing for any specific characters to just leave the show altogether (though I could do without the especially flat ones like Creed and Meredith). It's just that with so much cast expansion, everyone's role gets just a little more diluted. Something's gotta give. And apparently, it will be Steve Carrell, who has already announced that he will leave the show following the 2010-2011 (current) season. Great. Fine. I just hope the writers use this as a chance to overhaul the show. Wouldn't it make sense for a new office manager to slash a lot of personnel between seasons? There's a golden opportunity to clean this cluttered house, but I doubt the showrunners will take advantage of it. Oh well. Such is The Office these days. It's still a pretty funny show, but it can be frustrating to put up with. "Jumping the shark" is a frequently misused term, but somewhere over the course of the last three seasons, that's exactly what The Office did. And if you don't believe me, I'll just point you in the direction of this season's thirteenth episode, "The Banker." It was a clip show.

Charlie St. Cloud

Yes, this is a post by Webber and not my Marissa. I just wanted to get that out of the way to start my new segment Webber Doesn't Give a Shit. In this segment Webber posts anything he wants including movies starring Zach Efron. This movie was not what I expected, well it was exactly what I expected but it did surprise me. The movie starts out and the main character (Efron) is sailing with his younger brother and they pull of an amazing come from behind move to win the race. Shortly thereafter Efron promises to coach his younger brother in baseball every day before dark. Long story sickeningly shortened the younger brother dies and Charlie continues to play catch with him (you know cause like that kid in the sixth sense he can not only see dead people but he can play catch with them). Charlie, a boy with a bright future, gives up on everything not to let his dead brother down and the story is his fight to move on. I would be a pansy not to admit I shed a tear or two but overall a pretty boring story. I watched it with Dee and Jill.

Master and Commander

It is the new year (2011) and I have decided that one of my key resolutions would be to post at least once per week. That being said I start with my first post of the year, a book which I have been trying to accomplish for several years now, Master and Commander. I have failed in my previous attempts, not because it is a boring book, nor because the characters and plot were unbelievable, but because it is filled with technical sailing jargon and written in 1969. The jargon meant that in most cases I had to continually consult the internet to find out what some of the more complicated terms meant. Also there is a fair amount of "period" slang used in the book. For instance Dee and I spent ten minutes researching and discussing the authors use of the term "it will be all skittles and beer." In this sense the term skittles is used to refer to a game regarded as the forerunner to ten pin bowling.

I decided to read this book because, well like most things, Dee and my father had already read the series and wouldn't shut up about it. I also read it because I have an inclination towards history and this book series has often been lauded as the best historical fiction ever written. The dialog is entirely made up but the situations that he (I refer of course to the main character Jack Aubrey) ends up in are often true historical events and more so the naval manueverings and such are in a very great number of cases based entirely off historical records.

The book is about Jack Aubrey (played by Russel Crowe in the movie rendition that is not based solely off this one book) and his friend Steven Maturin who shortly after the start of the book becomes Jack's surgeon aboard his first ship to which he is the Master and Commander. As a master and commander he is referred to as captain of the ship whereas he is not truly a captain. In order to be fully names captain you must be promoted to the rank of Post Captain, which oddly enough is the name of the second book in the twenty some odd book series. This is explained to Steven, who is a lubberly man having no knowledge of the sea or the inner workings of a ship (of any size and rate) nor the ways of her majesty's royal navy. This lack of knowledge on his part helps the reader in many ways because as Steven learns so does the reader, who in my case is also a lubberly know nothing of the sea type of man as well.

I admit I enjoyed the book thoroughly. I managed to surpass a good deal of the jargon slowing me down by finishing this book partly through reading and partly through listening. The naval battles were easier, and more enjoyable, to understand when read slowly and in a British accent. I decided in the end to post it as a book because all in all I probably did more reading than listening and many parts I did both to make sure that I didn't miss any of the plot which has a tendency to thicken quickly. I also didn't list it as an audio book because there is no precedent on this blog of doing so and I didn't want to be the first one to make that move.

In any case I finished the book and I plan on finishing more of them in the coming year. I also hope to finish a brief history of time, Scribblenauts 2 and how George Washington fleeced the nation by the end of the month.

The Invention of Lying

This flick had a whole lot of potential and then kind of petered out into something very non-special. Allow me to elaborate. The concept here is simple enough, and probably one you are familiar with. In an alternate universe, nobody has ever told a lie of any sort; people simply speak the truth at all times and that means they can't even make up stories or stretch the truth at all. Then one day Ricky Gervais discovers, out of thin air, how to lie. Because everyone in this world believes everything that they are told, he becomes essentially omnipotent. He takes a lot of money from a casino, cons a beautiful woman into having sex with him, and talks a cop out of giving his very drunk friend a DUI. All this was more or less simple and obvious expectable humor, and most of it was in the previews for the movie. But then for the second act the movie took a wild and daring abrupt turn and became an almost-scathing satire about religion. Ricky's greatest and most famous lie, in order to make people happy, becomes that there is an "invisible man in the sky" responsible for all good and bad things. He goes on to lie that people will all go to a wonderful place in the afterlife as long as they are good and don't do too many bad things in their life. In a sense, he becomes a false prophet, and the film holds no punches as the world around him falls into religious fervor and various parts of his grand lie backfire. I was shocked and awed. It's not as if I've never seen anyone lampoon religion, but for a Hollywood film to do so, and as a major plot device, just felt so bold and new and daring. What had started as a concept of "a man invents lying" had very suddenly and unexpectedly become a parody of religious beliefs. I was thoroughly impressed and hope for an ending that would make a lasting impression on me. Would Ricky's lies be exposed? Would others learn how to lie? Would the moral of the story be that lying is a good thing? Would it be that religion is a lie? That although it is a lie, religion is a good thing? A bad thing? Alas, all of my eager questions went unanswered as the third act of the movie was almost exclusively about Ricky's attempts to win over Jennifer Garner. The entire religion aspect is never revisited and the movie ends with Ricky either getting the girl or not getting the girl - I've spoiled enough of the movie and won't just give away the ending, but either way, what a missed opportunity. The movie was still full of funny jokes and laughs and concepts and whatnot, and I wouldn't call it a bad one. But it was a movie that missed a golden opportunity to do or say something very, very bold and different. Instead it ended up being a very typical guy-seeks-girl story and not much else. Oh well! At least it wasn't Caddyshack.

Caddyshack

I think the unfortunate truth of the matter is that most comedies age not like wine, but like milk. This one's more than 30 years old and it seems like everyone I know who is at least that old has only had fond things to say about it. And even still I didn't really have high hopes for this one. Bill Murray, Chevy Chase, and Rodney Dangerfield were heavily involved cast-members and I still had pretty low expectations. And they were more or less lived up to. Don't get me wrong - there were still a good deal of scenes and one-liners that earned a chuckle from someone in the room - but overall this just didn't compare to even the most mediocre of comedies today. I watched it with a few other people earlier tonight. Five of us went in and only three came out awake. Oh well. Next I'll watch a contemporary comedy and I can all but guarantee that it'll be better than this "classic" but forgotten so much sooner.

December 2010 Recap

Happy new year! Although we started this blog back in August of 2009, I've only been doing these monthly recaps for a year, so I'll end this one with a big long-term look back at the year and how well I've been doing when it comes to cleaning out that backlog. But first, let's look back at the interesting month of December.

There was a post made right off the bat by the long silent Keith. Then there was nothing for eight full days. Then there were seventeen more posts before Christmas, four additional posts before New Year's Eve, and a furious and mostly-drunken barrage of six more posts on the final day of the month and the year. We were streaky, to say the least, but that seems to always be the case. The 28 total was better than November's, but still rather low by historic measures.

I beat two games, watched eleven movies or TV shows, and read one book, giving me 14 loggings on the month, my highest total since becoming a full-time working man in July. But when it came to the specific goals I set, I did a pretty piss-poor job. Specifically, I said I could do away with a season of Sons of Anarchy, a season of The Wire, the book Ben-Hur, and the games Rock Band 3, Ico, and Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Of those, only Sons and Rock Band 3 were finished. Oops. And let's not forget that my ultimate goal is to finish off everything I own. December was horrible in that respect, as thanks to Christmas and a bunch of post-Christmas sales, I was a dreadful -46 on the month. Wow! Months and months of logging progress undone in a few days!

Speaking of long term goals, where am I at overall? I've got 34 movies, 29 seasons of television, 37 books, and 71 video games to beat. That means over the course of 2010 I made a net progress of four video games, 18 books, and -30 DVDs (and Blu-Rays). Minus eight overall. Terrible. But there's good news, and the good news is that I'm certainly actively watching, reading, and playing. I logged 56 games this year, and at that pace I could be done logging games by 2012 if only I'd stop buying them. I logged 99 movies and TV seasons, which means I could easily have those done by the end of this year. And I read 57 books, which makes that category another theoretically easy one. The moral here is that I'm not not logging, I'm just replenishing my backlog too frequently. Still, shame on me for having negative progress in 2010. That just ain't what Back-Blogged is all about.

Anyway, let's shoot for 500 posts in 2011! I know we can do it.

Avatar

Blue people!

I liked it. Screw y'all

Sex and the City 2

Eff picturez!

This movie sucked. Sarah Jessica Parker got her mole removed. What up with that?

They go to the middle east. Spend extravagantly. Have sex on the beach. Get arrested. Kiss former lovers. Get in trouble with the law. Lose all their money. And go home. Seriously. They have butlers. And they make fun of the middle east dress. What up with that. But then the middle eastern dressed women save them!

Hoorah!

Awful movie!

Breaking Bad 2

!

So I forgot to post. Then I got dragged around on the floor. Hurumph. What a new year.

Steve says I haven't watched Back to the Future 3. Fuck that!

Anywho, GREAT SHOW!!!!!!!!!

Seriously great. Pink teddy bear freaked me out. What the hell happened with it? You'll find out. When the season ends! It's a cliffhanger. Fo' realz.

I highly recommend this show. It's a doozy.