Lately, for various reasons of ennui, friends and I have been watching The Mentalist on TNT Monday nights.
It's not a bad show. Really, it isn't. But for some reason I have a persistent temporary amnesia about it, so that the moment it comes on, I think, "Huh. Robin Tunney has a cop show?" and then remember that yes, this is the show with the adorable guy in the vest.
But last night's episode, in which the titular hero confronts the man who killed his family, has prodded me to admit something I've known for a long time:
I HATE "A" PLOTS! HATE THEM HATE THEM ARGH ARGH ARGH...
Sorry.
I don't hate them in theory. In theory, the idea of a unifying thread tying a bunch of stories together is an excellent one. But too often they bog down good shows and take up time that could be spent on better-written episodic TV. Nearly every A plot in Heroes ended laughably with Nathan Petrelli getting shot; on Supernatural the Winchesters alternate between failing to stop the forces of evil and summering in Hades; and even Buffy the Vampire Slayer lost me when they pitted her against a god. (I am also that person who thinks The X-Files should have ignored the damned aliens: you knew there was one of us out there!) In practice, it seems, the A-plot structure is an invitation for the show to bite off way more than its writers and characters can ever properly chew.
...All of which, given that I'm freshly hooked on Haven, will probably turn to irony in a matter of months. Are there any other A-plot haters out there?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Halloween Horror Fest!!! If I Can Find Anything Good...
I'm back! And I'm beginning to wonder if I am getting jaded. In an attempt to get the Dracula's Godchild party started, I've so far watched 3.5 horror films, and not one, in my opinion, deserves its own standalone review.
Let me repeat something I've said throughout the horror-movie portions of this blog: I am a high-strung person who loves fiction. I am, in theory, the ideal audience for all but the most tepid of tepid spook-shows. I can suspend disbelief so high it can barely be seen with the naked eye. My surprise, therefore, is less that there are non-great horror movies out there as that they are so non-great that even I noticed.
So here we go...
--Knife Edge: A stockbroker with ESP quits the fast track and moves with her husband and son into a haunted house. Soon, she is seeing visions of a terrible murder from the past and is drawn to a particularly sinister tree on the estate.
Unfortunately, that's as far as I got. It may be that reading Barbara Erskine's House of Echoes a few months ago used up some vital attention span for British haunted-house/domestic dramas. I'm not willing to blame the movie for this, though, and I may yet return to it.
--The Haunted Forest: Nice name, isn't it? It also has nice scenery as a bunch of attractive young people get lost in the woods on a quest for a(nother) sinister tree. Imagine someone using a "Native American Legend" as an excuse to make a J-horror movie in what looks like a forest in Oregon.
Got it? I've just saved you about 90 minutes. You're welcome.
--The Marsh: This was probably my favorite so far: Gabrielle Anwar stars as a children's-book writer who sees visions of a house in he country. Until the movie started, she's been using this to fuel her work, which is shown as adorably creepy picture books I wouldn't mind getting for my godchildren in real life. When she tracks down the real house and rents it for a sabbatical, creepy things start to happen... as, unfortunately, does the unnecessary insertion of Forest Whitaker as a psychic investigator. Pretty good and spooky, though.
--Walled In: If I had a time machine, I might just go back and put Walled In on the list I made, at the dawn of this site, of movies that infuriate me due to unfulfilled potential. Mischa Barton (who is quite good here) stars as a demolition expert doing the initial inspection on an apartment building where people were buried alive in the walls—a plot point that only serves to remind me that I know a lot of morbid little bits of lore that other people don't. As she navigates the building and its strange few remaining tenants, she begins to have eerie experiences....
Which makes it all the more disappointing that the end of the film is a sort of torture-porn lite. The set pieces were so good, the atmosphere was so good, and it all ends with someone trapped in what amounts to a cellar by a still-living doofus. Phooey.
Next up: Book of Blood, if I can stand it.
Let me repeat something I've said throughout the horror-movie portions of this blog: I am a high-strung person who loves fiction. I am, in theory, the ideal audience for all but the most tepid of tepid spook-shows. I can suspend disbelief so high it can barely be seen with the naked eye. My surprise, therefore, is less that there are non-great horror movies out there as that they are so non-great that even I noticed.
So here we go...
--Knife Edge: A stockbroker with ESP quits the fast track and moves with her husband and son into a haunted house. Soon, she is seeing visions of a terrible murder from the past and is drawn to a particularly sinister tree on the estate.
Unfortunately, that's as far as I got. It may be that reading Barbara Erskine's House of Echoes a few months ago used up some vital attention span for British haunted-house/domestic dramas. I'm not willing to blame the movie for this, though, and I may yet return to it.
--The Haunted Forest: Nice name, isn't it? It also has nice scenery as a bunch of attractive young people get lost in the woods on a quest for a(nother) sinister tree. Imagine someone using a "Native American Legend" as an excuse to make a J-horror movie in what looks like a forest in Oregon.
Got it? I've just saved you about 90 minutes. You're welcome.
--The Marsh: This was probably my favorite so far: Gabrielle Anwar stars as a children's-book writer who sees visions of a house in he country. Until the movie started, she's been using this to fuel her work, which is shown as adorably creepy picture books I wouldn't mind getting for my godchildren in real life. When she tracks down the real house and rents it for a sabbatical, creepy things start to happen... as, unfortunately, does the unnecessary insertion of Forest Whitaker as a psychic investigator. Pretty good and spooky, though.
--Walled In: If I had a time machine, I might just go back and put Walled In on the list I made, at the dawn of this site, of movies that infuriate me due to unfulfilled potential. Mischa Barton (who is quite good here) stars as a demolition expert doing the initial inspection on an apartment building where people were buried alive in the walls—a plot point that only serves to remind me that I know a lot of morbid little bits of lore that other people don't. As she navigates the building and its strange few remaining tenants, she begins to have eerie experiences....
Which makes it all the more disappointing that the end of the film is a sort of torture-porn lite. The set pieces were so good, the atmosphere was so good, and it all ends with someone trapped in what amounts to a cellar by a still-living doofus. Phooey.
Next up: Book of Blood, if I can stand it.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Just Briefly...
For the record, I was raised on crime shows: Baretta, Starsky & Hutch, Magnum, the Law & Order franchise (and also a ton of British mystery, though I don't think that's relevant here) and a host of others. My mother can identify the plot of a Magnum, PI episode in its first thirty seconds, but can't remember what she had for dinner two days ago.
You get the idea.
And yet I don't think of myself as having a lot of particular insight into these shows: I don't want to solve the crime, because if I can figure out "whodunit" early, the writers haven't fully succeeded. Which is why I say, quite sincerely: Was the season finale of Castle really a shock to people?
I keep seeing it presented that way. Thanks to a lack of TV reception and a bad habit of forgetting about network schedules/the existence of Hulu, I see about four episodes of Castle a year. And every single time I did catch one, the chief acted funny whenever the subject of Kate's mother came up. Can someone (politely!) explain this to me? If you have more continuity from regular viewing, does the guy's concern come off as something else? I'm not used to being a detective-show savant, so I assume some other force is at work.
You get the idea.
And yet I don't think of myself as having a lot of particular insight into these shows: I don't want to solve the crime, because if I can figure out "whodunit" early, the writers haven't fully succeeded. Which is why I say, quite sincerely: Was the season finale of Castle really a shock to people?
I keep seeing it presented that way. Thanks to a lack of TV reception and a bad habit of forgetting about network schedules/the existence of Hulu, I see about four episodes of Castle a year. And every single time I did catch one, the chief acted funny whenever the subject of Kate's mother came up. Can someone (politely!) explain this to me? If you have more continuity from regular viewing, does the guy's concern come off as something else? I'm not used to being a detective-show savant, so I assume some other force is at work.
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Random Observation...
I'm beginning to sense a trend as I watch these:
Arang starts with schoolgirls fearing ghosts and perverts, and eventually the story involves both.
In The Ghost, aka Dead Friend (with any luck, tomorrow's review), the action begins with a teenage séance and a sentence that explains much of the movie (er, spoiler?).
Both Ringu and its American remake kick off with the legend of the videotape as told by kids.
In other words, I think I've finally found the explanation for the title cards at the start of The Heirloom: no matter how steeped in local lore you are, it's hard to have people naturally expositing about fetus ghosts.
Arang starts with schoolgirls fearing ghosts and perverts, and eventually the story involves both.
In The Ghost, aka Dead Friend (with any luck, tomorrow's review), the action begins with a teenage séance and a sentence that explains much of the movie (er, spoiler?).
Both Ringu and its American remake kick off with the legend of the videotape as told by kids.
In other words, I think I've finally found the explanation for the title cards at the start of The Heirloom: no matter how steeped in local lore you are, it's hard to have people naturally expositing about fetus ghosts.
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
A Salty Tale: Arang
Think Law & Order: Very Special Victims Unit.
In this Korean horror film, a detective just recovered from a sexual assault is paired with the proverbial green rookie (in the opening sequence after the titles, he is trying to photograph a crime scene with no film in the camera). Together, they investigate a series of deaths: some force is killing off a group of young men of the same age. Could it have something to do with a missing girl and a crime committed in a salt-storage shed long ago? Could long-haired ladies, technological manipulation by supernatural forces, and black goo be involved?
Is there a Korean idiom for "Duh!"?
I realize I'm giving a false impression that I didn't like Arang, but in fact I liked it for the same reason I like Law & Order*: there's a point in each when stylized conventions transcend cliché to become classical. I enjoyed the police-procedural aspect of this revenge drama and its little twists—the oaf with the camera plays a much bigger role than first assumed—and the salthouse is a nicely eerie set-piece around which to base your haunt. The movie is very basic in its conventions, however, and talking about it without dwelling on what viewers would already expect (dead girls, photographic shenanigans) is very difficult. If you like these things, definitely give it a try.
*No, Sam Waterston is the other reason.
In this Korean horror film, a detective just recovered from a sexual assault is paired with the proverbial green rookie (in the opening sequence after the titles, he is trying to photograph a crime scene with no film in the camera). Together, they investigate a series of deaths: some force is killing off a group of young men of the same age. Could it have something to do with a missing girl and a crime committed in a salt-storage shed long ago? Could long-haired ladies, technological manipulation by supernatural forces, and black goo be involved?
Is there a Korean idiom for "Duh!"?
I realize I'm giving a false impression that I didn't like Arang, but in fact I liked it for the same reason I like Law & Order*: there's a point in each when stylized conventions transcend cliché to become classical. I enjoyed the police-procedural aspect of this revenge drama and its little twists—the oaf with the camera plays a much bigger role than first assumed—and the salthouse is a nicely eerie set-piece around which to base your haunt. The movie is very basic in its conventions, however, and talking about it without dwelling on what viewers would already expect (dead girls, photographic shenanigans) is very difficult. If you like these things, definitely give it a try.
*No, Sam Waterston is the other reason.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Belated Halloween Coming!
Just to let you know that I'll be reviewing some nice foreign horror flicks, assuming I can ever stop watching DVDs of that curiously gentle police show, Pie In The Sky. Thanks for your patience!
Monday, November 01, 2010
Egad....
I'm going to try to do the NaBloPoMo thing again this year; generally, this is something I remember around the second of every month. Movie reviews will be forthcoming!
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