Read/Viewed: No Country For Old Men

Just got back from No Country For Old Men. Well, just got back, then took a long walk down the road to think about it, then answered all my wife's questions about plot holes and contrivances based on my book learning, then re-read some reviews, then thought about grinding my way towards the good songs in Guitar Hero III, then looked up the latter and learned there are none. Then I decided to post instead.

I'm going to break, as I often do, from our spoiler policy and split this into two parts. The non-spoiler review follows. The spoiler review follows that.

No Spoilers For Old Men

While I don't think I could stomach reading No Country For Old Men, the audiobook version read by Tom Stechschulte is pretty damn gripping. It's edge of the driver's seat listening, and thematically it's a prequel to the bleak world depicted in The Road. I don't know whether the movie succeeds on both of those levels or not, because a late development in the story may have caused someone in the audience to have a heart attack. The theater neglected to turn the lights on and shut off the film, so the audience was left to grapple with whether they were supposed to ignore the EMTs and watch the denouement, or sit in the dark for 10 minutes and wait to find out if someone had died. Afterwards, another moral dilemma: Is it wrong to complain that your movie-going experience was ruined when someone's life is on the line? I can't say for sure, but as long as you aren't the asshole who leaves the theater saying, "No Country For OLD MEN! Hahahaha!", you're probably in the clear. Yay, date night.

Old Men Who Like It In The Spoiler #18
Seriously! Spoilery spoilers below!
Yo! My gangsta flow! Yo! Yo-ho-ho.
Also...spoilers.

Maybe the book is too fresh in my mind, but even without knowing how the movie ended, I'm almost kinda pretty pissed off. The Coen brothers got the suspense parts right, but they botched the message. My wife's a smart woman, and she wouldn't be asking me, "Why did this happen?", "Why would this person do something stupid?", "How could this be possible?", etc., if the film hadn't skipped over or altered plot points from the source material. While I understand nervous laughter, and that the fragility of human existence is part of the point, we shouldn't be laughing when Chigurh is sitting naked on a toilet picking bullets out of his flesh. He's supposed to be a symbol of unknowable, unstoppable violence spreading in modern times, damn it!

Succintly put, I resent them for turning Cormac McCarthy's thesis on escalating, inevitable chaos into Fargo.

Two things really ruined it for me. One, I could be wrong, but I don't remember Chigurh killing Jimmy James in the book. I'm pretty sure he brought JJ the money for no reason other than to prove he was good at his job. Two, the shocking, unexpected death of the protagonist is fully justified by the circumstances, but the movie rushes it, and cuts out the most heartbreaking part. It's just not the same if he's not shot to death in a hotel room he rented for a female hitchhiker, after renting a separate room for himself. Couple that with the edited down final confrontation between Llewelyn's wife and Chigurh, and the movie just isn't unfair enough.

He-Whose-Love-Shall-Not-Be-Named

Three months after the final volume in the Harry Potter saga was published, J.K. Rowling continues to write its epilogue. If only she had spent that much more time on the book that went to print.

Potter fansites have already been collating postcards from the surviving characters. But after a Q&A last week, the Associated Press finally got into the act. Dumbledore was gay the whole time! (Fun fact: If you enter "dumbledore" into Google, you get "see results for dumbledore dead".) You can read an incomplete transcript of the writer's commentary track here.

Well, that's just fucking fantastic to know. Too bad it isn't stated in any of the books. And that he's dead. And even when he came back as a ghost, he never bothered to mention his love for Grindlewald to Harry, who's always been kind of a prat, and could really use a slap upside the head with a dick.

This isn't a amusing prank on gay-bashing conservatives, and it's not a bone thrown to the TBGL community. It's a cheap stunt and a cop-out by a lazy writer. Either that, or Rowling thinks gay people should only be accepted after they're dead. Rest in peace, Sirius, Lupin, and Tonks. I look forward to hearing about you in future ancillary press conferences.

No Spoilers

I'm going to break a rule here and not spoil something--unless you consider knowing how awesome something is before you see it a spoiler. If that's the case, skip to the end.

(non-spoiler warning)

I know some crazy people have been hating on it all season and embracing the answers served up on a platter by Heroes (can't wait to see how the fans turn on it halfway through season two!), but Lost is the only serial drama I can think of that has topped its season finales two years in a row. Yes, The Shield has mastered the art of melodramatic anti-climax, and each season of The Wire actually has an epilogue. But to the best of my knowledge, no television series has ever managed to produce compelling cliffhangers post season two. After that, it's always a gun to someone's head, or a division closing for the second time, or someone gets engaged and pregnant and kidnapped in an episode that will change everything until things revert to normal in mid-September, when said character gets rescued in the first ten minutes, rejects their engagement, re-takes their pregnancy test, and discovers it was all a dream.

Yesterday's season finale of Lost was as jaw-dropping as the end of Twin Peaks. But unlike Twin Peaks and its '90s-'00s kin, Lost is in its third year and the network has signed up to see it through to the end.

(non-spoiler warning ends)

If, for some crazy reason, you haven't seen Lost or just gave up at some point, you have until February to catch up. You have no justifiable reason not to.

Frakk You

"Dude, I'm a Cylon. I keep hearing the Lite FM."

"Whoa, dude! Me, too, I guess. That's frakked up."

"Yeah, so...what do you wanna do now?"

"I dunno. Should we throw ourselves out an airlock or something? I mean, I don't really seem like the type to betray humanity."

"Let's just go back to work."

"Eh. Whatever."

Jake's Wake Is Coming

Three things I want to note before delving into my rant: One, the previous Lost post can be read by anyone who already knows that Mr. Eko is dead or doesn't know who he is, in case the "it was all a dream" tag wasn't enough of a tip-off. Two, My Pal Skipp's short will be linked here as soon as it is available on the Internet. And three, though our spoiler policy is clear, our "you'll never watch this show again if you know this" policy is not. So I'll warn you that if you intend to keep watching Battlestar Galactica because you crave disappointment, please, don't read any further.

Here is an extra line in case you read fast. I hope you're reading this on purpose, because you've probably already seen the word below in quotes.

I watched Battlestar Galactica Sunday night. The one where Starbuck "died."

I'm done.

I'll keep watching until the pajama trial of Baltar, and maybe check out the made for Sci-Fi channel summer movie and the first two episodes next season just for a laugh. But I'm done.

I tried to embrace Mr. Bile's "one episode at a time theory for Battlestar enjoyment." But when it comes down to it, BSG is not Lost and I can't watch it as if it were.

Think what you will about Lost's refusal to answer lingering mysteries or advance the island plot, but it's held true to the series' premise. Each episode is tied into a single character's past. Whether that actually advances the timeline or explains why that character is doing the same thing over and over again, the conceit has been remarkably consistent. And since the themes of the show are predestiny, people's inability to change, and fate vs. free will, it works.

Battlestar is a different type of show. It began as a wanna-be pilot/mini-series and developed into a tight 13-episode first season with an ensemble cast. But over the course of the bloated second and third seasons, the majority of episodes seemed as if they were written for network sweeps. With the exception of two-part finales or plot arc epilogues, episodes increasingly focused on only one or two characters. Flashbacks became commonplace, rewriting what we knew, and the metaplot, when acknowledged, was presented as a clip show.

BSG forgot it was an ensemble show. All the interesting characters have either been written out, ignored, or turned to cardboard. Not only am I supposed to believe that Starbuck flew into a colored space hole to "die" just because, but Adama reacts like a spoiled teenager afterwards and breaks his favorite toy?

Get back to me 10 years from now when Chris Carter comes out of retirement to make the re-re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, and I can get my hopes up and have them dashed all over again courtesy of Lance Henriksen.

Six Paragraph Prologue

I have been going through all our old posts adding tags and embiggening the font when necessary. Battlestar Galactica-related posts lead with 11 tags, role-playing and board games tie at 5, and monsters have 4. With the exception of the subject of this post, everything else comes in at 3 or less, but this will probably change when I assign Mr. Bile to give our archives a once over. (Why isn't The Night You'd Never Forget tagged under "haunted house"? It was late and I was tired.)

Afterwards, we will compile a list of all the tags used only once and call for a vote on what topics should be expanded upon and by whom. I expect essays on beings of pure energy, the Frogtown barrier, and "..." to be high on our list of reader requests. But what do I know? I received no phone calls, comments, or e-mails about the state of my emotional health after posting this.

It's actually been a week of nightmares, but I think it has to do with the season. The "winter" months in Los Angeles not only give me reverse Seasonal Affective Disorder, there's also too much goddamn sunlight coming in my window at 8 in the morning. Bright light! It tastes like burning! Et cetera.

Going through the tags, it makes me sad that Lost has only been addressed in a significant way 7 times. But I guess it makes sense. There have only been 8 episodes so far this season, and I extended my original spoiler embargo out of respect for Mr. Bile.

Actually, respect had nothing to do with it. What sort of insane person sits on addictive serial entertainment when they can down a fifth of cliffhangers in less than 24 hours? I was just being patient out of habit. That's all out the window now. Though he might be able to avoid reading my posts about the latest episodes, I can spoil plot twists faster than he can hang up the phone.

I've also held back on Lost love for the same reason I haven't written about Battlestar Galactica in the last two weeks. I'd rather create a blog for no one in particular than for one specific fanbase. (Yes, I know this doesn't equate to success, but it's what I want out my Internet media.) But as all the media attention focuses on "Urh, this smart show that requires people to remember what happened four episodes ago is losing viewers," and people are getting paid to not understand it on purpose, I think it's time someone stepped up with an eloquent defense before the first show to get halfway through completing its epic mystery died of viewer apathy.

CANNED FOOD AND SHOTGUNS

Don't Beleive The Hat

Now might be a good time to remind you about our spoiler policy.

Narraptor has developed a relatively foolproof system for judging newly written fairy tales; More Monster = More Movie. By this yardstick, we can clearly prove that Spirited Away is ten times as good as Princess Mononoke, and a hundred times as good as Howl's Moving Castle. And yet, this also means that Pan's Labyrinth should be infinitely worse than the Pan-less Labyrinth. (And that is without taking the standard Muppet Modifier into account.)
In this case, I am going to have to leave science behind me, and cling to my belief that Pan's Labrynth is as good a film as I think it is.

I can understand if you don't have any faith left for DelToro's films, though. I can't remember a thing about Mimic, and I remember too damn much of Blade 2. Hellboy was fun at the time, but immediately afterwards I've only been able to recall the film's many flaws. I was willing to believe that The Devil's Backbone was DelToro's good film, but I've never had enough interest to seek it out.

But somehow, this movie finally delivers on the promises DelToro's been making all these years. It helps that the promise is fairly simple: That he's made a dark and fairly straightforwards fairy tale, placed in a modern setting. By the same token, I reject the slur of Magical Realism that Narraptor's leveled at the film.

The viewpoint in Pan's Labrynth is relentlessly objective. There is no narration to inform you that this is a Ofelia's personal journey. No visual cues that each character sees things in different ways. Some characters shoot at commie rebels, some make roast rabbit, and one person talks to mantis fairies. Each is handled with the same detached air. Then at the end of the film, we are treated to a scene where the drugged up Capitán Vidal sees Ofelia talking to the air, instead of the Faun.

At this point, you get to choose which movie you've been watching all along. One of them is a tale where the military commander just can't see the faun for some reason. Perhaps it was the drugs, or perhaps it's just a magic thing. Not a strong point of the film, I'll agree, but not a dealbreaker.

Instead, you can decide that it could have been all in Ofelia's head. At which point the movie breaks apart. After all, if the movie's willing to lie to the viewer to the point that Ofelia can walk through walls on multiple occasions due to coincidence, what else is it lying about? Perhaps Capitán Vidal only thinks he's a brutal killer, when in reality he breaks down sobbing in a corner, and lets someone else do the work. Perhaps the mysterious French rebel leader never existed either. After all, if Ofelia's obsession with fairies brought them to CGI life, then what validity should I place with a group of friendly communist rebels who are at the beck and call of a communist-loving Mercedes? Is that magically realistic? I'm honestly not sure... without a person flying into space from sheer beauty, it's hard to tell.

There's supposed to be some ambiguity in the ending, but you still end up picking which option you prefer. You can believe in the magic, and end up with a good movie that has a happy ending. Or don't, and you're left with a badly directed film with an unhappy end.

That is, assuming you like dark fairy tales that contain four and a half monsters. If you don't, you're not going to come out of this film happy either way.

Sometimes Mr. Bile Is Boring

By posting that he would write something interesting later on Thursday, Mr. Bile violated Canned Food and Shotguns Rule #2. For those keeping track at home:

No spoiler warnings
No posts promising more or better posts later in the day
No apologizing for not posting on post days
No spelling apologize with a "s" or color with an "u"
No boring posts about boredom or depressing posts about depression
No politics
No Ron Jeremy or ATM

I believe the third, fourth, and fifth rules are new. Rules #6 and #7 have gone unsaid, but have always been in place. None of these have been ratified by a show of hands, but I intend to strictly enforce them all. The consequences for breaking a rule are having said disobedience pointed out. Mr. Bile, consider yourself chastened for ignoring rules you never agreed to and I just came up with.

Let the metafictional conflict begin. It can be like The Colbear Repor, but without the people who don't get it going "Whoo!"

Now, I happen to know that Mr. Bile was facing technical difficulties on Thursday which may have prevented him from giving us insight into why he no longer plays Give Me the Brain Age, but that is precisely why Rule #2 is in place. It saves us all from disappointment and more behind-the-scenes blogger commentary like this. I probably wouldn't have mentioned it at all, but given that I only have proof that Mr. Bile and I visit this page on a regular basis, I'm not too concerned with whether I'm boring people or not at this point. Add to my comments section sometime and I'll start to tailor stuff to you, dear Stephen King Reader. One person already got the font changed. Who knows what influence you might have?

I was issued a challenge last week that I was not able to address, but I now accept. Look it up, dear. Or wait until Tuesday.

I turned this on five minutes in last Saturday and watched it in its entirety. Never before has the Frogtown Barrier been crossed at 9:00 in the evening. (An interesting aspect of the Frogtown phenomenon, alcohol is never involved.)

There was one good joke in the...er, film: "Pick up my brother at the airport." You had to be there and you didn't want to, as it was at the expense of James "Lo Pan" Hong, one of the last great Asian-American character actors of our time. At some point in the future, the sad state of parody must be discussed.

I Don't Know Why Narraptor's Boring

Something about polar bears, I presume.

It's true. At long last, I'm ready to blog. Perhaps I can just assume Blogger's response to my plea for help was just to fix the problem and never tell me about it.

It's also true that I've become laughably tardy in watching good television. I'm seven episodes behind in Lost, two whole seasons behind on The Shield, and I haven't downloaded the latest premier of Battlestar Galactica yet. And The Wire... well, one day I'll see it. Really!

So, I have to be careful what I read on this site. (Exhibit #1: I can't read the post below this.) We're in the same boat, dear reader! Presuming, of course, that you've been a slacker like me. What's wrong with you, anyway? We're finally in the era of Good T.V.... live the dream!

Anyways, part of the reason for this is that I have a bizarre aversion to watching television by myself. Once I start, it's all good... but it's getting to that point that seems to take forever. More than that, though, I blame Carnivale. I loved that show. I watched it, then usually watched it again while I tape recorded it for two separate friends. Even then, there was the thought: "What if it gets cancelled?" But, I figured, it's better to enjoy the goodness while I can... and hell, when did HBO cancel anything? The whole point of HBO is that they didn't have to bow to ratings, because they were a pay site.

Second season: One of the co-writers jumped ship to make Battlestar Galactica. This, coupled with HBO's directive to make the show more accessible did... bad things to it. But I still would've watched the third season. Because hope springs eternal... and it looked like Lodz would, too. Hooray!

One cancellation later, I stopped caring. Now, there's always that damn worry: Why bother watching a series, until I have an iron-bound guarantee that it was not:

A- Canceled
B- Ruined
C- Both

After all, I'm not a Nielsen viewer, so what I watch really doesn't matter. And no matter what they say about DVD sales, it apparently can only bring shows back to life, not prevent them from dying in the first place.

But... that's no way to live my television-watching life. Especially with a bevy of friends reminding me that it's rude to introduce people to, say, The Shield, and then not be able to talk with them about it, except in the most general of terms. "I hear Forrest Whittaker is... big."

Mind you: I now trust network television more than HBO. Funny world.

Last week, Bryan Curtis of Slate asked if you should read The Ruins. He had an interesting perspective on what the book was about, but he never specifically answered the question.

The answer is no.

I will elaborate, but in the absence of Mr. Bile, this seems like the perfect opportunity for me to set the rules regarding spoilers. That’s what he gets for having technical difficulties.

I am less interested in writing reviews than (admittedly geeky) critical analysis. There is little satisfaction to be found in having a one-sided discussion on the season finale of Battlestar Galactica. (“The thing that I won’t tell you about until you’ve seen what happens could hardly be viewed as controversial given the way the writers have played with something you might not know about yet all season.”) I just can’t wait for the survivalists without cable and DVD players who end up here while searching for Y2K message boards to catch up on BSG.

So when discussing serialized entertainment, you have fair warning that I will generally be writing under the assumption that you’ve already seen or read what I'm writing about, don’t care to, or will skip that day’s update until you have. My best wishes go to browsers who end up here after this post is archived. Lucy Lawless is a Cylon.

On a less passive-aggressive note, while you will not see the words “spoiler warning” in any posts, the occasional “spoiler free” will end up in the heading of a straight-forward recommendation. I mean, I certainly don't want to ruin a Filipino horror movie for anyone. And in accordance with my agreement with Mr. Bile, I will not discuss Lost until the new season starts in October. He still has two weeks to catch up. After that, it’s on. For all y'all.

As for The Ruins, it’s just another overly-hyped, supposedly literary summer novel, like The Historian or Jonathan Strange or that book where Jesus wore flannel, but readable. A bunch of college kids go into a jungle they’re warned not to go into, they step into some vines, and then Mayans surround them with bows and will kill them if they leave. If they don’t leave, they’ll be eaten by evil vines.

How evil is this plant? It could have killed them all instantly, but it lets them suffer for 200 pages before the last one dies. Stephen King wrote that some people might mistake it for a bloated short story. I’d argue that people who should know better might mistake it for a novel. The book has some creepy death pieces, but it’s still about a bunch of dumb kids and a plant that chuckles.

The answers to the Battlestar Galactica quiz are “over the counter birth control” and “137 minutes earlier.”