The Amber Tower

Everything Ends

2011-09-16T12:00:00.000-05:00

For those not tracking the stretch run of the MLB season, it may not be news to you that the Detroit Tigers lost last night. However, it is if you consider the fact that their improbable win on Wednesday over Chicago, which included two pinch-hit 9th inning home runs to send the game into extra innings, raised their winning streak to 12 games.

I'm not going to predict a World Series win or even an appearance, as the baseball playoffs are an enormous crap shoot, but it's worth noting that every other Tigers team that won >10 consecutive games during a season made it to the Series. I'm looking forward to seeing what our AL Central champions can do this year.

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On a completely different note, since January I've been reading the 27 book Time-Life series on the Civil War that I inherited from my grandpa. I finished the last one this morning, detailing the failed attempt at Radical Reconstruction of the South from 1865-1877.

I've made a few half-hearted attempts in the past to read this series, but have never made it past the sixth book before. I've enjoyed it each time I've tried in the past, but failed because of the huge time commitment required. Now I'm pleased to say that I've learned everything there is to learn about the Civil War. Well, at least I've learned a lot about it.

It's already paid dividends at quiz bowl (first practice was yesterday) because I can laugh mercilessly when those puny high schoolers don't know who the Confederate general at Shiloh (and Fort Sumter) was. It's Pierre Gustave Toutant Beauregard, of course.

Been There, Done That, Ate the Turkey Leg

2011-08-15T21:48:00.005-05:00

The Warrior Dash turned out to be a ton of fun. Not only did we get some good exercise rambling up and down the ski slopes at Afton Alps, jumping over cars, climbing cargo nets, and ducking under barbed wire, but we did a bunch of other stuff I never thought I'd do. Among them:

- blasted clean by a fire hose
- ate a turkey leg at 9:30 in the morning -- my dad would be proud, there was absolutely no meat left on that bone when I was done with it
- queued up for beer at 10:00 in the morning -- it was free, and it was bad

If it comes back to Minnesota next year, I'd love to get a big group together to go with us. You don't have to be in fantastic shape, and can even walk it if you want to. The absolute worst part was right at the beginning because the course went straight up one of the steep ski slopes at the resort. We went at Meaghan's pace, which was less than strenuous, and finished in 50+ minutes. Even so, we didn't feel particularly out of place and could complete all of the obstacles with relative ease.

Because of the messy nature of many of the obstacles, we didn't bring a camera along, but there were professionals there to immortalize the occasion. Apologies for the watermarking, I'd have to pay money to get rid of that.

No, we're not drenched in sweat there. One of the first obstacles was to run through a couple of snow machines that were on at full blast. Since it's the summer, this amounted to being blasted with a metric ton of water.

Nearing the finish line, after going back down the ski slope on a giant Slip n' Slide, we had to hurdle a couple of flaming berms.

Emerging from the mud pit at the finish line, ready for the fire hose. Some of those clothes will never be clean again. Meaghan's still crawling through the mud somewhere behind me here.

Breaking the Silence

2011-07-22T23:00:00.002-05:00

It's been a busy couple of weeks since returning from Europe.

I had fully intended on using that first weekend to load this place with tales from the journey, but instead we turned around almost immediately to get on a plane to Florida for Meaghan's G'Pa's funeral. Unbeknownst to us, he had suffered a stroke while we were gone and was placed into hospice. To our relative good fortune, he managed to hang on until the day after we returned so we were able to visit with the family at least a little as opposed to missing it completely. I only knew him for a small fraction of his 92 years, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a kinder soul.

We returned to Minnesota again to the news that one of Meaghan's students had committed suicide, so we attended our second funeral of the week that Saturday. Between that and trying to get acquainted with the current goings-on at work, it was a difficult week.

For this past week, I don't really have an excuse beyond working too much. We saw a couple of movies in the theater that I'll be writing about before too long, and as I write this we're in the midst of completing Disney movie #3. There are scads of bonus features and multiple commentaries on our copy of Fantasia, so it's taken us a long time to make it this far. Dumbo comes next for those of you tracking our progress.

None of that is the real reason that I'm making the effort to break my silence at such a late hour, though. My reason? Sunday morning, Meaghan and I become WARRIORS! Or at least, we're going to make the attempt. As a fan of "American Gladiators", "Ninja Warrior", etc. it'll be fun to try something that's even a tenth of what those contestants do. I'll let you know how it goes next week.

The Moral of the Story

2011-07-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

So what was the point of all this? Good entertainment aimed at kids does exist. I know that none of my regular readers have children that are the right age for any of this stuff, but someday they will. Since we now know it exists, I urge you to take an interest in what your kids are watching and listening to. Help them differentiate the bad from the good so they don't fill their heads up with the mindless drivel that so many Americans waste their time on these days. Future generations will thank you for it.

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Epilogue: I just had to know if my crap sensor was broken, so I went out to YouTube and watched a random episode of "The Suite Life on Deck". Yep, it still sucks.

Thank goodness.

Deaf is the New Down

2011-07-06T19:00:00.001-05:00

I'd tried Disney. When that failed, I moved on to campy werewolves. Another failure. There had to be a show targeted at tweens or teens that wasn't any good. After all, they're not supposed to be good. Looking over my list again, I decided to try a new ABC Family show, "Switched at Birth". I've seen a couple episodes of different ABC Family shows before, and absolutely none of it was good. Surely this would be an easy target. Just look at the name. Nothing with a premise that ridiculous (yes, I know it's happened in real life before) could possibly be any good.

I'm wrong yet again. Ostensibly, the show is about two teenage girls who discover that they were switched at birth. This raises the natural issues of identity and the importance of nature vs nurture. In and of itself, this could make for an interesting show, but the main thing this show really has going for it is that one of the two girls who were switched at birth is deaf.

Remember "Life Goes On"? It was that show from the early 90s that was essentially a regular family drama, except for the fact that one of the kids, Corky, had Down syndrome. It brought a whole new cultural awareness to the plight of the mentally retarded. "Switched at Birth" is absolutely going to do the same for Deaf culture. So many of the scenes, with good reason, focus on what it means to be deaf and how deaf people and the hearing interact, that it's obvious that this is what the show is really about.

The fact alone that it's doing something that's completely new to television (which is so rare in this day and age) would probably make it worth watching. Add the fact that it's decently written, well acted, and treats its subject matter with the utmost respect and there's absolutely no reason to not give it a try.

Howl at the Moon

2011-07-04T19:00:00.002-05:00

Shaken by my unexpected enjoyment of "Sonny With a Chance", I decided that I needed to make sure I could still tell the difference between something that was good and something that was crap. I'll admit that I have the annoying ability to find the good in almost anything, but I can usually still tell when something is actually bad. Perusing my list of new summer shows, I settled on something I was sure would fit the bill, MTV's new remake of "Teen Wolf".

Everyone remembers the cheesetastic movie starring Michael J. Fox, right? Some high school kid becomes a werewolf and consequently becomes the best basketball player in the world all while wearing a ridiculous hairy wolf-man suit.

Well, this new show is not that.

In fact, much to my chagrin this new "Teen Wolf" is actually pretty good. For one, it's played completely straight. No camp, no cheese, and it employs a lot of tricks used in modern horror (tense scoring, dim lighting, and decent effects). For another thing, it's not another stupid show about vampires. Sure, it has a supernatural bent and is probably trying to cash in on the Twilight/"True Blood"/"Vampire Diaries" phenomenon, but it's refreshing to me that it's taking on a different fantastical creature for once.

Storywise, it probably employs a few too many cliches, but at least it's cliche done well. Our protagonist, Scott, is bitten by a werewolf while walking in the woods alone at night (yeah, I know), transforming him overnight into both a werewolf and his school's best lacrosse player. Props for showcasing a non-traditional sport, by the way. Unlike in the movie, though, this isn't common knowledge. It turns out werewolves are scary things that prowl moon-filled nights meting out death and destruction. Consequently, his best friend is the only guy in school to know his secret.

Add in a group of "hunters" whose mission in life is to stamp out all the werewolves in the world, a jealous team captain who used to be the best player on the team, and a new girl in town who takes a romantic interest in Scott (and oh yeah, happens to be the daughter of the lead hunter), and you have all the necessary ingredients for good teen drama. Seriously. If you're a fan of this kind of stuff at all, I recommend you give it a try. I think all of the episodes to date can still be viewed at the MTV website.

For Kim, Part 5/5

2011-07-01T19:00:00.004-05:00

I know the suspense has been killing everyone, but now after a month's delay I'm finally ready to reveal who my 5th and final male actor is. Drumroll please...

It's none other than Paul Rudd.

Rudd first came to my attention back in 1995 when he played Cher's "total Baldwin" of a stepbrother in Clueless. He was the cute, charming straight man in an otherwise highly stylized and over the top teen comedy. This launched a brief period of popularity back when I was in high school where he most notably acted alongside Leo DiCaps in Romeo+Juliet, but none of that is why he makes this list.

In 2003, Meaghan and I were on our first vacation together in Winnipeg. (Don't knock it until you try it; it's a great city.) When on vacation, we often try to find some time to catch some movies in the theater wherever we are. On that trip, we decided to see Neil LaBute's The Shape of Things, which happened to star Paul Rudd as the bamboozled Adam. This dark exploration of how we all shape each other in our lives (intentionally or not) still ranks among my favorite movies of all time, and it catapulted Rudd back onto my radar screen.

He followed this up with a notable recurring role in the final seasons of "Friends" and a series of roles in Judd Apatow's comedies (The 40 Year Old Virgin and Knocked Up, among others). Most recently, I've seen him in 2009's I Love You, Man alongside Jason Segel ("How I Met Your Mother", "Freaks and Geeks"), which was easily amongst my favorite comedies of the last few years. He plays the funny everyman so well, it makes me think that he's the kind of actor I would be if I were a giant movie star. Looking at his IMDB page, I can safely say that I'm looking forward to seeing how Rudd brings the funny in 2011 & 2012.

I'll leave you with this rather silly (and ultra-specific) celebration of Rudd's career.

Surviving the Disney Channel?

2011-06-29T19:00:00.006-05:00

Next up on my list was a new sketch comedy show for tweens on the Disney Channel -- "So Random". I've tried watching episodes of tween shows on Nickelodeon ("True Jackson, VP") and Disney ("The Suite Life...") before, but have never talked about it here. Truth be told, Meaghan and I absolutely love most things Disney, but the garbage they spew on to their TV channel is universally terrible. I haven't seen anything on it in the last 5-10 years that's even been close to good. Ahem. Let me amend that. I hadn't seen anything...

To talk about "So Random", I'll have to start with a not so brief but hopefully interesting history lesson. It all starts with another Disney Channel show that debuted a couple of years ago, "Sonny With a Chance". Yes, the name is terrible. "Sonny" shares a common setup to a lot of other Disney shows (analogies include: "Hannah Montana":Miley Cyrus, "Lizzie McGuire":Hilary Duff, "Wizards of Waverly Place":Selena Gomez -- if you don't recognize any of those names then you're living under a much larger rock than I am) in that it's primarily a vehicle for its leading lady. In this case, that lady is the star of the Disney Channel movies Camp Rock and Camp Rock 2, Demi Lovato. More on her in a bit, but first "Sonny".

"Sonny With a Chance" is the story of a girl from Wisconsin (Sonny Munroe) who is hired to join the cast of a Hollywood-based teen sketch comedy show called "So Random". It starts out primarily as a fish out of water story as Sonny has to adjust to the strangeness that is life in show business as part of a hit show. Complicating that is the fact that they share a studio with the #1 teen drama in America, Mackenzie Falls. Needless to say, the casts of the two shows do not get along... at all.

The ringleader of the people at the Falls is its star, the greatest actor of his generation, Chad Dylan Cooper (hilariously played by Sterling Knight -- remember that name). Most shows that feature a show within a show (or in this case, two shows within a show) fail miserably when they attempt to show anything from it -- "Studio 60" I'm looking at you here -- but that's not the case with "Sonny". Yes, the "So Random" sketches are hit and miss, but so is SNL. Sketch comedy is hard to do right. "Mackenzie Falls", however, is pure comedy gold as it single-handedly takes the mickey out of every CW show ever created. Behold!

In season 2 of "Sonny", the focus shifts to the burgeoning relationship between Sonny and Chad, exploring the regular hazards and pitfalls of dating as a teen as well as the complications that arise when those teens happen to be famous celebrities on competing shows. I didn't think I'd ever say this, but I'm proud to say that I've seen pretty much every episode of "Sonny with a Chance" and it's actually quite good. Sure, the acting can be a little rough at times, but those are the hazards when your cast is young and inexperienced. In particular, Lovato (who was only 16 when the first season was filmed) has a tendency to talk loudly and try to get through scenes by flashing her megawatt smile. Thankfully, she improves quite a bit in season 2 and blends into the show much better.

So if it was so good, why is a real version of "So Random" now on the Disney Channel? What happened to "Sonny" season 3? Well, the answer to that lies with its star. Demi Lovato is first and foremost a musician, not an actor. Prior to doing research for this piece, I hadn't heard a single song of hers, but now that I have it's not all that bad. It certainly tops trainwrecks like Ke$ha and the aforementioned Cyrus. She reminds me a little bit of a young Kelly Clarkson. Hopefully, she's able to grow into her voice in the future. This song in particular, "La La Land", from her first album is a catchy little earworm that I haven't gotten out of my head for the past week. Please take a listen and pay attention to the lyrics (which she actually wrote) as they're important to the tale I tell.

Ah... ain't naivete grand? The gist of the song (for those who refused to listen to it) is that even though she's knowingly stepping into the Hollywood hype machine, she's going to stay the same person she's always been. I think Mmes. Spears and Lohan (among others) might be able to offer a differing opinion. I actually think it's pretty appalling the way our culture treats young people in show business. It's almost as if it's designed to completely chew them up and leave them a frail shadow of the person they once were, after extracting every last penny of revenue from them, that is. Add to that the endless line of kids (and their parents) looking to get rich and famous and you can see why the individuals don't matter. There will always be someone there to replace them.

It's complicated enough being a kid in the first place. Add in the fact that you're expected to be a role model to other kids and everything you do is in the public eye, captured by tabloids or Internet gossip sites, and the pressure can be absolutely astounding. Interestingly enough, many of the best episodes of "Sonny" deal with these very issues, so not only was Lovato living them out in real life but she was play-acting them a second time over for her TV show.

In Lovato's case, she quickly became popular with the tween crowd from her TV roles and her albums. As I'm writing this, she has nearly 3.5 million followers (dubbed "Lovatics") on Twitter. Think about this for a minute. How many people are you or I even going to interact with in our lifetimes? She has 3.5 million people watching her every move on the Internet. After messy public breakups with childhood BFF (and fellow Disney star) Selena Gomez and boyfriend Joe Jonas (of the Jonas Brothers), it was only a matter of time before something was bound to go wrong.

And go wrong it did. While on tour in South America in late 2010, she punched out one of the Jonas Bros. (her tour mates) backup dancers. This was quickly followed by her leaving said tour and checking herself into a medical treatment center to deal with eating and self-harm issues. After receiving treatment and being diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Lovato recently reemerged to begin work on her third studio album, which is due out some time this year. She's also been hired to write editorials for Seventeen magazine in an effort to help other young girls cope with problems like the ones she experienced. I hope everything works out for the best, but that brings us back full circle to "So Random".

Left without a star for "Sonny", Disney was forced to make a decision: cancel it entirely, or do something else with all of the actors under contract. Hence, the new sketch comedy show. It features all of the other main actors from "Sonny" along with a variety of musical guests and guest hosts, much like a little 20-minute version of Saturday Night Live. Is it any good? As with the sketches from the show within a show, it's hit or miss. Without any compelling characters or ongoing storylines, though, there's no real reason for me to watch it.

Now that Lovato is in the public eye again, will "Sonny With a Chance" ever return? It's doubtful, and that makes me sad. But maybe, if we're lucky, she'll make a guest appearance on "So Random". I'd probably tune in for that.

Cartoon Cartoons!

2011-06-27T19:00:00.006-05:00

It all started when I decided to do what I've been known to do from time to time: look into some new TV shows. Little did I know that I would soon be embarking on a rather specific quest...

It began innocently enough. Cartoon Network's Regular Show is one of the few new shows I picked up last fall as appointment TV (for my DVR). Nearly 40 episodes have aired to date, and few if any of them have been misses. Given that, I decided to start with some programs that recently began airing on CN in the hopes of striking it rich again.

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Specifically, I started with a new show that aired on Adult Swim -- a late night block of animation that shares a channel with Cartoon Network. Ostensibly geared for the 18+ crowd, they draw an awful lot of teens their way, too. They air a lot of popular stuff that I or people I know watch from time to time: "King of the Hill", "Family Guy", "Robot Chicken", and "The Venture Bros". They also air a fair amount of anime and some rather off the wall stuff, too.

One of those off the wall shows is something called "Aqua Teen Hunger Force". If you've never heard of it, that's probably okay, but it's now in its 8th season so it must be fairly popular with somebody. I'm just not real sure who that somebody is. I like a lot of weird stuff (goodness knows I'm a huge David Lynch fan), but this really does just seem to be weird for the sake of being weird. Featuring the adventures of an anthropomorphic milkshake, french fries, and meatball, ATHF is chock full of non sequitur, absurdist humor as well as a bunch of pretty offensive stuff.

Wait a minute, wait a minute. I thought I was watching a new show. So why am I telling you all this about ATHF? Well, that new show I watched is something called "Soul Quest Overdrive", and it's a spin off of a particular episode of ATHF. In that episode, we're introduced to three anthropomorphic fruits. I think the schtick is supposed to be that they claim to be born-again Christians, but then proceed to do a bunch of crude, violent, and illegal things. Unfortunately, that's just not funny.

For "Soul Quest Overdrive", the fruits have been turned into sports equipment, but the characters remain the same. I just can't recommend this at all. The only thing I found amusing is what a good time the foley artists must have had using bowling pins, basketballs, and the like to emulate the characters moving about. Watch at your own risk.

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Beaten down from that horrible experience, I turned my gaze back to the regular Cartoon Network and decided to try "The Looney Tunes Show". Wait... what? Did you know they were making new Looney Tunes? It's admirable that Warner Bros is trying to reintroduce their classic characters to a new generation of teens and tweens, but unfortunately this show pales in comparison to the originals or even the Tiny Toon Adventures that I grew up with.

Part of the problem is just that -- it's a show. Where all previous incarnations of Looney Tunes have been a series of largely unconnected shorts, each episode of this is one long-form story with one or two 2-minute unrelated shorts mixed in. In the era of ADD and short attention spans, I find it a curious choice that they would turn their back on a format that would seem tailor-made for today's kids. To make matters worse, there's little chance that they'll be able to tell the diversity of stories they have in the past.

Each episode is based in the same coherent universe. Bugs Bunny lives in a house out in some suburban neighborhood development and Daffy Duck is his unwanted permanent house guest. All of the other characters only exist in so far as they enter and exit Bugs' and Daffy's lives. I watched the first six episodes to get a good feel for it, and I still haven't even seen some classic characters like Sylvester, Tweety, and Foghorn Leghorn. This would all be okay if it were funny, but beyond little bits and pieces its just not that great. It seems to be doing reasonably well in viewership numbers, so unless it's egregiously expensive they'll have some time to improve. I just don't know that I'll be there to see it.

I mentioned before that it features a short or two every episode. So far there have only been two types of these. The first type is a slick CGI version of Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote. These exactly capture the spirit and feel of the originals. If you were a fan of those, you'll actually enjoy this 2 minutes of the show. The other type is an absolutely horrific new version of Merrie Melodies. Watch the video below for an example at your own risk.

I warned you.

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Having failed again, I decided to give Cartoon Network one more chance to impress me. The final show I tried is something called "The Amazing World of Gumball". And impress me it did, despite the fact that I have little to say about it. It's essentially a family-based comedy with everything that entails, but it has an absolutely zany cast of characters and a good sense of humor.

My only problem with it is that it skews pretty young -- it is rated TV-Y7 after all -- so it's not likely to be something that I continue to watch on a regular basis. If I had kids, though, I would definitely make an effort to tune in every week. Check out the first episode and let me know what you think.

Shall we tell the truth and face the consequences of our actions?

A Little Musical Theater

2011-06-26T16:51:00.005-05:00

I know this is nearing 5 years old now, so any self-respecting fan of "How I Met Your Mother" and/or Les Miserables has probably already seen it, but I can't resist posting it here. I discovered it while doing some YouTube research for a future post.

For those familiar with the original Broadway cast recording of Les Mis, I really dig how much they're channeling Terrence Mann and Colm Wilkinson in this. I also find the reactions of the other HIMYM cast members on the sofa to be hilarious.

The Lazy Bachelor

2011-06-25T10:12:00.003-05:00

So I wish I could say I had a good reason for the recent hiatus. In fact, I thought I would have loads of time to build up a big buffer of prepared posts. Well, I have had loads of time...

You see, right after the end of the school year back in the 2nd week of June Meaghan left the country and I've been living the bachelor life ever since. It turns out I'm apparently really lazy when I'm all alone, or maybe just demotivated from doing things -- not sure which.

Why is Meaghan gone? Remember that German teacher exchange? Well, she got to go to Düsseldorf to visit Cordula for the 2nd half of the program. In fact, she'll be staying in Europe for the better part of a month. She co-sponsors a writing-based trip at her high school. Last year, she took about a dozen kids to London, Paris, and Rome. This year the trip size is up to 20 and they're going to Ireland, Wales, Scotland, and England. What am I saying? We're going to those places. 20 was the magic number that they needed to hit for me to go along as a chaperone. I leave Monday, and am starting to get amped up for the trip. Hopefully, not too many of the teens give us grief.

So what have I been up to for the last couple weeks? Good question. I've attached a couple small pieces below along with a teaser for the series that will hopefully keep you company while I'm gone -- assuming I can get them all written before I leave. Enjoy!

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Before Meaghan left the country, we went to see another movie at one of our local art house theaters. This probably deserves its own post, but I'm probably not eloquent enough to do it justice. The film was Terrence Malick's new work The Tree of Life. Like all of his films, it was beautiful and strange if not lacking a little bit in coherency. For those not familiar with Malick, despite the fact that he directed his first movie back in 1973 this is only his 5th full-length feature. I've only seen the two previous to this: The Thin Red Line and The New World.

It's a largely autobiographical story about his childhood growing up in Texas in the 1950s. Depicting his father as a violent force of "nature" and his mother has a beautiful force for "grace" (nature vs grace is the dichotomy set up in the opening narration, hence the quotes), it's essentially a series of related vignettes showing their interactions, their troubles, and the events that shaped him into the person he is today.

My childhood was not nearly as contentious as Meaghan's (she's compared us to the Cleavers on more than one occasion), so I didn't relate to the actual story elements as much as she did, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a beautifully made film. And oh yes, there are dinosaurs!

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Last year when Meaghan was in Europe, I spent a lot of time watching the World Cup, so it's only fitting that this year I've been keeping my eye on the Gold Cup. What? You didn't know that North America's largest soccer tournament has been going on in our country over the last two weeks? I'm shocked.

Wait, no I'm not. Apparently this is the year that I spend all of my sports-related energy on the sports that Americans just don't care about. The finals are tonight, but the only places you can see it are on FOX Soccer (who knew that existed?) and Univision (in español). Predictably, the USA is facing off with Mexico. It's not been an easy road to the finals for the US, so I'm expecting them to get pasted by "El Tri". We'll see what happens.

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Lastly, I spent a lot of time on an unexpected journey that I'll be sharing over the next two weeks. It started with me questioning my sanity, and then I thought I'd completely lost my taste. In the end, though, I came to grips with reality and learned how to stop worrying and love the tween.

New School, Same as the Old School

2011-06-06T19:00:00.003-05:00

This weekend Meaghan and I kicked off the summer blockbuster season by going to see the brand-new X-Men prequel/reboot X-Men: First Class. With James McAvoy as Professor X and a Rotten Tomatoes rating up above 80%, we had high expectations. Did it meet them?

In a word, yes. Although it continues to play in the same thematic pool as X2, it does so with enough skill to easily wipe away the bad taste left in my mouth from the horribly flawed 3rd and 4th entries in the franchise. From its setting (1962's Cuban Missile Crisis -- of sorts) to the surprising turn by Kevin Bacon (I had no idea he was even in it) as Sebastian Shaw, villainous leader of the Hellfire Club to the slam bang action sequences, First Class makes a lot of right moves. And with director Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) at the helm, that's not completely unexpected. The acting is competent, the effects are good, but what has always made the X-Men movies worthwhile (or not) are the ideas.

At its heart, as in most of the first movie trilogy, First Class is an exploration of what it means to be different. It uses its two main characters, Charles Xavier (Prof. X) and Eric Lensherr (Magneto), to present two differing viewpoints. In the film, the existence of evolved humans (mutants, if you will) is just becoming known in some circles. Charles, a child of privilege, believes that mutants can and will be integrated and accepted into human society. Humanity will flourish as a result of the unique things these individuals can do. Eric, a Jewish child of the Nazi death camps, knows from his personal experiences that humans are ugly beings that persecute others for their differences. It's a kill or be killed world, and Eric knows that in order to survive mutantkind is going to have to go it alone and be ready to defend itself.

The beauty of X-Men is that neither viewpoint is necessarily painted as right or wrong. Although Xavier is clearly intended as the moral center of the story, you can understand and accept what informs the opposing arguments. Also, mutants can be used as a cipher for many of the issues that are debated in the world today: gender, race, sexuality, etc. Even though it feels to some extent like we're stuck circling around the same ideas as the previous films, no one can deny how much they resonate, and the climax of the film sets us up nicely for further exploration in this space. Planned as the first in a new trilogy, hopefully First Class will make enough at the box office to allow us to see more.

If you're a fan of previous X-Men movies, particularly of X2, I don't think you'll be disappointed.

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Djokovic Watch != 44

You won't be seeing any more tennis updates from me for some time. As feared, Novak Djokovic's win streak was stopped at 43 as he fell in four sets to Roger Federer in the semifinals of the French Open on Friday. That leaves him tied for 3rd longest streak of all time. If he (or anyone else) starts another one, I'll let you know when they get up around 30. Until then...

Music to Work By

2011-06-02T10:00:00.001-05:00

Today I bring you two music-related items to either brighten or darken your day depending on your mood.

First is a new lip dub that the people of Grand Rapids, MI made to protest their inclusion on a list of America's Top Ten "dying cities" published earlier this year in Newsweek. I heard about this on NPR yesterday, and it's definitely worth a view. The amount of coordination that was necessary to pull this off is awe-inspiring.

Second, I bring you Dmitri Shostakovich's tortured and riveting String Quartet #8. Written in only three days in 1960 after he was diagnosed with polio and forced to join the Communist Party, it's a dark tour de force and ranks among my favorite classical pieces. I first heard this a year ago when the string orchestra at Meaghan's high school played an arrangement of it. If you're not on the edge of your seat by the end of the 2nd movement (the end of the first video), then you have no heart.

Hotlanta!

2011-06-01T19:00:00.003-05:00

I've been a little short on time since coming back from Atlanta this weekend so I'm sorry in advance for the lack of detail in this update. More will be coming as time allows, which might not be until the weekend.

It was a good, long, tiring weekend. We exceeded our expectations in the tournament by finishing the best out of all schools from Minnesota, making it to the second day of play, and even winning a match in the playoffs. Overall, our A team went 7-5 and our B team just missed the playoff cut at 5-5. Both teams improved greatly on their finishes in last year's national tournament, so Meaghan and I are really pleased with the result. I also got to see the aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, and the best 24-hour diner/karaoke bar in all of Atlanta. I might even have some pictures to share if I can find our camera. Stay tuned.

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The SWAT team is reconvening this Saturday to jump out of airplanes again. Since hours of training will not be needed this time, I will probably be on hand. I'll see if I can get some pictures of the festivities.

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Djokovic Watch = 43

After beating Del Potro in four sets, Djokovic breezed through a straight set win over #16 Richard Gasquet and then got a free pass to the semifinals because his would-be Italian opponent pulled out with a torn leg muscle that he'd suffered in the previous round. Because of this Djokovic won't be able to tie the record by winning the French anymore as walkovers do not count as victories. It also means that he'll have had four days in between matches when he takes on #3 Roger Federer on Friday, always a tough task. Incidentally, all four of the top seeds advanced to the semifinals in the men's draw. I'm not sure how often that happens at a grand slam event, but it does mean that we're probably in for some quality tennis the rest of the week.

For Kim, Part 4/5

2011-05-27T19:00:00.003-05:00

For your viewing pleasure, our next contestant on my list of top 5 actors is one Sam Rockwell.

This is probably the actor that I've watched the most out of the ones on my list, yet no one really knows him by name. He first came to my attention in college with his two roles in 1999, first as the sadistic "Wild Bill" in The Green Mile and then his hilarious turn as Crewman #6 in the excellent Star Trek satire, Galaxy Quest. Anyone who can do drama and comedy with such ease was surely someone to be watched. And I haven't been disappointed yet, 12 years later.

He quickly followed this up with notable roles in the camp classic Charlie's Angels, Charlie Kaufman's Confessions of a Dangerous Mind, and Matchstick Men. He continued with several roles in critically acclaimed movies, none of which I've actually seen yet with the exception of 2009's Moon. In a role written specifically with him in mind, Rockwell explores the depths of loneliness and what it really means to be human in this story about a lunar miner nearing the end of his 3-year contract; it's a fantastic little picture.

There are few actors that you can be sure will bring something memorable to each of their roles, but Sam Rockwell is one of those. It's almost enough to make me want to see Cowboys & Aliens. Almost...

A Bowling We Go

2011-05-25T19:00:00.002-05:00

This weekend Meaghan and I will be flying to Atlanta along with 12 of the best and brightest students from her high school. That's right, it's time for the High School National Championship of Quiz Bowl. We have two teams that have qualified, and our goal is to get at least one of those teams into the 2nd day of play. This would mean that they would have to finish 6-4 or better on Saturday. 14 of the 218 teams entered hail from Minnesota, so we're looking forward to seeing a lot of familiar faces around the tournament.

Folks may recall that in the past the national tournament has been held in the Chicagoland area, which means that we'd be within driving distance. Unfortunately, the experience of sharing the hotel and convention center there with a bondage convention last year has scared the organizers into seeking a new venue. Let's just say that if you wandered into the wrong place last year, you may have been exposed to material inappropriate for a high schooler.

I'm looking forward to getting to see a little bit of downtown Atlanta, as I've never spent any amount of time there. Depending on when we're eliminated we may get to see the world's largest aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, or other cool things in the Underground Atlanta. I'll let you know what happened in an update next week.

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Djokovic Watch = 41

Djokovic ran his streak to 41 this morning with a 6-3 6-1 2-3 (ret.) victory over the Romanian Hanescu. His 3rd round match on Friday will be a true test. The opponent is #26 Juan Martin Del Potro. The dangerous Argentine was ranked as high as #4 in the world before injuring his wrist early last year. After getting it surgically repaired at a certain medical clinic in Rochester, he's been on the comeback trail. The fact that he's still ranked #26 despite missing almost an entire year speaks volumes to his skill.

SWAT Team! aka Why My Wife is Crazy, Part 2

2011-05-23T19:00:00.004-05:00

It was a stormy day on Saturday. Thankfully, one of the system's bands of rain lifted out of the metro area around 2:00 leaving behind a beautiful blue sky. Perfect for skydiving, one might say. And so it was that Meaghan was able to put the morning's training to good use and performed her first solo jump. Obviously, being her first such jump she wasn't completely alone. Two experienced jumpers fall near you to correct your form and pull your ripcord should you prove incapable. After that, for the controlled flight and landing portions you are truly on your own.

This is a scary proposition (for me, anyway) as we saw an experienced jumper break an ankle on landing two years ago when we were there. Meaghan came through with flying colors, however. She only missed the target landing zone by about 15 yards. Not bad, considering that some of the other first-timers there ended up over a mile away on some of the neighboring farms. Speaking of first-timers, Meaghan went to the drop zone with a couple of her co-workers who had never jumped before. Consequently, the three of them became the charter members of SWAT. I won't tell you what that stands for as it reveals too much about where she works, but it's essentially a group of adventure seeking folks. Any event involving two or more people from her workplace will become a SWAT event.

Unfortunately, I had to learn about all of this secondhand. Because of the uncertainty surrounding the weather, they were really hustling flights up when the skies cleared and Meaghan wasn't given the opportunity to call me out to the airfield before she jumped. I was able to catch up to the SWAT team at a local bar afterwards, though. Look at those proud faces.

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Djokovic Watch = 40

He was a 6-2 6-1 6-3 winner over #71 Thiemo de Bakker in the first round at the French Monday. Next up: #60 Victor Hanescu

For Kim, Part 3/5

2011-05-20T19:00:00.003-05:00

#3 in my list of favorite celebrity males is Guy Pearce. Who? Here... does this help?

Pearce is not only on this list because he's a talented actor, but because he stars in two of my favorite movies of all time. In 1997's L.A. Confidential, he plays Ed Exley, the one cop in all of L.A. who is incorruptible. Although it's an ensemble film, Pearce's journey from naive rookie cop to hardened veteran provides the backbone that supports the entire story.

After laying low for a couple of years, Pearce re-emerged in 2000 as brain-damaged Lenny in Christopher Nolan's brilliant Memento. If you haven't seen it, you absolutely must. It is the only movie I've been compelled to see three times in the theater. Pearce's performance was enough to elevate him to leading-man status for a little while, and he starred in such films as The Count of Monte Cristo and The Time Machine. When those didn't do particularly well at the box office, his star dwindled a little.

Through the years, he's continued to produce quality work albeit mostly not in mainstream projects. Most notably, he played Colin Firth's pompous twit of a brother, King Edward VIII, in The King's Speech. Looking at his IMDB page, I can see a lot of projects that are in development. A true chameleon, I look forward to what Guy Pearce will do in the future.

Why My Wife is Crazy, Part 1

2011-05-19T19:00:00.001-05:00

The gangly kid with the big hair looked at Meaghan then squinted up into the bright blue sky. "Today is a good day to die, don't you think?" Meaghan, startled out of her thoughts, looked at him and laughed. Then the kid led my wife away from me across the grassy airfield to the small airplane that they were planning on jumping out of.

Two years ago, Meaghan went skydiving. At my suggestion, she made it a dual jump, so someone experienced would be in charge of packing the parachute and pulling the cord. They tell you that nobody (who survives the experience) has ever just gone skydiving once. So, she is going back for her first solo jump this weekend. She's also bringing along some members of her newly inaugurated SWAT team, a collective of adventure-seeking teachers from her school. Unfortunately, the weather is supposed to be a little iffy on Saturday, but with luck they'll be able to get their jumps in okay.

I'm not sure why I didn't post about her first jump two summers ago, but to prepare you for this weekend's event, here are a few (mostly bad) pictures from that experience.

Small Packages

2011-05-18T19:00:00.005-05:00

Despite the fact that my dad worked for a Big 3 auto company, I am not a car guy. This is probably best illustrated by the fact that the three cars I've owned in my life (not counting poor Roger -- alas, we hardly knew him and yes, we name our cars) are a 1994 Chrysler Concorde [Medea], a 2003 Dodge Neon [Rivers], and a 2007 Dodge Caliber [Sunny]. You won't find them near the tops of any best of class or fun to drive lists, but they've each served us well so far in their own ways. Unfortunately, Rivers is starting to show the wear and tear that 8 years and 120,000+ miles can inflict on a car, and we're nearing the point where we're going to have to make a decision of whether to get some fairly major engine work done or call it a life and move on to a new car. There's a good chance that we'll just get the repairs, but in the event that we don't the car that I want may be a surprising choice.

Despite my 6'2" frame, for awhile now I've held the staunchly un-American view that my next car should be a small one. I think this stems from my last year of college when I got my PlayStation 2. Back in the day when specific games were still bundled with your console, I got the package that included the Sony/Polyphony classic Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec. It's a racing game in which you start with $18,000 and eventually build up and tune a fleet of cars until you've won every race there is to win. With nearly 200 cars there's a lot of variety as each car looks, sounds, and drives differently. However, not being a car guy, I've never stuck with it for a lengthy career.

Despite the fact that there are so many cars in the game, your starting money is only enough to buy 11 of them. The vast majority of these are Japanese kei cars (subcompact), and being a stingy bastard I opted to start out with the cheapest car possible, the Daihatsu Mira. Thus began my love affair with the company that proudly proclaims to "do it compact".

The modern Mira

They make cute little jellybeans of cars, most of which get upwards of 50 mpg with their tiny engines. Unfortunately, it's not feasible for a lot of reasons (importation fees, crash standards, etc.) to ever hope to drive something like this in the United States. That's why I've turned to the next best thing.

Cinquecento!

Say hello to the Fiat 500. With Fiat soon to own a majority stake in Chrysler, they're practically part of the Big 3, right? These little guys have just started being sold in America in the last couple of months, so there's a good chance that you haven't seen any of them on the road yet in your neck of the woods. With luck though, you'll start to see them become as common as some of the other small boutique cars out there like the Mini Cooper and the Smart cars. I know what you're thinking. Is a car this small really practical?

If I had to tote around car seats and their precious cargo on a regular basis, absolutely not. But as a 2nd car that just gets driven around the city and occasionally to work? I think so. It would certainly make parallel parking easier, and I'd finally get to try out those "compact car only" spots in parking garages. Add in the fact that it gets 34 mpg with the automatic during this time of $4/gallon gas, and it's a win/win situation.

Maybe someday...

And the Streak Goes On...

2011-05-16T19:00:00.002-05:00

For those of you not inspired by my post last week to check out some tennis action, Novak Djokovic has done it again by winning the tournament in Rome. That brings his record this year to 37-0 and makes the streak 39 straight wins, moving him to 6th place on the list of longest win streaks. It wasn't an easy road by any means either. He had to play matches on 5 straight days, getting past world #14, #5, #4, and #1 Nadal in the final four rounds. The semifinal against #4 Andy Murray was an especially brilliant match featuring a lot of ups and downs and long rallies. If you have access to ESPN3 and have 3 hours of spare time, you should go check it out.

Amazingly, prior to these two back to back wins against Nadal, Djokovic was 0-9 in his career against the Spaniard on clay. This week is an off week for most of the big guns as everyone rests up for the second Grand Slam of the year, on clay at the French Open, which starts next week. Can he possibly do it again? He'll have to in order to tie the record. Even if he doesn't, he has a very good chance of becoming the first player not named Federer or Nadal to hold the #1 ranking since February of 2004.

Hailstorm!

2011-05-16T07:41:00.002-05:00

Prompted by my mom's comment, I thought I'd do a quick follow-up to the Twins-Tigers game we went to last week.

The stomping [10-2 Tigers victory for those who weren't there.] was interrupted by a one hour five minute rain delay. But it wasn't just rain. There was a hailstorm for a good 10-15 mins and the tornado sirens were blaring.

The rain probably completely stopped after 30 mins, but it took them another 30 to clean all the hail off the field. I can't find any pictures, but you'll have to take my word for it that at least a dozen rakes, a couple buckets, a wheelbarrow, and an industrial strength leaf blower all played a part in the job. My hat's off to the grounds crew for handling a situation that they probably haven't really prepared for.

It was a fun game for us, but the crowd was really tiny by the time it wrapped up just after 11:00. Due to the delay, absolutely none of our friends save Meaghan's brother stuck it out to the end. The Wed afternoon game looks like it would have been a crazy one to go see, too. [9-7 Tigers including 3 runs off the Twins' closer on a HR, triple, and sac bunt.] I know they've had a lot of injuries, but it is truly shocking to see Minnesota with the worst record in baseball. Couldn't happen to a better team.

For Kim, Part 2/5

2011-05-13T19:00:00.001-05:00

Coming in next on my list of five favorite male actors is late addition James McAvoy.

First off, he's a Scot. There's nothing more entertaining than listening to a Scottish accent. Second, it helps that he's actually a good actor. He'd primarily been in British films and TV until breaking through back in 2005 with his role as everyone's favorite patsy, Tumnus the faun, in the first Chronicles of Narnia. Say what you want about that movie series (I happen to like it), but McAvoy's portrayal of the bumbling, nervous Tumnus was note perfect. He followed that up with a couple bravura performances over the next couple years.

In 2006, he played the lead in The Last King of Scotland. Forrest Whitaker got all the credit (as well as an Oscar) for his portrayal of Idi Amin, but McAvoy provides the heart and soul, flawed though it may be, that drives the movie. Watching his struggle to escape the trouble that he creates for himself is riveting. He followed this up in 2007 with another great performance, this time opposite Keira Knightley and Saoirse Ronan, in Atonement. As a completely unrelated aside, if you liked Atonement you should go see Hanna, in theaters now. It also features Saoirse Ronan and shares the same director, Joe Wright. If you haven't seen Atonement, you should. It is a beautiful and tragic film.

After that, I'll confess that I haven't seen anything with McAvoy in it, but I'm eagerly awaiting his next great role. He starred in Wanted, but I've had a strong aversion to Angelina Jolie ever since Tomb Raider. He's also in the recent Lincoln assassination movie The Conspirator and he'll be playing Professor X in the forthcoming X-Men: First Class. I'm looking forward to catching both of those.

Stay tuned for next Friday's update when I reveal #3...

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Hot off the presses, fans of Chuck can celebrate. For some insane reason, it's been renewed for 13 more episodes next year. Word has it that this will be its final season, and looking at its ratings you can understand why. However, since this is NBC, where everything gets lousy ratings, anything is possible.

The Djoker

2011-05-09T19:00:00.006-05:00

Meet Novak Djokovic.

You might not have heard of him if you're no better than a casual tennis fan, but that may all change in a month's time. You see, Mr. Djokovic has started out 2011 32-0, winning his first six tournaments this year including the first Grand Slam of the year, the Australian Open. If you add in his two wins from last December when he led his native Serbia to the Davis Cup title (think of it as tennis's World Cup, only they have it every year for some reason), he's won 34 matches in a row. This is good enough for the 9th longest such streak in men's tennis history.

The longest streak is 46 matches set by Guillermo Vilas back in 1977. In order to match this record, Djokovic is going to have to win his next two tournaments: this week in Rome and the 2nd Grand Slam of the year, the French Open. The trick of it is that both of these tournaments are on clay, and he'll have to get past world #1 Rafael Nadal. Nadal, heralded by some as the best clay court player in history, has a monstrous 93% winning percentage on clay over 230 matches in his career. So can he do it?

Definitely. In fact, he just bested Nadal yesterday in a convincing straight set victory on Nadal's home turf in Madrid. Before he has to worry about Nadal again, though, he has four rounds in Rome to try to get through. His quest continues Wednesday against unheralded Pole Lukasz Kubot. Tune in on ESPN3 (if you're lucky enough to have it) to watch Djokovic chase history. Kubot is currently ranked a mere #141, and only boasts a 13-13 record this year. His most impressive win in 2011 is against American Sam Querrey in the first round of the Australian Open back in January.

Speaking of Americans... this week also marks the first time since a uniform ranking system was put in place back in 1973 that no American man or woman has ever been in the Top 10. The highest man is Mardy Fish at #11. The highest woman is Serena Williams, who hasn't played since last July, at #17. Is this just a momentary lapse, or is this a sign that tennis has finally been relegated along with soccer to the same dustbin of popular world sports that just don't cut it in the States? Only time will tell.

Don't mess with Rick

In completely unrelated sports news, tomorrow is our now-annual trip out to Target Field with friends to watch the Tigers take on the Twins. Detroit's been scuffling a bit so far this year, but are looking to push above .500 with a win. Taking the mound is Rick Porcello, who's had four straight good outings. I'll be looking for a 5th as I wear my Porcello t-shirt up in the nosebleed section.

For Kim, Part 1/5

2011-05-06T19:00:00.002-05:00

In the 3rd season of the sitcom "Friends", there's an episode (The One with Frank Jr.) where Ross infamously crafts a list of five celebrities that he's allowed to sleep with should he happen to run into them. Every guy who's ever seen it has carefully crafted their own list to share with their significant other. This is not that list.

Instead, this is the post that I promised Kim over at HarrisWorld I would make when I made a return to blogging: my list of five celebrity "guy crushes". After careful consideration, I've assembled this list of the 5 male actors that for whatever reason really make me interested in seeing a movie or TV show. [Note: Clive Owen was not allowed to be on this list, as I'm told that girls actually like him.] Without further ado, in no particular order, here is the first of them:

Nathan Fillion -
I'm not the world's biggest Joss Whedon fan, but Fillion's funny and nuanced performance as Captain Mal Reynolds in "Firefly" makes it an exception well worth watching. Believe it or not, other than 2007's criminally unseen Waitress, I've never seen anything else that he's in. His inclusion on this list means that I certainly want to make the time to watch Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog or his current TV project "Castle" some day.

Project: Disney

2011-05-04T19:00:00.000-05:00

We're going to Disney World... again! This time we'll be celebrating the Christmas holiday there with Meaghan's family. In honor of this trip, we've decided to do the unthinkable and attempt to watch all 50 of the Disney animated "classics" (plus the Disney/Pixar films as time allows) prior to leaving on our trip. Not only are we watching the movies themselves, we're also enjoying the special features on the DVDs.

Our progress so far:
1) Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937) - the first feature-length animated movie ever. When you stop to consider that Disney went from Steamboat Willie to Snow White in less than 10 years, this is truly a remarkable film. It helps that it's still entertaining to watch all these years later.

2) Pinocchio (1940) - I hadn't seen this in years, but it's regained a position high in my list of favorite Disney films. Three things of note, if you happen to see this again:
- The music in this is fantastic; it actually won the Oscar for Best Score.
- There is an amazing shot about 25 mins into the movie that takes place the morning that Pinocchio is about to head off to school. It involves a lengthy panning zoom down from a bell tower to Geppetto's front door. They had to set up special equipment just to get it on film.
- Lamp-wick's transformation into a jackass on Pleasure Island is one of the most horrific scenes in a movie ever.

I'll keep you up-to-date on our progress or lack thereof over the next few months.

Up next: Fantasia (1940)

Our German Houseguest

2011-05-02T19:00:00.000-05:00

Opening your home to strangers can be scary, especially if you're as reclusive as Meaghan and I are. Despite the fact that we rarely have anyone other than Meaghan's brother at our place, we decided to participate in the first ever German Teacher Exchange at Meaghan's high school by becoming a host family. They've had a student exchange for 30 years now, but this was the first year they've opened it up to teachers.

Our guest was a young woman named Cordula from Düsseldorf. Arriving on a delayed flight late one Monday evening, she stayed with us for the better part of three weeks. [If we were at all the kind of people that take pictures, this is where I would insert a picture of her. I'll see if I can track one down.] In short, it was a great experience. I'm sure that exchanges are entirely dependent on the people who participate in them, but with Cordula it was a bit like having the college friend we never knew we had come stay with us for a lengthy visit. There were never lulls in conversation, and it was always interesting to hear about how life here differed from the way it is over in Germany.

My only regret is that the weather wasn't nicer while she was here. The calendar may say Spring, but she was treated to a steady diet of 40-degree days with chilly rain or snow. At least it didn't curtail our ability to share some of our favorite restaurants (Los Ocampo, Chino Latino, etc.) here in Minneapolis with her. The three weeks went by in a blur -- one day we were picking her up at the airport, the next we were dropping her off at the terminal. Meaghan will have the chance to stay with her for a week when she travels to Düsseldorf after school finishes in June. With luck, she'll help cement the bonds of a new lifelong friendship.

So... How Were Those Movies?, Part 1

2011-01-16T11:38:00.005-06:00

If you're a long-time reader here at the Tower you'll know that my first instinct upon watching a movie, a TV show, or reading a book, etc. is to compose my thoughts into a lengthy piece. That's fun for me, but as a consequence it means that I rarely ever get anything into print in a timely manner (if at all) to aid people in their decisions of what to see. So instead, I'll try to give some quick thoughts on the four movies from last week's list that we've seen so far. In short, they're all quite good and all worth seeing, but for very different reasons.

127 Hours

Directed by Danny Boyle (28 Days Later, Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting)
Starring James Franco (Milk, Spider-Man, "Freaks and Geeks")

127 Hours is a retelling of the true-life tale of Aron Ralston who got his right arm trapped by a large boulder while climbing alone in a slot canyon near Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Because he hadn't told anyone specifically where he was going, he was ultimately forced to amputate his own arm after being trapped there for the titular 127 hours.

Danny Boyle's direction is a little over-the-top at times. It's such a simple story that he must have felt the need to jazz it up with some camera tricks. Unfortunately they're for the most part distracting without adding anything useful to the film. Add in an overwrought score by A.R. Rahman (he did the Bollywood-infused Slumdog Millionaire soundtrack), and you have a potential recipe for disaster.

Considering that the majority of the movie consists of Aron trapped by himself in the canyon, you'd better get an enjoyable acting performance out of your lead. I'm pleased to say that James Franco is up to the task. Equal parts gritty, touching, and humorous, Franco's performance overcomes the rest of the movie's faults and is the main reason to see this. Even if you're not a fan of anything that you've seen him do in the past, there's a good chance you'll like this.

For all of the faults in the direction and music, they both come together wonderfully in the climactic scene where Ralston is forced to hack his arm off. If you are at all squeamish about blood, you may want to close your eyes here. For those of you with iron stomachs, enjoy 127 Hours at its best. Recommended.

The King's Speech

Directed by Tom Hooper ("John Adams")
Starring Colin Firth (Love Actually, Bridget Jones's Diary, "Pride and Prejudice"), Geoffrey Rush (Pirates of the Caribbean, Shine, Elizabeth), Helena Bonham Carter (Fight Club, Harry Potter's 5, 6, & 7, Sweeney Todd), Guy Pearce (Memento, L.A. Confidential, The Hurt Locker)

Who would have thought that you could make a compelling movie about a British royal and his st-st-stuttering speech impediment? I'm pleased to say that The King's Speech is an outstanding piece of film-making. With so many great actors in one place, it's almost inevitable that this would be good. It doesn't disappoint.

Colin Firth's speech patterns are simply amazing as he slips into the tightly wound persona of the man who would become King George VI. It's difficult to portray royalty with any degree of sympathy, but Firth does it here with aplomb. The tension as he prepares to deliver his pivotal speech signalling the start of Britain's involvement in World War II is gripping. Hooper does a smart thing here and takes a back seat, unlike Boyle in 127 Hours, letting Beethoven to do much of the work for him.

For me, the real star here is Geoffrey Rush as the King's unconventional speech therapist, Lionel Logue. It's good to see Rush get back to real quality acting, as opposed to just acting like a pirate. He delivers a performance that balances both the assertiveness and obeisance that one would need in order to work with a royal at a personal level.

If you have any misgivings about the subject matter because you think it would make for a boring movie, forget about it. I had very little in the way of expectations going in, and it completely blew me away. Highly recommended.

It's Oscar Preview Weekend!

2011-01-07T06:00:00.001-06:00

As we do every year, this coming weekend is our annual Oscar preview movie watching blitz. We typically hop on a bus to a theater-rich part of town and watch 3 or 4 movies in one go. Does anybody have thoughts on more movies we should add to our list of options?

Our current list is:
127 Hours
Black Swan
The Fighter
The King's Speech
True Grit

All of the above are currently receiving an 8.4 or higher on IMDb, which would easily place them within the Top 250 of all time should those numbers hold. Granted there is a skew toward movies from the Internet age since people don't have a tendency to go back and rate older films, but that's still impressive.

New Fall TV: Week 3, Part 1

2010-09-27T19:00:00.004-05:00

Away we go...

The Event - Mon 9/8 Central, NBC

On Mondays after "Chuck", I might give "The Event" a shot for awhile. Those of you burned out on "event" type shows (see "Flash Forward", "The Nine", and of course "Lost") probably need not apply here. There's a lot going on in this show and it tends to utilize a lot of flashbacks to tell its story so some folks may find it confusing, but they're mostly used in ways that heighten the storytelling.

Sean Walker is our viewpoint character: a normal guy going on a cruise with his girlfriend, where he plans to propose to her. On the cruise, everything starts to go south. His girlfriend disappears and all record of them ever being on the cruise is wiped out. Seven days later, Sean is on an airplane at Miami International with a gun trying to get into the cockpit. How did we get from point A to point B and why? Questions that will have to be answered in the future.

Alongside this story is one of governmental intrigue. In Alaska, the US government has been secretly holding a group of people in a prison camp for years. When the President finds out about it, he decides to hold a press conference to tell the American people. Be forewarned, there are sci-fi elements at play here. It's not overtly stated, but there are signs that the prisoners in Alaska are aliens or some other sort of extraordinary beings. Both stories collide in the final five minutes. We'll see where it goes from there.

Catch up on Hulu, if'n it sounds good to you.

Lone Star - Mon 9/8 Central, FOX

This was probably the most critically acclaimed new network drama of the fall, so of course it's tanked miserably and will probably be cancelled soon. It's a shame as I actually enjoyed it, although a large part of that might have to do with the fact that it's not a law or cop drama. I can see where it would lack broad appeal, though.

The main character is essentially a two-timing bastard of a con man. He's running two long cons in separate cities in Texas which he splits time between under the guise of perpetual business trips. With a wife in one and a live-in girlfriend in the other, he really should be the worst kind of human slime. To this, two aspects have been added in an attempt to get viewers to invest in the character: 1) He doesn't want to be a con man anymore. His father has raised him that way and essentially forced him to be one since a young age. 2) He is genuinely in love with both of the ladies in his life. If you can buy that, then you've found your way in. Ah, well. Slow-burning character dramas never make it outside of cable.

Catch up on Hulu, if you're looking for a short-lived shot of non-formulaic television.

Mike and Molly - Mon 9:30/8:30 Central, CBS

Not much to say here. This is a laugh track sit-com about two fat people falling in love. Trust me, I wouldn't say fat people if it weren't the actual premise. Call me a snob, but standard sit-coms need to be impossibly funny these days for me to want to watch them and this one's just not there.

Mike (comedian Billy Gardell - I know him from "Lucky") is a cop. Molly (Melissa McCarthy - Sookie from "Gilmore Girls") is an elementary school teacher. They meet at Overeaters Anonymous, and by the end of the first episode have plans to go on a date. Ho hum.

Catch up on the CBS website to see the latest in fat jokes. Oh... the fat jokes. Moving on.

Hawaii Five-0 - Mon 10/9 Central, CBS

Big. Dumb. Action. Woo! If you like explosions, car chases, gunfire, bikini-clad babes, and your revenge stories served tropical style then Hawaii is the place to be. Unlike other recent big dumb action reboots (see "Knight Rider" & "Bionic Woman") this one plays it pretty straight. There's a little humor, but it's not forced or campy like those shows were. Alex O'Loughlin ("Moonlight") is just as stiff as ever, but it almost manages to fit the character here. Scott Caan (Ocean's 1n movies, among others) is the standout here as Danno, if there is one. Check your brain at the door and enjoy the ride if you want, but I don't have room for this sort of thing on my DVR.

Catch up on the CBS website.

Chase - Mon 10/9 Central, NBC

The less said, the better. An uninteresting group of US Marshals chase (do you get it?) dangerous fugitives every week. Truly bland and forgettable. Where's Harrison Ford and Tommy Lee Jones when you need them?

Try to stay awake at Hulu.

I'll be back tomorrow with Tuesday's shows. There's actually a real winner to be had there.

New Fall TV: Week 2

2010-09-16T09:02:00.003-05:00

Quick and Dirty, because I have to run.

Outlaw - NBC, Fri 10/9 (special premiere Wed, Sept 15 10/9)

Starring Jimmy Smits ("Dexter" Season 3, "Cane", "NYPD Blue"), "Outlaw" is the ridiculous story of how the "most conservative" member of the Supreme Court quits to become a crusader for righting injustices. Add in the fact that the character is defined completely by his behaviors as a gambler and a serial womanizer and you can see why this train wreck has been relegated to late on Fridays. In theme, I think it will probably run like a bunch of other short-lived law dramas (see "In Justice" as an example), just not as good. I've watched to the first commercial break, and I've seen enough to tell you to stay away. Far away.

Sym-Bionic Titan - Cartoon, Fri 8/7

I can't tell you a whole lot about this one. The two short preview clips I've seen involve giant robots from space fighting each other and terrifying Earth's population. A good sci-fi cartoon could be interesting, but I'm not sure this is it. Wikipedia tells me that it blends "high school drama" with the aforementioned giant robots. Not sure how or if that works, but I think I'll be giving this one a pass.

Boardwalk Empire - HBO, Sun 9/8

HBO's latest, "Boardwalk Empire" is the tale of gamblers and bootleggers in Atlantic City at the dawn of Prohibition. It has an excellent pedigree: created by one of the chief writers of "The Sopranos", the pilot is directed by Martin Scorsese, and it stars Steve Buscemi. If I had HBO, I would certainly be watching this. I'm sure I'll find a way to get a hold of it eventually.

Week 1 Recap

2010-09-14T20:48:00.003-05:00

Before we move on to this week's new shows, I'll give a few quick thoughts about what I watched from last week.

Terriers:

This was my most anticipated show of the week, and it mostly lived up to my expectations. I'm unfortunately not planning on getting too attached though, as it apparently failed to draw much of an audience. Hank (Donal Logue) is a former cop, now operating as a small-time unlicensed P.I., and Britt (Michael Raymond-James) is his best friend and partner. In doing a favor for an old friend, they find themselves wrapped up in a plot involving murder, fraud, and adultery that may leave them on the wrong side of the law.

This is a tough show to describe. It's very funny (both with one liners and more subtle humor), but it's also pretty coarse and violent. This ends up making the show pretty uneven in a lot of ways. In the matter of a few scenes we go from a murder scene so grisly you can almost smell the carnage to a humorous back and forth between Hank and his legal advisor to a brutal fight scene in a parking garage with armed thugs. Come to think of it, that's probably exactly what you should get when you combine the grit of "The Shield" with the humor and charm of Ocean's Eleven.

We'll definitely keep watching, but it'll be interesting to see if it can settle into its own groove eventually. I think it's worth a look. If you don't find the first 15 minutes enjoyable, it's probably not going to be for you. You can catch up for free on Amazon or iTunes.

Nikita:

This was... okay. I'm not familiar with the previous Nikita properties, but this is apparently a continuation of sorts from where they left off. Nikita is a highly trained assassin, but now she's gone rogue in an effort to bring down the corrupt organization ("Division") that trained her. The "twist" (in quotes because the twist in pilot episodes almost always involves revealing the real premise of the show) at the end was probably enough to make me try this for another week or two: Nikita has inserted a mole into Division in the guise of a fresh, raw recruit. Chatter on the Interwebs has actually compared this to "Alias" in a lot of ways. I only watched that enough to know that I will never need to see Jennifer Garner in another wig before I die, but if it tripped your trigger you might give this a shot.

Hellcats:

Mentioned this briefly in the comments last week. I ended up watching this anyway (old habits die hard), and it was not as bad as I had anticipated. I won't be watching it again anytime soon, but it has a certain charm to it despite the questionable cheerleading routines and Disney Channel alumni.

Regular Show:

Made a place for it on my DVR. I don't watch a lot of cartoons, but this is easily the funniest new one I've seen in awhile. For those of you who didn't get a chance to check it out before it was removed from YouTube, someone new has uploaded it. I've updated the link in last week's post, so if you haven't already check it out now while it's still there. This week's episode has also surfaced on YouTube. Still funny, I highly recommend.

There are only three new shows this week. I'll do my best to get something up tomorrow for them.
Outlaw - NBC, Fri 10/9 (special premiere Wed, Sept 15 10/9)
Sym-Bionic Titan - Cartoon, Fri 8/7
Boardwalk Empire - HBO, Sun 9/8

New Fall TV: Week 1

2010-09-08T07:00:00.004-05:00

For those of you who have been reading here at the Tower for awhile, you'll recognize this time of year as when I valiantly attempt to watch a lot of new TV shows, write about them, and fail miserably. So I'm not going to even attempt this year, at least not the way I normally go about it. I think some of it has to do with my complete apathy toward most of the new shows this year, but it's mostly just an attempt to keep my sanity.

Instead, I'm going to preview each week's new premieres with some quick thoughts about what to expect. If I actually watch a show, I'll probably come back with a slightly more in-depth review. So without further ado, let's get going with Week 1.

As with most years, this is where the CW attempts to get some traction with their new shows before the other networks start up for the year. You may recall that last year featured the new Melrose Place (18 episodes before cancellation), TBL (2 episodes before cancellation, although you can watch 3 more on YouTube - yay?), and The Vampire Diaries (back Thursday and still going strong). This year, the CW is only debuting two new shows: Hellcats and Nikita.

Hellcats - CW Wed. 9/8 Central

Inheriting TBL's spot from last fall, I will be horrified at the taste level of the American public if this lasts more than two episodes. Ostensibly along the same vein as the brilliantly saccharine Bring It On, Hellcats details the "secret life" of college cheerleading. Outside of the concept itself though, it looks like everything goes horribly wrong with this one. I've only seen brief preview clips, but the level of acting featured here is on par with made-for-TV ABC Family movies. I guess that's what you get when you cast two Disney Channel graduates as your leads. I'd recommend staying away, unless you really like cheerleading.

Nikita - CW Thu. 9/8 Central

I honestly have no idea what to make of this one. Based off of the critically acclaimed movie and TV series "La Femme Nikita", Nikita is the story of a deadly, but beautiful, female assassin. CW isn't sharing much in the way of real previews on their website, so I can't tell you if this will be any good. The formula seems like it would be hard to mess up: take a pretty actress and have her beat up a bunch of people. If that sounds at all appealing, I'd recommend you give it a try. I'll give it a shot to impress me this week. Knowing the CW's track record, it probably won't.

FX is debuting a new show this week, too. Unlike the CW, their shows are usually pretty good.

Terriers - FX Wed. 10/9 Central

I'll throw some words at you and see if they stick. Creator of "The Shield". Writer of Ocean's Eleven. Donal Logue. If you're me, all of the above are reason enough to give this show a try. Billed as a comedic drama, this is the story of two would-be private investigators struggling to make a living in the modern world. The PI's are played by the aforementioned Logue ("Grounded for Life", The Tao of Steve) and Michael Raymond-James (the "Cajun" from season 1 of True Blood), so I'm expecting it to be both funny and well-acted which is all I can really ask these days. I'll report back with more on this one after the premiere.

If you're into the cartoon thing, Cartoon Network also premiered a couple of shows this week. Sandwiched on Monday nights in between two episodes of "Adventure Time" (a fun and quirky show in its own right) are:

Regular Show - Cartoon Mon. 8:15/7:15 Central

Despite the title, this is no regular show. Featuring a blue jay, a raccoon, a talking gumball machine, a lollipop-headed man, and a yeti (voiced by Mark Hamill), Regular Show is an infectious and funny little show. The first episode (which you can track down on YouTube if you're so inclined) involves a Casio keyboard (stolen from a wizard) that grants the player magical powers. Clocking in at 12 minutes, it's easily short enough to maintain its high-octane pacing without wearing you out. Check it out.

MAD - Cartoon Mon. 8:30/7:30 Central

This is essentially the folks at MAD magazine attempting to crank out a kid-friendly version of "Robot Chicken": short vignettes and parodies that are more miss than hit. The first episode (also on YouTube) had a couple funny bits, but the largest pieces (a parody of Avatar and a mash-up of all things "CSI" with "iCarly") both fell flat for me. This show is also only 12 minutes long, so if it sounds even remotely funny to you, it probably wouldn't hurt to check it out. I'll pass.

I'll be back next week with a preview of three brand new shows. Week 3 will be the real doozy as that's when almost everything new (17 shows) finally debuts.

Scott Pilgrim vs. the World

2010-08-18T07:00:00.003-05:00

From the second the Universal Studios theme rolls on screen, you know that Scott Pilgrim vs. the World is not going to be your normal, everyday movie viewing experience. With the video game generation (we'll say the 35 & under crowd) firmly in his sights, director Edgar Wright (Shaun of the Dead) has created an audio/visual masterpiece detailing a 20-something's struggle toward adulthood. Based on the Scott Pilgrim series of graphic novels by Bryan Lee O'Malley, I recommend this film to anyone with a sense of humor.

Scott (Michael Cera - "Arrested Development", Juno, Superbad) is your typical driftless 22-year old: unemployed, living off of his well-to-do roommate, hanging out with his high school-age "girlfriend", Knives. Don't worry, he's not really a cradle robber, they mostly just play video games (particularly a great looking mashup of DDR & Street Fighter) and talk about music. Like every good slacker, Scott also plays bass in a band. His band, Sex Bob-omb, sucks but has aspirations of hitting the big time. One night, Scott dreams of a mysterious pink-haired girl on roller blades. When he sees her in real life the next day in the library it starts him down a painful journey of self-discovery that might just end in true love.

The movie is absolutely steeped in pop culture references: all of the bands are named after NES games (Clash at Demonhead, Crash 'n the Boys), many scenes visually reference specific video games, there's even a scene that borrows the music and laugh track from Seinfeld. Yes, it probably helped my enjoyment that I got a lot (but by no means all) of these references, but it's certainly not necessary to understand them to like the movie. I would go into more detail about some of this stuff, but I think this is definitely one of those movies that the less you know going into it the better it's going to be. On top of this, it's full of funny performances and intricately choreographed action sequences that don't require any specialized hipster knowledge. Don't take my word for it though. Check it out for yourself and let me know what you think.

Checking in from Vienna

2010-08-03T02:21:00.002-05:00

Just popping in from the lobby of our hotel in Vienna for a quick hello. We've only been here six hours and already have had so much to do.

- Went to a great little pasta/wine bar that's so good at what it does that they audaciously only serve two dishes each day: one vegetarian, one not. All their pasta is made on-site.

- There is music everywhere here. When we arrived, a string quartet was busking in the main square. I could hear "My Heart Will Go On" as we made our way to the hotel. After dinner, we enjoyed an Italian street band that sounded a bit like Devotchka. They employed everything: multiple accordions, a violin, mandolin, ukelele, banjo, even a saw.

- We're right down near the center of the ring, so everything is a whirl of activity around us. Open-air restaurant seating is everywhere and the many horse-drawn carriages go right past our front door.

Looking forward to our 4-day stay here.

P.S. This German keyboard is going to be the death of my typing skills. I'll have to take a picture.

It's Flying Day!

2010-08-02T07:00:00.004-05:00

Last Saturday, some of our good friends from HarrisWorld came up to the Twin Cities to partake in what was truly a unique experience. I've been to some interesting events in my life, chief among them our trip to see Punxsutawney Phil a few years back, but the Red Bull Flugtag ("Flying Day" in German) may take the cake for strangeness. I only learned of its existence a mere two days before going, but I'm glad I did.

Apparently, Red Bull (the energy drink people) select a handful of cities every year to host the event and we here in Minnesota were lucky enough to be graced with its presence this year. What is it, you ask? Essentially, teams of five spend weeks and months putting together a "flying" machine of their own design and then proceed to run it off a ramp and into a river after performing a skit that usually involves bad dancing. Yes, it is as silly as it sounds.

The beauty of it is the elaborate themes that the various teams use for their "aircraft". At our version of the event, there were "planes" modeled after nearly everything. Among them were Prince's Little Red Corvette, a Zamboni machine, a hockey penalty box, a coffin, a giant roller skate, and even a bathroom (literally a complete bathroom on wheels). I keep putting the words "aircraft" and "planes" in quotation marks because although the stated point is to see who can fly the farthest and with the most style, in truth most of these contraptions plummeted straight off the edge of the ramp to the bottom of the Mississippi. The bathroom even managed to flip completely over and land upside-down -- truly hilarious.

There was one actual aircraft that managed to fly, setting a Flugtag world record in the process. Mere inches before crashing into the river, the pilot pulled a lever deploying some wing flaps (real aeronautics at work!) that leveled the plane and allowed it to glide over 200 feet before coming to rest gently in the middle of the river. The applause from the amazed crowd gathered on both sides of the river was deafening. Which reminds me, the turn-out for the show was truly astounding, but that's probably because the best part of it? It was free. I never thought I'd say this in my life, but... thanks, Red Bull.

You can check out the highlights yourself on their website. The videos should start automatically.

Brief Hiatus

2010-08-01T07:00:00.004-05:00

I had hoped to have a handful of posts queued up for while I'm on vacation, but wrapping up work and prepping for the trip have gotten in the way of producing anything of quality. There will be a post tomorrow, but after that you can consider this space to be on a brief two-week hiatus.

If Internet cafes still exist in Europe, I'll see what I can do about throwing a couple of live updates together while I'm over there. Otherwise, until I return...

Searching For the Beast Within

2010-07-30T07:00:00.004-05:00

Our summer vacation officially kicks off today. We had been planning a much advertised 2010 trip to Greece, but for some reason we decided that we'd do something else this year. Instead, we've been busy putting together a whirlwind tour of three central European cities: Prague, Vienna, and Munich. Prague is Meaghan's pick. She taught English (the language, not the high school subject) there for a few months ten years ago and has been wanting to go back and show me the sights ever since I met her. Vienna is our collective pick. Filled with museums, parks, and music galore, it looks to be our kind of place. It also happens to be geographically convenient to the other two cities, which brings us to Munich.

This choice is unabashedly mine, and like most things it seems is inspired by a video game. In this case, the classic adventure game from 1995, Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within. Based in Munich, the game details our hero's investigation into a series of grisly werewolf murders. No, I'm not expecting to find any shape-shifters myself, but like all of the Gabriel Knight games GK2 is set in a real-world location that is portrayed with painstaking detail. As a result, ever since I first played this game back in high school, places like the Marienplatz and Neuschwanstein have been rattling around in my brain waiting for the right time to get out.

On the games front, whilst digging up info for this post I discovered that Jane Jensen (the creator of the Gabriel Knight trilogy) is finally coming out with a new adventure game, "Gray Matter", for Xbox 360 and PC later this year. It might just have to be the first new computer game that I buy in a long time. For those not familiar with the GK games, I highly recommed you give them a try. They rank amongst my favorites of all time and can be downloaded for the low, low price of $6 each from Good Old Games.

Theft is Annoying

2010-07-28T07:00:00.003-05:00

Having your wallet stolen is no fun. It's even less fun when you're planning on leaving the country for vacation in a week. There are credit cards, driver's licenses, and insurance cards to replace. In this high-tech digital world, there are automatic payments to head off and change the source of. Heck, there are even automatically reloading coffee shop gift cards that need to be halted and replaced.

Whoever decided to break into my locker (and at least two other members') at the gym Friday night while I was swimming laps in the pool, I hope you enjoyed the $8 or so that was burning a hole in my wallet as well as the pile of cancelled credit cards you inherited. As for me, I guess I learned the life lesson (which was reinforced by the responding officer's 'blame the victim' spiel) that you're apparently not supposed to take anything at all into one of those places as nothing is sacred or safe. According to posted signs, you're also not supposed to leave anything in your car either so I'm not entirely sure where that leaves me.

I've also learned that the club "is not liable or responsible for any lost, stolen, or damaged personal property, whether from lockers, vehicles or other locations on the premises." That doesn't really surprise me, but it does make me question what exactly the point of the lockers is. Since I'm not really a complainer (other than this missive to the void), we'll see if they decide they want to do anything for me. It's been three days now and I'm still waiting for that call from the general manager they said I'd be getting. If there's another chapter to this saga, good or bad, I'll let you know.

Inception

2010-07-26T07:00:00.005-05:00

Dom Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio) is the leader of a crack team of thieves. Using the latest military-grade technology they can extract your deepest, darkest secrets directly from your mind. How? Abduction, sedation, and infiltration of your dreams. When a job goes awry, to save their bacon Cobb's team is forced to accept the impossible job. Instead of extracting secrets from someone's subconscious, they have to perform inception, the act of implanting an idea in someone's mind. The difficulty being that the target has to believe that it was their own idea.

That's a general summary of the plot of "Inception", but to say that's all the movie is about would be a gross understatement. Equal parts heist movie, Bond homage, and philosophical dissertation, it is the latest masterwork from the mind of Christopher Nolan ("Memento", "The Prestige", "The Dark Knight"). One of the more interesting aspects of the film is the well-thought out set of rules that explains how dreams are structured and function. I'm not going to list them all here, but in short, there can be multiple nested layers of dreams and it's easy for the dreamer to lose sight of where or what reality is. In order to leave the dream, one must either receive a "kick", the sensation of falling that I'm sure everyone of you has felt that snaps you out of your sleep, or be killed. Your dream can be populated by anyone you want, but unless it's someone that has joined you in a shared dream, they're really just aspects of your own subconscious.

Cobb's dreams are constantly troubled by the presence of his wife (Marion Cotillard - "La vie en rose", "Nine"). It's not really her, as something has happened in reality that keeps her from being part of Cobb's life, but rather an aspect that Cobb inadvertantly brings with him into the dreams. Never nice, she does everything she can to foil the task at hand. What has really happened between her and Cobb is one of the questions left for the viewer to decipher the answer to.

At its core, "Inception" explores some of the most basic philosophical questions about the nature of perception and reality. At times it's difficult to tell if what we're watching is "reality" or one of Cobb's (or his team's) dreams. In the end, it doesn't really matter as we're left to think about our own lives and how the baggage we carry around colors our own experience.

You can even extend the model the movie presents to questions beyond its immediate scope. If you're killed in a dream, you escape back to reality. What happens when we die in reality? Is there some higher order of reality that we escape to? Is this what we perceive as the afterlife? Any movie that can continue to percolate in the viewer's mind weeks after they've seen it is good in my book. I highly recommend that you check it out.

Note: If you see this, please do so with curbed expectations and you'll probably enjoy it more. There's a lot of hype surrounding this movie, so much so that it's currently ranked #3 all time on IMDB. It's definitely good, but it's certainly not that good.

From the Long Box: Shadow of the Batman #1, Part 3

2010-07-23T07:00:00.018-05:00

Note: Click on any of the images to make them larger.

Shadow of the Batman #1
(reprinted from Detective Comics #470)
Writer: Steve Englehart
Art: Walt Simonson & Al Milgrom

Will we finally figure it out? It's...

"The Master Plan of Dr. Phosphorus"

Behind the times? Refresh your memory. Last we read, the maniacal villain Dr. Phosphorus was using his glowing malevolence to coerce the Gotham City Council into "removing the Batman". Let's see if he was successful.

One of the redeeming qualities about Batman over the years is how much he cares about Gotham City. It may not be any of the things that R. Kelly sang about, but it's his home and he's going to take care of it the only way he knows how. Crime is his only enemy. Large or small, it doesn't matter. Sometimes that means he's stopping a terrorist attack that threatens to give everyone "smoking stool syndrome", but it can also mean that he's just handing a common thief over to the police.

As we pick the story up, the target of Batman's endless pursuit of justice this night is one Smiley Royal. Beyond having a ridiculous name, it's difficult to tell what exactly poor Smiley's crime is. When we first meet him, he's trying to get into... Well, I'm not sure what it is, but he's using an exacto knife to do it so it can't possibly be legal.

No sooner has Batman turned this nefarious criminal over to the authorities than he is served with a subpoena to appear before the Gotham Grand Jury.

For those of you who haven't been exposed to as much Law and Order as I have, a grand jury is a body that determines whether there is enough evidence for a trial. Given his line of work, it's entirely plausible that Batman is asked to appear in court to provide evidence against criminals all the time, but that's not what's happening here. Upon returning to the hospital to check on Commissioner Gordon and Alfred (both poisoned back in part 1), Dr. Bell tells him that Boss Thorne and the City Council is out to "close down" vigilantes like him. The grand jury is collecting evidence against Batman himself. Dr. Phosphorus's "master plan" begins to reveal itself -- remember that pressure he applied to Dr. Bell (also a City Council member) back in part 2?

Meanwhile, over in Sprang Memorial Arena another act of phosphorus-based terrorism is perpetrated, but this one goes unchecked. The joint is packed for an apparent Little Richard cover band ("Wop bop a lu bop a lop bam boom" being the only lyrics we get to see) when suddenly Dr. Phosphorus's skeletal visage is projected by the band's laser light show. It seems that he's sealed the arena and released his poisonous phosphorus fumes into the ventilation system.

No one comes to save the day. Hundreds die. Why? Just the next phase of Dr. Phosphorus's insane vendetta against the citizens of Gotham City.

Back in the Bat Cave (which I feel obligated to mention is in a half-finished subway station under downtown Gotham in this incarnation), Batman reflects upon the events of the past few days. Unfortunately, instead of enjoying any sort of detective element in this story we inadvertantly stumble upon a clue to advance the plot when the Geiger counter (everyone should have one) starts clicking when Batman comes near it. It's a bit like an early Hardy Boys mystery really, where the reader is one step ahead of the detectives the whole way and it's only dumb luck which cracks the case.

The beauty of this moment is that he's entirely unconcerned that he's been exposed to enough Beta radiation to burn him. The important fact here is that this means Dr. Phosphorus is radioactive in nature, and there's only one place in town where someone could be exposed to radioactivity.

This train of thoughts is interrupted by an urgent call from the police. It's not Commissioner Gordon, since he's still in the hospital. Police Chief O'Hara is on the other end of the line with a warning for our hero. Word has come down from the City Council that the police are not to cooperate with Batman anymore.

I'm by no means a Batman historian, but it seems like this conflict is an element of most good Batman stories. It plays heavily in the second half of "The Dark Knight", and it makes an appearance here. How do the law, government, and the public handle vigilantism? There's often a fine tightrope to be walked between cooperation and making sure the help doesn't break too many rules. (For a modern meditation on this theme, I highly recommend "Kick-Ass". If I'd been writing back in April, you would have heard more about it.) In this case, it's clear that the police still respect and want to help our hero, but their hands are tied by Boss Thorne's corrupt city government.

A quick jaunt in the Batboat takes us to the offshore nuclear plant that we saw in Dr. Phosphorus's origin story. There are two notable things about this: 1) The power plant is in remarkable shape for something that just had its core crack open in the recent past. So much for continuity. 2) The plant is swarming with mean-looking thugs with weapons. Batman, not spoiling for a fight, moves along.

Englehart reaches into the well-worn bag of tricks here and breaks out the Bruce Wayne, playboy persona. As cover for a closer investigation of the power plant, he throws a massive party on his private yacht. Per usual, Gotham's elite attend. Among the guests are Boss Thorne, Dr. Bell, and one Silver St. Cloud.

For those not in the know, to many Batman fans Silver is his Lois Lane: the one that he is fated to end up with. Congratulations, you've just witnessed her first appearance. I'm not entirely sure why everyone is such a fan, as I don't recall her being a particularly well-developed character the first time I read this a few years ago. Perhaps I'll feel differently this time around.

With an hour to investigate before dinner is served, Batman dons his Bat-Wetsuit and stealthily swims back out to the nuclear platform. To cut a long fight scene (3.5 pages) short, he goads Dr. Phosphorus out of hiding, they tussle, and the mad doctor falls to his apparent doom in the very reactor core that originally spawned him.

I know that if I were ever transformed into a supervillain by a horrific accident, I'd certainly use the place where it happened as my not-so-secret hideout. Especially since in this case the core breach has apparently been repaired and it's going to open for use sometime soon. Either that or the thugs there have no problem being dosed with the radiation emitting from the leaky core. Eh, maybe he's hoping lightning will strike twice and he'll be knocked another rung up the periodic table. "Beware! It is I, the insidiously stinky Dr. Sulfur! Mwa ha ha ha!" Let's just hope that's the last we see of that guy.

Our story wraps up with Bruce Wayne's return to the yacht. He runs into Silver again, they share an embrace (What a player!), and... Hmm, what does she suspect?

In our next installment, we'll take a brief side trek to enjoy the backup story (a short story used to fill out the page count in a comic) from this issue. All aboard! Next stop: "Hell Park".

Play Old Video Games: Baseball

2010-07-21T07:00:00.007-05:00

I'm a fan of old video games. They're both simple to play and fun, which makes them ideal for me when I'm looking for something to pick up and relieve the stress of a long work day. I suppose most "modern" people achieve this same feeling by firing up a cheap downloadable game for their cell phone, iPod, or Facebook account, but I like to go back to the originals. There's a sense of history that I enjoy alongside the games themselves and I marvel at how much was achieved with so little technologically speaking. I grew up an Apple II kid and have a warm spot in my heart for many of the programs I used and games I played as a child, but floppy disks are fragile and slow-loading. I've found that for my money, the best place to play games of that era and style today is on the Nintendo Entertainment System.

The earliest NES games date back to the years before the system even surfaced in New York City back in October 1985. Developed in Japan by the Big N itself in the early 80s, these games are the simplest of the simple and their names reflect that: Pinball, Kung Fu, Robot Block, Tennis. For the most part, they're exactly what they sound like: bare bones computerized versions of their real-world counterparts. The earliest of these is 1983's Baseball.

Looking at it today, Baseball bares little resemblance to a modern sports video game. Although there are six teams to choose from (all represented by a single letter [C = Cardinals, Y = Yankees, etc.] and a unique uniform), there are no rosters to manage or different players to learn the ins and outs of. Heck, there's not even a lot of evidence that the teams are different at all beyond the color of their uniforms. It's the game distilled down to the basics of throw ball, hit ball, field ball. No complicated control schemes to teach your friends, no dithering about who gets to be the Tigers (me, of course), just pop in the game and you're playing within 10 seconds.

It's essentially the simplest a baseball game can be and have it still look like the sport, and in my book that's a good thing. For me it hits that sweet spot of high playability and low complexity that in a lot of ways was the inspiration for the version of baseball that comes on Wii Sports. Yes, the graphics are a little blocky and move a bit slowly, but it's no wonder that the back of the box touts this game's realism no less than three times in its single paragraph of text. When compared to games from the same era on the Intellivision or Atari, the visuals and attention to detail for those who know the sport are second to none.

Just look at the cut-off man ready to keep the runner from going to third. Okay, so you can't actually throw it to the cut-off man, but he's still there, isn't he? At its core, 95% of baseball comes down to the batter/pitcher battle and that's portrayed well here. The advantage here is that you don't need to understand how a pitcher's arsenal works, nor are you restricted by what's humanly possible. You'll find no curveball, slider, changeup mechanic here. Instead, you can completely control the speed and movement of each pitch. There's nothing more satisfying than enticing your friend (or your wife, as the case may be) into swinging at a slow piece of junk that ultimately moves way off the plate.

I'll be writing every once in awhile about some of the old games that I like to play (or don't as the case may be). Whether I'm helping take you on your own trip down memory lane, inspiring you to check something out on your favorite emulator, or just blathering on self-servingly about things I like, I hope you enjoy the trip in some small way.

Josh Ritter

2010-07-19T07:00:00.001-05:00

"Ridiculous and touching, like all good art." Josh Ritter was talking about the Corn Palace in Mitchell, SD, but he may have well been talking about his own music. After all, it takes a certain amount of ridiculousness to write and perform heartfelt songs about mummies or love in a missile silo at the dawn of WWIII.

Last Thursday night, we went to see who is probably the best songwriter in America that absolutely no one knows about perform with the Minnesota Orchestra. As expected, it was a brilliant 90-minute set featuring some of the best songs from Ritter's last three albums. Any time you combine elite musicianship with great songwriting, it's bound to be a good experience.

In the past when I've posted about music, I usually just let the music itself do the talking. I'll not change anything now. For those of you who get mix CDs from us on a semi-regular basis, it's likely that you'll have heard one or two of his songs before, but don't let that stop you from giving him another listen.

Here's his latest album, "So Runs the World Away". Standout tracks for me include the aforementioned mummy song "The Curse" and "Another New World", an epic about Christopher Columbus's final expedition to the North Pole with a dash of Poe thrown in. However, I encourage you give the whole thing a listen.

Other great songs from previous albums:
"The Temptation of Adam"
"Girl in the War"
"Come and Find Me"

He's got some uptempo stuff, too, but I can't find any studio recordings of that stuff online. If you like what you've heard here, I urge you to check out more through whatever means you do and spread the word.

Looting for Ideas

2010-07-16T07:00:00.001-05:00

As a DM, one of the fun things you get to do is keep on the lookout for neat ideas to incorporate into your game. Yes, I primarily run stuff from published modules these days, but I find myself constantly tweaking and massaging ideas to get various story threads (such as they are) into the mix. I especially like to throw random side treks of my own devising between main events.

I've recently come into possession of a $2 copy of the first D&D "module" ever, Palace of the Vampire Queen. I would track down an original, but they're a little out of my price range. Published back in 1976 (before TSR themselves ever did a module) by a little mom & pop shop called Wee Warriors, it tells the harrowing tale of how the Princess of Baylor was abducted by the fearsome Vampire Queen and her minions. As you can imagine, it's pretty raw, but it seems like it might be fun to try. If I can ever find people who collectively want to learn and play OD&D, it would be neat to give it a shot.

More likely, I might plunder it for ideas to throw into our ongoing 4E game. If a madman with 25 house cats or a guardpost consisting of a crossbow and a screech owl ever turns up in our game, now you'll know where they came from.

P.S. There is nothing better than the sound of a cat contentedly snoring on the couch next to you, as Scully is right now. Well, she was until I played that screech owl sound. Sorry, Scully.

Troubles Come In Threes

2010-07-14T07:00:00.002-05:00

For the 4th of July, I went back to my parents in Michigan for a much needed break from work and weekend to relax. That mission was accomplished [Thanks for having me!], but the car rides there and back were anything but relaxing. The drive itself wasn't so bad. The hours fly by pretty quickly when you're working through a backlog of Tigers games at 1.5x speed. I've finally caught back up to reality just in time for the All-Star Break, thanks for asking.

1) The drive to Michigan was truly pretty uneventful: normal holiday traffic in Chicago, nighttime road construction in Battle Creek, and oh yeah, my power steering and A/C went out with about 70 miles to go. No biggie. I took it down to trusty old Dick Scott Dodge (where I bought my first car - miss you, Medea!) with my dad the next morning. A mere $700+ later and I had a new serpentine belt and belt tensioner (which had locked up, throwing the belt).

2) After getting back from the shop, we intended to head down to the Detroit Zoo with my brother, his wife, and their son for the pre-nap portion of the day. When we hit the driveway to shuffle car seats and other kid gear, we found that the left rear tire on their car (fresh off a long road trip from New Jersey) was going flat. Jacking it up and removing the tire revealed a 2-inch piece of jagged metal embedded deep into it. Nothing that a side trek to various tire shops in town can't fix, but by the time all of that was said and done the zoo had to be postponed indefinitely.

The rest of my stay in Michigan was delightfully uneventful. As the saying goes though, things come in threes. Knowing this, I took it upon myself to spare my brother the pain of another car problem.

3) I knew I was tempting fate when I drove my 2003 Neon with 110,000 miles on it for this trip, but it was the only way I could listen to unlimited baseball (for technical reasons that will remain unnamed). Sure enough, on the return trip my engine started to overheat... on the Indiana Toll Road... near Gary. Let me tell you that if you're ever overheating on the freeway, you don't want it to be on a toll road. There are fewer exits, when there is an exit it rarely has anything worthwhile nearby, and you have to reaccelerate (bad for a hot engine) after every toll booth. After babying the car for a few miles at lowish speeds (don't worry, the hazards were running), I had to pull over and let the engine cool for a few minutes on the narrow shoulder of an elevated stretch of highway. Did I mention that Zelda was with me? Dogs love it when you stop for no reason and let everyone blow by you at 60+ mph.

I was eventually able to limp back on to the road and made it to the next exit where, being the naive traveler that I am, stopped at the first gas station I saw to ask for help. I knew it wasn't an actual service station, but there's still an old-fashioned responsibility for folks at gas stations to know about nearby businesses. Or not. The guy behind the glass looked at me like I was crazy, said he didn't know anything, and sent me on my way. Luckily, two fellow patrons knew where I could go, pointing me to a radiator shop down the street. They filled me back up with coolant, checked for leaks, and sent me on my way once they were sure I was back to running like a top. Incidentally, if you ever break down in NW Indiana I highly recommend Chevo's Radiator in Hammond. They took care of me and were nice to Zelda to boot.

Since troubles only come in threes, I made it home safe and sound after that without a problem. Not only that, I was so inspired that I decided to reopen the Tower. Keep on the lookout for semi-regular updates about whatever interests me in the near future.

Comedy Hour I

2009-09-28T07:00:00.000-05:00

Community: Thursdays on NBC, 9:30/8:30 Central

Attempting to fill the shoes of My Name is Earl (along with its 8/7 timeslot starting in two weeks), Community is NBC's newest entry in their long-standing Thursday night comedy block. Unlike their flop from last year (Kath & Kim), Community is actually funny.

Jeff is a lawyer... or rather he used to be. It turns out that bar associations don't take it so well when your law degree came from an online "school" in Colombia. As a result, he's going back to college for the first time. Specifically, he's going back to Greendale Community College. In an effort to get in fellow student Britta's pants (she looks just like Elisabeth Shue), Jeff accidentally starts up a study group for his Spanish 101 class populated by a collection of misfits.

Community has almost everything I look for in a comedy. It's quotable (did you know that 90% of speaking Spanish is in how you move your hands?), self-aware, chock full of pop culture references (but not in an in-your-face Gilmore Girls kind of way), and walks the fine line between smart and silly. The pilot gets most of the dull exposition out of the way (character intros, etc.), but does it in a brilliant fashion. Throw 7 strangers into a room, let them interact, and you're bound to find out almost everything you need to know about them.

There have been two episodes so far, both hilarious, but in very different ways. You can catch up on Hulu or by watching the encore presentations tonight on USA at 11:05/10:05.

Bored to Death: Sundays on HBO, 9:30/8:30 Central

... Coming soon ...

Friendly Reminder

2009-09-27T21:46:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to remind everyone of something I stated last year. If you keep watching a show that I post about, feel free to keep talking about it in the relevant comments section so we can know if it gets better/worse, etc. I'll periodically drag updates from folks like you out into a main post if I get enough.

Scads o' TV-related posts coming very soon:
Comedy Hour - feat. Community, Bored to Death, Accidentally on Purpose, Cougar Town, Modern Family, Glenn Martin DDS
Kid-Tested, But Are They Brian-Approved? - feat. The Troop, RollBots, The Super Hero Squad Show, Hot Wheels: Battle Force 5

I am way behind on hour-long dramas. I'll try to spend some mornings catching up this week.

Models Inc. Strikes Back

2009-09-23T06:19:00.004-05:00

The Beautiful Life: TBL: Wednesdays on CW, 9:00/8:00 Central

In the spirit of reviving questionable Fox primetime soaps from the 90s, the CW offers TBL for your viewing pleasure, its modern-day analog for Models Inc. If we're lucky it will have a similarly short lifespan.

Co-created by Ashton Kutcher, TBL details the life of a group of aspiring models who share their agency's NYC flophouse. There's Raina the model with a heart of gold whose Fashion Week runway has made her the talk of the town, Sonja the washed-up supermodel with a secret child, Chris the Iowa farm boy who execs think might have the look, Isaac the child model finding it hard to get gigs as an adult, and on and on. You get the point. Think America's Next Top Model meets Melrose Place.

What should come across as an interesting premise (fashion-related shows are pretty hot right now) instead falls terribly flat. The pilot opens with the aforementioned runway show at fashion week, complete with all the flash and gloss you'd expect in a CW show. Once you crack through the veneer though, there's not a lot of substance. With so much "real" fashion on the tube these days, it's easy to see that this is not it. Photo shoots, go sees, runway shows, none of them are particularly well done. Unfortunately for TBL it's these things that are supposed to make the show unique.

Add to that the poor acting (Mischa Barton as usual is especially poor as the pathetic Sonja), predictable plot, and characters straight out of "Screenwriting for Dummies" and were left with not a whole lot to entertain us. Watch only if you're a masochist or can't get enough of that CW thang.

Note: I'm up-to-date on my viewing, but behind on my posting. One hour dramas will continue to get full write-ups, half-hour shows will get capsule reviews, and kids' shows are going to be lumped into one big post.

Want to Know a Secret?

2009-09-21T21:00:00.004-05:00

A lot of people have asked me over the past few years how it is that Meaghan and I thought to go to Estonia for our honeymoon. Behold! The truth revealed. In a roundabout way, it all starts with my dad. When my brother and I were younger, we played a lot of computer games. Every once in awhile, my dad would give us a random selection as a present for a birthday or Christmas. Unerringly, this ended up being something high quality which provided us with hours of fun. ex. Drol, 2400 A.D., Out of This World.

One such game was a little franchise-starter by the name of Command & Conquer. In C&C, you take on the role of commander of either the UN's defense forces or the terrorist organization that they're trying to crush, the Brotherhood of Nod. If you choose to play on the side of the government, your first mission is to establish a beachhead in eastern Europe from which you can drive out the terrorist forces. Specifically:

The game goes beyond just naming the country where the action is, it gives you a specific point of conflict. In this case, your hovercrafts storm across the Gulf of Riga in the cinematic opening to land on the beaches of Pärnu, Estonia.

Going there for our honeymoon is perhaps an extreme example, but I often like to take the time to learn more about the world around us through video games. Don't get me wrong, it's definitely not the only reason we went there, but C&C is the spark that even put it on the map in the first place. Without it, we never would've had the experiences that we did like staying in this gorgeous hotel 100 feet from the gulf in Pärnu.

Perhaps in the future I'll share more of the things I learn through gaming, if I ever find the time to play more games. For those of you wondering what the next C&C-inspired vacation might be? Latvia, of course, with a special stop in Jelgava. Be thankful I didn't find inspiration in Nod's campaign of terror. It starts somewhere in lovely, seaside Libya.

Bonus Material: Even if you never get to Estonia yourself, I strongly urge you to check out the story of how it gained its independence from the Soviet Union in The Singing Revolution.

TV Preview: 9/14/2009

2009-09-15T19:32:00.002-05:00

Briefly, new this week:

The Beautiful Life - CW Wed. 9/8 Central

The weakest link from The OC (Mischa Barton) lives the beautiful life... I guess. Not expecting much.

Community - NBC Thu. 9:30/8:30 Central

Chevy Chase returns to TV for his first regular gig since Saturday Night Live in this community college comedy.

The Troop - Nick Fri. 8/7 Central

Nickelodeon gets in on the fantasy genre with this show about ordinary teens that hunt monsters. Given the channel, I'm guessing this skews a little younger than Buffy did.

RollBots - CW Sat. 8/7 AM Central

New Saturday morning cartoon about round robots. Not sure if there's a story there.

The Superhero Squad Show - Cartoon Sat. 8:30/7:30 AM Central

I'm not looking forward to this comedic take on the Marvel universe. Rumor has it that sneak peeks of the first two episodes are already running as of yesterday.

Bored to Death - HBO Sun. 9:30/8:30 Central
A detective comedy written by Jonathan Ames (The Alcoholic) and starring Jason Schwartzman (Rushmore, I Heart Huckabees, The Darjeeling Limited). I'm looking forward to this.

The Monster Next Door

2009-09-11T17:29:00.004-05:00

Durham County: Mondays on ION, 10:00/9:00 Central

Durham County is one of the best dramas I've watched on TV in quite awhile. If you trust my judgement at all, stop reading now and set your DVR/VCR to record the first episode. It's replaying tonight (Friday) on ION at 11:00/10:00 Central. Go ahead... I'll wait.

Homicide Detective Mike Sweeney has moved his family from the dangerous big city life of Toronto to the suburban county where he grew up. He and his wife are trying to escape their recent past, and have dragged their two daughters along for a fresh start. Mike's partner was recently gunned down in a drive-by and his wife Audrey is recovering from a bout with breast cancer that took multiple surgeries to survive. Across the street lives Ray Prager, one of Det. Sweeney's best childhood friends. A former NHL draft pick, his pro hockey career ended before it even started due to a car accident. Don't feel too bad for him though, he and his wife Tracy have managed to make a good living running a plumbing company.

There's just one problem: Ray is a bit of a psychopath. He witnesses a gruesome double rape/murder, and rather than report it to the authorities he uses it as the inspiration for his own grisly way of dealing with life's stresses. The game of cat and mouse that proceeds between Mike and his old friend Ray makes for compelling drama. In my previous post, I compared it thematically to Twin Peaks. After watching the six episodes which comprise the first mini-season, I think the comparison still stands up. They're both a dark exploration of the evils that man can do to one another. Interestingly, in this case you know who the bad guy is from the start. There's no question of "Who killed Laura Palmer?" here. It's essentially a murder mystery without the mystery, but it's so well-written that you still want to watch it play out.

The acting is top-notch throughout, particularly from Justin Louis who plays Ray. He switches from charming to monstrous at the flip of a switch, and his criminal acts only serve to make his charm more disturbing. The other actors are good as well, but the real star here is the story. In a world of disposable entertainment, it's refreshing to watch something where no line is thrown away. As Hugh Dillon (Det. Sweeney) put it in an interview I saw, it's "drama without pretension".

You may be wondering how it is that I've seen the first six episodes already. This is actually a Canadian import that originally aired on The Movie Network (think Canada's version of HBO) back in 2007. As such, it's chock full of cursing, violence, nudity, and 5-6 minutes of content that had to be cut out as it transitioned to American network TV. I'm happy to report that despite the editing, the show remains watchable. If you have the means to seek out the full-length version then do so. Otherwise, this can serve as a suitable alternative.

Aaah! More Vampires!

2009-09-11T07:50:00.006-05:00

The Vampire Diaries: Thursdays on CW, 8:00/7:00 Central

In a world where Twilight and its ilk rule both the bookstands and the cinema with its saccharine vampire teen romance and HBO's True Blood is slowly gaining traction with its violent and passionate vampire drama for adults, you'd think there would be little room in the market for another human girl meets vampire boy story. And you would probably be right. And that's a little unfortunate. Just a little, mind you. CW's new show The Vampire Diaries walks the fine line between the two: teen romance with a little violence thrown in.

Elena was a typical high school girl from Mystic Falls, VA, until she became the sole survivor of a car accident that claimed the lives of both of her parents. Now it's the first day of the new school year and she's still dealing with the tragedy and all of the people who keep reminding her of it. Enter Stefan. Dark, brooding, and handsome, he just might be the perfect guy. Oh, except he's a vampire with a past that dates back to the Civil War and he has a brother named Damon, also a vampire, who's been attacking people in the woods near town. Other than that, he might be perfect. Surround them with a host of reasonably interesting high schoolers: the psychic best friend, the stoner brother, the jock ex-boyfriend, and you've completed the recipe for a decent show.

Okay, so it's not exactly ground-breaking. Or is it? Fans of other vampire stories are probably going to find much they recognize here, but a lot of that might be because it's based on a series of books written back in 1991 that has served as the inspiration for many of today's vampire hits. It won't make a difference to viewers though. Due to the way it's being marketed, it's likely going to be perceived as a Twilight ripoff. And in a lot of ways, that's true. Without the existence of those movies, would this show have been developed or green-lit?

The Vampire Diaries largely manages to dodge the twin bullets that plague most things on the CW: poor acting and slick production values. Unfortunately the writing, particularly the excerpts of the titular diaries that are read in voiceover, is a little cheesy at times. The show is created by Kevin Williamson(Scream, Dawson's Creek), so there's hope that it will turn around. If there weren't already similar shows to watch, it's good enough that I'd consider picking this up, but True Blood is better and is plenty for me. If you're the type who can't have too many blood-sucking creeps in your life, go ahead and give it a shot.

A Hot Meh

2009-09-09T08:42:00.006-05:00

Melrose Place: Tuesdays on CW, 9:00/8:00 Central

Fans of the original may appreciate the CW's attempt to breathe new life into yet another 90's primetime soap opera, but fans of good television need not waste their time here. Take seven new characters: a dorky would-be film director and his elementary school teacher fiancee, the film director's bitchy & bisexual publicist, an AA-attending sous chef, a rich art thief, an intern whoring her way through med school, and the unknown newcomer (played by Ashlee Simpson), add a couple of has-beens from the original show, throw them into an apartment building in LA, and let madness ensue. Not my idea of gripping drama.

The original Melrose Place ran for seven(!) seasons back in the 90's after spinning out of Beverly Hills 90210 in the summer of 1992. It's probably most well-known for bringing sleaze into the limelight on network television. The tenants of that apartment on Melrose Place hopped in and out of each other's beds, got into cat fights, and offed each other at an incredible pace. One such tenant, Sydney Andrews, was run over by a car and left for dead at the end of season 5. Why then is Sydney now the landlord at the apartment in this new incarnation? Who knows? Do we care? The reprieve is short-lived as Sydney's bloodied corpse is found bobbing in the swimming pool right before the first commercial break.

This show has that same slick veneer that most other shows on the CW (Gossip Girl, 90210) seem to have. A trendy soundtrack backs images that try to walk a fine line between reality and an MTV music video. Every actor is attractive, but only some of them actually seem to be able to act. If the show were slightly better assembled or seemed to have something to say beyond light and fluffy entertainment, the premise would be tempting enough to stick with. Who doesn't like a good murder mystery? All of the tenant/suspects have a certain greyness to their morality so any of them could be responsible. Who did it? We'll probably find out in December should you be willing to stick with it that long.

If you missed last night's pilot and want to see it for yourself, it looks like you're out of luck for now. If it shows up anywhere online, it'll be on the CW site.

TV Preview: 9/7/2009

2009-09-07T09:14:00.004-05:00

It's the time of year again where I watch a bunch of TV so that you don't have to. I have a plan this time around, and I think I'll be able to stick to it. Wish me luck.

In case I don't get in-depth reports up in enough time I wanted to quickly cover what's started already and what's coming up this week.

In the Week to Come:

Durham County - ION Mon. 10/9 Central

Don't be put off by the fact that this is on ION (formerly PAX). It's a fantastic Canadian drama that explores the dark underbelly of suburban life. Probably the highest quality show I've watched in a long time, it reminds me of Twin Peaks because of the thematic material it covers. Don't worry, there are no dancing midgets or supernatural forces to deal with here if that sort of thing is a turn-off. There have been two 6-episode seasons so far, and as far as I know ION is going to show them both. I strongly urge you to check this out.

Melrose Place - CW Tue. 9/8 Central

The CW just keeps getting trashier. Gone are the few enjoyable shows like Reaper and Privileged, all replaced by drek like this. Granted I've not seen this yet, but I'm not holding out much hope. If the 90210 remake from last year was your sort of thing, chances are good you'll enjoy its more "adult" cousin, too.

The Vampire Diaries - CW Thu. 8/7 Central

I suppose the people who find Twilight to be gripping drama need TV to watch, too. At least, that's what the CW is hoping. I think that vampires are so hot right now that there's no way this show will fail, but is it any good?

Rites of Passage

2009-09-06T09:00:00.000-05:00

They say that it can take awhile for a new house to feel like home, but we've had a number of firsts over the first month of living here that have helped to accelerate the process. Let's just say that we've been here for five weeks and buyer's remorse hasn't set in yet.

First Houseguests: Back in the middle of August, Meaghan's cousins from California Leo and Rebekah came to visit. Rebekah, 20, is a junior in college. Leo, 14, is going into 9th/10th grade on a 3-year high school program. Their arrival forced us to have quite a bit of the house clean and in working condition. If you're ever lacking in motivation to unpack and clean after moving, just invite some people to stay with you 3 weeks after your move-in day. Many games (mostly of Bohnanza, Killer Bunnies, & Seafarers of Catan) were played into the wee hours of the night, a day was spent at ValleyFair, and much fun was had by all.

First Repair Bill: Coinciding with the arrival of our first houseguests was the appearance of our first needed repair. When we ran the washing machine for the first time, we discovered that tree roots and other junk had completely clogged our house's sewer line to the street. Mopping up after a backed-up basement floor drain is not on my short list of final preparations for houseguests. Thankfully, our realtor hooked us up with a reliable sewer guy who rooted a large sack's worth of detritus from our line.

First Party: This Saturday we hosted our official housewarming party which meant we had to make a second pass of cleaning and arranging. Much of the work this time focused on cleaning up the yard since we were planning on having folks hang out on the back patio at the party. We spent six hours a couple of weekends ago pulling enough weeds and assorted plant life to fill five large yard waste bags. That's one major advantage of renting: you don't have to care about or take care of any of the green thumb work. And I am not a green thumb.

First House Payment: Yay for automatic payments. Our first mortgage payment went out the door right on time Sept. 1. I guess that means it's for real.

Salvaged Pictures

2009-08-07T07:00:00.003-05:00

Today's post isn't quite as content rich as yesterday's, but it's late and I'm tired so you're just going to have to deal. I thought I'd share a few of the pictures from our trip to Disney World in June. We lost the majority of the pictures from the first six days in Florida (two with Meaghan's grandparents, four in WDW), but we still had everything from the last morning we spent in the Animal Kingdom with Meaghan's parents.

People always get a little slap-happy when they've spent so much time in a theme park, as evidenced here by our attempts to emulate cavemen, bugs (those are 3-D specs), and African drummers.

For those who haven't been before, the centerpiece of the Animal Kingdom is the Tree of Life, a gigantic (145 ft) artificial tree that towers over Discovery Island in the center of the park.

The tree not only houses a movie theater amongst its roots, but it's also a fantastic work of art. Over 300 different animals are carved into its trunk, branches, and roots. You could easily spend an entire day walking around it to see how many carvings you can spot.

It also wouldn't be the Animal Kingdom if it didn't feature some animals. As well as being a theme park, it's also a top-notch zoo. There are a lot of neat critters there like this crested porcupine from Africa.

One of the best places to spot animals is the Kilimanjaro Safaris attraction. You ride in a 40-seat open-air vehicle back through various African habitats. All of the animals (including rhinos, lions, and the like) there are free ranging with the ability to walk right up to your vehicle if they want to. Sometimes there are traffic jams when a herd of wildebeest crosses the road. Other animals, like this here giraffe, are just curious.

To wrap up this Disney saturated post, I thought I'd mention a website that I just discovered in the past week. If you sign up a free account, D-CoT has a jukebox where you can listen to various pieces of music that have been played in the Disney parks throughout the years. This includes things like the Country Bear Jamboree, Fantasmic!, the Wishes Nighttime Spectacular, and Finding Nemo: The Musical. If these sorts of things put a smile on your face, I strongly urge you check it out.

From the Long Box: Shadow of the Batman #1, Part 2

2009-08-06T07:00:00.004-05:00

Note: Click on any of the images to make them larger.

Shadow of the Batman #1
(reprinted from Detective Comics #469)
Writer: Steve Englehart
Art: Walt Simonson & Al Milgrom

Could it be? It's been long awaited...

"The Origin of Dr. Phosphorus"

If you're wondering what the heck any of this is about, you have some catching up to do. First of all, I need to do some catching up of my own. It turns out that last time around I forgot to introduce a character that plays a bigger part in this second installment, Dr. Bell of Gotham General Hospital. Here he is in a brief moment with Commissioner Gordon. A real mover and shaker, no?

Anyway, back to the story at hand. The night after Batman and Dr. Phosphorus fought to a standstill at the Gotham City Reservoir, we join the vengeful doctor as he bursts in on the private residence of Dr. Bell. Apparently before he became the walking, talking embodiment of living phosphorus, Dr. P was an old colleague of Bell's: Dr. Sartorius. The catch being that everyone thinks Sartorius is dead. I'm a little relieved to be honest. This keeps me from asking the question of where a glow-in-the-dark skeleton could possibly have obtained a doctorate.

Sartorius used to be a mover and shaker, too. He had a posh $200,000/year ($700,000/year in today's dollars) private practice, and he was a member of the powerful Tobacconists' Club. Not having lived through the 70s, I can't attest to the existence of clubs centered around the smoking of pipes and cigars. In today's increasingly smoke-free society, however, this concept is either unpopular or so underground that it doesn't surface on the Internet. Here it's presented as a place for powerful men to get together and broker back room deals with one another. I'm sure places like that still exist today.

The government apparently took a sizable chunk out of Sartorius' Park Ave lifestyle every year, so he went to one of Gotham's most powerful, City Council President "Boss" Rupert Thorne, to see what he could do about that. Thorne proposed that he sink his money into Gotham's proposed new nuclear power plant. It was going to be set up as a tax shelter, but only the insiders at the Tobacconists' Club knew about it so far. This was right in the middle of the nuclear plant building boom of the 1970s, so I'm sure it seemed like a wise investment.

But the people of Gotham protested, as people are wont to do, and a referendum was placed on the ballot. Despite some brutal electioneering by Thorne and his people, the proposal was approved and the nuclear consortium was forced to build their plant outside of Gotham City on an offshore platform three miles out in the Atlantic. Building the plant offshore with a new design requires more funding and higher costs lead to cutting corners. Never a good thing when it comes to playing with nuclear power. You can see where this is headed, right?

The night after the reactor core was installed, Dr. Sartorius was out at the plant inspecting his investment. I don't know what a medical doctor knows about generating nuclear power, but an investor needs to inspect what an investor needs to inspect apparently. Conveniently, he was out there alone during some kind of unmanned test fire of the reactor. This setup seems like the soirt of thing OSHA should be notified about. I don't think you'd find me skulking about a nuclear reactor that was still under construction. Heck, I probably wouldn't skulk about a fully operational nuclear reactor. As a result, he was the only one there when the core cracked open and the whole thing exploded.

In a futile effort to escape the blast, Sartorius dives behind a pile of sand bags for cover. When the reactor blows, the silicon in the sand is blasted up the periodic table one notch (gaining a proton and at least three neutrons) to become a radioactive isotope of phosphorus which is driven through his body creating his new ghastly, glowing skeleton. We'll overlook the facts that sand isn't made from pure silicon and atomic science doesn't actually work that way because hey, this is just a comic book and a goofy origin story at that. In truth, this is a cautionary tale about the dangers of nuclear power and the corrupting power of big business. For a 1977 story penned before the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, it turns out that it was a rather prescient warning. Not that there are any walking, talking skeletons of living phosphorus out there as a result of those. Are there?

You see, Dr. Phosphorus just wants revenge against those that ruined his life and turned him into this monstrosity: the City Council for encouraging him to invest in the nuclear plant and the citizens of Gotham for forcing the plant to be built offshore. Not a big believer in personal responsibility, Phosphorus has added a new item to his agenda of revenge: Batman. I guess if you foil somebody's revenge plot you're likely to just get added to their list. And that's why Phosphorus has come to Dr. Bell. Being a member of the City Council with a way to contact "Boss" Thorne, Bell is just the sort of weak-minded individual who would help "remove the Batman" from Phosphorus' path. On that note, we're forced to wait until our next installment of Shadow of the Batman to see what's in store for our caped hero. Just how does Bell intend to remove the Batman? Tune in next time.

(500) Days of Summer

2009-08-05T07:00:00.001-05:00

Meaghan and I went to see (500) Days of Summer a couple of weeks ago in the midst of all of our moving preparations. It was inevitable that we'd see it eventually as it stars two of our favorite young actors, Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("3rd Rock From the Sun", Brick, Mysterious Skin, The Lookout) and Zooey Deschanel (Elf, Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Bridge to Terabithia) as Tom and Summer, two star-crossed lovers... or not.

(500) Days is a romantic comedy. Tom lives in LA and has a degree in architecture, so naturally he writes greeting cards for a living. He hates it, dead end job that it is, but it's a living so he sticks it out. One day, his boss gets a new assistant named Summer and his life will never be the same, but not in the way you think. Unlike almost every other rom com ever committed to celluloid the guy doesn't get the girl this time. Instead, the film simply documents the 500 days that Summer is in Tom's life. Don't worry, I'm not giving anything away. We find out that Summer breaks up with Tom in one of the early scenes since the movie jumps around and time, clearly delineated by clever interludes labeled "Day 364", etc.

Along the way we see the highs and lows of their relationship, encouraging the viewer to try to piece together what went wrong, and what they each could have possibly taken away from the experience. Despite the premise, and the ultimate outcome, (500) Days is hilarious and uplifting throughout. Some of the high points include not one, but two scenes featuring drunken karaoke and the best use of split-screen in a movie since The Rules of Attraction. I was lucky enough to see it at a mostly full theater in Uptown, and the audience was in good form. It's always best when you watch a funny comedy with people willing to laugh.

I highly recommend (500) Days to anyone with a pulse. If nothing else, it'll make you reflect upon the landscape of failed relationships that has brought you to the place you are today. Oh, and I'd recommend viewing The Graduate prior to seeing this. Just saying.

House Pictures

2009-08-04T22:05:00.003-05:00

There was a slight clamoring when I posted about our new house last week. The problem: where were the pictures? Well, I'm certainly not about to show you a bunch of boxes strewn throughout the place. You had to be one of the lucky few who helped us move Saturday (Thanks everyone -- you know who you are) to get those visuals.

Let's make a deal. I'll give you a picture of each room as it gets finished until either you or I get bored with it. That's right... no pictures so far. Hmm, maybe I should be unpacking instead of writing this.

Hey, We Own a House!

2009-07-29T18:20:00.003-05:00

And thus the month long hiatus filled with paperwork, paperwork, and more paperwork has ended. The villagers rejoice!

There's still packing and cleaning to do so it might be a little while longer before this place gets regular updates again, but I figured this news was worth an emergency post.

Disney Pictures

2009-07-01T09:53:00.002-05:00

So I know I promised Disney pictures in my last post, but it seems that the great Apple Computer has chewed up the hundreds of pictures we collectively took and has spit out 13. That's right, we have 13. Don't ask, because honestly I have no idea how this happened. Needless to say, that's the last time I ever let someone else use their computer as a repository for my pictures.

I think we still have some on the memory card in our camera. I'll take a look tonight and see if there's anything worth posting. Anything there would be from our last morning in the Animal Kingdom, so I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

I'll Make You an Offer You Can Refuse

2009-06-27T13:43:00.003-05:00

So, yeah... wasn't expecting this to be my next post, but we've officially made an offer on a lovely south Minneapolis house. If you're among the interested, let me know and I can send you the listing so you can see pictures and such. Nothing's a done deal obviously as there are still inspections, appraisals, and all to be done, but at the moment we're feeling pretty good.

I'll follow up with more as soon as we know more. Pictures from Disney to follow once I get them in the mail, too.

The Brothers Bloom

2009-06-02T21:31:00.003-05:00

Meaghan and I went down to the Uptown last week to catch writer/director Rian Johnson's new con man film, The Brothers Bloom. If you're not familiar with Johnson, he's responsible for 2006's brilliant high school noir Brick. If you have seen Brick, leave your preconceptions at the door as this movie is nothing like it.

Brothers Stephen (Mark Ruffalo - Zodiac, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind) and Bloom (Adrien Brody - The Pianist, The Darjeeling Limited) were foster children. Bouncing in and out of homes during their youth, Stephen quickly discovered that the only way to cope with his life was to write it for himself. He would concoct elaborate plans (complete with flow charts) and Bloom acted out whatever part the plan called for.

Over the years, with the help of the enigmatic Bang Bang (Rinko Kikuchi - Babel), the brothers become the best con men in the world. They have it all: money, women, fame. But Bloom doesn't have the one thing he wants more than anything in the world: an unwritten life. He's been playing roles in Stephen's schemes for so long that he doesn't know where the role ends and he really begins. At the top of their game, Bloom walks away to find out exactly who he is.

Two months later, Stephen tracks Bloom down for one last big con. If all goes well, they could walk away with millions, and Stephen will promise to finally leave him alone. Enter the fabulous Rachel Weisz (The Constant Gardener, The Fountain) as the unwitting and completely eccentric million-dollar mark. The rest of the film, which I won't detail here, is the story of the final con of the Brothers Bloom.

Equal parts mad-cap comedy, action flick, and touching character piece, The Brothers Bloom walks the tightrope well somehow managing to balance all of its disparate moods. Quirky and stylish, at its heart you're still able to feel Bloom's pain and the love that the brothers have for each other. Even though the acting is superb throughout (the 3 principals are among my favorite actors working today which never hurts), the real star of the film is Johnson's sparkling script. Scene after scene leaps off the screen until the bullets from Chekhov's gun are finally fired in the final act.

In a world full of poorly written work, it's always a joy to find something so well done. I highly recommend you track this down in the theater, or at the very least add it to your queue.

Ker-smash!

2009-06-02T21:07:00.003-05:00

This is the sound I would have heard last Wednesday night had I awoken when both of our parked cars were hit by some idiot. Have no fear, though, they drove off without leaving a note. Instead, we got a sadly incomplete white paint job on our nice blue Neon, a broken side mirror, and something wrong with the left front wheel that makes it go clunk-clunk-clunk when I brake hard. I'm going to try to limp over to the shop later this week to get the official diagnosis.

[I'll punch this up with an awesome picture tomorrow, if I can figure our newish camera out.]

The Caliber survived mostly intact with a mere 7 in chunk taken out of the rear bumper. You know, the bumper that was just replaced in January after our run-in with a semi over Christmas. You can't say we're not doing our part to help the auto parts industry, whether we like it or not.

The police have it narrowed down to a rusty white sedan. The errant driver was decent enough to leave behind a broken headlight of his own, so I suppose they could probably figure out a make from it if they wanted to. Considering the fact that I saw five rusty white sedans on a recent walk to a local restaurant (none of them had our stolen blue paint -- I looked), I think it's only a matter of time before the police find our man.

#95: Schindler's List

2009-05-21T08:00:00.000-05:00

I'm going to keep this short and sweet because I'm way behind on 1997 movies here. If you're like I was and you've never seen Schindler's List before, stop what you're doing now and add it to your Netflix queue. There's a reason it's on everyone's "Top 10 Movies of All-Time" list.

The acting is superb throughout, but then what do you expect when you put Liam Neeson, Ralph Fiennes, and Ben Kingsley together in the same film? It manages to be emotionally affecting without dipping into Spielberg's usual bag of tricks to manipulate the viewer. Thankfully, he understands that you don't need to add any pathos to the Holocaust to make it a truly horrible thing. When he chooses to play things straight like this, he really can be a brilliant filmmaker.

The movie actually came out in 1994, so you might be wondering what it's doing as part of this project. When it made it's much ballyhooed TV premiere in 1997 it was as a "Director's Cut", so that's what I watched here. From reading on the Internets, there doesn't look to actually be anything different in the Director's Cut other than an extended closing credits sequence in which cast members and Schindler survivors place stones on Schindler's grave in Jerusalem. Nevertheless, I'm glad I continue to make exceptions like this. If I didn't, I probably still wouldn't have seen this remarkable piece of work.

Coming up hopefully soon as I've already watched them:
#96: Marvin's Room
#97: Strays (written and directed by Vin Diesel? It's true)
#98: Enchanted Tales: Hercules

The Return of Chuck

2009-05-19T07:42:00.002-05:00

My TV watching has been cut down pretty dramatically of late, but one of the shows that I continue to enjoy week in and week out is Chuck. This season ended on a Matrix-esque cliffhanger (spoilers), but because of NBC's budget-cutting and insistence on trotting Jay Leno out there at an earlier time slot no one knew if it would be coming back next year.

Until now. Woo hoo!

Deja Vu All Over Again

2009-05-12T06:47:00.002-05:00

Meaghan and I have been talking recently about where to go on vacation this summer. We knew it had to be shorter and less expensive than last year's magnificent two week binge in Disney World. We are looking at buying a house in July or August after all. A camping trip somewhere, maybe? That would be pretty cheap and fun. We could go up north and hit Itasca. Hike to see the headwaters of the mighty Mississippi. Perhaps we'd wander to the west and see the sights of South Dakota: the Badlands, Mount Rushmore, Wall Drug. On Sunday, our choice became clear. Our trip this year would be to Walt Disney World in Florida.

Wha? Huh? But you...

This is apparently what you get when you don't return phone calls. Last Monday evening we got a message on our answering machine from Meaghan's mom. Her annual Summer trip to see her family back in NJ and PA had apparently fallen through and she was looking for somewhere else to go. Perhaps they would come visit us for a few days instead, she said. If only that were the case. Meaghan had late lacrosse practice all last week, meaning that she didn't get home until 8:30 or so every night. From Thursday evening on, my parents were in town for the weekend. There was no chance to call her back until Mother's Day.

In the five days that had passed, Meaghan's parents had decided that they weren't coming to visit, but were instead going to Disney in June and had already booked flights and a hotel. They also wanted to know if we wanted to come along. I guess they saw that we had such a good time with my parents there last year and wanted to recreate the magic. In the process, they seem to have missed the point that this was just last year. We like the Mouse and all, but we've never wanted to be the type of people who go to the same vacation spots year in and year out. So why are we going?

Meaghan's grandparents live in Florida, and we pretty much only get to see them at weddings. This trip includes spending a weekend with them. And although they seem indestructible, those of us who have been through it know how quickly people can disappear. We also don't see Meaghan's parents all that often, least of all when they're happy. And there's nothing like themed rides, shows, and games to bring out the happy in everyone. Consider it $1000 well spent on improving everyone's mental wellness... I hope.

It wasn't my first choice of vacations, or really in my top ten for this year, but it'll be fun. If it floats your boat at all, you can't go to Disney and not have fun. What more could you ask for?

Mmmm... Molten Cheese...

2009-04-14T08:00:00.002-05:00

I've suddenly realized that I've been letting all of my food-motivated readers down, as I haven't commented on an area restaurant in well over a year. Let me amend that by telling you about a little place called Matt's.

A mere ten blocks east of us, Matt's is a small and simple bar. However, unlike most bars Meaghan and I actually like to go here. Why? The music's not too loud and the food is actually good. The philosophy seems to be, "We don't do a lot, but we're sure going to do it well." Take a gander at their menu:

Seven sandwiches (four of them burgers), french fries, and drinks. That's it. You might be asking yourself what the heck a Jucy Lucy is. Think of a double cheeseburger, but instead of laying the cheese on top of the beef wrap it up inside one giant patty. Cook until the insides are liquid, bubbling perfection and top with onions. Sound good? You're not alone. If you're ever in the neighborhood, we'll go grab some burgers.

Twitter ca 1748

2009-04-13T08:00:00.002-05:00

I have a thing for US Presidents. Don't ask me why, but I can name them all in order and I find them pretty interesting. I've found that learning about them is a pretty nice gateway for learning about the history of this fine country through the ages. Most recently I've been hooked on the OG himself, Mr. George Washington.

Late last year, I read a book all about the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794. While Jimmy was in town last month I picked up the first book in the "American Presidents" series at our favorite local used book store for $5. The bibliographies of these two works led me to discover that the Internet is a great place for armchair historians. You want to read the actual writings of GW? Blammo! Another fabulous reason to stare at my computer all day... awesome.

Anyway, that brings me to the title of this post. The first extant writings are a diary that GW kept while performing a survey of some land in the Virginia backcountry. Ah, for the days of private diaries... If Twitter had existed back in the mid-18th century, we would have ended up with pointless tweets like this:

"This Morning Mr. James Genn, ye surveyor, came to us ; we travell'd over ye Blue Ridge to Capt. Ashbys on Shannandoah River. Nothing remarkable happen'd."

Sheesh George! If nothing interesting happened, why'd you waste the ink? Incidentally, this made me learn all about the word ye. Did you know that when used in this context it's just a typographical shortcut for the word the? It should even be read and pronounced as such. You really do learn something new every day.

Could It Be... First Place?

2009-04-12T16:33:00.002-05:00

Just wanted to get this out there today, since I might not have the opportunity at all in the future. Don't look now, but the Detroit Tigers sit all alone atop the AL Central after absolutely stealing a 6-4 victory against the Rangers today. Who knew Brandon Inge was a clutch performer?

We'll see what happens when the dreaded ChiSox roll into town tomorrow...

Visitors

2009-04-12T12:04:00.005-05:00

So it turns out that among all of the things that slow down my post rate, having guests visiting us has to be near the top of the list. Why would you ever sit down and be anti-social at your computer when there are people to do things with? Unfortunate for this blog then that we've had people here 12 of the last 17 days.

For the entire last week of March, Meaghan's brother Jimmy was in town to visit the U of M law school. There's a good chance he'll be a student here come Fall. Many good foods were eaten (we finally made it to the Blue Nile), Mario Party games were played, we didn't go to a concert (Who knew pharyngitis was a thing? Huh, apparently it's just a bad sore throat.), saw Sunshine Cleaning, and we spent an afternoon at the Minnesota Zoo (quickly becoming one of our favorite places to go).

Three days after that, our friends Mike & Andrea from NY/NJ came to visit for a few days. They often make some time to see us when they're out this way for Mike's family in Iowa. Folks went shopping, we played some games, more good foods were eaten, vacation pictures were examined, and we saw a certain spoon without its cherry ('tis being cleaned).

We're currently in the middle of a week and a half respite. After that, Meaghan's sister Sarah is going to be making her long awaited visit to Minneapolis. We'll see how that goes. Incidentally, we'll be heading over to Chino Latino on Saturday with her to celebrate Meaghan's birthday. If any of my regular readers want to join us, just let me know. I have no idea if there's something already planned in the Roch for that guy who has the same birthday, but if there is and it's on Saturday I'm afraid we'll have to split the party.

Kersplat!

2009-03-27T07:14:00.003-06:00

Right... so... Watchmen? Now that you all have pretty much seen it, it seems like a good time to talk about it again, right? Right? Ugh.

As a reader of the book, I suppose I don't really have anything useful to say about the movie. It's an interesting experience to watch something that hews to its source material so closely (up until the last reel anyway), unlike most modern Hollywood adaptations. Nothing is surprising, but there's a kind of voyeuristic joy in seeing something you know well played out on the screen. It was fun to watch, but a somehow shallow experience.

Perhaps it's that some of the characterization is lost amongst all the superfluous slick action sequences that have been added to the film, or maybe it's just that a film of this scope doesn't really have time to let the characters breathe. Let's take Rorshach as an example. He's an uncompromising S.O.B., a bit of a cross between Travis Bickle and Batman (Christian Bale, not Adam West). Morally reprehensible, but someone who deserves your respect. In the movie though, he's our cool action hero. We love him, or at worst pity him. Maybe we aren't given enough time to actually stop and think about the things that he's doing. Maybe we're so desensitized to "heroes" doing criminal acts in pursuit of the greater good these days that it washes over us as no big deal.

I can't help but think that if this movie had actually been made right away back in the mid-80s that it would have a greater impact. Not only would the setting of an alternate Cold War America on the brink of nuclear annihilation have been more socially relevant, but the characters would have felt different, too. Think back to 1985 for a second. Superheroes were popularly portrayed as either dorky goody two-shoes, campy crusaders, or roid-raged green guys. A bunch of morally ambiguous anti-heroes dressed in spandex would have seemed a bit more novel.

In the end, while Watchmen is probably a great superhero movie, it's not a great movie. If you're into that sort of thing, then check it out. If you like the movie, then I recommend the book. If you're interested, I have a copy waiting for you on my shelf.

Sometimes Planning Pays Off

2009-03-14T09:16:00.002-06:00

I had just confessed to Tony the other day that I had been spending a bunch of time recently planning for my next few D&D sessions, but I feared it was all going to be for naught. You see, we're finally moving on to H2: Thunderspire Labyrinth after taking the better part of 19 sessions (wow!) to get through the first adventure and change. This means a new base town, set of NPCs, and quest hooks to establish and keep straight. It feels like I usually execute poorly no matter how much planning I've done. Either I mess something up in the delivery, don't have the knowledge I need at my fingertips, or make horrible errors in combat rendering them mostly meaningless. Even when things do go well, you can get sidetracked by a bored player who tries to pick the pocket (or worse) of every NPC in sight.

To my relief, I think this week went extremely well. I suppose the two party members who semi-regularly read this can bring me back to Earth in the comments section if I'm delusional. Everyone got a quick tour of the new "town", a number of quest proposals were delivered, I kept my characterizations straight, and we mostly kept bored party members in check despite not having a real combat in the first 3 hours. When we did get to the combat, my planned tactics worked well for once. Thoes pesky Bloodreavers ate up a pretty decent chunk of party resources for a level-1 encounter. It would have gone even better for me if I hadn't made a horrible error about 5 rounds in, but what are you gonna do?

Have no fear, I'm not about to turn this blog into a campaign journal or anything. Just wanted to toot my own horn for a second after the first non-frustrating session as DM in awhile. It's good motivation to keep putting the same level of thought and care into future sessions.

Speaking of motivation, apologies to those of you expecting a post-Watchmen entry by now. I have a bad habit of talking to readers in person about things I would post about and losing my motivation to actually put it out here. For those of you who I don't talk to as much, there is a post forthcoming. I just need to work it in between today's trip to the Electric Fetus and our planned evening of local music and a friend's St. Patty's Day celebration.

Ach!

2009-03-10T08:10:00.002-06:00

I had every intention of getting up this morning and jotting down some thoughts about Watchmen. Instead, I've awoken to find that I can't hold my head straight without some pain in my upper back. Looking in the mirror, my neck is literally slanted at an angle without me even trying. What the heck? This coupled with wrenching my knee whilst slipping in the shower Saturday are all definite signs that my death gene has kicked in despite the new running regimen Meaghan and I started on Sunday.

That's right. Meaghan and I. Running.

I'll try to get to Watchmen later. Right now, I'm just trying to get through the work day without my neck locking up.

Watchmen Expectations

2009-03-06T09:00:00.002-06:00

It's official. I just purchased tickets for tomorrow's 1:10 showing of Watchmen on the IMAX at the Minnesota Zoo. In preparation for the experience, I finally got around to reading the acclaimed Alan Moore (V for Vendetta, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell) comic that it's based on. It's every bit as good as all of the hype suggests. However, if you're going to see the movie and have only seen the various trailers and commercials, you're being misled.

Despite its appearances, Watchmen is not your typical slam-bang, action-packed superhero story. The movie is supposed to be pretty faithful to the source material, so let me issue some warnings now. At its heart, Watchmen is a whodunnit. You shouldn't know the who until sometime in the 2nd half, and you won't know the why until very close to the end. Most of the time the bad actors are well established going in (Look, it's Magneto! Hey, there's the Joker!), but that won't be the case here. Instead, you'll be presented with five heroes with very different world views. In the end, you'll have to decide which one you agree with most.

There are a lot of characters and an alternate timeline to deal with, so I thought I'd assist by giving a brief, spoiler-free primer. If you want to go in completely blind, feel free to skip this part. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to this movie.

Most of the timeline changes will be covered in a montage during the opening credits, but here are a couple high points:
- Masked heroes first appeared on the streets in the 1940s
- The US won the Vietnam War
- Masked heroes were outlawed by the Keene Act in 1977
- The year is 1985, it's the height of the Cold War, and Richard Nixon is still President

The story is likely to jump back in forth in time from present-day (1985) to various points in the past, but the main heroes fall into two main waves: the Minutemen from the 1940s and the Crime Busters (Watchmen in the movie) from the 1960s.

Minutemen:
- Hooded Justice: Identity unknown. The original masked vigilante, disappeared under mysterious circumstances during the McCarthy era.
- The Comedian: Identity unknown. Active employee of the US government; went to Vietnam.
- Nite Owl: Hollis Mason. Retired, owns a car repair shop. Wrote a memoir about life as a superhero.
- Silk Spectre: Sally Jupiter. Typical sexpot superheroine, very commercial.
- Captain Metropolis, Silhouette, Dollar Bill, Mothman - not important.

Watchmen:
- Dr. Manhattan: Dr. Jon Osterman. The one true superhero with powers. Due to an accident at a US government lab, he gained the ability to manipulate time and space at the subatomic level. Works for the US government; is the reason Vietnam was won and is a one-man nuclear deterrent in the Cold War.
- Ozymandias: Adrian Veidt. "Smartest Man Alive", he retired from the hero business before the Keene Act. Is now a successful businessman.
- Nite Owl: Dan Dreiberg. Inspired by the original Nite Owl, was forced into retirement by the Keene Act.
- Silk Spectre: Laurel Juspeczyk. Daughter of the original Silk Spectre, trained for the job at a very young age, forced into retirement by the Keene Act. Works for the government as Dr. Manhattan's "companion".
- Rorshach: Identity unknown. Still active despite the Keene Act, known for his brutal methods, former partner of Nite Owl.

I'll try to post again tomorrow after I've seen it with a brief review.

Pulp

2009-03-03T13:00:00.001-06:00

One band that often finds its way into my CD player is Pulp. One of the biggest bands in Britain in the 90s (along with Radiohead, Blur, and Oasis), Pulp never quite hit it big over here in the States the way the others did. Quite possibly too raunchy for radio here, they have a way of tickling my funny bone that not many other bands have. Rather than spend a lot of time talking about the music, I'll let you just listen to various selections from throughout their existence instead.

*I apologize in advance for the videos that aren't official music videos or live performances, but I wanted you to hear as much as possible.

Early Years: Pulp had a lot of different lineups and sounds in their first few years, some good, some bad. These are two of their better songs from that era.
Little Girl (with Blue Eyes)
They Suffocate At Night

His 'n Hers: Pulp emerged for good in 1994 with this pop album.
Lipgloss
Babies
Do You Remember the First Time
Razzmatazz

Different Class: Their 1995 follow-up is one of the greatest albums of all time: 12 tracks, all single-worthy.
Mis-Shapes
Pencil Skirt
Common People
Live Bed Show
F.E.E.L.I.N.G.C.A.L.L.E.D.L.O.V.E.
Underwear
Bar Italia

This is Hardcore: 1998's turn into darkness, my personal favorite.
The Fear
Dishes
Help the Aged
This is Hardcore
A Little Soul
Like a Friend

In recent years, frontman Jarvis Cocker (yes, that's his real name) has gone solo with a successful 2006 album. It features Running the World from the closing credits of Children of Men, one of the best anti-politician anthems ever.

Enjoy.

It Was All Personal

2009-03-03T10:00:00.000-06:00

Meaghan and I were back in the Roch for an extended weekend and decided to cash in some free movie passes at one of our old haunts, the Chateau Theatres. Being smack in the middle of the annual winter dead zone of bad movies, we opted for a good old-fashioned action flick, Taken. If it doesn't involve a DC superhero of some kind, we typically don't see this sort of thing on the big screen. It was getting an 8.0 on IMDB and hey, it was free so it seemed worth the risk.

Before I get into the movie itself, it just wouldn't be a post here at the Amber Tower without me rambling on for a bit about something first. If I had done some research first, I would have realized that we had nothing to worry about because Taken has a good pedigree. Co-written by Luc Besson (Leon: The Professional - which if you haven't seen is a must. Natalie Portman in her first feature film; she's always better in edgy roles [see Closer, Garden State]) and Robert Mark Kamen (they co-wrote The Fifth Element which features this sublimely silly action sequence among others), it was bound to be entertaining. Throw in Liam Neeson, who is almost always good, and you're guaranteed a success.

On its face, Taken is a run-of-the-mill action flick. Neeson is a former government agent whose teenage daughter is kidnapped while on vacation in Paris. His mission, should he choose to accept it, is to go to France and get her back. There's a little bit of a "ripped from the headlines" feel to the story as it turns out that the culprits have nabbed her for the sex slave trade. Unfortunately, if this movie was made to raise awareness of the issue I'm afraid it gets a bit lost amongst all the action.

It rises a bit above the run-of-the-mill in its staging of the action sequences. In your typical film, our invincible hero blasts his way through the movie on little more than his sheer badassery. In Taken, the filmmakers have taken care to show how and why Neeson is such a badass. When infiltrating the bad guys' HQ you can see him taking note of how many men are lurking about and how they're armed. When he goes to jump on to a moving boat, he literally pauses for a few seconds to look before he leaps. Our man of action is cautious and studied, but incredibly lethal.

The fight scenes are quick and to the point. No need to waste time with endless choreography (like any Hong Kong action flick) or thousands of bullets (Rambo), our man can disable a room full of baddies in under 30 seconds. He even has time to deliver some clever (but not snarky) one-liners in the process. I don't think it would be spoiling anything to tell you that our antihero saves his daughter and leaves a trail of bodies in his wake.

In the end, it's enough to make you wonder what the world would be like if everybody in law enforcement took such a personal interest in all of the victims of crime. Would the world be a safer place? Would human rights be violated in the process, or does making an omelette require the breaking of a few eggs? Taken offers no answers, but it is good fun.

Winners & Losers

2009-02-25T06:31:00.002-06:00

The Oscars were a mixed bag for me this year. Some well-deserving people finally got awards after years of being overlooked which made me happy, but I was otherwise indifferent to most of the results. It's a little odd for me. Normally I come in with favorites and expectations to be crushed, but perhaps that's just a reflection on the type of movies that were out this year.

Starting at the top, I thought Hugh Jackman did a top notch job as emcee despite his penchant for musical theater. He knows how to work a stage and was at ease with the crowd since he's, you know, an actor, too. The part of the show that really fell flat for me was the direction. I think they give out Emmys for Best Direction of a Variety Program or something like that and the Oscars telecast from the previous year often wins. It shouldn't even be nominated this year. The nail in the coffin was the much awaited "roll call of the dead". Instead of just showing us the video feed of stills, clips, and names, we got this endless series of camera moves and pans making it next to impossible to read who was being honored. Blech.

Anyway, I'm supposed to talk about movies, right? The big winner was Slumdog Millionaire taking home eight trophies in total, among them Best Picture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Score, and Best Song. I saw this back in January when we went out for a triple feature. Was it the best movie of the year? Probably not. To be honest, it's a pretty conventional love story with average acting. The story's one gimmick is that it's told through the lens of a TV game show. What it does have going for it is the alien setting (for Americans) of the slums of Mumbai, India. If you were to transplant the criminal aspect into a Mafia or urban youth flick, it would probably be pretty pedestrian.

All that said, it is good to see Danny Boyle finally get some recognition. His 2002 zombie horror flick 28 Days Later... ranks up there as one of the top films of the last ten years. Since it involves zombies though, it was never going to be seriously considered for anything.

After five previous attempts, long time Top 5er Kate Winslet finally brought home the gold for her role in The Reader. I actually thought she was better in Revolutionary Road this year, but she'll probably take what she can get. If you're not very familiar with her body of work, I'd recommend virtually anything that Ms Winslet is in including the two from this year. Just don't be expecting very many feel-good stories. In The Reader, she plays a harsh German ticket taker who seduces a 15-year old boy and Revolutionary Road is about the destruction of an outwardly idyllic marriage in 1950's suburbia.

I haven't seen Milk which took home awards for Best Actor (Sean Penn) and Best Screenplay. I'm usually an unwilling viewer of most biopics, and I generally don't think that they should win awards. Creating something new and original feels more worthy then merely imitating a real life person or writing down their words and calling it a screenplay, but that's probably just me. I would have preferred to see Mickey Rourke or Richard Jenkins win the acting award. Speaking of Richard Jenkins, if you haven't seen The Visitor add it to your queues now. It was a little movie that came and went at the art theaters early in 2008. Jenkins plays a college professor who's just been going through the motions since his wife died. One day, when he finds people living illegally in his NYC apartment something is awakened within him. Very powerful with brilliant performances all around, I was glad to see it recognized with a nomination.

Nominated movies that I still want to see:
Doubt
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost/Nixon
Tropic Thunder

Any opinions on those one way or the other, or anything I may have missed? Let me know.

Oscar Oscar!

2009-02-23T10:35:00.003-06:00

As I sit here in dread of the upcoming Movie Maven segment on Midday today (two hours of how "corny" Hugh Jackman was - ), it occurs to me that I should register my weighty opinion on the awards outcome from last night. Look for something on that tomorrow. I haven't seen as many of the nominated movies as I'd have liked to, but I do have some recommendations for your Netflix queues.

Bock Fest

2009-02-21T07:00:00.002-06:00

Due to the magic of the Internets, I'm pretending to have written this Saturday morning. In actuality, I'm in a car with some friends on my way to the New Ulm Bock Fest. I don't know exactly what to expect as the more I read the more confused I become. Wha? Antlers?

One of the friends is a New Ulm native so hopefully he'll know what the heck is going on when we get there. There's a forecast high of 21, so I'm bringing extra handwarmers along. Brr. Anyway, it will hopefully be a good time and we'll hopefully sample some good beer. I'll report back Monday when I've returned.

Rilo Kiley - More Adventurous

2009-02-20T15:00:00.002-06:00

It's probably about time that I use some posts talking about the music that's passing through my CD player these days. Apologies to those of you at work that have already heard portions of this album, I'll come up with something new for next time.

Rilo Kiley is an LA indie pop band most well-known for its female lead Jenny Lewis. She started out in Hollywood as a child actress, most known in nerd circles as Fred Savage's mysterious red-headed companion in the Nintendo film The Wizard, before moving on to a music career.

Their third album, "More Adventurous" came out back in 2004 and landed on a lot of the year's best album lists, crowning them as indie darlings in the process. We've had it for awhile, but it's spent a lot of time languishing on the shelf until now. I'm a fan because a lot of the songs are musically clever without sounding too slick. There's a lot of unique ornamentation that makes choruses and verses distinct, as opposed to the bland repetition you typically hear on the radio. For example, notice how "It's a Hit" has three verses (all different) before ever hitting the main refrain. Yes, the lyrics can get a tidge angsty, but that comes with the territory sometimes.

In total, Rilo Kiley has four albums as well as Jenny Lewis' two solo albums. I'll probably be tracking more down in the future.

Listening Station:
"It's a Hit"
"Portions for Foxes" - just a bit, as seen in the pilot of Grey's Anatomy... who knew?
"More Adventurous"/"Ripchord"/"Portions for Foxes" - from an in-studio performance at our local NPR station. Sorry you have to suffer through the interview portion. Click the "Listen (128k mp3)" link for an iTunes style playlist.

There are a bunch of YouTube concert videos if you look around, but you can hear the crowd better than the band on most of them so I won't bother linking.

Broken Down Pieces of Meat

2009-02-20T07:00:00.002-06:00

I'm a fan of Darren Aronofsky. Not only does he have excellent taste in women, he also makes some pretty darn good movies: Pi, Requiem for a Dream, The Fountain, and now The Wrestler.

Twenty years ago, Randy "The Ram" Robinson was on top of the professional wrestling world after defeating the Ayatollah in the heavyweight match of the century. Today, he's just scuffling to make rent for his double-wide by competing in a small-time circuit. One day, the phone rings with the offer hes been waiting for: a chance to return to his former glory by fighting the Ayatollah in a massive 20th anniversary event. Will he make it all the way back, or will life get in the way?

We saw this back in January while we were passing through Chicago, and I still find myself thinking about it from time to time. Now that it's been released to wider audiences, I can encourage all of you to see it too.

First of all, let me state that you don't need to like wrestling at all to enjoy this movie. It's in fact possible that the more you like wrestling, the less you'll like it. That's not to say that there isn't action in the ring. There's plenty, and a lot of it is brutal and horrific. If you squeam easily, you may want to cover your eyes at parts. However at its center, The Wrestler is a character piece.

It's been said in a lot of places already, but Mickey Rourke is truly fantastic as Randy, bringing nuance and heart to a difficult role. The Ram is a lot of things to a lot of different people: a role model to his fellow small-time wrestlers, a hero to his fans, a perhaps too loyal customer to his favorite stripper (a very naked Marisa Tomei), just another working stiff at his grocery store day job, a playmate to all the kids in his trailer park, and an estranged father. The trick is trying to fit all of the pieces together.

Aronofsky's direction brings a level of gritty realism to the film. If your only exposure to him is through The Fountain and that scares you, chances are you'll find this one to be different. You feel every body blow, cut, and scrape along the way, but still manage to enjoy the light-hearted moments as they happen. It's a movie that will change the way you think about firemen forever and should give you plenty to talk about for months to come. Go see it now.

Come Aboard, We're Expecting You

2009-02-18T22:03:00.004-06:00

The Loooooooooooove Toooooooooooooour! It was my turn to plan Valentine's Day this year, so I went the relatively easy route in snagging us a reservation at the Minnesota Zoo's (become a member today and I can get free stuff) annual Love Tour. Unbeknownest to me, Meaghan had been trying to get us reservations to this the last couple of years. Who knew I was such a good planner?

For those who are unfamiliar with it, the Love Tour is a special after hours tour of the Zoo's Tropics Trail (indoor rainforest) followed by a nice dinner in Discovery Bay. Limited to ~100 couples over two nights, it's billed as a behind the scenes look at the courtship and breeding habits of many of their animals. We didn't really know what to expect, but since we like going to the zoo it seemed a reasonable way to spend an evening.

One issue going into it is that we didn't really know how to dress. On one hand it's the zoo, and on the other it's Valentine's Day. Apparently we weren't the only ones with that problem. When we arrived at the drinks and hors d'oeuvres station, the other couples there were running the gamut from t-shirts and jeans to fancy dresses and high heels. We were sensible enough to shoot the middle ground at the sweater, nice pants, flat shoes level. It is a walking tour after all.

The tour was interesting and informative. Ours was led by a soft-spoken zoo vet who had so much to share about some of the exhibits that the tour behind us started catching up to us. If you ever want to know about the reproductive organs, mating habits, or breeding programs in place for any of these animals, let me know. I'm not going to go into any detail here except to say that attempting to get animals to reproduce is apparently fraught with misery and failure. Maybe it's better out in the wild, but a lot of species seem to really beat each other up before/during/after mating. Humans have it so lucky.

We also didn't know what to expect for dinner. The Minnesota Zoo doesn't have any nice restaurants and we were being served in Discovery Bay. It's the Zoo's aquatic exhibit featuring a large tropical aquarium, dolphin tank, and ray/dogfish petting pond. On a normal day, you can find dozens of screaming kids running around and splashing in the petting pond. It's quite a different experience when you remove all of the kids and add 40 candlelit tables and a live jazz combo. Dinner was a well-prepared surf & turf combo (steak & salmon) followed by a decadent quadruple chocolate cake. It's actually a pretty romantic setting for a meal, if you're into dolphins occasionally gliding by your table.

We had a good time, and it was fun to do something a little on the different side. If you like zoos and are looking for ideas for next year, I'd recommend it. You need not be a member to sign up.

Quantity Not Quality

2009-02-18T21:53:00.002-06:00

We'll see where this new philosophy gets me. The goal is to build up some posts so I can schedule them out into the future and keep the dead periods away. Wish me luck!

TV Fall Recap: Drama

2009-01-16T07:02:00.002-06:00

Due to popular demand, here are some quick capsule thoughts on various TV shows that I actually did watch some episodes of this fall, but never got around to writing up full reports.

Easy Money

This show only lasted four episodes since it was buried on CW's Sunday night block. Lack of promotion plus bad network = less than 1.0 Nielsen rating and quick cancellation. It's too bad because the two episodes I watched were actually kind of interesting. Laurie Metcalf (of "Roseanne" fame) is the matriach of a family-run payday loan (loan shark) business. The family is a bunch of morally gray misfits, except for one of the sons, Morgan. He's the only competent employee and family member without whom everyone else would end up bankrupt or in jail, sort of like Michael Bluth in "Arrested Development". Oh, did I mention that he finds out that he isn't actually their son at all? This leads to internal conflict about whether he should stay and help the "family" business or strike off on his own in something that he can better put his talents toward. Unfortunately, I'm not sure anything gets resolved in just four episodes.

Where to Watch: Fancast

The Ex List

I was really looking forward to this light-hearted romantic comedy since it stars Elizabeth Reaser. Buried on CBS Friday nights in between "Ghost Whisperer" and "Numb3rs", it just never fit in and only lasted four episodes. I watched the first two, and found it mildly amusing but not necessarily something I would tune into watch every week. Based on an Israeli TV show, in the pilot Bella Bloom (Reaser) learns from a psychic that "the one" she's destined to be with is someone she's already dated, and unless she gets married within the next year she will be alone forever. So she compiles a list of all of the people that she's ever dated (quite lengthy apparently) and proceeds to track them down one by one.

Throughout each episode we get flashbacks of how the relationship went the first time to contrast with how it's working out in the present day. In general, we discover that if it didn't work the first time you'll probably have the same problem the next time. One problem with the show is that Bella isn't quite sympathetic enough. She's a little on the insensitive side when it comes to dating. For example, in the pilot we see her dump her folk singer boyfriend on his birthday for being too sensitive. In the present day, he's become a hardened punk rocker made bitter by the experience of dating her the first time around. As an aside, the weepy musician is excellently played by Eric Balfour ("24", "Six Feet Under"), one of my favorite TV actors who sadly will never be a leading man. And that's probably the biggest drawback. When you take a formula-driven show and add the fact that the best performance is turned in by a guest star, you get a show that's going to be wildly inconsistent.

Where to Watch: You can't anymore. CBS has gotten really stingy about what shows have full episodes on their website. Boo! They did shoot 13 episodes, so there's an extremely slim chance that this will turn up on DVD some day.

Fringe

Touted as the next "X-Files", Meaghan and I were really looking forward to this new Fox sci-fi show. We stuck with it for the first six episodes, but ultimately decided that it just wasn't worth our time. FBI Agent Olivia Dunham is enlisted by a secret government organization to investigate a series of seemingly random scientific phenomena known as "The Pattern". Her team consists of a mad scientist named Walter and his less than reputable estranged son, Peter. You can see why comparisons to The X-Files would be made. FBI agents investigating unexplained phenomena... that sounds familiar. Unfortunately, this show has a lot of problems.

1) J.J. Abrams - This is probably just a personal hang-up, but I haven't enjoyed a thing the man has touched. Sucks for me that he created this then, eh? I never cared for "Alias" and watched the pilot of "Lost" and it didn't hook me. I think my main problem with him is his seeming emphasis of style over substance. Fans will say that they love the way he doles out miniscule pieces of information over the course of many episodes that add up to a bigger picture, but as a fan of many long-form comics which share this technique I think I just don't like the way that he does it. Case in point...

2) The Pattern - There's no reason whatsoever that we can see that makes the events in the show a pattern of any kind. That's all well and good to some extent as I'm sure things will become more clear as time progresses, but there's a problem. If we can't see a pattern, that means that the characters can't see a pattern. If they can't see a pattern, why the heck are they running around calling it "The Pattern". Yes, some but not all of the phenomena are related to inventions and discoveries developed by a mysterious global technology company by the name of Massive Dynamic (not incidentally headed by Walter's old scientific colleague), but that's just not enough for me.

3) The Characters - Or rather the lack there of. Agent Dunham is both not a compelling character and woodenly acted. This makes for a brutal combination. Poor Peter (Pacey!) is just not given anything to do, and Walter is only amusing when he's saying something absolutely kooky. So if a few random mad scientist outbursts are enough to get you through each episode, maybe you'll have better luck than we did.

Where to Watch: Hulu
When to Watch: Once you've caught up, tune into Fox on Tue 8/7 Central.

Valentine

Yet another show that only lasted four episodes on the CW's Sunday night block, but this one wasn't very good. It was a campy concept about how the Greek gods are alive and well in present-day Earth. Aphrodite and her son Eros operate a match-making company that's struggling to compete in the new era of Internet love. This is a problem because the less successful they are in spreading their influence the weaker they become. Not incidentally, Ares the god of war is one of the stronger gods in the modern world. In order to revitalize their business, they hire a mortal romance novelist as a consultant with the idea that she knows what modern people are looking for in love. Undoubtedly, Eros's love arrows go awry at some point and hilarity ensues in each episode. Strangely enough, there was an awful lot of Greek mythology knowledge necessary if you wanted to fully understand the "battle of the gods" subplot that was brewing under the surface in the two episodes that I watched. It may have eventually gone somewhere, but we'll never know.

Where to Watch: Hulu

Still to come in drama: The Mentalist, Knight Rider, Eleventh Hour, Sanctuary

Still to come in comedy: Do Not Disturb, Little Britain USA, Somebodies, Spaceballs: The Animated Series, Testees, The Life and Times of Tim, Childrens' Hospital, Worst Week, Gary Unmarried, Kath & Kim

Still to come in kids: Martha Speaks, Sid the Science Kid, Batman: The Brave and the Bold, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, The Suite Life on Deck, Gogoriki, Making Fiends, True Jackson, VP, Turbo Dogs, Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, Kamen Rider: Dragon Knight

Phew! That's a lot... we'll see if I get to all of them. Post your requests below and I'll do my best to prioritize.

From the Long Box: Shadow of the Batman #1, Part 1

2009-01-11T07:00:00.002-06:00

In the first of what is hopefully a long series of posts where I get off my butt and talk about some of my favorite (and not so favorite) comics from my collection, I'm going to pay homage to The Dark Knight (in theaters again on 1/23/09) by starting with a classic Batman tale from yesteryear. Shadow of the Batman is a 5-issue miniseries from 1985 that reprinted 10 late-70s issues of Detective Comics. When first published, these issues were dubbed by some as the "definitive Batman" and served as some of the inspiration for both Tim Burton's Batman and Batman: The Animated Series. Is it really all that good? Let's just say it takes a little while to get warmed up.

Note: Click on any of the images to make them larger.

Shadow of the Batman #1
(reprinted from Detective Comics #469)
Writer: Steve Englehart
Art: Walt Simonson & Al Milgrom

Before I get into the story and art specifically, I'd just like to take a second to talk about the writing style used by Englehart in these comics. There are a few schools of thought people use when writing a comic. Some writers prefer to use thought bubbles so you can see what each character is thinking and how they're reacting to events. Others find that approach lazy and assume that the combination of dialogue and art are enough to adequately explain what's going on. Still others insert a narrator to describe the action and set the tone of the story.

Trends have changed over the years. Thought bubbles were popular in the 80s and 90s, but have since become passé. As a result, you'll rarely find anything other than dialogue in modern comics. Back in the 70s and before? The narrator still reigned supreme. Englehart serves as an entertaining narrator here providing a lot of the action that drives us through the story. Some of the word choices end up dating it a bit, but they only add to the fun of the experience. You just can't get away with lines like "Don't judge him too quickly, amigo!" anymore. It's a good thing he's entertaining, too, because the story in this first issue is sadly lacking.

This reprint series is notable for its format which includes wraparound covers and absolutely no ads. That makes me slightly sad since part of what makes 80s comics so great are the ads for really ancient stuff. I'll try to share some of those when I get to other series in the future.

The cover is drawn by the great Marshall Rogers whose work we will see on the interiors, too, starting with Shadow of the Batman #2. A grim-faced Batman swings through the rooftops of Gotham City and out of the cover as a freaky glowing skeleton reaches out for him. Maybe we'll find out who all these folks on the back cover are inside.

"...By Death's Eerie Light!"

It's not often that trouble comes right to Batman's door, but this story starts with a bang as Batman's butler Alfred unexpectedly passes out while bringing him a refreshment. I love the jarring angle of Alfred's legs sticking up in the air in this picture. Whatever knocked him out must have been a doozy to make him take a fall that bad.

Unfortunately, no ambulances are available in Gotham City as an unknown epidemic is sweeping through the city. According to the New York Times, as of 1987 the real life New York City had a fleet of 170 ambulances. I don't know how many of those were typically in use at any given moment, but it at least gives an idea as to the scope of the outbreak. After delivering Alfred to the hospital as Bruce Wayne, Batman learns from the medical staff that in the last hour over 50 people have been admitted with a mysterious sickness that "sweeps through the body like wildfire". A quick chat with Commissioner Gordon reveals that the police have received this ominous note from somebody named Dr. Phosphorus:

I'll talk more about this Phosphorous character later when he actually shows up, but for now I'll just state that I hope I'm never so furious that I have to underline random words for emphasis when writing an angry note. Righteous wrath, indeed!

After some quick detective work, Batman comes to the realization that the sickness is spreading through the city's water system, but he's not quick enough to save Commissioner Gordon from slipping into a coma, too. If we stop for a moment to use our own deductive skills, we might come to the conclusion that someone's putting phosphorus into the water system. It's flammable, it glows green in the dark, and it's highly toxic when ingested. Anything involving the phrase "smoking stool syndrome" seems like a bad thing. Will Batman be able to save the residents of Gotham City in time? He rushes to the city reservoir to find...

Dr. Phosphorus
Yes, it's the freaky glowing skeleton we saw from the cover. Why writers feel the need to make up their own silly villains when they first take over a title I'll never know, but you see it all the time. I'm sure Englehart got the Batman assignment and thought, "Let's see... the Joker, Penguin, Riddler? Nah! I'll go with my own fantastic creation: Dr. Phosphorus!" There must be some egotistical need to feel like you've added something to the Batman mythos instead of just telling a good story with the tools you're given. Luckily, he strays back into more mainstream territory in future installments.

Since we're stuck with him for now, let's see what makes the good doctor tick. Body of "living phosphorus"? Check... whatever that's supposed to mean. Its main side effect is that he burns when exposed to air making hand to hand combat difficult for his opponents. It also means that he was able to poison the entire city in one fell swoop by soaking his toxic body in the reservoir. Why would he want to do that? It's not entirely clear. It seems that he's seeking vengeance for some unnamed act: "I am sworn to destroy it, as it has destroyed me!"

Batman brawls with him for awhile, burning his hands in the process until he realizes that wrapping his fists in his cape provides better protection. Apparently the cape is made of tougher stuff than the standard issue Bat-gloves. When Dr. Phosphorus comes to the realization that neither of them is going to win the fight, he runs away with the age-old excuse of not wanting to kill Batman in their first encounter claiming that it would ruin "the thrill of the game". Yeah, yeah, we've heard it all before. I guess there's probably not a lot you can do in a world where it's difficult to kill anyone permanently.

Our story concludes with Batman standing... defiantly? I'm not really sure what that stance is supposed to say, but for a story featuring such dynamic art it sure goes out with a whimper in the end. We're also left with some questions. Who is this Dr. Phosphorus guy and why does he want to destroy Gotham City? How the heck does Gotham plan on filtering all of that phosphorus out of the drinking supply? Will all the people (Alfred, Commissioner Gordon, etc.) who've fallen into a coma and suffered liver damage pull through? Do we really care? Eh...

All in all, it wasn't an auspicious debut. Englehart introduced a silly villain and told a straightforward action story. My definitive Batman has more subtlety than this, so we'll hope for better in future installments.

How to $pend a Sunday

2009-01-06T16:48:00.005-06:00

12/20/08-12/21/08

1) Gaze out your windows as a "significant" 3.6 inches of snow falls.
2) Rest easy in the warmth of your house on one of the coldest weekends of the year.
3) Go to retrieve cat food (if cat food is not available, any item will suffice) from your car Sunday afternoon.
4) Discover that your car is not where you left it Thursday night, even though you just saw it 3 hours ago when you were shoveling snow.
5) Get a little mad at the city of Minneapolis when you realize that they've called a snow emergency, unbeknownst to you since the amount of snow that fell in your neighborhood was no more significant than a storm that blew through 2 weeks earlier when you actually did check to see if there was a snow emergency (there wasn't).
6) Go to the impound lot. Feel like a criminal.
7) Wait in line outside in -10 degree wind chills for 2 hours with hundreds of other people.
8) Wait another hour inside the impound lot office. Watch a Simpsons rerun on the token "isn't waiting in line fun?" television.
9) Pay towing charge of $138 and get receipt that will give you your car back.
10) Collect ticket ($34) for illegally parking during a snow emergency.
11) Wait in new line for another hour so security can take you to find your car.
12) Ride around lot for 15 mins looking for car.
13) Clean snow off car.
14) Drive home.
15) Go to bed.

Gosh, I miss my driveway. We'll have to make it a priority to have one of those when we go house-shopping in a year or so. I'll also apparently have to check for the existence of a snow emergency every time it snows since there's no apparent guideline about what a significant amount is. You learn something new every day...

"New" Car!!

2008-12-05T08:17:00.005-06:00

I'm proud to announce that we're now the owners of a fantastic 2003 Dodge Neon SXT with ~94,000 miles on it. Sure sure... we've had the car for the last 5 1/2 years, but now we own it. That means something, right?

If you want it, KBB tells me it'll cost you $4270. I'll listen to offers. I have to warn you though, it may have a tendency to spontaneously combust at some point in the future. I use MyCarStats to read up on recall and complaint notices pertaining to my cars, and there are no less than 40 complaints that read something like these:

"WHEN I USE MY HEADLIGHTS FOR 15-20 MINUTES, I BEGIN TO SMELL A BURNT PLASTIC SMELL AND NOTICE THE LEFT SIDE OF THE STEERING WHEEL GETS VERY WARM. AFTER 20-30 MINUTES OF HEADLIGHT USE THE LOW BEAMS JUST GO DEAD, IT "AUTOMATICALLY" SWITCHES TO HIGH BEAMS IMMEDIATELY. IF I TRY TO TURN IT BACK DOWN TO LOW BEAMS, EVERYTHING GOES DARK (*VERY* DANGEROUS AT NIGHT!). THEN I AM FORCED TO USE HIGH BEAMS AND BLIND EVERYONE ELSE FOR THE REST OF MY TRIP, OR I HAVE TO PULL OVER AND LET THE APPARENT CAUSE (THE MULTIFUNCTION SWITCH) COOL OFF FOR AN ETERNITY BEFORE RESUMING MY TRIP. I'M HIGHLY UNCOMFORTABLE KNOWING THAT MY CAR HAS PLASTIC BEHIND THE STEERING WHEEL ON THE VERGE OF ERUPTING INTO FLAMES WHEN I USE MY HEADLIGHTS. I ALSO CONSIDER IT EXTREMELY HAZARDOUS, NOT ONLY FOR THE FIRE RISK, BUT ALSO THE LOW BEAMS DYING SUDDENLY."

"I HAVE A 2003 DODGE NEON AND THE MULTIFUNCTION SWITCH FOR MY HEAD LIGHTS HAS FAILED TWICE. IN BOTH CASES I NOTICED A PLUME OF SMOKE COME OUT OF MY STEERING COLUMN AND WITH IN TWO WEEKS I LOST MY LOW BEAMS AND THEN MY HIGH BEAMS FAILED A WEEK OR SO LATER."

"WIRE HARNESS FROM UNDER STEERING COLUMN CAUGHT FIRE FOR NO REASON WHAT SO EVER. CAR HAS 77000 MILES ON IT. NO COVERED UNDER WARRANTY. THIS HAS HAPPENED TO MULTIPLE CARS AND DODGE IS NOT COVERING REPAIR ON THIS ITEM."

I'm no car expert, but I think that anything involving burning smells, smoke, and/or flame is probably a bad thing. If anyone happens to have some pull with the recall department of Chrysler you might want them to look at this issue. Ours hasn't flamed out yet, but I have noticed lately that the fog lights come on for no apparent reason from time to time. I'll have the shop look at it next time I take her in.

Deep in the Hearta

2008-12-03T07:27:00.003-06:00

Last week, Meaghan and I went down to Texas to celebrate Thanksmas with her family (sans her sister). If you know her, you'll know that just about every time Meaghan sees her family she comes back with crazy stories about their zany antics. This time? Not so much.

Sure, people got cranky from time to time, but it was pretty much a big lazy get together featuring two holidays, food, shopping, TV, and games. For starters, I was introduced to a couple long-running TV shows that I'd never seen before, Ninja Warrior and Doctor Who.

Ninja Warrior is more or less a serious version of the Japanese show lampooned in MXC. In each competition (there have been 22 so far), 100 athletes and/or celebrities attempt to make it through a series of physical challenges in a quest for honor and glory. We watched competition 20, in which American free runner Levi Meeuwenberg makes it the farthest, but fails in stage 3 of 4. I don't think I get G4 under our current cable plan, but if I did this might prove a pleasant distraction from time to time.

The Doctor Who episode I saw was from the season with Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor. Despite this show being such a big deal with so many people, I had no idea it would be so funny. In the one I saw, our three main characters are teleported to the far future where they're forced to participate in sadistic versions of popular TV shows like Big Brother and The Weakest Link. Who's behind it all? The Daleks, of course. I don't intend to go too crazy with this, but it seems like something I can safely add to my Netflix queue and get to at some point.

On the games front, specialty card games were the games of choice. I finally got people to play Bohnanza with the dreaded Auftrag (Job) cards. It turned out to be much ado about little as they didn't change the game as much as some (cough, Meaghan) had feared. So it looks like we'll be using them more in the future. The big winner, though, was Killer Bunnies.

Meaghan and I have been playing this more and more lately as it's one of the few "strategy" games we own that works decently with only two players. She tends to prefer lighter fare, so it cuts out a lot of the more hardcore options that are out there. The big surprise was how much Meaghan's family enjoyed it. Her brother, Jimmy, liked it enough to give us the first two expansion sets (red & violet) for Christmas. I can't really imagine playing a game involving over 500 cards (all the expansions), but I'm sure it'll happen at some point. I'm happy with what we have for now.

On a personal note, it's with regret that I announce the conclusion of No-Shave November. It was all over 15 minutes after settling in front of the mirror Monday morning. Some pictures were taken down in Texas. I'll see if I can track some of those down if anyone is interested in seeing me at the zenith of the growing season.

zzz... Wha? Huh?

2008-11-21T06:56:00.003-06:00

Hi, my name is Brian and I'm a low-down dirty no-good blogger. I'll continue to try better in the future. Honest. I just need to figure out how to make this part of the routine. Wish me luck.

So a whole lot of time has gone by, and there's been loads to talk about that I just haven't gotten to. So at the risk of taking the easy way out, let me give you some of the highlights.

- Meaghan & I celebrated our 3rd anniversary back in September. The traditional/modern gifts for that are leather & crystal. Ugh, it's becoming more of a challenge to find something useful for each other every year as the gift types become less practical. I opted for a nice pair of leather gloves (with slippers soon to follow -- shhh... don't tell Meaghan, she doesn't read this.) while she got us a new set of luggage giving us more than 2 pieces that look the same for the first time in our adult lives.

We also went on a secretly planned camping trip to the North Shore, specifically to Cascade River State Park. Meaghan had gotten us a hike-in campsite, so we were nice and secluded out in the woods. They gave us a bear box to keep our food safe and everything. We enjoyed the waterfalls and some hiking then went to dinner at Chez Jude in Grand Marais. If you're ever looking for a reasonably priced fine dining experience up that way, I'd recommend it.

- This experience reminded us that we have State Park passes on our cars (thanks MPR), so we've started going to Fort Snelling State Park right here in the Big City on a semi-regular basis. The trails there are even dog-friendly, so Zelda gets a nice "wilderness walk" from time to time. Now that it's cold out, we're eagerly awaiting the snow. The plan is to actually try XC skiing and snowshoeing this year.

- For my birthday, we went to a fabulous little restaurant a few blocks away from where we live called Cafe Levain. They have a prix fixe menu on Sunday nights where you get a 3-course meal for $25. I added the wine pairing (it turns out I do like wine as long as I don't have to decide what to get) for only $12 or $14 more. I highly recommend it if you're looking for great food away from the hustle and bustle of downtown. The next time we have money set aside for a nice night out, I'm going to try to get us to go there again.

- My parents were also gracious enough to use my birthday as an occasion to help fund a couple larger expenses that we'd been saving toward. As a result, I'm currently sitting in the comfort of a nice leather office chair while listening to The Beatles on our brand-new turntable. I can finally work in comfort. Ahhh... Thanks Ma & Pa!

- Our tour of the nation to visit people we know continues. Back in September (it was apparently a busy month), we went to Connecticut for Meaghan's cousin's wedding and then to Omaha for a college friend's wedding. It's always good to see people that you haven't seen for awhile, especially when talking to them is like you just had lunch together yesterday as opposed to, say, 8 years ago. The journey continues next week when we go to Texas for Thanksmas (seemed less offensive than Christgiving) with Meaghan's parents and brother. Trips like this wouldn't be possible if we didn't have awesome friends like the ones at HarrisWorld and the House of Huebert to watch after our pup. Thanks everyone!

- Speaking of the fine folks at HarrisWorld, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that Meaghan & I were named godparents of this little guy back in October. Thanks for the honor, Mike & Kim. We'll do our best not to lead Nathan too far astray. I think that officially means I get to talk in a funny voice, make people kiss my ring, and whack guys I don't like for the rest of my life, but I confess to not having read the handbook yet.

- I'd be even more remiss if I didn't give an update on our nephew Soren. We haven't seen him since his christening (yes, they actually broke a bottle over his head -- truly frightening) back in the Spring, but he's beginning to turn into quite the fun little guy. We're looking forward to seeing him again at Christmas and doing our duty by lavishing him with gifts.

- In case anyone is interested, I have actually been keeping fairly up to date on my effort to watch at least an episode of new TV shows. I just haven't been blogging about them. I've even cast my net wider than my last update to include fantastic shows like NickToons new Making Fiends, based on a web series of the same name. I'll get back to that in future posts, regardless of whether my statements are culturally relevant.

- Hey, which reminds me... we have a new President-Elect, but not a new Senator (yet). I don't really intend to get into politics here, but I thought this was worth mentioning since we seem to be on the dawn of the most web-centric incarnation of our government yet. If you haven't checked it out yet, Change.gov is a harbinger of things to come with its daily blasts from the Office of the President. It'll be interesting to see how transparent things become.

I think that's all I have for now. I hope there's more to come in the not too distant future.

Go Ahead, Try to Make Me Laugh - Part 1

2008-10-01T21:58:00.005-05:00

A bit of housekeeping first. Despite my lack of posts, I have actually been keeping up with the viewing portion of the TV gig. I've watched at least one episode of everything new except for Sons of Anarchy which I'm still planning on doing once Meaghan has some time for it. If there are shows that you're still watching, feel free to drop comments in that show's post. I'll do the same and we can keep up a running conversation of sorts about them. For instance, my spies have informed me that Kelly's kid on "90210" belongs to Dylan. What a shocking development!

I've also updated my initial post with links to all of the shows' websites as requested, and have also added a few shows that escaped my grasp the first time around. Have fun checking those out if you want to know more about any of them in particular. Back to your regularly scheduled programming...

After stumbling through a whole lot of writer's block regarding how to deal with 30-minute comedy shows (do people still watch these?), I think I've come up with something that'll work for me.

Z Rock: Sundays on iFC, 11:30/10:30 Central

How does one even get the iFC (Independent Film Channel), and who knew that they even had original programming? Whatever the case, they should probably look into getting some more if this is an example of the quality they can produce. "Z Rock" is a hilarious semi-scripted comedy about a Brooklyn-based rock band ZO2 that moonlights as children's entertainment group the Z Brothers to make money. The band and its side project are real, but the situations depicted in the show are not.

This is beyond cable TV so the level of nudity and language is easily at HBO levels here, but it's the land of sex, (no) drugs, and rock & roll so you can't expect less. The humor of the show is a bit hard to explain, but most of it borders on the absurd with a bit of raunchiness thrown in for good measure. I'll let this clip do the talking for me. Make sure you listen to the song's lyrics.

ZO2's straight forward rock music doesn't really do it for me, but the show itself is a winner. I've watched all six episodes that have aired to date, and there are only four to go.

The CW's Real Guilty Pleasure

2008-09-16T17:00:00.004-05:00

Privileged: Tuesdays on CW, 9:00/8:00 Central

It turns out that the CW did come through with its requisite guilty pleasure show this year after all. Whereas the much-hyped 90210 reboot is just plain guilty, their other Tuesday night drama "Privileged" is the pleasure. Megan Smith is a recent Yale grad trying to make it in the world with her writing degree. Unfortunately, instead of writing the next great biography she's stuck working for an NYC tabloid. When her apartment building goes up in flames and she loses her job in the same day, a door unexpectedly opens bringing her back to the ultra-rich society in Palm Springs where she grew up. Her task? Tutor spoiled teenage twin granddaughters of the rich and the famous so they can go to Duke.

Another show about rich people (see "The OC", "Gossip Girl", "90210"), you ask? Sort of. The focus this time is on our outsider, Megan, so a lot of time is spent poking fun at the lifestyle instead of seeing how cool and glamorous it is to be stinking rich. Another plus is that she's an adult, so we hopefully won't get bogged down in the minutiae of high school life once class is in session in future episodes. Joanna Garcia ("Reba", "Welcome to the Captain") brings a high level of energy to the spunky and sarcastic lead role. I'd seen her before on last year's short-lived "Captain" comedy, but here she's a revelation bringing just the kind of humor shows like this need.

Although it fills the role of a one-hour drama in the network's schedule, this feels more like a comedy to me. It fills a niche that shows like (dare I say) "Gilmore Girls" used to occupy. Sure the plot may be a little obvious so far: one twin is nice, the other bitchy; there's an obligatory love triangle; and an estranged family, but "Privileged" is genuinely entertaining. I can't say that about a lot of shows on the boob tube these days.

If you're currently giving attention to "90210" or other such drek, I strongly urge you to check this out instead. It's unfortunate when worthy shows are overlooked because the hype machine hasn't been employed in their favor, and that seems to be the case here. No matter if you believe in them or not, the pilot last week did horribly in the Nielsen ratings so it's probably going to need some help if its planning on sticking around. It's on at the same time as Fox's "Fringe" (coming to a post near you), so I won't be able to watch it live but I'm definitely going to keep up with it online. Thanks to the CW streaming full episodes on their website, you should too.

This Blood's For You

2008-09-10T20:22:00.005-05:00

True Blood: Sundays on HBO, 9:00/8:00 Central

Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under", "American Beauty") is back with a new HBO original series. If you were expecting something with the sophistication or gravitas of either of those previous works, you're probably going to be sorely disappointed. Instead, "True Blood" is a pulp-tastic vampire story set in small town Louisiana. Based on the Southern Vampire series of novels by Charlaine Harris, the story centers around a young barmaid Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin - "The Piano", "X-Men") who just happens to be able to read people's thoughts. Everyone's except for the new vampire in town, that is.

The real star of the show is its backdrop and setting. Being the pilot episode there wasn't a whole lot going on here plotwise, but you can see how many story possibilities there are for the future. The difference between this and other vampire stories is that here the vampires are a known entity. They've recently revealed themselves to the world in a move known as the "Great Revelation", trying to become a viable part of society. This is made possible by the invention of a synthetic blood beverage called Tru Blood. Having vampires out in the open creates the possibility for stories centering around race relations and oppression with vampires playing the role of minority, as well as the standard vampiric "seduction of the innocent" tales.

The show is easy to follow, but the backstory isn't fully fleshed out within it. For that, there are a number of cool websites that detail the world of "True Blood". Since the Great Revelation, organizations have sprung up both for and against the integration of vampires into society. There's even a proposed Constitutional amendment that would grant vampires equal rights, complete with commercials for and against its passage. If you're interested, you can get a good summary of the buildup to the events of the show from HBO's YouTube channel. Good stuff for the most part.

As for the show itself, there are a number of things you're probably going to need to get over in order to enjoy it at all. First, the accents. The show is set in small town Louisiana so everybody has one form or another of the classic over the top Hollywood Southern accent. If this is going to bother you, you might be in trouble. I managed to get over it after about 30 mins. Second, being an HBO show the first 20 mins are chock full of graphic sex, and not very attractive sex at that. This goes hand in hand with the third issue. This show is not played for laughs... at all. Despite the otherworldly premise, everything is absolutely serious. If you're looking for the next "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", look elsewhere.

At the end of the day, I'm intrigued. Given the pedigree and thoughtful world-building there's the potential for this to become a great show. I'm far from the target demographic (although I have no idea who that might be) and it's far from great now, but I'm willing to give it some time to get there.

OMG!

2008-09-07T15:00:00.007-05:00

90210: Tuesdays on CW, 8:00/7:00 Central

After somehow surviving the last 8 TV seasons without a show containing the numbers 90210 in the title, Americans can breathe easy again. In a make or break move that may determine the future of the network, the CW has decided to create yet another teen drama. In hopes of hooking multiple generations of viewers, this one's even tied into the continuity of the original Beverly Hills 90210 going so far as to bring back Jennie Garth and Shannen Doherty.

As someone who's only seen a few episodes of the original show, I can't really do much to directly compare the two. That's probably for the best. To my knowledge, the original 90210 (debuting in 1990) was the first primetime show to prominently feature teens. As such, it was able to break a lot of ground and explore topics that were previously taboo. This new show has entered a brave new world where the trail has been continually blazed over the years by shows like My So-Called Life, The OC, and Gossip Girl. Given this environment, what is 90210 adding to the mix?

To be honest, not a whole lot. It feels a bit like the perfect frankenteen drama: a bit of The OC here (it's a teen show, but we have storylines about adults, too), Gossip Girl there (more rich high schoolers, and one of them has a popular dirt-dealing blog), even some Saved By the Bell (the main adult character is the principal). With a pedigree like this, it should be good, if you're into the whole teen drama thing, but it just leaves me flat. The acting by the kids is pretty poor, particularly Shenae Grimes (Degrassi: The Next Generation) as the lead girl, Annie Wilson. There was an especially painful scene in which she won a spot in the chorus for the school musical. I wish I had a screenshot or video I could show you, but the amount of anguished faces and bad dancing she did while singing was enough to make you want to watch a Hilary Duff music video instead. Not incidentally, that's probably where Shenae got most of her pointers.

There are some aspects of the two premiere episodes that I did like. Jessica Walter (Arrested Development) is pretty funny as the Wilson family's alcoholic grandmother. I actually enjoyed most of the adult storylines - Rob Estes (Melrose Place) as the new principal at West Beverly Hills High is particularly good. Although no one else seems to appreciate it, I liked that this series starts off with the exact same premise as the original one: a family with a high school-aged son and daughter moves to Beverly Hills from the middle of nowhere. Last but not least, in a scene early in the first episode you get to watch the most realistic portrayal of lacrosse I've ever seen in a movie or TV. In the end, though, it ends up not really serving anybody what they want.

Fans of the old show tuning in are going to be disappointed because even though some characters have come back, they can't possibly spend a lot of time on them without confusing and alienating their new audience. So although you may find out if Kelly's son belongs to Brandon or Dylan if you watch enough episodes, you'll probably be left wanting more. Fans of modern teen dramas will probably just go somewhere else for their fix once they realize that it doesn't measure up to current or recent shows of the same type that are just flat out better. There just aren't enough sympathetic characters and not enough humor. Sadly, I don't think I'll be coming back to it.

P.S. Apparently, I'm not doing this right. As I learned from watching this show, "Blogs are supposed to cause problems."

Game Night?

2008-09-04T09:56:00.002-05:00

It occurs to me that not every reader of my blog is terribly interested in my thoughts about every TV series known to the history of man, so this time around I'm going to try to break those up with posts about other things. One of my favorite things to do with friends is get together and play board games. It's a fun distraction that encourages socializing and keeps your brain active (depending on what game you're playing). Meaghan and I have over 70 different board & card games that we've somehow accumulated over the years, but unfortunately not all that many of them can be played with only 2 people.

Sure we have a standing date where we try to get out to a coffee shop about once a week to play a random edition of Trivial Pursuit, but that only goes so far. A lot of our friends live down in the Small Town where we lived before we moved to the Big City over a year ago, so we've had some trouble getting people together on a regular basis for such things lately. After one aborted attempt, we actually managed to get 3 of Meaghan's teachery friends over to our place last weekend for an assortment of games. Much fun was had by all, and statements like "we should do this more often" were uttered. I'm not holding my breath though as teachers are a notoriously busy group of people.

I perused the Internet a little bit the other day in search of ideas to help scratch my itch and came up with a couple: volunteering at a nursing home or low-cost housing complex to play games with the residents there or joining a meetup dedicated to getting together and playing games. As someone who doesn't particualrly go out of their way to meet new people, these would both take a little convincing for me to actually do them. Anyone have any experience with Meetup or volunteering in particularly urban environments?

Raising the Bar?

2008-09-04T08:00:00.006-05:00

Raising the Bar: Mondays on TNT, 10:00/9:00 Central

In his first offering since 2005's "Over There", Steven Bochco (Hill Street Blues, Cop Rock, L.A. Law, NYPD Blue) returns to the more familiar territory of law and/or order with TNT's new Monday night drama "Raising the Bar". I can't say that I've watched an awful lot of lawyer shows over the years, so things that may seem novel to me are probably par for the course. I'm sure you'll keep me in line if I swoon over something that's perfectly ordinary, right?

Jerry Kellerman (Mark-Paul Gosselaar, "Saved By the Bell") is a New York City public defender who believes so strongly in defending the truth that he's willing to go to the mat (or jail as the case may be) for his clients. Trudy Kessler (Jane Kaczmarek, "Malcolm in the Middle") is a hard-boiled district court judge who thinks that due process and the rule of law are guaranteed to deliver justice. Without needing to use any more words, that sums up the main conflict of the show: belief that truth will win out vs. belief that the system will reach the right conclusion. It's kind of reminiscent of the short-lived ABC show "In Justice" (a law drama I actually did watch) in that way. That show was about an organization that sought out wrongful convictions and tried to overturn them. Presumably, not every episode of "Raising the Bar" will end up this way since public defenders spend a lot of their time defending actual criminals, but that remains to be seen.

In the pilot episode, Kellerman defends an accused rapist who he believes to be innocent. There's shockingly little evidence presented on either side of the case. The DA's case centers around the victim's positive identification of the suspect. The defense counters with the fact that the identification was a bad one - the victim was shown only one photo. In the end, through a convoluted series of events that I won't go into here, the defendant is absolved, the real rapist is found, and truth prevails in the courtroom.

There's actually a pretty large ensemble cast that I haven't spent any time talking about, full of defense lawyers, assistant DAs, and judge's assistants that, for the most part, all happen to be friends outside of work that went to law school together. Who they are isn't all that important as they only serve to bring interpersonal relationships into the backdrop. Kellerman is sleeping with the cute lawyer in the DA's office? The assistant DA is a slimeball who also wants to sleep with her? Another defense attorney wants to sleep with his boss (Gloria Reuben, "ER")? The judge's assistant is secretly gay? <gasp> All of these are shocking developments... if you happen to have never watched a primetime soap in your life.

The only possibly interesting angle this brings up is how these relationships affect what takes place inside the courtroom. Would a lawyer try a case differently if a good friend were on the other side of the aisle? Should a system that's purportedly about reaching justice be susceptible to such faults? There are a few ethical dilemmas that could be explored here if the show takes off in the right direction.

As it stands now, though, there's little reason to tune in. Although Gosselaar is earnest in the role (it's good to see Zack back on the small screen, although that hair has got to go), the acting is just all right. If you're a fan of law dramas, you might want to check it out. However, if you're a fan of law dramas chances are you're already watching "Boston Legal" in this timeslot. I'll probably give it one more chance to impress me.

Everything Hits at Once

2008-09-02T17:16:00.016-05:00

If you're a long-time reader here at the Tower, you'll recall that last year I attempted to give a somewhat detailed rundown of every new network TV series that debuted in the fall. It turned out to be too much for me to handle in the long run, but was enough fun for me to give it another shot this year. The plan is to both reduce and expand the scope of my efforts. Reality shows of all types are out as they're a pox on humanity, but cable & premium shows are in.

Here's the rundown of everything new, what channel it's on, and it's normal timeslot:

New Series, Fall 2008
8/24	Z Rock	iFC	Sun 11:30/10:30
8/24	Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit	Adult Swim	Sun 1:30/12:30 AM
9/1	Martha Speaks	PBS	Weekdays
9/1	Sid the Science Kid	PBS	Weekdays
9/1	Raising the Bar	TNT	Mon 10/9
9/2	90210	CW	Tue 8/7
9/3	Sons of Anarchy	F/X	Wed 10/9
9/5	Samurai Girl	ABCFam	Fri-Sun 8/7
9/7	True Blood	HBO	Sun 9/8
9/8	Sorority Forever	WB	Weekdays
9/9	Fringe	Fox	Tue 9/8
9/9	Privileged	CW	Tue 9/8
9/9	Somebodies	BET	Tue 10:30/9:30
9/10	Do Not Disturb	Fox	Wed 9:30/8:30
9/13	Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's	CW	Sat 11:30/10:30 AM
9/21	Spaceballs: The Animated Series	G4	Sun 5/4
9/22	Easy to Assemble	Web	Mon
9/22	Worst Week	CBS	Mon 9:30/8:30
9/23	The Mentalist	CBS	Tue 9/8
9/24	Knight Rider	NBC	Wed 8/7
9/24	Gary Unmarried	CBS	Wed 8:30/7:30
9/26	The Suite Life on Deck	Disney	Fri 8/7
9/27	Gogoriki	CW	Sat 8:30/7:30 AM
9/28	Little Britain	HBO	Sun 10:30/9:30
9/28	The Life & Times of Tim	HBO	Sun 11/10
10/3	The Secret Saturdays	Cartoon	Fri 8/7
10/3	Star Wars: The Clone Wars	Cartoon	Fri 9/8
10/3	The Ex List	CBS	Fri 9/8
10/3	Sanctuary	SciFi	Fri 10/9
10/4	Making Fiends	NickToons	Sat 11:30/10:30 AM
10/4	Turbo Dogs	NBC	Sat 12/11 AM
10/5	Valentine	CW	Sun 8/7
10/5	Easy Money	CW	Sun 9/8
10/9	Kath & Kim	NBC	Thu 8:30/7:30
10/9	Eleventh Hour	CBS	Thu 10/9
10/9	Life on Mars	ABC	Thu 10/9
10/9	Testees	F/X	Thu 10:30/9:30
10/13	My Own Worst Enemy	NBC	Mon 10/9
10/15	Chocolate News	Comedy	Wed 10:30/9:30
10/17	Crusoe	NBC	Fri 8/7
10/17	Crash	Starz	Fri 10/9
10/20	Rita Rocks	Lifetime	Tue 8:30/7:30
11/1	Legend of the Seeker	Syn	Sat
11/3	Novel Adventures	CBS Online	Mon
11/8	True Jackson, VP	Nick	Sat 9:30/8:30
11/9	The Xtacles	Adult Swim	Sun 12/11 PM
11/9	Summer Heights High	HBO	Sun 10:30/9:30
11/14	Batman: The Brave and the Bold	Cartoon	Fri 8/7

I may fall behind again, but in this brave new world there are so many ways to watch what you want when you want that it won't matter in the long run. I find very little need to watch shows when they're actually on anymore, so there are a number of them that I plan on catching up with someday. Between Netflix, Amazon Unbox, iTunes, AOL Video, and the net work web sites themselves there are tons of legal ways to view things online. If shows are good enough (Twin Peaks, Lost, Airwolf) you can even watch entire seasons long after they first aired. Of course, there are loads of "illegal" (not sure how well the term applies to network shows that are freely available in the first place) ways to get the job done, too, but in a lot of cases that's not necessary.

If there's something you definitely want me to take a look at, let me know. Otherwise, wish me luck!

Can You Paddle a Canoe? Your Country Needs You

2008-08-29T00:00:00.002-05:00

Over the past two weeks, I watched the TV with disdain as the USA lost the Olympics. For the first time since 1992, when the CIS still competed together, we came home with fewer gold medals than another country. This time around the culprit was the new Red Menace, China. Sure, NBC can spin it any way they want:

However, it's clear that if you go to the official source we Americans came up short in the standings:

What can we do about this to ensure that we're not embarrassed as a nation again in London 4 years from now? I encourage all of us to go from being couch potatoes to being Olympic-caliber athletes. We need to be selective in the sports that we focus on, though. It won't be to our advantage if we're all inspired by Michael Phelps to become world-class swimmers, as the USA already has Michael Phelps. In order to determine where our Olympic program needs the most help, I compared the results from all 302 medal events to see where the US was lagging behind China. I came up with these 6 focus areas.

1. Diving

The only thing that kept China from winning all 8 gold medals offered in this discipline was the horrible choke job performed by Zhou Luxin in his final dive off the platform (coupled with a fantastic last dive by Australia's Matthew Mitcham). The best the US could manage was a pair of 4th place finishes in the men's and women's synchronized springboard events. What happened to the days of hardcore Americans like Greg Louganis? He hit his head (not for the squeamish) on the board in 1988 and still managed to claim the gold. In fact, it's Louganis himself that inspired the Chinese to become so good at diving. From the New York Sun:

The greatest diver in American history, Greg Louganis, played
a small part in the rise of Chinese diving. Louganis won both the
springboard and platform gold medals in both 1984 and 1988,
and Chinese divers took the silver in three of those four events.
The inability to beat Louganis motivated China to reshape its
diving program, with national coaches obsessively studying film
of Louganis to determine how to match his technical precision.

I think it's about time that we Americans do the same. Scour YouTube for footage and study it obsessively. I know what you're thinking. Diving? You want me to put on a Speedo then bounce and twist around in public? In short, yes. Don't do it for me, do it for your country. If you have a friend who's interested, too, bring them along and you can compete together.

2. Canoe/Kayak

There are two disciplines of canoe/kayak in the Olympics: whitewater and flatwater. It's not so much that China is particularly good at these events (they only won a single gold out of 16 possible), it's instead the case that the US doesn't have much of a presence here at all. We only competed in 3 of the 12 flatwater events and didn't make the finals of any of them.

It's easy to see why Americans wouldn't think to participate in this. Rowing (or crew as it's often known) is a pretty big sport at some of our better universities. Due to this, there's an established pipeline to feed athletes into the Olympic program. Case in point, we won three rowing medals in the Beijing games. On the other hand, canoeing is something we only do if we've packed a picnic lunch and a six-pack... hardly an athletic endeavor.

If we're going to improve here we'll need to change our mindset: no more leisurely early morning kayaking or lazy afternoon canoeing. The next time you're out on the lake or stream remember to dig deep and move that water. We won't improve as a nation unless we all improve.

3. Gymnastics

Why is this on the list? Didn't our own Nastia Liukin and Shawn Johnson take home gold and silver in the all-around? Yes, they did, but while that was going on (and while they were apparently busy keeping their snazzy websites up to date) the Chinese men and women took home a ridiculous 9 gold medals. You could blame some of the lackluster performance on the injuries that crippled the American men's team, who still managed to eke out a bronze medal in the team competition, or the too young members of the Chinese women's team, but that would be taking the easy way out.

The real problem is our apparent lack of physical and mental toughness. There's no reason that American teenagers should be breaking down on the international stage like this. The solution is to attack the competition on two fronts. First, we need to raise our kids a little tougher. It's inexcusable to let things like broken hands, bone spurs, and lapses of concentration negatively impact our national pride. If we have to ship our kids off to gymnastic boot camps run by Army drill sergeants, so be it. Second, the program needs to cater to older generations of gymnasts. Our current philosophy is to chew up and spit out these young men and women while they're in their 20s, but there's no reason that we can't keep people in the program longer as well as catering to late bloomers. Sign up now!

4. Judo

This is another discipline where the US hardly has a presence despite the high number (14) of available medals, especially on the women's side where we only had competitors in 3 out of the 7 weight classes. The Chinese team, led by this monster, racked up 3 golds in Beijing. In America, it seems that most of the time and energy we put into hand to hand combat goes toward either wrestling (both real and fake) or modern bloodsports like the UFC.

To me this seems like poor allocation of our national assets. Is there more glory in nearly bludgeoning someone to death on pay-per-view TV or in literally wrestling a gold medal away from those that seek to diminish our country's prestige in the Olympics? I think the choice is clear. Judo is all about gaining leverage to trip or throw your opponent to the ground. While that may not sound as exciting as pummeling someone in the face repeatedly, you have to admit that there's a little more class involved. And hey, you still get to choke people into submission.

If you're the strong, stocky type that likes to throw people around, don't delay in signing up now. For those of us without the proper build or level of aggression we need to start a grassroots campaign to bankrupt the UFC and other organizations like it. Boycott their events and paid programming (I know you watch it), and encourage our brave, young athletes to take up judo instead.

5. Weightlifting

I don't know what they're feeding those guys, but China won 8 of the 9 weightlifting competitions they entered (they only got silver in the 9th). Most of those victories came by ludicrous margins. Meanwhile, the USA only fielded lifters in 5 of the 15 available weight classes. Perhaps the Chinese are cheating... goodness knows there's a history of that in the sport. If that's the case, we need to figure out what drugs they're using and get some ourselves as they're apparently discreet enough to not be detected.

Regardless, we need to come up with a way to get muscleheads out of the gym and on to the world stage. I'm not talking about posing either. You can't earn any glory for your country from doing that. I'm not going to sugar coat this. There are hazards (again, not for the squeamish) above and beyond just lifting heavy stuff, as a certain amount of balance and coordination is required to execute lifts.

China also has one weakness that we can exploit: they're typically smaller than people from the West. They didn't field any competitors at all in the top three men's weight classes and the top women's weight class. Let's take advantage of our natural girth by turning our weight problem into a positive. If you like to pump iron, it's time to pump with a purpose.

6. Badminton

In Beijing, China won its goal of 3 golds while snagging 8 of the 15 available medals in total. In contrast, Americans only managed a 1-4 record in the 5 different events combined. This is another example of competitive sport that is viewed almost strictly as a leisure activity in the United States. How many people have childhood memories of whacking a birdie back and forth over a volleyball net? It's okay... I'm guilty of this, too.

It turns out that you were really supposed to be pounding it back and forth over a lower net at speeds of up to 200 mph. It's not surprising that this would be a weakness of the US Olympic team given the decline of racket sports in this country. (Quick... name the top-ranked US tennis player. No peeking.) If tennis isn't popular, goodness knows things like badminton probably won't be.

The strategy for this one is simple. I'll win the gold medal in 2012. I actually took a PE class in badminton while at Iowa State; I even still have the book for whatever reason. I'll get to reading... I'm sure I'll be a master before too long.

Feel free to browse around NBC's site to view footage of these and other sports. Click on a sport and a particular day of the competition. Most things will have the word "Rewind" next to it. This will replay the full coverage. Other fun things can be found in the Video section of each discipline.

Study hard, our chance for redemption is only four years away.

Mini Golf

2008-08-28T21:49:00.004-05:00

It's easy to forget that there are things to do downtown in this city. When Meaghan and I leave the house for fun, we often find ourselves walking around the lake in our neighborhood park or hitting the May Day Cafe on its far side for a spot of coffee and some baked goods. When we range farther afield, we gravitate towards the Mall of America (of all places) or Uptown and its art theater, bookstores, and restaurants.

Last weekend, we took the bus downtown for the first time since seeing the New Pornographers (among others) at "Rock the Garden" back in June. Our destination was again the Walker Art Center, but this time we wanted to play their green-themed mini golf courses. It's only open for another week and a half, but if you happen to be in the area I highly recommend checking it out. Each hole has a unique concept that's somehow related to the environment.

One is constructed completely of found objects. Its centerpiece is an old bike that you pedal to launch your ball off the tee into a pinball machine whose flippers are controlled by the bike's hand brakes. Your skill at this rudimentary game determines how close to the hole your ball is for the second shot. Another hole is crafted 100% from copper. The idea being that once the exhibit has run its course the hole can be melted back into slag and turned into something else... 100% recyclable. It turns out that golf balls roll kind of strangely on copper.

We also spent a couple hours wandering through the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden. If we'd been thinking straight, we would have packed a picnic lunch to enjoy in the greenspace near the giant cherry. I'd never actually been to see it in person before; I didn't know it was a fountain. There's another neat exhibit in the garden that's also only open for another week and a half. It's a showcase of different technologies (often simple ones) that help to improve the standard of living in the world's poorer places -- a truly eye-opening and inspiring collection of ideas.

Oh, and because I know you were wondering... I managed to eke out a one stroke victory over Meaghan on each of the 7-hole mini golf courses.

Kickoff 2008

2008-08-28T19:41:00.003-05:00

College football is upon us again! As I write this, my Iowa State Cyclones lead recent I-AA addition South Dakota State 10-0 at the end of the 1st quarter. The Jackrabbits are the #19 team in the Championship Subdivision. Sadly, I'm not able to attend games in person this year or watch them online as I don't have enough cash in my personal budget to afford such things. Such is life.

Although tonight is the first night of I-A action (20 schools in total are playing), the season actually kicked off Saturday evening. In D-II, last year's national champion #1 Valdosta State put the hammer down on the Fort Valley State Wildcats 56-3. Meanwhile at the NAIA level, tiny Concordia College of Selma, Alabama (just 2-9 last year) shocked at least a small portion of the football world by knocking off #6 Bethel College of Tennessee 23-18.