Last night's episode of "Supernatural" easily was one of the best episodes of the season. It did two major things in one show: proved that there's a lot of crap taking up space on TV and that people should quit wasting their time on them and watch Supernatural. Last night's episode surprised me because I thought it'd stray from the arching storyline of Sam and Dean trying to repair their relationship and stop the apocolypse, and just give us a funny episode. But the writers reigned in the premise and meshed it well to the larger story, and it was hilarious. Seeing how pissed off Sam was doing the pseudo-viagra commercial dropped me to the floor laughing. The episode took shots at a lot of things from the mind-numbing dramadies like Grey's Anatomy to the corny, "procedural" cop shows like CSI:Miami. I wish someone would dropkick David Carruso in his chest the next time he tries to deliver one of those stupid joke lines. The interpretations of the shows were dead but they didn't let that become the focus of the episode. Everything related back to the main issues that the Winchester brothers are dealing with and wrapped up in tense and revealing moment with the archangel Gabriel. I think the most interesting part of the show was how they modernized (in the context of the show) one of the most common conflicts in the bible, brother against brother. Issac against Ishamel, Cain against Abel, Pharoah against Moses and now Michael against Lucifer. It's cool that they can take such a grand premise as two demon-fighting brothers, surviving the supernatural world, and still pull out basic human conflicts; it makes it easy to relate to the characters and the show.
The only way this episode could've been better is if there was a little more Castiel, but it stood fine without him. It sets up nicely for next week; can't wait.
Friday, November 6, 2009
Thursday, November 5, 2009
Repackaged Movies
I think Hollywood should find out who owns the recycle sign and use it as their symbol, since that's what's become of tinsel town. Currently its the trend to do remakes, and turn old shows or cartoons into movies. Sometimes these efforts work like they did with Spider-man and the first Pirates of the Carribean trilogy, but a lot of times it fails like it did with Fantastic Four (both of them), Incredible Hulk (both of them), GI Joe and, as it seems to be, with Prince of Persia. Obviously the director and producers want to make a movie that will be a cash cow in the theaters and in the DVD sales market, but how do you get that without a good story. When filmmakers try to modernize these stories, they seem to forget what made them popular. Take Transformers for example; the draw of that cartoon was not a hot woman; and the robots didn't look like hunks of metal crashing into each other. The cartoon Optimus Prime looked like a truck; the movie comes out and he looks like every single bit of metal on earth was used to build him. The cartoon was about telling the human story through robots, basic battles of good and evil, greed and humility. The movie tries to hard to force people into the story.
Personally I'd prefer original stories. I think these remakes tend to make the filmmakers a little lazy because the story is already created. That leaves the special effects, which seem to engulf the entire movie. But, if this is direction Hollywood wants to go, then bring in the people who created the material. Don't just make them consultants; they created the damn thing. They know what works and what doesn't. As long as quality is being sacrificed to spectacle and money, we're going to keep getting stink bombs in the theater and bins at Wally world overflowing with $5 movies.
Personally I'd prefer original stories. I think these remakes tend to make the filmmakers a little lazy because the story is already created. That leaves the special effects, which seem to engulf the entire movie. But, if this is direction Hollywood wants to go, then bring in the people who created the material. Don't just make them consultants; they created the damn thing. They know what works and what doesn't. As long as quality is being sacrificed to spectacle and money, we're going to keep getting stink bombs in the theater and bins at Wally world overflowing with $5 movies.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
How to save a hero
It seems like some writers and producers don't feel like it's worth the effort anymore; BET just takes MTV's sloppy seconds and calls it a show (Baldwin Hills, College Hill...). Bravo is probably developing a reality show for pizza delivery drivers. CNN backs its stories with tweets. It's rare that you find a show on TV that's worth watching these days. I wouldn't have grouped NBC's Heroes in this category of laziness when it came out, but this season is proving that that's where it belongs.
The show is called Heroes; the opening has the world spinning from light into darkness; it's claim to fame was "Save the cheerleader, save the world." Now they give us Claire trying to fit in at college, or Matt Parkman becoming a jealous drunk. There are enough soap operas on TV; I'm looking for good action backed by a good story. Give me Big Trouble in Little China not Terms of Endearment. Heroes put itself on way too big of stage to give us such dull episodes. Last night went back in time to season one, where clearly Sylar was the enemy and Hiro was discovering his role in saving the world; but it didn't reveal anything about the story or the characters. It was just an attempt to trying an reign in its straying audience.
If NBC wants people to come back to the show, they need to come up with better story lines. I don't think anyone is asking for fights in space or monsters stomping the earth. For me, the draw of this show was how it used the special abilities as a vehicle to uniquely examine the human story on an individual level and a universal level. Individually, I think everyone feels concscious about the people and world around them, just like the character Matt Parkman; it fits that he has an ability to read minds and alter reality. So does he fight for his place in the world or does he sit back and hope that people will accept someone with a special ability? If I'm christian do say hello to the atheist or do I smack him with bible? If people won't hire an ex-con, should he keep filling out applications or go back to robbing and dealing to get by? What lines are people willing to cross or not cross? A show about heroes means there have to be villains; villains will cross the lines that heroes won't. Bring back the villains, bring back the audience.
The show is called Heroes; the opening has the world spinning from light into darkness; it's claim to fame was "Save the cheerleader, save the world." Now they give us Claire trying to fit in at college, or Matt Parkman becoming a jealous drunk. There are enough soap operas on TV; I'm looking for good action backed by a good story. Give me Big Trouble in Little China not Terms of Endearment. Heroes put itself on way too big of stage to give us such dull episodes. Last night went back in time to season one, where clearly Sylar was the enemy and Hiro was discovering his role in saving the world; but it didn't reveal anything about the story or the characters. It was just an attempt to trying an reign in its straying audience.
If NBC wants people to come back to the show, they need to come up with better story lines. I don't think anyone is asking for fights in space or monsters stomping the earth. For me, the draw of this show was how it used the special abilities as a vehicle to uniquely examine the human story on an individual level and a universal level. Individually, I think everyone feels concscious about the people and world around them, just like the character Matt Parkman; it fits that he has an ability to read minds and alter reality. So does he fight for his place in the world or does he sit back and hope that people will accept someone with a special ability? If I'm christian do say hello to the atheist or do I smack him with bible? If people won't hire an ex-con, should he keep filling out applications or go back to robbing and dealing to get by? What lines are people willing to cross or not cross? A show about heroes means there have to be villains; villains will cross the lines that heroes won't. Bring back the villains, bring back the audience.
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