There's more news left over from my time away than I could shake a very large, very shakable stick at, but here are some stories and links that've jumped out at me for whatever reason today...
--- Oh Ren Is She - That's the final poster for Splice, and you can see a bunch of images at BD. I'm stupid crazy looking forward to this movie, even though word's been kinda mixed from what I've heard so far. Polley!--- Totally & Completely Lost - AICN has a round-up of reviews of Lost's finale and word on it's just okay ratings. Here's my friend Joe's take, here's my friend Aaron's take, and here's my friend Sean's take. My opinion is pretty on par with Sean's. And I think I've decided I'm not gonna write up anything in depth on it beyond the little I said yesterday because every time I start to think about it I get very frustrated and just want to stop thinking about it, at least for now. It had good stuff. It had some stuff I really really hated. But I loved so much of the series as a whole and I loved so many of the characters, even through the entirety of the finale, that I'm still glad I put in the time and the effort to get to know those folks and to tussle with that weird place. I just wish the creators would've done the show, the entire show, justice in the end. What they came up with just feels cheap to me.
--- Bloody Coming - But looking ahead to new TV! Here's a clip from the new season of True Blood, which I have some elevated hopes for. Especially in the sexy-ass Alex Skarsgard department. Which this clip features prominently. Mmm sexy-ass Alex.But Jarett's seen the first three episodes and he says they're on par with the best stuff the show's ever done. That preview during Lost certainly wet my appetite for the show.
--- Furry Franco - James Franco is starring in the Planet of the Apes prequel. Tim Burton's awful remake really kind of killed my enthusiasm for this series, so let's hope they can reignite the interest. Franco certainly helps.--- Before Miss Jackie - Speaking of prequels, somebody not named Quentin Tarantino is going to make a prequel to Quentin Tarantino's true masterpiece Jackie Brown, based on a book of Elmore Leonard's involving some of the same characters. Namely the ones that DeNiro and Sam Jackson and Bridget Fonda played. They're much younger I hear, which makes me sad this won't mean Fonda's coming out of retirement. Also, without Pam Grier around it's tough to care too much. But I guess we'lls ee who attaches themselves to this.
--- Get Him Stark Naked - According to Slash my pretend boyfriend - I'll cut you, Amanda Seyfried! - Dominic Cooper's got the role of Tony "Iron Man" Stark's poppa in the WWII-era Captain America movie. Dom and Chris Evans sharing the screen... cue my fertilest lurid imaginations.....--- Scaring The Dickens - It must be intimidating to be up for the same role as Daniel Day-Lewis, right? Lovely stick-man Ben Whishaw is apparently in just such a position over the role of Charles Dickens in The Invisible Woman, based on a book about an affair the middle-aged author had with a younger woman that broke apart his marriage. Based on that description - namely that Dickens is middle-aged and needs to romance a younger woman - Day-Lewis seems the better choice anyway, right? Whishaw's still a youngster.
--- She Screams - The happiest thing I read online while I was away last week was this post at The Film Experience on one of my favorite unsung actresses, Veronica Cartwright. I named her the patron saint of MNPP way back when but have hardly kept the light shining brightly enough since then. I should do a series on her myself or something. J'adore.--- They All Scream - Or maybe the best thing I read was this piece at Billy Loves Stu on the way Georgie Romero developed his female characters thru the years in his zombie flicks.
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7 comments:
No offense intended, but it kind of cracks me up when bloggers/critics speak of still being okay (though apparently barely okay) with their investment in Lost...ummm, regardless of the ending, was there a better use for that sort of capital (an hour of the average joe's life on a school night) over the past several years? It's made to sound as if it was some Herculean task to allow oneself to have been enthralled and captivated on a regular basis for six years. The reaction to the finale on the Internet has just reminded me of how seemingly impossible it is to make people happy these days. Again, no offense intended -- I'm just a little turned off by all the negativity I've seen re Lost. I think I'll stop looking.
Well I suppose we could've spent our time curing cancer or resolving the conflict in the Middle East, but speaking for myself I'm fucking lazy. ;-)
Seriously though, it's not my job or any other online critic's job to just sit back and blankly enjoy anything. Why would we even bother writing any words anywhere about anything if that were the case? On many occasions the show brought me immense pleasure to just sit back and enjoy it. On many other occasions it brought me immense pleasure to suss out its myriad riddles. And on some occasions it forced me to say hey wait up that's bullshit. I know there are jackasses out there saying that what they see as a bad ending has ruined every single ounce of enjoyment they put into the show, but they're jackasses. I was enthralled now and then, I was captivated now and then. I was also frustrated and annoyed and bored at times. And this big huge mess of internet allows us all to express all of those things, and on many many occasions I offered up all of the above reactions in many posts. Why suddenly at the end does my negative reaction to something mean I should've just turned my brain off the whole time and not bothered to invest in it?
Basically yes you should stop looking, is my point, if opposing opinions are gonna make you shut people down for offering their take on something admittedly frivolous.
I didn't shut anyone down -- I expressed my feelings about what people are saying. You and others will continue to see and speak whether I am tuned in or not. If only I had the power to shut anyone down.
I also believe there is an entire spectrum between turning a blind eye to the flaws of a movie/book/album and looking for the best in it -- I tend to try and veer toward the latter for programming that has brought me as much happiness as Lost has.
I maintain that speaking of watching television as an "investment" is annoying, but I'm sure my opinion won't stop people from doing so.
I also find it annoying when people complain that the Lost finale or any other piece of programming was meant to manipulate their emotions -- oh no, heaven forbid. It's not a crime to manipulate people's emotions if you've earned the right, not in my book. The creators and writers of Lost made me care about those characters, and I was happy to allow them to manipulate away in the finale -- I would have been disappointed if they hadn't made me cry.
All the criticism is just so self-serious, and it sucks the fun out of everything. Would it really have been that rewarding to have every little phenomenon explained? The notion reminds me of one of those Loch Ness Monster or Bermuda Triangle specials on Discovery Channel that seem like a good idea, but, by the end, have made an interesting phenomenon seem tedious and not all that cool.
I reiterate, no one is being shut down -- just offering some counter-programming to my usual much deserved praise re this here blog.
Honestly shaun I wrote this brief paragraph here in this post linking to positive and negative reviews of the episode because I don't want to argue about the episode, and said as much. I just don't have the enthusiasm in me right now. So I'm shutting myself down.
Sorry to have pooed in your sandbox....it's not as if this tiff has ended my love affair with your blog ;o)
My heart swelled, sure, but my brain just ached. And then my heart felt cheap, like they threw a wad of dirty money on the dresser as they left me alone, crumpled on the bed, all used up. One man's beloved poetry is another's overwrought sentiment, I suppose.
Your comment here is spot on. It reflects so well how so many of us have felt at some time or another.
I've been reading reactions to the finale, and my head is spinning much more than with the show itself :) It's interesting that part of the debate focuses on whether they were all dead all the time or not. I don't think they were, but I'll add just another internet thought. Isn't it possible that some of them were dead and appeared to the rest as ghosts and some were not? That would explain why Rose was cured from her cancer and why Locke could walk.
I don't know, I'm enjoying bulding my own theories. For instance, I'd like to believe that the Dharma initiative was Jacob outsourcing the choice of the chosen one. He wanted to find one that was born and raised (and didn't want to raise him himself) in the island as himself -Ben- but ultimately failed.
I'm ok with the fully Christian aspect of the finale. They had fully embraced it this season with the whole Cain/Abel good/evil thing, even though I thought they'd go in a different direction (i.e. non Christian Mythology) with the Mother. However, I don't buy, or maybe it's that I don't get it, the sideways as a limbo where they are waiting to be ready to walk into the light. Bernard & Rose were ready to go logn time ago, since they reunited. Or were they all waiting for Jack? I also found it was lazy not to show Walt and the other characters missing. If the actors can't show up for different reasons, you can hire extras that look like them and show them from far and behind. It'd be a cheap trick but it wouldn't fuel unintended additional theories. And anyway, Claire's hairdo this season was bad enough, we could've accepted that.
Those were my (mostly absurd) thoughts on Lost today.
Come on, Jason, am I really a jackass because the finale ruined the whole thing for me? I see it like this. Let's say you eat a 10-course meal at a restaurant, and the initial courses are fantastic, but the latter courses are a little lacking. Then for dessert, the waiter comes and shoves some dog shit down your throat. Although the reality of the situation is that I really did enjoy those initial courses, I will probably look back at it overall as one of the worst meals of my life. And I think that's a fair assessment for those of us who were that disappointed by the finale. I really don't think it makes us jackasses.
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