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Category: Culture

Pair by pair

May 19, 2003
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I had a nice time this weekend ingesting the first season of Coupling, which is a pleasant little BBC comedy. Think Friends, but with more sex and cleverer writing, sort of like Sports Night but without Jeremy. (Hey, that metaphor crashed and burned. Don’t point, it’s rude.)

Alas, in England “season” means “six episodes.” Still enjoyable, and it gives me a proper base from which to mock the NBC remake. Man, that’s gonna suck.

Anyhow, it’s not terribly deep but it’s fairly witty and it’s got Jack Davenport who was so good in Ultraviolet. As the viewpoint protagonist, he’s got a fairly tough job being the straight man, and he does a good job centering the show.

Jung love in spring

May 17, 2003
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My pal Rob recently uncovered something fairly bizarre. It’s a 1971 novel called The Invisibles, about — quoting Rob —

…a two-fisted psycho-pharmacologist, a kind of Indiana Jones meets Timothy Leary type, who acquires psychic powers from experiments with psychotropic drugs, and then uses those powers to fight a globe-spanning conspiracy of evil, and also to have a lot of uninhibited 1971-style sex.

The author’s other books include Society And The Assassin….A Background Book on Political Murder. King Mob was here.

Grant Morrison, come home, we believe you now. Especially about the time travel.

I want your

May 17, 2003
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Dylan Kidd came out of nowhere with Roger Dodger, and sometimes it shows. The pacing is off, for example. But man, I’m a sucker for the rhythms of language, and Kidd has ‘em down pat here.

The plot? New York, nightlife, a pretty amazingly cynical copywriter who has only his sense of language to be proud about. Womanizing. Said copywriter’s nephew. Lessons learned.

The acting’s good. The nephew, at sixteen, nails being a tense sixteen year old geek, right down to the expectation of dot-com riches without a college degree. Campbell Scott is very good as Roger; he gives enough to let us care about him, which is pretty crucial if you’re going to be playing an asshole. Oh, and Isabella Rosselini is so very perfect. Worth it for her alone, actually.

The pacing fails in places. It’s sort of episodic, kind of in a made for television spread it out over two nights way. Apparently some cuts and additions were made after the test screening, and I think Kidd just isn’t experienced enough to do a really great job editing post-facto. Not too bad, though, it’s just that you can see the seams.

Worthwhile. I really like this kind of jagged Neil LaBute stuff, though, so if you like your movies less cynical you might want to stay away.

Press Enter

May 16, 2003
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Saw it, liked it. In brief:

Visually impressive. Nice to see the Wachowskis showing off their ability to do eroticism again (go see Bound). Clever enough conceptually. Fun villains. Very good car chase scene. Harold Perrineau, who is always a pleasure. Second act of a third act play, which always has problems. But good solid fun and I’m excited for the third one.

Well, that's no good

May 13, 2003
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Mr. Sterling, titan of the Friday night prime time landscape, will not be returning next fall. Total cliffhanger: now I’ll never know if he was gonna get reelected! I imagine I will assuage my grief with badly written fanfic…

No, no, I won’t do that.

It is more or less being replaced by this:

Kate Fox (Silverstone) works as an associate in her father’s Los Angeles law office. In addition to being a sharp divorce attorney, Kate has a knack for matchmaking. She considers her gift a hobby until a socialite bride credits Kate and word of her talent spreads. Soon Kate is juggling the conflicting worlds of divorce and true love. Her father Jerry would rather she focused on work — and her reluctant law partner Nick couldn’t agree more. However, Kate is determined to “spread the love.” Plus, a chance meeting with a handsome stranger (David Conrad, Relativity) may help her find true love in the process.

Well, that’s just super. Damn it, where the hell am I going to get my fix of poorly plotted improbable Washingtonian drama now… Oh.

Surreal and wrong

May 11, 2003
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Yep, Richard Thompson really does cover "Kiss" on the bonus CD included in his latest album. It’s actually not that mindbending; it makes me want to hear him play guitar on Prince albums (Prince being a not that bad guitarist himself) but I don’t think he improved on the fundamental riff in any way. Which, come to think of it, speaks to Prince’s guitar skills.

Psychedelic Republicans scores far higher on the wrongness meter. I kind of want these, but only kind of. My covetous instincts are sufficiently slaked by looking at the pictures on the Internet. I would, however, pay real cash money for a neocon Tarot deck.