Bad bad bad, I know. But I like to think I offset it pretty well by not getting enough sleep...
I really dig CONSTANT GARDENER. Provided you're willing to pay attention, it does a fine job of tackling a vicious bottom-line-driven conspiracy, that of "Big Pharma" enlisting the aid of national governments and protection to exploit Africa's poor as bogus drug trial data. The sweeping story covers the crushing gears of the pharma machinery turning at many levels, all the while keeping a human face on the trespasses, crimes, activism, suffering, guilt, and sorrow they cause and inspire. A second unraveling of mystery also keeps things moving at a human scale, as Ralph Feines's Justin learns more and more about the woman he loves as he uncovers the details of the righteous and clandestine work that led to her demise.
Hopefully you've figured out that this is *not* the feel-good hit of the summer, but a very well-crafted WTF-is-wrong-w-the-world?! story. Would be a hell of an eye-opening downer of a double feature with SYRIANA. Triple your entertaining displeasure if you add SILVER CITY. Perhaps round out a foursome with MUNICH? How about a wrist-slashing inspirational quintuple experience with CRASH?
Love me some passionate bubbly Rachel Weisz as hippie Brit Tessa.
Y'know. I'm gonna hafta go back for another screening of SYRIANA. I tried to call it all up a few weeks after I saw it to discuss with Hilary, but I only managed to retain the broader strokes, and the details and motivations are not trivial.
Oh! When I remember it, I'm pretty keen on seeing BRICK. I caught a trailer for it on the CONSTANT GARDENER DVD and it looks like something I wish I could put together - an L.A. noir scenario, set in high school. How perfect is that? Hopefully it'll get marketed well enough and open on a decent number of screens.
Well, there go the last slices of sausage-n-pepp and chicken-n-Italian-bacon (which has a proper -sciutto type name that I cannot recall), from the two large pies seven-eighths consumed last night with help from Rachel, Jill, and Glen. They came over to watch the fifth hour of 24. See, we had some snow and ice and freezing temps yesterday (Monday) during the day, and league volleyball ended up being cancelled on account of the school being closed for a snow day and plowing whatnot. So, we got together to do the 24 thang.
Last week Rachel and Jill came over on Tuesday evening to watch. Originally, I was hoping to turn Tuesday into a regular movie night downtown, but coming off of the MLK holiday it was a bit difficult to motivate a posse for movie-ing. So, to fake my way into something I could claim to be socializing, I put out the call for some 24 viewers. I'd replayTV'd the first four hours of this season from Sunday and Monday nights and decided I'd give them all a go, back to back... to back... ummm... one, two, three, ayup, to back. Rachel and Jill answered the call, and Ray was spiffy enough to pick up some foods on the way over, and who knows, maybe a regular 24 night was born...
We shall see~
At the end of the night yesterday, everyone seemed friendly to the idea of a regular Tuesday 24 get-together. Rachel actually suggested making it every other Tuesday, which would mean we'd get to watch two hours back-to-back, but for the week between the two episodes, we'd have to dodge spoilers around the water cooler. That could be tricky.
Glen showed up before the girls on Monday night, and after I forced the end of a SciFi replay of SURFACE on him, I tried exposing him to some ARRESTED D. I played the first part of an episode from disk 3 of the first season and decided to shift gears when I sensed that the comedy seemed to be bouncing off of him. I think it would've been better received if I'd had an earlier disk in the DVD player. Alas, I'd lent out disks 1 and 2 as part of my AD proselytizing. We ended up flipping in and out of a BIKER BUILD somethin-somethin show that Glen was familiar with. Had some CK supermodel boy turned bike-builder competing with some more old school bike designers for something that I don't know what it is...
Anyhow, when Rachel and Jill showed up, we still had almost an hour to kill before 24 started. I decided to introduce them to the NBC's THE OFFICE series, starting with the most recent two shows. Excellent frickin show. Throughout the first short season of the American series, I maintained that the BBC original is superior, but now I'm thinking that the American show may be equal in magnitude of goodness, but different in direction and flavor, y'know? They started out with an almost identical pilot and ingredients, but the characters and relationships have evolved in new and perhaps more American ways. Good crack.
Crazy TV fantasy - Would LOVE to see an episode featuring some kind of management executive foreign exchange program where we could get a "Mirror Mirror"/Bizarro thing going... Get Ricky Gervais and Steve Carrell in the same room for a while...? Maybe everyone and their counterparts, like when SHAUN OF THE DEAD and posse cross paths with Yvonne of the dead and posse? Brilliant!
After two OFFICE episodes (the one where Michael burns and then bubble-wraps his foot, and the one where Michael just can't keep Jim's secret), we were only six minutes into 24, and we'd all agreed that we should only start playing the show at least eighteen minutes in, so that we could skip commercial breaks and always have some 24 to watch. DVRheads will know what I'm talking about, yeah? So, I jumped back a few OFFICE episodes and hit them with the "Booze Cruise" one, to show them how Roy and Pam set a date for their wedding and Jim decides to confide in Michael about his feelings for Pam. I was really impressed with Michael's character in that ending, and was kinda disappointed in how the most recent episode had him screwing Jim's trust over so badly. But, well, 99 out of 100 times, that *is* Michael's character. O well~
After 24-ing, Rachel was more than a little anxious. This is the beauty of the show. That digital ticking clock, y'know? To try to televisionally talk her down and decompress, I played us one more OFFICE, "The Fire Guy." I think that helped. Like the way the stories are told in PULP FICTION... Travolta's Vincent Vega is killed on the toilet by Willis's boxer-w-his-dad's-watch, right? But the story segments are revealed to you in such a way that the movie ends with the dorkily dressed Samuel Jackson and John Travolta struttin out of the Denny's clone and into the sunset. Happy =)
THE OFFICE is one of the shows I give a generous chunk of room on my replayTV, partly for those random afternoons or evenings of nothing to do, when I can play six collected and yet unwatched episodes in a row, and partly to always have a few handy in case of emergency. Other shows that get priority space - BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, BOONDOCKS, FAMILY GUY, FUTURAMA, THE OC, THE SHIELD, SMALLVILLE, and VENTURE BROTHERS (there are no new ones, but I've kept all of the episodes from the first and so far only short season of the show =). I always let THE DAILY SHOW and COLBERT REPORT collect up to a week's worth of themselves as well.
Truthiness!
Keep on keepin on~
1 comment:
Worth reading, if only for the Truthyness link at the end... :)
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