Triscribe

Author: ssw15

  • Remaking British TV

    Speaking of tv, meanwhile, I checked out episode 1 of “Gracepoint,” FOX’s remake of “Broadchurch.” It was ok, but a lot of echoing of episode 1 of “Broadchurch.”

    Also: I missed David Tennant in his Scottish accent; his flat American voice as Detective Emmett Carver wasn’t the same as Detective Inspector Alec Hardy.

    Detective Ellie Miller, played by Anna Gunn (previously of “Breaking Bad”) echoed some of her original version (played by Olivia Colman). But, I’m really not yet sure about her as Ellie.

    And the pain of the Solanos – well, it didn’t hit the same note as the Latimers in “Broadchurch.” I remembered how raw “Broadchurch” episode 1 was, so “Gracepoint” episode 1 just didn’t hit the same feelings for me so far – the sense of confusion, tragedy, and rage (even Ellie’s rage of not getting to be the lead of the investigation). I am curious to see how they’ll try to diverge from “Broadchurch,” since they have two more episodes of time to play with. (actor Nick Nolte – eh). So, it’s kind of hard to say how I feel about “Gracepoint” beyond saying, “eh.”

    I think NPR’s critic Eric Deggans was right – someone who hasn’t seen “Broadchurch” might very well enjoy “Gracepoint.” As an “American” show, it felt higher quality than a lot of American crime shows and I did like seeing actor Michael Pena as the dad of the victim (definitely more for that feeling of American diversity and he’s turning into one of those character actors who keeps popping up).

    The more I think about it, I’m starting not to “blame” FOX for wanting to try the remake of a really good show. And, anyway, as I said in a previous post, as a mystery series, “Broadchurch” was a little off the mark, and it wasn’t the best kind of mystery and wasn’t that unique – a more traditional British police detective like Inspector Lewis would have just as easily hate the media as Inspector Hardy and Sgt. Miller, but he would have solved the case in two hours and had more bodies piling up. My feelings about the first two episodes of “Broadchurch” weren’t that strong (I’ve seen other British detective shows that either took a weirder direction or wrapped things up far tighter – like for instance, the Inspector Lewis series), but it’s one of those shows where the journey got really gripping.  I’m really not sure how season 2 of “Broadchurch” will work, but I wonder if British shows are just weirder or more aggressive to go all in because of their shorter “seasons.”

    It’s hard to say how American remakes of British shows do all that well – some adaptations do become successful (a whole bunch from the 1970’s, like “All in the Family,” “The Jeffersons,” and even “Sanford and Son”; and of course, there is “The Office”). “Prime Suspect” didn’t do well (but apparently, according to tv critic Alan Sepinwall, it got better as the season went on, but I wasn’t watching it and I had wanted to like it). The hard part for any remake is how to stand up on your own, or are you just a remake? It remains to be seen how “Gracepoint” will do, but maybe it won’t be so bad… Eh.

    On the other hand, it’s another season of “Inspector Lewis” on “Masterpiece Theatre”! Lewis is going to un-retire to help Hathaway, who somehow got promoted to becoming inspector instead of quitting the police force (oh, no – he’s going to become Inspector Morse – alcoholic, sad but for his music – whatever his brand of music is, since it was something that looked like folk pop rock or whatever), and has his own sergeant.

    It still amazes me how the Inspector Morse and spawned spinoffs has exploited the landscape of Oxford, England, and managed to make it the capital murder of England (and how Morse, Lewis, etc., still arrest people).  Some stuff can’t be remade, because of its time and place – Oxford, 1980s to now, gave us the Morse and spinoffs; I don’t know if a show works as well without its setting (so, no, I don’t think I want an American version of Morse, even his 1960s version).

    Ah, television…

  • More Television Fall 2014 – Gotham Edition

    So just few weeks into the fall 2014 tv season, and I’m already behind (nothing new).

    Kind of impressive how ABC is riding high on its “TGIT” (that is, TGIF substituted by Thursday and three Shonda Rimes-produced tv shows).

    I usually think it takes Episode 2 (or 3 or 4) for me to better assess a new tv show… Episode 2 of “Gotham” was ok, so I’ll continue with “Gotham” for now. Basic plot summary: Detectives Gordon and Bullock investigated a child (adolescent) trafficking case. Selina Kyle (a.k.a. future Catwoman) got swallowed into it, but her cat skills and wiles would get her out of it (not a spoiler; this is future Catwoman, after all). I liked the way Gordon and Bullock did their version of the good cop/bad cop: Bullock basically beats up the child trafficker abetter, telling him that Gordon, the better cop, was so mad about the subject that he was just going to stand there and let Bullock do some brutality. I guess it was in Donal Logue’s delivery: the line worked somehow. Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney was a little campy but it worked: she was still mightily pissed by the betrayal of Oswald “The Penguin” Cobblepot – and the godfather-ish Carmine Falcone would be keeping an eye on her, making her halt any moves to take over his territory and forcing her to continue the guise of loyalty to him. Hmm.

    Oliver Sava raised a good point over at The A.V. Club: the struggle for “Gotham” is gritty vs. campy.  Fish Mooney is campy; the gritty is whether the crime gang war will get interesting or not. The show feels just a little schizophrenic: big cast, lots of storylines to play with, but no focus. (a little like, say, the first episodes of “Agents of SHIELD” to me). I’m not a Penguin fan, but his level of violence was … icky?  I can’t even describe it, but then again, I probably never remembered him as a slash and bash kind of villain.

    The women characters were still not very impressive (they might need their own plot to become anything interesting). Barbara as  Gordon’s fiancee would have to find a better way to “help” him (squealing to the media about the child trafficking case when he asked her not to: eh, not the wisest of moves).  Renee Montoya and her Major Crimes Unit (not to mention the rest of Gotham PD) seemed to really think the worst of Gordon, but nothing has yet to come of it. (except to give Gordon stress).

    The Bruce and Alfred moment – interesting (to me, anyway). The child trafficking case reminded me of how having adult Bruce would’ve been handy. The mayor of Gotham messed things up, by shipping the street kids to upstate (yeah, we all think that “upstate” is a solution). Had there been a Batman/adult Bruce: yes, Batman would have rescued the kids and beat the crap out of the child traffickers, but Bruce would have spent the money on getting the kids to schools, apprenticeships, and jobs, via a Wayne Foundation thing.

    In the meantime, Bruce was the deeply troubled kid and Alfred’s version of tough love evidently wasn’t working.  Alfred turned to Gordon to give Bruce a perspective, and Gordon sensibly raised the whole “shouldn’t the kid be in therapy?” and Alfred was all “well, I’m abiding by the wishes of the Waynes to let Master Bruce figure things out” and “I don’t know how to raise kids.” Yeah, now we know why Bruce barely stayed sane by adulthood: the delicate balance of anger management, depression, and entitlement (because there were enough hints of spoiled brat Bruce) would be something hard to reach.

    I know “Gotham” isn’t necessarily going to be the young Bruce show (or else he’d be older and we’d have “Smallville” all over again), but I have to wonder if just touching on the subject of young Bruce might be interesting because this doesn’t get shown often.

    This week, I re-read “Batman: Court of Owls” Vol. 1 and read “Batman: Court of Owls” Vol. 2 (which I bought at this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival) – and there was this scene where Bruce talked about how, as a traumatized kid, losing his parents, he went into boy detective mode and tried to figure out if a conspiracy killed his parents, and not a random “Joe Chill.” The flashback was eerie: the kid who speculated and placed himself in real danger, but for luck saving him. Adult Bruce then got his ass nearly pommeled by the Court of Owls over who would claim Gotham, but he fought back, partly thanks to his BatFamily’s faith in him (and Commissioner Gordon’s faith in Batman and the BatFamily).

    Would this tv show go there? Not sure if the Court of Owls would be the right tactic (then again, creepy as hell authoritarians who think they control the town, pre-Batman – why not? hey, there has to be more than the mobsters and corrupt politicians). And, since I mentioned in the previous post about Gotham’s legal community: according to the A.V. Club, “Gotham” is bringing on Harvey Dent already? … this cast is getting large. But, then again, if you’re going to be filled with the cops and crooks, you’re going to want the lawyers, and in the Bat-verse, Harvey Dent is the most known of the lawyers (who has a ton of his own problems). Hmmm…

    Stay tuned, BatFans…

  • Fall TV 2014

    I’m a traditionalist, so I am a sucker for how fall tv means hope and curious stuff (not that I’ve fully figured out how new stuff has rolled out just about any time of year now or how cable tv has a weird thing of splitting up seasons so far apart that I can never tell if I’m still in this season or the next season – like how FOX broke up the final season of “Breaking Bad” or how USA or AMC ridiculously break up or spread out one season of “Suits,” “Mad Men,” and “Walking Dead”).  (sidenote: You can always check out the previews/analyses over at Entertainment Weekly (I enjoyed this year’s dead tree edition of the fall tv preview)).

    Like how last year, I was so hopeful about “Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD.” I’m glad it survived to renewal for a 2nd season, but I fell off the bandwagon well before the half-way mark, and I didn’t get back on, even though I was curious to see how “Captain American: The Winter Soldier” totally hit the reset button on SHIELD (spoiler: oh, yeah, it did, but I’m so behind, I really can’t say what anyway). I’m debating whether to try and catch up; we shall see. I still like Agent Coulson (I’ll still call him “Agent Coulson”), and I’m still curious to see how SHIELD can pull something off.

    But, more of my comic affection leans heavily to DC Comics. Ok, I am still not on the Arrow bandwagon, as I’ve noted previously on this blog.  But, I am curious about the newest version of The Flash (even if it is the Barry Allen incarnation again; goodness, even “Smallville” played off the idea of which Flash was on the screen).

    Ok, I didn’t watch the pilot episode of “Gotham” until the next night, while on demand. Like Erik Adams over at AV Club observes, this is a very noticeable prequel: we get the (practically traditional now) scene of the brutal death of Thomas and Martha Wayne, right in front of a traumatized Bruce. A tv critic mentioned it similarly (whose name and location is now not in my head): after that scene – in the old Batman movies of the late 1980s and 1990s and the Christopher Nolan trilogy, and the cartoons and comics – we usually make the jump to a future, some 8 to 15 years later, to, say, the “Batman: Year One” era, when Bruce completes his travels and takes the plunge to fulfill his vow for … well the symbol of the Bat. Or the time jump goes to the present, when Bruce is in his prime and dealing with the evildoers of Gotham.

    This time, we don’t get that time jump. Nope. We’re stuck in Gotham and Bruce’s immediate traumatic childhood – something that usually doesn’t get portrayed (which is weird enough, if one thinks about it, even after 75 years of Batman). What is Gotham during that period before Bruce takes on the mantle, but after the loss of the Waynes? What even makes Gotham worth the trouble of saving? I’d like to think those are the themes that a prequel series would tackle; I’m just not sure if the pilot episode convinced me that that’s what this series will do.

    On the positive side: actor Ben McKenzie’s back on broadcast tv! On a very superficial level (because of course I’d go there): he’s still cute. His “Southland” experience has given him a good amount of seasoning to play a more hardened than expected cop (apparently, his character was in a war – which war, well, who knows anymore, but not so hardened yet, because his character Jim Gordon is going to go through way more bad stuff first). This is the story of Jim Gordon, not quite Bruce’s story – since, in a world without the Bat, guess who’s going to try to fight the good fight in the meantime?

    Pro: the first episode looks visually good. I could tell that they were filming in DUMBO (and there were parts of downtown Brooklyn that were closed earlier this year for the filming – I saw the signs!). And, making Gotham persuasively pretty (prettier?) and gritty would be a way to convince me why Bruce still loves this hellhole of crime and madness, no matter how much trauma has been done to him.  Director Christopher Nolan did a nice job of that with his movie trilogy and the “Batman: The Animated Series” did too –  you got some nice cityscape eye candy to play with, use it! And, honestly, what other city was going to be the stand-in for Gotham but… you know… the city that has the old nickname of Gotham?

    (my understanding is that Metropolis and Gotham get to fight over who’s the stand in for NYC, and an alternate universe somehow places these two imaginary cities in Delaware/NJ/or wherever. In my imagination, Gotham was NY, Metropolis was Chicago – hence, Smallville, KS, got to be a bus ride away – and Bludhaven got to be – what else? – Newark, as Gotham’s bastard unpleasant cousin).

    (or, if one were to take the Christopher Nolan route and digitally combine his favorite cities to make Gotham look amazing…).

    But, the danger of a prequel series (yep, looking at you, “Star Trek: Enterprise”!): you could lose me if I keep wondering what the hell? Are you going to hit me with an anvil on the “foreshadowing”? Or you’ll keep disappointing me on the “Oh, I really would like the present/future here, because the past sucks.” For me, in the pilot episode, there were too many moments of “Wait, Batman would pop in right about… now, with the cops in trouble, but, oh, yeah, no, this is still pre-Batman: Year One. Crap.” So far Detective Gordon and his partner, the slovenly Detective Harvey Bullock, are alive, but Gotham is a crazy town, so…

    …but I also liked the little Alfred and Bruce moments – the roots of their co-dependent relationship! I’m using the term “co-dependent” imprecisely, I’m sure, but years of Batman cartoons, comics, and movies surely have taught us that Alfred has struggled with being Bruce’s enabler, protector, and mentor, and yet the one who has to convince Bruce to stop being crazy, or try to be a functioning crazy (yes, I’m using the term “crazy” very loosely). 

    Actor Sean Pertwee is another one I’ve liked – he livened up “Elementary” last year as the crazy and not that talented Inspector Lestrade. Pertwee so far comes off believable as an Alfred who probably did a stint in British military and/or British intelligence, and as the ever loyal Wayne family retainer.  I liked Donal Logue, and he’s making Bullock into something that resembles a person (not one of my favorite characters from the old Batman: The Animated Series, but he has his moments).

    Of the kid characters (ok, I can’t help but call them “kids” because that’s what they are!), Bruce Wayne (played by David Mazouz) is the most curiously interesting: yeah, he’s traumatized, but there’s a sense that he’s already up to something (like, what is he doing on the roof? Not that he’s suicidal, but… is he already doing the experiments on handling fear? Bruce!). He’s smart, already taking into consideration Jim Gordon’s advisement to be real careful about knowing that his parents’ murderer is still out there.

    I don’t know what to make of young Selina (a.k.a. future Catwoman),  the street urchin who loves cats or Ivy Pepper (let’s take a guess that she’ll be Poison Ivy – although I had to be reminded elsewhere on the Internet that Poison Ivy had a different real name), as they barely had lines (or in Selina’s case, none). Too soon, I guess.

    Jada Pinkett Smith was ok as the brand-spanking new character, Fish Mooney. She came across as someone with that Gotham-special potential crazy. But, on the con side: I was a little disappointed by the rest of the women. While it’s nice that the show has a Barbara after all – whether she will be the future mother of Barbara Gordon (a.k.a. Batgirl/Oracle) and James Gordon, Jr. (the scariest villain – not a spoiler! – in “The Black Mirror“) – well, we’ll see!  Don’t be boring, I suggest. Or at least be more than “the worried, supportive significant other of the cop.”

    Renee Montoya – in “Batman: The Animated Series,” she was awesome! (clip!) But, in this tv version – that Montoya’s already thinking Jim Gordon’s on the take? Huh? It’s nice that the powers that be kept her sexual orientation from the comics, but Montoya’s supposed to be a smart detective (and got to be a costumed hero too, not that that’s a spoiler). I expect more from the women of the Gotham world.

    In some ways, I can see how this series could be inspired by “Gotham Central,” the comic series about the cops in Gotham, working the hard way while Batman’s around (as even Alan Sepinwall noted over at Hitflix).  But, this is Gotham PD without Batman; what will make this different from any other cop show?

    On the other hand – the more I think about it, the more I realize that this is going to have to be the arc of Jim Gordon – how close to the edge will he go? (will he go there?)  If Alfred is Bruce’s enabler (for better or worse), someone’s got to balance it for Bruce, and Jim did give the “there’s hope” monologue in the episode. And, then, how dark can this series go?

    As it is, we don’t get very much “young kid grows up to be a superhero” on tv, cartoons, or comics. The prime example is Dick Grayson, who witnessed his parents die, become Robin, and then mature to Nightwing and a stint or two as Batman. But, there are examples where it is clear that Dick managed to be way mentally healthier than Bruce, because Bruce and Alfred learned from their own mistakes with the journey of becoming the superhero. In the meantime, in “Gotham,” Bruce is on his own here – but, he kind of isn’t, if the show finds a way to keep things interesting with Jim Gordon.

    “Batman: The Animated Series” and the movies (well, the Nolan trilogy anyway) showed a partnership – if not friendship between Batman and Commissioner Gordon. But, over the years, I think there’s an argument to be made that not only has Bruce Wayne as Batman – the non-super-powered superhero – inspired a generation of superheroes, but so has Gordon – in also inspiring his own daughter, Dick Grayson, and Bruce (not the gun thing, though). What made Gordon keep going without any super powers? Well, I think that way from watching “The Dark Knight Rises,” considering how – again, by now, not really a spoiler – young Officer Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), as the stand-in for all those who admired Batman, spent just about equal time with Gordon (Gary Oldman) and Bruce (Christian Bale). Bruce even thanked Gordon for being there when his parents died.

    I think there is something to be said about where one finds one’s heroes. Your hero could be the crazy guy in a cape and mask/billionaire whose pumps money into do-good measures; and your hero could be the guy who gets up in the morning and keeps trying to do the right thing, even if it’s real damn hard to do it. Time will tell if “Gotham” can make that kind of story – be that light in the darkness, and letting Gordon face that.

    And, I guess it goes back to the villains. While the Bat-rogues gallery is in prequel form, do we assume that their craziness would be dialed down, assuming Batman wasn’t the reason the supervillains came out of the woodworks? Mooney represents a different kind of criminal or underworld – Gotham’s organized crime world has that veneer of respectability. The likes of Carmine Falcone and Rupert Thorne – in the comics or the cartoons, they’re just out for power and money; it’s not like they’d hang out with the Joker (I don’t think most people would anyway). In the pilot episode, it’s kind of creepy to see Falcone as someone Gordon might have as an ally – or what is Gordon supposed to think, when Falcone is all like “I liked it when your dad was the District Attorney.” Now I’m starting to wonder about Gotham’s legal community!

    Edward Nygma as pre-Riddler – was a little interesting, and right now, based on the pilot episode, he is working with the cops (he has a history of going back and forth on the side of the law). But, Oswald Cobblepot – well, I am not a Penguin fan… he was weird and creepy and just plain depressing in the Tim Burton-directed movie “Batman Returns,” played by Danny DeVito. “The New Batman Adventures” (basically a slightly visually different season 4 of the “Batman: The Animated Series”) made Penguin in his more traditional version (the one I think of as the Burgess Meredith one from the old campy tv Batman series – although, I think Burgess Meredith was made to look like the Penguin, not the other way around), as the mobster/”businessman” (which makes more sense than as yet another traumatized/damaged Bat-villain, for a guy who’s also a scion of the older families of Gotham).

    As for one more thing on “Gotham”: the so far sinister element of the mob and legitimate government cooperating to maintain Gotham from collapsing on itself – hmm – could be worth watching, because its the crux of that whole question of how did Jim Gordon hang on before Batman gets on the scene. Surely Gordon didn’t compromise – but how else do you get to be a Commissioner? Getting there – getting to a dark (but maybe fun?) tv series is the hard execution, and like Alan Sepinwall said in his post, I agree: I’m not sure if FOX gets that. I give FOX credit for giving us “X-Files” and “Fringe,” and granted, I am not on the “Sleepy Hollow” bandwagon, but if FOX messes up “Gotham,” I could be disappointed.  We shall see!  I like Ben McKenzie, and I’m a Batfan, so I’ll hang on longer. So, we’ll see how this goes; but I’m really not sure how I feel about watching more “Gotham cops get in trouble and not have Batman do backup.”

     

     

     

  • Brooklyn Book Festival 2014

    I had a good time at this year’s Brooklyn Book Festival today.  Great turnout. Of course I bought books; some good deals from the DC Comics table and the Akashic Books table.

    I managed to make it to the panel on “Segregation, Class, Race, and the NYC Public Schools,” with panelists Dana Goldstein (The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession), Pedro Noguera (Schooling for Resilience: Improving the Life Trajectories of African American and Latino Males) and David Banks (Soar: How Boys Learn, Succeed, and Develop Character), and moderated by Leah Brunski, a teacher of PS 29.  Really fascinating – and powerful.  It was a packed room in the Moot Courtroom of Brooklyn Law School (a.k.a. Alma Mater law school), hosting the event.

    I liked how the panelists got down to the nitty-gritty of the issues. I think we keep focusing on so-called “accountability” without really taking management (i.e., supervisors, the politicians, etc.) into account; we forget that teachers are humans; we forget that New York City is de facto segregated on so many levels; and we really forget that this is a complicated situation with no singular answer (but some of us want a nice, quick answer or something to placate the masses). The panel reminded me that these issues in public school education in New York City are applicable to how we address so many other issues (public housing, social welfare and social justice; and in public service – where we public servants toil and get held accountable without really getting the full accounting).  I’ll get off my soapbox now.

    I caught a little bit of the “Comedians as Authors,” where comedians Bog Saget and John Leguizamo were. That was a crowded bunch, standing room at the front of Borough Hall.

    I unfortunately missed seeing James McBride, Jules Feiffer, and Jonathan Lethem. I also caught the tail ends of two panels:

    –> “Face Your Fears or Else,” which had Lev Grossman (Magicians Trilogy: The Magician’s Land), Jeff VanderMeer (The Southern Reach Trilogy: Acceptance) and debut novelist Deji Olukotun (Nigerians in Space), moderated by Noreen Tomassi, Center for Fiction.  I admit that I’m one of those who know Grossman’s work in Time magazine; his Magician books are still on my to-read list.  The panel’s Q&A reminded me of how hard world-building is.

    –> Welcome to Fantasy Island – Scott Westerfeld (Afterworlds), debut novelist C. J. Farley (Game World), and Cara Lynn Shultz (The Dark World), moderated by literary agent and author Seth Fishman, over at the Youth Pavilion – their Q&A was another reminder about the difficulty in writing fantasy.

    In a way, I’m reminded if I’m really going to take another stab at writing a fantasy-type story, or if I’ll try something else in November… and that my reading list is expanded as usual.  Writing and reading. Reading and writing…

    Well, great stuff at the Brooklyn Book Festival as usual!

    (cross-posted over at sswslitinmotion.tumblr.com)

  • More TV Stuff 2014

    I caught the first episode of Ken Burns’ “The Roosevelts: An Intimate History” on Sunday night . I’m going to see if I’ll watch more. Initially, I was skeptical, since I know way more about the Roosevelts than the average American and I wondered what new element or way of storytelling would Burns bring to such a storied American dynasty. But, the first episode was fascinating in how it brought out how crazy Theodore Roosevelt was, with how he believed in concepts of masculinity and honor, and the idea of the warrior (to an extreme), and yet was a scientist and optimist, in overcoming his physical and mental issues (arguably, he was manic depressive, the way he had his emotional ups and downs, and how he used sheer force of will to climb out of personal tragedies and avoid facing internal darkness, and using might to fight for what he thought was right – although the wisdom of that… well, it was the late 19th/early 20th century, so…).

    As a side note, I have a theory that you have to be a little crazy to run for president and pursue ambition while in office.

    Burns appeared to be using the chronological frame to weave in Franklin and Eleanor, so that would be curious to watch as their further travails and triumphs unfold.

    I almost forgot that Dancing With the Stars has its first night on Monday night.  So far, a lot of surprisingly talented dancers than expected. Of course, I barely know who half these stars are, and the ones I do know… well, I wonder how they’ll pull off the dancing! Plus: I’m pretty sure that Alfonso Ribiero will be this season’s ringer! (I think we’re all expecting the Carlton Banks dance from his “Fresh Prince” days; but he was once the kid who did the Michael Jackson dancing in Pepsi commercials back in the 1980’s – yes, I’m that old to remember that).

    According to Entertainment Weekly, Amanda Pays will be on “The Flash” on CW – and she had played the love interest  in the old “The Flash” on CBS from the 1990 to 1991 season (ok, yes, I did watch that show for whatever episodes during its one season; my taste in tv was never something to brag about). It’s pretty cool, actually – Amanda Pays hasn’t been on tv in awhile (I actually vaguely remembered her X-Files appearance without checking the imdb page). They already got John Wesley Shipp (the ex-Flash), apparently playing the dad of the new Flash (who is Barry Allen; is anyone ever bringing poor Wally West back on tv? He hasn’t been in The Flash identity on tv since… say, the “Justice League” cartoon, I think? – no, wait, I forgot about “Young Justice,” which is such a mash up of Teen Titans and Young Justice so, yeah, “Young Justice” sounds appropriate to avoid the Teen Titan brand, and Wally was so normal in “Young Justice”)…

    So, is CW totally bringing back the cast from the old “The Flash” from CBS? Kind of generous of CW so far! And at least Shipp was has a CW/WB lineage, by having been Dawson’s dad on “Dawson’s Creek.”

    Strange how I’m so fascinated by news on “The Flash” when I’m so behind to watch its predecessor (and still ongoing) series, “Arrow.” But, CW and its predecessor WB has a track record with superhero shows (for better (i.e., “Smallville“) – and worse (I’m looking at you, “Birds of Prey” – which couldn’t last more than one season)).

    I’m hoping that “Gotham” on FOX will be good – but then again, that may be because Ben McKenzie is back on broadcast network tv (this time, playing young Detective James Gordon; fun fact: he did the voice work for young Bruce Wayne/Batman for the animated version of “Batman: Year One” (which I still haven’t watched)).

    I’m not even sure yet if I’ll give “Agents of SHIELD” another shot – but then again, if I’m going to support ABC’s diversity initiative, maybe I’ll give it another try.

    I’ve been in the hunt for a new tv franchise and I think I’ve found it in the latest run of Doctor Who, at least to the extent that I’ve been watching the episodes with the 12th Doctor, played by Peter Capaldi. The 12th Doctor is Scottish, curmudgeonly, and – as usual – ridiculous as ever (the last part is one he has been for awhile, in his nuWho incarnations). I’m so glad that BBC America has been airing the episodes at a decent time slot so that I don’t have to resort to pirating or something, so for once I’m not egregiously behind Doctor Who (someday I’ll properly catch up on all the episodes of 10 and 11 that I inconsistently watched). I’m not going to say that the episodes are perfect (I don’t believe that there’s such a thing as the perfect tv show – don’t hate me for that), but they’ve been fun so far (to me, anyway). Time traveling tv has a way of irritating me, so I’ll give Doctor Who credit just for not irritating me too much (probably because Capaldi’s confident acting is keeping me distracted from plotholes, but then I’m not a nitpicky lunatic as some commentators are out there).

    I’m also probably biased in favor of Capaldi since he’s one of those British actors who keeps popping up (there’s the hysterical clip from his notorious role as Malcolm Tucker, the profane Scottish political adviser (who will bluntly remind you in properly profane language that he is Scottish) who was in “The Thick of It” and later the movie spin-off, “In the Loop“).  I really do have to watch more of his oeuvre – he has played a doctor before, strangely enough playing with Hugh Laurie (the other doctor of the practice) in “Fortysomething”  (and that show had Benedict Cumberbatch, the future Sherlock Holmes, as Hugh Laurie’s son… it’s like a who’s who with British acting, isn’t it?).

    And, years ago, I had seen Capaldi in “Chandler & Co.” – where he was the adviser to the Chandler sisters-in-law, a pair of rookie private investigators who might have been in over their heads, and Capaldi’s character had the strange romance thing with Chandler (the divorced sister-in-law, not the still-married one) – which had aired years ago on PBS’ Mystery. Fun stuff (well, to me it was, anyway). And, so, it’s kind of funny that BBC America has this feature that reflected on Capaldi’s roles – including the one from “Chandler & Co.”

    (I also totally didn’t realize that he had been on “Neverwhere“).

    This summer, I didn’t watch all that much of “The Musketeers” on BBC America, after the first episode. Granted, I was watching for Capaldi, who was playing the – at best – morally ambiguous and power hungry Cardinal Richelieu. Capaldi was fine, but the whole cast kept weirding me out by the way British actors were taking the Patrick Stewart’s mannerism of being French (a la Capt. Jean-Luc Picard)… oh, and D’Artagnan annoyed me in that first episode (he annoys me in his various incarnations anyway).

    This summer, I was also way into the (only four episodes?!) latest run of “Endeavour” on PBS Masterpiece, the prequel series to the “Inspector Morse” and “Inspector Lewis” shows. “Endeavour” still felt a lot like “boy, everyone wants to do a period piece in the 1960’s,” with a Morse meets Mad Men type of crossover, but with tighter mysteries than has been seen in either the Inspector Lewis or Inspector Morse franchises in a long time (both series had some odd plotholes that a truck could drive through, and I can’t even be sure if they could be blamed on PBS’ weird editing). Anyway, young Detective Constable Morse (I still can’t get myself to call him by his first name because the old Morse show made his first name the big secret for years) appeared to be getting some respect from his superior officers and solving bigger cases – and even getting into a serious romantic relationship, and then… cliffhanger. How do you end a four-episode run with a cliffhanger?! (ok, granted, longtime viewers already know what happened to Morse by, say, the 1980s, but it’s really sad how his 1960’s kind of sucked, and his track record of not quite making it with the ladies began so long ago).

    This fall PBS Masterpiece is bringing back Inspector Lewis (who was supposed to retire; guess he’s taking the same route Inspector Foyle did in not quite retiring). PBS Masterpiece has a really interesting fall 2014 schedule – or, at the least, I’m on the lookout for Inspector Lewis and the televised dramatization of PD James’ book “Death Comes to Pemberley.”

    Hmm. I have a lot to catch up on with the tv stuff, as usual, and gearing up for the upcoming stuff. But,  yeah, tv is awesome. Or something like that.

     

  • Filling in the Gap

    So, we had a hiatus for various reasons, between “A Weird Spring” and our entry of “The Revisit” for this year’s 72 Hour Shootout.  I figured I’d do a post on some pop culture stuff during that hiatus without hopefully being too overbearing about it.

    We got into how LeVar Burton got on Kickstarter to take Reading Rainbow to the next generation (umm, next level).   LeVar really surpassed the expectations with the raising of the money, so the next question for him is how to use it well. I noted over on my tumblr that I didn’t begrudge LeVar for not making Reading Rainbow a not-for-profit, since I doubt that there’s that much of a profit out of it anyway (unless you’re at the level of JK Rowling, I’m not sure how much of a cash cow would there be in trying to get kids to read and giving them book recommendations). (oh, and I’m referring to him as LeVar since I grew up on “Reading Rainbow” and I’m a Trekkie, so…).

    With the fall tv season of the 2014-2015 year coming, there are some shows to check out when they get aired. We triscribers are getting curious about how “Fresh Off The Boat” will be; I was thinking about how it’s kind of annoying that an Asian American sitcom comes to broadcast tv once every 20 years, like they’re the NY Rangers in a Stanley Cup final… (check out Randall Park’s commentary on how unfair it is to be the 2nd APA sitcom in 20 years, and hoping to break the bamboo ceiling already (h/t Angry Asian Man’s blog post).  As another sidenote: I am curious to see how ABC’s experiment in expanding diversity on broadcast network tv will work (hopefully!).

    Oh, yeah, the NY Rangers – they made it to the finals, but didn’t win, losing it to the LA Kings. One of those “damn it, they have to get something for Henrik Lundqvist someday!” moments. It was very cool about how NYC got into it, with people coming out to Bryant Park to watch a game.

    I really thought the USA got more into the World Cup because the World Cup was in our hemisphere, so we got to see a bunch of games and Team USA had a nice run. The spirit really was exciting. Otherwise, I still don’t understand soccer. (umm, “football,” to the rest of the world).

    During this summer, I caught an outdoor showing of “Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson” in Park Slope. Fun rock opera on Andrew Jackson’s rise to power. I liked it; more poignant than I thought (AJ’s wife’s misery – always sad; but that AJ’s ego was just right. Of course he thought he could save the country, putting aside how many people died or who stood in the way). The actor playing Jackson was better that I expected. There were some mic problems but not too bad. I don’t think I’ll ever understand the nat’l bank & tax issues, not that they were covered well at all (not musical worthy). The other old American legends got the “get your own musical” treatment (I don’t remember JQ Adams or Martin Van Buren as that bad in history). Almost made me want to go back to read up on that period again, with rock/pop music in the background.

    Of course, the Andrew Jackson musical is totally making me exciting for the upcoming “Hamilton” by Lin-Manuel Miranda at the Public Theater in January/February 2015 (with Miranda as Alexander Hamilton!). This was previously The Hamilton Mixtape project and was quite a thing when Miranda started it with a presentation at the White House. (see here for my previous post on that!).

    Ok, I know not everyone likes prosecutors, but I sure give US Attorney Preet Bharara a lot of credit for taking on a whole bunch of challenges. Good profile of him back in August  in the NY Times, by Ben Weiser and Ben Protess.

    This was a very selective notation of stuff, but it was nice that the summer had no heat wave and was generally pleasant, weather-wise. Current events are weird as ever; we still live in interesting times.

  • Taking a Pause to Remember and Reflect

    (reposting last year’s post, on this anniversary)

    As we have done previously:

    Try to remember the kind of September

    When life was slow and oh, so mellow.

    Try to remember the kind of September

    When grass was green and grain was yellow.

    -“Try to Remember,” from The Fantasticks.

    Another photo I had taken a couple of years ago (maybe last year or two ago?).

     

    (I took the photo above at the Brooklyn Promenade, a couple of years ago. That framed picture is still there, do check it out if you’re in the neighborhood. — ssw15).

  • Happy Mid-Autumn Festival 2014!

    The moon wasn’t all that apparent on the night of 9/8/14, due to clouds, but close enough. There was even a gorgeous sunset, if you put yourself on the right spot. Anyway, it’s still that time of year for mooncake (over at Facebook, FC shared the link to the Wikipedia entry on mooncake).

    Not that I’m some traditional culture practitioner in any way, so it’s not like I still understand the Mid-Autumn Festival, and personally, I do kind of think of mooncake as the Chinese version of fruitcake – if it’s good, it’s good old-fashioned lardy good and delicious. If it’s not, it’s good old-fashioned lardy “ugh.” Nonetheless, it’s the time to go eat one (a piece of it, and if you’ve grown up on this stuff, you know what I mean).

    See here for FC’s take on mooncake in San Francisco; my take on mooncake in San Francisco; my fondness for cold mooncake. If you type in a search for mooncake, you might find other commentary we have here about it (although connected to other parts of the lives of us triscribers).

    Goodness, even Godiva’s getting in on the Mid Autumn Festival, with a chocolate gift box.

    Actually, I’m still in denial that it’s September.  The last couple of nights, the folks in downtown Manhattan have done the test runs of the Tower of Lights. It’s really a time to be thoughtful and more determined. Whatever that might be. Part of me feels anxious – like, I’m going to back to school, except, oh, yeah, no I’m not. But, it’s sort of energizing.

    I think I still owe a belated fill-in-about hiatus post, but … eventually.  Enjoy the moon!

     

  • Summer 2014 – Movie Edition

    Oh, my goodness.  How did the summer go by so quickly?  Apologies for the latest unintended hiatus.  I will eventually do a catch up post. Really.  An overall summary of what happened during the hiatus would be worth doing. I think…

    As FC noted, Team Triscribe did “The Revisit” as our latest entry in the 72 Hour Film Shootout (theme for this year was “The Color of My Hair,” as we all keep aiming and hoping for more Asian Pacific American representation in front of and behind the cameras).  We did a split Brooklyn-Tokyo thing. It was a pretty cool project, and we made the Top 35, as we learned at this year’s Asian American International Film Festival.

    At the film festival, I watched “Fred Ho’s Last Year” (documentary directed by Steven de Castro, a past officer of the Asian American Bar Association of NY (AABANY); Facebook fan page here) and “Awesome Asian Bad Guys” (official site; Facebook fan page here).  In different ways, both presentations made a lot of food for thought about what it meant to be an APA and how APA’s contribute to the performing arts, films, etc.  Fred Ho took a very serious path, facing death with cancer with as much force as possible.  Patrick Epino and Stephen Dypiangco… are hardly civil rights activists, but they gave tribute to the actors and actresses who took the “die in 10 minutes” roles back in the 1970s and 1980s.  Plus, Angry Asian Man’s Phil Yu as producer, and even actors Aaron Takahashi and Randall Park — well, “Awesome Asian Bad Guys” was quite a thing to watch.

    The wide range of gravitas and good humor from this year’s Asian American International Film Festival was much appreciated (but wow, did the week’s events just flew by; I didn’t get to watch as much as I had wanted!).

    I finally watched “Guardians of the Galaxy” on Sunday.  Fun movie, even if not perfect; it hit all the right emotional points. Probably a whole bunch of comics references went over my head, since I’m not a big Marvel person, but it was fun.

    Peter Quill, a.k.a. Star Lord (if only in his own mind), con artist/thief/alien abductee, journeyed to find it in himself to save the galaxy.  Yep, he and the rest of the least likely bunch of people worked together to be the Guardians of the Galaxy (it’s not a spoiler, since it’s in the title).  Actor Chris Pratt has charisma (with good humor and cuteness, not to mention nice abs; yes, I noticed).  He’s more than that guy in “Parks and Recreation” on NBC or “Everwood” on the WB (yes, I’d go that far back).  Oh, and the rest of the cast was also priceless: Zoe Saldana as Gamora, honorable warrior/assassin; Rocket Raccoon, voiced by Bradley Cooper (raucous and emotional); Groot, voiced by Vin Diesel (“I am Groot” – definitely different than his past animated role in “Iron Giant” – but he sure does have a talent for voice work); and even Bautista (WWE wrestler) as Drax, the angry guy who comes from a people who don’t get metaphors.  I can see why this is becoming the “shouldn’t miss” movie of the summer.

    Well, there was also “Captain America: The Winter Soldier”  (that came out way earlier, back in April).  That was a grimmer movie, less on the humor (which was there), and way more deeper implications on national security and privacy issues, and impacting a certain tv series called “Agents of SHIELD” considering what happened to the agency SHIELD in the movie.

    On a very superficial note, I think actor Chris Evans has a better physique than Chris Pratt, but Evans has done more superhero action roles.  Amusingly, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” had its own “Everwood” alumnus, Emily VanCamp (most recently on “Revenge” on ABC).

    Oh, and Marvel also had “X-Men: Days of Future Past” – almost forgot about that.  It was entertaining.  Time-traveling annoys me, and this movie didn’t convince me about why any of us would want to time travel; but the movie at least fixed the craziness of “X-Men 3” a.k.a. “X-Men: The Last Stand” (which really did no favors for the character of Cyclops).  Actors James McAvoy and Michael Fassbender were sweetly tragic as young Professor X and Magneto.  The introduction of the character Peter Maximoff, a.k.a., Quicksilver, with a nice joke for the knowledgeable audience about his parentage (i.e., a “Wait, aren’t you Magneto’s… oh….” moment for the viewers).   The bad future remained a scary place, with the unstoppable Sentinels.

    The one person who I thought really didn’t get to do more was actor Peter Dinklage, as the inventor of the Sentinels.  Oh, and Hugh Jackman as Wolverine – mmmm. He still had that charisma. I later watched “X-Men: First Class” on tv to get myself caught up.  Overall, First Class and Days of Future Past made me really drool over the cuteness of McAvoy and the hotness of Fassbender; the chemistry between McAvoy and Fassbender almost matched up with the chemistry between Patrick Stewart and Ian McKellen as the older Prof. X and Magneto (notwithstanding that the younger actors do not quite remind me of the older ones).

    “22 Jump Street” was funny, but not nearly as riotously funny as “21 Jump Street.” Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum return as undercover cops Schmidt and Jenko, going to college, continuing to parody all undercover cop movies.  The plotting somehow still worked, and there was a moral that spring break might be dangerous to your health (for undercover cops and college students).

    I also saw “Lucy” this summer.  Scarlet Johannson was not Black Widow like she was in the Captain America/Iron Man/Avengers franchises (seriously, is she going to have her own vehicle as Black Widow?).  No, as Lucy, she was a student abroad, who got caught into becoming a drug mule for Korean mobsters in Taiwan, who were about to spread a drug that permits a drug user to access more brain power (before dying terribly).  Lucy got to access 100% of her brain due to the leakage of the drugs into her system.   Morgan Freeman was the wise scientist who tried to help her (which is turning into a role that he’s been typecasted into doing; he did the same kind of character in “Transcendence,” which I had also watched this spring or summer).  Meanwhile, the Korean mobsters are after her, and the French drug cop sticks around as Lucy’s reminder that she is once human.

    Directed by Luc Besson, “Lucy” tries to be everything at once, a meaningful deep soliloquy on humanity and evolution, a crime thriller, a sci-fi movie, and a caper, with lots of blood from the guns and whatever violence (yet strangely not quite an action film), and the hint of a romantic/sensual/sexual tension between Lucy and French drug cop guy – while not really doing well at any of those categories.  Watching the movie, I was generally entertained (even if it didn’t entirely made much sense). Visually arresting, but not exactly mind-blowingly excellent.

    I think “mind-blowingly excellent” remains to be truly seen among the movies of 2014, while things have been entertaining enough.  But, Summer 2014, please don’t go yet!

     

  • A Weird Spring

    It’s something I’ve learned over the years: spring is that time of year when weirdos and nuts come out of the wood works, or however that phrase goes.

    I suppose we should be grateful that the leaking through the media of a recording of a private conversation of the owner of the L.A. Clippers, Don Sterling, has us talking about race and gender issues.   The new NBA commissioner, Adam Silver, has announced that Sterling would be getting a lifetime ban and a $2.5 million fine, and the NBA will try to force him to sell the Clippers, via a 3/4 vote of NBA ownership.  I won’t be surprised if there would be more actions in the form of lawsuits, since professional sports is all about contracts and money.  The unfolding issues are just fascinating for their potential depth and multiplicity.  There are all these complications of what goes on in the private and public spheres; what is the responsibility (if any) of a major corporate entity like the NBA, which has this huge egg on its face because of this scandal (in the middle of the 1st round of playoffs); what about what are we as sports fans/viewers/consumers supposed to do (do we really accept this blech from Sterling?); and, hey, it’s spring and it’s crazy…

    Anyway, I thought these two posts by Gene Demby over at NPR’s Code Switch blog are good synopses/analyses; definitely worth a read if you want to figure out the developments of this sports/beyond sports story.

    Basketball legend (and ex-New Yorker) Kareem Adbul-Jabbar is right on the money: “Let’s use this tawdry incident to remind ourselves of the old saying: ‘Eternal vigilance is the price of freedom.’ Instead of being content to punish Sterling and go back to sleep, we need to be inspired to vigilantly seek out, expose, and eliminate racism at its first signs.” I agree that the levels of misogyny and racism out of this mess are opportunities to learn and not just assume that some punishment and moment of shaming will solve everything (not really). Getting things out in the open and discussing them in a civil manner get us on the road of how to actually deal with the craziness and becoming vigilant.

    Which reminds me: I ought to read Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent from last week’s US S.Ct’s decision, Schuette v. Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action et al., as she has been quoted for writing, “The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to speak openly and candidly on the subject of race, and to apply the Constitution with eyes open to the unfortunate effects of centuries of racial discrimination.”  Hmm.  (see here on Gene Demby’s post on the Supreme Court’s difficulty on debating on racial discrimination, over at the NPR Code Switch blog).  I think that if the US Supreme Court justices are having a difficult time debating how we ought to talk about the big issues, if we ever knew how to talk about them – well, clearly, we all need to learn something and these topics are everywhere as it is.

    And, while also not related to the NBA situation, note this: “I’m convinced we won’t really learn how to deal with these issues until we learn how to talk about them. It’s time to break down the patterns; they’re only keeping us from really relating to each other on a subject that’s too important to get right.” – Eric Deggans, NPR critic, in discussing the reaction to his post on whether there would be more diversity on late night tv shows.

    I’m not even an NBA follower, although I suppose the Brooklyn Nets are trying to keep things interesting with their playoff games against the Toronto Raptors.  I’m still waiting to see if Barclay Center will ever be a real financial boon for the neighborhoods of Boerum Hill, downtown Brooklyn, Prospect Heights, and Park Slope (which are all fighting to claim the arena; yeah, okay.., you’d think we’d all try to work together to spread the wealth, since Barclay Center is smack in the middle of the intersection of those neighborhoods).

    At the least, we’re living in interesting times.