Lost Episode 6: House of the Rising Sun

- That one of the two Korean people on the island would speak English was an inevitability, though it wouldn't have surprised me if the show's writers had made us wait for one of them to learn it. On any other show, I would have guessed that one would be a secret speaker of the language, but Lost has proved to be so utterly unpredictable that I've given up trying to forecast what happens next. It's a good feeling, just being along for the ride.

- Scott pointed out last night that the caves introduced in this episode are probably on a soundstage somewhere, which means that in the future the show may not be shot entirely on location in Hawaii. I did kind of wonder who would hang around the gutted carcass of the airplane for days on end, but the show is slowly dealing with that in its own fashion. Will the show's action eventually move off the beach, and will the cast migrate to Los Angeles as a result?

- Previews for the next episode feature a faceoff between Locke and Charlie as Charlie's DTs start to set in. Locke can be seen dangling Charlie's dope bag in front of him as Charlie demands its return. Just one question: after convincing Charlie to give up the drugs of his own volition, why would Locke keep the stuff around?

- Unanswered questions (and Lost is full of them) aside, it is becoming more and more obvious that this is simply the best show on network television, and quite possibly the best show on TV period, at least for the moment. Who would have thought ABC could pull one out of the hat like this?

Mean Girls

This is the movie that Hollywood loves to make every few years, though none have done it quite so well as Heathers. It's the usual high school "cool kids vs. the outcasts" flick, updated with the pop culture, fashions, and slang that have changed in the years that have passed since the film was last made. I actually enjoyed this one, however, in that it looked good and made me laugh pretty often. Tina Fey, previously an unknown to me as I can't be bothered to watch Saturday Night Live, has a real talent for smart dialogue. Hopefully the success of this film will allow her to move on to something a bit more subversive. I can forgive the cutesy ending and the fluff scenes (the Christmas talent show in particular) because I'm a sucker for any scene in which someone gets hit by a bus.

Bottom line: not nearly as torturous as high school itself.

The Politics of Buffy

The Orlando Weekly has an interesting article on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show's creator Joss Whedon, and the upcoming election. (The author is fairly antagonistic towards the current administration.)

The West Wing - Season Six Premiere

I'm currently staying with friends who have a Tivo, which is how I ended up face to face with two hours of the most recent West Wing episodes on Wednesday night. (Yes, after Lost, and the Yankees/Sox game. What can I say? I couldn't sleep.) I stopped watching the post-Sorkin West Wing last season when, after four episodes, the behavior of the characters had changed to the point where I didn't recognize them anymore. With little else to do on an insomniac evening, I made a return visit to the fictional Bartlet White House by watching last season's finale and the current season's premiere.

I can't say I was rewarded, exactly, but I was reminded of how much I miss the characters, in particular Josh (Bradley Whitford) and Donna (Janel Moloney). The West Wing was always second to Sorkin's previous show Sports Night in terms of likable characters and razor-sharp dialogue, but this tale of a fantasy presidency was always affecting and the show's inhabitants became part of that extended television family we all carry around in our heads.

In The West Wing's early seasons, big "event" episodes were rare. Series creator and writer Aaron Sorkin preferred to find importance in the everyday goings-on of the White House. Sure, in the office of the President of the United States even the everyday is unusual, but the show was always more driven by characters and ideas than by events. Sorkin could coax more drama out of soybean fuel alternatives and test-ban treaties than most shows could from the deaths of their main characters. With his departure from the show, however, the reins were turned over to John Wells, the man behind eighty seasons of E.R. -- an almost entirely event-driven show. Predictably, The West Wing followed suit. Even before Sorkin could leave, President Bartlet (Martin Sheen) dealt with the abduction of his youngest daughter in a cliffhanger season finale.

The current season continues the trend, picking up with Bartlet and company as they react to the deaths of several members of Congress and recurring character Admiral Fitzwallace (John Amos), which result from Israeli/Palestinian hostilities. Naturally Donna survives the experience, though not without a dodgy hospital stay with Josh at her bedside every minute. (Maybe Wells and company just feel more comfortable with medical drama.) Subsequent episodes will apparently deal with Bartlet's resistance to military action while brokering peace between Israel and Palestine; a heart attack suffered by right-hand-man Leo (John Spencer) and his eventual replacement as chief-of-staff; and, from the looks of things, Josh's eventual action on his feelings for Donna. (The exact reasons why Donna hasn't taken the initiative are unclear, but even during Sorkin's tenure she always seemed to be waiting on Josh.)

In short, Wells has abandoned the walk-and-talk formula that endeared me to the series and replaced it with his own patented shock-and-awe brand of television. Granted, that kind of drama has kept E.R. alive for ten years -- and I stopped watching after two. That said, I did actually enjoy the two hours of The West Wing I saw the other night. The actors still have some chemistry with one another, and the writers of these particular episodes are skilled at drawing an emotional response from their audience -- with the help of their immensely talented cast. (Donna's scrawling of "scared" on a notepad just before undergoing surgery would have had a lesser impact if an actress of lesser stature than Janel Moloney were emoting from behind that oxygen mask. The fact that Donna has such an indomitable personality outside of those circumstances further contributed to the intensity of the scene.) It wasn't bad television, it just wasn't The West Wing as I knew it. Sure, it's a shadow of its former self, but in today's wasted landscape of quality TV, the shadows may wind up on the viewing schedule.

The Snowball Effect

Included in the three-disc set of Clerks: The 10th Anniversary Edition is a documentary called The Snowball Effect: The Story of Clerks. Its purpose is to drive home a single point: Kevin Smith is a lucky, lucky bastard.

A talented bastard, yes. A hard-working and well-intentioned bastard, it's true. But mostly, after a long period of misfortune involving a flood and financial ruin, Smith got wildly lucky. At a poorly-attended screening in New York, Clerks caught the eye of a film consultant, who told a producer's representative, and so on until the film was sold to Miramax for ten times its production budget.

Snowball Effect rewinds the tape of Kevin Smith's life back to the very beginning, including not only the obligatory childhood and high school photos, but also rolling in random bits of home videos and footage of Smith himself at the wheel of a car, pointing out the landmarks of his youth in the town of Highlands, New Jersey. Interviews with his family, high school friends, cast members, and producer Scott Mosier round out the picture of Smith as a person while comments from Miramax employees and Clerks boosters like Amy Taubin and John Pierson fill in the details of the pictures rise from obscurity. Even Harvey Weinstein makes an appearance to call himself an old fart (he walked out of the first screening and had to be held in place by younger Miramax employees for the second).

This love letter of a documentary will evoke pangs of jealousy in the hearts of Smith's former peers -- he is, after all, the poster boy for indie directors making good. However, it should also stir some hope that they too might be discovered by the next Harvey Weinstein (now that Weinstein himself has moved on to funding megamillion dollar projects). Smith's fans will enjoy the extended story of Clerks' genesis, though it does make me wonder: if this is the volume of supplemental material we get on the tenth anniversary of Clerks (three discs including the original cut and a documentary almost as long as Clerks itself) how much more will we get on subsequent "milestone" anniversaries and for Smith's later films? View Askew fans have shown a remarkable appetite for tie-in products, but with a DV-cam documentarian around every corner, I can only imagine just how much fluff we'll see in the years to come.

Michigan judge shows some sense! Film at 11

A Michigan judge threw out a request by the Michigan Republican Party for the state to press charges against Michael Moore for attempting to "buy" votes. Moore recently appeared at local college campuses, "exchanging" clean underwear and ramen noodles for the promise that the recipients would register to vote and then vote in the upcoming election. (Moore did not ask participants to vote for a particular candidate.)

I find the judge's dismissal of the request heartening not because it is a triumph for Moore (an abrasive but usually funny character who does for the left what Rush Limbaugh does for the right), but because it is evidence that there are some people left in the legal system who know the difference between actions that are important those that are not. Kudos to Judge Burdick.

His hope has wings

The St. Petersburg Times today features an article about one man's search in the Florida swamps for a bird he hopes is not extinct. It's a sad article, but worth reading.