Six Feet Under dies a slow death

This season of Six Feet Under (its last, according to HBO) has been an exercise in dissatisfaction and eye-rolling. Each character has been spiraling into his or her own personal hell of self-indulgence and resentment, to the point that I could barely stand to keep watching. If it weren't for Claire (who once again was forced to ditch an obsessive boyfriend) and the intriguing David/Keith combo, I would have quit watching long ago. And when Nate Jr. finally succumbed to the long-hinted-at affair with Maggie, I thought it was all over. Nate, whose experiences with his daughter and mysteriously-dead wife Lisa had turned him into a halfway-decent person, was apparently resorting to type under pressure and I didn't think I could take it.

And then the hand of God (or perhaps it was the enigmatic Narm) struck him down, leaving him motionless at the end of the episode. Perhaps dead.

Please, Lord, let him be dead.

A series that deals so intimately with death and features dead characters regularly (Nate Sr., who died in the series premiere, has been a regular visitor to the Fisher & Diaz Funeral Home) needs to end on a dramatic note, and the death of a prominent character has long been rumored. Killing Nate Jr. off about four episodes before the season finale gives the characters plenty of time to achieve some closure for the series while still allowing Peter Krause (Nate Jr.) plenty of screen time – as a ghost, or whatever you want to call the dead characters who spend time talking to the living. His father probably has more than a few choice words for him, and don't think there won't be plenty of drama among the living as well. Given that the series has to end, Nate is a lot more interesting dead than alive. Here's hoping he really has kicked the oxygen habit.

Running Mac OS X, Windows, & Linux on one machine

A blogger known as Jasbone has created a how-to article describing the steps for installing multiple operating systems on an Intel-based Apple computer. This is almost the holy grail for those of us who prefer the Mac for the 95% of our computing tasks that can be done on the Mac, but need Windows for that other 5% (usually because there's proprietary software involved).

Personally I'm hoping for an officially-supported version of VirtualPC that just runs the two systems side-by-side, but this would certainly suffice.

What's up

Things have been quiet on the blog, but not in life. Just got back from a trip to New Orleans and now heading out to Houston for the first-ever Tyrannosaurus Fest, our attempt to fill the summertime hole left by the New Orleans Worst Film Festival. Whether it does well or flops, I'm sure we'll have a good time.

Check out the corresponding thread on the BMMB for more about T-Fest. I'll see you next week.

The Amazing Race: Season One

For those suffering in the drought of summer television, The Game Show Network offers up sweet relief. Each weeknight brings a new episode from the first season of The Amazing Race, the reality/game show that actually manages to be entertaining and real without resorting to cheap tricks. The last few seasons have exemplified the best of what "reality" TV can be. The episodes of this first season that I've seen so far have revealed an ambitious if somewhat rough version of the show I've come to love.

On the down side, it's pretty obvious that the producers hadn't yet figured out how to edit the series. There are a lot of slow moments and awkward pauses. Even worse is the realization that the show has actually worsened in some ways since its early days: the clues have been dumbed down somewhat in the succeeding seasons, which is really too bad. The only chance some of these older or slower teams have is when the more agile team misinterpret a clue and go off on a wild goose chase; nowadays the clues leave very little to chance, at least when it comes to destinations. Not that contestants never get lost in current seasons (they do), but it seems like it happened on a more entertaining and a more frequent basis in this first season.

On a more positive note, the players are as disfunctional as always, and there's plenty of tension crackling within and between teams as the pressure starts to get to them. Sometimes it can feel like being trapped in a bad relationship yourself (I was ready to break up with Karyn and Lenny after about twenty minutes), but it's always a pleasure to see a malfunctioning teammates suffer the misfortunes they so richly deserve. Growing pains, warts, and all, The Amazing Race is good TV.

And the even better news? GSN has picked up all seven seasons and will air them all in order, so we'll be able to watch the show's evolution in a relative (ahem) Fast Forward.

Tags: tv , amazingrace

War of the Worlds

Over on Scott's blog he has done a nice job of cataloging the pros and cons of War of the Worlds, and I agree with most of his points. I'd like to add a bit by touching briefly on the film's length and, well, inertia. There are some mild spoilers below.



I won't go so far as to say I was actually bored by War of the Worlds, but I would have liked to see a movie that wasn't quite as dominated by its second act. (If you are by some miracle untouched by the concept of the three-act screenplay, preserve your innocence at all costs. Or feel free to read about it here and forever lose the ability to view any movie in any other context.) I've never been one to encourage filmmakers to adhere slavishly to the tenets of the 3-act structure, but since this story does technically have three acts, it might have been nice to see more than simple lip service paid to the bookends. There is room for debate about where the boundaries of each act lies, but to me it felt like the first act lasted about ten minutes. An hour and a half of second act "drama" followed, and the third act wrapped up in a similar ten minutes. The bulk of the film consists of Ray (Cruise) and his family simply running from crisis to crisis. While there are a few moments of honest character drama, they usually come out of the blue and have little (if anything) to do with the previously established character traits of the characters.

One particularly egregious example of this is when Ray's son Robbie decides he wants to run off to witness the glorious combat between the military and the invaders. Ray has to let his son go, which isn't an unusual father-son theme in the movies, but it doesn't make sense in context. Ray has never been a particularly controlling father -- in fact, his practical absence from his son's life makes him about as un-domineering as movie dads can be. Neither do Robbie's actions seem to come from the character we've met in previous scenes. Sure, he resents his father, but seems protective enough of his sister that his decision to abandon her makes him seem particularly cruel.

I suppose that during an horrific alien invasion, people would be bound to do a few things that would be out of character. In a movie, however, the audience is supposed to travel with the characters on a journey that changes them. These characters make abrupt turns off the map that make me want to take the next exit and detour into a different theater. And damn, who gave Tom Cruise the keys?

I'm the expert, too.

Here's a fun little rant by a guy named Matt who is tired of providing computer support to his sometimes-hostile family members. This is why I don't try to convince anyone in my family to buy a Mac.

Yes, I sometimes have experiences like this but for the sake of family harmony I hereby decline to tell you about them.

London bomb blast news - how to get the best

There are no up-sides to terrorist attacks. It is in just these situations, however, that the Internet really shines as a news source – and I'm not talking about the sites of CNN or even BBC.

As pointed out by the O'Reilly Radar, the two best sources for current information on the London bomb blasts this morning are their entries/groups on Wikipedia and Flickr. Wikipedia because it distills ongoing information into a coherent narrative (which news stories from the major outlets often do not), and Flickr because it allows "on the ground" photos and information to be distributed quickly and with relatively little filtering.

If you've got a favorite "alternate" news source enabled by the Internet, let me know in the comments below.

King Kong - official site opens

Well they've finally opened the official site for Peter Jackson's King Kong, and it features all the usual stuff: the trailer, some AIM buddy icons (why exactly do we want buddy icons that show just the scrolling film title?), pictures, and a story synopsis. For my money (which, given that this is the web, ain't much) it's not half so interesting (or as visually compelling) as KongIsKing.net, a fan site by the same guys who run TheOneRing.net.

The Man With the Screaming Brain - mini review

Well Ash fans, I'm back from a midnight Bruce Campbell book signing and showing of The Man With the Screaming Brain, and I wish I had better news to report. Though the man himself had some great anecdotes about filming in Bulgaria on the Sci-Fi Channel's dime, those twenty minutes of well-rehearsed movie-production standup comedy were all the entertainment my wife and I were to experience this evening.

Is The Man With the Screaming Brain a victim of a low budget, an abbreviated shooting schedule, and a cast and crew unfamiliar with the English language? Probably, but it doesn't matter. The script (penned by Campbell and Angel writer David M. Goodman) offers no assistance and even the principal actors (including Stacy Keach and Ted Raimi, both with head-achingly unfunny Bulgarian accents) are unable to bring much in the way of comedic spark. Campbell and company may have had some fun making this little picture, but precious little of that jocularity made it to the screen.

A full review for Stomp Tokyo to come soon enough. Maybe I'll throw in a few of those production anecdotes so you can get something of worth out of reading it.

Trivia contest, movie riffing chat Saturday at 8 ET

This Saturday night the B-Movie Message Board will hold its second trivia contest and movie riffing chat on the IRC server we've been using for such events. Details on how to connect to the chat server are here; you can use a regular web browser or an IRC client if you like.

The fun begins at 8 p.m. ET on Saturday July 2nd with a new round of movie trivia. Last time Telstarman blew the lid off the contest, causing us to rethink our point structure and walking away with the first prize (his choice of a DVD from Cult DVD Zone), and resident wag Juniper won the "funniest incorrect answer" prize. As you can see there's plenty of opportunity to win something cool, even if you suck at film trivia.

After that (probably around 9:30 or so), board moderator Marlowe leads the gang in a group harassment of 1976's King Kong with Jessica Lange and Jeff Bridges. There's still time to run out to the video store and rent a copy so you can join in the fun!

Hope to see you there.

Night Watch reviewed at Stomp Tokyo

Proving that we haven't entirely abandoned the main Stomp Tokyo site, our latest review:

Night Watch (2004) - a Russian vampire/fantasy flick that recently caught our collective attention. It's due for an American release later this summer I believe, so we thought we'd get a jump on that. Enjoy.

Deuce Bigalow, European Gigolo -NNNNOOOOooo!

For the love of God, Montresor -- can't this man be stopped? If you must punish yourself, the trailer can be seen here.