Okay, so I'm about a week late with this, but whatever.
Joss Whedon, a.k.a. my feminist hero, is writing a new show. (Well, he's not writing it at the moment. There's a writer's strike. Which we should all support, by the way, regardless of how much TV we miss as a result. Greedy frickin' producers. See Joss's sign, above.) The show is called Dollhouse, and it sounds muy awesome. The gist is this: Eliza Dushku (a.k.a. badass slayer Faith) plays a woman named Echo who can be downloaded with new personalities/talents at whim. When her Alias-esque mission is over, her downloaded personality/talents disappear, and she's left with almost nothing: she reverts to childhood. Problem is, she starts to figure out that she's being used, and she starts to fight back.
Despite the fact that I've only read the vaguest details about the premise, I already love the show for the following reasons:
1. Dude, it's Joss Whedon.
2. Eliza Dushku is not only the star actress; she's a producer as well. She's from Boston. Bostonians make good TV shows/movies. Check out Gone Baby Gone, among others.
3. Like the best Joss shows, it's about resisting corrupt authority. Fight the Power!
4. It sounds like it has a serial storyline, à la Buffy, but it also has infinite possibilities for stand-alone episodes. Echo can take on any personality or situation. I'm expecting lots of action, but also some great opportunities for romantic plots and such.
5. Dude, it's Joss Whedon.
Props to both Joss and Eliza for throwing in a Red Sox reference in their interviews.
Holy Fuck.
I don't say that a lot. I try to to swear excessively. Not out of any sense of personal responsibility; I'm just a firm believer that overusing expletives will cause them to become less effective when they are truly necessary to make a point. So believe me when I plead for you to watch The Lives of Others immediately, if not sooner.
I'm a bit late to the party, I know. The movie was released in the U.S. almost a year ago; the Coolidge Corner Theater, which I mostly swear by for movie recommendations, played it for several months. It won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film in 2006. It should have won the Oscar for Best Film Ever Made, Ever, In the History of the Universe.
It's a drama/thriller about a couple in East Germany in the mid-1980s and the secret police agent who has been assigned to spy on them. In the process of listening to their conversations, arguments, and intimate moments, the agent becomes unintentionally intertwined in their lives without their knowledge. Although he is a patriotic man who believes wholeheartedly in the Communist values of the German Democratic Republic, he must also grapple with the reality of a government that fails to live up to its own ideals.
As the best movies are, this film is about human relationships, especially the nature of compassion and betrayal when a person's most unguarded moments are placed in another's trust. The story--at times suspenseful, funny, and tragic--could have been treated in a very sappy and melodramatic way. But restraint is what makes the movie great. The actors are masters of understated emotion; the script is minimal and relies on meaningful silences, visual storytelling, and a haunting original score that is actually central to the story. The artistry of the movie is achieved by a delicate layering of plot elements until they come to a shattering climax. The final twist is unexpected, yet it fits so perfectly you will find yourself wondering why you were unable to predict it.
Aside from the awesomeness of the acting, screenplay, and direction, this movie also provoked some thought on a personal level. It's a historical drama, yet it's set in my lifetime, and I know almost nothing about the reality of the Stasi in East Germany. The facts of political oppression of Communist regimes in Europe never really permeated my generation's consciousness. I remember when the Berlin wall came down, it was a cause for celebration for adults, but it didn't mean that much to me. All I knew was that we had to change the maps, and they sold pieces of the wall in little cardboard boxes in K-Mart. Yet the subject is so fresh in German minds that the film was quite controversial when it was produced in Germany. I hate to harp on the sad state of historical and political awareness on the part of Americans, but I'm glad when a story like this calls attention to aspects of our own history that have been forgotten, ignored, or just plain avoided.
Well, that was quite a long time to be away from my blog. Long enough that I almost considered leaving it alone for another year. Alas, procrastination beckons. Amusingly enough, I convinced myself re-enter the blogosphere [I hate that word] after musing about about Dunkin' Donuts Pumpkin Spice Coffee on my friend Julie's blog We Are Lumberjacks.
Here's a brief update on the things I intended to write lengthy posts about, and never got around to:
-Frank Gehry wants to sell, not donate, his archives. Whichever museum buys them will end up on my unofficial academic research no-no list. Museums shouldn't have to pay for these things, must less from egotistical architects, no matter how historically significant they think they are.
-There was an avant-garde performance in Stonington, Maine (a town you won't know about unless you're from Maine, and maybe not even in that rare case) in which some awesome dancers hung from backhoes by ropes and cables in some old granite quarries. Unfortunately, the article from the Bangor Daily News has now disappeared into the archives and is virtually inaccessible unless you wish to pay them for the privilege. My own fault for not writing about it sooner, when it was actually going on. I wish I could've seen the show, but almost nobody lives in or near Stonington. Not to deprive Stonington of cultural capital; but if someone were to stage this show in Boston or NYC, it would be an instant hit.
-Bob Neuman is having a retrospective, 1954-2007, at the Beard Gallery at Wheaton College. That's Robert S. Neuman to those of you who are Googling him right now. The retrospective is being shown through Dec. 8th. Sadly, I missed the opening on September 9th--mostly due to my own tragic lethargy, but also the fact that I knew nobody there would recognize me, despite the fact that I've worked down the street from where they lived for the past two summers and sold them expensive photographs on a regular basis. Such is life in Northeast Harbor, but I won't complain. It certainly paid the bills this year.
I recently sat down and talked with Boston-based abstract painter Bob Neuman. Don't be fooled into thinking this was intentional. He's good friends with my boss, a landscape photographer in Northeast Harbor (see June 6, 2007 post), and he was bored enough to talk to me for a while at our gallery opening back in early August. Unfortunately, I didn't get to talk to him about his art. Hopefully that will happen sometime in the future. The conversation mostly concerned his assertion that the Charles River is soon to be filled in (like the Back Bay was in the nineteenth century) and taken over by Harvard University. I don't know about that. But I do know that you should not be deceived by his plaid suit. In the art, world, this guy matters, and for a reason. I'll have to write about his art sometime.
-For their birthdays in March and April, I got my parents tickets for the sold-out live national broadcast of Prairie Home Companion at the Bangor Auditorium on May 3rd. Please don't tell them; it's a surprise. How did I score the tickets? I know people who know people. Unsurprisingly, I also bought a ticket for myself. And now I have to wait six months to finally see and hear Garrison Keillor in person. I can't stand it!
-Sabra Johnson won So You Think You Can Dance, Season 3. This was way back in mid-August. But the thing is, nobody thought she was the best dancer on the show. Everyone knew that honor belonged to Danny Tidwell, who was unmatched in technique and artistry; Sabra was simply the most likeable option for the uninformed SYTYCD audience, due to the fact that Shane Sparks sabotaged Danny from the get-go by branding him as an egotistical know-it-all. (Not accurate, people! He's just shy and modest!) But I'm proud of Danny for showing compassion and class concerning Sabra's victory; especially considering he's the second dancer in his immediate family to be judged the runner-up of the show. Here's to a successful career in whatever you choose to do next, Danny.
-I finally purchased Ani DiFranco's Knuckle Down (2005) from the new Amazon music download service. I have two things to say about this:
1. I wish I had done this sooner. This may be the best Ani album yet, and I consider myself an early-'90s Ani loyalist, so that's saying a lot. I wasn't a huge fan of Educated Guess, so I gave up on Ani for a while. I'm glad I came back. It feels like home.
2. The Amazon music download service is actually pretty awesome. Abandon iTunes; nobody needs closed proprietary formats anyway.
-The Red Sox won the World Series again. It's not art news, but it deserves a mention. Particular emphasis on the word "again." Do I smell a dynasty brewing? I may just need to follow my brother's example and get a Red Sox tattoo. Okay, now I've brought this part of the post back into the realm of art.
-S
Okay, so I'm about a week late with this, but whatever.
