Battlestar Galactica Returns Jan 16/09

This article provides the Sci Fi Channel's launch date for the final half-season of Battlestar Galactica (Jan 16/09)... I guess those of us in Canada will have to wait to see just exactly when we'll get it (probably within a few days of that date, I'd suppose).

I'm hoping that somewhere in the remaining 10 episodes we'll find out what the Cylons' big plan has been all along, as lately they've appeared somewhat disorganized (a civil war will do that, though!) and it's almost as if the plan has been forgotten. Then again, that same article references the Caprica spin-off movie as potentially being called "The Plan" so maybe that's where that ground will be covered?

Sarah Connor, On The Other Hand...

Oh, Lordy, this is not good news at all!

So, a recap:

Fringe? Doing well!
Terminator? Not so good!

Fringe Fans Rejoice!

We'll get a full season of the X-Files-ish new series, according to this report.

September: The Loneliest Month

Unless one of the seven other contributors to this blog posts something in the next 48+ hours, I'll be the only one to have put anything here in the month of September. Now, it can't really be that no one else is watching TV or movies at this time of the year... can it?

Some Reasons Why Heroes Still Ain't All That Good

Never mind that the Heroes Event Special last week, kicking off the third season of the show, made it sound like Heroes was the greatest thing since sliced bread (that, despite an almost-universally panned second season)... the two-hour premiere that followed it was enough to put the lie to that opinion, all by itself!

There were some good moments in it, but let's consider just a few of the aspects that made it somewhat sucky:

• Peter from the future should have not only all of the powers that we've seen him accumulate so far (in the present) and any that he'll encounter over the next few years, but also should have had lots of time to perfect the use of them (consider how far he's come already in that regard)... and yet he's still running away (rather than teleporting, freezing time, turning invisible or any of the many other uses that he could make of his abilities)?
  
• Are we to believe that Hiro is mentally, not to mention emotionally retarded? He receives a "message from the grave" from his father and all he can think to do is immediately disobey the old man by opening a safe that he's been told holds a secret that could destroy the world? What is this guy, 6 years old? He's certainly written that way...
• Speaking of whom, wasn't it just wonderful to watch him blame Ando for something that hasn't happened yet?
• And while I can appreciate the visual coolness of having Hiro able to touch the "speed lines" trailing behind the superspeedster, did no one on the writing staff understand that those things are simply visual tricks (the blurred after images of something moving very quickly) rather than physical matter?
• Will we ever find out how the speedy girl could possibly have known that Hiro opened the safe so quickly after it happened? Will they explain how she travels across water so quickly (is it, like the Flash, that she runs across the water like a skipping stone?) Is this a show where answers of that sort are likely to ever be given?
• Did anyone buy Nathan's sudden conversion to "messenger of God" or whatever that nonsense was? Are each of the main characters in this show slightly deranged to start with, or should we just assume bad writing?
• When Claire hid in the closet while Sylar stalked her, all that was missing was the theme from Halloween and a hanger that the teen could unwind and shove into Sylar's face! Horror movie homage, or shameless rip-off?
  
• The time travel "theory" in this show is starting to make my head spin, as it seems as if they subscribe to both the notion that trips to the past can change history (Peter coming back to stop Nathan's outing of himself), and can't change it (various attempts by Hiro across the first 2 seasons)! Pick a horse and ride it, for Pete's sake!

I could go on, but you get the gist...

Review: I'm Not There

If you're a fan of the music of Bob Dylan, and/or you can handle films that are incredibly thought-provoking but not necessarily all that... linear (to put it mildly), then I'm Not There may just be a hit with you!

I really enjoyed both the Todd Haynes film itself and the DVD extras that came on the "Two-Disc Collector's Edition," but I'm not sure that they're for everyone. The soundtrack features an impressive array of Dylan songs, many of them reinterpreted and covered by others (including Calexico, who deliver a haunting version of "Goin' to Acapulco" from The Basement Tapes), but of course if you're not into Dylan's material, that's hardly a selling point. Also noteworthy were "Pressing On" (from Dylan's gospel period), "When the Ship Comes In" (sung emphatically by young lead actor Marcus Carl Franklin) and "Ballad of a Thin Man" (which I'd always thought was called "Mister Jones" until I watched one of the Special Features on the DVD... the things you can learn from these little discs!). It isn't very often that I'm inclined to buy a movie soundtrack, but this time I just might.

As for the "storyline" (such as it is), it gets high points for its uniqueness, even if there weren't anything else to recommend about it (and there is). Writer/director Haynes takes a metaphor - the singer's shape-shifting-like penchant for reinventing himself every few years - and makes it flesh in the form of six "faces" of Dylan's: Christian Bale, Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Ben Whishaw and the aforementioned Marcus Carl Franklin all personify aspects of the man. It's an original approach that has to be seen to be appreciated, but it's also uneven at times. The Richard Gere scenes featuring an aging outlaw named "Billy the Kid," in particular, seem to require more than a passing familiarity with the folk/rock/gospel singer's background to really see the point of. On the other hand, I absolutely loved the Blanchett, Bale and Ledger parts, and eventually developed some fondness for what was going on with Franklin.

I went into the film more than a little curious as to how a woman (Cate B) could play the part of a male singer (Bob D), and came out of it thunderstruck by what an amazing casting choice that turned out to be. As Haynes says on one of the DVD interviews, Dylan exhibited such a feminine, skinny, folded-into-oneself persona around the time of his poorly-received conversion to electric music (to the cry of "Judas!" in one famous concert) that having him portrayed by a female made perfect sense. And Blanchett is note-perfect in I'm Not There, well deserving of her Best Supporting Actress Oscar nomimation. The flat voice that she employs throughout was an excellent device for helping us forget that "that guy's a chick" and just focus on the acting display.

There are no shortage of great scenes, including Jude Quinn (the Blanchett-Dylan) and Allen Ginsberg (played by David Cross) delivering one-liners to a huge Christ-on-a-crucifix statue up on a hill ("How does it feeeeel?" and "Why don't you do your early stuff?") and Bale as Pastor John, preaching to a group of a couple dozen faithful before breaking into song.

If you can open your mind and get past the need for a coherent story thread (which you won't really find, or at least I didn't) then you'll have a great ride, complete with outstanding tunes. On the other hand, if that doesn't sound like you, then I'd say stay away from I'm Not There and look elsewhere for your kicks.

Rating: *** 1/2

Fringe Has An Outside Chance To Make Me Want To Believe

I want to like Fringe, and I'm happy to give it a few more chances to win me over. But that pilot episode that was on last night definitely had me laughing at all the wrong moments. It was obviously going to suffer from comparisons to X-Files, and it did. If we remember that earlier Fox show the way it started off - and not get sucked into focusing on how badly it ended - then I'm not sure Fringe does much to improve upon it.

When we're first introduced to who we expect will be the "Mulder & Scully" of the show, they're already doing the nasty between the sheets. That can't be good, as clearly no TV writer in his right mind would have the two leads start off in a happy relationship, unless something bad is going to happen to one of them. And sure enough, it's not long before the square-jawed hero is blown up and lying in a coma, while his flesh disintegrates off of his body. Ouch... that's going to leave a mark!

There are twists a-plenty to be found, including how one character is presented to us in a Hannibal Lector-like role initially, only to later become "suddenly sane" and join the main Scooby gang! He seems like he'd have fit right into Alias when it was on, with his crazy-brilliant knowledge of science and pseudo-science that a decade or two in a loony-bin have somehow done nothing to diminish. And it's that sort of turn-your-brain-off vibe radiating off the show that had me chortling when I was probably supposed to be oohing and ahhing. I think there's an interesting premise at the core of the show, and I hope they can draw it out as they go along. I'm willing to give them another three or four episodes, just out of blind optimism for what the series could be.

On the positive side, at least nobody had a sister who'd been abducted by aliens...