Bidding a fond adieu to the X-Files

I pounced upon my Blockbuster-by-mail DVD envelopes with a squeal of glee last week. This caused Mr. Mouse to ask what had been delivered. The first two disks of the final season, a/k/a S9, of the X-Files, of course. Mr. Mouse then asked why I was so squealy - hadn't I already watched all the seasons when they originally aired (not to mention every SciFi SyFy re-run I can find)? Yes, I have seen all the episodes already, but no, that's not why I was excited. The excitement comes from nearing the end of my quest to re-watch all nine seasons.

About this here series end, then. I wrote about this not too long ago, musing that Agent Doggett (Robert Patrick) did a pretty good job picking up the pieces after David Duchovny bailed. Now, after watching S9E1-8, I'd like to say that Agent Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) is no Robert Patrick. Good grief, she SUCKS. She can't act for shit, standing around all cow-eyed and dim, and her line readings are, like, try to keep up, Gish! Ugh.

And while I'm complaining about the final X-Files season, Scully is driving me nuts too. Gone is the tough, no-nonsense, trigger-happy agent we knew and loved for eight seasons. All she's done to date in S9 is mope about her lost love and baby-daddy Mulder, even calling herself "Dana" in her weepy emails to him. Since when did they ever call each other by their first names? Ugh again. And, to rub salt in the wound, she even handed off her gun to stoopid Agent Reyes in one episode. The old Scully would never give her gun to anyone.

Anyway, I'm glad the X-Files didn't go any further than this ninth season since it was, by that time, a pale imitation of its former self. I'm also glad to be watching the final episodes again, though, because I do love serialized television and this show had enough good in it to compensate for this weak sauce. It's like saying good-bye to a very old friend.

Wherefore art thou Warehouse 13?

I'm not exactly sure that the paraphrase in the post title works, but then again I'm not exactly sure that Warehouse 13 actually works either. I've seen the two hour pilot and I liked it more at the end than I did at the beginning, so I guess that's something.

Warehouse 13 is one of the SciFi *grrrrrrr* SyFy Channel's new series. It focuses on two Secret Service agents, Pete Lattimer and Myka Barry (?), who have been reassigned from President-protecting duty to a ginormous warehouse in the middle of Nowhere, South Dakota. In this warehouse are oodles of artifacts that have some sort of power, mostly un-understood by modern man. So the Warehouse folks roam the planet, tracking, neutralizing and collecting these artifacts, and then bringing them back to SD for safekeeping/storage.

Warehouse 13 is being marketed as a much "lighter" show, more Eureka than BSG. Reviewers are comparing it to a blend of The X-Files with Indiana Jones as the two leads are male/believer and female/skeptic, plus all powerful and mysterious artifacts. W13 seems to have a little difficulty with pacing (the pilot's climatic scene took waaaaaaaaaaay too long) and getting the comedy/drama blend just right, something I expect will get better as the series progresses. There was a self-immolation that was definitely not funny, but the bit with an Aladdin's lamp that gives you a ferret when you wish for something impossible - that was good.

I'm going to keep it on my DVR list for now as (1) the previews for upcoming episodes look good (Six makes an appearance!) and (2) there just really isn't much else decent to watch right now. Did any of you give ol' Warehouse 13 a try too? What did you think of it?

Book review: Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith by Jon Krakauer

As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m trying to sell my house. When that happens, Mr. Mouse and I are going to move to Utah, Salt Lake City specifically, and ski our little brains out. Whenever I tell people that we’re moving to SLC, they always go, “Oh. Ooh. Have you read Under the Banner of Heaven?” So I finally did. Holy moly.

On July 24, 1984, in American Fork, Utah, two brothers, Ron and Dan Lafferty, murdered their sister-in-law, Brenda, and her 15-month-old baby daughter. The Lafferty brothers did it because God told them to. Ron and Dan Lafferty are (or were, in Ron’s case, as he was subsequently executed by firing squad) Fundamentalist Mormons.

In Under the Banner of Heaven, Jon Krakauer interweaves this true-crime 1984 murder story with the fascinating history of the Church of Latter Day Saints, showing the undercurrent of violence and bloodshed prevalent in the religion since the early days, a legacy that endures in the Mormon Fundamentalist sect and which the two Lafferty brothers wholeheartedly embraced.

Mormonism is impressive, seemingly a force of nature. A huge and globally important religion – over eleven million members, world-wide - it was begun by the charismatic Joseph Smith in upstate New York, in 1830. Smith was the ultimate salesman, by all accounts handsome, articulate and charming. When he announced that the angel Moroni had given him a set of golden plates written with a sacred text, and had provided him with “magic spectacles” with which to read the sacred text, amazingly, people believed him. And when Smith said that the angel had taken the golden plates and magic eyeglasses back, but he, Joseph Smith, would tell them what had been written there, people still believed him.

Part of the reason people believed Smith was because in the nascent Mormon faith, God would speak directly to anyone, – a freedom most religions of the time would not countenance. Neither was the God of the Mormons a punishing God: He wanted His people to be happy, healthy and productive. These tenets were attractive to folks and Smith drew converts like flies to honey.

Later, of course, Smith had a “revelation” that only specific Mormon prophets, like himself, would be speaking directly to God, thus cutting down on the hoi polloi’s input into how things should be run. Further “revelations” led Smith to incorporate “celestial” or “plural” marriage into Mormonism – that, or because Smith couldn’t keep it in his pants. When the Mormon Church, under serious pressure from the U.S. government, officially denounced polygamy in 1890, the schism between mainstream Mormons and the Fundamentalists began.

Krakauer has a knack for capturing and keeping his readers. Using his by-now familiar prose style - clear, descriptive, unflinching, touched with dry humor and with great compassion for his subject – he goes through the history of the LDS Church which will be largely unfamiliar to Gentiles (according to the LDS, all non-Mormons are referred to as “Gentiles,” even those of Jewish faith), and alternates the historical chapters with more modern chapters, including many candid interviews with both current and former Fundamentalist Mormons. As the book builds, Krakauer shows how the last 180 years have crafted the intensely faithful and violent FLDS: from the Mormons being brutally ostracized and driven across the country until they finally found refuge in the barrens of the Great Salt Lake, to the horrific murder of Gentile emigrants in the Meadow Mountains Massacre, to the seeming abundance of sexual abuse and pedophilia in plural marriage.

Any fundamentalist religious movement – Mormon, Muslim, evangelical Christian, Jewish – is frightening to mainstreamers. Fundamentalists read their sacred texts as literal and wish to return to their church’s earliest state. The Fundamentalist Mormons believe wholeheartedly in the Book of Mormon, no exceptions, and to Ron and Dan Lafferty - extremists even for fundamentalists – that included blood atonement, sanctioned by God, against people who didn’t follow the Work, specifically their pretty, young sister-in-law, who chafed against the plural marriages surrounding her, and their infant niece.

I have enjoyed Krakauer’s previous work and Under the Banner of Heaven didn’t let me down. As an avowed agnostic, this book was a true page-turner, fascinating, horrifying and amazing.

Stuck in the doldrums

Man, I tell you what. It's big-time doldrums around here. The weather is el sucko, as it is all up and down the East Coast, what with the rain and the clouds and the fog and the rain. We saw the sun three times in the month of June, I think, and not three full days either - one of those times it broke through the clouds for a couple of hours but was raining again by the afternoon. It's all anyone can talk about and we are all gloooooooomy.

Plus there's bupkes for good television on in the summertime (I am so sad I had to give up HBO!) and I haven't been to the movies in ages (I watched Walk Hard: the Dewey Cox Story last night with Mr. Mouse but the less said about that movie the better*). I'm reading two books right now, both of them pretty good, but have finished neither of them. I haven't even had any bacon lately!

All I've got for you is this link: Futuristic Movie Timeline. It's this great chart that this guy put together with classic sci-fi/future movies, graphing out in chronological order when the movies take place, along with when they were released. It's both interesting and pretty and if I ever sell this damn house and move out to Utah and buy a new house and get my own office, I want a poster-sized one for the wall. Go check it out! (And thanks to Kevin C. for the link!)

* I will grant you that the cast is very impressive. As is Jenna Fischer's cleavage.

Mini movie review: Pineapple Express

Another rainy day, another opportunity to watch a movie: this time, Pineapple Express. I'm not going to synopsize the plot; I'm so far behind in finally seeing this flick that you all already know what it's about: a process server (Seth Rogen) and his pot dealer (James Franco) get caught up in murder and drug-related mayhem. Hilarity and gun shots ensue.

I read a lot of reviews of PE when it came out, many of them decrying the violence as having no place in a stoner comedy. True, there is a fair bit of violence: feral fighting, gunshots to the head at close range. Bodies are in rough shape to be sure. But PE is a comedy like Shaun of the Dead is a comedy: there's more to it than that. SotD was terrifically gruesome in parts (David's de-guttification in the pub window, in particular) but still hilarious. Similarly PE is quite violent - Drugs Are Bad, People, is the message - while still being very funny.

James Franco is just awesome as the perpetually stoned pot dealer Saul. Seth Rogen doesn't really do much stretching acting-wise here; his character is largely the same character he's played in all his movies. I would have like to have seen more of Gary Cole - although he's the big bad, he has very little presence. The supporting players - Danny McBride, Craig Robinson, Ed Begley Jr. - steal their scenes whenever they can. And I have to admit that seeing the shrill, screechy Rosie Perez get squished by a Daewoo was particularly satisfying.

Virtuality vs. Caprica

It was by mere coincidence that I watched BSG prequel-pilot Caprica (on DVD) the day before I watched Fox's t.v. movie/possibly pilot Virtuality (on DVR), although I think I'm glad I did. I had very different reactions to the two shows but, if nothing else it proves that Ron Moore (heavily involved in both shows in various capacities) is a true gift to television. Which we all knew already.

Note: SPOILERS throughout, so don't read if you don't want to know.

Caprica will return in the fall to the SciFi (or *ugh* "SyFy") channel and continue to tell the story of the rise of the Cylons, and how events were set in motion for the Fall and the whole BSG saga. This is not a space drama like its predecessor, but is set on-planet, following the Greystones and the Adamas. All BSG fans know that Joseph Adama, played rather mumblingly by Esai Morales, is the father of Admiral William Adama (young William gets some screentime in this episode and hopefully will have had some acting lessons by the time he gets some more): he is a lawyer with deep mob connections who struggles with the line between good and evil, right and wrong. Eric Stoltz is Daniel Greystone, genius computer millionaire who invented holoband technology - virtual reality - and who is developing cybernetic warriors for the military.

Joseph and Daniel are thrown into each others' lives when Joseph's wife and daughter are killed in the same terrorist explosion that claims Daniel's daughter Zoe. Zoe was a computer genius in her own right and was adapting her father's virtual reality technology to create an avatar of herself, but imbued with self-perpetuating personality - a soul, if you will - in some means of supporting the newly-rising underground monotheism movement. After Zoe's death, her father finds her computer code and attempts to download her avatar into a proto-Cylon. He think he fails - but the last scene shows the robot awakening to self-realization.

I liked: the crazed scenes in the virtual nightclub where Zoe and her friends were carrying out their master plan; the conceit that a girl named "Zoe" (Greek for "life") is the progenitor of the sentient monotheistic Number-Model Cylons; Paula Malcolmson ("Trixie" from Deadwood) as Zoe's mom; the scene with Adama and his avatar-daughter. What I didn't like: Caprica left me cold and unconnected to the characters. BSG captured my heart from the very first moment; Caprica is going to have to grow on me.

Not so with Virtuality. After only two hours, I'm hooked and am totally annoyed that there's a possibility that it might not get picked up and two hours is all there may be. It's a complicated, interesting show, with a terrific cast and twists galore.

There are twelve astronauts on the Phaeton, embarking upon a ten-year mission to explore another solar system. We have the captain (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, whom I crushed on in the departed New Amsterdam), his second in command, the pilot (Clea DuVall), a doctor, a shrink and a botanist (married), a computer whiz and five other scientists (including another married couple and a gay couple). That's the basic show.

The mission is also being entirely filmed as reality television for the folks back home on Earth, complete with confessional interviews. In an odd sort of double duty, the shrink (James D'Arcy) is also the reality show's producer, and he seems to be uniquely able to manipulate the crew for better ratings. The company funding the mission, ominously referred to as "the Consortium," calls the shots and the captain feels that the shrink may not be telling the crew everything.

Finally, to maintain the crew's mental health on such a long journey, virtual reality modules have been implemented so that the astronauts can relax, blow off steam, interact with something other than the other crewmembers. We see several of the crewmembers' virtual fantasies: the captain's Civil War re-enactment; the computer genius's rockstar/superspy adventures (a la Alias); the pilot's bicycle rides. There is a computer glitch, however, which is not so good for folks' mental health: several of the crew members discover a mystery man in their virtual fantasies - someone whom they did not program in, and who attacks them violently and virtually, to differing results.

I thought Virtuality was fantastic. Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights) is the director and the show is just gorgeous. There are a lot of characters involved and although some do not get much screen time, we are given enough to connect with them, making them more than caricatures. I loved the layers upon layers: the virtual modules seem real, and the memories they create are real; the reality show is as unreal as any reality t.v. on today, edited together by the shrink for maximum ratings; and it is called into question as to whether the actual mission the astronauts are on is even real itself - or have they been put into a Truman Show-like situation? I've watched enough television to know that at least one person would be killed off but I couldn't believe who it was when it happened - if this show gets picked up, I hope if they can find a way to keep the actor on.

I really would like to see Virtuality get picked up. It looks like it's an expensive show to make with the huge cast and all the beautiful space shots, so that's a strike against it. It's also an intelligent, tricky, makes-you-think thriller ... so that's probably a strike against it too. Caprica we know is coming back, and I'm just not sure that it's appointment television for me like Battlestar Galactica was, but Virtuality I would absolutely make a point of watching. Here's hoping I get the chance.

Recipes for the weekend: Tomato, Basil & Mozzarella Soup

Granted, this one's a little early here in the northeast since we won't have good, local tomatoes until about August, but today we actually had sunshine and warm temperatures (after ten days of rain) and I thought something summery would be good. It's vegetarian and comes from The Daily Soup Cookbook - which is just full of awesome soups.

6 beefsteak tomatoes (about 4 lbs.), halved and seeded, seeds reserved
2 Tbsp olive oil
2 garlic cloves
1 Tbsp balsamic vinegar
2 tsp kosher salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
2 cups tomato juice
1/2 cup fresh basil leaves, cut into very fine strips
1/2 lb. fresh mozzarella, about 20 of the 1-inch "boconccini" balls, thinly sliced, OR regular mozzarella cut into 1-inch cubes
1/2 cup chopped scallions

In a blender or food processor, combine half the tomatoes and all of the tomato seeds, olive oil and garlic. Puree 'til smooth. Add vinegar, salt, pepper and process 'til blended. Transfer pureed mixture into large bowl. Chop remaining tomatoes into small dice. Add diced tomatoes, tomato juice, basil and mozzarella to pureed mixture. Refrigerate 'til ready to serve.

To serve, ladle soup into bowls and top with the chopped scallions.

Link me, m'dear

Are you just not getting enough vitamin B ... as in, B-movies? AMCtv.com has the answer to that: BMC has around forty full-length, full-screen online cinematic gems ready and waiting for you in all the genres you could hope for. Spaghetti westerns? You betcha! Sci-fi/fantasy? How does The Saga of the Viking Women and Their Voyage to the Waters of the Great Sea Serpent grab you? There's horror (Devil Doll, The Cat Girl), comedy (Raquel Welch in A Swingin' Summer), action/adventure (Hercules Unchained and Dragstrip Girls) and crime/thrillers (The Crawling Eye, Dog Eat Dog and The Haunted Strangler) - to name just a few. I plan to watch as many of these "unsung classics" as I can stand.

It's like AMC Day around here! I also learned of The. Best. Holiday. Ever. over there on the Horror Hacker blog: World Zombie Day. It's an old post, sure, but still - who doesn't need to know that there is one day when the world's zombies and zombie fans can join together and stagger around celebrate? This year, it's October 11. World-headquarters are in Pittsburgh, of course.

As soon as we sell this frakkin' house and move out to Utah, I'm so going to read every page of this blog: Stuff Unemployed People Like. I haven't poked around on it much yet - want to save it for when I need it! - but it looks to be chockful of very important information, such as "Walking Everywhere to Save Time," "Finally Having Time to Be an Artist" and "Getting Annoyed About Having to Get Dressed."

The AV Club has a good article on how to start reading Stephen King if you want to but haven't yet. As a hugenormous SK fan who has read almost all his stuff, I pretty much concur with their findings. Love those old short stories!

Book review: Talk Talk - a novel by T.C. Boyle

The threat of identity theft is everywhere these days. You password-protect your computer; you shred sensitive documents; you tear up receipts and unwanted credit card applications. But it happens. And when it does, the ramifications are vast and unforgiving.

Talk Talk is the story of it happening. Dana Halter, a pretty young PhD with a cushy job teaching English in a private deaf school, gets pulled over for rolling through a stop sign. When the cop runs her license, she is immediately arrested for passing bad checks, auto theft, possession of a controlled substance, assault with a deadly weapon, etc., etc. – multiple counts in three California counties plus Nevada. Her plea of “I’ve never even been to Nevada!” falls on unhearing ears and she is thrown into prison. It is days before her hearing boyfriend, Bridger, a computer graphic designer, manages to clear up the mistaken identity and she is released with a cursory apology for the inconvenience.

Once Dana gets out, things go from bad to worse. Her credit is completely shot and her bank accounts cleaned out; it costs her hundreds of dollars to get her car released from impound – with no possible reimbursement despite the fact that she was mistakenly arrested. She is even fired from her teaching position and cast aside, lost. Complicating things further is her deafness: she can speak, but atonally which sounds awkward to hearing folk. Although she needs a lot of help to reclaim her identity, she finds that the hearing people are less than fully helpful because they assume that she’s weird or, worse, retarded.

Boyle introduces us to the thief as well: William “Peck” Wilson, a petty criminal from upstate New York with way more smarts than your average bear. While in prison, Peck learns of the untold riches of identity theft and embarks upon his true calling. He’s very good at it, easily accumulating multiple identities, fancy homes and luxury automobiles. His sexy Russian girlfriend doesn’t know his real name – thinks he’s “Dana Halter” – but he drapes her in jewels and designer clothes, and what she doesn’t know doesn’t hurt him.

The bulk of Talk Talk is a cross-county chase with Dana and Bridger on Peck’s trail. The novel is well-plotted and moves along at a brisk pace. The characters are fully realized, rounded people, each of them developing through the course of the story. Dana, while clearly the victim, is sometimes an unpleasant person: stubborn, bitter, proud, ungrateful. Amazingly, Peck is very nearly a sympathetic character, despite the havoc he has wreaked on Dana and Bridger’s lives. Peck longs for the daughter he lost to a vindictive ex-wife; he loves to cook and has a gourmand’s tastes. When Dana first tracks him down, his distress at the discovery is palpable and I almost felt sorry for him, faced with the collapse of the life he’d built so painstakingly.

Interwoven with the plot is an elegant discussion of language. Boyle presents so many different ways and means of communication - spoken words, American Sign Language, computer code, the Russian girlfriend's broken English, Peck's inadvertant lapse into old idiom when he finds himself unexpectedly back home - but in the end, the humans always seem to end up misunderstanding one another.

It was such a joy, a relief even, to read this book after the last one. Boyle is a wonderful writer, energetic and inventive. His sentences are artworks – layered, descriptive, and well-paced. After I read the first chapter, I stopped and immediately re-read it from the beginning, just to savor the words. My brother read Talk Talk - to the exclusion of all other activities, nearly – while on a recent family vacation, then handed it off to my father who was also completely entranced by the book. I wholeheartedly recommend Talk Talk as one of the most interesting and entertaining novels I have ever read. And that’s not just talk.

Man, I got so Housed

I'm not saying that I watch a lot of television or anything, but this past Monday, June 15, 2009, Mr. Mouse and I finished watching the last episode out of all five seasons of House that we hadn't yet seen ... and we didn't even start watching the show until New Year's Day 2009.

That's like 110 episodes or something, given a short first season and the writers' strike. We were flipping channels on New Year's and found that both Fox and USA were in the habit of running House marathons. One packed DVR and six months later, I can confidently say that (a) I prefer the initial team of Chase, Cameron and Foreman, (b) Kutner's suicide was bogus, (c) there's no way Thirteen should have hit the #1 spot on Maxim's "Hot 100" list as she's too damn skinny and (d) Cuddy definitely looks better without bangs.