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TV Season 2015-16: The Best of What We Saw

The idea of a "traditional" TV season is all but dead, thanks to time shifting and online sources, never mind the crush of DVD compilations. And really, TV has been divided down into quarters, as 13 week storytelling (even 6 or 9 week stories) have come over from Europe as a valid "season" of a show. 

So is old style, 22-24 episode seasonal storytelling outdated? Too much? I can't say - there are shows I wouldn't dream of dropping everything to watch each week, and stories not worth telling long form... but having spent another year glued to Supernatural, I can't say the form has no uses left, either. What I can say is that episodic television is enjoying a renaissance unlike anything I've seen in my lifetime - the variety of quality, smart, interesting options to watch has never been more varied; the creativity on display rarely more inventive; and the ability of storytelling to move audiences rarely so accomplished.

This is a highly selective, personal list. I'm not big on conventional choices or top ten faves. And I certainly have a fondness these days for comic books fantasy and sci-fi, as do many of us (yet somehow, no love for Game of Thrones). So here, just to put it out there, a few things I've watched and loved from Fall into Spring:

1. Supernatural (Season 10, on DVD; Season 11, the CW). Nothing else like it has ever lasted this long on TV. And who else could tell a story from the point of view of the car ("Baby," this season's fan fave) and pull it off? After confronting heaven, hell and everything in between, it's been hard to know how the chroniclers of Sam and Dean Winchester could find fresh ground - yet here they were, going back to the beginning of time to revive The Darkness, a malevolent force bent on erasing all of creation (and, as luck would have it, God's sister). If things got a little off kilter at times - a little airless, a little too meta by half - the various gems along the way were a reminder that in many ways the show still has much to discover. Then, too, the quality of the performances from the leads to the passing guests - ensembles should always age this well.  And "God is Chuck" is a piece of legend and lore worthy of the mythology of the show.
2. Lucifer (Season 1, Fox). Supernatural was so impressed, they threw it in as a toss-off: "maybe I'll move to LA and become a detective." But Fox's midseason mystery fantasy entry had, unsurprisingly, a lot of charm and sexiness, not to mention some better than to be expected writing and acting as well. (And not nearly as surprising is Lucifer himself, Tom Ellis, who had already done a lovely, similar turn as a junkie doctor on Rush in a one season USA stint). Preposterous? Sure, and at times, the mundane plotting wasn't up to the lurid, daring intensity of the premise... but it worked a lot better than it had any right to, and just enough to leave people panting for more.
3. The Flash (Season 1, DVD; Season 2, the CW). Of comics on TV, The Flash has raced past all of its neighbors (the CW: comics and ghouls! And a couple of wacky ladies!) to establish itself as the genre's star. Much of that appeal is on the back of Grant Gustin, seemingly from nowhere (actually from Glee, where he honestly put the star back into musical comedy), as an utterly sincere, guileless young man suddenly able to save the world. Extrapolating on Season One's jumble of gobbledygook science, time travel and parallel universes, The Flash could easily fly off the rails at any moment (and, in its own trip to heaven/nirvana, nearly did), but the show's upbeat approach and willingness to believe (and relative consistency) covers sins other shows wouldn't necessarily survive. Three flashes, two bad flashes, and many multiple roles later, the cast looks game, the mythology holds, and the race is on.
4. RuPaul's Drag Race (Season 8, Logo). A short, tight run for the crown this year was helped immensely by an even more jaw dropping array of talent and beauty on display than before: by the time the season had weeded its way down to stunning Naomi Smalls, sassy Bob the Drag Queen, and the breathtaking looks of online star Kim Chi, it was clear that drag, and Ru Paul's faith in her chosen art form, needed no defense. That battle had been won, years ago, as demonstrated both by the opener's "100 drag queens" premise, to the finale's opening shot of RuPaul and her Superstars. Eight years later, the possibilities seem endless for a man in a dress. Any one of this year's three could have been - and will be - a superstar, but Bob's selection was a reminder that the goal here is TP - the Total Package. And Bob's Taraji by way of Viola Davis skewering of an Empire diva was, in itself, off the charts. And only the beginning.
5. Rosewood (Season 1, Fox). Police procedurals ebb and flow, but never really go away - just ask SVU. And somehow, simply by insisting on diversity casting, Fox has managed to breathe fresh life into a premise as old as Quincy - the crusading medical examiner, this time as a black man. Morris Chestnut surely has one of the best roles on television, and he's playing the heck out of it... not to mention seducing the camera with his eyes. If it's not quite all it could be, it's a lot more than we're getting anywhere else.
6. The Americans (Seasons 1-3, Amazon Prime; Season 4, FX). I am very late to the ball on this one, having heard good things over the years, but never diving fully into the "Russians living here as ordinary Americans, spying on us" in the Reagan eighties. As it turns out, the whole thing is wildly riveting. Big ideas about identity, and loyalty and who can you trust bouncing against the intimate dramas of family and coming of age and life in a changing time. Add in a top flight cast, and stir. There's no better explanation of the power of binge watching than finding a gem like this, in the middle of the game.
7. The Man in the High Castle (Season 1, Amazon Prime). Phillip K. Dick's writing has ascended into the pantheon of Hollywood's go-to sci-fi fantasy projects, but I'm not sure his work has ever (even Blade Runner) been as well represented as this "what if the Axis won the war" fantasia. Envisioning an America divided up between Germany and Japan - with the Rockies as a rough terrain no-man's land - The Man in the High Castle's depiction of alternative history is masterful, subtle, and feels true, no mean feat when it's all made up. Political thriller, time tampering mystery and much more, The Man in the High Castle promised much in its pilot, and delivered in 13 episodes dropped, as online series do, into the mix all at once. And so well received, we we even get more.
8. The Road Warriors and AM Joy (MSNBC) Political coverage is a nightmare this year, both reflecting the mess on display, and of course, helping to create it. There's not a lot of good - and I'd hate to overlook the bright spots of competent panels on CNN, the Chris Matthews interview of Trump, the occasions of pithy insight from Maddow... but there's a lot of bad - the general meltdown of Fox, the Trump cheerleading of Morning Joe, the horror that is Wolf Blitzer. And in the midst of all of it, MSNBC decided to do a wholesale makeover of its whole schedule, from bringing back Brian Williams (eh), to losing Melissa Harris-Perry in a storm of angst and academic drang. While the finished product is still touch and go, it's hard not to appreciate some of the effort to think out of the box - from reviving Joy Reid into MHP's spot on weekends, every bit as insightful and yet less didactic; to a weekday roundtable of the top women reporters covering campaigns, including Kasie Hunt, Katy Tur, Hallie Jackson and Kristen Welker, all doing great work, along with Steve Kornacki (cute, though the "white guy with the data crunching" thing is both hackneyed and a little insulting). While CNN flails and Fox retreats into the old angry demographic, MSNBC may well be figuring out how to do 24 hour news and analysis that isn't a complete head shaking mess.
9. Masterpiece Mystery (PBS). No, I'm not going to give a self congratulatory pat on the back to Downton, basking in its easy tropes about wealth and class and British manners - sudsy soap operas will always have an appeal, especially using the hoariest of cheap gimmicks and plot twists to keep the audience coming back for more. No, let's celebrate what Downton has wrought, such as it is - a reliable engine for well produced British television to find a classy home on Sunday evenings. Sure Mystery used to stand on its own, but folded into Masterpiece isn't so bad either, and as much as anything is helping to give the enterprise legs beyond the chase for another blockbuster ("Wolfe Hall" is hardly cutting it, nor "Poldark" nor a half dozen more). Sure Grantchester (riding the well worn trick of casting Robson Green) and Endeavour (riding the well worn afterglow of Inspector Morse) aren't exactly plowing fresh ground, but classic detective work is rare these days, and while Kenneth Branagh is a bit of a dud as Wallander, the respect for source material these days is especially strong. A bit less Call The Midwife, a lot less Mr. Selfridge... and no more Darlene Shiley (Masterpiece's main donor, buying herself a vanity spot in the network's plea for donation cattle call)... and we're all good.
10. SNL (Season 46, NBC)... Or as we used to call it, Saturday Night Live. Rarely has it been funnier. Rarely has the cast been this deep, and never more diverse. If it's still hit-or-miss on the sketch humor - and still too much miss - the good has rarely been this great: Kate McKinnon's "maybe this time" version of Hillary Clinton, those sparkling videos and song parodies ("First Got Horny 2 U", or "Hello" as Thanksgiving uniter), and even the sly understated (at best) humor flying between Colin Jost and Michael Che on Weekend Update. And Leslie Jones is fierce!

Honorable Mentions: Modern Family (only cause I'm not really watching it consistently; but in reruns my goodness is it funny), Schitt's Creek, Happy Endings (The best 40 episodes of random comedy cruelly left behind) The Real O'Neals, Telenovela, Shameless, Archer, Legends of Tomorrow, Limitless, Madam Secretary, Penny Dreadful, Billions, Empire, Grandfathered... and anything that's on up against judges scoring singers or dancers. 

They Wuz Robbed: An Alternate History Of The Oscars, Part I

Buzzfeed up-ended Oscar season this year with an absurd post (when is it not, with them) attempting to rank all 85 Best Picture winners from worst to best overall. It's a fool's exercise, made more foolish - and I say this from personal experience - because the writer was not well versed in all of the films. Don't get too far away from what you actually know, as a writer, especially as a critic. It shows.

The problem with the list, though, is deeper. It's not how good or bad the Best Picture winners are or can be seen to be. It's that, for pretty much all 85, there was at least one other film that a large swath of viewers and critics thought should get the top honor. For every Titanic, for every Forrest Gump, even for All About Eve or The Godfather... there's another nominee a lot of people really, really liked. (Okay, maybe not The Godfather. We'll see.)

The Buzzfeed list got me to thinking about this, and sketching out some options... but what really pushed me to pull out the pooter and start composing was this year's awards. Because this year's alternate is especially glaring, and it ought to be said. So that's where I'm going to begin.

Some caveats: I'm working backwards, because mass memory is about recent events, but don't ignore the classics from Oscar's early years - we are talking some great artifacts of film history, which deserve to be seen. Second, I haven't seen everything... but I will be up front about it where necessary. Third, this list is limited to Oscar nominees for Best Picture. If we get into a game of "what about that brilliant film that was shut out" we lose the plot all together, and really, the list of greatest films of all time isn't about Oscar. This is.

Finally, naturally, all of this is subjective. And yes, I'd love the feedback, and a healthy conversation. Don't be shy. And so, without further ado...

2013 - American Hustle. Talk about robbed - last year's smartest caper film woudn up completely shut out on all 8 of its nominations. And all of those were richly deserved. Since his brilliant dark comedy Flirting With Disaster, David O. Russell has made a string of smart, boundary chalenging films with great casts and intellgent scripts. And it's probably too much to ask that work this good get honored repeatedly, since Russell's Silver Linings Playbook was already a dominant winner. Still, Hustle's every bit as brilliant as The Sting, and even better in its attempt to recreate a period in costumes, sets, and songs. Were Hollywood less caught up in righting historical wrongs - including its own shabby history on race - 12 Years A Slave would probably sit in the perfectly acceptable position of having been a great adaptation of a dark, grim story of an horrific experience... but not Best. For my money, Hustle is what you reward for greatness, and timelessness.

2012 - Silver Linings Playbook.... while we're at it. Though I will say this one of those years where I think the Academy got it right - Argo is a great film, even with the overwrought ending.

2011 - Midnight in Paris. No, The Help does not deserve it. And yes, I love The Artist. But Woody Allen's filmmaking, even on Blue Jasmine, has rarely been as finely honed as it was on this gentle, loving film about not getting too caught up in worshipping the past. Masterful recreations of previous eras, gleeful cameos of past masters (especially a charming Zelda Fitzgerald, a drunk Hemingway, and explaining The Discreet Charm of The Bourgoisie to a confused Bunuel), plus a slew of masterful performances (has Owen Wilson ever been better? I think not).... what more do you need? Nothing, that's what.

2010 - Winter's Bone. Having not seen The Social Network or Inception, I feel underqualified to make the case for either; though I think Inception probably has a strong one. I can easily make the case that The King's Speech was sentimental claptrap that could easily be overlooked in the overall history of film. I can also make a strong case that this ambitious independent film, which snuck into major consideration, is way better than it has any right to be, in large measure because Jennifer Lawrence really was that stunningly good right from the beginning. A small, dark film where a win would have shown the Academy's ability to look past the obvious. And they don't, often.

2009 - Precious, based on the novel Push by Sapphire. In one of those harder than usual years (I could make my own compelling cases for The Blind Side and Up, just for starters), I'd say Lee Daniels was robbed; this film takes on nearly every American prejudice, and Hollywood's willful blindness to poverty, race, and size... and spins it into gold. Gabourey Sidibe's performance is undeniable. Mo'Nique will never be this glorious again. And just when you think you've heard or seen it all, the final ten minutes of the film will up-end everything you think you knew. Daniels will get there, eventually, but it will be because he already did.

2008 - Milk. Not a great year, not a great set of choices... but Lord, anything other than the ludicrous Slumdog Millionaire. It might as well be the engaging biopic of the gay community's greatest political hero, which hit the trifecta of a great script, inventive direction, and a bravura lead performance. Or we can give it to a magical fairy tale. Oh well.

2007 - Michael Clayton. An issue pic, a taut thriller, one of George Clooney's easy, masterful performances, the glorious Tilda Swinton. Is this a hard call? I think not. Instead... There Will Be Blood. It was a very dark year. 

2006 - The Queen. Sentimental? Sure. Hogwash? A bit. I really wish the film had won rather than Helen Mirren. But I'd settle for both. The film, at the very least, offers a less varnished, less rosy view of the English royals than we normally get. And anything, to me, would be better than to reward Martin Scorsese for making a pale carbon copy of the vastly superior Infernal Affairs.

2005 - Brokeback Mountain. Obviously. Crash? Oh, where to begin. It's the decade's most inexplicable winner, one that made even its supporters wince as the reality sank in. And then there's Ang Lee's spare, brilliant, quiet paean to doomed love among the cowboys and the mountains. Easy call.

2004 - Sideways. Only because I think Ray was too conventional, too by the numbers in its depiction of a musician biopic. But certainly Charles is a compelling subject and the music soars. Still, Sideways is a charming, offbeat dramedy that stings in unexpected ways. Million Dollar Baby just never intrigued me.

2003 -  Mystic River. In a year that's actually a hard choice - I adore Lost in Translation, and am just sentimental enough to love Seabiscuit - I'd reward Clint Eastwood for a mystery drama that captures the South Boston experience in all its conflicted glory. And I slogged through all 3 episodes of Lord of the Rings. Still, not even close.

2002 - The Pianist. There is a question, naturally, of how many ways we can slice World War 2 movies and Holocaust pictures, but Roman Polanski's take is every bit as masterful as you'd expect from him, an unexpected journey very well told. Yes, that's me overlooking The Hours. And I liked Chicago... but Best? Maybe not so much.

2001 - Gosford Park. Downton Abbey in its concise, feature film form, from the absolute master of overlapping plotlines. It's even got Maggie Smith. As the Dowager Countess. It also has every other british actor you could dream of, doing just the sort of British things you'd want to see them doing.

2000 - Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Because The Academy waffled and gave it Best Foreign Film. Which is totally embarrassing.

1999 - The Insider. How times change. I didn't pick it at the time, and I didn't entirely love it... but time has not been kind to American Beauty, which winds up less than the sum of its parts. I am moderately torn by The Cider House Rules, but in the end, I think its defenders were right - The Insider holds up best.

1998 - Elizabeth. Two films featuring the Virgin Queen will enter. Only one can win. Oops. Yeah, we could have picked the brilliant bloody epic that verified Blanchett as a star... or we could pick Shaespeare in Love. Oh yeah... oops.

1997 - LA Confidential. I would write a long defense of why, but why bother? Titanic. They gave it to Titanic. Big mistake. Huge.

1996 - Fargo. I am not a Coen Brothers fan, and I loved The English Patient. But if a film was ever overlooked while being quietly brilliant, this mystery thriller remains a truy hidden gem.

1995 - Apollo 13. I'm not married to any of the choices; I'd take reading the phone book over Braveheart. I'm sure there's a good case, even, for Babe. But Tom Hanks really likes those astronaut pictures. And people tell me this one's good.

1994 - Quiz Show. Robert Redford's film has never been appreciated for what it is - a searing indictment of WASP privilege and the lies we tell ourselves, especially via television. Even something as simple as opening his credits with Mack the Knife and closing with the actual Moritat from Threepenny Opera makes his point with knifelike sharpness. I can't even begin to discuss the travesty of rewarding Forrest Gump instead.

1993 - In The Name Of The Father. But yes, this is the year of Schindler's List. So let's not push it.

1992 - A Few Good Men. In a sea of good but not great (Howard's End, The Crying Game, and the winning Unforgiven, to be sure; less so Scent of a Woman), it's mostly a toss-up. But Rob Reiner's adaptation of a fairly routine courtroom/court martial drama holds up extremely well, features Tom Cruise and Demi Moore in surprising career highs, and gives Jack Nicholson's best scene chewing room to breathe. You can't handle the truth. And that's not even the best line in that speech. Or in the film.

1991 - The Prince of Tides. Does it outdo Silence of the Lambs? Maybe not... but let's factor in, honestly, the severe anti-Streisand bias of the Academy. Then let's point out that this is Nick Nolte's best work by far, assisted by a slew of strong performances, including the diva herself. And Streisand did a marvelous of distilling a watchable movie out of a really bad, melodramatic book (seriously. It's atrocious). A sweeping cross-generational story, full of dark secrets and stunning revelations... we've given more awards to less. But you could tell me to pick Bugsy instead, and I'd hear you out. But don't start with me on JFK.

1990 - Goodfellas. The real moment when Martin Scorsese was robbed, his finest hour of storytelling on the story he was meant to tell, an amoral fable of gangsters from the height of their cultural importance to the sad dissolution into drugs, degradation and incarceration. Just the dazzling sequence at The Copa alone deserves Best Picture. And instead? We rewarded Dances With Wolves. Seriously? Seriously.

So endeth the first lesson. Up next, the epics of the eighties, and the sad story of seventies realism.

 

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Good Luck With That (The Ezra Chronicles)

Last week, Ezra Klein walked away from Wonkblog, the most recent (semi-)iteration of his blog at The Washington Post. 

It's probably a measure of Ezra's semi-celebrity as a blogger and the DC insider swirl that many people would go "who?" and still, I think there's something to write about. 

I mention this when I bring him up, because it seems relevant: I blog, even in this limited form today, in large part because of Ezra. It started when I found his blog in the nineties, and found it both an interesting read and a place to get in on a lively conversation in the comments sections of various pieces. Reading Ezra - I'll get back to this - and writing comments made me regain some faith in the notion that I had something to say, and a blog might be a way to say it. 

Over time, I've watched Ezra move from independent blogger to the American Prospect (a vast shade of its former self) to the Post, and eventually to the Wonkblog, a kind of curated group effort to delve into various intersting issues of the day. It's been hard, in its way, because I feel like Ezra's successes underscored what I wasn't doing... but also realizing I had no wish to do what he did. Both, in their ways, are sort of humbling. And humble's not so bad, really.

Ostensibly, Ezra's left Wonkblog to do the latest in online fashion - a startup site of his own, a kind of Wonkblog on steroids... or something, it's kind of light on details and specifics, but it sounds kind of like Breitbart without the utter lack of reporting and the barely suppressed rage. That is, there'll be some regular writers, mostly opinion pieces, some deep dives into complex issues... and, well, that seems to be about it. Thus, apparently, can be very successful.

Maybe. I tend to think that it's instructive that when Ezra brought this not entirely fully formed idea to his bosses at the Post, they apparently turned him down more or less flat. Perhaps it was the cost (almost everyone puts his proposal at north of $10 milion), perhaps it was the resources involved (a full blown, stand alone site that would, in essence, have competed with The Post), but myself, I kind of think they turned him down mostly because he'd argued himself out of a job.

Wonkblog has been a curious exercise, a relatively readable, occasionally interesting blog that has some great healthcare reporting (via the brilliant Suzy Khimm and Sarah Kliff), some good economics coverage (mostly from Brad Plumer), and... well, that's about it. Long before the last few months, when Klein seemed to turn his attention well towards other projects, his presence was largely minimal. Though the focus was basically on politics and the DC whirl, the blog was (and remains) parked in the Business section as an Economics blog, a field where Klein is no one's idea of a formal expert. I don't doubt that it's widely read and (relatively) successful, but I'm not sure how much of this, ultimately, can be attributed to Ezra Klein, or what he brought to it at the beginning.

One of the more obvious resons for this would be that Klein has never really developed into a great writer, never mind reporter. Much of his work has been pedestrian, at best. His insights were never especially brave or unique, and I don't mean that cruelly or unfairly - many have made more out of less. At the time of his initial rise, he did respresent something of a fresh start, if only because, like others of his age and background, he was at the core of the "new liberalism" wave that produced first Howard Dean and ultimately, with some tinkering, the success of Barack Obama. A confirmed Obama prostletyzer, Klein nearly led the way in promoting Obama's presidency early and often, while pushing endlessly to marginalize or sidetrack Hillary Clinton.

To the victor, naturally, go the spoils, and Klein's rise into the Post was surely an acknowledgement by their powers that be of his importance in the DC establishment. But much that way Obama's presidency never quite lived up to the dreamy visions of his most ardent followers, Klein's career has kind of stalled. What looked like a promising venture into TV via "analyst" and sub-hosting gigs at MSNBC never quite turned into a show (the geek/wonk parts now being played by Chris Hayes, Steve Kornacki, et al). Though he had a regular column at the Post, and pieces for Bloomberg, they rarely made a ripple. And an apparent book deal with Simon and Schuster has not yielded a finished manuscript.

Maybe it will, but I'd probably cancel the advance if I were them. The sense that Klein's moment has passed can't really be ignored. He doesn't have the showmanship or huckster mentality of, say, an Andrew Sullivan or Glenn Beck, the two most prominent web successes along the model Ezra's pursuing; nor does he have the natural following, these days, of such a signature presence. Nor does he have the specialized skill of, say, Nate Silver, who never seemed an entirely good fit at the Times, and whose decampment to ESPN provides a more year-round use of his stantistical skills and interests. 

It may be that Klein is onto something in the group curation, editorial role he seems to envision for himself... but that organizer role isn't new and requires a clearer sense of the product he's looking to put out - and why there's a public waiting for it - than anything I've seen thus far. I don't think it's surprising that the Post's new owners - or the old ones - would have asked just those questions, and not seen value in the answers. Nor do I think Klein's onto the next Politico; DC's just not big enough to need much more of that. So there he sits, developing an as yet unnamed, unseen site, spending millions of other people's money, and maybe, I suppose this thing could burst forth and amaze us all. For the moment... I'll stick with my doubts.

It's not that I yearn for Ezra Klein to fail - God knows, if I really want to take this blog thing bigger, I'll need to have someone like me - it's just that, in the tale of his ups and downs, I find it reassuring that my faith in familiar, time tested, notions still carries through - develop your skills, don't get too caught up in flashy trendy of the moment fads, and sometimes, the instinct that it's too good to be true will prove out. As much as I'd like to believe in the magical powers of the internet and its limitless potential, I remain, at heart, a web skeptic. I don't think online advertising will yet prove to be all it claims, and I think  much of the "brave new projects" launched online won't be much more than what we already know - the magazine, the long form book, the TV show. But hey, seriously, good luck with that, Mr. K. Maybe I'll yet find new inspiration out of it.

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The Best Of What We Saw, 2013

Oscar nomination day may seem unfathomably late to put up a Best Of List for the year prior... but if it's good enough for The Academy, why not me? As I've made a regular practice of compiling this stuff, I realized that January was better than trying to glom onto the crush of December year-enders (a fresh palette, and a good time to encourage friends to catch up on quality product they may have missed), and this year, trying to resume blogging, at this point, well, I can pretty much do what I like when I want to. Rebuilding, restarting, rebooting... I think I've used up all the good words. Now it's just... get back to it.

I don't have a lot to say about the Oscar nods - it's the usual mix of some good, some bad, some just head scratching (Jackass for Best Makeup? It's actually explicable... but that don't make it right). Some of the nominees are in my mix, some not, but this list isn't just a great films list. When I started writing this down, I knew I needed a broader approach. So this list comprises everything, and anything, visually entertaining. I just didn't get to a lot of museums this year.

Without further ado:

1) August: Osage County. A raft of mixed to bad reviews, and a lot of overhyping made me nervous about the filmed adaptation of Tracy Letts' Broadway hit play. Sure it had Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and a similarly dream team cast, but I'd missed the play and what I'd heard made me skeptical. Instead, I found myself blown away by a searing wound: Letts has peeled back layers of artifice from a classic setup - the wildly dysfunctional family in close quarters - and refuses to soften the proceedings with comedy or ease our tensions with melodramatic excess. Indeed, I think the dismal responses came, in part, because some mistook the drama oncscreen for excess, when those of us who've lived it can attest to what's displayed; and conversely, others were surely disturbed by the play's refusal to take easy shortcuts or artificially upbeat endings. Streep (with her 18th nomination!) reminds us, again, that she shines best in ensembles, and that she can play self involved monsters with the best of them, in a part worthy of Davis or Hepburn (though neither might have pulled it off this compellingly). Roberts, too, reminds us that she is capable of greatness, even in a dislikable role. But then, don't miss the amazing Margo Martindale or the sublime Juliette Lewis, either. And that's just for starters. Hard to watch, harder to turn away, brilliant in every painful detail. Yeah, that's just what it was like.

2) The Grandmaster (Ya Dai Zong Shi). The Best Film no one saw: Wong Kar Wai remains at the top of his game telling the story of the Martial Arts master who trained Bruce Lee, and thus influences nearly everything about the ethos and presentation of Asian combat on film. Ip Man's story has everything that's hip in Asian film - twenties gangsters in Shanghai, opium trade, rival warlords, fights in snow and rain and next to moving trains - but what's stunning is how Wong teases out a sensitive, moving drama with a point. Of course that looks all the easier when graced with superstar talent like Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Ziyi Zhang, but the point is, as usual, Chinese film is racing ahead of us in terms of marrying big budget action sequences to important, well told stories. That this film was ignored by The Academy is a reminder of their, and much of America's myopia to recognizing art beyond our borders. Happily, it seems pretty clear that Wong's not going aywhere anytime soon.

3) The Great Gatsby. Another long anticipated adaptation that could easily have flown off the rails (Hollywood has tried twice before, with generally disastrous results), but Baz Luhrmann proved that sometimes, a six month extension to completion is actually helpful and not a sign of impending doom. And Luhrmann found the heart of Fitzgerald much the way one would expect from his previous films: no one does the controlled madness of party sequences better, and no one has a surer feel for how to marry modern music to classic cinematic images. The result? A film that aurally and visually links the excesses of our own age to those of the roaring twenties, emphasizing the timelessness of Fitzgerald's keen insights into the worst of human foibles. Easily Leonardo DiCaprio's best performance in years, his Gatsby is both the star and dupe of his own show. And, too, Tobey Maguire embodies the contradictions of Nick, our unreliable, untrustworthy narrator. It may have taken 90 years for society to catch up to the sleaziness depicted by Fitzgerald in fiction so long ago, but arguably this film benefited simply from our willingness to put the worst of our natures onscreen as well as the best, finally. Thank God someone finally figured it out.

4) The Originals (Season One, The CW). It's hard to remember anything like the instant success achieved by spinning out major characters from one TV series into another, entirely new one. It's a testament to both the rich canvas painted on The Vampire Diaries and the strong appeal, still, of fantasy horror fiction that this series has bolted out of the gate, while the parent program soldiers on (just off this list). It helps that Joseph Morgan and Daniel Gillies, the two brothers at the heart of the story, are both gifted, sensitive performers and that the plotting and scripting are first rate. Can all of this be sustained? I'm not sure, but so far the growing pains seem limited to the parent show while this one, with its rich mix of vampires, witchcraft and New Orleans Hoodoo seems to stand alone just fine. 

5) Supernatural (Season 8 on TV and DVD; Season 9, The CW). Even fewer shows still find fresh energy and insights past the 7th year, and for a while, it seemed as though, in its 7th season that Supernatural - aka the "Season go Splat" - was growing surly and cranky with age. The killings grew especially brutal, and our main characters seemed headed towards their natural ends. But then something magical happened: an 8th season that pulled the show back to its hard fighting roots, fresh blood in the producing and writing ranks, and a renewed sense of purpose put the brother hunters on a new path, one that became infinitely more complex as Heaven was invaded and the angels expelled. Now in a season of fallen angels and seemingly endless twists, Supernatural has revived itself as central to the fantasy sci fi and horror genre (this is one for the history books, now), the show that is known to every geek fanboy - and more crucially, girl - with myths and legends on an epic scale. Also, the leads are very goodlooking. Still.

6) The Company You Keep. Robert Redford's real proof this year - don't talk to me about the man vs. nature nonsense of All Is Lost - that he's still got it as an actor and director. Mining the rich tales of fading sixties radicals, Redford reopens a rough wound - those aging radicals who resorted to crime in the seventies, and then went into lives "underground". Blessed with a raft of talented old timers - can anyone resist Julie Christie? Ever? - Redford also elicited strong work from youngins like Shia LeBoeuf and Anna Kendrick as well. And Redford, as a director, still refuses to resort to pat answers or easy scenarios: what lifts "Company" ahead of other paeans to the wistful romancing of the radical past is his acknowledgements of the tensions and failures that lie within. Sure, there's a sob story here of old romance and missed parenting, but Redford's instincts for WASP classiness keep the tears to a minimum and the larger point never far away. Another Oscar overlook that's mostly a shame, even if its blink and you missed it release came and went too fast.

7) American Hustle. David O. Russell has been generally can't miss (though I skipped Silver Linings Playbook), and this time he's delivered near perfection: a brisk retelling of seventies era corruption and double dealing that plays as the long lost sequel to The Sting, with Coppola level emotional baggage in tow. Brilliantly scripted, the film is equally brilliantly performed by a near dream cast - at this point Jennifer Lawrence is unstoppable, and Amy Adams manages to bust down the doors of serial niceness, plus Bradley Cooper manages to upstage his own sexy dude asshole instincts, while Christian Bale reminds us of his sheer determination in physical transformation. No mistakes, not one missed note, and a crackling energized piece every bit as satisfying as Affleck's Argo. It's Russell's time, and he deserves the accolade.

8) Dallas Buyers Club. Here's to the freaks and weirdos, and here's to the film that doesn't try to clean them up or straighten them out. This tale of the early days of AIDS treatment and the desperate measures taken by patients to treat themselves would be compelling material in anyone's hands, but director Jean-Marc Vallee makes a particular virtue of guerrilla filmmaking and seat of your pants storytelling. Then too, this has been the year when Matthew McConnaughey made that last little leap to performing genius, when he didn't just play sexy laid back lotharios, but infused them with insight, depth, and pain. Dangerously thin, anxious and enervated, McConnaughey stalks this film in a way he rarely has ever, willing himself, those around him, and the audience to root for the right things. And then there's Jared Leto, no compromises, no fear, playing the best outrageous transwoman yet seen in a major film. Profoundly moving, thought provoking and angering... what more could you ask?

9) Teen Wolf (Season 3a, MTV). Zooming from interesting curiosity to underground hit, MTV's reboot of a middling eighties horror comedy could easily have been a misbegotten mess, but instead became an instant word of mouth addiction, not least because of a cast of eye candy nearly unequalled on cable or network (and, like the Vampire Diaries, it owes a debt to the teen television boom, and especially a whole previous generation of TV studs still on the casting open market). But eye candy alone doesn't make hit television (I know... right?), and the real surprise here, as with other fantasy TV successes, starts with the solid scripting and knack for tasty plot twists (no one does a cliffhanger nearly as well as this show is doing, week to week and season to season). All of the male leads - Tyler Posey, Tyler Hoechlin, Dylan O'Brien, Daniel Sharman - are delivering surprisingly rich, nuanced performances, as are Crystal Reed and Holland Roden, Roden perhaps most of all. Even MTV has learned its lesson, beefing up its series order and refreshing us with a "second half" third season that so far lives up to the hype.

10) Justified (Seasons 3 and 4, DVD and FX). Timothy Olyphant has found his true calling as Raylan Givens, the Kentucky-born and bred US Marshal who has to bring justice and beat back his worst instincts as he deals with both a complicated present and a disastrous past. Writing again is the real key here - can you mess up Elmore Leonard for source material? - but Justified continues to amaze in 13 week bites just by putting Appalachian culture up for examination, one of the last under examined subcultures left in this vast land (with Longmire's open west fast approaching behind it).  Olyphant remains a captivating tall drink of water, the visual embodiment of "lanky", bringing with him virtually a whole sense memory of the classic western - even in an open field, you can almost see the tavern's swinging doors flutter behind him before he draws his gun to shoot. And yeah, if you get that whole double entendre in all its glory, then this show's success is fairly easy to see.

11) Kill Your Darlings. One of a small string of Beat Generation stories weaving their way to the screen, this one offers the real life story of Allen Ginsberg and his involvement in a high profile murder investigation during his years at Columbia, the murder committed by Lucien Carr justified as gay panic. Sure, there are other, more recent youthful examples of rebels blowing up the counterculture, but the real postwar engagement with artistically blowing up the status quo starts with this small band of risk takers, who probably nearly killed themselves in the process. This fim's loving depiction of Ginsberg and how he grew into the poet he became is well observed, and helped immensely by Daniel Radcliffe's already high wire approach to unexpected roles - he doesn't condescend or shy away for even a minute. The film may take a few liberties - and Carr's descendants weren't thrilled with reopening old wounds - but generally, this film captures a rebellious spirit and the possibilities afforded by that certain sort of liberal arts college experience. At least, that's kind of how I remember it, Ferlinghetti and all.

12) Blue Jasmine. Woody Allen continues to solidify his position in this late period of filmmaking as the Years Where He Puts It All Together. Comedy, drama, insights, madness... it's all there in the story of two sisters whose lives are deeply intertwined and whose fates are fairly far apart. Cate Blanchett's turn as a middle aged woman descending into madness, like other bravura performances this year, initially resembles the star turns of great actresses of yore, but Blanchett has the modernity and guts to go all the way, creating a genuinely jittery and unnerving mood where you're never quite sure where all this is headed. Allen's flirted with all of this material before - sisters, neuroses, failed romantics - but never before with this kind of assuredness and authority. The fact that Blanchett will likely finally get her Best Actress due is a detail. And that's the real hallmark of great film work.

13) Archer (Season 4, FX). Animated television's edgiest edge - and that's saying something - continued to find the envelope, push it, rip it up, and set it on fire. No one else so consistently "goes there" or let's us know that "there" is yet farther than we knew it was before, all in the guise of a simple spy comedy about the world's worst spy agency and it's cast of lovable, if kinky and depraved, misfits. If this wasn't their absolute best work (how long and how far can you go over the top, after all?), this was the year that Archer proved, sensibly, that they could reliably deliver outrageousness, badass adventure, and tremendously witty wordplay in satisfying doses. Which may explain why they've taken their wildest leap yet in last week's launch of Season 5. But that's for next year's list.

14) The Good Wife (Seasons 4 and 5, CBS). I'm probably listing it too low for the good work its doing, but then, that's what lifts this show above nearly everything else on network television. Take your Scandal, forget your Downton, don't bring me that cable bullshit... show me one other series that plays within the familiar rules of traditional scripted television - 24 episodes a season from October to May - and consistently delivers writing, acting... hell, existence, on a level as solid as this. Nobody, not Kerry Washington, not Mariska Hargitay, not any of those blondes on those shows you think you like so much, plays a cipher as glamorous or captivating, at this moment, as Juliana Marguies is playing, week to week. And hell, does she make it look easy, never breaking a sweat, rarely looking flustered, just taking it in, and dishing it out. No wonder Chris Noth and Josh Charles, never mind Matt Czuchry, continue to their best work dancing attendance around her. On any other show, Archie Punjabi would be upstaging them all; here, she's just another great addition to the ensemble. And Christine Baranski! Alan Cumming! Lord! Does it end? Will it have to?  

15) 42. The best for last, or at least, the most decent. Just a simple, straightforward telling of the Jackie Robinson story, placing it in the context of that American moment when we had to stop looking at our pastimes and entertainments as separate but equal and do the hard work of integration. And Robinson... well, there's a hero for you, for everyone - damned decent, hardworking, mindful of the moment, but determined to do it right and do it well, so that, afterwards, we'd be better people and a better country. I mean, it's just a baseball movie... right?

By the way - sights unseen: I have to admit that this list looks like this, perhaps, because I have not watched the following: Gravity, Her, Lone Survivor, Saving Mr. Banks, Captain Phillips, The Secret Life of Walter MItty, Nebraska, Inside Llwewyn Davis, Mandela, The Walking Dead, Game of Thrones, or Breaking Bad. And if I didn't mention it... then yes, I probably saw it. And that's another list. 

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True Blood, Reconsidered: Pretty, Bloody, Dirty Things...

This blog serves as an outlet for my many views, few so certain as my double dismissal, in years past, of True Blood. As something of a vampire connoisseur (blood and sex and magik), few shows so thoroughly disappointed as the first two seasons of True Blood, where bad southern stereotyping met louche sexuality in the Louisiana Bayou. And that seemed to be that.

But time passes, and True Blood soldiered on, and on, growing a devoted band of fans, and while I lacked HBO, I was not immune to thoughts that perhaps, somehow, there was some element to the story that I'd missed, that further developments had heeded my concerns... or maybe the sex had just gotten better.

And so, blessed with some free time, and free copies found at the local library, I began playing catch up with True Blood on DVD. Perhpas I'm just softening up, or perhaps years of vampires on TV have weakened my resolve... but I think True Blood, mostly, took some of its criticism to heart, or at least to head. A better richer, experience in its latter seasons, True Blood has solved some of its core missteps - but that doesn't mean it has, necessarily, dug its way entirely out of its own self made ditch.

First, the good: most obviously, the writers on True Blood seemed to face up to the fact tat the crude portrayal of smalltown southerners as dumb, oversexed hicks was retrograde, embarrassing and limiting. Season three seems to have launched a careful effort to add depth and complexity to nearly all the major characters, that culminated in an especially rich mix in Season four. In part, the writers jettisoned a few nonworking characters and storylines, and brought in several new, more complex characters, improving the mix. One of the show's better examples of admitting its missteps was resurrecting the ghost of Godrick, Northman's vampire maker, one of the show's most interesting characters, having killed him off too quickly in the middle of Season 2. When Godrick showed up as a ghost, I knew someone had been listening to feedback.

Even more noticeably, the show has worked hard to find a better balance of reality and fantasy. I can only imagine that a wide mix of other shows in the fantasy/supernatural genre (Supernatural, Vampire Diaries, Twilight etc) showed the possibilities, and challenged the writers to think harder about what the audience really wanted to see. Then, to, this may be about the source material - though my sense is the show has strayed substantially, as others have. Regardless, layering in storylines about werewolves and faeries, embellishing the portrait of a vampire culture separate and beyond the humans, offered up a range of story options that had been missing in the narrow presentations of the first two seasons. Finally, in seasons, three and four, there seemed to be a genuine sense of how to develop dramatc tension, and bounce competing storylines off of one another to guve the show a sense of urgency it had sorely lacked (shocking cliffhangers notwithstanding).

Many of the sctors have risen to the challenge of finding fresh layers in their characters - most obviously, the show tapped Alex Skarsgard's versatility playing Eric Northman, the 1000 year old vampire, but seasoned regulars like Ryan Kwanten and Rutina Wesley probably made the biggest leaps in giving thinly drawn characters much needed depth. Having only just been exposed to Joe Mangiello's work as the werewolf Alcide, I finally see the mix of strength and tenderness he's brought to the show as well.

Of course being HBO (it's not porn, it's HBO is never truer than in Bon Temps), there's the limit-pushing use of grpahic sex, nudity and violence to consider as well. One of the show's better developments has been finding a better balance between the raunch and the rest of the show - the show still pants heavily, but the sex seems better placed to enhance and explain the plot, rather than merely to shock and titillate. Mostly. Many of the major actors - especially Kwanten, sadly - seem to have pushed to cut back extraneous nude shots. But generally, the cast is game, and the bodies are, well, impressive.

Still, the show has had its share of plotting missteps - Season three labored mightily to tie up the loose ends of previous seasons, and made good use of a new villain, the King of Mississippi. And Season 4 built well on the foundation, bouncing faerie stories, witchcraft, and amnesia off of one another to create a rich mix. But familiar signs of trouble started near the end, and Season 5 showed a striking drift into aimless plotting, disconnected from the show's real strengths. A meandering, confusing storyline about the main Vampre Council and quasi-religious overtones, veered wildly out of control by the end of that season... and Season six seems to have built on that shaky set of developments. In part, I'd argue that the show's most damaging recent loss was the character of Nan Flanagan, the Vampire world's PR spokesperson, crafting a carecful image of safe, harmless vamps who just wanted to coexist with the human world. Once Nan was brutally killed by Bill Compton and Northman, a key element of the whole premise - that True Blood, the synthesized blood product, combined with mainstreaming created the show's main source of tension between humans and vampires - was broken, perhaps permanently. Without that, there's mostly a tale of crazed killer bloodsuckers, with a little sex thrown in... and the show's balance has struggled as a result.

Even so, what once seemed like Alan Ball's lazy excuse to go sleazy after Six Feet Under has salvaged itself; I'd happily recommend Seasons 3 and 4 to anyone who likes the supernatural monster/fantasy genre as good examples of how it wrks when things go right. If Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer's central roles of Sookie and BIll haven't progressed much (Paquin's too dithery, Moyer's too taciturn), the ensemble has gelled smartly into a well running engine, chock full of interesting characters on their own journies. If the show could have been more, and done better... well, at least they didn't just settle for the low ball expectations of Seasons 1 and 2. Here's hoping the seventh season allows them to finish on a high note.

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Is This The Part Where We Say It Gets Better?

I'm often fascinated by sports stories that drift into the news pages - especially in this weird, backlash-y moment where gender divisions seem somehow reduced, yet stark. Certainly the Penn State/child molesting scandal, or say Lance Armstrong. There's something in this extreme media environment of 24 semi-news that's made news out of stories that used to languish on the back pages and inner sections of papers; it's also true that there's a certain way of comprehending the world of straight men that can't happen without admitting the role of professional sports in those men's lives.

Not being one of those men, I kind of feel I have an odd perspective watching the Miami Dolphins bullying story play out - I think one has to care more about the socializing in a locker room than I ever do (homo-eroticism is not reality) to give these events a lot of thought. It's a thing about guys and team sports that generally, and genuinely, mystifies me: what would be remotely appealing about spending that much time with that many men? Maybe it's just groups - I'm not a joiner. But hanging out, gabbing with a bunch of women has always captured my interest more than just men.

Still, it's been fascinating to watch the  discomfort, and dismay, of football fans trying to deal with the story that's dribbling out over Richie Incognito's behavior towards Jonathan Martin, and  team dynamics generally where hazing, rites of passage, and bullying coalesce and converge. There's been that odd moment where the embarrassed sportsman submits to an uncomfortable, living room interview in ill-fitting dress clothes (it's not a great look on Incognito, that's for sure); there's been the still odder moment of listening to otherwise enlightened feminists (especially women of color) try to balance their feminist instincts against the tension of liking male-dominated sports. And there's the professional sprts industry, trying its best to shove the dirty laundry back into the closet before anyone looks too closely.

All of which, really, is about as instructive an object lesson about the realities of bullying, and how we often fail to confront it, in our culture as one could expect. What's so stunning, as someone among those who experience it, is how reports of bullying make people uncomfortable - so uncomfortable that rather than deal with it, we sort of turn away from it, and try to explain it away. "That's what the locker room is like." "It's different when we're talking about team sprts, especially at the level of professional football." And then there's "maybe he needed to be toughened up" which sounds like the bullied variation of "they were asking for it."

(By the way - yes, those are generally, if not verbatim, quotes of things I've actually heard the past few days)

Of course, the Dolphins have suspended Incognito, and launched an investigation, so officially, someone does seem to get that there's a problem here. But the larger question is really how we got here - how football got to a point where one player's career was apparently wrecked by mistreatment at the hands of his teammmates, to the point of a breakdown, and how was that remotely going on unnoticed or not addressed?

We're here, in part, because the NFL has been on a fairly relentless, very public, campaign to "enlarge its brand." In these modern media times where everything is a marketing campaign, sports branding, at a corporate level, has become the reason for everything. The NFL is trying to  position itself versus Baseball here in the US, and internationally, against the juggernaut of soccer and teams like Manchester United. TV ratings have soared for professional football, now dominating Sunday, Monday and Thursday nights. The hottest teams have become even more dominant franchises. And star players are central to celebrity culture in a way that hasn't been seen in a good 30 years or so.

All of that attention has been carefully created and tended by professionals, but there's a point where all that attention leads to questions. For football, it started with reasonable, but difficult questions about padding and player safety (players are opting, mostly for optics, not to wear much more than shoulder and thigh pads, despite threat of injury). Those questions, in turn, led to revelations about long term head injuries and brain damage that football still can't shake. And the obscene amounts of profits have led to questions about team ownership, sweetheart deals, and a runaway discussion about money in college sports that's yet another can of worms. And now, into the morass of difficut press comes a messy discussion of player and locker room culture (and that, arguably, on top of loathsome behavior by players off the field).

One positive outcome to this may be that sports reporting - and treatment of sports coverage - is in some ways growing up. It's not enough, at this point, to simply throw these stories over to overgrown fanboys and cheerleaders from the sidelines. Sports reporting is, haltingly, trying to face up to the hard questions, and to at least try and fill in context around the good and the bad of these "brands." But in nearly every case, these stories have raced ahead of the sports departments, forcing many to play catch up. This bulying story is a good example of many sports reporters getting caught off guard about the public revelation of behavior they've seen for a long time. And what follows is a struggle to explain, mixed with a desire to explain away.

Like fraternity hazing, the worst of locker room culture is unlikely to survive public scrutiny. The familiar excuses of "boys will be boys" and qualifiers about how "it's so different when..." don't stand up well to stories of truly brutal, truly indefensible words and deeds. Some, including a number of admirable ex-players in the NFL, have pointed out that the sports world is our culture's last gasp of macho male behavior... and up to a point, I'll buy the idea that weekend sports watching serves as a sort of outlet. But like the other attempts to explain, this is really no answer at all. I don't think the fun in football is about blood sport, a new gladiator class we watch  battle to the death (though there's a class element there that has a point). Competition, a game well played... these things do not have to leave the competitors maimed, damaged physically and psychically. If that's how to do it... we're doing it wrong.

Then, too, there's a flip side to the hand-wringing about bullying that's also key here, a lesson again about the turning away and the impotence of trying to "combat" bullying with reason and sense. I'm one of the gay men exasperated by the "It Gets Better" campaign (we are more than a few) because it has so little to do with the lived experience of bullying and surviving it. I'm not sure It Gets Better... what I'm sure of is I Got Better. Emotionally I got more resiliient. I learned not to tolerate or accept mistreatement. I foudn others who shared my sense of things. If Jonatahan Martin is struggling, I hope he can tap into that inner strength. Football may not get better.... but he can.

In all of this, I always wonder "where are the grown ups?" My personal experience of bullying at its worst - when I genuinely feared for my personal safety - was addressed by a caring, responsible adult who confronted the bully and took responsibility for making hiim stop. That's what it means, I still believe, to have authority and use it properly. What's worst about the times we live in, just now, is how we fail to have the common decency to protect those who need protecting, our empathy for the suffering, our responsibility to defend the defenseless. It will get better when we get better. And God knows, we're better than this.

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Friday Favorites: Heroes, Season One

I've been on a serious media binge lately, which is a slightly pretentious way of saying "parked in front of the tube," but I like to think of my watching as vitally imprtant to my (unpaid) work as amedia observer and critic. We're too quick, these days, to dismiss the idea of being, and having, an audience. 

Long topic for another day... but anyway, lots of my viewing has been in the "Sci Fi/ Fantasy" genre, when stretched to include everything from comic book adventures to vampire stories... and Supernatural, which is somehwere in between. Between these and police procedurals (from a renewed interest in Castle to a new fascination with Law & Order UK, plus a new season of Justified) my watching is pretty full. And still, I get bored and need more options.

All of which brought me back to Heroes, one of the more fascinating zags of NBCs recent zig-zag of desperation programming, most of which I blame on the disastrous run of Jeff Zucker as head of programming (and I, too, gleefully await what his disastrous hand will bring to CNN). Heroes sprung from the mind of Tim Kring, a veteran series showrunner, and the astonishing thing was the completeness of his reimagining and rethinking the notions of superheroes and comic books. The disaster, which accompanied this brilliance, was how a show which started so daringly and with such promise, could descend into a near incomprehensible muddle in the (for a series) short space of four years. Television is, yes, littered with such curiosities; but Heroes was, and remains, a real bright spot in glorious failures - no series in recent memory shot so far for the moon, and flamed out just as vividly.

The Season One DVD set of Heroes is a near must for anyone who cares about fantasy/superhero TV - nothing else in recent years comes as close to being so completely satisfying as this show's 22 episode arc called "Volume One." A combination of origins tales, along with a tasty string of mysteries and twisty turns, Heroes builds up a raft of interesting, dynamic characters whose overlapping storylines offer myriad possibilities for interactions (and surprsing insights along the way), and yet still manage to culminate in a sensible resolution while laying the groundwork for an interesting future.

That furture, alas, was pretty much squandered, and in no small part, Heroes was the highest profile victim of the deadly Writer's Strike of 2007, which hit the show in the midst of a crucial second season, and probably did as much as anything to derail the show's forward momentum at a moment when this, the show with some of the most complex writing on TV at the time, needed continuity and clarity most. And all of that, really, is clear in the first season, especially on DVD, where one can see the original cut of the pilot (expansive and probably rightfully cut down with a number of extraneous plot details excised), and a raft of deleted scenes from many episodes.

But savor, if you will, the possibilities: from Peter and Nathan Petrelli, the shy nurse and his ambitious poltical brother, both of whom gradually discover amazing powers, while testing nd strengthening their brotherly bond. Or Hiro Nakamura and his best buddy Ando, who tags along as his friend learns to bend time and space. Or Claire Bennet, the pint sized cheerleader amazed to discover her own indestructability. These five lay the groundwork for a new ideal of heroic action, with the threat of the end of the world merely weeks away. And that's just the beginning of a huge quilt of characters with conflicting motives, dangerous aspirations and secret plans. And through it all, there's Claire's mysterious stepfather, and his shadowy organization, identifying the "Specials" and erasing their memories... but to what end? And what of Sylar, the most dangerous, and possibly the most powerful of all?

The expansive cast is chock full of smart and nearly career making performances, starting most obviously with Hayden Panattiere's turn as Claire, the tough, brave cheerleader whose body can survive just about anything. No one will ever wonder if she can carry a series again. Masi Oka makes Hiro a transcendant presence, ably partnered with James Kyson Lee's understated turn as Ando. Milo Ventimiglia provides the emotional center of the show as pained, tortured Peter Petrelli, while Adrian Pasdar gives layers and layers of complexity to the ambitious Nathan. And Zach Quinto made his career with the devious, devastating Sylar.

The real star here is the show's brilliant and fully thought out premise, the idea of everyday people suddenly turned into superheroes, thrust into unanticipated dangers and demands they never expected to face. Every role, every story, and seemingly every detail is aligned with the show's premise and purpose, and each episode hurtles along on its way to the season's ultimate goal, a dramatic confrontation where every person and every power winds up tested and pushed to the brink. Kring's sense of passion and purpose for this project is admirable, even enviable. And visually, the show repeatedly evokes the comic books and graphic novels it consciously emulates, right down to the Comic Sans font used for its titles. That the show takes the time, money and effort ot get all these details right is a credit to the visionaries who built it, and to NBC, which spent lavishly to make it all work.

In the end, Heroes was a modest hit, but among the geeky fanboys it chased hardest, it became just the culty kind of hit its creators seemed to want most. Like many, I was simply dragged into it by friendly coworkers who shared the box set with me and won me over pretty much at hello (or, more precisely "Ya Ta!" as Hiro says). It's been amusing, over this blizzard, to revisit the familiar ground of Season One, finding new things to discover, and realizing how much I'd forgotten since moving on. Heroes deserves to be remembered, and cherished, and passed along to others like a delicious secret. It may not be for everyone... but TV this good deserves to live on, and shared.   

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Live, And More

I don't really care whether or not Beyonce lip-synched the National Antrhem, so much as I am fascinated by why a fairly modest, unsurprising decision redounded so badly for her. And I think the problem is twofold, and intertwined: a failure to be frank and up front, and a desire to preserve an unrealistic illusion.

Beyonce Knowles is a curious kind of star, at least for me; though she's obviously quite talented, her success has a lot to do with a long term, carefully managed strategy dating back to her childhood. Very little, ever, was left to chance. Destiny's Child (which is, literally, a description of her) went through several iterations before the carefully managed combination of Beyonce, Michelle Williams and Kelly Rowland became the  standard bearers. And even then, this was never a fantasy of Supremes like equality before Diana Ross got pulled forward. The ultimate goal, always, was solo stardom for the lead.

The notion of carefully controlled image, of carefully managed impressions, tends to dog Beyonce constantly. The internet rumors that her pregnancy was faked or stage managed, the presentation of her marriage, the ups and downs of her acting and singing careers... always there's this dissonant sense of what's real and what's "faked", and how to square the public presentation with overheard, "private" impressions.

The first thing that flashed in my head when suggestions of Beyonce's lip-synch surfaced was of Whitney Houston, naturally, and the 1992 Super Bowl, when she, as they said, "performed to a safety track" she'd recorded in advance of her appearance. It was lip synching, and essentially, no one cared. No one cared, I think, for those same couple of reasons: Arista (her label) was pretty up front about what happened, and no one, really, thought Houston couldn't handle live singing. Ever.

Impressions of Beyonce as a live performer tend to be somewhat more precarious. And more pointedly, her public persona is more carefully managed, for better and worse, than Houston's ever quite was.  Houston probably needed more protection, less overexposure. But it'e telling that, even now, neither Beyonce nor her spokespeople have particularly addressed the performance at the Inauguration, even after a week. Even a simple, "yes, she performed to tape" statement would kill a lot of the speculation and surmises that follow from the gossip.

Two things about the performance probably stick: the first is that faking a performance at the Inauguration is not a huge deal, but it's an odd choice, especially when, in the Obama years, Aretha Franklin, James Taylor, and Kelly Clarkson all managed live singing in similar, or identical circumstances (it's worth pointing out, too, that all three of those names are extremely seasoned live performers; and, too, that Franklin's performance wasn't her best... but no one cares). These are the days when, warts and all, the public has come to expect live event singing at particular venues and events. The other point is that Beyonce probably didn't help herself by recording a small, fairly intimate version of the National Anthem that didn't necessarily play well in the expanse of the National Mall. Big events tend to call for a "big" reading of the Anthem; we're full on Americans in our moments of natiuonal patriotism. Beyonce's version was small and quiet in the early going, and it felt small, and kind of tentative. It doesn't mean her performance choices were bad... but I tend to think she's still learning, as a singer, to be the kind of performer her fame suggests she already is - bigger than the room, up there with the legends. Her stardom is huge; her performing abilities are not, always. And again, that tends to be a reflection of her place in her generation, not necessarily a knock on her potential. A lot of these younger stars - whose fame seems outsized, and who have been carefully stage managed - seem overwhelmed when stepping into the shoes of these giant moments.

As I started, I don't care whether she lip synched; and, like RuPaul, I think she probably lip synched it better than most; she made it look so genuine, it was hard to believe the stories, at first. But I think the point is, lip synching wouldn't be a big deal if Beyonce and her people were honest about it, and if they challenged the occasionally absurd expectation that "live" singing should be an expectation or an ideal. But both, really, would be challenging and asking people to let go of their illusions. And that faith in illusions, I think, is still the problem Beyonce Knowles has most. Be fake if you must... but really, you might as well be honest about it. That's how to get to the place where no one cares.

... Including And, And The

I'm less interested in Lance Armstrong "coming clean" about his doping habits than I am about the sense that it was appropriate, or necessary, for him to take his confessional to Oprah, and why Oprah seems to think of herself as national obsolver of celebrity sin. Armstrong's behavior, and his lying about it, strikes me as fairly clear well before he admitted it on television; and Oprah showed, yet again, why this role of confessor is hardly her strongest suit. She got few if any specifics about his doping practices, rarely challenged his (debatable) accounting of past events, and was hardly probing nor suggested the kind of familiarity with cycling or the medical issues around doping to quiz him in any thoughtful way.

That's hardly new; along with the casual assumption of her role as celebrity confessor comes a docile media rarely willing to hold Oprah up to her own past, challenge any aspect of her (even still, however limited) popularity, apparently awed, still, by her (even somewhat reduced) wealth and clout. Oprah's strength in daytime talk television was never particularly related to her strengths as an interviewer (I'll maintain Donahue was way better, forever), but more her ability to empathize and speak for a segment (a surprisingly large segment, in retrospect) of the audience who shared her sense of struggle over personal issues and sense of empowerment from within. OWN has lately, with some desperation, been programmed with significant amounts of old "Oprah Show" broadcasts, and they are, often as not, fairly illuminating just in terms of the host's own transition from charming neophyte to polished celebrity sob sister. The sobbing didn't change... but she did.

Armstrong's fall was, in its way, mostly inevitable; our society lauds athletes in weird ways, and leaves them few options as their athletic prowess fades. It doesn't diminish the talents of those who can run faster, kick harder, jump higher to point out that those physical skills are temporary, at best, and no proof of overall personal greatness. You don't have to be a good person to be a great athlete, and too often we grant too much of the former and, in a sense, take the latter too much for granted. It's why, after so many years of watching, I find Olympic athletes, especially the stars, more sympathetic than laudable. Outside of those grand arenas, out in the real world, I'm not sure those unicorns really have a place in the world.

"Doping" is a curious scandal, one that I'm not prepared, as some are, to call a hanging offense. How much of Lance Armstrong's success was the extra kick of steroids and EPO and blood replacement will be hard, if ever, to sort out, and in the end, hardly matters. He shouldn't have done it. But we can't, I think, confidently claim to know what would have happened if he never had. Perhaps the really sad story is that, without drugs, Lance Armstrong could have achieved many remarkable things, and those things, the true things, are the ones we'll never know.

Instead, we are left with Lance Armstrong, the man who lied and lied and lied again, who lied when it would have been easier to tell the truth, and who, most likely, hardly knows enough to know how to tell the truth, fully, at this late date. It's okay, though, because Oprah says so. I mean, it is... right?

(The title of this post comes from Mary McCarthy's memorable line about Lillian Hellman during their decades long feud, mostly about Hellman's "memoirs" that put herself central to the major developments of major events. "Every word she says is a lie," McCarthy said. "including 'and' and 'the'.")

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I Wish Every Day Could Be Like Christmas (I Really Do)

The Swedish traditions for the holidays are to leave the tree up well into January, a way to preserve some of the spirit of the season into the new year. And, really, doesn't that alone recommend Swedish culture? Who else gives you Christmas that lasts almost an entire month?

(I got that from a book I gave to a friend to help her grow accustomed to the ways of the American Swede she married. Welcome to the family!)

Today the tinsel came down, the baubles came off, and I carefully repacked the lights. I remember how, as a child, my father explained that one day I would be the Man of the House. Most men can recall some version of that conversation, I find, and for years I dismissed those talks, as we do, or considered them cheerfully anachronistic (also, they usually involve a discussion of lawn mowing). As with many things (including lawn mowing), I can admit in middle age that my father was, in at least some sense, right. Even gay men will, at some point, have to learn what it is to be a man. And that being a man is okay. And as I carefully put away the Christmas lights, I feel the reality of being that man.

Taking down the Christmas tree this year feels, like so many things, somewhat bittersweet. Christmas is definitely over; it's time to move on. Onward and upward... that's my approach to the year so far. The presents I got were fine - a nice new pair of Puma sneaks for work, a couple of lovely cookbooks (with elaborate recipes I'm not sure I can attempt), the DVD collection of a British series featuring psychopathic killers - these are my simple pleasures.

And yet... there's a sadness, a sense of the things that are missing, time passing too fast. I can't explain it all that well, and I worry that this is what life is these days, something not quite good enough, quietly disappointing. That's not the Christmas spirit I was raised on, and I feel a little lost without it. 

All of which is why, more than most years, I feel like putting away Christmas, while necessary, can't really be an improvement. January just looks darker, and all the more grim, with the candles snuffed out, and the twinkling lights stored away in the basement. More than most years... I wish every day could be like Christmas, this year. I really do.