I Am Okay With / Not Okay With: Derivative TV Edition.

Living in New York City—or, really, any pseudo-metropolis in our image-ridden age—one is often made aware of a new product or event or film by means of on-street advertising. In fact, especially in New York City, certain firms seem to delight in finding new & exciting ways to inform us about their product, which results in all unholy means of adhering the image to every conceivable public surface, such that the simple act of walking down the street turns into a battle against eyeball assault—until one is So. Very. Aware. of this particular item that one could probably draw the poster in question jot for jot, blindfolded, with the pencil held between one's teeth. Of course, the Annoyance Factor of this phenomenon is only increased when these images advertise something that makes one cringe or laugh cynically aloud or murmur clenched-teethedly to oneself, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Two such advertising campaigns for upcoming television shows have caught been shoved into my eye as of late, & aside even from their prevalence, they have irked me especially because, in my humble estimation, within 5 seconds of glimpsing each show's campaign, any human with a functioning frontal lobe could recite its (oft-parodied, referential) One-Line Pitch. Such an extreme level of Immediate Derivative Recall sends me into a postmodern tailspin of truly epic & despairing proportions—so, today, I bring you our contenders for least terrible new show on the block:

It's Like The Sopranos Meets The Tudors With a Splash of The Godfather & That Guy From Lolita.

Picture Law & Order With the Structure of 24 & the Concept of Twin Peaks.

Now, I know what you're thinking—"But you love Jeremy Irons! & crime shows!"—but just go with me on this for a minute: it seems insane to me that, in an age when Working in Pictures is not only a viable, but a popular career, ultimately accessible as a cell phone camera—when film schools are churning out graduating class after graduating class, & everyone within 50 miles of Hollywood has a script in their sock drawer—we are still making movies from books, movies based on true stories, sequel after sequel of Marvel comics blockbusters. Of course, almost all of those are marketing decisions—if people bought the book, they'll see the film, & at least Iron Man has a fast-food merchandising tie-in—but still: it's frustrating to me that so much "new" onscreen fare these days is basically the result of past successful formulae plucked at random from a bingo roller. These two shows in particular strike me as especially abominable reconstituted Frankensteins, cobbled from old Nielsen data & stitched together with the apathetic hope that today's TV audience really is that passive—then garnished with that especial audacity required to put the word "original," plainly, on both of these posters. It's enough to drive a girl to frenzy.

However, in this little system I've set up, one must triumph—so, following extensive research, a few laughs, & some bitter tears, our survey says...


I Am Okay With: That Salacious Period Drama Showtime Has Been So Desperately Lacking.

It's funny, because perhaps the most hilariously period-revisionist explosion of Awful—the show that, upon learning of its existence, had me convinced it was a parody or performance art piece—really anything other than a serious, dramatic television program about a sexified King Henry the Eighth—yes, that show, The Tudors—is Showtime's own pride & joy. Now, it seems, they're following the good old "Well, it worked once..." formula & lumping on The Borgias—the apparent laziness of which is frustrating in & of itself, but also, it gets on my "period drama" nerve.

I really don't like period dramas. Or—well—revise: I don't like the prevalence of period dramas. I just think there's something fundamentally stuffy & silly about them, as if their creators believe they've cracked the code to high culture simply by virtue of being set in a time when corsets were still mandatory. I also think this particular kind of "racy" period drama is somewhat done to death—the attempt to prove that people have always been just as callous & base as they are today, that scandal isn't a modern invention—all of which ultimately could be reduced to a man in pantaloons shouting into a megaphone, "People in the past had SEX! Oh man! So much sex they had!" Yes, Television, we're aware: we were born, after all.

Anyhow, I suppose that's more of a personal peeve—&, ultimately, after doing a little digging (one nose-held Google search, having been retina-clobbered by that ad a few too many times for comfort), I discovered that the show was created by Neil Jordan, who is fabulous & behind many a film I hold dear. So, on the grace of director & star (&, golly, WHAT A STAR—that voice still slays me), I will let The Borgias skate through with a stamp of approval—& may even tune in, after glimpsing this hilarious set of GIFs.


I Am Not Okay With: Pacific Northwest Dead Girl Hunts That Exclude Kyle McLachlan Lynchian Bizarreitude.

Really, now: this trailer promises nothing even remotely as interesting as backward-talking dream sequences or salacious Canadian casinos—& you can damn well bet there's no body-snatching wildman to complete the whodunnit. Meanwhile, they're exploiting every conceivable crime show trope in the most banal way possible—&, honestly, even after Rizzoli & Isles, can we truthfully say that we're still interested in this kind of programming? Can't we just accept that the Law & Order Goliath has been felled, mourn a little, put on a brave face & find something new to make TV about? Please? (I'm looking at you, Law & Order: LA.)

Were this not enough, a quick scan of The Killing's Wikipedia page shows that it's the American remake of a Danish series that became popular in the UK. Yes, this is yet another Americanized re-rendering of a British phenomenon, which, in this case, happens to be a Danish take on American crime show convention—a clusterfuck of derivative sadness that is, clearly, not okay. Ugh.


Today's Headphone Fodder:

I feel it's only appropriate, after talking about derivatives & remakes, et. al., that today's musical offering be a cover. With that in mind, here are a few I've been (re)discovering lately—that, if memory serves, didn't make it onto the 55 Cover-splosion of months past (though such repetition would, in this context, be perversely wonderful...):

Zombie—Jay Brannan (Cranberries cover).

Personal Jesus—Johnny Cash (Depeche Mode cover).

Bang Bang, My Baby Shot Me Down—Paolo Nutini (Cher cover).

Maps—Rogue Wave (Yeah Yeah Yeahs cover).

&, the Champion:

Helden (Heroes, in German)—Rammstein feat. Apocalyptica (David Bowie cover).

"We lived on farms, we lived in cities—& now, we'll live on the Internet."

[ Apologies, dear Reader, for these lengthy posting gaps. The school, it exhausts; the weekends, they overflow. Anyhow, here's a little something I've compiled, if hastily. Meanwhile, if you have any advice on how to best write five pages about Heidegger's Introduction to Metaphysics, please, give me a call... ]

Though I was initially quite skeptical at the thought of a Facebook movie, fearing fad-for-fad’s-sake vapidity, this script is a more-than-pleasant surprise: rather than merely chronicle or moralize, it explores the roots of our modern tendency to “live on the internet,” while also managing, against all odds, to engage us in the success of a revenging misanthrope. Sorkin’s dialogue whips and cuts brilliantly, slicing moment to moment, scene to scene, keeping his characters always two steps ahead of the audience (and, often, of each other); even at 162 pages, it has a jittery, breakneck pace—one that mirrors both Facebook’s rocket rise to fame and the immediacy of the internet culture it depicts. The parallels between Mark’s female trouble and his professional motivations, between old and new money, between socializing and “friend”ing are cleverly drawn and expertly revealed, making The Social Network both narratively entertaining and worthy of real thought about the ways we choose to connect in the new millennium.

That was what I wrote, caffeine-zapped at sunrise last Tuesday, after attempting to synopsize the script for a film class—what I wrote for the Comment section on my coverage, still a little shaken from reading 162 pages twice in three hours, still itching to read it again. That was what I wrote before even seeing the thing—& this is what I'm writing now:

The Social Network is, simply put, incredible.

You don't have to believe me; honestly, if it were me even a week ago, I would have laughed in the face of a statement like that. (Of course, at that point, I was unaware of the writer/director team responsible, but still:) In order to understand the enormity of my transformed opinion, you have to understand just how disdainful I was of this Facebook movie: how my hyperbole gland flared to the size of Montana, & I could be heard deriding from every street corner the apocalyptic, incestuous stupidity of a movie about a social network—let alone the presumption of that definite article! As Facebook slowly chomps away at every plugged-in member (yours truly included)'s last shreds of privacy, gaining truly ludicrous amounts of recognition from ad after ad, worming its way into everyday parlance (verbing nouns, truncating syllables left & right), I can only cringe & self-loathe & wring my hands—&, one would think, cast some serious hate at any movie that promises to glorify it.

But I won't—because it doesn't. Instead, The Social Network is a sympathetic if ultimately scathing look at modern communication—& the gentlemen believed responsible. Chief among them, of course, is Mark Zuckerberg—who is apparently fictionalized beyond recognition by Sorkin's script & Eisenberg's pseudo-Aspergian performance, but ultimately, the facts are irrelevant to its success: this Mark is a nuanced & delicate portrait of exactly the kind of socially inept brainiac who has been getting the short end of Hollywood's stick since The Breakfast Club—who, as the script notes on its first page, harbors "a dangerous & complicated anger."

In the first scene of the film (which is, in fact, so well-written it hurts), Zuckerberg is unceremoniously dumped by his girlfriend, Erica, & channels his bruised pride into a series of nasty Blog posts—& a prototype of Facebook: a website that lets Harvard students rank their female classmates' relative hotness. It's a small taste of the revenge (against Erica, against women) our protagonist is capable of—& will enact, but quick, against Cameron & Tyler Winklevoss, the twin crew captains who claim Mark stole their site idea, & even against his best friend Eduardo—ever bending his hurt into the wrong response. It's an excellent set-up, & Sorkin doesn't disappoint, deploying his various players expertly: Mark makes for an enthralling antihero, Eduardo an equally compelling partner—& the Winklevi (as Mark snidely dubs them) are really, really attractive.

More, even, than plot intrigue: this story proves perfect for chronicling our headlong plummet into the Internet Age—a shift from the rule of blonde Adonises like the Winklevoss twins, with their fancy final club & family connections, to the rise of the innovative programming geek. Age-old systems collapse under the strain of instant global communication: you may have Adidas glued to your feet & be practically incapable of eye contact, but if your ideas are worthy, you will best the blandly bright Olympic athletes. It's a complex & multi-layered movie, pinging from lawsuits to flashbacks with all the speed of a well-oiled modem—but behind it all, there is the simple, emotional truth of love, & the lack of it, & how hard that can sting.

While that much at least clawed its way off the page & into my brainstem last Tuesday, it's an entirely different experience to see it played out onscreen in Fincher's rich & shadowed gloom—colors muted, characters separated (literally, metaphorically) by glass walls. Sorkin's ideas still shine, polished in the razor sharp dialogue, but to hear them spoken lightning-quick by cracking voices, to see the plaintive confusion behind the actors' eyes as they stumble gracefully through this tale of success & betrayal—it's wonderful, to say the least. Lest I slip too far into hyperbole, I'll stay simple: there is something uniquely tragic about an empire founded on unrequited love—a social network sparked by social dysfunction.

The story of an outcast unwilling to confront the romance he craves is nothing new to Fincher, but while Fight Club's nameless narrator at least gets his girl as the buildings crumble, Zuckerberg isn't so lucky: he's torn the world apart—reconfigured irreparably the way teenagers interact, all to impress his former lady—but by doing so, he's made it impossible to really reconnect with her. Ultimately, the film's cheesy tagline—You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies...—is just an over-hyped version of its subtler poignant message, the painful irony highlighted so damn beautifully in its last, heart-rending moments: that though there's a semblance of communication in Social Networking, it's all empty performance—a public display of Popularity & Closeness, made alone, isolated, staring blankly into fluorescent light.

Today's Headphone Fodder:

Creep—Scala & Kolacny Brothers (Radiohead cover).

Yes, I'm staying on topic today—picking that same song expertly chopped up in the Social Network trailer, above. As I've stated previously, I have a deep & personal (if slightly mortifying) connection to the song "Creep"—one that involved me listening to it on repeat as I fell asleep, every night for a decent several-month stretch in 7th grade. Though I now recognize the emo of my ways, there's still something unheeded that stirs in me when I hear this song, whether Amanda Palmer's stripped ukulele version, Paolo Nutini's raspy warble, or even the original. This version is particularly sharp, though—epic, even; something about that soprano bridge, the minor harmonies of angels fallen. &, even if you don't share my secret passion for this song, you can at least enjoy hundreds of little Belgian girls earnestly crooning the word "fucking." Three times. (You're welcome.)