Television Review: Prison Break

*contains mild spoilers*

After two seasons, my love affair with Prison Break is over. What went wrong? *Wavy flashback effect* I came on board to this series rather late. I saw season one after it had already aired, in a couple of big chunks. The concept sounded interesting: Michael Scofield gets himself thrown into prison, with an elaborate plan to break out his soon to-be-executed brother. Now, there are plenty of movies about people breaking out of prison - The Great Escape with Steve McQueen perhaps being the most famous one - but spreading such a plan out over 22 episodes was a bit risky, as the actual break would obviously not happen until the end of the season and interest could easily be lost. However, the series was well-shot, well-produced and capably stringed the viewer along from one suspenseful setback in the plan to the next, slowly unveiling said plan, as tattooed (!) in code on Michael's body... Believable it was not even remotely, but though the main story progressed slowly, it successfully reeled you in with a sense of urgency that never let up.
Season two was about the now-escaped group of prisoners and a big government conspiracy. I was afraid that the concept would be stretched beyond breaking point and in regards to the conspiracy, it almost was. The same sense of urgency saved it, however. They did step wrong in the first episode by carelessly tossing aside a main character from season one and then not following through on the emotional impact that it should have had on the rest of the cast. It was the first sign that the writers had more feel for tension than for tracking the audience's emotional investment. By reshooting about a third of the last episode, these two seasons could have been satisfyingly wrapped up with a fairly happy ending. But no...
The creative minds behind the series said they had always planned for three seasons. But if the viewing figures hold up, I have no doubt they will find sudden inspiration for a fourth one as well. In the third season, Michael has to break out of a prison again, only this time not a tightly organised American one, but a Colombian survival-of-the-fittest nightmare ruled by a druglord. The way Michael gets put in there is very contrived, as is the way a surprising amount of cast-members end up in that same prison. The writers seem to be desperately trying to sledgehammer the old cast into this new-but-not-quite scenario. Adding insult to injury, they ditch the one cast-member who was necessary to give Michael the happy ending he - and the audience - had deserved in spades by now. With little promise of an emotionally satisfying pay-off and re-treading the same ground with a not big enough twist, I don't see how the show will recuperate. The 'one step forward, two steps back' approach irritates now that there seems nowhere worthwhile to get to.
As my boyfriend is still hooked on this series, I will probably have to stick around and watch it for a while longer. But I hope that this sentence and this series will soon come to a long overdue end.

Let's Get Trivial!

I love learning new facts about the world around me, but I still have to be tricked a little bit into sitting down and educating myself. I need my information to come with a great, big side order of entertainment. Thankfully, there are plenty of sources catering to my need for infotainment. One of the best books I burrowed through on a search for enlightenment was A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. The former travel writer (he has recently been branching out) lays bare the history of the planet and the science that gave us our knowledge about it. Me being a language guy more than a science dude, it was tough going for bits of it when the going got a little too abstract. On the whole, however, Bryson is great at simplifying complex concepts for common folk (like me) and he garnishes the book with plenty of entertaining anecdotes. You come away thinking that: a. some scientists were seriously weird and b. the world is a wondrous place with many mysteries yet to be uncovered. Oh, and did you know a comet could hit the planet at any time without us having noticed its approach? Exciting, isn't it?
The Mental Floss team publishes a bimonthly magazine for 'knowledge junkies' and has also crafted some books, all with the following concept: bits of trivia - be they historical, scientific or cultural - creatively combined and brought to boil with a sense of humour. I am a great fan of this recipe that allows you to dip in and get a quick fix even when on the run. They also have a site that offers you some perfectly free factoids, though beware - the sneaky bastards are trying to get you hooked.
If you want to test your newly acquired knowledge, there is an online quiz to do that with: Jellyvision's You Don't Know Jack. The questions are oddly twisted, which makes hearing them and the possible multiple-choice answers as satisfying as actually getting them right. Beware though: if you fail to do so, the snarky host will mock you.

Now get out there kids and remember: learning is fun, fun, FUN!

Ps: if you have kids, you might want to introduce them to the nicely illustrated Horrible Histories series, which teaches history in an infotaining way. Just so they know.

Television Review: Eureka

Eureka has just been renewed for a third season by the SciFi Channel. The series once badly titled 'A Town Called Eureka' seems to be hitting its stride. The set-up: a U.S. Marshal (Colin Ferguson) gets stranded with his 'delinquent' daughter in a town with an unusual amount of geniuses. All these people are left to roam free, invent things, blow stuff up and generally mess with reality and the laws of physics. There is also a government-run research company called Global Dynamics guiding these oddballs, which might have semi-nefarious purposes. By the end of the pilot, the Marshal becomes Eureka's Sheriff and starts making this place his home.
I wasn't sure about the series on the basis of that first episode. The tone seemed off, some light and humorous aspects clashing with dark X-filesesque undertones. And the characters didn't really feel connected to each other. They fixed this somewhat in the rest of the series by ditching Greg Germann ('Fish' from Ally McBeal) and replacing him with the dashing Ed Quinn as the boss of Global Dynamics. In doing this, they also set up a classic Romantic Triangle at the heart of the series: the sheriff falls for his government liaison, who is married to (but separated from) her new boss (Quinn).
Eureka tries too hard to be cute and goofy sometimes, channelling Northern Exposure, Twin Peaks and those 'special' humorous episodes of the X-Files. But the cast meshes very well after a few episodes, great one-liners fly by with charming regularity and it doesn't make the mistake of taking itself too seriously. Sometimes, it even goes too far in this aspect: situations that should be fraught with tension don't actually get tense because the characters don't seem too anxious about yet another calamity threatening the town and the world. And when someone dies, though we are happily shown a charred or mangled (part of) a corpse, there isn't much dwelling on the person who just died even though this is supposed to be a small town where most people know each other. This insistence on keeping things light can throw you out of the show sometimes: if the artificial intelligence in your high tech house went haywire, took you hostage and killed someone, would you keep living there unless the thing was rebuilt from the ground up? Also, the amazingly blue-eyed Sheriff is very funny and likeable, but comes off as a bit - well - bumbling, being surrounded by all these brainiacs. The reason he often ends up saving the day is generally because the scriptwriters let him. It is hard to imagine him as the hardcore U.S. Marshal he was supposed to be, before he came to Eureka.
But regardless of the occasional misguided storyline (no more May-December sexy romances for Max Headroom please) or sappy plot resolutions, this town is well worth tuning into.

Dead Woman's Perfume

Objet Trouvé

I found this intriguing 'classified' at the board in my local supermarket. The only thing I added is the highlighting and I blurred the phonenumber.
So: somebody flogging perfume he was supposed to deliver to an old woman who was dead when he got there? Would make for a charming mother's day present, he says. Not sure why he chose to share the perfume's sordid past with us. Bit of a downer. Alas, it is in Dutch - as you might have noticed - so only funny for those of that persuasion.

Novelty Music

Novelty songs are often seen as the easiest and - therefore - lowest form of humour (along with puns). But done well, the songs can be brought up to great levels of memorable wackiness, to be giggled at again and again on your mp3-player. I was already a fan of some of Monty Python's classics (like 'I'm a lumberjack (and I'm okay)') and to a bigger extent of the works of Tom Lehrer. He is lesser known in Europe; a Jewish lapsed teacher, turned brainiac comedy performer. His career in music was brief, but his music - often fairly dark and cynical - lives on, and though some are dated because they deal with politics of his prime (late fifties, early sixties) others like 'Poisoning pigeons in the park' and the table of elements 'set to a possibly recognisable tune' still live on in our hearts and on my harddrive. He can be seen and heard on YouTube.
Recently I ran into two current musical comedy performers I wanted to share. Both I heard in a Comedy Central special. Their speciality is songs that are subversive and rude. Rich Hall (as his Otis Lee Crenshaw persona) has songs about subjects like making love to a bag lady and the hilarious anti-chivalry anthem: 'Do what you want to the girl, just don't hurt me'. Stephen Lynch has sensitive songs about boozing whoring, dating hermaphrodites and turning gay after a drink or two.
Have a look at any or all of these guys. They will make you smile and might just make you titter like a little girl. But I might be projecting.

If you don't mind all this x-rated humor, also listen to: Pussy Tourette's 'I think he's gay' and The Wet Spots 'Do you take it'. For less crudeness listen to Dr. Demento's collections and maybe "Weird" Al Yankovic if really desperate.

Movie Reviews: Getting Animated

I am not sure what it is about animated films that gets me involved in the story so easily. Even corny sentiment easily chokes me up in this form. Maybe the suspension of disbelief makes it easier to get lost in the narrative or maybe it's just the simple stories and often childlike cast with their usually big, teary eyes (as parodied by the cat in Shrek 2). But I do have to admit that I like the medium especially for the capacity for silliness. The Emperor's New Groove with its many jokes that broke the third wall is one of my favourites and is still sometimes ripped off for a punchline in my daily conversation. ('Noooo touchee!') Recently I saw a couple of animated movies within a week, though apart from the drawn aspect, most had little to nothing in common.

Les Triplettes de Belleville is an odd, wildy charming French flick, that's bursting with character. A grandmother raises her grandchild to be a cyclist in the Tour the France, and finds herself battling the French mob when they kidnap him for nefarious purposes. Luckily she runs into musical triplets, who help her kick their ass and perform some funky music as they do so. There is almost no dialogue, but what there is and the general mood is very French. The mob has giant bottles of wine on the building that is their headquarters, and their cars sport the phrase: In Vino Veritas.
The look is one of exaggeration and extremes: faces are distorted and distinctive - hooked noses, faces with wrinkles that swallow up everything else, huge teeth and ears and so on, boats tower ridiculously above waterlevel, seemingly about to keel over at any moment and buildings stand at dubious angles while trains pass by that could be touched from the windows. Logic is cheerfully thrown to the wind, which such charm and reckless abandon that you will happily go along with it: at one point grandma and her dog manage to wither storms while crossing the Atlantic - or so it appears - on a waterbike (!) in pursuit of one of those bizarre boats. You want this old lady to win and you don't care that the universe has to be distorted in her favour to make it possible. The triplettes are slightly more dubious heroines, with a strange predilection for using explosives to blow up frogs - for food - and gangsters - for a quick getaway.

By comparison, the morality tale that is A Bug's Life seems very tame and family-friendly. An ant who is an outcast sets off to save his colony from disaster and blunders his way to success and acceptance. Rescue comes in the way of a travelling circus consisting of various insects, most notably a ladybug who is a guy and a posh walking stick voiced by David Hyde Pierce from Frasier. I don't really have much interesting to say about it except that it manages to entertain in the way most inoffensive Disney movies do. It is not one of the ones that has an added level for adults that makes it more than kiddie fare, but the computer animation and the characters are pretty good. As it turns out, from the perspective of an insect, a bird can really be scary. On the other hand, this nemesis also makes you ponder how selectively the intellect has been distributed in the movie. The bird is as brainless as the ones we see every day, but all insects have secretly been bypassing them on the evolutionary ladder, or so A Bug's Life wants us to believe.

Princess Mononoke comes from the same director who would bring us Spirited Away and Howl's Moving Castle in later years and brought us some great movies before that too (like My Neighbour Totoro). Pretty much all of his movies are worth watching, even if Howl's rambles on a bit and isn't all that coherent. He has a way of setting the mood and taking the time to tell a story. His worlds are spooky and magical while somehow feeling real and lived-in. Usually there are some little creatures involved that ride the line between cute and creepy, like the little tree-spirits in this movie. And a recurring theme is that of the spirits of nature coming in conflict with the threat of pollution caused by man. In this movie especially that theme is very explicit. The Gods of the Forrest fight against humans who are trying to use the land for financial gain and don't care about the damage they do to it. The Princess of the title has been raised by one of these gods (a big toothy Wolf) and comes into conflict with humankind and with Prince Ashitaka in particular.
I originally saw this with subtitles, which was good because the original voice performances are better than in the dub (by various big Hollywood names) and the mouths in the dub don't even remotely line up with the words. But the bad thing was that some of the details were lost on me. It seemed a lot more coherent and involving second time around. There is plenty of action, and there are some gross-out scenes involving blood and goo, also a staple of director Hayao Miyazaki.

Steamboy too belongs in the Manga section, but though I really wanted to like it, it was a bit disappointing. The computer-aided animation is spectacular, as is the action, but the story did just not make any sense. It is set in an alternate reality past, seemingly inspired by Jules Verne, where amazing machines are running on steam. A globe capable of storing near infinite steam power gets chased after for most of the movie, which ends with a lot of random destruction, the no doubt many casualties of which are not at all addressed. One of those films that entertain while you watch, as pleasantly noisy nonsense, but doesn't really stick in the mind.

Now the one that did very much stick in the mind: Grave of the Fireflies. It tells a fairly simple story beautifully, slowly breaking your heart as it does. Since the movie opens with the scene I am about to mention, I am not spoiling anything by saying that it does not have a happy ending: the death of Seita, from hunger during the Second World War in Japan. Very soon the movie flashes back to a moment just before his town got bombed. We get just a glimpse of a happy childhood before tragedy strikes. His mother succumbs to burn wounds from one of the bombings, his father is at sea as part of the navy and can't be reached. He tries to take care of his little sister Setsuko, a sweet and bubbly girl, while both fight the trauma of losing their mother. A bitchy aunt ends up chasing them out of the house after food becomes in short supply and she realises there is nobody to take them off her hands. The brother and sister try to survive on their own, but as was shown from the start, they fail. Despite being Manga characters, with somewhat cartoony faces, they are painted so realistically through their actions - little, very human details throughout - that you will by the end be crying for them, two innocents ground up in a war that fails to take any notice of their tragedy. I don't think I ever saw a movie with a stronger anti-war message; not by preaching, just by showing. It hurts to watch, but should be watched. There are some beautiful, poetic scenes full of life in here, which only make the contrast to the horror stronger.

Book Review: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Contains only mild spoilers

I had to race through this book to avoid one of my colleagues from the bookstore blurting out a spoiler before I could get to the end. I succeeded, and what a ride it was. Of course, I will not be spoiling the end for anybody here either, trying to balance being vague and yet specific.
It has been a long time since I got sucked into a story this much. Putting down the final volume in the Potter saga, I felt sad that it was over and that I had to leave that magical world. I think the secret to the series is the simple beauty of the main concept: the promise of a world of magic hiding just out of sight within our real one. In the first book, the readers - mostly school-going kids - are introduced to that world through the eyes of students who are also learning about it. In later books, the way this world works is fleshed out further, its politics, social structure and history, making it fun and believable, because you want to believe. As a pre-teen, I wanted desperately to be a Jedi and save the universe with a lightsaber. Rowling now has created a world I - and many with me - would love to live in and do some magic, especially in the fantastic place that is Hogwarts. I am not surprised she has already started considering a spin-off based in this world. I imagine there are still many stories to be told within this framework, even though she will no doubt catch flack for it. Like the readers, she just doesn't want to leave this fictional place, even if we have genuinely said goodbye to Harry.
However, it was time for this story to end and I was glad to see that the ending matched my expectations. It had been foretold since the beginning that the world wasn't big enough for both Voldemort and Harry, and it was about time that one - or both - of them vacated the premises. Actually, it is the foretelling that is the most troubling when it comes to the narrative. Certain people who shall remain nameless for reasons of suspense did an awful good job of predicting the future without actually knowing much for certain about it. Planning, coincidence and luck don't quite gel together naturally as the plot flows along. As in earlier books, the story lacks a strong forward drive in places, seemingly treading water, but the speedy writing style and emotional involvement easily carry you through.
Further nit-picks: it is a bit odd that all the teenage love is so courtly - you'd think a bunch of modern 17 year olds would be having some seriously x-rated thoughts. But then that would probably upset the younger readers. And maybe it is just my dirty mind, but I did end up smiling at some of the talk about wands: 'Wands are only as powerful as the wizards who use them. Some wizards just like to boast that theirs are bigger and better than other people's' (page 337, UK Edition). There is also a moment when we get into magical small print about the rules surrounding a certain object where things got a bit too vague to follow the fictional logic. And curiously, a gravestone for Harry's parents places this story - with some simple math - in 1997.
Quite a few people ended up dying in this book, more than I had heard through rumours beforehand. I enjoyed that so many characters from previous books showed up in small and big ways, though I have to confess that I had completely forgotten what the backstory is on some of Harry's fellow students and therefore they were just names to me. Though various people are re-introduced, Rowling wisely gives up on this near the end, when during an epic battle at Hogwarts pretty much everybody and their mother shows up - and that's not just a figure of speech. The character of Neville really comes into his own in this book, and has one of the coolest moments in it, even though the circumstances enabling it are contrived (you'll know what I mean when you read it).
The ending did not really surprise me, but it was spectacular, moving and even a touch metaphysical. After a couple of previous Harry-Voldemort encounters, I was wondering how Rowling was going to give this one weight and finality, but she manages very well. I even liked the last chapter - which she has always maintained she had written before she started on the first book - even though a lot of people online seem not to. It does wrap things up neatly, leaving you satisfied, melancholic and wanting to reread the whole saga, just so you don't have to leave quite yet. Having said all that, and fully acknowledging the genius that is Rowling for the magical mindspace she created for so many people to play in, the last three lines badly need a rewrite and I could barely keep from doing some after-the-fact editing with a ballpoint in my copy of the book. Which only goes to show how much she has made me care.