Sailing San Diego Bay

Inception: Best Fare of the Summer

The blockbuster of the summer Christopher Nolan’s Inception has grossed $486M worldwide for Warner Bros, while only costing the studio $160M.  All in all, the gamble paid off.  Should we be congratulating WB for going out on a limb in this economy and have the guts to produce something that wasn’t a third or fourth film in a  tired franchise?  The other studios have been playing it safe, so why shouldn’t they?  Humans are risk averse and that includes consumers who don’t like the idea of forking over more than $10/person for a movie they might not enjoy, particularly when movie night might not roll around again soon with everyone’s belts still clasped at that too tight notch.  But what exactly was the gamble?  Nolan’s last three films have been highly profitable, with The Dark Knight grossing $1B worldwide.  The fact that the lead is played Leonardo DiCaprio is alone enough to get butts in seats.  With a trailer promising a film that’s action packed competing against films like The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, it was a recipe for success, even if the plot was “mind-bendy.”

The film itself is extremely entertaining.  Just enough to make you think and keep your mind occupied,  the film is also constantly in motion.  Despite it’s 148 minute runtime, the entire film is so engrossing you just might forget about that popcorn you splurged for.  Beautifully shot, and pulsing with Hans Zimmer’s sonorous soundtrack, Inception is sensually awesome to consume.  In Cobb’s (DiCaprio) world, corporate espionage takes place in the mind, thanks to a U.S. military program to develop “shared dreaming.”  The young widower and corporate spy wants desperately to return to his small children, but his guilt over his wife’s death is ripping at the fabric of his consciousness, threatening to completely tear away his grasp on reality and his control of his dreams.  His hopes rest on one last big job that will buy him the right to return home to his family.  With a cast of experts he will attempt the impossible: inception, or the planting of a thought in the mind of the target without his detecting its foreignness.  As the team attempts to plan this seed with a complicated strategy involving multiple levels of dreaming, the viewer is completely caught up in the “science” and “art” of constructing and controlling dreams.  As a work of fiction, we accept the premises, but it begs an interesting question at the end of the film, when your mind begins to sort out what was “real” and what was a “dream.”  None of it’s real of course, which is sort of the point.  We allow ourselves to accept these elaborately constructed dream worlds, as long they end after two hours or so, we know, that is not real.  When you walk out of the theater and into the street, you know that reality has recommenced.  But how often have you simply wished you could disappear into that world and just never come out?  Who’s to say you can’t choose your own reality? 

Overall, there’s plenty of food for thought in the film, but never once did the philosophy get in the way of the plot.  Highly entertaining, visually stunning, and thought-provoking, what more can you ask from a Hollywood blockbuster?  So skip your Starbucks for a week and check it out in the theater, if just visually and musically, it demands a big-screen experience.

Check out these links for some interesting Inception info:
"Why intriguing 'Inception' is the Hollywood exception" - Christian Sicence Monitor
Inception soundtrack created entirely from Edith Piaf song - The Guardian

Getty Villa: Macro Filters

Mad Men Returns!

The opener for Season 4 of Mad Men aired last weekend and it promises to be yet another summer of sinfully superb entertainment.  Beautifully lit and shot as always, Mad Men appears ready to reclaim the mantle of best show on television.  As an added bonus, Time-Warner Cable finally carries AMC HD, so I get to watch it in all it’s glory now.  Since the show began in 2007, Mad Men has influenced the direction of fashion and decor, helping sell products from Zippo lighters to precisely cut Banana Republic suits and dresses.  Interesting, if not morally inspiring, the characters feel real and three-dimensional.   The carefully selected dialogue and the well-constructed scenes, like a Don Draper advertisement, lead you to an inevitable conclusion: this is what I should be doing right now... sitting here, watching this.  I can’t wait for Episode 2.

For a dose of reality, check out this NY Times Blog with Q & A from a “real mad man.”

Ciro-flex Experimentations

"Treme" : The First Season

After digesting the first season of David Simon and Eric Overmyer’s new show "Treme," I am not 100% satisfied.   I feel like the show still exists as a possibility, it has promise.  I am hoping that plots begin to thicken and gain more substance and immediacy in the second season.  Right now, I don’t feel invested in many of the characters, though they are interesting and varied.

I can’t help but compare it to “The Wire,” as I’m sure many can’t,  and feel that it has fallen short.  It is a completely different show, I understand that.  It doesn’t really delve into the institutional corruption involved in the rebuilding of New Orleans, as it could, as the “The Wire” would.  It gives us a teaser of what’s there, but instead of following the thread, it, like Steve Zahn’s character Davis, is sidetracked by prospect of enjoyment and indulgence.  While it does have powerful moments, it wastes time with narratives that feel trivial or poorly developed, like that of Sonny, the unsympathetic and irritating street musician.  Food, parties, and above all, music, dominate much of the run time.  Don’t get me wrong, the music is amazing.  I’m ready to play the "Treme" soundtrack all day, as soon as it comes out.  However, it can’t carry the whole of the show.  The acting too, I have no complaints about, so really I have hope that the writer’s will hit their stride during the second season, which HBO mostly likely bestowed because of the success of “The Wire” rather than the performance thus far of “Treme.”

HBO's Site has links to buy some of the music: http://www.hbo.com/treme/index.html#/treme/episodes/1/10-ep-10-ill-fly-away/music

Review: Winter's Bone

I saw Winter’s Bone a couple weekends ago and I am still not sure what I think about it.  I think it’s taking me so long to make up my mind because I wanted it to be better than it was.  Debra Granik’s narrative feature based on Daniel Woodrell’s book by the same name won a jury prize at Sundance and people raved about the indie flick.  The film follows 17-year-old Ree Dolly (Jennifer Lawrence) as she searches for her bail-jumping father before their land is snatched out from under them to cover his forfeited bond.  Finding no help from her practically catatonic mother and feeling the weight of her two young siblings on her shoulders, Ree attempts enlist the help of her father’s recalcitrant brother Teardrop (John Hawkes).   He finally comes to her aid as she tries to get information out of a clan of tight-lipped and brutal meth-cookers, her father’s last known associates.  Besides following the story of Ree, the film is a look at the harsh reality of rural life in the Arkansas Ozarks.  The problem is, although Granik goes to lengths to avoid exoticizing the culture, the viewer still feels very much like an outsider.  We are never allowed into the mind of Ree.  She is tough and kind with her siblings.  She stands up to all the forces trying to rip her family apart.  Her moments of vulnerability are quiet, private, and real, but they are insufficient to create a real sympathy between viewer and the character.  Her hopes and dreams, if she dares to have any, remain locked behind her stony mask of determination. 

The color scheme is the cool blues and greys of winter and the dialogue and action are as spare as the title would suggest.  Perhaps too spare.  Another problem with the film, and I hate saying this, is that it possibly is too realistic.  The storyline jogs along, escalating in the logical places, but there are no twists.  The end is not particularly surprising and doesn’t reveal anything new, however the denouement is probably the best scene of the whole film.  Since I still think the film is worth seeing, I won’t spoil the ending.  I can’t believe I’m saying this either, but I would have loved to see a version of this film made with a bigger budget.  The final scene, which takes place at night, but is shot day for night, would have been so much more powerful filmed actually at night, lit with the glow of balloon lights.  I don’t take issue with anything else in that scene, however, and I think where the camera looked and more importantly didn’t look, was perfect.

Final verdict: watch it at home for a look at a world that many of us know nothing about and is interesting and intriguing in it’s own right.  I plan to check out the book too, just to see how Granik chose to adapt it to film: Winter's Bone: A Novel by Daniel Woodrell.

Photography & driving

I can't help it if the sky is always dramatic when I'm commuting.



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Texas BBQ Odyssey

Snow's BBQ, Lexington, TX

Louie Mueller BBQ, Taylor, TX

Kreuz's Market, Lockhart, TX

Smitty's Market, Lockhart, TX

Confessions of a cop show junkie: the future of "Southland" in jeopardy

I have been at a loss to describe my impressions of "Southland" for some time. I tracked it's progress from network misfit to it's new home on TNT and I'm still not sure whether it is good or just toying with excellence only to fall flat. It's the latest creation of John Wells and Christopher Chulack, producers of ER (not a particularly enticing piece of information to me).  TNT isn't sure  about it either and its future is once again in jeopardy after ratings were even lower for the second season than the first.  However, as a self-proclaimed cop show junkie it is the best cop show on tv at the moment and it would be a shame to lose it before it's really had a chance to hit it's stride.

I don't know what attracted me to it first, but I actually tuned in to the series premiere last year. I think more than anything it was the title graphic, southLAnd over a map grid. I think I was just beginning to be fascinated by this concept of the sprawling metropolis that somehow makes up this disjointed and isolating city. Though I have been in the "LA area" since 2004, it's only after having graduated and leaving my suburban college town bubble that I have begin to get a sense of the "real LA." I don't even think I'd ever even heard the word "Southland" until my senior year of college when I began a bi-weekly trek from Claremont to Silverlake (a commute of approx 1.5 hours each way) for an internship. I remember hearing it used: "all over the Southland" on KPCC and thought how aptly that described this tangled mass of concrete. They were talking about the day's traffic.

One of the things I like most about "Southland" is this attempt to portray this isolation and the blinding brightness which seems to intensify this feeling by adding a surreal quality to life. Gritty and intense, "Southland" is no "CSI" or "NCIS" (and believe me I know my cop shows). There is no polish or glamour to the lives of these police officers. There is, however, a lot of drama. Here is where I began to have issues. When I try to describe the series to anyone it sounds like a soap opera... The serious and experienced cop, who is, by the way, addicted to pain killers and in the closet, puts the rookie, rich boy with issues through the paces. The alcoholic cop goes ballistic and crashes his police car in the LA river and it ends up all over YouTube. The young detective with a new baby girl admits to the young woman his parents raised as his sister that he is really her father. These stories sound ridiculous but I don't quite know how to explain why it doesn't seem that way when you are watching. The characters feel real, despite all the drama, not the typical cardboard cutout cops that we know so well.  They just don't make that big of deal about things and they don't do lots of cheesy emotional wrap up montages featuring a currently popular song.  Most of all, they don't spend time trying to make LA seem like this glamorous place where everyone and everything is beautiful.  I hope TNT gives "Southland" another shot and let's the producers follow their impulses.  With time and if it's allowed to continue in its initial direction it could mature into a critically acclaimed piece of television, but right now it's teetering on the edge of becoming just another sensationalistic cop show.

'The Wire' and 'Treme'

I know a lot has already been written about how amazing the ‘The Wire’ is, but I feel like I have to add my voice to the chorus, because it is so profoundly wonderful.  ‘The Wire’ is the best television show I have ever seen.  I can’t imagine anything better.  The characters are real human beings, the dialogue is natural, the acting is phenomenal, the plots are well crafted.  Other shows may have accomplished this, perhaps not all at once, but this show is so honest and unflinching in its portrayal of the city of Baltimore, the fact that the creators have been able to shine a light on so much bullshit is perhaps a testament to HBO more than anything else.  Where else could you find a combination of excellent writing and story craftsmanship, powerful characters and the energizing freedom to speak the truth?  Network TV would have self-destructed before anything like that could have existed there, which is sad, because it puts the show in a category that is somewhat inaccessible to much of America-- and America needs to see this show.

‘The Wire’ is the end to platitudes.  After completing the 5th Season, I was somewhat depressed, not because it was over (I knew I could re-watch any of the episodes at any time and thoroughly enjoy myself and I HATE re-watching stuff), but because I felt hopeless about our ability to advance ourselves as human beings.  Every avenue of possible improvement-- the police department, the government, and the media-- seemed a corrupt and bureaucratic mess, mostly due to one reason: human beings are weak and selfish.  This weight, however, has been lifted upon further contemplation.  In the final season, we see play out several narratives that end in success.  It is these few humans, that manage to pull their lives together, despite all that goes on around them, that should leave an impression.  The violence and misery is the status quo for many.  Ignorance, selfishness, and total unawareness of our impact on the lives of others is the status quo for most of us.  On occasion, there is transcendence.  The rest of us, must just keep plugging on.

I do not have HBO, so I have been trying to figure out the best way to get my hands the first few episodes of ‘Treme,’ the latest from the creators of ‘The Wire.’  A show about New Orleans residents who attempt to rebuild their lives, homes and businesses after Katrina, ‘Treme’ also features some of my favorite actors from ‘The Wire’ including Wendell Pierce (Det. Bunk Moreland) and Clarke Peters (Det. Lester Freamon).  I am naturally very suspicious and I am worried that ‘Treme’ will not live up to the hype and won’t be as good as ‘The Wire,’ etc, etc.  I don’t want to get my hopes up, but I can’t help it.  I really am itching for something that can take the place of ‘The Wire.’  Here’s hoping that ‘Treme’ is habit forming.

Info about ‘The Wire’

Here are some links to Fresh Air interviews with various ‘Wire’ collaborators:

2006 Fresh Air Interview with Ed Burns, Baltimore Policeman and teacher
Terry and Ed talk about his work as a police and school teacher in Baltimore as an inspiration for the show.

2008 Fresh Air Interview with David Simon, Baltimore Sun Reporter
Terry interviews David Simon who talks about the year he and Ed spent hanging out with Gary McCullough.  Gary was the model for the character of Bubbles in the show.  David and Ed followed him for a year, while writing their book “The Corner,” which became an HBO miniseries.

2010 Treme Article with David Simon and Eric Overmeyer
David and Eric talk about the new show ‘Treme.’

Don't try this at home kids

The view from the Coronado Bridge (while driving).












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A dream deferred...

It was closed when I was 10, but finally at the ripe old age of 24, I have fulfilled my dreams of riding It's A Small World!