What I still can’t figure out is who, if anyone, is taking the place of Mel Brooks, now and into the future.  A lot of his humor is a bit cornball, but it’s good and lively.  If anyone has some ideas, please leave a comment.  And if you haven’t seen Men in Tights recently, I’d say it’s certainly worth (re)visiting.

The movie, however, looked rather interesting, and Netflix seemed to say that I’d like it.  Just finished watching it, and good lord I am impressed.  For the sake of history, it is worthy to note that I’m speaking here of the original, 2009 Swedish movie, not the American remake that supposedly is in the works.  re: Hollywood looking to copy yet another foreign film: well, screw that, again.

Acting, cinematography, locations, pacing, sound.. it all fit together incredibly well.  I was cringing heavily at certain scenes, and cheering at others.  What’s perhaps most interesting about the film is the way they thread dark elements alongside the plot while still retaining a balance.  As per my general form here, I’m not going to delve much more into the plot; though I’ll say that it’s rather essential to check this out when you get the chance.  Grab it, via Netflix, Amazon, or whatever other method you can find.

Visually, Ink is literally a city of filters.  I’m not sure what the footage looked like before processing, though it seems that it was all done on video, and at times without the best lighting.  To compensate, there’s a whole lot of soft focus, high-contrast, color shifted, and otherwise altered footage on screen.  On the whole there’s nothing all that awful about its presentation, though it seems more to be a polished amateur job.

Sound, similarly, has its holes.  There’s nothing particularly bad, though the mix and ambiance are a bit tossed together, and again it lacks the polish that it easily could have donned.

On the whole, the movie is a somewhat dorky production .. and yet I’m writing about it because despite all its faults, it’s still a solid story which is told in a creative way.  Hopefully, those involved have been able to cut their teeth and will be able to take a bigger bite with a more careful touch in the near future.  Until then, this is certainly one worth checking out, with the above warnings in mind.

Slogging through the first few episodes, I felt like I duped into another Numb3rs: some crap story telling sprinkled over a few scientific principles.  OK, so I am being harsh re: Numb3rs, though if someone really wants to say that it’s a decent show then go ahead.  I was a math major and just never felt it was well done, either in the writing or in the mathematics.

Lie to Me starts out a bit awkwardly in the same sense: there’s hardly any character development for the first few episodes, and the science part of it rains down like a ton of bricks.  The dialogue mostly runs, “You’re lying!” “No, you’re lying!” “No, she’s lying!” without much thought to the characters or motivations.  It’s rather interesting science, however, so I kept with it.

Half way into the first season, however, the claws of the show start to come out.  Tim Roth’s character gains depth, history, and back-story.  There’s some drama, not just in the run of the episode but from one to the next: characters intersect and the plot thickens.  I don’t want to give anything away, but by the end of it I’ve run into one of my more favorite shows on TV, and I’m really looking forward to biting into season 2 when it comes onto Netflix. Check it out, but be sure to stick with it: you won’t be disappointed.

Bad Girls is a show about a women’s prison, both about the inmates as well as the staff that runs it.  The writing, the acting, and the camera work are all top notch.  It reminds me a lot of The Wire, though it doesn’t have quite the same polish or flash as the Baltimore epic: almost all of Bad Girls takes place in the prison, and there’s a very heavy sense of what it means to be stuck in a place for years on end.

What’s surprising to me is how good this show is, and how difficult it is to obtain in America.  If they were to market this and re-release, I’m sure it would be a hit.  Please check out as much as you can of this show; and let’s keep our fingers crossed that we can get our hands on more of it in the near future.

Watched Lost again tonight.  It’s one of those shows I wish I weren’t into so much; or at least haven’t put in so much time that I somehow feel obliged to keep it up.  It’s some cheesy soap opera type thing at this point, which just wrote itself into an awful hole.  I won’t give away any details, for those who are still holding on or haven’t yet arrived at this particular stage; though with that said, I’m waiting patiently for the pain to be over and the series to be complete.

The long and the short is that there is absolutely no reason to watch the American version; do yourself a favor and go for the original, 2004 version from Denmark.  Why?  The story and plots are almost exactly the same; albeit a bit more watered down in the American version.  Admittedly, the USA does introduce a certain amount of comedy, in that the child actors beat out the long-standing Hollywood names.  Additionally, the DVD feature on the American 2009 release also has a twelve minute piece on why they bothered to remake the movie.  My personal favorite was that they had to remake the movie  because not enough Americans had watched the original; to say nothing of the power of putting any sort of weight towards redistribution, re-release, etc.

With all that said, the movie is certainly very powerful.  Susan Bier deserves an incredible amount of credit for her work on the story, and for her vision in the execution of its telling.

The trouble is, it’s a sad thing to think that the fight, in so many cases, may be lost on those who the film could otherwise help.  There’s absolutely nothing positive about the Fox network or Rupert Murdoch or anything associated with them.  For most sane people, this makes perfect sense, since there really isn’t very much that’s redeeming about any of it.  More broadly, then, the trouble is that there are already too damned many people who are sucked in, and there’s very little chance that if they like their media, they’ll even spend the time to buy into this particular film.

I’m not saying we should give up; and the problem is brilliantly deep and motivated.  It is essential to have these kinds of films, in order to transition those who are slowly fleeing the dim lights of their absurd television screens into what otherwise would constitute reality, fairness, etc.

If we are to look towards what’s happening in our world, however, I do feel as though there is a space outside this movie, that somehow will take those who are complicit and instead make them think.  Fundamentally, Fox subscribers are lulled into not having to think all that hard.  There isn’t too much to process, because it’s all spit out on a single serving plate, and at the end of a long day that’s an attractive alternative.

With respect to this particular movie, in any case, it’s certainly a wonderful collection of the absurdity that we in the US have to wrestle against, and taken against other alternatives in our quest for ways to use our time, it truly cannot be missed.

I’m a huge, huge fan of Henry Rollins, both by seeing him speak live and by his many videos and his “dispatches” on henryrollins.com.  I admittedly have not read any of his books; yet.

As an avid Netflix fan, I tonight found and watched the IFC’s “Henry Rollins” Uncut video where Henry is in Northern Ireland.  Needless to say, the particular footage and interviews and commentary were enough to set my blood on fire and making me really wanting to know more.

In general I try not to regurgitate the bulk of the content on which I am reviewing, and I’m going to follow that trend here.  If you have any interest in the situation, I feel strongly that you should watch the piece through for yourself, as it won’t take too long (less than an hour) and is rather well packed.  Namely, Henry interviews a variety of different people from both the IRA and from Union members as well as some other local figures.

What is incredible to me is how those who were interviewed iterated that it was not a fight between Protestant and Catholics, but between independence and rule by the United Kingdom.  What little I did hear about the conflicts in the early 90s hardly ever voiced this sentiment, and the idea that it was an imperial rather than a secular war is just insanity.  The effect of the media and how it constructs and manipulates public opinion is huge; if not to those who are directly involved and know better, but to anyone else in the world who is thereby cut off from proper access to the bolded points which affect so many people.  Furthermore, the mass of current doubt as to whether the current systems are sustainable, and the extent to which the current society is segregated rather than truly “in peace” is very seriously a story which has not been brought to proper light.  Rising fences, constant security, and other forms of military presence are all elements that I, in cheery Boston, cannot even conceive; and this is speaking to only the current “benevolent” state of where they are now, saying nothing to decades of conflict.

There are clearly many more aspects to the story, though I certainly got a good primer in the discussion held by this particular video piece.  I look forward to learning more.

I don’t imagine I was supposed to be laughing when I was, in this movie, but that was part of the fun.  The soundtrack was absurd, the dialogue and acting was often absurd, and yet it was also engaging and moved along well enough that it was hard to put it down.  It’s hard to say more without giving away too much, so I’ll say that if you can handle having your hands over your eyes and laughing a whole lot, you probably are going to have some fun.