The Stew

There have been a couple of times, watching some TV show or movie, when a piece of music suddenly appeared and the combination of images, emotions, lyrics and notes elevated whatever was going on. The use of “This Woman’s Work” in the film She’s Having a Baby is an example of how it can work brilliantly for dramatic effect.

I was thinking about that recently because I ran into an example this week that fires on all cylinders… in a video game, of all places.

I’ve heard the song “No Rest for the Wicked” by Cage the Elephant, and it’s okay. It’s fun, even. But pair it up with the pseudo-cell-shaded, dark-humored goodness of the sci-fi RPG shooter Borderlands and you’ve got a toe-tapping intro that revels in its own bad-assery.

If you’re the type of person who would enjoy a sci-fi RPG shooter, I defy you to watch that and not want to play this. It’s damn near perfect in setting up the visual and emotional tone of the game.

“Stargate Universe.” Mostly harmless.

Pilots are funny things. They’ve got either .75 or 1.5 hours to make a good enough impression on you to keep tuning in. They’ve got to introduce a bunch of characters and a situation that is compelling on its own, but ripe enough with possibilities so that the remaining shows in the season don’t suck.

“Lost” had an amazing pilot.  “Star Trek: The Next Generation” had a pretty lousy one. SGU, as it’s known in the biz, just had a mediocre one.

It cribs visually from “Battlestar Galactica” and thematically from “Star Trek: Voyager” (or “Lost in Space,” for you old-timers.) There are too many characters. The setup is oddly contrived. The one thing it has going for it is that there are possibilities for the rest of the season.

So far, two thumbs enthusiastically sideways.

“District 9″ is not, despite some hyperbole to the contrary, the second coming of sci-fi cinema. But it has engendered some strong feelings — both positive and negative.

Yeah, there are clever allegories… and yeah, there are plot holes. Depending on who you talk to, the shaky-cam documentary-style cinematography is either a brilliant way to add to the sense of realism or a nausea-inducing brain fart of a first-time filmmaker. The third act is either a non-stop thrill ride or an unfortunate pandering to Hollywood sensibilities. The CGI effects are either gritty and utterly believable or a digital mess that comes off more as a demo reel than an element of an actual movie.

I’ve argued with people about various aspects of this movie, I’ve discussed its themes, and I’ve taken note of the way people are really arguing about his film. What I didn’t note during all that arguing and discussing is, I believe, one of the most important aspects of this movie: Fun.

I haven’t had this much fun at a movie in a long time. “Star Trek” was fun-ish,  but “District 9″ is made of fun. It’s brutal, sad, uplifting, funny — sometimes simultaneously. It’s filled with gore in exactly the way the “Saw” films aren’t, and I uncharacteristically found myself cheering as bodies exploded like water balloons.

And the digital characters? I want to rub George Lucas’ face in this film, because director Neil Blomkamp understands how to get a dramatic performance both from real actors and things that only exist in a computer and our imaginations. I was constantly impressed with what I was seeing, and I couldn’t wait to see what was coming next.

I understand some of the criticisms that have been leveled at the film, and I even agree with some of them. But doesn’t anyone go to the movies just to have fun any more? I’m not talking about Adam- Sandler-esqe in-one-eye-and-out-the-other comedic fun. I’m talking about genuine glee.

That’s got to be worth something.

Honest, the first show that went through my mind as Pushing Daisies got around to explaining its premise wasn’t Dead Like Me (creator Bryan Fuller’s other death-obsessed comedy-thing), but rather the first episode of Torchwood. In that show, a murder victim is brought back to life for less than a minute in order to find out who did the deed. In this show, murder victims are brought back to life for less than a minute in order to find out who did the deed, for fun and profit.

Pushing Daisies has been at the top of most best-of lists for this season, and it’s easy to see why. It looks like nothing else on TV. It sounds like nothing else on TV. Director Barry Sonnenfeld lets out his inner Tim Burton in a way he wasn’t allowed to in last year’s mid-season comedy Notes from the Underbelly.

The cast is pitch-perfect, with supporting player Chi McBride getting the best line (”Bitch, I was in proximity”) of the night. It’s funny, touching, and deserves to be watched.

Which is, frankly, why I’m worried about its future. It managed to narrowly win its time slot, which is a good sign, but whether audiences will stick with something this quirky remains to be seen. In the meantime, I’ve got to thank ABC for bringing us stuff like Twin Peaks back in the day and this show now. It’s a ratings risk, but one I’m glad they took.

Speaking of Peaks, I finally managed to catch the first two episodes of Reaper. (The common element is, of course, actor Ray Wise, far right.) This is the other show of the new season that has been topping best-of lists, and again with good reason. It’s funnier and more human than that other slacker-centric sci-fi show, and it’s got a lot of places it can go. Expand the current circle of friends for the lead, kill or maim one or more of the current ones, and you’ve got a perfect Buffy replacement.

Downloading and watching Babylon 5: The Lost Tales turned out to be a much better experience than I had been expecting.

First of all, it didn’t take very long to download. It’s only about 3.5 gigs, and I could have started watching it as it was downloading but I decided to wait until it was done. I didn’t stare at the download percentage the whole time, but it was done well within two hours.

Second, the video quality made the process worthwhile. I picked the high-definition version off of Xbox Live, as described in an earlier post. There was no macroblocking, no visible color banding, and only a slight softness due to the amount of compression. It looked great — certainly much better than the show ever looked when the series was still on. I think the special effects may have suffered a little because of the resolution, as some of the digital sets looked considerably more “fake,” for lack of a better term, than on shows like Battlestar Galactica. (This B5 movie and Battlestar Galactica shared the same visual effects studio.)

And third, the movie was better than I was expecting. I didn’t bother rewatching any old Babylon 5 episodes before watching this, so I was a little rusty on my lore. Turns out it didn’t really matter. This is “Big Issue” science fiction, where large issues are pondered and the good guys, while flawed, do the right thing — sometimes grudgingly. The flick definitely suffered from the lack of supporting cast members and extras, making this huge space station seem a little small at times. But the writing and the acting were both above par, and I hope this film does well enough to convince Warner Bros. to pony up a few more.

Bonus points definitely go to the producers of this film for vamping up Teryl Rothery. That was unexpected, and in a very good way.

I recorded the premiere of the new Flash Gordon series on Sci-Fi a few weeks ago, and finally got around to watching it. Well, some of it, anyway.

I made it through about 40 minutes before it got deleted, as did my DVR’s instruction to record new episodes.

Look, I’ve got a very high tolerance for bad science fiction. I’ve seen The Ice Pirates. I sat through Alien Apocalypse. But this show was so bad, so inane, so lame, so tired, so… bad.

Don’t watch it. You probably don’t, but don’t. You’ve been warned.

I feel the need to get my geek on. It’s all due to the casting news about the new Star Trek movie.

Check it:

• Tom Cruise is supposedly going to play Christopher Pike, the first captain of the Enterprise. Given J.J. Abrams’ good relationship with Cruise (which might be enough to overpower Cruise’s falling out with Paramount), this rumor makes some sense.
• According to the casting profiles for the characters in the movie, Scotty is “28-32 a brilliant ship’s engineer. Must be able to do a flawless Scottish accent!” Flawless? Craig Ferguson has rightly pointed out that Scotty’s accent is closer to Pakistani than Scottish.
• They’re apparently close to casting some guy named Anton Yelchin to play the young Pavel Checkov. Given the fact that Checkov didn’t join the crew until season two of the show, it’s going to be hard for them to integrate him into the timeline where this movie takes place.

As a non-theist, I don’t do much in the way of praying. However, I’d like to petition the deity — any and all deities, in fact — to make sure that this film doesn’t totally, completely, entirely suck.

J. Michael Straczynski has managed to accomplish what the best minds in Redmond had failed to do. He got me to purchase my first ever Xbox Live Points.

See, Babylon 5: The Lost Tales: Voices in the Dark, a direct-to-DVD movie, is being released today. The only way to see it in high definition is to download it from Xbox Live.

I’ve had my Xbox 360 since January of 2006, and I have had absolutely no inclination to purchase any “points” — which are good for games, game enhancements, background themes, movie and TV show rentals, and other crap. (Microsoft wants you to spend points rather than bucks for the same reason carnies charge you “tickets” for rides. While you might be willing to shell out five tickets to have your kid ride a pony for 15 seconds, you might think twice if you knew you were actually spending $6.25.)

The problem is that while I’m geeky enough to want to watch B5:TLT:VITD, I’m not nearly geeky enough to buy it. That means I’ve got to rent it. And if my options are:

• get it from Blockbuster at DVD quality and pay $4-something, or
• download it from Xbox Live at 720p and pay $5-something

I’m willing to at least try the latter.

I’ll be reviewing B5:TLT:VITD just as soon as I can get it downloaded and watched.