Nerds unite. Ok, now disperse.

It's a strange time to be a geek. Or a nerd. A fan of sci-fi, fantasy, and really I don't know what else we hold dominion over, probably video games. Comics. Specifically, it's a strange time to be a fan of sci-fi on TV. There are some very cool things happening, but the lens by which I will focus my sights today is the recent launch of Dollhouse, Joss Whedon's NEXT BIG THING. Even though it's a good bet to say he wouldn't describe it that way.

If you don't know who Joss Whedon is, you're probably not much of a nerd. He has been a patron saint of nerdy television for more than a decade. In 1997, he launched Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a show which rapidly gave rise to a vivid reality of gender inversion in genre television. Buffy the superhero was notably also Buffy the girl, with best friends who amounted to ex- and future witches (one of whom would inevitably become one of TV's first lesbians), vampires with feelings, demons gone soft, and a man-sel in distress. Whedon spun off Angel (a non-evil vampire, most of the time) and sent him, well, to the city of angels, and the shows ran at times concurrently in the same universe of magical, myth-inspired mayhem until 2004.

That, plus a bunch of comics, takes care of the Buffyverse, leaving the world of Firefly. A show about cowboys in space was so amazing, Fox saw fit to cancel it, which is what they do best to good shows. We can't fault them for sticking to their strengths. Fate not being without a sense of humour, it seems telling the underdog story landed Whedon's show as a permanent underdog. Fourteen episodes exist, and by resounding fan request, protest and, one presumes, death threats, a feature film was made, too. Serenity even made money for its distributor, no longer Fox, and left fans as vindicated as fans can be when their favourite show ever - no matter what, no matter how amazing any other show is in perpetuity throughout the universe - gets cancelled.

Then Whedon was doing something else for a little while, or perhaps several other things, like directing a couple episodes of The Office and creating and realizing the wonderful Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog during the '08 Writers' Guild Strike.

So, now. Dollhouse. Buffy alum Eliza Dushku plays Echo, a 'doll' in the 'house' who exists to be the curvy-body-shaped revolving door for whatever personality suits her job that week. So far she's been a great date and a child hostage survivor turned child hostage negotiator. the personalities they give her are, or were, real personalities from real people, and as of episode 2, that's already been a problem. Apparently, the first doll, retaining some combination of personalities from all his 'imprints', ran amok and murdered nearly everyone in his path save for Echo. Olivia Williams, an actress woefully underused, runs the dollhouse and contracts with clients for exorbitant amounts of money the services of people who are perfect for the job, at least while they're wearing the glass slipper.

That's a unique, complex premise. And while I do think it's pretty cool, it's also a massive undertaking to bring that concept to a place where people engage with it on a human level. My observation of the first two episodes is that this show isn't really about people yet, which really needs to get worked out, because it's what every other Whedon work had going for it. It's still just a concept, and while the second hour started down the right road by fleshing out the character who looks after Echo, it's still just a curiosity. My interest is there, but I'm not hooked yet. I am, on the other hand, excited for all the things they could do if they get the time and the latitude to do so.

And if you listen to some fans, they won't. The Whedonites, the devotees, may have set the bar pretty high here, or maybe we've become expectant that new shows will already have found their footing right out the gate. Dollhouse isn't that show. I'm willing to wait for it, personally, because as described, it's a big box of what-the-fuck. And it can't all be confusion. Shows need focus, or at least a tropical island to retain people's devotion. And I actually love Lost, but when I read some of the already fed-up, frustrated letters of abandonment that fans are levelling at Dollhouse, I have to wonder. These can not be the same people. Two episodes. Lost is in season 5, and though I'm sorting its jigsaw pieces into piles, I don't have a box to show what the hell it's supposed to look like. Maybe nerds have used up all their patience this season on Heroes.

I guess I have a wish, a sincere wish of the fans of Whedon. Calm the hell down. If you head over to Penny-Arcade today, you'll see that this fan's dilemma has reached their radar, one of the more cluttered, far reaching radar screens in this kingdom of nerddom. And if you read the news post there today, you'll see that a good argument is, 'I don't have time to watch this while I wait for it to get better'. That's fair. And if you feel that way then stop watching, because there's a certain resolution in that. Whatever the show is right now hasn't hooked you, and this is why your TV has a remote. This is also why you have an internet connection, and a nearby retailer, which together can tell you if and then where to pick up the show on DVD should it improve in your absence. This is common practice even for shows that people love unconditionally, because DVD lets us live unwed to the line-up schedule of Fox or anyone else.

So my wish. If you don't like it, stop watching. If you're liking it, keep watching it. If you hate this show, and you choose to carry on watching it, because you're so devoted to Joss or something, then you're wasting your time. Because maybe Joss will come through, but man do I not want to hear you nitpicking everything you hate about a show you choose to watch in the meantime. Unless you're a TV critic, then I think you get paid for that. For the rest of us, we can just let you know if it gets better. What else do you have to do on a Friday night, anyway? Battlestar's on.

Revolutionary Road

A film changes quite a lot for me when I find out what the intention was behind making it. It took me a second viewing of Zodiac, after all, to realize that it was meant to be that slow and frustrating. So, I guess I'm hoping that Sam Mendes intended the audience of his fourth feature to feel as though whatever tethered Frank and April Wheeler together was long dead.

My best estimate is that it takes less than 10 minutes for the unhappily wed couple to get at each other with some raw verbal combat. Ten minutes of screen time, that is - the film skips over their perhaps rosier early years. It's ugly and foreboding, and exceptionally well performed. Leonardo DiCaprio is satisfied here to take a role that is anything but glamourous - Frank is a bastard and a coward, and the film wastes little time getting you to that conclusion. April, as performed with naked desperation by Kate Winslett, is a woman stripped of her dreams, one by one. She starts out with great fortitude as a character, but she is gullible. She is betrayed by Frank; she allows herself to be betrayed by him.

I suspect there will be two distinct readings of this film - one by the wed and one the unwed. I read elsewhere a reviewer horrified by the film and the way that it undermines the mental image of marriage by poking at every insecurity felt by those in one. For a single person like myself, it's far more cautionary, like an extrapolation of watching that couple you know who don't belong together but stick with it anyway. This, I think we are meant to fear, is where they are headed.

You know from the get go that Frank and April won't escape the mess they've gotten themselves into, so you can't help but wonder at the point of all this. The trappings of marriage have been explored elsewhere, and this doesn't say anything new. As exquisitely performed as it is by all parties, with special notice going to Michael Shannon, the performances don't move us to like Frank or April, and I struggle to understand why that wasn't important.

We're never given an opportunity to see the Wheelers as a happy couple. In fact we're never allowed to see them as a happy family, either. Oh yes, did I mention that they have kids? That's where I'll leave it - the word count is proportionate to how much time they spend in the movie, implied or otherwise. Because we move so quickly to seeing them disintegrate, we can never care about where the movie is inevitably going. It goes to some bleak, broken places, but it's fated to. No matter how bad it is when we get there, the reaction isn't one of shock or awe, it's a grave nod of the head, because we all knew where this Revolutionary Road was leading.

Fresh Ingredients - week of 01/26/2009

As I write this, the no. 2 episode of Battlestar from part 2 of this final season is playing. It's an improvement over last week, which pulled the rug out a few two many times. This week (or technically last week) they've returned to some extra fun practicality - cylons are friends, enemies, people are too, people are also uprising and it's all a delicious mess.

Also picked up and thoroughly recommendable: The demo for Project Origin (also known as FEAR 2) . It's goddamned scary is what it is. Scarier than the first game. They made the graphics better, which only helps the terrifying atmosphere. And when I say helps, I mean it helps prompt you to pee your pants. Full version on February 10th

Tomorrow (the datestamp will read today because it's late-ish) I will be checking out Revolutionary Road.

I'm behind on the following, I really need to catch the hell up:

Slumdog Millionaire

The Wrestler

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Frost / Nixon

Gran Torino

Zack and Miri Make a Porno

... I must still be missing something. Some of that is gonna be on video soon for god's sake.

So, thoughts on Revolutionary Road tomorrow night.

Histories, futures

Welcome back to the internet, I say! You weren't gone, but I was. Last night, Carly revealed that while bored at work recently she perused my entire LiveJournal history (she's totally not a stalker) and made me not only think of Live Journal for the first time in years, but also glad that I had, at one time, that place to let my thoughts out - as much as they were usually just kid stuff. It was important then, so it's part of me. I went back and looked at a couple posts, and wow.

Things are different now. Still, it didn't take long for me to come upon this quote, from my number one go-to guy, Mr. Matt Good. I stand by its timeless quality:

Welcome to today? How do you feel?

This is what today looks like. Is it what you expected?

There will come a time when you will wake up and realize that there will come a time when you will not.

There will come a time when the version of you on this day will seem stupid.

It is not your fault.


So, moving forwards ... I intend to mostly write about film, TV and music on here, though I'm sure I'll add in other things.

Also, if you've just discovered this and you don't know me, here's some basic stuff. As I write this, I am a 24-year-old video editor for CBC News in Toronto, Canada. I am a graduate of Guelph-Humber University, where I ran out the door holding a diploma in Journalism and a degree in Media Studies. All media-related news fascinates me, and I am way behind on my movie-watching. My family and friends (whose status is kind of interchangeable for the most part) are the dearest part of my life.

First thing's coming soon: A review of whatever movie I finally catch up with this weekend.