Song: On May Morning
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.
– John Milton
Summer’s not officially here until I turn in my final grades next week. But I couldn’t be happier that May has finally arrived.
Congratulations! You found the new home of WomoPage.
I bought me a domain name (womopage.net) and got me a web host (DreamHost) and set me up shop away from the vulgar world of Blogger with the elegant aid of WordPress. One great advantage of WordPress is that it allows me to categorize posts, making them more easy for my hoards of eager fans to find. (See the Archives tab above.)
By the way, I highly recommend both WordPress and DreamHost, DreamHost especially. If you’re in the market for a web host, I recommend them most highly. And if you do sign up with them, please list my e-mail (mwomack@mac.com) as your referral. I get a small commission that way!
I’ve had a time of it modifying my new layout to match the one I just created for Blogger, but I’ve got it pretty close now. Turns out the blogger template I used was a ripoff of a WordPress template called K2. (The template originally looked something like this; so you can see I’ve done a fair bit of modifying.) At least I didn’t have to start from scratch, thank goodness. Still, there’s been a lot of eye-straining editing of code. More tweaking will occur over the comming weeks, no doubt, so be patient.
Now if I can just pour as much effort into maintaining this blog as I’ve spent setting it up.
Welcome to the new and improved WomoPage.
I started this blog two years ago as a movie-review site, but didn’t make much of a go of it.
Well now I’m back with a snazzy new design. I used a layout from Blogger Templates as my new template. (It’s called K1, if you’re curious.)
I’ve tweaked the template a little and am tweaking it still. Since I know very little about html coding, this involves lots of trial and error. So be patient if things are a little wonky for a while.
I wanted a clean, elegant look, and to that end I’ve tried to make the links as unobtrusive as possible. I find it very distracting to read through a blog post full of multi-color words. My discreet links underline when you hover over them, but are other-wise inconspicuous.
The biggest design change is the spiffy new “WomoPage” masthead. I created it with a freeware image editor called Gimp.
I’m going to try to post at least once a week. I’ll still give lots of movie reviews, I imagine, because I watch so many films. But I’ll also post some other stuff as well. My readers (if any) can make requests or suggestions of course.
Let’s hope this goes better, or at least longer, than last time.
The Simpsons was laugh-out-loud funny from its first episode, but season four is when it completed its journey from mere brilliance towards genuine transcendence. This show did for the 30 minute sitcom what The Beatles did for the 3 minute pop song; it literally expanded the very potential inherent in its medium.
Season four is widely hailed as the greatest Simpsons season ever. I disagree; I think the show achieved its zenith in season eight. But season four was a watershed for the series, the moment when our love and admiration for the show turned into awe and worship.
In its first couple of seasons, The Simpsons was plotted and paced much more like a conventional sitcom, but by season four it had achieved something unique. By season four, the plots get told with lightning-swift efficiency, leaving lots of room for flashbacks, fantasy sequences, non sequitur hilarity, and just a general level of goofiness unprecedented in commercial TV. The Simpsons makes everything else on TV look pedestrian, sluggish, and dull.
I think one big reason The Simpsons got so good so quickly is its annual Halloween episodes. Those episodes are great in themselves, but, more importantly, I think they showed the creative team just how much was really possible, just how far they could really go. The “Treehouse of Horror” segments are just 7 minutes long, so they had to learn to tell stories more quickly than is normal in TV. Also, the Halloween episodes encouraged a whole new level of surreality and an anything-goes attitude.
In some ways, these are just intensifications of regular Simpsons episodes, but that’s precisely my point. By pushing at the limits of their medium, the creators of this show discovered that they were able to transcend them.
Every episode of the show is packed, overflowing with smart and funny ideas. And most of its funniest moments have nothing to do with telling the story; that’s part of their charm, they feel extra, superfluous, the icing on the cake. The Simpsons is more icing than cake, and it’s that richness and density that makes it so great. Moment for moment, it remains the most rewarding experience the medium of television has yet produced.
Here are 10 of my favorite moments from season four:
- HOMER: [when the pull tab breaks off] Now my pudding is trapped forever!
- “Steamboat Itchy” (The very first Itchy and Scratchy cartoon)
- HOMER:[on the family of possums living in the monorail] I call the big one “Bitey.”
- BART: Didn’t you wonder why you were getting checks for doing nothing?
GRANDPA: I figured, because the Democrats were in power again.- “Malaise Forever” (Inscription on Jimmy Carter’s statue)
- TROY McCLURE: You may remember me from such films as P is for Psycho and The President’s Neck is Missing.
- The Big British Book of Smiles
- TV ANNOUNCER: The following is a public service announcement. Excessive alcohol consumption can cause liver damage and cancer of the rectum.
HOMER: Mmmm, beer!- WIGUM: I’ve got pictures of you Quimby.
QUIMBY: You don’t scare me, that could be anyone’s ass.
And my favorite Simpsons line of all time:
SMITHERS: I think women and sea men don’t mix.
The Simpsons, season 4 (1992-93)
GRADE: A
This is an overblown sequel to a slick little horror/sci-fi film Pitch Black. Pitch Black was low budget and very effective; it established a simple and elegant premise, played faithfully by its own rules, and treated the audience to a fun time. In every conceivable way, The Chronicles of Riddick is the opposite of its predecessor.
Riddick is an overblown, illogical mess. The production design is muddy and derivative; it’s like Ozzy Ozborne’s house: everything is very expensive, but you can’t buy good taste. The “story” lurches from one silly and illogical scene to the next, looking for excuses to kill things. The action is shot and edited in accordance with a principle seemingly wide-spread in Hollywood these days: confusing=exciting.
Vin Diesel has become a dull parody of himself, and he’s one of the least intimidating “tough guys” in history. (Note to Vin’s trainer: you really need to work on bulking up the delts. Can’t Hollywood stars get good steroids anymore?) His gravel-voiced delivery is just embarrassing. Fortunately he doesn’t speak much here.
This film is very impressed with its own pomposity. It weaves an elaborate “mythology,” and the ending essentially announces that a sequel is on the way. As if sequels didn’t have a bad enough reputation already.
The Chronicles of Riddick (2004)
GRADE: D
HBO On Demand has the first five episodes of The Sopranos available, so naturally I’ve been watching them.
It’s amazing how good this show is, and I’d forgotten how great Tony’s domineering mother Livia Soprano was. She’s so effortlessly and unconsciously cruel and manipulative and also laugh-out-loud funny at the same time. And she’s a great example of how complex and interesting the characters on the show are.
She gives Tony a constant guilt trip about putting her in a “nursing home,” yet everything she does (from setting her kitchen on fire to running over a friend with her car) makes placing her in a home the only possible solution. She clearly takes a perverse pleasure in making everyone’s life miserable, including her own.
One thing that distinguishes The Sopranos is that it forces its audience to figure out what going on, it draws us in because we have to pay attention to make the crucial connections. Moreover, much of the energy of the show comes from the discrepancies it creates between what we know and what the characters know. This leads to rich situational ironies.
Take for example the fifth episode of the series “College.” Here we see Tony taking Meadow on an interview tour of several colleges she’s applied to; along the way, Tony spots a former mobster who turned state’s evidence. Near the end of the show, Tony strangles him. Now most shows would end there, but then we see Tony and Meadow riding home. Meadow becomes suspicious and is just on the verge of realizing what Tony has done. So Tony pulls a guilt trip worthy of his mother, telling Meadow how his feelings are hurt that she doesn’t trust him. This emotional black mail is every bit as vicious as the execution, but only we are in a position to realize that.
One of the things that really makes the show work is that Tony is always on the verge of self-knowledge but constantly shys away from it. This turns a structural problem for any TV series into a dramatic strength. TV characters can’t change too drastically, they can’t have the turning points or epiphanies that are crucial for most dramatic characters. But this show focuses on the conflict between Tony the mob boss and Tony the middle-class guy; the two fight to a stand still, and so while Tony never quite achieves the kind of insight that would lead to genuine change (either to reject evil or to embrace it), we, the audience, do. A neat dramatic trick that.
The Sopranos, season 1 (1999)
GRADE: A
Steven Spielberg continues to dazzle and amaze. Setting a whole movie in a single airport terminal is the kind of stunt Hitchcock liked to pull in films like Rear Window or Lifeboat, but Spielberg’s tour de force never feels forced. He displays an apparently effortless cinematic grace.
The terminal in The Terminal never gets visually boring nor does it ever feel like it’s trying to look good, it just does. And Spielberg once again displays his gift for casually establishing the geography of a setting so firmly that you never get lost or confused. Here he does it with several elaborate crane shots of the terminal early on, but it’s only on reflection that you realize Spielberg’s been spoon feeding you visual information.
If the film’s visuals borrow from Hitchcock, its soul is pure Capra. Like so many Capraesque fables (from It Happened One Night, to Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, to It’s a Wonderful Life) The Terminal relies on an improbable, fairy-tale premise. Once you buy into that premise, the movie unfolds from one delightful set piece to the next. Here we have to believe that Tom Hanks’ Victor Navoski is stuck in the terminal and can’t/won’t leave. Accept that, and your off for a ride.
The ride includes some delightful subplots, like Victor’s budding romance with Catherine Zeta-Jones’ stewardess, or Victor playing matchmaker between two employees at the terminal. The movie has the lighter than air tone that made Catch Me if You Can such a joy to watch. The romance in particular is delicious, and it makes me more certain than ever that Spielberg may someday make a dazzlingly great romantic comedy.
All the supporting characters are quickly and sharply drawn and deeply and instantly engaging. Spielberg was, once upon a time, criticized for being more a technician than an “actor’s director.” That canard never had any validity (look at the performances in Jaws) but now I think it’s safe to say that Spielberg gets more consistently and uniformly great performances than any director working today. Only Soderberg even comes close.
In a film full of great acting turns, Tom Hanks, as usual, stands out. Hanks is as effortlessly brilliant as his director, and that’s saying something. His performance at times seems to be right out of a silent movie; he’s as deft a physical comedian and as emotionally compelling as Charlie Chaplin in this film. Hanks’ “Krakozhian” accent is every bit as convincing as his pitch perfect Boston and Alabamian accents in Catch Me if You Can and Forest Gump, but he never plays the accent for cheap laughs. Two minutes into the film, you’ve forgotten that this isn’t Hanks’ real accent.
The film is not as flawless as Spielberg’s best work. The plot creaks in places and relies too much on convenient coincidence to keep things moving. Victor’s motivation for wanting to go to New York just doesn’t resonate like it should. The film would probably play better 20 minutes shorter, and they missed a golden opportunity by not having a jazz classics score. These are all minor quibbles that wouldn’t matter too much, but the film’s big flaw, its ending, is less excusable.
I was totally with the film until its last act, and then it simply falls apart. It abandon’s Zeta-Jones’ character, leaving the romantic plot totally unresolved. The villain’s final decision is completely out of character and is made only to allow the film to end more quickly. The logic behind Vitor’s actions here is opaque. The whole last half hour of the film is a mess that even Spielberg and Hanks can’t charm their way out of.
It’s a shame. If they’d worked the ending through as carefully as the set up, this would be a classic. As it is, it’s just second-rate Spielberg.
THE TERMINAL (2004)
GRADE: B+
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