Weekend Update

History of Melody Nelson Videos

Yesterday I watched the TV special that Serge Gainsbourg did for his 'History of Melody Nelson' album. It's available in seven parts on Youtube. As I've already written about, I love the album and it was cool to see it visualized. There's not much of a narrative to the songs, but you get the basic idea of what happens through Serge's interactions with Jane Birkin as Melody. The visuals are very abstract, most of the songs feature our heroes superimposed over weird spinning patterns. My favorite video is the first, showing Serge driving along, passing through a bunch of lights and colors. The video for 'L'Hotel Particulier' is nice as well, following Serge and Jane through a variety of classic paintings. The only problematic one is the finale, 'Cargo Culte,' which focuses on African tribal imagery for some reason. But, it returns to Jane by the end and resolves nicely. I thought this was a great series of videos and I'd love to see a higher quality version on DVD. The album is still one of the all time greats, and if you haven't heard it, check out this video below.



Inland Empire Trailer

In other video news, the trailer for David Lynch's Inland Empire is up online. I saw the film and reviewed it back in October, but I'm looking forward to a second viewing when I return home in a couple of weeks. The trailer isn't exactly representative, I don't think anything could be, but it captures a lot of the film's mood. Also, I believe the vocals on that song are by Lynch himself, but I'm not positive on that one. This is a film where it's pretty safe to watch the trailer, there's so much in there, it's tough to spoil.



The Fountain Dries Up

It's been tough to see last weekend's box office report, and see The Fountain get so few viewers. I've followed this film for six years, and even though the film itself was great, I'd have liked to see it make more of a cultural impact than it did. Now, I'm sure this will be one that people will rediscover on DVD, but if you want to see more films like this get made, go see them in the theaters. If everyone who likes Eternal Sunshine now went to see it in the theater, it'd probably be a lot easier to get adventurous films like that made. But, I feel like people go to the movies that are most hyped, the ones that you need to see to be part of the cultural dialogue. And, outside of the internet, The Fountain is not a part of that dialogue.

Weeds Season Two

I finally finished watching the second season of Weeds earlier today. The last run of episodes was great, with an expertly constructed cliffhanger to top it off. I prefer the show when it's in dramatic mode rather than broad comedy mode, and this final arc, in which Peter turns on Nancy was the best thing the show's ever done. Plus, Nancy and Conrad are fantastic together, there's a chemistry there that makes all their scenes together great. Zooey Deschanel fits right in with the cast, hopefully she'll be back next season, and I like how they use her to help develop Andy a bit. The show grew a lot with the second season and I'll definitely be back to see how things are resolved next year.

More on the Preacher show

There's an interesting interview with Mark Steven Johnson here, in which he talks about his plans for the Preacher show. I like the idea of one episode an issue, the Grandma storyline will certainly provide a nice first season finale. I'll be curious to see how the show winds up, this isn't a series where the comics connection is instantly apparent, so it could wind up attracting a general, rather than fanboy audience. That's not to say that superhero films don't attract a general audience, it's just that they're usually ghettoized, where a show like Carnivale isn't. More generally, I'm curious about how people will adapt to watching a show where they already know what will happen. If the general viewer wants spoilers, they'll be readily available, and I'll be curious to see how many people get hooked on the series and wind up reading the comic because they need to know what will happen next. And, how will this show affect Alan Ball's upcoming vampire series, True Blood?