Friday Night Lights - 'Best Laid Plans' (1x21)

Until The Sopranos comes back on Sunday, and perhaps even after that, the best show on television is Friday Night Lights. Every week, this show gives us something amazing, with the most realistic, gritty acting and photography ever on a network television series. This is like the best kind of 70s filmmaking, but airing every single week.

While this week’s episode was great, I’m going to jump back and talk about lat week’s ‘Mud Bowl,’ the series’ best episode yet. I’m not someone who cries watching movies, I get emotionally involved, but I think knowing so much about the filmmaking process makes me approach things in a different way. I’m more awed by an incredible shot than the typical plot twist. But, the best directors, like Wong Kar-Wai or Terence Malick, use incredible technique to create intensely emotional moments. This show is probably the closest thing to Malick that’s ever aired on TV, using the filmmaking style to immerse you in the characters’ mindsets.

One of the reasons I enjoy longform TV series so much is that they give me the satisfaction of getting lost in a story. Watching most movies, I can see the seams of the three act structure, and the shortcuts used to develop character. Compare the TV show Firefly to the movie Serenity. On the show, the characters are just there, living their lives, sometimes they’re at the fore of events, other times they’re in the background. The events come out of their actions, but on film, the actions are imposed, and they are slotted into designated roles to fit with the story. Everyone has a little trait that is emphasized, an easy character arc that is resolved by the end of the film. It’s still a well done film, but it has nothing on Whedon’s TV work.

I haven’t seen the Friday Night Lights movie, but I’d imagine it’s a similar situation. I seriously doubt we would have gotten as deep into the cast as we have on this series. It’s particularly notable that characters who were initially on the periphery, like Landry and Tyra, have become central to the series, while one of the initial core characters, and most typical of TV, Lyla, has been drifting away. The series has evolved and become less about football and more about these peoples’ lives. If you’re not watching the show because you don’t like football, that’s like not watching Six Feet Under because you’re not a fan of funerals. The football is just a device used to center the action around, and with the exception of the mud bowl, most of the time I’m not as interested in the game as I am in the characters’ general lives.

This is a long way of getting to the point that the end of ‘Mud Bowl’ was the most emotionally affecting piece of cinema I’ve seen in a long time, probably since Inland Empire. Looking at the end of Babylon 5’s third season, I said it was a mistake to intercut a battle with the Shadows with Dr. Franklin’s bleeding death crawl because the two events didn’t have equivalent interest levels. Intercutting is tricky, particularly between a big conflict and something personal. There, I just didn’t care about Dr. Franklin and the intercutting dragged both stories down.

Here, they made the potentially dangerous choice to intercut an assault on Tyra with the muddy football game. By equating an attempted rape with a football game, you could wind up making the crime seem too insignificant, but in practice, the emotion of both situations compounded on each other, leading to a feeling of total desperation. The game itself became almost a greek chorus, commenting on Tyra’s struggle. This is what intercutting should do, make things more than the sum of their parts.

Tracking back, I’ve always been a fan of Landry, he was comedy gold throughout the series, and early in this episode, we got more of the same. I loved how he says he wants to move from supporting actor to leading man, and I was so frustrated when his car wouldn’t start. I figured we were headed for more comedy, with Landry desperately trying to reach Tyra.

So, I was really shocked when that guy attacked Tyra. Mix this in with the desperation of the game, and it was just total emotional immersion. I liked that they didn’t have Landry ride into the rescue, and when he finally does meet her, it’s clear that his character has been knocked out of his fantasy, comedy world into harsh reality. It was a masterful episode, and even though this week’s didn’t quite hit those heights, it was still brilliant.

I’ll start with the Landry/Tyra stuff. I love the way they skip over the obvious plot machinations we’ve all heard before, we don’t need to see Tami and Tyra talking about what happened, once she sees Landry in the car, cut to the police station, and we know everything we need to.

Landry’s ending speech to Tyra was an interesting mix of accurate and hurtful. I like that we’re not just focusing on him with a kind of puppy dog crush, instead we get to see that what she said to him affected him, and he wants a bit of revenge for it. And, even though it’s a classic TV thing to do, having Riggins show up right when Landry was telling her how he feels. But, it’s clear that what he said made some impact on her.

A potential relationship between the two of them raises on a lot of issues. While I love Freaks and Geeks, I think the show’s biggest mistake was putting Sam together with Cindy Sanders. Even though the relationship was fun to watch, it hurt the realism. As Joss Whedon said, you have to give the audience what they need, not what they want, and this was a clear case of giving the audience what they wanted. It also felt sort of like the writers using the show to retrospectively reject the girls who had rejected them. But, the biggest crime was that it was a very TV thing to do. In the world of TV, it only takes a few episodes for a popular girl to recognize that the geeky, but sensitive guy is the one she really should be with. We all want it to happen, but it’s just too easy, and if Landry and Tyra were to get together, it would be a clear case of what we want, not what we need.

This puts them in the unfortunate position of having to crush Landry, but I think it’s what must be done. Maybe down the line that could bring him and Tyra together, but not here. It just doesn’t make sense considering the characters’ disparate levels of life experience. But, I think his speech to her was brilliant because it was so cuttingly accurate. He moved right through the bullshit and told Tyra that she was going to become her mother, married to a jerk, with no agency in her life. If anything, it’ll make Tyra want to leave Dillon even more.

These two are maybe the eighth or ninth most important characters on the series, but each of the actors brings incredible power to the scene. The ensemble here is one of the best ever assembled on television, primarily because they don’t seem to be acting at all. The Academy Awards are all about transformations and mimicry when handing out their awards, but to me, the best kind of acting is the kind that doesn’t feel like acting at all. These people are their characters, and that, combined with the documentary style photography, gives the show a feeling of realism that few shows achieve.

The only actress who doesn’t consistently work for me is Minka Kelly as Lyla, but I’m not sure if her slight unnatural quality is who the character is actually supposed to be. Lyla seems marooned from The O.C., a more typical teen drama character. I’m happy to see her and Street break up, because at this point, he seems much more suited for Susie. My reading of Lyla is that she wants her life to be like the idealized high school experience you’d see on a teen drama, and when Street lets her down, she reacts in that sort of bitchy, whiny way the characters there would. Only occasionally are we let behind the image she projects to the outside world. What grates her so about Street’s infidelity is that he is moving outside their world. With her and Tim, they’re both football players, it’s an acceptable betrayal, but by being with Susie, Street is leaving her behind, evolving beyond her. That’s what their trip to Austin was about, showing that he doesn’t need her anymore.

That’s why I’m a bit uncertain about Street being a coach. I think it fits with his desire for competition, but also is a move backwards from his new life built with Herc and the Austin crew. I would guess that they developed that plot as a way of reintegrating Street into the main action, but I was cool with him being off in his own subplots, and I’m not sure this will work in the long term. But, for now, it does let us see him recapture some of the joy he lost after being rejected from the Olympic team. While the show frequently questions the culture the town has built around the football team, it never questions the basic joy of the game. That’s why the mud bowl episode was so powerful, particularly when Eric and Tami stand amidst the cows and imagine the field they could build there.

Elsewhere, we get the family drama surrounding Eric’s job offer. I love the opening sequence of the episode, a montage style succession of scenes showing his awe at the stadium and program he could be a part of. Eric is living out his dream, and he just doesn’t understand why Tami and Julie can’t see that. He thinks in an objective way, that Austin is better than Dillon, but doesn’t understand their emotional connection to the place. I was assuming that he’d be turned around by the end of the episode, after the roast, and was really surprised to see him remain committed to going to Austin. That final scene, with Eric holding Tami, both looking toward the camera, had a fantastic air of menace, neither willing to budge, but giving up the fight for the present.

The first act of the episode was backed by a fantastic piece of music, I believe an Explosions in the Sky song. The opening of the episode was full of character conflict, and the swelling music united the disparate pieces into a coherent emotional whole. I was wondering how much worse things could get after this opening, it made the roast sequence incredibly tense because I kept waiting for some kind of major blowup.

There were so many highlights in the episode, I can’t go in depth on all of them, but here were some of the great things: Julie’s tearful talk with Matt, leading to his antagonistic stares at the coach for the rest of the episode, the way Eric refused to budge at all on Tami’s suggestion they stay in Dillon, and on a lighter note, the theft of the e-mail joke was classic.

So, this was another masterpiece, and I really hope that the show gets renewed next year. And, I’m looking forward to next week’s finale, I’m sure things will end on a high note.

The Sopranos: Approaching the Final Season

After a layoff of over a year, The Sopranos is finally returning for its final season, and the press coverage about the return has been very frustrating, for a number of reasons. The main one is the way that nearly every article has a headline like “Who’ll get whacked? Sopranos returns for final season.” It may be a mob drama, but I think treating potential character death as a kind of sweepstakes dilutes the emotion of what’s happening.

I think it’s indicative of the fundamental divide between the show’s two audiences. One is looking for a Scarface style embrace of over the top violence, a glorification of the mob lifestyle, while the other is viewing the show as a character drama, which just happens to take place in the world of the mob. I grew up in a suburb similar to where The Sopranos live, and the episodes focusing on Meadow’s struggle to get into college are as accurate a depiction of contemporary high school life as anything I’ve seen on TV. For me, the genius of the show is the characters feel completely ordinary, despite being in the mafia. Much like with the slaying in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the mob storyline is used to turn ordinary conflicts into massive, life or death drama.

And that’s why the show is so much more than either The Godfather or Scarface, it’s got some of the most complex, challenging characters on TV. Most shows flirt with the idea of moral ambiguity, but exist in a TV universe, where I want them to do bad things because it’ll lead to more interesting stories. When Buffy goes through her dark time in season six, I want to see her go further with Spike because it’s such compelling viewing. Because the characters are fundamentally good, it’s exciting to see them be bad. However, here, the characters are so flawed, I desperately want them to get out of the mob world and find something better. This is the conflict that played out in the first part of season six, with Tony’s struggle to deal with his new morality. It’s also the struggle that defined Christopher’s character in the early days of the show, culminating in the devastating finale of ‘D-Girl.’

That I want them to be better people is a testament to the reality of Chase’s universe. He refuses to play by typical TV rules, and that’s what can make the show frustrating at times. While I love the first half of season six, the second half was frequently frustrating. Not only was he rejecting traditional TV rules, he was rejecting basic storytelling principles, crafting a narrative that’s so loose, drifting over major events and dwelling on smaller things, it’s difficult to understand what he was doing. I’m really curious to see how this season relates to what we saw there. I get the feeling that the final six or so episodes of this season will tighten things up, but not rely too closely on what we saw at the end of last year. Adding the additional episodes was a storytelling experiment, that would allow him to take a more rambling approach to the finale. But, it’s impossible to say, more than any other TV auteur, Chase is completely unpredictable.

So, I’m eager to see the new season, as much out of curiosity as anything. I have no clue what he’s doing to do, and I’m eager to find out. One final gripe I’ve got, I’ve seen a bunch of articles that mention the missing Russian from ‘Pine Barrens’ as some kind of grievous loose end that must be rectified. That is completely missing the point of the episode. First, the Russian is just a macguffin, to get Christopher and Paulie into the woods. Also, the whole point of his fate is the ambiguity, that we don’t know if he’s alive or dead. To answer that definitively would kill the episode. No answer could live up to the mystery. The only reason people care so much is because it’s such a good episode. It’s the equivalent of viewing the Gentlemen from Buffy’s ‘Hush’ as a major loose end. Just because they were in a classic, it doesn’t mean they’re any different from the countless other standalone villains who’ve disappeared from the series. So, please, don’t ask for resolution about the Russian, that conversation Chris and Paulie had about him last season was the closest you’ll get.

The Invisibles Vol. 2 #5: 'Time Machine Go'

After the hyper compressed pop excess of the end of 'Black Science,' it's nice to pull back a bit and have a bit of a break with this issue. At first it fees a bit too slow, since we've been made so accustomed to the frantic pace and action stylings of 'Black Science,' but once you dig into the issue, there's some truly fantastic stuff. Only Morrison can make an issue that's largely setup so emotionally engaging and thought provoking....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

The Invisibles Vol. 2 #4: 'Black Science: Part 4: Safe'

The first storyline of the volume ends in pretty spectacular fashion with a hallucinogenic burst of pure action and conceptual insanity. It’s close to The Invisibles at its best, and it’s certainly The Invisibles at its most.

The opening page draws us right into the world, with Austin’s dancing. This gets right to the core of the previously established between traditional, natural magic, and the lifeless mechanisms of the Outer Church. As Dane says “This is fucking mental, man. It’s brilliant but it’s mental.” There’s another line that sums up the whole series....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

The Invisibles Vol. 2 #3: 'Black Science: Part 3: Sorted'

This issue features one of my favorite covers of the whole series, a really iconic image of Ragged Robin draping herself on King Mob, both of them posing for the camera. The thing I love about this cover, and the one for issue one, is that it feels like a photoshoot, like the characters are aware of being looked, and taking advantage of that fact. Most comic covers take a snippet of the action, with the characters unaware they’re being watched. It adds a nice meta level to have the characters posing for the camera, looking right back at the reader....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

Babylon 5: Thirdspace

Going into Thirdspace, I wasn’t expecting too much. The world wasn’t crying out for the lost standalone episode of season four, but after watching it, I was pleasantly surprised. The movie has a different, more cinematic feel, than your average B5 episode, and the story tied nicely into the mythology.

One of the major issues I have watching these movies is that nothing particularly major can happen to the characters. Particularly with this one, we know what happened in the fourth season, if a huge event did happen, it would feel strange that they never mentioned it. So, we’re left in an odd narrative place, telling a story that has to fit into our pre-existing knowledge of the series, perhaps deepen it, but not fundamentally alter it. That’s why ‘In the Beginning’ was the ideal use of the TV movie format, doing something that would feel out of place in the series, but fit well into the series mythology. This movie was made while the show was still on, so they were constrained by having to slip into the existing continuity. I was pleasantly surprised by the way this fills in some additional backstory and gives us some nice character payoffs.

The most notable example of this was the stuff with Lyta. I always wanted more of her on the series, and here we get the backstory of her journey to Vorlon space, previously unexplained territory. We also get the great scene with her and Zack in the elevator. He always seemed to have feelings for her, but he never acted on them, this scene is great because it gives us some payoff on that, and fits well into the continuity. It’s tough to watch him squirm like that, but it’s also really funny in an Office kind of way. That scene was the highlight of the movie for me, and perhaps the most important scene in the whole piece for overall character development.

The other thing I really liked was the general surreal, dreamy atmosphere. Particularly during the middle section of the movie, we drifted from Lyta’s madness, to Ivanova’s dream, and that great moment with Vir. There was a lot of atmosphere here, aided by the music. B5 doesn’t usually stand out for its visual style, but this movie did a great job of creating weird environments and moods for the characters to move through. The CG was also generally solid, the city was great, though the creature at the end didn’t quite work.

Much of the last two seasons are spent dealing with the legacy of the Shadows and Vorlons, so this fits right in thematically. This gate is the same kind of threat as the Drakh or the telepaths, an example of the hubris of the old ones haunting our characters in the future.

The ending was pretty exciting, particularly Sheridan’s flight into the artifact. But, it felt more like empty flash than the typical B5 battle. Not since the first season have we seen this much fighting for the sake of fighting. Not only was there the big battle outside, there was all the random violence within the station. It was justified by the narrative, but having all the characters attacking each other just didn’t work. I don’t get in that many fistfights, but apparently it happens all the time to the B5 characters. That makes it feel more like a show, less real.

But, I enjoyed the movie on the whole. There were some cool bits that tie into the overall continuity, but mainly it’s just a fun standalone story. If the fourth season wasn’t compressed, I could easily see this being thrown in as a standalone. I think it works better this way though, as a bonus for viewers who’ve watched the series. Then, I would have just been waiting to get to the more significant stuff, here’s it’s a treat, a chance to return and see the characters as they were. Even if it didn’t have much overall impact, it was good to see Lyta and Ivanova one last time.

Battlestar Galactica: 'Crossroads: Part II' (3x20)

It's taken me a little while to figure out my feelings about this episode. I watched it yesterday and really liked parts of it, but also had some big issues. A just completed second viewing made me feel better about it, andperhaps even come to terms with my issues surrounding the series in general. If nothing else, the issue left us with countless issues to ponder durng the series' nine month hiatus.

I'll start with the big revelation, that four of our long running characters are actually cylons. Much like Kara's 'death' a couple of weeks ago, this revelation is what you're left pondering after the epiode, the center of most online discussion and controversy. It's a bold move, one that fundamentally changes the series' status quo. With last season's finale, Moore created a scenario that seemed to change the show forever, then spent the better part of this season limping back to the old setup. Yes, the scars of New Caprica haunted the rest of the season, but I still feel it was a mistake to retreat from the bold setup we had in the first four episodes of the season. More on that later.

What this revelation does is essentially destroy the line that exists between cylons and humans. The show had always flirted with the idea that there was little difference between the two groups, but if Tigh is a Cylon, and has been with the humans for forty years, and aged, the line is completely destroyed. Now, Moore has already said that these four are a different kind of cylons. This is where we get the opportunity to backtrack, it's possible that the four, and whoever the fifth is, are emissaries from the thirteenth tribe, sent to show us the way to Earth, or something like that. As far as we know, they're not doing the projecting that the other cylons do, and have little connection to the other seven. They must be older because the human style cylon models didn't even exist when Tigh was born.

Much like Kara's death, I find it hard to judge this revelation at the moment. It opens up a lot of interesting storytelling possibilities, and in that respect it's a good decision. But if Moore opens those doors and then retreats back to the old status quo, it could cripple the series. It's not enough to limp through a lot of the season then sprint to a fabulous finish. A truly great series shouldn't have as big a disparity between episodes as Battlestar does. Considering all the elements of the mythology, and the huge cast, there's no reason that any episodes should feel as throwaway as some of the midseason stuff this year.

A lot of it comes down to the writing, those episodes could have worked, and they were well produced, but the stories just never quite click. The introduction of random standalone episodes gave me the impression that this episode was important. If Helo's time as refugee leader was really going to mean something, it wouldn't have just suddenly cropped up in that episode, and then disappeared just as rapidly. There's so many issues available to the show now that these four are cylons, there needs to be a tighter focus and more philosophical exploration next season. Basically, I want more consistency and focus.

A more expected revelation is the fact that Kara is in fact alive, and apparently her destiny is to lead the fleet to Earth. I'm really glad she's back, and am curious to see how whatever she experienced on Earth has changed her. The character has always been so combative and full of rage, will she carry these qualities with her in her new capacity as prophet? She seemed more mellow in her Viper, but she did seem herself. And is it a coincidence that she showed up with the cylon fleet? The obvious interpretation is that Kara is the fifth of the five, but that remains to be seen. If the five are connected to the thirteenth tribe, that would make sense, if they aren't, then she's likely working with another force.

Elsewhere, the end of the Baltar trial was solid, but overshadowed by everything else in the episode. Lee's speech was a bit too long, but paid off some nice continuity points. I was glad to see him use some of the same defenses I had for Baltar, though a speech like that seems just as targetted at the writers as it is at the characters. Baltar himself has been taken away by his followers, and it would be interesting to see him take on the role of a strong oppositional voice within the fleet next year. The stuff with his book worked well, and I have been saying that we really need someone to oppose Roslin and Adama, perhaps Baltar is the man to do it.

But this episode wasn't really about the story, it was all about the execution, the shooting, editing and music were truly something special. Throughout the season, I've had my issues, but on a moment to moment basis, the show is consistently dazzling. With the possible exception of The Sopranos, I've never seen a show that's as well shot as this one. Throughout the series, the handheld photography has given the show energy and a feeling of realism that's rarely present in science fiction. I love the way the camera flew through space at an odd speed, careening towards characters' faces like an invisible predator. We saw this used for the characters who turned out to be cylons, and at one point on Laura Roslin. If Kara isn't the fifth, Roslin is the likely candidate. That would also provide an explanation for why the cylon blood cured her cancer, and get them out of the dilemma of having her be sick and have to find a cure again. Plus, we already saw the connection between her, Sharon and Six in the wonderfully filmed opera house scene. The moment where Six looks up at the Five was just one of countless visual highlights in this episode.

The final twenty minutes or so of this episode were one of the most overwhelmingly moody and odd things I've seen from a TV episode outside of a dream sequence. The 'All Along the Watchtower' singalong was a little goofy, but I'm going to let it go because it was so over the top and weird. I love the shots tracking in on the four as they sing the lines, particularly the crazy rotation around Tori before she collapses and vomits in the toilet. There were a lot of astonishing shots in this episode, but that was the highlight for me. I also loved the crazy push in on Anders and Tori as they were having sex. When the four finally meet, there's this crushing sense of fate destroying them. None of them want to admit it, but they all know. That's why I love it when Tigh says screw fate, I am Saul Tigh, same as I was, it's not a lie if I believe in it.

I loved the score in this episode, the psychedelic middle eastern sounding music was like nothing we'd heard before in the series, but it worked really well. Those final ten minutes or so were sublime, the perfect fusion of visual and music. As the four go back out, we experience them living a lie, Tyrol watching the deck in slow motion, Tigh and Tori sharing a glance across the bridge. That shared glance was so well shot, perfectly conveying the way that they know something's going on, but the others are oblivious. I also like the way Tigh and Tori address Adama and Roslin, reassuring them that they're there, ready to serve.

While this is going on, the mellowed out 'All Along the Watchtower' cover gave a surreality to the viper battle. It's something we'd seen before, but the music made it feel like we were in a dream. Lee drifting out to find Kara just felt right in the moment, we had reached the place where it was almost pure subjectivity. And that final pullback to Earth was the capper. I was frustrated the season was over, but I was thrilled by the way it went out. I don't think the cliffhanger was as mindblowing as the wrapup to season two, but the execution was unmatched. Forget about the political relevance, this show deserves notice for the artistry it brings to television. TV has already shown it can do large scale narratives and character development better than any film, this show is demonstrating that it can also be more visually interesting and 'cinematic' than the actual cinema. Other than Miami Vice and Inland Empire, I can't think of any film in the last year that was as well shot as this finale.

So, I'm not sure about how these revelations will carry the series into the future, but I do know that this episode was fantastic in the moment, and perhaps that's all we can expect from the show. I think the New Caprica arc raised my expectations for the season too high. After the season premiere, I said "Fuck, that was an amazing piece of art. Watching these episodes, I was thankful that something so powerful and challenging and well made exists," and that's hard to live up to. I think I'm something of an anomaly in that I'd consider the miniseries the best thing the show ever did, at least up until the New Caprica stuff. Those two arcs boht had an urgency and danger the show never had in its on board Galactica status quo. I was frustrated by the return to the old ways, and other than the solid 'Eye of Jupiter' two parter, the middle of the season was devoid of any really great episodes.

But, every episode was well made, and entertaining as I watched it. So, maybe I should stop worrying about the big picture, and instead just enjoy each episode in the moment. Don't look for something that isn't there, don't complain that Baltar or Sharon aren't in the episode, instead appreciate what we do get. I hope that the show goes on an intense philosophical journey in the fourth season that perhaps redefines what it means to be human and goes to a deeper place than any previous TV show, but if it doesn't, it can still be good. And even if the stuff with the four goes horribly awry, at least they went down with a crazy blast of pop storytelling. This was an episode that wowed me, and though it doesn't quite salvage some of the season's low points, it shouldn't have to. It works on its own terms, and those final twenty minutes are as good as anything the show has ever done.

Babylon 5: In the Beginning

And so we return and begin again with the Babylon 5 prequel/sequel In the Beginning. As the reaction to the new Star Wars trilogy shows, it’s tricky to make a good prequel, how can you involve people in a story where they already know the outcome?

An ongoing TV series is different from a film in that the length of it allows you to make more realistic long term character development. A movie will generally focus on the most tumultuous period in a character’s life, and end with a return to normalcy, some kind of static status quo they’ve earned for enduring the tumult of the film. While a show may have an overall story arc, there’s always going to be periods of new drama, and moments of quiet. Those moments of quiet are really what separate an ongoing story from a film.

In a TV show, we generally start with the characters at a relatively uneventful place in their lives, and over the course of the series, they go through major changes. The problem with doing flashbacks to before the series is that there shouldn’t be too much of interest there, most of the important stuff should happen in the time that the series covers. That’s my major issue with Lost, if you’re stranded on a desert island, you’d think that would be the major trauma in your life, not some parent issues from years ago. It’s fine to do the occasional flashback, but it’s better to see your characters grow as the show moves forward.

Babylon 5 certainly does a lot of that, and considering how many episodes there were, I think it’s certainly interesting and worthwhile to take a look back on the events that led up to the world we saw at the beginning of the show. That’s what I was expecting from In the Beginning, what I wasn’t expecting was to get some followup on events near the end of the series’ chronology. What I really loved from this film was the framing device, which gave me a bit of the resolution I wanted for Londo’s story, but didn’t receive from the end of the series.

The most successful prequel of all time is Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, a film that hops through the series’ chronology to simultaneously illuminate the beginning of the series and give a sense of closure to the overall experience. In the Beginning functions in a similar way, with Londo reflecting on the events that led him to this moment when he knows he has to die. We’ve already seen most of his failures occur during the series, but he brings up one more here, and I’m guessing his logic is, if he hadn’t destroyed the Narn ship, the Earth/Minbari War would have ended, and he’d never have been put in the position where he could have met Mr. Morden and made his deal with the Shadows. In reality, I’d imagine the Morden meeting would be what he would reflect on at this point, but I’ll forgive it since that story hasn’t been told. And, he does elude to the Shadow meeting, so it’s still present in the story.

At one point, Londo says war isn’t glory, it’s death and pain, a summation of one of the series’ key themes. The series is concerned with destroying the mythology surrounding war. Sheridan isn’t a hero after destroying that Minbari ship, he’s a hero later on when he manages to bring the different races together and create a lasting alliance. JMS always focuses on the negative consequences of war, and in the series’ best moments, such as ‘The Long Twilight Struggle’ and ‘The Fall of Centauri Prime’ shows you the full extent of what war does to a people.

Here, we’re in an interesting moral place because we have attachment to both sides. During the series, we’re used to seeing the Minbari as a force for good, and even though the humans have some issues, this was pre Clarke, when there presumably a lawful government that was working for the peoples’ interest. Both sides are also presented with their flaws, there’s a lot of infighting going on with the Minbari, and they lack the vision required to take on the Shadows. Even though they are consistently presented as the most evolved race, both this and season four show that the caste system can easily fall into chaos without a war to center them.

It’s really interesting to watch this with the knowledge that Jeffery Sinclair is Valen. At the start, the Minbari have lost faith in the order that Valen has created, the society is reverting to the old ways, becoming more warlike. It takes the return of Valen to center them again and prepare them for the war against the Shadows. It’s particularly cool to think that Sinclair just made these prophesies as a result of hearing those prophesies that were already made. They were only created because they already existed, an interesting time travel paradox.

The further away I got from the first season, the fonder my memories of Sinclair. He got such a fantastic sendoff in ‘War Without End,’ I had almost forgotten just how bad an actor he was. But, seeing the season one footage, it all came back and I remembered why I was so happy he left. He did great as the season three Sinclair, but as a heroic captain, he just didn’t work.

I was impressed by the way they were able to incorporate that season one footage seamlessly into the new movie. There were no real issues, it all flowed together well and felt like one piece. We even got to see Michael York back, tying into that season three episode. This episode also gave us more context for the flashbacks we saw from Delenn in season four. Watching the episode that first time, I didn’t emotionally connect with just how grave an error she had made. We saw her going crazy, but we never saw just how many lives her actions cost. This movie made clear that she made a really major error with her decision to attack the human ship, almost as bad a choice as Londo did with Mr. Morden. I suppose what separates her from him is that she learned from her mistake and worked to correct it, but Londo got caught up in the spiral of his bad decision and never escaped from that.

That said, I think Delenn’s tantrum after Dukhat dies is Mira Furlan’s worst acting moment on the series. She goes so far over the top, even throwing in those weak punches on the guy next to her. It’s really out of character, and she winds up looking like a five year old, or just a bad actor. I think it might have been better to go for a quiet, burning rage. The scene as is definitely needed some more takes.


This episode seemed designed to blame everyone for the start of the Earth/Minbari War. Londo claims the blame, Delenn takes the blame, and we also see Sheridan refusing to go on the ship that would meet them, where he could have potentially stopped them from firing. It’s how they react after the mistake that defines the character.

I was really impressed by the makeup and hair work in this episode, everyone did seem much younger. It was crazy to jump from the old Londo to the really young guy meeting with the Earth officials. Sheridan seemed younger, and Ivanova looked younger too. I’m curious about the timing of this production, wouldn’t Claudia Christian have left the series by this point? If she was willing to come back for the movie, why didn’t they get her to do a cameo in the series? I would have loved to see her appear in even just one episode, letting the crew know what was up to her, and say why she decided not to return to Babylon 5, even if only to set up her return in ‘Sleeping in Light.’

The film’s strength and failures stem from its narrative structure. I liked the way we seamlessly moved between sides, picking up characters when they were important to the plot and letting them go when they were no longer needed. Because we already know what will happen to Franklin and Sheridan, we can stop in to see them do their mission, and then just let them drift out of the film. I loved the way we were made to sympathize with both sides in the war, and not given any easy answers about who was responsible. The Minbari wound up looking like villains, but that’s only because they were winning.

However, the jumping between narrative strands meant the film was lacking a strong present. It felt like I was being told a story, not experiencing it firsthand. And, I’m sort of torn the ‘continuity porn’ element of the film. Much like with the Star Wars prequels, it was great to see characters we knew, but it made it feel like a really small universe when G’Kar happens to be the one to go on a mission with Franklin and Sheridan. I suppose it’s necessary for this story, I’d rather have him there than some random other person, but it took away some of the expansiveness of the story. I suppose that’s one of the basic problems with prequels, particularly when you’re telling the story of a universe rather than one person. Fire Walk With Me, as originally envisioned, would have suffered from the same issues, jumping to random scenes of the various townsfolk. Though I’d still love to see the deleted scenes, I’m happy they weren’t in the film, and we instead got to focus on the story of Laura.

That’s not to say it was an emotionless film. The final section, where Londo describes the humans’ final stand against the Minbari, was very powerful. I was feeling a Battlestar Galactica vibe when the president talked about fleeing the planet and setting out to start a new civilization. I really understood what the Battle of the Line was, and just how remarkable it was for the Minbari to surrender there. That brought a lot of things together, and I’d imagine makes the first season a lot more emotionally relatable. In that case, watching this film means that we experienced the moment of the war, and can understand Sinclair’s struggle in a new way.

But, for all that, it was the framing device that really got me, particularly the closing revelation that this is what happened right before Londo met with Sheridan and Delenn at the end of ‘War Without End.’ It makes sense that he would look back on his life after meeting his friends again for presumably the first time since ‘Objects at Rest.’ Jurasik is so good here, making us understand exactly where the character is emotionally. His agedness is particularly evident in contrast to the enthusiasm of the kids. He used to be like them, now he’s worn down, forced to rely on getting drunk as the only way to overcome the keeper. He sees Sheridan and Delenn together in the cell, and knows that he did not spoil the chance for human/Minbari peace, and in letting them go now, he can maybe help set things right. That closing pullout is a great moment, we know what’s coming next, but are given a better understanding of who the character is at that point in time. I would have loved to see old G’Kar come out there and get a better context for where the two of them are at this point, but I guess we’ll never see that piece of the scene now.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film. The past stuff was really solid, and I was particularly happy with the bonus of more old Londo. That scene gave me what the end of the series didn’t. Even though I’ve still got four movies and Crusade to go, this felt like a strong point of closure for the series, bringing it backwards to go forward.

One side note, seeing old Londo again made me hope that we get to see a Lost Tales movie focusing on the character. He’s consistently been the most compelling on the series, and I’m sure there’s another story about his life in there, perhaps a split story of him and Vir. The other lost tale I’d really like to see is one about the latter days of Valen. Even though I’m not a huge O’Hare fan, the first Shadow War would offer the most exciting material to center a movie around. Other than that, I’d really like to see one focusing on what happens to Lyta Alexander after the end of the series.

Well, that was a great movie, now it’s on to ‘Thirdspace.’ From here on out, I’ve got lowered expectations for everything in the B5verse, but who knows, maybe there’ll be a pleasant surprise along the way.

The Invisibles Vol. 2 #2: 'Black Science: Part 2: Kickin'

Issue two of Volume II continues the series’ move toward a lifestyle chronicle, as much as an action narrative, and I love to see Grant taking the series this way. One of the greatest strengths of the first Volume is its tightness, the way everything integrates into the overall thematic vision of the series. But, because everything is so linked, there’s not that many moments where we can relax and just enjoy spending time with the characters. That’s why I love the first couple of issues of this volume, they give us rich character insight and are a lot of fun to read and hang out with them....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

The Colour @ Pianos

Originally on Blog Critics

I think it's sometimes easy to forget about the power of a great rock concert. The spectacle has been parodied so much, you can lose sight of the essential power of seeing a bunch of guys make great music. In my review of their album, I noted that The Colour aren't the most original band in the world. They harken back to '70s classic rock blues inspired acts, but their sound isn't the kind of thing you hear a lot of today, and their live show has an energy and passion I haven't seen at a concert in a long time. They totally owned the room and put on a great, albeit short, show.

The concert took place at Pianos, in a small space at the back of the bar. There couldn't have been more than 100 people there, probably closer to 60 or 70, and a lot of them seemed to be industry people. I was frequently brushed away by professional photographers, capturing the action, and there were a couple of conspicuously suited men monitoring the action. The show was likely meant as a showcase, and if so, I'd think the suits must have left happy, because they put on a great show.

The set opened with an intense, driving version of "Black Summer," and kept the energy up all the way through. On the album, the tracks feel very precise, with the band hitting their marks exactly, giving it a sometimes mechanical feel. Live, this was not the case at all. They were very high energy, particularly lead singer Wyatt Hull, who roamed the stage like a contemporary Jim Morrison, dancing and wielding his mic stand like a snake charmer. He frequently leaned out into the crowd, getting a big reaction from the audience.

One of my major complaints about the album was that the songs felt too restrained, with no room for emotional blowups. Live, we still didn't get the extended instrumental jamming of a Led Zeppelin, but the intensity of their playing made that superfluous. Virtually every moment had the intensity of a guitar solo, even a slower song like "Silver Meadows." The highlight was a raucous version of "Devil's Got a Holda Me."

It was almost overwhelming to see the band in so small a space. They had arena, or at least club, ready moves, and could have easily captivated a much bigger crowd. It felt a bit awkward thinking they were putting on such a show for so few people. But, it was nice to get a chance to see the band in so small a venue.

My only real complaint is that the show was so short. They started around 11:20 and only played until 11:55. I'm not sure if there was a curfew or something, but even at $10 a ticket, 35 minutes felt a bit short. The crowd was definitely ready for an encore, and there were plenty of solid tracks from the album to play yet. If the show was meant mostly as a label showcase, I could see why they wouldn't play as long, but still, I felt like one more song was needed.

But, I suppose it's better to leave them wanting more. I thoroughly enjoyed this show, this kind of rocking live show really stands out against the generally more subdued concerts you see from most bands today. In this case, their ties back to classic rock make them stand out. It might not have been something special back in the '70s, but I haven't seen another band like this today, and I'm eager to see them again.

The Colour - Between Earth and Sky

Originally on Blog Critics

The Colour fit right in with the early '00s wave of ‘The’ bands, like The Strokes and The White Stripes, drawing on '70s rock to form their sound. They’re one of the best of this wave of bands that I’ve heard, going a bit more epic than the punk or electro leanings of a lot of their contemporaries. I’m a big fan of blues inspired classic rock, and this album delivers twelve really catchy, fun songs.

Their songs are primarily structured around guitar melodies, and there’s a bunch of driving, catchy riffs pushing the songs forward. There’s also a wide variety of guitar sounds, working both driving lines and lyrical melodies that interplay seamlessly with the vocal, as on "Just a Taste."


Vocalist Wyatt Hull has a unique voice, generally singing pretty high up without crossing over into falsetto. There’s some gorgeous wordless vocals on "Save Yourself" and particularly “Silver Meadows,” creating a fantastic, ethereal atmosphere. The latter is the album’s highlight, with piano and tambourine building into a chorus that just hangs in the air, hitting a really emotional chord. It goes to that bittersweet emotional place without being sappy.

The first song to grab me, and the first single, is “Devil’s Got a Holda Me,” a driving blues rocker that sounds a bit like The White Stripes. It’s got a great stop and go guitar riff, which builds into a descending chorus. It then builds to a multi-vocal stomp, which slows things down, making the return to the chorus even sweeter.

One potential issue with the album is the fact that it isn’t breaking any new ground. I heard pieces of Led Zeppelin, The White Stripes, T. Rex, early U2 and others here. If this album had been released in the '70s, it would have probably been a bigger hit, but it would also have been pretty routine. However, you don’t hear this kind of music that much today, and I’m really happy to see it return. It’s always frustrated me that harder edged rock became dominated by bands that just don’t sound good. The heavy distortion of nu-metal and rap rock artists was tough to take, and I much prefer the hard, but not ugly sound of '70s rock. The Colour do some pretty heavy songs, but they never cross over into fits of screaming or nasty sound.

My personal issue with the album is the fact that only on occasion does the band reach a really emotional place. I’m not sure if it’s their fault or the producers’, but at times the playing felt too solid, almost mechanical. The beauty of Zeppelin was the feeling that anything could happen, it felt like the song was being born in the moment, and each guitar solo is full of emotion and invention. Considering this is their first album, they’ve probably been playing these songs for a long time, so it’s logical they’d be tight. But, I can’t help but want a bit more life and energy at times.

“Black Summer” is built on a driving, Morricone like guitar line, and it goes into a great chorus, but I want something a bit more, a really sick guitar solo or some kind of crazy breakdown. Things do slow down for a while, but when they build back up, it’s into the same line. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a really good song, but I feel like it could be ever greater.

Part of the reason I focus on “Black Summer” is because it’s one of the more riff based, blues sounding songs. Only two of the songs on here top four minutes, which is fine for the more pop sounding songs, like the catchy “You’re a Treasure” and “Can’t You Hear It Call,” but the classic rock songs could benefit from a longer running time. People may frequently criticize Zeppelin’s excess, but I don’t think anyone would want a three minute version of “When the Levee Breaks.” Looking ahead, I would point to that kind of song as a model for The Colour, something that would let them showcase their musicianship.

I’m seeing them live tomorrow, and I’m curious to see what they do with these songs in concert. It’s possible they’re a band like Phoenix, who record really tight songs on their album then tear them up into extended jams live. I’d love to see that because these songs are so catchy, based around really strong riffs and full of room for improvisational jamming. They could easily drop a great ten minute version of “Black Summer.”

“Our Children Were the Stars” is another really good song that could be more. The track has a slow, winding guitar build through its opening section, then turns into a stomping, piano backed breakdown, with a repeating vocal line soon accompanied by a soaring guitar melody. But, just when the track seems to be headed for something bigger, it goes back to the first section, the ends. I found myself wanting a major release towards the end of the album, a moment were they would just cut loose. To some extent, we get that on the last track, “Dirge to Earth and Sky” which has a great climactic build to a soaring chorus, but it still didn’t give the raw emotion of the best songs like this.

Despite that criticism, I really like this album. It’s always tricky territory to criticize an album for something it’s not, what is here is very good, and it’s that goodness that makes me want it to be just a little bit better. I don’t listen to much contemporary rock music, I stick mostly to electro and indie stuff in the present, and I’m actually quite glad to find a band that does all the great things that '70s era classic rock does, but is recording today. I’m excited to see them live, and I’m eager to see how they develop on future recordings.

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

Amy Winehouse is a big in Britain, not quite there yet in the States, singer-songwriter, and Back to Black is her second album. Sonically, it draws on 60's girl group and classic R&B sounds, and without major revamping makes them sound relevant for today.

"Rehab" is the opening track and lead single, plunging us right into this retro 60s world. I was liking things right from the catchy opening verse, “They tried to make me go to rehab, but I won’t go, go, go,” and I was hooked on the album with the dramatic entrance of a rhythmic horn and percussion line to underscore everything. Horns, both saxophone and brass, are the primary backing elements, working in conjunction with percussion on songs like “Just Friends” and “Me and Mister Jones.” My favorite horn line is the ascending trumpets on “He Can Only Hold Her,” which are matched perfectly with corresponding backing vocals.

“Me and Mister Jones” is an early standout, with 50s style doo wop backing vocals, and a great deep sax line, all a bit incongruous next to lyrics telling the story of the time she missed a Slick Rick gig. The best line here is “What kind of fuckery is this?” I was baffled for a moment, not expecting the F bomb to be dropped in something that sounded right out of the 50s, a testament to the world her music created. “Wake Up Alone” features a rising and falling guitar line that simultaneously channels the actual 50s and the odd revisionist 50s of David Lynch films.

“Back to Black” is the best track on the album, an emotional plea that’s backed by a fantastic bouncing piano line that soars into strings during the chorus. It slows down, then surges back to a cathartic final chorus. Listening to this track, I’m thinking that Amy would be a great choice for the next James Bond theme song.

Throughout, she uses lush instrumental arrangements to create a strong mood. The songs sound like standards, I could see Sinatra singing “Love is a Losing Game” on a 60s TV special, or The Supremes doing “Tears Dry on Their Own.”

I love electronic music, but I’ve always considered it a shame that the rise of electronic music and hip hop pretty much obliterated the orchestral pop of the 50s and 60s. This album shows that sound is still relevant today, and if anything sounds fresher because of its long absence. There’s a reason that so many classic pop songs endure, they’re great works of pop art, and I’m glad that Amy has come along and added to that canon.

I’m not sure about her chance of catching on with the American public. Unfortunately, we’re still resistant to something like this, that’s out of the contemporary paradigm of pop music. She’s going over with the blogrock audience, but I don’t think she’ll ever find the mainstream success she had in Britain here.

However, that doesn’t detract from the fact that this is a fantastic album, full of songs that sound simultaneously fresh and classic. There’s not a bad track on here, and my only real complaint is that the album’s only 35 minutes. Amy’s got a fantastic voice, and the album is a joy to listen to. I think you’ll be seeing this on a lot of best of 2007 lists when the end of the year rolls around.

The Invisibles Vol. 2 #1: 'Black Science: Part I: Bangin'

This issue is a revelation, the series bursting out of its cocoon and emerging as a glamourous butterfly, ready to conquer the world. I don't just want all my fiction to be like this, I want my reality to be like this. Reading this issue again, I was just ecstatic, thoroughly enjoying everything here....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

I think there's a tendency to view the Star Wars trilogy as more than just films. They're not analyzed as constructions, they're looked at more as a universe that's always been there. Certainly that's the way I approached the films when I was younger, the plot couldn't have gone any other way, this is what happened. I'm not sure if this will be true of the current generation, but it seems like whatever films were already made when you became a fan are above reproach. I know a lot of the people who saw ANH and Empire in the theater have major issues with Jedi, I never did, and I still love the film, but I'm also more aware of some of the flaws therein. Certainly Lucas hasn't done anything to help the films' reputation in the critical community, with his endless, generally negative tinkering, and uneven prequel films. But, put that all aside, and take a look at Empire Strikes Back.

When someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I usually respond Empire Strikes Back and Magnolia. I need to get some indie cred in there, because Empire isn't representative of my general taste. However, if I had to pick one film as my favorite, it would be this one. I sometimes wonder if it's really that good, then I watch the film again, and realize that it is an unparalleled achievement in cinema. This is the pinnacle of narrative cinema.

The film works wonderfully on so many levels. I still love the original Star Wars, A New Hope, but compared to Empire and Jedi, it feels like the universe is still finding itself. The film has more ties to the 70s, in both the look and language. Empire feels timeless, another world that is completely familiar and believable. It's probably not a coincidence that the film Lucas had the least direct involvement in has the most naturalistic characters and believable dialogue. The banter between Han and Leia in particular is really sharp and funny, like the best of classical Hollywood cinema, and throughout, the emotion is running high.

The film that Empire reminds me of the most is Casablanca. In each case, we see a small group of rebels acting against a massive force out to destroy them. I love that dynamic, largely because I feel like victories only have meaning if the characters go through really bad stuff on the way to that victory. It's why I loved the New Caprica arc on Battlestar Galactica, why I loved Buffy season six and why this film is so good. Right from the beginning we're in a desolate place, the triumph of ANH's finale long forgotten. Every moment of this film is submerged in a foreboding darkness, due to the unrelenting nature of the Imperial threat. There's no exhale moment, we never think that everything will be fine, and the intercutting maximizes the tension at all points.

I think this film deserves respect as a piece of art cinema for its visual aesthetic alone. All the Star Wars films are full of visual wonder, but in the prequels, Lucas seemed to just throw in a bunch of random stuff. That also plagues parts of ANH and Jedi, the best design moments in the trilogy are those with a stark minimalism. We see that in the Emperor's throne room in Jedi, echoed again in the opening rescue of Palpatine in Sith. In both cases, the design draws our attention to the focus of the scene, the Emperor. Aesthetically, the colorless Imperial ships are great, and more believable than the ornate design work of the prequels. One of the great innovations of Star Wars was the idea of the lived in future, and that just didn't come across in the prequels. Part of it was the nature ofthe story, that was a more civilized age, but it also meant we didn't get anything with the character of the Millenium Falcon.

Every environment in this film is designed to mirror what the characters are feeling at that point. Hoth is oppressively cold, and you can see that in the costuming. There is no retreat from that cold, even their shelter is an ice cave. The outside is even more bleak, total nothingness at first, then broken by the approaching Imperial walkers. The snow battle is innovative and fun, while still being dark. Here, the Rebels aren't fighting to win, they're fighting to get away, and that feeling is conveyed in the desperation of everyone involved. I love the way the base collapses around them, Leia still not wanting to leave.

This is the film where Vader really comes into his own. In ANH, he's subject to Tarkin, just the muscle, not a leader. Looked at in the context of the six films, I would argue that Vader retreated into this intimidating persona after believing that he had killed Padme. What he wanted in Sith was the power to rule the galaxy with the woman he loved. He did what he did to save her and give her the chance to make the world she wanted. Without her, he has no particular drive and is willing to do whatever the Emperor wants him to. It's not until he learns of Luke's existence that he is reborn, tapping into some of his humanity and rediscovering his dream, of ruling the galaxy with someone he loves.

That is why he is so driven throughout the film, right from the incredible entrance. After the discovery of the Imperial probe droid, we cut to space, and the first entrance of the Imperial March. This song is one of the all time great film music compositions, and it scores a ballet of Star Destroyers, moving through the sky, leading up to Vader on his command ship. Most of the moments people think of when they talk about Vader as a villain are from this film, the legendary 'forgiveness' of Captain Needa, as well as the choke over the video monitor of Admiral Ozzel. This is the only film where he's in total control, and reaching fanatical heights as leader of his troops. Just on an aesthetic level, the character is fantastic, that suit the ultimate representation of evil and menace.

One of Lucas's favorite storytelling tricks is intercutting. This comes to a fore in the brilliant final battle of Return of the Jedi, balancing three narrative strands, but that film, and ANH, are generally linear in their progression. In Empire, the entire film is structured around intercutting, jumping between Luke's story and the Falcon's story. The intercutting allows for easier narrative elipsis. On one level, the entire film makes no sense, the Falcon story appears to be taking place in real time, while the Dagobah stuff is at least a week of storytelling time. Was there ever an explanation for this? Ultimately, it doesn't really matter, the intercutting makes it work because we just accept coming back whever they choose to put us back.

I prefer the stuff on the Falcon, but both story strands are great here. Harrison Ford is really charismatic as Han Solo, a perfect roguish, but ultimately good guy. Him and Leia have a fantastic rapport, which is well developed across their scenes together. The dialogue is fantastic, the two of them speaking that 40s Hollywood coded rapport way. One of the major reasons the prequels suffered next to the originals is that they didn't have any of this energy. Everyone bought into the mission, and played by the rules. There was a serious need for a Han Solo style character.

In general, the characters in this film feel very real. I don't think any of the other films have the emotional relatability of what's going on here. The acting is fantastic too, with everyone going to a raw place by the end of the film. You can see so much sadness and wear on Leia and Luke by the end of the film, such that just getting the chance to stand there together, away from the fight for a moment, is a happy ending.

The Yoda scenes are justifiably legendary. While I really liked the CG version of the character in Sith, I think this puppet version is an even better actor. Watching him go from crazy food stealing nut to Jedi master in a moment is a transition that would be tough for a flesh and blood actor, but Frank Oz totally pulls it off. I thoroughly enjoy the training sequences, particularly the odd slow motion dream sequence. This planet is another example of the visuals mimicking the narrative content. Luke is exploring the mysteries of the force, something so vast you can only see a small piece at a time. So, we've got a planet with so much mist and swamp, you can barely see in front of you.

When I originally watched these films, I assumed that everything Yoda was saying was correct, and that everything the Emperor said was wrong. One of the best things that Sith did was to call into question that binary view of things. The prophecy said that Anakin would bring balance to the force, but it's ultimately Luke who does that because Luke is able to successfully fuse the intellectual power of the Jedi with the emotional power of the dark side. In Sith, Yoda sends Anakin to the dark side when he basically tells him if Padme dies, she dies, it's a part of life. What awful advice to someone who's in an emotionally bad place, and he gives it again to Luke here, saying that his friends might die, and he just has to accept that. Both Luke and Anakin are unwilling to play by the typical Jedi rules, and that leads to a paradigm shift in Jedi, when Luke forces Vader to use his emotion to defeat the Emperor. It's reminiscent of Buffy, where she decides that her emotions are an advantage in fighting, not a hindrance. It's also reminiscent of the Vorlon/Shadow conflict in Babylon 5, the need to find a third path.

The Dagobah sequences end with one of the film's visual highlights, Luke's takeoff followed by the "There is another speech." This is a moment that works on all levels, visually dazzling, with the shifting light and shadow on Yoda, narratively revelatory and wonderfully performed by Oz.

The entire Cloud City sequence is basically a tutorial in how to successfully execute the climax of your film. Rather than just having a bunch of explosions, they narrow the focus, creating emotionally apocalyptic moments that push everyone to the absolute edge. Having C-3PO get shot right after they walk in creates an instant tension surrounding things. Throughout, there is no respite for our heroes. When they first see Lando, he's backed by a whole bunch of troops, and even when he embraces Han, the tension isn't quite gone. The attack on 3PO keeps it there. It would have been interesting to play Lando's betrayal as more of a shock, make it seem like they really got away, then break things down, but it wouldn't have fit with the film. The whole point of the movie is that there is no escape from the Empire. I really love the moment when Lando sees the broken parts of 3PO sitting in a box and asks Han "Having trouble with your droid," and he says "Nope."

If I could see an extended version of any scene in any movie, it'd have to be what happens after Vader asks them to sit down to eat. The moment when they open the door and see him is just incredibly badass, Vader pulling the gun across the table. Plus, he really stands out agains the white interiors. When the stormtroopers show up behind them, you just know they're fucked. Do they actually eat? What do they talk about at the meal? These are all things I'd love to know, but alas, I never shall.

From here on, the Cloud City scenes have a desperate energy, Lando trying to salvage things, but getting shut down at every turn. Vader has no scruples, but Lando has no choice but to go along with things. Han is tortured for no reason, on a nasty sparking device, and then led to the carbon chamber. That scene has always been one of my favorites, and for good reason. It is a beautiful piece of cinema, working on so many levels.

One of its greatest assets is the visual. For all you can criticize Lucas for, I don't think anyone can say he's not a visual filmmaker. The man knows how to make an arresting image, and for that reason alone, he deserves respect. I can think of very few environments in cinema as vividly realized as the carbon freezing chamber. An orange-red glow covers everything, steam hanging in the air, blue light corridors stretching off in a seemingly endless distance. Below them, light peeks out of metal grates. Vader loses any definition here, becoming just a silhouette, a menace.

Emotionally, this scene imprinted deep on me. It's similar to the farewell speech in Casablanca, two people who love each other, with no choice but to be seperated. As Han is led on to the platform, Chewbacca loses it. Han calms him, and in that moment, Leia sees how much he's grown. He is a hero, and he'll take his fate if it means keeping them safe. This leads to the classic "I love you," "I know" exchange. This moment says everything about the two characters, he doesn't even have to say "I love you," she knows he does, and just to hear her say how she feels means everything to him. They steal a kiss before he descends, and that moment is just so on, so good. One day I hope to make a film with a moment that powerful, two people finding solace in each other against this massive approaching threat.

On top of that, we've got arguably the greatest film score of all time. I read that Williams record 109 minutes of music for this 129 minute film, there's virtually no moments that aren't punctuated by score, and unlike a lot of recent scores, this one really helps take the film to another level. In recent years, we've seen a retreat from theme songs. Could anyone say what the X-Men or Spider-Man theme were? No, but how many memorable themes are there from this film alone? Easily five or six, all of them brilliant, enhancing the film. Through the use of leitmotif, associating specific musical cues with the characters, Williams is able to tell us exactly what the characters are feeling through the music. When Han and Leia's theme plays at the end, we know what both she and Luke are thinking about. In the carbon chamber scene, Han and Leia's theme bleeds into a pounding version of the Imperial March as Vader's triumph becomes clear. The best film moments are those where music and visual fuse together into something beyond either one, and virtually this entire film works on that level. This is the greatest film score of all time.

Seldom have I seen a film in which our hero takes as much punishment and loses so resoundly as Luke does when facing Vader. The entire sequence consists of him being thrown through a variety of environments, continuously under assault. I love the network of tunnels and hallways they pass through, particularly the big room with the window that Luke is thrown out of.

Intercut with this, we've got the high energy of Leia's escape from the city. They're under fire from all directions, such that when they do finally escape, it's an intensely satisfying moment. I love R2 struggling with the door, stormtroopers pressing on them, then opening it to a soaring orchestral cue. He emerges from the steam in another fantastic image.

The "I am your father" scene is another one that's been parodied so much, is such a part of our cultural landscape, it can be hard to go back to the original and view it fresh, but after going through this entire film, I'm in the same place that Luke is, completely beaten down, with nowhere left to go. After an entire film of chasing Luke, Vader finally has a captive audience. Here, he makes his pitch, the same pitch he made to Padme back in Sith. He's always been willing to turn on the Emperor, he just needs an ally to do it, and his son is the perfect candidate. Having seen Sith, Vader's motives are a bit clearer, an he's more sympathetic. This all builds to Luke's leap off the tower. He will not give in to the dark side, and unlike his father, he turns down this offer of power, willing to sacrifice himself if necessary.

Following this, we get a scene that has a really odd power, Luke calling to Leia. There are certain moments in cinema that reach a supernatural place, Lynch does this a lot, and this does too. Leia's facial expression as she hears him, Luke's pain as he calls out to her. He is pushed literally to the edge of things, there is nowhere left to go, and he hangs there, waiting. As they rescue him, the two sides of our story are finally brought back together, and they move off to escape.

But, before that there's another scene with that odd power, Luke's dialogue with Vader. We can tell that he's already accepted Vader as his father, and if their ship had been pulled in, he very well may have agreed to join him. The characters are all completely broken at this point, they have nothing left, except for R2, who finally, after an entire film, fixes the hyperdrive, and the Falcon jets off, safe at last. From the moment where Luke went after the meteorite, two minutes in, to this moment, this is no letup, it is a constant pursuit constant danger, and no victories for our heroes. That is a triumph of screenwriting, to sustain that intensity for an entire movie. It's a large part of why it's such a special film.

In the end, we finally get to rest. Lando and Chewbacca are off to rescue Han, but for Luke, Leia and the droids, it s a chance to recover. I love this scene, all the films, including the prequels, have really strong final moments, and I'd hesitate to say one is best, but there's a lot to be said for the emotion we get here. Luke and Leia stand at the window, watching the Falcon leave, as Han and Leia's theme soars on the soundtrack. It builds as we pull back, the entire fleet together, a bit of hope for the future. Continue back as the music builds and then cut on a swell to the theme song and credits. It's a perfectly executed finale, and I'd imagine it was incredibly frustratng back in 1980.

It baffes me how people could criticize this film because everything is working so well. The effects team does astonishing work, which both tells the story and is aesthetically beautiful on its. I love the Falcon's diving, spiralling escape from the Star Destroyers, and few shots in the trilogy can match the serene power of the Falcon drifting off with the garbage as the Star Destroyers blast away. The production design is also wonderful, creating alien, yet familiar environments, all wonderful to look at. The editing is another major strength, keeping things moving, but giving us time for character moments. I've already mentioned the score, and I'll also hail director Irvin Kirshner for getting great performances out of everyone involved.

I absolutely love this movie, it was my favorite film back in 1989 and it still is, and unlike some other movies, it's not because of lingering childhood affection. Watching this, I was wowed by just how good it was. My mental memory of the film is on an old VHS I got in the 80s, watching it on DVD it looked so clean, and I saw new parts of the movie with the wider aspect ratio. I'd seen the film in widescreen before, but only a couple of times compared to the twenty or thirty times I saw it on VHS.

If you haven't watched this in a while, pull it out again and give it a look. It really holds up. Tonight I'm going to be rewatching Return of the Jedi, and I'll probably write that one up tomorrow.

The Invisibles #25: 'And a Half Dozen of the Other'

This issue baffled me on the first read through, a seemingly random piece of 70s pastiche tacked onto the end of an otherwise tightly structured volume, and things didn't become any clearer as we moved into Volume II. I had pretty much forgot about it when I reached Volume III, which picks up right at the end of this issue. It's odd to tease a story that won't continue for another 22 issues, but looking at it now, this reads as a great segue into the more hyperpop world of Volume II....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

The X-Files: 'Pilot' (1x01)

Having finished Babylon 5, I figured it was time to return to The X-Files and give the series a revisit. I've seen bits and pieces over the years, but haven't watched an entire episode since the show ended. The awfulness of the last two seasons has obscured a lot of the series' merits. The show has a lot of issues, but at its best, it was as good as anything ever on TV. I've been thinking about it a lot lately, largely because of The Invisibles reread. I think the series is as representative of the 90s as any other, and even if Duchovny had stayed with the series, I don't think it would have worked in a post 9/11 era. That's because the conspiracies of the 00s aren't anywhere near as fun as the 90s, and even when they're brought to light, no one particularly cares.

So, it's a nice nostalgia trip to hop back fourteen years to the beginning of the series. The first season was never my favorite, I preferred the massive, baroque conspiracy two parters that started in the second year and continued through the sixth. Those episodes were so great, it was always frustrating to go back to the standalone episodes after. I think the series would have been better served as a three year arc, with only the best standalones still in there. Depending on how things go, I might skip through some of the weaker standalones on this rewatch. It's a long series, and I don't know if I want to give 45 minutes of my life to watch 'Space' again.

The first thing we see in the series is the logo, no opening credits yet, then a title that claims the episode, or perhaps the entire series, is based on actual documented events. I think that's playing pretty loose with the facts, but I'm assuming the goal was to show that this was a different kind of sci-fi series, one that played by the rules of a cop show. That's how most of the episodes were structured, a crime happens, they go in and solve it. I'm not interested in procedurals, shows that do the same thing every episode. That's largely because I'm so aware of the manipulative techniques writers use to build character, there's very few people I can care about after only 45 minutes. If the mytharc wasn't part of the show, I wouldn't have been interested in watching it.

I actually didn't start watching the show until 1998. After the movie came out, there was so much press, I was like, I should just check this out. I saw an episode called "Mind's Eye," starring Lily Taylor, and enjoyed it. Then I watched "The End," which hooked me. I didn't know what was going on, but I saw pieces of this massive conspiracy and wanted to know more. The Smoking Man was always my favorite character and he had me hooked right from the start.

This was the first drama I loved. I hunted down every episode and caught up by the start of year seven. I stuck with it through the bad days of the last two seasons, always hoping for a return to quality. It wasn't until I watched Twin Peaks and Buffy that I realized a show could have a really high level of continuity, and a uniform story vision. The X-Files, for all its good traits, always felt like they were making it up as they went along. I would argue that the show actually concluded in a satisfactory fashion, season six was the climax and season seven was a fine denouement. 'Requiem' would have been a perfect season finale, perhaps with a movie as wrap up. But, it just kept going, and that really tarnished the legacy.

But, we're not there yet. The story of the first episode is fairly standard stuff for the show, a mysterious murder, a wide variety of suspects and a conspiracy within a little town. It's not bad, but it's not great. Particularly after seeing the whole series, this isn't anything special.

What is special here is the chemistry between Duchovny and Anderson. If Chris Carter had cast his show like Babylon 5 (i.e. poorly), it would have never been a success. B5 was a success because of JMS, The X-Files succeeded because the two leads are just so much fun to watch. In this episode they're not as strong as they'll become later, but that star quality is there. Duchovny has a more unhinged quality than he does later, seemingly provoking Scully with his sometimes ridiculous lines. Clearly the goal is to portray him as a guy who's a bit off in the head, but that fades a bit as the series progresses. It's odd to hear about Mulder's backstory, which also fades. This episode feels the need to justify why he's working on these odd cases, but coming to the series later on, I just accepted it, and I feel like the audience would here too. After all, we've chosen to watch a show about weird stuff instead of a standard cop show.

Most pilots have some kind of a standalone arc, leading the foundation of the series' premise, but also working as standalone pieces. Studio 60 told a complete three act story in its pilot, a story that was better than what the series would become. Here, we pretty much get that, by the end, Scully is believing that Mulder's ideas may have some validity, and she's ready to support him in his work. We also get some nice development of the bond between them in the two hotel room scenes. The scene where she shows him the bites on her back sets the ground rules for their relationship, they're close enough that she can go there in just her underwear, but there's never a thought that they might cross to a romantic relationship, for now at least.

One of the things I like about the pilot is the way they throw in a bunch of random weird stuff. There's the time loss, the troubled digital readouts, the sort of things we didn't need to see later in the show, but it's nice to get them. The time loss in particular is a cool scene, with Mulder's ecstatic reaction at experiencing something weird. I think they got numb to that as the series went on, but here it's still a thrill to actually encounter something weird.

The series' skeptic/believer dynamic became the foundation for countless future TV partnerships, and it's a strong one. The basic conflict is the same we see in From Hell, between reason and wonder. Scully is looking to fit everything she sees into a pre-existent paradigm, Mulder is totally open to anything, wanting to create a new paradigm. I found myself really identifying with Mulder's excitement at everything that was happening to him. The character is really fun here. I also like how this episode keeps things somewhat ambiguous, there's no clear evidence of alien involvement, so Scully's continued skepticism makes sense. After a while, they stopped bothering to give any credible alternate explanation for what was happening.

The other great thing about this episode is the omnipresent government conspiracy. I always loved the idea that Mulder was battling this vast impersonal force, and right from the start, The Smoking Man is covering everything. His episode closing journey through the vast evidence room is fantastic, and prefigures so much of what's to come in the series. It gets a bit frustrating after a while to constantly have the critical evidence, the 'key to everything,' destroyed, but it's still fresh here.

The show does feel a bit dated. Mulder uses a slide projector, not a powerpoint, and all the computers seem to be running DOS. Plus, Scully is a victim of some early 90s fashion, though not as bad as what she'll be subjected to later in the season. This episode was shot a year after Twin Peaks went off the air, and you can definitely see the influence. Mulder is a lot like Cooper, the eccentric, but ultra-skilled FBI investigator who rolls into a small town and turns it upside down. The series' tackling of dark topics also owes a debt to Twin Peaks.

It was really fun to revisit this first episode, and it made me eager to rewatch some of the show's best times. It's been so long since I've seen it, stuff that once felt tired again feels fresh. I won't be writing up every episode, but I'm sure I'll cover some more of my thoughts on the series as I'm going along.

The Invisibles #24: 'Goodbye Baby Rabbits'

The volume proper wraps up in this really solid issue. This one brings us some more information on the nature of the universe as a whole and gives Dane some further crucial development. When I reached this point in the series the first time through, I was really enjoying it, but not quite getting all of the cosmology. On the reread, it's clear that pretty much everything you need to know has already been set, but the first time through we don't have the mental tools to process it. We're still trapped in linear time perception, unaware of the larger whole....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

Battlestar Galactica: 'Crossroads: Part I' (3x19)

This was a really great episode, probably the strongest since the tumult of the second half premiere. This episode brought to the fore one of the issues that's been challenging me all season, and that's my uncertainty about the creators' moral stance with regard to the characters and their troubles. Virtually every work has some kind of message it's hoping to convey to the audience, and even if there are morally ambiguous characters and actions, we have a general idea of what good is. Look at Babylon 5, it's clear that Sheridan and his crew are in the right, and even though we can understand the motivations of the Shadows and Vorlons, I don't think any viewer is going to side with them. But, in the case of this episode, who are we supposed to side with? Everything is caught in a morally ambiguous mess.

This isn't necessarily problematic, I've still got someone to root for, and that's definitely Baltar. I've never liked Adama and Roslin as much as I think we're meant to, I think they work really well together when they're away from work, as in the brilliant scene on New Caprica in 'Unfinished Business,' but when they're the two headed authority figure governing the fleet, they're not so appealing. The coldness and inhumanity they exhibited in various episodes across the season is such a contrast to Baltar's struggling humanity. I've always found him fascinating and seeing him becoming a reluctant messiah figure it a lot of fun. My sympathies were with him this entire episode.

I think Lampkin makes a strong defense, pointing out the hypocriscy of criticizing Baltar for compromising when the Resistance completely compromised their moral standards in an effort to fight the Cylons. He makes the point that resisting the Cylons likely would have led to more death in the short term, and no change in the long term. If Baltar hadn't surrendered, they could have just destroyed the Galactica, and then the humans would never have gotten off New Caprica. He might not have been courageous, but he was pragmatic. Yes, he was looking out for his own interests, but does anyone really believe that if he hadn't signed the Death list, the Cylons wouldn't have just killed him and appointed a new president?

Even though he makes a good defense, I can't help but feel like there aren't some major cards they didn't play. I was assuming the major secret Lee was going to pull on Roslin was her theft of the election. I don't remember if the majority of the fleet heard about that, but bringing it up would inherently cripple her credibility. If she was willing to break the law to get herself elected, and then return to power under very shady circumstances, her criticism of Baltar would be completely unfounded. I think it was a major mistake not to bring that up. Throughout the season, I've complained about Roslin's easy return to power, and the fact that no one has a problem with her almost monarchial inheritance of the presidency. I hope to see that brought up next episode.

I also hope to see more about the support for Baltar. They keep calling him the 'most hated man alive,' but he seems to have a big following, and I'm assuming that will play some role in the finale. I've heard there's a big twist, but am avoiding spoilers. If I had to speculate, I'd imagine it will be something like the fleet splintering, and half following Baltar to the Cylons. Clearly there's some sleeper agents in play, and someone is revealed to be a cylon. That revelation could undermine the distinction between human and cylon.

I really liked seeing Lee working for Baltar. He's always been one of my least favorite characters, but with this arc, he's picked up some Kara's roguish spirit. It's a lot more convincing than the faux darkness they put him through in mid season two. If there is a schism in the fleet, he might side with Baltar's crew. I'd think it was a conflict of interest to have the defense attorney's father as the judge, but we'll let that go.

I mentioned last week that it's really tough to make courtroom scenes interesting, but they pulled it off here. There was huge tension in both the Tigh and Roslin questionings. Another fantastically tense scene was Six and Tigh's discussion in her cell. I really wish we got to see more of her feelings about being on Galactica, she's barely got any time since jumping ship. There was a scene of her and Gaius in the promo last week, so hopefully the two of them will be reunited next week.

The music thing raises some issues. Tigh, Tori and Anders were all down on New Caprica, but I'm not sure of any other connection between them. I could certainly see Tori and Anders being cylons, but I feel like having Tigh a cylon would make virtually no sense. He was imprisoned by them, so it's possible they put some kind of tracking device or implant in his head, but I don't know when they would have done that to Anders and Tori. Were they imprisoned at any point? I suppose it's possible they're all sleeper agents of a sort, with Tori and Anders as actual cylons and Tigh as just implanted with something. Regardless, Tori looked very hot with the zombie chic look.

I also really liked the opening sequence. Roslin seems to be in the same theater that we saw at the end of the first season, the place between life and death. Hera was previously seen there, as the 'child' of Six and Baltar, will she be back with them by the end of the season? The look of the sequence reminded me of Inland Empire, the scene with Laura Dern in the movie theater. Most of the time, you can't tell the show is shot on digital, but I could here, and I think it worked to the scene's advantage.

Well, things are up in the air, but I'm pretty confident that the season finale will work well. More generally, I'm frustrated by the meandering nature of the back half of the season, but the show has never let me down at the end of a season. I just hope if this major twist creates a new status quo, they actually stick with it, and don't return to the current situation. If the show has only two seasons left, there's no reason we can't spend them in a constantly evolving state.

The Invisibles #23: 'The Last Temptation of Jack'

In another bit of synchronicity, right before I was about to read the issue, I flipped over to the Sci-Fi channel and saw that The X-Files was on. A quick bit of examination revealed that this was 'Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati,' the episode in which Mulder is tempted by an easy life away from The X-Files. Like this issue, it was inspired by Scorsese's 'The Last Temptation of Christ,' and like this issue, it is awesome. It's one of my favorite episodes of the series, a really ambitious piece of TV. This was the perfect prelude to the issue, one of my favorites in the volume....

I've taken down my posts on The Invisibles because they're all coming out in book form. The book, Our Sentence is Up, features revised and expanded versions of each blog post, covering every issue of The Invisibles, plus an extensive interview with Morrison himself. Visit your local comic store and order a copy now!

The Failings of 300 and the Dangers of Comic Adaptation

I saw 300 last week and really disliked it. So much has been written about the film, I don't want to go into a long review, but I have issues with the film on two levels. One is the ridiculous values the film is espousing, the Spartans were all barely developed characters with a nasty idea of right and wrong, and we're supposed to value them as heroes. I found the Persian society much more appealing and Xerxes odd appearance and behavior were a lot of fun next to the uniformity of Sparta. He was all about having fun while conquering the world, and you just didn't get that vibe from the Spartans.

But, I had more issues with the narrative and stylistic choices of director Zack Snyder. My major issue was with the constant stream of pointless dialogue and voiceover. The film had a lot of visual flair, but it didn't have any truly cool cinematic moments. The reason for that is primarily because the characters would never shut up. The Matrix's lobby fight sequence is one of the coolest scenes ever captured on film, but if you had a ponderous narrator saying "Neo and his band of fighters entered the lobby and mowed down a bunch of guards," it would be distracting. The visuals are telling the story, you don't need some guy nattering on endlessly. It distracted from the visuals and took me out of the story. Good narration, as in The New World or Wong Kar-Wai films, can work like music to put you in the mental place of the story, this one did the complete opposite.

The other major issue I had was with the awful cheesy line dialogue. How many times did we hear Leonidas say "And tonight we dine on blood!" Or perhaps "For breakfast today, blood!" Or even "Tonight we dine on blood...in hell!" Just shut up and let the visuals tell the story. You don't build drama by having someone say cheesy lines, you do it with moments of silence, tense closeups, the calm before the storm. Your really cool warriro doesn't even have to say anything, we just see his eyes, and we know that it's on.

This movie was sold to and supported by the 'fanboy' audience. I enjoy some fanboy targetted films, but this movie, like Sin City, feels like it should be a trailer, not a feature. It's all about creating cool images, but there's no emotion stringing those images together. Compressed into two minutes, it's awesome, at two hours, it's exhausting.

But, make these complaints and you'll always get the same response, "But that's how the comic was." Guess what, that's no excuse. Comics and film are two different mediums, comics that try to be films always wind up feeling like a pale imitation, and films that try to be comics have the same problem. What comics can do so wonderfully is allow you to dwell on images, and create interesting juxtaposition of text and image. Look at Watchmen for a class on what comics can do that no other medium can. Comics can be a lot denser than film because we have more time to absorb things. That's why works like Promethea and The Invisibles work better in comics than film, their complex cosmologies would either wind up being too dragged out and preachy in film, or just fly by the audience, with no comprehension.

The major difference between film and comics is time. In comics, you control the pace, you can stop to ponder a moment or you can read through really fast, just reading the text and skimming the images. You can also hop back and forth through time, by turning the pages. If you want to have a flash back, just do it, you have more control of the experience.

That's why it baffles me to see comics that read like storyboards. The medium's assets lie somewhere between books and film, and the total elimination of captions takes away one of the medium's most unique assets. Telling me a comic is like a movie on paper is the worst pitch. Why would I read a movie on paper when I could just watch a movie? And similarly, why would I want a movie that is slavishly faithful to a graphic novel when I could just read that graphic novel?

In translating 300 to the screen, Snyder brought all the elements of Miller's work, but he didn't add anything. If you just want a slavishly faithful rendering of the tale on screen, he did fine, but if you want to see a film of 300, he failed. For me, the major thing that film has over comics is music. It's astonishing that Snyder would pay so little attention to music in creating this film because that's where he can make his mark. A good score or song selection can make a movie so much better. For me, film is about the fusion of visuals and music to create an emotion. Through his incessant narration and awful lines, Synder makes it impossible for the score to create the kind of operatic treatment this story deserves. If I was making this film, it would be virtually dialogue free, just some terse, more realistic dialogue.

I guess I've been away from mainstream films for a while because with both this film and Ghost Rider, an even worse movie, I was baffled by the constant talking. These directors have no confidence in their visual storytelling abilities, particularly with these stories, the image has power, but that power is drained by the constant shitty dialogue. These characters talk like characters in a movie, saying one of three kind of lines. There is direct exposition, setting up the plot and future twists. There's character exposition, seemingly throwaway lines that give background on the characters, but are so transparently expository, they take you out of the film's reality. Then there's the cheesy line, bad jokes and faux cool callouts that basically kill the momentum whenever they're said.

The one liner can work occasionally. "Dodge this" in The Matrix is a great moment, and in a movie like Batman Returns, the over the top nature of the reality means characters can say absolutely ridiculous things and not take you out of the movie. Catwoman's cheesy lines only draw you further into the odd world of these characters.

Batman Returns is the best model of how to make a comic book film. Burton takes the essence of Batman, filters it through his own thematic concerns, and then pushes everything into an incredibly over the top visual universe. The film is the work of someone who's just unhinged his imagination and is letting it spill on the screen. Batman Returns is a film that is taken to 11 and pulls it off. 300 is a movie that wants to go to 11, wants to be this totally crazy world where weird shit happens, but it feels like a poseur. It's the difference between someone who's actually drunk and someone who's just pretending. On the surface, they may look the same, but when you can tell the person really isn't drunk, he just looks silly. That's how 300 feels to be, it's not authentically nuts, and that prevents it from reaching the sublime level of weirdness that Batman Returns or Domino hit.

And a large part of what makes Batman Returns and Domino so over the top is that they know how film works. Each film presents us with a succession of astonishing visuals, which are combined with perfectly chosen music to become cohesive film moments. You couldn't do Batman Returns in any other medium, it's about more than the story, you can see the love of cinema's possibilities in every moment.

That's why I'm really worried to see Zack Snyder adapting Watchmen. I get the feeling we'll get a recreation of the graphic novel, not a film. I want someone to come in who takes the narrative and images of the book, but concentrates on turning them into a filmic experience. Use a prominent score, and impressionistic editing to recreate our mental experience of the book, not the actual ink on paper. You don't need to change the plot, that transcends the medium, but the film must have a style that is as innovative as what Moore brought to comics. I don't know if that's possible, but unless you feel like you could do it, there's no reason to bother adapting the book into a film.