Splam!
Hey Everyone,
Another Monday down, another episode of Life On Mars, which is already one of my fave shows this year, not in the least because of it's ability to irritate people who can't get their head around it.
I was reading in one of the Culture liftouts in one of the weekend papers (probably CULTURE from the Sunday Times, but I can't be sure) a short blurb where the reviewer said that 'Life On Mars continues to have it's cake and eat it.' referring to the perceived dichotomies within the programme in terms of genre, theme etc. Is it a gritty, street level police drama or is it a parody of seventies shows like The Sweeney? Is it a Science Fiction Time Travel or is it a Grand Hallucinatory construction within the rampaging subconscious of the comatose protagonistic copper? Are we supposed to feel any kind of empathetic connection with these characters while knowing that they are not supposed to be real? All this and more.
People who see all these things as flaws in the programme are really missing something important about culture and creativity in the 21st Century (or for that matter, any other time... but especially now). The point is that any piece of fiction, non-fiction whatever, be it a movie, music, comic, fine-art etc can operate on a myriad of levels and layers of meaning. To say that any one layer invalidates any other no longer holds water. These days Online comics effortlessly shift gears between styles of drawing (eg standard manga style to exaggerated Chibi style and back again - I'm pretty sure that machall have done this, among others) within the space of a panel. Movies directors leave coded love-notes to previous movie directors in the films.
All things are valid. The only thing that is not valid, in my opinion, is mediocrity and lies. Reality Television is a lie at all levels. I'm a Celebrity is a lie. Etc. If I don't stop now, I'm going to spray bile all over the keyboard...
Back to the show: Life on Mars could have been a trainwreck. The different elements could have mixed together to make it awful. It hasn't.
End of rant.
Other news: I may or may not have mentioned that Hilary's band made the finals for some band comp, which were to be played out on the 20th of this month somewhere in Islington. It turns out that the finals have been postponed until June, or something.
This is actually a good thing for me, because I was marking in my Diary and on my Calendar all the shows that I have tickets for (currently four, including Ben Lee, something I'm going to just so I can review it for Fasterlouder) and I realised that on Friday Night (the 20th) I would have been at Bleeding Through anyway.
For the Record, Ben Lee means that I can't see Dragonforce, who are playing the same night. The little fucker. First he scores with Claire Danes, now this.
Speaking of saying offensive things while in character and wondering if people will get the joke (although I am still pissed off that I will miss Dragonforce again), I saw Man on the Moon last night. The movie about Andy Kauffman that Jim Carey made. It was pretty interesting, in terms of how seriously people took the characters, not realising the separation of the character and the man. Although I did agree with the TV Exec who complained that Andy and his writer were guilty of making jokes that only two people in the whole world found funny.
I'm currently resisting the temptation to look for spoilers about the new season of LOST on the internet. I read a Warren Ellis maillout yesterday where he referred to Walt typing something to Michael on the keyboard in the Swan. I'm imagining that The Swan is a spaceship at the bottom of the shaft that the Hatch lead into, and it crashed on the island like everything every other vessel that comes near. The idea being that the Island exists outside time, and the bits and stuff from all time and space winds up there. For example, the Slave Ship from the Season One Finale.
I read somewhere that the creators of LOST have the Grand Arc of the Plot roughly mapped out for seven seasons. Which is assuming, on their part, that they make it to seven seasons. Or beyond, like the X-Files did, even though most will agree that as a cultural force it was effectively spent after the first three or four seasons. I'm sure that at www.jumptheshark.com they have a much better barometer of public opinion in that department.
Hell, Twin Peaks on did two seasons, and some people reckon that it lost all revelevance before the first season finale.
Different subject: while I was wandering around Blackwells yesterday afternoon, I spotted a bunch of Robin Hobb books for sale. Robin Hobb is an author that I've been meaning to check out for a while. Somebody on Noisetheory actually went as far as saying 'The Best Fantasy Writer there is', or words to that effect.
Here's the funny part: I picked up one of the books and read the About The Author Blurb and discovered that Robin Hobb is a woman who lives in Washington State. I thought Robin Hobb was a man. Silly me.
Anyways, I've been typing here longer than I meant to, so I'm going to go home and fry up a juicy steak.
Yummo.
Then I'm going to keep on with my project of rewiring my mind for the new year.
Over and out.
Another Monday down, another episode of Life On Mars, which is already one of my fave shows this year, not in the least because of it's ability to irritate people who can't get their head around it.
I was reading in one of the Culture liftouts in one of the weekend papers (probably CULTURE from the Sunday Times, but I can't be sure) a short blurb where the reviewer said that 'Life On Mars continues to have it's cake and eat it.' referring to the perceived dichotomies within the programme in terms of genre, theme etc. Is it a gritty, street level police drama or is it a parody of seventies shows like The Sweeney? Is it a Science Fiction Time Travel or is it a Grand Hallucinatory construction within the rampaging subconscious of the comatose protagonistic copper? Are we supposed to feel any kind of empathetic connection with these characters while knowing that they are not supposed to be real? All this and more.
People who see all these things as flaws in the programme are really missing something important about culture and creativity in the 21st Century (or for that matter, any other time... but especially now). The point is that any piece of fiction, non-fiction whatever, be it a movie, music, comic, fine-art etc can operate on a myriad of levels and layers of meaning. To say that any one layer invalidates any other no longer holds water. These days Online comics effortlessly shift gears between styles of drawing (eg standard manga style to exaggerated Chibi style and back again - I'm pretty sure that machall have done this, among others) within the space of a panel. Movies directors leave coded love-notes to previous movie directors in the films.
All things are valid. The only thing that is not valid, in my opinion, is mediocrity and lies. Reality Television is a lie at all levels. I'm a Celebrity is a lie. Etc. If I don't stop now, I'm going to spray bile all over the keyboard...
Back to the show: Life on Mars could have been a trainwreck. The different elements could have mixed together to make it awful. It hasn't.
End of rant.
Other news: I may or may not have mentioned that Hilary's band made the finals for some band comp, which were to be played out on the 20th of this month somewhere in Islington. It turns out that the finals have been postponed until June, or something.
This is actually a good thing for me, because I was marking in my Diary and on my Calendar all the shows that I have tickets for (currently four, including Ben Lee, something I'm going to just so I can review it for Fasterlouder) and I realised that on Friday Night (the 20th) I would have been at Bleeding Through anyway.
For the Record, Ben Lee means that I can't see Dragonforce, who are playing the same night. The little fucker. First he scores with Claire Danes, now this.
Speaking of saying offensive things while in character and wondering if people will get the joke (although I am still pissed off that I will miss Dragonforce again), I saw Man on the Moon last night. The movie about Andy Kauffman that Jim Carey made. It was pretty interesting, in terms of how seriously people took the characters, not realising the separation of the character and the man. Although I did agree with the TV Exec who complained that Andy and his writer were guilty of making jokes that only two people in the whole world found funny.
I'm currently resisting the temptation to look for spoilers about the new season of LOST on the internet. I read a Warren Ellis maillout yesterday where he referred to Walt typing something to Michael on the keyboard in the Swan. I'm imagining that The Swan is a spaceship at the bottom of the shaft that the Hatch lead into, and it crashed on the island like everything every other vessel that comes near. The idea being that the Island exists outside time, and the bits and stuff from all time and space winds up there. For example, the Slave Ship from the Season One Finale.
I read somewhere that the creators of LOST have the Grand Arc of the Plot roughly mapped out for seven seasons. Which is assuming, on their part, that they make it to seven seasons. Or beyond, like the X-Files did, even though most will agree that as a cultural force it was effectively spent after the first three or four seasons. I'm sure that at www.jumptheshark.com they have a much better barometer of public opinion in that department.
Hell, Twin Peaks on did two seasons, and some people reckon that it lost all revelevance before the first season finale.
Different subject: while I was wandering around Blackwells yesterday afternoon, I spotted a bunch of Robin Hobb books for sale. Robin Hobb is an author that I've been meaning to check out for a while. Somebody on Noisetheory actually went as far as saying 'The Best Fantasy Writer there is', or words to that effect.
Here's the funny part: I picked up one of the books and read the About The Author Blurb and discovered that Robin Hobb is a woman who lives in Washington State. I thought Robin Hobb was a man. Silly me.
Anyways, I've been typing here longer than I meant to, so I'm going to go home and fry up a juicy steak.
Yummo.
Then I'm going to keep on with my project of rewiring my mind for the new year.
Over and out.
posted by the.exile at 7:12 pm
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