Have you ever found yourself watching Survivor and thinking to yourself, "haven't any of these people ever heard of evaporative cooling?" If so, have I got the TV show for you.
From the moment I heard that The Grand Tour's Richard Hammond and Mythbusters' Tory Bellaci were doing a show together, I knew it was something I would probably be checking out. Now that the Amazon Prime miniseries has dropped and I've had a chance to watch all six episodes, was it worth the wait? Spoiler warning, yes.
Once upon a time, there was a BBC car show called Top Gear. It was a fun little show that eventually became popular even outside England, due in large part to the three hosts - Jeremy Clarkson, James May, and Richard Hammond - whose camaraderie, automotive knowledge, and general attitude of amateurish enthusiasm made what could have been a boring news show into an award-winning phenomenon.
Unfortunately, even the most popular TV programs have the detractors, and over the years Top Gear received many complaints, not an insignificant number of which involved Jeremy's humor not being appreciated by humorless scolds. Even more unfortunately, some of these scolds were executives at the BBC, and eventually an excuse was found (a fistfight with a producer, or something) to kick Jeremy off the show. James and Richard resigned in protest, the BBC hired a carefully diverse array of forgettable replacements (the only one who sticks in the memory being Joey from Friends), and it looked like the spirit of Top Gear would be gone forever.
But then, Clarkson, May, and Hammond got together with one of the producers whom Jeremy didn't punch, got in contact with Amazon, and we all got to go on the Internet and find this:
I really like this whole opening sequence, not just because it marks the beginning of a terrific show (The Grand Tour is basically Top Gear with everything the BBC could legally block removed or altered), but as a piece of art in its own right. The choice of the Hothouse Flowers' cover of "I Can See Clearly Now" works really well as the mood swings from dour to triumphant, and is perfectly timed to little moments like Jeremy's face lighting up when James and Richard's muscle cars catch up with his. Best of all is the moment when the saxophone solo revs up, and the hosts are joined by a magnificent escort of cars from across automotive history. From modern supercars to pulp-era touring models, standard-issue daily drivers to outrageous art cars . . . now there's a diversity worth celebrating!
Well, we've had some schedule slippage, which I apologize for, but I have a semi - decent excuse in that some personal life changes meant I was without ready Internet access for some of the last month. On the plus side, I was able to finish both Nine Princes in Amber and its first sequel, The Guns of Avalon. Before I get to my thoughts on them, however, I wanted to highlight a bit of (less than hot-off-the-presses) relevant news - The Chronicles of Amber appears to be in production as a television series.
As neat as it would be to see, the most interesting thing about the press release is the many comparisons to Game of Thrones, especially the ones that claim the Amber was an inspiration for Westros. Now, I have yet to read any of the books and have only seen a little of the show, but I can definitely understand where such comparisons come from, given all that happens in Amber in these relatively short books.
On this very night fifty years ago - Thursday, September 8, 1966 - an episode of a new science fiction television show beamed into American televisions for the very first time. When it was cancelled just three seasons later, nobody involved suspected that Star Trek would become the beloved cultural juggernaut that it has. While I've enjoyed all the different versions of Trek over the years, a large proportion of my personal favorites, no matter the decade, seem to involve the original crew:
It's rather hard to believe, but today is the tenth anniversary of the release of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen film, based on the Alan Moore comic of the same name. I never got a chance to see it in the theater, unfortunately (though I really wanted to), but once I acquired a DVD copy it quickly became one of my favorite movies, right up there with the Back to the Future and Indiana Jones films.
Sadly, the world in general does not appear to share my enthusiasm. I tend to attribute this to rampant Alan Moore fandom - he famously doesn't get on well with adaptations of his work, and LXG admittedly took rather a few more liberties than an adaptation can typically support.
But in this case, however, I think the changes work quite well. Certainly they don't distract from making the movie enjoyable to watch, in itself, and one of the chief delights of cameo- and reference-spotting remain intact.
Indeed, I credit The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen with helping to form my current interest in crossovers and shared universes, most notably the Wold Newton Universe (to which the League is tangentially related).
Anyway. I've always enjoyed the movie, and was quite disappointed a few years later when LXG2: War of the Worlds failed to materialize. Almost unbelievably, it seems that the concept might still have a chance - there are some early reports that Fox is developing the League as a television show. Details at this time are sketchy - not even to determine whether this is a reboot or a continuation of the film continuity - but I'm hopeful that whatever comes from he project will be at least as enjoyable as the movie is to me.
So yes, this is old news, but The Avengers is amazing. It takes everything that was good about the previous half-dozen Marvel Cinematic Universe movies, and concentrates it down into two-and-a-half hours of what may be the best superhero movie to date.
If I had to pick one word to sum up the film, I think I would choose balanced. There are several ways that this is relevant - in terms of spectacle vs. plot, for example, the movie manages to excel at the former without it being (as is too often the case) at the expense of the latter. Also applicable is the way the film balanced the hitherto unprecedented - so far as I'm aware - team-up of heroes who previously carried four individual franchises, a feat made even more extraordinary by its success. Each one got some time in the spotlight, simultaneously continuing their stories from previous outings and emerging ready to slip back into solo-dom with minimal disruption.
Iron Man, having had around 100% more prior movie time than almost any of his team-mates, seemed to me to be the most static in terms of development, though his introduction would certainly seem to indicate his relationship with Pepper has developed from what I remember. There was also that nifty armor upgrade, which makes a nice midpoint between the backpack-armor we saw in Iron Man 2 and Iron Man 3's rumored nano-tech-armor. Finally, he did have a bit of a character arc in his response to Captain America's remarks about sacrifice, and I really liked the way he insisted on interacting with Dr. Banner as a fellow scientist rather than a potential Hulk.
Then again, Hulkbuster!
Speaking of the Hulk, in some ways he had the most to overcome, with his multiple actors and somewhat uneven prior films. In a lot of ways, however, he was the breakout star of the film - certainly he was responsible for many of the film's most popular moments (such as the punching the first giant robot dragon-fish, and of course his "Puny god" line). Would these moments be enough to carry a solo film? I'm sure we'll find out eventually, but in the meantime I'm looking forward to Hulk and/or Dr. Banner making cameos in his team-mates' movies. I'd like to think, giving him going off with Tony at the end of Avengers, that Iron Man III is the most likely candidate for this, but given the trailers and early reactions to III so far I'm not holding my breath.
Other solo sequels are sounding equally good. Despite the fact that Thor was not really my favorite of the "Phase One" Marvel films, I'm very excited about the direction that the sequel is taking. Of course, part of this is because I somewhat jokingly predicted this back when the first film came out, but hey - Space Elves are cool anytime. Thor's appearance in The Avengers itself was not quite that exciting, unfortunately - his biggest roles, it seemed, were facilitating hero-on-hero brawls and contributing secondary characters, namely Loki and Dr. Selvig. Not that either of those is unimportant, but they just didn't have quite the same focus as some of the other members. It didn't help that Thor was the one who delivered what I thought was the worst line in the movie - though funny, "He's adopted" was a rather out-of-character statement, in more ways than one.
Rounding out the "Big Four" of the team is Captain America whom, more than the others, ended his last solo film on a bit of a cliffhanger. He didn't get a whole lot of a chance to catch his breath and adjust to the 21st century, either, though there are a few signs that such an adjustment is taking place - note his mention of feeling at home on the Helicarrier. More than adjusting to the times, though, we saw Cap adjusting to being part of a different team than he was used to. This will be important later, as 2014's scheduled film Captain America: The Winter Soldier sounds like it will feature not only the titular Solider (no spoilers, but that title's a giveaway for something we all knew would happen), but also Black Widow and a new hero, the Falcon. How exactly this will shake out remains to be seen, but it can't be harder than Cap learning to work with Tony and Thor (the latter of whom, incidentally, prompted Cap to utter my absolute favorite line in the whole film: "There's only one God, Ma'am, and I'm pretty sure He doesn't dress like that").
For all the appropriateness of Black Widow appearing in Winter Solider, it does seem a shame that it probably means she won't be getting her own movie. Both she and Hawkeye, in fact, managed the jump from "secondary character" to "ensemble lead" quite well, especially considering the latter's post-production introduction into Thor. Spending half the film mind-controlled was perhaps a bit of a heavy-handed way to generate audience sympathy for a relative unknown, but revealing and drawing on a shared past with Natasha made his integration surprisingly easy. And of course the Widow herself had a great second appearance, being an effective Avenger even with a slightly out-of-genre skillset.
Finally, Agent Coulson. From the moment that Joss Whedon was revealed as the film's director, speculation ran rampant that Phil "First Name Is Agent" Coulson wouldn't make it through the film. It was such an obvious ploy that when it actually happened, I was actually a little surprised. That didn't make it any less meaningful, of course, either to the audience or the other characters - it helped that Phil had some great character-building scenes before getting killed, especially the ones opposite Captain America.
Happily, in true comic-book fashion it appears that the Son of Coul has cheated death (exact method unknown, though I lean towards the "Nick Fury exaggerated the extent of his injuries to give the team something to Avenge" theory) and will be taking the lead in a Marvel Cinematic Universe TV show, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D:
Not quite the SHIELD movie I was hoping for, but it has promise. I'm especially intrigued by the idea of the apparently anti-SHIELD organization The Rising Tide. Other details are sketchy at the moment but I'm definitely willing to give this show a try.
In a way, The Avengers was really a transition point not only in the development of the MCU, but the superhero-film industry generally. The effects of showing that such an elaborate project could not only work, but work well, remain to be seen - but in the meanwhile, bring on Phase II!
EDIT: Typically, just a few hours after I posted this another, much longer promo for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D went up. My interest is not reduced:
Being a former gun-shop owner and CCL instructor, the author of the Monster Hunter International series knows what he's talking about when it comes to the laws and the realities surrounding firearm ownership here in the U.S. Luckily for us, he hasn't lost his teaching skills by switching to writing best-selling novels, as he demonstrated a few nights ago:
That "best, most definitive and thorough article" is found on Larry's blog, under the title "An opinion on gun control", and is well worth your time if you're interested in hearing more about the topics touched on in the TV segment.
There are few things more irritating in the pop-cultural world than a bad adaptation of a beloved work. One early warning sign is often that a period work has been moved to the modern day - this can signal that the producers either don't know much about the work beyond what can be gleaned from the title, or are attempting to make it more "relevant". Now, while a modernized work isn't always bad (V for Vendetta was originally set in the 1990's, after all), it does generate controversy amongst fans of the original work (not everybody liked V for Vendetta, and amongst those that didn't the most common reason seems to be that it wasn't enough like the comic).
Given all this, it is understandable why I was skeptical about Sherlock, a recent BBC production that brings Sherlock Holmes to modern London. However, the responses from viewers across the pond were mostly positive, so a few weeks ago when the first of three episodes season aired on PBS, I made sure to check it out.
That first episode, "A Study In Pink", turned out to be an excellent retelling of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's first Sherlock Holes story, with just enough twists and reversals to make it both fresh and familiar to fans of the original. And not just in the actual mystery, either - from Sherlock's first complaint that it's "impossible to sustain a smoking habit in London these days" (not to mention his "three-patch" solution), it's clear that this Holmes is going to both keep everything that made the original unique, while not glossing over the things about the modern world that Holmes would have to adapt to.
One particularly interesting example of this from the first episode occurs when Sherlock, gleefully rushing out of 221B to the scene of another grisly crime, calls out to Dr. Watson that "The game . . . is on!" Of course, fans of the original Holmes would be expecting him to say, "The game's afoot!", but in a universe where there was no Sherlock Holmes until the late 20th century, there would be little reason for that phrase to stick in the public consciousness. Replacing it with "The game is on!" is not only a nice little reminder of the paradox involved in Holmes & Watson's temporal displacement, but another clever way to modernize the character.
The rest of the season, while not following any particular Holmes cases as closely as the pilot, do measure up to the high bar set by the pilot. The middle one, "The Blind Banker", is the least of the three, but I attribute this to it's being the only episode in the season that isn't a season premiere or finale. "The Great Game", that finale, introduces Sherlock's great nemesis, "Jim" Moriarty. The show plays up Moriarty's being Sherlock's opposite (a consulting criminal as opposed to a consulting detective) at the expense of what we knew of him from the stories (although, there's nothing to say that Colonel Moran wasn't at the other end of one of those laser sights . . . ), he was still very well done.
Of course, then the season ended with one of the worse cliffhangers since Captain Picard got assimilated by the Borg, but I understand that a second season will be coming . . . sometime next year. Sigh.
One last, tangential note. Apparently, Dr. Watson - or more accurately, his actor Martin Freeman - has been cast as Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's long-awaited film version of "the Hobbit". Hmm - Bilbo, Watson, Arthur Dent - does anyone else notice a theme here?
As of last night, the wait for one of my most keenly anticipated pop-cultural happenings was officially over. No, I didn't get into an advance screening of The A-Team - I'm talking about the season premiere of Burn Notice (if you haven't seen it yet, the following is likely to be spoilerous and/or confusing).
When we last saw Michael Westen, he had been arrested by the FBI following the rampage across Miami after Simon, his "psycho twin", and led hooded and in shackles through a prison camp to . . . a luxurious sitting room.
The following discussion with his new handler "Vaughn" (who's either Management's co-conspirator or his boss) is familiar to fans of the show, but meatier: it seems there's some kind of shadow war going on between Management & Vaughn's organization (hereafter IWI, for Intelligence Without Initials) and . . . someone else. Michael theorizes that they're arms dealers making WarForFunAndProfit (beware the TvTropes link), but all we really know is that they're willing and able to send a UAV armed with a minigun out into the middle of some jungle just to take out one of their underlings that Michael happens to be talking to. I didn't even know you could put a minigun on a UAV.
And so, Michael agrees to look into the matter for IWI. Skipping ahead to the very end of the episode, this involves sneaking into a US military research facility with someone else's ID badge, downloading some files, and strolling out again. This he does without a hitch - except that before he can drive away, he sees a security team hustling somebody out of the building. Late, he finds out from Sam that the man is the same one whose badge he borrowed. And now, just like Michael, he's burned. Oops.
This is especially poignant because, just a few scenes before, Michael had been confessing to Madeline that he was scared of turning out like Simon. To their credit, the writers didn't hit us over the head with the comparison, but I suspect that it's going to be a major source of character development for Michael this season. It'll make a nice change from all the "lone wolf crap" he's mostly gotten over recently.
As the season premiere, I suspect most of the attention was focused on setting up this season's main arc - the B-plot with the lawyer hounded by the biker gang didn't particularly stand out to me, although I thought Sam was underused and Michael's final plan somewhat problematic - so now the lawyer guy's just supposed to go back to his life with his finances tangled up with the biker gang's?
Even so, Burn Notice is still my favorite thing going on television right now, and overall this episode was a great kickoff for the season. Also, during the episode there were some ads for a new USA show, Covert Affairs, which also appears to feature spies and intelligence work. Is a crossover - a real one, not just in commercials - imminent, maybe for the next season of both shows? One can only hope.
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