Girl Detective

I don’t want to go into nerdishly obsessive detail about this, but I think there are some cool things going on in Battlestar Galactica. The original series contained references to leading the tribes out of Egypt (the pilot helmets had Egyptian imagery) to the promised land of Earth, with stately Lorne Greene as the Moses figure.

In the present series, the creators have made some interesting twists, key to which is that the human race created the Cylons as slaves, who then rebelled. The Cylons are monotheists, while the humans believe in a pantheon of gods. There are many references to how the same stories happen over and over, throughout history. Are the Cylons now the analog for the persecuted Christians who rise up against their polytheistic oppressors? If so, why are we rooting for the humans? Further, who is the savior? Even further, will s/he be a lunkhead?

Or, in my case, green. I spent several years of my young life wishing for green eyes. The heroines in the trashy romances I read never had red hair and brown eyes, as I did. If they had red hair they always had green eyes, which were, of course, usually flashing. (Have you ever seen anyone with flashing green eyes? I haven’t.) Finally, though, in the mid-eighties came contact lenses that could change brown eyes to green. I was so excited to get them, only to be disappointed. They sat slightly askew on my iris, leaving a lopsided brown ring around my pupil. They were not the magical transformation for which I had hoped.

My experience with these contact lenses left me highly sensitized to other brown-eyed folk wearing them, like Naomi Judd, L’i'l Kim, Paris Hilton, and most recently Edward James Olmos in Battlestar Galactica. I found this last so curious that I didn’t hold out much hope of having it confirmed. Oh me of little faith. Olmos is wearing blue lenses so he has similar coloring to Jamie Bamber, the actor who plays his son, Lee. Bamber, in turn, is dyeing his normally blonde hair brown, as well as Americanizing his English accent. Interestingly, this is not the first time Olmos has worn blue lenses. He did so in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, to signify “the fusion of cultures and peoples”.

8. Auto Focus. 2002. Directed by Paul Schrader. A biopic of Bob Crane, star of Hogan’s Heroes. Greg Kinnear plays Crane, who leveraged his likeable, charismatic screen persona to fuel an ever-more-seedy sex addiction, central to which was a need to capture his encounters, first on film and later on the emerging technology of videotape. He was aided in his recording fetish by a friend, played with credible creepiness by Willem Dafoe. The movie deftly shows how Crane became what he did, making stupid choices and alienating everyone in his life. The drawn out descent to his strangulation in a hotel room, though, plays like every addiction story, ever, so the end is not only depressing, but it also feels flat.

I am simultaneously drawn in and repulsed. Do I give in to girlhood nostalgia and pay homage to my sleuthing forebears? Based on this description from Amazon, I think not.

Follow the clues to mystery, adventure and thrills as Season One of the The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries comes to DVD for the first time ever! Teen sensations Shaun Cassidy, Parker Stevenson and Pamela Sue Martin star as brave super-sleuths in 14 spooky episodes loaded with spellbinding action and smash-hit pop songs, including Shaun Cassidy�s #1 hit “Da Doo Ron Ron.” Inspired by the hugely popular books and with an amazing lineup of guest stars, including Jamie Lee Curtis, Mark Harmon, Bob Crane, Rick Nelson and more, it�s no surprise that The Hardy Boys Nancy Drew Mysteries is an open-and-shut case for fun!

7. Punch-Drunk Love. 2002. Directed by Paul Thomas Anderson. Not romantic. Not comedic. Not as clever as it thinks it is. Not recommended.

6. Sideways. 2004. Directed by Alexander Payne. A funny, touching, skillfully executed mismatched-buddy movie. The acting and characterizations are great, and it’s pretty to look at. Sitting under dimmed chandeliers at the Heights theater, munching alternately on their surprisingly tasty popcorn and Junior Mints, I remembered why I love going to the movies. I still, however, have no idea why it’s called Sideways.

5. Real Women Have Curves. 2002. Directed by Patricia Cardoso. It seems as if my husband G. Grod and I are in the extreme minority of those who didn’t love this film. I appreciated that the main character Ana stood up to her bullying mother and did not apologize for or try to hide her curves. I thought the “strip” scene in the sweat shop was fantastic. Overall, though, there were no surprises in this movie. The writing was sometimes painfully earnest, the boyfriend was utterly non-complex, and there were several moments in which I became aware of Ferrara the actor rather than Ana the character. Its heart is in the right place, but the execution is–no pun intended–too thin.

On a side note, I saw this film about embracing non-conventional beauty standards in the same week that I read Us Weekly’s “20 Best Body Makeovers” issue, which I purchased for the Oscar coverage. In my opinion, nearly all of the twenty women looked better before, i.e., heavier. There was a lot of plastic surgery (I find Jennifer Lopez nearly unrecognizable these days), and a lot of suspiciously unhealthy-looking weight loss.

I had just worked up the resolve to stop watching several television shows when I found out that A & E would be re-running episodes of the spy show MI-5, (titled Spooks in England) of which I’d read several good reviews. It hooked me with the first episode. Well-plotted and well-paced, it didn’t pull punches. It had the kind of complex darkness that I often bemoan the lack of in American television.

My husband and I recorded and watched all of season one. We got midway through season two, but now there are no more episodes airing. We’re left with a conundrum. Should we wait for A & E to run the rest of season two? Splurge on the DVDs with birthday money, even though we’ve seen most of the episodes? Check with local rental places to see if it can be rented? Sign up for Netflix again just to rent those? I already checked the libraries. It’s only at the suburban library, and we’re 19th on the wait list.

The voice of reason in my head says we should wait, and not do anything rash to acquire season two unless we’ve got episode one of season three queued up and ready to go. The ender for season one left me wide-eyed and agape with sorrowful disbelief. I hate to imagine if we hadn’t been immediately able to watch the next episode. But the other voice–the one that has elected Matthew MacFadyen Boyfriend #3 and that can’t wait to find out what happens–is getting harder to ignore.

FYI, Boyfriend #1, and Boyfriend #2. My husband G. Grod is both tolerant of and amused by my crushes.

Later. Good news: Matthew MacFadyen is going to be playing Mr. Darcy. Bad news: He sounds like a jerk, and the ubiquitous and rather cloying Keira Knightley will be Elizabeth Bennett.

One of the things I didn’t like about On the Waterfront, which I saw last week for the first time, was director Kazan’s messianic symbolism for main character Terry Malloy, played by Marlon Brando. Later, thinking of the Matrix movies, I wondered aloud if there was a tendency for Christ figures in movies to be not very bright. My husband G. Grod countered quickly that Paul Newman was no dummy in Cool Hand Luke. I’m having trouble coming up with more examples, though, either pro or con. Is there a tendency for lunkheaded Jesus characters, and if so, why?

I have taken on a 50-book challenge for the year, and have just decided that, although it’s the middle of March, I’m going to give myself a 50 movie challenge as well. I got off to a slow start, but am catching up fast. I need to pace myself, though, so I don’t burn out by going famine to feast! One to two movies a week doesn’t sound unreasonable. Feel free to join me by watching movies, then writing about them on your weblog.

1. In Good Company. 2004. Directed by Paul Weitz. A quiet, steady little film, surprising in its avoidance of several cliches that seemed inevitable. Strong performances by Topher Grace, Dennis Quaid and the ubiquitous Scarlett Johansson.
2. Million Dollar Baby. 2004. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Solid movie that ended up not being a sports flick after all. It nicely avoided some cliches, but had a few dodgy bits, like Maggie’s too awful family and a bit at the end that I won’t mention for those of you who haven’t seen it yet. The music really bothered me. I found it sentimental and intrusive. Excuse me, Clint, but can’t you be satisfied with directing and acting?
3. The Long Goodbye. 1973. Directed by Robert Altman. Elliott Gould as Phillip Marlowe. A performance Adam Brody should be aspiring to–a cool, grownup smartass. Features a hilarious bit in which Marlowe, being carried off by somebody, yells that he’s going to contact Ronald Reagan, then the governor of California. A few scenes later, who should appear, in an uncredited part sporting a sleazy mustache, but the current governor of California? Weird. Funny.
4. On the Waterfront. 1954. Directed by Elia Kazan. Brando is stunning, and it was a kick to finally hear “I coulda been a contender!” in context. The movie can be read as an extended apologia for Kazan and others like him who named names during the McCarthy hearings. But there’s a difference between a whistle blower and somebody who points the finger during a witch hunt; unsurprisingly, the film doesn’t draw this distinction.

For those of you in the Twin Cities, the Oak Street Cinema is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year, and has some fabulous films on the schedule, including some that I haven’t seen from the Centenary Cinema List I mentioned earlier, like The Rules of the Game, Breathless, and Ugetsu.

Clive in black leather.

This is what my friend the Big Brain joked once when I admitted that it had been a while since I’d seen a movie. Years later, I now know what a true movie dry spell looks like.

I had a hard realization two weeks ago when I looked at the Oscar ballot. I had seen none of the films that were nominated in the big categories. In fact, I’d only seen two that were nominated for anything at all: Spider-Man 2 and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. They were good, entertaining movies, but still.

I used to consider myself a film buff. My husband G. Grod and I own two movie guides, the Videohound’s Golden Movie Retriever and the much better, though less comprehensive Time Out Film Guide. Tellingly, it has been at least two years since we’ve replaced our copies. During the opening montages on Oscar night, I recognize most of the clips. For several years, I read the British film magazine Sight and Sound. I watch Ebert and Roeper At the Movies every week, even if I don’t go see the films they talk about. After our son was born, though, everything changed. We had the same three Netflix movies for three months. We finally returned them, unwatched, and cancelled that service.

I know what the issues are. My husband and I don’t have a baby sitter, and aren’t looking too hard for one while he’s unemployed. By the time we put our son Drake to sleep, we’re often so tired that it requires herculean effort to do anything more than collapse in front of our Tivo. We watch a lot of television, which doesn’t leave much room around the edges for movies. Too often we’re not in the mood for something dark, or that’s over two hours.

It’s time for this to change; I don’t like that I watch more television than I do movies. Step one is to watch less television. I’ve already cut out three hours a week: Simpsons, Scrubs, House and Joan of Arcadia. They stopped being worth my time. Step two is for my husband and I to trade childcare, so that one of us watches our toddler Drake while the other goes out to see a movie. I prefer to see movies with someone rather than by myself, but I’d rather see a movie by myself than not see it at all. Eventually, we will get a babysitter. But until then, there are still ways to see a movie. We just have to work a little harder at it than we have been for the last eighteen months. Movies (or, at least, good movies) are worth it, so we will.

My favorite top 100 movie list is ten years old, but I think it has aged well. Interestingly, I don’t think that this year’s Oscar winner for Best Movie, Million Dollar Baby, would make the list if it were compiled today. I thought MDB was good, but not great. Was there another movie, American or not, made last year that was great, and would be included in a top 100 list? I’m not sure, because I didn’t go to the movies last year. I plan not to be so ill-informed next year.

I like coming up with theories. The good thing about them is that I feel no obligation to scientifically test them. The bad thing is that I occasionally get egg on my face if I expound on one of them to someone learned enough to call my bluff. One of my current theories is that some books and movies with religious themes are better reviewed or liked than their overall quality deserves because while many people have quit institutional religion, they still crave religious engagement of some sort.

The most famous current example is Dan Brown’s The DaVinci Code, a hugely popular best seller, but widely acknowledged to be poorly written and sensational. Other books that I think fall into this category are The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, and Life of Pi by Yann Martel, both of which I thought held little merit other than perhaps some religious ideas that might be interesting to those who didn’t know about cults of Mary (Bees) or how many similarities there are in different religious traditions (Pi). I had to strenuously avoid The Red Tent a few years back; many women recommended it and tried to lend it to me. I was constantly told, “The writing’s not good, but the ideas are.” Thanks, but I avoid bad writing if I can.

I was reminded of this theory most recently after reading a few glowing reviews of the movie “Constantine”. And they weren’t by blurb hacks, either, they were at The Flick Filosopher and BOTH the Minneapolis Star Tribune and the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Thank goodness the City Pages panned it or I would’ve thought something seriously strange was going on. I’m not going to see “Constantine” because I’m certain that it’s bad. My guess is that the good reviews are a result of some people’s hunger for religious stimulation.

I found it interesting that Roger Ebert dismissed “Constantine” as merely silly. I suspect that Ebert, who often discloses his Catholic background and its influence on how he views certain movies, is actually pretty sorted vis a vis his religious views.

In the interest of similar disclosure, I think I’m immune to the pull of works like these because I’ve spent a lot of time studying religion. I minored in religious studies as an undergrad and went on to get a master’s degree in it. I don’t think it’s impossible to write well about religion or religious history. I just think that one needs to write well to do so.

Here are a few books that I feel pull that off.

A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King
Possession by A.S. Byatt
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis
The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald

What do you think of this theory? Am I full of it? What other books or movies do you feel are provocative about religion AND well done? Or what other examples come to mind of bad books and movies that were inexplicably well reviewed? I’d love for this entry to spur a heated discussion, even if I end up with the aforementioned egg on my face.

Thanks to Blogenheimer for letting me know that Battlestar Galactica has been renewed; the second season will run this summer.

Battlestar “has been averaging over 3 million viewers per episode and has quickly become SCI FI’s highest-rated original series and has received unprecedented critical acclaim.”

Details are here.

I’m wondering if perhaps it’s time to make a shift in my television-viewing and comic-reading habits. Rather than indulging episodically, I’d wait for collections, on DVD of the former and in GN (graphic novel) of the latter. I could consume at my leisure. I’d be better assured of overall quality, since well-reviewed and received shows/books have a better chance to be collected. I’d avoid the aggravating and distracting ads. Plus, the ending is right there, whenever I get to it.

One downside is that a good show or book might get cancelled for lack of support if everybody did that. Yet plenty of good books and shows have gotten cancelled even when I did watch them, which only made me more sad when they left me at odds and ends. Often, things get cancelled because they deserve it. Waiting for collections would mean I’d never waste time gambling on duds.

The more serious downside I see is the delay until a collection appears. If a series has a lot of surprises, this leaves more room for spoilage. But the time till collection is getting shorter both for DVDs and GNs, so the benefits are sounding better all the time.

1. Veronica Mars is currently my favorite show on television. What can I say? I have a soft spot for girl detectives.

2. Its creator, Rob Thomas, was also a writer and producer on the 1998 show Cupid, which starred Jeremy Piven as a guy convinced he was the human incarnation of the love god. Cupid got a swift axe from ABC. It was funny in spite of Piven’s often-annoying co-star Paula Marshall. Thomas has said that had the show continued, it would have neither confirmed nor denied whether Piven’s character was Cupid.

3. Thomas has also written several teen-fiction novels. I recently read Rats Saw God, which I highly recommend.

4. Veronica’s dad is played by Enrico Colantoni, who also played Mathesar in the movie Galaxy Quest. .

5. The school’s bad boy is Eli “Weevil” Navarro, played by Francis Capra, the great-grandson of the famous film director.

6. The theme song “We Used to be Friends” is by the Dandy Warhols, from their album Welcome to the Monkey House.

7. Veronica Mars is on UPN Tuesdays, 9 p.m. Eastern, 8 p.m. Central. The next episode airs Tuesday, March 8.

As is our morning habit, my eighteen-month-old son Drake and I went out Friday to the coffee shop then the park. We walked in snow that was astonishingly lovely. It fell as dry, discrete flakes. I managed to catch a few perfectly formed, six-pronged crystals on my sleeve. Their descent was slow and steady, dampening the noise of the nearby traffic. I paused often, to stare both at the snow and at Drake, who ran purposefully ahead in his fuzzy snowsuit with its pointed hood. He’d stop occasionally to look back, curious why I wasn’t keeping pace with him.

The quiet snowfall reminded me of a scene from Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind”, released in the U.S. this week on DVD. The pronunciation has been Americanized on the television commercials I’ve seen as “NOZ ih kuh”, but I believe it is more correct as “Nah OOSH ih kuh”. The image in my memory is of drifting plant spores, not snow, but they held the same quiet beauty.

I saw my first Miyazaki film, “My Neighbor Totoro,” about ten years ago, and have been a devotee ever since. Miyazaki came to greater American renown in 2002, when “Spririted Away” won the Oscar for best animated film. I am thrilled that his films are now available in English to the American market. His next movie to be released in theaters will be “Howl’s Moving Castle,” based on one of my favorite books by English fantasy author Diana Wynne Jones. All of Miyazaki’s films feature smart, believable, young-girl protagonists, and are filled with wonderful, magical images.

For more on Miyazaki and his wonderful films, see the January 17, 2005 The New Yorker article “The Auteur of Anime: Inside the wonderful world of Miyazaki” by Margaret Talbot, who discusses it online here.

I wrote recently here about an episode of America’s Test Kitchen in which they killed then cooked a lobster. I was surprised when the director of the show, Herb Sevush, took the time to write a detailed and thoughtful response, which I will reprint so it appears on the main page, and not hidden in the comments.

I�m glad to hear you are enjoying ATK. But if you�re upset about the lobster I�m pretty much the guy to blame.

You�d be amazed at how much time we spent discussing and debating the different ways of killing the lobsters. The way we showed you is much faster and more �humane� than boiling or freezing a lobster to death. The other problem is that we were pan broiling it and both pre-boiling or pre-freezing would have ruined the dish. We discussed starting with the lobster already cut up, but as you�re probably aware the ATK style is to show, in detail, how a dish should be prepared at home. The cutting of the lobster was too important to skip.

We know that some people are offended by the way it looks when we cut them up, especially the twitching that occurs well after they are dead. The problem is an even larger number of people like to eat lobster, and this being the most delicious lobster recipe I�ve ever tried, we wanted to present it.

So, with me leading the way, we just went for it. It�s my own opinion that eating something you’re too disgusted to watch being prepared is the height of hypocrisy. For those who don�t eat lobster and were turned off, what can I say other than we won�t do it again any time soon. Although we will break an egg from time to time.

I�m glad you liked the new science segments. We�ve been trying to come up with the right way to do science for years and then our producer discovered Odd-Todd. I think he�s a major talent.

Again, thanks for watching, and I hope the rest of this season�s offerings don�t cause you such difficulty.

Herb Sevush
Director

I was glad to learn that the method they depicted was in fact more humane than boiling (the method decried by David Foster Wallace in the Gourmet article I linked to in the original post). I was not actually surprised to learn that the staff had spent a lot of time discussing and debating both whether to show the recipe and how to do so. I have been reading Cook’s Illustrated for over ten years. I’m a huge fan of their thorough approach to food in general and recipes in particular. I took the online name of Girl Detective because I’m naturally curious, but when someone else does such a thorough job of investigating something that interests me (in this case, food), then I can trust in their work and spend my time cooking and eating, not experimenting.

I agree with Sevush’s point that it’s hypocrisy to eat something I refuse to see killed. My modern, non-agrarian life keep me insulated from the means of producing food. Sevush’s letter was a good reminder that I should put my food ethics where my squeamishness is, or get over it. I haven’t eaten lobster since seeing the episode and am not sure if I will again. If I do, though, I will now be fully cognizant of what happened on the way to my plate. And for that heightened consciousness, I thank both America’s Test Kitchen and Herb Sevush.

Thanks to Blogenheimer for the news that Battlestar Galactica has been renewed by the Sci Fi channel for a second season. According to Sci Fi Wire, creator Ronald Moore wants the second season to address questions of religion.

A few years ago, I attended the annual conference of the American Academy of Religion. Dr. Ross Kraemer, currently a professor of Religious Studies at Brown University, chaired a session on Star Trek and religion. The purpose of the session was to determine whether there was sufficient interest and material for a scholarly investigation. The answer must have been yes, because she went on to co-author Religions of Star Trek with fellow religious scholars William Cassidy and Susan Schwartz. Unfortunately I remember little of the session, other than that it was quite crowded, and that Dr. Kraemer firmly but politely shut down an eager audience member who wanted to know her thoughts on religions in Babylon 5.

Point of trivia: did you know that one of the races portrayed in Babylon 5, the Gaim, was named for Neil Gaiman? They sported stylized gas masks like that of Morpheus in early issues of Gaiman’s Sandman.

Dr. Kraemer’s scholarly focus is usually women’s religion of the Greco-Roman world. She is perhaps best known for her work on the text known as “Joseph and Aseneth,” a piece thought to be included in the pseudoepigrapha. More on the story of Joseph and Aseneth can be found here, including reviews of Kraemer’s book When Aseneth Met Joseph.

On last Friday’s (01/28/05) episode of Joan of Arcadia, Annie Potts finally proved what television viewers have always known.

She is evil.

Kudos to Joan of Arcadia for casting her so perfectly against type. The reveal was so satisfying it was positively delicious.

I’ve written before about why I like the show. It focuses on a family that includes teenagers. Amazingly, the portrayal feels both realistic and yet, *gasp*, not bitter or depressing. And every member of the family gets a thorough characterization.