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 Horror and fantasy shows – books, too – seem to be cyclic in their popularity. Cop shows? Popular ever since the dawn of television (and even radio). Ditto, unfortunately, for law dramas (and why don’t sharks ever attack lawyers? – professional courtesy, ha-ha, please don’t sue me). Comedy, fortunately, never goes out of style, either, but programs featuring the walking dead, alternate universes, and David Hasselhoff? They come and they go (and Mr. Hasselhoff, though you seem like a decent guy, Dusseldorf needs you more than we do – honest). Why is that?
Here’s why: It’s the economy, stupid (not you, dear reader, unless you dig Hasselhoff, just kidding though, and please don’t sue me).
You’d think melting stock markets, housing craters, human sacrifice, and dogs and cats living together – in other words, mass hysteria – would fill TV schedules with remakes of laff riots like Mr. Belvedere and Shasta McNasty (look it up if you don’t believe me). But they don’t. Instead, you get a list like this:
Pushing Daisies
Lost
Fringe
Medium
Life on Mars
Heroes
Knight Rider (now 100% ‘hoff-free!)
Ghost Whisperer
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
The 2008 Presidential Debates
And that’s just the major broadcast networks (and I’ve probably forgotten a few shows, as well – please, please, don’t sue me). Along with Stephen King (who mentions, if I remember correctly, the same effect in his really excellent nonfiction book, Danse Macabre – and if I’m wrong about that, you know what not to do), I think this rise in the horrific and fantastic is directly correlated with the fall of the markets and our general regard for the outside world. We want to escape. We want to see someone who’s got it worse than us. And, apparently, we prefer the carnage that is America’s Got Talent to the bloodbath in the markets.
So, get ready for more of the same (and I’m down with that). When Shasta McNasty comes back, you’ll know it’s getting better out there.
At the risk of completely exposing my dorkish leanings, I really miss Joel, Mike, Crow, Tom, Gypsy, the Forresters, Carol, Bobby, Alice, Sam, Maynard, Dobie, President Gerald Ford, and everyone else from Mystery Science Theater 3000 (okay, maybe some of those people weren't strictly on the show). For those of you who don't know what MST3K was, let me explain it this way: You know how it is when you and a group of friends sit around watching -- and ripping on -- Snakes on a Plane? That's pretty much the show, except the movies were even worse and there were robots. And, later, a talking ape. And a guy who held his own brain in a dish.
You can see why I'm missing this.
But I've just discovered RiffTrax (www.rifftrax.com), and it looks like Mike, Tom, Brain Guy, President Ford, and Carol are back, albeit in a slightly different form. It works like so: you purchase and download a RiffTrax commentary for, say, Transformers (now playing on HBO -- DISH Network channel 300), turn the volume down on said movie, then turn on the RiffTrax commentary, which is perfectly synced to said movie. Then, you sit down in said chair and laugh said butt off. And possibly spill said Pepsi on said cat.
Gotta go. I'm downloading said RiffTrax for I Am Legend, premiering said Saturday, October 4th on HBO.
Maybe I never grew up (I suspect that most people really don't -- and is that a bad thing?), but I dig Nickelodeon's (DISH Network channels 170 and 171) SpongeBob Squarepants. I have my DVR set to record new episodes. On those nights when I can't sleep, I bounce between CNN (DISH Network channel 200) and recorded SpongeBobs.
There, I said it -- 700 billion-dollar bailouts and Bikini Bottom share space in my head.
And a recent episode of Fox's Fringe gives me the idea that I'm not the only one who juggles thoughts of both crude oil prices and Krabby Patties. Fringe's Walter, a mad scientist who spent 17 years in a mental institution (okay, maybe NOT such a great example, but hang on), remarks in one scene that he can't believe the show is for children. "It's quite profound," he says (or something to that effect).
I don't know about profound, but I do know from funny. And I think that at least one of the writers of that episode of Fringe is making a clever -- and plausibly deniable -- admission of his own. So, there's at least one other adult (chronologically, at least) who probably laughs every time he sees SpongeBob's rancid breath burn off Patrick's eyebrows and who can't resist saying "Floor it?" every time he gets behind the wheel with passengers in the car.
But I think there are more of you out there. And it's okay, really. Growing up's overrated, anyway.
While I'm on the subject of great movies (see my last post for one you really, really don't want to miss), I'm giving Starz (DISH Network channel 350) 30 extra points for running 30 Days of Night this month.
I'm going to say this real fast: it'savampiremovie. But before you click away to YouTube to watch some guy pull a hamster out of his nose (no, I didn't check, but it wouldn't surprise me if you find it -- or worse), you should know that 30 Days manages to breathe life (an undead sort of life, but still) into the tired world of bloodsucking movies.
Let's start with the scenery: gorgeous, wintry, bleak, and utterly claustrophobic, despite the fact that 30 Days takes place in the vast snowchoke that we call Alaska. And there, in Barrow, perched above the Arctic Circle, night falls hard, fast, and for a month at a time -- and that makes for 720 vampire happy hours in a row.
Then there's the acting. Josh Hartnett delivers an understated -- and all the more powerful for that -- performance as Everyman Sheriff Eben Oleson. Ben Foster is truly creepy as the traitorous Stranger. And Danny Huston as Marlow, the grand vampire poobah? His "God? No God" alone is worth the price of entry.
And yes, 30 Days of Night is based on -- gasp! -- a comic book. But before you turn up your nose and take a long, hot shower to scrub away the stench of low-brow art (which graphic novels aren't, but people get these funny ideas), remember that some of the best received films of this year were born of ink-stained geek dreams.
But enough of my yakkin' (This Is Spinal Tap reference alert), get Starz, turn out the lights, and get ready for a suckfest that doesn't actually suck.
To paraphrase Marilyn Manson, interviewed for VH1's (DISH Network channel 162) Heavy: The Story of Metal, "I've always been more interested in the bad guy." Case in point: Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in No Country for Old Men, playing this month on Starz (DISH Network channel 350).
To tell the truth, I didn't expect much from this one. That could be because No Country for Old Men is based on Cormac McCarthy's novel of the same name. Now, I'm sure Cormac's a nice guy, but he's just a little too showoffy -- Look, Ma! I'm writing! -- to get out of his own way and tell a story.
Ethan and Joel Cohen, directors of the movie, tell a hell of a story, though. And Bardem is as good a bad guy as I've seen since Anthony Hopkins as Hannibal Lecter.
I'm not going to go into details here -- just get Starz and watch it for yourself -- but be aware that No Country for Old Men is one of those "love it or hate it" films. If you want neat answers and black-and-white justice, you won't find it here. If you want characters who stand firmly on either side of the dark/light fence (except maybe for Bardem -- though he does exhibit a mad kind of fairness), you won't find those, either. You will, however, find a film that takes the world as it finds it -- and presents it in terrifyingly beautiful detail.
See it.
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