Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is easily the best Science Fiction television programme ever made, and should be high on an all time list of great television of any genre. With a name like that though, and on the surface being about an extra from Beverly Hills 90210 who fights demons, it doesn't sound like it has a lot going for it. So what makes it so special that people have written entire theses about it? What is it that makes me re-watch my DVDs over and over again.

Buffy is science fiction as metaphor taken to the extreme. The best science fiction works as a metaphor for real life, Buffy took that as a basis for everything that happens in the show - and expanded to such an extent that almost every story has a resonance with reality. Some examples. In Buffy, the school (and later work) are literally hells on earth. Buffy worries about what will happen if she sleeps with her boyfriend, so he turns into an actual monster. Vampirism is a metaphor for burgeoning lust and desire, as early as episode 1 a previously nerdy character becomes a sauve, dark and desirable hunk simply by becoming one with the undead.

Such metaphors aren't just played out on a small scale. Entire seasons of the show are taken up by it. The third season (surely the best) is one long bubbling story about hidden identities and inner demons. A character is introduced who is effectively Buffy's alter-ego, other characters come face to face with their own inner demons (sometimes in a quite literal sense) and survive, thus proving to themselves that the teenage fears of inadequacy they harbour are unfounded. Each of the seasons are like this, with hidden depths like a novel, but each containing episodes which stand up by themselves.

Now if all this sounds a little twee or smug, I'm probably telling it wrong, because the story telling on Buffy the Vampire Slayer is almost always in the context of the over-arching plot and it never feels like a 'message' is being forced upon the audience. The trick to doing this appears to be in a liberal use of humour and mixing / breaking genres. Action scenes are sometimes undercut by a great evil being defeated easily while moments which should be portentous with doom are commonly played for silliness rather than gravity. Ultimately the series is more about the characters than the events, and when events are important, it's the impact that they have upon the lives of the characters that we care about the most.

Although the series is well-known for being 'teen', only the first three seasons are set in a school. The fourth and fifth revolve around a university while in the sixth Buffy has a job and in the seventh she takes on the responsibility of a mother. The entire series is effectively a story about growing up, with all the trials that this process entails being explored through the science fiction metaphor.

As if the stories weren't enough in itself, the series is extremely courageous in the way that these stories are told. One episode contains 25 minutes without dialogue, another is a musical, a third deals a character's inner struggle to prove himself - resulting in all the near-apocalyptic 'action' happening in scenes we never see. At the end of the fourth series the 'big finish' episode in which the bad guys are defeated is the penultimate show of the season, the final episode is an introspective dream sequence in which the main characters surreally reflect upon the journey they have taken over the last year - imagine them doing that in 24!

So anyway. Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the best Science Fiction television programme of all time - fact. If you know me and you want to watch it I will eagerly lend you my DVDs.

True Romance

True Romance was written by Quentin Tarantino before he got famous off the back of Reservoir Dogs, it's a story about a young couple who rip off a load of criminals and then end up having half of the American Mafia chasing after them. It's a seriously violent film with plenty of cool dialogue.



Not least is this scene. Here, Dennis Hopper tries to protect the location of he son from the mafioso (Christopher Walken) by goading him into killing him before he can torture the information out of him. Not the world's best strategy, but this is a Tarantino film. Hopper does this by playing on the mafia hitman's racist streak and giving a brilliantly delivered speach about the potential genetic heritage of Sicilians.

I also love the reaction of the mafia underlings at the end to what just happened. As if that's all in a day's work.

Enjoy!

Family Plot

I got a boxed set of Hitchcock DVDs for Christmas, so I'm currently working my way through the ones that I have not yet seen. I watched 'The Trouble with Harry' just after Christmas, but that was truly awful and so I wont waste any more time than necessary on it: do not watch it.

It was with some trepidation that I watched 'Family Plot' then. I sort of had it in my mind that anything Hitchcock made after 'Psycho' was probably rather shite. Maybe the grand master of suspenseful cinema kind of lost it during the 1960s? Maybe his later output was all just a holding pattern until he finally gave up?

'Family Plot' is actually a rather entertaining film. It's about how an unlikely couple (a shyster clairvoyant and a taxi driver) try to get some money out of an old lady by finding the long lost son of her dead friend. The guy they're after is a local jeweler and part-time serial kidnapper. They investigate him without realising that he suspects they're after him for the police reward, and from there all kinds of hi-jinx ensues.

It's a film which doesn't have any of the great set-pieces or slowly-building mystery of some of Hitchcock's early classics; but that's mainly due to the plot rather than any kind of directorial failure. It's actually a rather good film despite feeling a little long (just under 2 hours and a LOT of talking) and ending rather abruptly. There are enough of funny moments to make it all worthwhile.

The Wave

My latest LoveFilm DVD is a story about fascism. In an attempt to teach his kids about autocratic systems of government a teacher starts a kind of cult in his classroom called 'The Wave'. They begin the dress the same, they adopt a common handshake and develop a gang mentality in which those who are in are protected while those who are outside are the enemy. The point of all this is for the kids to learn about how easily an autocratic system of government could become reality – all it requires is someone to stir a mass of people into action in the name of a cause. Once people start feeling a sense of belonging the rest happens by itself.

I guess that this is meant to be an interesting film about the dangers of fascism, I also presume that it is meant to be hard-hitting since it's set in modern day Germany where the kids are all rather unconcerned about the spectre of fascism, the Nazis were so last century after all. I don't really buy it all though as I'm pretty sure that nothing like what happens in the film would actually happen in real life. The end of the film is also seriously telegraphed, from the class's initial reaction to the creation of The Wave there is no real doubt as to what the final denouement is going to be.

So anyway, it's a film with a lot of promise but which ends up being far too unrealistic to have any power. Probably worth watching to make up your own mind though.

Python - "I'm being repressed!"

I was trying to work out what my favourite bit of the Python films was; turns out I like them all - so here's a fun bit of political satire for you.

Doubt

Working on the basis that if Phillip Seymour Hoffman is in a film then the film is worth seeing, I have been looking forward to seeing Doubt since I saw my first trailer for it some weeks back. A review in the Guardian last week made me a little worried that I would be disappointed, but thankfully this was every bit the character drama I was expecting from a couple of Hollywood heavyweights.

If you like action films, or even films which have cameras that move, you might be in for a hard time with Doubt. However that was never going to be the point here, in a film about potential child abuse in the Catholic church in 1960s New York the action is all in the dialogue. There is a lot of dialogue, but the sight of Hoffman and Meryl Streep verbally knocking barrels of shit out of each other is plenty to keep it interesting. The film doesn't seem to really be about what happens, it's more about what the characters think is happening and how they react. The two main characters huge huge egos and the town isn't really big enough for the both of them. Streep's character harks back to the traditional ways and sees Hoffman's progressive ideas as a threat, the mutual mistrust drives the drama.

It's not just about the two main characters though. I really enjoyed watching Amy Adams' character; she is a young and fresh-faced teacher with ideals, but she is far too naïve for her own good. I loved watching the way that the character seemed torn between the pragmatism of the headteacher and the progressive idealism of the priest, all the time struggling to find her own way.

After all that though I was a little disappointed by the ending, I was sort of hoping for a little more ambiguity after 90 minutes of doubting.

Saw 2 - and the point is?

It's quite a long time since 'Saw' came out, but I saw 'Saw 2' the other day and this has prompted me to write a little about this series.

I watched the original Saw film when it was first released in cinemas in 2004, I went up to Nottingham's Showcase (not the world's nicest cinema) with a horror fan chum of mine and we enjoyed every moment. This is not to say that Saw is some kind of horror genre masterpiece - far from it. There is a fair chunk of turgid dialogue and the fast / slow sequences when icky things are happening are a bit annoying, but the overall sense is of true dread. The film opens with two characters being trapped in a dingy bathroom with a tape telling them that they must each commit a debasing act of terrifying violence in order get out alive - from this start point some wickedly disturbing horror takes place.

The claustrophobic setting and the slow revelation of the sick horror of their captor builds the tension up to a wonderful and totally unpredictable twist; a twist which still makes me grin at its audacity.

Such was my enjoyment of this innovative new horror film, that when Saw 2 was released to a rousing cacophony of criticism I decided to avoid it. Why would I want my happy memories of Saw's tension and terror ripped away by this sequel? As further instalments appeared it only increased my desire not to watch them, this was turning into some kind of Franchise which was only being made to serve a tedious corner of the teen horror fanboy market. Surely the sequels be unable to capture the aspects of the first which made it great, I wanted nothing to do with it.

Finally though, just last week, I gave in and watched Saw 2. This time, rather than two men in a bathroom, we are (eventually) presented with a group of misfits stuck in a house. They are slowly being poisoned and must search for antidotes or else die before the house unlocks itself in a couple of hours. Rather than generating suspense, this set up seems to exist only to create a series of increasingly ludicrous and unlikely set-pieces in which one of the characters will be killed. All while this is going on a seriously unlikable detective and his equally unrealistic police team are trying to solve the case by giving the killer (Jigsaw) everything he wants (why?!).

Where Saw glossed over its editorial and script flaws by creating a genuinely terrifying atmosphere, Saw 2 just tries to be as gory as possible. There are so many plot holes, impossible contrivances and character flaws in this sequel that I stopped being able to take the plot seriously. The film ends with a 'twist' which made me think "oh, is that it then?". Thankfully it's only 80 minutes long, but even that shouldn't make you watch it. How I resisted watching parts on fast forward I have no idea.

Will I be watching Saw 3? Well a friend of mine who is well into the series agrees that 2 is crap, but insists that 3 is a huge improvement. So against my better judgement it's on my LoveFilm list. We shall see.

The West Wing - perfect television

One of the most intelligent television series ever, The West Wing must have been a very difficult concept to sell to the TV executives when creator Aaron Sorkin was first seeking support for the idea. In a world dominated by canned laughter comedies and crime-of-the-week cop shows, a drama which follows the lives of the staff of the White House must have seemed like a ridiculous idea which could never have got off the ground. Sorkin was and remains a fantastic scriptwriter; those who have seen 'A Few Good Men' or 'The American President' know what great dialogue he writes. Clearly someone decided to take a chance on his new idea, let's all be grateful they did.

The West Wing ostensibly follows the life of the US president - a politically middle of the road yet undoubtedly statesmanlike democrat played by Martin Sheen - and his staff as they muddle through a full two terms of governance in contemporary USA. From that description it is obvious that this is a TV series in which one needs their wits. All too often television hand feeds material and plot signposts to the audience; this is never done in the West Wing - something that I found immensely satisfying and kept me coming back for more. Many episodes revolve around a series of loosely connected events with a common theme; the main characters will generally each deal with a number of sub-plots while the main plot (often an arc stretching over several episodes or series) bubbles along influencing what goes on. In a given episode the plots will be thematically connected; and although this can sometimes be cringingly pro-USA, it is almost always done in a way to provide a depth which viewers can find if they want to think about it.

The series gets through a large number of characters, although for the majority of the run there are about 8 main characters who we see in almost every episode - each of which are played by a fine actor who is obviously enjoying the opportunity to act as if in theatre. The West Wing is famous for its long scenes in which actors and extras are expected to hit marks exactly on time as the camera moves through the halls of the White House. This technique - rare elsewhere and never done on such a scale in television - provides the setting with a real sense of gravitas and the characters therein with an air of importance. It also gives the writers a chance to fill the air with huge portions of dialogue; this is not normal dialogue, this is Aaron Sorkin dialogue - a rapid-fire mixture of witticisms and serious debate which could never be possible in real life but which makes you stare at the screen marvelling at the capacity for anyone to speak like that while running down a corridor trying not to look at the camera. It engrosses you and by the end you sit staring at your screen, not sure if you understood everything but absolutely sure that you loved every second of it.

As with real life presidencies, the series doesn't deal too well with the knowledge that it is coming to an end. The 6th and 7th series largely revolve around the campaign to elect a new president (a man based on Barack Obama would you believe). Just like in real life this seems to go on forever and re-examines much of the material covered in the Bartlett election campaign without saying much new. The old characters get sidelined and the introduction of a whole host of new ones cannot compensate. Thankfully the series retains its best non-presidential character (Deputy Chief of Staff Josh Lyman) throughout, but it doesn't stop the plot largely running out of steam long before the final episode.

This aside though, the early seasons of the West Wing are some of the most engaging television ever created. The second half of season 2 for example are driven by a drama which comes to a head in the season finale, even now I struggle to re-watch this without getting a lump in my throat. It's a programme which manages to be funny, romantic, dramatic, interesting, intelligent and crucially never pulls any punches when it comes to estimating the capacity of its audience to understand it. Eventually I'm going to make time to watch the whole lot again from start to finish as I'm sure that there are depths I missed first time around.