Category: Film & TV (Page 4 of 4)

As you can see from my earlier posts, I’ve been reading quite a bit lately (mostly as I nurse), but I’ve also been watching TV programs and movies. The TV season is over (good, I can use a break from most shows, though I’d like to see more episodes of The Office) but I’ve been catching up on old episodes of Deadwood. I can’t watch the show when Mika is around – every 3rd word, literally, is “fucking” or “cocksucker” – but its adult themes go beyond bad language and touch on the value of life and love, moral relativism and the corruptive power of money.
I’ve also started watching Oz, a show about immates in a state prison which has some of the same themes of power and violence as Deadwood. It’s much more disturbing, however, as while I can see Deadwood as fiction (even though it was a real place at one time), Oz is all too much like the prisons I have read about. It is very disturbing to know that we support institutions whose apparent goal is to destroy the human spirit and make monsters out of anyone not already one when they went in.
In the movie realm, we went to see Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy at Baby Brigade at the Parkway last Monday. I found it mildly interesting. Mike, who’ve read the book, enjoyed it a bit more but he said it was nowhere nearly as funny as the book.
I also just watched The Merchant of Venice on DVD. I went through a Shakespeare period when I was 14, but I haven’t like the Bard since I was a teenager. I didn’t like this play either. The movie was beautiful and well acted, but the underlying material was boring and the characters’ seemed too shallow. Perhaps nobody was all good or all bad, but none of them was too wise – and who wants to watch a play about people who only wear anger but no wisdom? Give me a villain like Al (from Deadwood) anytime.
More satisfying was The Terrorist, a movie about Malli, a young Tamil woman who has been a guerrilla all her life and is recruited to assasinate a “VIP” through a suicide bomb. The movie explores her life as she prepares herself for the task. It was quite interesting, but its plot was too facile. Malli has flashbacks to her past life, she finds herself pregnant and starts reconsidering – all without saying very much. A deeper portrait of a suicide bomber would have been more interesting, but I was impressed that this topic was even addressed in a movie. I’m also fascinated by its star, Ayesha Dharker, who was also on Star Wars Episode II. I’m amazed how anyone can have such huge eyes, nose and mouth in the same face and have it all fit in. Her face doesn’t look disproportionately big either.

As an absolute skeptic about the supernatural, I would never have guessed that I would become a fan of Medium, an NBC drama about a psychic who helps solve crimes. But a fan I have become.
First of all, I like the characters and their relationships. Patricia Arquette, who plays Alison, the psychic, is one of the few women on TV who look real. Her teeth are a little crooked, her face is often too shiny and a bit reddish and while I think she has a great body, she is a few pounds heavier than your typical TV waif. She looks like a mom.
I love Alison’s husband, Joe. He’s is an engineer, a pragmatic guy but one who has had to face the reality of her abilities, and who isn’t quite sure what to think about it. He is both supportive and skeptical, grounded and unnerven. He is also a genuinely nice guy, but one who is still human. The relationship between Alison and Joe seems very real, their fights are fights that you can imagine having yourself. On one episode, Joe harps on Alison for spending too much time on her “work”, and leaving him to deal with their 3 children – only to hear her reply how she took care of the kids for years while he pursued his career. On another, he complains about his spending their money to go pursue a case in LA, she still goes and he’s OK with it. The three little girls (or rather, the older two, you rarely see the baby) are also very “real”, I can recognize my little girls on them all the time. In yesterday’s episode the older girl tells the younger that they’re considering exchanging her for a dog. She younger one asks her dad about it, who is too sleepy to understand what she’s talking about, so she says she’ll go ask mommy, mommy will know. Mommy is not home, and she comes to tell daddy this amazing fact, and when he explains that she’s at work, she asks with her worried face how she’s going to get ready for school without mommy. I know that this whole episode doesn’t sound very exiting, but it grounds the show on the realities of family life with which I, and I’m sure many others, can identify. My one complain is that the youngest baby is completely ignored. We pretty much only see her when the mom drops her off at daycare, but beyond that she’s a complete non-entity. As a mother of two young children, that seems very unrealistic to me. But who knows, maybe by the time you have 3, the last one falls off your radar.
The show itself is well done, her “visions” and her interpretation of them (often not literal) are always interesting, as is her ability to read or not read people. In the show, you do believe in her gifts, they are presented as reality, but if I can accept Buffy fighting vampires and demons, I can accept Alison’s psychic gifts. It’s a show after all. The show tries to go beyond formula on its storylines, refreshingly I can’t usually predict what the plot will be or who the guilty party is.
In all, it’s one of my favorite shows, though I see we’ll have to deal with reruns for the next couple of weeks.

Since Camila was born, I’ve been watching a lot of TV. Not only do I have a lot of dead time while I pump, brestfeed and bottlefeed (which add up to several hours a day), but this little girl insists on being held most of the time (just like her older sister!). Sometimes, like right now, I can manage to lay her on top of my forearms and type while she looks at the screen. That’s not possible most of the time so I’m delegated to doing activities that only require one hand – there aren’t that many of them. Thanks god for surfing and TV! And of course, there are also programs I just like to watch period.
In my current watching list I have:
Lost
I loved this series from the first episode (which was much scarier than the rest). I like the larger issues that they discuss (the dynamics of a new civilization) as well as how the background stories of each character is unravelling. Still, I think this series started stronger than it’s now.
Desperate Housewives
Like everyone in America I love this dark, irreverent, funny and honest show. I wish they were a little bit more honest about what it means to have four young children (no way that mom can keep that house that clean, and where is her younger baby while she chats with her friends?), but I guess watching a real mom go around her day is not that exciting.
Survivor
The new season is on and apparently just as boring as other seasons, this is something I watch if it’s still on.
Numbers
It’s not the most interesting show in the world, but good fare for when I’m pumping as I don’t need to pay too much attention to it. I love the guy who plays the mathematician (sp?) and I like the family relationship in the show.
Medium
I wouldn’t have thought I’d like this show but I’m hooked. It also makes great pumping fare. I like how the whole issue of her paranormal abilities is shown – as something she’s not happy to have and doesn’t really want to profit from – and I like that beyond that she is a very real person, as is her hubby.
The Daily Show
Probably the smartest show on TV
The Apprentice
Got hooked on it this season.
The People’s Court
It’s the only court show I like, and it’s often on at a time when I’m breastfeeding
Celebrity Justice
It’s just amusing and often coincides with my pumping.

We don’t know how this movie got into Mike’s list at Netflix, but we want to thank whoever recommended it to him. The story of Hubert, a tough-guy French cop who has been mourning for the last 19 years the loss of the woman who abandoned him, only to find out that she’s dead and has left him with a daughter, is both tender and hilarious. It convinced me that Jean Reno is one of the finest comic actors of his generation. This is light fare, don’t be mistaken, but completely enjoyable at that. I want a dad like Hubert! And so does Mike – though apparently for different reasons 🙂