February 19, 2006

battlestar galactica

file under: movies

elaine and i just finished watching the first season of SciFi channel's battlestar galactica (BSG). in a nutshell, if crack could be distributed digitally, it would feel something like galactica on DVD, the only difference being that there's a maddeningly limited supply of the latter.

...

i don't remember the last time i was so enthralled and impressed by a TV show (in general, not just sci-fi TV). Deadwood comes pretty close in terms of uniform excellence and consistent, thoughtful entertainment, but i'd still give galactica the edge. when i think about the sci-fi genre in particular, BSG is head-and-shoulders above both its progenitor and the series to which it is compared (e.g., myriad star trek incarnations, farscape, babylon 5). i thought the somewhat gritty ST:Enterprise series was pretty good; galactica manages to make it look mediocre.

i resisted watching the series for a long time, not only because i don't have cable, but because i just couldn't handle the disappointment of another crappy sci-fi TV show. the premature death of ST:Enterprise signalled to me a need for a re-examination of the genre; it had become stale and formulaic in every way (ham-fisted writing, bad overacting, thin and clicheed characterization, derivative and unimaginative plotting, special effects cut from the same cloth). how could a reincarnated sci-fi show from the 70s possibly be a new hope?

i think andrew has already summed it up quite nicely in his review of battlestar galactica. i concur completely, as i do with the amazon.com synopsis.

a few more things i like:

• space cinematography: all space battles are rendered in a cinema verité style, something i've not seen done in the genre. it adds energy and uniqueness to the special effects, and seems like it even heightens dramatic tension. a refreshing, creative twist that i never get tired of watching, since it allows for a lot more variation, as opposed to the straightforward ships-flying-shooting-colored-lightning approach.


• sound effects: great sound design, in general. an example is the ship-to-ship communications, which are somewhat distorted and garbled in a believable way. this is the low-tech, high-tech future (see below).


• music: i find myself playing the theme song, and other musical elements from the show, over and over in my head. much better than either the orchestral approach of the old star trek series, or the new boltonesque attempt on Enterprise. in fact, i think this is only the second series whose soundtrack i've considered buying (the first being the X-files).


• low-tech: the (only) battleship in the fleet, along with its fighters, possess intentionally antiquated computer systems and technology, given that their enemy of the past was cut from this cloth, and thus able to infiltrate, corrupt and defeat these systems. again, this seems an original twist to me, and probably helps them with their production costs, since they can use found items from our time period.


• twists and turns: the show is not too predictable, which is refreshing when they're trying to keep up a long story arc. episodic series like star trek had it a bit easier, since they could do one-offs that were only tangentially related to the broader story arc. without episodic digressions, BSG still manages to surprise, constantly (and not too gratuitously, in this viewer's opinion).

and just to be vaguely even-handed:

• suspension of disbelief: willingness to go along is central to any sci-fi series. when it comes to imagining things so far out of our realm (FTL travel, for example), it's pretty easy to buy it. it's when you start veering closer to the physics of today that things get shaky. one example: in one episode, a single nuclear warhead is placed inside a massive Cylon base station; you can guess the result – boom, destroyed instantly. in contrast, when ship-to-ship nuclear warheads hit galactica, it's damaged, but not too badly. one other example was the way the cylons just gave up an attack after the launch station was destroyed, despite outnumbering their foe by almost 10-to-1. this smacked of robotic defeatism and just seemed totally unrealistic; they did it that way because they needed a nice, tidy ending. but these gaffes are few and far between. i hope they continue to be as we watch the second season.


• conflict: one strength of the show is the complex relationships between many of its primary characters. sometimes, however, it seems the writers of the show are reaching to create and enhance the level of conflict between people. who knows? maybe it would really be like this after beig cooped up on a ship for a long time. sometimes, though, i just feel like saying, "hey...can't you guys all just get along?"

my hat is off to the creators of battlestar galactica and to its excellent ensemble cast. as one other reviewer put it, this is frackin' good TV.

Posted: 02.19.06 at 6:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

February 16, 2006

my vaporcloud valentine

file under: my life

valentine's day is traditionally a night at home for us. we eschew the crowds and the reservation wars, and cook for each other. this year was especially exciting for a few reasons:

• we tried a new recipe (Coconut & Brown Sugar Brined Pork Tenderloin with Broken Fried Rice & Pickled Baby Bok Choy)
• it was the one-year anniversary of my proposal to elaine
• the universe did as much as it could to make it difficult to achieve our state of domestic bliss

the day started out reasonably well. i had to make one trip to the store to get cinnamon sticks (to put in the brine, which i had already set out the previous night). this constituted my fourth grocery store trip for this v-day venture (drewes meats for the pork tenderloin, 99 ranch for many asian ingredients, local Good Life for other non-asian ingredients, then Good Life part 2 for the cinnamon sticks, which i forgot the first time). on my way, i stopped at the flower store to order flowers for the evening (thinking ahead, i sez to myself). and then i popped home, hopped in my car, and bopped to work, thinking said vehicle would convey me home fast and furious when the time came.

i was wrong on several counts.

1. it took me 40 minutes to drive the 5.8 miles from work to home
2. the flowers were not ready when i stopped to pick them up (despite 8 hours notice)
3. when the florist called me (after coming home) to say the flowers were ready, i went and they were not. as a side note, the store was packed with middle-aged men, each with a somewhat bewildered look, approaching the flower-store register like zombies. they all had a similar story: " yeah....ummmm...i need a bouquet. my wife likes flowers. you know, pretty ones? uhhhh. <cough> yeah. can you help?"
4. when carrying the flowers home, the wind kicked up to gale-force proportions, wreaking havoc with the three bouquets i was carrying. tissue paper blew away, flowers broke, hearts broke. it wasn't pretty.
5. when i started cooking, i realized that the stock of vinegar in my cabinet did not include enough white vinegar for the pickled baby bok choy. grocery-store-trip number five, thank you very much. as side note number two, the (straight male) iranian clerk at the store gave me a chocolate heart and said "happy valentine's day!!" this made me very happy.

other than that, everything went great. elaine loved the meal i cooked (see below) and cried when i gave her a set of home-made valentine's day gift certificates (you know – one nice massage, one dinner at the slanted door, two falafels at my favorite place in paris, etc.).

and then there was the creme brulee. this was a first for both of us, and elaine had purchased one of those little torches from sur la table to caramelize our tasty dessert treat. suffice it to say that neither of us was exactly a pro when it came to these mini torches. first, we struggled to fill it with butane (it kept overflowing despite not being full). then, when trying to light the flame, nothing really happened. or, rather, nothing happened at first.

elaine was flipping switches and pushing buttons, and high-pressure butane was squirting out the nozzle (unlit) into the sink. after a couple of attempts in a similar vein, with no ignition, the flame finally lit, with one rather dramatic effect: it ignited the vapor cloud of butane that had been collecting over the sink from all of the liquid butane we had been squirting into it. said vaporcloud of flame covered both sinks, burned half the hair off elaine's right arm, singed her sweater, and nearly gave me a heart attack.

dessert anyone?

happy valentine's day. i think we'll go to mcdonalds next year. ;-)

Posted: 02.16.06 at 10:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

February 12, 2006

the da vinci code

file under: books

i've been wanting to read the da vinci code for a long, long time. my general boycott of hardcover books has made this difficult; da vinci is only just being released in paperback, after about 400 years on the best-seller list. fortunately, i have wonderful friends like andrew, who, after reading the novel, rush over and drop it off on my doorstep (thank you, andrew!!!).

and now to my review...

...

the fact that this novel has been on best-seller lists since the dawn of time should be clear indication of a few things:

• it's fun and easy to read
• it's fun and easy to read
• it's fun and easy to read
• it's not great literature, but it's fun and easy to read

i finished the book in a little less than a week; with concerted effort, i could have tucked it under my belt in a few days. this is testament to its narrative drive and suspense. however, like most rollercoasters, the ride is over too soon, and while entertained, you're left feeling there should somehow be more.

brown has done something interesting: he's taken a rich and compelling subject, with thousands of years of history and mystery behind it, and then written a danielle steele novel using this subject as fertilizer. i'm being slightly unfair, but you get the idea.

it's an immensely enjoyable read....don't get me wrong. mr. brown knows how to set up a good story, how to create suspense, how to craft some intriguing puzzles, and how to keep the reader interested. he also manages to put forward some fairly controversial philosophical views on the nature of Christianity (at least, to this uneducated reader's mind).

i just wish he could write without sounding like he was giving a junior high-school lesson. the whole book smacks of being an educational tour of Christianity, Paris, and pagan religion, with Mr. Brown as your trusted guide. this was my biggest complaint (ham-fisted characterization and occasionally weak puzzles aside). so much of the time, i felt like he was paying too much attention to unimportant detail; it almost seemed like he was trying to prove that he is knowledgeable, which is relatively meaningless these days with the immense number of information resources at anyone's disposal.

but i'm nitpicking.... it's a great read, just not something to shelve next to your Nabokov, Eco or Amis.

Posted: 02.12.06 at 1:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

February 10, 2006

you know, for fun

file under: thoughts about things

<crotchety old man>
i was coming home on the bus today, as i usually do. it was a little earlier than normal, which meant there were school-age kids on the bus, presumably going home (or not). the mission bus is usually crowded with latinos and the odd indie denizen or bernal heights yuppie (aka me). today there was a group of asian kids behind me, laughing, joking, having a good time. ah, the energy of youth!!

the time came for them to get off the bus, and they piled off in a cloud of high-tops, shouts, and immortality. the last man out reached up and stuck his hand inside a mysterious hole above the door – the loud pssst of hydraulics followed his laugh (ha!) out the door, and they were off down the street.

the doors they left through stayed open, oddly enough.

we waited.

after a minute or two, the bus driver got out of the bus, walked around outside, forcibly closed the doors, then walked back to the front.

again, we waited.

the doors were still screwed up. some sort of interlock mechanism on these buses exists such that if the doors aren't closed properly, or if there is a malfunction, the bus won't move.

another nearby bus driver came to the doors (again on the outside of the bus), and kept trying to push the doors shut.

"hey...there were some kids who pulled this thing and...", i suggested. the bus driver ignored me. the other bus driver came back through the bus this time, and i told him about the kids, the sound, the apparent crime. he looked up, reached through the same hole the kid had violated, and flipped a red hydraulic switch. again the hiss and the doors closed. mystery solved, bus mobile, crowd pleased.

call me weird.. call me old-fashioned. call me prank-illiterate. in what world is it actually funny to make a whole bus of people sit and wait, anxious to get home, or to wherever they're going? it takes no creativity to do what that kid did...no brain cells were harmed in the creation of that prank, if you could even call it that. i like to think i have a sense of humor and can appreciate the things kids do, but i just didn't get the joke.

i hope my kids never do crap like that.
</crotchety old man>

Posted: 02.10.06 at 6:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

February 9, 2006

my dinner with andrew

file under: my life

i had dinner with my friend andrew last night, and it was even more fun than the famous film of a somewhat similar name (my dinner with andre). no comparison, actually.

there...i blogged again.

it's been a long time, and i needed to break the silence. many movies and books on the brain, but will have to write about them later. oh yeah, and remind me to talk about trying to fold fitted sheets.

Posted: 02.09.06 at 12:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)