Ben Affleck Reaches For The Best Picture/Best Director Oscars With Argo

The Good: Pacing, Mood, Plot, Characters, Acting!
The Bad: Too many moments of frenetic camera work/audio fallout
The Basics: Argo tells the story of the six American hostages during the Iranian hostage crisis who made it to the Canadian ambassador’s residence and the drastic and incredible lengths the C.I.A. went to the get them back, virtually assuring Ben Affleck Oscar nominations!


There are very few films I allow myself to get excited about anymore. So far, this year, I managed to keep my cool and limit my excitement to two films: Prometheus (reviewed here!) and The Dark Knight Rises (reviewed here!). But when I saw the first trailer for Argo, I found something unexpected happening: I could not help but get excited. The trailer, for a change, did exactly what it was supposed to. Without telling the whole story of the film, it revealed enough to give me a genuine interest in the movie and make me want to travel 180 miles (each way) to go to a screening.

Before checking out Argo, I decided to brush up on the history of the actual mission, which was part of the Iranian hostage crisis of 1979 – 1981. To check out what I could about the historical events, I picked my copy of Jimmy Carter’s memoirs, Keeping Faith (reviewed here!), off my shelf and looked at what he had to say about it. I was pleased when Carter’s memoirs provided no spoilers. Published almost immediately after his tenure as President, Carter could not reveal much about the mission as it was still classified. Ironically, he refered obliquely to the story of the escape of the six hostages as “. . . a real cloak-and-dagger story . . .” (493). If Argo has any truth to it (it is based upon the true story), then Carter was seriously underselling it!

In the hands of director Ben Affleck, Argo is a masterfully-executed historical thriller that keeps the viewer engaged and entertained throughout. Yes, this is a pleasant occasion where it is worth getting one’s hopes up for a film!

Starting with a brief history lesson on Iran and the U.S. (and Canadian) involvement there, the U.S. Embassy in Tehran is overrun by student activists. As compassion gets the better of some of the military officers and the Embassy is taken – with its personnel being taken hostage – six of the workers at the front office escape onto the street. They make it to the Canadian Ambassador’s residence where they are left as the U.S. focuses on the sixty people held hostage within the U.S. embassy. The C.I.A. calls exfiltration specialist Tony Mendez to meet with State Department officials who are planning to get the six Americans out of the Canadian Ambassador’s residence. Mendez quickly realizes that the State Department plans are ridiculous for the time of year, but he has no better ideas of his own.

But watching Battle For The Planet Of The Apes remotely with his son, Mendez concocts a ridiculous and audacious plan. He pitches getting the Americans out by having them pose as a Canadian film crew working on a science fiction film that could be set in Iran. As the situation between the Iranians and Canadians deteriorates, Mendez rustles up support from Hollywood make-up artist John Chambers and executive producer Lester Siegel. As the trio works to make it look like they are preparing a real film, Jack O’Donnell does what he can to hold the agencies together. When Tony, using an alias, manages to infiltrate Iran, he finds the execution of his plan fraught with even more challenges than he planned for!

Argo might seem obvious Oscar fodder, but it is one of those films that could have credibly been released any time in the year and generated Oscar-buzz. Argo is smart, tense, and generally well-crafted. Director Ben Affleck, who also stars as the film’s primary protagonist, Tony Mendez, keeps the pace and tension high and he uses several techniques that make the viewer appreciate his perspective and approach as director. For example, Affleck uses music minimally throughout Argo. At most of the most tense moments, the soundtrack cuts out altogether, so the viewer experiences a sense of realistic anxiety and uncertainty. Affleck does not use music to telegraph the emotions the viewer is “supposed” to feel.

Moreover, Argo is well-balanced to be exceptionally entertaining. While the opening is chaotic and legitimately scary (even though the viewer knows what is coming with the fall of the American embassy), the middle portion of the film, which focuses on Mendez in Hollywood working with Chambers and Siegel, is actually funny. The film continues in the final act as a tense, but intelligent and well-crafted movie that details the mission and is smart enough to include the complexities of the real human elements (one of the Americans, for example, is afraid and overly cautious, terrified that this plan has no real chance of success). Ben Affleck deserves some further credit for his technique by judiciously using subtitles in some of the later scenes, to help illustrate the confusion of the non-Farsi-speaking Americans and heighten the level of fear for the audience.

The only real drawbacks to Argo are the sheer number of frenetic camera movements over several scenes that Affleck uses to heighten tension. While I was content with the one at the beginning, the ones near the end gave me a headache. I also noticed a few instances of audio fall-out, where characters who were speaking quietly became inaudible.

On the acting front, Argo might seem like an argument for stacking the deck or expected greatness. After all, the cast is pretty amazing, with strong roles for John Goodman, Alan Arkin, and Bryan Cranston. Clea DuVall is virtually unrecognizable (and completely convincing) as Cora Lijek and Philip Baker Hall is granted little more than a cameo. Victor Garber has another memorable role for his resume as the Canadian Ambassador, Kenneth Taylor, though his role is very much a supporting one.

Ben Affleck is given most of the heavy lifting to do and what is arguably most impressive about Argo is how incredibly he performs as Tony Mendez while directing such a rich, complex film. Six months ago, had you told me that I would get excited about a Ben Affleck film and would be arguing for him to get the Oscar nomination for Best Director (he deserves it; despite the faults it has, Argo is a better-directed film than Prometheus, despite that being an overall better use of the film medium), I would have called you crazy. But with Argo, Affleck pulls it off. He is a serious contender and Argo is his legitimate masterpiece and well worth your time and attention.

For other works with Alan Arkin, please check out my reviews of:
The Change-Up
Get Smart
Little Miss Sunshine
America's Sweethearts
Glengarry Glen Ross
Edward Scissorhands

As a winner of the Best Picture Oscar, this film is part of W.L.'s Best Picture Project, by clicking here!

9/10

For other film reviews, please visit my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Another Overrated Japanese Horror Movie Remake: The Grudge

The Good: Moments of concept
The Bad: Lack of character, Very basic plot, Sacrifices substance for style
The Basics: Despite its near-constant moments of shocking horror images that reverse events, The Grudge is most scary for the way it portrays women as objects to be slaughtered.


The best joke I've made in recent days, which will no doubt translate quite poorly in this medium, involved watching two movies that I think were just terrible with the same person. A few days ago, a friend and I subjected ourselves to the lame disappointment Scary Movie 4 (reviewed here!). Throughout that viewing, my friend tried to fill me in on the references to The Grudge, which I had not seen. The information my friend provided did not make Scary Movie 4 any funnier. So, when we sat down and watched The Grudge this weekend, I was surprised by my friend's justification of the movie; "It's much scarier on the big screen, with an audience of screaming teenage girls." Well, I have a pretty big screen television but I've never been one to import an audience of teenage girls to improve the quality of a movie - any movie that hinges on such an esoteric device might need to be reconsidered. So, my reaction at the end of the movie was to note as dryly as possible, "That movie was ripe for parody. Someone should make a comedy out of that." Sigh. Humor sometimes does not transcend the moment.

Karen Davis, a student and home health aide, is working in Japan where she is assigned to the house of a catatonic woman whose aide has gone missing. Karen begins to care for the elderly Emma while strange things begin to happen in the house that she is working in. While Karen begins to be tormented by nightmarish images of a creepy little boy and hair growing out of the ceiling, we journey back to when Emma moved into the house with her family and they were tormented to death by a similar force. And eventually, Karen is able to witness the cause of the home's curse, but that knowledge exacts some heavy prices.

I can live with foreign films. I've no problem reading subtitles, I am open to the cultural diversity of the world and I embrace the occasional foreign film to sit down and raise my sense of living in a world larger than the United States. That said, I'm having a lot of trouble with movies that are American remakes of foreign films. They seem utterly pointless to me. Movies like Dark Water and The Grudge put American characters in situations with Japanese cultural values and superstitions and expect American audiences to both understand and accept the character's actions. This was cripplingly bad in the way Dark Water resolved itself, in The Grudge, at least we have the excuse that the action takes place in Japan.

So, where The Grudge falls completely apart is in the character aspect. We have Americans in Japan who are so un-American, or culturally sensitive to the apparent Japanese way, as to allow themselves to be slaughtered by evil without giving a fight. Please! Jennifer Williams - Emma's daughter-in-law - and Karen Davis are American women trapped in some form of Japanese cultural identification. Americans: we're the Ripleys, the Leia's, the Violet and Corkey's. We don't wait for evil to crawl over and kill us. We pick up a blaster, we arm up and go into the den of evil to blow things up and we con the enemy out of everything we need to get well off the evils of those who oppose us.

Not so in The Grudge. Yes, there are men killed, but the female characters wait around for it to happen. Evil in the universe of The Grudge could be one-legged, blind, deaf, mute, have three fingers on one hand, and emit an odor that would warn of its advance three hundred miles away and the female characters would wait patiently for it to arrive, possibly baking cookies while they waited for evil to slaughter them. In The Grudge the men hold all of the answers, the women are either cannon fodder or simply witnesses.

That latter point is what keeps The Grudge from being at all entertaining and is the true dump of the movie. The Grudge focuses, more or less, on Karen Davis and the truth is Karen does not DO much in The Grudge. She walks around, she witnesses. She does not cause nor thwart evil. She simply learns what it is. The process of the movie is simply Karen having the truth slowly revealed to her about what happened in the house.

The thing is, the men already know. One of the two inspectors mentions what was found in the house three years prior. Wow, there's a cultural difference that makes one wonder why The Grudge had any popularity in the U.S.; the men know that evil is in the house and it's pretty unrelenting to destroy those who come in contact with it, but they let more people move into the house. If The Grudge were an American movie, the evil would have been thwarted by Karen, the house would have been utterly destroyed so as not to perpetuate the evil and any sequel would involve suing every man who knew about it for criminal negligence.

Karen Davis is played by Sarah Michelle Gellar and it's tragic to watch the star play such a bland role. Gellar was never the most intriguing member of the Buffy The Vampire Slayer ensemble (ironically), but at least she was given a decent character she could play that would be dynamic. Karen Davis is bland and Gellar plays her with big, open eyes and almost slack-jawed shock throughout the entire movie. Perhaps Gellar did not understand the script or the lines being delivered to her character, but Karen is a terribly insulting role for any strong woman (for example, her boss at the agency demeaningly tells her "You're ready for it" before sending her to work at the house).

At least with the brutality and indifference we see throughout this movie directed at women we can understand why a theater of teenage girls would be screaming.

For other works with Sarah Michelle Gellar, be sure to visit my reviews of:
Southland Tales
Scooby-Doo
Buffy The Vampire Slayer

2/10

For other film reviews, please check out my Movie Review Index Page for an organized listing of all the films I have reviewed!

© 2012, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Fantastic DVD Extras Knock Heroes - Season 1 Up A Notch (Barely!)

The Good: Interesting concept, Some good direction, Some of the acting, DVD EXTRAS!
The Bad: Very derivative, Most of the characters are "types," a lot of mediocre acting
The Basics: In a rare occasion, the DVD bonuses push a solidly average television series into a worthwhile buy for the DVD connoisseur.


It always amuses me what becomes a "phenomenon" on television and on DVD. I recall when the first season of Alias was the big thing and genre pundits were convinced it could go on indefinitely. By the fifth season, the episode orders were being continually cut back such that the show went out with so little fanfare as to be virtually unnoticed. Ally McBeal was at the top of the public imagination for a time and when it fell, it fell hard and FAST. For a while the public imagination of genre viewers was focused on a little breakout show called Heroes, which seems to have a following at least as large as that of Lost (click here for my review of that!). With its release on DVD, I found myself doing another Heroes marathon (my first one was before the season finale when one of the cable networks ran the entire first season back to back) and I was forced to conclude what I did after the first marathon.

Heroes is good, but it's not extraordinary television. It's not terribly original, it's not increasingly clever, and it's (sadly) obvious in the way it executes most of its storytelling. In fact, the only reason I can conceive for its popularity is that Heroes is tapping into an audience who has not done a lot of perusing of science fiction/fantasy/super hero genre programming. I mention this because Heroes is ludicrously derivative of the USA original series The 4400. USA and NBC are owned by the same parent company so while some celebrate Tim Kring's originality, I see it as frustratingly incestuous and unoriginal.

Why, then, do I rate this series so high? It's all about the DVDs. And we'll get to that in a moment. First, if you've never heard of or seen Heroes, here is what you may expect from Heroes Season 1 on DVD:

Mohinder Suresh, scientist and student, is dismayed when his father, philosopher and geneticist Chandra Suresh is murdered in New York City. Mohinder soon realizes that the murder is related to Chandra's theory that extraordinary abilities are manifesting in seemingly ordinary people around the world and his father was searching for those people. And Chandra was correct, pinpointing the locations of several individuals who do have superhuman abilities. They include a teenager who can regenerate from virtually any wound, a man who can fly, a cop who can read the thoughts of others, and a young man who can time travel and teleport. But in addition to those figuring out how to use their powers in vague, general terms they can cope with, there are others who are exploiting their powers for nefarious purposes.

Soon, there comes an ominous prophecy about New York City being virtually destroyed by an explosion only months away. The warning comes from Hiro Nakamura, or at least a future version of him, and is soon confirmed by works of a prophetic artist who seems to be able to paint the future. The race then becomes to save the regenerating cheerleader, find the individuals with the superpowers and ultimately to save New York City (and the world) from the destructive forces represented by those villainous enough to use their powers for evil!

The problem is, we've seen this before. Anyone who has seen X-Men understands the concept of mutants with powers and television audiences who were captivated by The 4400 have an even more recent example. This is The 4400 recast such that there is some excitement and intrigue in finding out who has the powers and what they are. But ultimately, at the end of the day, many of the powers possessed by the Heroes are even strikingly similar to those possessed by people on The 4400.

Part of the problem is that the show starts with the novelty of the heroes, but then soon becomes increasingly plot intensive. The last seven episodes (from "Company Man" on) sacrifice almost any sense of character advance the convoluted plot and bring the various heroes from around the world together. The plot serves to advance the convergence of the plot lines and the heroes who become more embodiments of their super power than actually . . . actualized characters.

Still, it's worth it to see who the show is about because some of the characters are neat and the plot (it is heavily serialized, which I like quite a bit) is engaging, if not original. In the first season, the characters presented and explored in depth are:

Mohinder Suresh - A scholarly detective of sorts who is investigating his father's murder, legacy and work and soon discovers that his father was accurately assessing the locations and identities of individuals who had superhuman abilities,

Claire Bennet - The cheerleader who is a normal enough girl, yet is severely depressed. Her suicide attempts yield the understanding that she is virtually indestructible, possessing an ability to regenerate wounds to her body with extreme speed. Daughter of the mysterious Mr. Bennet, she comes to understand her ability is a gift but that she is a potential target to those who would exploit or harm her,

Hiro Nakamura - A young Japanese man who discovers that his geeky obsession with time travel has practical applications when he learns to focus and manipulate time and his position in space. Hiro soon translates himself to the United States where he seeks to fulfill a prophecy to save the cheerleader and the world,

Ando - Hiro's best friend, a sobering influence who has no superhuman powers save to put up with Hiro,

Mr. Bennet - A menacing man and father to Claire who works exceptionally hard to keep her safe. While Claire hides her abilities from him, Bennet works for a secret institution that is responsible for hunting down those with the abilities, an organization whose goals may not be entirely beneficial to humanity or the heroes,

Nathan Petrelli - Congressional candidate from New York City whose sudden ability to fly is kept a closely guarded secret. Working to win an election takes its toll on him, especially when it becomes clear that his part in the designs of the organization Bennet works for might lead to disaster for everyone,

Peter Petrelli - Disturbed by dreams that he can fly, Peter's control of his brother's campaign begins to slip until he comes to term with his own unique ability; he absorbs the powers of superhumans in his vicinity,

Niki/Jessica Sanders - A split personality whose power seems to be that she is a split personality (I know of several people who find this to be a mental illness, but here it's trumpeted as a great superhuman ability). Niki is submerged to a more aggressive Jessica personality who works to protect her son, Micah,

Micah Sanders - A child, son of Niki, who has the ability to manipulate electrical fields, notably computers and whose skills as a result bring him to the attention of people who would use his powers for their own gain,

Matt Parkman - A police officer who suddenly discovers he has the ability to read the thoughts of others, his problems with his wife and his dyslexia soon become sublimated to his problems with an organization that his hunting him and those like him,

Isaac Mendez - A talented artist who has disturbing incidents that result in his ability to paint future events whether he wants to or not,

D.L. Hawkins - Micah's father, a man who can pass through solid objects, he returns to Micah's life determined to keep Jessica from harming him,

and Sylar - A student of Chandra's work who believed he was touched by the same gift as others Chandra predicted. Unfortunately, his mental instability combined well with his ability to steal the superhuman abilities of others by killing them and removing their brains, making him a powerful villain, one set on a collision course with destiny in New York City.

It does not take long before it becomes clear that Sylar is the Alpha villain (at least for the first season), though there are others who arise and have a presence or agenda that is not beneficial either for the world or the lives of the individuals blessed (or cursed, depending on one's position) with the superhuman powers. Matt, Mr. Bennet and Peter all become interested in the existence of Sylar and obsessed with how to stop him. Indeed, one of the few true character journeys of the first season comes in the form of Hiro, who is led to the conclusion that Sylar is indisputably evil and must be stopped at any cost, even if it means killing him, something which the young man never considered himself capable of before.

Part of what makes Heroes remarkably average is the characters are very much "types" instead of actualized characters with their own genuinely distinct personalities. The other problem is that because the cast is so large, there are several characters that have very little airtime (I expected the series to feature Greg Grunberg as Matt quite a bit more than it does) and a lot of the acting is shaky at best. It is strangely easy for guest cast members like George Takei and Malcolm McDowell to sweep in and overwhelm the show even when they have limited screentime. Some of the actors who have the most time on screen like Hayden Panettiere (Claire) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder) become overwhelmed by the end of the season by actors whose early performances clearly gave the creative staff more to work with, like Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet).

What pushes the series up on DVD some, then, are the DVD bonus features. The DVD set features extensive commentaries from many members of the cast. Some of the episode are more engaging with the commentaries on! As well the boxed set features an extensive featurette on the first season which is informative and entertaining. There are fifty deleted scenes which flesh out the episodes nicely and the original cut of the pilot that frankly makes more of an event out of the beginning than the slightly more lackluster one that aired.

The bonus features are enough to push the average show up into an above-average DVD release that is bound to satisfy fans of science fiction and super hero stories, if not so much fans of drama in general.

For other first seasons of science fiction shows, please check out my reviews of:
V - The First Season
Invasion
Star Trek: The Next Generation - Season 1

7/10

For other television reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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A Wandering Series That Started High And Floundered Fast: Heroes Ends Up Average!

The Good: DVD Bonus features, Sense of story, Some acting, Moments of character
The Bad: Very plot-driven, Problematic plots, Sense of repetition.
The Good: Despite having a first season that starts pretty incredibly, Heroes quickly went off-course by repeating too many of its own ideas and taking too much from The 4400.


Sometimes, there is a television series that I encounter after the hype and I have the chance to view it more objectively than when it initially aired. That was not the case with Heroes, the NBC series which lasted for four seasons and is now available in a complete series bundle pack which allows viewers to get the entire experience in one fell swoop. Unfortunately, even as the show aired, I saw fundamental problems with the show and watching the entire series all over again, I was struck by how many problems the show had and when it bowed out, how little interest I still had in the show. From the very beginning, I saw that Heroes was using a number of plot and character elements from the Universal/NBC program The 4400 which had a short run on cable and I DID come to after it was over.

That said, Heroes is a television program that seeks to mimic comic books in the sense of serialization and style for presenting episodes in chapters and the seasons, mostly, as volumes. There is narration (which is particularly annoying) but what the show has that few programs manage to do well is present a story with a true sense of world scope. The characters in Heroes are from all over the world and in the course of the show, characters do more than simply sit around the United States Of America solving problems. Unfortunately, because the show is so insular with the American characters, there are scope issues that are unfortunately minimized.

Heroes The Complete Series is a bundle pack which has all 24 of the original discs of Heroes repackaged in slimmer, newer, packaging. Even so, this is essentially what one would find in:
Heroes Season 1 - "Genesis"
Heroes Season 2 - "Generations"
Heroes Season 3 – “Villains” and “Fugitives”
Heroes Season 4 – “Redemption” with no new bonus features.

Heroes is basically the story of several characters around the world who awaken after an eclipse to realize they have tremendous superpowers.

In "Genesis," Mohinder Suresh, scientist and student, is dismayed when his father, philosopher and geneticist Chandra Suresh is murdered in New York City. Mohinder soon realizes that the murder is related to Chandra's theory that extraordinary abilities are manifesting in seemingly ordinary people around the world and his father was searching for those people. And Chandra was correct, pinpointing the locations of several individuals who do have superhuman abilities. They include a teenager who can regenerate from virtually any wound, a man who can fly, a cop who can read the thoughts of others, and a young man who can time travel and teleport. But in addition to those figuring out how to use their powers in vague, general terms they can cope with, there are others who are exploiting their powers for nefarious purposes.

Soon, there comes an ominous prophecy about New York City being virtually destroyed by an explosion only months away. The warning comes from Hiro Nakamura, or at least a future version of him, and is soon confirmed by works of a prophetic artist who seems to be able to paint the future. The race then becomes to save the regenerating cheerleader, find the individuals with the superpowers and ultimately to save New York City (and the world) from the destructive forces represented by those villainous enough to use their powers for evil!

Four months after the events that climaxed in Kirby Plaza, “Generations“ begins with Mohinder Suresh and Matt Parkman having taken legal custody of Molly as they work (quietly) to find others with extraordinary abilities. Mohinder is also working with Noah Bennet to try to destroy the Company that has long been manipulating events in regards to the various extraordinary people who are sprouting up in the world. The remnants of Linderman's organization are not the only problems, though, as Sylar both survived the Kirby Plaza incident, but has taken company with a young woman who carries a plague within her. As well, Mohinder is approached by Bob, a man from the Company who has an interest in a viral plague.

All of this is well and good for those who are involved in the conspiracies of the world; Claire Bennet is compelled to lay low and in the process, she meets a classmate who is able to fly. As well, Micah discovers that he is not the only one in his family with an extraordinary talent when Niki/Jessica leaves him with his grandmother and cousins. And poor Peter Petreli; having survived the potential destruction of New York, he wakes up in a crate with no memory.

As Peter searches for clues to his identity by taking up with a band of Irish thieves, Hiro Nakamura finds himself in 17th Century Japan where he meets up with his hero, Takezo Kensei, who is both less than he thought and far greater. As Hiro struggles to regain use and control of his time-traveling abilities, events in the present conspire to put most of the major players on course for a viral outbreak which will decimate the world's population.

In “Villains,” a rival Company to Primatech emerges. After a breakout of prisoners at Primatech’s infamous Level 5, Peter finds himself imperiled and soon Peter and Nathan discover their dead father is very much alive. Arthur Petrelli is, in fact, alive and running Pinehearst, an evil company looking to make an army of people with superhuman abilities. To that end, they require a formula, which Hiro loses to a super-fast thief named Daphne. With Sylar being used by Angela Petrelli in the quest to get villains back into Level 5, Claire finds herself trying to make a difference as a freelance agent on her own and Mohinder Suresh discovers the horrible consequences that come with having powers when he artificially gives himself abilities which begin to transform him.

Following an eclipse which temporarily robs those with abilities of their powers, Nathan Petrelli raises his status as the junior Senator from New York by beginning a covert government organization that hunts down those with abilities, which is where “Fugitives” starts. Teamed with the brutal Emile Danko, Nathan begins hunting down those with abilities. Even as he tries to keep Claire off the radar of his workers at Building 26, Noah conspires with Angela to rebuild Primatech and finds himself compelled to work for the new organization. And as Sylar searches for his father, Peter tries to defend his family and learn how everything got so screwed up in the first place.

The series winds down with “Redemption,” which finds Nathan struggling with his identity and most of the rest of the specials just happy the government is no longer hunting them. While Claire goes off to college, Hiro learns his talent is killing him and he prepares to die. Even as Noah tries to reconcile a past relationship and keep Claire safe, he struggles to find his place in live now that he is not hunting individuals with special abilities. But Noah’s retirement is short-lived as Tracy resurfaces with a grudge and she learns about Samuel, a special who lives with others in a travelling carnival. As Samuel approaches others, Sylar resurfaces and the manipulations of the two adversaries soon threaten the world once again.

The problem is, we've seen this before. Anyone who has seen X-Men or has read a comic book understands the concept of mutants with powers and television audiences who were captivated by The 4400 have an even more recent example. This is The 4400 recast such that there is some excitement and intrigue in finding out who has the powers and what they are. But ultimately, at the end of the day, many of the powers possessed by the "Heroes" are even strikingly similar to those possessed by people on The 4400.

Part of the problem is that the show starts with the novelty of the heroes, but then soon becomes increasingly plot intensive. The last seven episodes (from "Company Man" on) sacrifice almost any sense of character to advance the convoluted plot and bring the various heroes from around the world together. The plot serves to advance the convergence of the plot lines and the heroes who become more embodiments of their super power than actually . . . actualized characters.

Still, it's worth it to see who the show is about because some of the characters are neat and the plot (it is heavily serialized, which I like quite a bit) is engaging, if not original. For the bulk of the series, the characters presented and explored in depth are:

Mohinder Suresh - A scholarly detective of sorts who is investigating his father's murder, legacy and work and soon discovers that his father was accurately assessing the locations and identities of individuals who had superhuman abilities,

Claire Bennet - The cheerleader who is a normal enough girl, yet is severely depressed. Her suicide attempts yield the understanding that she is virtually indestructible, possessing an ability to regenerate wounds to her body with extreme speed. Daughter of the mysterious Mr. Bennet, she comes to understand her ability is a gift but that she is a potential target to those who would exploit or harm her,

Hiro Nakamura - A young Japanese man who discovers that his geeky obsession with time travel has practical applications when he learns to focus and manipulate time and his position in space. Hiro soon translates himself to the United States where he seeks to fulfill a prophecy to save the cheerleader and the world,

Ando - Hiro's best friend, a sobering influence who has no superhuman powers save to put up with Hiro. But the more their adventures go on, the more he begins to covet and be guarded about powers,

Mr. Bennet - A menacing man and father to Claire who works exceptionally hard to keep her safe. While Claire hides her abilities from him, Bennet works for a secret institution that is responsible for hunting down those with the abilities, an organization whose goals may not be entirely beneficial to humanity or the heroes,

Nathan Petrelli - Congressional candidate from New York City whose sudden ability to fly is kept a closely guarded secret. Working to win an election takes its toll on him, especially when it becomes clear that his part in the designs of the organization Bennet works for might lead to disaster for everyone,

Peter Petrelli - Disturbed by dreams that he can fly, Peter's control of his brother's campaign begins to slip until he comes to term with his own unique ability; he absorbs the powers of superhumans in his vicinity,

Niki/Jessica Sanders - A split personality whose power seems to be that she is a split personality (I know of several people who find this to be a mental illness, but here it's trumpeted as a great superhuman ability). Niki is submerged to a more aggressive Jessica personality who works to protect her son, Micah,

Micah Sanders - A child, son of Niki, who has the ability to manipulate electrical fields, notably computers and whose skills as a result bring him to the attention of people who would use his powers for their own gain,

Matt Parkman - A police officer who suddenly discovers he has the ability to read the thoughts of others, his problems with his wife and his dyslexia soon become sublimated to his problems with an organization that his hunting him and those like him,

Isaac Mendez - A talented artist who has disturbing incidents that result in his ability to paint future events whether he wants to or not,

D.L. Hawkins - Micah's father, a man who can pass through solid objects, he returns to Micah's life determined to keep Jessica from harming him,

and Sylar - A student of Chandra's work who believed he was touched by the same gift as others Chandra predicted. Unfortunately, his mental instability combined well with his ability to steal the superhuman abilities of others by killing them and removing their brains, making him a powerful villain, one set on a collision course with destiny in New York City and beyond.

It does not take long before it becomes clear that Sylar is the Alpha villain, though there are others who arise and have a presence or agenda that is not beneficial either for the world or the lives of the individuals blessed (or cursed, depending on one's position) with the superhuman powers. Matt, Mr. Bennet and Peter all become interested in the existence of Sylar and obsessed with how to stop him. Indeed, one of the few true character journeys of the series comes in the form of Hiro, who is led to the conclusion that Sylar is indisputably evil and must be stopped at any cost, even if it means killing him, something which the young man never considered himself capable of before. And as his health is put in jeopardy by the use of his abilities, Hiro is the one who has the greatest consequences for his success or failure!

Part of what makes Heroes remarkably average is the characters are very much "types" instead of actualized characters with their own genuinely distinct personalities. The other problem is that because the cast is so large, there are several characters that have very little airtime (I expected the series to feature Greg Grunberg as Matt quite a bit more than it does) and a lot of the acting is shaky at best. It is strangely easy for guest cast members like George Takei and Malcolm McDowell to sweep in and overwhelm the show even when they have limited screentime. Some of the actors who have the most time on screen like Hayden Panettiere (Claire) and Sendhil Ramamurthy (Mohinder) become overwhelmed by the end of the first season by actors whose early performances clearly gave the creative staff more to work with, like Jack Coleman (Mr. Bennet).

What pushes the series up on DVD are the DVD bonus features. The DVD sets feature extensive commentaries from many members of the cast. Some of the episode are more engaging with the commentaries on! As well the boxed set features an extensive featurette on each of the seasons which is informative and entertaining. There are hundreds of deleted scenes which flesh out the episodes nicely and the original cut of the pilot that frankly makes more of an event out of the beginning than the slightly more lackluster one that aired.

But ultimately, Heroes is average and I had the “you’ve seen it once, you’ve got it” problem with the series. In other words, once I saw the show, I felt I gained nothing by rewatching episodes and at the end of the day, that makes it impossible for me to recommend the series, even if component parts of it are above average and the DVD bonus features are phenomenal.

For other science fiction television, please check out my reviews of:
Lost
V- Season 1
Carnivale

5/10

For other television reviews, click here to visit my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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The Argument For Sticking With A Program: Carnivale Season 2 On DVD

The Good: Great story, Amazing acting, Surprising character twists
The Bad: Story is truncated (no real story resolution), Could use more DVD bonuses.
The Basics: In an amazing second season, Carnivale accelerates the battle of good and evil between two avatars in the 1930's!


Carnivale is a series that has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time unwatched and it behooves me to follow that comment up with the understanding I have recently reached (yea therapy!): I intensely associate new experiences with the person I am experiencing them with. This is not a huge deal, but when the person with whom I enjoyed the first season of Carnivale (click here for my review of that!) moved out, I found myself unable to simply pick up Season Two from the shelf and get through it. Following that epiphany, I managed to have the time, mental clarity and devotion to actually watch Carnivale - The Complete Second Season on DVD.


And wow, am I glad I did! And oh, am I peeved! Carnivale's first season ran against nothing like it and it built an audience (I first discovered it on DVD). The second season ran against a little show named Lost and the intended five-year story was finished in two . . . or at least, that is what I thought. After all, if the writers and producers knew they were going down, they would be so kind as to finish the series off so there was nothing left hanging, right? Yeah, Carnivale doesn't do that. Instead, just as the story ramps up, it's over. I, for one, wish there were Whedon-like armies of fans behind Carnivale if for no other reason than to get a movie of the work done to wrap it up a bit neater.

Because this is a heavily serialized show, there are elements that cannot be mentioned without revealing some aspects of the series I purposely omitted from my first season review to encourage viewer integrity (it's no fun to read reviews that give all of the secrets away!). That's the closest to a warning I can give . . .

Picking up where the first season left off, Apollonia's trailer is ablaze and Jonesy is able to rescue Sofie from her dying mother's grasp. Ben and Samson, under orders from Management, dispose of Lodz's body. Soon, though, Lila is asking questions and demanding answers, and the Carnivale leaves with Ben searching for Scudder. As Hawkins leads the traveling circus across the dustbowl, Brother Justin Crowe - guided by visions - establishes his congregation near a hillside he names New Canaan. There, he begins to compel his followers to converge, including a small army of criminals and Reverend Norman Balthus, who is recovering from his stroke that he suffered upon seeing Justin's true nature.

As the Carnivale folks fall apart with infighting and suspicion, Brother Justin summons a killer named Varlyn Stroud to find Scudder. Stroud quickly discovers that Hawkins is on the same quest and begins to use brutal means to insure that he will get to Scudder before Hawkins (including burning another traveling carnival to the ground). As Hawkins comes to understand and accept his powers and the sacrifices that must be made whenever he heals someone, Brother Justin's true nature begins to become apparent to those closest to him as he sexually abuses the women in his care while his sister, Iris, waits for the right time to take him on.

Carnivale is television not for the feint of heart. As an HBO series, it is graphic, dark, depressing and demands attention. Like Lost, Carnivale is a series that is deeply involved in terms of details. Every scene is packed with visual information that forces the viewer to watch and actually pay attention. Laced with the metaphors of dreams and a pretty striking storyline of good versus evil, Carnivale in its second season is leading to a bloody convergence and in that regard, it satisfies perfectly.

Indeed, unlike the first season where there existed still some ambiguity about who was on which side, the second season of Carnivale very clearly draws a line in the sand. Ben Hawkins, given the ability to heal by taking life from those around him, becomes firmly rooted as the moral center of the show in the second season, doing what he can whenever possible to limit the collateral damage to those around him. But it is Brother Justin who is finally outed for exactly what he is in the second season and that he is the demon slowly begins to dawn even on his loyal sister, Iris.

The thing is, the second season of Carnivale has more than one emotional climax and there are character-based cliffhangers that pretty much rule the series in a way that anyone who watched and enjoyed the first season would be surprised by. So, for example, following her mother's death, Sofie becomes distraught and leaves the carnivale. She is rescued by Ben, but when his quest to find Scudder becomes an imperative, Sofie suffers the collateral damage of that obsession.

In order to truly understand and appreciate the two storylines that are rushing toward a head in the second season of Carnivale, it helps to understand the characters. The primary characters in the second season include:

Brother Justin Crowe - Asserting his will through the use of this apparently benevolent radio program, he takes up in New Canaan where he begins to assemble his flock. He takes in Father Norman in order to be able to torment him, but when he begins to take in orphans to do cleaning around the house, his true evil begins to show more obviously,

Iris Crowe - Having found the beaten and raped bodies of the women Brother Justin has used, she continues to look to protect her brother by any means necessary. Soon, though, she realizes what Brother Justin is, especially when her involvement in the orphanage fire is about to be made public by Tommy Dolan,

Tommy Dolan - The businessman who has created the radio show for Brother Justin, he begins to investigate the orphanage fire and quickly concludes that it was Iris who burned the place down. He prepares to make a deal with the devil, though,

Varlyn Stroud - A simple and direct convict, he is called by Justin through the radio to find Scudder and he begins to leave a trail of dead bodies in that pursuit,

and The Usher - A wormy little man who keeps popping up with the texts that explain to Brother Justin just what he is and what he needs to do to make his power ripen.

On the other side, there are:

Stumpy Dreifuss - He has incurred severe gambling debts to people who come looking to collect,

Rita Sue Dreifuss - Recommitted to her marriage to Stumpy, she begins to make additional money the only way she knows how,

Libby Dreifuss - Estranged from her friend Sofie, she and Jonesy work to make amends and in a pretty incredible twist of fate, she marries the head Roustie,

Lila - Upset that no one seems to care that Lodz has disappeared, the bearded woman begins to mount an insurrection amongst the carnies. As she prepares to overthrow Samson and Management, she gets an unexpected visitor,

Ruthie - Having been resurrected by Ben, she begins to see the dead Apollonia and becomes a conduit for Lodz who actually has something useful to contribute. Shocked at her sleepwalking activities, Ruthie is disappointed when Ben begins to avoid her,

Sofie - Lost following Apollonia's death, she begins to have more and increasingly troubling visions. Tormented by the visions, she takes comfort with Ben, who is forced to leave the carnivale to find Scudder before Stroud does. That desertion compels her to find her own way . . . to New Canaan,

Jonesy - Heartbroken over Sofie, the wounded roustie finds himself healing without Rita Sue, as well. Soon, though, he begins to notice Libby and shortly after they are married, there is an accident on the Ferris wheel and he is dragged off to the middle of nowhere to die,

Samson - Having had it with Management jerking him around, he pressures Ben to come clean with him, at the very least. Defending Management puts Samson in a dangerous position and the carnivale is forced to use all of its resources to aid Ben in finding Scudder,

and Ben Hawkins - Reluctantly admitting his abilities to Samson and his need to find Scudder, he becomes even more tormented with visions that threaten his sanity. He is tortured by his hillbilly cousins, romanced by Sofie, pursued by Stroud and protected by Jonesy and Samson. Soon, though, it becomes clear that the evil of the priest is growing too quickly and Ben prepares to do everything he has to to stop him.

The second season of Carnivale hits its marks so consistently because Ben is finally the hero in the process of becoming that the viewer has been waiting for. Tired of rejecting his gift, Ben finally begins to explore it and in one of the final episodes of the set, the climactic moment is an amazingly uplifting scene where he fully embraces his destiny. Ben becomes a hero that the viewer wants to see succeed and, frankly, it's about time!

The second season is also a bit more graphically violent than the first season, especially with the way that Brother Justin sexually abuses the women in his care (the implied incestual rape in the first season remains just that, but he's pretty despicable in very on-screen ways this season). There's the regular amount of nudity, which makes sense given that Rita Sue and Libby are strippers, so those who are squeamish with that sort of thing ought to know it at least.

That said, the second season forces the character to develop against a loudly ticking clock. Each episode from the first in the season gives a feeling of accelerating toward something big. Unlike the first season which was much more about planting the seeds and ethereally creating a dangerous mood, the second season walks, jogs, runs, then sprints toward devastation and it is a true cinematic crime that the series was not continued. In large part this is rumored to be because Carnivale was so expensive to make. The thing is, on DVD, it looks amazing. The second season truly does develop like one massive film and it pays off incredibly well (sort of . . .). What is paid off is paid off well, but literally in the final frames of the finale, the show takes an abrupt and dangerous left turn that leaves the viewer begging for more.

Part of the reason the show is so consistently great is in the acting. While there is a pretty impressive ensemble cast consisting of Amy Madigan (Iris), Michael J. Anderson (Samson), Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie), and Clea DuVall (Sofie), the show essentially hinges on the performances of Clancy Brown and Nick Stahl. Clancy Brown played the first season of Carnivale in such a way that the viewer was left wondering just how much Brother Justin actually knew about himself and that worked. In the second season, Brown opens Justin up with a much more menacing sense of physical presence. Brown is able to sneer and smirk and convey a quietly brewing evil that makes his character far more rich than most villains on television and despite how despicable his character becomes, he remains a pleasure to watch.

But it is Nick Stahl who rocks much of the second season of Carnivale. Perhaps best known for his role as John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Stahl is given the difficult task of portraying a hero reluctant to be heroic. He pulls it off wonderfully, slowly developing Ben into a man who stands straighter and actually is able to articulate thoughts and feelings. Unlike the way he was forced to play Ben dense in the first season, as Ben grows, Stahl is able to build upon the character with his performance and it works.

On DVD, Carnivale - The Complete Second Season contains three commentary tracks (I wished for even more, but alas, this is what we have). They are informative, but do not give away nearly as much information as many of us would have liked given that the series ends here. As well, there was a decent featurette from the Museum Of Television And Radio (I'm thinking that's one of the places I have to go next year . . .) with some of the cast and a documentary on the apocalyptic nature of much of Carnivale's storyline. The bonus features are good and about as plentiful as one would expect from an HBO DVD feature.

Sadly, though, the series ends here, but it ought not to be an argument against picking it up; after all, it's a hell of a ride while it lasts and it holds up wonderfully over multiple viewings. Indeed, more than one viewing will probably be needed to catch all of the nuances.

For less of a disappointment, one might as well pick up both seasons of Carnivale together and the complete series is reviewed here!

For other television works with the supernatural, please check out my reviews of:
Wonderfalls
True Blood - Season 1

8/10

For other television series reviews, please be sure to visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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The Argument For DVDs: Dense Serialized Dramas That Require Rewatching: Carnivale Season 1!

The Good: Interesting story, Great Characters, Good Acting
The Bad: Requires Serious Investment of Time and Attention, Episodes Where Nothing Happens, Bonus Features, Expensive
The Basics: Despite the expense, Carnivale - The Complete First Season is a solid first chapter in an epic story of those who fight the battles between good and evil.


I'm a big fan of serialized television that uses the medium well. Shows like Babylon 5, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and Lost that require a certain investment on the part of the viewer in order to understand the series or receive the most bang for your buck intrigue me and I find to be the most enjoyable. I'm not so much into episodic television. I like serialized; it's more adult because there are consequences for actions and decisions and it often leads to the greatest amount of character development.

Carnivale joins my collection of esteemed shows that I enjoy for their serialized nature and without having seen the second season, I will say that - despite what comes below - Carnivale is not worth the investment of your money. Everything else I write might well contradict that, but in the end, Carnivale will be one of the greatest television failures of our times. Why? It is a heavily serialized, intelligently-written show that hinges on building to its end. It was canceled after its second season. The net effect of the series will be like having the first two books in a series, but not the last four. That can only, on the overall, be a disappointment. In most analogous literary terms, it would be like having Fellowship Of The Ring without The Two Towers and The Return Of The King for The Lord Of The Rings.

What one finds on Carnivale - The Complete First Season, then, is an engaging story of good and evil in the Dustbowl in the Depression. Put simply, Carnivale is a battle of archetypes wherein Samson, a dwarf who runs the traveling carnival, tells the viewer the story of the end of the Age of Magic in the United States.

When Ben Hawkins buries his mother, he is on the run from the law and in deep denial of himself. As a child he exhibited a power to heal that was supernatural and was ridiculed by his mother for it. Hawkins is picked up by a traveling carnival that is passing through as he buries his mother. Samson, who runs the show, learns from Management that Hawkins is expected and is told to take him on the road with the show. Hawkins finds himself in the company of psychics, blind mentalists, bearded women, Siamese twins, snake charmers, strippers and working class folk who assemble and run the carnival rides. As he learns about them and forms relationships, he slowly comes to accept and learn about his gift and what it means.

Meanwhile, in California, the preacher Brother Justin begins to discover his own powers, which begin in the form of disturbing nightmares. He takes over an abandoned bordello and makes it into a ministry for migrant workers and orphans with his sister, Iris Crowe. However, tragedy soon befalls the ministry and Brother Justin finds himself in a moral freefall as he begins to utilize his own talents under the guise of being a man of god.

Carnivale is a clever collection of intriguing, eclectic characters who are moving slowly toward a battle between good and evil. Despite the series' density and use of imagery and metaphor to keep the story interesting and dense, the concept is quite simple. This is the first chapter or volume in a story about an incredible battle between good and evil. And as a series, it works for that.

The problem is that much of the first season is spent establishing the imagery, mythology and ground rules of the "universe" that Carnivale is embodying. So, as individual episodes, Carnivale is hit or miss. In fact, the show is an episodic failure; there are episodes where nothing happens. We do not learn anything new about any of the characters, they do not form new relationships, have new dreams nor change in any meaningful ways. Instead, we simply experience what they are going through. So, for example, in "Insomnia," almost nothing happens to any of the characters and all we truly witness is Ben Hawkins fighting off sleep for an hour. And Brother Justin leaves where he is. It's possible to watch the other eleven episodes of the season and lose nothing by not seeing "Insomnia." Does it aid the mood? Yes. Is it indispensable? No.

And that's the rub of this whole experience. It's an expensive boxed set. For 12 episodes, the average price is in the $90 range. That's a lot of money, an obscene amount for a tease. As far as bonuses, Carnivale - The Complete First Season is a dud. One of the three commentaries (on "Hot and Bothered) is almost devoid of commentary and the only other bonus is a featurette on the making of the show. At least with Babylon 5, for the same amount of money, one gets a full season (22 episodes), a lot of bonus features and the promise that the story will continue to its planned conclusion. HBO missed a huge opportunity with Carnivale; despite the expense of making the episodes and the expense of the boxed set DVDs, finishing the series as a DVD exclusive series could only have benefited the concept.

In order to truly understand what HBO is scuttling, one needs to understand the characters of Carnivale. They include:

Ben Hawkins - A young man who realizes he has a gift for healing people simply by channeling energies from what has life to what lacks it. He finds himself conflicted, barely surviving nightmares that plague him, and desperate to understand himself, his gift and his past,

Samson - The face of the carnival, he effectively runs the show by executing the wishes of the mysterious Management. When Hawkins shows up, he finds himself in a battle with Lodz for control of the carnival,

Jonesy - An ex-baseball player, Jonesy works the rides at the carnival, befriending Hawkins as he tries to understand the young man. He soon finds himself drifting from his attraction for Sophie for a fling with another man's wife,

Ruthie - The snake-charmer, she soon takes an interest in Ben that is not as maternal as their age difference might suggest,

Sofie - The voice of the catatonic prognosticator Apollonia, Sofie has an initial attraction for Ben that is soon redirected in the most unlikely direction,

Rita Sue, Felix, Libby and Dora Dreifuss - The Kootch Dancers (and the man who promotes them), this odd family of strippers is strained and tested when a family tragedy and a series of infidelities overcome them,

Lila - The bearded woman, consort of Professor Lodz, she soon sees the advantages of her partnership and seeks to use it to advance her own agenda,

Professor Lodz - Blind, but with the ability to read the minds of Apollonia and Ben Hawkins, he soon finds his quest to help educate Hawkins was a way to regain the favor of Management,

Hack Scudder - The plague of Hawkins' dreams who is soon revealed to have a special connection to the boy,

Tommy Dolan - A radio personality who becomes intrigued with Brother Justin's story and interested in his sister, Iris Crowe,

Iris Crowe - A mysterious, dark and quiet support of her brother, Brother Justin who seems to understand his potential and his powers and accept them for what they are,

and Brother Justin - A man with a power to manipulate people and reality who seems to share a strange connection to Ben Hawkins.

With a cast this massive, there is little sense going through all of the performers. However, the acting in Carnivale is utterly convincing. The two main leads, Nick Stahl (Ben Hawkins) and Clancy Brown (Brother Justin) are perfect foils. Stahl instantly creates a character who one feels is out of his league and afraid of his circumstances. Brown embodies a man used to being in control who rediscovers the importance of remaining in command of himself and his surroundings.

Ultimately, Carnivale - The Complete First Season is a worthwhile, intense and moody show that is best watched from start to finish (repeatedly!) to appreciate the density, imagery and richness of the series. It is a growth piece that works best for mature audiences willing to commit to a dark tale that we instantly sense is building to something. And as far as that goes, the first season builds to an intense finale that makes the reader want to turn the page, or viewer to pop in the next disc.

It's a shame that HBO did not respect the series as much as the viewers, for while there is another volume for me to pick up (and I will), the tragedy of a work that is so painstakingly constructed but we know is not completed is that the emotional investment will ultimately be for naught.

For other wonderful debut seasons, please check out my reviews of:
True Blood – Season 1
V – Season 1
The Big Bang Theory – Season 1

7/10

For other television boxed set reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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Carnivale - Seasons 1 & 2: More Than The Sum Of Its Parts!

The Good: Intriguing characters, Good story, Great acting, Costumes, Sets, Concept!
The Bad: Incomplete story, Lighter on DVD extras than I'd like for the price, No spacesaving benefits
The Basics: An excellent series, killed before its time, Carnivale - The Complete Seasons 1 & 2 is a worthwhile set for anyone who loves great supernatural dramas!


Every now and then there comes along a series that is ideally watched on DVD. Some - few - go the other way, like the second season of The X-Files where Scully's absence is somewhat glossed over without weeks in between her abduction and return. There are some shows that need to breathe and let time pass to actually have an emotional resonance with the viewer.

Then there are the shows like Carnivale where sitting and watching the episodes back to back to back to back makes for a much more solid viewing experience than watching episode by episode with a break in between. The reason for this is very simple: this is a heavily serialized show that takes risks and is largely telling one big, overwhelming story. As a result, to sit and attempt to describe some of the episodes is likely to leave the viewer or reviewer frustrated. After all, "Ben falls down a mine shaft and encounters the word 'Avatar'" or "Ben gets a knife from his crazy grandmother" hardly makes for an intriguing plot description that makes one want to tune in. Instead, episodes of Carnivale often are not so big on what happens in each episode as what direction the episode is headed in. The result is a series that is ideal to take in as almost one massive movie. The series builds upon itself quite well and characters continually reference things . . . but I get ahead of myself.

The Carnivale - Seasons 1 and 2 multipack is essentially the complete series of Carnivale, at least for now (I'm still lobbying for a movie to cap off the series!). This is a simply bundle pack of Carnivale Season 1 and Carnivale Season 2. There are no additional discs or features in this pack. In fact, there is no saving space either as this multipack is simply the two previously released boxed sets shrink-wrapped together.

What one finds in Carnivale then, is an engaging story of good and evil in the Dustbowl in the Depression. Put simply, Carnivale is a battle of archetypes wherein Samson, a dwarf who runs the traveling carnival, tells the viewer the story of the end of the Age of Magic in the United States.

In the first season, Ben Hawkins buries his mother and is on the run from the law and in deep denial of himself. As a child he exhibited a power to heal that was supernatural and was ridiculed by his mother for it. Hawkins is picked up by a traveling carnival that is passing through as he buries his mother. Samson, who runs the show, learns from Management that Hawkins is expected and is told to take him on the road with the show. Hawkins finds himself in the company of psychics, blind mentalists, bearded women, Siamese twins, snake charmers, strippers and working class folk who assemble and run the carnival rides. As he learns about them and forms relationships, he slowly comes to accept and learn about his gift and what it means.

Meanwhile, in California, the preacher Brother Justin begins to discover his own powers, which begin in the form of disturbing nightmares. He takes over an abandoned bordello and makes it into a ministry for migrant workers and orphans with his sister, Iris Crowe. However, tragedy soon befalls the ministry and Brother Justin finds himself in a moral freefall as he begins to utilize his own talents under the guise of being a man of god.

In the second season of Carnivale, Apollonia's trailer is ablaze and Jonesy is able to rescue Sofie from her dying mother's grasp. Ben and Samson, under orders from Management, dispose of Lodz's body. Soon, though, Lila is asking questions and demanding answers, and the Carnivale leaves with Ben searching for Scudder. As Hawkins leads the traveling circus across the dustbowl, Brother Justin Crowe - guided by visions - establishes his congregation near a hillside he names New Canaan. There, he begins to compel his followers to converge, including a small army of criminals and Reverend Norman Balthus, who is recovering from his stroke that he suffered upon seeing Justin's true nature.

As the Carnivale folks fall apart with infighting and suspicion, Brother Justin summons a killer named Varlyn Stroud to find Scudder. Stroud quickly discovers that Hawkins is on the same quest and begins to use brutal means to insure that he will get to Scudder before Hawkins (including burning another traveling carnival to the ground). As Hawkins comes to understand and accept his powers and the sacrifices that must be made whenever he heals someone, Brother Justin's true nature begins to become apparent to those closest to him as he sexually abuses the women in his care while his sister, Iris, waits for the right time to take him on.

Carnivale is television not for the faint of heart. As an HBO series, it is graphic, dark, depressing and demands attention. Like Lost, Carnivale is a series that is deeply involved in terms of details. Every scene is packed with visual information that forces the viewer to watch and actually pay attention. Laced with the metaphors of dreams and a pretty striking storyline of good versus evil, Carnivale starts apparently aimless, but is leading to a bloody convergence and in that regard, it satisfies perfectly.

Unfortunately, as the story's rising action continues to grow, the series ends abruptly. It turns out that Carnivale was incredibly expensive for HBO to produce, which seems strange because people pay money for the channel and those of us who refuse to shell out a ridiculous amount for these DVD boxed sets. Apparently HBOs bean counters couldn't take the long view and figure there was profit in selling more boxed sets eventually. After all, Carnivale is one of those series' that aches to be completed and it deserves more than some sort of television movie to do that.

In order to truly understand what HBO is scuttling, one needs to understand the characters of Carnivale. They include:

Ben Hawkins - A young man who realizes he has a gift for healing people simply by channeling energies from what has life to what lacks it. He finds himself conflicted, barely surviving nightmares that plague him, and desperate to understand himself, his gift and his past,

Samson - The face of the carnival, he effectively runs the show by executing the wishes of the mysterious Management. When Hawkins shows up, he finds himself in a battle with Lodz for control of the carnival,

Jonesy - An ex-baseball player, Jonesy works the rides at the carnival, befriending Hawkins as he tries to understand the young man. He soon finds himself drifting from his attraction for Sofie for a fling with another man's wife,

Ruthie - The snake-charmer, she soon takes an interest in Ben that is not as maternal as their age difference might suggest,

Sofie - The voice of the catatonic prognosticator Apollonia, Sofie has an initial attraction for Ben that is soon redirected in the most unlikely direction,

Rita Sue, Felix, Libby and Dora Dreifuss - The Kootch Dancers (and the man who promotes them), this odd family of strippers is strained and tested when a family tragedy and a series of infidelities overcome them,

Lila - The bearded woman, consort of Professor Lodz, she soon sees the advantages of her partnership and seeks to use it to advance her own agenda,

Professor Lodz - Blind, but with the ability to read the minds of Apollonia and Ben Hawkins, he soon finds his quest to help educate Hawkins was a way to regain the favor of Management,

Hack Scudder - The plague of Hawkins' dreams who is soon revealed to have a special connection to the boy,

Tommy Dolan - A radio personality who becomes intrigued with Brother Justin's story and interested in his sister, Iris Crowe,

Iris Crowe - A mysterious, dark and quiet support of her brother, Brother Justin who seems to understand his potential and his powers and accept them for what they are,

and Brother Justin - A man with a power to manipulate people and reality who seems to share a strange connection to Ben Hawkins.

Part of the reason the show is so consistently great is in the acting. While there is a pretty impressive ensemble cast consisting of Amy Madigan (Iris), Michael J. Anderson (Samson), Adrienne Barbeau (Ruthie), and Clea DuVall (Sofie), the show essentially hinges on the performances of Clancy Brown and Nick Stahl. Clancy Brown played the first season of Carnivale in such a way that the viewer was left wondering just how much Brother Justin actually knew about himself and that worked. In that first season, he plays Justin with a remarkable ambiguity that keeps the viewer guessing up until the end. In the second season, Brown opens Justin up with a much more menacing sense of physical presence. Brown is able to sneer and smirk and convey a quietly brewing evil that makes his character far more rich than most villains on television and despite how despicable his character becomes, he remains a pleasure to watch.

But it is Nick Stahl who rocks much of Carnivale. Perhaps best known for his role as John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines, Stahl is given the difficult task of portraying a hero reluctant to be heroic. He pulls it off wonderfully, slowly developing Ben into a man who stands straighter and actually is able to articulate thoughts and feelings. He develops well from the slouching, mumbling Ben in the first season and as Ben grows, Stahl is able to build upon the character with his performance and it works.

On DVD, Carnivale contains six commentary tracks spread over the two seasons (I wished for even more, but alas, this is what we have). They are informative, but do not give away nearly as much information as many of us would have liked given that the series ends abruptly. As well, there was a decent featurette from the Museum Of Television And Radio with some of the cast and a documentary on the apocalyptic nature of much of Carnivale's storyline. The bonus features are good and about as plentiful as one would expect from an HBO DVD feature.

Ultimately, Carnivale is a worthwhile, intense and moody show that is best watched from start to finish (which is not a Herculean task as there are only twenty-six episodes) to appreciate the density, imagery and richness of the series. It is a growth piece that works best for mature audiences willing to commit to a dark tale that we instantly sense is building to something. It's a shame that HBO did not respect the series as much as the viewers; the tragedy of a work that is so painstakingly constructed but we know is not completed is that the emotional investment will ultimately be for naught.

For other series' by HBO, please check out my reviews of:
Six Feet Under
True Blood – Season 1

7.5/10

For other television season reviews, please visit my index page by clicking here!

© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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An Underrated Good Movie, Passengers Actually Manages To Surprise!

The Good: Good acting, Decent plot development, Good pacing
The Bad: Very mundane DVD bonus features, A little light on character development.
The Basics: An engaging film, Passengers is clever enough to start as a character-centered drama before turning into a conspiracy story.


Perhaps the best movies these days are the ones that manage to surprise me in one form or another. Too often, I watch a movie and it is limited to being exactly what I expect it to be and I am left disappointed. So, when I sat down and watched Passengers and I did not call the end rather early in the film, I found myself smiling as it concluded. It has been a long time since a movie began as one type of film and then transformed into another so effectively for me. Indeed, Passengers is not terribly original once one reaches the end, but to reveal what film it is ultimately derivative of would be to ruin it for those who have not yet seen it.

And, despite being a very fresh feeling twist on a somewhat older concept, Passengers is still cinematically worthwhile and wonderful. I picked up the movie because of the presence of Anne Hathaway and when I saw the movie included Patrick Wilson, Andre Braugher, Clea DuVall and David Morse, I began to wonder how such a good ensemble cast made a movie I had heard nothing about! I was eager to get Passengers moved into my new blog because - as an Anne Hathaway fan - it insulted me that the only review which included her in it would be the one for Valentine's Day (click here for that review!). In some ways, Passengers failed because it was mis-billed. Even the DVD cover tries to make it out to be a supernatural movie and the tagline that appears on it is ridiculous for the film inside. Ideally, one ought to ignore the packaging and just immerse themselves into this particular film.

Eric is on a plane that crashes and after the crash landing of the plane, he finds himself wandering about in the fiery debris. Eric is not the only one who survived the crash and a trauma specialist, Claire, is brought in to counsel the four survivors. As the investigation into what caused the crash becomes more intense, Claire finds herself beset by two problems. The first is that the survivors begin to disappear, making her group sessions more and more bleak and cause her to suspect the airline is covering something up. This is reinforced by Arkin's, a spokesman from the airline involved in the investigation, creepy presence around survivors.

Claire's life is also complicated by Eric, who refuses to join the group session and seems to treat Claire like her job is a joke. Euphoric following the crash, Eric starts living his life and his sense of adventure and freedom become intoxicating to Claire. As Claire tries to protect the remaining survivors from Arkin, she finds herself more and more involved in Eric's life and his passions.

Passengers begins as one type of movie, a drama about grief counseling and professional ethics and transforms into another type of film. That it makes the transition as successfully as it does makes it easy to argue that it is a good movie. As Claire's life begins to unravel through her contact with Eric and the other survivors, Passengers becomes a smart conspiracy-themed drama and because it makes the transition as well as it does, it is very easy for viewers to follow and not feel lost.

But more than that, it is easy to empathize with Claire and enjoy her journey. It is easy to get upset watching Claire overstep her professional bounds with Eric, which seems almost like an inevitability the moment the two meet with Eric naked and uninterested in counseling. But for those patient enough to trust that the movie might be going somewhere, Passengers does make a journey and Claire's character becomes more and more understandable. Ultimately, even as she wrestles with professional boundaries, Claire is empathetic.

Part of the easy empathy I had with Claire came from how unsettling her situation is in Passengers. Claire is professional, detached and skilled when she is given the assignment and when Eric mentions things about her life that he ought not to know - like her conflict with her sister - Claire is visibly shaken. But as the movie makes the transition into more the conspiracy thriller, it is easy to empathize with Claire because she does seem to be the one who is smart and putting the pieces of the puzzle together correctly.

It might be no surprise that Anne Hathaway is wonderful as Claire. Hathaway has an intelligence she brings to the role that makes it plausible that she might be a young trauma counselor. She carries herself with a strength and alert quality that make one believe instantly in her character and that is the essence of great acting. Hathaway leads a strong cast which includes William B. Davis (doing his usual minimalist performance, he is a staple in all things conspiratorial), Andre Braugher (as Perry, Claire's professional mentor, who is predictably great as well), Diane Wiest (Claire's neighbor who plays a very minor supporting role), Clea DuVall (who plays shock masterfully as Shannon) and David Morse (who makes Arkin scary).

The one who ultimately surprised me most was Patrick Wilson. Wilson, I am discovering, is a vastly underrated actor. I loved his work in Watchmen where his performance of Dan Dreiberg was so convincing I had no idea that I had actually seen Wilson in a few other movies before! Passengers adds to his credibility as an actor of real range doing what he did not do in Watchmen, namely portraying true joy and a convincing sense of liberation. Eric surviving the plane crash makes him feel entirely free and with that sense of freedom he changes his life around. Wilson sells that dramatic life turnaround without ever making it seem cliche or forced. I might have sat down to Passengers because of Anne Hathaway, but it soon became Wilson whose talents were drawing my eye. He's got range and in Passengers he is fearless and alive, which is a very different turn for the characters I've seen him play!

On DVD, Passengers is surprisingly stark in the bonus features. There is a decent commentary track and there are a few deleted scenes. But for a movie that is arguably more of a psychological drama, the featurettes on the plane crash seems oddly out of place. There are other featurettes on the characters and the overall story, but most of the information in them is presented in the commentary track.

For those looking for a wonderful drama, Passengers delivers. Ignore the packaging; it's not what the movie actually is. And for those who aren't sure a conspiracy story is truly for them, Passengers is the right introduction into the genre: it starts off as a different type of movie, so by the time it becomes the conspiracy drama, one is already invested in it completely!

For other works that explore reality bending, please check out my reviews of:
Shutter Island
Inception
The Game

7/10

For other movie reviews of mine, please check out my index page!

© 2010 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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