Come to Iceland

This video brought great warmth to my week.



Kristen Wigg-many props to you.

Big Wins for Slumdog and Milk, Lisa Rinna not so much

Lisa Rinna looks like an owl exploded on her head after clawing her lips until they were all swollen and disfigured.

I think if I had seen this on the red carpet last night, I would have felt the need to have several more glasses of champagne to wipe away that image. Aren't you glad I've passed it on for your viewing pleasure?

Thankfully, I was mingling at a big Oscar party at SoDo Park in south Seattle right up until Hugh Jackman did his opening number. I thought his first performance last night set the perfect tone for the night. I appreciated the different creative decisions that were made this year in regards to presentation and entertainment. Presenting the nominees for best song as a medley was nice and I think the old way of doing it-individually-just spread out the evening unnecessarily so. I also liked the actors and actresses presenting the nominations for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively. It added another personal touch to the evening. Did anyone else think of Battlestar Galactica's reveal of the Final Five at the temple in Season 3 when the five actors stood up against the "pillars" in the background? I could have done without Beyonce's act later in the show, but I enjoyed the choreography at that point. Overall, a definite improvement of the awards show from years past.

As far as results go, I'm happy Slumdog Millionaire did as well as it did. It deserves every one of those awards. While I was rooting for Milk to win best picture, I had a feeling Slumdog would take that one in the end. The acceptance of Heath Ledger's posthumous award for Best Supporting Actor by his family was somber but well-deserved, not just for The Dark Knight, but his career. I suppose there's always a chance he will be recognized for his talent again when Terry Gilliam's, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus comes out-which will officially be Ledger's last film role.

I could not have been happier about Dustin Lance Black's win for his screenplay for Milk and Sean Penn's award for Best Actor. Two great wins that mean a lot for so many people in this country and around the world.

Yeah, That's Right...

Dollhouse, my friends, is the number one television download on iTunes.

The Trilogy Meter

Dan Meth has created a table representing his feelings about movie trilogies. According to him, it is based "purely on [his] enjoyment level...and nothing else." For the most part, I'm inclined to agree with his "ratings." I love that The Lord of the Rings trilogy received consistent marks-a result of being filmed back to back, maybe, or because they were born from a wildly creative and talented team of people. Star Wars was really one of the first trilogies that was self-contained-it has the highest overall marks. Prequels-I'm not counting you.

There are a few series that I am less qualified to rate as I haven't seen them all or even in part-Rambo, Mad Max, Rocky, Die Hard or The Godfather (I know, I'm terrible). Still, it is interesting to see how many sequels are considered better than their predecessors. Third film in a trilogy? Not so much.

Dollhouse "Ghost" 1.1

If you have nothing else to say about it, you can’t say Dollhouse isn’t intriguing. Thankfully, throwing my hat into the ring of reviews, I have more than plenty to say about my first introduction to the Dollverse. It was even better than I espected. I found it to be immensely compelling-if not weighed down in brief moments by too much exposition. I have in mind the opening sequence in which we are introduced to Caroline-a bit early to see that moment for my liking-and chief of security Laurence line to Boyd about “ex-cop heroics.” The pilot, “Ghost” which replaces the previously filmed first episode, “Echoes” is well framed, beautifully shot and a delectable tease of what is to come.

In general, the episode brought up more questions for me than at any time in the long months of anticipation. What are the parameters of the actives’ programming? What kind of “treatment” do the personalities think they are getting at the end of their client’s contract? What makes them seek it out? How many actives are there? In my book, I relish in all these queries and whatever “loose ends” there appear to be for audiences now do not bother me in the least, but, like the character of Paul Ballard, drive me to keep watching for answers. Not to mention, the potential for this set-up and these characters are endless.

I was very anxious to see the opening credits and by "anxious" I mean giddy. The sequence is quite a bit more subdued than any of Joss Whedon’s previous series and it does away with the convention of portraits and subtitles of all the primary actors. Eliza Dushku is really the star of the credits and plays to her role as “doll” while pulling up her lace tights. The music is certainly more subtle as well which seems to fit the direction Whedon intends the show to go-this will not be a no-holds-barred action fest. The bells at the end of the credits as the glass panels cover up the actives as they go to sleep also reinforcing the idea of viewing these people as dolls-which is a morally difficult one to subscribe to. At the end of the night, these men and women go back in their toy box.


One of the issues I had with journalistic criticisms of the show was the question of how people could become invested in the show if they had no central character to “root for” since Echo essentially had no personality. This, to me, says they haven’t watched the show, because what we’re rooting for, is for Echo to regain her personality! If that’s not a prime motivation to watch the show through this first season, I don’t know what is.

As a sidenote, I watched the episode with captions as we had a gentleman with a hearing impairment with us, and it was interesting to note that even when Echo was programmed as the carefree-girl-with-the-short-skirt in the beginning of the episode or Eleanor-not-Ellie-Penn, the captions still referenced her as “Echo”. Although I doubt that was an intentional commentary, it made me think about how Echo might still be in there, no matter what persona fills her body and mind.

"...all those terrible memories these men put in your head. Why would they do that?"

-Gabriel Cristejo

Other than the aforementioned moments of blatant exposition-most likely a product of the re-tooled pilot and studio demands, I thought the dialogue was extremely well-crafted. “Ghost” is replete with double-edged dialogue like the line above and Ms. Penn's "I don't have any hobbies." There is a depth to the writing however simplistic of conversation it covers that reinforces my faith in how this season will continue to develop in fascinating ways. Whedon is well-known for having Shakspeare readings with the casts of his shows in his home and he has said that he is aware that he writes lines that quote Shakespeare maybe too often. It did not surprise me, then that Fran Kanz’s character, Topher quotes two lines of Shakespeare if I’m not mistaken, almost back to back. On that note, of all the characters, I found Topher to be the least convincing; his dialogue seemed forced, though sometimes out of necessity when he speaks to Echo as a child without so much compassion. As it is early in the season, there could very well be a reason for this.

Another instance of intertextuality came when Davina’s father, Gabriel Cristejo, mentions Edward James Olmos as a fatherly figure. Not only does Tahmoh Peniket have a role on Battlestar Galactica which airs the same night as Dollhouse-at least until the end of its run in five weeks-Whedon is a self-proclaimed Battlestar fanboy. I thanked Whedon out loud for that surprise reference!


As much as I knew about the show and the pilot specifically before going in to Friday’s premiere, I was surprised about how much had not been revealed in interviews and reviews of “Ghost.” I was aware that the writers on Dollhouse would play with the notion of human trafficking, but what I was not expecting was the explicit references to that issue. I had no idea Paul Ballard would be working on a Russian trafficking case. Perhaps this plot point is introduced early on in order to underscore the parallels to the Dollhouse as a veritable human trafficking estate? Paul encounters Enver Gjokaj’s character whom promotional images and the show’s opening credits have pinned as an active. In this first episode, is he playing a member of the Borodin family? Could he be helping the efforts that possibly put him into this existence? And could Paul be a former active himself, driven by memories from his time in the Dollhouse?


Other points of intrigue for me involved firstly the care that those running the Dollhouse have for their actives-not as people but tools. Adelle DeWitt has a line about the protection of the actives being of the utmost importance-not the situation. She says “the actives are not robots,” but how different do they treat them? Second, Paul’s line about the imprinting process being akin to murdering a person is striking. Seeing Sierra victimized at the Dollhouse early on and then turned into a killing machine in the climax of the episode was a chilling contrast.

I’m so glad Whedon cast Amy Acker in the show and in such a promising role. There is something very mysterious about the way her character, Dr. Claire Saunders, moves about the Dollhouse, half-hidden behind the door in one scene. Her reaction when Echo asks, “who takes care of you?” is haunting. I already feel empathy for character. I so desire to know the reason for her pain physical and otherwise. I expect Dr. Saunders and Echo to share much more meaningful time together as the series unfolds.


The episode ends with what could be this season’s Big Bad, a figure whose face we do not see in a room with several bodies watching a video tape of Caroline. A rogue active? Is this Alpha?

Through in through, “Ghost” is a worthy first episode that draws the audience into a world similar enough to our own world, that it creates a gripping morality play where we the viewers are not always on the side of good. While we eagerly watch every episode play out and hope that Echo successfully completes every engagement as an active, we too, are the perpetrators of her imprisonment. Her success means another day trapped in the Dollhouse.

This Friday, Echo gets involved in another engagement gone awry-but this time not as a result of her programming in episode two, "The Target." For future and repeat viewing, you can watch Dollhouse on Hulu.

Tonight, the dolls come out to play.

Then

The Slayer

March 10, 1997

The Vampire

October 5, 1999

The Independent

September 20, 2002

The Doctor

July 15, 2008

Now

The Doll

February 13, 2009

9:00pm

Why, how snapdragon of you.

Illustrator Jason Logan gives his take on modern floriography-the practice of attaching meaning to particular specimens of flowers in a simple painting series at the New York Times.



Eight more illustrated definitions from the collection in "The Sweet Smell of Semantics".

If you're interested in the full list of flowers and their meanings-something I've always found interesting, but like horoscopes, only think about them occasionally when they strike a chord-you can peruse an extensive selection here.

So, you may want to think twice before getting me that bouquet of orange blossoms and Queen Anne's lace for Valentine's Day this year. I would take it to mean that you want my babies. Or, okay, maybe you might want that. I don't know.