Reflections on The Capture--a futuristic horror story?

We recently discovered this compelling thriller series on Viaplay (The Capture (TV Series 2019–2025) - IMDb, and I can only say that watching it will induce a fair amount of paranoia and surprise. Surprise that video surveillance using CCTV (closed circuit TV) has come as far as it has in Britain. London to be exact. I knew that there were video cameras everywhere, but I didn't realize the extent of the surveillance. To sum up the series, it deals with the use of video surveillance to track the movements of potential terrorists and anarchists, but in doing so it unsurprisingly tracks the movements of ordinary folk. Facial recognition technology using AI also enters the picture. What transpires is tantamount to a horror film about the future to come (or is it already here?), in that the video experts have developed a technique called 'correction' that allows them to manipulate video footage in real-time. So that what you think you're watching in real-time is not real; it has been altered (in most cases via sophisticated hacking) to suit the purposes of those who want 'corrected' footage. In the first season, the counter-terrorism group, in order to prosecute a suspected terrorist, had altered video footage in order to 'include' said terrorist. This was done in order to be able to introduce the footage into a court of law, since recorded conversations and the like are apparently inadmissible. The person in question was actually a terrorist, so the argument was that even though recorded conversations could not be admitted into a court of law, altering a video to include the terrorist was ok because he was actually a terrorist. The main story of the first season is about a young soldier whose lawyer ends up dead, and he is accused of murdering her. Except that he hasn't done so, but there is video footage showing that he has attacked her and that she never got on her bus to go home. She was kidnapped by persons unknown. We know that the soldier isn't the culprit; that's established early on. The problem is proving it, and that proves to be difficult. 

It's not difficult to imagine how this technology can be misused, especially when AI enters the picture. The point was made early on in the series that China and Russia were already using 'correction'. How real is it? We all know about/have heard about deepfake videos and the like. I'm going to include Wikipedia's description of deepfake in order to reveal just how far deepfake has come: 

Deepfakes (a portmanteau of 'deep learning' and 'fake' are images, videos, or audio that have been edited or generated using artificial intelligence, AI-based tools or AV editing software. They may depict real or fictional people and are considered a form of synthetic media, that is media that is usually created by artificial intelligence systems by combining various media elements into a new media artifact......Deepfakes have garnered widespread attention for their potential use in creating child sexual abuse material, celebrity pornographic videos, revenge porn, fake news, hoaxes, bullying, and financial fraud.

In the series, the point is made that democratic societies began to use correction technology to counter the misuse by non-democratic societies, but of course we know that it's only a matter of time before the misuse infiltrates the democratic societies as well. Because in real life there are always villains and people on the take, grifters willing to sell out their country for a good sum. In addition, MI5 and the CIA are always involved in these series (often in very questionable ways), and the picture is never pretty in terms of what they do to people who oppose them. It's actually quite scary to think about a world in which you perhaps possess the 'true' video footage of an event, only to be told that the 'corrected' video footage is the real footage. It's your word against theirs (the police and counter-terrorism folks). And the little man or woman does not win against the tech-savvy folks. The little folks are suppressed and threatened with career destruction/slandering/destruction of reputation. In the worst case, their lives are threatened. There is no shortage of assassinations in The Capture.  

So how much of this is true, and how far has the technique of correction come? Britain is apparently the most video-monitored country in the world. CCTV began in the 1960s as a measure to monitor crowd activity, traffic, and eventually criminal activity, and to the latter end it's been fairly effective. What makes me nervous is realizing that the use of CCTV requires a huge number of people who sit and monitor footage 24/7. Are all these people reliable, honest, and good? It's not possible since we are only human. So the potential for misuse, for data manipulation, for altering the 'truth' is real ‘The public have a right to be concerned’: the real story behind BBC One’s surveillance and technology thriller, The Capture – The i Paper

We are moving towards a strange new world where AI will dominate much of our lives. A brave new world? Some might say that it's going to be survival of the fittest. I used to say that if you have nothing to hide, being monitored won't bother you. But now I'm not so sure. The true horror lies in what you can do to politicians, famous people, celebrities, etc. by misusing data technology. The true horror is what will happen to democratic societies when no one is sure of what is 'true' anymore. We have reached that point in politics, and it makes me wonder about the presidential races during the past decade or so. What is the truth, really? Who can tell us? I would argue that we know deep down what the truth is, but as is often said, reality is stranger than fiction. I hope not for the future of society.  

Odds and ends

We're watching The Rockford Files these days, one of the better American tv detective series from the 1970s that ran from 1974 to 1980. I remember watching it sporadically back then; my mother was a fan of the show and of James Garner who played private detective Jim Rockford, and sometimes I watched it with her. Here in Norway it's available for streaming on SkyShowtime. We're only seven episodes into the first season, and the guest stars have been Lindsey Wagner, Susan Strasberg, Sian Barbara Allen, Gretchen Corbett, Roger Davis, James Woods--all actresses and actors I remember well from the 1970s and 1980s. 

Last night we watched Where Eagles Dare, an action-packed WWII thriller from 1968 starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. I'd never seen it before, and it was well-worth watching. Pretty amazing scenes--fighting atop a cable car, climbing up the side of a castle--definitely not what you see everyday. It made me realize that some of the action films with Bruce Willis were definitely influenced by films such as this one. James Bond films as well. Enjoyable to watch, even though the body count in Where Eagles Dare was over the top. You don't forget for one minute that you're dealing with Nazi Germany and that the enemy has to be vanquished. 

I am drawn more and more to the older films and series, possibly because they are more enjoyable to watch than many of the newer films, even if they are less realistic. And if they deal with dark subject matter, they still manage not to sink into a morass of despair. I watch them and can then let them go after they're finished. I don't know if that's good or bad in the context of war films, but there are plenty of the latter that will leave you in a despairing frame of mind for a long time afterward. I watch them too, but it's hard to say I enjoy them. I can comment on them as quality films, well-acted films, etc. Realistic films. Where Eagles Dare is not a realistic film by any stretch of the imagination. In the same vein, we watched A Haunting in Venice two nights ago, Kenneth Branagh's new Agatha Christie film about Poirot who is now retired and living in Venice Italy. He is pulled out of retirement by an author friend of his to solve a presumed murder (that end up being multiple murders) in a spooky old house in Venice. Fun to watch, and again, the dark subject matter doesn't bring you down. I don't know how Agatha Christie did it, but she managed to write entertaining books about murders and murderers. Much like Dorothy Sayers. Both had a way of writing that drew you into the novels without burying you. 

Winter arrived early this past Monday. No one I know was ready for it psychologically. Too soon for snow and accumulation. Luckily most of the snow has melted due to the steady rain that we've had for the last twenty-four hours. But this has been the year for windiness. It seems like the wind has blown continually this year. I wish it would stop and I wish that the sun would shine more. But we're living in the era of climate change, so I'm not sure I can wish for anything of the sort.

Halloween was fun for the kids this year. But of course we always have the killjoys and the sourpusses, the ones who can't and won't let anyone off the hook for having a bit of fun. God forbid you should have some fun. How many articles I've read by young people/parents who criticize that 'American' Halloween has arrived in Norway and appears to have settled into the October repertoire. They resent having to spend money on costumes and candy. For the first, Halloween isn't originally an American holiday, but I'm not going to be bothered to get into that aspect of it. A young man I worked with years ago, who was studying to become a doctor, referred to some of his fellow students as people who walked around with rods up their rear ends. That's how I view some of the killjoys--stiff, uptight, unable to just 'let it go'. If they don't like it, no one else should, and by extension, no one else should be able to enjoy it.

Why can't more people just 'let it go' or 'live and let live?' Our society comments ad nauseam about everything under the sun. The more that gets criticized, the more I want to uphold and support all that gets criticized. I'm 'trassig' (defiant in English) that way. And I intend to remain defiant. 

And finally, I've switched off the ability to comment on my blog posts again due to a troll that leaves disturbing comments. Notice I refer to the troll as a 'that'. Not a 'who'. You never know these days. It could just be a robot or a non-human posing as a human. I thought I had set the filters correctly, perhaps I didn't. But if it's a human doing it, that person is an 'it' in my book. In any case, it's now a moot point. No more comments. 

The BBC detective series--C.B. Strike

Good detective tv series are hard to come by, but as luck would have it, I stumbled upon the BBC series C.B. Strike on HBO (C.B. Strike (TV Series 2017– ) - IMDb). I'm a Columbo and Mike Hammer fan from before, and the recent Sherlock series with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman caught my interest as well. My criteria for 'good' are several: I have to be drawn into the plot almost immediately; the detective(s) have to have some appealing qualities--they can be gruff or rude at times, but at heart be decent people; the story has to make sense and to have a reasonable conclusion. C.B. Strike fits the bill. Tom Burke plays private eye Strike with a certain gravitas; Strike doesn't laugh too much, he's not silly or a caricature of a private eye. He's served his country militarily and come back from the Afghanistan war as an amputee--missing part of his leg after an explosion. He worked as a military policeman in the British Special Investigation Branch until he left to become a private detective. He ends up taking on a parter, Robin Ellacott, played by Holliday Grainger. There is undeniable chemistry between Strike and Ellacott, but their personal lives are complicated and they don't pursue their attraction to each other. I find myself thinking about The X-Files and how the series kept us waiting for Fox Mulder and Dana Scully to get together; it was part of the attraction of the series for many years. Interestingly, once they did get together, some of the excitement of the series was diminished. Both Burke and Grainger are superb in their roles; at this point, Tom Burke is Strike because he plays him so well. It's like the character was written specifically for him. 

C.B. Strike is based on the novels by Robert Galbraith (the pseudonym for J.K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame). Rowling is a very good writer who knows how to invent good plots, weave excitement into them, and keep us on the edge of our seats waiting for resolution. I've read all the Harry Potter books; most of them are very long, but Rowling's dramatic pacing is such that the pages fly by. I haven't read the Strike books, but I imagine they are very much the same. So it's been enjoyable so far to watch the tv series--good entertainment, very good stories, and very good actors. You can't ask for much more. I should also add that the opening graphics and title song are also excellent; the song 'I Walk Beside You' is sung by Beth Rowley and was written by Adrian Johnston and Crispin Letts. As always, I like to include the lyrics to songs I like; here they are:

I Walk Beside You

You and me
Me and you
Somehow we made it through
I may be gone
I may be far away
But I walk beside you
Every step of the way
When you're used
Bruised
Black and blued
I'll think about it
Never doubt it
I'll walk beside you 

Television shows from the 1960s and 1970s

We watched all of these television shows as children and teenagers growing up in the 1960s and 1970s. Looking at them all from today's vantage point, I'd say that these decades were the golden age of television. And when I compare the television offerings on regular channels today to the shows from  these decades, I'd have to say that the shows on regular channels (linear tv) cannot hold a candle to the old shows. Most of what passes for tv entertainment on the regular channels at present is a wasteland. Streaming channels like Netflix and HBO have supplanted the regular channels, and they are far and away a better deal in terms of watching good films and series. 

Here are some of the shows we watched, enjoyed, and sometimes loved:

1960s shows

• Bewitched 
• Bonanza
• Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons
• Flipper
• Get Smart
• Gilligan's Island
• Gomer Pyle USMC
• Green Acres
• Hogan's Heroes
• I Spy
• Land of the Giants
• Leave It to Beaver
• Maya
• My Favorite Martian 
• My Three Sons
• Petticoat Junction
• Star Trek: The Original Series
• That Girl
• The Addams Family
• The Andy Griffith Show
• The Avengers
• The Dick Van Dyke Show
• The Beverly Hillbillies
• The Donna Reed Show
• The Flintstones
• The Ghost and Mrs. Muir
• The Lucy Show
• The Munsters
• The Prisoner
• The Twilight Zone

1970s shows

• All in the Family
• Columbo
• Kojak
• Kolchak: The Night Stalker 
• M*A*S*H
• Night Gallery
• Quincy, M.E.
• Sanford and Son
• The Bob Newhart Show
• The Brady Bunch
• The Mary Tyler Moore Show
• The Partridge Family
• The Rockford Files
• The Six Million Dollar Man
• The Streets of San Francisco
• The Waltons
• WKRP in Cincinnati

The appeal of science fiction

I'm a diehard sci-fi (and sci-fi horror) fan--books, films, and series. I don't remember the first sci-fi book I read that got me hooked on the genre. Perhaps it was A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle when we were children. The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells was another book that fascinated us as children. My parents were good at introducing us to different literary genres. The Andromeda Strain was published in 1969 and I probably read it around 1970 or so. I also read C.S. Lewis' The Space Trilogy when I was a teenager, and This Perfect Day by Ira Levin. To enjoy sci-fi, one must be able to let go of one's own world and enter into new and unknown worlds created by the authors and accept that those worlds may be nothing like one's own. That was never a problem for me. The appeal of sci-fi is likely different for each person, but there are some common elements. Part of the appeal was likely escapist when I was younger; now the appeal is more a fascination with dystopian themes and with other worlds, unknown worlds, the universe, time travel, parallel worlds--in short, fascination with stepping outside of the natural laws and our world (outer and inner) in order to experience other worlds. Judging by the interest in sci-fi, I think we will always be fascinated by the possibility of doing just that. I think man has always looked up at the stars and wondered what was out there. Or looked around at ordinary life and happenings and asked--what if they were different or changed, or completely unlike what we could ever imagine? Man has always been both fascinated by and afraid of the unknown and of the dark. Monsters and aliens may live there, and they may not be friendly to mankind. Even so, I would love to be able to travel through time to other worlds if I could do so via a transporter or through a wormhole, just as long as I could return to the safety of my own world when I wanted. That's asking a lot, but in the sci-fi realm, anything is possible.  

Some of my favorite sci-fi authors and their books are as follows:

• Ray Bradbury--The Martian Chronicles, Fahrenheit 451
• Stanislaw Lem--Solaris
• Philip K. Dick--Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
• Michael Crichton--The Andromeda Strain, The Terminal Man, Timeline
• Neil Gaiman--Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Graveyard Book
• John Wyndham--The Day of the Triffids
• C.S. Lewis--The Space Trilogy (Out of the Silent Planet, Perelandra, That Hideous Strength)
• H.P. Lovecraft--The Best of H.P. Lovecraft (falls into the horror fiction genre, but many of his stories would qualify as sci-fi horror)
• Isaac Asimov--Fantastic Voyage, The End of Eternity
• David Lindsay--A Voyage to Arcturus 
• Aldous Huxley--Brave New World
• George Orwell--1984
• H.G. Wells--The War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man
• Ira Levin--This Perfect Day

Some of my favorite sci-fi films and series are:  

• Forbidden Planet
• The Blob
• 2001: A Space Odyssey
• Soylent Green
• Close Encounters of the Third Kind
• Star Wars
• The Man Who Fell to Earth
• Westworld
• Alien
• Invasion of the Body Snatchers
• Aliens
• Blade Runner
• Brazil
• Deep Impact
• Event Horizon
• Jurassic Park
• The Lost World: Jurassic Park
• Men in Black
• Alien3
• Alien Resurrection
• The Day After Tomorrow
• I Am Legend
• WALL-E
• Jurassic Park III
• 28 Days Later
• District 9
• Pitch Black
• Minority Report
• Solaris 
• Another Earth
• IO
• Extinction
• I Origins
• Prometheus
• Interstellar
• The Martian
• Oblivion
• Edge of Tomorrow
• Alien: Covenant
• Arrival
• Ex Machina
• A Quiet Place
• Blade Runner 2049
• Jurassic World
• Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom
• Raised By Wolves (HBO series)

Howards End--the TV series

I watched this four-part series from 2018 last night, and can highly recommend it. It is based on the book Howards End by EM Forster. Matthew Macfadyen, Hayley Atwell, Philippa Coulthard and the rest of the cast are just wonderful. Rather than my writing a review about it, I'll include the Imdb link to the show: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2577192/?ref_=ttexrv_exrv_tt   Enjoy watching some excellent television.........

Vanity Fair--opening

And here's the opening to each episode of the Vanity Fair TV series.....I highly recommend the series--this is what makes television worth watching!

Great version of All Along the Watchtower by Afterhere

This is not Jimi Hendrix's version of All Along the Watchtower, or Bob Dylan's either (he wrote it but it's Hendrix's version that most of us remember). This is Afterhere's version, and it's great! I love it. It's recently been used as the opening credits theme music to the TV series Vanity Fair (another great British TV series--check it out here https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7076630/?ref_=rvi_tt).

I think you'll like Afterhere's version of this classic and enduring song.......

Facebook's new seven-day challenge--Post the cover of a novel that you love each day

Facebook now has another seven-day challenge: "For seven days, I post the cover of a novel that I love -- no review and no explanation -- and each day that I post, I nominate a friend for the challenge."

I'll be posting my favorites on Facebook and here too for seven days. Here's favorite #1--A Perfect Spy, by John le Carré. A Perfect Spy is really a perfect book; a masterpiece of psychological insight into the life of  double agent Magnus Pym, whose father was a con man and a huge influence on his life. I won't give the story away; I will just say that you won't want to put it down.

And after you read the book, I recommend the BBC TV series of the same name that was first broadcast in 1987:   http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092425/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Some recommendations: a book--The Journal Keeper: A Memoir; a TV series--The Sinner; and a film--Thelma

Winter is a season that keeps me indoors a lot of the time. I miss my garden and being outdoors, so it ends up being a good opportunity to catch up on my reading, movie watching, and TV watching. The latter two have tended to merge into each other since the movie theaters here have reduced their offerings considerably. Going to the movies is not what it once was, sadly. I keep hoping that movie theaters will not disappear altogether, but you never know given the ease of streaming films on nearly any device you wish to use.

I am reading Phyllis Theroux’s The Journal Keeper: A Memoir at present; I am only a fourth of the way through it, but can wholeheartedly recommend it. This memoir is a collection of her reflections on: her life as a writer, writing, the joys and difficulties of being a writer, finances, life, love, friendship, and her mistakes, strengths, dreams and desires. They are all things to which I can relate. She lived with (and took care of) her nearly-blind mother until she passed away, so she understands the passage of time and the importance of living now and doing what it is we must do. She understands the idea of trying to be the best version of herself. She is honest, unflinching and clear about her progress, successes and failures, about her relationships with her mother, children, neighbors and friends. It is rare that I come across a voice that resonates with me, or better-put, resonates with that part of me that is facing many of the same challenges. I look forward to picking up her book again in the evening before I sleep; I look forward to hearing what she has to say. She could be a friend; she is at the very least someone I would truly enjoy getting to know.

I have also discovered The Sinner, a 2017 TV series starring Jessica Biel. She plays a young married woman with a child, and her life seems to be ordinary and reasonably happy. She and her husband seem to have a good relationship. They both work together at the same company run by her husband’s father. And then one day when she and her family are relaxing on the beach at a nearby lake, she suddenly and inexplicably stands up, knife in hand, and proceeds to stab to death the young man sitting at a distance in front of her. And then the story really begins, because we know she has murdered him. The question is why. And that why is a journey into her psyche, her family life before she married, her relationship with her terminally-ill sister, and her relationship with her parents (especially an over-religious mother). The policeman assigned to her case tries to dig into her past in an effort to find answers as to why she would murder someone for apparently no reason. We know of course that he will find out many things, and many of them are not pleasant. I’ll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that Jessica Biel owns the role of The Sinner—a woman whose present life is suddenly and without warning, ripped unmercifully apart by her past. It’s a gripping crime drama, but not one for those under sixteen, due to the often lurid subject matter and the sexual situations.  

And in the same vein (repressed young woman whose life takes a bizarre turn), we have Thelma, a 2017 film by the Norwegian director Joachim Trier. After seeing this film, I ask--what scares you? As a former horror movie aficionado, I find that as I get older, it’s not the blood and guts horror films that really scare me. The films that have the greatest impact on me, the ones that linger in my mind long after they’re over, the ones that scare me when I think back on them--are the films that create the suggestion of terror, of horror, of the supernatural. They’re the films that have an ominous cloud hanging over them, a cloud that creates paranoia and murkiness. They’re the films where nearly everything that happens has some sort of darker meaning. In Thelma, crows have a special meaning. Panic attacks similar to epileptic seizures have a special meaning. Thelma’s father and mother understand this. Is Thelma a witch? Has she inherited her grandmother's psychological disorder involving the ability to use psychokinesis to change situations that upset or anger her (think of the main protagonist in the 1976 film Carrie). Or is she just a disturbed young woman whose meeting with first love just happens to be a lesbian relationship, which throws her psyche into direct conflict with her repressive religious upbringing that both her parents have foisted upon her. What horrific secrets lie in her past to explain her present life? There are secrets, and there are unpleasant revelations that can only lead to one outcome—again, that the past rears its ugly head to upset the present, because the past cannot be repressed forever. Repressed feelings, if they cannot be normally expressed, find their way out in other ways. What will it take to free Thelma from her past? And what happens if she is freed from it? Eventually, she finds out, and the outcome is disturbing. Thelma is worth seeing; it’s a hard-to-define movie. Is it a psychological thriller or is it a horror film? I'd say it's both. It gives viewers chills down the spine, a sense of foreboding, an uncomfortable feeling, and a feeling of dread concerning (knowing) what comes next. Both Thelma and The Sinner excel in this regard.  

   

When will reality TV shows disappear?

We’re now well into season 6 of The Walking Dead; episode 10, entitled The Next World, aired on Monday evening here in Norway. Fear the Walking Dead starts up again in April, and tomorrow night the sixth (and final so far) episode of The X-Files airs. I’ve been watching them all and loving them. The return of The X-Files after so many years (it went off the air in 2002) made me very happy; I looked forward to getting involved with Mulder and Scully’s cases and their relationship all over again. And these episodes didn’t disappoint; despite mixed reviews (as always), they managed to hold my attention and left me wanting more. It’s not just that all these shows are sci-fi, horror, apocalyptic, or fantasy shows that appeal to me because I find those genres interesting. It’s that we get involved with the characters at the same time, characters that are dealing with life and death situations, survival, family matters, sickness and death. The zombies have to be dealt with and/or dispatched on The Walking Dead; likewise the mutants and monsters on The X-Files. No matter how fantastic it all becomes, no matter that the survival of the main characters is sometimes very surprising or even unthinkable, I am rooting for all of them to make it. This is television at its best—series that I enjoy following, that give me something to think about and look forward to each week; that entertain me, surprise me, shock me, and involve me. There are other good series too; Sleepy Hollow, Game of Thrones, Wayward Pines, and American Horror Story are just a few that come to mind. I’ve watched them too, but The Walking Dead and The X-Files remain my favorites. I’m just thankful that they exist at all, because most of what is available to watch is reality TV. I wish someone would take a hatchet to anything that even remotely smacks of reality TV, and put all these shows out of their misery forever. They include The Kardashians, all the cooking competition shows, all the lip-syncing competition shows, all the ‘how to survive on a desert island or on a mountain-top’ shows, all the shows about bratty children who fall in line when a nanny appears, all the shows about spoiled adults whose credit cards are maxed-out and who suddenly need professional help to get them out of debt, all the shows about presumably fashionable (not) women telling other women how to dress, all the shows about pawn shop users or those who go scrounging through other people’s garage possessions, and rich men’s wives. The list goes on ad nauseum.

I don’t know what I’d do without the TCM channel that serves up films from the 1940s, 50s, and 60s, that even at their worst, are one hundred times better than anything offered me by reality TV shows. Most of the old films had real substance; a few were fluff, but the majority were not. These were films made about characters you wanted to get to know, involved in life dramas that mattered. Not so for reality TV shows. I wonder how our Western culture became so obsessed with the latter, and with one family in particular; that family’s every move is reported in the media. How did that happen, and why? Or is it just a matter of watching them because there is nothing else on? Why do I not care what happens to a single one of them? Why do I wish they would all crash and burn? All I know is that I am glad I grew up when watching television was an enjoyable experience, when shows like The Dick Van Dyke Show, Leave it to Beaver, The Donna Reed Show, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Maya, Bonanza, Kojak, Sanford and Son, Bewitched, The Bionic Woman, The Bob Newhart Show, The Partridge Family, The Waltons, The Brady Bunch, Hogan’s Heroes, Dallas, Knot’s Landing, All in the Family, MASH, The Twilight Zone, Dark Shadows, Night Gallery, The Night Stalker, Columbo, Cheers, Miami Vice, Magnum PI, Married With Children, Murder She Wrote, St. Elsewhere, Moonlighting, and Remington Steele, among many others, were popular. I watched them all and followed them all. They made an impression on me that has lasted. They were funny, sad, moving, provocative, entertaining, scary, intelligent, but above all, memorable. That cannot be said for reality TV programs. I feel sorry for this generation that has grown up with these shows; they have no real idea of what good television is, except perhaps when they sit down to watch the TV series that we grew up with. It is no wonder that streaming has become so popular; I can watch the shows I’m interested in and ignore the junk. That’s progress.  

Anxiety and dread in Fear the Walking Dead

I’m already hooked on the new TV series--Fear the Walking Dead (the prequel to The Walking Dead)—after only two episodes. I’ve read that there will be six episodes this season; it’s already been renewed for a second season. Unlike The Walking Dead that takes place in Georgia, Fear the Walking Dead takes place in Los Angeles and depicts how the apocalyptic zombie plague got its start as a flu-like virus that spreads rapidly together with the anxiety and paranoia that accompany it. Anxiety and a sense of mounting dread pervade the show; it’s not hard to imagine similar feelings if a disease like the plague spread rapidly throughout a large city and wreaked havoc on its populace. How might we react to such a plague, that the authorities would not be able to fight effectively or adequately inform the public about? How would we protect ourselves and our families? How would we survive, and what would we prioritize?

We know what’s coming in the next few episodes, since this is a prequel; we know from The Walking Dead that it’s going to be impossible to stop the zombie apocalypse. A huge city like Los Angeles and a large high school are not the first places we might expect to be creepy in broad daylight, but in this show, they are downright creepy. You half expect a zombie to appear around every corner in the high school or in the dark passageways under the highway overpasses that abound in the city. An abandoned church also ups the ‘creep you out’ factor; not surprising since this is where the first episode begins—in an abandoned church frequented by drug addicts who squat there. When Nick (played by Frank Dillane) awakes from his drug-induced sleep, his girlfriend Gloria is no longer beside him and he goes looking for her inside the church. He hears screams and goes toward those sounds, thinking that Gloria might be in trouble. When he finds her, she is no longer the girlfriend he used to know, and what he sees shocks him into wanting to get sober. He hightails it out of the church and ends up in the hospital after getting hit by a car. When his hospital roommate dies (surely an eventual zombie, implied but not shown), he escapes the hospital amid all the commotion and gets in touch with his friend and drug dealer, Calvin, who sold him the drugs. He thinks maybe he has been given drugs laced with PCP. Russell doesn’t like what he hears, and decides to take Nick out because he is afraid he will go to the police. But in a twist of fate, Calvin ends up dead, shot by his own gun, and Nick ends up alive. In the meantime, Nick's mother and her boyfriend (Madison and Travis, played by Kim Dickens and Cliff Davis, respectively) are searching for him; they have gone to the church to see for themselves what it is he has described to them (Gloria’s murderous rampage), and when they see a large pool of blood on the floor of the church, they understand that something bad has happened there. They drive around the seedier sections of the city trying to find Nick, and eventually they do, at a tunnel entrance to a storm drain. When he tells them that he has killed Calvin, they go to the scene of the shooting, only to find that Calvin is gone. What ensues convinces them that something horrific is afoot, and that they need to take what is happening around them seriously. 

The characters are believable, and behave for the most part in ways I can relate to. Trying to get one’s family members together in one location when a catastrophe strikes, being separated from those you love while doing so, trying to understand what is happening around you when you have very little time to reflect, and trying to decide whether you should provide help to others or just protect yourself and your family. These are issues that most of us can relate to. It will be interesting to see where this show takes us. I can definitely envision enough material for one season; I have a harder time understanding what the second season will focus on. But so far so good; I’m looking forward to the third episode. I’ve got to wonder though, why so many people, myself included, are watching shows with apocalyptic themes; is it an acknowledgment of the fact that we really cannot control the world around us, much as we think we can? Nature (tornadoes, earthquakes, tsunamis), pandemics (infectious diseases) or even certain groups within society (terrorists, gangs, etc.) do what they do whenever and wherever they want, and we have little to no control over them. 

A new favorite TV show

I am enjoying (if I can really use that word) watching the new season of The Walking Dead on Fox Crime on Thursday evenings. Perhaps a better way to say it is that I am enjoying being scared and jolted by the twists and turns and scares of the new season. We are about a week behind in Europe compared to the USA. The new episodes (Seed and Sick thus far) contained a lot more exciting action now that Rick and his motley group of survivors have arrived at the prison and made it their home. The ‘walkers’ inhabit certain areas of the prison and need to be dispatched if the group is to live there. Some of those attack scenes were pretty intense; we’re talking a high zombie dispatch rate and a group of survivors who were literally dead-set on taking the prison for themselves. But to spice things up even more, there were also surviving prisoners who were intent on keeping their prison for themselves, which made for a tense conflict in this week’s episode with unfortunate outcomes for some of those prisoners. Rick and his group don’t waste too much time talking; it’s kill or be killed.

I have been online to read about what people are saying about the new season, and a lot of the reviews are quite positive, precisely because there promises to be a lot more excitement during this season. There is less talk and more action, and many of the characters have gotten much tougher. It’s a welcome change from last season which moved slowly and relied on countless numbers of conversations to drive it forward. Not that slow or talky is bad, just that action is more exciting, and that is one of the reasons I tune into a show like this.

The last time I actually looked forward to watching a TV show each week was when The X-Files was on the air. Some of their episodes were completely spooky with assorted creatures and monsters (e.g. Home stands out) and the creep factor was quite high. But I sat and watched them all and dealt with being scared. The Walking Dead is different in that the humans are always under attack by the same type of monster—zombies. So the survivors have learned how to take them out and have become good at doing so. But at the same time viewers are being scared, they are also being comforted, because they know that ultimately the survivors will be able to take care of themselves. That doesn’t mean that favorite characters won’t die off; I’m sure they will as the season progresses, but it’s anyone’s guess as to who they will be. In the meantime, I'm going to sit back and enjoy the ride--it promises to be a memorable one. 

Dark Shadows and 'marginal weirdness'

I have been eagerly awaiting the opening of Tim Burton’s new film, Dark Shadows; it opened here in Norway this past Friday, May 11th. So I was online a few days before and ordered a ticket so that I was assured a seat in the theater. I needn’t have worried; the theater was not full, and I doubt it will be for any of the showings. Not because the film isn’t worth seeing, it is, but mostly because it will have limited appeal given its subject matter in a cinema world where vampires have been done to death. I need think only of the Twilight films and of True Blood, both of which I don’t really watch, although I have seen one of the Twilight films and a few of the True Blood episodes. They don’t appeal to me as much as the original Dark Shadows TV series or the two Dark Shadows films from the 1970s (House of Dark Shadows and Night of Dark Shadows) based on the TV series. The original Dark Shadows series and even the subsequent films managed something none of the other vampire films or series has managed as well, with the possible exception of Francis Ford Coppola’s incredible wonderful film version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. And that is to take themselves seriously, despite that the subject matter was nothing more than pure fantasy. They wove the supernatural fantasies of vampires, ghosts, witches, werewolves and other creatures into a soap opera storyline filled with romance, love, sex, deceit, treachery, normal life, family life and honor, wealthy families, and tragic lives. They managed to be serious and campy simultaneously. The Dark Shadows TV series was talky, like a good soap opera should be. It kept its viewers hanging literally onto each word a character uttered. Those words were important to the storyline, driving it forward, and since the series ran from Monday to Friday, viewers were guaranteed a treasure trove of conversations, arguments, conflicts, ultimatums, discussions and more conversations. In between all of these, something supernatural could occur—there might be vampire or witch activity, or ghosts that wandered about the Collinwood mansion or estate, which was often shrouded in darkness or fog. It seemed to be always evening on Dark Shadows; and like the individual characters, I was always relieved when they got indoors, into the foyer and then into the main drawing room—a safe haven for the most part, because that was where normal family life happened, where ghosts and vampires and witches were kept at bay at least when the individual family members met there. Of course the other parts of the house were not as ‘safe’; I need only think of the different rooms inhabited by ghosts, or rooms that were portals into parallel times. I think those are the parts of Tim Burton’s film that I liked the most—when the Collins family sat down to dinner, with the matriarch of the family, Elizabeth Collins Stoddard (Michele Pfeiffer) sitting at the head of the table, in complete control of her family. All she had to do was open her mouth and tell someone to be quiet, and he or she toed the line. At these times during the film, there was conversation, a sense of family, a sense of why these people stayed together and lived together in the house. Viewers learned about the history of the Collins family and how they made their living. There was character development and storyline progression. Much of this took place during the first half of the film. And then came the second half of the film, which took off into another realm completely—the absurd really, with Alice Cooper visiting the mansion as entertainment for one of the family’s famous ‘happenings’, or Angelique (played by Eva Green) ranting and raving about being scorned and how she would make Barnabas (Johnny Depp) and the family pay. She did a good job, but I would have preferred less emphasis on her and more on Barnabas and Victoria/Josette (played by Bella Heathcote), on Carolyn (played by Chloë Grace Moretz), or even on David (played by Gulliver McGrath). The film ends up being rather schizophrenic; I preferred the first half—the return of Barnabas, his entrance into and confrontation with the 20^th century, his meeting with his old family, his having to live and act as a vampire—all those things. The second half of the movie toyed with the first half. I would have preferred otherwise. But I am not sorry I saw the film. Why? Because after I got home, I went online and found some of the old Dark Shadows TV episodes on YouTube, and watched a few. And then I went onto Amazon and ordered the entire DVD collection of the original TV series (131 DVDs spanning 470 hours). I’ve decided that I will come home from work each day and watch one episode, just as I ran home from school in the 1970s to watch an episode on TV. I am looking forward to the experience of reliving the original series.

I’ve been following the reviews of Burton’s film to this point. The New York Times gave it a good review and even put it on its Critics’ Pick list: http://movies.nytimes.com/2012/05/11/movies/johnny-depp-stars-in-tim-burtons-dark-shadows.html. IMDB has a list of the different reviews so far: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1077368/externalreviews

But the review that resonated most with me was the one on Salon: http://www.salon.com/2012/05/10/johnny_depps_delirious_dark_shadows/. Why? The following excerpt from this review will explain it well: 

“Barnabas Collins predates not just “Twilight” and “True Blood,” but also Anne Rice’s “Interview With the Vampire” and the entire rise of the Goth sensibility. In the 1970s, vampires were something that only marginal weirdos who went to science-fiction bookstores and watched Hammer films like “Dracula: Prince of Darkness” knew about. People like the teenage Tim Burton, in other words”.

Well, marginal weirdo could describe me too. I may not have gone to sci-fi bookstores when I was a teenager (I’ve done so in my twenties and loved all the ones I’ve been in), but I did watch the many Christopher Lee vampire films and I even dragged my poor sister to them to keep me company. Heck, I dragged her to a lot of different horror films from that time. Needless to say, she does not have the same fond memories I have of time well-spent in dark movie theaters watching horror films. Of course, now that I think of it, she did accompany me, when she could have said no. Sometimes we were accompanied by a friend of hers, who was a marginal weirdo like myself. He liked those kinds of films, and was even the type to build models of Frankenstein and Dracula that glowed in the dark. I don’t know what happened to him after high school; I can only wonder if he too has seen Burton’s film. I would love to hear his take on the film.

Favorite movies and TV shows

(I'm updating this post as of 21 April 2013) to include Prometheus, Pitch Black and Oblivion under favorite sci-fi/horror films, and The Walking Dead under favorite TV shows)

One of my friends recently called me a film fanatic, and I have to say that she’s probably right. I’m not much of a TV watcher anymore (I used to be, but I hate reality TV and that’s all there is on TV these days), but you’ll never get me to stop going to the movies. I can’t think of a more pleasant way to spend a few hours than sitting in a dark theater with some candy and a box of popcorn, watching a movie. Movie theaters have changed—seats are very comfortable now (and they recline a bit), and each seat has its own plastic holder for water or soda bottles. Progress has been made for sure. The sound is exceptionally good, and the acoustics in the theater are too. You can now order tickets online and choose the seats you want. But that’s not why I go to the movies. I go because it’s a way to transport myself into another world for a few hours. I love being entertained; I love the fantasy, the magic, the escapism of movies. Always have and always will…….The following are some of my favorite movies, and while we’re at it, some of my favorite TV shows as well. If I listed all of the movies I’ve liked since I started going to the movies, the list would fill several pages for sure.

Favorite sci-fi/horror/fantasy films

·         2001 A Space Odyssey

·         2010

·         28 Days Later

·         Alien (all four films in the series)

·         Blade Runner

·         Bram Stoker’s Dracula

·         Burnt Offerings

·         District 9

·         Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (TV movie)

·         Don’t Look Now

·         Harry Potter (all the films)

·         House of Dark Shadows

·         I Am Legend

·         Invasion of the Body Snatchers

·         Lord of the Rings film trilogy

·         Men in Black

·         Minority Report

·         Night of Dark Shadows

·         Pan’s Labyrinth

·         Psycho

·         Stardust

·         The Birds

·         The Exorcist

·         The Last Wave

·         The Man Who Fell to Earth

·         The New Daughter

·         The Omega Man

·         The Sentinel

·         The Shining

·         The Sixth Sense

·         Twelve Monkeys

·         What Dreams May Come

·         What Lies Beneath

Favorite films

·         40 Carats

·         All That Heaven Allows

·         All The Fine Young Cannibals

·         A Perfect Spy (TV mini-series)

·         Basic Instinct

·         Body Heat

·         Brigadoon

·         BUtterfield 8

·         French Kiss

·         Hair

·         Hold That Ghost

·         It’s Complicated

·         Jane Eyre (TV mini-series)

·         Jerry McGuire

·         Julie and Julia

·         Klute

·         Light Sleeper

·         Love Story

·         Marnie

·         Night Sins (TV movie)

·         Out of Africa

·         Romancing the Stone

·         Romeo is Bleeding

·         Saturday Night Fever

·         Some Came Running

·         Something Wild

·         Strangers on a Train

·         Sunday in New York

·         The Accidental Tourist

·         The Age of Innocence

·         The Apartment

·         The Fabulous Baker Boys

·         The Grifters

·         The Hours

·         The Last Seduction

·         The Long Kiss Goodnight

·         The Mechanic

·         The Moon-Spinners

·         The Pursuit of Happyness

·         The Sandpiper

·         The Shawshank Redemption

·         The Thorn Birds (TV mini-series)

·         The Witches of Eastwick

·         When Harry Met Sally

·         Witness

·         Zee and Co.

Favorite animated films/TV shows

·         Bernard Bear

·         Bugs Bunny and all the Looney Tunes cartoons

·         Coraline

·         Courage the Cowardly Dog

·         Fantasia

·         Ratatouille

·         Scooby Doo

·         The Flintstones

·         The Pink Panther

Favorite TV shows

·         Alfred Hitchcock Presents

·         Bewitched

·         Bonanza

·         Cheers

·         CSI Miami

·         Dark Shadows

·         Days of Our Lives (soap opera)

·         Dick Van Dyke Show

·         Disneyland

·         Frasier

·         I Love Lucy

·         I Spy

·         Kojak

·         Leave it to Beaver

·         Mary Tyler Moore Show

·         M*A*S*H

·         Maya

·         Night Gallery

·         Remington Steele

·         Six Feet Under

·         Star Trek

·         That Girl

·         The Avengers

·         The Brady Bunch

·         The Donna Reed Show

·         The Night Stalker

·         The Prisoner

·         The Rockford Files

·         The Sopranos

·         The Twilight Zone

·         The Waltons

·         The X-files

Dark Shadows and Collinwood mansion

Long ago, before the current fascination with vampires--before True Blood, Twilight, and The Vampire Diaries, there was Dark Shadows, the afternoon TV horror soap opera that ran from 1966 until 1971, Monday to Friday. If I remember correctly it was a half hour soap opera that started at 4 pm, at least in New York. The series was created and produced by Dan Curtis, who also made the two Dark Shadows movies that came afterwards. A remake of the series appeared in 1991 starring Ben Cross as Barnabas, but nothing ever beat the original Dark Shadows. It was truly a creepy series, and one that we and our friends followed devotedly. I remember playing basketball after school when I was in the seventh grade and running home from practice after it was over in order not to miss it. When my father became ill in 1969 and was home on sick leave for a while, even he got interested in watching the series with us in the afternoon.

The opening music itself would draw you in (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUuQK4CR5fM). It was spooky in its own right, accompanying the opening shots of the Collinwood mansion that sat atop a hill overlooking the sea, shrouded in mist during the early evening. I don’t recall all the plots and storylines, but I do remember the characters well: Barnabas Collins, the vampire, played by Jonathan Frid; Elizabeth Collins Stoddard, the Collins family matriarch, played by Joan Bennett; her daughter Carolyn, played by Nancy Barrett (with the beautiful long straight blond hair); Angelique, the witch, played by Lara Parker; Victoria Winters, the governess, played by Alexandra Moltke; Maggie Evans, a waitress, who resembled Josette du Pres, Barnabas’ love from long ago, both characters played by Kathryn Leigh Scott; Julia Hoffman, the doctor and friend of Barnabas, played by Grayson Hall; Quentin Collins, played by David Selby; Daphne Harridge played by Kate Jackson, and so many more. Barnabas could be quite evil at times and yet there was some sort of pity for him too- he was a vampire who wanted to be cured of his affliction. The stories were well-written for the most part, and quite strange. They were haunting--they got under your skin. Characters became identifiable with specific music as well; I remember Josette’s music box song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LItWENw8Plk&feature=related), and Angelique had her music as did Quentin. The stories revolved around different love relationships (past, present and future), betrayals, witchcraft, vampirism, ghosts, and numerous Collins family problems. At times overly dramatic, sometimes campy, sometimes funny, but always memorable and the acting was always mostly good. There’s a reason the series has the fan base that it has, so many years later.

The actual mansion that was used (at least the exterior of it) as the fictional Collinwood mansion in the TV series is located in Rhode Island. When Dan Curtis decided to make his two Dark Shadows movies, he chose the Lyndhurst estate in Tarrytown New York (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyndhurst_(house)) as the film location. The Lyndhurst mansion became Collinwood mansion. Both films, House of Dark Shadows followed by Night of Dark Shadows, came out in 1971. The actual filming at Lyndhurst was done during the early spring in 1970, and there were many people who hung around the gates of the estate waiting to get a glimpse of or an autograph from the actors and actresses after they were finished filming for the day. I remember doing that with some friends from grammar school; we waited for hours for them to be finished on the set. The actors and actresses were always very gracious and they would sign autographs and pose for pictures with us. I have photos from that time of two of my friends posing together with Jonathan Frid, and I have autographs from Jonathan Frid, David Selby and Kate Jackson. It was an exciting time, and even more exciting when the films were actually shown for the first time at the Music Hall in Tarrytown. It was fun to see the Lyndhurst mansion transformed on the screen into a house that was inhabited by vampires and witches, a real house of evil.

Lyndhurst mansion--back view

Lyndhurst mansion--front