Televisions

I am one of these Americans who does not own a TV set.

Allow me to rephrase: I don't have a cable box.

Housemate & I use our TV in the living room as a black panel to look at during conversations when it's not being used for Netflix & Mad Men DVDs.

I was raised in a house where we didn't get past channel 13 until I was in Middle School, so the TV watching habit is not ingrained in me. However, to most of you who are my age I'm sure the lack of cable is not groundbreaking. Our computers & smartphones are our windows on the world: I read multiple newspapers through Twitter, and watch TV shows and amusing videos on Hulu & YouTube.

Why pay $80 for a cable box when I can get all of that information for a far lower price? I live in the most exciting city in the country, I'm not going to sit in my house & watch the world through a box. I have only very occasionally wanted a TV: during the Egyptian Revolution (I watched it on Al Jazeera online) & to watch SToriBook Wedding (I got over it). Other than that, I don't really think about it.

What about the rest of you? Do you have cable? Do you think it's worth it? Anybody want to make any wild predictions about the future of television?

Movie Monday: The Walking Dead (Episode 1)

"The Walking Dead" has taken over the "Mad Men" slot on Sundays. Since I was thirsty for a new story to obsess over, I became, for an hour, one of the mindless slaves their advertising wanted me to be.

The story is great, but it would be difficult to make a bad story out of what has been argued as the second greatest comic book of all time (nothing is better than Watchmen, y'all). The effects are great, the visual imagery is strong, and I have relatively few problems with the dialogue.

My biggest problem with this series is, of course, the acting. Andrew Lincoln, the man playing the protagonist Rick Grimes, is just not an interesting actor. Remember how in I Am Legend Will Smith was by himself on screen for the first 45 minutes of the movie & you barely noticed that nothing was happening? Yeah, that wasn't the case here. Lincoln lacks subtext & the ability to tell us what he is thinking without mugging. The brief moment we had with Shane (Jon Bernthal) & the rest of the van camp was spent with Bernthal more or less screaming at the camera "I AM THE BAD GUY. I WILL BE BAD. LOOK AT MY EYES! THEY SAY BAD GUY."

I suppose my other problem with the show is the pacing. It seemed over-anxious to get Shane into the city & around some grisly creatures to blow up. I could have used a few more traveling scenes, or some more  of the normal-life-backstory-lead-up. The first episode came off as rushed & almost forced, in a way that said "Look horror movie fans! Zombies! Please watch our show!" I supposed elapsed time is easier in comic books, when the author can write "later..." & the reader is free to imagine what happened in the interim.

And that's my problem overall with the TV version of "The Walking Dead"; it's not a book.

Movie Monday: Mad Men Season 4

And now a brief chat on a subject which I don't think is discussed enough on the internet: Mad Men.

I began getting the DVDs from Netflix at the end of July when I signed up, and upon finishing season 3 went straight to watching season 4 on my friend's TiVo. The Season Finale last night  also marked the end of three solid months of consuming Mad Men like a junkie, and I am in the beginning stages of withdrawal.

Gushy descriptions of the writing, acting, and design can be found anywhere, so I will resist the urge to do the same (although I have done so to my family many a time, & for that, Dad, I am sorry). Instead, I will give you my fourth favorite reason for liking the show, and hopefully you won't judge me too harshly for it: I use it as a little bit of an History lesson.

I'm very dumb, so when I learn about a series of events in school, I usually have to make myself a timeline and a flow chart to figure out how all of the things relate to one another. Mad Men has helped me fill in the arc of what (white, employed) people were possibly thinking and doing all though the beginning of the '60s. Being a largely left-brained visual person, seeing a continuum of what people were wearing through those years has actually helped me make a little more sense of photos in textbooks.

Normally I wouldn't allow myself this sort of thing. In costume research, we are only allowed to draw research from primary sources: I should actually watch 'Bye Bye Birdie,' not the episode where Sal (I MISS HIM) makes a commercial based on it. But for solely mind-organizing purposes, I have chosen to trust the intensive research of Weiner, Christopher Brown, Camille Bratkowski,  Katherine Jane Bryant, and the whole rest of the crew (art departments, makeup, hair, pattern cutting... wonderful how many people the arts employ), considering the interviews I have heard about the books they keep to track who is wearing what when.

I know the show hasn't gotten renewed on AMC yet, but I don't see why it shouldn't. However, I have gathered from interviews I've heard with Weiner that he doesn't intend to run the show in to the ground, which I am pleased as spiked punch to hear. Even though I can't get enough, it's nice to let things die when then need to (because even 'Cats' didn't have nine lives). But am I going to go out & buy all of the Season DVDs during the Christmas Sales? You bet.