Escapism (II)
Sep. 12th, 2006 12:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rusty_haloI've read ten Sharpe books so far, from Sharpe's Eagle to Sharpe's Revenge, in the order written. They are getting a bit formulaic, and I'm not so enamored with old Sharpe--you know, the Sharpe who spends most of his time worrying about how scary fighting is, instead of coming up with awesomely ruthless plans to advance his career. Although it is kind of cool how he totally loses it in Sharpe's Siege, murders a guy in front of everyone, and then breaks down in hysterical tears because Hogan's dead and Jane's alive.
And I do like the conclusion, which is basically that everything Sharpe's struggled for--career advancement, acceptance into upper class society, marriage to a beautiful upper class lady, fighting the French--turn out to be crap, and he abandons them all to go live in the French countryside with some average looking French widow. That's cool, that he doesn't get what he wants, but he's had enough experience to see through it and kind of move beyond it. (But Sharpe and Harper separating at the end--that got to me. Couldn't they be Brian and Michael and go live together in a house on the beach, reminiscing about their youthful adventures, or something like that? I always get upset when friends separate for no good reason.)
It's kind of interesting, reading Sharpe along with watching Rescue Me, because they both deal with similar questions: how do people who live dangerous lives and exist in a world of male camaraderie and emotional repression, a world that it seems only others in the same situation can understand, function in the real world? The same way Sharpe is brilliant in battle but an awkward dork in society, the way he can't see a place for himself in "peacetime," and so wishes for the war to continue, seems very similar to the way Tommy is a true hero in fighting fires, but an utter wreck at marriage and family. And yet, both Sharpe and Tommy long, more than anything, for family and for acceptance, but their warrior selves constantly impede that desire; in the end, they'll always choose their fighting companions over settling down/marriage/family; in a way, their true family is the people they fight with (you see this in how Sharpe struggles to keep his regiment together, or how Tommy struggles to keep everyone in his firehouse together, and how pissed off their wives get at always coming in second).
Anyway, speaking of the longing for family, I also just watched the entire series Profit, which ends on that note. I've concluded that Profit is probably the greatest TV show ever made.
I had seen one episode when it first aired in 1996 (I was 14) and fell immediately in love. Unfortunately that was the last episode to air, and I never heard anything else about it. (I've even got a diary entry from back then in which I throw a fit that I tuned in the next week and it was mysteriously gone.) After 10 years, all I remembered was that Profit was a ruthless sociopathic businessman, he slept in a cardboard box, and in the episode I saw he put a thumb tack in his shoe in order to pass a lie detector test. I've never forgotten that.
So when I heard it was coming out on DVD, I immediately ordered it. Unfortunately, then I let it sit around in my house for a few months without watching it. I finally did this weekend and all I can say is WOW; it really may well be the best show I've ever seen.
I'm astounded that it got made and actually ever aired at all. It's not just edgy; it's beyond edgy. It's like, you know how you watch TV and you can see the compromises that the creators made in order to get the show on television? The awkwardly inserted morals, the dumbed down plots? Profit just absolutely does not compromise.
I watch very little television anymore because it's predictable and because I can't stand its morality. I have my own ethics, thanks, and I don't need my entertainment to try and shove its moral opinions down my throat. Profit is just fucking brilliant because it takes a genuinely amoral point of view. It's just honest and dark and fucking hilarious. I watched this show with such glee; I actually found myself laughing out loud at the awesomeness as it continued. It's like it took everything that bothers me about television and turned it on its head.
It's a lot like Angel if the show was about Lilah rising to power within Wolfram and Hart. And if there's an Angel-style moral character, instead of ultimately triumphing at the end of the day because the good guy is always right, Lilah outsmarts and defeats him. Only there's nothing supernatural and it's Jim Profit instead of Lilah, and where Lilah did have some human emotion (her attractions to Angel and Wes, whatever that was with her mother), Profit seems to be almost entirely without emotion, or at least so far removed from it that he's able to observe whatever little emotion he feels without it effecting his decisions. (It's co-created by David Greenwalt, btw, which explains the Wolfram and Hart similarities.)
And actually what makes it even more interesting is that Lilah exists in a world that's still wedded to a traditional black and white view of morality. Even though the characters are often ambiguous, the ultimate moral "truths" still exist. There's still Powers That Be supporting Angel, and who knows what kind of evil forces supporting Wolfram and Hart. Lilah is explicitly aligned with "evil"; she's sold her soul so that even after death she continues working for W&H. Profit is even cooler because he isn't aligned with any morality at all; he doesn't go out of his way to commit evil, he's not a sadist, he doesn't take any more pleasure from evil than he does from good. He'll commit acts of great good or great evil as long as they serve his purposes; morality is just entirely irrelevant to him. Profit is beyond morality.
In the commentaries people keep comparing him to a carnivorous animal; he's a cobra or a shark. On the very few occasions in which he experiences emotion, he regards it with a sort of fascinated mix of curiosity and irritation. Mostly he just watches humans from outside, figures out their weaknesses, and exploits those weaknesses to his own ends. Every character on the show is some shade of grey, and it's not predictable; some people are nastier than Profit, some are nicer, and neither side is guaranteed to triumph. Winning seems to come from a combination of intelligence and luck; you never win just because your side is morally "correct."
And the show just takes every imaginable boundary and shatters it. And again, I emphasize, it's so funny. The writers keep comparing it to a farce (yes, I listened to all the commentaries); without the humor, it would probably be too much like a soap opera. Instead, it's just delightful. In the first episode, Profit kills his father and fucks his (step)mother. In a later episode, his stepmother breaks up a marriage by separately seducing both the husband and the wife. It's like instead of finding ways to soften the blows and pull their punches, the writers were gleefully figuring out ways to give the absolute worst spin on everything.
And I haven't even gone into how good it is on a technical level--the pacing is perfect, the writing is razor sharp, the themes are done well, the show is visually beautiful, and the acting is astounding all around. It works on so many metaphoric levels, as it comments on American culture, capitalism, television, morality, human psychology, etc., etc. I'm going to have to make all my friends watch this show so that we can squee over it together; I know that![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
drujan is going to fall completely in love with it.
And a few other things I've seen recently (I love you, Netflix):
Two Sean Bean movies, Bravo Two Zero and Extremely Dangerous. I really liked Extremely Dangerous; it's a Fugitive-style thriller made for the BCC. Very good acting, good plot, lots of suspense, and Sean Bean acting brilliantly and looking hot. What more can you ask for? It was a bit predictable, and English subtitles would've been handy, but overall I enjoyed it.
Bravo Two Zero wasn't as good, mainly because it's based on a true story so it's hard to get into, and there's not much plot. A bunch of British army guys go on some mission in Iraq, screw up, get caught, get tortured, and get released (except for the three who die). You can't really get into it as fiction because it's based on a true story and because, with everything that's happening in real life, the torture scenes are just too disturbing. Still, Sean Bean is in it, and he acts well and looks hot, so it's basically enjoyable. But Extremely Dangerous was a lot more fun.
And yet more Robert Downey, Jr. movies. Only You is a sweet little romantic comedy with Downey and Melissa Tomei, but having just seen Downey in Less Than Zero it was hard to find his obsessively-in-love character romantic instead of creepy. And I hate romances, although at least this one had some healthy cynicism about the idea of fate.
Restoration should have been better than it was; it's a period piece with Downey as a doctor in Restoration-era England. Thematically it was a nice parallel between the character growing up and coming to terms with life and the society as a whole changing. I like redemption stories, and this one probably sounded great on paper, but translated to film it's full of flaws. The pacing is just awful; it lingers on certain eras of his life way too long, then zooms past most of the character development that supposedly happens near the end, so it's hard to buy his transformation. Plus Downey looks and sounds ridiculous throughout most of it (the wig and fake accent don't suit him at all) and Meg Ryan is also pretty silly as an Irish mental patient. (And were we supposed to find it romantic when the doctor fucks and impregnates his insane patient, and then that supposedly "heals" her??) I can see the idea they were going for, but I don't think they really managed to pull it off.
And finally In Dreams, which is an absolutely gorgeous bad movie. Neil Jordan directed it, and like Interview with the Vampire, it's lush and rich with symbolism and beautiful to look at. Unfortunately all the lush symbolism in the world won't save a stupid movie, and the problem here is that on a logical level the film doesn't make any sense. RDJ plays a serial killer who gets into Annette Benning's mind and fucks with her, but you never know what he's capable of--does he really get into her computer? How does he turn on a stereo from a distance? Is he mind-controlling her dog? Has he possessed her garbage disposal, and most importantly, are we actually supposed to be terrified of a garbage disposal that spews apple sauce? It doesn't matter with how much overwrought melodrama Benning screams; a garbage disposal spewing apple sauce is just not scary.
Still, Downey at least turns in a chilling (and eerily sympathetic) formerly abused child turned serial killer, and the Snow White-style themes of innocence corrupted are very nicely done. But nothing can change the fact that the writing sucks.
Two amusing links:
Quiet Guy Mistaken For Nice Guy at The Onion. Because I love how you can be totally silent and people will project their expectations onto you and see what they want to see.
And Sharpe's Piss Pot at Something Awful. "1813. Sharpe is tasked with rescuing Wellington's favorite Piss Pot from the clutches of General Ennui, but a filthy new sergeant with evil schemes and a mysterious damsel with a great deal of cleavage have..."
Having just watched the entire Sharpe series, I could not stop laughing while reading this.
And I do like the conclusion, which is basically that everything Sharpe's struggled for--career advancement, acceptance into upper class society, marriage to a beautiful upper class lady, fighting the French--turn out to be crap, and he abandons them all to go live in the French countryside with some average looking French widow. That's cool, that he doesn't get what he wants, but he's had enough experience to see through it and kind of move beyond it. (But Sharpe and Harper separating at the end--that got to me. Couldn't they be Brian and Michael and go live together in a house on the beach, reminiscing about their youthful adventures, or something like that? I always get upset when friends separate for no good reason.)
It's kind of interesting, reading Sharpe along with watching Rescue Me, because they both deal with similar questions: how do people who live dangerous lives and exist in a world of male camaraderie and emotional repression, a world that it seems only others in the same situation can understand, function in the real world? The same way Sharpe is brilliant in battle but an awkward dork in society, the way he can't see a place for himself in "peacetime," and so wishes for the war to continue, seems very similar to the way Tommy is a true hero in fighting fires, but an utter wreck at marriage and family. And yet, both Sharpe and Tommy long, more than anything, for family and for acceptance, but their warrior selves constantly impede that desire; in the end, they'll always choose their fighting companions over settling down/marriage/family; in a way, their true family is the people they fight with (you see this in how Sharpe struggles to keep his regiment together, or how Tommy struggles to keep everyone in his firehouse together, and how pissed off their wives get at always coming in second).
Anyway, speaking of the longing for family, I also just watched the entire series Profit, which ends on that note. I've concluded that Profit is probably the greatest TV show ever made.
I had seen one episode when it first aired in 1996 (I was 14) and fell immediately in love. Unfortunately that was the last episode to air, and I never heard anything else about it. (I've even got a diary entry from back then in which I throw a fit that I tuned in the next week and it was mysteriously gone.) After 10 years, all I remembered was that Profit was a ruthless sociopathic businessman, he slept in a cardboard box, and in the episode I saw he put a thumb tack in his shoe in order to pass a lie detector test. I've never forgotten that.
So when I heard it was coming out on DVD, I immediately ordered it. Unfortunately, then I let it sit around in my house for a few months without watching it. I finally did this weekend and all I can say is WOW; it really may well be the best show I've ever seen.
I'm astounded that it got made and actually ever aired at all. It's not just edgy; it's beyond edgy. It's like, you know how you watch TV and you can see the compromises that the creators made in order to get the show on television? The awkwardly inserted morals, the dumbed down plots? Profit just absolutely does not compromise.
I watch very little television anymore because it's predictable and because I can't stand its morality. I have my own ethics, thanks, and I don't need my entertainment to try and shove its moral opinions down my throat. Profit is just fucking brilliant because it takes a genuinely amoral point of view. It's just honest and dark and fucking hilarious. I watched this show with such glee; I actually found myself laughing out loud at the awesomeness as it continued. It's like it took everything that bothers me about television and turned it on its head.
It's a lot like Angel if the show was about Lilah rising to power within Wolfram and Hart. And if there's an Angel-style moral character, instead of ultimately triumphing at the end of the day because the good guy is always right, Lilah outsmarts and defeats him. Only there's nothing supernatural and it's Jim Profit instead of Lilah, and where Lilah did have some human emotion (her attractions to Angel and Wes, whatever that was with her mother), Profit seems to be almost entirely without emotion, or at least so far removed from it that he's able to observe whatever little emotion he feels without it effecting his decisions. (It's co-created by David Greenwalt, btw, which explains the Wolfram and Hart similarities.)
And actually what makes it even more interesting is that Lilah exists in a world that's still wedded to a traditional black and white view of morality. Even though the characters are often ambiguous, the ultimate moral "truths" still exist. There's still Powers That Be supporting Angel, and who knows what kind of evil forces supporting Wolfram and Hart. Lilah is explicitly aligned with "evil"; she's sold her soul so that even after death she continues working for W&H. Profit is even cooler because he isn't aligned with any morality at all; he doesn't go out of his way to commit evil, he's not a sadist, he doesn't take any more pleasure from evil than he does from good. He'll commit acts of great good or great evil as long as they serve his purposes; morality is just entirely irrelevant to him. Profit is beyond morality.
In the commentaries people keep comparing him to a carnivorous animal; he's a cobra or a shark. On the very few occasions in which he experiences emotion, he regards it with a sort of fascinated mix of curiosity and irritation. Mostly he just watches humans from outside, figures out their weaknesses, and exploits those weaknesses to his own ends. Every character on the show is some shade of grey, and it's not predictable; some people are nastier than Profit, some are nicer, and neither side is guaranteed to triumph. Winning seems to come from a combination of intelligence and luck; you never win just because your side is morally "correct."
And the show just takes every imaginable boundary and shatters it. And again, I emphasize, it's so funny. The writers keep comparing it to a farce (yes, I listened to all the commentaries); without the humor, it would probably be too much like a soap opera. Instead, it's just delightful. In the first episode, Profit kills his father and fucks his (step)mother. In a later episode, his stepmother breaks up a marriage by separately seducing both the husband and the wife. It's like instead of finding ways to soften the blows and pull their punches, the writers were gleefully figuring out ways to give the absolute worst spin on everything.
And I haven't even gone into how good it is on a technical level--the pacing is perfect, the writing is razor sharp, the themes are done well, the show is visually beautiful, and the acting is astounding all around. It works on so many metaphoric levels, as it comments on American culture, capitalism, television, morality, human psychology, etc., etc. I'm going to have to make all my friends watch this show so that we can squee over it together; I know that
drujan is going to fall completely in love with it.And a few other things I've seen recently (I love you, Netflix):
Two Sean Bean movies, Bravo Two Zero and Extremely Dangerous. I really liked Extremely Dangerous; it's a Fugitive-style thriller made for the BCC. Very good acting, good plot, lots of suspense, and Sean Bean acting brilliantly and looking hot. What more can you ask for? It was a bit predictable, and English subtitles would've been handy, but overall I enjoyed it.
Bravo Two Zero wasn't as good, mainly because it's based on a true story so it's hard to get into, and there's not much plot. A bunch of British army guys go on some mission in Iraq, screw up, get caught, get tortured, and get released (except for the three who die). You can't really get into it as fiction because it's based on a true story and because, with everything that's happening in real life, the torture scenes are just too disturbing. Still, Sean Bean is in it, and he acts well and looks hot, so it's basically enjoyable. But Extremely Dangerous was a lot more fun.
And yet more Robert Downey, Jr. movies. Only You is a sweet little romantic comedy with Downey and Melissa Tomei, but having just seen Downey in Less Than Zero it was hard to find his obsessively-in-love character romantic instead of creepy. And I hate romances, although at least this one had some healthy cynicism about the idea of fate.
Restoration should have been better than it was; it's a period piece with Downey as a doctor in Restoration-era England. Thematically it was a nice parallel between the character growing up and coming to terms with life and the society as a whole changing. I like redemption stories, and this one probably sounded great on paper, but translated to film it's full of flaws. The pacing is just awful; it lingers on certain eras of his life way too long, then zooms past most of the character development that supposedly happens near the end, so it's hard to buy his transformation. Plus Downey looks and sounds ridiculous throughout most of it (the wig and fake accent don't suit him at all) and Meg Ryan is also pretty silly as an Irish mental patient. (And were we supposed to find it romantic when the doctor fucks and impregnates his insane patient, and then that supposedly "heals" her??) I can see the idea they were going for, but I don't think they really managed to pull it off.
And finally In Dreams, which is an absolutely gorgeous bad movie. Neil Jordan directed it, and like Interview with the Vampire, it's lush and rich with symbolism and beautiful to look at. Unfortunately all the lush symbolism in the world won't save a stupid movie, and the problem here is that on a logical level the film doesn't make any sense. RDJ plays a serial killer who gets into Annette Benning's mind and fucks with her, but you never know what he's capable of--does he really get into her computer? How does he turn on a stereo from a distance? Is he mind-controlling her dog? Has he possessed her garbage disposal, and most importantly, are we actually supposed to be terrified of a garbage disposal that spews apple sauce? It doesn't matter with how much overwrought melodrama Benning screams; a garbage disposal spewing apple sauce is just not scary.
Still, Downey at least turns in a chilling (and eerily sympathetic) formerly abused child turned serial killer, and the Snow White-style themes of innocence corrupted are very nicely done. But nothing can change the fact that the writing sucks.
Two amusing links:
Quiet Guy Mistaken For Nice Guy at The Onion. Because I love how you can be totally silent and people will project their expectations onto you and see what they want to see.
And Sharpe's Piss Pot at Something Awful. "1813. Sharpe is tasked with rescuing Wellington's favorite Piss Pot from the clutches of General Ennui, but a filthy new sergeant with evil schemes and a mysterious damsel with a great deal of cleavage have..."
Having just watched the entire Sharpe series, I could not stop laughing while reading this.