July 2010 Archives

Yesterday my depression reached its nadir (I had to think for about 30 seconds before remembering that word! I checked it; it's right!) and now it's swung back around to a general goofiness characterized by a fixation on things I find amusing, such as this article in today's Free Press:

If you follow me on Twitter, you probably know by now that the idea of the man who knows himself only as "Dennis" fills me with glee, although I acknowledge that the man's situation is probably pretty distressing in real life. I want to make a series of comics all about Dennis' adventures. He will have the same bland but haunted expression on his face throughout.

My mood has also been buoyed somewhat over the past few days by getting hooked on Villagers via NPR's Tiny Desk Concerts. They're an exceptionally listenable Irish folky alt-something group in the vein of Grizzly Bear or Fleet Foxes. Conor J. O'Brien, the band's frontman and creative powerhouse, has a truly gorgeous voice. They seem to be touring the West Coast this coming week, so if you're out there, check Villagers out. For the rest of us, I would highly recommend watching the aforementioned All Songs Considered performance or just buying their album outright.

I don't know if I can describe it any better than that. A conventional critical analysis of the film would be tricky. It's immaculately constructed. Other than some over-long, disorienting chase scenes and some clunky dialogue here and there, it borders on technical flawlessness.

I don't want to pose this as a criticism because I don't mean it as such, but it is a curiously humorless and emotionless film except for the very palpable longing Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio) feels for his family, represented beautifully by the motif of his children's backs. Inception presents the viewer with this powerful emotion, but for the most part does not allow us to experience it. We are held at arm's length, observers in the layers of dreams the characters traverse.

I guess this aspect of the film surprised me because one expects any movie about dreams to be immersive and subjective. Inception is most definitely experienced objectively. Rather than being immersed in the action, we are reminded of all the steps that must be taken to complete the process. Something at the complete other end of the spectrum but the same genre (roughly) would be Ocean's Eleven, where the viewer knows almost nothing about how the heist will happen and is swept up when it does. In Inception, the viewer is watching from the perspective of the mastermind, aware of every step.

Again, all of this is largely observation, not criticism. I thought the film was a masterwork. It's incredibly original. It's like nothing I've ever seen, and that's certainly saying something.

Highlights were Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy, who added really the only wryness and humor in the entire film. Ken Watanabe also got to be pretty fun. Gordon-Levitt's anti-gravity fight scenes were amazing. Cillian Murphy did an admirable job considering he wasn't given much to work with. DiCaprio, although very restrained, communicated Dom's tragedy perfectly.

I'm going to see it again tomorrow, so I may amend this entry if I have any other insights, but I felt I had to get out my thoughts right after the first viewing.

So, what did you think of Inception?

The show revolves around the employees of the IT Department of Reynholm Industries. In what has since become kind of formulaic (see The Big Bang Theory), the department's two geeks, Roy (Chris O'Dowd) and Moss (Richard Ayoade) chafe under the management of Jen (Katherine Parkinson), a technologically-impaired female stereotype. This set-up could have yielded a fairly dull multicamera sitcom, but creator and comedy impresario Graham Linehan keeps it fun, intelligent, and absurd.

The first series, all the way back in 2006, took an approach that was in many ways dependent on geek-oriented jokes, lampooning the technological ignorance of the general populace. I think it's since become a little passe as more and more people become at least functionally tech-savvy. Either that or it didn't ring quite true since there had to be a delicate balance struck between making the jokes accessible to a general audience and true to character.

In the more recent seasons, I think The IT Crowd has become more about the relationships between the characters, which is ultimately what every TV show--comedy or drama--has to have at its heart. It still remains a nice little homage to geek culture and showcases a lot of very strong comic acting. Matt Berry, playing Douglas, Reynholm Industries' oblivious, womanizing CEO, is always a joy to watch.

There are still things that bother me about it, though. While a studio audience and the laugh track that comes along with it is a mainstay of the traditional sitcom (a genre that still seems to have a lot more popularity in the UK), it gets pretty grating, especially as the percentage of the show shot as single-camera inserts increases. Would it really be that bad to make it all single camera and ditch the audience? 

I also appreciate that they've put some effort into making Jen geekier as the show progresses, but the concept of a slightly dumb, attractive woman placed in contrast to nerd guys is annoyingly stereotypical. Doesn't any show creator ever think about all the new dynamics and possibilities that would present themselves if these gender roles were inverted? Is it just that an audience would be too resistant to the concept of a female nerd, or even any female character not presented first and foremost as being attractive?

Anyways, despite all that, The IT Crowd is worth watching. May it be a stepping stone into the many other fantastic projects the talented comedians that make up its cast and creators have worked on, including The Mighty Boosh, Nathan Barley, Garth Marenghi's Darkplace, Man to Man with Dean Learner, Snuff Box, and Black Books.

I've been feeling kind of frustrated and beleaguered recently, for a variety of reasons, most notably the rejection of my application for a job that would have been impressive, well-suited to my skills, politically relevant, probably at least relatively well-paying, and located in the same city as some of my friends. As with anything you get rejected from, you can't help but wonder where you went wrong. Was I too nervous on the phone? Was my rationale on why I was interested in progressive ideology lacking? Did I do bad on the proofreading test? Was I so sleep-deprived and hung over that I was actually speaking gibberish?

The logical part of my brain tells me that there were probably just a lot more candidates with more impressive resumes than me, but that's never much consolation to the emotional part. It's just tough when you get these bursts of hope and you think "My search could be over! I could have a job in a few short days!" and then you wait and wait and wait and eventually realize that you're not any closer to success than you ever were.

I'm not completely hopeless now (and ideally I won't be even if I do end up at square one again). I still have one more exciting iron in the fire. But it's the hopeful waiting that kills you. It's tough to keep sending off applications when you're clinging to the hope that you'll rise to the top of whatever pool of sad jobless schmucks you happen to be swimming in at the moment.

So I continue to clean and organize in what could probably be analyzed as an attempt to assert a measure of control over my life. In a similar vein, I decided to try to start a comedy blog called Laughtracker. I'm not sure what exactly its content is going to entail, but it's all designed and functional. I did this instead of applying to more jobs. But I could argue (and will continue to, especially to my parents) that any and all design work strengthens my resume. So it counts!

In happy news, Inception is coming out this weekend! And my birthday is in a week and a half! And Mad Men is starting up again on my birthday! Almost all the major events in my life are media-related!

The first of the weddings has arrived. People that I knew in high school and whose intelligence I respect are starting to get married. It's not that I'm disdainful of them. No, more power to 'em if they want to get married. But the contrast between the place where I am emotionally/developmentally/professionally and the place I associate with marriage is enormously stark. 

Perhaps this has just been ingrained into me by two parents who each had a young, ill-advised marriage before getting it right, but I really don't think I could pledge my life to anything at this point. I don't even know who (or what) I am now, much less how I'm going to feel thirty (or even just ten! Or five!) years from now. Getting married fresh out of college is a ballsy thing to do. You really have to have conviction (and love or whatever, I guess). Maybe it's my lack of both of those things that makes it so hard for me to grasp.

Yes, I've said it! I'm an emotionless, indecisive robot! Watch me debate every possible option endlessly, my tiny robot brain going round and round in circles! Wheeee!

While I continue to ponder, I will continue to clean my room. Unfortunately, I'm running out of places to clean. Anyone want to hire a robot maid? You know, like on The Jetsons?

Zack and I have been friends since the very beginning of college. We both came to the first Gargoyle meeting of our freshman year and, as I recall, hit it off pretty immediately. We got even closer living in the same house this past year. I can't count the number of strange and wonderful in-jokes we've generated over the course of our college careers, how many times we've had breakfast at the Fleetwood, or how many times we've walked down the tracks to The Underpass (actually I can: two).

So I've half-moved back to Rochester for now to save money, since right now it doesn't look like I'm going to be getting a job before my lease in Ann Arbor is up. By happy coincidence, my semi-clone Sam Nash, who used to live in the same town as Zack, has moved to a neighborhood about a five minute drive away from here, which will be nice. I've spent the past day re-integrating my possessions and throwing out old stuff, something I'm a little tired of doing at this point. If college has taught me nothing else, it at least trained me well in the art of packing, moving, and unpacking.

Right now I'm waiting to leave for my aunt and uncle's house for our annual July 4th cookout. It's hard to believe that is was only a year ago that I was packed like a sardine in a crowd of strangers, watching fireworks burst over the Hudson. Last summer still seems more like a strange dream to me than something that actually happened. It was so far out of my paradigm that I can't reconcile it.

Anyway, I hope you're all having a great holiday. Let's all show our country we love it the best way we know how: by setting things on fire.