Has anyone been watching this odd British hybrid currently playing on BBC America? I quite like it and would enjoy sharing reactions.

Ok, so the only screen I’m watching is the computer screen and this post is decidedly off-topic, but this is something I think about and wrestle with a lot and am curious what those of you who would probably be considered products of an elite university education think about this article.

Television makes you smarter! I knew all those hours invested in LOST and 24 and The Sopranos were worthwhile (though Reynolds will want to smack Steven Johnson for not mentioning his faves Deadwood and The Wire). I say more TV shows that traffic in a “thick network of affiliations.” For the uninitiated click here (you may need to register but I’m assuming you already are).

Two quick takes on two films recently watched (in the midst of tons of work, though, I have seen not much at all):

“Dolls” — didn’t do it for me. I love the look of Takeshi Kitano’s films–the strange tableaux he uses for his composition–and the oblique rhythms they rely upon for character development and editing. But after a wonderful opening, where a troupe performs a traditional ‘puppet’ show about failed love, the film enacts three separate versions of those archetypal plots, none of which escaped a dull portentousness. Or, rather, what I liked in the 5 minutes of the puppet show I disliked in another ‘medium’ over 30-45 minutes; I don’t think the film translated well, and that may be a flaw shifting from the elaborate artifice of the dolls to ‘real’ people, or it might be an American watching a Japanese genre that he didn’t quite get.

(That said, it is intriguing to think about all of Kitano’s films as reworkings or translations of traditional Japanese genres, particularly in light of “Zatoichi,” which I found to be lovely and funny and surprising in its reimagination of hoary old samurai tropes. “Kikujiro,” too, has all these interesting intertitles with paintings and crafts that may be more culturally-resonant than this viewer could make out.)
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When I first watched this film in the cinema, I admired the Kubrickian grandeur of Harris Savides’ cinematography and Kevin Thompson’s production design, and I found the dramatic narrative to be compelling if, at times, farfetched. In the end, I drove away from the cineplex ambivalent about its merits and confused by the filmmakers’ unwillingness to provide “proper” narrative closure. In an earlier post on this blog I even suggested Birth to contain moments best defined as ludicrous. But I popped the DVD in the other night and found myself even more glued to the screen—more compelled to watch the actions unfold without the need to define them. I found myself held captive by the taut, sexually menacing and ominous atmosphere (shades of Pinter?). Perhaps I was too caught up in solving the film’s many mysteries the first time around. (more…)