OMG its a whole new yeare!!! everythings diffrent now lol!
And so we wave farewell to 2010.
I'll write the usual year-end-personal-recap entry later on, maybe tomorrow or Monday, when I feel more reflective. Right now I'm too tired and can't focus on anything that matters.
My last entry gives the impression that all I've done this year is watch movies. Actually, now that I think of it, I saw a hell of a lot of theatre too. Both Fringe and mainstream. In the past two months alone, I've seen four local high-level professional productions: in November, it was Soulpepper's amazing remount of A Raisin in the Sun (I had known of the play but had never read or seen it) and their mostly good production of Death of a Salesman. In the week before Xmas, thanks to friends with free tickets, I lucked into two big musicals -- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which was excellent, and Rock of Ages, which I suppose was fun and enjoyable on its own stupid, cliched level. (But if you're going to make a musical about the 1980s music scene, shouldn't you choose the good stuff? Just sayin'.)
In the winter and early spring, I scored a bunch of free opening-night passes to plays, thanks to my internship with Toronto.com. Among other stuff, I saw the brilliant Art through them. Over the late spring and summer, of course, there were Ottawa and Hamilton Fringe as well as the Bad Dog festival, plus a bit of Toronto Fringe and Summerworks. Most of what I saw did not impress me much.
Along the way, I also learned to really like the music of Lily Allen; was pleasantly surprised by The Life of Pi, The Kite Runner and Lydia Millet; and fell in love with Mad Men.
Recently, when the next Mad Men disc wasn't available to rent, I gave the first few episodes of Dexter a try, but didn't feel any necessary urge to go much further. It was all right, but it didn't grip me enough.
I should point out that the main reason I don't watch as much TV as most people is not because I have any kind of snobbish aversion to TV (although a lot of TV is crap), it's because I just don't have the time. So I get selective. If I'm going to commit hours and hours of my life to a TV show, I have to really care about the characters and really want to know what's going to happen to them. At the very least, it should be consistently funny. Otherwise, I could be reading a book, out seeing a few movies or writing something new instead.
In the case of Dexter: there are some things I really like about the show. I like its cinematic visual style and the complexity of the title character. And to the show's credit, it's not *as* formulaic as most other crime-solving shows. But still: it's a crime-solving show, and it can't escape some of those trappings. Many of the supporting characters are hard-boiled police types with tough, terse dialogue, about whom I couldn't care less.
The only other observation I'll point out is that Dexter kills only scumbags and other criminals. So even though the show is supposed to hinge on the edgy notion of your empathizing with a hardened serial killer, you never see him actually kill anybody who doesn't "deserve" it, and so there's no moral ambiguity. Wouldn't it be far more interesting and challenging to the audience if he was at least tempted to kill good people too? Or what if he accidentally killed an innocent person (as he almost did in episode three)? That would up the stakes for me, at least, although maybe the average viewer would be turned off...
I'll write the usual year-end-personal-recap entry later on, maybe tomorrow or Monday, when I feel more reflective. Right now I'm too tired and can't focus on anything that matters.
My last entry gives the impression that all I've done this year is watch movies. Actually, now that I think of it, I saw a hell of a lot of theatre too. Both Fringe and mainstream. In the past two months alone, I've seen four local high-level professional productions: in November, it was Soulpepper's amazing remount of A Raisin in the Sun (I had known of the play but had never read or seen it) and their mostly good production of Death of a Salesman. In the week before Xmas, thanks to friends with free tickets, I lucked into two big musicals -- A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which was excellent, and Rock of Ages, which I suppose was fun and enjoyable on its own stupid, cliched level. (But if you're going to make a musical about the 1980s music scene, shouldn't you choose the good stuff? Just sayin'.)
In the winter and early spring, I scored a bunch of free opening-night passes to plays, thanks to my internship with Toronto.com. Among other stuff, I saw the brilliant Art through them. Over the late spring and summer, of course, there were Ottawa and Hamilton Fringe as well as the Bad Dog festival, plus a bit of Toronto Fringe and Summerworks. Most of what I saw did not impress me much.
Along the way, I also learned to really like the music of Lily Allen; was pleasantly surprised by The Life of Pi, The Kite Runner and Lydia Millet; and fell in love with Mad Men.
Recently, when the next Mad Men disc wasn't available to rent, I gave the first few episodes of Dexter a try, but didn't feel any necessary urge to go much further. It was all right, but it didn't grip me enough.
I should point out that the main reason I don't watch as much TV as most people is not because I have any kind of snobbish aversion to TV (although a lot of TV is crap), it's because I just don't have the time. So I get selective. If I'm going to commit hours and hours of my life to a TV show, I have to really care about the characters and really want to know what's going to happen to them. At the very least, it should be consistently funny. Otherwise, I could be reading a book, out seeing a few movies or writing something new instead.
In the case of Dexter: there are some things I really like about the show. I like its cinematic visual style and the complexity of the title character. And to the show's credit, it's not *as* formulaic as most other crime-solving shows. But still: it's a crime-solving show, and it can't escape some of those trappings. Many of the supporting characters are hard-boiled police types with tough, terse dialogue, about whom I couldn't care less.
The only other observation I'll point out is that Dexter kills only scumbags and other criminals. So even though the show is supposed to hinge on the edgy notion of your empathizing with a hardened serial killer, you never see him actually kill anybody who doesn't "deserve" it, and so there's no moral ambiguity. Wouldn't it be far more interesting and challenging to the audience if he was at least tempted to kill good people too? Or what if he accidentally killed an innocent person (as he almost did in episode three)? That would up the stakes for me, at least, although maybe the average viewer would be turned off...