Six Feet Under
"Oh, I don't need to hate you. You do a pretty damn good job of hating yourself."
I'm all over this show. It was, at first, a curiosity. Something you'd look at and go, huh ~ that just looks really really odd. To me, it looked over-serious, all dramatic and shit, and the concept itself was not up my alley.
And then I caught it once, and was intrigued. It *was* serious, but at the same time it was funny, almost as if it was laughing at itself. Here you've got a family who runs a funeral home, consisting of: A widowed older woman with an active sex life; a gay son trying to take over for his dead father, while working out his relationship with a cop; another brother who's moved from Seattle to help run the business, dealing with a rare brain dysfunction and a druggie/drunk/sex-addict writer girlfriend who has problems of her own; and a possibly depressed teenage sister with an artsy streak, a dour look, and an essentially good heart that has a tendency to get her into trouble.
Add in a few more characters, some twists and turns, Lili Taylor as a really twisted up Other Woman (and one of the reasons the show caught my eye in the first place) and you've got a plot to beat out any soap opera....but in which they don't euphemize sex or hide the nudity.
Then there's the music, which I find particularly intriguing. Again, it's not your typical theme song...more of an eerie pinging, somewhat floaty and something that puts you slightly on edge. The opening theme was written by Thomas Newman, who's written some of my favourite movie scores (Meet Joe Black and Erin Brockovich, to name but two). The episodes themselves feature some more alternative artists, and music that you just don't hear every day.
All in all, what it really brings to mind for me is the movie "American Beauty"...which is why it did, but didn't, surprise me to find that the show had been created by that movie's writer, Alan Ball. It's got the same quirkiness; that suspension of reality while being more real than most of the stuff out there.
So, again, there's your edition of Anna's Review of the Day®.
I'm all over this show. It was, at first, a curiosity. Something you'd look at and go, huh ~ that just looks really really odd. To me, it looked over-serious, all dramatic and shit, and the concept itself was not up my alley.
And then I caught it once, and was intrigued. It *was* serious, but at the same time it was funny, almost as if it was laughing at itself. Here you've got a family who runs a funeral home, consisting of: A widowed older woman with an active sex life; a gay son trying to take over for his dead father, while working out his relationship with a cop; another brother who's moved from Seattle to help run the business, dealing with a rare brain dysfunction and a druggie/drunk/sex-addict writer girlfriend who has problems of her own; and a possibly depressed teenage sister with an artsy streak, a dour look, and an essentially good heart that has a tendency to get her into trouble.
Add in a few more characters, some twists and turns, Lili Taylor as a really twisted up Other Woman (and one of the reasons the show caught my eye in the first place) and you've got a plot to beat out any soap opera....but in which they don't euphemize sex or hide the nudity.
Then there's the music, which I find particularly intriguing. Again, it's not your typical theme song...more of an eerie pinging, somewhat floaty and something that puts you slightly on edge. The opening theme was written by Thomas Newman, who's written some of my favourite movie scores (Meet Joe Black and Erin Brockovich, to name but two). The episodes themselves feature some more alternative artists, and music that you just don't hear every day.
All in all, what it really brings to mind for me is the movie "American Beauty"...which is why it did, but didn't, surprise me to find that the show had been created by that movie's writer, Alan Ball. It's got the same quirkiness; that suspension of reality while being more real than most of the stuff out there.
So, again, there's your edition of Anna's Review of the Day®.