Primer

I just watched Primer. I feel like I want to go back and watch it again, but to be honest, I was a little scared about what might happen. I would recommend it to others though.

Bad day

This morning I found out that I did in fact have to reformat my laptop harddrive and reinstall Windows. Not a happy thing to do, and so I put this off until the evening. Since I had only water and orange juice to drink for dinner, I decided I should stop at Arby's, and then go to the grocery. On my way home, I discovered that my turn signals had stopped working. The left turn had been giving me some trouble lately working only intermittently for the last couple of week, and then this weekend, I thought to check my emergency flashers and found that they did not work. And then, to top it all off, to day the US Postal Service and Netflix teamed up to send me a film by Uwe Boll.

I of course do share some of the blame in this last one as I did add it to the queue and move it straight to the top, but not today. Not today. Prior to about a week ago, I knew there was this guy out there named Uwe Boll, and from what I could gather we was a poor filmmaker. But watching Ed Wood, a brilliant film about a maker of terrible films, for the first time in several years last Monday, after adding Glen or Glenda to my Netflix cue, I sought information about Herr Director Boll.

When I noticed that his first film listed on IMDb was entitled German Fried Movie, I figured those guys on the internet message boards might be onto something here. I was fascinated by how he used the German income tax system to finance his movies. Or at least he did before January 1, 2006, when Germany's tax reform went into effect. I decided to start with his first English language film, 2000's Sanctimony.

Sanctimony, as the title card reminds us, is a noun meaning either 1. HOLINESS or 2. assumed or hypocritical holiness. Oh, it could be a very long film. And it is. There are better critiques out there highlighting things like the night club with caged kendo fighters, be-goggled girls dancing on platforms, and the snuff film (well, it's really more of a snuff play that gets captured on film.) being filmed in the basement. It's terrible, but unfortunately for me, it did not quite rise to the level of transcendently bad.

While I had been warned about how Uwe likes to ripoff other movies, but I was still unprepared for the blatant degree that he does this. There is a scene where Detective Dorothy Smith uses the "gifts her mother gave her," that is, her feminine wiles, to seduce Tom Turner, an insanely successful stock trader who the detective and her partner think is the "Monkey Maker," a serial killer who has already killed six victims where he cut out their eyes, six victims where he cuts off their ears, and so far four victims where he cuts out their tongues. In this scene, when she asks him for some information since he did find the 16th victim, he responds by asking her for something, and he says "quid pro quo." "Quid pro quo?" she says because she is surprised, not because she doesn't know what it means. He then explains what it means as though she did not know, and here is the kicker, she replies with "I know what it means. I've seen The Silence of the Lambs." I had already thought of The Silence of the Lambs when he first said "quid pro quo." It was the way he said it as though Casper Van Dien had just watched The Silence of the Lambs prior to shooting that scene. I just don't understand how someone could have seen The Silence of the Lambs and still make Sanctimony?

American Series

I've got it. I know what FOX should do next fall. Since American Idol only runs during the spring season, the FOX switchboard has all these phone numbers that don't get used during the fall. Here's my idea for them. They kick off the fall season by airing two weeks of all their new shows. There's the painfully bad sitcom that people laugh at but not in the places the writers hoped for. This show gets cancelled immediately. All the other shows make it to the next round. There's the single-camera sitcom vehicle for some funny person. There's the gritty crime show with the fun but absurd season long plot. There's the gritty crime show with the good ensemble cast built more around single episodes. There's the teen drama with supernatural elements. There's the politcal thriller with supernatural elements and filmed in reverse chronological order starting with the season four finale. There's a new pale immitation of Family Guy from the people who brought you Family Guy.

Now, during the November sweeps period, starting with the end of prime time on Friday nights, viewers can call in and vote for their favorite of the new shows. Then on the Sunday night revelation show, the series that recieved the fewest votes will be cancelled and replaced with some reality show involving poorly behaved kids who learn to figure skate with someone else's mother. In the end, the winning series will be crowned "American Series," and get to return in January.

While there is a drawback in this scheme--it is possible that more than one show is actually worth airing--American Series will at least give us fans a real chance to try to save a show instead of just writing angry emails that get ignored.