Eating the Dinosaur - Chuck Klosterman

On the back cover of Chuck Klosterman's newest book there is a fake question and answer with the writer. Besides containing some of the typical smartassness found in Klosterman's writing there is the following section discussing the book's theme:

Q: Is there a larger theme?

A: Oh, something about reality. "What is reality," maybe? No, that's not it. Not exactly. I get the sense that most of the core questions dwell on the way media perception constructs a fake reality that ends up becoming more meaningful that whatever actually happened.

Although Klosterman often hides though humor or snarkiness, this is some of the best self analysis that he's written, and it perfectly explains what Eating the Dinosaur is about.

Compared to the other books of his that I have read (Killing Yourself to Live and Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs) Eating the Dinosaur has a much stronger central theme and seems to have had more thought put into it. Although Killing Yourself to Live has a 'strong theme' in theory, it too often gets dragged down by his various musings and distractions. In Dinosaur he stays much more on topic, and almost never gets distracted from his central idea (he barely brings up his personal life, which is a welcome change from his previous efforts). Although I haven't read all of Klosterman's other work, I think it's safe to say that Eating the Dinosaur is is best work to date.

As stated above, Dinosaur has a central theme of "reality versus perceived reality as it is affected by culture". Although like Cocoa Puffs it is a collection of essays on various subjects, unlike Cocoa Puffs all these essays seem to be connected on a deeper level. Whether it's talking about the failure of Chris Gaines, the fall and perception of Ralph Sampson, laughtracks, the sincerity of Rivers Cuomo, Ralph Nader and Warner Herzog or the things the Unabomber got right (more on this in a bit) Dinosaur attempts to analyze ways in which our world experience is mediated and affected through the culture in which we live.

One of my favorite essays was Klosterman explaining why he loves football (which can be read here on ESPN, to which Klosterman is an occasional contributor), and why it's such a fantastic sport. He ends the chapter with his best thoughts about the subject:

Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart. And this is all I want from everything, all the time, always.

Klosterman is here discussing how when it comes to the way football develops tactically, coaches are willing to try anything, constantly challenging the intellect. There is no 'right' way to play (unlike in other sports, say Baseball) and teams are constantly coming up with unique formations and plays to challenge what we thought was possible. However in a way football does support 'old school values' and this results in Klosterman calling it a kind of reverse libertarian. This section explains many of the reasons I myself love football, and I would point to it for anyone who doesn't understand America's fascination with this sport.

As much as I liked the chapter on football, objectively Klosterman's best section is the one in which he tackles the Unabomber. He begins the section with the usual caveats when discussing a possibly sensitive subject, and compares discussing the Unabombers manifesto to discussing O.J. Simpson as a football player. Regardless of the 'appropriateness' of the discussion, he makes some good points. Klosterman writes:

Like so many modern people, my relationship with technology makes no sense whatsoever: It's the most important aspect of my life that I hate. The more central it becomes to how I live, the worse it seems for the world at large. I believe all technology has a positive short-term effect and a negative long-term impact, and-on balance-the exponential of upsurge of technology's social import has been detrimental to the human experience.

Being a little young when the Unabomber was fully active, I was somewhat unaware of what he was all about. I knew he was a crazy guy who lived in the woods of Montana and who sent bombs in the mail to random people in order to have his manifesto published. After reading this section I went online to read though parts of the manifesto, and it ended up making me really depressed. Really, I was upset that I shared to many of the same ideas about society and technology that the Unabomber posits (and Klosterman agrees with here) that it was hard for me to reconcile how I could not come to the same conclusions as Ted Kaczynski.

Kaczynski's main thesis is that as we have become more reliant on technology, and thus don't have to work to fulfill our basic needs as an organism, we have become unhappy and depressed as a species. Almost every activity we associate with 'being human' from art to science to even charity, he ascribes as a 'surrogate activity' that is really taking the place of living and surviving. I don't necessarily agree with him here, but it's hard not to follow his logic to some of these conclusions. After thinking about this a while I came to the conclusion that yes our species seems to be having some issues with the acceleration of society and technology, but I don't think we can go back at this point. Not everyone in the world can live in a cabin in Montana, and many of the people that I love would not be alive if it were not for advanced technology. It's true that human's weren't 'made' to sit and look at screens all day, but sometimes you have to make sacrifices.

It's in this last section that many of the ideas that Klosterman has batted around for a while in various books and articles come together. The modern human is fully immersed in his society, and many of our ideas or thoughts that we would think originate from ourselves are actually a manifestation of the society we inhabit. Is our own reality different than the reality we experience through media such as television, movies or the internet? How much of our own mind is distinct to us and not shared with the rest of our society? These are some serious questions that Klosterman hints at in Dinosaur while discussing his usual assortment of 'irrelevant' topics. Like his other books Eating the Dinosaur is entertaining and a fast read, but I think it does dig a little deeper. Instead of finding myself rereading sections from confused by what Klosterman is saying because of his complicated wordplay, while reading Dinosaur I found myself rereading sections in order to understand what sophisticated philosophical idea he was trying to connect to ABB, or whatever other piece of irrelevant pop culture he choses to disect.

Ender's Shadow - Orson Scott Card

After a college friend revealed Orson Scott Card's feelings towards homosexuals to me it was hard not to let his personal feelings affect my opinion of Ender's Game. This brought up the common question of 'does an artist's personal opinions affect the enjoyment of his art or ideas in such a way that it completely ruins them?' Nietzsche was a well known sexist, and there are even many passages in his books that tout these ignorant opinions, but does that mean his other, more enlightened views are thus negated? Some (okay, 99 percent) rappers have hateful or sexist lines in their songs, but does that mean we can't look past it or enjoy their other songs? Or with the case of Card, can we enjoy his books even though he actively supports the mistreatment of an entire section of people in our society?

Card's situation is a little different that the other examples above because his personal opinions are a little less obvious from his work. There is no way to tell that he is a homophobe from the text of Ender's Game. In fact all the scenes of little boys running around naked and talking about their love for each other is more than a little homoerotic. However, Ender's Game was written before Card became more outspoken about his beliefs so it's possible that he just didn't feel as strongly at the time. After talking to some friends, and reading about his other work on the internet, I decided I had no interest in reading the rest of the Ender series. However, I was interested in Ender's Shadow on the strength of a couple of recommendations, and was also interested to see if Card's homophobic beliefs would rear their ugly head in this later written piece.

On the later of these accounts, I found Ender's Shadow to be no more homophobic than Ender's Game. Frankly it was possibly even more homoerotic than his seminal work. Now I'm not the kind of person that thinks every homophobe is possibly just a closeted self-loathing gay, but the thought did cross my mind more than once when it comes to Card.

Ender's Shadow is as the subtitle says, 'a parrallel novel to Ender's Game'. It takes (mostly) the same story and tells it from the character of Bean, Ender's right hand man and another small but intelligent child. Additionally to telling Bean's point of view, Shadow is used to give us more background and explanation for the events that happened in Game either through Bean's interaction with the teachers and commanders or through blunt bits of exposition through other characters.

I found Bean's own development to be interesting, if not a little more than reminiscent of the story we are told about Ender. They are both younger than the typical members of battle school, and furthermore they are small for their age. They both are singled out for their size and intelligence by their instructor during their lunch to the school in order to ostrisize them from their fellow students. Although this makes sense later on when we learn that Bean is really the 'back up' to Ender in case he should fail, it still feels a little too repetitive. Further making Ender's Shadow repetitive is the fact that the sections with Ender are exactly like they are in the previous book, with us getting the running monologue of Bean's head instead of Enders. Also, Card still has no idea how to write children (I don't care how smart they are, children don't speak like that!).

In addition to using many of the same sections for the plat, Card also doesn't have the best of writing styles. It is often said that the best films 'show and not tell', and even though this is a book I think the same basic principle applies to all storytelling. It is best to tell a story while leaving the audience to fill in some gaps themselves. The best storytellers will leave enough gaps to keep the audience stimulated and thinking, while giving them enough information so everyone can follow along and come to (mostly) the same conclusions. There are way too many sections of unnecessary explanation in Card's books, and it makes him only a mediocre writer. There is no need ot have a character explain what happened and why in a two page monologue after the reader themselves have also read the event in question. Card is either spoon feeding the reader, or trying to make his characters seem 'analytical', but it really just comes off as both patronizing and boring.

I didn't hate Ender's Shadow, and found much of it entertaining as I did with Ender's Game. Card does reuse a lot of the same tricks, and clumsily connects events and characters while over-explaining everything, but the story is still interesting. After reading Shadow, and reading about the other books in both the Ender and Bean series, I can see why people think Card is a one trick pony. Shadow did feel a little like Card realized he had used up his one good idea, and that he missed the boat and underdeveloped many of the characters in that book. Shadow is really for Ender's Game fanatics who can't get enough of that universe, but for everyone else I'd say it's a solid skip.

So how did I come out of this feeling about Card the person? Well from Shadow and Game I gather that Card feels two things about himself, or at least about himself at a young age. 1) That he was small and unfairly picked upon as a child. And 2) that he was beyond his age in intelligence and was able to use this to trick the older and bigger kids. Furthermore, it's obvious from his online commentaries that he is just another conservative religious man who recently decided to make gay-bashing his personal quest. So can we disconnect his art from the person? In this case I think you can, even though he only has 1 great book (that is poorly written like many sci-fi greats) and I don't think he's really worth the energy getting that upset about in the first place.

The Greatest Show on Earth - Richard Dawkins

Evolution is a fact. Beyond reasonable doubt, beyond serious doubt, beyond sane, informed, intelligent doubt, beyond doubt evolution is a fact... [It] didn't have to be true. It is not self-evidently, tautologically, obviously true, and there was a time when most people, even
educated people, thought it wasn't. It didn't have to be true, but it is.

In my previous post discussing one of Dawkins' other books I wrote that I didn't really want to get into another debate about evolution vs. creationism. In reviewing his most recent book, it would be impossible and irresponsible for me to ignore this ongoing and often spiteful dialog.

The goal of this book, as the subtitle lets on, is for Dawkins to produce the 'Evidence for Evolution'. Although examples of and evidence for evolution is found throughout his other writing, he doesn't have a book that states 'these are the facts, and this is why evolution is true'. In this way The Greatest Show on Earth is a much needed book. Although another book (which Dawkins fully reccomends) that tackles this subject was released earlier this year in Jerry Coyne's Why Evolution is True, I think it's neccesary for someone who is widely known (as much in our society that a scientist can be) to also tackle this subject. Too many people either believe or contradict evoluution without really knowing the facts. As Dawkins often points out, General scientific knowledge in our world is at an extremely depressing level given how much knowledge we as a species have. The purpose of this book is both to convince those on the fence that evolution is indeed true, and to arm those who believe in it against those who Dawkins calls 'history deniers'.

The first thing that Dawkins tackles in this book, and the one thing that I think is sorely needed in the current discussion about evolution, is the idea that it is 'only a theory'. He frames the argument so well in the book it would be hard for me to recapitulate his ideas. Basically, he points out that the only thing that can be proven are mathematical theorems. You often hear Darwinists sarcastically say 'well gravity is only a theory', and really it's true. You can prove that the square root of 2 is an irrational number, but you cannot prove that evolution is true. This does not mean that beyond any doubt it is true.

Dawkins uses the risky move of pointing out that many people in the world no longer believe the Holocaust occurred. He compares this case of 'ignoring' the facts to those who ignore the truth of evolution. It's a risky move because any time you use Hitler or the Holocaust in an argument, one typically losses all credibility. But here I think he makes a valid point. Even with the eye witnesses (which are becoming fewer and fewer these days) he claims that the evidence for evolution is just as strong as the evidence for the occurrence of the Holocaust. The point here is for him to point out what we consider to be 'evidence' and how we as humans make decisions about what happened in the past.

This brings up the next set of arguments that Dawkins tackles. He spends a fair amount of time on the fossil record, and whether or not it is 'incomplete'. Many people (not just creationists) believe that the fossil record is the biggest, and perhaps only, evidence for evolution. Thus they are taught to say 'the record is incomplete' thinking that if they point out areas where we don't have fossils of intermediate species evolution will be blown to shreds. There are two main points here that Dawkins points out. First, our record is more complete than we have any right ot expect. We have so many 'intermediates' and examples of not only human ancestors, but ancestors of many species that it is more than enough to conclude evolution's truth. Second, any time we find a new fossil, creationists then can say 'where is the intermediate between that and the one before'. As I've pointed out in my reivew for The Ancestor's tale, there are an infinate number of 'intermediates' between species. Placing everything in a neat and tidy box is a human way of thinking, and nature does not work this way.

Furthermore, Dawkins makes the argument that our evidence for evolution is so convincing that even if we did not have one fossil we would be just as confident in the truth of evolution by natural selection. Comparing scientists to detectives who have to figure out what happened inthe aftermath of a crime, Dawkins writes:

The fossil record, like the spy camera in the murder story, is a bonus, something that we had no right ot expect as a matter of entitlement.

There is something else that creationists, and those who don't take the time to learn the subject often miss. They think that evolution is 'in the past' and something that has to be proven like a fact of history. The thing they miss is that evolution is happening all around us every day. Furthermore, as Dawkins writes:

there is more than enough evidence for the fact of evolution in the comparative study of modern species and their geographical distribution. We don't need fossils - the case for evolution is watertight without them; so it is paradoxical to use gaps in the fossil record as though they were evidence against evolution. We are, as I say, lucky to have fossils at all.

It is theses other pieces of evidence that I think make this book required reading for enlightened adults. Everyone knows what fossils are and how they work. But hardly anyone really understands the other pieces of evidence that are produced throughout this book. I won't really go into them here, because I think one really needs to sit down and read this book (or a book like it like Coyne's) to understand the evidence. The domestication of animals, our relationships to other creatures, geological features and countless other examples are used to show how everything in biology and life is driven by evolution and natural selection.

One of the main arguments that is often used against 'Darwinists' is that they're just replacing one ideology with another. This argument is used by both those who are religous and obviously at odds with Darwinism, and by those who think that any kind of ideology is ridiculous and harmful. Furthermore, this argument is even extended to all of science, where they believe 'Religion' is just being replaced with 'Science' with those who believe acting just as blind and indoctrinated. I find this argument utterly ridiculous. Science is a way of thinking, not a set of beliefs. As Dawkins points out above, evolution didn't have to be true but all of our evidence points out that it is. If there were some, any, evidence that Darwinian Evolution wasn't true those of us who believe in it would have to abandon this idea and try to figure out how things really work. Those who believe in 'creationism' or any other religious belief will never change their indivdual beliefs. They are set in stone for all time, unable to be changed by even the most convincing mounds of evidence.

Dollhouse - Joss Whedon

In my previous post, I tried to make a case for Fringe being one of the better shows on television that no one watches. I think that this discussion could easily be shifted to Dollhouse, a show that absolutely no one watches and one that is in dire straights. On a week-to-week basis I don't think Dollhouse is as strong as Fringe, it occasionally has a few groan inducing episodes here and there which takes the show down a level. However at its peak Dollhouse is easily the best show on television when LOST isn't airing, which feels like 95% of the year. (I'm not including Mad Men here, which is a different kind of good.)

Because so few people watch this show, likely you included, I think I need to give a little background on what the show is about. The dollhouse in Dollhouse is a place where people can go to get any desire or wish fulfilled. The dollhouse is populated with people who have had their memory wiped, a blank slate if you will, and can hence be programmed with any set of memories or skills that could be imagined. The 'dolls', or 'actives', are people who have volunteered to go through with this for 5 years, at which time they will be released carrying a boatload of money under their arms and their original memories intact.

If all of this sounds sinister, it should. Although not every person comes to the dollhouse for sexual purposes, a fair amount do. In less creepy jobs the dolls take on jobs such as being bodyguards, helping to solve kidnapping cases and being a proxy mother for a motherless child. Although this process is an extremely powerful tool, the company is seemingly only interested in making money and gaining power by helping those at high places.

Dollhouse is a different show, because we have very few 'good guys' to root for. Most of the characters are people who work in the dollhouse, an admittedly morally questionable place. We also get a fair amount of exposure to the dolls, but because they are just empty vessels who are filled with a different personality every week it's hard for the audience to feel a connection with them. The show does have Paul Ballard (played BSG's Tahmoh Penikett) an FBI agent obsessed with shutting down the dollhouse. But he's pretty inept as an agent, and turns out to be not the most upstanding person himself. I think having almost all of the characters able to be considered 'villains' is one of the problems with the show, more of which I will go into below.

Of the original 12 episode season run last year, a little over half involve the main doll, Echo (Eliza Dushku), getting an assignment, which usually turns out to be more difficult than originally intended, and having her clean up the pieces and save the day. Most of these are pretty weak, and after the first 5 episodes, I was not sure if this show lived up to Whedon's previous work. However starting with the 6th episode 'Man on the Street' the show turned from a pleasant but spotty weekly diversion to a fantastic show that delves into deep philosophical questions.

As the dolls start malfunctioning, the question of 'what makes a person who they are' starts to be addressed. Is a person the whole package, body and soul, or are they just a collection of memories that could conceivably be placed in another body? As Echo starts to remember more than she should (none of the dolls should remember anything about their engagements) she starts wondering who she is. Even without her original identity, she has fragments of memories from multiple sources and this is obviously confounding. Then as agent Ballard gets closer to the dollhouse, and a ex-doll who had an infamous and bloody escape a few months prior makes his presence felt the show really kicks into high gear. The last few episodes of the first season are truly spectacular, and the season finale (which was left off the air and only available on DVD) is one of the riskiest, and best, season finales I have ever seen.

As great as Dollhouse is, and the heights do really compare with the best of anything Whedon has ever done, it does have flaws that prevent it from becoming one of the great shows in recent memory. First is to again bring up the weakness in the 'doll-of-the-week' episodes. The second season, which is only 3 episodes young, has had a couple of these kinds of episodes and they have fallen far below the peaks the show can reach. The second problem is the obvious flaw of having Eliza Dushku play the lead. As decent as she is in other roles, she really doesn't have the chops to carry this show. The show's format requires her to be a different person every week, and this would be difficult for even the best actors. Many of the actors on the show blow Dushku out of the water, and all the Echo based episodes are a little weak.

Another problem with the show is that because of the purpose of the dollhouse, everything feels a little dirty and wrong. I have already discussed the fact that the show is chock full of 'bad guys', but I haven't brought up the inherent misogyny and sexism found in much of the show. Many of the episodes at least start out with Echo or one of the other female dolls being in some ridiculous overly sexed up outfit ready to go out and please one of the male clients. Furthermore in many episodes where the doll's 'programming' goes awry, we're stuck with innocent women who are completely helpless and often at the mercy of some big strong man who has less than honorable intentions. I give Whedon a little extra slack here because he did create the great feminist figure of Buffy, but sometimes the sexism still gets a little oppressive in Dollhouse. This is not to say the writers are inherently sexist, it's just that the basis of the show inherently explores the sexism found in our society and the writers just need to try a little harder to make sure that they don't get carried away exploring these themes.

I'm not sure if it's these problems inherent to the show that are causing it to get such terrible ratings, or if it's more on Fox's hands being that the show is aired on Fridays and with terrible shows leading up to it. Fox also doesn't advertise the show very well, and really seems to care less whether or not Dollhouse succeeds. I know that much of the suits at Fox have turned over in the past few years, but I find it hard to believe that Whedon trusted that Fox would do what it could for Dollhouse when it failed so spectacularly with Firefly. It remains to be seen if the second season will pick up where the first one left off, or if they try to change it so much to gain new viewers that the show gets completely gutted. If you have any interest in this show, or have enjoyed Whedon's products in the past, I emplore you go online and watch the first season on Hulu. It's only 13 episodes long and once you get to the unaired episode 'Epitaph One' I think it will be hard for you to say that your breath wasn't taken away. Let's give Whedon support so we can see what he can do with a full run of television like he did with the essential Buffy the Vampire Slayer.


Edit: Seems like the show will finish the season with a satisfying ending. Although it doesn't look like it'll be back for a third season.

In Defense of Fringe

I don't personally know anyone else who watches Fringe, and I'm not really sure why this is. In fact I don't know what demographic watches Fringe, and how it got renewed for a 2nd season in the first place. It seems that much of the nerd community has dismissed it as either an X-Files ripoff, or just another boring cop show with some 'weird elements'. And it's those 'weird elements' that I would think would turn off your normal NCIS fan or other watchers of CBS style dramas. I think Fringe is an excellent way to spend an hour a week, and find it to be something like a cross between LOST and yes, The X-Files.

Obviously if you were just to describe Fringe in a sentence it would sound exactly like an X-Files ripoff. It would go something like this:

"A team of FBI agents investigates strange and paranormal happenings around the city of Boston as they fight both external and internal forces in order to find the truth behind these strange occurrences."

This is likely how the show was pitched, and that with the addition of the creative force J.J. Abrams (Alias, LOST, the new Star Trek etc...) it got green-lighted. However I think it would be a fallacy to think that Fringe is just another Abrams show, or just another 'weird' FBI show. After the initial growing pains of the first season, Fringe has gone on to combine the best of all of these shows to become something great and unique.

During the first half of the first season we were stuck with the expected 'freak-of-the-week' format that one would expect. I use the word 'freak' here and not the typical 'monster' mostly because all of the paranormal activity around Fringe involves humans, not monsters or aliens or other creatures found in myths. This is the first thing that separates it, possibly just ascetically, from The X-Files. Where The X-Files was more interested in creatures or events that were rooted in mythologies or legends, Fringe takes a more scientific and technological route. People are often found with extraordinary abilities, some malevolent some not, and our team is tasked with figuring out the science behind these strange people or events. The show often explains what is going on, and how they're accomplishing these feats where The X-Files was more than happy to leave everyone in the dark, the viewer included. On a basic level it's an X-Files for a more scientific and technological age.

On a personnel and character level, Fringe is nothing like The X-Files. A show like Bones with its will-they-or-wont-they FBI agents owes much more to the dynamic of Mulder and Scully than Fringe ever will. Here we have the seemingly 'straight-man' Oliva Dunham as the lead and the character that grounds us in this world. She seems to be a typically competent agent who gets caught up in all this due to personal reasons. Anna Torv has steadily improved her performances and while I initially thought she might be a liability to the show, she has really become a strong point. It's also refreshing to have a strong blond woman in a lead role who is not only attractive, but doesn't have to rely on those looks as an actress or as a character. The show doesn't use Torv as a source of T&A for viewers, and I really think it gives the character an air of respectability.

Our other main characters are rounded out by the father/son combo portrayed by John Noble (think the grape tomato eating Denethor in LOTR) and Joshua Jackson (OMG PACEY!!!). Joshua Jackson has really grown up from his Dawson's Creek days and sells his character very well. Noble on the other hand, is absolutely fantastic. I wasn't that into Fringe when it first started, but Noble's portrayal of Walter Bishop brought me back week after week. He plays Bishop as a part loon, part evil genius, and part caring father which only recently was removed from an insane asylum. Not only is he responsible for all the pseudo-scientific explanations and experiments performed on the show, Noble is also responsible for the majority of the comic relief. Often as he's inspecting a body or performing an experiment he lets out a string of non sequiturs that are easily the funniest part of the show. The following exchange takes place as agent Dunham is preparing to enter a sensory deprivation tank:

WALTER smiles slightly: Uh, oh.
OLIVIA: What?
WALTER: I just got an erection. Oh, fear not. It's nothing to do with your state of undress. I just simply need to urinate.
OLIVIA: That's good to know.

He's so perfect that Walter Bishop might be the new archetype for 'crazy scientist' after all is said and done.

After the show started to find its footing in the middle of he first season, it started to connect all these strange events in what is called 'The Pattern'. Besides the silliness of the typical J.J. Abramism of giving something an ominous name (like 'The Passenger' in Alias) having these seemingly unconnected events all have their origin in a similar place really holds this show together. Every freak that we find that does something like mutate into a giant hedgehog/bear creature or person with psychic abilities has some connection to Walter Bishop's past as an experimentalist. Having one of our main heroes possibly be the main source of the problems in which they are investigating gives the series a dramatic element that most procedurals never have, although I'm not sure if at this point you can really call Fringe a procedural. Sure there is the typical 'cold open' where we see a 3 minute scene of the freak or strange event that our heroes will investigate in the upcoming hour, but once everything starts to have a connective thread the show somewhat morphs into a straight up serial. I think you can still enjoy a stray episode of Fringe here or there, but like all great shows it rewards its dedicated viewers.

This season has gone even further with giving the entire series an overarching plot with the introduction of the alternative reality, or what I would call 'Earth-2'. After dealing with Abrams on the set of Star Trek, Leonard Nemoy agreed to play Walter's old partner who may or may not be a sinister force. He lives in this 'Earth-2' and the season has started to put in motion a plot that pits the two Earths in a war with each other. 'The Pattern' may or may not be a way of 'Earth-2' waging war with the Earth in which our characters inhabit, but whatever happens so far this season seems promising. Out of the four episodes which have aired about 2 have been mainly about this upcoming war, and the other ones were very similar to the 'freak of the week' format from the first season (one which was pretty good, one which as terrible). Instead of trying to gain a new following and starting from 'square one' as shows often do in their second season, the second season of Fringe went full steam ahead and picked up where the first season left off. This may be a bad move, and result in lower than expected viewing numbers, but it sure makes for some good television for those of us who know what is going on.

It may be too late for those who are interested in watching the show to jump in now. Luckily we live in the age of 'tv on the internet' and you could catch up some weekend if you ever really got interested in the show. I think it's a shame that not too many people watch Fringe, because I think at its best it contains the best of what both The X-Files and shows like LOST have to offer. It's fun seeing what weird shit the writers can come up week to week, and how Walter can explain it, while at the same time having a strong central plotline to keep the show moving along. Additionally, the characters are not one dimensional and the show slowly unveils interesting aspects about their person or their past, but without completely destroying the flow of the episode like LOST is apt to do. Fringe is a great show and it's too bad that many people to whom this would seem to be right up their alley never really given it a chance.

Zombieland

I'm not really sure what it is about comedies that doesn't really grab me. It's not that I don't like to laugh (who doesn't like to laugh? except these guys), I think it's just that I find them kind of lacking in the context of the format of film. Most good comedies start out pretty great, they have a good amount of jokes and humorous scenes along the way, (as long as the trailers don't spoil everything for you) and then fall apart in the third act. Because they are films they have to follow the conventional formula and this usually leads to large chunks of the movie spent developing and bringing resolution to the (often) half baked plot. They can't just keep the same comedic tempo and pacing throughout the entire film. Because the plot is often an afterthought when comedies are being written, the audience doesn't have as strong of a connection to the characters as you would in a drama. Thus as the movie reaches the final act it looses all steam seeing that the audience isn't invested in the characters enough to keep it going. This leaves many comedies such as Dirty Work that switch pretty drastically from a brilliant work of comedy to a boring plot based drama as the story must be resolved.

I think this is why I am more likely to see and enjoy comedies that are set within or blended with another genre. Because these kind of films are both a comedy and something else at the same time, when the movie becomes more plot driven it still remains interesting because it doesn't only rely on it's comedic edge. Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg are the most recent filmmakers that are famous for this with their movies Hot Fuzz and Shaun of the Dead, and this is where Zombieland comes in. Of course the easiest comparison to Zombieland would be Shaun of the Dead and any review that doesn't at least mention this would be amiss. However besides the fact that they are both zombie comedies (or zomedies) they share little in common. Without considering their very different plots, Shaun of the Dead is more concerned with showing a humorous take on the zombie movie and deconstructing the genre, whereas Zombieland is more about having gross zombies serve as the backdrop for its humor and action.

Unlike most zombie movies which feel the need to explain why and how the infection spread, Zombieland is content to feed the audience a line about a bad hamburger and move on from there. I think this works very much in the films favor seeing that the audience never gets bogged down with some ridiculous backstory. As much as I love exposition, I found it refreshing that Zombieland was free from having to explain itself at every turn. We're thrust into a zombie apocalypse, much like the main characters must have been, and as the characters we try to make the best of it.

The film tries to be many things (horror movie, comedy, buddy picture, road trip movie, it even has elements of romance) but the film is at its best when Jesse Eisenburg and Woody Harrelson are just hanging out killing zombies together. Eisenburg plays his awkward, gangly, Michael Cera speaking self while Harrelson plays a tough-talking, ass-kicking southerner in a snakeskin jacket who feels the need to paint a 3 (in honor of Dale Earnhardt) on every car he co-ops. As Harrelson says in the film, the thing he was put on earth to do is kill zombies, and boy does he enjoy it. The film constantly finds new and interesting ways for him to maim and kill zombies, whether it's with a banjo or from a roller coaster, and it's almost like the movie took all the fun parts of zombie a video game.

The pair of sisters that are later introduced are useful to move the plot along, but they don't really add much to the movie besides to give Eisenburg a romantic interest and give the movie a place to move towards. There is also a 'secret' guest star that I won't ruin for you, but this section is getting a lot of press and accolades. The scenes in which they're in are fun, but they come in a section of the movie that is relatively zombie-free and what I think is the lowpoint for the movie. It just feels that they invested a lot in this having person and it kind of slows down the exceptional pace in which the movie usually moves.

The film is also stylized in way that is both interesting and unique. As is becoming increasingly common these days the movie has a great opening sequence (on par with Watchmen) which consists of a bunch of scenes of zombies chasing people in slow motion that lets you know that you're in for gore, humor and style. The most unique aspect of this style is how whenever Eisenburg brings up one of his 'rules' to surviving in Zombieland the rule appears on screen as text, and then interacts with whatever is happening on screen. Subsequently, the rules then appear on the screen whenever the characters do something in which they are applicable. The 'double-tap' rule especially comes up in humorous ways throughout the film.

As good as most of the film is, the movie is really worth watching for the last 20 or so minutes. I'm not ruining anything to say that the final destination for the movie is an amusement park (part of what gives Zombieland its name) and this is the best part of the movie. It's pretty much nonstop fun zombie kills, interesting action scenes, and a bit of drama that is genuinely interesting. At a quick 80 minutes, when Zombieland ends you wish that you could get right back in line for more of the same.