The Shield - Season 2

The second season of The Shield didn't have the impact for me that the first did, though it was still a well produced, interesting 585 minutes of television. It follows more or less the same formula. Vick and his strike team frequently break the law to make sure they get an arrest, or sometimes just for personal gain. Aceveda continues to disapprove of his methods, though this season he ends up helping him cover things up a bit to protect his run for city council. Claudette and Dutch continue to provide a lot of the B stories, investigating unusual cases each week, although this time Claudette is more of Vick's true foil, as his techniques begin to cause issues with her own work. And Danny and Julien have their own problems to carry around while they tend to facilitate the others' stories. It's not a terribly unique formula, but it's one that totally works to create a show that both serves as an entertaining weekly cop show and a much more compelling long term drama about corruption and the cost of justice.

I guess the problem this time around was the tension between Vick's methods and his results really wasn't there in the second half of the season. It was huge in the beginning, as he and his crew clash with a particularly brutal drug dealer from Mexico, and he has to interfere with ongoing investigations to save his own ass. But eventually that plot resolves itself, and while it's in a way that causes further issues for others, it doesn't really for Vick. The tension between him and Claudette dims only slightly, but there's not much really pressing it harder after that point. His problems become more domestic for the remainder of the season, and that stuff is handled pretty well, it's just not as compelling as the central question that got me really intrigued by the show in the first place. I always appreciated how The Sopranos (there's that comparison again) mixed crime and family problems for Tony, but The Shield just doesn't do it as well. It's been at its best when Vick is one slip up away from finally getting caught in the act, and I hope there's more of that in season 3.

Terminator Salvation

Why isn't "Terminator: Salvation" the accepted rendering of this film's title? I don't really get that. Anyway, despite a number of factors working against it, I found this movie to be reasonably watchable rather than completely terrible. I understand that that's not exactly high praise, though for something by McG it kind of is. Despite its plot making the absolute minimum of logical sense, and the fact that it completely ignores much of what we learned from the other movies, and that the very idea of a PG-13 Terminator movie seems abhorrent, I did manage to wring some enjoyment out of its one hundred and ten minutes. Yeah, the story has holes, but they're just more obvious when you compare them to some of the impossible scenarios in the other movies. Yeah, it conveniently forgets some things we knew about the machines and the war in the future, but the series stopped following its own rules long ago. I don't want to sound like I'm praising it too much, because it's not very good at all, but I didn't hate it.

I mean, let's be real. It's weird how these Terminators seem immune to molten steel yet vulnerable to bullets, but the series is so inconsistent about what can and can't kill these machines and what they're made out of that it hardly matters at this point. The fact that all those sweet laser weapons are missing is disconcerting, but it sort of wouldn't match the aesthetic they were going for if they were there, and it is after all ten years before the flashbacks from the first two movies. Maybe they just haven't been invented yet. I found it easiest to get some fun out of the movie when I was just watching it as an apocalyptic, very loud action film, and ignoring its blasphemies against the more beloved entries in the series. I actually thought McG did some good stuff here and there. Visually, it really captures the future war thing in places, with some extended takes that really pushed the desperate nature of the fighting. Of course, the performances he got from some of the cast are another story.

There's quite a few recognizable faces in this movie, and not many do much to distinguish themselves. Christian Bale, ostensibly but not really the main character, is decent as usual, though you can make a case he wasn't really trying terribly hard here. I appreciate that Sam Worthington has the look and physique of a more old school action hero, but in two big roles he hasn't really done that much. Someone should just give him a part he can freely use his Aussie accent in. Michael Ironside gets to push himself not very hard at all in a typical hardass authority role, which is always fun, and Helena Bonham Carter is creepy enough in a multifaceted part. I liked Anton Yelchin as Chekov in Star Trek (even more than Walter Koenig, honestly), but he can't save a poorly written, teenage version of Kyle Reese from damaging the character's legacy a bit. There's a few other notable people here and there, but not much to say about them.

And there's really not much to say about the rest of the film. There's some decent action and effects for the first two thirds, and then it sort of comes off the rails in the final act as the plot gets less and less believable. Really, the most offensive part of the whole project is how it plays around with what's already been established by superior works, but for whatever reason I found that relatively easy to ignore. Certainly watchable, but just as easily avoided.

Hulk Vs

Do you see that on the cover? TWICE THE CARNAGE! Awesome. Hulk Vs is really two shorter films combined, "Hulk Vs Wolverine" and "Hulk Vs Thor", complete with their own titles and credits. Or as they might also be called, "Hulk and Wolverine Fight Some Random X Villains and Also Deadpool I Guess" and "Thor and Loki Save Asgard from Loki's Own Dick-Like Behavior Involving the Hulk" respectively. It was actually animated by Madhouse, a Japanese studio, and the result is a slightly different (and less messy, if also less smooth) look for the project.

Hulk Vs Wolverine is the shorter of the two features and begins with a pretty decent fight between the two characters. Much more blood than I expected from an animated Marvel movie, which definitely enhanced what they were going for. I understand the desire to keep things okay for the kiddies, but it really strains the disbelief when Wolverine plunges three blades directly into a person's chest and they all come out dry as a bone. The movie then jumps around a bit, briefly portraying another take on Logan's origin (oh boy) and then having him and Banner facing off against a group of mutants including Sabretooth and Deadpool. The latter is played by Nolan North, who does a decent job with a goofy script for the character, though it's not really an interpretation of the character I liked. Even when he's not getting wildly changed for no reason like in the Origins movie, he never seems to come off right when people give him a voice. He's basically a jerkier Spider-Man with guns. Yeah, Deadpool talks a lot, but he's also mentally and physically scarred as all hell. And why is he so skinny here? It's just not the Deadpool I remember reading. Oh well. There's a bit of plot and a lot of fighting, and the movie ends without actually resolving its central premise. Not bad, not great.

Hulk Vs Thor was a bit better. It begins with Loki summoning Bruce Banner from Midgard, using spells to separate him from the Hulk identity, and then merging with it to take on Thor. The two fight for a while (making the title even more of a lie, since it's really Loki in Hulk's body Vs Thor), but eventually Loki loses control of Hulk, who goes on a rampage all over Asgard. It's kind of a cool idea, and they do some decent stuff with it. Thor and Loki have to team up to somehow get Banner back into Hulk, and they actually interested me in Banner's struggles with the burden of his alter ego for what seems like the first time in a while. There's some pretty solid animation, and I had a better time watching it than the first one. Thor's pretty cool, man!

Music Update 3: GrassRoots 2010

I lucked into a free weekend pass to the GrassRoots Festival this year thanks to a friend, and spent a couple of days enjoying a pretty big variety of music and experiencing what was basically a five year high school reunion. Here's the more memorable acts I saw, not including ones I talked about last time.

Donna the Buffalo


These guys are pretty popular around here, and played multiple times during the festival. Pretty good folksy/country/whatever rock, although I can't say the sound stuck out terribly much from the default sound of the whole thing.

Merle Haggard


Here's a guy who took pretty much straight country and somehow made it tolerable. He seemed to be having fun with the crowd. His backup band seemed to be completely random and included what looked like either the most bored or hungriest drummer I've ever seen, but they did a good job of it. Enjoyable set.

Arrested Development


This was the show of the festival for me, easily. I guess this group used to be bigger, but they're still pretty awesome. Alternative hip hop mixing good rapping (especially by One Love) with strong rock instrumentation. They seemed to get the crowd involved with every song, doing a lot of call and return stuff and everyone was really into it. Just a really fun, feel-good show.

Giant Panda Guerrilla Dub Squad


White guys doing reggae! But they actually handled it pretty well. This show was all about the bass, and the guy playing it knew what he was doing. The organist was also a huge part of it. I still think every reggae song is basically the same thing, but it can be a pretty enjoyable thing in the right hands, and they spent a lot of time developing the sound and building to some pretty great moments. Plus they showed appreciation for the acts that came before them (and would come after them at this very festival).

Ayurveda


I thought this band was pretty decent, but their progressive rock sound didn't really fit the general mood of the festival that well. They were kind of weird too, wrapping up with a twenty minute opus that was about man's evolution from homo sapiens into "homo luminous". They seemed to be pretty good at what they were doing, I just wasn't really into it.

The Black Seeds


Another mostly white reggae group, although these guys were from New Zealand (and the lead singer definitely sounded like it when he talked between songs. I didn't enjoy it as much as Giant Panda, although I was sitting much farther from the stage so that probably played into it. Another group that seemed confident but didn't blow me away.

Sim Redmond Band


Another rock band that used a ton of different influences from around America, and does a decent job with all of them. It featured both male and female vocals heavily, and the interplay between them and all of the different instruments produced a varied yet consistent sound. Pretty fun show.

Rusted Root


This is a fan favorite at GrassRoots. They've been coming since before they made it big, and they still generate a crowd whenever they play. They're sort of bluegrass with a really strong rhythm element, with drumming evocative of many different cultures from around the world. Another show I was pretty far away from, but a good one.

John Brown's Body


And the final group I saw was another reggae act, although with a stronger funk element than the others. Honestly I don't remember much about this one at this point, other than the crowd was into it and everyone seemed to have a good time. Which characterizes GrassRoots in general, one of the more enjoyable ways I've found to see people I haven't in a while. I hope my next visit is a bit sooner than another three years later.