You May Not Have Watched "The Way, Way Back" Yet, But You've Already Seen It

There should be an official name for all of these seemingly genre-less, low-key films that occupy that transitive territory between comedy and drama, given how many of them pop up year after year.  The good ones, like The Descendents or The Kids Are All Right, are able to use that limbo to their advantage, playing our emotions like a maestro, as we alternate between laughing and crying.  Unfortunately, most movies think that because they're a dramedy, they don't have to do much of either part of that portmanteau, and instead we end up getting a film where people just kind of do stuff for a while and then the credits roll.  With that in mind, The Way, Way Back certainly falls into the latter category.

The extent to which this film is generic runs deeply.  You've seen everything that The Way, Way Back has to offer, and it basically functions like a composite of several other coming-of-age films.  We're introduced to Duncan, a gawky teenager who's embarking on a summer trip with his new stepdad (Steve Carell in a subdued role) and the rest of his blended family.  The film drops you in the middle of Duncan's situation, and there's not much in the way of exposition, but it's clear that there's a great deal of tension in this recent arrangement.  From there, it's just a rote tale about an awkward boy who meets a colorful cast of characters and works through his personal drama to slowly come out of his shell and snag the pretty girl.  Does anybody really need to see this kind of film anymore?  You can almost just check off the boxes when each element of this common framework comes along.  It even ends with what I like to call the "Indie Triumph," a small victory that signifies big growth for the protagonist.

What's most upsetting is that this could've been a great film.  There's nothing wrong with utilizing tropes, but it should at least be done well and bring something new to the table.  The film is littered with great performances -- particularly Allison Janney in a loose, broad role and Sam Rockwell playing a character whose manic energy masks a more soulful side -- but the problem is that they feel like they belong in a separate movie.  At its core, The Way, Way Back is a drama about being a child of divorce, but then there are all of these wacky characters that exist around the edges, and it just never gels together.  Some of the teen-angst is well-observed, and the water park setting is interesting, but just as the film comes close to clicking, it rushes to an unsatisfying conclusion.  I'm a fan of shaggy summer movies, but this one is just a bit too shaggy.  Jim Rash and Nat Faxon make their directorial debut here, and perhaps their scripts need a stronger hand to pull everything together, like Alexander Payne did with The Descendants.  With their new role behind the camera, everything is less assured, and The Way, Way Back is much more wobbly and trite because of it.

The Macklemore Problem

Well, aside from every picture of him

So let's talk about Macklemore.  For a while, at the height of "Thrift Shop"'s popularity, I thought I would only have to endure a few more weeks of it and never have to hear from him again.  But somehow, like the musical Hydra that he is, once you lop off the head of one of his hit singles, two more grow back in its place.  And so Macklemore has ensconced himself in every chart imaginable, announcing that he's here to stay, whether I like it or not.  And let's be clear: I don't like it one bit.  Anybody who's familiar with my comedy knows that Macklemore raises a fiery brand of ire within me, seeing as he's the subject of many of my jokes.  But lately I've been trying to figure out exactly what my problem is with the guy.

Is it because he's a white rapper?  Well let me just quickly say "of course not," because I'm no racist.  Many people look at white rappers and immediately dismiss them on race alone.  It would certainly seem like I have something against white rappers if you were to just take a cursory glance, because Mac Miller used to be a frequent target of mine as well.  But the thing is, I don't have a problem with white rappers -- I have a problem with rappers who make mediocre music.  As soon as Mac Miller stopped doing that, embracing a loopy LA stoner sound on his surprising new album, Watching Movies With the Sound Off, I begrudgingly gave him respect.  So my disdain for Macklemore being about race is out of the question.  The Marshall Mathers LP is arguably my favorite rap album of all time!  I've contemplated writing long blog posts defending Kitty Pryde!!  I hate Kid Cudi more than any white rapper!!!

So is it because he's really popular?  Well, you're talking to the biggest Taylor Swift fan there is, so I don't think it's a question of popularity.  My listening habits may primarily consist of hip "indie" bands, but I listen to popular artists all the time, including but not limited to: Kanye West, Paramore, Kelly Clarkson, and Jay-Z.  Sometimes, there will be an occasion where I'll like an artist slightly less because I feel like their level of popularity outweighs the quality of their music.  For example, I think people like Adele and Lady Gaga are okay, but the level of excessive adulation they get turns me off from them ever so slightly.  Yet an artist being popular is never enough to be the sole basis for outright disliking them.  For the most part, I greet popular artists with a certain level of indifference, like I do with One Direction (are they even popular anymore?).  Plus, in an age where Vampire Weekend and Daft Punk have #1 albums and Arcade Fire is capable of winning Album of the Year at the Grammys, is there really that thick of a line between mainstream and indie?

That leaves us with one last option: sadly, I just don't think Macklemore's music is very good.  But why, exactly, do I think it's not good?  Well, "Thrift Shop" is fine enough, the kind of song that should've had a lifespan befitting of its novelty nature.  It has what many other Macklemore songs lack -- flavor.  Much of his other work is just so bland, coupling his average lyrics with Ryan Lewis's generic pop-rap beats.  But the biggest problem with Macklemore is the glassy-eyed, cheesy sincerity in all of his songs.  This is something I've had difficulty classifying, especially since I've been listening to The Weakerthans, a band whose lyrics err on the side of earnestness, alot recently.  I love bands like them and The Decemberists, whose heart-on-your-sleeve emoting is capable of tapping into a deep well of youthful emotion.  So why do I have a problem with sincerity in rap music?

Well there are two reasons that I can think of.  First, rap is seen as a "tough" genre, so hearing somebody like Macklemore is alot more jarring than listening to another wimpy indie rock band.  The bigger problem, however, is that Macklemore's sincerity is empty sincerity.  The Weakerthans and The Decemberists may be overly earnest, but their lyrics are genuinely smart, using poetic language and big ideas to highlight smaller emotions.  Macklemore's lyrics have absolutely nothing thoughtful to say.  The worst offender is "Wing$," his song/treatise against the shoe industry.  It's a plodding, ponderous track where he tells -- with no irony whatsoever -- a story about his desire for stylish shoes, all with a syrupy children's choir on the chorus.  But at the end of the day, the entire message of the song is just, "Consumerism is bad, people!!!"  Is this really a new idea in any way?  Even when he does do something fresh, at least in terms of the rap world -- like his diatribe of homophobia, "Same Love" -- he runs into problems.  It's an admirable endeavor, and I'm totally in support of the message, but I feel like people are so wowed by the social importance of the song that they're giving it a pass.  "Same Love" is an awful song, guys.  Once again, it has this bland simplicity to it, and is another example of Macklemore trying to weave some treacly personal story into his songs.  I don't know how to do a song like this and make it work, but it certainly isn't this, which comes off like a preachy after-school special.

Clearly, I'm in the minority about this issue.  Macklemore isn't going anywhere any time soon, and what's worse, for as much as I can escape him on the radio, I can't run away from the dozens of people on my Facebook feed who obsess over him and talk about going to his concert in November.  So all I'm left to do is sit here, screaming out into the void about this plague to the rap world.  I HATE MACKLEMORE!!!

How The Bridge's Sense of Local Color Informs the Rest of the Show

I hate when people describe a story's setting as a character, like "Woody Allen makes New York a character in Manhattan."  Even though I find that description kind silly, it does speak to the importance of specificity in stories.  Many great shows are thorough in the detailing of their setting, like Breaking Bad and Justified.  The former does it purely through visuals, while the latter is able to convince you that California is actually the backwoods of Kentucky because of how deep the characters and their extensive histories run, but they both give you an unmistakable sense of place.  A show like Mad Men, on the other hand, might not have a unique vision of New York, but it paints the advertising world with such a fine brush that it's what becomes the actual setting.  FX's new show, The Bridge, certainly isn't a great show yet, but like these other shows, it knows that the devil is in the details.

At first glance, The Bridge seems like a disposable and inessential show.  With AMC's The Killing and all of CBS's procedurals occupying our television screens, the last thing we need is another murder mystery show.  However, The Bridge insists upon itself due to its deep sense of local color.  Set on the border of El Paso and Juarez, the show's location differentiates it from others of its ilk, exploring uncharted terrain and allowing for fertile political implications around the corner of every moment.  Breaking Bad uses a different, more orange lens filter when depicting scenes in Mexico, but The Bridge doesn't do that, choosing to shoot and light El Paso and Juarez in similar ways.  The two settings bleed together visually as much as they do functionally, where thousands commute across the titular bridge every day.  That doesn't mean that each of them are generic though.  El Paso and Juarez both leave an indelible impression, and they both feel very real and lived-in, from the sun-soaked deserts to the overstuffed streets.  The show's also not afraid of scaring away the subtitle-averse, having much of its dialogue across the border in Spanish, just adding to the authenticity of everything.

This specificity and color extends to the characters as well.  Creator Meredith Stiehm, whose character-centric episodes on Homeland were often the best of the show, continues her ability to write people with spark and nuance here.  She's crafted one of the most fascinating female protagonists on television in Sonya Cross, a detective who is clearly somewhere on the autism spectrum, even if the show hasn't explicitly mentioned it.  Part of this is in Diane Kruger's performance, which is equal parts steely and vulnerable, but the rest is in the writing, which feels more authentic than the writing for many other TV characters on the spectrum.  The show is good at handling all the big checkmarks, the numerous occasions in which Sonya fails to show empathy, but the best moments are when we are just seeing her live her life.  The second episode features a sequence of scenes where Sonya just studies the case late at night, masturbates, and then goes to a bar to try to awkwardly pick up a guy, and its easily the most engrossing thing the show has done so far.  Her partner, Marco Ruiz, is equally intriguing, as Demian Bichir portrays him with an easygoing charm and a winning smile, yet a little bit of world-weariness underneath.  Even most of the side characters are exquisitely detailed.  Those that show up for just one scene have life and personality, and you can't help thinking that you could watch a whole episode centered around any of them just going about their day.

At this point, the plot of the show might not be pulling me in as much as I'd like it to -- aside from the initial shock of the reveal that there are two separate bodies that are being investigated, it feels a bit pulpy and by-the-numbers.  There are various threads right now, and while most of them are at least somewhat interesting, everything has yet to tie together enough to make the less interesting ones work.  Even when the plot isn't gripping, it's the level of depth to the world that keeps my attention.  The pace is slow for sure, but allows you to soak in every little detail.  Even the mysterious killer's motive ties in to the idea of stopping and taking in what's going on around you.  At the end of the very first episode, he/she calls Sonya and Marco, lamenting the fact that the police galvanize around the death of one white American woman, yet ignore the hundreds of deaths that happen in Juarez every year.  That the killer has a reasoning for murdering, beyond some psychotic perversion, and it fits into the grand scheme of the show's ethos is enough to convince me that Meredith Stiehm and her crew of writers have what it takes to elevate this past the trappings of the murder mystery genre.  Usually, I have more reservations about shows this early on, but many of the necessary parts are already here.  FX has had an insane hot streak with its dramas in the last few years, and The Bridge only seems to be continuing that trend.  

"Orange is the New Black" is Netflix's Most Impressive Work Yet

I had little to no expectations for Orange is the New Black in the weeks leading up to its premiere on Netflix.  Although I was much more positive on season 4 of Arrested Development than many critics, I found House of Cards so generic that I stalled around episode 8, and the universal panning of Hemlock Grove kept me away from ever even giving it a try.  Needless to say, I hadn't been that excited about Netflix's foray into original programming, especially when their only success was the continuation of a pre-existing property.  Further hurting matters was the fact that the show was by Jenji Kohan, who's most known for creating Weeds, a show that I was never particularly a huge fan of.  Its prison setting just seemed to serve as an extension of the direction that the latter seasons of Weeds took, so I was just planning on skipping the show altogether.  The rapturous praise that it got after critics received early screeners for the first three episodes was enough to convince me to at least sample the show, and I'm glad I did, because Orange is the New Black is a staggeringly brilliant, life-affirming piece of television.

The show opens on the story of Piper Chapman, an upper-class white woman who finds herself in jail because of her involvement in a drug ring 10 years ago, and although we follow her throughout the course of the season, it's very clear that she's just an entry point to the larger narrative that Kohan is trying to create.  The Litchfield prison is such a fully-realized world, filled with characters who could easily be the protagonists in their own right.  In a television landscape that's so white male dominated, it's refreshing enough to see women of all races and positions on the sexual spectrum, but the fact that they're all fascinating makes the show even more remarkable.  Over the course of 13 episodes, you'll seriously lose count of how many complex, interesting female characters there are on this show.  I've seen a few complaints about the opening credits, but to me it seems like the central idea of the show, presenting all the varieties of people in this world with equality.  In a way, the show is all about widening Piper's worldview and in turn, ours, by proving that everybody has a story to tell; not just you.  The show presents these women as having troubles like anybody else -- both petty (the jealousies of jilted lovers) and soul-plumbing (a transgendered woman not being able to get her estrogen pills).  Yet it also does a wonderful job of not making the prison be a wholly grim place.  The 6th episode, "WAC Pack," has frequent instances of the tiny joys one can find in such a situation: having an impromptu freestyle battle, finally getting the bathroom all to yourself, skirting off with somebody you like, etc.

Structurally, Orange is the New Black is just as bold and daring as it is with its characters.  The show employs the use of flashbacks, but not in the same way that Lost did, where the flashbacks functioned as a backbone to an episode.  Instead, they are used in a more free-form way, being sprinkled on when needed.  With so many characters to serve, things could feel overstuffed, but somehow it never does, as episodes can devote large chunks at a time to an individual storyline, before smoothly picking back up on a smaller story and just rolling along.  Eventually, the show reveals itself to be a surprisingly deft long-form narrative -- character details become larger plots, but the plot still largely exists to further these characters.  Even on a show like Mad Men, which is the best show on TV, people complain about how a season doesn't have enough Joan or Peggy or Roger.  What's most impressive about Orange is the New Black is just how many characters get a complete and satisfying arc by the end of the season.  The best episodes, like "Moscow Mule" or "Tall Man With Feelings," frequently feature separate plotlines converging and playing off of each other.  Others, like "Bora Bora Bora," are able to pull off the difficult balancing act of being really funny while also featuring incredibly dark material.  With all of these characters, storylines, and tones to balance, it all precariously approaches falling apart at any moment, but everything remains tightly bound together.

But it all comes back to Piper, who may not be more important or interesting than the scores of women on the show, but is at the center of it all.  "Blood Donut" is a perfect example of this, as it shows the collateral damage that is caused by Piper getting what she wants.  She may help somebody, but she also hurts another that she ultimately didn't have to in the process.  As Piper, Taylor Schilling gives a great, increasingly twitchy performance in the role.  Where another actress could've made this character extremely unlikable, Schilling is able to find the humanity in Piper, even when you often want to strangle her for her myopia and naivety.  Time and life function differently inside and out of prison, and Piper changes in ways that her family and friends can't understand.  Piper's season arc is one of the more clever aspects of the season, in fact.  Throughout the first half, it seemed like she was poised to have a breakthrough, becoming more aware of the world around her, just as the audience is.  Most of the second half, however, features her backsliding and becoming entrenched in the flaws deep within herself.

Part of this journey comes from her entanglements with her ex and former drug partner, Alex, who further complicates her relationship with her fiancee on the outside, Larry.  There's a real frankness to the sex and sexuality, and it never presents this bisexual love triangle as something that's broad or goofy, preferring to depict Piper's feelings as extremely complex and matter-of-fact.  In general, Orange is the New Black is the greatest case of showing how people can contain multitudes.  Piper and Alex's conflicts have a lot of baggage that comes with them, and it never boils down to concrete right and wrong, because both of them have their own failings.  Even a character as loathsome as Mendez, the prison guard, can have moments of humanity, like when he stands up for Sophia in "Lesbian Request Denied."  At the end of the day, although these individuals are in extreme circumstances, people are just people, and they all act out of fear, anger, love, and loneliness.

It is in these moments where the show truly shines, and fortunately it's filled with many deeply human, powerful scenes.  Take "The Chickening" for instance, which somehow finds strange beauty in everybody's quest to find a chicken that's rumored to roam the prison grounds.  It's something that could easily be a goofy runner, but ends up being a thematic backbone about hope in a largely hopeless place.  Orange is the New Black is a depiction of people trying to exist within a system that often overlooks them, and many of the stories ("Tit Punch," "Imaginary Enemies," "Blood Donut") are all about being unwanted.  That's why the story of Taystee is so moving, because everybody hopes to be released from prison, but when she does get out, she quickly realizes that jail time didn't equip her for the real world, and the system is almost designed for her to fail.  The last stretch of episodes in particular feature a fantastic level of emotional accretion, leading up to a Christmas pageant that should feel hokey, but is just overwhelmingly beautiful.  Like in season 4 of Arrested Development, the final shot is a striking one, and it leaves the viewer with tons of possibility for the next season.  Everything leading up to that scene offers enough to stew over as well, and it's likely that I'll still be unpacking this first season -- which I had no anticipation for, but ended up being floored by -- for months to come.  I never thought that the woman who created Weeds would make a show that would make me a better, more thoughtful person, but here is Orange is the New Black, easily one of the best shows of the year.

RIP Bunheads (2012-2013)

Look at the disappointment, ABC Family!

I watch alot of TV, and anybody who watches as many shows as I do has to deal with tons of them getting cancelled.  So you would think that by now I'd be used to it and not get too worked up about it anymore, yet it still usually hurts.  Yesterday, after many months of stalling, ABC Family cancelled Bunheads, and this might be the most upset I've ever been about a show's cancellation.  I've spilled alot of digital ink on this blog about Bunheads -- and deservedly so, because it's one of the best shows on television -- so I had a large investment in the show's fate, which had been up in the air since the first season ended in February.  Since then, there were many ups (the cancellation of The Lying Game, all of the various thinkpieces popping up on the internet) and downs (the sets being taken down, good ratings for The Fosters and Twisted, ABC Family barely submitting the show for Emmy consideration), but I was still holding out hope.

Bunheads isn't the first great show to be cancelled this year, as 2013 has already taken the lives of Ben & Kate and Enlightened.  Enlightened is likely to be in the top 3 on my list of favorite television shows in 2013 by the time the end of the year rolls around, and I found its cancellation to be unfortunate, but its ending felt so complete that it was hard to be too broken up about it.  And Ben & Kate was my favorite new comedy of last fall season, but I'm pretty sure we saw all that show had to offer.  The difference with Bunheads was the possibility.  Part of the reason why I was rooting for a renewal was because I was convinced that the show was going to deliver next-level excellence in the second season.  It was already starting to make that leap anyway -- the first 10 episodes that aired in 2012 were good enough, but the back 8 that aired in 2013 were some of the most heartwarming, funny, and devastating television episodes I've seen all year.  Now, instead of getting to see the show's trajectory play out, Bunheads got clipped just as it was blossoming.

Earlier in the year, when everybody was concerned about Hannibal possibly getting cancelled because it's a Bryan Fuller show and it wasn't drawing overly impressive ratings, I was rooting for it too, but if it wasn't renewed I wouldn't have been phased too much.  In fact, I'd easily trade in season 2 of Hannibal to get a second season of Bunheads.  There will be many more gussied-up procedurals.  There will certainly be many more serial killer shows.  But there might not be another show like Bunheads in a long time, which featured such interesting, unique, and real portrayals of women and teens.  In a television landscape overstuffed with blandly "edgy" shows filled with brooding antiheroes, Bunheads was light and easygoing fare, yet it never shied away from dealing with the disappointment and doubt that lurked underneath the surface.  It was unlike anything else on television, but more importantly, it was good.  What's worse is that who knows if Amy Sherman-Palladino has another show in her.  Maybe she'll be too jaded after he experience at the end of Gilmore Girls and now with the cancellation of Bunheads.  Maybe she just won't have any new ideas after this.  But the world will be much less wonderful without her voice.

So goodbye, Bunheads.  Goodbye to Sasha and Melanie and Ginny and Boo and Michelle and all of the other complex and nuanced characters on the show.  Thank you for making me laugh and almost making me cry.  You had a stupid name and were on ABC Family, so people scoffed at you, but you were an amazing television show and you'll be missed.