Jordan's Review: Community, Season 2, Episode 7: Aerodynamics of Gender

If last week proved anything, its that Community has created a universe in which pretty much anything is possible. That allows the show a great deal of freedom to go to the weird places it seems most drawn to, and also makes it the most original show around right now. Unlike its main comedy competition, Modern Family (a show I quite like, but also one that just pulls out a standard family sitcom plot every week), this show often comes up with concepts so strange and out there that they could only work here. "Aerodynamics of Gender" is a step down after two stellar episodes in a row, but it also goes to a stranger place than any episode since the group learned to sail in a parking lot last season (and wasn't over-relying on parody to get it there).

The transcendence in this episode was all confined to the B-story, where Jeff and Troy discovered a Secret Garden-like paradise with a trampoline, and discovered true tranquility. This storyline was flat out strange, from the gardner Joshua, to Troy and Jeff's sudden peace-out, to Pierce's brand new ability to fly remote control spy planes very well (and a drug habit that had him hallucinating Andy Dick as the pilot). Just summarizing this plotline makes it sound like the show might have gone a step too far, but because it established the garden as a place that was literally magical, almost everything it threw in fell within my suspension of disbelief (which this show carefully expands week by week to allow it to get away with zombia apocalypses and magical trampolines when it wants to). That the subplot ended with the fall of the garden and paradise being lost because of the evils that men (mostly Pierce) do was pretty expected, but the reveal that Joshua was a racist the whole time added a twist to it, and the fact that the show took it to the next level with Jeff's realization that "purity that demands exclusivity isn't purity at all. Maybe paradise is a lie..." made the subplot even better. Community gets a lot of leeway from me in the absurdity department not only because I happen to love absurdity, but also because it almost always grounds its crazy plots in real human emotions, telling meaningful stories in inventive new ways. That the show can drop a realistic and meaningful philosophical nugget into a subplot with a trampoline being needlessly chainsawed apart is what I love most about the show.

The A-plot is problematic however, and mostly because it lacks the careful attention to character detail and the resonant meaning of the subplot. I buy that Britta would want to take a women's studies class (hell, I'd buy that as her major), and I completely believe that Shirley and Annie have devious sides, but Britta's rise to queen bitch felt very off to me. I think it could have been made to fit in her character, as she is at heart just as vain and needy as Jeff, but the episode didn't devote any time to explaining her sudden desperate need to take down all of the "mean girls." Abed was used perfectly, and his realization that his power was evil and that the social order needed to be restored was a nice little arc for him, yet I can't help but feel like the storyline for the girls in an episode called "Aerodynamics of Gender" was a little lazy and undercooked. The show could have had an actual discussion on women in the media or on gender, but instead it went for the stereotypical "girls fight bitchy girls" plotline and mostly used its female characters as the necessary pawns in the story. Community has excellent, fully realized female characters, and is quite capable of digging into deep issues (see the B-plot), but this plotline failed to utilize the show's skills.

Yet even with a weak A-plot, "Aerodynamics of Gender" was very funny and singularly Community. Even with the decrease in quality from the last two weeks, this was a solid episode of a show that's barreling guns blazing through what's becoming a stellar second season.

Grade: B

Notes:

-"I usually wear contacts, but I couldn't find them without my glasses...which I wear..."

-"Why name your daughter Megan? Are you stocking up for a bitch shortage?"

-"Who else saw you come in?" "If we say nobody are you going to stab us with your bush scissors?"

-"But then you started bouncing. Like a baby on the knees of a goddess."

-"Its called a muffin top, Abed." "Like a muffin. Clever."

-"You look like you're smuggling a lime and a coconut."

-"Exactly like Rowboat Cop! Charisse is a bad rowboat. Sink her."

-"Are those as comfortable as they look?""They're like wearing a pair of dreams."

-"Tell me how to get this laid back, or I'll kill your families!"

-"It's going to be a maze."-Joshua, showing off his swastika tatoo to an oblivious Troy and Jeff.

-Starburns really wants people to call him by Alex, his real name.

Jordan's Review: How I Met Your Mother, Season 6, Episode 7: Canning Randy

Last week I spoke of my worries that How I Met Your Mother would never be really great again, and that it would limp through its remaining two or three seasons (because Carter and Craig, the creators, refuse to end it before at least Season 8) to a subpar finish that we would all appreciate if only because it signified the end to a show that had long outstayed its welcome. "Canning Randy" gives me some idea what those next three years might look like, in a nightmare scenario. The episode has three terrible plotlines, almost no jokes that land, and a cast that seems as bored and miserable as I was watching it.

Most pained looking is Jason Segel, who seems to eye-roll his way through a god awful plot in which Marshall refuses to fire his incompetent assistant Randy (Will Forte, a very funny actor reprising a shockingly unfunny role), even after Randy has made it clear that he would love to be fired to pursue his dream of brewing his own beer, which he would call the apparently supposedly funny name "Wharmpess." I have read Jason Segel discuss the fact that the show has gone on much longer than he ever thought that it would, and that he fears he will be roped into tepid plotlines about his marriage and working life for years to come, but this is the first time I have really seen that reflected in his performance. Segel seems to be actively grimacing throughout the over the top physical comedy set-piece in which Forte trashes his office in an attempt to get fired, and I can't really blame him--there is nothing worth laughing about in the scene.

Robin's subplot tonight is a hallmark for how far the show has fallen since the glory days of Robin SParkles and "Let's Go To The Mall." In an attempt to cash in on the "Robin in funny videos" jokes that have been fodder for much laughter over the course of the show's history, for some reason Robin decides to do a commercial for adult diapers. I have multiple problems with this idea. First off, and most importantly, the commercial isn't funny. A lot can be forgiven for the sake of a good laugh, but Robin pretending to wet herself is not my idea of a solid joke. Secondly, no real reason is given for Robin suddenly abandoning her journalistic integrity to do a commercial at all. We know that Becky is more popular because of her commercial, and that Robin hates Becky, but so far the entire relationship is built around Robin feeling superior to Becky and having her lower herself to Becky's level doesn't make any story sense. Finally, even if Robin did decide, for some unknown reason, after a crisis of conscience not shown on screen, to violate her moral code and appear in a commercial, there is no way that a rational person would agree to appear in an adult diaper commercial. Robin isn't a desperate struggling actress who will take anything. The writers put her in that commercial not because it made any character or story sense, but because they thought Robin in an adult diaper commercial would be funny. It wasn't.

Finally, Ted faces off again with Zoey, a character we're supposed to care about, I guess. She is still protesting the demolition of the Arcadian, and enrolls in Ted's classes to rally his students against him. The absolute best thing I can say about this plotline is I absolutely do not care about Zoey or about her stupid effort to keep a stupid building from being demolished. I didn't care about this conflict when it was introduced a few episodes back, and the fact that this week's episode didn't do anything but restate the conflict and play it out in almost exactly the same way did very little to make me care more. Again, Josh Radnor looked deflated wading through scene after scene of boring plotline and flat jokes. What was once one of the most solid ensembles on television now seems to be just bored, cycling through warmed over deliveries of poorly put together jokes. Even Neil Patrick Harris, often the show's ace in the hole during weak episodes, doesn't have much to do tonight, and largely phones in what little he is given. If there's nothing to work with, there's not much for even a cast as charismatic as this to sell.

If it sounds like I'm being too harsh on How I Met Your Mother this week, I may be. Yet this is possibly the worst run of three episodes in the show's history. After reading interviews with the show's creators promising a return to form in Season Six, I can't help but be even more disappointed at the swan dive in quality the show has taken since "Big Days," the season premiere. If "Canning Randy" is a vision of what's to come on the show, and not just an isolated piece of refuse that was just unfortunately tagged on after two very mediocre episodes, its going to be a long, miserable road to the show's finale, for its cast, sure, but even more so for us in the audience who are trying to maintain the dedication that got us into the show in the first place. How I Met Your Mother needs a good episode to remind me why I am still dedicating a half hour to it every week, and it needs it fast.

Grade: D

Notes:

-I absolutely cannot believe that this show brought back Bob Odenkirk, only to waste him AGAIN. Sadly, I actually can believe that.

-Another thing that shocks me: The return of Lily's god awful catchphrase, "Where's the poop?" This leads me to believe that the show has literally no filter for bad ideas any more, and also a shrinking idea of what is actually funny and what just sounds like a joke. "Where's the poop?" was terrible weeks ago when it was introduced; bringing it back again is just insane.

-"I'll say this: There is no quit in that guy...We should fire him."

Jordan's Review: The Walking Dead: Season 1, Episode 1: Days Gone By

I have watched my fair share of zombie stories over the past month. Writing a column on George Romero threw a lot at me, and made a rewatch of Shaun of the Dead a necessity. Then there was Thursday's episode of Community. There has been a lot of zombie entertainment in my life of late. And while I certainly wouldn't call myself an acolyte of the genre, I have spent many an hour over the course of my life discussing exactly how I would deal with the coming zombie apocalypse. In fact, in a recent discussion about that very possibility, my friends and I realized that we are likely more prepared for the "coming" zombie apocalypse than we would be for a fire, earthquake, hurricane, or terrorist attack. Those real disasters would catch us completely unaware, but if the dead start walking, by God I'll be ready.

All of this is preamble to a discussion of the opening episode of The Walking Dead, AMC's new zombie series. Considering AMC is home to my two favorite shows of the moment, Mad Men and Breaking Bad, and considering all of the praise I have heard heaped on Robert Kirkman's comic book series (which I have avoided reading in fear of spoiling the show for myself), I was excited for this show from the moment it was announced. I have read interviews with Kirkman in which he lays out the basic premise of his comic: most tales of the zombie apocalypse are short and sweet; his examination of the world after the dead rise just keeps going on and on and on. I have heard the comic pitched as one of the bleakest examinations of the human will to survive ever put to paper (bold words, I'd say), and so went in curious as to whether the show could capture the dark tone I had heard so much about, especially since it was airing on television (sure, its on cable, but cable isn't HBO).

In its first hour, it seems like The Walking Dead isn't looking to pull any punches, either in its tone, nor in its depiction of the violence that has overtaken the world in which its characters live. From its opening moments, in which our hero Rick Grimes (Andrew Lincoln) is forced to kill a little girl who has become zombified (a word I think I will be forced to use often in these reviews, in spite of the fact that it doesn't technically exist), its clear that this is not going to make for light, airy television. Rick is clearly taken aback by murdering the girl, but its also obvious that he has become more accustomed to committing acts like this in recent days. Cue the flashback that reveals lawman Rick and his partner Shane (Jon Bernthal) shooting the shit like standard cops in simpler times. Shane has women troubles, namely that his girlfriend won't turn off any lights; Rick has problems too, mostly arising from the fact that he doesn't communicate enough. Before he gets the chance to communicate much more, he is shot by a group of runaway fugitives and is plunged into a coma. When he awakens, the world is not as he left it.

The show doesn't spend much time acclimating Rick to this world, nor does it bother with particulars like how long he's been in a coma (at least not yet). Instead, it plunges directly into one creepy setpiece after another, as Rick stumbles upon a room locked from the outside with something trying to get out, stumbles through a darkened staircase in which nothing leaps out (though the tension is still shockingly high), stumbles through a parking lot lines with hundreds of rotting corpses, and finds his first zombie in the form of a half-gone woman crawling through the park. Its clear that Rick is shocked by what he sees, but he learns quick and adapts to what is going on around him with admirable ease--this trait works both because it moves the show along quickly and because it allows him to survive.

Rick quickly makes his way home, only to find his family is missing but not dead. Their clothes are gone, as are photo albums that lead to the revelation that his wife and son were at least still alive when they left the house (and thank God the show let us know they were still alive tonight, because I dreaded the drawn out faux-suspense until we realized they were still kickin'). He soon meets the first living people he's seen in Morgan Jones (an excellent Lennie James) and his son Dwight, who are more accustomed to the new world order, but perhaps no more capable than Rick. Morgan has been frozen in motion since his wife was zombified, and in the episode's most touching, if frustrating moment, we see him take aim and attempt to put her down, only to find himself incapable of doing the deed.

As Rick heads for Atlanta, he sends out a distress call, heard but not successfully answered by a small group of survivors including Shane, Rick's wife Lori (Sarah Wayne Callies), Rick's son Carl (Chandler Riggs), and a few others. They know what Rick will soon learn--Atlanta does not hold the refugee camp that Rick was promised (of course it doesn't. Refugee camps are hard to come by in zombie apocalypses), but is instead a haven to hordes of zombies. Rick rides into Atlanta triumphantly on a horse, but is quickly humbled by a massive swarm of zombies who force his dismount, devour his horse, and leave him crawling under a nearby tank for last refuge, in another terrifying scene. We know Rick will survive this ordeal (this is not a zombie movie, in which the main character might die, but a television series, in which he has to make it out of the pilot), but that makes his struggle no less visceral and shocking. Watching him fire randomly at the horde crawling at him under the tank is legitimately scary, and its a relief to watch him seal himself inside the tank that might be his tomb. Fortunately, as the episode ends, a voice that will surely be his savior crackles across the tank radio.

"Days Gone By" has arguably more exposition to get through than most television series do in their pilots; after all, the series is trying to set up an entire world in its first outing, yet it handles the task exceptionally well. The episode feels like the first hour of a zombie movie, which may bode well or poorly in weeks to come. The pacing is certainly deliberate, but slow enough to let us feel the story develop around the edges. This is a show that knows its headed somewhere, and is hoping we have the patience to follow it there. If the show is as expansive as the comic has proven to be (it has been running for around 1o years now), its first installment, and even the next few to follow it can play out as slowly and deliberately as they like. So I have no problem with the fact that The Walking Dead does not distinguish itself from any number of other zombie stories in its first outing. I'm willing to wager it will get there in the coming weeks. For now, the show hit all of the stock points of the genre pretty much perfectly, buoyed by solid, if flawed, work by Andrew Lincoln, and an excellent performance by Lennie James. The Walking Dead turned in an incredibly solid pilot, and one that makes me shiver with anticipation at what we will be treated to in the weeks to come.

Grade: A-

Notes:

-This show is superb at setting tone, from the 16mm camera, to excellent production design and cinematography, to a stellar use of silence broken by the impact of sound.

-"She's good at turning off lights."

-"The last thing she said to me this morning--'Sometimes I wonder if you really care about us at all.'She said that in front of our kid before he went to school. Difference between men and women: I would never say something that cruel to her." So Rick and his wife's marriage wasn't perfect. Shane still looks like an asshole for stepping in on his partner's lady that quickly.

-Lincoln's southern accent was just terrible. Really hurt the otherwise solid performance in my eyes.

-I really like the idea that the zombies are attracted to the loud noise a gunshot makes. That will make for some solid tension in the weeks to come, I think, as our heroes have to weigh whether to fire and kill one zombie, or hold off to avoid attracting the horde.

Jordan's Review: Community, Season 2, Episode 6: Epidemiology 206

Remember a few weeks back when I praised "Basic Rocket Science" as a solid episode of Community but said that it did not rise to the level of classic parody episodes like "Modern Warfare" or "Contemporary American Poultry"? If you don't, I just reminded you. The problem I had with "Rocket Science," and it was a minor one, was that for all the accuracy of its parody, and for all its brilliant absurdity, it did not follow a definable character arc the way the other two episodes did, and thus was a little less than transcendent. What makes Community great is that its a very smart, consistently hysterical half hour of television. What makes it the best comedy on tv right now is, as I have said many times before, that it is both of those things while also managing to be about something. At its best, the show is an amazing half hour of comedy that actually tells a story and fits into a larger examination of these characters and their personal journeys toward self improvement. And "Epidemiology 206" is Community at its best.

The story is a pretty simple Halloween episode plotline: The Dean bought a bunch of rations from an army surplus store for the Greendale Halloween party, and one of the packages was actually an experiment in biotechnology that turns people into zombies. Let's pause for a minute to let that sink in. No other show on television could put forward a legitimate zombie episode, in which every one of its characters (save The Dean) becomes a flesh eating creature, and actually enter it into the show's canon believably. Of course no one remembers the events of the episode at its end, but nevertheless, Community didn't half ass it with an "it was all a dream" ending or set its Halloween episode outside of reality, "Treehouse of Horror" style (though it did have some excellent narration from George Takei). I feel comfortable calling Community the best comedy on TV right now in large part because its created a world in which literally anything the show wants to happen can happen, and there's no problem with suspending disbelief. Greendale Community College is the weirdest place on television right now, but that also makes it the freest. I am never quite sure going in what any episode is going to deliver, except that it is going to be hilarious, smart, and well executed.

Of course, I don't think the show could pull off an "Epidemiology" type feat every week, nor would I want it to. The reason this episode works (and again, its pretty shocking how well it works considering how out there it is) is because the show spends a good deal of its time on episodes where its characters just hang out and act like themselves, so that when it goes incredibly high concept, it has fully realized characters to fit into each situation. I mentioned earlier that the reason I think this episode works better than "Basic Rocket Science" is because there is an actual character arc to be invested in here. While that episode had its tenuous Annie conflict, tonight has Troy going through something actual. Troy is a nerd, which is what makes him pair so well with Abed. Yet he is not so sure, tonight, that being a nerd is the best thing for him socially or romantically. Rather than coming out of nowhere, this storyline feels like exactly something Troy would go through when off at college. Troy wants to be cool like Jeff, and so he ditches his pair costume with Abed and becomes a Sexy Dracula by putting a toilet seat cover over his neck and taking off his shirt (I'll talk about the significance of the costumes down in Notes). Watching Troy abandon his friendship with Abed, then quickly come to realize that his geekiness is a part of himself and that Abed's acceptance of that is what makes them best friends is a valid emotional arc to take the character on, and grounds the ludicrous "Epidemiology" in real, earned emotion.

Add to that the subplot that throws Shirley and Chang together, and actually makes that pairing work, and this episode easily goes down as one of the greats. Shirley and Chang are both being mistaken throughout the nigh for people they aren't. They both keep getting thrown into confined spaces together, and they're both obsessed with the idea that this outbreak means the end of the world. So instead of seeming like the hookup was designed by drawing names out of a hat, as a show like Glee would have, Shirley and Chang's union, however brief, actually made sense. There is nothing like Community on TV right now, and at its best, this show manages to be completely absurd and yet totally grounded in the real, believable emotions of its characters. I cannot praise "Epidemiology 206" highly enough for taking on an incredibly risky conceit, throwing itself completely into the concept regardless of how insane it is on its face, and pulling it off, making a hilarious parody of zombie movies that is simultaneously an episode of the show that fits perfectly into its overarching themes. God damn, this show is good.

Grade: A

Notes:

-Costume dissection time: I always give a show props when it manages to make the "Everyone dresses up in silly costumes" conceit of Halloween episodes actually say something about the characters wearing them. The Dean is Lady Gaga (of course he is), Jeff is David Beckham so he can wear a $6,000 suit, Troy and Abed are Predator and a hunter, a film reference and a show of their union in geekery, until Troy decides to go for the "sexy [blank]" costume to get the ladies, Annie is Little Red Riding Hood because she's innocent, but really sexy, Britta is again a shapeless, formless animal costume because she is a nonconformist who doesn't go in for Halloween sexiness, Shirley is Glinda the good witch because she's a saint, and Chang is Peggy Fleming because he's fucking insane.

-How great was The Dean's playlist of ABBA songs mixed with personal reminders? ABBA backing scenes of zombie massacre worked shockingly well.

-"She is not Miss Piggy. I repeat, she is NOT Miss Piggy."

-"I'm Peggy Fleming. You've just been proven racist by the racist prover."

-"How much did you eat Starburns?" "i didn't eat anything. And my name is Alan!"

-"We need to perform an orderly evacuation without causing a panic." "Holy crap! Leonard's a zombie!" "Zombie attack!"

-"Add Eat Pray Love soundtrack to workout mix."

-"Oh great. Nobody's special! And RIch, just so you know, I hate you less now. That's how much I hate your normal self."

-"Don't look back!" "Why not?"

-"What is up with that Cat?" "Is someone throwing it?"

-"What about the zombies?" "Backburner Troy. This cat has to be dealt with!"

-Best thing to yell before being torn apart by zombies, from Jeff: "That's my jacket. You're stretching it. You're stretching iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

-"Troy, make me proud. Be the first black man to make it to the end." Clearly Abed doesn't remember Dawn of The Dead, though if I am giving this show the insane level of credit I sometimes too, you can take the fact that it made Troy the hero in its zombie episode as a sly commentary on Romero's tendency to make black men the protagonists of his zombie films.

"Zombie Annie, what big fists you have...in your face!"

-"Hi. Kevin can't come to the phone right now. He's on a spaceship with me, George Takei."

Jordan's Review: How I Met Your Mother, Season 6, Episode 6: Baby Talk

If How I Met Your Mother remains on its recent trend of turning out 24 episode seasons, then "Baby Talk" will mark the 1/4 point of the show's Sixth Season. Which I feel is a fair time to begin expressing concern. Season Five started out as a slump, then slowly became the sort of season that even the creators apologize for and promise to improve. Yet Season Six has been pretty much all down hill since its premiere, turning in episode after episode of mediocre sitcom plotlines and not even delivering the laughs this show used to bring in with ease. Its time to start wondering if How I Met Your Mother has lost its edge for good. This isn't to say that I've given up hope, of course, nor that I would stop watching even if I had. This season of 30 Rock has reminded me that a show can bounce out of even a very long slump, and regardless of quality, HIMYM has me until its end. Once a show hooks me, I tend to stay loyal regardless of a drop in quality (I watched Scrubs all the way until JD eft Sacred Heart at the end of Season Eight, despite loathing most of what the show did after about the half way mark of Season Five).

Tonight had us dealing with Marshall and Lily's season long arc, the potentially show-killing quest to bring a baby into a show primarily set in a bar. I have talked at length about the possibility that the introduction of a baby would equal a shark jump for this show, but I have often added that if any show was going to be able to do the pregnancy and childbirth arcs with any sense of originality or humor, How I Met Your Mother at the top of its game was the prime candidate. Unfortunately, this show is many lengths away from the top of its game, and so instead we get a pretty rote plotline in which Marshall and Lily argue over baby names and go to ridiculous lengths to ensure they will have a baby of their gender. Both of these are plotlines that pretty much every sitcom does once a baby is on the horizon, and the show didn't really add anything new to the idea. I liked the scene in which Marshall video chats with his parents, mostly because their ineptitude with the technology was good for laughs, but the plotline didn't really pay off as anything more than just an excuse for the show to check "fight over the baby's name/gender" off their sitcom cliche board.

The subplots tonight fare slightly better idea wise, but are unfortunately pretty short on laughs as well. I think the entire "who's you daddy?" concept is pretty creepy myself, but understand Ted's point about how its nice to feel needed in a relationship. The idea that Ted would ever be attracted to Becky is patently silly and incredibly against type, but I would have been willing to forgive this mistake if the storyline had actually been funny. Meanwhile, Barney tackles one of his self-imposed challenges by trying to pick up a girl while talking like a little boy. NPH does his best with the material, and he is excellent as usual, but even a comedic master like himself is going to have trouble selling lines like "I wet myself! Will you change me?" The reveal at the episode's end that Barney's selfish, childish side emerged once he thoguht he had failed the challenge worked mostly because we've seen Barney act that way before and it fit within his character. And the moment in which Barney explains that Robin's self-sufficiency is what makes her wonderful was a solid one, reminding me how much I love the idea of Barney and Robin together when the show isn't telling me I shouldn't. All in all, "Baby Talk" was an extremely mediocre episode of How I Met Your Mother in the midst of what is quickly becoming another extremely mediocre season. Here's hoping the show finds its old rhythm sooner rather than later.

Grade: C

Notes:

-"Let's call her vodka. Then at least we know you'll hold her tight and never let her go." "Don't knock vodka. Wouldn't have a baby without it!"

-Nice callback to the pilot with a flashback of Rob grabbing Lily's boob and smearing finger paint all over her.

-"Our DVR won't recognize it as a television program."

-"Sweet mother nature!" "That WAS my card!"

-"You want anything Marshall?" "Mom, I'm in the computer."

-"No one's going to say 'who's your daddy?' to Robin Sherbatsky. You're your own daddy...and mommy...And weird survivalist uncle living in a cabin with a shotgun blaming stuff on the government."

Whose Film Is It Anyway?: John Carpenter

Note: The purpose of Whose Film Is It Anyway? is to examine the validity of the auteur theory through the lens of individual film-makers, taking a look at their bodies of work and highlighting the technical elements, personal style, and thematic consistency of their films. Ultimately, the goal of this column will be to generate a discussion of the merits of auteur theory through examinations of directors widely considered auteurs, analyses of directors whose status as auteurs is more tenuous, and occasional looks at non-directors who may drive the quality and content of their films with more assuredness than the directors they work with.

“In France, I’m an auteur; in Germany, a filmmaker; in Britain, a genre film director; and, in the USA, a bum”-John Carpenter

Determining whether a given director is an auteur is not always easy. Sometimes a director makes each film their own in very small, hard to notice ways, yet still manages to leave a mark on every film. In other cases, though, determining the true author of a movie is pretty simple. John Carpenter, like most of the directors I cover in this column, is a part of the latter group. Not only does he direct his films, he also usually writes, produces, scores, edits, and occasionally acts in them. With that much involvement in each of his movies, it is pretty simple to declare the man an auteur. Throughout his work, he utilizes minimalist lighting, static cameras, and the steadicam (a camera that is mounted to the cameraman in such a way as to isolate the movements of the operator from the camera, and thus allowing for incredibly smooth shots), all in service of building suspense and delivering shocks. While John Carpenter has made forays into science fiction and action films, this column will be focusing solely on his contributions to the genre of horror (this is, after all, Halloween Horror Auteur Month).

Carpenter’s most famous film, Halloween, almost single handedly created the slasher film, and established many of the tropes that remain at the center of the genre. The film is set in the fictional Midwest town of Haddonfield, Illinois, on the titular holiday, and follows Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis, in her film debut) as she and her babysitting friends are stalked by the psychotic Michael Myers (Nick Castle). The film opens with a classic Carpenter point of view scene, as the camera peers out from behind the masked eyes of a young Michael Myers as he takes his first life. Halloween may be best known as one of the founders of the trope throughout slasher films in which promiscuous girls die while the chaste and innocent central girl survives, but the film also features an incompetent cop who is reluctant to believe that a killer is stalking the streets. Carpenter refuses the notion that the movie is a morality play, though, dismissing the idea that he is murdering young women for being sexually promiscuous, and even disavowing critics of the notion that Curtis survives the film because she is chaste. As he puts it, critics, “completely missed the point there […] The one girl who is the most sexually uptight just keeps stabbing this guy with a long knife. She's the most sexually frustrated. She's the one that's killed him. Not because she's a virgin but because all that sexually repressed energy starts coming out. She uses all those phallic symbols on the guy." During the shooting of the film, Carpenter pushed to keep the gore level low, hoping to build suspense and trade on the audiences dread more than actually relying on gore to create the fear. He also worked very closely with his actors to manage their level of terror at any given point, as the film was shot out of sequence. To do this, he created a “fear meter,” telling his actresses (and especially Curtis) where on the meter they would be in each scene. His score also perfectly meshes with the tone of the film, building a slow since of dread and impending doom as Michael Myers slowly stalks his prey.






Carpenter’s next film, The Fog, is less successful, even by Carpenter’s own admission. He describes, “It was terrible. I had a movie that didn't work, and I knew it in my heart". The film tells the story of the centennial celebration in Antonio Bay, California, that is interrupted by mysterious fog that envelopes the town and brings with it vengeful ghosts who have returned to make the town pay for the sins of the past. This is a recurring theme throughout Carpenter’s work, as his characters are often faced against evils focused on revenge and punishing people for previous indiscretions. Here, the indiscretions taint the entirety of the town, which, in another horror trope was actually founded with gold stolen from a ship that the original settlers caused to sink. Knowing that the film was not particularly good, Carpenter did heavy reshoots on it, adding the tale by the old sea captain that opens the film, and breaking with his desire to use suspense rather than gore to add frights to a movie by throwing in more gratuitous death scenes. This became necessary in Carpenter’s mind when he realized that the horror market had become decidedly gorier in the two years since Halloween and that his new film would have to keep up. The score is reminiscent Halloween as well, using similar musical progressions to build dread.





The slow, deliberate pacing of Carpenter’s films is an often frustrating tendency. In his best work, like Halloween and The Thing (which I will discuss in a moment), the pacing works to draw you in and keep you riveted when the actual scares come in the final act. In The Fog, and They Live, however, the pacing makes the films feel uneventful for almost their entire runtime. They Live is the worst offender in this tendency. Ostensibly, the film follows Nada (Roddy Piper) as he discovers a pair of sunglasses that allow him to see the world as we all know it truly is—a mass heap of subliminal messaging keeping us calm and sedated while alien overlords disguised as the moneyed elite reap the benefits of our endless, meaningless toiling. The premise is pure gold, especially as a satire of Reagan era greed and overconsumption, but the pacing (along with many, many other mistakes) brings the film to its knees. The sunglasses that reveal the true nature of the world aren’t discovered until nearly 45 minutes into the film, and the alien killing glory that is theoretically the draw to the movies is confined almost entirely to the last act of the movie. For an example of how ridiculously drawn out the movie is, look no further than the scene below, a six minute long fight scene between the film's heroes in which Nada spends the entire time just trying to make his co-worker try on the glasses. While the pacing is bad, it certainly isn’t helped by the terrible dialogue (including the laughable moment in which Piper walks into a bank holding a shotgun and says, for no apparent reason, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum."), and a score that sounds as flat and synthesizer heavy as pretty much every score composed in the latter part of the ‘80s. Carpenter made bad decisions at pretty much every turn in They Live, yet those decisions are clearly his. Even in making a shitty, shitty movie, John Carpenter made his own movie.





Fortunately, he fared much better a few years earlier in 1982’s The Thing, a taut science fiction horror film that builds tension through accumulating paranoia. After a dog wanders into their Antarctic Research Center, a team of scientists (including Kurt Russell and Keith David) discover it to be a parasitic alien that can take the form of any creature it kills. As the team tries to determine whether The Thing has infected any of them, and who may not be what they seem, paranoia grows. The Thing succeeds by building a claustrophobic tension as the characters realize how complete their isolation is, and how little they can trust even those that they have around them. An unapologetically dark and hopeless film, The Thing also combines the escalating tension of Halloween with the increased gore levels of The Fog (actually taking the gross factor up a thousand percent here). While most horror films try to hide the antagonist for as much of the movie as possible, The Thing revels in the disgusting monster its created, giving the villain of the title substantial screen time and yet never failing to make the site of it terrifying. In part this is because of how well Carpenter manages the mood of the cast, but the fear also comes from how completely horrifying the threat at the film’s center is. Carpenter is also helped by the masterful score composed by Ennio Moricone (who I have already discussed at length in my examination of Sergio Leone), who understands musical composition in film better than pretty much anyone.



John Carpenter is not the greatest director of all time, and in fact, has become more inconsistent in recent years (let’s not even mention Ghosts of Mars, his most recent effort), but each of his movies is unmistakably his own. He puts his heart and soul into every one of his efforts, and the results bear his mark regardless of their quality. His examinations of the effects of the past on the present, his haunting scores, and his use of lighting and camera techniques remain consistent throughout his work, whether or not he employs them successfully. An auteur is not required to be a good director, nor a consistent one. All that is required to mark a filmmaker as an auteur is the unmistakable note of a personal authorial stamp on each of their films. And, for better or worse, John Carpenter only makes one kind of movie: his own.


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Coming up on Who's Film Is It Anyway?:


11/7: James Cameron

11/21: Kathryn Bigelow

12/5: Darren Aronofsky

12/19: Frank Capra

Jordan's Review: 30 Rock, Season 5, Episode 5: Reaganing

30 Rock occasionally over-relies on coining terms and theories to fill out episodes. Some of these are clever little theories and ideas that are actually worthy of hanging a story on, while others are just there because the episode would only be 15 minutes long without them. Fortunately, I found the concept of "Reaganing" to be a smart one, and totally in keeping with Jack's egomaniacal tendencies and Reagan worship. Plus, call me a sucker, but Kenneth, Jenna, and Kelsey Grammar forming "The Best Friends Gang" and pulling a long con on Carvel's has got to be one of the best premises in recent memory.

Jack is coming close to "Reaganing," pulling the equivalent of the perfect game for an entire day and making perfect decisions, including green lighting "Child Hell Flight." This leaves him feeling bullet proof and omnipotent...until Liz Lemon shows up with her unsolvable sexual problems. I generally find the show's tendency to make Tina Fey off as disgusting and undesirable pretty silly and occasionally annoying, but one running joke that always seems to work is Liz's revulsion at the idea of sex. As many of the flashbacks tonight show, Liz has a long history of saying hilariously absurd things about the act itself, and all of this deriving from her mother "taking all the people away" and tearing down her posters after finding a 9-year-old Liz (a freakish gag I hope never happens again) splayed beneath a poster of Tom Jones on her way to the bathroom. While Liz's sexual problems were more creepy than funny, the conversation surrounding them was actually very funny.

The subplot surrounding Kenneth and Jenna was a plotline you see in sitcoms all the time, mostly because there's something undeniably awesome about con man lingo, and something endlessly hilarious about straight arrows like Kenneth getting involved in a good grift. This plotline would have been transcendent with just that, but adding in Kelsey Grammar as an all too willing participant in their con was a stroke of pure genius. 30 Rock has taken a lot of flack, some of it from me, for stunt casting, but I think they don't get enough credit for how well they use some of their guest stars. Grammer is a very funny man by himself, but he is utilized perfectly in this episode, being surprisingly interested in the con from the start, and being totally willing to move to Florida with "The Best Friends Gang" to start a new con. There's just something hysterical about the idea of someone as rich and reputable as Kelsey Grammar being a lowly con man that I could not stop laughing at.

Tracy spends the episode doing what he always does--fucking up lines for a commercial for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. Again (I feel this sentence has come up a lot tonight, but its been applicable a lot), this was a pretty obvious plot, right down to the ridiculously complicated commercial leading up to a single line Tracy could not nail, but give Morgan a chance to be completely insane and incompetent, and he will make it comedy gold. 30 Rock is on a run the likes of which it hasn't had since way back in season two, churning out another fantastic and hilarious episode tonight and making me regret ever doubting this show. I wrote, minutes ago, that Community was quickly becoming the best comedy on tv. That may be true, but reigning champ 30 Rock isn't going down without a fake.

Grade: A-

Notes:

-"Ugh, she likes that?" "No, but she respects it when its done well."

-"I have to talk to Rachel Maddow. Only one of us can have this haircut."

-"We've had to sell off Sally, Julie, and Poppy." "Are those some of your pigs?" "...Yes."

-"What's my cue? You know what, it doesn't matter. I don't know my line."

-"Bappy Hirthday Gremlin."

-The Parcell farm is just past the tire fire.

-Kelsey Grammer's one rule before joining the gang: "Anybody gets hurt on the score, we leave them to die."

-Another great moment, when two celebrities and Kenneth are celebrating: "$800 split three ways. Carvel will rue the day they messed with The Best Friend's Gang."