Read This Book: Bill McKibben's "Long Distance"

Somehow my city doesn't support a bookstore at the moment, although there is a record store which includes a sizable book selection and an antiques store where several sellers include books among their offerings. For supplementing my bookshelf, though, the best option in the area is a used bookstore called The Book Barn (topic of a future Greatest Thing of Anything). There's an extraordinarily wide selection, including a sports section with titles on not only the big-time activities like baseball and football but more specialized things like boxing and mountaineering.

I'm not a big sports nut, but I do enjoy hiking and cross-country skiing and tend to visit this section to see what's available. The skiing section is usually disappointing. Cross-country is lumped in with downhill, and the latter tends to dominate what's available. The section as a whole is usually made up of outdated guides on ski areas or yellowing guides on the best practices for Nordic skiing in the 1970s.

But then one day I came across this:

(betterworldbooks.com)

There were two copies of Long Distance by Bill McKibben, and a cover photo that nicely captures what it's like to take a secluded ski on a crisp winter day. And no, you can't judge a book by its cover but it certainly helped that the book had earned kudos from Bill Bryson, author of the Appalachian Trail book A Walk in the Woods, and Jon Krakauer, author of Into Thin Air and Into The Wild.

McKibben isn't the first person to take a break from their everyday activities and try something to test their body and spirit. Instead of hitting the Appalachian Trail or Mount Everest or backpacking around some exotic country, however, McKibben took the unusual step of taking a year to undergo Olympic-level training for cross-country skiing. He didn't have any illusions about actually competing in the Winter Games, of course, but expected that he would take part in several challenging races and experience a change in his health and attitude.

McKibben's name may have rung a bell when I saw it, but it wasn't until later that I found out more about his background. He's a former New Yorker staff writer who has since become a leading writer on the environment and climate change, including the books The End of Nature, Fight Global Warming Now, and Eaarth. He also founded 350.org, a movement whose goal is to strive toward reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to below 350 parts per million.

It's not to knock McKibben's writing or environmentalism, but the only times when Long Distance really falters are when he brings the green message into the book. It's a big part of his persona, but it doesn't quite work given the main impetus of his journey. The year he chose to train was a terrible one for snow, and it's certainly frustrating for skiers when we want to hit the trails and instead are treated to rain and mud in December. Yet I've always understood global warming as involving subtle but far-ranging changes: increases in average temperature, damage to fragile ecosystems, extreme conditions in summer and winter, etc. McKibben's references basically seem to suggest that global warming is to blame for any winter with lackluster snow, something he certainly wouldn't be contending if he had tried this last year when New England was getting hit with blizzards seemingly every five days. I think the idea that any blizzard disproves global warming is why the concept has changed to climate change over the years.

And why it's so easy to find things like this online (imissglobalwarming.com)

The major strength of the book is its seemingly effortless ability to capture the experience of cross-country skiing. I raced in this sport for about 10 years, and though I've fallen off it as I've moved away from major ski venues there are still plenty of things you remember about it. McKibben is a newcomer to skiing, and writes in such a way that non-skiers will be able to understand what he's talking about and people involved in skiing will enjoy the way he describes various aspects of the sport. He hits upon the frustration of not being able to ski in poor conditions, the thrill of pursuing other racers, the exhaustion of a long race, the tranquility of a good solo ski, and the constant pursuit of a good kick for classical skiing.

Given that McKibben is doing Olympic level training, the book also offers a glimpse at other aspects of skiing that you wouldn't get if he had simply done one-on-one with a coach at a local ski area. He visits races around the world, ending with the original Birkebeiner in Norway, and gives memorable descriptions of his time on a roller-skiing treadmill at the Lake Placid training facility. The one in this video is in Calgary, but you get the idea:



Long Distance also expertly incorporates another theme into the narrative. Partway through his training, McKibben's father came down with a terminal illness. For awhile, both McKibben and his father are dealing with their own personal challenge: McKibben to improve his racing performance, and his father to stay alive. The juxtaposition between McKibben's growing strength and his father's weakness comes with some touching reflections on losing a parent and what McKibben's father meant to him.

Granted, McKibben doesn't have much competition when it comes to non-instructional books on cross-country skiing. But Long Distance is well worth a read by athletes and non-athletes alike.

Top 5 Shows I'm Putting On Hiatus

When I moved a couple of years ago, I opted out of setting up a cable package. I figured there would be plenty of times when I would be working during the evening, and that it would make more sense to catch up on things on Hulu and whatnot. So I've gone the quarter- or maybe even half-hipster route in that I still have a TV but no signal, and watch plenty of stuff online or via Netflix. Perhaps even too much stuff, it sometimes seems.

The list of shows I keep up with is gradually shrinking. Rescue Me wrapped up last year, others have been canceled, and even though I took up watching Alcatraz there should be a net loss before long once Breaking Bad brings things to a close. As I've kept up with shows, however, I've realized there are some series that I shouldn't really be committing to. They still have their moments, but it's clear that they've lost direction or that the networks are trying to milk it as much as possible beyond its best years. It's possible that I'll dig them back up again sometime later, but for these series I've decided that it's time to put things on hold and stop giving them any sort of viewer points in the hope that they'll obey the "Please Wrap Up" sign:

5. The Walking Dead

(screenrant.com)

I hadn't heard of the comic book series this TV show is based on, but I've tended to enjoy the various zombie survival tales that have showed up in the past few decades. It seems the comic is one of the most expansive storylines in this genre, following a group of survivors as they deal with both the undead and hostile bandits. The pilot, and for the most part the first season, didn't fail to disappoint. A creepy atmosphere, incredible zombie creations, impressive sets, and so on.

You'll notice how storyline and character aren't included in this list, which is a little troublesome. I'm not sure how it's handled in the graphic novels, but the series suffers from the fact that while zombie movies can tell a survival tale in a couple of hours, a TV show has to keep an ongoing narrative. Unfortunately, that means that when the survivors find a safe haven where they can settle down for awhile, they do so. And then the story slows right down, too. Most of the past season of The Walking Dead has involved the characters hanging around a farm, occasionally killing or getting killed by zombies, and otherwise whiling away their time feuding with one another. The characters themselves have been drawn much too thin, as the show accumulates a massive cast and generally assigns a few cursory attributes to each person and calls it good.

This season just wrapped up recently, and I'll have to see whether I renege on this decision. There have been some improvements as of late, with some good scenes and surprising moments. But if this last season is any indication, I worry that each time a new one starts it will simply involve the survivors hanging around a new shelter and arguing.

4. Weeds

(news-tracker.com)

I started watching Weeds when five seasons had already aired, and by that time I'd already been sucked in by Breaking Bad. So even from the first episode, Weeds seemed just a bit too cutesy in some aspects. It made some arguments or jokes on religion and Middle America and a lot of other topics with the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Still, it brought in a lot of good characters, amusing dialogue, and some clever storylines. At least until it decided to break out of the cloistered community of Agrestic where the series was originally set and send the characters cavorting around North America.

The early seasons of Weeds worked so well because they managed to weave so many factors together. There was the absurdity of Nancy Botwin turning immediately to the drug trade after her husband's death, the dramatic undercurrent of the stress Nancy faces as a widow trying to provide for two children (and the dangers of drug trafficking itself), the many signs that Nancy has no idea what the hell she's doing, the haughtiness and hypocrisy of the Agrestic community itself, and the general interplay between the various characters.

And then it just seemed like the show didn't know where to go. Agrestic burned down as something of an offshoot of a turf feud with a group of bikers, several (but not all) of the characters found themselves in another California community, then the Mexican cartel got involved, then there was a road trip all around the country, and suddenly we're in New York with a fraction of the original cast (although a couple older ones were clumsily shoehorned in). The original focus of the series has vanished, and what we're left with is characters who are generally unlikable and have no clear motivation. And considering that Nancy's children are now grown up and have proven themselves able to care for themselves, and that the most recent season started with Nancy being freed after serving a prison stint for murder, it's clear that even the titular marijuana isn't really a focal point or point of danger anymore. The show is coming back for at least one more season, but hopefully it's the last.

3. South Park

(clutch.mtv.com)

South Park is the success story aspired to by any student who gets by and even does well in school but spends at least some of class doodling raunchy cartoons. The series from creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone saw the gradual rise in quality typical of any good TV show anywhere. Even if some of the early episodes may have relied a little too heavily on potty humor and catchphrases (there's a reason South Park is probably most watched by people around my age, who first heard of the show in elementary school), it grew to become uproariously smart and entertaining. Parker and Stone mercilessly skewered countless people and topics and approached subjects in ways few people would have thought of.

As of late, however, it seems the show has been following a formula of finding something recent in news or trends and mocking it. The show still adds some originality to these stories, but virtually every episode for the past few seasons seems to have at its core some recent movie or political issue. There's been at least one article where Parker and Stone have said they're getting stressed out coming up with new ideas for the show. And considering how they've had successful side projects, namely the movie Team America: World Police and the Tony Award winning Broadway musical The Book of Mormon, I've also seen suggestions that the duo would prefer to quietly wrap up South Park and move on to other things. When the last season finale dealt with the main character coming down with crippling cynicism after his 10th birthday and his parents getting divorced, reviewers generally saw it as a reflection of the creators' increasing frustration with the show and there was even a rumor that it was a surprise series finale.

And then suddenly they did a bit of a reversal and proclaimed how much fun they were having making the show during a Daily Show interview. Shortly after that, the show was renewed not just for another year or two but all the way through 2016. I've generally had a problem with shows getting renewed for multiple seasons, especially comedy shows that rate well but are much more susceptible to decline in quality. To renew for five years just seems like they're dragging it out well past its lifespan. Best of luck, but I think I'm going to sit these hopefully last seasons out.

2. Dexter

(psychologycorner.com)

Network television debuts some kind of shows in waves after one model catches on. Remember when Survivor and Big Brother did well and so every godawful reality show got greenlighted? I read a lot of books in those years. As of late, it's been cop shows as Law and Order and CSI each had a few successful spinoffs. These in turn have been followed by a slew of replicants as networks decided we apparently want to follow the fictional cases of any criminal investigation group anywhere.

So it was a bit of fresh air when Showtime began Dexter, a series based on Jeff Lindsay's novels. Sure, it involves a lot of people in the Miami Metro Police Department's homicide division. The hook is that the titular character is also a serial killer, molded since a young age to control his homicidal urges by going after murderers and other criminals who manage to worm out of the justice system. It was a cop show with a clever premise, and you became captivated by both the individual episodes' stories as well as the underlying season theme involving Dexter going after another serial killer.

The risk, of course, is that this model gets a little formulaic after you've seen a few seasons. Right around the fifth season, Dexter started to slip. Characters had been bumped off and the show's few attempts to replace them have fallen flat. Other characters are still underdeveloped and underutilized after six seasons. It wouldn't be fair to say the show has consistently declined in quality from season to season (I liked the fourth season better than the third) but the latest, sixth season was pretty much universally panned. Between problems such as an underwhelming villain, a mid-season twist predicted by fans after just a few episodes, and a few vestigial plots that went nowhere, there were plenty of viewers suggesting that they wouldn't come back for season seven.

The show has been renewed for two more seasons, and the cliffhanger at the end of the latest one was certainly enticing. But if the latest run of episodes is any indication, it just won't be worth it to check them out.

1. The Office

(blogs.nytimes.com)

The British model for sitcoms sometimes seems to be: 1) Get a good idea, 2) Produce some hilarious television, and 3) Call it good after two seasons so the show can wrap up before getting stale.

This is certainly the case for the original run of The Office. The primary plot involved a documentary crew following the employees at a dismal office, focusing in particular on the romantic tension between unmotivated salesman Tim Canterbury and secretary Dawn Tinsley. Much of the supporting cast was more loosely sketched, though Ricky Gervais made an unforgettable performance as asinine boss David Brent while Gareth Keenan also became an easy fan favorite as an overzealous, oddball employee. The whole thing wrapped up in a mere 14 episodes, with Tim and Dawn finally getting together and Brent ousted from the company but finally achieving some maturity.

The American version had its weaknesses when it first came out, such as the pilot essentially being a word for word remake of the original's first episode, but it eventually found its own footing. It was at its strongest when it kept the same focus as the original, following a similar romance between characters Jim Halpert and Pam Beasley. The show managed to develop the characters in a new way, and bring in a successful reimagining of Gareth and Brent. It also worked on developing the other office workers with their own personalities. It all made for some great episodes and a successful enough show that even some British viewers have said they prefer it to the original.

But, once again, American TV seems to enjoy a formula of extending successful shows well past their natural lifespan. The Jim-Pam thread pretty much wrapped up at the end of the third season, and much of the motivating factor for the show went with it. There were some decent plots involving Michael Scott and the ailing health of the company. Jim and Pam's story collapsed into an everyday domestic tale of marriage and children, and when the show decided to forge on even after Steve Carrel left you knew it wasn't likely to have anywhere near the quality it once did. This past season has just been a meandering collection of episodes that halfheartedly contemplates whether or not to bring back a long dormant relationship between Dwight and a coworker and starts up a few more love stories as well. The show has pretty much completely aimless, wrapping up its most compelling plots and having no idea where to go without them.

Double Feature Review: 50/50 and Drive

50/50

(filmcritic.com)

Synopsis: A 27-year-old man is diagnosed with a rare type of cancer with only a 50 percent probability of survival, and tries to cope with the illness with the help of his family and a friend.

The bad news first: Since I did enjoy this movie quite a bit, I'll admit that I glanced through IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes for this one. And thanks to the Internet being a giant whiny vortex of negativity, there were a few things to pick up and add here. The first, more salient point is that the movie has a somewhat meandering narrative. You're following Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) through his medical treatment and psychological treatment and family interactions and romantic entanglements and so on, and some reviewers felt that this never really coalesced into a story. There's also the fair warning that Seth Rogen isn't exactly breaking new ground here (he's kind of playing himself), and while it's a little more understated than previous roles it's likely that you'll be annoyed by his character if you've tired of the stoner buddy roles he's played in several films already.

There's also something of a character shortcoming in Adam's girlfriend Rachael, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. Writer Will Reiser, who based the movie on his own battle with cancer as a young man, said Howard's character is an amalgamation of people who abandoned him in his time of need. As such, there are certainly scenes where Rachael is likeable, and even though her ultimate failure to stand by Adam is selfish you could see how someone could feel as she does. Other moments, such as one where she forgets to pick Adam up at his chemotherapy, seem to take a bit too broad of a route to paint her as a villain.

The good stuff: The biggest complaint I've seen related to this movie, and I wholeheartedly agree, is that Joseph Gordon-Levitt was snubbed in the Oscar nominations for best actor. He covers a wide range here, from the uncertainty he feels about how he should be reacting to the disease to the foil he plays for Rogen to the downright terror that he might die. 50/50 is always right on the line between drama and comedy, and Gordon-Levitt's strongest scenes are undoubtedly in the dramatic roles. A few scenes near the end of the film are incredibly moving, and they rest mostly on his shoulders.

There are plenty of other strong performances as well. Anjelica Huston does an excellent job as Adam's caring but overbearing mother ("I only smothered him because I loved him"). Even if Rogen's character as Adam's friend Kyle is a little familiar, he still hits just about every comedic note. Anna Kendrick makes her character as Adam's psychiatrist endearing from her first scene where she admits that Adam is only her third patient on her way to earning a doctorate. Even the more minor roles, such as Matt Frewer and Philip Baker Hall as Adam's chemotherapy buddies and Serge Houde as his Alzheimer's afflicted father, are very memorable.

If the characters are the strongest part of the movie, the dialogue is a close second. Rogen carries most of the comedic parts, but the interplay between the cast is enjoyable to watch.

Verdict: Well worth a watch.

Drive

(therealkatiewest.tumblr.com)

Synopsis: A mechanic/stunt driver/getaway driver finds himself caught up in a dangerous plot while trying to help out a neighbor.

The bad news first: A fellow I know went to the same show as me, and I noticed that he soon after complained on Facebook that the movie would have been better entitled "Staring" and that pretty much every substantial scene from the 100-minute movie had been distilled into the two-and-a-half minute trailer. Indeed, there was a woman who actually filed a lawsuit complaining that the trailer was "misleading" because the the movie turned out to be a character-driven, art house type of film rather than a Fast and Furious style romp of car chases and adrenaline.

I do have to admit a certain disappointment with the way the automotive focus dwindles into nothing about halfway through the film. You get a glimpse of each of the unnamed main character's professions, a couple of car chases, and then it becomes a bit more of a gritty drama. I don't consider it aggravating enough to file a friggin' lawsuit, though. The more noticeable weakness, as my pal there already pointed out, is that sometimes the stoic nature of the Driver and other minimalist aspects slow the pace to a crawl. When the film ramps up the violence and machinations in the second half, it seems a bit out of place thanks to the rather more lighthearted opening.

The good stuff: The only love Drive got from the Oscars was a nod for best sound editing, but it could have easily been in the running for a few other production categories. The film is extremely stylish, making great use of its sets and location. Every shot makes excellent use of the light or, if the sun's on the other side of the planet, of the bright lights of Los Angeles. It's all helped along by a soundtrack, hot pink credits, and a few other factors lending a certain 80's feel to the modern setting.

The movie is also buoyed by some strong acting performances. I was kind of on the fence about Ryan Gosling, since it seems like the director explicitly asked him to keep his facial expressions to a minimum. Ultimately, though, this means he has to convey a lot of emotion through subtle means and he manages to do this quite well. And since I'm a Breaking Bad fan, I'll generally trust anything Bryan Cranston is in.

And even if the movie hits a sluggish plateau after the first 15 minutes or so, it does pull you in once the main part of the story starts.

Verdict: Drive is certainly flawed and maybe a tad overrated, but it's worth putting on your Netflix queue (hey, if yours is like mine they've passed you over for Moneyball five times anyway).

I Make Fun of State Quarters: Colorado

Ah yes, Colorado. Another one of those states that you just know is packed to the very edges of its square borders with snow-capped peaks, pine forests, scampering wildlife, burbling brooks, and just about every other beautiful aspect of nature you can imagine. It's known as the Centennial State because it gained its statehood in 1876, but if it had been a year earlier or later it may well have been the Landscape State or some such thing. So the state quarter will surely have to take in some of the-

TheUS50.com

Oh come on.

All right, so it did at least take in a scenic landscape, even if it is just the one mountain. But when you put it on a quarter it still looks like a desolate, gray, apocalypse-blasted wasteland. I half expect Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee to be trudging along in the foreground in a futile journey to find salvation. The mountains are pretty much gray anyway, although the surrounding landscape tends to be a beautiful mixture of greens and blues when you actually see it. You have to use a bit of imagination to see this as the "Colorful Colorado" it is in reality.

Like this! (aircoreyell.wordpress.com)

Norman Nemeth designed and engraved this quarter, which portrays a scene in the Rocky Mountains. According to StateQuarterGuide.com, it won out of a field of 1,500 entries and got final approval from the Colorado governor and U.S. Mint. The other options also seemed to be mostly nature-based, although one would have portrayed the 10th Mountain Division.

Since several other quarters have used state symbols as a way of garnishing their coins, I also thought to look at the list of Colorado's symbols. These include the greenback cutthroat trout, which would be perfect because hey, it's already got money in its name. And there's even a state grass: blue grama grass. Thrilling stuff. And in 1992 the state adopted square dancing as the official folk dance of Colorado, because apparently the legislature had nothing better to do than weigh in on the fierce rivalries among the different factions of folk dancing.

These two were high-kicked down by a rival Bulgarian dance troupe soon after this photo was taken (barynya.com)

It makes sense to include the Rockies, though it did risk a demand for more garnishing features. The Aspen community may have insisted that there be an addition of ski lifts and time-share condos to the slopes of the featured mountain. Frat boys may have wanted a shout-out to the brewing history of Golden by having giant Phi Beta Kappa members "tap the Rockies." Or maybe they would have asked to just scrub the whole thing and have a Coors logo as the design, with the unforgettable Coors slogan: "It's cold, and we're taking credit for what the refrigerator did."

In the end, though, as long as quarters are always going to have that bleak end-of-world color to them, perhaps the Colorado could have gone with a theme from Stephen King's apocalyptic plaque novel The Stand. Hey, maybe they could have even made the official design Mother Abigail Freemantle and redone George Washington a bit to make him Randall Flagg. Need to choose between good and evil but aren't sure where you stand? Flip a coin!

Mother Abigail Freemantle, official state seer of Colorado (sharetv.org)

A Demand For More Epic Board Game Movies

When I was growing up, I went through a minor phase where I thought the board game Battleship was the coolest thing ever. The gameplay, for those of you who haven't tried it out, involves a pair of players guessing the coordinates on an opponents' board and trying to hit the five ships of a fleet set out there. It involves a bit of luck and a bit of strategy, as players have to guess where the vessels are most likely to be. More often than not, it gets a little tedious as most games wind up sinking everything but the two-space destroyer and players spend turn after turn trying to hunt it down.

So it's a rudimentary naval warfare simulation where the main action is players sending white and red pegs into their opponent's board and tiny plastic ship models. It's good enough for a time passer, I guess, but basing a major motion picture around it doesn't seem like it would work. Hollywood must have plenty of good ideas floating around, after all, and-

(deathfall.com)

Oh. Um...

Well maybe I'm jumping to conclusions. Battleships were long ago mustered out of navies anyway as fleets transitioned more to aircraft carriers and support vessels, so making a movie about a battleship could be a good look back at the days when these powerful dreadnaughts ruled the sea. Maybe it will unearth one of the incredible stories of naval engagements. Maybe it can do a modern version of the classic Battleship Potemkin. It could even just be a good documentary. Perhaps-



What. The fuck. Was that?

It kind of looks like Michael Bay got out of bed one morning and said, "Wow, my Transformers trilogy sure is a magnum opus of modern kin-a-ma. If only I could work in more battleships like I did in Pearl Harbor. OH I'VE GOT IT. I'VE GOT IT I'M A GENIUS..."

Except that's not what happened. Michael Bay might be kicking himself for not having this brainstorm, but Battleship is the project of director Peter Berg as well as writers Jon and Erich Hoeber. I feel a little bad about ragging on Berg, since he went to Macalester College (my alma mater) and because his filmography as a director and actor has a few decent things. The Hoebers have have written a grand total of three other movies, of which Red has done the best with a 7/10 rating on both Rotten Tomatoes and IMDB user ratings.

But even if this team has a few satisfactory credits under their collective belts, the trailers for Battleship still suggest it's one of those movies Hollywood makes every now and then to whet the all-American appetite for explosions. Even so, it's pointing the industry back to board games as an inspiration for movies, something I don't think has really been done since Clue. So with that in mind, here are my suggestions for more epic movies based on board games. I expect full credit and remuneration for any movies that result from these wonderful ideas.

Candyland

An epic comparable in scope only to the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this tale might well have to be broken up into three films as well. Follow a couple of kids who get sucked into a magical land of tooth-rotting goodness to discover a world in peril. Civil war threatens the land, and King Kandy and Queen Frostine must stand fast against the growing army of Lord Licorice and Gloppy the Molasses Monster. Depending on the box office, there may well be room for a sequel hook in which the triumphant forces of good must face the terrible forces of Emperor Nutrition and his bombardment of fresh fruit and whole grains.

(screenrant.com)

And you're going to have to take my word for it when I say I wrote all that before I read this article saying that they're making a movie and that's totally what they're trying to do.

Settlers of Catan

Stupid trash can shutting down my brickyard... (clusterflock.org)

A tense political drama, this movie would look at the tensions inherent among a group of colonists on the habitable moon of a gas giant. Things build to the boiling point when one group sends forces to occupy a rich ore-producing region in response to another group's efforts to build a longer road and corner the market on space sheep. Can the situation be defused, or will the corporate backers of the enterprise upset the entire thing in frustration?

Risk

In the not-too-distant future, mankind is caught off-guard when the entire planet is suddenly occupied by a mechanical army known as R.I.S.K., or Robotic International Sexy Killbots. It consists entirely of androids played by Summer Glau. Mankind must rally to take back Earth, striking where the Glau-troops are most thin, making risky journeys such as a transatlantic invasion of Brazil from Africa, turning Australia into a fortress, and resisting the urge to fight a land war in Asia until we are ready to do so. The movie will emulate Risk by having a running time as long as the average game, or approximately ten hours.

Pictured: the gist of approximately nine hours of the movie (sciencefictionwallpaper.com)

Monopoly

All right, I'm not even going to touch this one because there's a group that's already done an excellent job with a fake movie trailer. Though it does make me think about opening up a strip club called The Community Chest.



Jenga

A drama in the vein of The Towering Inferno, the story would follow a skyscraper company trying to be the tallest building in the world. In their struggle to meet the challenge on budget, they start cannibalizing the lower floors to add onto the upper floors. During a party to celebrate the opening of the building, the unstable structure starts to fall apart and it becomes a race to rescue the people inside.

"Now get me O.J. Simpson to play a security guard" (inhabitat.com)

Pictionary

A hair-raising thriller about a crack police unit that tracks pictorial clues at crime scenes (because if TV shows are right there are plenty of more ridiculous teams on the law enforcement payroll). The prowess and mettle of the team is put to the test when a serial killer strikes, leaving sketchy pictures about his next destination and granting only a single minute of call time after the discovery of each clue to grant more clues about where he'll hit next. Much of the movie will be taken up by the killer shouting things like, "You already guessed panda bear! Three times! It's not a goddamn panda bear." And at the start of another call: "It was square dancing! How did you not get that?!"

The killer can't believe you didn't get "Lewiston, Idaho" (thesimpsonsforever.tumblr.com)

Checkers

An offshoot of My Dinner with Andre, this movie would be a two-hour shoot of two old men playing checkers in a park. Their conversation touches on numerous topics, like "What do the kids see in that darn rap music" and "Did you hear how the City Council wants to buy a new snowplow? They're out of control!"

Canadians get a little wild (blog.drawn.ca)

Double Feature Review: Rififi and Super 8

Rififi


Synopsis: A thief, recently released from prison, joins a pair of comrades in an attempt to pull one last heist.

The bad news first: In my personal experience, there's an odd flaw that happens in just about every heist movie. It's always interesting to see the way people put the scheme together, but once they actually start carrying out the heist the pace somehow slows down. It's especially the case in Rififi, where the theft is carried out in near-total silence with some aspects occurring in real time. It doesn't really detract from the story, and it isn't a bad scene (it's what many reviews praise the most about the film). But the meatiest parts of the movie are certainly the sections on either end of the heist sequence.

The other is more of a nitpick. Aside from providing one of the characters with a lounge singer girlfriend, the introduction of the "Rififi" song does little more than offer a musical interlude to the first act.

The good stuff: This isn't too well-known a movie. If it were, it would probably be more widely regarded as a classic piece of French cinema. As it stands, it's already regarded as a classic of the heist genre, with such an effective heist plan that the movie was initially banned in some countries since it was such an effective primer for how to pull off a robbery.

The real strength of the movie comes from the characters. A great deal of information comes from a few decisive pieces of dialogue or the way a shot is framed, and throughout the movie some more layers are added to each person. It makes the film all the more powerful on an emotional level in the second half, when everyone has to handle the aftermath of the heist.

It might be better to pop this in without reading the description on the Netflix envelope, at least if the one on the envelope I received is any indication. It essentially gave away the entire story up until the last 10 minutes or so. It's a testament to the story that it's still fascinating even when you watch it like this. I'll just say that it's a masterfully done plot where the heist is a focal point but not the conclusion of the film as is so often the case.

Verdict: If you're a fan of heist movies and haven't seen this, it's a can't miss. Even if you aren't, this should be a story that will fascinate you.


Super 8


Synopsis: A group of teenage filmmakers witnesses a military train wreck and strange things soon start happening in their town.

The bad news first: There's always a bit of a risk putting a bunch of young actors together, and some are more capable than others. Even for a sci-fi movie, there are places where a suspension of disbelief is required. The spectacular train wreck in the beginning breaks pretty much every rule of physics, and the driver of the truck that collides head-on with it somehow survives.

Another minor gripe is that there are a few parts of the story that seem kind of vestigial, such as the introduction of a love triangle that goes absolutely nowhere. There are also times when the exposition can be a little clunky, including a film reel that unravels much of the mystery in one go. And without spoiling too much, the mysterious creature in this seemed to be a bit too much of a throwback to Cloverfield. They probably could have come up with more of an original design.

The good stuff: This was promoted and largely reviewed as a bit of a throwback to the classic alien movies of the 80s, a la E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind. At its best, Super 8 succeeds in doing this. Some reviews I've seen complain that the movie tries to emulate Steven Spielberg to such an extent that it loses its originality. This might be true at certain points, but it also has much darker elements than the Spielberg classics. Overall, parceling out the story is very good. In both the human stories and sci-fi element, most things are revealed at a pretty good pace, keeping you wondering about things that are introduced from the beginning.

Even if the characters are sometimes painted with a pretty broad brush, they're still pretty memorable. The narrative makes it clear that there aren't really any heroes or villains, just people doing what they think is right or needed. It certainly doesn't play out like the more cuddly alien dramas of yesteryear, but that lends the story some more realism.

Verdict: If you only have time to choose between this or a Spielberg classic, go with Spielberg. Otherwise, this is a fun sci-fi flick to check out.

Top 5 Quiet Deaths Of Web Series

Somewhere in the midst of the evolution of the Internet, there came the development of Flash games and movies. And yea, it was good. Thanks to this, people with a creative idea and a little bit of know-how are still able to put together fun (and maddeningly addictive) video games as well as stylish, creative animated shorts.

But quite a few of these series are labors of love, produced by people in their 20s or thereabouts in their free time. The lucky few get popular enough to sustain their creator, but sometimes life intervenes in even these successes and the series quietly dies off. Though I'm sure there are plenty of series that have disappeared over the years, here are the top five ones I once followed that have stalled in their tracks, perhaps never to rouse again.

5. Waterman

Waterman still has a bit of spark left, and for that we have to credit Leslie Nielsen. More on that later.


Like a lot of Flash series, this one found a home on Newgrounds, an aggregation site that offers people to submit their animations, games, and audio tracks to an appreciative or not so appreciative audience. "Bryan Waterman's series has serious television potential and a huge following," is the website's glowing blurb at the top of the Waterman page. "His advice: 'You will enjoy the series a lot more if you do not compare it to The Family Guy.'"

Refraining from that comparison is a little difficult, since Waterman shares the same predilection for cutting away from the narrative for a random joke. The randomness carries over to the overall setup, which is more Seinfeld-esque in the way it puts a bunch of strange characters together and sees how their relationships shake out in a strange situation. The cast includes Waterman, the hopefully more dull-witted expy of the creator; Pal, his slightly more level-headed friend; Ice Cream Girl, Waterman's occasional love interest; Roy-Bot, a man with the delusional belief that he's a robot; and Mr. Dillo, a wealthy armadillo. Along the way, they competed in a high-stakes ping-pong tournament, battled pirate reenactors, and befriended a robotic Chuck Norris.

The jokes sometimes fall quite flat, as is always the risk when one tries to turn a pop culture reference into a gag and occasionally decides that a reference is as good as a joke. Still, the series was quite enjoyable and had some pretty clever episodes along the way. Waterman says he was friends with the creators of the immensely popular web series Homestar Runner, dropping a few homages to them along the way. It also took the odd step of including Easter eggs in the form of text that could be read only by pausing the video and zooming in. The series had about 10 episodes and a few shorts in its run.

The disappearance:
The seventh episode was uploaded in August of 2004, and the next installment wasn't uploaded until some years later. It doesn't appear on the Newgrounds site, perhaps because it wasn't as well-received by fans; the plot basically involved the cast walking through a white void and performing with Reel Big Fish, who agreed to cameo themselves (one of several notable guest appearances of bands or celebrities in Flash videos over the years). In 2006, the last Waterman submission arrived and the series went out in a blaze of glory: upgraded graphics and a full 20-minute spectacle.

Bryan Waterman, meanwhile, started up a small graphic design and animation company in Boston known simply as Waterman Studios; the website says he's been in this line of work for over a decade, though he credits the start of the cartoon in 2003 and its modest success with helping him choose a career. He has continued to produce a few cartoons and shorts, available under the "distractions" tab.

However, Waterman has always intended to make the series go out on an even grander note and he's been trying his damndest to produce a full-length movie. A few snippets have appeared, including this impressive sample of the first two minutes. He even got Leslie Nielsen on board as voice talent. In a summary of the production history, Waterman says he nearly bankrupted himself and his company trying to get the movie (originally tagged for a 2008 release) up and running; an independent fundraising effort also failed to get a good response.


Then in November of 2010, Leslie Nielsen died of complications from pneumonia. What this means is that The Waterman Movie, should it ever see the light of day, would be the actor's final piece of work. Waterman says there has been a resurgence of interest in the film as a result and, though a year has passed, he is hoping the movie can eventually be made. "I have lost too much over the years that this project has been in development to never see it come to fruition, and the only personal gain that I have any interest in obtaining from all of this would be the satisfaction of giving my friend Leslie Nielsen another opportunity to keep us laughing," Waterman concludes. With a sentiment like that, there's nothing to do but wish him the best of luck. And maybe send in a donation or two, of course.

4. College University


College University got its start in March of 2001 with a short introduction to the characters and their graduation from high school (later expanded into a flashback episode in the series). It followed a couple of everyman protagonists, Mike and Parks, and their adventures at the titular school. It incorporated quite a bit of random elements, including a washed up kung fu star who runs a campus coffee/hash bar and Optimus Prime as a supporting character. The episodes evolved from the basic college challenges to bizarre plots such as the premiere of a reality show pitting 1980s action movie heroes against each other.

CU was a little clunky in its early days, with fairly basic animation and some slow pacing. Once it found its niche, though, it was able to have the characters play against each other fairly well. The series had 11 full-length episodes (some of which were divided up into multiple parts due to size) and several shorts. It managed to bring in Macho Man Randy Savage, Cynthia Rothrock, and the alternative rock band O.A.R. for guest spots. They also invented the game KushLash, which seems to have a cult following.

The disappearance:
The posting pace started to slow down in later episodes, with the 10th one appearing in 2005 and the 11th one showing up just about two years later. The creators, Mike and Andy Parker, once had an indicator on the website to show where the process on the latest CU episode was in script, storyboards, animation, and sound work. They eventually cautioned that episodes would be a lengthy affair, especially given their work and personal lives.

For a time, the site was updated with shorter, CU-related content that was usually timed to coincide with holidays. Then, out of the blue, the CU page started including links to other series the Parkers were doing. They were cranking out episodes at a much faster pace, usually one a week to the point where they boasted nearly as many as CU, and hosting them on CollegeHumor.com. It seems they hit a point where they were able to go through the production pretty quickly, but lost interest in continuing the adventures of their original characters. These new series still got off in a more refined way than the brothers' first project, with better animation and a good sense of where they wanted to go. They included Clock Suckers, about an irresponsible group of time traveling youngsters; Player Haters, about the adventures of some role-playing game characters through cyberspace; and The Game Show, wherein Mike and Andy give the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment to video games.

"Cloooocck suckers!"

According to Mike Parker's LinkedIn page, he worked for HMSDesign for several years after his graduation in 2001, then struck out on his own by launching LowBrow Studios in 2006 to provide animation services for TV and the Internet; the page says he was also a freelance animator for CollegeHumor for the first four years the company was in existence. People going to collegeuniv.com, the former site for the series, brings you to the Lowbrow site. There, you can still find the CU episodes along with numerous other examples of their work. I'm not sure what happened to Andy; there are three employees listed besides Mike, and Andy isn't one of them.

3. Dubtoons

"I'm dead either way, aren't I you stupid thick cunt?"

Dubbing over cartoons, games, movies, etc. etc. to humorous effect probably came out of the traditional dubs for foreign movies brought to new markets. The "lost in translation" effect along can be pretty funny, and it's been about 20 years since the people at Mystery Science Theater 3000 started adding their own humorous overlay to terrible B-movies; not a dub, per se, but similar. And though I haven't seen too much in the way of joking dubs aside from Spike TV's MXC, a re-dubbed and re-edited version of a crazy Japanese game show, it's a fun thing to try out and you can find a few of these projects on YouTube.

Dubtoons grew out of a series of YouTube videos known alternatively as "Boro Tintin" and "Teesside Tintin." The videos were created by Nick Donnelly and Andrew Stebulitis as a joke among friends, but it soon went viral. The basic premise is that they've dubbed The Adventures of Tintin, an animated cartoon following Herge's beloved comic book series, to make the titular character and everyone else who appears in the series a foul-mouthed, rude resident of Middlesbrough, England. The parody has a lot of references to this city that go over the head of the non-Boro viewers, and perhaps we're a little detached just on the basis of not ever meeting any of the more rough-and-tumble city residents. Overall, though, it's pretty clever the way the plots of the cartoon have been done over.



Donnelly and Stebulis later created Dubtoons.com to showcase the cartoons as well as a few Teesside dubs of more obscure toons such as Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, although the comments on those usually complained that they wanted the focus kept on Teesside Tintin. It was a pretty basic site, aiming to get a bit of revenue from T-shirt and ringtone sales while also inviting user submissions (which were inevitably blasted as being inferior to the creators' work).

The disappearance:
Dubtoons.com disappeared quite some time ago. Going there now brings you to one of those stand-in pages asking if you'd like to buy the domain; the links that are available on the page, oddly enough, are to a bunch of porno sites.
According to this article from the Middlesborough Evening Gazette, Donnelly and Stebulitis formed the film company Moving Picture Productions in 2005, when they were about 24 years old. I remember discovering the Teesside Tintin cartoons in about 2006, so they were still cranking them out while looking to make legit films. It looks like they've made several movies and short videos since then, and the company is still around offering corporate services as well as wedding and social videos. No doubt they're keeping pretty busy.

Like Waterman, there seems to be just a bit of life left in Teesside Tintin. Though the original YouTube channel has disappeared Donnelly and Stebulitis, perhaps spurred by the news that The Adventures of Tintin is hitting theaters as a full-length animated film, have even continued making Teesside Tintin at a slower rate. They have a YouTube channel containing a small mix of older cartoons, presumably their favorites, as well as some brand new ones that went up in the spring; dozens of others seem to have gone missing, although a few have been salvaged and uploaded by fans. More recently, in late October, the boys dubbed a trailer for the movie.



2. Fensler Films

"You tol' me do things, I done runnin'..."

Another dub project, albeit one that got a much bigger following, the Fensler Films contribution to cyberspace may be better known as "Those G.I. Joe PSAs." Back in the mid-80's, a cartoon started airing based on the line of G.I. Joe action figures and the comic book it inspired. The episodes concluded with a brief public service announcement in which the Joes saved dull-witted kids from harm while imparting a bit of a lesson. These always concluded with the kids declaring, "Now we know!" and the Joe responding, "And knowing is half the battle."
Eric Fensler thought these were perfect fodder for re-imagining, and he was right. He cranked out a total of 25 PSAs in 2003, dubbed and recut so as to remove nearly all trace of a lesson and become obscure if hilarious parodies. The most popular one is undoubtedly "Pork Chop Sandwiches," a video in which the Joe shouts that line while rushing to help some kids who have set their kitchen on fire (imparting the fire safety advice, "Oh shit, get the fuck out of here!"). These managed to go viral even before YouTube came about, getting passed around via e-mail.



The disappearance:
This is kind of an odd case. The videos have all disappeared from their original website, but have survived and proliferated on YouTube and other sites.

After about a year, Hasbro sent a cease and desist order to Fensler. The letter declared that the PSAs were "unauthorized derivative works of the G.I. Joe cartoons." Furthermore, Hasbro said, the use of the G.I. Joe logo at the end could violate trademark laws "because it is likely to cause confusion or mistake as to Hasbro's authorization or sponsorship of or association with the derivative PSAs." Despite the fact that the number of people likely to be confused by Snow Job yelling at a few children to "get that kid off my ice, you little wankers" would be small indeed, Fensler acquiesced to the request, and the videos disappeared.

By that time, of course, they had been dispersed to countless inboxes and other websites and Hasbro had no way of shutting down all of those. Since they made their way to YouTube, they have had millions of views. According to KnowYourMeme.com, Fensler later put the videos back on his website, with or without Hasbro's authorization, but if so they have all disappeared again. In fact, Fensler's site now only includes a music video he worked on, a series of links to other sites, and his contact information.

Like a lot of his Internet humor comrades, Fensler now works in video production. He did a bit of work with Cartoon Network's Adult Swim, putting together promos for Sealab 2021 and becoming a writer on Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! Most recently, according to his IMDB page, he wrote a short called The Terrys.
1. Homestar Runner


Homestar Runner may well be the most triumphant example of a successful independent web series, and that makes it all the sadder that updates slowed to a crawl and eventually stopped altogether.

The series, created by Mike and Matt Chapman - "The Brothers Chaps" - of Georgia, grew out of their mockery of children's books. They decided to do a story about the Homestar Runner, "a terrific athlete," and impart a good lesson in his effort to win a grape-carrying contest against the villainous and dishonest Strong Bad. Their initial forays into expanding the story followed along the same lines, including a cartoon where Homestar and his best friend take on Strong Bad and his pals in a wrestling match to retrieve his stolen star.

Then the brothers made a discovery: the bad guy was a lot more fun. So began Strong Bad E-mails, wherein the Mexican-masked, boxing glove wearing villain started to answer fan e-mails and spin various scenarios and sketches around them. Around a core set of characters - including Homestar, a nearly indescribable yellow lackey called The Cheat, polar opposite Strong brothers Strong Mad and Strong Sad, the shady concession store owner Bubs, and so on - the site put out a hilarious short each week. Based on the e-mails alone, they were able to expand on the universe with new settings, in-jokes, and characters. If you've come across Trogdor the Burninator, a dragon with a beefy arm sticking out of the back of his neck, this is where he originated. Along with the e-mails, the site put together some longer cartoons, video games, and other content.

The occasional custom conversion van...

The series became a huge hit, to the point where if you sent in an e-mail it would be competing with thousands of others. There were no ads to be found on the site, but the brothers managed to get by. After all, they were virtually the only ones involved (Matt on the voices, Mike on the animation, and Mike's wife Missy Palmer supplying the voice for the one female character). There was an extensive store offering T-shirts, posters, DVDs, and for a time an obscure "Kick the Cheat" toy. I once calculated that if even a small fraction of the world's population knew of the cartoon and that tiny fraction bought a single piece of $20 merchandise each year on average, the brothers were probably making salaries equivalent to CEOs. That might be a bit of an overstatement, but I'm sure they've done quite well.

The disappearance:
Babies happened.

Palmer gave birth to a daughter in 2006, while Matt's wife Jackie gave birth to a one daughter in 2007 and another in 2009. It was right about this time that the updates to the site started to slow to a crawl. The site even lampshaded a seven-week hiatus following the birth of Mike and Palmer's daughter with a cartoon entitled Welcome Back. As the stops and starts got more frequent, the cartoons were just regular submissions no reference to the gaps in time. One short cartoon in March of 2010 came about after a full five months of inactivity on the site. By the looks of it, the fact that every single person involved in the cartoon was dealing with toddlers took a bit of a toll on daily operations.

It's all about you, isn't it? 

The last e-mail Strong Bad answered was in August of 2009, after answering just three inquiries on his newest computer (a running gag being that Strong Bad always used ridiculously outdated computers, although his latest was more up to date). Some new content finally came around in December of 2010, some eight months after the last real update and over a year after a more significant update. Homestar Wiki has been keeping closer tabs on the site and a few stray appearances of the characters elsewhere (such as Strong Bad in a poker game released by Telltale Games), and if you count that things have still been fairly active. The most recent update to the wiki is an update provided to the site in September, detailing some aspects of a game the brothers were developing but gave up on.

There's also the success of the site to be considered; while the rest of the people on this list managed to build off the skills that went into their web series to create careers, the Chapmans were able to fully turn their series into a career. From a fairly early point, they were able to sustain themselves by merchandise sales. It would probably be too much to estimate that they had become millionaires, but odds are they've been able to live comfortably off the site and any continued revenue from the store. Still, we hope they can start to devote some more time to the site as their children grow older and bring the people of Free Country USA back to glory.