Nobody Knows Anything

Welcome to Diane Patterson's eclectic blog about what strikes her fancy

What we’re watching on TV these days

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Periodically (like, since 1996) I’ve done these recaps of what Darin and I have been watching, and while it might not be very interesting for you, it’s extremely interesting to me to unearth one of these things. “Oh yeah, Homicide. I remember that show. Kinda. ‘Detective Pembleton will see you in the Box now!'” Or… “Dexter. ZOMG that show got so bad. Is it true they have him hooking up with his sister now (and she, of course, is played by his ex-wife)?”

We still buy all of our TV from iTunes and, with the exception of having (so far) missed out on Homeland, we haven’t felt we’ve been missing anything. I also have no idea what day or network any show airs on any more. If that vision of the future doesn’t strike fear into the hearts of TV execs, I don’t know what will.

In no particular order:

  • The Simpsons. Yes, still. It is SO HILARIOUS this year. There was one episode that made me go, “GAH, they have lost their MINDS,” but the rest of them have been so funny all season. “The Book Job”!
  • The Good Wife: Darin’s been watching this for a while and I started watching it with him. Basically: Alan Cumming. Also: really good writing. But mostly Alan Cumming being extremely awesome.
  • Modern Family: It’s amazing how funny they make such ordinary situations. We watch this with the kids.
  • Doctor Who: Well, duh. Matt Smith is The Man. The whole family watches this.
  • 30 Rock: Alec Baldwin is probably certifiably insane in real life, but MY GOD he is ridiculously talented. He could read the ingredients of dishwasher detergent and I would laugh so hard I would cry.
  • Community: Craziness, banality, hilarity, and wow, am I going to miss this show. The kind of chemistry Danny Pudi and Donald Glover have is unbelievable.
  • Futurama: This show misses the mark more often that it hits it, but we’re still fans. I’m not sure what that means.
  • Sherlock: Benedict Cumberbatch is also The Man. I’m not sure what it means that The Man keeps showing up in Steven Moffat shows.
  • Leverage: This is our “Put something on that requires absolutely no involvement whatsoever” show. If we have nothing else in the queue, or we’re tired but don’t want to go to bed, we watch this.
  • Chuck: Or rather, we would watch this, except the current and final season isn’t on iTunes. Why they wouldn’t put a show nerds would love on iTunes, I have no idea. Eventually I’m going to forget to keep checking iTunes. Alas.

Eventually we’re going to watch Game of Thrones, The Wire, and Treme. We’ve bought them, we just haven’t watched them. Whenever Darin says, “You want to watch The Wire?” I feel myself tensing up. This blog post from A List of Things Thrown Five Minutes Ago speaks to me.

(Wow. Looking at that list, I’m quite surprised: I thought we watched more one hour dramas than we do. I can’t think of what I might have missed, however.)

Darin also watches Mad Men (is this still a thing? it was cancelled about 14 years ago, right? ’cause it hasn’t been on in forever*), Justified, Louie, The Killing, Children’s Hospital, and Family Guy (current winner of the “Easiest way to make Diane flee from the room” award previously held by Curb Your Enthusiasm). Yes, he watches more TV than I do: he stays up later, and when he can’t sleep he watches a few shows. When I can’t sleep, I play Civilization IV.

Darin watches Glee with Sophia and Parks and Recreation and Burn Notice with Simon. I used to watch Burn Notice, but the overarching story arc got so drawn out and so complicated I just…lost interest, Bruce Campbell or no Bruce Campbell.

Darin also watches Batman: The Brave and The Bold, Star Wars: Clone Wars, and Adventuretime with the kids. They asked me to watch Adventuretime with them once. It was the weirdest and most off-putting thing I’ve seen in a while. “You like this show?” I said. They told me I’d watched an exceptionally weird episode. I was not convinced.

We are also re-watching Buffy The Vampire Slayer with the kids, who enjoy it a lot (except when Buffy and Angel or Xander and Willow start kissing (we’re in the third season, natch)). It’s amazing how many of the episodes and how much of the dialogue has stayed with me after 14-15 years. What a fabulous show this was, and they did it on a budget of some baling wire and gum.

It’s ridiculous how hard it is to find a show all four of us can watch together. Most family shows are either moronic (we watched a few eps of No Ordinary Family until I said, “I can’t take it any more, this is too stupid!”) or have really inappropriate stuff that is completely unnecessary. If anyone has suggestions for family fare with two kids who are smart but are still, y’know, kids, let me know. I would love to come up with an idea for a non-moronic family show: I’d be fabulously wealthy.

(And yes, I know we could get Homeland and the new series of Sherlock By Other Means. If someone happened to drop a DVD with those shows on them at my front door, I would not say No. But Big Media can figure out who’s torrenting what, and it’s not worth the tsuris for me to do it.)

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*I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this, but yes, yes, this was sarcasm. I know it hasn’t been on and why.

Filed Under: TV

Tinker, Tailor: the review

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John Le Carré caused a big stir with his books about British spies, precisely because his spies didn’t cause a big stir: James Bond was nowhere to be seen. Le Carré’s spies got up in the morning, drank tea, read dispatches, talked, drank some more tea, tried to find assets on the other side who’d give them information, and finished it all off with a honking glass of scotch at the end of the day.

The new movie version of <i>Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy</i> is set in the early 70s, when things were really grim: Britain was on the verge of being declared a Third World country (it was too, people, you can look it up), the Cold War was at its height and seemed like it would never end, and office politics at the headquarters for the British spies, called the Circus, seems more centered around who’s sleeping with whom and who’s got the good expense account instead of, you know, fighting the good fight for freedom and liberty and etc etc.

Several assets on the Soviet side have gotten word out that British Intelligence has a highly placed mole (as, in fact, it really did). George Smiley (Gary Oldman, practically unrecognizable) had been let go by the organization as part of a shake-up and is now brought back in, sub rosa, to find the mole, who is one of Smiley’s contemporaries: four middle-aged men who’ve carved out their piece of the pie.

Both Darin and I had heard about this movie that you have to pay careful attention, because the important stuff will go by without anyone calling it out. Perhaps I have the attention span of a gnat, but I didn’t find this to be true. What is true is that the movie doesn’t hold your hand and it’s not drawn in gigantic day-glo colors, the way most movies are these days. In fact, the main color I remember from this movie is gray. Everything is so deeply, morosely gray. The story doesn’t have tiny details you have to follow, anyhow: it’s not like the solution is some horribly shocking thing you should have been able to put together yourself. This is the story of professional men doing their jobs, and it just so happens that it’s as bureaucratic as it is deadly.

While I enjoyed the change of pace from the usual cinema fare with its loud soundtrack and moronic dialogue, I didn’t feel the rapturous experience a lot of reviewers felt watching this. (Although…getting such a change of pace is so refreshing!) The acting is very good. The best part, for me, was the portrayal of early 70s Britain. The hairstyles, the glasses, the cars, the political tensions… does anyone feel nostalgic about anything from that time?

Writing to trailer music

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Every writer has their own method of writing (outlines, by the seat of their pants, even pants-less) and certain environments they need (complete solitude, busy cafe).

I discovered a while ago I need music when I write. Not just any music, but orchestral music. There must be no singing (or the words must be unintelligible), which makes the background music in most cafes deeply annoying. I started with New agey electronica like Enigma or Andreas Vollenweider, and then moved on to movie scores, which tend to be driving, rhythmic, and stirring. I have written tens of thousands of words to Pirates of the Caribbean. The Killing Fields makes me tear up every time. Mishima. The Mission. Steamboy. And oh my God, Last of the Mohicans — every time I’m listening to Last of the Mohicans and I feel myself getting incredibly emotional and stirred-up by the music, it’s “Massacre/Canoes.” Every. Time.

Then I discovered video game scores. I had no idea that modern video games had such good music: Assassin’s Creed (any of them),Uncharted (any of them), Infamous. Video game scores have a tricky mission in life: they have to be good music that you might hear over and over and over again while you try to solve a certain puzzle, so that you feel energized but won’t want to stab someone the thirty-second time you’ve heard the same clip.

This past November, I made the most stunning discovery of all: trailer music.

I had no idea this category existed.

You know that music in a trailer that immediately grips you and forces you to have an emotional reaction to thirty seconds of a movie you know nothing about? The sound that makes you turn to the person next to you and say, “What is that music?”?

It’s trailer music. It’s a whole genre of short, epic music that evokes a complete reaction. I’ve seen some commenters called it “Epic Score music” or even “Epica” (which is the name of one of the groups who does it). It’s completely involving without having a particular tag to it (which is what drove me nuts about Pirates of the Caribbean after a while — I kept thinking about that movie).

Here are the Epic Score artists I’ve found so far:

If there are others in this vein, please let me know. I love this stuff. Also, any other recommendations for music in this vein (or video game scores, or even movie scores, although those have been hit or miss after a bit). I’m only sorry that I can’t buy 40 albums at once.