3 Things that...

Here's 3 things that make me happy.

#1 Buffy the Vampire Slayer... Season 8!!!

I make no apologies for being a Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan. I was slow to get into the series, mostly because I never had cable and would only see random episodes from time to time, but never in sequence or even from the same season. Season 5 was the first year I saw the whole run (more or less) start to finish. I began to understand how carefully plotted the show was, with a strong arc that also referred back (in both major plot points and tiny detail) to earlier seasons. One example of this... a recurring character named Amy Madison who was a witch (revealed in season 1) is turned into a rat during an episode of season 3 and taken in for safekeeping by Willow, one of the main characters. In the background of the main action during a season 4 episode she is accidentally returned to human form for all of 2.5 seconds, only to revert to rat without anyone noticing the change. She eventually is permanently returned to human form for a three episode arc... but not until season 6. That's narrative patience! I only know all this because over time I bought DVD boxes of all seven seasons... the show having wrapped up in 2003. The run ended well, with everything nicely wrapped up, no reason to complain... except of course that there would be no new episodes to look forward to.

In 2001... the creator of the series, Joss Whedon (who also was behind Angel and Firefly on television) had done a limited comics series for Dark Horse called Fray that followed another incarnation of the Slayer in a futuristic setting. In 2004 he started writing a highly successful new X-Men title for Marvel comics. And now... he has begun a comics version of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer season 8... picking up a few a little more than a year after the end of season 7 of the television show. The first issue is out and it is pretty swell.

#2 Raines

My television watching is pretty minimal these days... still no cable... so I'll catch the occasional Law&Order : SVU to make myself feel icky or to ogle Mariska Hargitay; been hot and lukewarm with Criminal Minds; against my better judgement I've been keeping up with Gray's Anatomy (geek note: Buffy alum Marti Noxon was brought on as a consulting producer this year); occasionally I'll watch about half an episode of CSI: Miami to play this drinking game I've devised: Whenever David Caruso arrives at a crime scene or an interview and takes off his sunglasses with both hands... take a drink. Whenever he delivers a line of dialog while looking at nothing but the dirt on the ground... take a drink. Whenever he finishes a line of dialog and moves out of frame before the camera cuts to another p.o.v. ... chug your drink. As I said... haven't gotten through a whole episode yet.

Anyhow... last Thursday I randomly caught the first episode of Raines... a new cop drama on NBC starring Jeff Goldblum. The show was probably a ridiculously cheesy pitch along the lines of, "Imagine The Profiler crossed with The Sixth Sense...." And the premise is pretty much that: Goldblum plays an L.A. homicide detective with an exceptionally developed sense of forensic profiling... one that eventually results in him hallucinating the dead victims of the crimes he investigates. He sees, hears and converses with these apparitions on the way to solving the crimes. It sounds hokey but it works... the "ghosts" are never (at least in the pilot) supernatural, and they subtly change appearance and behaviour the more Raines understands about the case. The rest of the cast is great, including Madeleine Stowe, Nicole Sullivan, Matt Craven. The script avoids predictable clichés (written by creator Graham Yost who is best known for Boomtown and From the Earth to the Moon), and the pilot was directed by Frank Darabont (The Green Mile, The Shawshank Redemption). There's a twist at the end of the pilot that you might figure out... I didn't, but I try not to use my brain much when I watch television.

#3 Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank.

Check it out here: full album streaming.

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And here's one thing that makes me sad.

I started watching Hal Hartley films around the time Simple Men was released and was quickly hooked. I rented both The Unbelievable Truth and Trust from the much missed Video Plus that used to be on King Street downtown... and I was smitten by Adrienne Shelley who starred in both films. Her acting credits afterwards were scant and easily overlooked, but she'd also moved over to writing and directing... her last movie, Waitress, premiered at Sundance this January. Even though I hadn't really thought about those movies or her in quite some time, the news (that I randomly... once more... came across during an unrelated search) really hit me in a soft spot. It is sad, shocking and utterly utterly crappy.