Ponderings Of Guy

• I've had this post half written and unpublished for darn near a month. I'm finally getting around to swinging back to it. So, some of this a bit varied in when I was actually writing it.
• "Diane, I'm holding in my hands a small box of chocolate bunnies." If you're a fellow Twin Peaks fan, you would instantly recognize that line of dialog. Simply put, it's surely the greatest line of dialog that anyone has gotten with which to exit a scene. I've just finished watching an HD release of the Twin Peaks pilot, as the full series has recently gone up on iTunes in 720p quality. It's so great to see this series in such nice quality. Not that the previous DVD release was bad, cause it wasn't. But I personally love seeing older TV shows get lovely high def transfers. It's unfortunate that Kyle MacLachlan would drift through typically lukewarm films for so many years after Twin Peaks, cause his performance of Agent Dale Cooper in Twin Peaks is one of the best that TV has ever had. At least MacLachlan has gotten some good material recently on Desperate Housewives. At any rate, I look forward to seeing Twin Peaks on Blu-Ray in full, high bitrate 1080p quality. At least there are rumors floating that it'll get one, and seeing as it's shown up on iTunes in 720 HD resolution, I can only assume those transfers were floated onto iTunes for a reason.
• NOOOOOOO! Starz canceled Party Down! This sucks. If a hilarious, ultra-low-budget series featuring a spectacular cast can't survive on a cable network as generally lame and low rent as Starz, then there's little chance of anything being guaranteed to survive on any network. Season 2 of the series was pure comedic genius. Grrrrrrrrrr. Well, given the acidic, pessimistic style of humor the show had, it appropriately figures. Now, to look forward to what Rob Thomas and his stable of other writers come up with next. No matter what the series, I'll be watching. After Veronica Mars and Party Down, I'm a guaranteed viewer of whatever's next in the pipeline.
• I sit here at the moment watching the just-released Max Headroom DVD set from Shout Factory. No really, this bit isn't an old piece of this post. At any rate, I'd like to thank Shout Factory not just for finally getting this landmark series out on disc, but doing a great job with it. It's got very respectable transfer quality, and has quite a lot of interview material with cast and crew. After years of having only horrible quality copies to watch, or incredibly butchered syndicated versions (which were also of marginal quality), having a complete collection of the series in great quality is very nice.
• "I think when you read this on the script, you think this is edgy, gritty film-making. Let's shoot it edgy and gritty. I thought no, let's shoot it like a Spider-Man, glossy Hollywood film. Let the grit and the edge come from what's on screen and that would be far more impactful. I'm also a big believer in 'if you can see what's happening on screen, you can enjoy it more.' DP's sometimes don't understand that." THANK YOU, DIRECTOR MATTHEW VAUGHN, for stating that (on the Kick-Ass commentary). I'm beyond tired of the obnoxiously hand-held, verity style that is all-the-rage in recent years.
• You know, it was kinda inevitable that once the networks began streaming content from their own sites, they would begin inserting ads into the content. I don't mind it too much since it's typically just one 30 second or less bit at a time. But one problem is that many of them play the exact same commercial in every inserted break. Not just the same product or company, but the EXACT SAME COMMERCIAL. Oh, and the other thing - volume. Sometimes the inserted commercial streams via an entirely different platform and doesn't respect whatever playback volume you had set, and you get blown through the back wall.
• YES! John Oliver is not only returning for the next season of Community (he'd been in a handful of the earlier season 1 episodes, but didn't show up much in the later ones), but he's getting to be more of a main character as the primary teacher role. Woo hoo! I love the series, and all the characters, but John Oliver is able to effortlessly steal every scene he is in. And the limited moments between him and Ken Jeong's character in earlier episodes were spot-on perfect, so I look forward to seeing him as the teacher and Jeong as the student. I'm counting the days until Community returns.
• Huzzah! The excellent Shaun The Sheep will finally hit DVD in its full 40 episode glory in October. Thank you, Lionsgate.
• Bummer. I missed Lisa Simpson's wedding...
• An array of some great Daily Show fun.
• One last little tid-bit: a great pre-flight safety briefing on a SouthWest flight.

So, I saw "Weird Al" Yankovic in concert last night at Star Plaza Theatre in Merrillville, IN. I had intended to order tickets months ago, but forgot about it while waiting to hear from others if they wanted to attend. I suddenly remembered earlier this week. Since it would just be me going, I thought I'd do a search for one ticket to see what I could get. I figured with it being just days away the selection wouldn't be good, but I actually got a nice seat. Sometimes you get lucky when just searching for a single ticket. It was a comfy aisle seat with a nice view. So I quickly ordered the tickets and looked forward to attending. Well, that is after paying the nearly $14 in Ticketmaster "convenience, processing and other such fees that are entirely for my benefit." At least picking up the tickets via will call didn't carry yet another surcharge (though fast shipping did, and even the option for you to PRINT THE TICKETS YOURSELF COSTS A COUPLE BUCKS MORE!). I loathe Ticketmaster.

I've been a fan of Weird Al for nearly as far back as I can remember. He broke onto the scene when I was a kid, and I've been a fan ever since. The lyrics to Michael Jackson's Beat It always sound wrong when I hear them. To me, that song is supposed to be Eat It. Actually, that's how most of the songs that Al has parodied end up being. When I hear the original version, it just sounds wrong. Of particular amusement are the ones that are in his brilliant polka medlies. For those, it's not the words that are wrong, but the performance. I've been a frequent concert goer for his shows going back at least as far as his 1991 The Deep End tour. And for the record, I still miss his live-only performance of Chicken Pot Pie (parody of Paul McCartney's Live & Let Die). While it was only a brief performance of the song that he used to include in his food medley sequence, it has always been one of my favorites.

At any rate, I figured I'd just toss in a quick bullet list of my highlights from the concert, in no particular order.

• The highlight was getting to hear the new polka medley before it gets an official release. As always, I only recognized a few of the songs in the medley (I'm not much of a top 40 kinda music listener). But the song he uses to open and close the medley is so obviously ripe for inclusion, it's perfect. Said song being Lady Gaga's Poker Face. If after after a few seconds of trying to figure out how he could best include a song titled Poker Face into a polka medley, you really have no imagination whatsoever. Here's a quasi-decent, crowd-shot video of the medley. Yup, you guessed it - "Polka Face." I was cracking up when that opened the medley (and was the first song in the set list).
• As a close runner up is a memory that will likely remain etched in my mind for quite some time. One of the 5 new songs that Al has released to date is Craigslist, a fantastic song performed in the style of The Doors. Of his 5 originals for the upcoming album that have been released online so far (all of which he performed live during the set list for this tour), it's my favorite. At any rate, the moment that I will remember for quite some time was a small kid, perhaps 4-5 years old, that for much of the concert was standing in the aisle next to where his family was sitting (perhaps 3-4 rows back from the stage) down in the front of the aisle I was sitting next to. By the time Al got to the end of Craigslist, this little kid began to specifically mimic Al's lackadaisical Jim Morrison style dancing (while dragging around the mic, etc). The simple visual of a small kid, in 2010, in front of the stage in the aisle at a concert "dancing" around like a highly stoned Jim Morrison (is there any other kind?), with the backdrop of all the mood lighting and smoke machines, was sublime.
• The newest variation of the "Yoda Chant" continues to blow the mind. Al and the band have taken this to a wonderfully ridiculous degree. They've been extending and adding complication to this little diversion more and more over the many years they've been performing the song. He also had a kid that had been leaning up against the stage do a verse of Yoda on his mic. The kid's voice was, shall we say questionable, but the kid really went for it and it was quite funny.
• I've seen Al perform I Wanna Be Your Lover a number of times in concert since he released the song a few albums ago. All those performances, where he wanders around the audience and hilariously interacts with the audience, are fantastic. But he was particularly on his game this time. He even stared down a moderately creepy dude who was wandering the aisles from time to time during the concert constantly snapping pictures, with some brilliantly chosen awkward romantic lyrics.
• I also had to be amused by Al greeting everyone in Merrillville near the beginning of the concert. He stated (sarcastically, of course) that this was the 83rd, perhaps 84th, time that he's performed at Star Plaza Theatre. It's true that he frequently has Star Plaza Theatre as one of the tour stops. He's highly unreliable in choosing any actual Chicago locations for his tours (actually, he has none in the Chicago metro area this tour, sadly), but Star Plaza seems to be a favorite for his manager. I think I've seen him at that venue 6 times over the years. It's maybe an hour and a half southeast of Chicago (not far into northwest Indiana).

At any rate, it was great to hear the 5 "internet leaks" songs from last year performed live. And the new polka medley was a real treat. I might catch the show again in September in Rockford, IL. Until then, at least there's a good amount of bootleg video from the shows floating around YouTube.

I was having a conversation with somebody a few days back who was not what one would call a confident airline passenger. When it comes to safety statistics regarding flying, you can chose a number of different ways to compare travel statistics between flying and other forms of travel, and typically make it come out however you wish. It depends on if you compare it per trip, per distance traveled, per hours traveled, and so on. Essentially, the conversation led to the fact that travel in general is something of a roll of the statistical dice. Yes, traveling in a car gives you more of a sense of direct control, but that doesn't mean a whole lot against things like drunk drivers and other things (like idiots who have no business driving in the first place). That, and flying just FEELS more unnatural to somebody in general (as it kinda should).

The conversation eventually led to how, particularly in the case of air disasters, many small things align in the wrong ways to cause a disaster. I have something of a fascination with this topic. One of my favorite series, documentary (which it is) or otherwise, is National Geographic's Air Crash Investigations (or "Mayday" or "Air Disaster" - depending on what name it airs under in the country in which you live). It's really rather amazing how well airline disasters play out as mysteries and as a study in unfortunate coincidence. Yes, sometimes there is a single act of stupidity or maliciousness.

After a while of discussing how small things can build up to a disaster, I also pointed out that the end result isn't always negative, and the person I was talking to brought up the recent example of US Airways flight 1549 ditching in the Hudson River, with famous Captain "Sully" Sullenberger actually managing to successfully ditch the thing in one piece. It was correctly recognized as a remarkable achievement, but the person I was talking to was surprised as I mentioned that it was hardly an isolated incident, and I mentioned just a few of other such examples from decades past that I happened to know off the top of my head - incidents such as these:

• 1972's American Airlines flight 96: Like the US Airways Hudson River incident, this is a fascinating example of the right person being where they needed to be. Captain Bryce McCormick had actually partially anticipated a control feed design weakness with the at-the-time brand new DC-10 jumbo jet model and had done some testing in a simulator for being able to control a DC-10 with only the engines. Surely he wouldn't have figured that within less than 100 hours of flight time on the new aircraft model (on the 5th one manufactured, no less), he would face nearly that exact situation.  Make no mistake, Captain McCormick was clearly exactly the right person to be in the cockpit of that jet during the incident that transpired. Every passenger on that flight became quickly aware after their successful landing that their flight crew had undoubtedly saved their life. Captain McCormick saved every last passenger on the plane from a McDonnell Douglas design flaw that could have easily taken their lives with most any other flight crew on board. And like Captain Sullenberger, he did it with calm, dedicated precision. To add insult to injury, the exact same design flaw would kill more than 300 people in another DC-10 2 years later, irrevocably damaging McDonnell Douglas' reputation and fate. For other notable incidents of controlling an airliner with just the engines, check out the successful 2003 incident involving some incredible flying by a DHL cargo plane crew in Iraq, or the devastating 1985 crash of Japan Airlines flight 123 resulting in a single-crash loss-of-life record 520 fatalities.
• 1990's British Airways flight 5390: This jaw-dropping incident is a textbook example of the smallest mistake causing a major emergency, and this one is conquered by multiple feats of professionalism and skill at their absolute best with something of a miracle mixed in. The captain of the flight was literally blown out the front of the cockpit after the windshield (mounted with slightly wrong sized screws) blew out causing an explosive decompression of the plane at high altitude. Co-pilot Alastair Atchison did a heroic job of bringing the plane back down for an emergency landing with what was essentially hurricane winds ripping through the cockpit. Not just that, but his fast actions actually managed to save the life of Captain Tim Lancaster, who unimaginably was actually hanging completely out of the front of the cockpit, whole-body flapping against the outside of the plane - desperately being held onto by flight attendants during the entire descent (essentially assumed dead, but they feared his body could damage a tail-mounted engine if his body flew free). Put simply, this situation was barely controllable, utter chaos. And it resulted in an unbelievable number of zero fatalities. Yep, the captain actually not only survived the incident, but was flying again within 6 months, and continued to do so for decades (and I believe still may be).
• 1983's Air Canada flight 143: In another example of a simple mistake being conquered by some fantastic flying by a talented flight crew, the story of the "Gimli Glider" is quite remarkable. Yes, that same flight crew, through a number of small, contributing factors, were amongst those involved that failed to notice the error in calculating the fuel load with pounds rather than kilograms - resulting in the flight running out of gas mid-flight. Yet they deserve a huge amount of credit for saving all those on-board and also pretty-much saving the plane (which only recently retired from service in 2008). In particular, Captain Bob Pearson deserves some kind of brilliant insanity award for successfully forward slipping a powerless Boeing 767. It's something nobody had ever done before, and hopefully nobody will ever have to attempt again (a jet like a 767 with no control power ain't exactly the most nimble thing to try and control in such an awkward configuration).
• 1988's Aloha Airlines flight 243: This infamous flight is one of those that's kinda hard to believe when you look at photos of the plane. It's nigh impossible to believe that anybody landed this plane with this much of it missing, with only a single fatality (a veteran flight attendant). The structural integrity of this thing was essentially held together by wishes and prayers, not only for the 10 minutes in flight trying to limp back to the airport but miraculously upon landing as well. This careful maneuvering and landing is remarkable considering how much of the fuselage was just plain gone, the result of something as simple as corrosive weakening.

At any rate, these are but a small sampling of many fascinating commercial airline events. And yes, each of them is featured in an episode of Air Crash Investigations.

...Was Blind, But Now I See.

Tonight saw the airing of the series finale of Lost. And as such, I thought I would do a brief write-up to say farewell to the show. First, the non-spoiler comments. I've been a big fan of Lost since seeing a leaked copy of the pre-air pilot during the summer before the show launched. As it turned out, that leaked copy was even an incomplete copy of that pilot episode (it ended well before where it should have - I don't recall exactly where). From the opening moments of the pilot, I knew this series was something different. As such, I figured it would die a quick, tragic, heart-breaking death. I figured something this original was never gonna succeed, given the track records of the broadcast networks and how much they love predictable programming. Much to my surprise, the show was a hit from the start, and remained so all the way through to the end.

The series' success was ultimately driven by a few factors, essentially a perfect storm of elements. First, you had the exotic locales and staggeringly well produced style of the episodes. The island, and Hawaii by extension, was easily one of the stars of the show. There's a reason that Lost is one of the best series currently on Blu-Ray, cause it looks and sounds absolutely amazing. Second, you had an utterly amazing cast. It's a particularly diverse cast that plays off each other perfectly. Third, you had the utterly insane writing. This writing style was as much an experience as it was a massive tease. For every question the writers would answer, they would raise a half dozen more. Then, just to screw with you more, they would later make those original answers mean something else entirely. And to add to that sense of writing style, the writers would play with structure in mind bending ways. Never happy to let anything play out linearly, they would always be playing with different times and realities (and eventually time travel itself), and how they related to one another, typically deep diving into a particular character. In the end, the writing on Lost goes down as some of the most audacious writing in the history of television. Eventually, the viewers learned to just go with the flow. Only the truly obsessed would try to remember and actually track all the entanglements of the writing. And believe me, they have. I was of the "go with the flow" camp of viewers.

I will miss Lost, to be sure. But I'm happy that the producers went out on their own terms. It's one of those rare series that got to go out when and how it wanted. Thankfully, there are shows like Fringe (also from JJ Abrams' team of folks), to help fill the gap of deeply crazy and intricate storytelling that is left by Lost's departure. Now, for the spoiler-filled comments about tonight's series finale. Do not read on if you have not yet seen it. And, since it's simply a set of first impressions, I'm gonna just do a bullet point list. Overall, I loved the finale, but I'm gonna assume some won't, given the stylistic choice they took in terms of storytelling. Rather than try and wrap up all sorts of plots and answer tons and tons of questions, they chose to take an emotional, cathardic, character oriented closing. Perhaps the plot-centric ending would have made the hard-core nerds happier, but I was far happier with the emotional, character based closing. For all its plot twisting machinations, I hope Lost will be best remembered as a character driven series.

• I loved the impressionistic and downright open-to-interpretation nature of the story. Frankly, I always expected the island to be the "purgatory" or afterlife side of the story. I was happy to see I was wrong, and which direction they went with that.
• Best line of the episode goes to Miles: "I don't believe in a lot of things, but I do believe in duct tape." That's gonna be my e-mail signature for a while.
• As soon as the wounded Jack walked past the shoe in the trees, I laughed out loud at where they were clearly headed for the final shot of the series. I immediately knew that they were gonna close it on the same shot as it all started - the infamous eye shot on Jack.
• When they got to that final moment of him laying on the ground, they then added the PERFECT touch to it by having Vincent walk over and lie down next to him. I absolutely LOVED that little touch.
• Fun trivia fact: Vincent gets to be the last one to "speak" in the series.
• I really liked how they did all the moments of characters connecting with each other and realizing how they knew each other.
• Of course, one of the true highlights was getting to see so much of the cast from over the years back together again. Seeing Maggie Grace return, and her moments with Sayid, was particularly great.
• Getting to see Daniel and Charlotte again was also great.
• And of course having Penny back together with Desmond is always great.
• Another thing I liked was who was specifically missing - Michael and WAAAAAAAAALT! They were two characters that I never particularly liked on the series (though some of the stuff with Locke & Walt did actually work well). I was pleased that they didn't show up in the mix of the many characters to return.
• Some of the previous characters made appearances earlier in the season, such as Ana Lucia, which was a nice thing.
• The take-off sequence of the Ajira plane was nicely done.
• Having Kate deliver Clair's baby again was a nice touch.
• I really liked Ben staying outside the church at the end. Honestly, I really loved all of Ben's stuff in the final season (like that needs to be said - Michael Emerson was great as Ben through the whole series).
• I loved the resigned moan reaction that Ben has when Sawyer clobbers him in the face with his elbow. Ben has been beaten up and smacked in the face so many times that the moan he makes is almost comical. Poor Ben.
• All the stuff between Clair and Kate was great. Actually, Evangeline Lilly specifically deserves a heck of a lot of credit for her work in this finale. She was in top form throughout. But she always did such great work on the show, so I suppose I shouldn't be shocked that she can elevate her game to this level for such an emotionally charged send-off (and of all the behind-the-scenes stuff from over the years, she always seems to be one of the ones who loves her job and being on the show the most).
• For a series fundamentally based around conflict, the finale is nice in that it is all about coming together and resolution.
• Oh, and Hurley got a great line that pretty much sums up the series nicely: "This would be so sweet if we weren't all about to die."
• Last, but definitely not least, there's Michael Giacchino's gorgeous score. As always, it's fantastic.

One of my summer projects will be watching through the series again from the start via the groovy Blu-Ray releases (I'm planning on doing the same for Battlestar Galactica). It'll be interesting to see all the complex plotting play out again in retrospect. Perhaps I'll try to track it all using the Lostpedia timeline. Maybe it might be able to be tracked when watched in fast succession.