Showbits

My siblings and I don't have many television viewing habits in common — and not only because I cancelled my service eight years ago. So I was surprised recently to receive this email from my oldest brother:

I know you don't watch TV per se, but you might find this past Monday night's NBC show Journeyman quite interesting. You can log onto NBC.com and watch previous episodes, commercial free. 

I don't know if perhaps he was familiar with my taste for Quantum Leap, but I agreed that Journeyman, along with Pushing Daisies and Reaper, would be shows I'd be watching this season, if I were able. (NBC.com's quality doesn't compare to a 36" TV with 5.1 surround sound!) But since I get all my shows, like Heroes (another interest we discovered we share), on DVD, it'll be awhile yet before I can watch this variation on The Time Traveler's Wife (coming soon to a theater near you).

Unfortunately, I was the one to break the bad news when I quoted to him from Wikipedia:

The initial order from the network was for 13 episodes, all of which were produced prior to the 2007 Writers Guild of America strike by screenwriters. However, the series suffered from low ratings, and NBC allowed its option for a full season order to lapse by the 2007-12-11 deadline for renewal. According to trade reports, such an action effectively means a series has been cancelled. The final episode of Journeyman aired on Wednesday, 2007-12-19.

But I was quick to point out the variety of precedents that suggest no show's death is final. Family Guy was cancelled twice but came back based on strong DVD sales. Sliders and Buffy switched networks, with the latter written to a series conclusion, should the show not survive the transition to a new network. Firefly came back as the feature-length Serenity, while Futurama and ReBoot both received direct-to-DVD movies.

So though Journeyman's travels appear over for now, there's always hope for the future… but should this truly be the end, at least picking up the complete series on DVD ought to be a cheap affair. In the meantime, we have the time-travel series Life on Mars to look forward to, along with news that Early Edition is finally coming to DVD. Good things come to those who wait!

When a student of mine wrote an essay on why the little-known sci-fi film Slipstream was one of the best films of 2005, my interest was piqued. I was already a sucker for any movie featuring time travel, so mix in a glowing review and a famous hobbit, and I was sold. Too bad I ended up wanting a refund.

Sean Astin plays a government physicist with a handheld, software-based temporal translocation unit. By using nearby cell phone towers, he can send himself and anyone in contact with him back in time up to ten minutes, displacing their selves of that previous moment. But the movie applies this concept unevenly. Are their bodies affected, or just their mind? Are objects affected, or are they duplicated? Frequency could be criticized for having an illogical temporal mechanic, but that film was both creative and internally consistent. Slipstream fails in this regard, as we see no truly clever applications of the device other than for do-overs.

It's typical for a movie to introduce the main character and show us his invention in action as buildup for when things go awry. Slipstream rushes this important getting-to-know-you stage by immediately putting Astin in a bank that gets robbed. And not just by any thugs; no, these are British mods and rockers who kept their outfits, hairdos, and tattoos when they turned 40. Despite the heist going off with a hitch and losing several of his comrades, the gang leader has time to stop and steal what he assumes is an expensive cell phone — but is, in fact, the titularly codenamed time machine.

It is the first of the story's many weak points. Already we have stereotypical villains, a loser scientist protagonist, and unrealistic behavior from both. Such examples continue: when the bank robbers get into a car accident, the first squad on the site are… the FBI? They should've gone with the local police, as maybe they've seen Quick Change and then that old "terrorist disguised as a hostage" trick wouldn't've worked again. The masquerade continues moments later as we see the evil mastermind demonstrate that anyone wearing a captain's uniform can get on a plane, without ID.

Worse than any plot holes is the film's ego. It draws out scenes for seemingly no reason than to revel in its own creativity. Other scenes alternate between speeding up and slowing down, as if to hammer into the audience's thick skulls, "Hey, time is fluid in THIS film!" A couple scenes feature the background slowly revolving around the actors, or vice versa. It's like bullet time with one camera and a green screen. But Slipstream is just a shadow of the many films it wishes it was. Just as Overdrawn at the Memory Bank channeled Casablanca, Slipstream imitates Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Now that's what I call cinematic hubris.

Slipstream's first five minutes — filled with cheesy narration, slow-motion sequences, and screen savers — immediately suggested, "Oh, it's going to be one of THOSE films": not a bad one, but one that sets its sights low. Proper expectations can make or break a film, but even given the proper mindset, I still enjoyed Adam Sandler's Click (and Sean Astin's performance in same) more than this. Slipstream's goofy characters and illogical science make me think it was made for a younger audience, but language and violence have rated it 'R' — yet another inconsistency. Whatever target this film was aiming for, it slipped and slid right off the map.

Time travel is a fascinating concept that is bafflingly unpopular at the box office. With the exception of Back to the Future, few films that dabble in this science fiction staple have become household names — and those that do, such as The Lakehouse and Click, owe their recognition more to the stars than the plots.

Yet even Sean "Hobbit" Astin couldn't elevate Slipstream out of obscurity. But before I review this film, I'd like to rewind the clock and examine its ancestry of other little-known time travel films: Time After Time, Time Changer, Timestalkers, Out of Time, and Happy Accidents.

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… IT'S GROUNDHOG DAY!

In a message on the online service GEnie, my friend Gary Utter once posted:

Category 3, Topic 23
Message 17 Wed Jul 24, 1996
GARY.UTTER at 05:42 EDT

GROUNDHOG DAY is more than a comedy, more than a love story. It is, among other things, a deep look at society, the way we view others, the way we view ourselves. It is also quite a metaphysical examination of the very reason for being, if you care to look at it that deeply.

This is, actually, an amazing film, and if it survives long enough, will be as overanalyzed as Shakespeare. There is meaning in there that I do not believe the producers intended. It just happened.

I think it will still be available for rental in 20 years…..

Fourteen years so far, so good. It took 12 of them for Roger Ebert to recant his original, mediocre review. It's never too late for a great film to grow on you, Roger. And "sublime" is indeed a great description of male lead Bill Murray, be it here or in another one of my favorite films, Lost in Translation.

So what are you waiting for? It's Friday night — there's no school tomorrow. Bust out this classic romantic comedy and watch it over and over and over.

Temporal mechanics intrigue me, such that I'm willing to go to great lengths to expose myself to such — whether it is watching Adam Sandler's Click, or perusing Nicholson Baker's revolting, aimless The Fermata.

It was this drive that led me to The Lake House, despite reviews urging against such desperate action. For those who didn't get the memo, this newest pairing of the Speed duo of Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock has them sending letters (but little else) to each other via a mailbox that transports Bullock's notes two years into the past, to 2004, and Reeves' two years into the future.

The Lake House is what you get when you cross the concept of Frequency — two-way communication between temporally-displaced individuals in the same house — with the plot of Happy Accidents — someone trying to change the past to find a soulmate. I found the former film fascinating: I love Dennis Quaid, and though the movie's application of temporal mechanics may've been illogical, it was both unique and internally consistent (and applied to a murder-mystery, which is infinitely cooler than a romance). The latter film tried my patience with unlikable protagonists and a plodding plot. The Lake House falls firmly in the middle of those two, not just in quality but in devices, featuring both unlikable protagonists and internally inconsistent mechanics.

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