TV: American Idol 2013: Sudden Death/Male, Group 2

Or, Part Two of "Regression to the Mean" Week. After last night's terrific group of women, last night's show pretty much had to be a disappointment by comparison. Which, in fact, it turned out to be. (And I said, "Oh boy. Right again.") And by the same logic, after the disaster of last night's men, tonight almost has to be an improvement.

At least that's the optimistic view.

The rundown:

Mathenee, "A Little Less Conversation" -- Impressive range, and a fair amount of power in the lower register. Enunciation is weak. Smart song choice for him; it's largely a song about attitude and showmanship, and he's got plenty of those. Solid first impression.

Gurpreet, "Nothing Ever Hurt Like You" -- The finger wagging and the perpetual smile make the whole thing feel a bit cheesy and superficial. It's a harmless enough performance, and it's not painful to listen to, but there's no emotional force behind it, and nothing that'll stick in my mind for more than about ten seconds.

Vincent, "Cause I Love You" -- The runs and falsetto and frills and flourishes are all very impressive, but these things are meant to be ornaments; there has to be some underlying basic thing that is being ornamented, and Vincent's not giving us that. Vincent is all ornament; it's all Worcestershire and no steak, all tinsel and no tree. Love the Drew Carey glasses, though.

Nick, "Say Something Now" -- Very nice, with a well-tuned falsetto. Doesn't seem to have a lot of power, but that may just be a matter of song choice. And while he seems very comfortable on stage, there's not much personality being projected; there's something small about his presence, and it needs to get a lot bigger if he wants to last very long.

Josh, "Better With You" -- He's frequently flat; I can't understand most of what he's saying; and he's having to breathe every two or three syllables. It's the first really unpleasant performance of the night.

David, "Fever" -- Pleasant voice, but the arrangement fights against the sultriness and slow-burn passion of the song, and that's a problem. It's only emphasized by the fact that David's not projecting an ounce of sexy himself; he might as well be singing about labor contracts, he's projecting so little heat. It's also a song that doesn't show off much of a singer's range.

Bryant, "New York State of Mind" -- Quite lovely. Occasionally a bit too breathy in the quieter passages, but it's not as big a problem for him as it's been for a lot of other singers this year. I would point out that unless you are an ASL interpreter, you are not actually obliged to gesture on every single word of the song.

Burnell, "This Time" -- I like his voice very much, but there's something odd about his phrasing that I can't quite pin down. The musical lines are flowing nicely, but the words don't seem to connect properly somehow. It'll drive me nuts until I figure out what's off. I do think he deserves to move on, though.

Lazaro, "Tonight I Wanna Cry" -- Shades of Mel Tillis in the way his speech impediment disappears when he sings. Unfortunately, his singing enunciation is terribly mushy, and this loungy approach to the song is not a good idea. He misses the high note at the end by a long shot, though he eventually does slide up to it before it ends.

Cortez, "Titanium" -- The big notes are fine, and he has an impressive upper register; the rest is a big ol' pile of meh.

So, a big improvement over last week's men. Six or seven of these guys really deserve to be in the top ten men overall, but some deserving singers will be cut because they happened to fall into the more talented group.

Were I a judge tonight, I would certainly send Bryant, Burnell, and Mathenee on to the next round; and I would send Gurpreet, Josh, and Lazaro home. I don't have strong feelings about any of the four in the middle of the pack, but I would probably keep Vincent, hoping that there's a core in there somewhere on which to hang his lovely decorations; and Nick, hoping that he can develop some musical and personality oomph.

And the judges begin announcing their choices. David, no. Bryant, no. Vincent, yes. Mathenee, no. Lazaro, yes (inspirational story triumphs over mediocre talent, I fear). Cortez, yes. Josh, no. Burnell, yes. That leaves Nick and Gurpreet for the last spot, which shouldn't be a difficult choice. And, yes, Nick stays and Gurpreet goes home.

Next week, we get to start voting, choosing five men and five women, with competition shows on Tuesday and Wednesday, and results (and, I assume, some sort of wild card competition to bump the final field to 12 or 13) on Thursday night.

TV: American Idol 2013: Sudden Death/Female, Group 2

Week one of Sudden Death gave us an impressive night from the women, a disastrous night from the men, and a promising debut from the new judges, who offered surprisingly constructive criticism. This week, another 20 wannabes put it all on the line with one in-or-out performance.

The rundown:

Melinda, "Nobody's Perfect" -- The arrangement isn't working well; it's choppy and jerky, and it doesn't allow her to show any range or breath control. I suppose she's trying to do that with the abrupt style shift for the last 30 seconds, but it comes off as unpleasantly disconnected from the rest of the performance. She may be a good singer, but she needs to choose material and arrangements that will let her demonstrate it, and she hasn't done that tonight.

Candice, "A Natural Woman" -- Very nice, and it never felt like work. The little growl on "baby" is delicious, and her melisma feels natural and spontaneous, as opposed to mere "let's see how many notes I can cram into this run" athleticism. Not wild about the styling, which makes her look ten years older than she is.

Juliana, "Skyscraper" -- About half of what she sings is nothing but air, and because of that, it's all over the place in terms of pitch. When there is any substance to the sound, it's not pretty, and the abrupt transitions between air and sound (as in the closing "scraper") are intensely unpleasant. Not a keeper, I'm afraid.

Jett, "Only Girl in the World" -- What's interesting about the original version of this song is the energy, the rhythm, the propulsion. And Jett has sucked all of that out, turning it into an outtake from a Steve'n'Eydie Vegas lounge show. The voice is pleasant enough, I suppose, if a bit nasal in spots, but the performance suggests a problematic lack of taste and good judgment.

Cristabel, "No One" -- That odd little Macy Gray-ish squeaking crack in her voice wears out its welcome about five times faster than she thinks it does, and her melisma does feel like notes for notes' sake. But I do like the sound of her voice, and on a night that hasn't been quite so strong as last week's women, this might get her through. (And I remember having a similar reaction to the weirdness of Fantasia Barrino's voice on first hearing, so y'never know.)

Aubrey, "Sweet Dreams" -- There's an odd thing she does repeatedly on the high note in "beautiful NIGHTmare;" she can't quite hit the note, so she goes into breathy head voice, hits the vowel just long enough for us to hear what it is, and instantly fades into silence for the rest of the note's length. She's not hitting those high notes; she's just implying them, and we're convincing ourselves that we're hearing an actual note for the whole duration. It's a clever way to disguise a technical weakness, but it's the only interesting thing about an otherwise bland performance.

Rachel, "Nothing But the Water" -- Someone has told her that she's a country/blues singer, but I don't think she really is. The country twang doesn't come naturally to her, and some of those vowels ("dah-ooon" for "down") are very affected. But she's got a strong, powerful voice, and if she can figure out what she should be singing, she could be terrific.

Breanna, "Bust Your Windows" -- It's pleasant, but it's not memorable, and it's got none of the anger it should have. I don't know the original, but I'm wondering if it was quite so Latin/tango as this, because that seemed an odd fit for the song. On the whole, a decidedly meh performance.

Janelle, "Just a Kiss" -- Started off reasonably well, but her pitch got more frequently out of whack as the song went on. Wasn't horrifyingly bad, and she's the only real country singer we've heard tonight, so she might survive, if only for the sake of stylistic diversity on the show.

Zoanette, "Circle of Life" -- Well, it held my attention. She's got a huge voice, but I'm not sure there's anything to it beyond size. The pitch was occasionally wobbly, and there's no lightness or subtlety in her voice; it's as if someone tried to turn Darth Vader into a pop diva. Is raw power and showmanship enough to get her through on a mediocre night? Maybe.

And there we are. It wasn't nearly as good as last week's female round, but that was to be expected. I only have strong feelings about a few of tonight's singers. Candice deserves to move on; Aubrey, Jett, and Juliana should be given a year's supply of Turtle Wax and sent home.

I'm noncommital about the rest, but I would probably keep Janelle, because she's the only pure country singer in the bunch; Zoanette, for sheer unpredictability and potential entertainment value; Rachel, because of her potential to turn into something amazing; and Cristabel, because that strange voice is still squeaking in my mind an hour later.

And now, let's see what the judges decide:

Zoanette, yes. Melinda, no. Juliana, no, Aubrey, yes. Cristabel, no. Candice, yes. Jett, no. Breanna, yes. Which takes us Rachel and Janelle for the last spot, which goes to Janelle.

Tomorrow night, ten more guys. And just as it was nearly impossible for tonight's women to be as good as last week's, you'd think that tomorrow's guys have to be an improvement over the batch we got last Thursday. Wouldn't you?

BOOKS: An Age of Madness, David Maine (2012)

Freud would say I'm a lousy mother. But then Freud would say lots of things. He'd declare me a textbook case, overbearing but emotionally distant, doomed to produce maladapted children. There's even a name for women like me: schizophrogenic mothers. Of course, Freud invented names for all sorts of things whether they existed or not, and then happily accused anyone nearby of doing, or being, or having, most of them.

 

That's our introduction to Regina, the central character of David Maine's An Age of Madness, and it's instantly clear that while she may not be the most likable person, she's got a lot to say and she's by god going to say it.

Regina's a psychologist, and her bitter, sardonic view of life isn't without justification; her husband died when she was only 34, leaving her to raise their daughter, Anna, on her own. Anna's now 17, struggling to adjust to college life, and doesn't seem much interested in talking to Regina during their rare phone calls.

Regina's finding it harder to have patience with, or show much compassion for, the clients she sees in her private practice and at the state hospital where she works. And she can't figure out why she's finding herself drawn to a new orderly who's fifteen years younger than she is.

The death of Regina's husband is the central mystery of the novel, and it doesn't take long to figure out that we're not being told everything. The structure of that story is a bit formulaic, with a new bombshell detail being revealed at predictably regular intervals. But even when I could see that a new surprise was on the way, the precise nature and details of the revelation still managed to catch me off guard.

Maine's characters are the novel's strong suit. Regina has a sharp and distinctive voice, and Maine's not afraid to let her be unlikable. The principal supporting characters, Anna and Russell (Regina's orderly beau), are equally well drawn, and Maine is very good at letting us see them through Regina's eyes in ways that let us understand how that view might be distorting things.

I'm a big fan of Maine, and while his Biblical novels are still my favorites, An Age of Madness is a marvelous book, and Regina is a crisply defined character who grabbed my attention and would not let go.

TV: American Idol 2013: Sudden Death/Male, Group 1

After a reasonably good night from the first batch of female semifinalists, the guys get their shot tonight. Dare we hope for anything as good as Amber or Kree? Probably not, but let's cross our fingers.

The rundown:

Paul, "Tonight I Wanna Cry" -- The big loud notes are pretty. Unfortunately, not much else is. He's falling into the "sincere = breathy" trap, and the sound is so puffed with air that the words are either inaudible or incomprehensible.

Johnny, "I Won't Give Up" -- The upper register isn't bad, but in the opening part of the song, when the pitch is lower, he seems to be always on the verge of running out of breath, and those are short phrases. He hasn't been helped by the show's makeup crew, who have given him the creepy waxiness of the young John Davidson.

Jda, "Rumor Has It" -- I'm not sure I liked it, exactly, but it was interesting in a way that nothing else has been. He certainly takes command of the stage and the audience, and there's personality to spare. Enunciation could be a bit crisper. He might be just a one-trick novelty act, but I'd like the chance to find out. (And during judges' commentary, he becomes the first openly gay Idol contestant to get beyond auditions/Hollywood week; other contestants have come out only after their Idol runs were over.)

Kevin, "(Everything I Do) I Do It For You" -- It's a pretty enough voice, smooth and silky, but when a man sings this high up, pitch problems are painfully noticeable, and there were a few here. And he needs to learn, I think, to put a little more variety into his voice, some texture or power, so that it's not just a soft cushiony sound, because that risks lulling the audience to sleep.

Chris, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" -- On most nights, that might have come off as filled with personality and flash, but after Jda, the theatricality comes off as rather tepid and ineffectual. His voice is pinched and a bit nasal. And (tonight's biggest problem, and a perpetual flaw in the young singers Idol brings us) I couldn't understand 90% of what he said.

Devin, "Listen" -- If they had beauty pageants for men and the men had to sing cheesy ballads in the talent round of those pageants, this would have fit in very nicely there. And how much reverb was there on his mike? Especially in the opening verse, it was all-all-all echo-echo-echo. But it's been an awfully weak night, and this might be good enough to get him through.

Elijah, "Talking to the Moon" -- He looks like he's in pain when he's singing; if you're doing it right, it doesn't hurt, and it doesn't put that kind of stress on your facial muscles. He doesn't have any volume on his falsetto, and even at his best, he's a whiny imitation Bieber.

(Recurring motif of the night: The female judges, especially Nicki, are drooling over some of these guys in a way that makes even the worst excesses of Steven Tyler look practically Victorian. Nicki has offered to bear the children of two or three already, and the night's not done yet.)

Charlie, "Rocket Man" -- He's a bit self-consciously quirky but if he learns where his range actually is, and stops attempting flashy runs and high notes that he can't quite manage, he could be a fine singer. He sang this tricky melody quite nicely, getting those awkward wide leaps mostly right. Not great, but on what may be the worst night in Idol history, it's good enough.
 
Jimmy, "Raining on Sunday" -- I almost never use this word, because it's such a judging cliche, but that was karaoke. It's a perfectly pleasant voice, but there's nothing distinctive or interesting about it, and there's so little power to it that the band is drowning him out on what should be the big climactic notes.

Curtis, "Superstar" -- This is not a style I have much use for myself -- the melodrama, the "oh, you KNOW I'm sexy" slinking about -- and I hate this song done this way, but what he does, he does competently.

So, what should the judges do with this mightly slim batch o' pickins?

They should send on Curtis, because his was the only singing of the night that was even close to good. I'd put Jda and Charlie through, not so much because they have great voices, but because they kept me interested and I'm curious to see what they do next. That's about it, as far as being deserving. Force me to pick two more, and I'll settle for some combination of Devin, Johnny, and Jimmy. As for Elijah, Kevin, Chris, and Paul, drop 'em at the Greyhound station and let 'em find their own way home.

And now, the drawn-out reveal of the judges' decisions:

Curtis, in. Jimmy, out. Kevin, out. Elijah, in. Jda, out. Paul, in (by Jimmy Iovine's decision, since the judges were split).

Commercial break. Chris, no. Charlie, yes. The final spot comes down to Devin and Johnny, which is the least exciting head-to-head confrontation imaginable, and Devin gets the final spot. Not the best choices the judges could have made, but then again, there weren't many good choices to make.

TV: American Idol 2013: Sudden Death/Female, Group 1

And we're back, for another season of American Idol! It's a 4-judge panel this season (unfortunately), with Keith Urban, Nicki Minaj, and Mariah Carey joining Randy Jackson; and we're stretching the semi-final rounds out for a week longer than last year by starting off with a top 40. Ten women tonight, ten men tomorrow night, and the same thing next week, and we don't even get to vote yet. The judges will instantly eliminate half of each group, and we'll be down to a top 20 in two weeks.

As usual, I'm jumping in to the season at this point; I've seen a grand total of about ten minutes of the audition episodes, so everyone's a mystery to me. The buzz says that the women are particularly strong this year, but let's not get our hopes up too high, shall we?

The rundown:

Jenny Beth, "Heaven, Heartache, and the Power of Love" -- Yawn. She's like an escapee from a Six Flags park show. It's not horrible (though the low notes in the verses are too low for her to sing), but it's got no personality at all.

Tenna, "Soulmate" -- I can't say that I particularly like her style -- the quiet breathiness, the abruptly terraced dynamics, the "never sing one note when you can sing 18" melisma overload -- but she's got impeccable control over what she's doing, and she's certainly grabbing the audience. And she's doing it with a relatively understated ballad, which is a gutsy choice for an all-or-nothing performance.

Adriana, "Ain't No Way" -- If you're going to end the song with a big note, then by god that note had better be in tune, and she was way flat. And I was sort of with her up to that point. It wasn't exciting (but then, it's not an exciting song), but it was holding my attention. May have killed her chances with the last note, though.

Brandy, "Anymore" -- A bit pitchy throughout, as Mr. Jackson might say, and not terribly interesting, either. Yeah, it's a big voice, but it's on the bland side, the enunciation is a little mushy, and she's not conveying a lick of emotion.

(A side note before the next contestant sings: I almost want to root for her just because of ter name: Shubha Vedula. I can't stop repeating it: Shubha Vedula Shubha Vedula Shubha Vedula.)

Shubha, "Born This Way" -- The arrangement's a mess; her enunciation is non-existent -- I know this song reasonably well, and I had no idea what she was saying most of the time -- and while there's certainly a lot of emotion coming across, that emotion is, weirdly enough, anger. She was born this way, dammit, and I feel like she's ready to kill the bastard responsible.

Kamaria, "Mr. Know It All" -- She's flat a lot of the time, and even when she's not, there's a thickness and a weight to her voice that makes it feel like she is. It's not an attractive sound. And I don't think the song plays to the strengths she does have; she needs something a bit more R&B, I think.

Kree, "Up to the Mountain" -- Now that, boys and girls, is how you hit a big note in tune. The melisma was occasionally a tad overwrought, but she's able to sing quietly with solid tone, unlike many Idol women, who get breathy at low volume. Strong voice, no major technical flaws, certainly good enough to move forward on a weak night.

Angela, "Nobody's Perfect" -- Solid performance. I'm particularly impressed with her wide dynamic range, and with the control she has over all of it. I don't think her look helps her, though; she's tackily dressed and overly made up in a way that says she doesn't trust her voice to hold our attention.

Isabelle, "God Bless the Child" -- Tonight, in the Starlight Lounge, Carnival Cruises is proud to present Isabelle!

Amber, "My Funny Valentine" -- Oh, my, yes. Send her straight through to the top ten. Gorgeous voice, performance that's contemporary but respectful of the song, fine technique -- what more do you want?

So, if the judges have been paying attention, these will be their decisions:

IN: Amber, Kree, Angela, Tenna, Adriana
OUT: Isabelle, Shubha, Brandy, Jenny Beth, Kamaria

Only the first three of those really excited me much, and I wouldn't be crushed if Isabelle slipped in over Tenna or Adriana; the bottom four really don't deserve to move on.

And now, we endure a long, padded series of announcements as each singer is trotted out to learn whether she'll stay or go.

Jenny Beth, out. Brandy, out. Tenna, in. Kree, in. Isabelle, out. Angela, in. Commercial break. Kamaria, out. Amber, in. That leaves Shubha vs. Adriana for the last spot, and did you know that they're best friends (of course they are), and Adriana gets it, which means that the judges got it completely right.

Tomorrow night, the first ten guys.

TV: Zero Hour (ABC, Thu 8)

Oh my lord, this is the loopiest mess TV has given us in ages.

A prologue set in 1938 Germany gives us a bunch of Rosicrucians working frantically to finish a dozen clocks. Meanwhile, at a local hospital, we see that a Nazi experiment has resulted in the birth of a baby with creepy silver eyes. The Nazis attack the church, and the clockmakers and priests rush to hide from the Nazis the mysterious something that lies under the cathedral; one of them intones portentously, "It is all up to The Twelve now."

Jump to the present, where Anthony Edwards edits Modern Skeptic magazine. His wife (Jacinda Barrett), who repairs of old clocks and watches, is kidnapped by an international terrorist, who apparently wants the old clock she has just bought. And so Edwards is off to save his wife, with the help of an FBI agent (Carmen Egojo), whose husband just happens to be have been killed by the same terrorist.

The dialogue is one clunky cliche after another. "We're worrying about how she was taken," says Edwards, "and we should be asking why." "Hank, 'why' will drive you crazy," says one of his reporters. And in the starring role, Edwards is a mess, accomplishing the remarkable feat of overacting while being absolutely devoid of personality.

By the time we've gotten to the end of the episode and met the 93-year-old Rosicrucian who made the clock and delivers cryptic warnings of some horrible thing that will happen if the bad guys get their hands on the whole set of twelve clocks, or we find the bunker in northern Canada with the frozen corpse of a Nazi officer who looks exactly like Edwards, or we discover that the terrorist has creepy silver eyes, it's clear that we are in for a conspiracy thriller that's going to make the novels of Dan Brown look like sophisticated literature.

The show might just barely be able to save itself if it gives in to its camp potential and embraces its own silliness, but I fear that it wants to be taken seriously, and as serious drama, it's an absolute disaster.

TV: Monday Mornings (TNT, Mon 10)

TNT's medical drama Monday Mornings is a David E. Kelley production based on a novel by Sanjay Gupta. The show's central novelty is that several scenes in each episode take place at the hospital's Morbidity & Mortality conferences, where the surgeons discuss what went wrong in each case that ended in death.

The cast is top-notch. The surgeons include Alfred Molina as the stern chief of surgery (implausibly and delightfully named Harding Hooten); Jamie Bamber as the hotshot young surgeon; Ving Rhames departing from his usual image by playing a relatively sensitive, compassionate guy; Bill Irwin as the asshole veteran; Jennifer Finnigan as Bamber's best friend (and surely inevitable love interest, despite the fact that she's married); and Saruya Rao as the newbie who expresses her insecurity as pushiness.

The most problematic character is Keong Sim's Dr. Park, whose heavily-accented broken English is played for cheap laughs. ("Do you think I should have the surgery?" asks a patient. "Not do, dead," says Dr. Park.")

It's not hard to see what drew Kelley to the project. He's always loved to confrontational courtroom scenes, filled with dramatic monologues, and the M&M conferences are as close to courtroom as you can get in a hospital show, with Molina serving as judge and jury.

The tone is a bit more somber and heavy than is usual for Kelley, and the show could actually use a bit more of his signature quirkiness and humor. (It's a bit frightening to say that, since the danger with any Kelley show is how quickly it can descend into being nothing but quirk.) But the cast is strong, the medical cases are reasonably interesting, and the M&M conferences provide enough of a distinctive twist that I'll keep watching for another week or two to see what develops.

MOVIES: 2012 Oscar-nominated shorts (live-action/animated)

This year, the short film categories give us a very strong animated field and a rather weak live-action field.

The live-action group is dominated by films about Adorable Children. "Bushkazi Boys," the longest of the group at 28 minutes, is about two boys in Kabul, a beggar and a blacksmith's son, who dream of being bushkazi players. (It's a sport. Think polo, but with a dead goat instead of a ball.) "Asad" is about a Somali boy who is informally apprenticed to the local fisherman, but longs to join the older boys on their pirate raids. Neither of these has a very interesting story, and both are of interest primarily as ethnographic looks as life in places we don't often see.

Also in the Adorable Children Department, we have "Curfew," in which Richie gets a panicked phone call from his estranged sister, who needs a sitter for her 9-year-old so desperately that she's willing to reach out to her addict brother. The timing is bad for Richie, what with being right in the middle of a suicide attempt and all, but he agrees to help out. Your enjoyment of this one will depend on your tolerate for bratty children and recklessly irresponsible adults.

"Henry" is a Canadian film about a man who is caught in the most horrific stage of Alzheimer's, that period when you're losing all of your memories, but have just enough awareness left to know what you're losing. It has the bad fortune to show up in the same year as Amour, and plays as the audience-friendly, more comforting, lite version of that movie. The lead actor gives a fine performance, though, and I would put my money on this to be the winner.

Best of this field is the Belgian/French "Death of a Shadow," in which a soldier killed during World War I prepares to return to the living after making the final payment on his deal with the devil. The storytelling is a bit murkier than necessary, but the look of the movie is striking, and the story itself is the most interesting and original of the group.

The animated field is a much better group of shorts, and it's interesting that they are all dialogue-free. The biggest response from my audience was for "Fresh Guacamole," which at less than 2 minutes, is the shortest film ever to get an Oscar nomination. It's only got one joke, but its variations on that joke are clever and well-executed, and it's over before it's worn out its welcome.

Least interesting to me was "Adam and Dog," about the developing friendship between the first man and the first dog. It's pretty animation, but there's not much to it other than pretty.

"Maggie Simpson in The Longest Daycare" follows the TV character through a day at The Ayn Rand School for Tots, and a confrontation with her nemesis, Gerald; it's like a missing chunk of a really good Simpsons episode.

"Head Over Heels" tells the story of a couple trying to make their marriage work despite being pulled in very different directions. The movie doesn't amount to much beyond its central visual conceit, but the final moments, in which a solution to their problem is found, are quite clever.

Best of the field, and I think the likely winner, is "Paperman," a Disney short that played in theaters with Wreck-It Ralph. It's a charming romantic story about a man's attempts to contact a woman after a brief meeting at the train station, and the powerful forces that step in to be sure that true love will run smooth.

As always, the animated program includes a few extra films to pad it out to a full-length show. "Abiogenesis" is a skillfully made look at galaxy-traveling Transformer-esque robots; "Dripped" is a Jackson Pollack homage with lots of visual style. "The Gruffalo's Child" is a sequel to "The Gruffalo," which was a nominee in this category two years ago; like the earlier film, it's far too long and repetitious.

MOVIES - Best Films of 2012

Several stories about stories among my favorite movies this year, and a very close call between the top two.

Starting with #10 and counting down to #1:

• Seven Psychopaths -- A delicious tangle of meta-storytelling, with fine performances and the year's funniest screenplay.
• Looper -- Works as a time-travel thriller; works as a meditation on fate and personal responsibilty.
• ParaNorman -- Beautifully animated, with the most expressive faces I've ever seen in stop-motion; a fine cast of unexpected voices, and enough style and wit to overcome the mildly familiar story.
• The Cabin in the Woods -- A wildly funny subversion of horror movie cliches and conventions, and an unexpectedly thoughtful exploration of why we tell scary stories.
• Bernie -- Strange hybrid of dark comedy and documentary that uses its Greek chorus of locals to great comic effect without ever sinking into condescension or patronizing.
• Compliance -- A chilling study of obedience, with a taut script, and such emotional rawness and intensity that it's sometimes painful to watch.
• Footnote -- Two men, father and son, each devoted to the study of ancient texts, each incapable of communicating with the other. A deftly comic exploration of the nasty prankster side of God.
• Argo -- An unlikely marriage of broad Hollywood satire and terrifically exciting thriller, with each half working precisely to balance the other. An awards-friendly movie that never seems to exist only to win awards.
• Oslo, August 31st -- The tragedy of one man's inability to find the beauty that lies within every life, no matter how mundane. A movie that offers its audience the hope its hero is sadly unable to find.

And the year's best movie:

• Amour -- Director Michael Haneke, as unsentimental as ever, but finding a compassion that's not always present in his work. A bracing antidote to Hollywood "aren't old people sweet?" pablum.

A few that might have made the list on a different day: 21 Jump Street, Brave, The Master, Premium Rush, Ruby Sparks, Searching for Sugar Man.

MOVIES: Best of 2012 - Actress

The runners-up:

• Linda Cardellini, Return
• Jennifer Lawrence, Silver Linings Playbook
• Meryl Streep, Hope Springs
• Quvenzhane Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild
• Michelle Williams, Take This Waltz

(I will note that Walliis is here among the runners-up, and not among the nominees, mostly because I'm never entirely sure whether a child this young is really capable of acting or is simply following directions very well. That said, she has a remarkable presence, and should she choose to continue acting, I look forward to seeing what develops.)

The nominees:

• Nina Hoss, Barbara -- Here, Hoss faces one of the actor's greatest challenges -- when your character can't let anyone know what she's thinking, how do you let the audience know -- and handles it beautifully. A lovely study of what it means to live in a society where everyone is legitimately paranoid.
• Helen Hunt, The Sessions -- Get past the nudity (though Hunt's blunt comfort with it certainly helps to sell the role and the movie), and you find a performance of great emotional simplicity and honesty.
• Zoe Kazan, Ruby Sparks -- Playing a woman who is quite literally someone else's dream, Kazan's slow awakening to her own personality and desires is utterly convincing, and when the confrontation with her creator finally comes, it's a scene of wrenching tension and pain.
• Emmanuelle Riva, Amour -- Riva captures her character's physical and mental deterioration beautifully, but even more painful are the horror and anguish of watching herself go through this nightmare.

And the winner:

• Ann Dowd, Compliance -- Dowd is spectacular, never setting a foot wrong as she struggles between two visions of right and wrong, trying to find a way to balance her own sense of decency with the desire to please an authority figure.

MOVIES: Best of 2012 - Actor

The runners-up:

• Shlomo Bar-Aba, Footnote
• Richard Gere, Arbitrage
• Philip Seymour Hoffman, The Master
• Joaquin Phoenix, The Master
• Denzel Washington, Flight

The nominees:

• Jack Black, Bernie -- A deft, light performance of immense charm. Given Black's usual heavy obviousness, it's a revelation, like watching an actor we've never seen before.
• John Hawkes, The Sessions -- Entirely robbed of physicality and largely robbed of vocal range and flexibility, Hawkes still manages to make you laugh and break your heart, often in the same instant.
• Jean-Louis Trintignant, Amour -- Trintignant and Riva are doing a gloriously precise duet here, but I think it's Trintignant's scenes with Isabelle Huppert that I'll remember, as he explores the place where lack of sentiment becomes cruelty.
• Christoph Waltz, Django Unchained -- No one delivers Tarantino's dialogue as well as Waltz, and the casual arrogance with which he treats Django -- the willingness to use slavery to his advantage, the throwing away of all that's been gained over a foolish point of honor -- is one of the movie's subtlest depictions of racism.

And the winner:

• Anders Danielsen Lie, Oslo, August 31st -- There are so many emotions boiling below Lie's apparent numbness -- the pride of having gotten through rehab, the constant fear of relapsing into addiction, the desperate need to find a way to fit into the world, the suspicion that he doesn't deserve to find one  -- and he communicates all of them with remarkable stillness and subtlety.

MOVIES: Best of 2012 - Supporting Actor

This was a category with an unusually large amount of good comic work this year. Comic performances never get the recognition they deserve.

The runners-up:

• Armie Hammer, Mirror Mirror
• Tom Holland, The Impossible
• Fran Kranz, The Cabin in the Woods
• Scoot McNairy, Argo
• Michael Shannon, Premium Rush

The nominees:

• Jim Broadbent, Cloud Atlas -- Whether he's playing the comedy of the nursing home story or the vicious cruelty of the composer story, he's always riveting and always entertaining.
• Tom Cruise, Rock of Ages -- Playing a man clinging desperately to his own celebrity, Cruise gives a limber performance of surprising grace and wit.
• Tommy Lee Jones, Lincoln -- It's very hard to play this sort of moral fortitude in our age of cynical snark, but Jones's righteous determination always feels sincere and justified.
• Christopher Walken, Seven Psychopaths -- Walken as the sanest person in the movie isn't something you expect, but it works. Whether he's stubbornly refusing to indulge his grief, or wandering the desert on a peyote trip, Walken gets every conceivable laugh from his material.

And the winner:

• Samuel L. Jackson, Django Unchained -- Jackson's performance would be admirable if only for his ferocious commitment to such a loathesome character. But Jackson also makes clear the vicious self-loathing that's tearing at him with every obsequious laugh, and the razor-sharp intelligence he's never been allowed to show. It's spectuacularly good work.

MOVIES: Best of 2012 -- Supporting Actress

Woefully slim pickings in this category this year, and I found myself having to dig deeper than usual to produce a full slate, choosing performances that I might normally have thought not quite large enough to qualify

The runners-up:

• Amy Adams, The Master
• Pauline Collins, Quartet
• Shirley MacLaine, Bernie
• Frances McDormand, Madagascar 3
• Tilda Swinton, Moonrise Kingdom

The nominees:

• Samantha Barks, Les Miserables -- What happens when you cast singers in a musical? You get actual singing, instead of sniffling and wheezing (yes, Anne Hathaway, I'm looking at you). Barks's "On My Own" is the best five minutes in the movie.
• Emily Blunt, Looper-- The strength of a farmer; the fear of a child who isn't quite like most; the love and devotion of a single mother, strong enough to overcome that fear -- Blunt plays them all with ferocious determination.
• Judi Dench, Skyfall -- The best performance in a dull movie, bringing an emotional depth and complexity that that the movie doesn't really require and certainly doesn't deserve.
• Dreama Walker, Complaince -- Walker's progression from bubbly young woman to withdrawn, nearly catatonic victim is remarkable; you can see her slowly shutting down to avoid the horrors she's going through.

And the winner:

• Kelly Reilly, Flight -- This could easily have been just another addict with a heart of gold, but Reilly digs deep enough to find the humanity and the courage. How refreshing it is when she cuts Denzel loose, refusing to be caught up in his problems and denial.

MOVIES: Best of 2012

The Great January Catch-Up is over, and while there are (as always) movies I never did get around to seeing -- Perks of Being a Wallflower and Holy Motors top that list -- I have seen all of the Oscar nominees in the major categories (writing, directing, acting). So, let the list-making commence!

MOVIES: Haywire (Steven Soderbergh, 2012)

Haywire tells a familiar story -- after a mission goes wrong, a mercenary seeks vengeance on those who betrayed her -- but tells it with great style and just enough surprises to keep it interesting.

Gina Carano has the lead role; she's not much of an actress, but her background in mixed martial arts does make the fight scenes more credible than usual. And Lem Dobbs' screenplay doesn't call on her for too much emoting; her character is a stoic, taciturn, mysterious kick-ass fighter without much personality beyond that. Soderbergh has surrounded her with a strong cast of men (there's no other significant female character) who carry Carano through the dramatic moments: Ewan McGregor, Channing Tatum, Michael Douglas, Antonio Banderas, Michael Fassbender, Bill Paxton.

The movie is beautifully photographed, and the action sequences are staged cleanly, without too much frantic editing or camera movement; it's always clear where the characters are, both in relation to one another and in relation to the room they're in. A hotel room brawl between Carano and Fassbender is especially well done.

The story is, as is conventional for the genre, more convoluted than it needs to be, and withholds too much information until the final big "and now we explain everything" info dump. But it's no more confusing than the Bourne movies, for instance, and the explanation is presented convincingly enough that you won't spend too much time worrying about loose ends.

It's a pleasant B-movie, which is all it seems to be aspiring to.

MOVIES: Butter (Jim Field Smith, 2012)

Butter has a terrific cast (Jennifer Garner, Ty Burrell, Rob Corddry, Alicia Silverstone, Olivia Wilde, Kristen Schaal, and Hugh Jackman) and a workable premise in its warped re-imagining of the Clinton/Obama primary campaign, but the writing falls flat and pounds the obvious notes just a bit too heavily.

Bob Pickler (Burrell) is the King of Butter, defending 15-time champion of the Iowa State Fair's butter sculpture competition. When the fair suggests that it's time for him to retire and let someone else have a chance, he's content to do so, but his wife Laura (Garner) is appalled. That trophy belongs in the Pickler family, she is convinced, so she sets out to win it herself.

And that's when she runs into Destiny (newcomer Yara Shahidi). Destiny is a 10-year-old African-American girl who's spent her life bouncing around the foster care system, having only recently landed in what might become a stable home (Corddry and Silverstone play the potential parents). But she has a prodigy's gift for butter, and Laura does not respond well to this young upstart threatening to take the crown that should be hers.

The performances are pretty good. Garner's never a terribly warm actress, but at her best, she knows how to make that work for her, and it serves her well here as she dives headlong into Laura's ice-queen bitchiness. Burrell's a master of befuddlement; Corddry is utterly charming as a guy who takes naturally to parenting; and Shahidi gets Destiny's tricky balance of innocence and ambition just right.

There are subplots involving adulterous liaisons for both Picklers that don't much help the movie, though Wilde and Jackman are both terrifically funny as the respective lovers. And I think the movie sticks too closely to its obvious political inspiration; we'd get the point even if Destiny weren't also a naturally gifted orator, for instance.

Maybe worth watching if you're a fan of the cast, or if you've got nothing better to do on a Saturday night. And if you go into it without getting your expectations too high, you might get some fun out of it.

MOVIES: Amour (Michael Haneke, 2012)

We are all going to die. Very rarely does a movie bring that point home quite so bluntly or clearly as Michael Haneke's Amour, a bracing antidote to the "aren't old people adorable?" crap that Hollywood likes to serve up.

Virtually the entire movie is spent inside the apartment of Georges (Jean-Louis Trintignant) and Anne (Emmanuelle Riva), retired piano teachers in their eighties. They are utterly devoted to one another -- Georges still takes the time to tell Anne that she looks pretty as they return from a concert -- and have made a happy and comfortable life for themselves.

And then Anne has a stroke -- not a spoiler; this is in the first ten minutes of the movie -- and everything changes. Her health begins to deteriorate, and Georges is forced to become her nurse and caretaker. He's more than willing to accept that responsibility, but even at the beginning, it's clear that he's only just able to manage things like helping Anne in and out of her wheelchair. If she gets any sicker, or if his own health gets any worse as he ages, they won't be able to manage.

As we get ever closer to the inevitable, Georges and Anne find their relationship pushed to its limits. How far will we go -- how far can we go -- for those we love? And as we explore the depths of their love, and the ways in which it is shaped by patience and frustration, by anger and joy, by courage and cowardice, we realize that for all of its focus on death, the movie is deservedly called Amour and not Mort.

The two central performances are superb. Riva's Oscar nomination is entirely deserved, and she does an extraordinary job of capturing not only Anne's physical and mental deterioration, but the horrible anguish of watching herself go through this. Trintignant is every bit her equal, and is particularly compelling in scenes with their daughter (a lovely supporting performance from Isabelle Huppert), explaining with a lack of sentiment that borders on cruelty that there is nothing she can do to help.

Haneke occasionally gives in to his penchant for heavy-handed symbolism -- there's a pigeon that keeps flying into the apartment through an open window -- but there's less of that here than is usual for him. The claustrophobia of the single setting serves the movie well, reinforcing the themes of confinement and escape. Amour is, as always with Haneke, a clear-eyed and somewhat chilly telling of a story; what seems new (at least in my experience with Haneke) is the kindness with which he views these people.

Amour is both completely unsentimental and deeply compassionate, and it should not be missed.

MUSIC: LA Philharmonic, January 20

Pablo Heras-Casado, conductor
Midori, violin

The program:

• Kodály: Háry János Suite
• Eötvös: DoReMi, Violin Concerto #2
• Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra

An all-Hungarian program today, made up of connected composers. Kodály and Bartók shared a music teacher as young men (though they did not meet until later in life), and Eötvös studied composition with Kodály.

I had never heard any of Eötvös's music before today, and his violin concerto does not leave me wanting to hear more. He uses a relatively small orchestra, though there are three percussionists, each with his own array of gongs, chimes, and cymbals; as well as harp and celeste. The music is harsh and unpleasantly dissonant (and yes, dissonance can be pleasant), and made up of tiny chunks which hop around the orchestra, seemingly at random, with no instrument or tune ever allowed to take hold for more than a few seconds.

And above it all, there's poor Midori, frantically sawing away like a woman in the throes of the angriest muscle spasms in history. The concerto is nearly devoid of melody or lyricism, and on those few occasions when the violin is given something that threatens to turn into a tune, every note of it is set against clashing pitches and timbres from the orchestra, and some outburst (most frequently from the percussion) stops it before it really gets started.

The performance was certainly passionate and committed, and I will give everyone the benefit of the doubt and assume it was also skillful. But even if there had been wrong pitches and missed entrances all the way through, in all that frenzied chaos, who would possibly know?

The rest of the program was far more successful. The Bartók Concerto for Orchestra isn't a piece I particularly love, but this was a fine performance; the wind duos and the brass chorale in the Guioco delle copie movement were highlights, as was the horn fanfare that opens the Finale.

Best of all, though, was  Kodály's Háry János Suite, a delightful assortment of moments from the comic opera. The brass was superb throughout, displaying remarkble light agility in the "Viennese Musical Clock," comic martial bombast in "The Battle and Defeat of Napoleon," and just the right level of buffoonery in the pomp of the "Entrance of the Emperor and His Court." There was also fine solo work, notably in the "Song" movement, which began with a gorgeous passage for viola, and ended with a clarinet solo that faded so beautifully into silence that I'm still not sure whether I actually heard the last note or only imagined it.

BOOKS: The Fault in Our Stars, John Green (2012)

The Fault in Our Stars is one of the hot YA novels of the moment. It's a teen rom-com that attempts to merge the manic energy of screwball comedy with a tragic story (both principals have cancer).

The first problem with doing that hyperactive banter in print, as opposed to in film or TV, is that most of can hear a lot faster than we can read, so when reading, the words don't crackle with the speed and energy they need. Hearing instead of reading also doesn't allow us any time to stop and think about how wildly unrealistic this manner of speech is.

The second problem is that it's simply not easy. I would argue that Amy Sherman-Palladino, the creator of Gilmore Girls, writes that type of dialogue as well as anyone, and even when Gilmore was at its best, there were moments when I wanted to tie Lorelei to a chair and tell her to just. stop. talking. And Green is not in Sherman-Palladino's class as a writer of bouncy and madcap, so there were lots of similar moments in this book.

Our protagonist is 16-year-old Hazel, whose cancer is being held at bay for the moment, but which is incurable; she knows that it will kill her, and that she doesn't have many years left. She meets Augustus at Support Group one evening, and they fall madly in love.

And how could they not? Augustus has been written to be Hazel's perfect guy -- handsome, irreverent, just as quick with a zippy one-liner as she is. He's so obviously The Guy For Hazel that even the book's jacket copy describes him as "a gorgeous plot twist."

Hazel and Augustus spend a few happy weeks together before tragedy strikes, as we knew it would, but at least they have time to toss off a few more bon mots, make amusing philosophical comments about the nature of oblivion, quote poetry back and forth, and just charm the hell out of each other. Constantly. Every single minute of every single day.

(Oh, and they find time to pop off to Amsterdam to visit the reclusive author of Hazel's favorite novel. Y'know, as one does when one is slowly dying of cancer and must lug an oxygen tank everywhere one goes.)

And there's the biggest peril of writing this type of character: They don't exist in real life. No one is this charming and witty and personable and quirky and chipper all the time; even when they get sick, Hazel and Augustus are adorably sick.

(A digression: Hazel and Augustus? Seriously? Have any Indianapolis parents in the last 80 years or so actually named their children Hazel and Augustus? As if the personalities weren't big enough quirk-fests, they have to be named Hazel and Augustus. Oy.)

Some of the jokes and epic monologues are amusing enough that they kept me going to the end of the book, but oh my god, how I hated both of these characters before it was over. You know the author's doing something wrong when you find yourself rooting for the cancer.

BOOKS: The DVD Novel, Greg Metcalf (2012)

Metcalf argues that the increasingly popularity of watching television by the season, rather than by the episode, is changing the very nature of what we want from television. (And it's a circular process in which the changing nature of television encourages and rewards such binge viewing.)

Once upon a time, TV was an episodic medium, in which characters and their circumstances were not allowed to change; now, a season of a series (or a series as a whole) is viewed as a complete work which is primarily devoted not to telling a separate story each week, but a single overarching story that may last for several years. There may be contained stories in each episode to keep the casual viewer involved, but the show is meant to absorbed as a whole; it is a "DVD novel," as opposed to a series of short stories.

There are obvious elements to that change -- series that have ending dates planned in advance, and stories that come to a firm ending -- but Metcalf also sees this change in some less obvious ways -- the rise of the unsympathetic lead, the increased blending of genres, the shorter seasons that dominate cable, a visual style and vocabulary borrowed from comics and graphic literature.

These aren't all new changes, or at least not as new as we might think. Metcalf goes as far back as The Fugitive for the roots of the series-long arc in American television (will Richard Kimble ever find that one-armed man?). And he traces much of the change to the influence of British television, in which seasons have usually been shorter -- as few as 6 or 7 episodes -- and self-contained programs of only a few hours have always been part of the TV landscape. (We went through a brief craze for those in the US; we called them "miniseries.")

And at the root of all of this, Metcalf places Dennis Potter's 7-hour series The Singing Detective, which featured a distinctively unpleasant protagonist, and which mixed forms like mad -- reality with hallucination, noir with musical numbers, realism with fantasy; it was a formative influence on Steven Bochco, whose Hill Street Blues and L.A. Law began the slow serialization of American television.

Metcalf's writing isn't overly scholarly, and for the most part, his arguments are clear and easy to follow. The biggest exception, for me, is in his chapters on comedy, where he argues that we've shifted away from situation comedy to "attitudinal comedy;" it was never quite clear to me what distinction he was trying to draw.

And there are a handful of annoying factual errors that any good fact checker should have caught. The L.A. Law character is named Michael Kuzak, not Kusack; All in the Family began in 1971, not 1968. Such mistakes always make a bit nervous about how many other errors are lurking that I'm not informed enough to catch.

Still, those details aren't at the heart of Metcalf's premise, which is fascinating, and which he presents in convincing fashion.