Movie and Television Reviews

From the first episode to now, Cane has grown on me until I can now say that it's my favorite show- I even have Cane withdrawals during the rest of the week. Jimmy Smits is a wonderful actor who wears the leading man role as well as Sean Connery bears a tuxedo and the sane plot is very serviceable indeed (It's interesting how good intentions lead Alex Vega down the road of organized crime, murder, and other unsavoriness).

And, despite being shown at 10:00 p.m., the show is really quite decent. Cane has a few Smits shower scenes, some tame examples of wedded and non-marital bliss, and very few anti-convention flourishes. What would those be? In action movies, they're nutty, anti-American conspiratorialnesses like in Bourne Supremacy. In soap operas, its limitless love and desire.

A show with an "everything goes" attitude breaks down the door instead of just leaning against it and that tension, in all art, inspires genius- which is why people will read Victorian novels far into the future. When a show lacks boundaries and its characters don't have to worry about societal disapproval (traditional people are bigots), the delightful friction that comes from taking society seriously smooths or, if the individual automatically wins, the work becomes a flaccid "follow your heart" mushfest. In Cane, the family has a goal- to be powerful and happy- and characters feel a responsibility to assist in that goal- it's a "duty" message. Maybe because liberals still allow minorities to be traditional, the Duque family, quaintly, can still be scandalized by the teen daughter's Paris Hilton-like behavior. The same theory applies to other types of shows. Remember daytime shows from the seventies, before the infantilist upchuckers who cheated on their little brothers? Remember Phil Donahue? Weren't they a little more substantive?

I stopped watching Nip Tuck because their attempts to shock became shockingly boring. Where do you go from cradle-snatching transsexuals, penisless serial murderers, and anti-plastic surgery Nazis? I lost interest in Desperate Housewives after Andrew's homosexuality- I don't know, it just seemed old-hat. Imagine what would have happened to Lost if one or several people on the island were gay. The whole dynamic would have changed. Some ideas don't just add flavor, but change the whole dish.**

Anyways, gotta go. It's almost Cane-time.

**There aren't very many gay characters in sci-fi. Why would that be? Perhaps sci-fi worlds use in a kind of societal shorthand and don't have time for such things.

Lost - The Complete Third Season

Nip/Tuck - The Complete Fourth Season