Skins 4x01 - Thomas

During the previous three years, while I worked at a TV production company, I used to take my lunch break and watch Skins . Back then, it was always LUNCH BREAK ('cause it was the most exciting part of my day) and it was then that I figured out the depth into which the show goes.

On the surface, it's a television series about a group of rambunctious Bristol teenagers in their two final years of school. Each episode brings one of the characters to the forefront, draping the story on them. The way the show is shot, the direction, the pace, the soundtrack, all shift to reflect the focal character. The cast changes every two years giving the sense of a show repeating a Pilot Season/Sophomore Season pattern, keeping it fresh.



Skins has gotten a lot of flak in the press about being sensationalistic and glamorizing a drugs & sex lifestyle for the youth of today's Britain. To the same points of contention one could argue that the show simply reflects the way the teenagers of now act. From my own experiences in the U.K. I find myself siding with the latter view.

My own personal theory about the show is that each episode works more like a short film in an anthology rather than an installment of a TV-serial. That does make for an inconsistent tone but what keeps me watching -and what I hope will get more people to watch and keep the show on air- is that no matter how each episode may rate in one's subjective view there's always something truly beautiful in each of them that makes the whole hour worthwhile.



The Series 4 premiere starts with a dialogue-less four minute sequence. In those four minutes Skins manages to catch up with all of the characters and set up the connecting thread that's gonna push this year's stories forward. Meanwhile, it's four of the most wonderfully photographed minutes of television I have ever seen.

I could go on for paragraphs and paragraphs but really all I need to say is this: Four minutes of no dialogue, in this day and age where TV-stories suffocate, squeezed in between commercials. Aren't you even the least bit curious to see this show that breathes?

Line of the night:
Obi-Wan Kenobi is like God but with better weapons.

I C U, BITCA! LOL (Beardblog #20)

Have you seen a bearded cat before?

Rowr.

Was working 'til 3:05 a.m. so I'm gonna do a bit of cheating now. Am stealing a lame little Thoughts on Avatar in under 400 words I did for class, so I can stick on Idol, fall asleep and keep on working tomorrow. You will forgive me. Yes?

The world-building prowess displayed by James Cameron in Avatar (2009) is of epic proportions. However, the plot aspect of the same film wasn't exactly worth the twelve-year wait. Visually, Avatar is a breakthrough in cinema. Most of the earlier sequences showcase that strength.

Consider Jake Sully's arrival at the army base. As he disembarks in his wheelchair, Avatars going about their business, soldiers moving in familiar formations, seen so many times on film, the audience is given a perfect non-verbal understanding of the dynamics of the place. Thus, Cameron uses his new technology to provide the necessary exposition in a seamless, graceful way.

Likewise, the detail in which the nature of Pandora is presented is powerful in how much it imparts, non-verbally. Sully gradually comes in closer contact with the new world. Starting with the glow-in-the-dark plants, he moves onto larger and more fearsome creatures, culminating in meeting love interest, Neytiri. It is a clear visual course Sully is on, that can be followed by the viewer viscerally. But when words come into the picture...

The naming conventions of Avatar are off-puttingly on the nose. Naming the planet after the mythological Pandora (of Pandora's Box fame) creates a crack in the fourth wall that goes against the work put in creating the splendor of Pandora, the planet. Meanwhile, calling an unobtainable power-source “unobtainium” -while relatively scientifically accurate- presents a certain lack of artfulness. As if there were place-holder words in the script that Cameron never substituted with something better.

For instance, the Na'vi braids, with which they connect to nature, are equated in dialogue to human genitalia (“Don't play with that, you'll go blind”). That leads to some very unfortunate and uncomfortable rape overtones in the scenes where Sully has to “break” an Ikran. Meanwhile, the white-man-learns-from-savages-then-saves-them paradigm leaned too heavily on the white man's supposed greatness. In general, the write-by-numbers crassness of the plot keeps fighting the beauty of the visual storytelling.

The argument is that Avatar tells a basic story to focus on the astounding new way this story can be illustrated. It would be unfair to say Avatar is just Pocahontas (1995) meets Ferngully (1992) with Smurf-Thundercats on steroids. But it does appear Cameron was so enamored with the new technology, he focused on the visual wonderment to such an extent that he wasn't too careful with the weight of his words.

Beard Status:
Self-cleaning (if only).

Beardblog #19

Mmmngggggggggggggggh. MMMMMMMMMMNHGH!



OhmyvariousgodsandmonsterswhatthehellIdiditagaintodaynoworknoworkatall.

Mmmmmmmngh!

At least Alex came by and we workd on our collaborative script, 'cause otherwise...

INT. GIO'S HEAD OFFICE - NIGHT

GIO (20s, hairy, anxious) lies on a psychiarist's couch.

DR. BEARD (46-days-old, doctor, beard) observes.

DR. BEARD
Why did you do no work today?

GIO
I don't know. It was raining.
I couldn't get out of bed...

DR. BEARD
Isn't it true it didn't start
raining until after you woke up?

Gio sits up, alarmed.

GIO
How do you know that?

DR. BEARD
I live on your face, Gio.

GIO
Oh.

Gio reclines again.

DR. BEARD
Well?

GIO
...I don't know, man. Pirates?

DR. BEARD
There are no pirates in L.A., Gio.

GIO
The French.

DR. BEARD
You'd think so, but no.

GIO
Uh...

DR. BEARD
Say it.

GIO
I am unspeakably lazy and
simultaneously afraid of what I would do
if I didn't have this work to not be doing?

DR. BEARD
And how does that make you feel?

Song Stuck:
Air - How Doe It Make You Feel
Lazlo Bane - No Superman
Metric - Help, I'm Alive


Beard Status:
Jungian.

Beardblog #18

When I wake up, The Jungle wakes with me. Which is to say: My Beard.



I managed to do 9 a.m. today. You're impressed, I know. Well, if you know me -if you got the jungle reference- you are probably impressed... And if you don't know me, trust me you would be. Because if you do know me, you know that I am much like a possum. Mostly nocturnal and with a constantly mean face. Also -by now a given- hairy.

If you know me, then you know that now I'd love nothing more than to go on an extended and exponentially thinning metaphor of the myriad more ways in which a possum and myself are alike. Topically, I could mention how I often play dead when dealing with danger, to degrees of varying success. The unlikely predator in this case being Productivity.

We call her Proddy

But since I've got to finish this here little post and have 4 e-mails and 5 messages to which I have for a while now been intending to reply and need to get up tomorrow similarly early to today and make sure that I write aaaaaall day with breaks only to eat and piss and poop (seriously, not even time for masturbation breaks tomorrow!) I should be heading off.

Beardny Spears kisses your cheeks and leaves you with some music as I go to sleep.

Songs Stuck:
Dangerous Muse - I Want It All
Bomb the Bass - Boy Girl
Ellie Goulding - Starry Eyed


Beard Status:
Tropical rainforest-y.

Beardblog #17

Hey, Beardram Cooper! Ask me how drunk I was last night.

How drunk were you?

I was so drunk I took the red pill.

I was so drunk I went to see the Wizard.

I was so drunk I found Barry Manilow attractive.

I was so drunk I locked my landlady outside and sprayed her with a hose.

I was so drunk I went to The Fabulous Show (in my mind)

I was so drunk I watched the Wicker Man (Cage version).

I was so drunk I listened to Ke$sha ($he wa$ $till $hit).

I was so drunk I overused parentheses.

I was so drunk I applied to be Robin Williams' back-waxer.

I was so drunk I travelled back in time to when that joke was relevant.

I was so drunk I went to a sports bar.

I was so drunk I dressed up as a tampon and sang Bad Romance.

I was so drunk I bought a robot that turns into a truck.

I was so drunk I bought Shia LeBoeuf to be the robot's friend.

I was so drunk I fell for a stalker with very shiny skin.

I was so drunk I campaigned for Palin 2012.

I was so drunk I tried to put make two cats have sex by touching their tails together.

I was so drunk I burnt my throat scarfin' down Korean BBQ at 2 in the morning.

I was so drunk I sided with Leno.

I was so drunk I let this girl nick my broken glasses, right off my face.



I wasn't drunk enough to punch her.

Songs Stuck:
The Killers - Sweet Talk
Sia - Drink to Get Drunk
Lady Gaga - Bad Romance


Come on. Did you really think we'd get through this post without it?

Beard Status:
Crunk.

Beardblog #16

21/01/2010 - 7:36:00 a.m.
Alas, poor Beardick! The joy he felt five hours hence, knows now to have been caffeine.



I lie here, staring at the screen a 7:49 in the morning (that's how long it took to write that one first sentence, by the way). Kimber's just gone and SPOILER jumped off a boat on Nip/Tuck, to her presumed death /SPOILER. Which means I'm at the end of my Wednesday TV cycle -'cause Nip/Tuck goes last- because, during Nip/Tuck, I don't care if I fall asleep. But I haven't.

It was probably the tea. Jasmine green boba tea with that chicken katsu curry. IdolFamilyCougarBetty didn't do the trick. Maybe the episodes were too good this week. Some in bad ways (Idol), some good (the rest). And have you been watching Ugly Betty this season?

If there were ever a show for which the expression "firing on all cylinders" was designed it is this one, right now. Strong storylines, effective emotionally-based twists. Consistently character-driven but constantly surprising and still so genuine. Finally using all its cast to their full potential! Fun. Funny. Simply... beautiful.

Yes. I went there.

But did I-- Did I have a point? Somewhere? What was happening? It's 8:03. Still in the morning. Oh, yeah. Fucking tea. Fuck you, tea! I should have realised having not had caffeine in something close to a year would lead to this. I should've figured out jasmine green boba tea would act like crack cocaine.

But nooooooooooo. Seems I've gotten too used to taurine -too many tequila red bulls- and now caffeine makes me crahaaaayzee. So, I lay here. My butt's long fallen asleep, but I'm awake. I finger my beard and fantasize about being clean-shaven again and Beardy Zane one day reaching my belly button, alternatively. And, at this very moment, I w--



Ah!

A yawn.

OH MAH GOAD A YAWN.

I yawned! I finally yawned.

*sniff* Finally...

It's a new yawn, it's a new day, it's a ne--

Song Stuck
Eels - I Need Some Sleep


Beard Status:
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Beardblog #15

The force is strong with this Beard.



I was very productive today. Did my work on time, fed myself on time, got to school on time. I even had time to drop in Chuck 3x04: 'Chuck Versus Operation Awesome'! How important the everyday minutiae can become when you manage to get them right... 'Cause, if you don't, it might bum you out like but-- Eh. Whatchoogondo?

But if you get'em little notes right, you get a melody, man! A tune builds with every small victory over time and food and transportation. It builds and builds with each new minuscule accomplishment until you get a symphony entire. Then you can sing yourself to sleep, content in your huge success with little details.

If I seem high right now, don't worry. It's on the smell of success, chicken katsu curry and the ever-growing beauty of Beardnon Routh.

Song Stuck:
Marina and the Diamons - Mowgli's Road


Beard Status:
Powerful.