California: An East Coaster’s Perspective

Part I: Where’s Higgs? Goes to California
(an introduction of sorts)


Until the end of August, I had never before set foot on California soil.

People generally seem pretty shocked when I tell them this. I’m a fairly well-traveled individual, and I suppose, given both my proclivities toward things of a fictional nature as well as the fact that I (ostensibly) work in “showbiz,” I seem like the kind of person who would have been to California least once by this point in her life. However, since I don’t work in film and since most of my professional and personal base has hitherto been located on the east coast, I’ve never had a reason strong enough to warrant a trip out west.

This all changed this summer, during which my parents, formerly lifelong east coasters, moved from Boston to the Greater Los Angeles Area. More specifically, they moved to Pasadena.

Now, I realize that I am a fully-grown adult. I also realize that most fully-grown adults don’t willingly use vacation time to visit their parents. However, I’ve noted before that my family and I get along ridiculously well, and as a result, I have no problem using vacation time to visit the folks. The pros tend to outweigh the cons: besides the spending-time-with-the-family thing (which, if you’ve got my family, is certainly not a con), I get to escape my Spartan existence in favor of hanging out in a comfy house, I get to cuddle with the adorable cuteness that is my dog, my mum feeds me, and I get a change of scenery. Having parents now located in California means that every time I go “home” to visit them, I also get the added plus of taking an ACTUAL VACATION. New places to explore! Warm weather during the winter! The Pasadena Playhouse!

Interestingly, though, now, when I tell people that my parents moved out here, the question they most frequently ask is “Oh my god! Are you okay with that?”, to which I can really only respond, “Of course, why wouldn’t I be?”

I suppose the shock and surprise most people tend to display is a reaction not only to the facts that a) my parents moved out of my childhood home, and b) they up and moved literally to the other side of the country, but more importantly, the fact that c) they moved to a place to which I had never, in my entire life, been. My concept of California-- specifically of Southern CA-- has hitherto been based primarily on pop culture. I suppose the most predominant source of Californiana that factors into my understanding of the state is the Joss Whedon version of the place: that is, the world in which Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel are set (we have, in fact, adequately established my status as a nerd by this point, yes?). Indeed, Pasadena itself is much as I imagine Sunnydale might be, albeit minus the Pacific coast and the Hellmouth. The rest of my California “knowledge” is culled from the usual sources: Academically, a basis in American history and film history, combined with a love of stories (both true and otherwise) and an overactive imagination give me a pretty solid understanding of what the Hollywood Golden Age was and was not; and more recently, television shows and films set in and around LA (24, Heroes, yadda yadda yadda) and a decent working understanding of the film industry provide a slightly updated vision of the place. I can only assume that when people ask me if I’m “okay” with the move (bearing in mind that I’ve been based primarily in New York since I was 18), what they really mean is, how are you dealing with having to make a concept into a reality?

I am currently in the middle of my third trip to California. The first was for about a week at the end of August/beginning of September; the second was over Thanksgiving (though, to be honest, I’m not sure how much that one counts, given that I was only in town for three days and that my grandmother was here at the time as well, severely restricting all of our movements in and around town); and I’m just now nearing the end of a lengthy two-week stay, for much of which we had a pleasantly full house (Mum, Dad, my brother, his wife, a close family friend, and myself). Accordingly, I’ve had a pretty good amount of time by now to begin getting the lay of the land and whatnot, and since I love traveling and exploring new places, it’s been fun. Here’s the weird thing: while I feel perfectly at home out here-- that is, walking into my parents’ place does, in fact, feel like stepping into a place to call home-- and while Pasadena seems very much to be agreeing with my folks, I’m still coming at it all from a northeasterner’s perspective. I’m learning how things work round here, but though I can be quite the chameleon when needed, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to pass as a native Californian. I think the northeast is too deeply ingrained in me. I’m not going to lie: I laugh when I see Californians breaking out the Uggs in 68-degree weather. Because, to someone used to vicious, snowy, negative-degree winters, it’s FUNNY.

It’s true that traveling to a place of preconceived notions is always a bit of a mind-trip. This usually happens for one of two reasons: either the place looks NOTHING like you thought it would, or it looks EXACTLY like you thought it would. Walking around Pasadena the other day, I had one of those eye-opening moments wherein something you’ve always intellectually understood finally hits you as an actuality. I think it had something to do with the landscape itself: as you walk down wide, open boulevards lined with palm trees, seeing honest-to-goodness mountains rising up in the distance really does a number on you. Not unpleasantly, though, mind you; it was actually rather heart-stopping. I mean, when you suddenly see something that seems like it should be a picture you’re looking at, wherein you yourself are one step removed from it, except that it’s fantastically, wonderfully REAL… well, that’s really something else. When all you’ve known your entire life are narrow, northern streets, or avenues that carve valleys between mountainous buildings so high they block out the sun, these sunshine-drenched expanses of road surrounded by open space and actual mountains seem like another world.

That said, though, none of this is a bad thing, per se. At this stage in the game, it’s mostly just sort of intriguing. And for the next year and a half, at least, I’ll probably have a pretty decent amount of time to head west every so often and keep getting widening the base—heading further north, perhaps, to San Francisco; out to the coast; down to San Diego for a spell, maybe; and so on and so forth. So much time, so little to do!...

…Wait. Strike that. Reverse it!

***

Up next on California: An East Coaster’s Perspective:
Part II: Where’s Higgs? Goes to Hollywood!

Did I mention that it also travels in time?

As every Doctor Who fan undoubtedly knows by now, Matt Smith has been cast as the 11th Doctor and will be taking over the iconic role from David Tennant, who will leave the show at the end of 2009. At 26, Smith is the youngest actor to have ever been cast as the Doctor (up til now, 5th Doctor Peter Davison carried that title, having been cast at the age of 29); he has previously been seen on television (alongside former Who companion Billie Piper) as Jim Taylor in the BBC adaptations of Philip Pullman’s Sally Lockhart novels, The Ruby in the Smoke and The Shadow in the North, as well as in numerous roles on the British stage, including Lockwood in the second cast of Alan Bennett’s The History Boys.

I know I’m not the only one to be a bit baffled by the casting choice. Personally, I’ve been pulling for Paterson Joseph, whom I’ve thought would be a fantastic Doctor ever since seeing him as the Marquis de Carabas in the BBC miniseries of Neil Gaiman’s Neverwhere-- a mini which is, admittedly, mediocre (Gaiman’s subsequent novel is FAR superior), though Joseph himself is absolutely wonderful-- but even if Joseph was not to be, quite frankly, Smith came out of the very large and proverbial left field. Don’t get me wrong—I’ve seen The Ruby in the Smoke, in which I rather liked him, and I’m sure he did some great work in The History Boys, which I had the good fortune to see featuring the original cast-- but there’s a potentially huge problem inherent in this piece of casting. Simply put: he’s young. Very, very young. Besides the obvious question of whether or not he’s got the worldly experience to play a 900-year-old Time Lord, this problem also comes with a couple of sub-problems attached: first, he’s sort of got that tall, dashing, cheeky thing going on, which I fear will make him too much like Tennant to provide enough differentiation between Doctors 10 and 11; and second, it puts him dangerously close to heartthrob territory. This may be just me (well, not just me, but me representing a good portion of Who fans), but concerning the relationship between the Doctor and his companions, I take a rather strong no-romance-in-the-TARDIS stance. This is one of the reasons I don’t think Martha worked very well as a companion: honestly, I was never able to buy that a mere crush would give her the fortitude to do what she had to do while traveling with the Doctor (that, and the fact that she screamed so damn much). If we’ve got a sweet-young-thing Doctor and they pair him with another sweet-young-thing companion, we’ve got what might very well be a recipe for disaster.

That said, Steven Moffat, who has previously been announced as lead writer Russell T. Davies’ successor for the end of series four onward, has been my favorite writer on the new series, and given his consistently fantastic writing (see exhibits A through F: “The Empty Child”, “The Doctor Dances”, “The Girl in the Fireplace”, “Blink”, “Silence in the Library”, and “Forest of the Dead”), I have faith in his judgment. If he thought Smith was the man for the job, and if he, his team, and Smith himself can come up with a fantastically new and interesting take on the Doctor, then I’ll be happy. Furthermore, I think a lot of the success of a Doctor this young is going to depend on who he’s paired with in terms of companions. As mentioned previously, I think a sweet-young-thing companion with a Doctor this young would be a mistake; however, Moffat is a smart man and a brilliant writer, so I’m hoping that he’ll realize this. Donna (oh, Donna! How I wish she’d lasted more than one series!) began to break the sweet-young-thing mold, and having an older companion (at 40, actress Catherine Tate clocks in at three years older than Tennant) was not only refreshing, but also worked wonderfully for Tennant’s dashing, everyone-wants-to-snog-him Doctor, insofar as that she had absolutely no interest in carrying out any sort of romance with him. She could be as stubborn as he could be, she was daring, she challenged him, and they played extraordinarily well off of each other. That said, now that we’ve got an outwardly 26-year-old Doctor, how interesting would it be to have someone old enough to be his Earth age equivalent mum or dad-- or even grandparent-- traveling around with him? Or, conversely, someone closer to the age of a child? Food for thought.

In the meantime, we’ll just have to wait and see what they come up with; Smith’s Doctor won’t debut until 2010. I remain skeptical, but they’ve got six months to develop the character before they go into production, so we’ve got a good long journey in front of us. Time, as always, will tell.

Also, I do have to admit, I’m a wee bit tickled at the thought of a man named Smith being cast as a man who regularly uses the name Smith as an alias. What can I say; I’m easily amused.

For a fairly in-depth interview with Matt Smith, try this extended interview from yesterday’s Doctor Who Confidential.

***

Also, yes, I realize I’m horribly, HORRIBLY backlogged on writing. I shall attempt to remedy this in the future, though some writings may seem dreadfully out of date. In the meantime, though, happy 2009!

What did you expect, a turkey card?

Gobble, gobble!

Indecision 2008

I saw Maggie Gyllenhaal and Peter Sarsgaard (complete with Trigorin beard) at my polling station today.

But more importantly, I voted. Which you should be doing, too. So go! Vote! NOW!

***

UPDATE: 11:36pm eastern

HISTORY IS MADE.

Film: BOTCHED

It’s been a while since I’ve written about anything morbid or macabre, so perhaps it’s time to get back to form. Accordingly: I give you BOTCHED. Directed by newcomer Kit Ryan and written by Derek Boyle and Eamon and Raymond Friel, Botched is a horror-comedy that took the prize of Best Feature Film at the 2007 New York City Horror Film Festival-- and you know what? It’s a prize well-deserved. I can safely say that this was one of the most entertaining and unique horror films I’ve seen in a long, long time.

The premise is this: After emerging as the only survivor from a diamond heist gone terribly wrong, professional thief Ritchie Donovan (B-movie standby Stephen Dorff) is forced to take the blame for the disaster. As penance, his shady employer sends him to Russia to steal a priceless antique cross locked in a safe on the penthouse floor of a Moscow skyscraper. Ritchie soon finds himself trapped on the 13th floor of the building with a lift full of strangers, and when people start disappearing and leaving behind a series of rather messy pools of blood, Ritchie realizes he may be in over his head. Botched boasts a combination of decent writing, stylish direction, and a supporting cast including Jaime Murray (recently commented on here), Hugh O’Connor, Geoff Bell, and Jamie Foreman, the result of which is something slightly bizarre, slightly hilarious, significantly bloody, and oddly fascinating.

To quote Truman Capote as played by Toby Jones in Infamous: “When you're tiny, you have to be tough. This world isn't kind to little things.” Accordingly, there are a number of “tough” skills that I take a certain amount of pride in having. For example, I can hold my liquor; I can do a couple of pretty badass bar tricks; I’m good with knots; and I tend not to yell at my television while watching horror flicks. This not-yelling-at-the-television thing is the result of having seen far too many of the aforementioned flicks: that is, when you’ve seen as many as I have, there aren’t too many conventions left which you haven’t encountered, and consequently, there is very little most horror films can do to surprise me anymore. I know pretty much every trick in the book, and I can usually see it coming a mile away. Sometimes this foresight can be useful-- when handled correctly, it ups the suspense-- but more often than not, it hinders the film, rather than helps it. Let’s face it: there is nothing more boring than a predictable horror film.

With this in mind, then, let it be said that Botched had me yelling at my television.

Furthermore, it wasn’t the sort of yelling one typically does during, say, a slasher flick (“NO, Jamie Lee Curtis!!! What are you doing??? Don’t run upstairs! RUN OUT THE FRONT DOOR!!!”). This sort of yelling usually stems from the predictability of characters doing stupid things. With Botched, however, it was different. It was more along the lines of the “I’m sorry-- WHAT?!” sort of yelling that tends to accompany occurrences of a surprising or mind-boggling nature. And, really: not to boast or anything, but if you can surprise ME with a horror film, you know you’re doing your job.

A few notes on horror-comedy: The horror-comedy is a sort of anomalous genre that has been around for a considerable amount of time (intentionally or not; see Plan 9 From Outer Space), but which has gained prominence in recent years, most likely due to the success of 2004’s Shaun of the Dead. Although it may seem something of an oxymoron-- combining horror with comedy? What madness!-- upon further consideration, the genre makes more sense than you might at first think. Consider: what do people do in high-pressure situations? They do the unpredictable. Frequently, this results in reactions such as breaking out into hysterical laughter. Bearing this in mind, then, one of the principle rules of drama thus follows: the more serious a situation is, the more need there is for laughter. This is what makes black comedy so effective. It’s also what makes horror-comedy work. Never underestimate the power of the ridiculous.

So how does Botched fit into all this? Well, there’s a lot about Botched that’s utterly ridiculous: chance occurrences, dumb luck, and seemingly random characters, genre conventions, and plot devices abound. Note, however, that I say “seemingly.” The beauty of it is that I didn’t QUESTION the ridiculousness. The world of the film was set up in such a way that it just sort of made sense to have Eomer on crack running around the corridors of the 13th floor of a building in Moscow. As long as a situation is believable within the world in which it exists, anything goes, ridiculousness included. Here, especially, we are most emphatically NOT in a naturalistic setting, so I never needed to judge anything based on the rules of a naturalistic (read: our everyday) world. Botched had its own set of rules, and it abided by them; so, everything still made sense, even if in our own world, it all would have exploded in a puff of logic.

I suppose this, then, might ultimately be why we have become such a media-saturated culture: we love to lose ourselves in worlds that are not our own. In the grand scheme of escapism, it’s what fiction has always been there for: exploring and venturing forth. The physical world may be pretty much known these days; but the unknown, however, still exists in fiction. It continues to evolve and change, and every so often, it still manages to be unpredictable. It keeps us guessing, which in turn keeps us thinking.

And, I mean, hey, if a low-budget horror film can get us thinking this much, it can’t possibly be a bad thing, can it?

friends, Friends, and windows.

Composer and musician Jason Robert Brown has maxed out his Facebook account.

I'm mostly sharing this just because I'm tickled about the fact that he has a Facebook account in the first place; however, he's also got some interesting and rather well-put things to say about the phenomenon of social networking and its effect on time and personal history. Consequently, I figured it was worth passing on.

And, on a not-unrelated note, I also present to you my dear friend and roguish nemesis (before you ask: yes, it is possible to be at once both friend and nemesis) The Libertine's thoughts on the topic of "Defriendestration."

Happy reading!