Guilty Pleasure: Surface (Spoiler Warning)

When the fall season began, there were so many Lost-inspired or alien-themed shows that I made bets, solely based on the commercials, which show would be the most craptacular and derivative. Surface was at the top of my list as the first show to be cancelled, but I am embarrassed to admit that I am glad that I was wrong.

On the surface (I'm sorry, but I couldn't resist), it is a show about sea creatures possibly from another world or from the oceanic depths. These sea creatures may endanger the entire planet by devouring the ocean's food supply and then humanity. The story focuses on three people: Laura, a hot oceanographer single mom, Rich, a Southern every man and survivor of one attack, and Miles, an awkward teenager.

Surface is not ground-breaking. When I read the reviews for this show, each review alluded to Close Encounters of the Third Kind, which I have not seen yet. (I will be the first to admit that it is a cardinal sin not to see this film, particularly considering Julia Phillips role in it. If you don't know who she is, I suggest that you immediately purchase and read You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again, a great tell-all memoir about life in Hollywood.)

Everyone is missing the point. Surface is derivative and comfortable so the viewer can get lulled into the story. The special effects are dated if the viewer focuses too long upon the images, but the emotion of the story energizes the plot by using the heart of the show, Miles. It is a sci-fi soap opera, and Surface gives the viewer a narrative spliced together with well-known and beloved plots to make one show.

The first few weeks were quite predictable. For example, Miles adopts one of the sea creatures, names him E.T., ahem Nim (short for Nimrod), then is forced to return his beloved pet to the ocean or else endanger Nim, who is being chased by local officials who simply think of Nim as a threat to others. I have to admit that I cried repeatedly when Miles parted from Nim, and Nim glows goodbye as he disappears into the waves. Miles lingers in the ocean and looks into the distance with a look of devastation.

If you have not lost a pet or loved an animal, then don't bother reading any further. I have had three cats and felt incredibly close to each of them. As my time with each of them ended for different reasons, I still torture myself with the thought that I was a bad owner and should have done anything to prevent that end.

Surface takes each of these normal feelings one step farther. Nim discovers that he has no home, and Miles takes unbelievable steps to protect Nim. While looking for him, Miles encounters Nim's more aggressive counterparts who attack and fatally wound him. Fortunately, Nim's goodbye was only a see ya later because soon the traumatized Nim is forced to return to Miles after being caught in a net and tortured by his captors. Before Miles can die in the hospital, Nim cures Miles and is killed. Miles wakes up devastated but changed. When Nim rises from the dead (of course) on the autopsy table in the aquarium, Miles discovers that he is changing and has a strange link to Nim. Um, E.T. never converted people.

Suddenly when I was least expecting it, the show has morphed into a pastiche of a number of werewolf stories and the X-Men. A recent episode ended with Miles solemnly leading a number of aggressive sea creatures, including Nim, into the ocean away from the violent encounter with townspeople in Wilmington, North Carolina. Before his intervention, the people were ready to kill the creatures, until they discovered that they couldn't and were attacked with Nim in the lead.

Tonight's episode brought the allusion to the X-Men to the forefront by Miles being threatened by the townspeople as a "mutant." It is no accident that the show takes place in the South because Miles and his family are nearly lynched before he is rescued by a tsunami warning. Deep Impact anyone? The tsunami may have been caused by the sea creatures disturbing the earth's plate tectonics. (I'm just grateful that the end of the world begins in a bucolic Southern sea coast town instead of a major metropolitan area such as New York City or Los Angeles.)

Meanwhile when the story gets too touchy-feely, the oceanographer and good ol' Southern boy are caught up in a conspiracy corporate cover-up, which may or may not involve the government. Apparently a corporation has created these creatures, along with a number of others, for reasons unknown and Rich practically exclaims that it is an abomination. Frankenstein? I'm sure that I missed a number of allusions.

Surface is a comfortable show that rewards the viewer weekly by offering archetypical plots in order to make us feel like the show is progressing. It is as exploitive as hell, but it sure is a fun ride. Any show that ends the world is a winner in my book.

Saga of the Passport Photo

I do not look good in photographs. I am not saying that I think that I don't look good in photographs. I know that I do not look good in most photographs. I can easily count the number of times when I looked good in photographs, including:

1. anywhere in Denmark in the summer of 1996 because the time zone, climate and people agreed with me;

2. during any activity related to my college roommate's wedding, even with a tiara on my head; and

3. in my first passport photo.

No one has a good driver's license or passport photo, but it was almost as if all the bad photos granted me one miracle, one good bureaucratic photo. It was taken at a local travel agency after an all-nighter, two exams and no caffeine. If I had not experienced this miracle, I probably would not have cared about how I looked in the next one.

Passports need to be renewed every ten years. After seeing four 2x2 photos of my face looking washed out, and my head shaped like a large hard-boiled egg, I decided to treat this photo shoot like a movie production and use all my film analysis skills to take a good photo. [When my mom first saw the photos, she said, "They look fine, sweetie." Then wordlessly I showed her my current passport photo. "Oh yeah, you can't use those. No."]

If I had a production crew solely devoted to making sure that my hair looked good, the lighting was ideal and the clothes and makeup were perfect, I would look good. Unfortunately, I can't afford a production crew. In my effort to pay off my student loans, I decided to forgo any beauty treatments outside of the home, but this passport photo was an investment. God willing, I will pay off my student loans by September 2009 and will do a lot of traveling within the next ten years. Every time I had to show my passport, I wanted it to be a celebration of being debt-free, not another moment to ponder whether or not I looked like a wan, sleepy hag.

On Friday night, I got a facial from Elizabeth Grady. On Saturday morning, I recreated the elements of the photo by wearing the same blazer and turtleneck that I did in the first photo. I applied my makeup the same way that I did ten years ago....I actually put some on.

Then I went to my new favorite hair stylist, Marjorie of Rosie's Hair Design at 1700 Mass Ave, Cambridge, (617) 876-1603. I usually don't like going to the hair salon for several reasons. First, Rosie's Hair Design is one of the few hair salons that actually does all types of hair, not just claiming that they do while nervously consulting with other hair stylists about what to do. Second, pain was always one disincentive from going to the salon. When Marjorie used the blow dryer, it did not feel like the flames of Mordor were styling my hair. Third, I did not have to make an appointment years in advance, miss a day of work, travel to a different town, then hope that I was seen before midnight, and that my hair style was completed before the next millennium.

After my hair was done, it was time to take the photo because the famous New England weather could have decided to flip the switch to rain at any moment. I decided not to go to the local travel agency because I noticed that they took photos from an unflattering angle, as if a child was taking your photo and angling the camera towards your chin (or what looked like chins in the photo).

Instead, I rushed to Hunt's Photo and Video because Hunt's offered two options: the traditional Polaroid camera or a digital camera. I went for the retro look of the Polaroid camera because I could not be bothered to read the Department of State's requirements for digital photos. The camera faced me head-on, and the photos were a success.

It cost me over $200.00 to take one good photo, but if a photo is really worth a thousand words, I don't want them to be expletives.

Notable Movies of 2005 (spoilers)

1. Walk The Line:
Having absolutely no interest in Johnny Cash, country music or the Carter family, I was shocked that I was as into this movie as the die-hard fans, such as the group of middle-aged guys in the Harvard Square movie theatre who danced in their seats to Joaquin Phoenix's rendition of the Man in Black's famous songs.

My two favorite scenes illustrate Cash and June Carter's hard road to salvation and love. In one scene, Cash finally recognizes that he can best honor his brother's goal of doing good, not by being a minister, by singing to prisoners and others in words that they can understand and brandishing his guitar like a gun.

"Record Company Executive: Your fans are gospel folk, Johnny. They're Christians, and they don't wanna hear you singing to a bunch of murderers and rapists, tryin' to cheer 'em up. Johnny Cash: Then they ain't Christians. " Cash's gospel was not about religion, but about the harsh and depressing reality of the world and tending to those who needed the most attention, not the ones who could pay for it. Black is the color of choice for mourners and ministers.

In another scene, at the end of a disastrous Thanksgiving family meal, Cash suffers another bout of self-loathing and poor judgment when he attempts to place his tractor in a better position and ends up reversing it into the lake. The Carter family fiercely tends to him and help him quit drugs by shooing away his drug dealer with several shotguns. March on Christian soldiers.

I was particularly impressed how June Carter's struggle was handled. Every awkward encounter with a fan emphasizes that June bore the brunt of her love for Cash and her knowledge that adultery is a sin. In addition, the sanctimonious patrons perfectly illustrate that it is as much of a sin to criticize without love.

2. Capote:
Can murder be defined as the violent act of taking of someone's life or effectively manipulating a person into giving the essence of what their life was? Whether recounting humorous stories at a cocktail party or intimate memories during a small town dinner, Capote soaks up attention then has an almost reptilian ability to redirect that attention to his prey in order to manipulate them in an effort to achieve his goal, i.e. to get more attention.

The only time that Capote simultaneously does and does not effectively read a room in a Kansas sheriff's office, decides to aggressively respond to the Kansas stares as if they were gaping at his fabulous fashion sense, not his overtly urbane homosexuality, and simply states "Bergdorf" while gesturing to his scarf.

Capote is another triumph for Hoffman. Kudos to Bennett Miller, the director, and Dan Futterman, writer and executive producer, who may be better known for his acting roles in Judging Amy, Will and Grace and Sex and the City, for bravely going behind the scenes for the first-time in a feature-length drama and creating an opportunity to make an intelligent and riveting movie.

3. A History of Violence:
Viggo Mortensen has bravely left his role as the hot door-opening hero, Aragorn, in Lord of the Rings, or the seductively anemic pretty boy in such films as A Walk On the Moon, 28 Days (the one with Sandra Bullock, not zombies...insert joke here, but be careful because I like Sandra) or A Perfect Murder. Mortensen can act! As Tom Stall, he effectively reveals the fractured persona of a small town diner owner who in the blink of an eye reveals the grimace of a cold-hearted killer, Joey.

I have always been a big fan of David Cronenberg, who effectively maintains the pacing of the movie. The underrated Maria Bello also does a magnificent job as the wife who closes ranks to defend her family before the outside world, but within the family realm, shows the dark side of their ever escalating role-playing.

Honorable Mention: Pride and Prejudice:
Aka Bronte's P&P. I still thought it was a satisfying portrayal, and by the last scene of the movie, I melted. I'm not made of stone.

Farewell to Threshold

CBS cancelled Threshold, and I am still mourning its loss. I was hooked to the story lines, which is not a surprise considering my affinity to shows such as The X-Files. Threshold is about the worst case scenario faced by humanity, a hostile invasion by aliens, and how a genius scientist, Dr. Molly Ann Cafferty, played by Carla Gugino, has a plan to stop the alien invasion and keep it a secret from the public in order to prevent widespread panic.

Poor Carla Gugino. Despite her acting chops, it appears that she may be cursed to star in smart TV shows doomed to be cancelled after a few episodes (see Karen Sisco). So when I heard that she was going to star in a CBS sci-fi show called Threshold, I knew that I would not have a long time to enjoy it.

Dr. Cafferty assembled a team of fellow geniuses to secretly stop the invasion. Dr. Cafferty's team includes a strong cast of supporting actors such as Peter Dinklage and Brent Spiner. I was extremely impressed that they showed enough respect for Peter Dinklage to not use the fact that he was a dwarf as a defining character trait. Brent Spiner is best known as the legendary Lt. Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation. If that information means nothing to you, then you may have just woken up from a coma and please let me be the first to say welcome back.

Threshold was more challenging and definitely moved faster than its more successful counterparts, Invasion and Surface, because every week, some assumption was blown out of the water. This invasion was deeply sinister and was more like demon possession and global warfare.

The aliens did not have to visit earth. The aliens invaded by transforming DNA through sound signals transmitted by one of their multi-dimensional objects, but once possessed, the human host found other ways to transmit the signal: music, food, computers, bodily fluids. The aliens had been planning and attempting to invade for many years before Dr. Cafferty's discovery.

No character was safe, and anything could happen anywhere in the world. In one episode, in order to prevent a global transmission of the signal through computers, an electromagnetic pulse was delivered in the Miami area. In another episode, Dr. Cafferty's bosses, a high-level congressman, Dr. Cafferty's mentor, and other top government officials were infected, and she was forced to make the decision to shoot their plane down.

The widespread cover-up was impressive, but the devastating impact on each member of the team was phenomenal, especially considering that a few were nearly infected by the signal. Each week, the team faced the disturbing fact that they have more in common with the infected than they would like to believe as they are haunted by dreams of alien ice forests, which may be an oneiric glimpse into where the aliens originate.

There was no end in sight, and the prognosis for humanity seemed dire. Perhaps that is why people did not like the show. The plot of constant possible infection may have seemed repetitive and monotous with no end in sight, but viewers were mistaken. Threshold used the alien invasion as a metaphor for the constant war on terror or even drugs. The scope of the threat was both global and intimate. The face of the alien was primarily human and familiar. The threat was also faced by government officials trying to balance the desire to protect people with violation of their liberties.

I'll miss Threshold and am happy to hear that it is doing well in the UK!