Matthew Wayne Selznick

SPOILERS AHEAD

I was really excited — really excited — about “Heroes” when I knew it was coming, last fall. For a while — maybe the first four or five episodes — I was hooked and hooked well. It was fun to see all the comic-book motifs being translated, and the cliff-hanger endings were great.

Then… gradually… the comic-book motifs became the tired, worn-out derivative clichés of the genre. And when the cliff-hangers became a little too much like the cheap tricks of the old dime-movie serials (hero falls off a cliff at the end of an episode, hero falls off a cliff but grabs hold of a tree root at the beginning of the next), they lost any suspense or thrill they might have delivered.

When did “Heroes” jump the shark for me? Well, there were a few trial passes up the water ski ramp, but the actual leap was when Linderman, Mom Petrelli, and Sulu turned out to be the puppet masters… add the old black guy, and you’ve got… let’s see… four 1st generation supers who have been manipulating the world for a generation… like the Four Voyagers, from another, far superior work of meta-comics, “Planetary.” Throw in the catastrophic destruction of New York City in order to usher in an era of peace… hasn’t anyone on the “Heroes” creative team read “Watchmen?”

I know Jeph Loeb has. Way to take the easy road, Jeph… if you even had any creative input beyond getting Stan Lee to play a bus driver and arranging the product placement of your own comics.

Some really lame shit in the season finale that irritated me:

• Peter has a “dream sequence” that puts him invisibly back in time so that his hospice patient — one of the four puppet masters, surprise surprise — can dispense some critical wisdom. “How is this happening,” Peter rightly wonders… and the writers tell us, through the Oracle (whoops, wrong old black sage, wrong over-hyped franchise) “does it matter?” Cheap. Lazy.
• Molly, the little girl, reveals next season’s villain (”When I see him… he sees me!!!! It’s Sauron!!!!”) in a sequence that still has attached to it the sticky note from the producers: “Insert set-up for next Fall here.” They could have taken a lesson from the masters of the long set-up, Len Wein and Gerry Conway, and had this worse-than-Sylar villain hinted at months ago, in little dribbles that viewers wouldn’t have even noticed except in retrospect. If they had remembered they had to set something up for next season in the first place.
• The shape-shifting chick reveals a new power — creating the fake dead kid — when it’s convenient to the plot. Up until this point, we’ve been given no clue that this was part of her arsenal, and so it stinks of deux ex machina.
• Nathan Petrelli arrives in time to fly Peter into the stratosphere, where (indestructible!) Peter can blow them both up. Except it was completely unnecessary! So was the tiresome “You know what to do, Claire!” Yeah, Claire, shoot the indestructible boy. See, if Peter really thought he couldn’t handle his go-boom power, why in the hell didn’t he fly himself into outer space, or off to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, or whatever? He was close enough to intangible man to absorb his power… he could have dropped into the New York bedrock and done a little underground nuclear test. The pivotal, o-so-meaningful sacrifice was meaningless, because it didn’t have to happen.
• Parkman is shot four times, point blank, in the chest, and isn’t DOA.
• Intangible guy is shot once in the chest and is still alive and conscious at least an hour later.

You might be saying, “Dude, Matt, chill out — it’s just a TV show.”

I’m a little pissed, I admit it. Pissed because I started watching “Heroes” with high expectations — Jeph Loeb’s name alone gave me very high hopes, since I’ve read “The Long Halloween,” “Dark Victory,” “Gray,” “Blue,” and “Yellow” many, many times, with admiration. Even though this is the same guy who wrote “Teen Wolf,” I respect his talent.

I’m pissed because “Heroes” will be back next season, while a smart, character-driven, nearly-unpredictable series, “Jericho,” will not. Don’t even get me started on how “Studio 60 On The Sunset Strip” was replaced by “The Black Donnellys,” which had an even shorter run!

I’m pissed because I invested twenty three hours of my life — a whole day! — into something that ultimately let me down. And it didn’t need to be as bad a show as it turned out to be, if the powers than be had taken some risks, or just said “no” to formulas…

Too much to ask?

My own fault for thinking it was possible?

Maybe. But I won’t be watching next season. Too bad I can’t get back the day I lost from this one.

Got my hands on “Tricks of the Podcasting Masters” by Rob Walch and Mur Lafferty today. I spoke to Mur while she was researching the book some time ago, and today was pleased to discover about two pages dedicated to the Brave Men Run podcast edition, MWS Media, and my thoughts on the DIY aspects of podcasting.

Mur Lafferty is the host and producer of two very popular podcasts: “I Should Be Writing,” and “Geek Fu Action Grip.” Rob Walch hosts “Podcast 411,” also insanely sucessful in the podosphere. They know their stuff. The book examines podcasting at a just-past beginner stage and beyond (hence the “masters” moniker) but has plenty in there of value to podcasters at every level.

Check it out!

Check this out… it’s the first time I’ve looked at an Archie comic in many, many years. It’s not so much the whole Goth thing that’s anything other than mildly amusing.

What’s especially chilling to me is that, while the boys have been updated to saying “dude” and talking about video games, the girls are still baking them treats, pining for Archie and (is that?) Jughead’s attention, and going gaagaa over a manicure.

Fifty years of progress(?) for the guys, but Betty and Veronica are just a few years away from bake sales, “homemaking,” and bon-bons!

(Courtesy of Boing Boing and Accordian Guy)

Punk: Attitude is a Don Letts film that was, so far as I know, never shown in theatres and went from the Independent Film Channel straight to DVD.

It’s a real decent document of the origins of punk rock from its late sixties origins to, say, the early eighties. The DVD has an extra disc with a spotlight on the Los Angeles punk movement, and there are other features that talk about fanzines, the post-punk and indie movement, and so on.

The extra features aren’t really revelatory, at least not if you’re old enough (or, like me, almost old enough) to have been actually in the scene in the early eighties. But the actual documentary and the extra features together serve an important purpose: educate and enlighten the kids today who don’t have a clue as to whom the “punk” bands of today really owe their success.

(start rant)
I mean, just for example, let’s do a quick Google search on “punk rock.” The number one hit is Punk Music Explorer. They seem to have been fortunate enough to nab the “punkrock.org” domain name, and they’re using it as pretty much a link farm for “punk” band websites. I guess they sell a lot of advertising? Anyway, most of the bands are, in my opinion, valid.

But they also list…

Anthrax?
The Ataris?
Beck??
Blur?
David Bowie???
Bow Wow Wow???? (Is it because Annabella Lwin had a mohawk?)
Cheap Trick?
The Foo Fighters??
Good Charlotte?
Green Day?
Modest Mouse?
My Chemical Romance??
New Order???
Nirvana?
The Offspring?
The Police?
Reel Big Fish?
REM??????????
Slayer?
Soundgarden? (An album on SST does not a punk band make.)
The Strokes?
Sublime??? (Having a lead singer who kills himself through self-abuse doesn’t make you the Germs.)
Ultravox? (Well, if New Order is…)
U2?????? (There aren’t enough question marks in the entire universe.)
Weezer??
The White Stripes???
White Zombie????
The Yeah Yeah Yeahs???
The Ziggens???

Okay, I got a little carried away, there. But do you see what’s going to happen if some kid wants to get into punk rock / DIY and finds this site? Arrgh.

I know this post might raise the hackles of the some of the very small handful of people who might read it, and just to stifle some of that: I know, believe me, that punk is not a genre, or a particular sound. It’s an attitude, an ethic, an approach. You betcha. I got that.

Still, let’s not confuse extreme sports endorsements, giant festivals sponsored by megacorporations, Hot Topic, and “indie” radio with punk / DIY — and let’s do everything we can to make sure kids know what’s what, deal?

Point ‘em here. Or here. Or even here.

Set ‘em straight.
(end rant)

Whew!

Okay. So. I guess I went off a little, there. So be it. Get Punk: Attitude for your little brother, sister, niece, nephew, kid next door with the skateboard and nose ring. Watch it with them, and spread the virus.

After many “yougottaseeits,” I finally spent a few hours to see “Sideways” I admit I’ve been gunshy; the last movie people raved about and insisted I’d like was “Lost In Translation,” and that was a piece of crap.

No, it was. You wanna make something outta it?

Anyhoo. “Sideways” was great. Nailed it. And what do you know, it had an actual story.

Nice job.

There’s more to it than that; it’s affected me, and I’m not sure where I am right now, in my head. It was a good time to watch it, that’s for sure, because I’ve been both of those guys at one point or another, or even at the same time.

These days, I’m certainly more Miles than Jack. Which is challenging, but honorable, and I can wake up in the morning not afraid of the mirror, you know?

One of these days, I’ll write about being a born-again moralist. Or something like that. For now: good movie, and a nice endcap to a fine, relaxed, reflective day yesterday, and a very satisfying evening with an old friend and her new husband. Finest kind, they are.

Two and a half days of vacation to go!