So I’m back from my pop-culture saturated spring break which involved polishing off season one of Dexter (excellent), watching No Country For Old Man—twice, and reading essays by Chuck Klosterman ranging from the fascinating to the annoying to the disconcerting. It was fun and I’m sure I’ll blog about all of these lovely things at some point but today I’m blogging about a much more pressing matter: CBS’s attempt to scare the crap out of me with the most terrifying movie trailer in all the land.
There I was back in my apartment after a lovely vacation relaxing, reading my Entertainment Weekly half listening to Dexter on CBS (I wanted to see how ridiculous Deb would sound edited) when out of nowhere comes this trailer. You see I like to watch movie trailers, I love that nice movie man announcer’s voice, I like to mock the often crappy music choices, they are second only to those Tide talking stain ads in terms of my personal commercial hierarchy (bottom tier: those damn Pepperidge Farms Go Meat commercials---those ad men are going to the special hell). So I pepped up when I noticed the beginning strains of what I assumed would be a short ad for some crappy creep fest that would give me a good chuckle before bed. Instead I was treated to Scott Speedman and Liv Tyler being all flirty and “let’s make dinner honey”. What’s so scary about…hey what’s that thing in the corner? Is that a mask? Turn around Liv Tyler, for the love of God turn around!
Things just got worse from there. There were messages (Hello! Hi! Hello!) scrawled on their mirror. There was an ax. An ax, people. Then it turned out it wasn’t just one homicidal maniac but a whole family of homicidal maniacs including a tiny little ax wielding creepy kid. At this point I was a whimpering mess, but the ad continued. Because apparently 30 seconds of traumatizing me just wasn’t enough. No from there they gleefully announce this story was inspired by actual events. By “actual events” I hope they mean some nice young couple heard strange noises and assumed there was an ax wielding maniac but really it was just some rascally raccoons, but hey wouldn’t that make a great horror movie?
The end result: I had actual, honest to God nightmares. Yes I realize I am a wuss, but I very rarely have actual nightmares. In short: thanks a lot CBS. Just because I’m watching a show about serial killers doesn’t mean I want to see an ad about crazy ass ax murderers who hang out in your new house waiting to kill you dead.
I tried to research the whole “actual events” angle but once I reached the official site I started screaming like a little girl and frantically hit my computer’s back button. I’m just going to stick with the raccoon angle. If you too would like to be freaked out check out the film over at http://www.imdb.com/ ---The Strangers. I have no plans on ever actually seeing this film and I’m sure I’ll spend the next couple of months living in fear of being caught off guard by the trailer, but I have to hand it to them this seems like a legitimately scary film opposed to a disgusting film ala the Saw franchise. Which is something, I guess. Just keep that creepy kid away from me, okay?
Showing posts with label Dexter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dexter. Show all posts
Monday, March 17, 2008
Monday, February 18, 2008
Dexter Meet Shawn
On the surface Psych and Dexter seem like unlikely companions. Could the outgoing, life-loving Shawn Spencer and the coldly logical Dexter Morgan have anything in common? On any other day perhaps not, but if you like me spent the weekend watching the boys side by side you might agree.
I was introduced to Dexter, that most morally ambiguous serial killer, for the first time this weekend and immediately fell for him and his dark horror/noir confection of a show. It is remarkably well crafted and Michael C. Hall is eerily convincing and appealing in this unusual role. So far (I’m six episodes into season one) I love everything about the show from the unexpectedly jaunty music to the dark Miami setting to the character’s constant eating. It’s a strange and disorienting world that’s almost compulsively watchable. However, I had to take a break sometime. It just so happened that I filled that break by watching the season finale of Psych.
I’ve loved Psych since it debuted two years ago on USA. It’s a light, funny show peppered with obscure 80’s references and random pineapple sightings. It’s at once silly and fully aware of its silliness, merrily lampooning those serious procedurals and psychic cop dramas in one fell swoop. At its center is James Roday as the hyper-observant faux psychic Shawn. Roday mugs and jumps and still manages to give one the most purely comedic performances on television. The show is in short a joy to watch.
So you can imagine my surprise when in a weekend television haze I began to think the two shows had something in common besides being led by two handsome blond men.
In my fevered state it seemed to me that the shows were shadow twins. What is Dexter but a fun-house reflection of Shawn? Stay with me here.
From what I’ve gathered from the series, Dexter is a product of his adoptive father’s molding. Harry saw a dark impulse for killing in Dexter and nurtured that impulse, directing it towards small animals and later “bad” people. He turns Dexter into a sort of vigilante and it seems sets his son up to carry out the impulses he himself as a cop must keep in check. Did Harry really “save” his son as Dexter believes or did he simply hone him into a finely tuned killer? Either way Harry shaped Dexter, never allowing him to find his own path, never giving him any other choice but killing. And Dexter followed that path.
Then there’s Shawn. From a young age Shawn’s cop father Henry honed his son’s observational skills. Everything was a challenge (how many hats in the restaurant, how many towels on the beach) and he tried to keep Shawn grounded, stomping out imaginary notions. In this case Shawn rebelled from his father, using those childhood lessons not to become a cop but to become a “psychic” detective marrying the imaginary and the irreverent in a way that drives his father crazy. Both boys are a product of their father’s molding, Dexter embraces that mold while Shawn took the mold, smashed it and did a little Irish jig on it.
Their very characters are similar. Shawn and Dexter are always performing. Dexter pretends to be normal; he brings donuts to his coworkers and picks up his girlfriend’s kids from school all the while hiding this dark life he leads. Shawn revels in his showmanship, every day is a performance for him. He leaps on desks and throws out fake names leveling every person in his path with his sheer charisma, but we know that this isn’t Shawn. Shawn doesn’t like to be vulnerable, he doesn’t like to be serious so he created a persona that allows him to hide.
And on the superficial side, are there two shows on television any more enamored with the art of eating than these two? The characters are constantly eating or talking about eating, particularly Shawn and Dexter who both approach the act with a strange sort of reverance whether that be Dexter’s ode to the pleasure of eating while driving or Shawn’s joy in preparing the perfect pineapple upside down cake.
Then there’s the whole death thing. The character’s are constantly dealing with death (although Dexter is alone here in inflicting it), but both men approach it in a deeply detached fashion. They don’t grieve over these deaths, in fact they often joke about it. A corpse is a corpse as far as these men are concerned. For each of them a dead body is a source of joy---for Shawn it means a new case to solve and for Dexter it’s either a mystery to unravel or the end result of his favorite pastime.
Finally, to round out the mirror analogy they’re located on opposite sides of the country---Shawn in sunny San Diego and Dexter in well, sunny Miami. So the next time you settle in for a fun, silly night of Psych think about his dark brother the equally charming Dexter and play the what if game. What if it was Shawn merrily killing killers? What if Dexter palled around with Gus solving murders with his hyper-observancy? Is it really such a stretch?
I was introduced to Dexter, that most morally ambiguous serial killer, for the first time this weekend and immediately fell for him and his dark horror/noir confection of a show. It is remarkably well crafted and Michael C. Hall is eerily convincing and appealing in this unusual role. So far (I’m six episodes into season one) I love everything about the show from the unexpectedly jaunty music to the dark Miami setting to the character’s constant eating. It’s a strange and disorienting world that’s almost compulsively watchable. However, I had to take a break sometime. It just so happened that I filled that break by watching the season finale of Psych.
I’ve loved Psych since it debuted two years ago on USA. It’s a light, funny show peppered with obscure 80’s references and random pineapple sightings. It’s at once silly and fully aware of its silliness, merrily lampooning those serious procedurals and psychic cop dramas in one fell swoop. At its center is James Roday as the hyper-observant faux psychic Shawn. Roday mugs and jumps and still manages to give one the most purely comedic performances on television. The show is in short a joy to watch.
So you can imagine my surprise when in a weekend television haze I began to think the two shows had something in common besides being led by two handsome blond men.
In my fevered state it seemed to me that the shows were shadow twins. What is Dexter but a fun-house reflection of Shawn? Stay with me here.
From what I’ve gathered from the series, Dexter is a product of his adoptive father’s molding. Harry saw a dark impulse for killing in Dexter and nurtured that impulse, directing it towards small animals and later “bad” people. He turns Dexter into a sort of vigilante and it seems sets his son up to carry out the impulses he himself as a cop must keep in check. Did Harry really “save” his son as Dexter believes or did he simply hone him into a finely tuned killer? Either way Harry shaped Dexter, never allowing him to find his own path, never giving him any other choice but killing. And Dexter followed that path.
Then there’s Shawn. From a young age Shawn’s cop father Henry honed his son’s observational skills. Everything was a challenge (how many hats in the restaurant, how many towels on the beach) and he tried to keep Shawn grounded, stomping out imaginary notions. In this case Shawn rebelled from his father, using those childhood lessons not to become a cop but to become a “psychic” detective marrying the imaginary and the irreverent in a way that drives his father crazy. Both boys are a product of their father’s molding, Dexter embraces that mold while Shawn took the mold, smashed it and did a little Irish jig on it.
Their very characters are similar. Shawn and Dexter are always performing. Dexter pretends to be normal; he brings donuts to his coworkers and picks up his girlfriend’s kids from school all the while hiding this dark life he leads. Shawn revels in his showmanship, every day is a performance for him. He leaps on desks and throws out fake names leveling every person in his path with his sheer charisma, but we know that this isn’t Shawn. Shawn doesn’t like to be vulnerable, he doesn’t like to be serious so he created a persona that allows him to hide.
And on the superficial side, are there two shows on television any more enamored with the art of eating than these two? The characters are constantly eating or talking about eating, particularly Shawn and Dexter who both approach the act with a strange sort of reverance whether that be Dexter’s ode to the pleasure of eating while driving or Shawn’s joy in preparing the perfect pineapple upside down cake.
Then there’s the whole death thing. The character’s are constantly dealing with death (although Dexter is alone here in inflicting it), but both men approach it in a deeply detached fashion. They don’t grieve over these deaths, in fact they often joke about it. A corpse is a corpse as far as these men are concerned. For each of them a dead body is a source of joy---for Shawn it means a new case to solve and for Dexter it’s either a mystery to unravel or the end result of his favorite pastime.
Finally, to round out the mirror analogy they’re located on opposite sides of the country---Shawn in sunny San Diego and Dexter in well, sunny Miami. So the next time you settle in for a fun, silly night of Psych think about his dark brother the equally charming Dexter and play the what if game. What if it was Shawn merrily killing killers? What if Dexter palled around with Gus solving murders with his hyper-observancy? Is it really such a stretch?
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