Altered Carbon on Netflix

FINALLY A NEW SCIENCE FICTION SHOW WORTH WATCHING

Yes I know this came from a book series. And I know it's a little derivative, paying homage to Blade Runner and other Noir detective fiction. And I know it exists in a well-established genre of cyberpunk. But can't we just rejoice in the fact that Netflix pulled off something no one's done in a long time: an original sci-fi concept  pushing all the right buttons while simultaneously pushing some boundaries.

I've maintained that a good TV show is essentially beautiful people in dangerous situations wrapped up in an episodic arch that connects to a larger whole (season). Altered Carbon does this in spades. Beautiful people? Check! We've even fit some nudity in there. Violent situations? Check! We spent so much money on gore effects some of our CGI cars look a bit wonky. Story arch? CHECK! We get well-encapsulated stories that build on one another until they come to a tightly satisfying ending even your English professor would be stoked about.

There's even a scene in which a beautiful woman kills fifty naked clones of another sexy woman as they come alive attack her. It's creepy, sexy, violent, and creative.

Altered Carbon sells us a universe with as little exposition as possible and trusts its audience to go along for the ride and figure it out as we go. There are a couple clunky lines in there, but who cares? We're having fun piecing it all together. And even when the show introduces a good soldier vs. bad soldier scenario, we at least have some motives in play. And that's hugely refreshing. The terrorists might be the good guys, or they might not be; you decide! 

I still don't know why the Star Wars Empire is going around blowing up planets? Tax collection?

NO CHOSEN ONE!!! NO PROPHECY!!! They could have gone down that road for expediency, but instead they put characters and events in motion creating a protagonist worth following around. I'm so sick of Harry Potters and Luke Skywalkers and Alices and Neos ad nauseam. It's cheap story-telling, and we'll have none of it here. Instead we get women of agency and men who aren't idiots and men playing women and even a black man playing an Asian woman playing a black man. That's Shakespearean!

Music. The music is fantastic in this thing. Two stand-outs were the More Human Than Human cover by Sune Rose Wagner and A Nyughatatlan's God's Gonna Cut You Down cover. There's a Nine Inch Nails song in there for measure, too. Check out this track list!

The plot moves dexterously through some big blink-and-you'll-miss-them points but still addresses some major themes. Obligation is a big one: Familial, friend, class, state loyalties are questioned and investigated. We get to ask what mortality is, what power is, and even what God is.

In the end we get to ask my favorite sci-fi question: What is it to be human?

OK! But is there anything you hated?

Yes. I hated this stupid tattoo Takeshi and Reileen had. This tired old symbol, Ouroboros, is the most boring, lamest symbol they drag out on TV. It's a dragon biting its own tail in the shape of an infinity loop, and it's featured heavily in the opening credits sequence. I rolled my eyes every time I saw it. It reminded me of Hemlock Grove, and this is leaps and bounds better than that early Netflix attempt. It's unneeded and loud.

The ending was a little rushed, but it was satisfying and didn't leave a ton of question marks like most science fiction does. Altered Carbon also plays by the rules of its own universe. There are some Chekhov's guns in there that seem a little elastic, but that's OK; they all pan out.

Over all, it's a wonderful new show. Aren't you tired of Disney trotting out more Marvel shit to see what sticks? Aren't you just a little bit bored by Star Wars by now? Doesn't the Pacific Rim sequel look ridiculous and stupid? This breath of fresh air is worth every moment spent watching it. 

The White Maggot Story

Googled "sexy white maggot"

I know everyone who tells a story like this makes themselves out to be the perfectly rational one in the scenario. But I think anyone who has ever worked in a restaurant, especially as a manager, has stories like this one. Bear in mind, a manager's job is to remain calm.

We had a party of 18 come in and buy a bunch of birthday desserts at the end of their meal. We didn't normally sing to birthday people, but someone thought it'd be funny to make Gerardo put on a little sombrero and sing happy birthday. Gerardo had only been there for a week and was a shy guy, so I thought it'd be funny; after all, the group had a huge bill. I couldn't let him go it alone, so I put on a lucha libre mask, and Gerardo put on a little sombrero, and we sang happy birthday to the table whilst delivering four giant desserts.

Back in the kitchen, a server told me a guest was being very rude to her saying she wanted me to sing happy birthday. I sent out a free dessert and asked the server to kindly tell her that we don't normally sing and the masked man has left the building, but her birthday dessert was on us.

We got a little rush in business just then and I forgot about it, but a bit later the same server said someone wanted to speak with me. So I dropped everything and went out to the table.

"Hi ladies, my name's Sky; how's everything going?" I said in my nicest voice possible.
"Well, the service was great, the food was good, but you're a fucking ass hole."
One lady was eating the dessert I'd sent out. Their meals were in to-go bags. They'd already settled their tab. She just wanted to curse me out.
"What happened, what's going on?" I ignored the insult to figure out why she would be so rude.
"You didn't sing to my friend!"
"Oh," I smiled, "that's not normally something we do, we were just playing a joke on the new guy. I'm sorry we didn't sing. I can sing for you right now if you'd like."
"I don't want anything from you!"
"Maybe I can look at your tab and take something off."
"I don't want anything for free!"
"I did send out a free dessert for your friend's birthday."
"We had to wait forever for it."
"Ma'am, I'd really like to fix the problem, but I don't know how I can do that. You don't like the free dessert, you won't let me reopen your tab, and you don't want me to sing."
That's when the birthday girl put down her spoon and said "You're the fucking manager, you ain't got no fucking skills."
Too which I said, "well you're obviously a classy lady that doesn't have the time for the likes of me, so I'll say thank you and I'm sorry your experience wasn't what you wanted. Happy birthday," and I walked away. I really thought that was my only option: remain calm and polite and walk away.

I posted up at the host stand because people who go nuts on the manager usually like screaming at the hosts, and I hate that. What do you seek to gain by yelling at an 18-year-old girl who has nothing to do with you?

First the ladies went to the bar and said something about how I think I can treat them any kind of way because of who's president. The bartender just nodded in that scared way service people nod when people have gone psycho.

Then someone was at the front door, so I opened it for them. They walked in and when I looked over my shoulder the ladies were RIGHT BEHIND ME. So I smiled, held the door, and said "have a great night."

The first lady walked through without a word, but the second started hollering at me. "I ain't walking through no door held by you. Fuck you peasant mother fucker. Fucking white maggot. I'll beat your white ass."

"Ma'am, please just go. Your night gets better the second you leave. Have a great night."
"Fuck you maggot. Get out of my way."

So I asked her friend to hold the door and got out of the way. But that wasn't enough.

"Fucking maggot. Get outta here."
"Ma'am, that's not how this works. You're the one who has to leave, and I'm the one who has to stay. I live here. Please just have a great night."

She had her back to her friend and the front door and kept screaming "white maggot." And I kept saying "Have a great night." The whole restaurant was staring. Later, many of them would console me, including three black dudes who apologized on behalf of black people, a first in my life. I've apologized for racist white ass holes many times in my life, but I'd never been on the receiving end of that weird apology.

Then the lady crossed the line, and I almost lost it. She said, "you support Donald Trump and think that gives you all the power!"

"Lady, if you don't leave I'm calling the police. I might be a white maggot, but I'm no fucking Trump supporter. Now GET OUT!"

---

The lady called corporate the next day saying she had other problems in life and that I egged her on. I told corporate I would have taken care of their meal and sung to them even after they called me a fucking ass hole, but when you start off calling someone a fucking ass hole, there's not a lot of places that conversation can go.

She wanted to abuse someone, and there I was. But she would have had a much better night if she had just a tiniest collection of manners at her disposal.

You should watch Prisoners

Great performances by everyone. Prisoners explores how a crime can turn everyone into criminals, as if demonism is something contagious, and the more the lines between right and wrong are blurred, the more evil or wrong a person becomes. 

Hugh Jackman is a survivalist nut whose kid is kidnapped by a retarded guy along with his neighbor's kid on Thanksgiving. They find the kidnapper in short order, but the cops have to let him go because of a lack of evidence. So Jackman has to go crazy and torture him until his face looks like a boxing glove.

Meanwhile there's a cop who seems like he was also abused at some point, though only a tick, a ton of tattoos, and a throw away line about being raised in a boys home are all that vaguely point at this. I guess his chosen career might also be a hint. Anyway, I'm convinced that's what the director was going for, especially since so much time is given to how other abused children grow up and how their abuse shapes who they are.

Eventually, we find, in classic noir fashion, that all of the clues, no matter how disparate, are connected, and the mystery is solved. This movie reminds me a lot of Seven. It's so intense that I was exhaling deeply after every scene, not having realized that I had been holding my breath for it all. The nods to noir are many and pretty delightful, but it's directed more like a horror movie than anything else. And it's probably the most frightening film I've watched in 2013.

I really loved this movie and would like to see it again. The Pennsylvania winter as a backdrop made everything almost black and white and more noiresque and kind of more quiet and scary. I thought it was a little weird that there were no Xmas decorations anywhere for the whole movie, and I think the contrast of everyone else still celebrating family and togetherness while this family was crumbling would have added to the anguish of the characters, but maybe that would have contributed to an audience's greater acceptance of the torture of the kidnapper. Anyway, I totally recommend seeing this one.

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The only problem I had with this movie is the person(s) responsible for the kidnapping and killing of close to twenty kids. Their Caligulan goal to turn adults into demons by stealing their children in order to wage war on god is fine I guess, but then why let a few of them go? Because they'd successfully turned them into demons? And also, why not kill the kids right away? Because you're crazy? OK, but then why drug them and make them do mazes? To make them crazy before you kill them? That doesn't make any sense. And the husband of the killing team! once he has misgivings about having killed all these kids, goes to the molester priest to give his confession? Of all the people you want guidance from as a crazy killer waging war on god by killing children, you go to the child molester priest? And how did the black kid escape? She could just run better when they were being moved? Ok, also the last maze is unsolvable, so how did the copy cat kid get away? And if you know your war on god is going to shit, why not just kill the kid and her father right away? You have a gun. Just shoot them both and bury them. Why go through the whole get in the hole while I inject your kid with poison in the house routine?

The answers to all of these questions could just be "it seemed scarier to do it the way we did it," and the filmmakers would be correct.