Last winter break, I had an addiction to a delightful anime series, "Eureka Seven". Quite simply put, it was worth the week of anguish burning through its 50 episodes, and on reflection I would say it ranks as the best series ever made-- it's an epic-scale war saga that would satisfy giant robot fans, but truly an
intimate love story waiting to happen. If you remembered my love for the extended focus on character in "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End", it was pretty much the anime equivalent. Except this one got the praise it deserved.
(I will also recommend, to those with strong stomachs, a short, extremely gory but very powerful series titled "Elfen Lied", which badly needs a review posted here)
This winter, my addiction is "Weeds", living proof that Showtime can do something other than softcore pornography and be very, very good at it. It lives up to its premise of a suburban widow who turns to drug-dealing as a means to keeping her family up and running, and in the midst of the show is bits of delightful suburban satire.
It's also filled to the brim with great dialogue, but as quotable as Season One is, Season Two begins with a recap of all its best lines, and in a very short time manages to outdo it in quality. The characters are great-- a good part of which you'll hate for being stupid or, in the case of the widow's visiting brother-in-law, pure evil, if they weren't all so darned funny-- as is the storyline which keeps you hooked with excellent cliffhangers. "24" may be the equivalent of torture when it comes to episode endings, but "Weeds" manages to keep you hooked in a much quieter setting.
The show is so immersive that whenever you take breaks from it, you'll have to remind yourself that you're not a drug dealer and you don't have to worry about all the ways your next sale can go wrong.
Don't expect such a high grade for Season 3, which I am three episodes into. Season 2 ends in a much messier note than the first (which had the perfect season-end cliffhanger), but grade-wise I let that one slide and the "10" grade reflects its overall quality. The third season is good but not great, but I wouldn't be surprised if this jumped the shark (or "nuked the fridge" for you Indy 4 haters) anytime soon. We'll see.
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On another note, I have been watching most of this show on Blu-ray, since my friend and I co-purchased a PS3. He has an HDTV, I don't, but we're swapping it around houses and it so happens to be on mine, so I did get a chance to find out if Blu-ray does anything for your 13" standard definition television.
If you're annoyed by compression artifacts on DVDs, the picture quality is already an improvement (if it looks less than stellar on your HDTV, you might find a pleasant surprise on your standard set), but the audio quality is what surprised me. There are a good amount that have the same audio that standard DVD has, but the ones I've looked at thus far have uncompressed and lossless audio and it's amazing!
I don't know how much Blu-ray I'll be purchasing within the next few years since storage space is overflowing (making the cases shorter and thinner was the smartest thing the home video industry ever did), but I'll certainly be renting quite a bit.
New movies are coming in a bit slowly at the moment, as films like "Doubt" are still yet to be released here. I might spend this time watching what I have left of "Weeds", some Netflix rentals to catch up on last-minute 2008 films (I have recently watched "Son of Rambow"), and just enjoying the break from one exhausting, demoralizing quarter.
December 20, 2008
