The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com
Monday, September 28, 2009 -5A
The power of
suggestion
Television critics are
afforded a unique oppor-
tunity that film and music
critics have to
go without: the.
opportunity to
be wrong. y
Now, all
reviews are mat-
ters of opinion,
but that's not
what I mean by JAMIE
"wrong." There BLOCK
will always be
reviews that disagree with the
majority opinion, but the key fac-
tor that makes them as correct as
a review ever can be is that they
accurately reflect the views of the
critics who wrote them. And with
film and movie reviews, that's
where it ends. The critics say what
they have to say, and there's their
opinion on the page - constant,
permanent, unchanging. And that's
because movies and albums don't
change overtime either. Maybe
public opinion changes, but once
each individual album or film is
released, that's the way it's going to
be forever (unless George Lucas is
involved). TV shows, not so much.
A television show is in a con-
stant state of qualitative flux,
going through good seasons and
bad seasons, each of which has
its better episodes and worse epi-
sodes. It's an unrealistic expecta-
tion to assume that a pilot episode
will be indicative of a series as a
whole. Yet, for the sake of time-
liness, that's all TV critics can
really go off of when formulating
an opinion. So it often comes to
pass that critics may, partway
through a season or several sea-
sons through a series's lifetime,
come to disagree with their own
reviews.
I recently revisited the first
show I ever reviewed, "Fringe,"
to see how it was faring as it
entered its second season. I was
less than enthusiastic about the
pilot episode last fall and had
given it only 2 out of 5 stars. But I
had been hearing good things and
discovered, upon re-inspection,
the rumors are true. "Fringe" got
good. The characters were more
developed, the fake science jargon
was toned down, and everything
felt much more cohesive than it
all did in my brief exposure to the
world of televised fringe science
- just like I suggested. Or at least,
I should have.
What I've learned and hope-
fully adapted to is the fact that the
job of the television critic must
be, at least in part, to make sug-
gestions. We can't possibly hope
to write a review that stands the
test of a show's lifetime. (Any
review of "Heroes" from its first
season would be far too favorable
for any of the show's subsequent
disappointing, heart-destroying,
absolutely unacceptable seasons.)
But what we can do is help guide
a show to greatness or help it stay
there if it was lucky enough to
start out on a good note. Music
and film critics can't do that.
The content they critique is not
modified after release, barring
directors' cuts and the like, which
have nothing to do with critical
input. So enjoy your petty free
tickets and your awards shows
that people actually watch, you
foolish critics of other art forms
- bask in your little naive worlds
while we television critics exact
our true power upon our world.
Muahahaha!
But world domination aside, the
role of the TV critic is an impor-
tant one - and it's ajob well worth
sacrificing infallibility for. Televi-
sion criticism is at its most effec-
tive when it not only pokes and
prods, but also pushes and encour-
ages. Without forward thinking,
we can't claim to be really review-
ing a show, just an episode - and
that would be pretty much useless.
Sure, we'd escape the whole we-
can-be-wrong thing, but I'd rather
be always useful than always right.
(Then again, I don'tknow how
useful my reviews of shows like
"Coolio's Rules" and "50 Cent: the
Money and the Power" could ever
be, regardless of my tips for the
future.)
Obviously one review isn't
going to changea show's direction
- TV creators and writers look at
ratings and overall trends instead
of just reading The Daily (a flawed
system of aggregating feedback, to
be sure). But you read us, we tell
you not to watch, then the writers
figure out why you're not watch-
You don't have
to be Heart -
but you can still
have a monkey.
ing and try to win you over. To use
a TV metaphor, my colleagues and
I are Captain Planet and you are
the Planeteers. With your powers
combined, led by our witty criti-
cism and anti-pollution agenda,
you can make the television world
a better place as you clean up the
streets and stop watching shitty
reality shows. And as an added
bonus, I won't make any of you be
Heart (but you can still have a pet
monkey).
So go forth, loyal readers and
TV watchers. Let us agree to
each use our powers for good and
not for evil. I shall offer sugges-
tions, and not stretch my opinions
beyond their jurisdiction. And
you shall heed my words and not
support the tyrannical regimes of
awful television shows. Together,
we can make the world a better
place - then rub it in those film
writers' faces.
Block is starting a war on film
critics. To join the fight, e-mail
him at jamblock@umich.edu.
"Shut up! I'm trying to play 'H alo' in here!"
A bad imitation of life
'Surrogates' is just a
rehash of every robot movie
that came before it
By NICK COSTON
Daily Arts Writer
Five years ago, James Cromwell appeared in
the thoroughly mediocre "I,
Robot" as a reclusive genius
who invented a humanoid
robot and delivered cryptic
doomsday messages in the Surrogates
wake of his robot's global At Quality16
success. In "Surrogates," he and Showcase
reprises the role, seemingly Touchstone
word-for-word. Unfortunate-
ly, "Surrogates" isn't a sequel.
It's simply one of the most unimaginative films
to grace the silver screen in recent memory.
That "Surrogates" is bland and unoriginal is
neither surprising nor unique; science fiction
has historically been a victim of self-imitation.
But the degree to which "Surrogates" lifts its
plot, characters, dialogue, heavy-handed moral-
ity and ever-convenient deus ex machina from
other, better science-fiction films is unprece-
dented. If you ever find yourself watching "Sur-
rogates," you can still construct an entertaining
cinematic experience for yourself by identify-
ing how many scenes are stolen directly from
"Minority Report" and "The Matrix." Even the
titular machines are ripoffs of the replicants
from "Blade Runner": robots who resemble
humans perfectly and live among us as people.
One dead giveaway to a bad science-fiction
film's lack of precision is an ungodly vocabulary
of fake words and slang that existonly in its fan-
tasy bubble. You'll hear drivel like "meatbags,"
referring to humans who choose not to employ
surrogates and "surry" referring to the robots
themselves, because three syllables is just not
cool enough.
Plot is of minimal importance in "Surrogates."
Roughly: Seven years ago, everyone started
using human-looking robots they control with
their minds to live their public lives for them.
The first homicide in those seven years occurs
when someone fries a pair of surrogates and, in
so doing, kills the surrogates' operators despite
oft-cited fail-safe measures. It's up to FBI Agent
Tom Greer (Bruce Willis, doing his best impres-
sion of Barbie's Ken) to find the culprit.
The opening credits reveal that one of the
primary reasons for the popularity of surrogate
use is its facilitation of an attractive physical
appearance for its user. The resulting beauty,
then, is bound to be shallow and meaningless.
The filmmaker's challenge is to address and
confront this vapidity and let the viewer know
that the constructed world is not a utopia, but
a mess. Director Jonathan Mostow ("U-571")
simply ignores this responsibility. Bruce Wil-
lis's character notes the emotional detachment
brought about by the use of surrogates, but oth-
erwise there is little internal conflict among the
film's characters.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of the
film's overall weak presentation is that it refus-
es to answer any questions that the viewer
might have regarding its constructed universe.
For example, surrogates have not completely
replaced human beings in the film's world; real,
organic people still exist as the surrogates'
chair-bound operators. But the film doesn't
examine the moments in their lives spent apart
from their machines. Surely the human opera-
tors have to unplug from time to time to eat or
See SURROGATES, Page 8A
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Leaving hip hop behind
By SASHA RESENDE
Daly Arts Writer
Fans of WHY? may have been
skeptical when frontman Jona-
than "Yoni"
Wolf recently
proclaimed that
his band's fourth WH?
studio effort
Eskimo Snow Eskimo Snow
would be "the anticon.
least hip-hop" of
all his creations.
By the album's
end, it's clear that the group has
certainly deviated from its previ-
ous formula, producing a record
that is certainly new for WHY?
but ultimately less engaging than
the band's prior work.
WHY?, which formed in the
early 'OOs from the ashes of Yoni's
former experimental hip-hop
project cLOUDDEAD, had found
its niche within the admittedly
broad hip-hop genre. The band's
first two efforts had a distinc-
tive hip-hop flavor, tinged with
programmed drum machines,
tight guitar strings and electronic
beats. But while Yoni's musings
were often freestyled rather than
harmonized, WHY?'s efforts
defied simple definition, pre-
venting the from being pigeon-
holed into a hip-hop or electronic
genre.
With the group's third release
Alopecia, Yoni and his two backing
band members began to progress
further away from the hip-hop
influences that defined their ear-
lier work, approaching pure musi-
cal experimentation. With piano
flourishes and downright cutesy
bells, WHY? broke musical bound-
aries with little worry of whether
music critics or aficionados could
easily define its work.
This progression is even more
evident with Eskimo Snow, which
was put to tape in the same
recording session that produced
Metaphors for
masturbation!
2008's Alopecia. Although the two
albums were recorded at the same
time, each record has a very dis-
tinct sound. The newer release's
dreamy, subdued aesthetic drifts
away from its predecessor's rela-
tively heavy reliance on its electro-
based hip-hop roots.
See WHY?, Page 8A
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