HEROES
Season 3 Episode 2
Volume Three: “Villains”
Chapter Two: “The Butterfly Effect”
Written by Tim Kring
Directed by Greg Beeman
(WARNING: SPOILERS)

“You have no idea of the fire that you’re playing with. You don’t screw with time.”
-- Mama P

Say what?! (In reaction to Mama P’s big cliffhanging reveal, and not the quote above.)
Urrrr… this better be some cockamamie scheme on Mama P’s part, ‘cause if not, why are we dipping into hackneyed soap opera territory? (Wasn’t Peter’s amnesia last season bad enough?)
And while I’m happy to see a bigger role for Mama P, given that she’s now in charge thanks to the Company’s chain of command, I am terribly disappointed that Bob has now suffered one of those thankless Heroes deaths: blink, and the character’s history. (And it happens off-screen to boot.)
And now poor Elle’s out of a job… but only after she inadvertently causes the escape of about a dozen powered lowlifes from Level 5 (when she lets out a massive electrical discharge as Sylar is cutting her head open, she causes the power grid to go down, and presto, escaped supervillains).


That escape gets Mr. B out as well, and he runs off into the night, but only after ensuring Sylar’s confinement (which Mama P looks about to rescind, thanks in part to the reveal that, gasp, he’s her son!).
Sigh.
As I said though, maybe this is Mama P trying to manipulate Sylar into doing her bidding, by giving him a mother figure by claiming to be his real mother.
Gods, I hope so.


So Mr. B heads back home, to have a brief reunion with Claire, and is set to go off again, to take down the Level 5 escapees.
But not before he brings back Claire’s pyrokinetic bio-mom Meredith, to keep his family safe.
Hurrah!
And I say that without sarcasm, as, honestly, this was one of the few high points of the episode. I just hope that Meredith is on the level here, ‘cause she did seem a tad mercenary the last time we saw her…

Oh, and one of the Level 5 escapees, Jesse Murphy (played in a little bit of stunt casting by Veronica Mars alum, Francis Capra), is where scarred Peter-from-the-future “put” the real Peter. (Does Future Boy feel like such a d!ck now, or what? Is a portion of Volume Three basically just cleaning up the idiot mess he caused by gunning down Nathan, while the other is cleaning up Hiro’s idiot mess?)
So now Capra gets to share screen time with Milo Ventimiglia in the role of supervillain on the lam (does Capra get half a paycheck then?)
Jesse’s power: sound manipulation.


And my mention of The Fly in response to Mo’s totally irresponsible “oh, I’ll inject myself with an untested compound because I am so conflicted and tortured right now” moment?
Well, what do we have here but a scene straight out of Cronenberg’s remake, where a shirtless Mo is hanging off the rafters, then does some wall-climbing? He then makes the moves on Maya, who succumbs to his shirtless charms, and ends up in bed with him.
Of course, he wakes up in the middle of the night, and, well, he seems to be… flaking. Or something.
You know, he’s looking in the mirror, very Fly-like, and there are some odd looking patches of skin on his back that are coming off.
Sigh.
So we’re raiding soap operas and sci fi remakes.


Meanwhile, Nathan’s Linderman appears to be a figment of his imagination.
Gods, Nathan is certifiable.
Either that or Linderman (who is supposed to be dead) is just invisible to everyone else, but that’s just plain silly, right?
Heh.
Nathan, by the way, takes the offer for the junior Senator seat, provided Tracy-who-looks-exactly-like-Nikki will be on his team.


Oh, and Tracy-who-looks-exactly-like-Nikki? Well, she apparently has the power to instantaneously deep freeze anyone she touches, and of course, when a human insta-popsicle falls to the ground, the body shatters, leaving itty bitty bits of bloody ice all over the place.
Ick.
(The poor sap who gets the messy death? The Greatest American Hero himself, William Katt! Stunt casting, hurrah!)

And Parkman?
‘Ported to Africa, where he meets Usutu (Ntare Guma Mbaho Mwine), who knows Parkman’s name, and claims that he shouldn’t be there, and that this is not the future he painted.
Another Isaac?
Oh, and Usutu is apparently the one who painted that cracking globe symbol which Parkman saw in the previous episode.
(And why hasn’t anyone wondered what happened to Parkman? Has no one noticed that’s he’s gone missing?)


Hiro (I’m the idiot who’s responsible for that dangerous half-formula being stolen by some super-speedster, and can’t I see that how I’m treating Ando could very well turn him against me?) Nakamura on the other hand, has a plan to track Daphne the super-speedster and catch her before she steals the other half of the formula.
Fine, let’s see how that pans out, though why do I get the feeling that won’t work out too well either?


Claire, meanwhile, realizes that she now can feel no pain, which troubles her deeply since, despite her extraordinary regeneration, what kept her grounded and human before was the fact that she could still feel pain.
Now, while I admit that’s an interesting turn of events, the “attempt #7” scene is curiously lacking in the emotional weight department. I’m not sure if the greenscreen is totally to blame (as such shots always seem to be bereft of any genuine tension due to their artificiality), but it certainly doesn’t help any.

Meanwhile, Mama P has a disturbing (and rather comic book-y) dream where some of the heroes are shown being defeated/killed by a bunch of baddies, which include Nikki (or whatever the hell her name is) and Parkman Sr.


Well, I can’t say that that was significantly better than the first hour, and I have to say that this troubles me a bit.
After the largely slapdash and compromised affair that was Volume Two, I had hoped that this third volume would waste no time and from the opening, immediately detonate at ground zero and recapture the glory of the golden age of Heroes (back in Season 1, when Bryan Fuller was still in the house).
Sadly, that didn’t happen.
There are still too many characters running about, and worse, some of them are acting rather idiotically, apparently just to kick-start some subplots.
And then there’s that whole Sylar-as-long-lost-Petrelli-son reveal.
Urg.


Well, hope springs eternal, and there’s always next week for another shot at redemption…

Parting shot: In the lag between the time the premiere aired, I got to see it and wrote this review, and today, when I finally got to post the review, news broke regarding the “letting go” of Heroes co-executive producers Jeph Loeb and Jesse Alexander. (Details here and here.)
As much as this came as a shock, how this will affect the show is also at the forefront of my mind.
It has already been indicated that Kring will be “simplifying” the storytelling, and “refining the tone of the show.” There’s also a bit about—thank Heavens—“emphasiz[ing] character development more than plot twists.”
I imagine the exact repercussions of this sudden shake-up will become evident sometime in the second half of the current season, during Volume Four (reportedly titled “Fugitives”).
Though it does seem like Loeb and Alexander have been shafted—and who exactly did the shafting is up for debate—this does present yet another opportunity for the show to clean up its act (if Loeb and Alexander were indeed the problematic pieces in the Writers’ Room).
Like I said, hope springs eternal. Let’s see, shall we?

(Images courtesy of comicbookresources.com, gregbeeman.blogspot.com, and eonline.com.)

A Rundown of the 13 Best, Most Recent Horror Movies I’ve Seen
[2 of 13]
JOSHUA (January 2007)


… if you like your psychological horror undiluted by any modern Hollywood safety standards, Joshua’s the boy to see.

Read the entire review here.

(Joshua OS courtesy of impawards.com.)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (79)
THE FLY THE OPERA

The world premiere of the LA Opera/Théâtre du Châtelet-produced opera of David Cronenberg’s The Fly—first mentioned ‘round these parts in an Afterthoughts past—is set for July 2, 2008, at Paris’ Théâtre du Châtelet, with subsequent performances on July 5, 8, 11, and 13.
LA Opera will then present The Fly in Los Angeles on September 7, at 2:00PM, for a month-long run at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, officially opening the Company’s 2008/09 Season.

Directed by Cronenberg, the opera is composed by long-time collaborator Howard Shore, with a libretto by David Henry Hwang.
The opera also serves to reunite the director with other long-time collaborators, sister Denise (Costume Design) and Stephan L. Dupuis (Makeup and Creature Design). Handling Makeup, Creature and Puppet Fabrication is Mark Rappaport’s Creature Effects, Inc. Before establishing Creature Effects, Inc., Rappaport worked as a puppeteer on the Chris Walas-directed The Fly II, when he was a mechanical engineer for CWI.
Set design is by veteran production designer Dante Ferretti.

Canadian bass-baritone Daniel Okulitch plays the title role of Seth Brundle, Romanian mezzo-soprano Ruxandra Donose plays Veronica Quaife, and Tristan und Isolde lead Gary Lehman plays Stathis Borans; Okulitch and Donose are making their LA Opera debuts.
The Fly will be conducted by LA Opera Broad General Director, Plácido Domingo.

Of The Fly, Domingo had this to say: “… there is no scientific formula for commissioning [an opera] but only one’s instinct when one listens to a composer’s already existing works. I have heard many of Howard Shore’s scores for such films as The Lord of the Rings and, of course, The Fly and knew that here was a musician who should write an opera. That feeling became a reality when The Fly was chosen as the subject, the acclaimed David Henry Hwang came aboard as librettist and David Cronenberg said yes to recreating his film.”
On Shore’s part, there is this: “I always believed The Fly to be a classic opera story. It’s a tale of love and death, true love surviving in the face of physical decay and ultimate sacrifice. To bring this work to the opera stage has been a longtime dream. I am very proud to be working with these fantastic collaborators in the realization of this dream.”
And from Cronenberg himself: “To be involved in this opera of The Fly is, for me, to travel back not only in time, but to another dimension. It’s a magical re-living of a part of my life, this time playing a completely different role in the creation of a very different animal. I can’t wait to see what happens.”

Neither can we.
I can still recall seeing The Fly for the very first time over two decades ago, and being absolutely blown away by it. Being the Cronenberg diehard that I am, I’ve naturally seen it quite a number of times since then.
Never once did I imagine it would become an opera…
It’s such a magnificently surprising world, isn’t it?

For more details on The Fly, you can visit the opera’s official website.

Parting shot: Reviews of a number of Cronenberg films can be found in the Archive.

(Images courtesy of howardshore.com and theflytheopera.com.)

JOSHUA
(Review)

George Ratliff’s Joshua is a measured and terribly assured psychological thriller that follows Brad and Abby Cairn and their son Joshua, as their lives transform overnight with the birth of the couple’s second child, Lily.
Ratliff’s script, co-written with David Gilbert, takes a realistic approach to the idea of the bad seed and becomes the solid foundation to what is perhaps the most unnerving entry of this lot, which includes films like The Omen, The Good Son, and of course, The Bad Seed.
And not only are Sam Rockwell and Vera Farmiga exceedingly effective as the Cairns, but young Jacob Kogan as the nine-year old Joshua is a fantastic find.
Practically from the get-go, there is an alien otherness to his Joshua, some element in his performance that never once makes you forget that there is simply something wrong with this child.
Rockwell is the father who tries gamely to hold his family, his marriage, and his job together, while Farmiga (who already held her own with some formidable co-stars in Martin Scorsese’s The Departed) is the mother who struggles to keep her head above the treacherous waters of post-partum depression. Their performances and that particular plot point ground the film in a very real and tangible way, which makes things all the more tragic when the narrative takes its turns into “Good Heavens, what an evil child” territory.


Joshua is a chilling look at the changes that are wrought by the arrival of a new child into an already established household. It’s also a disturbing study of just how alien and removed a child can be from its parent.
Though we never get to see what life was like before Lily (the film basically opens with her birth), we do get a sense of how the new infant has managed to encroach on Joshua’s territory, and it’s really only in the light of this fresh arrival that the Cairns become acutely aware that their first child isn’t at all like a regular nine-year old.


I’ve mentioned this ‘round these parts before, that I’ve long been fascinated by serial killer cases. Thus, I’m well aware of the early warning signs of a sociopath in the making. (As are most movie-going types these days, I imagine, given the surfeit of serial killer thrillers out there.)
Still, when the beats are done here, there’s a genuinely troubling nature to the occurrences (some on-screen, many off-) that serve to magnify the cold and calculating threat that lies at the heart of Joshua.


Making quite a stir when it screened at Sundance last year, Joshua didn’t make a whole lot of money in its theatrical release, and I can sort of see why.
It isn’t a comforting film, Joshua. It’s disturbing in a far more insidious way than a movie like, say, The Omen. Stripped of any supernatural horror movie conventions, Joshua’s terrors play as frighteningly real and actually possible; we can’t all be the parents of the AntiChrist, right? But an intelligent sociopath is far more commonplace.
Joshua also plays into that fear of course, that you could do your best to raise your child reasonably well, give him everything you think he wants and needs, never lay a violent, abusive finger on him, and he’ll still turn out to be a sick little psycho.


This disturbed me a whole lot more than I thought it would, and that’s mostly on Farmiga and how her performance becomes this really painful journey to watch. There are several moments where you just want to scream irrationally at Rockwell’s character, “Can’t you see there’s something horribly wrong here?! Look at your wife, man!”
This is award-worthy stuff, but sadly, there’s that stigma horror films are unjustly saddled with, so this will join the ranks of Brilliant Performances in Horror Movies That Will Ultimately Be Ignored By Oscar And His Ilk.
If anything though, Joshua points to a dazzling future for Farmiga.


The other aspect of Joshua that simply gets beneath the skin is the final reveal, when the motivation for Joshua’s actions becomes icily clear. It’s certainly been there from the early sections of the film, constantly hovering in the background, and yet when it does rear its ugly head (in a flat-out disturbing rendition of Dave Matthews’ “The Fly”), it comes at you like an avalanche of maggots.

So if you like your psychological horror undiluted by any modern Hollywood safety standards, Joshua’s the boy to see.
Just be prepared, because he has no concept of the term “kid gloves.”


(Joshua OS courtesy of impawards.com; images courtesy of bloody-disgusting.com; DVD cover art courtesy of dvdactive.com.)