THE MIDDLEMAN
Season 1 Episode 4
“The Manicoid Teleportation Conundrum”
Written by Tracey Stern
Directed by Jeremiah Chechik


So Ben, Wendy’s “sexually ambiguous doorknob of a boyfriend,” posts that video he took of his breakup with Wendy (the one he claimed was for a class project) on the Internet, and it’s gotten 750,000 hits in a single day.
And that’s just the start of it…
Then, while Wendy’s cyberspace humiliation rages, she’s in for a Pop Quiz Day, courtesy of the Middleman, while some curiously odd-looking rich people are disappearing, only to reappear on the exact spot of their disappearance, minus their heads…


On the heels of the previous episode’s luchador hijinx, this one isn’t quite the quantum improvement I was hoping for.
Yes, there’re some references to Tears For Fears and Italian zombie movies (in particular, Zombi 2; go, Lucio Fulci!), as well as some 24, but those don’t a good episode make.
And the Dr. Phil jab really isn’t all that funny either…


(Middleman images courtesy of abcfamily.go.com; Zombi 2 25th Anniversary Special Edition 2-Disc Set DVD cover art courtesy of amazon.com.)

THE MIDDLEMAN
Season 1 Episode 1
“The Pilot Episode Sanction”
Teleplay by Javier Grillo-Marxuach
Directed by Jeremiah Chechik

“You know how in comic books, there’s all kinds of mad scientists and aliens and androids and monsters and all of them want to either destroy or take over the world?”
“In comic books, sure.”
“Well, it really does work like that.”


Wendy Watson (Natalie Morales) is a comic-loving, Xbox-playing artist whose temp job inadvertently brings her into contact with the Middleman (The Last Days of Disco’s Matt Keeslar), whose job it is to deal with comic book evil.
You see, all those wonky four-colour baddies—the monsters and aliens and mad doctors and killer robots? Well, contrary to what straight society wishes us to believe, and lining up precisely with what we’ve always known, they actually exist.
And the Middleman’s our non-spandex wearing hero.
And Wendy? Well, she’s about to be the Middleman’s sidekick. (Though I imagine Wendy would much rather be called, I dunno, his assistant?)


That’s ABC Family’s new show, The Middleman, in a nutshell.
Based on a comic book written by former Lost writer, Javier Grillo-Marxuach (which, if memory serves, is pronounced “Ha-vee-air Gree-joe Marks-watch”), The Middleman is a fun and irreverent romp that finds all the neat hilarity in comic book tropes and pop culture fixtures without making fun of them.
This first episode alone (directed by Jeremiah Chechik, whose feature film work includes Benny & Joon and the Diabolique redux) takes on a convention beloved of DC Comics, and is a great introduction to the wacky world of the Middleman.


Aside from the fact that Grillo-Marxuach’s writing is silly-sharp-funny, Morales and Keeslar are well cast, fully getting the tone of the show, not always as simple a task as it may sound; sometimes, there’s only a narrow margin between loving, good-natured, humorous homage, and spoof/parody.
Not only are Morales and Keeslar amusing and engaging protagonists, they also prove to be adept at delivering sometimes incredulously goofy lines at a mile a minute.
And sure, the CGI is distinctly TV-grade, but the fakey look of the effects just adds to the B-movie charm of the show’s premise.

Admittedly, this doesn’t leave the gate with quite as much propulsion as, say, the Heroes Pilot, and the show does appear to have some minor kinks it’ll need to work out (hopefully sooner rather than later), but if you’re a comic book geek, The Middleman is definitely a show to be checked out; if you know how to have fun with your comics, I’d like to think you’ll have fun with this too.

Parting shot: 24 fans, take note: Mary Lynn Rajskub shows up in the Pilot as Dr. Gibbs of Simionics Animal Laboratories.

(Images courtesy of abcfamily.go.com.)

CAPTIVITY
(Review)

There are some movies that just don’t live up to the hype. Roland Joffe’s Captivity is one of them.
Even as gorno became the horror genre’s whipping boy, billboard ads for Captivity (which tells the story of the abduction and torture of fashion model du jour Jennifer Tree, played by 24’s Elisha Cuthbert), apparently unapproved by the MPAA, went up in New York and Los Angeles this past March. The billboards—which featured four panels depicting Cuthbert in the stages, Seduction, Confinement, Torture, and Termination—attracted a firestorm of controversy, and were subsequently pulled down.
Thus did Captivity become “the movie they didn’t want you to see!” (Or so the trailer put it following the billboard incident.)
As it is, there’s probably more excitement in the hullabaloo of that run-in with the MPAA than can be found in the film itself.

This is a limp and tepid exercise in thrills, and the twice-Oscar-nominated Joffe (for directing The Killing Fields and The Mission) never manages to raise the tension level above the slow simmering that runs through the film’s entire course. There is one brief moment, about an hour into the film, when something happens that could make you wonder, “Okay. So where are you taking this?”
Past that point though, the film settles back into its slothful zombie shuffle and sort of just shambles off towards its uninteresting climax.

Nothing really quite works in Captivity.
Once you get past the initial sense of discomfort and unease at the idea of abduction, things settle into a sense of humdrum tedium that never fully leaves the premises, like an unwanted, overstaying guest.
And while Jennifer is tortured (largely a psychological ordeal; despite appearances, this film is hardly gorno), the bits of police procedural interspersed throughout the proceedings seem lackadaisical, as if Joffe were begrudgingly giving us these scenes because that was expected of him. It doesn’t help that Michael Harney and Laz Alonso, who play the detectives, aren’t exactly the Oscar types either.

Additionally, the identity of the mystery abductor is immediately obvious to any film geek. (And if you don’t instantly identify the abductor when you get to see the eyes, pay attention to the abductor’s actions.)
Thus, not only is there no tension, there is no real mystery either.
So that’s bad enough. But the film also chooses to leave the abductor’s psychology a complete blank to the audience. By movie’s end, we have no frakking idea why all this happened. We get no sense of the abductor’s past, of the presumed trauma that caused this much psychological damage.

And ultimately, Captivity is also the kind of movie that doesn’t seem to have a point at all.
Certainly, this is not entertainment.
A: I would not call a bad movie “entertainment.”*
And more importantly, B: The reality of abduction and torture and murder is hardly “entertainment.”
Even with films as dark as the first Saw and Hostel, there were points to be made, and skill and savvy used to tell the tale. Captivity seems to have none of these.
There is a brief brush against the class divide, as Jennifer is made out to be a rich b!tch who has no real idea of how the other half lives, as well as some babble about the only real things being what you can touch, but these ideas don’t really go anywhere, trapped in the dreary hollow of this film the way Jennifer is in her cell.
And though it was apparently Joffe’s intent that Captivity be about “female empowerment” (the common PR spin for horror movies that have women running about and screaming and being stalked by unsavoury, would-be killers), I really don’t see that.
And even if the whole female empowerment aspect managed to escape me somehow, even if it’s actually there, hiding under the bed or in the crawlspace, it still wouldn’t change the fact that it’s contained in a drab and uninvolving film.

At the end of it all, Captivity just doesn’t seem to be worth the time or the effort to actually sit down and watch it.
It’s not exciting, it’s not thrilling, and it doesn’t have anything important to say. (Yes, I am aware that these things happen. All I have to do to know that is watch the news. I don’t need an uninspired horror movie to make me aware that we live in very troubled times.)
It doesn’t even have the gore.
All it really does have is Elisha Cuthbert in peril, and we already saw that on 24 Day 2, and in the House of Wax remake.
And on that note, I’d have to say that watching either is a far better prospect than enduring Captivity. (Yes, even if Paris Hilton is in House of Wax. Not only does House of Wax have an interesting climactic sequence as the eponymous house melts in a raging fire while the principals are still in it, but if you need added incentive, there is the opportunity to cheer madly when Paris gets iced. Come on, admit it. You want to.)

* Unless of course, it falls into the MST3K/so-bad-it’s-good territory, in which case, you can’t beat that kind of entertainment.
Captivity clearly does not have a passport or VISA to enter said territory.

(Captivity OS and billboard ad image courtesy of wilaboutmovies.com)

AFTERTHOUGHTS (6)

6.1 Congratulations to Hayden Panettierre, who graduated high school at the tail end of shooting for Heroes’ first season. So there was a special graduation ceremony during the Heroes’ wrap party, with series creator Tim Kring presenting Hayden with a diploma from Heroes High.
I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again. Hayden is hands down one of the best of the Heroes ensemble, no mean feat, that, and she’s not even at the legal drinking age!

6.2 Well, it’s a pleasant surprise, I’ll say that much.
I’m referring to the announcement (at variety.com) that Lost will run for 3 more seasons, then wrap in 2010. What, with all the doomsayer talk of plunging ratings, a part of me was psyching itself out for the possibility that Lost would take its bow at the end of season 4 (or at least till it hit its 100th episode, as I recall one of the key creators once pointed that out as a nice round number to aim for as the show’s end).
According to the deal struck between Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse, and the ABC bigwigs, there will be 3 more, shortened seasons (16 episodes each), to be aired without repeats (as per 24). That makes 48 episodes, plus the final 4 for this season, so we’ve got 52 more episodes to go, people.
That’ll be a grand total of 119 episodes, nearly an entire season over the 100 mark. Brilliant.

6.3 Returning to Heroes, in case you guys didn’t know, Alex Maleev did the art for the paintings Sylar made after absorbing poor Isaac’s power. Like Tim Sale (who is the artist responsible for Isaac’s paintings and 9th Wonders art), Maleev is a comic book artist perhaps most widely known for a critically-acclaimed run on Daredevil.

(Image courtesy of comicbookresources.com.)