The Web and 1

November 23, 2009

The Legend of Neil (season 2)

Grab your cheap wooden sword and your foppish green outfit as we head for Hyrule

Watch: http://legendofneil.com/
Below: Episode 1

Writers: Sandeep Parikh & Tony Janning
Director: Sandeep Parikh
Starring: Tony Janning

Season 2: 7 episodes, run time approx. 50 minutes

In The Legend of Neil, alcoholic slacker Neil wakes up in the middle of the classic Nintendo game The Legend of Zelda. If you're a fan of the Zelda video games, you're going to have some fun with Neil; if you're unfamiliar with Zelda, then there's no point to watching this show. But since LON has now finished its second season and the creators hope to do a third, here's a review, because there are elements that must be improved.

Neil is at its best when it's disciplined as an homage to The Legend of Zelda. The further the show strays from the source material, the worse it gets. In season two, Neil visits two underground pleasure huts. One is the money-making game, where Neil is conned by a trickster, and it's a smart take on material in the Zelda game. The other trip Neil makes is to a bar. It has nothing to do with Zelda, and instead turns into an odd and unnecessary homage to Cheers.

At the bar, another problem emerges: LON is way too crass, way too often. Dirty humor can be a real benefit to web series, free from the censorship of TV. But it's not a benefit it the show devolves into dick joke after dick joke after dick joke. Neil learns that Moblins, a common enemy in the game, have three penises. If this were just a side comment, it could have made for a hilariously subversive visual. But instead, they beat the three-penises gag into the ground, bringing it up again and again over three episodes.

Furthermore, the crudeness comes out of nowhere. There's a fairy with nymphomania and a wise guru with Tourette's - awful one-note characters whose one note has no basis in the source material. Why is it a problem that these odd elements aren't based on the source material? Because Zelda is pretty trippy on its own, that's why. If you want to be weird, there's plenty of weird stuff in Zelda already. Inventing things that have no basis in the original material just seems lazy, like you didn't try hard enough to find material in the game.

It's when Neil makes light of odd elements in the Zelda game that the show is at its best and most focused. How do hearts work? How does Link carry so much crap around with him? Why do enemies have ridiculous names like Dark Nuts? When the show is focused on elements like these, things in the game that are ripe for sendup, LON hits its target. If Neil continues his quest into a third season, hopefully the show can get these things right.

November 17, 2009

Girl Number 9

A fascinating philosophical exercise, wrapped up inside an unfortunately disappointing show

Watch: http://www.canyousaveher.com/
Below: Trailer

Writer: James Moran
Directors: Dan Turner, James Moran
Starring: Gareth David-Lloyd, Joe Absolom, Tracy-Ann Oberman

6 episodes, run time approx. 27 minutes

Similar & Related Shows
Harper's Globe
LG15: The Last
The Black Dawn
Maddison Atkins

In Girl Number 9, Joe Absolom plays a psychopath named Vincent who has been abducting and murdering young girls, and Gareth David-Lloyd plays Matheson, the cop who has finally arrested him. These are two fine British TV veterans, with Torchwood's David-Lloyd the most recognizable to a U.S. audience. Unfortunately, whatever value GN9 gets in having these actors is squandered by directing that doesn't let them play off one another.

The bulk of the show takes place in an interrogation room, with Matheson trying to get answers from Vincent. But these scenes are badly directed and edited. Whenever Vincent is delivering a line, it's shot from the same camera angle below him, and then when Matheson has a line it cuts to another stationary camera angle. So all of their scenes end up being back-and-forth between two camera angles - no reaction shots from the other, no dialogue where both characters are in the frame. What should be intense scenes between two intense characters end up just being boring.

It seems crazy that a series in which there's an onscreen clock at times counting down to when somebody is supposed to be killed could still feel so laggardly paced. Matheson spends the majority of the first few episodes repeating that he doesn't want to hear what Vincent has to say. Of course, we know that this conversation has to happen, so Matheson is just delaying the inevitable, and it makes the show feel awfully slow.

Even the show's title is a pacing problem in itself. At the top of the series, we are told that Vincent has killed seven children, and Vincent toys with the cops and tells them that he has an eighth girl kidnapped and about to die. The problem, of course, is that you're wondering, well, where's Girl Number 9? And it's not until the end of episode three - the midpoint of the series - that the idea of a ninth victim will be brought up.

Here, the tension finally ramps up. Vincent tells Matheson that he has Matheson's 8-year-old daughter, who up until this point had never been mentioned. At this point, we have learned the following: a) Matheson has a young girl; b) Vincent abducts and kills young girls; c) Vincent refuses to deal with any other cops besides Matheson. Matheson's not a very good cop if he couldn't figure out where this was all going.

Vincent offers Matheson a deal in which he'll release Matheson's daughter if Matheson does something really horrible. I won't spoil the terms of the deal, because Girl Number 9 is worth watching solely for this question. Would you do what Matheson is asked to do? It's a sadistic philosophical exercise, but also a fascinating one.

November 11, 2009

Dead & Lonely

Dating is scary. Online dating is scarier. Online dating when you're a vampire is ... beautiful?

Watch: www.ifc.com/dead-and-lonely/
Below: Episode 4

Writer/Director: Ti West
Starring: Paige Stark, Justin Rice

5 episodes, run time approx. 25 minutes

Dead & Lonely continues a tradition of short 'n sweet web series from IFC. The prior series with a highest degree of similarity to D&L is another IFC show, Like So Many Things. Both shows depict the quiet, awkward getting-to-know-you stage of a lonely guy and girl. There's just one little difference in Dead & Lonely - in this show, one of the participants just so happens to be a vampire.

Like LSMT, silence is a primary weapon in this show's arsenal. There is no dialogue for the entire first three minutes, and silence continues to be the standard for much of it. If that sort of thing frustrates you, then the show just isn't for you. Me, I'm pretentious; I love lingering shots of tortured souls' moody faces.

Since there is so little dialogue, Paige Stark and Justin Rice have to do so much of their acting with their eyes, and they're up to the challenge. Still, the hero of this story is director Ti West, who oversees some really arresting photography.

West is also a red-hot young horror director, whose film "The House of the Devil" is now in theatres. D&L and "House" are similar in their pacing, with a very slow build up to the climax. It's a formula for success - "House of the Devil" has an excellent 88% Rotten Tomatoes score.

Although Dead & Lonely is a vampire show, and West is a horror director, the "horror" here isn't blood 'n guts. It's the scariness of dating. D&L's Lee and Justin are two sad figures who find each other through online dating. The fact that Lee is a vampire is a canny commentary on how hard it is to trust people's online identities - she seems cute, but what's she hiding?

But there's an even more poignant allegory here if you consider things from Lee's perspective. This is dating in general. You try to present a nice image of yourself as you're getting to know somebody - but how long can you go until your base instincts come out and your true self is revealed? So in the final episode of the series, Lee is trying to act like a normal girl, but the whole time you keep waiting for her to lose control. Will she be able to contain herself, or is it just inevitable that her true self will take hold and she'll go for Justin's blood? It all culminates in a beautiful, haunting final scene.

Yes, there are lots and lots of vampire shows out there. But put aside your vampire fatigue, because Dead & Lonely is worth sinking your fangs into.

Delayed Teen Angst

This tale of video game boxing enthusiasts is not quite a knockout, but it lands a decent impact

Watch: http://www.moctod.com/dta/
Below: Episode 1

Writer: Claire L. Wasmund
Director: Karen Bullis
Starring: Tristan Scott, Fernando Noor, Amy Vorpahl

6 episodes, run time approx. 36 minutes

Similar & Related Shows
Like So Many Things ...
Rockville CA
Dead & Lonely

Delayed Teen Angst is the story of two young men who spend an idle day playing video games, and what happens when one of the guys starts losing interest in PlayStation and turns his attention to his friend's sister instead. When Lionel's sister Evie starts flirting with his friend Damian, Lionel is horrified - not because he fears somebody violating his sister, but because it might just represent the beginning of the end for his childhood friendship and the days of nothing but video games and movies that represent that childhood.

Lionel is the one for whom the title of Delayed Teen Angst is most resonant. Games represent Lionel's attempt to retain fun and innocence as he's growing up; all he wants to do is lounge on the couch, play games and watch movies. He's positioned at the brink of adolescence and adulthood, afraid of giving up his childhood pursuits and conscious of the possibility that he and his best friend are drifting apart as they grow older. He just wants to remain a kid and play video games, and he doesn't understand why everyone else has to go and make things all adult and complicated.

Even worse for Lionel than the thought of Damian violating his sister is the thought that Damian might reject his sister - from there, it's an easy hop over to the idea that Damian could reject him, and the idea of losing his childhood best friend is terrifying. It's all very challenging and scary, and so it's no wonder that Lionel would want to remain in this cocoon of arrested development.

There is one element of DTA that could be a real dealbreaker for some viewers. The show has an odd narrative style in that characters will frequently stop mid-scene and start speaking soliloquies directly to the camera. It takes some getting used to, but ultimately I'm OK with that part. What does bother me is the fact that the characters are so much more eloquent when they're talking to the camera as opposed to when they're talking to one another. The characters are awkward and immature with one another, and then as soon as they're talking to the camera they're wise and philosophical. In their soliloquies, they're mature and self-aware, and suddenly the scene shifts back to regular dialogue and they lose it. I understand the idea of wanting to do the show this way, as it lends the series an air of being profound that wouldn't be there if the characters were just the immature young adults they are regularly. But the execution never totally clicks.