Anticipation

There is something of the macabre involved in anticipating the finale to a series. Be it books, be it a trilogy of films, be it a tv show, there is a feeling of dread in approaching the end. That can happen with a single book or movie, particularly as so many often go downhill so quickly as the author attempts to wrap it up. But with a series, it is magnified due to the time and effort invested in it prior to the ending. So while one feels anticipation and excitement for the denouement, there is a genuine feeling of terror - what if the wrong person ends up with the character you love the most? What if, simply, the ending is shoddy? My friends who were seriously invested in Lost have struggled with that ending. And what if you have created a great piece of art or culture - yes, I'm looking at you, George Lucas - but then the author can't let it go, and they keep sucking your emotions away with sub-standard rubbish afterward that makes you forget why you loved the art in the first place?* So many people have slated the final season of The Wire, and I think a great deal of that is the relative disappointment, even if it's still miles ahead of anything else on tv.

There is also the simple regret at the coming to pass of something that you love. This is the feeling I have now as Mockingjay is sitting in wait for me at my local library. I was a latecomer to this, but The Hunger Games gripped both Cerebus and me, and as a result, I positively raced through Catching Fire, the second book that I've now handed onto Cerebus. I don't want to be disappointed in it, but there is also something about having everything unresolved, as if you're on the brink of something wonderful - or terrible - and there's a delicious joy in that uncertainty, the possibilities of what could happen. And the realisation that once you're done with the book, that's it. No going back. The story is fixed, done, and there will be no changes. Which is why I howl and howl and howl when I re-read the Dark Materials trilogy. That light, the hope has been snuffed out.

* Of course, a lot of people would argue about the general rubbishness of Return of the Jedi - which was probably an ill-fated harbinger of the awfulness of the new movies - in comparison to the glories of The Empire Strikes Back. Which leads me to ponder why the second of a trilogy is so often the best of them. Several come to mind: Star Wars trilogy, The Subtle Knife in the Dark Materials Trilogy, The Godfather Part II... hmm. Is it because the author is setting it up, with often a lot of darkness, but doesn't have to wrap up all the loose threads or worry about that, at least? I think so. But one to ponder.

Wired

Why does it take us (me and Cerebus, that is) so long to wind up to watch an episode of The Wire? We've had massive pauses between seasons, and even in the middle of some. I think it's because I know how brutal it will be, and how it emotionally blacks out everything else on tv. We just watched the first episode of the fifth and final season, and I'm already traumatised at this being the last 12 or so for me to watch; I'm exhausted with McNulty and his utter idiocy/self-destruction; frustrated at the political machinations, and both Cerebus and I are aware of a massive spoiler we suffered that is hanging over us, with us just waiting for it to drop. Still, there are glorious, glorious things to enjoy: Bunk is one of my favourite characters on tv, ever; one of the newspapermen, despite reminding me of Mick from Brookside (but who played Lewis in Homicide: Life on the Streets - didn't remind me of Mick then), is clearly going to become one of my favourite characters in this season; and the rhythm, sharpness and familiarity of it is overwhelming.

I suppose I just don't want it to end.

AFI

A couple of things got me thinking about the AFI Top 100 Movies. A work colleague with a much more pretentious (i.e. impressive and learned) taste in movies was talking about it, and then there was a question about how many movies the hosts of Answer Me This had seen. So, I've seen seven of the top ten, and overall, a paltry 41. Boo. Still, I'm pleased with my top ten results. And, of course, Casablanca is second in the list, and as I have discussed at length elsewhere, I adore this film. So I'm watching this and I plan to make my way through at least some of the rest of this. Although given the results of my attempts to get through The Observer list, maybe I should avoid it and just watch some good films rather more informally.

Nadir

As Cerebus points out, I have my own unique brand of snobbery. For example, I get very uptight about the I'm-smarter-than-you-art-so-I-have-to-point-out-everything highbrow stuff, as I have discussed previously on this blog. I'd much rather watch/read something supposedly "low brow" but completely unaffected than ever, ever have to sit through American Beauty again. On the other hand, the "low brow" cannot be anything related to a shopaholic, anything with Kate Hudson or Matthew McConaughey, the "He's not that into you" film and its brethren and anything with the manic pixie dream girl as a main character. Or, indeed, anything trying to teach young girls that having sex is dangerous, you need to be protected from yourself by a man who may kill you with his passion if he does have sex with you, and if you have sex you'll end up with a weird mutant monster baby. And yes, the third installment of that movie series is out in cinemas now!

The problem is, I like low brow, but am picky about what constitutes good lowbrow as opposed to terrible lowbrow. Why, for example, do I find Jackass repeatedly compelling, whereas any reality show (more or less) is just too infra dig.? I haven't quite worked that out, but this weekend I've had a dear friend staying with me, and we've watched numerous incarnations of "The Real Idiots of Wherever" and their spin-off shows, and it really has just been too much for me. I don't know why, when I really can watch terrible things over and over and over, including horrible toilet humour, crass and revolting sexual jokes made by awful and grotesque human beings (hello It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) and those are my favourite programmes, but when it comes to real people doing those things I am just horrified and find it all beneath me. I find their grotesqueness horrifying, not amusing; I need to turn away, hide under my cushion. But then, I do that with Peep Show and Extras but can watch those over and over and over again.

This is a remarkably useless post. I just wanted you to know that I really, really, really cannot bear reality tv and it's not because I think I should only watch Mad Men and things on HBO. I've tried, but unless it's neatly packaged and contained for me by Joel McHale, it's just not for me.

Thud, thud, thud

There is a school of art - be it books, music or film - that I find excruciating beyond belief. It's a genre I like to call "patronising highbrow," and I would rather read/listen to/watch a million terrible "lowbrow" items before having to deal with this stuff.

It's the type of prose that tells you that it is meaningful; that this observation is very important indeed and that it is telling you something about the profundity of the human experience - so listen up, buster, because this author is highly important. My real problem with this is that the creators of such work are so pleased with themselves for such astuteness that they are incapable of believing that you, little reader/observer/listener could possibly understand such greatness. So, just in case a) you didn't get profundity of the observation and b) therefore, you have failed to accredit the author of the observation with sufficient praise/awe, the author will point. it. out. to. you. In bold letters.

The first work that provoked my observation (portentous and extremely profound, obviously) of this style was the unbelievably over-rated American Beauty. Apart from the pretty hackneyed and cliched treatment of suburbia and sexuality--did you know that teenage girls can appear sexually provocative and yet be inexperienced and/or virgins? And that men who hate gays are, of course, gay themselves and repressing their feelings? I'm pretty sure you didn't before this movie--we have that utterly annoying montage with the black plastic bag, that floats and floats. With the voice from beyond the grave. Who tells you repeatedly how beautiful this is, because there is beauty in small things and this is the true beauty - but you couldn't have worked that out for yourself.

I was reminded of this after just finishing The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers. This is a book published in 1940 that screams its profundity at you. This passage particularly irked me. It's about the owner of a cafe in the small southern town, who has strongly lustful and tender feelings for a girl of about 13:

Always he wanted to set her up to something, to give to her. And not only a sundae or some sweet to eat--but something real. That was all he wanted for himself--to give to her. Biff's mouth hardened. He had done nothing wrong but in him he felt a strange guilt.

Now, you see, why not leave it at that? Why not leave it there, hanging, so that you wonder about the guilt, about how much he realises that his feelings are wrong, cannot be acted on, and how common this is? No, McCullers doesn't finish the paragraph there, but with this:

Why? The dark guilt in all men, unreckoned and without a name.

We get it, Carson. We get it. Then the next passage is about a small meaningful thing where he picks up a penny. Wow.

This book is frustrating because there's a lot of beautiful prose and it gives you a sense of the despair of the post-Depression South, of how it never financially recovered from the Civil War, and the anger inside people, black and white. Yet it can't let you observe for yourself: it constantly points out the seething anger inside the protagonists, because you can't realise that without her pointing it out to you. You're just not as smart as she is.