25/07/2009
update - Witches of Eastwick, True Blood
Just finished The Witches of Eastwick.
Wasn't sure what the point of Updike would be if it's not realistic small-town America, but actually found the heightened awareness of it as a fable meant appreciating more consciously the actual craft of his fiction (I'm gonna admit, something, somewhere inside of me, just wanted to assume Rabbit was straight-up documentary) - he's pretty good.
Back to Rabbit Redux now, maybe from a bit of a different angle.
Just watched the first episode of True Blood. It seems weak. However compelling it is to watch a blonde waitress with psychic powers that somehow turn her into a caricature of naivety rather than jaded and manipulative (I'm guessing the grandmother is something to do with that), that scene in the forest particularly killed it for me. the one with the confrontation with the potential vampire-drainers - kind of important, plot-wise. a hinging point. there needs to be this confrontation, and it needs to be resolved in a certain way, and that way is that Sookie and Bill temporarily defeat the drainers - with Sookie playing the main part in saving Bill's life - yet it still needs to be left open for retaliations or follow-ups later.
but the guy gets strangled by the chain in some not entirely clear way, the both of them look scared and give up and stumble off (with the obligatory "we'll be back"-type comments)... then do a bit of a wheel-skid in their truck. just to scare a little. could they not have just run them over?!
cheese or cliché is fair enough, but can it still not be a little tighter?
didn't Buffy do this better? (I'm actually not sure, just wondering)
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2 comments:
I agree with everything you said about True Blood, i complained all the way through it, there was some terribly clumsy exposition that i remember rolling a least one eye over ("where's my sister?" "Sookie is not here" etc), but when it all finished i actually quite enjoyed it...and subsequently posted it.
and im pretty excited about reading more updike, rabbit run was incredible (as well as the newyorker fiction podcast, there is a comment one as well you might have seen, there is one about updike)
as long as we agree.
(i hope i didn't sound like a dick? re enjoyment to be fair last night i watched the second ep...)
hadn't seen the comment podcast, cool, actually got a subscription to the digital edition of the magazine but never have time to read it all... audio - practical.
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