So...lost

I watched the much hyped Lost finale last night. In one sense it was satisfying. All the relationships that I loved about season one were revived and resolved (except for Juliet and Sawyer, which happened after I started watching).

But of course the show failed to truly wrap up its loose ends. But was I expecting it to? Lost has always been chaotic- that was one of the reasons I stopped watching after season three. Most questions were left unanswered and fanboys everywhere can go crazy trying to connect the dots.

But the finale truly drew from Lost's strengths: the relationships between thoroughly developed characters as well as a sense of "otherness," otherwordly and liminal displaced sense of time and space. Ultimately the show cannot return to the beginning, but there is no where for it go except back into mystery.

Film Festival Time

One of the best benefits of living in New York is the ability to see independent films. Many of these interesting indies simply can't find a distributor and sometimes can only be seen at special screenings in NYC or LA. I thought I should take advantage of this fact, so last night I went to see Timer at the Tribeca Film Festival. Timer actually premiered last year at TFF, but a year later it still hasn't found a distributor. According to what the director told us in the Q&A after the film (yay for directors showing up to screenings!), they had a few offers but none were what they were looking for.

Timer takes place in a society where once you hit puberty you can get a digital timer implanted on your wrist that will count down the days until you meet your soul mate (and there is a 98% success rate for those couples!). It all sounds great and happy until you realize the complications that could arise. What if your timer remains blank like the protagonists- does that mean you don't have a soul mate? What if your timer says the soul mate is 50 years away? What are you supposed to do about relationships in the meantime? What if your match dies? What if you are matched with someone too young, or too old, or you don't like them? The movie seems to say that you can't force things like love, and you can't live your life waiting for something to happen to you.

I really liked this film. I thought it was well written and well acted. I mean, it had Anya from Buffy in it, so how could I not?

Timer also had some very non-Hollywood relationships that were great. Una, the main protagonist, lives with her stepsister Steph. When the timer and men threaten to come between them, Una tells Steph that their relationship is the most important in her life and she will not let anything come between them. It is so refreshing to see this non-romantic and non-familial bond between two women be so reinforced. The ending was bittersweet but authentic and made me respect the writing even more. Plus, it is very much a romantic comedy and made me laugh out loud several times. Honestly one of the best films I have seen in a long, long time. The DVD comes out in June or July and I hope people go rent it. 

Party Down

If you are not watching this hilarious catering comedy on Starz, you should be. The writing is quick and witty, the cast is pitch perfect (including Megan Mullally as a cloying divorce), and they capture the catering/acting community with comedic accuracy.

The show might not last that long because so many of the stars have been stolen away- including Jane Lynch who moved to Glee. They are streaming the current season on Netflix as it airs. Which is awesome. 

Word of the Day

Shipping, from Wikipedia

Shipping, derived from the word "relationship", is a general term for fans' emotional and/or intellectual involvement with the ongoing development of romance in a work of fiction. Though technically applicable to any such involvement, it refers chiefly to various related social dynamics observable on the Internet, and is seldom used outside of that context.

Shipping can involve virtually any kind of relationship — from the well-known and established, to the ambiguous or those undergoing development, and even to the highly improbable and the blatantly impossible. People involved in shipping (or shippers) assert that the relationship does exist, will exist, or simply that they would like it to exist.

Examples inclue LoVe (Logan and Veronica from Veronica Mars), shippers for Hermione+Harry, etc