10.23.2008

It's beginning to look a lot like halloween... part 10: True Blood


My selection of movies over here is rather limited. Basically, with no video rental place anywhere near me, I'm confined to what I can rent from the school library, whatever is playing at the little cinema (very reminscent of the good old Eaton Centre theatre) nearby, or what I can find online. Well, you can imagine how great the selection at my school library is, and I've already seen the movies that are playing at the theatre here. This has made the task of finding decent horror movies to watch this month and include in the countdown somewhat more difficult.

But thankfully, Alan Ball has temporarily solved this dilemna for me by creating True Blood. After not being able to find anything good at the library yesterday I recalled hearing about this show premiering not long before I left, but never recalled hearing anything about whether it was decent or not. Although I've only watched two episodes of the new project from the creator of Six Feet Under, I'm well addicted already.

Set in Louisiana, True Blood follows waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin), who can (for yet unexplained reasons) read peoples' minds, and how her life changes one night after she meets a vampire, her first since they 'came out of the coffin' two years ago. Now that a Japanese company has perfected synthetic blood, vampires claim that they have no need to kill anymore and just want to be like the rest of us. However, as one character points out in the first episode - would you give up all your favorite foods and drink just SlimFast for the rest of your life?
This show, similarly to Six Feet Under, is not a joke show, though their premises might make them seem like they could go that way. The show is sexy and violent, sometimes more disturbingly it is both at the same time, though Ball would not be the first person to cash in on this portrayal of the vampire world. Despite the fact that this show is much more fantastical than Six Feet Under, Ball seems to have counteracted this element of unrealism by cutting back a great deal on even the dark, twinge of humor that his former HBO hit had, although there are still some traces of it.
So far I like this one, but I may have to update after a few more episodes.

9 comments:

the coelacanth said...

this is so weird! i hadn't even heard about this show until yesterday, when i saw it briefly mentioned in an article, which piqued my interest. after reading your review, i'm dying to see this...

the coelacanth said...

p.s. - i loved that eaton centre theatre.

i saw three kings there with my brother pat and some drunk/f'd up guy kept making really obnoxious comments and pat finally got up and essentially dragged the guy out of the cinema, and when my bro returned everyone in the theatre applauded. it was amazing.

anyway, i wish that was still there...

Chandles said...

I really miss the eaton centre theatres too. The best way to see a shitty movie is on a shitty screen, American Pie never looked better than in that theatre.

So I just finished episode 7 of this show. I'm obviously enjoying it and am becoming addicted to it, but, I still can't tell if it's a quality show or not. I just have some stylistic issues with the thing - weird moments and reactions with characters, stuff like that. At least once an episode I watch a scene where I look at someone's reaction and kind of think 'that's not how someone would react to that. that's not normal.' but then again, it's a tv show about fucking vampires... in Louisiana! What do I know abou that kind of 'normal'?


p.s. the word I had to type to post this? y'know, so you can prove you're not a robot? was 'cunce'... I think I reeeaaally like that word.

Dropkick said...

i touched my frist girlfriend in that theatre. i remember thinking how moist it was that day

Chandles said...

you'd better not be talking about me, kadas.

Dropkick said...

before you my love. the jew one


...too soon?

Chandles said...

... too soon.

Dropkick said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dropkick said...

i realize now that you and her are both in fact jew ones. so i guess chronologically she was jew#1 and you #2. but something won't let me call you #2 to anything. so you can be my jew #1..

so i meant jew 2