There’s no defense for copying screen antics
Television is never to blame when people take upon themselves to imitate or attempt some feat they’ve seen on the little screen.
The idea that a source of entertainment, whether books, movies, TV, or stage, is responsible for individual lapse of common sense is ludicrous.
Put me on the jury of anyone who takes action against Netflix for doing something as birdbrained as blindfolding themselves and negotiating a river’s rapids, as seen on “Bird Box,” and the TV presenter will be exonerated every time.
People control themselves. Lots of people take risks or do occasional things they know are wrong – “One day soon I will get that car inspected” – but when plunging knowingly into reckless danger will not win sympathy here.
Besides – spoiler alert – my example from “Bird Box” isn’t exactly the best because Malorie, the lead character played by Sandra Bullock, doesn’t take the rapids blindfolded. When she hears she is approaching them, she grounds her boat and proceeds with her children over land.
“Bird Box” may be garnering more attention from stories about fools taking “the ‘Bird Box’ challenge than it is from viewers or TV fans in general.
The show, released to streaming in the U.S. but playing in movie theaters in London, sabotages itself in significant ways that keep it from being the winter blockbuster Netflix may have anticipated, especially with a cast that includes Bullock, John Malkovich, B.D. Wong, and Sarah Paulson, two of whose stories end early.
I was engrossed for the first 45 minutes or so. The idea of something invisible in the air that lured people to madness, then suicide, was intriguing, especially as you saw people succumbing to visions and suggestions in various ways. Malorie’s sister sees something and is so drawn to it, she forgets she is driving and becomes unreasonable and haphazard. The woman who invites the pregnant and seemingly aimless Malorie into her home answers a call from her late mother. Wong’s rational character takes precautions yet gets drawn into extreme action by something he sees on his home security surveillance screens.
Mystery is definitely established, and as in most mysteries you want clues as some forward progress in discovering the why’s and the who’s. I always tell people I was attracted to journalism because I need to know everything and can’t keep a secret. My drive from such things borders on the pathological, but even a milder person, watching a story about something that threatens to erase mankind, must finally want an answer.
It’s fashionable today not to provide answers, to have an ending remain ambivalent and subject to interpretation, such as Tony Soprano leaving that restaurant or whether the magazine editor in “Lifespan of a Fact” (on Broadway until yesterday), publishes the story that stretched many truths to get to one.
“Bird Box” isn’t entitled to such a luxury. It needs to relieve curiosity in a way that isn’t incumbent on “The Sopranos” and that “Lifespan” handles in a deft visual at the end.
“Bird Box” has presented something unusual and frightening. All kinds of ideas go through a viewer’s head as he or she, along with the characters, are trying to figure out what’s happening and why it doesn’t affect people who can’t see or stay inside.
One person who takes refuge in the same house as Malorie has a dozen spiritually connected conspiracies. There’s talk about a nerve gas gone amok. Malorie has a nightmare about a snakelike creature.
The problem is, at no time, do the creators or filmmakers seriously work to satisfy the audience hunger to know what Malorie and her children are facing.
Might “Bird Box” have a deeper meaning? I looked for one, because being engrossed turned to being bored once plot lines doubled on themselves in terms of storytelling and failed to lead to reasons for humanity’s dilemma. I dismissed the housemate’s mumbo-jumbo, but wondered in Malorie and her children are meant to survive for a specific reason and even went so far as to surmise the birds Malorie kept in a box and guarded during her journey were meant to be harbingers of safety, or an ending, like the doves released from Noah’s Ark.
All of my thoughts and theories turned out to be tortured attempts to make something of a program that wasn’t able to make something of itself.
I gave up. I might be able to stand the delay of the tangible, or moan in contempt when I learn a plot hinges on one bit of information the author chose to withhold to make a mystery sort of happen. I feel cheated when I come to the conclusions writers can’t even withhold because they haven’t figured out the problem themselves.
Eventually, “Bird Box” had to show signs that led somewhere in explaining humankind and Malorie’s plight.
It doesn’t. It gives you no palpable monster. It shows you no alien force using individual fears to get people to abandon life and Earth. It provides no human villain who might be willing to use weapons of mass confusion. It doesn’t even make clear why seeing is likely be to fatal while being blindfolded creates immunity.
So you slog through to a disappointment. No solution and no hope or disturbing warning of eons of dystopia.
Bullock is good at playing scared but leaderlike and resourceful. She earned an Oscar nomination for doing so in “Gravity,” another movie that bored me no matter now much I admired its gorgeous visuals.
It isn’t enough. “Bird Box” is finding more disdain than adulation because it lets down on all the things that keep one engrossed. It squanders its initial good faith.
Yet it made headlines for one thing people did take away from, the wonder of whether they could negotiate the world blindfolded, including while driving a car.
“Bird Box” may not impress the general television audience, but it can provide, unintentionally and, as I began without blame, an activity for idiots.
Life is random. You can’t predict what might strike an individual as fun or a ‘neat’ thing to do.
Scripted drama, particularly thrillers, are not random. While “Bird Box” has no apologies to make for people stupid enough to put themselves in danger for borrowing one of its ideas, it has to lot to answer for in not making a plot and side business continually intriguing and for doing so in ways that flout the basic tenets of storytelling – Don’t just show the plague; show the perpetrator!
Eagles fun
NBC Sports Philadelphia knows how to have fun with the Eagles playoff run. It sponsored rallies and events all week, mostly around a “Road to Repeat” bus that drove through the region to key sites, such as The Franklin Institute and the Reading Terminal Market so fans could autograph the vehicle that would make its way to New Orleans.
Barrett Brooks talked to fans in Willow Grove, and there was festivities in South Philly.
Then came a day’s worth of programming before and after Sunday’s game.
Channel 29 sent Delco native Chris O’Connell early last week to cover festivities there. O’Connell appeared with sports guru Howard Eskin and top Eagles insider Dave Spadaro on special programs from the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Meanwhile, the “Good Day Philadelphia” teams of Mike Jerrick, Alex Holley, Bob Kelly, and Sue Serio did a special program Sunday afternoon devoted to the Eagles.
I wish the local Fox people would take over the national pre-game show. Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, and Michael Strahan have bored me most of the season, mainly because I get tired of them wandering in an out of formation and going for big effects instead of delivering concise analysis of the game on which they are allegedly paid to comment.
If the most desired happened yesterday, stay tuned to see what these and other stations have in store.
Sir Charles hits ‘Goldbergs’
NBA-great and local favorite while a member of the Sixers, Charles Barkley will make a cameo appearance playing a substitute gym teacher on Wednesday’s 8 p.m. episode of “The Goldbergs,” one in which the hapless family in heading to a Sixers game and has to listen to an endless loop of Rupert Holmes’s “Pina Colada Song” during a traffic jam en route.
Barkley’s teacher is not easy on his pupils. He blocks shots made my otherwise confident kids who attempt to score on him.