Why?... Paranormal Activity... V

As you can tell by the title, this particular post will cover three subjects.

First, I saw the wonderful band Why? this weekend at the Spanish Moon. They mainly played material from their two most recent albums, Alopecia (one of the best albums of the decade) and Eskimo Snow (one of the best albums of the year, pitchfork be damned). It was a great show, not to mention an interesting night... from the couple who literally seemed to making out for two straight hours, to an awkward exchange I had with this nice girl. She was telling me and some friends about how her father designed the medical PET scanning device. We were all very impressed and told her how cool her father was and then she said, "Yeah... he died of radiation exposure." And then for some reason I said, with far too much enthusiasm, "Well, at least he got the PET scan down!" Wow, right?

Secondly, I saw Paranormal Activity this weekend. Initially, I was very skeptical of this film. I felt the beginning was marred by a feux naturalism the couple was trying to convey, but the film slowly built into a potently frightening experience. A very good movie.

Lastly, a note about the premier of the new show V. I saw it over the week and was supremely unimpressed. In case you're not familiar with the show, V follows events on earth after an advanced alien race, who call themselves "the Visitors", reveal themselves in massive interstellar ships over the major cities on the globe. One of the show's main developers is Scott Peters, who was executive producer on The 4400, one of my favorite sci-fi series. As I was watching the pilot to V I thought to myself, "so much of what they got right in the The 4400 they've gotten terribly wrong in V. Firstly, all of the mystery surrounding the alien race is dispensed with in the first half-hour, in which the audience learn that the aliens are not only bad, but they've planning to take over Earth for years. Also, we find out there are alien defectors. Those who have abandoned the Visitors and are working to help the humans. Hmm, a distinct race disguised as humans who ultimately decide to embrace their inner humanity? If that sounds like a vapid facsimile of Battlestar Galactica, it's because that's what it is.

Finally, my last problem with V is it's suspect political inclinations. In the show, the Visitors ingratiate themselves to Earth by offering universal health care and attempting to engage the youth of the world. Not to mention the fact that the aliens rhetoric constantly emphasizes peace and hope. Peace, hope, engaging the young, univeral health care? What could this be an allegory for? Either this show is presenting an insipid allegorical critique of the Obama administration or the show's creators are so dense that they don't realize what they're doing.