A month ago, Bill Simmons had Jason Whitlock on his podcast, talking about an article that had been posted on Simmons’ Grantland.com blog. The article argued that “Breaking Bad” is perhaps the greatest television series of all time, surpassing “The Wire,” which many believe is the greatest of all time. Whitlock argued in favor of “The Wire,” due to “Breaking Bad” not having finished it’s run yet and so there’s no way to tell how it will be viewed overall once it’s completed. Simmons then made a comment that when making a group of the best television shows, you have to include “The Sopranos” just because it was “the first of the shows,” as he puts it. Thing is, and while “The Sopranos” is a masterful television show, it wasn’t the first of “the shows.” It wasn’t the first show that opened the gates for other cable television series to prosper, because there was one before it.

Two years before “The Sopranos” began their run in 1999, HBO premiered their first drama in original programming. It was a show that perhaps today few remember, as rather than the iconic New Jersey atmosphere of “The Sopranos,” this series was set in an unnamed state, in a fictional prison, and never left that locale. This television series was “Oz.”

Set in the Oswald State Penitentiary, nicknamed Oz by everyone there, Tim McManus watched over an experimental unit called “Emerald City”. In “Em City,” McManus had all sorts of different ethnic and racial groups living together, in an attempt to rehabilitate them. From the Muslims to the Gays to the Latinos to the Homeboys to the Aryans, each group had their own diverse group of characters. The television show never left the walls of Oz unless showing a stylized flashback for each of the prisoners, detailing their crimes and why they’re in Oz.

But the most influential and memorable aspect of “Oz,” was that each episode had its own particular theme ranging from a wide variety of prison-related topics. The way that Tom Fontana, the series creator and writer of all the episodes, accomplished this was to have Augustus Hill, one of the inmates in the prison, bound to a wheelchair, have these segments throughout the episode in which he breaks the fourth wall, talking directly to the audience. As the season’s progress, these segments become more complex, as one season he is standing in front of a green screen, which plays videos and pictures behind him in relation to what he is talking about. Other seasons have him inside a rotating cage as Augustus goes round and round while talking to the audience.

One of the big complaints that Whitlock and Simmons had against “The Sopranos” was that 40% of it could be cut out and it would still be a great show, meaning that it had a lot of useless fat. For “Oz,” each season was only 8 episodes, which not only set the benchmark for how many episodes a cable television series should have, but also kept the seasons tighter and more focused. With not only each episode having its own theme, but each season had its own arc as well, with one season being about two inmates escaping, or the inmates putting on a play.

“Oz” was also the first television show in the U.S. to show nudity, use profanity, as well as intense violence. Rarely did an episode go on without some inmate being shanked or beaten, as well as the always-present threat of rape. Even television series today reference “Oz,” and it has even become somewhat of a cliché for a character to say they know what prison is like because they watched “Oz.” Do any programs reference “The Sopranos” these days? Rarely, if not at all.

The drama was also a starting out point for many of the “Golden Age of Cable” actors, as many of the actors on “Oz” went off to do shows such as “The Wire,” “Dexter,” “Lost,” and other programs. It is also detrimental to the importance of the show where an actor is referenced to his character on “Oz.” For any fan of the show, they will always associate J.K. Simmons (who played the Aryan Vernon Schillinger) and Dean Winters (who played the Irish trickster Ryan O’Reilly) to their respective characters, even though these two actors have appeared in numerous film and television series.

The success of “Oz” can be seen in how the show was able to take the daily lives of prison inmates, and make them relatable. This was seen the most in the relationship between protagonist Tobias Beecher and Chris Keller, two straight men that had a homosexual and loving relationship while in Oz. While some programs would have taken the easy route by refraining from this, Fontana was able to show that these two characters actually love each other, even though they are not homosexual. Especially when Keller manages to wipe out the Aryan Brotherhood (who controlled the mailroom) in one fell swoop with an Anthrax package in the series finale, just because Beecher was threaten by them for the majority of the series.

In the end, it’s no surprise that “Oz” has been forgotten, replaced by the success of “The Sopranos” and “Six Feet Under,” which both came within 2-3 years of the show’s first season premier. Aside from those that watched it when it aired and those that were lucky enough to see it on DVD or repeats (the show is still aired occasionally on HBO at night, something that isn’t done for it’s more popular shows that have ended.) Nevertheless, episodes and scenes of “Oz” are more memorable than those of “The Sopranos,” largely due to Whitlock’s 40% fat argument, and the characters of “Oz” are more memorable as well. Simon Adebisi, Vern Schillinger, Tobias Beecher, Ryan O’Reilly, Sister Pete and a slew of others have gone on to the echelon of television character’s that’ll never be forgotten.

It’s sad to hear that “The Sopranos” is attributed to as “the first of the shows,” when “Oz” premiered two years before, but those that have seen the show know of it’s greatness, and know that as soon as that trumpet and drums theme song starts playing, we’re in for something great.

]]> http://filmrambles.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/the-forgotten-journey-from-oz/feed/ 2 chrisfletcher89 oz Augustus-Hill-oz-hbo-11078298-500-400 Oz-Photos-oz-hbo-2543899-399-375 http://filmrambles.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/the-season-to-season-jump/ http://filmrambles.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/the-season-to-season-jump/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 19:17:27 +0000 chrisfletcher89 http://filmrambles.wordpress.com/?p=96 ]]> Take a look at the cable TV shows that just premiered, shows like True Blood, Weeds, Curb Your Enthusiasm, etc. From the outside, they’re all different. You have a soap-drama, an unfunny comedy, and a funny comedy. But to the viewers of the show, there’s one thing that’s similar in all of them, at least for their most recent seasons, which just premiered this month. They all jumped ahead in time in between seasons.

Now to some, that’s probably not a big deal.  So what if you ended the show on a cliffhanger, and then when the audience returned for the next season, the series had jumped ahead a year or more?  They’ll resolve all of the last season’s issues and storylines with a tiny bit of dialogue, and then we can move ahead to new arcs. But the question remains: is this what the audience really wanted? And the problem lies in one simple explanation: it’s just lazy writing.

There is some defense that can be heard about why the writers decide to do this. For one, it refreshes the series, and allows more opportunities for different stories to be told. But this only works for comedies. It’s very difficult for dramas to successfully pull this off, as each season is generally left with a cliffhanger, urging the audience to salivate for more information during the off months. Secondly, it can be done for financial reasons, as following through with particular storylines can lead to expensive sets, locations, etc. But I’m looking at why writers use a time jump in between seasons for story purposes.

Weeds

Let’s look at Weeds first because this is obviously the laziest of the examples. Last season ended with the pot-loving Botwin family boarding a plane to Amsterdam while Nancy Botwin, the pot-queen matriarch, turned herself over to the police and confessed to killing a Mexican woman, or something. Now, in season 7 of the Showtime series, we’ve jumped ahead 3 years to Nancy being released from prison and being sent to a halfway house in New York City. Her family returns from the Netherlands to be with her, and comedy ensues… but not really.

To be clear, I’m not criticizing Weeds because it isn’t funny anymore, I’m criticizing it because the 3-year jump is pure laziness on the writer’s part. Why couldn’t we have a season of Nancy adjusting from being an always-having-an-iced-coffee-in-her-hand marijuana dealer to a prison inmate, while having her family adjusting to living in Amsterdam without her? I know what you’re thinking, that’s comedic gold right there. The most frustrating thing about Weeds is that the characters never learn, especially Nancy, who in this season is back to getting her hands on some weed.

I get it, that’s the driving point of the show, but couldn’t the writers have had her dealing weed in prison? Now we’re left with a 3 year gap, not really knowing what happened it all of them as if the writers would like us to easily forget it all, and the family’s up to the same shenanigans as before, only this time in New York. Instead of a refresh, the series feels as dumb and overdrawn as ever, and we’re left not really caring for the Botwins anymore, and not laughing with them either.

True Blood

Last season, on True Blood, we were left with numerous cliffhangers, as is usually with the series and most dramas. We had Sookie going into the Faery world, Bill and the Queen of Louisiana in mid-air and about to fight, Jason being left to watch over Chrystal’s family in Hot Shot, Sam shooting his brother Tommy, and we had Tara leaving Bon Temps as she tried to get away from all the madness.  So we had a lot of things going on in Bon Temps at the end of last season, and how did the writer’s kick of this season? By jumping the series ahead a year, because Sookie’s five minutes in Faery land equals one year in real life.

Now we’ve got Bill as the King of Louisiana, Tara cage fighting against her lesbian lover in New Orleans (really?), Jason as a police officer who secretly watches over the Hot Shot crew, and Sam in “therapy” with other shape-shifters. Hoyt and Jessica are on the rocks as Hoyt’s Mom is watching over Tommy, treating her like her new son. Like Sookie, the audience is coming into this new Bon Temps not knowing that any of this has happened. It’s like on LOST, when Jack, Kate, and Hurley return to the Island in the 1970’s and see their friends in the Dharma getup, except for that show it worked and it had to do with the series arc.

Here on True Blood, its different, and it feels completely unnecessary. Why have Sookie gone for a year when she could’ve been gone for a month, and have that month take up an episode or two? The audience wants to know how everybody arrived at where they are after the one-year jump, but not through quick flashbacks (we’ve only been shown Bill’s so far and I doubt they’ll show others). When you build up all this conflict in the previous season finale, you want to see how it all works out in the next season premiere.

True Blood has a characteristic quality about its episodes because an episode starts off exactly where the previous one left off. Here, it’s not necessarily the case. Sure we’re left with Sookie in the Faery world, but then we’re given five minutes of that until she jumps back to the real world, which has moved a year into the future. We, the audience, want to see what happened during that year. How did Jason end up becoming a cop? How did Lafayette learn to accept Jesus as a Wiccan? Since when did Tara become a bi-sexual?

We want to know these answers, and with a jump ahead we lose that and are just left to accept it all and move on. The writer’s are trying to make it alright by telling us, “Yes, we did jump ahead a year and so you won’t be able to find out how everything worked out in that time period, but guess what? We have witches this time around!” In the end, it’s a cheap shot to the viewers.

Curb Your Enthusiasm

This season of Curb starts off exactly where the last season ended, with Larry accusing Cheryl that she left the stain on Julia Louis-Dreyfus’ table. The fight escalates and Cheryl leaves. Then we jump a year ahead to Larry at his attorney’s office discussing his and Cheryl’s divorce and the settlement that they’re about to agree on. Why the one-year jump? Well, there doesn’t really seem to be a reason. The show could have just started up without telling us that there was a time jump. It’s an unnecessary detail that really has no purpose to the overall story. What happened during that time jump? For one, Cheryl and Larry decided to get a divorce, that’s it. All of the other characters are still in the same places as they were before, and so we’re left questioning what was the point of jumping ahead?

This jumping ahead idea has become pretty common as of late in the cable television arena. Look at the news for upcoming seasons of Californication, Damages, and Sons of Anarchy and we’ll see that there is at least a year in time jumps for each of these shows. The writers say this is a refresh for the series, a new start, but does the audience really want that? If you need to refresh/restart your series, what does that say about your show? Look at Weeds, a show that should’ve ended a long time ago and shouldn’t have even bothered with a refresh (it’s interesting to look at the posters for the new seasons of both Weeds and Curb because all have puns with “New York” like “New York, Same Larry” and “New Season, New York, New High”).

Television series should have a long arc that connects all of the seasons into one story. Look at The Wire, and how each season can be seen as a book in a five part series. In book series, is it normal to jump ahead in time, without any real explanation of what happened between that jump? Of course not. The writers say it’s a great way for the series to reboot/refresh, but in the end, from a story standpoint, it’s just a sign of laziness.

Now during this time, especially the months leading up to the World Cup, Nike would run ads constantly with an emphasis on soccer. I’m sure you remember them, because they were pretty popular. With the tagline of “Joga Bonito,” Portuguese for “Play Beautiful,” the commercials focused on one player, from Ronaldinho to Rooney, and their love and unbelievable talent for the game.  One in particular stands out, with a pre-handball Thierry Henry playing street soccer and just tearing the pavement apart. The commercial ends with Henry tripping up the goalie and scoring from behind the net by putting a ridiculous amount of spin on the ball. Yeah, it was pretty awesome.

So what do these commercials have to do with my buddies and me playing pickup soccer? Well, whenever we would score a goal or pull a move that we thought was fancy, we’d instantly cry out, “Joga Bonito!” It became our catchphrase. Get an A on a test? Joga Bonito. Break a sprinting PR? Joga Bonito. Montenegro declaring its independence? Joga Bonito. You get the idea.

School ends, and enter the World Cup in June. Team USA, as usual, was a longshot, but it didn’t really matter. We were interested in seeing some great soccer and whenever some crazy move happened, there was the usual cry of “Joga Bonito!” from my friends and me. So one day, after a full day of attempting to wake-board out on the Long Island Sound, my two friends, Matt and Doug, and I decided to make our own Joga Bonito video.

You see Doug loved making YouTube videos. It was his thing and everyone knew it. And this is also during the time where a lot of people didn’t know about YouTube. It was this untapped resource for people like Doug to make funny videos and put them up on the site for all of us to see. Doug was actually the first person to show me what YouTube was, but I thought that I never had the capacity to come up with a video that’d be worthy enough of the site.

Setting ourselves up on a street that rarely had any cars drive by, we found two traffic cones and set them up as goal posts along one of the curbs, making it look more like a pickup basketball court than a soccer one. Doug took his camera and climbed up a tree to get the best vantage point while Matt and I decided who would get the ball first by a quick game of rock-paper-scissor. The game commenced with the first person to three goals winning the match, and it was a battle.  We were tripping over each other, pushing, shoving, and falling on the pavement. It was our version of Joga Bonito in its finest glory.

With every goal I scored, Matt came back and scored another. Now Matt was generally better than me, but looking back that doesn’t really say much. He must have been practicing moves he specifically saw in those Joga Bonito commercials, like trying to put spin on the ball, kicking it up and faking me out, etc. After about a half hour, we arrived at a 2-2 stalemate. Matt and I are drenched in sweat from running back and forth between these two curbs, and Doug’s getting anxious. Finally, I trip Matt up and score the winning goal.

After the game, we went back to Doug’s house and logged all the footage onto his computer. He said this was going to be his greatest YouTube video yet, and we believed him. But for some reason, and I have no idea why because at the time I had no experience when it came to film and video, I decided to bet Doug that I would make a better video than he would.  Better yet, I bet Doug that I would get more views on YouTube. Matt and Doug laughed at me, but somehow I was convinced that I could do this.

I didn’t even know what to do when editing video, and I didn’t even know if I had editing software on my computer. Turns out that I had an archaic copy of Windows Movie Maker on my computer, and so I got to work. I knew going in that I had to do something different to beat Doug in this competition. His videos usually logged about 500 to 1,000 views total, which was a big deal at the time, so I had to think outside the box. And then it hit me. What was the prime reason for us doing all of this? Before us playing soccer on that street, before the World Cup, and before the catchphrase, there were those Joga Bonito video that inspired it all.

So I went back to where it all began. Hours upon hours I slaved over this video, putting clips of commercial in and taking some out. I had the commercial of Henry playing street soccer, the one that compares Ronaldinho now to when he was a boy, and Rooney playing lights out during practice. I even had a clip of Zlatan Ibrahimovic juggling his gum. And to top it all off, there was Matt and I, playing with all our hearts, right with all of these great players. We were all Joga Bonito, playing beautiful. Not in the sense that we were all excellent soccer players, because Matt and I definitely were not, but because we were having fun playing the sport.

I uploaded the video on YouTube on June 16, 2006, five years ago. What’s become of it? It’s brought in just over 13.3 million views, making it the 58^th most watched sports video of all time on YouTube. Type in “joga bonito” and its the second one from the top. On average, it gets about 12,000 views a day and the comments section is filled with people from all around the world saying how bad Matt and I are at soccer. It’s pretty fun to read them. I told a buddy of mine in college the story (he’s from Puerto Rico), and he actually knew about the video, which one of his friends had shown him in Puerto Rico. I couldn’t believe it.

And the best part, the one thing that I still get a kick out of, is that the video is awful. It’s basically three Joga Bonito commercials, then Matt and I playing, and our playing is terrible. At the time I thought it was this masterpiece, where I would get goose bumps just from watching it. Now, I can’t stop laughing at it. I’m laughing because yes, Matt and I should never touch a soccer ball again, but also because I can’t help but smile at how much fun we were having. And isn’t that what Joga Bonito is all about?

   Even films that people do think are original, like Christopher Nolan’s Inception, can be traced back to previous films. The Science of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind all have pieces, some larger than others, which show up in Inception. But the film was complex and confusing and made people talk about it and see it again, raking in huge amounts of money for Warner Bros. But here’s the thing: If someone other than Chris Nolan had written that film, say some writer trying to sell his first spec, it wouldn’t get made.

   What does that say to the Hollywood system?  Long gone are the “Golden Age” days of screenwriting in which studios would throw piles of money at writers for outlandish ideas. What’s happened now is that Hollywood is looking for that next big thing. No longer are they looking for just one film to make, but now it’s a franchise. No longer are they looking through their piles upon piles of “original” spec works, but now they find obscure books in the young teen section, looking for the next Twilight series (which they have yet to find… still). Every film released now has to become a brand, and this is both helping Hollywood, with it bringing in a ton of cash from franchises (i.e. X-Men & The Hangover), as well as hurting it, because of a lack of original and new content.

   Now, of course, I am talking about the films that the blockbuster Hollywood machine is putting out this summer. There is still the independent film market that has promise, but how often is a film released in the indie world that people see as original? Tell me if this sounds familiar: You’re watching a trailer for a new independent dramedy, and the bubbly (usually organ/piano) music is playing. We have our protagonist that isn’t quite appreciated in the world, and the protagonist meets the love interest that puts everything in perspective. The protagonist then says a few quips and a couple emotional lines, and its over. Now, that’s pretty broad, but do you see what I’m getting at?

   The biggest problem, and one that I’ve talked about, is the big Hollywood studios making their own independent film production companies that make these formulaic dramedies. Because, as barely pointed out in my trailer example, there is a formula to the success of an independent film. With that formula, the Hollywood independent studios are going to keep releasing garbage films that they think will appeal to the independent market, but we know better than that.

   With all the films that are released each year, it seems that the most original are summer comedies and the films released in the small window of late fall-early winter for awards season. For comedies, everyone is looking for the next Hangover, which was a sleeper hit that many studios passed on (because they saw it as a huge risk). It’s ironic that with The Hangover Part II, a sequel to the revolutionary and original comedy, that it followed the exact same formula as its predecessor, which was its downfall. This summer we have the opportunity of seeing both Bridesmaids and Horrible Bosses, the former being a hit for all involved, and the latter being the funniest script I’ve ever read and I hope to God it’s successful. As for the Awards Season films, each year we have films like The Black Swan, The Kids are All Right, etc., that are true, original, films that are still released by the Hollywood distributors for nominations. But, and this goes along with my Chris Nolan comment earlier, if it weren’t for the people behind theses films, they would never be made.

   In the end of the day, Hollywood has fully grasped onto the idea that it is a business, not just some thing that puts out art every year (because that would be crazy, right?).  The only hope that true filmgoers have, when looking for original content, is to go to film festivals and to go to limited releases (the local theater back at home on Long Island had Everything Must Go playing, a carbon-copy indie dramady, but still had a great script). Here, we can see films that have not been touched by the business-like hands of Hollywood (at least we hope). Will millions, making Hollywood realize that people are sick of seeing the same things on screen, see these films? Doubtful, but a writer can dream that one day we’ll have another “Golden Age” where originality comes standard.

I wanted to keep a tally going of all the scripts and novels that I have read, so here goes (in no order):

1. Horrible Bosses
2. The Verdict
3. The Social Network
4. The Beaver
5. Pandora
6. Buried
7. The Town
8. Margin Call
9. Drive
10. The Ornate Anatomy of Living Things
11. Source Code
12. Little Miss Sunshine
13. Inception
14. Crazy Stupid Love
15. Everything Must Go
16. Salt
17. Junior Executive
18. 127 Hours
19. The Wettest County
20. Burn After Reading
21. The Bank Job
22. HappyThankYouMorePlease
23. The Tree of Life
24. Tell No One (US adaptation)
25. Gravity
26. Man on a Ledge
27. (500) Days of Summer
28. A Game of Thrones (NOVEL)
29. Contagion
30. Grand Theft Parsons
31. Clever
32. The Fall
33. The Blunderer
34. Lost – “Pilot”
35. Lost – “Walkabout”
36. Lost – “White Rabbit”
37. Breaking Bad – “Pilot”
38. Boardwalk Empire – “Pilot”
39. Mad Men – “Smoke Gets in Your Eyes” (Pilot)
40. Mad Men – “The Wheel”
41. The Wire – “-30-”
42. The Sopranos – “Pilot”
43. Deadwood – “Pilot”
44. Six Feet Under – “Pilot”
45. Crazy Heart
46. Crosser
47. Clash of the Titans 2
48. Inherit the Earth
49. The Ides of March
50. Home
51. The Fartiste
52. Scars
53. Marauder
54. Paradox – “Pilot”
55. The State Within - “Pilot”
56. Brigands of Rattleborge
57. Murder of a Cat
58. The Seventh Son
59. A Clash of Kings (NOVEL)
60. The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger (NOVEL)
61. The Silent Man (Novel)
62. Terminal Point
63. Patent Pending
64. Sicario
65. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (NOVEL)
66. The Hunger Games
67. Last Call – “Pilot”
68. Breaking the Girl
69. The Newsroom – “Pilot”
70. Once Upon a Time – “Pilot”
71. Paradise Lost
72. The Gangster Squad
73. Argo
74. Oz the Great and Powerful
75. A Storm of Swords (NOVEL)
76. Django Unchained
77. The Disciple Program
78. The Hub – “Pilot”
79. Hair Club

And the scripts I’m looking to read next:

1. Imagine
2. The Irishman
3. Killer Joe
4. A Topiary
5. Woman in Black
6. The Grey
7. The Jones Party
8. The Infiltrator
9. Hell on Wheels – Pilot
10. The F Word
11. Sex Tape
12. R.I.P.D.
13. The Keep
14. Father Daughter Time
15. At the Mountains of Madness
16. The Oranges
17. Babe in the Woods
18. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
19. The Hand Job
20. Memphis
21. Fahrenheit 451
22. Frank or Francis

So I’m going to start… now.

While the festival has been growing each year, becoming one of the largest and most recognized film festivals, a push has mounted from major Hollywood production companies since the ’90s. With  the Paramount Pictures studio creating Paramount Classics (now Paramount Vantage) and Sony  Pictures creating  Sony Pictures Classics, to name a few, production companies attempted to tap into the emerging independent film market that rose to the forefront of audience interests, due to festivals like Sundance, with films such as “Pulp Fiction,”  “Little Miss Sunshine” and “Garden State.”

However, the recent influence of Hollywood production companies has caused an outcry from the independent filmmakers Sundance was made for, as they are being pushed out of the festival by these large budget films with the veneer of an independent film. Fortunately for them, Redford has heard their cries.

For the 2011 Sundance Film Festival, Redford made the changes necessary to keep the film festival in line with its original aim: allow independent films to be showcased in order to gain recognition for the directors, writers and actors as well as to be picked up by distributors. With the grand jury prizes that were announced on Sunday, it looks like Redford’s plan has taken effect.

An example of this is the Dramatic Grand Jury Prize winner “Like Crazy,” directed by Drake Doremus, starring Anton Yelchin and Felicity Jones. This film, along with many others, were independently produced by small, relatively unknown production companies and picked up for distribution by large Hollywood companies. A pertinent example of this is the film “Like Crazy” which was sold to Paramount Pictures.

This year’s Sundance also saw the emergence of breakout star Elizabeth Olsen, sister of the famous twins Mary-Kate and Ashley. Olsen starred in two Sundance films, “Silent House” and “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” and has gone from relative obscurity to Sundance‘s newest sensation. Having been critically acclaimed for her performance in “Martha Marcy May Marlene,” one of the best-reviewed films selected for the festival, Olsen has now been cast alongside Robert De Niro and Sigourney Weaver in the upcoming film, “Red Lights.”

With this new change in the festival, it has not been only independent filmmakers rejoicing, but also critics, who have stated that the 2011 Sundance Film Festival was the best they have ever attended. Filmmakers and critics can now look forward to vibrant independent films in Sundance festivals to come. The renewed push to emphasize independent filmmakers instead of flashy Hollywood productions has been warmly received by audiences and secures the festival’s  genuinely independent reputation.

“Limitless” tells the story of Eddie Morra, a struggling New York writer who can’t seem to write. Enter his ex-brother in law Vernon, a drug dealer, who gives Eddie a pill that will allow him to use 100% of his mind rather than the usual 20%. With this pill, an illegal med called NZT, Eddie is able to finish his novel in four days, learn any language, win thousands at the poker table, and finally, become a master at predicting the stock market and making millions. The woman that rejected him now wants him back and everything that he ever seemed to have wanted in life falls into his lap.

But this all does not come without consequences, as Eddie is framed for the murder of a woman he had previously slept with the night before and an unnamed man constantly chases Eddie around the city for an unknown reason. Also, a Russian loan shark, whom Eddie had borrowed money from, becomes addicted to NZT as well, and comes to Eddie looking for his next fix. And finally, Eddie discovers that NZT has the terrible side effects of headaches, blackouts, and ultimately, death.

Directed by Neil Burger, “Limitless” tries to bring a visual flair and finesse to the screen, with letters falling all around Eddie as he writes and stock market graphs and projections on Eddie’s walls, but these feel more like distractions rather than visual images that are integral to the story. While this flair does keep the audience entertained for the 105-minute runtime, it comes across as unneeded and unnecessary.  There is no denying that Burger is attempting to try and pull of an experience for the audience to feel like we are on NZT as well, but there is no confidence behind his direction.

Instead, Burger should have focused on the actual character of Eddie, as he is, more or less, a selfish jerk that doesn’t seem to care about the chaos that NZT is creating around him. Not to mention that everything he accomplishes in the film is unearned due to the power of NZT. While Bradley Cooper brings his charm and charisma to the character, by the film’s lackluster conclusion there are no saving qualities for Eddie.  He remains the same man he was before, with the only lessons learned being how to improve his usage of NZT.

The supporting cast of Abbie Cornish as Eddie’s girlfriend and Robert De Niro as Eddie’s boss do not seem to help Eddie’s case either, as De Niro does not have much to do and Cornish’s character can’t seem to decide whether or not to be with Eddie. The two subplots of the “Man in the Tan Coat” chasing Eddie throughout Manhattan and the woman’s murder do not seem to go anywhere either, only being used to weakly tie up any loose ends.

Which brings up the last and ultimate point about “Limitless,” which is that as it is a film about an extremely smart man, the script itself is not very smart at all. Eddie continually does dumb and illogical things, such as keeping his NZT stash in one location rather than splitting it up in case he loses some or is robbed. But perhaps the most perplexing plot hole of “Limitless” is that while Eddie can learn practically anything he wants, he decides to pay a chemist $2 million to create more NZT. Wouldn’t it just make more sense for Eddie to learn chemistry and make NZT by himself? Throw in bad dialogue, cliché characters, situations, and a weak ending, one cannot help but think of what the film could have been. Maybe a drama/thriller concerning the consequences of addiction to a drug like NZT, or maybe even a satire on America’s addiction to prescription medication.

Nevertheless, after two weeks in theaters “Limitless” remains the number one film at the box office with an $18.9 million domestic gross and a $31 million overall gross after a $27 million budget. It seems that audiences are interested in a Bradley Cooper film, but for how long it remains to be seen. This reviewer’s recommendation? “Limitless” is a rental.

Grade: C

Audiences of the first season know that while the show was entertaining each week, there were no overall story arcs for the characters and it seemed that the show was lost in itself. But while the first season was predominately structured as a procedural drama with it becoming more serial near its end, the second season performs a better balancing act between the two, allowing for a more consistent style of storytelling.

The second season picks up right where the first season left off, but while viewers may have expected the second season to focus on Raylan’s Miami past, the second season premiere quickly ties up that lose end even before the cold opening. While this may seem like a disappointment for some fans, the rest of the episode set up a season arc that doesn’t look like it will disappoint due to the introduction of the Bennett family gang.

Like the Southern Gothic genre itself, the Bennett family appears sweet and collected, but as the next four episodes reveal they are far from that as darkness is present just under the surface. With Jeremy Davies of “Lost” fame as Dickie Bennett and Margo Martindale from “Dexter” as Mags, the family matriarch, it looks to be an interesting season as Raylan slowly uncovers their criminal activities. But while this set-up is good for the series and the season, the Bennett family only receives a small amount of screen time per episode, usually during the cold opening, as if to remind the audience that they are still around and up to no good. After this, the episode focuses whole-heartedly on the story that is only important to that week’s episode, and one would wish that the episode would find its way back to the season’s antagonists.

Perhaps the show’s most interesting character is still Boyd Crowder, the first season’s antagonist, who now works as a coal miner and lives with Raylan’s ex-love interest Ada, his sister-in-law. Like last season, the audience is still unsure of what Boyd is up to, as in the past he has proclaimed to be one thing (such as a born again preacher) while having other motives. Boyd, in season two, looks to be living the simple and criminal-free life, but as the season progresses he continues to be tested with going back to his old life. It also does not help to have Raylan continually confronting Boyd about the particular episode’s case when Boyd tries to tell him that he had nothing to do with it.

After four episodes, the season looks to be as fun and entertaining as ever, with the standalone storylines being better than any of the first season’s standalone storylines, and the introduction of the Bennett family as a compellingly simple overriding story arc. It is also interesting to note how Raylan is not the devil may care shooter who was in the first season, as he is now being penalized for his shooting the criminals down rather than arresting them.

All in all, FX has another hit on their hands with “Justified,” but it all comes down to the execution. If the writers can keep the Bennett family story arc compelling throughout the entire season rather than giving the audience short five minute glimpses during the episode, hinting to a season finale showdown, the second season will surely surpass the first season in terms of quality and content. Nevertheless, “Justified” remains a fun and entertaining televisions program that should be a staple in everyone’s Tuesday night schedule.