By Aaron 2/5/2008

In Treatment is HBO’s new daily drama. And by new I mean it came out a few weeks ago and I finally now got my act together to check it out slash write about it. The show follows Paul (Gabriel Byrne), a therapist, with five drastically different patients each day of the week. On Mondays he sees Laura (Melissa George), who starts the season off strong with her confession that she is in love with Paul. On Tuesdays Paul sees Alex (Blair Underwood), a Navy fighter pilot who has a near life experience after his bombing mission claims the lives of sixteen schoolboys. On Wednesdays Paul starts working with Sophie (Mia Wasikoska), a gymnast-prodigy who is sent to Paul for an evaluation after she breaks her arms in an apparent suicide attempt. On Thursdays Paul tries to work with Jake & Amy (Josh Charles & Embeth Davidtz), a couple who have tried everything to have a child for the last five years and now successful, are having trouble deciding whether to keep the baby. Finally, on Fridays, after coping with all that, Paul goes to see Gina (Dianne Wiest), his old mentor and therapist, to talk about his crumbling marriage, being a father, patience with his patients, and everything else that is bothering him.

If you want to read more about the show I strongly suggest Mary McNamara’s Los Angeles Times review, which is informative and clever. For a shorter read you can check out the brief write up in Entertainment Weekly.

The show is interesting for two main reasons, the first being the concept of a show about a therapist. It takes an approach akin to crime-drama detective stories and medical-problem solvers like House in that Paul tries to get to the heart of each patients problem. At the same time the show is entirely different because it sticks with each of these characters’ problems for forty-five episodes. Plus, each show doesn’t have a nice resolution – the criminal doesn’t go to jail and House doesn’t save another life – people’s problems just don’t have nice neat solutions. In that regard, the show is a powerful representation of the therapy profession. You feel for what Paul has to do – the dilemmas he faces and the import he has in each of his patient’s lives, and yet, his family problems are no different than any of his clients.

The second reason the show caught my interest is it’s everyday-format that gives a real time air to the show, like 24 does. Since the show is on literally everyday, in an effort to simulate Paul’s week, you really get drawn in. The power, the drama, the suspense, of each episode builds just like the tension in Paul’s week does. The time in itself is interesting – how many TV dramas do you watch that are thirty minutes? Do you know of any? But the show takes a simple stance by just showing each therapy session and not bothering with external factors. This places a heavy burden on each of the characters to be great storytellers, but it pays off. What makes this even more interesting is that the format and the each show’s makeup facilitate interesting ways to watch the show. You can choose to just watch on Mondays and follow Laura’s storyline or choose another day, so each patient can be watched in isolation. Frankly, each character brings a lot to the table, so doing that means you miss a lot, but you can really play with what you want to watch. And you can do this even if you don’t have HBO – you can watch all of these episodes here.

So why does the show work?  First and foremost, great acting. Gabriel Byrne is great here – extremely minimalist and right on as a troubled therapist. His timing is absolutely perfect, as are his physical movements. Each of the actors who play Paul’s clients is great in their own right. Melissa George’s Laura is played with a compelling fragility that makes you want her character to find some kind of happiness. Blair Underwood’s Alex has a confidence and intensity that only a soldier could have. Mia Wasikoska’s Sophie captures the confused, troubled youth role perfectly. Josh Charles’ Jake and Embeth Davidtz’s Amy expertly play off each other in a way only a married couple could. And not to be forgotten, Dianne Wiest’s Gina steals the show. Her crystal calm and questioning strategies mirror exactly what we have seen in the previous week in her protégé, Paul.

The show also thrives on its almost painful realism – how each and every story and character seem to be just like your neighbor, or your friend, or, well, you. The show is borderline reality show – and its format and real time feel further entrench the shows near voyeuristic feel.

The show has some intangibles going on too with Avi Balali’s excellent theme song – a carry over from the original Israeli show on which In Treatment is based on. Then the show is also produced by HBO’s new golden boy – Mark Wahlberg – but this show is a tad more serious than Wahlberg’s other HBO show.

I like to end these series introductions with a little paragraph about what I want to happen. For Laura, who is in love with Paul, frankly, I want to see that happen. I usually call for these types of resolutions to important issues because I feel like Paul is unhappy with his wife Kate, and Laura could make him happy. And he could definitely make Laura happy. They deserve each other. Will this happen? Definitely not. Well. I guess it could, but not for a while. For Alex, I’m not entirely sure what I want – of all the characters I care the least for him. Whether or not he gets beyond his guilt, or his crazy, ‘I can survive anything’ phase, does not really interest me. Sophie does interest me. Yet, her issues are really not that clear to me yet. I think she needs to deal with her parental issues. More importantly, I would also like to see her get her shit together in time to somehow get to the Olympics. Jake and Amy deserve only one happy ending – a happy marriage and a healthy baby. That one seems the most likely because they clearly do love each other and nine weeks can be stretched to nine months in Hollywood – maybe we’ll see a smiling baby in the finale.

Could “Avatar” Win Best Picture?

By Brett Hogan

 

Last week, the trailer for James Cameron’s sci-fi experiment “Avatar” debuted. While initially unimpressed with the teaser, I began to wonder: Could this film win best picture? 

 

Buzz has been generating for this movie for years. Years. The technology to make this movie didn’t exist when Cameron conceived it, so he invented it. When is the last time you heard of a director spearheading the invention of anything? The casting started in 2005. Most movies these days, even epics, are done in half that time. I could go on. 

 

The most important thing to take away from all of this is that people are saying this will be the future of movies. Now, I don’t agree with the idea that CGI will become more prevalent than it already is. But I do believe that this will set the bar miles higher for sci-fi. I mean, that is what Titanic did. And that won some awards if memory serves.

 

I’ll bet you’re asking yourself, how can you even suggest that a film like this will win Best Picture when the initial trailer was nothing better than visual stimulation? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First, the Academy has expanded Best Picture to ten films. This doesn’t guarantee anything other than improved chances for most films on the cusp.

 

Second, after last year’s Oscars debacle, which saw the best film of the year, “The Dark Knight,” not only get shafted in awards but nominations as well, the Academy is pulling out all the stops to appease those with the loudest voices in the film industry, the fanboys. Now, the Academy probably didn’t lose anything because of that other than some viewers of the award show. Perhaps if people are again outraged with the winners or nominees, the heads of the Academy would lose their jobs. So this is all about the Academy protecting itself, which is not so outrageous.  

 

 

Third, there is an economic motive here. I’ve heard this film will cost $190 million, not counting the R&D costs associated with Cameron’s inventions or the cost of getting 3-D cameras into every theater in the country. The Academy will do everything in its power to get people into the seats and make this the next “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight.” But the Academy doesn’t have much power, besides nominating and awarding, so they will slap the “Nominated for Best Picture” moniker onto every commercial and print ad to get the people who didn’t believe the critics to relent and see this movie.

 

Of course, all of this is pure conjecture, and no revolutionary film (Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, etc.) has ever won the Best Picture category because it changed the game. Except maybe Titanic. But still, could this movie actually win? My answer is no but a nomination is certain and who knows what could happen from there. We’ll know more come February 2010.