Logging

TV: Justified

There is an argument to be made that Justified is the best show on television. Here goes. In sports, you talk about teams that can "throw different things at you." Take basketball. Last year, the Mavs could go "big" with Haywood, Chandler, Dirk, Marion, and Kidd or "go small" with Barea, Terry, Kidd, Marion, and Dirk. See how that works? Small, you can spread the other team on defense with shooters and let Barea break down the defense. Go "big" and you have guys who can crash the boards and outmatch every guy on the other team with size. Justified is the only show that can throw different things at you fluidly. On the one hand, it go super networky and toss in a procedural element where Raylon is tracking down a criminal-of-the-week. But it can also go HBO on you and throw in a massive backstory and history of characters with Boyd and his arch-criminal enterprise. It can toss in a Michael Mann element, the mano v. mano Boyd vs. Raylon, cop v. criminal, whose only true understanding can come from one another. It can even toss in early Tarantino wit with the pulply dialog -- it has the actors and tone to pull it off. Just an example from an episode I watched this week, Dewey Crow thinks he's had both his kidney's removed and goes on a robbing rampage to get money to buy them back. Raylon corners him and tries to talk him down, telling him if he can take a piss, he's got both his kidneys. He in fact, is able to piss and joyously celebrates and says "You mean I got four kidneys!"

And lastly, it can toss in rich, complicated male/female love stories. In fact, the entire first season thematic was the tragedy of the male-female bond and the foolish places it puts us in.

This is a remarkable show from a structural and aesthetic perspective. The final thing to think about is the ad campaign, which is simply brilliant. Olyphant sitting on a lawn chair with his hat dipped. Oh man. Sums up the show. Sure, the show is not as rich or as profound as the best stuff on HBO, but in a way, it almost makes it better - this is a reclamation of TV-ness vs. the novelization of TV, which is where HBO is going.

Film: Undefeated

Friday Night Lights meets the Blind Side in a documentary. Worth seeing.