Miscellany...

A few quick notes:

1. Awake, NBC's upcoming drama about a detective (Jason Isaacs) living in two separate realities, is getting good advance buzz. Though the entire pilot episode can be viewed right now on NBC's website, I'm going to start recapping/discussing it here shortly after the official premiere on March 1st. I'm in desperate need of some meaty, interesting viewing, so let's hope it fits the bill. (Many thanks to our always-insightful frequent commenter Patrick for first suggesting this back in December.)

2. You know my analysis of Duran Duran's (awesome and zombie-filled) "Night Boat" video that I posted here last March? It's been republished over at Andy Taylor's official website. This kind of thing only strengthens my current pro-Andy stance. Especially since he even tweeted about it:


3. My new book, Bias Cut, just advanced into the second round of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. I'm feeling pretty good about this right now; I think it's the best thing I've ever written. It's gratifying to see a little positive movement on it.

That's it for now. Fingers crossed that Awake will bring us all Heroes-esque levels of discussion fodder; I've missed the raucous days of long, bizarre, hilarious comment threads around here.

Duranalysis: The Making of Arena, Part Two

Continued from the previous post, let’s examine the second half of the “Making of Arena" featurette, a large chunk of which is devoted to footage of the dancers from Duran Duran’s “Wild Boys” video rehearsing their routines. While this section is a little short on Durans, I have no real complaints. Toned, pantsless men who do high kicks and front flips are always fun to watch.


This poor young dancer was caught on camera at this unfortunate midpoint of his makeup job:

Duranalysis: The Making of Arena, Part One

For the past, oh, several months, I’ve been loosely planning on doing one of my Duranalysis thingymabobs on Arena (An Absurd Notion), Duran Duran’s 1984 Russell Mulcahy-directed science fiction-themed concert film. On the surface, it would seem tailor-made for a Duranalysis, due to all the Duran-centric weirdness flying about, but I’ve never quite managed to whip up the necessary enthusiasm.

Here’s Arena in a nutshell: Footage of the boys performing in concert is interspersed with a bizarre narrative in which Milo O’Shea gamely reprises his role as the band’s namesake, the evil intergalactic scientist Durand Durand from the 1968 cult classic Barbarella. In Arena, Durand Durand arrives on Earth and, with the aid of his requisite coterie of mutant dwarf minions, schemes to wreak terrible vengeance on the boys for stealing his name.