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Post by Sirenna on Nov 28, 2006 1:23:22 GMT -5
We should give this one a second look, since it seems to be one of Mr. Balcer's favourites.
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Post by Techguy on Nov 28, 2006 1:29:08 GMT -5
I agree Sirenna. I have "View" on the WORST CI EPISODE EVER list so perhaps a second viewing is in order given Mr. Balcer's comments in his interview.
I propose this as a possible activity for sometime after tomorrow's new CI episode "Weeping Willow" with the L/W team. After we discuss that one, we won't be getting any new CI episodes for a while. The holiday lull might be the ideal time to revisit "View" and resurrect our discussion.
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Post by Sirenna on Nov 28, 2006 1:38:00 GMT -5
It was ok for me but I didn't get all the nuances. I've also tried surfing the net for the review Mr. Balcer refers to but it's 1:30am here and I have to get up at 5am tomorrow so I'm beat for tonight and still no luck.
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Post by Patcat on Nov 28, 2006 9:44:00 GMT -5
I'm certainly willing to give it another look. I have difficulty getting past Adam Goldberg's performance, though.
Patcat
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Post by sobergal95 on Nov 28, 2006 17:35:44 GMT -5
I re-watched this one last night and it doesn't make my favorites list. BUT, one thing I caught that I missed pre-TWAH: Eames empathizes with the widow:"Losing your husband all of a sudden like that it cuts very deep. Its even worse when you've been arguing." I always figured she just said that to get the widow to admit that they'd been arguing. Now, after the conversation with Ross about Joe in "The War at Home" saying that he'd gotten her a taser gun for their anniversary and "its nice to be more than your job".... I just imagine that her marriage was maybe on the rocks. Analyzing too much? Poor Eames! I want to give her a hug.
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Post by mwendyr on Nov 28, 2006 17:41:02 GMT -5
That's actually some interesting thoughts. I never considered how the marriage might've been just that he didn't survive. That would've just added to her pain. I want to give her a hug too! Wendy Hugs
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Post by sarahlee on Nov 28, 2006 19:55:11 GMT -5
No, see, Eames doesn't want a hug--she wants a margarita...
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Post by sarahlee on Nov 29, 2006 2:05:26 GMT -5
The night-vision shot of Adam Goldberg climbing inside the walls, his eyes shining silver like a rat...*shudder*
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Post by Patcat on Nov 29, 2006 9:51:22 GMT -5
That's true--the scene of the "rat" is very effective.
And I'm reasonably sure that this is the episode Mr. D'Onofrio became ill during the filming.
Patcat
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Post by sarahlee on Nov 29, 2006 12:25:52 GMT -5
Really? That makes sense to me, does anyone know? I seem to remember being unsettled by how sluggish and slow he looked in that episode.
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nick5oh
Silver Shield Investigator
Posts: 53
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Post by nick5oh on May 7, 2007 19:21:13 GMT -5
Thought some of you might get a kick out of this review, from a blog called "All Too Flat".
"These are their stories
Horror cropped up in an unexpected place for me last night, specifically in a TiVo'd episode of Law & Order: Criminal Intent that I just got around to watching. To my surprise and delight the entire episode played like an extended tribute to J-horror.
Titled "The View from Up Here" (written by Jim Starling from a story by Starling & series co-creator Rene Balcer and directed by Alex Chapple), the ep revolved around the murder of a tenant in a hip Manhattan high-rise. The killing may or may not be related to a dispute between the tenants and the building's main contractor, who's allowing the ostensibly world-class post-modern apartments to fall into disrepair in order to collect bribes to finish the work he'd already been paid to do. But to my eyes the plot was all but incidental; the real attraction of the episode was the atmosphere of dread, decay, and wrongness created by the filmmakers, using the tools that J-horror and its Western analogues and acolytes have provided to makers of creepy pop culture.
The usual information-technology anxiety is present: Security cameras and monitors record everything; digital cameras materialize with impossible pictures taken by phantom photographers stored within them; a pager is used to receive messages from beyond; night-vision technology casts its green light over illicit goings-on; notably, a pair of binoculars being used to spy/peep is broken during the murder that kicks off the mystery. (I'm actually a little bit surprised that computers and the Internet didn't figure in at some point.) Shades of The Ring, Blair Witch, and Dionaea House abound.
The "evil building" trope is also deployed; in fact, it's central to the plot, as the tenants' debate as to whether to bribe the contractor, and moreover a mentally disabled character's belief that the building itself has succumbed to a mystical "plague" that presages a repeat of a 9/11-level atrocity, provide possible motives for the murder. But the filmmakers play around in this particular sandbox far too much for it to be mere plot-moving. In the episode's opening sequence, bizarre and disorienting as is the series' trademark, mirrors get fogged up for no apparent reason, steam erupts from strange places like wooden floorboards, the building's concrete walls dissolve into sticky white powder, a mystery hole appears in a penthouse window; later in the episode, disembodied voices echo eerily in a hidden crawlspace connected to every apartment in the building by a series of ladders and trap doors; rain pours down the inside of a window. Dark Water, House of Leaves, and (again) Dionaea House fans would hardly be disappointed.
I was extremely tickled at how specific some of the homages got: The optical-illusionism of the scene in The Ring where Naomi Watts pauses an image of a fly on a monitor, then reaches out and touches it only to find that it's now outside the TV, is neatly replicated by the scene in which the retarded housekeeper touches the rainy windowpane and discovers that the water is pouring down her hand. The most explicit reference is a hidden-camera night-vision shot of guest star Adam Goldberg climbing up through the darkness of a crawlspace in a scene that couldn't look more like Samara scaling the walls of her well in The Ring and The Ring 2 unless he suddenly grew a head of long black hair.
Needless to say, the episode ends up faithful to the could-be-true-crime roots of the Law & Order franchise, and the potentially uncanny roots of the various phenomena experienced are duly explained away (though the writers do insert a commentary to the effect that some people are indeed tuned into "different wavelengths," so to speak). Also, perhaps sensing that the weirdness of the episode was pushing the envelope pretty hard, the filmmakers had star Vincent D'Onofrio tone down his famously quirky performance as Det. Bobby Goren; his not-quite-rational mannerisms and odd leaps of intuitive logic played as small a role in the solving of this case as I've ever seen them play. But as a study of the uncanny in its classic German sense--unheimlich, meaning literally un-home-like--"The View from Up Here" was quite a sight to behold.
Posted by Sean T. Collins on June 20, 2005 12:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)"
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Post by Cassie on May 8, 2007 8:38:58 GMT -5
Very Interesting, thanks for sharing, Whenever I think of this show, the first thought that comes to my mind is MC Escher drawing, Relativity, but with a sinister twist to it...... Yes it was an "evil building". You could feel it. That's what I liked about the show. Not that it was evil, but it gave me the desire to investigate a haunted/abandon house. homepage.ntlworld.com/andrew.lipson/escher/relativity.jpg
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Post by Sirenna on May 8, 2007 11:09:30 GMT -5
what an insightful writer! thanks for posting this. he really picked up on the true weirdness of the episode which was something I missed. I mean I saw some quirky and sometimes discomfitting things (espeically the rain falling inside the window) but it didn't grip me with the same unease that the movie, The Ring did. I think he's right this was the intent of the cast and crew in producing this one - as an experiment.
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Post by Patcat on May 8, 2007 11:23:40 GMT -5
This essay would convince me that this episode is terrific if I hadn't actually seen it (g).
Seriously, the writer does have good points, and I wonder if this is what Rene Balcer meant when he commented that he hoped people would look at VIEW again. As I've written over and over again--undoubtedly to the annoyance of many of you (so, I thank you for your patience)--the execution of this script was less than stellar. I fault many of the performances of the guest stars, but particularly Adam Goldberg. Although, he did look suitably creepy climbing up that shaft.
Patcat
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Post by Metella on May 8, 2007 13:00:05 GMT -5
ha ! Patcat - perfect point ..... if that was the intention of the writers/directors .... it didn't come off as well as they must have wanted it to. I may watch it again - but it was far enough off the total weird base - that I think 99% of viewers will not "get it" unless they have this tutorial - which means it was a nice try (I like new odd things) but it didn't quite succeed. While getting new tidbits and a deeper understanding is a good thing - if we miss the whole seed of creation - then something was missing somewhere. Especially when WE miss something, eh?
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