Wed - May 7, 2008
THE KID PAINTS THE KID
at the pittsburgh gifted
center.
Ethan J. Hermann
Sidney
2008
Oil on Canvas
11 3/8 x 15 7/8
Posted at 02:32 PM
Tue - January 22, 2008
BALLS & STRIKES
from the world's worst union.
As a guy whose livelihood depends, in part, on his
ability to write, and as a guy who's always believed that, especially in
Hollywood, writers get the short end of the fame and fortune sticks, I am
uniquely predisposed to support and to sympathize with the ongoing Writers Guild
Strike. But the more I read and see and hear, the less tenable -- or at least
sympathetic -- that support becomes. To
wit:
The Writers Guild has already bailed on the Golden Globes, is about to bail on the Grammys, and is fully prepared to bail on the Oscars, but will, according to an announcement made last week, have no problem with some of its members crossing (violating? obliterating?) the picket lines to work on the NAACP Image Awards. Here's Guild leader Patrick Verrone to explain: Because of the historic role the NAACP has played in struggles like ours, we think this decision is appropriate to jointly achieve our goals.
Whether the hypocrisy of the decision or the absurdity of the justification provides a greater offense, I will leave for you to decide. In the interim, I will simply note that I had no idea the Civil Rights movement was so inexorably bound to the payment of DVD residuals. Nor that reparations for slavery might also include compensation for syndication. Nor that the struggle to eradicate racism and provide opportunity for people of color was so dependent upon new media profit-sharing.
(But it must, I suppose. Here's NAACP Chairman Julian Bond: The NAACP stands in solidarity with the Writers Guild in its fight for meaningful collective bargaining and the rights of all workers to make an honest and fair living. To which he forget to add: That is, as long as they're refusing to write for other awards shows. If they want to write for ours, to hell with collective bargaining!)
(But I digress. If only slightly...)
Because, on the subject of collective bargaining, especially when seen in light of decisions like this one, it becomes pretty clear that the Writers Guild of America may just be the worst, or at least the wussiest, union ever. The whole point of a union -- and never more so than when it goes on strike -- is to stand as one, all members together, in a show of (ahem) union and solidarity, as a means of securing favorable treatment and compensation for everyone. Together. And the whole point of a strike is for everyone in that union, together, united, to stop working until those favorable treatments and compensations are secured. For everyone. Together.
Do I belabor the point? Perhaps. But only because the labor doesn't get it.
When one group of striking writers is making an independent deal with David Letterman, and another is settling with Tom Cruise, and another is settling with the Weinsteins, and another is allowed to cross the picket lines because Martin Luther King Jr. once had a dream about reality show residuals, well, you really aren't much of a union, and you're barely more than a collective. You look, in fact, like a bunch of mercenaries who are willing to support your fellow men and women as long as some slightly better deal doesn't come along to put words on your page and money in your pocket.
Imagine, if you will, that the Pittsburgh Public Schools had not so narrowly averted a strike. And now imagine, some eight weeks into the strike, hearing that teachers at Linden and Frick and Alderdice had all reached temporary, independent settlements with the principals of those schools and, while still claiming allegiance to the union and to the rest of their still-striking fellow teachers, gone back to their classrooms. Would it make any sense to you at all? Would you not be certain that you were in the presence of the world's worst, and least united, union? Perhaps the only way you could respect them any less would be to learn that they'd crossed the picket line for just one day -- say, yesterday -- because of the historic role the NAACP had played in struggles just like theirs.
The Writers Guild has already bailed on the Golden Globes, is about to bail on the Grammys, and is fully prepared to bail on the Oscars, but will, according to an announcement made last week, have no problem with some of its members crossing (violating? obliterating?) the picket lines to work on the NAACP Image Awards. Here's Guild leader Patrick Verrone to explain: Because of the historic role the NAACP has played in struggles like ours, we think this decision is appropriate to jointly achieve our goals.
Whether the hypocrisy of the decision or the absurdity of the justification provides a greater offense, I will leave for you to decide. In the interim, I will simply note that I had no idea the Civil Rights movement was so inexorably bound to the payment of DVD residuals. Nor that reparations for slavery might also include compensation for syndication. Nor that the struggle to eradicate racism and provide opportunity for people of color was so dependent upon new media profit-sharing.
(But it must, I suppose. Here's NAACP Chairman Julian Bond: The NAACP stands in solidarity with the Writers Guild in its fight for meaningful collective bargaining and the rights of all workers to make an honest and fair living. To which he forget to add: That is, as long as they're refusing to write for other awards shows. If they want to write for ours, to hell with collective bargaining!)
(But I digress. If only slightly...)
Because, on the subject of collective bargaining, especially when seen in light of decisions like this one, it becomes pretty clear that the Writers Guild of America may just be the worst, or at least the wussiest, union ever. The whole point of a union -- and never more so than when it goes on strike -- is to stand as one, all members together, in a show of (ahem) union and solidarity, as a means of securing favorable treatment and compensation for everyone. Together. And the whole point of a strike is for everyone in that union, together, united, to stop working until those favorable treatments and compensations are secured. For everyone. Together.
Do I belabor the point? Perhaps. But only because the labor doesn't get it.
When one group of striking writers is making an independent deal with David Letterman, and another is settling with Tom Cruise, and another is settling with the Weinsteins, and another is allowed to cross the picket lines because Martin Luther King Jr. once had a dream about reality show residuals, well, you really aren't much of a union, and you're barely more than a collective. You look, in fact, like a bunch of mercenaries who are willing to support your fellow men and women as long as some slightly better deal doesn't come along to put words on your page and money in your pocket.
Imagine, if you will, that the Pittsburgh Public Schools had not so narrowly averted a strike. And now imagine, some eight weeks into the strike, hearing that teachers at Linden and Frick and Alderdice had all reached temporary, independent settlements with the principals of those schools and, while still claiming allegiance to the union and to the rest of their still-striking fellow teachers, gone back to their classrooms. Would it make any sense to you at all? Would you not be certain that you were in the presence of the world's worst, and least united, union? Perhaps the only way you could respect them any less would be to learn that they'd crossed the picket line for just one day -- say, yesterday -- because of the historic role the NAACP had played in struggles just like theirs.
Posted at 09:51 AM
Tue - July 17, 2007
TEACHER. WORDSMITH. YELLOWMAN.
or, if twm were written in
springfield...
It seems like more and more people have discovered
and begun to do this -- and, really, who can blame them? it's a hell of a
lot of fun -- and, though I'm not usually a big fan of jumping on the
pop culture bandwagon, as someone who was a huge fan of the show in its prime
and still holds out hope that the movie, unlike the last six or seven years of
the series, will actually not suck, I just couldn't resist the
temptation...
...to turn myself into a Simpsons character.
...to turn myself into a Simpsons character.
Posted at 11:03 AM
Mon - July 9, 2007
SHOOTING THE (HOME)VIDEO
on 1-18-08.
More on this, to be sure, in Friday's Notes. But
for now, just watch this
trailer.
Seriously. Watch it. Right now.
The movie may well suck, but the trailer is an honest-to-goodness masterpiece.
Seriously. Watch it. Right now.
The movie may well suck, but the trailer is an honest-to-goodness masterpiece.
Posted at 06:40 PM
Wed - March 28, 2007
EXTRAORDINARY SERVICE TO YOUR COUNTRY
and to his comedy.
TWM has often cited, quoted, alluded to, and even occasionally imitated the great Bill Maher and his even
greater New
Rules. But after last Friday's
edition, the only way I can possibly due justice to him, to his bit, or to his
increasingly bitter brilliance is simply to reprint the whole rollicking rant
right here. I've tried to summarize or highlight or excerpt it, but I can't.
This piece -- which contains about five, bona-fide, laugh-out-loud punch lines,
a whole lot justifiably righteous indignation, and maybe the best and simplest
articulation of the Plame-Wilson-Libby scandal that I've ever had the pleasure
to hear or read or get worked up over -- must be read in its entirety...
NEW RULE: Traitors don't get to question my patriotism.
What could be less patriotic than constantly screwing things up for America? You know, it's literally hard to keep up with the sheer volume of scandals in the Bush Administration. Which is why I like to download the latest scandal right onto my iPod. That way, I can catch up on this week's giant fuck-up on my drive in to work. In fact, Bush has so many scandals, he could open a chain of "Bush Scandal and Fuck-up" theme restaurants. "Ooh, should I get the Harriet Miers meatloaf or the Katrina crab cakes?
You know, not to generalize, but the 29% of people who still support President Bush are the ones who love to pronounce themselves more patriotic than the rest of us. But just saying you're patriotic is like saying you have a big cock. If you have to say it, chances are it's not true.
And, indeed, the party that flatters itself that they protect America better is the party that has exhausted the military, left the ports wide open, and purposefully outed a CIA agent, Valerie Plame.
That's not treason anymore? Outing a spy? Did I mention it was one of our spies? And how despicable that Bush's lackeys attempted to diminish this crime by belittling her service, like she was just some chick who hung around the CIA. "An intern, really. Groupie, if you want to be mean about it."
No. Big lie.
Valerie Plame was the CIA's operational officer in charge of counter-proliferation. Which means she tracked loose nukes. So when Bush said, as he once did, that his absolute, number-one priority was preventing terrorists from getting loose nukes -- okay, that's what she worked on. That's what she devoted her life to, staying undercover for 20 years, maintaining two identities every goddamn day. This is extraordinary service to your country.
Valerie Plame was the kind of real-life secret agent George Bush dreams of being when he's not too busy pretending to be a cowboy or a fighter pilot.
CIA agents are troops. This was a military assassination of one of our own, done through the press, ordered by Karl Rove. He said, of Valerie Plame, "She's fair game." And then Cheney shot her.
George Bush likes to claim that he doesn't question his critics' patriotism, just their judgment. Well, let me be the first of your critics, Mr. President, to question your judgment and your patriotism. Because let's not forget why they did it to her.
Because Valerie Plame was married to this guy, Joe Wilson, who the Bush people hated because he busted them on one of their bullshit reasons for invading Iraq. He was sent to the African country of Niger to see if Niger was selling nuclear fuel to Iraq. They weren't. It was bullshit, and he said so. In fact, his report was called, "Niger, Please!"
Valerie Plame's husband told the truth about their lie, so they were willing to jeopardize an entire network of spies to ruin her life. Wow. Even the mob doesn't go after your family.
Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." And I say Valerie Plame is a patriot because she spent her life serving her country. Scooter Libby is not, because he spent his life serving Dick Cheney.
Valerie Plame kept her secrets. The Bush Administration leaked like the plumbing at Walter Reed.
In the year, 2008, I really think that Hillary Clinton should run for president on a platform of "restoring honor and integrity to the Oval Office."
Or, better yet, maybe Bill Maher should run. Because it's awfully clear in this piece, and again every Friday night at eleven, that he loves his country a hell of a lot more than everyone in the White House and almost everyone else in Washington.
NEW RULE: Traitors don't get to question my patriotism.
What could be less patriotic than constantly screwing things up for America? You know, it's literally hard to keep up with the sheer volume of scandals in the Bush Administration. Which is why I like to download the latest scandal right onto my iPod. That way, I can catch up on this week's giant fuck-up on my drive in to work. In fact, Bush has so many scandals, he could open a chain of "Bush Scandal and Fuck-up" theme restaurants. "Ooh, should I get the Harriet Miers meatloaf or the Katrina crab cakes?
You know, not to generalize, but the 29% of people who still support President Bush are the ones who love to pronounce themselves more patriotic than the rest of us. But just saying you're patriotic is like saying you have a big cock. If you have to say it, chances are it's not true.
And, indeed, the party that flatters itself that they protect America better is the party that has exhausted the military, left the ports wide open, and purposefully outed a CIA agent, Valerie Plame.
That's not treason anymore? Outing a spy? Did I mention it was one of our spies? And how despicable that Bush's lackeys attempted to diminish this crime by belittling her service, like she was just some chick who hung around the CIA. "An intern, really. Groupie, if you want to be mean about it."
No. Big lie.
Valerie Plame was the CIA's operational officer in charge of counter-proliferation. Which means she tracked loose nukes. So when Bush said, as he once did, that his absolute, number-one priority was preventing terrorists from getting loose nukes -- okay, that's what she worked on. That's what she devoted her life to, staying undercover for 20 years, maintaining two identities every goddamn day. This is extraordinary service to your country.
Valerie Plame was the kind of real-life secret agent George Bush dreams of being when he's not too busy pretending to be a cowboy or a fighter pilot.
CIA agents are troops. This was a military assassination of one of our own, done through the press, ordered by Karl Rove. He said, of Valerie Plame, "She's fair game." And then Cheney shot her.
George Bush likes to claim that he doesn't question his critics' patriotism, just their judgment. Well, let me be the first of your critics, Mr. President, to question your judgment and your patriotism. Because let's not forget why they did it to her.
Because Valerie Plame was married to this guy, Joe Wilson, who the Bush people hated because he busted them on one of their bullshit reasons for invading Iraq. He was sent to the African country of Niger to see if Niger was selling nuclear fuel to Iraq. They weren't. It was bullshit, and he said so. In fact, his report was called, "Niger, Please!"
Valerie Plame's husband told the truth about their lie, so they were willing to jeopardize an entire network of spies to ruin her life. Wow. Even the mob doesn't go after your family.
Mark Twain said, "Patriotism is supporting your country all the time, and your government when it deserves it." And I say Valerie Plame is a patriot because she spent her life serving her country. Scooter Libby is not, because he spent his life serving Dick Cheney.
Valerie Plame kept her secrets. The Bush Administration leaked like the plumbing at Walter Reed.
In the year, 2008, I really think that Hillary Clinton should run for president on a platform of "restoring honor and integrity to the Oval Office."
Or, better yet, maybe Bill Maher should run. Because it's awfully clear in this piece, and again every Friday night at eleven, that he loves his country a hell of a lot more than everyone in the White House and almost everyone else in Washington.
Posted at 04:02 PM
Tue - March 27, 2007
THIS IS THE LAST TIME...
...i swear...
...that I will do this. But today, on it's DVD and
HD-DVD release date, I am compelled once more to remind you that
Children of Men
was the best film of last year. And the best
film I've seen in the last fifteen years. And that you need to find
it...
...and rent it. Or buy it. Or (legally) download it. But whatever you do, just see it. Once you do, you'll understand.
And then you too will be thinking about it for weeks. And months. And...
...and rent it. Or buy it. Or (legally) download it. But whatever you do, just see it. Once you do, you'll understand.
And then you too will be thinking about it for weeks. And months. And...
Posted at 09:39 AM
Wed - March 21, 2007
BRILLIANCE LOST
ignorance found.
It seems perfectly, deliciously ironic that, after
reading yet another story about
LOST's
declining ratings in this morning's
Pittsburgh
Post-Gazette -- I can't even bring myself to
comment on its absurd intimation that
Jericho is
a better model of how to engage and reward an audience -- tonight's episode
should deliver about as good an hour of major network television as it (or any
other show) has ever provided. And so it also provided yet another unnecessary
but still noteworthy proof that the reach of sure and subtle brilliance will
always exceed the grasp of an unsure and obvious audience.
Posted at 11:30 PM
Sun - February 25, 2007
AND THE WINNER IS...
children of men.
I don't care what wins the Oscar later tonight.
This...
...was the Best Picture of the year. And of the decade.
...was the Best Picture of the year. And of the decade.
Posted at 09:04 PM
Tue - January 23, 2007
AND THE LOSER IS...
...we have a tie...
I will admit that I have not seen any of the five
films nominated this morning for the Best Picture Oscar.
Little Miss Sunshine,
courtesy of Netflix, is sitting in my desk right
now. The
Departed, a movie I wanted to see but never
found the time to, will be in the same place a few weeks from now.
Letters from Iwo
Jima, because of the great reviews and because
it's by the great Clint Eastwood, is high on my list of films still in theaters.
Babel and
The Queen,
thanks to their reviews and their directors, are films you would have to pry me
with money and with alcohol to get me to see. So I am, obviously, neither a
particularly informed nor an especially objective judge. But I am a long-time
watcher and lover and student of film, and I can honestly say that, on grounds
both technical and emotional, for achievements both narrative and visual, I have
not seen five films better than Children
of Men and
United 93
in the last ten years. Perhaps in the last
twenty. And so it does not strike me as likely, even as possible, that the
voters of the academy could have done so.
That neither film was nominated for Best Picture, and that Alfonso Cuarón -- who will probably be nominated for his first directing Oscar five years from now but will not win one until twenty-five years from now, for a film that is but a well-made shadow of his best work -- was not nominated for Best Director, simply reinforces what the Best Picture Oscar for Crash last year already suggested: that after a few years of smart and perceptive flirtation with greatness, or at least with daring creativity, the middlebrow is back, in vogue and with a vengeance, at the Academy Awards.
That neither film was nominated for Best Picture, and that Alfonso Cuarón -- who will probably be nominated for his first directing Oscar five years from now but will not win one until twenty-five years from now, for a film that is but a well-made shadow of his best work -- was not nominated for Best Director, simply reinforces what the Best Picture Oscar for Crash last year already suggested: that after a few years of smart and perceptive flirtation with greatness, or at least with daring creativity, the middlebrow is back, in vogue and with a vengeance, at the Academy Awards.
Posted at 08:57 AM
Wed - December 20, 2006
DREAD
and the best movie of the
year.
I finally got around to seeing
United 93
this afternoon. It feels like one of those
films and one of those experiences that will spawn a long post, and maybe more.
But right now, ten minutes after the last title card, I feel like I can barely
think, much less write. All I'll say right now is that it's the best film I've
seen all year. That it's one of the best films I've seen in the last five
years.
And that I'm still shaking.
And that I'm still shaking.
Posted at 02:53 PM
Sun - August 20, 2006
SNAKES IN A RIVER
buenos noches,
beautiful.
As a couple of million people fewer than expected flock to the multiplexes
this weekend to see Samuel L. Jackson do battle with those pesky
Snakes on a Plane
-- in a movie that, unbowed but also unbuoyed by
its fanboy hype, may suck even more than I thought -- this seems like a fine
time to remind everyone that if you really want to see a bad-ass snake biting
and stalking and squeezing and munching and even swallowing a couple of hammy
actors whole in a truly great slice of b-movie
cheese, you should rent or buy or (legally) download a copy of
Anaconda.
You get action, suspense, sly wit, beautiful scenery, bad accents, stylish
direction, over-the-top set pieces, gruesome death scenes, Jennifer Lopez when
she was still an interesting actress, a collection of good actors slumming for
the fun and for he paycheck, one
Motherfucker!
from Ice Cube, and, as an added bonus, some
typically engaging work from both Jon Voight and Owen Wilson.
It's one of my favorite b-movies of all-time. One of the most misunderstood movies of the last decade. And guaranteed -- thanks to J. Lo. and Ice Cube battling a mammoth CGI snake on a big boat, in a big river, and even the belly of a big warehouse -- to be at least a dozen times better than any movie re-edited at the behest of bloggers who still live with their mothers.
It's one of my favorite b-movies of all-time. One of the most misunderstood movies of the last decade. And guaranteed -- thanks to J. Lo. and Ice Cube battling a mammoth CGI snake on a big boat, in a big river, and even the belly of a big warehouse -- to be at least a dozen times better than any movie re-edited at the behest of bloggers who still live with their mothers.
Posted at 07:59 PM
Sat - August 19, 2006
HOSTAGES IN AN OFFICE
he's still alive,
motherf...
As a couple of million people flock to the
multiplexes this weekend to see bad-ass supreme Samuel L. Jackson do battle with
those pesky Snakes on a Plane
-- in a movie that, even if it lives up to its
fanboy hype and down to its own expectations, will still suck -- this seems like
a fine time to remind everyone that if you really want to see Samuel L. at the
height of his powers, in the best performance of his career, and in a truly
great (and criminally underappreciated) summer
movie, you should rent or buy or (legally) download a copy of
The
Negotiator. You get action, suspense,
intelligence, a literate script, crackling dialogue, clever plot twists, actual
character development, plausible (and occasionally powerful) human emotion, a
collection of outstanding performances, one trademark
Motherfucker!
screamed through a shot-out high-rise window
with helicopters buzzing the skies over downtown Chicago, and, as an added
bonus, some typically brilliant work from both Paul Giamatti and Kevin
Spacey.
It's one of my favorite movies of all-time. One of the most underrated movies of the last decade. And guaranteed to be a couple of hundred times better than any movie for which the main attraction -- besides Samuel L. battling bad CGI snakes on a bad CGI plane in a bad CGI thunderstorm -- is its odiously overrated title.
It's one of my favorite movies of all-time. One of the most underrated movies of the last decade. And guaranteed to be a couple of hundred times better than any movie for which the main attraction -- besides Samuel L. battling bad CGI snakes on a bad CGI plane in a bad CGI thunderstorm -- is its odiously overrated title.
Posted at 06:21 PM
Thu - August 10, 2006
AFTER THE FALL
there's nowhere to go but
up.
I'd planned to post a humorous little
Connecticut-travelogue-meets-mock-airline-mishap-movie piece this afternoon, and
I still might do so later tonight. Or tomorrow. Or whenever I recover and find
the strength to write. But right now, fresh home from a matinee showing of
World Trade
Center, I'm just too damned drained. Exhausted.
Pummeled into a quivering heap of emotional pulp. My response is colored, I
know, by who I am and how I am and where I am in my life right now, by a
brotherhood easily found and deeply felt with those two husbands and fathers and
family men, but I can't remember the last time I was so profoundly moved --
physically, emotionally, psychologically -- by a film.
It's been two hours since the credits began to roll, and I'm still devastated by it.
It's been two hours since the credits began to roll, and I'm still devastated by it.
Posted at 04:32 PM
Mon - July 10, 2006
THE EMMYS HAVE BECOME THE GRAMMYS
only worse.
At first, I was so shocked and pissed and
positively gobsmacked that I needed a couple of days to recover. Then I spent a
few more days writing this post in my head, turning the phrases and twisting the
knives and just generally unleashing all the
who are these academy idiots and what the
hell were they thinking? vitriol I could muster
-- and I could muster a whole hell of a lot, believe me. But then, by last
night, I'd found my way to a kind of artistic happy place, a cozy little corner
of indifference at the crossroads of depression and resignation, where I could
kick back and laugh and remember that the Emmys have pretty much always been a
joke, and that this year, the nominations and especially the snubs in the major
categories are so egregious, so totally outrageous, that they cast themselves
into the deep end of absurdity normally reserved for Grammy nominations and
presidential elections.
And so, rather than belabor the point -- which, I admit, I've probably already done -- I thought I would offer instead an all-snub list of alternate nominations in all the major categories. Take a good, long look at them. Think about them. Compare them to the official list. And I dare you to tell me that, with a few notable, near-miraculous exceptions that did manage to snag an official nomination -- The Sopranos, 24, The Office, Denis Leary, Steve Carell -- this list isn't better than the real one. A lot better.
Really. I dare you.
DRAMA SERIES
The Shield
Six Feet Under
LOST
Veronica Mars
Rescue Me
ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Michael Chiklis, The Shield
Matthew Fox, LOST
James Gandolfini, The Sopranos
Hugh Laurie, House
Bill Paxton, Big Love
ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Patricia Arquette, Medium
Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars
Edie Falco, The Sopranos
Lauren Graham, The Gilmore Girls
Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, LOST
Michael Emerson, LOST
Joe Gannascoli, The Sopranos
Terry O’Quinn, LOST
Forest Whitaker, The Shield
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Lauren Ambrose, Six Feet Under
Rachel Griffiths, Six Feet Under
C.C.H. Pounder, The Shield
Mary Lynn Rajskub, 24
Jeanne Tripplehorn, Big Love
COMEDY SERIES
Desperate Housewives
Entourage
Extras
My Name is Earl
Weeds
ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jason Bateman, Arrested Development
Zach Braff, Scrubs
Ricky Gervais, Extras
Jason Lee, My Name is Earl
Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother
ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives
Teri Hatcher, Desperate Housewives
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Jessica Walter, Arrested Development
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
John Krasinski, The Office
John C. McGinley, Scrubs
Kevin Nealon, Weeds
Jeffrey Tambor, Arrested Development
Rainn Wilson, The Office
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
(How her sweet, funny, impish, heartwarming, heartbreaking performance could be overlooked is the one snub -- okay, John Krasinski's equally sweet, funny, impish, heartwarming, heartbreaking performance is the other -- that can drive me out of my happy place and right back into the path of all these speeding, cell-phone-gabbing, uninsured drivers on the Emmy Avenues of depression and infuriation, where I am destined to be run down by Sean Hayes and Jon Cryer and Megan Mullally and Alfre Woodard on their way to celebrate their Milli-Vanilli-like nominations.)
See what I mean?
Exactly. And don't even get me started on the writing and directing nominations...
And so, rather than belabor the point -- which, I admit, I've probably already done -- I thought I would offer instead an all-snub list of alternate nominations in all the major categories. Take a good, long look at them. Think about them. Compare them to the official list. And I dare you to tell me that, with a few notable, near-miraculous exceptions that did manage to snag an official nomination -- The Sopranos, 24, The Office, Denis Leary, Steve Carell -- this list isn't better than the real one. A lot better.
Really. I dare you.
DRAMA SERIES
The Shield
Six Feet Under
LOST
Veronica Mars
Rescue Me
ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Michael Chiklis, The Shield
Matthew Fox, LOST
James Gandolfini, The Sopranos
Hugh Laurie, House
Bill Paxton, Big Love
ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Patricia Arquette, Medium
Kristen Bell, Veronica Mars
Edie Falco, The Sopranos
Lauren Graham, The Gilmore Girls
Ellen Pompeo, Grey's Anatomy
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A DRAMA SERIES
Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, LOST
Michael Emerson, LOST
Joe Gannascoli, The Sopranos
Terry O’Quinn, LOST
Forest Whitaker, The Shield
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A DRAMA SERIES
Lauren Ambrose, Six Feet Under
Rachel Griffiths, Six Feet Under
C.C.H. Pounder, The Shield
Mary Lynn Rajskub, 24
Jeanne Tripplehorn, Big Love
COMEDY SERIES
Desperate Housewives
Entourage
Extras
My Name is Earl
Weeds
ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jason Bateman, Arrested Development
Zach Braff, Scrubs
Ricky Gervais, Extras
Jason Lee, My Name is Earl
Josh Radnor, How I Met Your Mother
ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Marcia Cross, Desperate Housewives
Teri Hatcher, Desperate Housewives
Felicity Huffman, Desperate Housewives
Mary-Louise Parker, Weeds
Jessica Walter, Arrested Development
SUPPORTING ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIES
John Krasinski, The Office
John C. McGinley, Scrubs
Kevin Nealon, Weeds
Jeffrey Tambor, Arrested Development
Rainn Wilson, The Office
SUPPORTING ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIES
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
Jenna Fischer, The Office
(How her sweet, funny, impish, heartwarming, heartbreaking performance could be overlooked is the one snub -- okay, John Krasinski's equally sweet, funny, impish, heartwarming, heartbreaking performance is the other -- that can drive me out of my happy place and right back into the path of all these speeding, cell-phone-gabbing, uninsured drivers on the Emmy Avenues of depression and infuriation, where I am destined to be run down by Sean Hayes and Jon Cryer and Megan Mullally and Alfre Woodard on their way to celebrate their Milli-Vanilli-like nominations.)
See what I mean?
Exactly. And don't even get me started on the writing and directing nominations...
Posted at 12:30 PM
Tue - June 13, 2006
IN HIS MIND, IT'S SUCH A FINE LINE
it keeps him searching, and he's growing
old.
If you're a fan of Neil Young, or if you're just a
fan of good music and good movies and lovely, lyrical combinations of the two,
you should buy or rent or beg or borrow a copy of
Heart of
Gold, Jonathan Demme's brilliant concert film
now freshly released on
DVD.
It's my (so far) favorite movie of the year, one of the best concert films I've ever seen, and a beautiful testament to the power of a life in friends and family and music. It's a celebration, a jubilation, an inspiration. A piece of musical history and emotional artistry. And just a damned good time.
Give it a look. And a listen. Your eyes and your ears -- and your heart and your soul -- will thank you.
It's my (so far) favorite movie of the year, one of the best concert films I've ever seen, and a beautiful testament to the power of a life in friends and family and music. It's a celebration, a jubilation, an inspiration. A piece of musical history and emotional artistry. And just a damned good time.
Give it a look. And a listen. Your eyes and your ears -- and your heart and your soul -- will thank you.
Posted at 04:11 PM
Thu - May 25, 2006
LOOKING FOR LOST
with all the wrong paces. (and no
spoilers.)
Alright. Someone has to say it.
Last night's season finale of LOST wasn't anywhere near as tight or as taut or as tense as last year's.
Sure, we learned more, and yeah, we have a lot more cliffhangers, but the pacing was uneven, the rhythm was choppy, and the episode wasn't nearly as dramatically or emotionally satisfying as last season's heart-pounder of a finale. Out of respect for all of my TiVoing, time-shifting, downloading, DVRing readers, I won't discuss any details until next week. But I will say this: everything that happened in last year's finale felt organic, natural, inevitable, like the plot and the action and the characters were all being driven by an urgent, immutable (pre-)destiny, by fates and forces whose time had now tragically and inevitably come; the episode was pure and powerful and poetic. Last night's episode felt mannered and mechanized and even a little manic; you could practically hear the gears of the plot machine grinding, laboring, struggling against the frictions of time and sense to place everyone and everything in precise, artificial motion. Last year, it felt like the characters were being manipulated by the indifferent hands of at least a couple of angry gods; this year, it was just the impatient fingers of a couple of ambitious writers.
That's not bad. But neither is it great. And by now, the brilliant cast and crew of LOST have raised the creative bar so high that anything less than greatness, especially in a two-hour, blow-out, second-season finale, feels like a cheat.
Last night's season finale of LOST wasn't anywhere near as tight or as taut or as tense as last year's.
Sure, we learned more, and yeah, we have a lot more cliffhangers, but the pacing was uneven, the rhythm was choppy, and the episode wasn't nearly as dramatically or emotionally satisfying as last season's heart-pounder of a finale. Out of respect for all of my TiVoing, time-shifting, downloading, DVRing readers, I won't discuss any details until next week. But I will say this: everything that happened in last year's finale felt organic, natural, inevitable, like the plot and the action and the characters were all being driven by an urgent, immutable (pre-)destiny, by fates and forces whose time had now tragically and inevitably come; the episode was pure and powerful and poetic. Last night's episode felt mannered and mechanized and even a little manic; you could practically hear the gears of the plot machine grinding, laboring, struggling against the frictions of time and sense to place everyone and everything in precise, artificial motion. Last year, it felt like the characters were being manipulated by the indifferent hands of at least a couple of angry gods; this year, it was just the impatient fingers of a couple of ambitious writers.
That's not bad. But neither is it great. And by now, the brilliant cast and crew of LOST have raised the creative bar so high that anything less than greatness, especially in a two-hour, blow-out, second-season finale, feels like a cheat.
Posted at 11:44 AM
Sun - April 23, 2006
CINEMA PARADISE-O
of man's first disobedience, and the
fruit of that foreboding film.
It is safe to say that that no announcement of a
forthcoming film adaptation has ever filled me with more joy, nor more dread,
than this
week's news that the world will soon see an epic, live-action movie
version of Paradise
Lost. The folks at Legendary Pictures are so
far saying all the right things -- that John Milton's epic
poem presents an inherently
powerful and visual dramatic story, that they
are excited by the challenge of going back
to the source material, and that
given the gravity of the source material,
it's really important to get it right -- and
their first foray into literary adaptation, last summer's
Batman
Begins, suggests they know how to turn dark,
difficult text into a thoughtful and entertaining film. But it's hard to
imagine that an industry and a medium that needed five tries to get Batman right
could possibly nail the Son and Satan and Adam and Eve on the first attempt. Or
the second. Or the third.
As excited as I am at the thought of hearing Satan, lording over a fiery Deluge, fed with ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd, rally his fellow fallen angels with the bitter, slippery assurance that it is Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n, as eager as I am to see an all-out action picture in which the ass-kicking hero is also the Son of God, grasping ten thousand Thunders in his right hand and riding roughshod over shields and helms, and helmed heads as he expels the fallen angels and wins the War in Heaven, as tempted as I am by the idea of Satan serpentining himself into the Garden of Eden to exact his evil plan of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge on God and Man, I can't for the life (or the afterlife) of me imagine how they will pull it off. To make a truly masterful film version of Paradise Lost would seem to require the technical wizardry and storytelling mastery of Peter Jackson, the precision and passion of Martin Scorsese, the probing mind sardonic wit of David Cronenberg, and the bold, ballsy audacity of James Cameron. And that's a lot to ask from a guy whose only feature-length directing credits are Hellraiser: Inferno and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Of course, Jackson, Cronenberg, and Cameron launched their careers by directing Meet the Feebles, They Came From Within, and Piranha II: The Spawning, so there is hope, however faint, that Scott Derrickson could raise the Heavens (and Hell) and Earth out of cinematic Chaos.
In the end, as long as they don't cast Jack Nicholson as Satan or Keanu Reeves as the Son or Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams as Adam and Eve, as long as Heaven and Hell and the Garden of Eden look like real, inhabitable places and not some shallow, cheesy, George Lucas-y CGI design, and as long as they resist the urge to insert a new, audience-friendly ending in which Adam arrives just in the nick of time to knock the apple out of Eve's hand and battle the snake in a long, drawn-out, slow motion fight to the finish, the film should still be worth your hard-earned eight- or nine- or ten-fifty. Paradise Lost already reads like a grand and glorious Hollywood script: power and politics, sin and salvation, epic battles and bitter betrayals, breathless action and exotic locations, great dialogue and killer characters, love and sex and even a little bit of nudity, all wrapped up in some high-brow literature to please the blue-staters and some God-fearing theology to thrill the red-staters. It's as cinematic and scintillating a work as you could hope to find from 1674. Or from 2004. Whether it makes a great movie for 2007 or 2008 (or whenever it finally hits the multiplexes) will, much like the fate of Adam and Eve, depend on a few simple but critical choices. Because as God made Man, so too did Milton, for better or worse, for high drama or low cinema, make Paradise Lost: sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
As excited as I am at the thought of hearing Satan, lording over a fiery Deluge, fed with ever-burning Sulphur unconsum'd, rally his fellow fallen angels with the bitter, slippery assurance that it is Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav'n, as eager as I am to see an all-out action picture in which the ass-kicking hero is also the Son of God, grasping ten thousand Thunders in his right hand and riding roughshod over shields and helms, and helmed heads as he expels the fallen angels and wins the War in Heaven, as tempted as I am by the idea of Satan serpentining himself into the Garden of Eden to exact his evil plan of guile, of hate, of envy, of revenge on God and Man, I can't for the life (or the afterlife) of me imagine how they will pull it off. To make a truly masterful film version of Paradise Lost would seem to require the technical wizardry and storytelling mastery of Peter Jackson, the precision and passion of Martin Scorsese, the probing mind sardonic wit of David Cronenberg, and the bold, ballsy audacity of James Cameron. And that's a lot to ask from a guy whose only feature-length directing credits are Hellraiser: Inferno and The Exorcism of Emily Rose. Of course, Jackson, Cronenberg, and Cameron launched their careers by directing Meet the Feebles, They Came From Within, and Piranha II: The Spawning, so there is hope, however faint, that Scott Derrickson could raise the Heavens (and Hell) and Earth out of cinematic Chaos.
In the end, as long as they don't cast Jack Nicholson as Satan or Keanu Reeves as the Son or Heath Ledger and Michelle Williams as Adam and Eve, as long as Heaven and Hell and the Garden of Eden look like real, inhabitable places and not some shallow, cheesy, George Lucas-y CGI design, and as long as they resist the urge to insert a new, audience-friendly ending in which Adam arrives just in the nick of time to knock the apple out of Eve's hand and battle the snake in a long, drawn-out, slow motion fight to the finish, the film should still be worth your hard-earned eight- or nine- or ten-fifty. Paradise Lost already reads like a grand and glorious Hollywood script: power and politics, sin and salvation, epic battles and bitter betrayals, breathless action and exotic locations, great dialogue and killer characters, love and sex and even a little bit of nudity, all wrapped up in some high-brow literature to please the blue-staters and some God-fearing theology to thrill the red-staters. It's as cinematic and scintillating a work as you could hope to find from 1674. Or from 2004. Whether it makes a great movie for 2007 or 2008 (or whenever it finally hits the multiplexes) will, much like the fate of Adam and Eve, depend on a few simple but critical choices. Because as God made Man, so too did Milton, for better or worse, for high drama or low cinema, make Paradise Lost: sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.
Posted at 06:34 PM
Mon - April 3, 2006
SEEING THE BIG PICTURE
or, witnessing the wonders of
widescreen.
I've spent some time this past week working my way
through scenes and passages and extras on the
King Kong
DVD, and one of the thoughts I can not shake --
besides the brilliance of the special effects and the beauty of Naomi Watts'
performance -- is the beautiful brilliance of
Peter Jackson's widescreen compositions. Whether he's showing us a ferocious
battle between Kong and three great dinosaurs, a tramp steamer lost in a great,
sun-dappled sea, or the depression-era New York City skyline stretched out
beneath the great Empire State Building, every last millimeter of Jackson's
frames are packed with eye-popping detail. Rarely have I seen a cinematic
canvas so filled to bursting yet so perfectly balanced. Every shot, every
frame, seems to contain more than the human eye can possibly process, but the
effect -- except, as in some of those battles, when it's intended to be -- is
never dizzying or disorienting. And it's often quite intoxicating. (Yet again, Jackson shows a soulless technologist
like George Lucas how it should be done.) The more I've watched and absorbed
and admired those frames, the more I've studied the artistry of their
composition, and the more I've marveled at the sheer energy and audacity of the
image I included in last Tuesday's post, the less I've been able to
shake one other, simple thought: this film would be a mess, a tragedy, an
absolute aesthetic travesty, in anything less than its original widescreen
glory.
Because I am a movie fan first and a consumer electronics fan second, I have long been a fan of widescreen presentation for home viewing; long before such glories existed, I would happily tell anyone who would listen about the grand idea of widescreen television sets. When, for a few select titles, studios began offering letterboxed VHS tapes, I thought I'd died and gone to home video heaven. Laserdiscs and DVDs, with much greater resolution and more slavish attention to picture quality, were even greater gifts from the home theater gods. And yet even now, when it's possible to see every film as it was intended to be seen -- fully, completely, with every last pixel of the picture reproduced on your home screen -- some viewers are all too happy to smite those gods and refuse those gifts and needlessly suffer through the misnomered euphemism of the fullscreen version. Because they don't like those black bars on their television screens. Or because they paid good money for this tv and want to use every precious part of it. Or because it just looks funny that way.
Sure, you get to use the full screen of your television, but you get a whole hell of a lot less than the full screen of your movie. Those black bars seem to me a hell of a lot less funny than forfeiting thirty to forty-four percent of the movie you want to watch. After all, you paid good money to buy or rent that movie; you should want to see every precious part of it. Don't agree? Don't believe me? Consider the case of what you get -- or, more accurately, what you miss -- with the absurdly named fullscreen version of Peter Jackson's decidedly widescreen King Kong.
First, as a refresher, here's the glorious frame of the showdown between Kong and the T-Rex, with poor little Naomi Watts caught in the middle.
Consider the composition. The epic sweep and scope of the canvas. The sheer, awe-inspiring sense of perspective. Now consider what you get if, starting from the left edge of the image and extending as far to the right as possible, you're viewing the "fullscreen" version.
A considerable, lamentable difference, no? A little less than half of the picture -- and just about all of the grandeur -- gone. All for the ironic sake of filling your screen with a lot less picture. You get a big, scary dinosaur advancing upon... what? The only thing in jeopardy here is the audience's point of view. If you start from the right edge of the frame and extend as far as "fullframe" possible, you at least get Naomi and Kong.
But now the threat, the menace, the stalking, teeth-baring, fast approaching T-Rex is out of range. Once again, the picture is almost halved, the senses of dread and terror at least quartered. If you want to maintain any of that full and tangible terror, if you want to fit all three figures into the same allegedly fullscreen image, you need to crop the canvas so drastically that Naomi now seems caught between two horrible, free-floating heads.
Kinda loses something, doesn't it? The terror may come back a bit, but the tone and tenor of the moment, the sweep and scope of the scene, are almost entirely obliterated. You're peeking through a keyhole when you should be standing on the porch.
Oh, sure, the "fullscreen" version will pull slip a little pan-and-scan action into the mix, maybe wiping right or left so you get a quick (if hopelessly blurred) look at everything on screen for at least a split-second. But now you're blinking and cutting and pasting on that porch, left to assemble the image yourself from half-scraps of memories of images. And at every moment along the way, you're still missing almost half of what Peter Jackson or any other fantastically talented filmmaker has already assembled for you.
It burns my eyes and pains my brain to think that anyone could possibly look at these last two images and honestly prefer the one on top. Black bars and diagonal inches be damned, there's just no comparison between "fullscreen" and widescreen. You can have every inch of the television. I'll take every inch of the movie.
Because I am a movie fan first and a consumer electronics fan second, I have long been a fan of widescreen presentation for home viewing; long before such glories existed, I would happily tell anyone who would listen about the grand idea of widescreen television sets. When, for a few select titles, studios began offering letterboxed VHS tapes, I thought I'd died and gone to home video heaven. Laserdiscs and DVDs, with much greater resolution and more slavish attention to picture quality, were even greater gifts from the home theater gods. And yet even now, when it's possible to see every film as it was intended to be seen -- fully, completely, with every last pixel of the picture reproduced on your home screen -- some viewers are all too happy to smite those gods and refuse those gifts and needlessly suffer through the misnomered euphemism of the fullscreen version. Because they don't like those black bars on their television screens. Or because they paid good money for this tv and want to use every precious part of it. Or because it just looks funny that way.
Sure, you get to use the full screen of your television, but you get a whole hell of a lot less than the full screen of your movie. Those black bars seem to me a hell of a lot less funny than forfeiting thirty to forty-four percent of the movie you want to watch. After all, you paid good money to buy or rent that movie; you should want to see every precious part of it. Don't agree? Don't believe me? Consider the case of what you get -- or, more accurately, what you miss -- with the absurdly named fullscreen version of Peter Jackson's decidedly widescreen King Kong.
First, as a refresher, here's the glorious frame of the showdown between Kong and the T-Rex, with poor little Naomi Watts caught in the middle.
Consider the composition. The epic sweep and scope of the canvas. The sheer, awe-inspiring sense of perspective. Now consider what you get if, starting from the left edge of the image and extending as far to the right as possible, you're viewing the "fullscreen" version.
A considerable, lamentable difference, no? A little less than half of the picture -- and just about all of the grandeur -- gone. All for the ironic sake of filling your screen with a lot less picture. You get a big, scary dinosaur advancing upon... what? The only thing in jeopardy here is the audience's point of view. If you start from the right edge of the frame and extend as far as "fullframe" possible, you at least get Naomi and Kong.
But now the threat, the menace, the stalking, teeth-baring, fast approaching T-Rex is out of range. Once again, the picture is almost halved, the senses of dread and terror at least quartered. If you want to maintain any of that full and tangible terror, if you want to fit all three figures into the same allegedly fullscreen image, you need to crop the canvas so drastically that Naomi now seems caught between two horrible, free-floating heads.
Kinda loses something, doesn't it? The terror may come back a bit, but the tone and tenor of the moment, the sweep and scope of the scene, are almost entirely obliterated. You're peeking through a keyhole when you should be standing on the porch.
Oh, sure, the "fullscreen" version will pull slip a little pan-and-scan action into the mix, maybe wiping right or left so you get a quick (if hopelessly blurred) look at everything on screen for at least a split-second. But now you're blinking and cutting and pasting on that porch, left to assemble the image yourself from half-scraps of memories of images. And at every moment along the way, you're still missing almost half of what Peter Jackson or any other fantastically talented filmmaker has already assembled for you.
It burns my eyes and pains my brain to think that anyone could possibly look at these last two images and honestly prefer the one on top. Black bars and diagonal inches be damned, there's just no comparison between "fullscreen" and widescreen. You can have every inch of the television. I'll take every inch of the movie.
Posted at 08:29 PM
Tue - March 28, 2006
THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD
and the greatest wonder of
all.
Because it's a story I've loved all my life,
because it was the most fun I had at the movies all last year, and because it
comes out on DVD today, I am compelled to issue a profound
and passionate (if somewhat shameless) plug for Peter Jackson's brilliant and
beautiful remake of King Kong.
Though plenty of people saw it on the big screen
-- where it was truly a wonder to behold -- plenty of people missed it too. And
if you did, you shouldn't.
Rent it. Buy it. Borrow it. See it. If you already saw it, see it again.
King Kong is three hours and seven minutes' worth of cinematic wonders and amazements — amazing chases and rollicking battles and hair's-breadth escapes, wicked sights and grisly frights and edge-of-your-seat suspense, daring rescues and dinosaur stampedes and dangerous valleys and perilous pits and vertiginous heights and then that final, fatal climb — all packed into a sweetly, unexpectedly poetic story about loss and loneliness and that greatest wonder of all: selfless love.
Rent it. Buy it. Borrow it. See it. If you already saw it, see it again.
King Kong is three hours and seven minutes' worth of cinematic wonders and amazements — amazing chases and rollicking battles and hair's-breadth escapes, wicked sights and grisly frights and edge-of-your-seat suspense, daring rescues and dinosaur stampedes and dangerous valleys and perilous pits and vertiginous heights and then that final, fatal climb — all packed into a sweetly, unexpectedly poetic story about loss and loneliness and that greatest wonder of all: selfless love.
Posted at 04:51 PM
Wed - March 22, 2006
IT'S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE
nor, apparently, is it computer
science.
So some computer programmer from Cleveland -- which
sounds about as natural as an opera singer from Nashville -- named Jim
Hellriegel Jr. has devised a speed-dialing program that allows
American Idol
fans to optimize their call-in votes. As a
nifty byproduct, the software tracks and analyzes call attempts and busy signals
on its main server, then ranks the contestants and predicts who will get booted
from the show. The programmer and his program have a website, some
nice
coverage on an MSNBC.com science (?!) page, and a rather
undistinguished track record. After going 7-for-12 through the first three
weeks of elimination rounds -- a time period in which I went 11-for-12 after hearing only the first of
three performances -- Hellriegel and his (admittedly
not
scientific)
DialIdol have taken the collar. And hideously
so, going down swinging -- or is that flailing? -- like Michael Jordan in a
Birmingham Barons uniform.
Last week, Hellriegel's software predicted that Lisa Tucker would go home. Though she placed in the bottom two, Melissa McGhee, whom DialIdol ranked a firm 9th out of 12, was the singer sent packing -- just as anyone who watched the show with functioning eyes and ears, but no auto-dialer, had predicted. This week, DialIdol overwhelmingly predicted that Elliot Yamin, who ranked a full seven percentage points behind the next closest contestant, would go home. But Elliott didn't even place in the bottom three, proving yet again that good singing is not an exact science and that bad science does not exactly sing. Sent home instead -- and mercifully so -- was poor little Kevin Covais, whom the inimitable Blizz indelibly described as the love child of Sherman and Mr. Peabody, and whom DialIdol dubiously ranked 8th out of 11.
By next week, when either Lisa Tucker or Bucky Covington will go home but DialIdol will no doubt predict that Chris Daughtry or Taylor Hicks should pack his bags, this story, this software, and this pseudo-science should have all blown over. Alan Boyle, the MSNBC Cosmic Log writer, should have apologized for devoting 635 words to it. And Jim Hellriegel Jr. should have moved on to more clear and accurate forecasts from Cleveland, like predicting that lake-effect snow will fall, that the Cavaliers and Indians will continue to improve, and that the Browns will still suck.
Last week, Hellriegel's software predicted that Lisa Tucker would go home. Though she placed in the bottom two, Melissa McGhee, whom DialIdol ranked a firm 9th out of 12, was the singer sent packing -- just as anyone who watched the show with functioning eyes and ears, but no auto-dialer, had predicted. This week, DialIdol overwhelmingly predicted that Elliot Yamin, who ranked a full seven percentage points behind the next closest contestant, would go home. But Elliott didn't even place in the bottom three, proving yet again that good singing is not an exact science and that bad science does not exactly sing. Sent home instead -- and mercifully so -- was poor little Kevin Covais, whom the inimitable Blizz indelibly described as the love child of Sherman and Mr. Peabody, and whom DialIdol dubiously ranked 8th out of 11.
By next week, when either Lisa Tucker or Bucky Covington will go home but DialIdol will no doubt predict that Chris Daughtry or Taylor Hicks should pack his bags, this story, this software, and this pseudo-science should have all blown over. Alan Boyle, the MSNBC Cosmic Log writer, should have apologized for devoting 635 words to it. And Jim Hellriegel Jr. should have moved on to more clear and accurate forecasts from Cleveland, like predicting that lake-effect snow will fall, that the Cavaliers and Indians will continue to improve, and that the Browns will still suck.
Posted at 11:24 PM
Mon - March 6, 2006
OSCAR OBSERVATIONS #3-15
just when i think i'm out...they pull me
back in.
From the rest of the
evening:
3) Best Jon Stewart line of the night (and it wasn't even close): Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress, and Dick Cheney shot her.
4) Best Jon Stewart commentary on the sometimes sorry state of the Oscars: For those of your keeping score: that's Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars; Three 6 Mafia, one.
5) Philip Seymour Hoffman has been so good for so long that it's hard to believe he's only 38. And even harder to believe that, until tonight, or at least until this year, most of America didn't even know his name.
6) Nice acceptance speech, Reese Witherspoon. A bit nervous and breathless, but also heartfelt and gracious.
7) Dolly Parton still has her voice and her charm, but by God, she's lost her face. And apparently on purpose. That emaciated, surgically engineered death masque atop her neck was the scariest, and the saddest, thing I saw all night.
8) The Meryl Streep-Lily Tomlin bit began slowly and awkwardly, but once they got rolling and found their timing (or purposeful lack thereof), it was a lot of fun. They were, hands down, the most lively and entertaining pair of presenters.
9) Hands-down least lively and entertaining pair of presenters: Sandra Bullock, who looked like birds had been pecking at her hair backstage, and Keanu Reeves, who sounded, as always, like birds had been pecking at his brain backstage.
10) Hey, Charlize Theron: you're beautiful, you're getting good film roles, you're a current Oscar nominee and a recent Oscar winner -- so why the sour puss? You couldn't at least muster a smile or two? Was that cancerous growth of a bow on your right shoulder sucking out all of your positive energy?
11) After a conspicuous absence the last two years, Jack Nicholson made a triumphant return to the Oscar ceremony. And it was pretty obvious that he'd struck a deal with the producers to do so: You want me to bring my style and my smile and my sunglasses back to the front row? You got it. But on two conditions: I get to announce Best Picture, and I get to sit next to Keira Knightley.
12) Do you think someone tipped off Brokeback Mountain producer and co-screenwriter Diana Ossana that her film wasn't going to win Best Picture? Or is she just that much of a joyless, lifeless lump? She never cracked even a hint of a smile when she and Larry McMurtry -- he of the tux jacket, faded jeans combo -- won Best Adapted Screenplay, nor during her entire, stultifying acceptance speech, nor when Ang Lee won Best Director. After that display -- what was it? self-importance? self-seriousness? constipation? -- I was particularly pleased not to have to watch her scowl her way through a Best Picture acceptance.
13) Twice this morning I've heard Crash's Best Picture win described as the biggest upset in Oscar history. When a film has built several months' worth of Oscar buzz, gotten a ton of attention and affection, won a fair share of critics' awards, and is considered one of the two front-runners (if not actually the favorite) to win the award, that's not much of an upset. For my money, the biggest Best Picture upset in Oscar history came in 1981, when Chariots of Fire crossed the finish line ahead of Reds, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Atlantic City. When at least three (and perhaps all four) of the other nominees are considered much bigger, better bets for the Oscar, and when four of the other five major awards have already been split between the two Best Picture front-runners, you figure there's no way in Hell or Hollywood that some quiet, gentle little film about a couple of British runners is going to win. But it did. And it deserved to.
14) The inevitable Brokeback Mountain Didn't Win Best Picture hand-wringing and garment-rending has already begun. Co-screenwriter Larry McMurtry: Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don't want cowboys to be gay. Translation: Waaaaaaaaaaaa! Film critic Kenneth Turan declared it a sign that Hollywood wasn't ready to give homosexual love mainstream respectability. Translation: Waaaaaaaaaaaa! First: in 2006, you're lucky if Americans want cowboys to be anything. Second: does mainstream respectability only come from winning Best Picture? Eight nominations, three Oscars, good box office, a bunch of Golden Globes, a boatload of guild and critics' association awards, almost unanimous critical praise, multiple magazine covers, and a cultural buzz that's lasted for more than three months doesn't constitute mainstream credibility? Perhaps the truth is that this was a sign that Hollywood came to its senses and realized that, for all the buzz and talk and self-congratulation, Brokeback Mountain was a better cultural crusade than it was a movie.
15) But then so was Crash.
3) Best Jon Stewart line of the night (and it wasn't even close): Bjork couldn't be here tonight. She was trying on her Oscar dress, and Dick Cheney shot her.
4) Best Jon Stewart commentary on the sometimes sorry state of the Oscars: For those of your keeping score: that's Martin Scorsese, zero Oscars; Three 6 Mafia, one.
5) Philip Seymour Hoffman has been so good for so long that it's hard to believe he's only 38. And even harder to believe that, until tonight, or at least until this year, most of America didn't even know his name.
6) Nice acceptance speech, Reese Witherspoon. A bit nervous and breathless, but also heartfelt and gracious.
7) Dolly Parton still has her voice and her charm, but by God, she's lost her face. And apparently on purpose. That emaciated, surgically engineered death masque atop her neck was the scariest, and the saddest, thing I saw all night.
8) The Meryl Streep-Lily Tomlin bit began slowly and awkwardly, but once they got rolling and found their timing (or purposeful lack thereof), it was a lot of fun. They were, hands down, the most lively and entertaining pair of presenters.
9) Hands-down least lively and entertaining pair of presenters: Sandra Bullock, who looked like birds had been pecking at her hair backstage, and Keanu Reeves, who sounded, as always, like birds had been pecking at his brain backstage.
10) Hey, Charlize Theron: you're beautiful, you're getting good film roles, you're a current Oscar nominee and a recent Oscar winner -- so why the sour puss? You couldn't at least muster a smile or two? Was that cancerous growth of a bow on your right shoulder sucking out all of your positive energy?
11) After a conspicuous absence the last two years, Jack Nicholson made a triumphant return to the Oscar ceremony. And it was pretty obvious that he'd struck a deal with the producers to do so: You want me to bring my style and my smile and my sunglasses back to the front row? You got it. But on two conditions: I get to announce Best Picture, and I get to sit next to Keira Knightley.
12) Do you think someone tipped off Brokeback Mountain producer and co-screenwriter Diana Ossana that her film wasn't going to win Best Picture? Or is she just that much of a joyless, lifeless lump? She never cracked even a hint of a smile when she and Larry McMurtry -- he of the tux jacket, faded jeans combo -- won Best Adapted Screenplay, nor during her entire, stultifying acceptance speech, nor when Ang Lee won Best Director. After that display -- what was it? self-importance? self-seriousness? constipation? -- I was particularly pleased not to have to watch her scowl her way through a Best Picture acceptance.
13) Twice this morning I've heard Crash's Best Picture win described as the biggest upset in Oscar history. When a film has built several months' worth of Oscar buzz, gotten a ton of attention and affection, won a fair share of critics' awards, and is considered one of the two front-runners (if not actually the favorite) to win the award, that's not much of an upset. For my money, the biggest Best Picture upset in Oscar history came in 1981, when Chariots of Fire crossed the finish line ahead of Reds, On Golden Pond, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Atlantic City. When at least three (and perhaps all four) of the other nominees are considered much bigger, better bets for the Oscar, and when four of the other five major awards have already been split between the two Best Picture front-runners, you figure there's no way in Hell or Hollywood that some quiet, gentle little film about a couple of British runners is going to win. But it did. And it deserved to.
14) The inevitable Brokeback Mountain Didn't Win Best Picture hand-wringing and garment-rending has already begun. Co-screenwriter Larry McMurtry: Perhaps the truth really is, Americans don't want cowboys to be gay. Translation: Waaaaaaaaaaaa! Film critic Kenneth Turan declared it a sign that Hollywood wasn't ready to give homosexual love mainstream respectability. Translation: Waaaaaaaaaaaa! First: in 2006, you're lucky if Americans want cowboys to be anything. Second: does mainstream respectability only come from winning Best Picture? Eight nominations, three Oscars, good box office, a bunch of Golden Globes, a boatload of guild and critics' association awards, almost unanimous critical praise, multiple magazine covers, and a cultural buzz that's lasted for more than three months doesn't constitute mainstream credibility? Perhaps the truth is that this was a sign that Hollywood came to its senses and realized that, for all the buzz and talk and self-congratulation, Brokeback Mountain was a better cultural crusade than it was a movie.
15) But then so was Crash.
Posted at 10:16 AM
Sun - March 5, 2006
OSCAR OBSERVATION #2
the constant goofball.
From the Best Supporting Actress
category:
1) Rachel Weisz is as classy as she is beautiful, as articulate as she is talented.
2) Michelle Williams has apparently been drinking/snorting/smoking whatever Paula Abdul was on Thursday night.
1) Rachel Weisz is as classy as she is beautiful, as articulate as she is talented.
2) Michelle Williams has apparently been drinking/snorting/smoking whatever Paula Abdul was on Thursday night.
Posted at 09:15 PM
OSCAR OBSERVATION #1
paging dr. ross.
From the Best Supporting Actor
category:
With all due respect to Johnny Depp and Jude Law and everyone else who's ever won the award, George Clooney should win People's Sexiest Man Alive Award every year until he dies. No one else in the public eye has such a killer combination of wit and charm and talent and intelligence. Oh yeah -- and hotness too.
With all due respect to Johnny Depp and Jude Law and everyone else who's ever won the award, George Clooney should win People's Sexiest Man Alive Award every year until he dies. No one else in the public eye has such a killer combination of wit and charm and talent and intelligence. Oh yeah -- and hotness too.
Posted at 08:45 PM
Sat - January 7, 2006
A NOTE ABOUT NAOMI
a day late, but not a darrow
short.
If I'd read this before last night, I would have
included it as one of my Friday Afternoon Notes. But the lines were so good and so true
that I didn't want to wait until next week -- when, for reasons that will soon
become clear, I may not have time for a Notes column -- to share it. I made
essentially the same point in last week's Notes, but I didn't do it as neatly or as
succinctly as L.A. Weekly
film critic F.X.
Feeney:
Naomi Watts doesn't merely create her own character. She creates Kong, in the amphitheater of her eyes, purely by the strength of her reactions. You try sustaining notes of contagious terror and tenderness while interacting for months on end with a blank green wall.
The second sentence says it all. In that observation -- in that amphitheater, in those eyes -- lies the key not only to the power and brilliance of her performance, but to the power and beauty of the film.
Naomi Watts doesn't merely create her own character. She creates Kong, in the amphitheater of her eyes, purely by the strength of her reactions. You try sustaining notes of contagious terror and tenderness while interacting for months on end with a blank green wall.
The second sentence says it all. In that observation -- in that amphitheater, in those eyes -- lies the key not only to the power and brilliance of her performance, but to the power and beauty of the film.
Posted at 08:28 PM
Thu - December 15, 2005
ON MY ISLAND SAD AND LONELY
king kong and the beauty in the
beast.
They could be simple atmospherics: spooky little
background touches, grisly gooses for the audience, dark details from a digital
effects guy who’s having fun and just wants to fill the frame. But those
seemingly incidental skeletons in the cave at the top of the mountain on Skull
Island, the ones the great, sad gorilla trudges wearily past en route to the
lonely peak where he will slouch and rest and show his new love the great, sad
sunset that is now his only comfort, are the keys to understanding how Peter
Jackson and his crew succeed so brilliantly and why, if you let it,
King Kong
touches you in ways and places you would not have thought possible.
Much has been made about Jackson’s decision to make his Kong older, more battle-scarred and world-weary than his cinematic predecessors. With some graying hairs and a slight paunch, with the cracks and crevices of age in his face and the bloody, flesh-torn scars of battle visible all over his body, the new Kong looks like an ape who’s lived and suffered and survived a long life on a lost island full of savage, primordial creatures. He doesn’t look like he’s fresh out of the effects shop or recently spit-shined and spat out of a supercomputer; he looks and looms and even lumbers like he's been fighting for his life long before the lovely Naomi Watts showed up and needed his protection. Oh, sure, he’s still great and strong and strapping, still filled with enough awesome ferocity to fend off great bats and giant lizards, a dozen men with machine guns and, in the film’s most jaw-dropping, gleefully over-the-top set piece, three nasty, hungry tyrannosauri. He can still leap great jungle chasms and lay waste to much of Manhattan and climb all the way to the top of the Empire State Building with a beautiful blond in one hand, but for a lifetime of those feats he has paid a heavy physical and emotional toll. You can feel it in his gait. You can hear it in his roar. You can see it in his eyes.
What Peter Jackson does, and masterfully, is to make us identify, sympathize, even empathize with Kong long before (in fact, almost two hours before) the film’s final minutes. It’s easy to feel for a guy or an ape or just about anyone under heavy artillery fire when all he’s trying to do is have a little alone time with his girl; it’s considerably more difficult to feel for a guy, or particularly an ape, when you’re still not quite sure he won’t dismember the girl. But Jackson and his team of artists — led by the incomparable Andy Serkis, who emotes and performs and motion-captures Kong in a performance so moving and so subtle that if they can’t nominate him for an Oscar, they should invent one to give him — show us a great simian creature who, like some smaller, slightly less savage simian creatures we know, often rages on the outside only because he rages on the inside. He grunts and roars, bares his teeth and beats his chest, not so much to impress the girl but to express what he lacks the language, the capacity, but not the compulsion, to say to her.
We share Ann’s terror in the first few scenes after her abduction, when she’s clutched and grabbed and carried and about like a little rag doll, and especially when she sees the remains of Kong’s previous human playthings tossed and jumbled in a pit near his nest; when the bones of your predecessors are laid out like kindling and the same jewelry that hangs around your neck now adorns two skulls and a lone broken femur, you would not rush to bet on your chances of survival. Unless, of course, you’re as smart and resourceful and insightful — and, finally, as deeply sympathetic and empathetic — as a depression-era vaudevillean who knows a thing or three about loss and loneliness and hiding your pain behind your own bold performance. And so we also share Ann’s understanding, her connection not just to the towering beast who keeps her out of the mouths of dinosaurs, but to the sad heart of a beast who, like her, finds something he has long wanted but can not possibly possess.
The affection between woman and ape, the bond between beauty and beast, are at once both star- and species-crossed. But they are also well and deeply shared. Every other animal that appears in the film — the sailors and the savages and the filmmakers, the bats and brontosauri and tyrannosauri, the lizards and the spiders and even the oversized, man-eating worms — has a companion or a counterpart. Ann and Kong do not. They are both a singular, solitary kind: she the only white woman, he the only great gorilla, on the island. Ann has been brought there and subsequently lost by her male companions, stolen by dark, natural forces and served up as an offering to the angry ape god. Kong has grown there and been subsequently deserted by his ape companions, who were lost or stolen from him by the dark forces of a brutal nature and an indifferent ape God. She has the promise, perhaps, of a film career and a playwright beau, but they are both fickle and fleeting, destined, perhaps, to accumulate behind her like all the scattered bones of Kong’s past promises. It is precisely because they have nothing, and because they mean nothing to no one, that they find and bond and come finally to love one another.
Ann’s love and loss and longing, her own striking sense of self and being and nothingness, develop slowly and surely across the dialogue, the scenes, the situations of the first hour. But Kong’s love and loss and longing develop more subtly and symbolically. They sit in his scars, alight in his looks, rising in his gestures and finally resting in those great, forlorn skeletons on the mountain peak. We see them fleetingly at first, then in a few short tracking shots. But their size, their shape, and so their significance, are unmistakeable; they are the skeletons of other giant gorillas. Kong’s mate? His parents? His children? companions? We never know for certain, but we do not need to. We need simply to know that they are the remnants of whatever full life and love Kong has known, the dead, decaying artifacts of a time when he was younger and perhaps happier and surely did not need to find replacements in the forms of human sacrifices, in the empty screams and hollow bones that now form one more mocking pile of animal remains. And we need only to know that Ann, by seeing and knowing, as we do, the soft and aching emptiness in the heart of the beast, saves herself from being but one more lost and lonely skeleton on his uncharted island of sad, savage wildnerness. Even as she dooms that beautiful beast, lost and stolen and forsaken now himself, to become one more lost and lonely skeleton on her oft-charted island of sad, savage civilization.
By turning one of the great action-adventure-monster stories of all time into the greatest action-adventure-moster-human-heartbreak movie of all time, Peter Jackson finds the beauty in the beast and puts a beating heart in a big budget blockbuster. There are, to be sure, plenty of wonders and amazements — chases and battles and hair's-breadth escapes, grisly deaths and terrible devastations, daring rescues and dinosaur stampedes, dangerous valleys and vertiginous heights and that final, fatal climb — but the movie's most truly striking, stunning moments happen most often in silence and subtlety, in the power and passion of an unexpectedly poetic vision. A soft touch and a selfless gesture on a quiet city street. A gentle nestling and a beautiful sun setting on a remote mountaintop. A delightfully dizzying spin across a frozen pond. A bittersweet sunrise tableau atop the Empire State Building. A long and loving look that, passing from Kong's eyes to Ann's and back again, reminds us not just of how much they are like each other, but of how much they are like us all, lost and lonely souls who, struggling always to survive, want nothing more or less than the warmth and comfort of someone to know and feel and forever to share our survival.
Much has been made about Jackson’s decision to make his Kong older, more battle-scarred and world-weary than his cinematic predecessors. With some graying hairs and a slight paunch, with the cracks and crevices of age in his face and the bloody, flesh-torn scars of battle visible all over his body, the new Kong looks like an ape who’s lived and suffered and survived a long life on a lost island full of savage, primordial creatures. He doesn’t look like he’s fresh out of the effects shop or recently spit-shined and spat out of a supercomputer; he looks and looms and even lumbers like he's been fighting for his life long before the lovely Naomi Watts showed up and needed his protection. Oh, sure, he’s still great and strong and strapping, still filled with enough awesome ferocity to fend off great bats and giant lizards, a dozen men with machine guns and, in the film’s most jaw-dropping, gleefully over-the-top set piece, three nasty, hungry tyrannosauri. He can still leap great jungle chasms and lay waste to much of Manhattan and climb all the way to the top of the Empire State Building with a beautiful blond in one hand, but for a lifetime of those feats he has paid a heavy physical and emotional toll. You can feel it in his gait. You can hear it in his roar. You can see it in his eyes.
What Peter Jackson does, and masterfully, is to make us identify, sympathize, even empathize with Kong long before (in fact, almost two hours before) the film’s final minutes. It’s easy to feel for a guy or an ape or just about anyone under heavy artillery fire when all he’s trying to do is have a little alone time with his girl; it’s considerably more difficult to feel for a guy, or particularly an ape, when you’re still not quite sure he won’t dismember the girl. But Jackson and his team of artists — led by the incomparable Andy Serkis, who emotes and performs and motion-captures Kong in a performance so moving and so subtle that if they can’t nominate him for an Oscar, they should invent one to give him — show us a great simian creature who, like some smaller, slightly less savage simian creatures we know, often rages on the outside only because he rages on the inside. He grunts and roars, bares his teeth and beats his chest, not so much to impress the girl but to express what he lacks the language, the capacity, but not the compulsion, to say to her.
We share Ann’s terror in the first few scenes after her abduction, when she’s clutched and grabbed and carried and about like a little rag doll, and especially when she sees the remains of Kong’s previous human playthings tossed and jumbled in a pit near his nest; when the bones of your predecessors are laid out like kindling and the same jewelry that hangs around your neck now adorns two skulls and a lone broken femur, you would not rush to bet on your chances of survival. Unless, of course, you’re as smart and resourceful and insightful — and, finally, as deeply sympathetic and empathetic — as a depression-era vaudevillean who knows a thing or three about loss and loneliness and hiding your pain behind your own bold performance. And so we also share Ann’s understanding, her connection not just to the towering beast who keeps her out of the mouths of dinosaurs, but to the sad heart of a beast who, like her, finds something he has long wanted but can not possibly possess.
The affection between woman and ape, the bond between beauty and beast, are at once both star- and species-crossed. But they are also well and deeply shared. Every other animal that appears in the film — the sailors and the savages and the filmmakers, the bats and brontosauri and tyrannosauri, the lizards and the spiders and even the oversized, man-eating worms — has a companion or a counterpart. Ann and Kong do not. They are both a singular, solitary kind: she the only white woman, he the only great gorilla, on the island. Ann has been brought there and subsequently lost by her male companions, stolen by dark, natural forces and served up as an offering to the angry ape god. Kong has grown there and been subsequently deserted by his ape companions, who were lost or stolen from him by the dark forces of a brutal nature and an indifferent ape God. She has the promise, perhaps, of a film career and a playwright beau, but they are both fickle and fleeting, destined, perhaps, to accumulate behind her like all the scattered bones of Kong’s past promises. It is precisely because they have nothing, and because they mean nothing to no one, that they find and bond and come finally to love one another.
Ann’s love and loss and longing, her own striking sense of self and being and nothingness, develop slowly and surely across the dialogue, the scenes, the situations of the first hour. But Kong’s love and loss and longing develop more subtly and symbolically. They sit in his scars, alight in his looks, rising in his gestures and finally resting in those great, forlorn skeletons on the mountain peak. We see them fleetingly at first, then in a few short tracking shots. But their size, their shape, and so their significance, are unmistakeable; they are the skeletons of other giant gorillas. Kong’s mate? His parents? His children? companions? We never know for certain, but we do not need to. We need simply to know that they are the remnants of whatever full life and love Kong has known, the dead, decaying artifacts of a time when he was younger and perhaps happier and surely did not need to find replacements in the forms of human sacrifices, in the empty screams and hollow bones that now form one more mocking pile of animal remains. And we need only to know that Ann, by seeing and knowing, as we do, the soft and aching emptiness in the heart of the beast, saves herself from being but one more lost and lonely skeleton on his uncharted island of sad, savage wildnerness. Even as she dooms that beautiful beast, lost and stolen and forsaken now himself, to become one more lost and lonely skeleton on her oft-charted island of sad, savage civilization.
By turning one of the great action-adventure-monster stories of all time into the greatest action-adventure-moster-human-heartbreak movie of all time, Peter Jackson finds the beauty in the beast and puts a beating heart in a big budget blockbuster. There are, to be sure, plenty of wonders and amazements — chases and battles and hair's-breadth escapes, grisly deaths and terrible devastations, daring rescues and dinosaur stampedes, dangerous valleys and vertiginous heights and that final, fatal climb — but the movie's most truly striking, stunning moments happen most often in silence and subtlety, in the power and passion of an unexpectedly poetic vision. A soft touch and a selfless gesture on a quiet city street. A gentle nestling and a beautiful sun setting on a remote mountaintop. A delightfully dizzying spin across a frozen pond. A bittersweet sunrise tableau atop the Empire State Building. A long and loving look that, passing from Kong's eyes to Ann's and back again, reminds us not just of how much they are like each other, but of how much they are like us all, lost and lonely souls who, struggling always to survive, want nothing more or less than the warmth and comfort of someone to know and feel and forever to share our survival.
Posted at 10:01 PM
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Published On: May 08, 2008 10:27 AM
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Published On: May 08, 2008 10:27 AM