I can't stop watching Smash, even though I think it has a lot of problems, and while I was following a thought about Smash down the rabbit hole I came across this delightful clip. It's the original cast of A Chorus Line singing "What I Did For Love" on the Phil Donahue show shortly before the original run closed in 1990:
It's like, you only thought this song was poignant.
Anyway, I was thinking about Smash specifically compared with the documentary Every Little Step, which chronicles the casting process for the 2006 revival of A Chorus Line. One of that film's mini-arcs - the "inexperienced-but-talented" throughline focused on Jessica Lee Goyner - works where Smash's presentation of Karen frequently doesn't because they freight her with all this baggage of naivete and moral superiority when the "but talented" should be the going concern. Every Little Step derives all its drama from the audition process and the auditionees' perceptions of themselves as performers, rather than try to pile on any extraneous personal issues.
Other wishes? A few weeks ago, I watched All About Eve again and thought the show could use an Addison DeWitt; specifically, someone savvy who's invested in the various goings-on of the plot and who can give some direction to the aimlessness that seems to govern characters like Karen and Ellis. Sometimes you need that character who'll actually tell people to stop behaving like simpering fools, instead of just you the audience member yelling it at the TV from your armchair. Hell, you could even have one of those characters actually sit down and watch All About Eve as Marilyn research and decide to actively seek out an Addison DeWitt figure. It would probably make about as much sense as anything else that's gone on this season.
And I wish the show would stop having characters act like Ivy's relationship with Derek somehow precludes her from also being talented. I don't think they're setting her up to function in a muse role (if anything, the recent "Karen-is-Marilyn!" hallucinations seem to be heading in that direction, which in turn is making me pull extra-hard for the Grey's Anatomy/Bones-esque brain tumor option) but it's crazy to not have at least one person mention that some of the most fruitful creative/romantic partnerships in the history of dance and musical theater have been between performers and their director-choreographers.
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Quoted
"Maybe because the show is a comedy, some viewers can’t help believing the show “wants” us to sympathize with Hannah in stealing the money, but I think that couldn’t be less true. The interest of the show is in showing her as an intelligent, unformed, selfish, self-pitying young screw-up. She’s funny, and she’s irritating. She’s sometimes perceptive, and yet stunningly un-self-aware. She cares deeply for her friends, and sees her parents as ATMs. The show is not about seeing her as a good person, it’s about wanting to see her—hopefully, by taking on some responsibility, growing up and seeing beyond herself—become one."
- James Poniewozik
from "From Tony Soprano to Hannah Horvath: What Does a TV Show 'Want' You to Think of Its Characters?" at Tuned In
I've been working a lot recently trying to articulate what exactly it is I want to focus on in my studies going forward, and I think part of what I want to achieve is the kind of breadth of knowledge Poniewozik draws upon here to make his point. I particularly love the comparison of the character moments in the respective pilots of Girls and The Shield. (I'm currently in the middle of the sixth season of The Shield - knocking shows off of this list like a champion, if I may say so, and on the verge of tackling Nos. 1 and 2 in the aforementioned process of deepening my body of knowledge.) So much has been said about the pilot all over the Internet that I think I'll save judgement on Girls for a few weeks, but based on Sunday's episode I agree with this assessment of the level of self-awareness involved in presenting the show's characters.
- James Poniewozik
from "From Tony Soprano to Hannah Horvath: What Does a TV Show 'Want' You to Think of Its Characters?" at Tuned In
I've been working a lot recently trying to articulate what exactly it is I want to focus on in my studies going forward, and I think part of what I want to achieve is the kind of breadth of knowledge Poniewozik draws upon here to make his point. I particularly love the comparison of the character moments in the respective pilots of Girls and The Shield. (I'm currently in the middle of the sixth season of The Shield - knocking shows off of this list like a champion, if I may say so, and on the verge of tackling Nos. 1 and 2 in the aforementioned process of deepening my body of knowledge.) So much has been said about the pilot all over the Internet that I think I'll save judgement on Girls for a few weeks, but based on Sunday's episode I agree with this assessment of the level of self-awareness involved in presenting the show's characters.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
On a Mad Men Rewatch
Good grief, but I love thinking too much about this show.
- In his recent interview with the New York Times, Matthew Weiner said of his tentative seven-season plan, "My plan always, and it’s how I pitched the show to AMC, is, let me show the difference between these people at the beginning of the ’60s and the end of the ’60s. You see how adult they are when it starts. But I guarantee you when we look back after the finale, you will say, ‘Look how young they were.’ And you will look back with nostalgia." I think that's already true - at least, I was surprised by how young the actors looked to me now rewatching Season One. I particularly think that the flashbacks in "Waldorf Stories" give a different sense of where Don is at the beginning of the series - it feels more like we come in on him still shaping the myth of Don Draper.
- I liked the third season less upon rewatch than I expected. It still contains some of my favorite episodes - "Shut the Door, Have a Seat," "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency," and "The Grown-Ups" (a personal favorite for its take on television spectatorship) - and some moments I really love. (Nothing will match the feeling of recognizing the opening strains of "Bye Bye Birdie" - a longtime favorite of mine - at the beginning of "Love Among the Ruins" when I first watched it.) But the season's got two major issues in Suzanne Farrell - easily the worst of any of Don's conquests thus far - and Conrad Hilton. I found that knowing both will be gone by the end of the season really drains away whatever patience I was willing to employ when I watched the season live. Additionally, I think in retrospect that the third season's conceptual departures - like "The Fog" or "Seven Twenty Three" - don't work as well as episodes like "The Jet Set" or "The Summer Man." (Though now I'm convinced that somewhere within me there's an essay about deconstructing the awkward intersections of "The Fog," The Help, Medgar Evers and White Lady Problems.) The last quibble is one that may very well still be addressed - the departures of Sal and Paul Kinsey felt so abrupt, and still do with no updates on where they might have ended up during the fourth season. I wouldn't put it past Weiner to suddenly bring one of them back - he did it with Freddy Rumsen - so maybe that's a point of contention to store away for whenever the show concludes.
- One thing that feels sort of surprising looking back - we've never gone home with Ken Cosgrove. Even the subplot in "The Gold Violin" is more about Sal than Ken. Hopefully, the casting of Larisa Oleynik and Ray Wise as his fiancee and father-in-law-to-be, respectively, in "Chinese Wall" is an indicator of the show laying groundwork to finally delve deeper into its most unassuming accounts man.
- Another realization - we don't really have any sense of Joan's relationship with her mother. Could that change if we come back in on her with a baby?
- I forgot how much of the fourth season's back half is devoted to the firm's financial woes. I'm curious to see if they pick some of the seeds of potential business back up - especially the conclusion of the Honda plot in "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" and mentions of Dow Chemical in "Tomorrowland." I'm especially intrigued by the latter. After a season and a half of mostly oblique references to Vietnam, outside of Greg Harris' plot, would Weiner now put SCDP that close to the war machine?
- It's still surprising sometimes to recall how funny the show is - to take a few moments from "The Beautiful Girls," for example, Harry's indignant reaction to finding his afghan being used to help shepherd Miss Blankenship outside the range of the clients' eyes or Don finding that Sally doused his French toast with rum instead of syrup and just rolling with it.
- Speaking of "The Beautiful Girls," like much of the fourth season it replays well. But I still don't really understand Joyce's "men are like soup" metaphor.
- Naturi Naughton's appearance in "Hands and Knees" feels super-weird post-The Playboy Club.
- A potentially big plot point I wonder about for the future is whether Don will ever get that last bit of information he's missing about Peggy's pregnancy - they go right up to the edge of it in "The Suitcase," and I think the tension around Pete being one of the only people in SCDP with an inkling of Don's background (especially with the North American Aviation debacle in "Hands and Knees") suggests that there could be interesting dramatic fallout. There's a cautious equilibrium among the three of them that's reminiscent of the dynamic that Peggy overturned in "Meditations on an Emergency."
Some leftover thoughts on "Tomorrowland" that I never got around to posting when the episode actually aired:
- It's a little thing, but I loved that Glen asked if Sally was "decent" when he knocked on her door. One, because it subtly put the lie to Betty's manic anti-Glen stance, but also because it struck me as so dad-like. (That is, to someone whose parents are roughly the same age as Sally.)
- Some interesting pop culture references in this episode. I don't think I can unpack Don's (slightly creepy) reference to The Sound of Music better than The Film Experience, (Poor Faye. No one wants to be the Baroness in that scenario.) but I think the choice of "I've Got You Babe" as the episode-closer is interesting, too: another couple with an older man and a younger woman, where the woman ultimately eclipsed him career-wise. Ten years after the song came out, they were divorced. It's always anyone's guess how much something like that is supposed to foreshadow, but given Megan's seeming ambition in the field of advertising, it seems worth keeping in mind.
- And, a note to add to that upon rewatching the episode: I wonder if that career ambition is destined to act at odds with the fact that Don clearly latches on to Megan because he wants her as a mother figure for his children.
I could say more (Suddenly noticing suitcase references in Season Two! Recalling the smarmy delight of Kevin Rahm as Ted Chaough! I can't decide whether I have things to say about the Slate pieces on the show's handling of race!) but I need to cut myself off. So, it remains to be seen what's in store for us tonight. I think the central appeal of the premieres is learning when we're rejoining the action and what's happened to everyone in the offscreen time - none of them, not even the pilot, is among my favorite episodes. I'm curious to see whether the two-hour format makes the episode more compelling overall. The weekly TV posts seem destined to start up again - between Mad Men and Game of Thrones, I'll simply have too much to over-analyze.
- In his recent interview with the New York Times, Matthew Weiner said of his tentative seven-season plan, "My plan always, and it’s how I pitched the show to AMC, is, let me show the difference between these people at the beginning of the ’60s and the end of the ’60s. You see how adult they are when it starts. But I guarantee you when we look back after the finale, you will say, ‘Look how young they were.’ And you will look back with nostalgia." I think that's already true - at least, I was surprised by how young the actors looked to me now rewatching Season One. I particularly think that the flashbacks in "Waldorf Stories" give a different sense of where Don is at the beginning of the series - it feels more like we come in on him still shaping the myth of Don Draper.
- I liked the third season less upon rewatch than I expected. It still contains some of my favorite episodes - "Shut the Door, Have a Seat," "Guy Walks Into an Advertising Agency," and "The Grown-Ups" (a personal favorite for its take on television spectatorship) - and some moments I really love. (Nothing will match the feeling of recognizing the opening strains of "Bye Bye Birdie" - a longtime favorite of mine - at the beginning of "Love Among the Ruins" when I first watched it.) But the season's got two major issues in Suzanne Farrell - easily the worst of any of Don's conquests thus far - and Conrad Hilton. I found that knowing both will be gone by the end of the season really drains away whatever patience I was willing to employ when I watched the season live. Additionally, I think in retrospect that the third season's conceptual departures - like "The Fog" or "Seven Twenty Three" - don't work as well as episodes like "The Jet Set" or "The Summer Man." (Though now I'm convinced that somewhere within me there's an essay about deconstructing the awkward intersections of "The Fog," The Help, Medgar Evers and White Lady Problems.) The last quibble is one that may very well still be addressed - the departures of Sal and Paul Kinsey felt so abrupt, and still do with no updates on where they might have ended up during the fourth season. I wouldn't put it past Weiner to suddenly bring one of them back - he did it with Freddy Rumsen - so maybe that's a point of contention to store away for whenever the show concludes.
- One thing that feels sort of surprising looking back - we've never gone home with Ken Cosgrove. Even the subplot in "The Gold Violin" is more about Sal than Ken. Hopefully, the casting of Larisa Oleynik and Ray Wise as his fiancee and father-in-law-to-be, respectively, in "Chinese Wall" is an indicator of the show laying groundwork to finally delve deeper into its most unassuming accounts man.
- Another realization - we don't really have any sense of Joan's relationship with her mother. Could that change if we come back in on her with a baby?
- I forgot how much of the fourth season's back half is devoted to the firm's financial woes. I'm curious to see if they pick some of the seeds of potential business back up - especially the conclusion of the Honda plot in "The Chrysanthemum and the Sword" and mentions of Dow Chemical in "Tomorrowland." I'm especially intrigued by the latter. After a season and a half of mostly oblique references to Vietnam, outside of Greg Harris' plot, would Weiner now put SCDP that close to the war machine?
- It's still surprising sometimes to recall how funny the show is - to take a few moments from "The Beautiful Girls," for example, Harry's indignant reaction to finding his afghan being used to help shepherd Miss Blankenship outside the range of the clients' eyes or Don finding that Sally doused his French toast with rum instead of syrup and just rolling with it.
- Speaking of "The Beautiful Girls," like much of the fourth season it replays well. But I still don't really understand Joyce's "men are like soup" metaphor.
- Naturi Naughton's appearance in "Hands and Knees" feels super-weird post-The Playboy Club.
- A potentially big plot point I wonder about for the future is whether Don will ever get that last bit of information he's missing about Peggy's pregnancy - they go right up to the edge of it in "The Suitcase," and I think the tension around Pete being one of the only people in SCDP with an inkling of Don's background (especially with the North American Aviation debacle in "Hands and Knees") suggests that there could be interesting dramatic fallout. There's a cautious equilibrium among the three of them that's reminiscent of the dynamic that Peggy overturned in "Meditations on an Emergency."
Some leftover thoughts on "Tomorrowland" that I never got around to posting when the episode actually aired:
- It's a little thing, but I loved that Glen asked if Sally was "decent" when he knocked on her door. One, because it subtly put the lie to Betty's manic anti-Glen stance, but also because it struck me as so dad-like. (That is, to someone whose parents are roughly the same age as Sally.)
- Some interesting pop culture references in this episode. I don't think I can unpack Don's (slightly creepy) reference to The Sound of Music better than The Film Experience, (Poor Faye. No one wants to be the Baroness in that scenario.) but I think the choice of "I've Got You Babe" as the episode-closer is interesting, too: another couple with an older man and a younger woman, where the woman ultimately eclipsed him career-wise. Ten years after the song came out, they were divorced. It's always anyone's guess how much something like that is supposed to foreshadow, but given Megan's seeming ambition in the field of advertising, it seems worth keeping in mind.
- And, a note to add to that upon rewatching the episode: I wonder if that career ambition is destined to act at odds with the fact that Don clearly latches on to Megan because he wants her as a mother figure for his children.
I could say more (Suddenly noticing suitcase references in Season Two! Recalling the smarmy delight of Kevin Rahm as Ted Chaough! I can't decide whether I have things to say about the Slate pieces on the show's handling of race!) but I need to cut myself off. So, it remains to be seen what's in store for us tonight. I think the central appeal of the premieres is learning when we're rejoining the action and what's happened to everyone in the offscreen time - none of them, not even the pilot, is among my favorite episodes. I'm curious to see whether the two-hour format makes the episode more compelling overall. The weekly TV posts seem destined to start up again - between Mad Men and Game of Thrones, I'll simply have too much to over-analyze.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Idle TV Marketing Thoughts
I'm not crazy, right? They're totally having Pete's hairline start to recede? That's so excellent.
(From this slideshow of Season Five promo pictures - as always, very stylish and generally information-free but: the hippest clothes I've seen on Elisabeth Moss as Peggy; Kiernan Shipka is starting to grow into her teen face; where's Megan and are Jay Ferguson and Christopher Stanley regular cast members now?)
Monday, March 12, 2012
On Downton Abbey Season Two
I always seem to have finale posts that linger for months after their respective shows aired, and I wanted to actually post this before the next cable cycle revs up.
- I ultimately liked the second series, but can't say I disagree with some of the criticisms that labeled it too soapy. I think the notable difference between the first and second series is that in the second the seams felt more visible in Fellowes' pastiche. The dramatic plot machinations sometimes felt overheated or specifically designed to postpone plot resolution until the latest possible moment rather than to drive the story organically. While the first series was great, I don't think it bought Fellowes the kind of goodwill that prompts people to give a free pass to similar plot developments in nineteenth-century classics of the genre. Nor does he seem terribly interested in trying to subvert some of those well-worn tropes instead of playing them straightforwardly. The highs were still high enough to carry the rest of the material, but hopefully the criticisms of the season will prompt a more measured take in the third go-round.
- The one development that really deserved the "soap opera" qualifier, though not necessarily with the negative connotations intended? Matthew's paralysis. Paralysis (and blindness) is like the Chekov's gun of soap operas; if a guy gets paralyzed in the first act, he's not still going to be in that wheelchair when you've reached the story's conclusion. They skipped a fairly standard step, in which the person (usually a man, I'm sure gender theorists could speculate as to why that is) who is paralyzed/blind realizes that they can walk/see again but keeps it a secret because they don't want to lose the relationships they've mended/created during the time of their injury. Then you get the emergency situation where they're suddenly forced to reveal that they have regained the ability to walk/see. It seemed like they were going to go there with Matthew, but I guess the suggestion of it got lost in all the characters' relief over his junk working again. (The other day, I happened to catch a few minutes of The Young and the Restless, where Jack Abbott is currently in a wheelchair and the day's story revolved around people discovering that formerly blind Adam Newman was responsible for the situation leading to said paralysis. At some point, someone said "Jack will never walk again!" and I think I said, "Oh, PLEASE." aloud to the television. Soaps are magical and wonderful, is basically the moral of that story.) In a set of episodes awash in classic melodrama, I think this was my favorite "oldie-but-a-goodie."
- So...babies and in-law drama for the third series? I could get behind that. (Plus, I guess, springing Bates from jail? That storyline kind of lost steam for me there towards the end.) Even with Matthew and Mary together, I think that the show's established enough about the characters that I feel semi-confident predicting that A) certain of the ensemble won't feel truly at ease until she's had at least two boys and B) Mary's the kind of person who will not take kindly at all to the feeling that her womb is being monitored. I also hope they use the Bransons to introduce some of the Irish conflict into the story - for whatever reason, I like the idea of DA and Boardwalk Empire having a bit of overlap in historical fictive space. It seems like the growth of new family lives for the young Ladies Crawley should be enough to propel the story organically. *fingers crossed*
- Apparently, they're moving the show (as they should) from Miniseries/Movie to Drama for this year's Emmys. This Hitfix piece from Dan Fienberg does a good job of dissecting some of the issues at play in the Drama field, specifically why "Can Downton Abbey derail Mad Men?" is the wrong question to ask. (The Drama field is so dense this year, and we haven't even seen Mad Men or Game of Thrones yet! Emmy prognosticating is so much denser and more fun than trying to predict the Oscars!) Hopefully, the move will be accompanied by at least Michelle Dockery's name being put on the nomination ballot. (I ended up not posting my "Unsubmitted" list for last year's Dream Ballot, but she was at the very top of it.)
- I ultimately liked the second series, but can't say I disagree with some of the criticisms that labeled it too soapy. I think the notable difference between the first and second series is that in the second the seams felt more visible in Fellowes' pastiche. The dramatic plot machinations sometimes felt overheated or specifically designed to postpone plot resolution until the latest possible moment rather than to drive the story organically. While the first series was great, I don't think it bought Fellowes the kind of goodwill that prompts people to give a free pass to similar plot developments in nineteenth-century classics of the genre. Nor does he seem terribly interested in trying to subvert some of those well-worn tropes instead of playing them straightforwardly. The highs were still high enough to carry the rest of the material, but hopefully the criticisms of the season will prompt a more measured take in the third go-round.
- The one development that really deserved the "soap opera" qualifier, though not necessarily with the negative connotations intended? Matthew's paralysis. Paralysis (and blindness) is like the Chekov's gun of soap operas; if a guy gets paralyzed in the first act, he's not still going to be in that wheelchair when you've reached the story's conclusion. They skipped a fairly standard step, in which the person (usually a man, I'm sure gender theorists could speculate as to why that is) who is paralyzed/blind realizes that they can walk/see again but keeps it a secret because they don't want to lose the relationships they've mended/created during the time of their injury. Then you get the emergency situation where they're suddenly forced to reveal that they have regained the ability to walk/see. It seemed like they were going to go there with Matthew, but I guess the suggestion of it got lost in all the characters' relief over his junk working again. (The other day, I happened to catch a few minutes of The Young and the Restless, where Jack Abbott is currently in a wheelchair and the day's story revolved around people discovering that formerly blind Adam Newman was responsible for the situation leading to said paralysis. At some point, someone said "Jack will never walk again!" and I think I said, "Oh, PLEASE." aloud to the television. Soaps are magical and wonderful, is basically the moral of that story.) In a set of episodes awash in classic melodrama, I think this was my favorite "oldie-but-a-goodie."
- So...babies and in-law drama for the third series? I could get behind that. (Plus, I guess, springing Bates from jail? That storyline kind of lost steam for me there towards the end.) Even with Matthew and Mary together, I think that the show's established enough about the characters that I feel semi-confident predicting that A) certain of the ensemble won't feel truly at ease until she's had at least two boys and B) Mary's the kind of person who will not take kindly at all to the feeling that her womb is being monitored. I also hope they use the Bransons to introduce some of the Irish conflict into the story - for whatever reason, I like the idea of DA and Boardwalk Empire having a bit of overlap in historical fictive space. It seems like the growth of new family lives for the young Ladies Crawley should be enough to propel the story organically. *fingers crossed*
- Apparently, they're moving the show (as they should) from Miniseries/Movie to Drama for this year's Emmys. This Hitfix piece from Dan Fienberg does a good job of dissecting some of the issues at play in the Drama field, specifically why "Can Downton Abbey derail Mad Men?" is the wrong question to ask. (The Drama field is so dense this year, and we haven't even seen Mad Men or Game of Thrones yet! Emmy prognosticating is so much denser and more fun than trying to predict the Oscars!) Hopefully, the move will be accompanied by at least Michelle Dockery's name being put on the nomination ballot. (I ended up not posting my "Unsubmitted" list for last year's Dream Ballot, but she was at the very top of it.)
Tuesday, March 06, 2012
Quoted
"A period transplant would change the historical details, pop-culture references, and mores, but not the characters, tone, or themes. Mad Men would still be Mad Men because the show isn’t about history. It’s about mystery — specifically the mystery of personality. Weiner practices sawdust-and-footlights dramaturgy. Scenes go on longer than TV’s norm and let significant action play out in wide shots that turn the edges of the screen into a proscenium. For all its snappy dialogue, the show’s most piercing moments are silent: Don, AWOL from his daughter’s birthday party, parked at a railroad crossing while a train rumbles past; ex-lovers Peggy and Pete regarding each other through a glass partition; Don and Peggy curled on Don’s office couch like shipwreck survivors on a raft."
- Matt Zoller Seitz "What Makes Mad Men Great" from Vulture
I agree with a lot of what he says, particularly about the show's true appeal being its function as a character study. However, I don't know that all the characters could translate as easily to other time periods as he claims. Namely, I think that a lot of what shapes Joan and Betty as characters is rooted in cultural expectations of women at the time and how they shape their lives around those expectations. (After recently watching "The Mountain King" again, I also think that this plays a part in why Anna decides to let Don get away with his identity fraud. But that's sort of a half-thought-out tangent.) They're both educated women who ultimately see their paths leading to the domestic sphere whether that best serves their personalities or talents or not, seemingly because it's what they're "supposed" to do. I'm not saying that this type of woman is exclusively tethered to the sixties, though The Feminine Mystique made her a sort of archetype of the era. I guess my question is what different experiences might result in a Joan or a Betty in, say, 1980?
- Matt Zoller Seitz "What Makes Mad Men Great" from Vulture
I agree with a lot of what he says, particularly about the show's true appeal being its function as a character study. However, I don't know that all the characters could translate as easily to other time periods as he claims. Namely, I think that a lot of what shapes Joan and Betty as characters is rooted in cultural expectations of women at the time and how they shape their lives around those expectations. (After recently watching "The Mountain King" again, I also think that this plays a part in why Anna decides to let Don get away with his identity fraud. But that's sort of a half-thought-out tangent.) They're both educated women who ultimately see their paths leading to the domestic sphere whether that best serves their personalities or talents or not, seemingly because it's what they're "supposed" to do. I'm not saying that this type of woman is exclusively tethered to the sixties, though The Feminine Mystique made her a sort of archetype of the era. I guess my question is what different experiences might result in a Joan or a Betty in, say, 1980?
Thursday, March 01, 2012
Random Movie Love
It's probably an indicator that I'm a bigger nerd than I should publicly admit to being that I even have a favorite studio logo, but: it's Universal, and they've revamped for their centennial!
I think Universal is my favorite because, to me, it works in all its different variations. (As opposed to, say, MGM, which I also love but I'm not wild about some of those lions. Like I said, super-nerd.) I love the old logo with the little plane so much - I flipped out the first time I saw it play before a movie. (I think it was the 1936 Show Boat, but I'm not positive.) It's interesting to feel while watching that retrospective that there are specific works I associate with different iterations of the logo, I guess based on what I watched most in the past. For me, the 80s logo goes with The Breakfast Club, the 90s with Beethoven (I know), the last before this new one with Battlestar Galactica (for whatever reason, it plays before every episode on the DVDs, as opposed to one play per disc).
I think Universal is my favorite because, to me, it works in all its different variations. (As opposed to, say, MGM, which I also love but I'm not wild about some of those lions. Like I said, super-nerd.) I love the old logo with the little plane so much - I flipped out the first time I saw it play before a movie. (I think it was the 1936 Show Boat, but I'm not positive.) It's interesting to feel while watching that retrospective that there are specific works I associate with different iterations of the logo, I guess based on what I watched most in the past. For me, the 80s logo goes with The Breakfast Club, the 90s with Beethoven (I know), the last before this new one with Battlestar Galactica (for whatever reason, it plays before every episode on the DVDs, as opposed to one play per disc).
Wednesday, February 29, 2012
Quoted
"So where does that leave us? On the precipice of a brand-new movie morning. One of the great joys of the first moments of Oscar aftermath is that it affords all of us an almost limitless amount of optimism. The year 2012 will bring us Steven Spielberg’s Lincoln and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit and Tom Hooper’s Les Misérables. We’ll see major new films from Kathryn Bigelow and Quentin Tarantino and Paul Thomas Anderson, from the Wachowskis and Ang Lee and Christopher Nolan and Ben Affleck and Wes Anderson and Alfonso Cuarón and the suddenly blessedly prolific Terrence Malick. And something or someone will explode out of Cannes or Toronto, an event as unforeseeable today as The Artist was a year ago. I hope they’re all great. 2012 doesn’t feel like a year for the mild or minor or gentle, but a year in which filmmakers are prepared to swing for the fences. It’s about time."
- Mark Harris
"Oscarmetrics: A Good-bye to Awards Season" on Grantland
- Mark Harris
"Oscarmetrics: A Good-bye to Awards Season" on Grantland
Saturday, February 25, 2012
Screened: October 2011
October 2: I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang
Screened: For class
October 5: Drive
Screened: In the theater
I'm so glad I let the buzz prevail over my action-movie misgivings, because I loved this dreamy, pulpy movie. A side effect of working in the film class I TA'd for this semester was thinking more about the impact of seeing a movie in the theater as opposed to watching it at home - watching Drive in the theater felt like being steeped in a pure distillation of the essence of an action movie.
October 7: Hanna
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
October 9: Moneyball
Screened: In the theater
I think Moneyball at its heart is a perfect expression of its story's central thesis, an idealized portrait of moving parts working in concert. It felt like it had just the right amount of everything - the wonkiness of delving into sports statistics, the emotions of tracing players through the ups-and-downs of the sport as commercial enterprise (including the flashbacks to Billy Beane's start as a player), and the ultimate embrace of pure sports-movie cliche in the culmination of the A's lengthy winning streak.
October 9: Maurice
Screened: At home, DVR from TCM
October 11: The Ides of March
Screened: In the theater
I liked this movie, particularly the performances from the ensemble and Clooney's command of the current media climate, but I wondered whether the relatively insular focus on the campaign at the heart of the story prevented Clooney and his collaborators from making broader claims about politics in general. Not that I think the characters here needed to map more clearly onto familiar political figures; I wasn't expecting, say, Primary Colors, but I think I was expecting something more like Peter Morgan's studies of Tony Blair, where at its heart it's making larger points about the difference between persona and reality or the substance of today's political climate.
October 12: Limelight
Screened: At home, DVR from TCM
October 16: She Done Him Wrong, Gold Diggers of 1933
Screened: For class
October 21: Bad Teacher
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Screened: For class
October 5: Drive
Screened: In the theater
I'm so glad I let the buzz prevail over my action-movie misgivings, because I loved this dreamy, pulpy movie. A side effect of working in the film class I TA'd for this semester was thinking more about the impact of seeing a movie in the theater as opposed to watching it at home - watching Drive in the theater felt like being steeped in a pure distillation of the essence of an action movie.
October 7: Hanna
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
October 9: Moneyball
Screened: In the theater
I think Moneyball at its heart is a perfect expression of its story's central thesis, an idealized portrait of moving parts working in concert. It felt like it had just the right amount of everything - the wonkiness of delving into sports statistics, the emotions of tracing players through the ups-and-downs of the sport as commercial enterprise (including the flashbacks to Billy Beane's start as a player), and the ultimate embrace of pure sports-movie cliche in the culmination of the A's lengthy winning streak.
October 9: Maurice
Screened: At home, DVR from TCM
October 11: The Ides of March
Screened: In the theater
I liked this movie, particularly the performances from the ensemble and Clooney's command of the current media climate, but I wondered whether the relatively insular focus on the campaign at the heart of the story prevented Clooney and his collaborators from making broader claims about politics in general. Not that I think the characters here needed to map more clearly onto familiar political figures; I wasn't expecting, say, Primary Colors, but I think I was expecting something more like Peter Morgan's studies of Tony Blair, where at its heart it's making larger points about the difference between persona and reality or the substance of today's political climate.
October 12: Limelight
Screened: At home, DVR from TCM
October 16: She Done Him Wrong, Gold Diggers of 1933
Screened: For class
October 21: Bad Teacher
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Screened: September 2011
September 3: Sunset Boulevard
Screened: At home, on TCM
September 5: The Birth of a Nation
Screened: For class
September 10: Paul
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
September 11: Within Our Gates
Screened: For class
September 13: Thor
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Like the Iron Man movies, Thor was ultimately a bit too concerned with moving necessary pieces into place looking ahead to The Avengers, but Chris Hemsworth did a good job of establishing his character and I think Natalie Portman, like Hayley Atwell in Captain America, made the "superhero's girlfriend" role seem not entirely thankless.
September 17: Something Borrowed
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Since I wrote about my thoughts on the trailer back when it came out, I figured I should check back in post-viewing. A lot of my concerns expressed there were indeed borne out by the film - much of that boils down to changes made from the original book that negatively impacted the movie. The alterations to the characters of Ethan and Claire contributed to a feeling of overly broad humor that permeated the tone of the movie. The transition from the book's first-person narration obscured the emotional underpinnings of both Rachel's friendship with Darcy and her relationship with Dex. And while I recognize that it's probably too much to expect the screenwriter to draw from Giffin's other books to bolster this adaptation, I think the Thaler family dynamics she lays out in Heart of the Matter are much more interesting than the fairly boilerplate parent-son relationship depicted in the movie. (Not to mention the third-party perspective she gives in Tessa observing Dex and Rachel's relationship.) The crazy thing is that I liked John Krasinski and Kate Hudson enough in their roles that I was still really curious at the end to see how a film version of Something Blue might work. But maybe it's for the best that that doesn't seem likely to happen.
September 20: The Sheik, It
Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch
September 25: The Jazz Singer
Screened: For class
September 27: Beginners
Screened: In the theater
I keep wanting to call this movie "sweet," but I feel like that's suggesting something shallow about it that isn't quite what I'm trying to get at. It's a clear-eyed portrait that interweaves romantic love and family love, always conscious of its medium but also emotionally honest in the best way. It doesn't shy away from its moments of deep sadness, but ultimately embraces a feeling of hopefulness. Heartwarming, but not pandering. Yes, sweet.
September 27: The Breakfast Club
Screened: In the theater
Screened: At home, on TCM
September 5: The Birth of a Nation
Screened: For class
September 10: Paul
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
September 11: Within Our Gates
Screened: For class
September 13: Thor
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Like the Iron Man movies, Thor was ultimately a bit too concerned with moving necessary pieces into place looking ahead to The Avengers, but Chris Hemsworth did a good job of establishing his character and I think Natalie Portman, like Hayley Atwell in Captain America, made the "superhero's girlfriend" role seem not entirely thankless.
September 17: Something Borrowed
Screened: At home, DVD from Netflix
Since I wrote about my thoughts on the trailer back when it came out, I figured I should check back in post-viewing. A lot of my concerns expressed there were indeed borne out by the film - much of that boils down to changes made from the original book that negatively impacted the movie. The alterations to the characters of Ethan and Claire contributed to a feeling of overly broad humor that permeated the tone of the movie. The transition from the book's first-person narration obscured the emotional underpinnings of both Rachel's friendship with Darcy and her relationship with Dex. And while I recognize that it's probably too much to expect the screenwriter to draw from Giffin's other books to bolster this adaptation, I think the Thaler family dynamics she lays out in Heart of the Matter are much more interesting than the fairly boilerplate parent-son relationship depicted in the movie. (Not to mention the third-party perspective she gives in Tessa observing Dex and Rachel's relationship.) The crazy thing is that I liked John Krasinski and Kate Hudson enough in their roles that I was still really curious at the end to see how a film version of Something Blue might work. But maybe it's for the best that that doesn't seem likely to happen.
September 20: The Sheik, It
Screened: At home, Netflix Instant Watch
September 25: The Jazz Singer
Screened: For class
September 27: Beginners
Screened: In the theater
I keep wanting to call this movie "sweet," but I feel like that's suggesting something shallow about it that isn't quite what I'm trying to get at. It's a clear-eyed portrait that interweaves romantic love and family love, always conscious of its medium but also emotionally honest in the best way. It doesn't shy away from its moments of deep sadness, but ultimately embraces a feeling of hopefulness. Heartwarming, but not pandering. Yes, sweet.
September 27: The Breakfast Club
Screened: In the theater
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Idle TV Thoughts
I didn't want to let this season of Justified go by without stating how very excellent I think it's been thus far. Last season was really good, but even with the great work done by the regular cast and guests like Kaitlyn Dever and the actors playing the Bennett sons, it was largely the Margo Martindale Show and as unbelievable as it was when she was on-screen, the show then felt a bit lacking when she wasn't. This season seems to be more evenly distributed between characters, and the result is Timothy Olyphant, Walton Goggins, Mykelti Williamson and Neal McDonough comprising this glorious cornucopia of all different kinds of swagger. The writing kicked up a notch too - the banter flows so smoothly, and whenever each of those four (but especially Williamson) steps up for a monologue, it feels like an aria. Reading back over that prose, it feels a little hyperbolic, but I'm honestly mesmerized by the show these days.
Random TV Love
My weekly television account seems to have completely fallen by the wayside, but I wanted to highlight this particular selection from last week. I knew a bit about the basics of the Loving case, but realized when I watched this movie that I don't think I'd ever heard either of them speak before. The documentarian really allows the footage of both the Lovings and their ACLU lawyers to speak for itself and drive the story of the case as it wound its way up to the Supreme Court. There's something really powerful about Mildred Loving's simple, plainspoken assertions of her rights, especially on days when people still find it necessary to be, well, versus Virginia. Hopefully, it will be available outside of HBO at some point.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
A Distinct Sense of Accomplishment
Talking to my friends last week, I realized that I never posted these pictures, which I meant to do shortly after these mittens reached their intended recipient (as a Christmas present for Hanna). We noted in our conversation that academic work can often feel awash in a sense of dissatisfaction with one's work that never really achieves resolution, and I observed that part of what I enjoy about knitting and baking is that there's an end where you can point to something definitive that you've completed. This was the first big Fair Isle project I'd done, which made it that much more rewarding.
I watched a lot of British miniseries while I was working on these. Watching The Buccaneers convinced me that there's nothing I'd like to see so much as a Downton Abbey prequel where we go back to the days of Robert as the titled fortune-hunter and Cora as the rich American. Imagine - meeting the previous Lord Grantham, he of the Entail of a Thousand Problems! Violet at what I assume must have been the very height of her powers as the mistress of Downton! Young Carson!
I watched a lot of British miniseries while I was working on these. Watching The Buccaneers convinced me that there's nothing I'd like to see so much as a Downton Abbey prequel where we go back to the days of Robert as the titled fortune-hunter and Cora as the rich American. Imagine - meeting the previous Lord Grantham, he of the Entail of a Thousand Problems! Violet at what I assume must have been the very height of her powers as the mistress of Downton! Young Carson!
*pattern from Debbie Bliss Knitting Magazine, Fall/Winter 2010*
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