Impressive usage of the <tits> tag.
Jun
03
One of the breakout series of the just finished television season is Castle. One of the breakout series of the last few seasons of television is Burn Notice. What’s the difference between the two?
Castle is the story of a celebrity mystery writer that tags along on real police cases under the guise of doing research for a series of books. It has some fine character work and relies on some black humor and a Moonlighting-like romantic chemestry between the leads. What it doesn’t have is smart plots or mysteries that stump the audience. (Even for a moment.) The smartest guy in the room really doesn’t appear to earn that title.
Burn Notice features an ex-covert-op stuck in Miami for reasons unknown, kinda like The Prisoner. While he tries to unravel the increasingly intricate story behind his situation he helps people in trouble, kinda like The Equalizer. His narration dispenses knowledge of how to do covert-ops type stuff with readily available materials. Kinda like updated versions of The Poor Man’s James Bond or The Anarchist’s Cookbook. These asides make him definitely feel like the man for any particular job.
While Burn Notice is not the pinnacle of smart writing, it’s at least a consistent example of how not to let your characters become embarassed. For whatever reason, TV characters that should know better, don’t.
This is disheartening in that television is the last bastion for most clever writers. Here they are the movers and shakers and constantly rise to positions such as show runner. (Just the opposite of how they’re treated in film.) Apparently forever gone are the days when you could watch a battle of intellects on something like Columbo. (Hell, at this point I’d settle for any Mystery Movie characters, even McCloud.)
So really, if you’re not prepared to do the research of at least Burn Notice level, then don’t make your characters some kind of borderline geniuses. (And stop casting people we’ve seen in countless shows in some bit part and expect us to be surprised when the reveal is that they’re the baddie.) It’s just depressing to figure things out by the first or second commercial break.
May
04
So, usually Film Critics will have something about how Film reflects our times. So let’s see: We have a new President. He was apparently elected by popular vote despite being Black because he wasn’t an idiot. (Yeah, I know. Don’t tell me that race as an issue is dead just because of this. I wish it was, but no.) He inherited an assload of problems with the tops being a colapsing economy and a fucked up war. Oh, and the Republicans have their tit in a wringer over anything he does even though the majority of this crap was brought on by them.
How does Hollywood react to this? (Especially given that the job situation for many Americans is not rosy, so who is spending money at the movies?) A lot of summer blockbusters are in to metal. Wolverine has his skeleton laced with it. Splendiferous money shots of the Enterprise and other space vessels occupy a lot of Star Trek. The Transformers are back blowing the shit out of everything. Terminators are freakin’ everywhere after the big one. (Those two make Metal actual story elements.)
Is the hidden message that we need to get off our butts and manufacture stuff? Americans need to take control of production again and quit outsourceing things. (Even if those things turn around and want to kill us later?) I’m not sure. Steven Colbert probably knows but isn’t telling. (Yet)
But, there’s a definite theme running through a lot this summer and it can’t be coincidence. (Then again, Hollywood is not exactly known for independent creativity. Especially when scripts get around whether they’re spec or not.)
May
04
Each year we see it. Television shows fighting to stay on the major channels. Usually these are smart shows with devoted followings, but to the majors the squarely fall within niche programming.
Would Chuck be stuggling if it were on SyFy? (And let’s face it, the production values are lock step with their programming. An episode of BSG looks like the entire action & effects budget of Chuck.) How about Reaper? (Ditto on the production values.) Would The Unit be sweating it if it was on FX, Spike or USA?
No, and that’s the point. The audience is fragmented beyond recapturing. Cable offers more directed programming and the Internet is quickly becoming the to go place to catch your favorite shows without changing channels and with a minimum of interuptions. Numbers are down for the majors and they’re looking for ways to to reconfigure the ROI to reflect that and still look good. (Hence 5-night a week Jay Leno at 9/10pm.)
The majors always build up ones hopes by greenlighting niche programs. They want that bunch of desertees to come back. But their profit margins are too high for these kind of shows. So, they usually die too soon and take our hopes of good television with them.
That’s why the majors should just give up this kind of programming and leave it to the Cable channels where the numbers are more attainable for that kind of fare. So load up on ‘reality’ TV, more Law & Order (Unless the Belz & Ice-T get their own show. Then I’m there.) and by all means load up on Leno. The rest of us will be watching elsewhere.
Mar
24
One can’t help but be intrigued by Marvel’s efforts at global domination. While their comic sales have more or less plateaued, they’ve used their brand recognition to branch off into animation and film. While their animation efforts are somewhat hit-or-miss, they had some success with film. Well, mostly X-Men.
After reviewing what was working, Marvel made an unprecedented move by setting up their own studio. By calling the shots they were now reclaiming their brand. This is what they know and they didn’t want to leave it to various studio politics as to what their characters filmic fates were. Offhand, based on Iron Man and the strategy they’ve presented to start other tentpoles and then merge them into an Avengers film, I’d say they were on the right track. They are playing to their core audience, but making the appeal wide enough to eliminate barriers of entry from the general public.
Now they are trying to globalize their characters appeal. (Global box office is important.) This also impacts global amusement park potential. (Yeah, I miss the days when you could go to Universal Studios and eat at the Marvel Cafe, see their characters and buy merchandise.)
So, where is DC in all of this? Well, you’d think that they would be all over this, what with being owned by Time/Warner. However, that’s the problem. They are right in the middle of, not only studio politics, but corporate politics. They can’t watch out for their properties the way Marvel can now. Sure, they’ve had successes, mostly where Marvel has stumbled, in animation, but The Dark Knight showed that the characters were real cash cows.
But it seems that they lucked out with that. Superman Returns didn’t set the world on fire and there’s constant talk of a reboot. DC/Warners also can’t get it together to even bring Wonder Woman to the screen, let alone the countless second bananas in their universe. There’s no unifying strategy, just a bunch of isolated projects. The right hand doesn’t know what the left is doing.
More importantly, in the wake of Watchmen; is there really support for this kind of a business plan? Here’s a project fans have been clamoring for over a 20 year period, yet there was no pleasing anyone. (It was too faithful, it wasn’t faithful enough.) Given the pressures of bringing a big budget ‘R’ rated adaptation to the screen, it did as much as possible to get things right. Yet the box office might hit the break even point after international grosses and DVD sales are brought in. Where’s that Dark Knight support? Was it a one time fluke? Can’t you use Superheroes the way you can other fringe genres as a metaphor to address larger issues/current topics? Was it really the marketing campaign that did all of the work? Do you have to kill a star for that kind of dough? (Well, no, The Crow did very well, but not those kind of numbers.)
I’m afraid comic-oriented movies will end up in the ghetto that their published cousins have made for themselves. With luck, Marvel might smartly produce some non-Superhero properties and end up a mini-major like Lionsgate. Global domination will have to wait.
Feb
11
My little girl loves this show, Lazy Town. In it there’s a villianous character that tries to keep the status quo of Lazy Town; being Lazy. However, his plans are thwarted by a new little girl who moves into the area. She also brings with her a sports-oriented sorta super-hero. They teach an active life style to the kids. Nice, huh.
Then I saw Taken at the cinema and realized just how bad our entertainment values have slipped. We’re all in Lazy Town from that perspective. Taken offers nothing new. Not even a spin on traditional formulas.
Now I don’t mean to pick on the film or its makers. It’s really just the latest example of the routine our entertainment has gotten into. Why try to make something new? Dust something 20 yrs. old off and ‘update’ it. There’s a whole new generation around that hasn’t seen it. (I don’t happen to share that opinion, nor do I automatically condesend to a new generation by branding them idiots. If young people are interested in film, they will search out older offerrings.)
Television offers the same problems. Sure, there’s still some spark of originality there, (and occassionally in film) but the vast majority is recycled pablum.
Now that comics (or graphic novels if you prefer) have been invited to the party they wasted no time in joining the march of mediocrity. (To be honest, the two major comic companies have always gone in cycles creativity-wise. It’s their nature in order to keep decades old characters marketing concerns.)
Perhaps this is entertainment’s last defense though. Money is really what seperates them from the public now that the barriers of entry are erroding thanks to the Internet. If we all just follow their leads then we protect their extravagant lifestyles and deny ourselves the real entertainment that’s being made possibly just down the street. (Any absolutely nowhere near Hollywood or New York.)
Jan
31
- Bondage Barbie
No, of course this isn’t an actual product, but it’s too funny not to share. (And God know there’s probably home made versions of this out in the real world anyway.)
Dec
24
Comics as an entertainment medium depends on art. Otherwise they’re prose Pulp Adventures; perhaps at best SF or Action serials. So, regardless what writers will tell you (and there are some great writers) it will always come down to the sequential art.
Here’s where the problems with comics lies. Artists are then divided into who is competent visually and dependable deadline-wise vs. visual dynamite and deadline out-the-window. This is not a new problem. Even as a kid in the 60’s I would look at the paintings on paperback covers (especially Bama’s Doc Savage or anything Frazetta.) and wish that those could show up as covers and interiors for my “funny books”.
Warren was an early predictor of this as they provided painted covers for their B&W comic magazines beginning in the 60’s also as well as raiding some of the best old school and new artists for their interiors. As they were short stories and were not dependent on continuing storylines (at least until the late 70’s when competition from Marvel forced them) blown deadlines didn’t effect an issue.
Marvel and DC were different though and lead by Neal Adams, art and deadlines did become an issue. Adams was hot, but he found advertising money too good, so comics occassionally (all right, more than occassionally) took a back seat. Worse, there was a whole new generation of artists coming up influenced by him, Steranko, and various other illustrator gods. They were not Great Depression or WWII era artists, looking at the work as just work. It was being looked at as real art at best, if not at least their “personal brand”. (Before they knew what a brand was, but it meets the current definition in personal marketing terms.)
This group was intent on personal growth and you could often look through your back issues and chart it. To compound things, they all generated cults who bought their work and the publishers knew it. They couldn’t just dismiss them as they would have in the past. There was money there.
That continued into the direct market, the start of original graphic novels and the holy grail; TPB & HC collections. Now the market had caught up to other media such as prose books and video. Money could be reaped constantly for completed work.
Still, monthly pamphlets were the mainstay and that still means deadlines. Those continue to be blown by setting unrealistic constraints on people who not concerned so much by time as by quality. Publishers continue to disappoint consumers and themselves by placing their creators and product in this predicament. Nobody thinks to put off soliciatation until the product is finished (or practically there so).
Lead times appear to be problematic. (I know there’s a school that says that artists are procrastinators regardless of lead time, but they will get motivated if they want to get paid, so leverage that.)
So, (Now that the monthly pamphlet finally seems to be winding down in the product life-cycle.) publishers can embrace artists for their art and the extended profit stream it generates by being the best they can bring to this particular American medium. Evolution and diversity will keep the publishers afloat. They already license out the characters to everybody and their brother with a product. Their main job now is just to be the custodians of these characters so that they can reap the real money doing just that.
Dec
09
Suddenly the Empire's fate seems all too clear.
