Trying to stomach Studio 60- September 26, 2006 OK, I watched the first eight minutes of Studio 60, episode two, and I don't think I can take anymore. I'm just waiting for a line of believable dialogue.The press conference was particularly appalling. And how could Amanda Peet be so bad playing Jordan Is she ever going to drop that smug smile and the touche-style delivery of every line Blech.The most puzzling aspect was the "jokes." Are we supposed to believe that a room full of cynical reporters is laughing their asses off at rim-shot...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/26.html#a1887 Salon explains why Studio 60 stinks- September 26, 2006 Salon's great Heather Havrilesky weighs in on Studio 60, and she had a pretty similar sense to me of the downside, though she was bigger on its upside. A chunk: All of which brings us to Aaron Sorkin's "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (10 p.m. Mondays on NBC), a show that, on the one hand, tackles the pathology of the professional circle jerk and its resulting mediocrity head-on, yet on the other hand, indulges the incredible self-importance of the TV writer to an extent heretofore unseen on...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/26.html#a1886 'The Greatest Story Ever Sold'--what a title. and . . .- September 20, 2006 And the book looks pretty damn good, too, from my quick stab, tonight. Frank Rich's The Greatest Story Ever Sold: The Decline and Fall of Truth from 911 to Katrina came out today, and is already 2 at Amazon, so you're prolly going to be hearing a lot about it. I checked it out tonight at Denver's great local bookstore Tattered Cover. Really interesting opening, written in Frank's usual fluid style. And I was really glad to read this in the intro: This book is not intended to be a harangue...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/19.html#a1883 About that Survivor casting- September 20, 2006 you know, if you're going to cast a show along ethnic lines, it seems pretty lousy to pack two teams with A players and the other two with a lot of duds. that white team has one jock, though hard to say yet how smart he is, and i don't see a lot of other potential. the sorority girl and the "alternative" "rollergirls" are likely to be worthless on all fronts. they always cast dorks with little to offer as writers (bastards!). seems pretty weak.the black team was the only one with zero apparent..http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/19.html#a1882 Survivor goes racist- September 20, 2006 I would say, no. I thought the early protests about dividing the show into racialethnic teams was a little premature: why not see what they do with it, whether it's revelatory or racist. So far, so good. Though some of the casting aspects have always sickened me. (More on that in the next post.) These comments made real-time as I watched Thursday (I just can't stop myself), posted now: I just started watching the first ep, and I literally get the chills at the beginning. I will get irritated as.http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/19.html#a1881 Amazing Race, revived- September 20, 2006 god knows why those emmy morons gave the reality-show award to amazing race, a once-great show that turned in two pitifully boring seasons this year. (especially when project runway was the best show of any genre on TV all summer--except maybe the colbert report.) the family edition was a disaster, the challenges had grown easy, the show predictable, and the crucial casting element just awful--way too much stunt-casting with way too many brands of nasty shouters, no one actually interesting,...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/19.html#a1879 Rough start to Studio 60- September 20, 2006 i'm halfway through the studio 60 pilot and i'm finally warming to it a bit.the first 15 minutes were horrible.what exactly is it about every aaron sorkin production that everything seems so incredibly high and mighty and self-serious is it that control room operators supposedly flip their switches and cue their cameras every night with the sternness of houston space central on the first moon launch or that every Important Person struts down every hallway and thrusts open each doorway into a...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/19.html#a1878 Write it or dance it- September 10, 2006 So it's Saturday night, and I'm not going dancing, which is a little sad, but I've got a book deadline. Sometimes I think I should take a month off anyway--from dancing, I mean--because I appreciate it more. Not just a little more, like Christmas as a little boy. I've done that, gone as long as a month without dancing before and it's ecstatic to feel alive again, but I'm not much in the mood for starving myself while I'm working on a book. Huh. I just realized that two weeks is about my limit...http://blogs.salon.com/0001137/categories/myProfession/2006/09/09.html#a1877 |