Title: Anything Film Can Do, Tv Can Do Better
Description: a dailynews.com article
Description: a dailynews.com article
prophecy girl - January 12, 2006 12:07 PM (GMT)
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By David Kronke Television Writer This is Hollywood's favorite time of the year, film's awards season, perpetuating the long-standing notion that the most significant, rewarding and exhilarating w**k coming out of the entertainment industry can only be seen at your local movie theater. Bunk. While this was once true, it is no longer. The best American television is better today than the best American movies, say a number of industry professionals who have worked in both mediums. Since we're in the thick of awards season, consider these words from trophy-magnet Alan Alda, who was up last year for an Oscar (for "The Aviator") and an Emmy ("The West Wing"): "A lot of television programs are dealing with things that are interesting, complicated, subtle, that you don't see dealt with in movies. ... All movies these days seem like they have to submit their script to the Office of Preposterosity. You have to have three preposterous things in every movie, otherwise it won't get made." New York Times TV critic Alessandra Stanley wrote recently, "Only the uninformed or disingenuous complain about the quality of American television. ... There are comedies and dramas that reach far higher in a single episode than most movies or Broadway shows." Before you protest, "Well, defending TV is her job," absorb these thoughts from New York Times film critic A.O. Scott: "Adequate is what movies, these days, are above all required to be: tasteful, familiar and safe. ... The schlock of the past has evolved into star-driven, heavily publicized, expensive mediocrities that carefully balance novelty and sameness. ... For precisely that reason, we are less and less likely to emerge breathless and dazzled, eager to go back for more and unable to forget what we just saw." So before you return to the weblogs handicapping sundry trophy horse races, consider our experts' thoughts. Maybe, just maybe, Oscars won't mean so much. BETTER CHARACTERS Denis Leary, star ("The Ref"), star/co-creator/writer ("Rescue Me," "The Job"): "I agree almost 100 percent. I've been saying this to my friends still hung up in the air in transforming from movies to TV and having doubts. More are realizing TV's where the best w**k is. I was afraid of the idea of playing the same character over and over, but it's become a great joy. I get to go places I couldn't in film. "At one point on one film, I was handed these pages and said, 'My god, what's this crap?' " The executive producer rewrote the scene, I was told, and we had to shoot it. ... There was this power struggle, this ego struggle that had nothing to do with the quality side: 'I'm paying you ... do it.' "Most (films) are like 'The Family Stone,' which I saw with my kids - they're 13 and 15. ... It was such a cookie-cutter that even they didn't find it satisfying." Leary's FX series, "Rescue Me," follows Tommy Gavin, a New York firefighter scarred by the twin memories of those he lost in routine rescues and the colleagues lost on 9/11. When Tommy's not managing hair- raising rescues or cracking sharply bitter jokes, he variously drinks too much, pops too many pills, gets into downright twisted sexual relationships and ignores sundry firefighters' codes of ethics. And he's the show's hero. Tommy is a blistering, compelling character, made all the more memorable by his contradictions - he's a miserable human being, yet a decent man. Yet he's just one of TV's current pantheon of great characters - think of Tony Soprano, the mobster whacking a guy one minute, in therapy the next. Or "Deadwood's" Al Swearengen (Ian McShane ), the brutal brothel owner with the soul of a corrosive poet. Or Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), the acidic, pill-popping doctor who will save anyone but himself. Or Alda's Arnold Vinick on "The West Wing," the brilliant, iconoclastic politician who can barely censor himself. These are characters you'll never see carrying a Hollywood movie, because they're too difficult, too disconcerting, too outside a focus group's comfort zone. Which is why, of course, viewers love them. Or consider inspired TV characters that make film characters look even lamer than they usually are: Jason Lee's soulful bumpkin on "My Name Is Earl," Lauren Graham's hilariously neurotic motor mouth on "Gilmore Girls," Kristin Bell's bitterly quippy teen detective on "Veronica Mars," Tyler James Williams' ordinary kid caught in a delicate drift between racist peers and overextended parents on "Everybody Hates Chris." To name but a few. Television not only offers writers the chance to create nuanced characters, but to follow them on far deeper journeys than any two-hour film could offer. Here are some thoughts about whether TV is better than film, from those who w**k in both mediums. Joss Whedon, director ("Serenity"), series creator ("Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Angel"): "It's a wild generalization, but not an unfair one. ... I'm not a fan of the 'ride' as filmed art. There's no reason films can't be more exciting and thoughtful. I tend to be Joe Mainstream and, in that stream, I'd like to see some more interesting fish." Doug Liman, filmmaker ("Mr. & Mrs. Smith"), executive producer ("The O.C."): "You can do great w**k on TV, because it's so fast. You take something like 'Mr. & Mrs. Smith' ... the studios are so precious about it because at the end of the day, it's a quarter of a billion dollars' investment when you put the marketing money into it. With TV, there's another episode next week. It's happening so fast that, in some ways, it's like an impressionist painting. You can take more creative chances." Mark Cuban, film producer ("Good Night, and Good Luck," "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room"), co-founder of HDNet: "I don't disagree. The economics are such that big movies go theatrical, but movies for a specific audience, which can be better movies, go to TV. And because there's so much competition, budgets for movies for TV are going up." Frank Spotnitz, screenwriter ("Sunset After Dark"), executive producer ("The X-Files"): "What it takes to make a movie profitable demands a certain type of movie, invariably geared to teens. That's enormously frustrating for those of us who love movies. They're not as provocative, or groundbreaking. TV does a much greater volume of more sophisticated w**k than is being done in movies." ON THE CUTTING EDGE OK, let's look at this year's Oscar races. "Brokeback Mountain" is being hailed as "groundbreaking": There are two cable networks specializing in gay programming. (Although in this case I will concede the point that "Brokeback Mountain" is better than, say, "Queer as Folk" or "The L Word," but then, HBO's 2003 miniseries "Angels in America," about the '80s AIDS crisis, was so accomplished that some film groups considered honoring it over the films released that year.) "Good Night, and Good Luck" articulately tackles, through the prism of history, today's tremulous media; "The Daily Show With Jon Stewart" speaks truth to power, reaming the mainstream news media for failing to do so - and with sharp, literate humor - 40 weeks a year. "Munich" soberly examines the shocking terrorist acts at the 1972 Olympics; Showtime's "Sleeper Cell" (a Golden Globe nominee) disquietingly considers a potential terrorist attack today. Likewise, while the film "Jarhead" (directed by Oscar winner Sam Mendes) essayed the first Gulf War, FX's "Over There" (produced by Emmy winner Steven Bochco) thrust viewers into today's war in Iraq. Lesson: Television reacts more quickly, resulting in more urgent entertainment. Our point is, anything films can do, TV can do better, because it doesn't have to waste development money or massage vain executives. TV's motto: Just make it. Our response: Just watch it. Comments Alda: "We did a show (on 'The West Wing') that examined the question: Should you need to have your picture taken coming out of a house of worship in order to get elected? ... There's never been a movie about that, and that's one of the most important questions in our culture. And that's just one issue on this one program. "In the old days, the movie business was controlled by people who had emotional and artistic investments in what they made. Now, it's accountants and lawyers. They could just as easily be running a shoe factory." |
little pixie - January 12, 2006 03:01 PM (GMT)
Good article. :thumbsup:
prophecy girl - January 31, 2006 11:10 AM (GMT)
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| Mr. & Mrs. Smith Hits TV A TV version of the hit 2005 movie Mr. & Mrs. Smith is among the latest crop of pilot pickups at the broadcast networks, according to The Hollywood Reporter. |
Eldred - January 31, 2006 03:21 PM (GMT)
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| I'm not a fan of the 'ride' as filmed art. |
Im not sure what Joss meant?
little pixie - February 19, 2006 01:29 PM (GMT)
http://www.vartanho.com/articles/2006/wallstjournal.html
Article on what the TV execs are looking for next season in terms of actors. :)
It`s titled The Hunk Shortage. :blink: :lol:
Article on what the TV execs are looking for next season in terms of actors. :)
It`s titled The Hunk Shortage. :blink: :lol:
Fangy and grrr - February 19, 2006 03:07 PM (GMT)
So Hunks are in and pretty boys out are they ? :)
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| In some cases, networks or studios will lock up actors whom they don't want going to competitors, even before knowing what projects they will have to offer. Last fall, for example, Disney's ABC and Touchstone Television signed such a deal with Michael Landes, whose biggest movie role has been in 2003's horror flick "Final Destination 2." |
Thats interesting as Michael Landes is the lead in the BBC's Love Soup. I wonder if the reason he ended up over here was because they didn't have a project for him but didn't want him to go to a rival network. :ponder: Hope this doesn't affect the chances of a second season of Love Soup. :unsure:
TheHighlander - February 27, 2006 12:16 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (Eldred @ Jan 31 2006, 03:21 PM) | ||
Im not sure what Joss meant? |
He talks in riddles most of the time anyway. I wouldn't worry about it.
Good article though.
little pixie - March 3, 2006 12:56 PM (GMT)
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| The Sunday Times February 26, 2006 Television: Cut down in their primetime What do you do when your favourite series is axed? Hope it goes straight to DVD, says Benji Wilson In the past month, two television shows that many critics would put in their all-time top 10 have felt the blunt blade of the network’s axe. The first of these, The West Wing, will at least have enjoyed a seven-season run when it finishes. The second, Fox’s sitcom Arrested Development, got just 2 series before bowing out with a brilliantly self-referential finale in America a fortnight ago. Meanwhile, we welcome Dancing on Ice and Celebrity Fit Club to our screens. Regardless of what this says about the viewing public, The West Wing and Arrested Development thus find themselves joining a pantheon of classics that were just too good for TV. Inevitably, many of these are American, born of a climate where there is more money available for production, but where rapacious advertisers hold the purse strings. If a series isn’t getting the numbers, it will be culled the very next episode — critics, devotees and piqued production crew protesting about suicidal scheduling and substandard promotion can go hang. Arrested Development is a perfect example of how a great programme can flunk in the ratings. A domestic comedy, it showed family life to be a wasp’s nest of lies and casual brutality, which you might have predicted was not what an America in thrall to homespun sitcoms with a laughter track, such as Everybody Loves Raymond, would want to watch. Still, its 53 episodes have won six Emmys, the show has many ardent fan sites, and it boasts Ron Howard as producer. All of which meant nothing to Fox when it permanently arrested its development. It joins a raft of short-lived American classics in television’s Elysium (see below). In Britain, we pride ourselves on doing things differently. Most series are filmed before airing, so they are at least allowed the dignity of playing out their run before being quietly moved to a graveyard slot for a very British burial and a cable afterlife. But British TV can hardly claim the moral high ground when there remain great shows that have inexplicably gone missing. To take one example, North Square was a 2000 Channel 4 drama set in a Leeds barristers’ chambers that starred Helen McCrory, Kevin McKidd, Rupert Penry-Jones and Phil Davis. It was precisely the kind of television Channel 4 should be supporting — fast, funny, devilish and daring. Yet it got just one series, then disappeared. “I think there had been a new head of drama at Channel 4 halfway through,” says Davis. “I guess she had her own plans of the sort of thing she wanted to do. There was talk of a spin-off...” There was also talk that the name and concept might find a home on BBC2, but, nearly six years on, North Square remains in TV limbo, and there is nary a DVD nor a website to mark the fact that a great piece of television ever happened. If television does indeed have an Elysium where great shows go to die, the problem for the more cultivated couch potato is finding it. Identifying the lost gems, many of which never made it to British screens, is one thing — getting to see them is quite another. The stupefying intricacies of regionalised DVDs and the sometimes self-defeating demands of copyright mean that in spite of knowing what you want to watch, you may still be a gruelling ordeal away from watching it. Let’s say, for example, that you take our word for it that Freaks and Geeks, a 1999 high-school drama by the writer of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Judd Apatow, is so good that you might as well use your DVD player as a pizza platter if you haven’t got it. Go to Amazon and, amid the plaudits, you’ll find a DVD box set for £30... which will have to be sent to you from Los Angeles, presuming, of course, that you have the multi- region, NTSC-PAL converting DVD player necessary to get to the opening credits. Wading through the techno-babble, all the effort begins to outweigh the reward. If this sounds like doom and gloom, the demise of Arrested Development throws up an intriguing postscript — in among the endless fan sites distraught at the loss of their favourite show, a future model for too-good TV has been suggested. Given the strong DVD sales of the show and its comparatively cheap production costs, they argue, why bother even showing such priceless finery to the heathen who make up the ratings? Why not cut out the broadcasters altogether? It raises the possibility that, soon, a programme going “straight to DVD” will be not a slur but a badge of honour. Give it a year or two, and the mark of a great TV show may be that it was never broadcast in the first place. Television’s Elysium: the shows that died too soon USA Firefly Joss Whedon’s sci-fi western was axed after 11 episodes in 2002. It resurfaced as the film Serenity last year. Available as a UK DVD. NewsRadio Wickedly funny 1995 sitcom, set in a news radio station, with Phil Hartman superb as anchorman Bill McNeal. Hartman was killed by his wife in 1998, and the show didn’t last without him. Available on US import DVD from Tuesday. My So-Called Life 1995 teen show with Claire Danes as a troubled 15-year-old, guillotined by ABC after one season. Import DVD only. Action Caustic 1999 satire that ripped insider Hollywood to shreds with unapologetic glee. Hence, pulled after one season. Currently being reshown on ITV4 and available on import DVD from tomorrow. UK Attachments Reaction to this internet start-up drama, broadcast from 2000 until 2002, was split between devotion and derision. After two series, it was quietly dispatched. Only released on VHS. Psychos Six-part C4 drama set in a psychiatric wing of a Glasgow hospital. Critics loved it, so it duly went no further. No DVD release. Spaced Simon Pegg and Jessica Stevenson’s comedy delighted fans and critics with two hallucinatory series in 1999 and 2001. A third has been promised but, five years on, we are left with only the DVDs of series one and two. State of Play From the minute Paul Abbott’s sensational political thriller finished in 2003, a follow-up series was talked about, but it has never emerged. Available on DVD. |
:thumbsup:
Fangy and grrr - March 3, 2006 04:49 PM (GMT)
Not sure the British examples are accurate as neither Spaced nor State of Play were cancelled. Still I'd love more Arrested Development so bring on the straight to dvd series. :)
TV Yank - March 3, 2006 04:51 PM (GMT)
Tastes vary widely and I didstrust anyone who thinks the shows they like should be everyone else's.
I neer could get into ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, FIREFLY, THE WEST WING, MY SO CALLED LIFE, etc. I didnt even like EVERYONE LIKES RAYMOND (which the author cites as counterpoint to ARRESTED).
About the only one listed that I would watch more than a few times was NEWSRADIO. However, the author implies that it was cut before its time. Actually, it was never a big ratings getter and had run out of steam before the fifth and final season, and before Phil Hartmann's murder (who wasn't my idea of a great comedian and was not the reason I tuned in).
I neer could get into ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT, FIREFLY, THE WEST WING, MY SO CALLED LIFE, etc. I didnt even like EVERYONE LIKES RAYMOND (which the author cites as counterpoint to ARRESTED).
About the only one listed that I would watch more than a few times was NEWSRADIO. However, the author implies that it was cut before its time. Actually, it was never a big ratings getter and had run out of steam before the fifth and final season, and before Phil Hartmann's murder (who wasn't my idea of a great comedian and was not the reason I tuned in).
prophecy girl - May 7, 2006 04:50 PM (GMT)
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| From Smh.com.au - By David Dale - 2006-05-7 You can save a paralysed creature If you saw a wounded animal by the roadside you’d stop to help, wouldn’t you? You’d take it to a vet, or put it out of its misery. That’s all we’re asking you to do for Channel Nine, a fallen dinosaur bleeding from a thousand raptor slashes and brontosaurus bites and paralysed with fear that its 50th year as ruler of the swamp could be its last. Some people say the Tyrannosaurus Rex deserves its current agony, as punishment for years of arrogance towards viewers, but this column begs you to rise above revenge and start generating the kind of new program ideas that Nine seems unable to think up for itself. You may gain inspiration from Joss Whedon, the creator of Buffy, who recently offered a vision for the future of home entertainment in America’s TV Guide magazine. Whedon predicted that this year "approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI-based, including CSI: Des Moines; CSI: Vancouver made to look like Chicago; CSI: New York But A Different Part Than Gary Sinise Is In; and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin’ ’70s beat ... "Lost has that one-of-a-kind alchemy that really can’t be copied. Therefore, look for the original series Misplaced, as well as Unfound; Not So Much with the Whereabouts; and Just Pull Over and Ask! "Obviously, we’ll see advances in technology. TiVo, iPods, streaming video — the way we watch TV is changing dramatically. It’s on our phones, in our cars — even projected on specialised eyeglasses. But don’t listen to the talk about having shows beamed directly into your brain. That’s science-fiction nonsense. Shows will be stored in the pancreas and will enter the brain through the bloodstream after being downloaded into your iHole." In devising Nine’s new schedule, don’t be afraid to steal and adapt existing formulas — the networks do it to each other all the time. Last year, readers of this column came up with these suggestions for new shows, based on the hits and events of the time: Celebrity Striptease, Visa Roulette, Desperate Actors, Garden Makeovers Revisited and Quarantine Beagle Brigade. If you did a similar exercise with the hits of this year you might suggest that Nine launches Thank God You’re Fat; Desperate Comedians; Dieting With The Stars; Where Are The Losers Now; Prison Footy (AFL version for southern states); 60 to 1 (a countdown of Richard Carleton’s finest minutes); and House Whisperer, aka Spicks and Spooks (in which a beautiful medium puts silly questions to a grumpy doctor). Broadening the sources, there’s got to be a travel show based on the activities of the Australian Wheat Board; a sitcom about rival bikie gangs; a mystery series about marooned refugees from West Papua; a reality show in which Peter Costello, Tony Abbott and Brendan Nelson have to stay in a house together until John Howard announces his retirement; and of course, Kim’s Factional Feud in which viewers get prizes for guessing whether the host will forget the names of more contestants from the left or from the right. Lets hear your Save the Rex program pitches, below. |
:unsure: :lol:
prophecy girl - May 20, 2006 02:54 PM (GMT)
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| Move over Hollywood Is cinema in its death throes? Movie stars and directors are decamping to the small screen, and the Sopranos, Simpsons and other unlikely heroes are making this a golden age of television. When the quality's so high, asks John Patterson, why step out of the living room? Meanwhile, Gareth McLean talks to the people who are making it happen 'I haven't seen a movie that's inspired me as much as The Sopranos has. A lot of our one-hour episodes are as good as any movie out there today.' Lorraine Bracco (Dr Jennifer Melfi, The Sopranos), to Entertainment Weekly, March 2006 The days are long gone when the makers of famous movies about TV, such as A Face In The Crowd, Network, Broadcast News or Up Close And Personal, could sneer at the money-grubbing pinheads of network television. Also gone are the days when formulaic trash such as All In The Family and Sandford And Son, alongside Happy Days, Welcome Back, Kotter (which spawned John Travolta), Dallas and Dynasty, were considered the cream of what the three big US networks - CBS, NBC and ABC - were producing. Today, US television is where cultural debates are sparked, and where popular culture renews and reinvigorates itself. Over the past 10 years, TV has slowly seized the creative initiative from the movies and run with it, all the way to the Emmys - and to the bank. With entire seasons of TV shows available on DVD and cheap iPod downloads of popular shows online, television is now teeming with beautifully written, well-made programmes, including The Sopranos, Deadwood, Law & Order and its many spin-offs, Lost, 24, Six Feet Under, The Shield and Nip/Tuck. Umbilically connected to the internet, TV is also able to attach itself swiftly to new currents in subterranean culture and bring them to viewers in a matter of days. This inventiveness affects all areas, from news to drama. And it is because of the sudden upsurge in TV drama, along with the immense fortunes to be made in it, that so many names we associate with the cinema are moving to television. James Woods, the star of the new legal drama Shark, is part of this year's mass migration to the small, well, smaller screen. His main reason: better material. "I've been lamenting the horrible state of the movie industry the past few years," he told the LA Times in March. "When I was young, everyone pooh-poohed television, and now every time I turn [it] on, I see some extraordinarily interesting series." The transition should be easy for Woods: he'll be surrounded by plenty of movie people - Shark is produced by Brian Grazer (Ron Howard's producer) and the pilot directed by Spike Lee. The shift has been going on for a while. Geena Davis and Donald Sutherland in the White House drama Commander In Chief, and Glenn Close and Forest Whitaker in The Shield offered 2005's most obvious examples; with 24, meanwhile, Kiefer Sutherland beat them to it by four years. Two feature directors, Doug Liman and McG, crafted the look and feel of Fox's hit The OC, and Liman is a guiding force behind ABC's new thriller Heist. Directors Mike Nichols, Peter Bogdanovich, Lee Tamahori and Mike Figgis have all worked for HBO (Home Box Office), the latter trio on episodes of The Sopranos. But, as the spring 2006 pilot season unfolds, casting agents are astounded at the sheer numbers of major movie players now intent on making careers, and fortunes, in TV (for a more comprehensive list, see below). The traffic between movies and television used to flow all the other way. TV has seen many of its talents become movie stars: Clint Eastwood, James Garner, Billy Crystal, Jim Carrey, Jamie Foxx, Johnny Depp and George Clooney spring to mind. Directors Sydney Lumet (12 Angry Men), John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate), Arthur Penn (Bonnie And Clyde) and countless others got their start in the late 50s and early 60s production boom that we should call the First Golden Age of American Television. But for a good three decades after that, moving from movies to TV was considered slumming it, a suicidal burning of one's bridges. Not any more. Actors, like many others, have cottoned on to one fact: we're now in the Second Golden Age of American Television. To understand how everything changed so drastically, one must go back 20 years to the foundation of Fox TV in 1985, an insanely expensive gamble by Rupert Murdoch and Barry Diller, one the upstart new owner of 20th Century Fox, the other the recently retired boss of Paramount Pictures (and, not incidentally, inventor of the made-for-TV movie). Fox put US culture on notice with The Simpsons - which has since established itself as an ongoing masterpiece of public art, a satirical Bayeux tapestry of the past 20 years of US history and culture - and was set to dominate the 90s as the most aggressively innovative and creative (though not always the most successful) network on TV. (It's an uncomfortable fact for many that Murdoch, by taking a hands-off approach with his creative people at Fox, played an almost heroic role in driving up the quality of network drama and comedy. But we should bear in mind that in the past decade he was also largely responsible for the destruction of US broadcast news. So he's still a major villain.) Murdoch defined his credo thus: "These will be shows with no outer limits. The only rules we will enforce on these programmes [are] that they have taste, they must be engaging, they must be entertaining and they must be original." Setting aside the question of taste (Who Wants To Marry A Midget, anyone?), this is a good prescription for what actually happened in all of network television (in TV drama at least) over the next two decades. A change was under way already. The slow-building success of Steven Bochco's Hill Street Blues from 1981 onwards on NBC TV suggested something to which network suits had long seemed blind: that television shows could be intelligent, provocative and superbly written, yet still draw audiences and make money. In short, quality was no longer a bad idea. It took a while for that quite revolutionary notion to take hold among the greedheads of the major networks. Fox set off another tremor through the industry with its attitude to censorship. Whereas, for instance, ABC had spent the late 70s dispatching inspectors from its "standards and practices" department to the set of Soap to ensure Katherine Helmond's cleavage was not too drastically exposed, Fox happily embraced vulgarity, originally with the gutter-dwelling Married... With Children, and then made it an essential part of the subversive Simpsons. To everyone's amazement, once viewers got used to it and the usual crew of fundamentalist boycotters backed off, no one seemed to mind any more. Censor-baiters on other networks picked up the challenge. Bochco was always keen to put one over on his network, even if it was something as silly as naming a Japanese character on LA Law Fukuto. Later, he would pioneer partial on-screen nudity and push the limits of acceptable TV profanity on NYPD Blue (now returning to British screens four days a week on More4). And while America's religious sensibilities mean it's still true that, as West Wing creator Aaron Sorkin once put it, "We'll hear the word 'cocksucker' on TV before we ever hear the word 'goddamn'," the range of realistic usable language has broadened significantly. Television has finally grown up. One of the main fields of conflict between television and movies has always been technology, and the quality of the sound and image. When TV first put Hollywood on notice in the 50s, the suddenly beleaguered studios responded with the razzle-dazzle of CinemaScope and TechniColor to retain their audiences. The foot-wide, oval-shaped, black-and-white TV screen of 1952 was no match for a movie screen the size of a warehouse wall in vibrant colour. Although TVs grew larger and were able to project colour from the late 50s, the technological gap between TV and movies still persists, but it's narrowing all the time. A recent TV commercial - a bit of self-promotion by LA's main local cable provider, Adelphia - shows how things have changed. A kid eats his Froot Loops in front of his TV when, suddenly, the worst thing imaginable happens: his living room turns into a movie auditorium. His remote is gone. There's only one channel. A tall guy in a cowboy hat sits in front of him. A few rows back a baby yowls, people are making out, arguing, eating loudly and talking on their mobile phones. Then we cut to what Adelphia - and other large cable suppliers - can offer you at home: hundreds of channels providing an unprecedented range of programming; video on demand, which lets you watch cable shows and movies free whenever you wish; and a recording facility that will record your favourite shows automatically on to a hard drive and let you watch them at a time of your choosing, while skipping the commercials. The glory days of cinema, mourned in a recent LA Times article by Peter Bogdanovich (director of The Last Picture Show, who, incidentally appears in The Sopranos as a shrink) - the days of communal enjoyment in great movie palaces, of submerging your identity into that of the congregation-like crowd - are, sad to say, gone for ever, along with newsreels, animated shorts, B-features and ashtrays in the seat-arms. But that's not entirely TV's fault. As Bogdanovich says, "Better movies would help." Today, we are offered a fast-food McMovie experience that is dismayingly TV-like, the screens often clotted with big-screen TV show remakes and product placement. Meanwhile, television has become infinitely more cinematic, just as audiences have progressively become more cine-literate. Gone are the all-over lighting and static cameras of the old made-for-TV movie, to be replaced, often, by superbly kinetic and inventive film-making, shot on film, often in wide-screen formats and on location, using big budgets (Lost's opener, for example, cost a record-breaking $10m), special effects and hit-parade soundtracks. As you're sitting watching, the living-room TV experience, with giant plasma screens, HDTV and Dolby SurroundSound systems, is looking more and more like a serious improvement on the tatty old fleapit and sterile multiplex. And don't think the studios aren't worried about this threat to their much diminished hegemony. At this year's Oscars, after yet another montage of ancient and venerable movie clips, presenter Jake Gyllenhaal self-consciously delivered a few scripted remarks about the superior quality of the movie image that suggested a curiously defensive mindset among the studio titans: "You can't properly watch these on a television set, and good luck trying to enjoy them on a portable DVD." (Which raises the question, "So, who's manufacturing these DVDs?") In his LA Times piece, Bogdanovich expanded on Gyllenhaal's theme: "What is there to say about seeing movies of quality on an iPod? Chilling." The two of them sounded like embattled studio executives circa 1952, scorning the upstart TV while hymning the glories of 'Scope and TechniColor. The studios are mired in a fading paradigm of bloated budgets and creative inertia. Unlike TV, especially the cable outfits, studios seem unable, or unwilling, to make movies for intelligent adults. They also face the enormous costs of converting their auditoriums from celluloid to digital projection. This will make delivering movies a lot cheaper and quicker, but it will cost billions before any money is seen from it. And all this at a time when movie releases are becoming more like trailers for the inevitable DVD release. In America, all this year's Oscar-winners were available on DVD less than a month after the ceremony (several were available before it). Going to the movies has become like buying hardback books; those with patience may opt to wait for the DVD, the paperback. And the wait is now down from a year or six months to as little as six weeks. Steven Soderbergh upset a lot of Hollywood top-table types by releasing his latest movie, Bubble, simultaneously in cinemas, on subscription cable and on DVD. Within a few years, he may be doing the same with Ocean's 15. A movie gets one chance to fail (unless it becomes a cult on DVD, which happens to good movies that flummox the studio's marketing honchos). It's a large and inflexible investment, a behemoth that need not concern itself with building customer loyalty as TV must, but has to strut into the marketplace with the almost impossible task of making a huge splash over a single opening weekend. Studios are also notoriously slow to respond to new trends and cultural phenomena. They have the laborious, 50-mile turning circle of a fleet of oil tankers. By contrast, TV is a speedboat, zipping and weaving in response to ratings, reviews, fan clubs and the zeitgeist. In an age of interactivity, spawned by home computers and video games, and of hybrids, inspired mainly by hip-hop, TV is better able to make adjustments on the hoof, and the frenzied evolution of one genre into another - from, say, a trashy reality show such as Survivor to a stylish drama such as Lost - is dizzyingly fast. Most shows broadcast their first eight episodes and then take a break. A successful show will at this point often recalibrate itself, responding rapidly to satisfy audience expectations or, these days, to confound them. When The OC returned for its ninth episode after its first hiatus, it had wittily incorporated all the jokes that fans were already making about the show: Benjamin McKenzie's resemblance to a puppy-dog Russell Crowe was duly noted, and jokes about Peter Gallagher's eyebrows were 10 a penny. South Park proved itself even more fleet of foot, killing off Isaac Hayes's character Chef less than a week after Hayes himself quit in protest at the show's treatment of Scientology (they tore him limb from limb and did everything short of boiling his bones). Try doing that with a movie. On TV, writing by committee is a blessing, the secret of US TV's present greatness, whereas at the movies one groans inwardly when a movie has six or more writing credits. Movie writers w**k at home with a script originated by someone they've never met. A director may then take a shot at rewriting, and the star will bring on even more scribes to tailor the material to his or her on-screen persona. The result, often, is a dog's dinner of a script, and a dog of a movie, because there is no single governing intelligence to hold everything together. TV writers, perhaps 10 or more on some shows, w**k together with a supreme guiding force - usually the show's creator - w**king up story arcs, character profiles and so on, before handing individual episodes to one or two writers. Their w**k is then tweaked in committee. Somehow, it works. And the person who benefits is the viewer. As CBS-Paramount TV president David Stapf said recently, "TV is as good as it gets because the form forces the writers to be better. You don't have time to meander. So writers hone their craft on 22 little movies a year." Then there is the sordid matter of coin. Movie people heading to television expect to get rich sooner or later. The fortunes to be made in television often dwarf the incomes of all but the most Olympian movie stars and producers. Aaron Spelling could buy and sell most of his studio peers, which attracts such savvy entrepreneurs as Jerry Bruckheimer, David Mamet and the Scott brothers into television. Kelsey Grammer's personal profits from the syndication of Frasier - $40m-70m by various estimates - could gag the New York Stock Exchange, a fact that surely motivates ambitious young actors. It used to be that TV producers made 22 shows a year while grinding towards the magic number, Episode 100, when syndication of a successful show on local stations commences. At that point, with residuals kicking in and points finally being counted, the major players all stood to make a fortune. Today, the money starts to pour in the moment the first season has its DVD release, usually in the run-up to season two. And iPod downloads for a couple of dollars mean that a hit show can start minting money the morning after it is broadcast. This year's flood of pilot directors suggests that more of them are becoming aware of how lucrative TV can be, compared with notoriously undependable movie projects. They're tempted by executive producer titles that, if the pilot goes to a series and becomes a hit, can earn them enormous fees and back-end deals. And because box-office takings over recent years have been dwindling, there is now a shortage of projects in development or in production, and they may find many good reasons not to return. Perhaps the most influential player in recent television history has been HBO. Being a subscriber-only network allows it to transcend the limitations under which the big four networks must labour. Originally, HBO showed uncut, commercial-free studio movies, closed-circuit sporting events and a lot of sex-based programming, but when it began to get the hang of producing original material, it found that the lack of such limits was its greatest asset, leading to superb, adult-oriented shows such as The Larry Sanders Show, Mr Show With Bob And David, Sex And The City and Curb Your Enthusiasm. And then there is The Sopranos, which many, myself included, consider the greatest television drama ever made (it remains so in its new season). The knock-on effect of the show - its violence, its peerless writing and acting, its effortless channelling of the zeitgeist - were felt not only at HBO, which has had a further string of critical successes with Six Feet Under, Deadwood, The Wire and Big Love, but also at former most-innovative network Fox. In 1999, Fox debuted a short-lived half-hour comedy for adults called Action, starring Jay Mohr as an utterly amoral movie agent (an early example of a TV show paying back some of the scorn of those movies about TV). It was foul-mouthed, scatological and sexually sophisticated - a lot like the conventional HBO product of that period - and Fox liked it enough to film it uncut, then "bleep" it for transmission. Action was well reviewed but lasted only a single season. All the same, like Homer Simpson when he excitedly discovered "a new meal between breakfast and brunch", Fox had revealed a hitherto undetected interzone between a constrained, mainstream network, such as itself, and a no-holds-barred cable pioneer such as HBO. At that time, no one had any idea how to make best use of it, and when a similarly conceived adult drama about the New Jersey mafia was pitched to Fox, the network turned it down. In handing The Sopranos over to HBO, it also passed on the baton for revolutionising TV. After pondering the riddle of this middle-ground between Fox and HBO for several years, Murdoch's people finally developed the FX cable network and started investing heavily in smart, innovative programming, pushing the envelope in terms of language, violence and nudity. FX is like HBO with commercials and without the F-word. (P-word? A-word? D-word? No problem.) The Shield was so well written and compellingly made that it started attracting actors of the calibre of Glenn Close and Forest Whitaker, while the agreeably demented Nip/Tuck snagged no less august a thesp than Vanessa Redgrave (perhaps because her daughter Joely Richardson stars in it). And Steven Bochco's arrival at FX to make the Iraq war drama Over There - although his show didn't survive - did suggest the fledgling network was being taken seriously by network-seasoned pros. FX, or HBO-lite, with its emphasis on intelligent, exciting drama for adults, has had a knock-on effect on the major networks, too, including Fox itself, which continues to produce exciting w**k such as Prison Break and the hugely successful House. One of the people who superintended the success of HBO, Brad Grey, recently became the head of Paramount Pictures, reversing the movies-to-TV career-trajectory of Barry Diller, the Paramount honcho who built Fox TV. This makes a lot of sense, because HBO has taken on many of the outward qualities of an old-line movie studio. Its productions - dramas, comedies or one-off movies - all draw on a large reservoir, a mini star system, if you will, of mainly New York-based character actors. It shoots in a small number of East Coast studios, and HBO now has a creative identity as striking and clear-cut as MGM or Warner Brothers did in the 30s and 40s. Perhaps Grey can return the favour and bring a little of HBO's magic and inventiveness to the once-great, now fading studio pioneer of the 70s, as innovative then as his old employer is today. In the meantime, stay home and grab that remote because, like the lady said, it's "as good as any movie out there..." The most famous nipples in America are, for now at least, covered up. As Prison Break's Michael Scofield, Wentworth Miller exposes his torso at least once an episode - in the name of vital plot development, of course. For the unfamiliar, his physique is tattooed with the plans of the prison in which he and his brother, framed for murder, languish. Racing against time, and a cabal of baddies, to save this brother from execution requires Miller frequently to refer to the plans. It helps that Miller, 33, is not an unattractive man, as anyone who has seen him smouldering on billboards and bus shelter posters will testify. Which is pretty much how Miller looks in the flesh, except he's shyer. 'I have a healthy disconnect between who I am and who that is,' he says of the promotional posters. 'Half the time, my eyes aren't the colour I know them to be, and my moles have been airbrushed out. It's me and it's not me, and it's an odd feeling, especially when fans approach me in the street and ask to see the tattoo. I have to break it to them gently that I don't actually have one.' (In fact, the tattoo takes two people between four and five hours to apply.) Before Prison Break, Miller's career was unremarkable. He appeared in the odd episode of ER, Joan Of Arcadia and Buffy, and played the lead in the miniseries Dinotopia, opposite a trample of CGI dinosaurs. The role that might have been his breakthrough to movies was that of the young Coleman Silk in The Human Stain, the film based on the Philip Roth novel. Might have... 'That was supposed to do A, B and C for me, but instead did D, E and F,' Miller says. 'The reality of the feature film world today is that casting decisions are not made by directors, unless you're Steven Spielberg. Casting decisions are made by accountants, studio execs and foreign distributors. Your name has to mean something in foreign territories, and if it means something, it's on a list. So it's one thing to be among the best who audition for a project, but the fact is, there is a list of people who don't have to audition. They'll w**k their way down that list first and, nine times out of 10, one of those people will say yes.' Miller's disillusionment with the film industry made a move into television all the more appealing. 'I didn't think of it as a stepping stone or something that would open doors. I just wanted to w**k on something that would inspire and challenge me.' Prison Break is certainly inspired, even if a prison setting has already been employed by HBO's Oz (1997), while the show's use of a season-long arc is familiar from Lost, 24 and 1995's Murder One. What makes it unique, in Miller's view, is its tone. 'It's a drama, and we take it seriously, but I don't think it's meant to be taken seriously. It's set in this fantastic universe where almost anything is possible: there's a really Saturday morning serial exuberance to it. We have those built-in cliffhangers, there's action, adventure and romance. What more do you want?' Moreover, says Miller, television affords something else that film cannot - time. 'You could not do justice to Michael Scofield in a two-hour movie. Really, it's not until the last nine episodes that you see what's been underneath that character all along. He's not been the most likeable hero - you weren't quite sure you should sympathise with him for quite a while - but we've told the story well and people have invested time in him and that pays dividends you don't get from movies.' And, of course, there is the story itself, the story about family, of how far one man is willing to go to save a loved one. 'That's something anyone anywhere can relate to,' says Miller. Tattoo notwithstanding, obviously. 'Movies are getting worse,' says Shore, partly to explain the move into TV. 'So much money is getting thrown at them, they become about the spectacle, not the story. TV is story-driven, so it's attracting more talent.' Shore should know. Bryan Singer, director of The Usual Suspects and the upcoming Superman Returns, was sufficiently impressed with the script for the pilot of House to sign on even before Hugh Laurie did. And then along came Laurie. 'Without Hugh, it could have got pretty boring pretty quickly - a straightforward medical procedural show,' says Shore. Laurie has since been nominated for an Emmy and won a Golden Globe for his performance as the growling, unshaven, misanthropic medical genius. It's little wonder that Shore, who started his TV career on Due South before w**king on The Outer Limits and Law & Order, is behind the notion that there's a new golden age in US television: 'There were years when it was the same five shows up for Emmys; now there are at least 10 shows you wouldn't be surprised to see win an award. The standard is higher, there is more variety. Though, as a writer with a show on at the moment, I'm biased, obviously.' · Failed by Buffy creator Joss Whedon as his new favourite show when it debuted, Veronica Mars is classic teen drama. Its protagonists may have peachy skin and pearly teeth, but darkness lurks below the surface: murder and date rape are all in a day's w**k for Veronica, high-school student and private eye. In some ways, it's more grown up than many of its contemporaries. Thomas, a former teacher, says many new dramas are not born out of invigorated creativity. 'Lost and Desperate Housewives could have been done only by ABC because it was the only network desperate enough to do something different, something that wasn't a cop show. Their success is going to lead to more outside-the-box, non-franchise shows. We're already seeing shows influenced by 24, like Heist, Thief and Kidnapped.' Thomas is all for the character-based dramas emblematic of this creative revival. 'I never felt qualified or interested in writing procedural cop or lawyer shows, and for a while that was all that was being made. I'm more interested in the characters than the case, shows like The Sopranos, The Shield, Deadwood: soaps for men, really.' Baer previously toiled on another of US TV's greats, ER, as well as on one of its less renowned, China Beach. He's wary of the notion of a new golden age. 'Edgier shows are doing well: Rescue Me, Six Feet Under, The Shield. Audiences will track them down on cable because they are so rewarding.' To what does he attribute the popularity of big network shows such as Desperate Housewives and Lost? 'They're very character-based and soap operatic, and their success is partly a reaction to more procedural shows [like L&O, where there's little character development]. They're also successful, I think, because they're fluffy. Things are so bad in terms of fear - fear of terrorism, worries about healthcare and the economy - that people are turning to fluffier material to escape.' In this fluffy landscape, Baer says SVU is 'probably the most political show on TV... teen abortion rights, end-of-life issues and gun control have all been dealt with. The West Wing did things like that, and ER, but that's about it. I think we're more in an era of fluff than a golden age, shiny though it is.' Leading the exodus... Jeff Goldblum is in talks to star in crime drama Seeing Red, as a detective who can speak to the dead. Paul Haggis, writer-director of this year's Oscar winner, Crash, directs his own script for the pilot of the New York Irish gangster thriller The Black Donnellys. Bruce Beresford is directing the pilot for CBS-TV's Orpheus, to be co-produced by Tony and Ridley Scott, about a man drawn into a sinister religious cult. Barry Sonnenfeld, director of Men In Black, has an untitled buddy-cop pilot in the works, and F Gary Gray (of The Italian Job) helms ABC's FBI drama Enemies. Even an old hand like William Friedkin, who got his start as a director in TV's first 'golden age' before directing The French Connection and The Exorcist (and cannily marrying the CEO of Paramount), will return to TV to direct Anything But Murder, based on the life of a fugitive Boston crime boss. Steven Spielberg, master of the studio picture, teams up again with the cable-based Sci-Fi Channel for the 12-part miniseries Nine Lives. Jerry Bruckheimer, a byword for success (and excess) in big-budget movies of the Top Gun variety, will continue his invasion of the small screen (CSI, Without A Trace, Cold Case) with American Crime about an LA law firm. Shark, another crime drama, directed by Spike Lee, has a cast that includes Ray Liotta, Virginia Madsen and Jonny Lee Miller, as well as James Woods as a celebrity attorney turned prosecutor. George Clooney , bona fide movie star deluxe and about as thoroughgoing a child of television as you could find (most notably in ER), will return to TV to direct a live-in-the-studio version of the greatest movie ever made about broadcasting, Network. Aaron Sorkin wrote A Few Good Men before moving to TV and creating the highly influential if little-seen comedy Sports Night. He went on to build The West Wing, that parallel universe for people who wish Bill Clinton was still in the Oval Office. JJ Abrams, a movie writer and director of Mission: Impossible III, created Felicity, Alias and, most recently, the huge hit Lost. |
guardian.co.uk/
TV Yank - May 21, 2006 06:55 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (prophecy girl @ May 20 2006, 06:54 AM) | ||
guardian.co.uk/ |
This article was a long-winded example of what-I-call "trapped by a theme" -- where the writer so desperately tries to defend his position that he sloppily selects arguments to support it, while blithly ignoring very obvious counter-arguments. I suppose each of us could find their own example within the article. I'll just focus on the one that struck me first:
For the herd of actors rushing to television, look at the list of actors above. [Except for Clooney, ] Nary a cinema "star". Some good actors or directors, sure. But people who were struggling to find jobs in the movies. So they come (or return) to television, with sanctimonious noises about TV-vs-the-movies.
This happened in the late 40s / early 50s when the movie studios started collapsing under the threat of television. And, it has been pretty much that way every since. In the 1970s, there was an especially large influx of major movie names (eg, Doris Day, James Stewart, Henry Fonda, Glenn Ford) into television, but only a few made a success of it.
That is why television has the reputation as B-level entertainment for actors. If they can't make it in the movies, they can try television. After that, the stage.
For promising young TV actors, the jump to movies is still their dream.
One important factor to consider is that fewer movies are made, largely because they are more expensive. That means less w**k for actors. Coincidently, the number of TV productions are expanding because of the proliferation of cable channels. For struggling actors, the choice is clear.
While, I agree the quality and sophistication of television has greatly improved, there are enuf examples of pitiful writing and acting to balance the good -- giving television a "average" overall score, IMO.
---
I noticed I forgot to mention George Clooney as the exception to the down-and-out-movie actors. TV gives him an opportunity to experiment in ways that a movie can't do. NETWORK will be his second "live" broadcast (that I know of). Too bad both are remakes of classic movies. I guess courage can go only so deep in showbiz.
Ghostmachine - May 21, 2006 11:43 PM (GMT)
I agree with your comment about these being second string stars who are migrating to TV cause the movie roles are drying up. Ultimately any actor worth his salt will want to be up on the big screen where he or she is more likely to be seen by more people.
Try telling me that Jensen Ackles or Patrick Dempsey (who are undoubtedly enjoying their success on the small screen currently) wouldn't love to headline a major movie.
SPOILER ALERT
Which is precisely why Mischa Barton has quit The OC.
Try telling me that Jensen Ackles or Patrick Dempsey (who are undoubtedly enjoying their success on the small screen currently) wouldn't love to headline a major movie.
SPOILER ALERT
Which is precisely why Mischa Barton has quit The OC.
prophecy girl - June 23, 2006 09:41 AM (GMT)
The BBC wants the licence fee, which accounts for much of its funding, raised from £131.50 to £180 by 2014. article :fear:
prophecy girl - June 28, 2006 10:09 AM (GMT)
Best TV Shows based on a Movie. link
TV Yank - June 28, 2006 03:44 PM (GMT)
| QUOTE (prophecy girl @ Jun 28 2006, 02:09 AM) |
| Best TV Shows based on a Movie. link |
WOW!! to Michelle Pfeiffer on the last page.
