PRIVATE AND PUBLIC RYANS
The Times has an editorial today about ABC's affiliates refusing to air Saving Private Ryan. The reason being given is that the movie has bad language and graphic violence -- limbs getting blown off on camera, etc.
Dad theorizes that the right wingers don't want to air a movie about American soldiers getting killed while we're busy at war in Iraq. This would seem like a conspiracy theory if not for the President's overall efforts to paint the war in the rosiest possible hues: no pictures of the corpses coming home, please, and let's pretend that Fallujah was a big success.
Lisa and I watched it the other night. It's a powerful movie, even if it does edge into sentiment. Hunter came in towards the end and we wound up talking about wars and how they start and the price of freedom. I think that's worth a little (or a lot) of bad language and a lot of carnage.
Sunday, November 14, 2004
Saturday, November 13, 2004
OH THIS IS RICH
Reading the archives of A Writer's Life I discovered the tragicomic site, Don't Save Our Show, which is a petition by fans of West Wing to cancel it. Because they hate what it's become.
They should have sent out an email. It would have gone around the world. I'd have signed.
Reading the archives of A Writer's Life I discovered the tragicomic site, Don't Save Our Show, which is a petition by fans of West Wing to cancel it. Because they hate what it's become.
They should have sent out an email. It would have gone around the world. I'd have signed.
Friday, November 12, 2004
SECOND OPINION ON SPECCING BOSTON LEGAL
Another source tells me that Boston Legal's in trouble, and never spec a show that's in trouble.
Call me sentimental, but I'm inclined to think that Boston Legal, if it survives Season One, will outlive Desperate Housewives. But then I'm not sure who DH is written for and why they're watching. What's the attractive fantasy? Or is it pure car wreck TV?
Another source tells me that Boston Legal's in trouble, and never spec a show that's in trouble.
Call me sentimental, but I'm inclined to think that Boston Legal, if it survives Season One, will outlive Desperate Housewives. But then I'm not sure who DH is written for and why they're watching. What's the attractive fantasy? Or is it pure car wreck TV?
GOOGLE MEME OBSERVATORY
Here is an excellent fun time-waster: the Google Meme Observatory. Here are tracked such spreading memes as:
All Your _____ Are Belong to Us
My _____ Iz Pastede On Yay.
The First Rule of ___ is: You Do Not Talk About _____.
Weapons of Mass _________
I am Jack's ________...
etc.
Here is an excellent fun time-waster: the Google Meme Observatory. Here are tracked such spreading memes as:
All Your _____ Are Belong to Us
My _____ Iz Pastede On Yay.
The First Rule of ___ is: You Do Not Talk About _____.
Weapons of Mass _________
I am Jack's ________...
etc.
Thursday, November 11, 2004
CROSSOVERS
Interesting article on crossover eps on Lee Goldberg's blog, A Writer's Life. He's half of the writing team that wrote Successful TV Writing and shows like Diagnosis Murder, i.e. he's doing a mitzvah by sharing his insights with the rest of us when he could be writing produced TV.
Interesting article on crossover eps on Lee Goldberg's blog, A Writer's Life. He's half of the writing team that wrote Successful TV Writing and shows like Diagnosis Murder, i.e. he's doing a mitzvah by sharing his insights with the rest of us when he could be writing produced TV.
CRAFTY WRITER'S TOOL: TIME CUT
This one's extremely basic, and it should be obvious. But maybe it's not.
Every time you cut, you can jump ahead in time.
That means that pretty much every time you have something boring that logically happens next in your scene, you want to look for an excuse to cut away, then come back to the scene after the boring stuff is over, whether it's a jump of an hour, a day, or two minutes.
You can do this narratively, by jumping to another story line, or you can do it cinematically, just by cutting outside the house where the conversation is taking place. I was just doing it by doing a "FLASH TO:" mini-flashback; though the flashback is exactly one line long, it gives me an excuse to cut out an entire explanation that the audience doesn't need.
This one's extremely basic, and it should be obvious. But maybe it's not.
Every time you cut, you can jump ahead in time.
That means that pretty much every time you have something boring that logically happens next in your scene, you want to look for an excuse to cut away, then come back to the scene after the boring stuff is over, whether it's a jump of an hour, a day, or two minutes.
You can do this narratively, by jumping to another story line, or you can do it cinematically, just by cutting outside the house where the conversation is taking place. I was just doing it by doing a "FLASH TO:" mini-flashback; though the flashback is exactly one line long, it gives me an excuse to cut out an entire explanation that the audience doesn't need.
TIME TO REREAD A BRIGHT SHINING LIE
Reading about Falluja in the Times today. The bad guys are fighting right out of the Viet Cong playbook, and we're falling into the same trap.
Us: Massive concentration of troops telegraphed weeks in advance, big attacks, lots of sound and fury. Radicalize the population against us. Support puppet government that is not backed by its own people. Repeat pronouncement of victory until your credibility is shot.
Them: Don't be where the hammer is coming down. Attack somewhere else while we're distracted. Attack the weakest link: the feckless government troops. Kill them and take the stuff we gave them. Next time, the bad guys will be dressed as Iraqi police, in the body armor our soldiers don't all have.
Our troops are good, but they're fighting World War II again, going house to house against guerrillas. The bad guys are fighting Viet Nam again.
I'd like to give all our political commanders a copy of A Bright Shining Lie, which is a good key to understanding how we lost that war. I'm praying we don't make the same damn mistakes in this one.
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