Shear Genius' shortcut challenge this week was to do a makeover on men,with Christophe himself as the judge. The stylists were nervous,due to not knowing who their clients were at first and by the word "trim" mentioned in the set-up note left for them. Tabatha was convinced that they were going to have to trim dogs and swore she would walk out if that was the case(and I believe she would've,too)but since her client was just a young guy wanting his Hanson hair made into something that would get him a girlfriend,she was spared.
Tabatha wound up winning the challenge and was given first pick of style for the elimination challenge,which was to create a hairstyle from a specific time period. Tabatha chose 80's punk rock for herself and then got to assign the other looks to the rest of the group. Everyone was given a hatbox with hairpieces that matched their era and internet time to do a little online research. Tyson was given Elizabethan on purpose,since Tabatha and her cohorts noticed how much trouble he has doing up sweeps(she really has it in for him). It surprised me that some of the stylists had no clue about their eras. Maybe it's just me,but some things just should be common knowledge. I'm not a big hairstyling person but even I know about hairbobs from the twenties.
Tabatha's plot against Tyson backfired,as he managed to make a decent Elizabethan hairstyle and was declared the winner. I was more of a fan of Daisy's Victorian look and Dr. Boogie's Medieval braids seemed very Excalibur to me,but that's the way the judges went. Tabatha's multi-color mohawk was impressive and very much in the mode of the period,but the guest judge thought it was boring and predictable.
Danna's 1940s look was unpredictable and amazingly boring,which is why she was sent home. She said that she"blanked" when it came to figuring out a style for that decade. Are you kidding me?! Just name a few of the actresses of that time-Joan Crawford,Bette Davis,Veronica Lake,Lauren Bacall-and you have several different looks right there! Eerily enough,Dr. Boogie predicted her loss,by mentioning before the judging that everyone who wound up on the Nexxus Wall of Fame has,so far,been eliminated. Dr. Boogie knows,people,he knows!
Heroes is getting down to the wire,as folks are gathering in NYC for the big showdown. I can understand why Hiro hesitated to take Sylar out,especially at his mother's house(Ellen Greene was awesome). However,it soon became obvious that someone had to stop Sylar who even when trying to innocently dazzle mom with his indoor snowglobe trick,couldn't help but turn nasty:
One thing I don't get is why Peter felt the need to find Ted and have Claire be ready to pop Peter in the head,in case he couldn't handle absorbing Ted's radioactive powers. Wouldn't it be sensible to eliminate Ted,before either Peter or Sylar(who has a clue about that now,after chewing on Isaac's painter prophet brain)can get ahold of his glow in the dark abilities? I know that sounds mean and yes,Ted's been thru alot but come on,he's pretty much a hairtrigger away from nuking the planet there,with that temper of his! That's just my two cents on that.
Lakisha had to sing the Song of Shame this week on American Idol and the real shame of it is that she lost out to Blake,who turned both of the BeeGees songs that he picked into small slices of audio torture. Blake truly earned the Sanjaya award and I guess he now shares the Teflon shield of protection against being voted off at the moment. Since it was two-for-one night on Idol,I'm just posting what I consider to be the best(or in Blake's case,worst)performance for each contestant. Jordin was the strongest singer that night,despite Simon ragging on her for being "old fashioned" in her rendition of "Woman in Love". That's how the song is supposed to sound,Simon!
BLAKE SHOULDN"T BE SINGING THIS
THE BEEGEES AND TRAVOLTA HAVE THE FEVER
MELINDA MENDS A BROKEN HEART
EVERYBODY LOVES JORDIN
LAKISHA HAD A GOOD RUN
Random Notes:
TAR/All Stars: Eric and Danielle were the winners of The Race,which was disappointing for those of us who were rooting for Charla and Mirna,but atleast it wasn't the Beauty Queens,so it's all good. Charla and Mirna did have a great lead going there for awhile,by lucking out on finding a good airline flight and getting to the early clues quickly. However,the daunting physical task of rowing out to the shipwreck in Hawaii and the later breaking the code bit took the wind out of their sails. Oh,well,they did win some prizes along the way.
Veronica Mars: This week's episode was much better,partly due to Paul Rudd's guest appearance as a former rock star of a band called My Pretty Pony(sounds very Music and Lyrics there,doesn't it?). It was also great having goofy archrival Vinnie Van Lowe show up and with that doofus throwing his hat in the ring against Keith for Sheriff,we should be in for some fun. Phiz got alot of facetime this week,not only due to his maybe,maybe not romance with Veronica(come on,girl-give him a chance!) but to escorting Paul Rudd around Neptune as well:
Ugly Betty: The Medieval Times-esque restaurant was pretty cool and how sweet was it of Henry to defend her honor? Not to mention that he declared his love before passing out? I know Christine is right about him thinking that being with Charlie is the right thing to do,but Betty is his true soulmate. Darn this need to stretch out plot points,darn!
One of the best new books of the year is Free Food For Millionaires,a first novel about how more than one generation deals with the pressures of ambition and money in New York City during the 1990's. She's no stranger to writing,having had her work showcased on NPR's Selected Shorts and included in such short story collections as To Be Real(1995)and Breeder(2001).
Min Jin received both the Henry Wright Prize for Nonfiction and the James Ashmun Prize for Fiction while attending Yale. She then went on to Georgetown University and was a lawyer practicing in New York for several years before devoting herself to writing full time. Min Jin has also been awarded the NYFA Fellowship for Fiction,the Missouri Review's Peden Prize and the Narrative Prize for New and Emerging Writer. Min Jin is a true lady and I was thrilled to be able to have a lovely Q and A with her,as her book is about to be released this month:
1. Free Food for Millionaires is structured like a 19th Century novel. What is it about that style of writing that appeals to you?
Nearly all of my favorite 19th century novels are written in an omniscient style—the mode of storytelling where the narrator expresses the consciousness of the central characters and the narrator may switch instantly among the characters in a scene. I also favor a realistic and traditional mode of story telling found in 19th century novels, including aspects of Aristotelian reversals, symmetries, and a unity in each plot. That sounds awfully elevated stated in that way, but simply put, I am interested in stories with a clear beginning, middle and an end where each story line is developed and completed, and where the central characters change in response to conflicts. This kind of narrative is not always popular with contemporary literary fiction writers, and I can see many reasons why, however, within the narrow prescriptions in this sort of story telling, I believe there are enormous freedoms and pleasures.
By comparison, I take comfort in the rules of a sonnet—the number of lines, the kinds of rhyme, the type of sonnets (Petrachan, Spenserian...) and the infinite variety of poems that can be written within the narrow rules of a form. I have studied the techniques of traditional story telling in the hopes of making the story almost easy to read. I worry obsessively about technique and tools and demand a great deal from each placement and change of word or idea, but I think when a reader picks up my book, she should never have to think about any of this. It’s sort of like learning recipes versus eating a cake. It is my hope that the reader can immerse herself in the story and be engaged in the narrative, characterization and plot—and enter what John Gardner calls the “dream”—and not think about this author’s self-consciousness and anxieties. Also, the 19th century novel adheres to realism in both plot and character psychology, and I admire its expansive sense of community, complex morality and its meditation and critique of politics and the economy.
2. You’ve had several short stories published; do you believe that short story writing naturally leads to novel writing?
I wrote a novel in 1996, and it was roundly rejected by very fine publishers. I wrote two other novel manuscripts in pieces, and they were never sent out, because I didn’t know how to complete them. I started Free Food for Millionaires in 2001. Throughout this time, I wrote a handful of stories which I wrote and rewrote endlessly. It’s rather embarrassing how few short stories I’ve written in twelve years, but each was rewritten in full drafts no less than a dozen times each. The drafts of one story are unrecognizable from each other, because I would re-key the entire story with each draft. Having said that, I wrote the short stories, because I was interested in learning how to write different points of view (first person as a minor character, first person as a major character, second, third limited, third omniscient...) and in learning more about plot, theme, characterization and diction. These stories and the fragmented novel manuscripts were my private M.F.A. program. I’m not a quick study, and certainly by the number of rejections I have received, it is quite clear that I am not a natural at this. But perhaps that is just as well, because I know now that I am a very stubborn person, and I have learned just how much I have wanted to learn how to write good fiction.
I’ve heard writers claim that you have to face the blank page again and again, and I think this is very true. However, you can face it with better tools, and you can face it with greater ease and recall your love of the word and the sentence and the paragraph. Sometimes, when I’m rewriting, I feel like I’m a child with a small puzzle—nothing like a box of a 1000 piece jigsaw, but something elementary like the peg puzzles of a preschooler. I try to approach rewriting with that kind of innocence, because I am hopeful that somehow the pieces have to fit—that it is do-able—and the image will emerge, and at the risk of sounding overly earnest, I find it very gratifying when I recover something I felt was lost, like the missing yet critical piece of myself.
I do not believe that short stories naturally lead to novel writing or certainly vice-a-versa if anyone wanted to make that argument. I guess I am of the opinion that they are two forms of fiction that speak to each other. There are many people who hold the view that you are one or the other (short story writer or the novelist) and somehow it is a fish or fowl dichotomy. I guess that sort of strictness makes me nervous. And the other camp which argues that stories or novels come to you in one form or the other makes me anxious as well. So much of story telling has to do with personal stamina and the interplay of idea and image, and the length bit is sort of a mystery to me. I guess I am taking a long time to say that I think you can do either if you like. Perhaps my thinking is the most conceited of all, because you can choose whichever format you want to flog yourself with, and secretly adore your misery/ecstasy. Fiction is so difficult (I don’t know anyone who says it isn’t), yet it is the only vocation I want to continue learning how to do well. The argument I am making in part with FFFM is that you need to find work in your life that is somehow worthy of your abilities. That’s painfully lofty, but I believe it. Very much.
3. Which one of the female leads in FFFM do you think is most like you, Casey or Ella?
This is a tough question, and I admire you for asking it, because no one has. I think I have Casey’s emotional roughness inside, yet my outward life resembles Ella’s more. I am married now for almost fourteen years. I met my husband when I was 22 and married at 24. I have a nine year old son who will be ten in January. I love to cook like Ella does, yet I cuss like Casey. I have such enormous sympathy for Casey’s anger and wish for autonomy. The violence of her emotional life is something I like about her. You so rarely see angry female characters, and I find that to be dishonest, because I think women are very angry, but deny it or repress it, because women’s anger is punished across cultures, classes and ages. I am 38 years old, almost 39, and I find life more amusing and sad than anything else now, and this is a surprise, because I remember being upset, angry, and hurt in my twenties, and I wanted to give that expression through fiction.
There are aspects of my biography that I gave to each of my characters male and female. I gave Casey, my childhood neighborhood and my ivy league education, but I gave Ella, my love of the domestic arts and her conventional early marriage. I don’t have Ella’s qualities of passivity and piety, yet I admire her kindness, her wish to do good in spite of having been rejected, injured and insulted. I have always believed that kindness is not just inborn, but an act of reason and will—a kind of practice or discipline. I think I am like both girls, and I am glad you gave me the opportunity to state that, because the natural assumption is that the main character is the author’s primary alterity, and I think that is rather simplistic. To be honest, I have a great deal of love and sympathy for the obvious anti-heroes, Ted and Sabine, and I think my wish to give their humanity full expression in the plot line tells on me quite a lot.
4. What are your favorite books and authors?
George Eliot: Middlemarch Charlotte Bronte: Jane Eyre William Makepeace Thackeray: Vanity Fair Sinclair Lewis: Mainstreet Honore de Balzac: Cousin Bette, Lost Illusions Leo Tolstoy: Anna Karenina Theodore Dreiser: Sister Carrie Zora Neale Hurston: Their Eyes Were Watching God Edith Wharton: The House of Mirth Gustave Flaubert: Madame Bovary
5. Now that Oprah’s into reading current fiction again, how would you feel is she selected your book for her club?
I would be honored.
6. Do you have any ideas for your next novel?
My third novel manuscript prior to Free Food for Millionaires is called Pachinko. It is about ethnic Koreans who live in Tokyo. An excerpt of this work appeared as a short story called “Motherland” in The Missouri Review and received the Peden Prize. I was unable to finish this novel because I couldn’t do the necessary research in Japan, but I will be moving to Tokyo at the end of August, so I will begin working on it again. It is a novel I have wanted to write since I was twenty, so I have great hopes for it, and naturally, great fears.
My thanks to Min Jin Lee,for giving me her time and thoughts for this interview. Free Food For Millionaires will be available everywhere and if you would like to know more about Min Jin and her work,please visit her official website by clicking the title link above.
The latest hot topic on the literary scene is the current state of book reviews. Many newspapers across the country are either cutting down on their book sections or, as with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution,eliminating staff members such as AJ-C's book editor,Teresa Weaver. A petition has been started up to save her job and other folks are encouraging newspapers not to give up on book coverage just yet.
It's a shame,when books are not seen to be as important as,let's say,a baseball game but what really saddens me is that a number of people are blaming blogs for this cutdown on reviews. Author Richard Ford was qouted in an article about this in the New York Times,saying that he doesn't trust the opinions of a blogger(he claims not to read litblogs,btw) and that"“Newspapers, by having institutional backing, have a responsible relationship not only to their publisher but to their readership,... “in a way that some guy sitting in his basement in Terre Haute maybe doesn’t.”
First off,what do you have against Terre Haute? Second,newspapers are a corporate industry and are ultimately responsible to their shareholders,like it or not. Ford also said that newspapers should run book reviews"“as a public service, and the fact of the matter is that they are unwilling to,”-hello,reality check,please!
Newspapers are a business and in business,cuts in departments are all about money. It's like funding for public schools,everytime they feel the need to trim the budget,the arts are the first to put up on the chopping block while the football team gets new uniforms. Does that make it fair or right? No,but it is the reality of the situation.
I hate to see anyone lose their job,or have it chopped down into little tidbits but shouldn't the focus on this probelm be dealt with by trying to find ways to increase interest in book reviewing,instead of tearing down litbloggers? Take a gander at what Michael Dirda,Washington Post book columnist had to say about this subject in a recent post at the NBCC blog,Critical Mass:
"Every blogger wants to write a book. In fact, the dirty little secret of the internet is"Littera scripta manet"--the written word survives. A book is real, whereas cyberspace is just keystrokes--quickly scribbled and quickly forgotten. But to publish a book isn't enough: It has to be noticed. And this is where book sections matter. If you were an author, would you want your book reviewed in The Washington Post and The New York Review of Books--or on a website written by someone who uses the moniker NovelGobbler or Biografiend?(note: two new blogs with these titles have been started up,in response to Dirda's comments)
The book review section, whether of a newspaper or a magazine,remains the forum where new titles are taken seriously as works of art and argument, and not merely as opportunities for shallow grandstanding and overblown ranting, all too often by kids hoping to be noticed for their sass and vulgarity. Should we allow our culture to descend to this playground level of discourse? Newspapers sift, filter, and evaluate; they are responsible and strive to be trustworthy. So, too, do their book review sections. To curtail such coverage is to abandon an intellectual forum for a childish free-for-all. We would be shortchanging not only readers, but also the art, culture and scholarship of our time.Playgrounds, as we all remember, are ruled by bullies, loud-mouths and prima-donnas."
You'd think a journalist would know better than to make broad,sweeping statements dripping with elitism like that. Why is it that when disagreements spring up in the literary community,folks react like Jerry Springer guests,turning on each other instead of teaming up to help one another? With attitudes like this,is it any wonder that more and more people prefer to get their book reviews online? It's hard to listen to the concerns of the newspaper writers,when folks like Dirda are making them all sound like this:
Listen up,guys-litbloggers are not the enemy. They care as much about books as you do and most of them aren't lucky enough to be paid to do it. No one wants there to be less coverage of literature and as readers,being open minded to new possibilities comes with the territory. Not everyone blogging is a punk kid,out for fame and believe it or not,a good number of them are just as well educated as you are. Some may be snarky or snippy but so are many print journalists out there. As for newspapers be more "discerning" about who and what gets published,does the name Jayson Blair mean anything to you? Nobody's perfect,folks.
PW editor-in-chief Sara Nelson took up this topic in her recent weekly column(which you can read in full by clicking the title link above)and her view of the whole situation is a healthy one:
"I admit that on some days, I have a very Pollyannaish approach to all this, and can even believe—okay, make that wish—that traditional, learned book reviews won't be dead forever and that the Web is no graveyard, in any case. I also hope that the remaining book reviews will pay attention to people like the guy who spoke up at a an L.A. panel about how “boring” and “exclusionary” traditional book reviews are—and change.
So let's stop breast-beating and begin brainstorming."
Sounds right to me,Sara. Maybe we should all examine the current state of mainstream book reviewing and discuss why it isn't working. Why genre titles get overlooked,why certain nonfiction gets plenty of coverage while many first,second or fourth novels are begging for attention and ways to liven things up alittle. Maybe we could all learn something from each other,as well as talk about some good books. That is the reason we're all having this hullabaloo in the first place.
The big box office sensation this weekend was,of course,Spiderman 3(hey,I'm sure Disturbia is a good little thriller but against the Spidey juggernaut,it's lucky to hold second place there),which made $148 million and set a record with it's opening day take of $59 million. Pretty sweet,but the burning question remains...was the movie worth it?
Well,I was very entertained,along with the matinee audience my sister and I hunkered down with. The plot wasn't as firmly structured as the first two films(plenty of storyline balls were being juggled in the air)but there were some fun and funny moments,plus amazing F/X that gives you plenty of bang for your buck. So,I would recommend it,if you're in an amusement park ride mood at the movies. Just hope and pray that the studio holds off on making any more Spiderman movies,especially if Tobey,Kristen and Sam Raimi truly want to jump ship. Three is enough,guys!
Anyway,here are the life lessons that Spiderman 3 has to offer:
10) A man has to be able to put his wife above himself.
9) It's not a good idea to reinact a special kiss with your girlfriend right in front of her with someone else.
8) Revenge is like a poison,it can take you over and turn you into something ugly.
7) You want forgiveness? Try religion!
6) A sure sign of giving into your dark side is the need for one sided bangs.
5)If you buy a camera off of a kid in the crowd,of course the film's extra!
4) Prolonged exposure to an alien symbiote can make you do strange things,like demand phoneside cookie service and perform impromptu dance numbers in public:
Exhibit A
Exhibit B
3)No point in trying to convert a bad guy into giving up his wicked ways when he tells you "I like being bad-it makes me happy!"
2) Bruce Campbell cameos are great,Stan Lee cameos are supergreat. Having both Bruce and Stan do cameos in the same film? Priceless!
Gilmore Girls is officially no more. The CW announced that this would be the last season of the show,due to not being able to strike a deal with Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel for a 13 episode run for an eighth season. The final episode will be shown on May 15th. In some ways,I really can't blame them. Both ladies have been together for seven years now and naturally want to move to other things.
I came to this show late,after catching the Gilmore vibe from ABC Family reruns. Even with American Idol competing in their time slot,I still managed to keep abreast on the happenings in Stars Hollow(thank you,YouTube and TWOP). Perhaps it was best that I discovered GG when I did,it really helped me get thru a low point in my life and while things are still sorting themselves out,Lorelai and Rory have had me keep the faith that even if life is tossing lemons at you hard enough to bruise your skin,it'll be just than much easier to whip up some killer lemonade,with them already being squished.
To honor their passing,let's look at some of my favorite GG people and places:
RICHARD AND EMILY
If you going to have wealthy but interfering grandparents,Richard and Emily Gilmore are the best. A more suited couple is difficult to find,with their balance of wit,taste and determination to see the world thru a very different set of eyes than their daughter or granddaughter. It's also very sweet to see them in flirty mode,as in this clip from Season Three,where on a trip to Yale,many romantic memories are revealed:
LANE
Rory's Best Friend #1(I'll get to number two next)who shares with Lorelai a love-fear relationship with her mother,the formidable Mrs. Kim. I know there's supposed to be a Mr. Kim but since we never see or hear from him,for all intents and purposes Lane has been raised by a single parent. Despite her mom issues,Lane has managed to become her own person and followed her own path towards the music she so loves. Even when she's on the outs with someone she cares about,Lane remains loyal and territoral as in this clip when she confronts her mom's new boarder:
PARIS
Rory's Best Friend the Second(to avoid any bad bathroom jokes),Paris Geller is one gal that's hard to like but after awhile,she grows on you. Even with her rapid fire verbal attacks and rigid agressiveness,she can come thru in a pinch. Here's a good exmaple of her unexpected friendliness,as she covers for Rory after Dean spots her with Jess. Rory may not be able to truly define their relationship but she knows a pal when she sees one:
TOWN MEETINGS
One of the charms of Stars Hollow life are the town meetings,run by the living-in-the 1950's town selectman,Taylor Doosie. Everyone gets a chance to showcase the wacky at these get togethers and a good example came about this season,with the Hay Bale Maze episode. Kirk is present as part of the presentation:
FRIDAY NIGHT DINNER
A major league staple of the show is the Friday Night Dinner,always held at the elder Gilmores' home,where maids are rountinely fired and some of the most memorable quip fests take place. Lorelai and Emily always sparred best at Friday Night Dinner and here in this clip,Emily defends the origin of her friend's nickname:
SOOKIE
One of my favorite characters on GG is Sookie,the sweet but slightly insane about her cooking prowess BFF of Lorelai. Her sunny nature belies a fiery temper,which flares up delightful in this bit where Sookie takes on Norman Mailer himself,who insists on only ordering iced tea from the Dragonfly Inn's kitchen:
LUKE AND LORELAI
The big love story in the making,and the one that I hope gets resolved by the end of the series. The two of them have been a long time coming and after the forced separation they went thru this season and part of last,we gotta see those two crazy kids make it work. This week on the show,Lorelai got a chance to reveal her devotation to Luke,in an impromptu karaoke number:
Coming out this month is a collection of GG essays called Coffee at Luke's,which I will be reviewing as soon as my copy arrives in the mail. The book was scheduled for May and now I think it will be even more timely,with the cancellation of Gilmore Girls. Even tho my time in Stars Hollow was brief,it was well worth the trip. Gilmore Girls will still be in syndication and some day,I'll treat myself to the DVDs.
In the meantime,I hope to join the chorus of GG fans in song as we all wish the cast and crew of this wondeful show well in whatever path they take now. Where they lead,we followed anywhere that they told us to:
On Shear Genius this week,the shortcut challenge was to create a hairstyle that would easily go from day to night,with the clients demonstrating the changeover them selves. They had about five minutes to switch up their day look,after the stylists did the cut and showed them how to get ready for the night. Danna won and got the right of first pick of model for the elimination round,along with in what order the others got to select their models. Tyson wound up getting last pick,a reverse of what happened to Tabatha on the weird tools challenge.
Speaking of weird,Evangelin hung on to those hedge clippers that earned her a win and insisted that she was going to keep using them from now on. This determined wackiness lead to the first real fight on the show,where both Danna and Tabatha told her that it was nuts and unprofessional. Tabatha went into swear mode after a minute and the Bravo bleep machine got a nice workout there. I swear I'm beginning to like her;she is not afraid to get in someone's face and knows that Tyson is just waiting for her to fail. Fortunately,Tabatha has allies in Anthony and Danna.
Meanwhile,the elimination challenge was to create a red carpet hairdesign suitable for Ugly Betty's Vanessa Williams,who was the guest judge and selector of the winner. The dress that Vanessa planned to wear was displayed,along with photos of her at each hairdresser station,to help the stylists create the right look.
Danna had a very good week at SG,since she won this challenge,too. When I first saw her hairstyle for Vanessa,my thoughts were"That's Wilhemina hair!" Daisy recieved second place,for doing something a little different than most of the group. I do agree with the judges,however,that her look really was "wedding hair"
Evangelin's love of hedge clipping did her in,as she was sent packing after her combo of straight and curly hair tanked. The finished project had sort of a geisha look to it,which didn't go at all with the dress Vanessa Williams was going to wear. Ben was also on the chopping block,for his messy hairdon't that would work for the likes of professional party girls(paging Lindsey Lohan!)but not a classy lady like Vanessa,no way. Looking ahead,Bravo's starting to show promo ads for Top Chef,which should be heating up the airwaves this summer. Mmmm,my mouth is watering already!
Heroes went into the future,as Hiro and Ando encountered a world where superpowered folks were being hunted down,after the NYC explosion,where Peter is an outlaw,Hiro is considered a "terrorist",Parkman is head of the secret police and Nathan is the president of the United States....or is he???
I so did not see that plot twist coming! Talk about your cliffhanging moments there! Ok,fangirl swooning over...I am happy to see that Isaac may not have died in vain after all(and how cool is it that a comic book is the key to saving the world?)and that Ando is more important than he may seem. Some special abilities are not always the flashy kind,being able to inspire hope and support for others is quite a power indeed. The next three episodes should be very rock n' roll.
Veronica Mars returned this week,and while it was great to have her back,I must admit that the hate crimes mystery was handled in a very Afterschool Special way. Nonetheless,there were some good moments such as Phiz kissing Veronica(finally!) and this tribute to Pulp Fiction:
Random Notes:
American Idol: It was Bon Jovi week on Idol and I'm starting to think that having the contestants sing songs from the guest mentor's playlist is not a great idea. It was a close call for the Sanjaya award,as both Blake and Chris Richardson tested my senses with their takes on "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Wanted,Dead or Alive." I had to pick Chris as the worst and so the voters,who sent him home along with Funeral Home Phil(Phil was actually decent this week,too):
CHRIS IS NOT WANTED,DEAD OR ALIVE
BON JOVI ROCKED THEM ALL
I was worried about Jordin this time around,she had alot of trouble with "Living on a Prayer". Thank goodness folks saw how hard she tried to do it right and spared her. Lakisha came back in full force and both she and Melinda were smart to choose later Bon Jovi tunes,than any of the hair band trademark ones:
JORDIN LIVED ON A PRAYER
LAKISHA'S LOVE SONG FOR SIMON
MELINDA GAVE US A NICE DAY
The Amazing Race/All Stars: We're now down to the Final Three,as Danny and Oswald were eliminated,leaving the Beauty Queens,Eric and Danielle and Charla and Mirna to duke it out. Danny and Oswald both said they hope Charla and Mirna win,and out of this bunch,I have to agree with them. The BQ are nasty and sneaky,plus Eric throws too many fits and Danielle wimpers too much for my taste. Charla and Mirna fight quite abit,but you can see that they really do care about each other. Go for it,girls!
Smallville: Tonight,Jimmy gets knocked on the head and wakes up in a B&W film noir version of the show. Cool beans or goofy gimmick? You decide:
The MTV Movie Awards show is one that I always look forward to,not just for the cool hosts(this year,Sarah Silverman will be rocking the mike)and the fun catagories like Best Villian,Best Kiss and Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet,but the movie parodies,which have waxed and waned over time.
MTV decided to have a Movie Spoof Contest,this time around,to give aspiring filmmakers and regular folk a shot at bringing the laughs. You can vote for your favorites when you click the title link above. Before you do that,here's a few of the many nominees to keep in mind:
DEVIL WEARS PRADA FIGHT
This look at a "deleted scene" from DWP takes one of my favorite moments of the film and gives it a Kill Bill spin. Pretty low tech,but not bad. Not bad at all:
TENACIOUS CHAINSAW
As much as I dig Jack Black,I think even he would laugh like hell at this Texas Chainsaw Massacre spoof that casts him as Leatherface. Whoever made this did a nice job with the editing:
AN INCONVENIENT BORAT
I find the whole global warming thing to be as dull as dishwater but perhaps Borat(or this rather decent inpersonator)could liven up the topic quite a bit. Very nice!:
There are more at the offical website,of varying degrees. However,will any of them stand up to skits like this,which has the Golden Girls doing their own version of Clueless? Let's take a look back:
The best parody skits usually are done as intros to the show,like this nifty Spiderman riff with Jack Black as the Webhead and Sarah Michelle Geller doing an excellant Lynda Carter spin:
Well,guess we will have to just wait and see. The MTV Movie Awards will be on Sunday,June 3 and should be alot of fun,especially with Sarah Silverman at the helm. If her appearances at the Independant Spirit Awards are any indication,folks should fasten their seat belts,because this will be a bumpy ride,indeed:
With the Broadway debut of the musical version of the hit film Legally Blonde and the impending arrival of Xanadu on stage,it's becoming more and more clear that producers will make anything into a big Broadway show. At some point,they'll turn to the biggest mass audience sensation around for inspiration. I'm speaking, of course,about YouTube.
What kind of song and dance extravaganza can we expect from such rich resources? Let's take a look at the future of Broadway:
KELLY'S SHOES
Many aspiring actors/comedians like to put video clips up of performance pieces to gather some much needed attention and Liam Kyle Sullivan's character Kelly is already gaining popularity. As you can see from his infamous "Shoes",he clearly has a theaterical flair:
Kelly even has a great act two,with the rad "Text Message Break-up":
MOVIE TRAILER REMIX
Another fun thing to do on YouTube is to watch movie trailers,and some of the more creative folks there like to do a spin on the original concept of the film. Just add a few tunes and you have something old,something new! For example,take the old school Bible drama,The Ten Commandments and toss in some teen movie hijinks and see what you get-a generational crossover entertainment!:
Or take one of the scariest films of all time and lighten up the mood with some family comedy vibes:
RIFFTRAX: THE MUSICAL
Plenty of websites hawk their wares on YouTube and Mike Nelson's RiffTrax takes full advantage of it by offering up audio/video samples of his group's film soundtrack mockery. Actors could either sing the specially rewritten dialogue for such movies as The Departed,with some product placement subtly slipped in:
Another way to go would be having the actors perform the scenes as written,with the humourous commentary sung in a Greek chorus fashion. Hey,if they can turn Hairspray from a movie to a musical to a movie musical remake,why not?:
FANVID ON BROADWAY!
Who doesn't love a fan video,with someone else's montage of clips of their favorite show,actor,obsession set to whatever trendy song is at the top of their Ipod playlist? Okay,maybe not some of you fine folk out there,but interactive entertainment seems to be the wave of the future. Check out this Metalocalypse take on Heroes:
Here's a slice of metamedia for you,a Veronica Mars fanvid set to a song from the Buffy The Vampire Slayer musical episode,Once More With Feeling:
FANBOY FANTASTICKS
For the grand finale,I think that since fanboys and girls are not shy about showing the world their sincere devotion to whatever pop culture icon keeps him/her going thru the daily routines of life,why not a musical? Listen to the song stylings of this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fan and tell me that she couldn't atleast do well in an American Idol audition:
Matthew King has two major decisions to make in about the same amount of time;whom to sell the vast amount of Hawaiian land he and his relatives are the current inheritors of,and who should he invite to the bedside of his comatose wife,Joanie,who is about to be taken off of life support. Joanie's living will demands that she not recieve any artifical means of medical assistance if she winds up in a vegatative state and her recent boating accident has done just that.
Matt has never been a Ward Cleaver kind of dad,or husband. He and Joanie just sort of went their own way in both their marriage and family matters,with Joanie being at the helm. In some ways,Matt thought their life was fine but trying to connect with his daughters,ten year old Scottie and seventeen year old Alex,proves that theory wrong. Scottie is sweet but rambunctious,getting herself into accidents like having a group of man o'wars sting her at the beach so that she has an exciting story to tell her mom. Alex is currently weaning off of drugs at a local boarding school and is still angry with her mother,over an argument that Matt never really knew what the root of the matter was.
Turns out the fight was about him-Alex found out her mom was dating a local realtor,Brian Speer,and may have been considering leaving Matt for him. While going around the islands to inform friends and family of Joanie's last days,Matt decides to find Brian and give him a chance to say goodbye,as well as discover more about the affair. Matt takes both of his daughters with him on this journey,along with Sid,a "non-boyfriend" of Alex's who she claims that she needs around to help her keep calm.
You wouldn't think that this story has any laughs in it,but believe me,it does. There's plenty of laugh out loud moments(particularly in the fights between Scottie and Alex) and off beat observations that keep the plot from getting too maudlin. Matt's coming to terms with how his marriage truly was,why Joanie did what she did and that he has to step up and be a real dad for his girls,is a thoughtful and honest look at a man having to figure out what the rest of his,and his children's,life will be like without his wife in it. In many ways,this book reminded me of the movie Little Miss Sunshine,with it's dysfunctional family follies that do not lessen the bonds of love between them.
This is a first novel by Hemmings,who has had several short stories published and a collection of her own ,House of Thieves. We're getting a great crop of debut authors this year,and Kaui Hart Hemmings is certainly one of the best of the bunch. Her down to earth style and witty tone make this tale of family heartbreak touching and truimphant. She doesn't throw in cheap laughs to lighten the mood,rather her humor comes from the all too recognizable attitudes and personalities of characters who you either have in your own family or are in your circle of friends and neighbors.
The Descendants will be out in stores by May 15,and if you would like to know more about it or the author,please click the title link above to check out Kaui Hart Hemmings' official website. This is one inheritance that you'll truly treasure.
Next week is the beginning of May,which has now become the official starting point of the Summer Movie Season. Plenty of previews are buzzing all around us but what are the ones that truly make you want to be in the theater on opening day? Let's take a look at some that have succeeded in catching my eager eye:
HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX
Now,this is a trailer! Full of excitement,wonder and some major magical throwdowns,the new HP film is a must-see. Also,it was totally brillant of them to cast Imelda Staunton as Dolores Jane Umbridge,whose villiany rivals even Lord Voldemort's:
SPIDERMAN 3
Spidey 3 opens up May 4th,and while many might consider it to be overhyped at this point,I don't think it can be hyped enough. True,there's alot of plot points covered in the trailer but this is a pretty complex story that juggles several villians,a marriage proposal,one than one revenge seeker and an alien symbiote to boot. It's almost like a Dickens novel with all of this multiple character layering:
BECOMING JANE
You might think that this Anne Hathaway version of Jane Austen's life would be the mildest movie out this season but plenty of Janeites are already irked at the many liberties taken with the facts here. Nonetheless,I do want see this movie for many other reasons-the excellant cast(Maggie Smith,Julie Walters),the beautiful scenery and the gent playing Tom Lefroy is rather fetching:
BALLS OF FURY
Technically,this is a Fall film but the trailer's already being shown now and it's really funny. How can you resist a movie with Christopher Walken as the underground table tennis mastermind,with cameos by Patton Oswalt and Hiro Nakamura himself?:
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD
Yes,this should be called Die Hard 4 and yes,it's another Bruce Willis shoot-'em up but come on now,it wouldn't be a summer movie season without some action movie mayhem ,would it? Besides,if you need someone to kill a helicopter with a car,who's more qualified than John McClane?:
THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM
Speaking of action movie mayhem,Matt Damon has a nice little franchise going here with yet another adaptation of Robert Ludlum's novels featuring Jason Bourne,the memorable spy plagued with memory loss. No complaints here,just keep them comin':
1408
Despite the title,this is not a film set in a historical time period. Rather,it's about John Cusack checking into a legendary hotel room that has a one hour time limit before you're driven mad. No shocker that this is an adaptation of a Stephen King short story and it might be as darkly amusing as Secret Window was,with Johnny Depp at the helm. An extra bonus is Samuel L. Jackson as the hotel manager:
NANCY DREW
America's favorite girl detective is getting another revival as Emma Roberts brings her to life onscreen,with a very modern vibe that feels like old school Disney style. Keep your fingers crossed,this might be the surprise hit of the season:
After a way too long hiatus(conviantly timed for the show to hit it's high points for May sweeps),Heroes is back and not only do we get the lowdown on Linderman's evil scheme, the Peter Vs. Sylar Faceoff is concluded,with round one seemingly to go to Sylar:
But it turns out that was much too soon to count Peter out,thanks to some last minute refereeing from Claire:
For all the folks who are eager to point out that Linderman's plot to create a diaster that will allow him and Nathan to take over the country is from Alan Moore's The Watchmen...we know,we know,guys. Look,Alan Moore took that idea from an Outer Limits episode and as far as diabolical schemes go,it's pretty classic. Heroes is supposed to name check the comic book cliches there,like Gilmore Girls has a qouta of movie/literary references to work into the dialogue. It's all good.
Poor Isaac didn't survive his Sylar encounter but I hope that next week's episode,which takes place in a future where MYC wasn't saved from destruction,will tie in those drawings that he entrusted to that fanboy courier. Also,that Hiro learns some swordplay from his future self..so awesome!
Shear Genius gave us two eliminations for the price of one,as Lacey was dismissed after failing to recreate the signature shag haircut demonstrated by Judge Sally Hershberger(she's the one who gave this 'do to Meg Ryan). Tyson wound up being the winner of the Shortcut Challenge,which not only gave him first pick of model for the upcoming elimination round but the power to decide in what order the rest of the contestants got to go in.
Lacey's cut wasn't bad,but it wasn't a shag and as Judge Sally pointed out,if you have a client come in with a photo of someone with the hairstyle they want,that's what you're supposed to give them. Lacey acknowledged that she took a risk there and paid for it the hard way.
Tyson's early victory appeared to go straight to his head,as he quizzed his fellow stylists about why he should choose them to go second. Tabatha didn't play at all with that sad ploy for attention and wound up being the last one in line. That worked out well for her,since she was one of the Top Three after a challenge to take a long hair cut into a short one,using their choice of such nontraditional cutting tools such as a box cutter,household scissors and hedge clippers.
The bravest stylist amongst them was Evangelin,who chose the hedge clippers,and who won the challenge,rightly so. It was amazing to watch her work with those huge blades,like seeing a daredevil act on a highwire trapeze. Kudos to her model for being such a good sport about the whole thing.
Theodore was sent home,after his haircut which didn't look like he did much of anything there,plus he used household scissors which are tricky but not as difficult as children's safety scissors(Tabatha)for example. Dr. Boogie wound up on the chopping block as well,for playing it safe. His slogan was"You gotta ride the line until it's your time to shine!". You might want to rethink that philosophy,buddy.
American Idol did their big charity riff this week,and while I appreciate the sentiment,that two hour results show was so unnesessary. If I want to see a telethon,I can wait for Labor Day and Jerry Lewis,thank you very much. I am glad that plenty of money was raised and hopefully,it will go to the folks who truly need it rather than the bureaucrats spooling out the red tape.
No one was kicked off the show,since it was a charitable event. That was fortunate for Blake,who earned himself a Sanjaya for his uncreative take on John Lennon's "Imagine". His rendition was so lame that if Yoko Ono was watching,she would turn around to the person next to her and remark"And they say I'm a bad singer!". I would've donated more money to make him stop ruining the song:
IMAGINE THAT HE'S NOT DOING THIS
LENNON IS THE ONLY ONE TO DO THIS RIGHT
My girls were great as always,but I'm getting worried about Lakisha. She doesn't seem to be as on her game as she was when she first started. Jordin's got her eye on the prize(how cruel was it of Seacrest to make her think she was going to be eliminated last night? Not cool,Zeus!)and LaKisha needs to get back on track,pronto!
MELINDA'S DAY WILL COME
I BELIEVE IN LAKISHA STILL
JORDIN WON'T WALK ALONE
Random Notes
Bloodties: Vicki and Mike rescued Henry from the sanctimonious sadism of Mendoza,who looks like he won't be making a return to the show. Oh well,there are other ways of getting Henry to take his shirt off there:
Ugly Betty: I find it rude of Daniel to tell Betty to back off when his clubbing antics are about to get him an opening chapter in the upcoming tell-all book about the Meade family,but as soon as he's dumb enough to be blackmailed by a sleazy model mom who pratically pimped her underage daughter out to him,Daniel's all"Can I talk to Betty?". It's not the right way to treat a friend who is also an employee,seriously. Speaking of employer/employee relationships,Wilhelmina's determination to primp her feet to fuel Daddy Meade's fetish goes to quite the extreme:
Tomorrow is my birthday and ,since I plan to take the day off from blogging, I thought it would be nice to gather together some birthday related clips for all to enjoy. Some of these may have very sketchy B-day connections but one can only do so much with what YouTube has to offer:
Bridget Jones' Literal Birthday Bash
This fight sequence is not in the Helen Fielding novel,but it is a high point of the film and perfect for my purposes. The fight starts at Bridget's birthday dinner,with the infamous blue soup,and winds up interrupting another birthday celebration at a nearby restaurant. Besides,what girl doesn't sort of like having two guys fighting over her,hmmm? Even if she winds up giving them what for,afterwards:
Paris Gives Rory The Gift of Her Own Good News
In this clip from Gilmore Girls,it's Rory's 21st birthday and all Paris can truly think of is her latest truimph,becoming editor of the Yale Daily News(a post she eventually loses,due to her newsroom reign of terror). Some of my fellow Buffy fans may recognize Paris' beau,Doyle,played by Danny Strong aka Jonathan. Nice to see him alive and well,altho dating Paris is riskier than dealing with Hellmouth spawn at times there:
Harry Potter and The Queen's Birthday Handbag
The cast of the latest Harry Potter film,Order of the Phoenix,performed a little skit for the Queen's 80th birthday party children's celebration. It's pretty cute and what Ron finds in Neville's Grandmother's handbag is painfully funny:
Dorothy Trapped in Birthday Hell
I freely admit to enjoying the Golden Girls and any episode where the gals acted out old memories is usually fun. I love this bit from a birthday themed show,where Rose plans a birthday bash for Dorothy,who tries to be a good sport about the kiddie clown restaurant setting. The best part is when her birthday candle wish comes true:
Pacino and DeNiro Have a Heated Discussion
I share my birthday with Al Pacino,one of the best actors around. There are so many great film clips that showcase his talents but this scene from Michael Mann's brillant movie,Heat,in which he and Robert DeNiro face off onscreen for the first time in both their careers,is the best:
Ain't No Party Like a Shakespeare Party!
Yesterday was William Shakespeare's birthday,which is close enough to mine for me to claim it on my party list. One of the greatest things about Shakespeare's work is that it can be re-interpreted for new generations and yet still hold it's classic standards high. Speaking of high,watch how Romeo and his posse prep themselves for crashing the Capulet's party:
Gene Kelly Will Never Be Far Away
I thought it would be right to end this post with song and dance and who better than Gene Kelly can do justice to a closing number? One of the sweetest moments in Xanadu is this duet with Olivia Newton-John,a lovely tribute to romantic memories:
That's all folks...see you on Thursday,one year older and perhaps wiser.
Free Food For Millionaires is a multi-character novel,the kind of narrative that most folks associate with writers like George Eliot,William Makepeace Thackerary and Anthony Trollope. It's no wonder than that the main heroine of the book,Casey Han,loves to reread classics like Middlemarch and Jane Eyre. Casey's not a literary scholar,however. Our story begins in 1993,after Casey has just graduated from Princeton but doesn't yet have a major life goal(meaning,a big career path)in mind. After a violent argument with her father,Casey seeks comfort from her current boyfriend,Jay Currie,who has the worst timing in the world to be in the middle of cheating on her.
Casey winds up reconnecting with Ella Shim,an old school acquiantance,who is about to marry Ted Kim,an obnoxious banker. Thru Ella and Ted,Casey finds another boyfriend,Unu, who shares Casey's carelessness with money. Casey has a taste for the upper class lifestyle(one of her shopping weaknesses is for hats) but not the money for it. She gets herself into various forms of debt;not just credit cards and student loans(for when she decides to give business school a try)but emotional as well,to people like Sabine,who is determined to mold Casey into her heir apparent to take over her chic clothing store.
Some of the early reviews of FFFM have compared it to Vanity Fair and Middlemarch but I see some Edith Wharton influences here as well. As Wharton was fond of doing,Free Food goes into the ins and outs of New York social circles and the unspoken rules that let you go up or send you down the ladder of success. The Korean American community,with it's mix of old world manners and morals against the younger generation's more modern ideals ,is deftly portraited and adds to the fullness of the story.
Another strong point of the book is the depth and roundness given to every character,not allowing even ones like Ted(who eventually breaks Ella's heart)who could easily be cardboard cutout villians to do so or seemingly minor characters like Casey's mother,Leah,whose gentle nature and beautiful singing voice takes her down a unexpected path,to just hover in the background. All are allowed their strengths and foibles,not to mention their chance to grow and change in their perspectives.
This is Min Jin Lee's first novel and I have to say,this doesn't read like one at all. FFFM reads more like the work of a seasoned pro at the top of her game. If you're looking for a smart,clever and engaging novel,Free Food For Millionaires is your Golden Ticket,folks. The book is due in stores on May 22(please click on the title link above for more info) and it should become the thinking woman's beach book of 2007. If not,I may need to find a hat to eat! To spare me this search and to enrich your own reading experience,do give Free Food For Millionaires a taste. It's a very filling feast for the soul.
While I may not be a fan of Lost,it would be foolish of anyone interested in the pop culture scene to deny the strong impact the show has made upon television audiences,not only drawing in sci-fi followers but attracting a broad spectrum of viewers not only intrigued by the ongoing mysteries of the show but tuning into the many literary and cultural references that give Lost it's unique accent.
One of those folks exploring the pop culture signifigance of Lost is J.Wood,whose Living Lost blog at Powell's Books website has earned him praise from Entertainment Weekly's Doc Jensen,calling him"the best Lost Blogger out there". His collection of essays on the show,Living Lost: Why We're All Stuck On The Island,came out early this year and looks like the go-to guide for insights on where the story may ultimately take it's faithful fans. Wood holds degrees from both the University of Wisconsin and Trinity College in Dublin,Ireland.He is currently working his PH.D in English at the University of Virginia,where he also teaches a course on media literacy.
I was fortunate enough to get a moment of his time,to discuss not only Lost but a few other observations on the pop culture/media scene:
1) What inspired you to blog about Lost?
The interest originally began in a media criticism class I taught at the University of Virginia. The first season had begun, and I'd not watched any of it, but knew about it. I suggested my students could write about how Lost was the first dramatic television series to be based on a reality TV show (only in the loosest sense). No one took me up on it; those who were watching said it was too complex. That summer when the first season DVD came out, there was a deal at a local video store; rent any new release and get a Lost disc for three nights free. I got the first disc, and within about four or five days, had been through the entire first season. I've done editing work for the Garrett County Press for some time, and the publisher contacted me about doing a book on Lost.
I was just on the project; we didn't know I'd write the book until I drafted out an intro as a kind of framework for a possible book which we'd look for someone to write. It turns out the folks at Powell's Books are fans of the show and they liked the book. They often have authors keep a blog for about a week when they write a new book. They tried something new with me – and I can't thank them enough for this; rather than blogging for a week, after each new episode, I'd write a blog column about that episode's literary, philosophical, historical and narrative links. We missed the six-episode miniseries at the beginning of this season (timing; the book wasn't out yet), but since then, I've been writing for every episode.
2) Did you share Stephen King's concerns about Lost being dragged out past the point of suspense of disbelief just to keep the ratings/revenue going?
Not so much, not anymore. I think it was a legitimate concern about a year, year and a half ago. King was right – no one wants to see this die an ignoble death like X-Files. The head writers/producers, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, have stated they had a definite beginning and end mapped out from the outset. How they got from A-Z was flexible, as long as they hit certain letters along the way. But they knew early on that this was a narrative, so it required an ending. And they had the examples of previously-failed series with a complex mythology to warn them. It's a demanding show to write and produce; even the actors want to see a clear end, so they can appropriately pace themselves for consistent performances and not burn out.
This year Cuse and Lindelof's contracts were up, so they've had some considerable pull as to how long this show can go on, and it looks like they're going to try to cap it at four seasons. The only people who weren't on the same page was the execs at ABC, but I think they don't want to be seen as the suits who killed a magnificent thing, and are starting to come around. They have to kill the golden goose, or it'll be worthless. Besides, the Cuse and Lindelof have also hinted that if ABC wants to extend it out past where they (the producers) think it should go, ABC can do it without them.
3) What do you think of shows that openly embrace pop culture references, like Gilmore Girls, Heroes and Veronica Mars?
It's a bit of a metanarrative. I've not seen Gilmore Girls or Veronica Mars – I'm a grad student and lucky to have the time to see Lost – but I've followed the phenomenon a bit. Television shows are by definition part of pop culture; television shows that embrace other elements of pop culture are starting a conversation that requires a certain kind and level of audience awareness in order for them to fully participate. In that sense, they're doing what literature has done for decades – creating a subtextual web of reference that serves as a kind of shorthand for creating meaning. Buffy the Vampire Slayer went as far as to have hip bands just playing in the local club where high school students hung out (I remember an episode where Cibo Matto was there in the background).
And that's great. What it does is reward a certain way of reading. I'm coming from an English lit background; I'm in the PhD program at the University of Virginia English program, and believe we're all always performing acts of reading, whether we realize it or not. Shows that actively embrace different elements of pop culture and work them into their narratives cultivate a kind of visual reading that is relatively new ground. It depends on what the shows do with whatever pop culture they're taking on; Seinfeld showing Superman on his shelf and making inside comments about DC comics is just a kind of surface level embrace that only gets you so far.
But take Heroes; it's clearly drawing on the comics form, but it takes it a few steps farther with establishing shots, shot sequences, and narrative moves derived from printed comics. And their use of the web to develop these intertextual themes is also something new; Heroes put out a web comic that develops the story through ancillary storylines (much like Battlestar Galactica's webisodes, or Lost's alternate reality game). In the final analysis, a contemporary viewer picking up on the X-Men subtext of Heroes or following the literary references in Lost isn't doing anything all that different than a reader who follows the Homer or Rabelais subtexts of Ulysses.
4) Which do you think is the lesser of two evils; reality lifestyle shows (The Osbournes, The Real Housewives of Orange County) or reality competition shows (Survivor, Project Runway)?
One is less evil than the other? If I'm ranking these, I'd say the lifestyle shows are less evil, if only because they're innocuous; there's nothing really at stake beyond voyeuristic entertainment, if you find that stuff entertaining. All reality shows are appealing to some part of audience vanity – the “this could be you” idea. The competition shows bring in a level of cut-throatness that just seems unnecessarily puerile. Let's face it, the only reason these shows got going and are anything like a success is because they're so easy to produce; there are no actors part of any guild, no Hollywood hassle, they're cheap to make, and you could produce them non-stop (isn't there a reality TV station on cable now?). But they also point to the bankruptcy of creativity in television.
This is one of the reasons why I think narrative shows like Lost and Heroes and a handful of others are proving to be such a success now; they're filling the creativity gap reality TV left. We'll see how long that lasts; the one thing that tends to happen is that once network execs catch up with the success of such shows, they'll try to get their fingers into them in order to make more money out of more shows that match a certain model, and that leads to a stifling of creativity. (Interestingly, the ABC exec who first greenlighted Lost wanted to do a show that was a mix of Survivor and Cast Away; no one had any idea what it would turn into, but that was because J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof got as much control over the story as possible from the outset.)
5) Who is your favorite character on Lost and why?
That's a hard question, because it changes about every three episodes (which is a testament both to the writing and the acting). Very few of these characters are flat. And as the third season has developed, so has the acting. One of the features of Lost is thinking you may know what's going on, and then being whiplashed around in a new narrative move that was being set up right in front of you without you being able to parse it. The actors themselves are only a couple of scripts ahead of the audience, so they're as much in the dark as we are. What their challenge has been – and it's a challenge they've lived up to – is to convey the sense of partial-confusion and partial-awareness necessary to make the narrative work. They've reached a point this season where their characters are now inscrutable; the scenes between Locke and Ben in “The Man from Tallahassee” were extraordinary.
Elizabeth Mitchell has ramped up her characterization in the same way, and so has Josh Holloway and Jorge Garcia; when you watch these characters' faces, there's about six things going on at once, and it's nearly impossible to pick out which “thing” is the right one.
On a strictly gut-level reaction, there's a few characters I dig. Mr. Eko was great for the mystery and depth he brought. In some ways, he reminded me of a kind of counterpoint to the Judge from Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian. Locke is such a tragic sap, with such an awful story, that he's of inherent interest, and the more we get to know about him, the less we really know. That creepy smile in the pilot episode with the orange in his mouth said it all. Ben is a fantastic mastermind; following his character is like playing a game of chess, and trying to second-guess Ben and his motives has become a fun online pastime. I'm intrigued by Desmond, in part because he's become a walking, talking philosophical experiment in free will vs. determinism vs. compatibilism. And lately Hurley's character is proving to be a jokey, cuddly counterpart to Ben – he can be just as manipulative and calculating, but doesn't thrust himself into any leadership roles, which is interesting.
6) Do you think that media literacy has gotten better or worse during this past decade?
I'm going to try to keep this relatively short, because this is something I designed a course around. First, in general, I think it's worse. A functional democracy goes off the rails without a functioning media and an audience that can critically interpret that media. Despite the explosion of media in the past thirty years, our critical faculties haven't caught up. And I think there's a reason for it: In the early 1980's, Reagan deregulated media. It used to be that every radio station was federally mandated to have a news department if they wanted a license. The TV networks were required to have top and bottom of the hour news breaks, and certain areas of news had to be covered. The local nightly news was an hour long. This was all to keep the populace as well-informed as possible, and it implicitly demanded an understanding of how to interpret information that was transmitted via the different media at hand (television, radio, print).
When the deregulation hit, radio stations no longer needed to keep a news department, and the vast majority were axed. The regular news breaks ended. Local news was cut from an hour to about 7 minutes of news, 12 minutes of sports and weather, and some lifestyle fluff. In effect, news media was forced to compete with commercial entertainment media, and the two began to merge. At that point, our media literacy started to slip. You don't need to look far to see how the two have collapsed into each other; the paternity of Anna Nicole Smith's baby overtook any media regarding one of the most important constitutional crises since Watergate, the prosecutor firings. If the market decides what media we'll have, and they've decided that celebrity gossip deserves more coverage and resources than a constitutional crisis, that doesn't say much about that market's media literacy nor how the media frames its stories. But that's a broad generalization; if that were true all the time, there'd be no Daily Show or Colbert Report.
That said, there's some places where media literacy has jumped exponentially, and that's with the community jacked into the web. New forms of media have emerged, and the jacked-ins understand it because they're developing it – maybe not writing the code, but finding new purposes for that code. The recent Youtube Hillary Clinton/1984/Obama video is a good example; it drew on the Apple ad, the 1984 theme, conflated it with current politics, and with a simple shot of a T-shirt made a broader political statement out of that context. That gained traction because people understood how to read it.
And the jacked-ins are a savvier audience; the typical news and advertisement presentations of the past 50 years just don't cut it with them. David Foster Wallace writes about the problem of people having their interpretations determined for them, rather than people getting to develop their own interpretations. The jacked-ins want to develop their own opinions, and don't get easily suckered by people or groups trying to manufacture opinions for them. And now the mainstream press is slouching, year by year, into that online space. They don't really get it right, not yet. The media terms are altered online. Just look at what happened with John McCain's MySpace page – you don't bring a stiff, family-values political campaign to a virtual wall of graffiti and expect not to get tagged. So there are media illiterates online, but they're generally not the ones creating content and development by adopting new forms of media for new purposes. Brave new world, baby.
7) What is your favorite TV character/show?
That's hard to say. Until Lost, I really didn't watch too much TV because I'm in grad school and just generally crunched for time. Watershed shows, for me, were Northern Exposure and X-Files. I'm generally always impressed with South Park and The Daily Show/Colbert Report material, but that stuff is red meat for a media cynic. My guilty pleasures are Good Eats (that guy, Alton Brown, did some of the early REM videos, and I love how he approaches cooking like hacking), and I'm a pushover for those quickly-produced hyper-nerdy documentaries on some of the geekier cable stations.
My thanks to J. Wood for his time and if you'd like to check out his Lost blog at Powell's,please click the title link above. You can get a copy of Living Lost from Powell's Books or directly from Garrett County Press by visiting www.gcpress.com .
