Is that dude Indian?

There is some weird and profoundly unfunny show that I am sampling on ABC right now called "Notes from the Underbelly." I have no real defense for watching it for these past 10 minutes. I do find it interesting that there is one character who is Indian. There are no Indian characters that I know of in prime time comedy or dramas, and this is from a guy who watches a lot of television. I was sort of proud of this--Indians are a small part of America's population but seeing as most television shows take place in New York and California, where millions of Indians live, it is a bit weird. I mean, with the numbers of doctors and lawyers on TV, can I get a representative sample? Anyway, on this awful show "Notes from the Underbelly" one of the characters is Indian, but they named him Eric. What the hell is that about? You couldn't give him an Indian name? It's as if television producers don't think people can handle or understand Indian people unless they are called Eric or Chad?

Next Indian on prime time should be named Vijay. Or Sandeep. Make it real.

Art Is Not A Camel: The Perils of Creation By Committee

I've posted before about my man-love for Aaron Sorkin, the author of some of the best film and television work in the past 15 years. I was recently at a party talking about his recent show, Studio 60, when a fellow student seemed surprised that I liked the show. "It gets such bad ratings." I simply shot back "That just means a lot of people don't watch it, not that it isn't good." It seems so simple, but people forget it--television ratings and box office receipts are poor prisms by which to judge the quality of film and television art. I've never understood this metric, and Sorkin seems to agree. In an interview he gave to Charlie Rose in 2003, after quitting his show "The West Wing", he noted that the ratings of shows and box office figures of movies are regularly printed in the arts sections of newspapers. This is a oddity, because the ratings of a show are not really the purview of the arts section, which should be telling readers what the show is about and offering a commentary on the writing, direction, and story. The ratings, while supremely important to the multi-billion dollar companies that air the shows, are of no logical consequence to viewers. In fact, Sorkin asks if it is even more insidious that than--mentioning the ratings is in fact a corrosive factor. The implication of praising a show for having high ratings is that a program should be watched because other people watch it, and that you should avoid programs that nobody else is tuning in to see. This acts a powerful and dangerous self-fulfilling prophesy, as positive press coverage for a ratings success fosters more of it, and lambasting a show for its low ratings is the rough equivalent of beheading a prisoner already on his knees. I understand that there is fun to be had in a show being part of a larger public consciousness, but as a journalistic practice for newspapers it encourages a bizarre herd-mentality. The quality of a show, its story telling and acting, are not diminished by low ratings. And even more frightening, an obsessive tracking of it in the press discourages the networks who pay to produce these shows from creating bold and original programming. They instead spiral into efforts to endlessly replicate previous hit shows, in so doing homogenizing all television, and greatness rarely springs from monotony.

Today, I saw the movie "The TV Set", a savage and wicked satire of network television by Jake Kasdan, one of the writers of NBC's critically acclaimed but criminally unpopular "Freaks and Geeks." I think everyone who watches, and often laments, American television should see this film if only to see how the ceaseless quest for ratings leads to a paralyzing fear of interesting and thoughtful art. Sigourney Weaver plays the ass-kicking network president who says things "Originality scares me, you don't want to be too original" and "We've done the research, and suicide is depressing to, like, 82% of everybody." Her mindset is sadly typical in the landscape of television. The film is also brilliant in its depiction of how good drama or comedy has its edges blunted and its wit dulled by a series of small compromises instead of tectonic shifts--all in an effort make the final product a little more palatable to the under-35 demo, a little more appealing to suburban women in Missouri. If you make enough changes to please enough people, the resulting watered down soup pleases nobody--the ultimate moral of this film. David Duchovny plays the writer of a pilot being produced--a black comedy about the return of the prodigal son to his hometown after his brother's suicide. A desire to finally see his show made coupled with financial pressures lead Duchovny to acquiesce to his project's death by a thousand cuts. The final product is a barely recognizable whithered husk of its former self. This movie should be seen by as many people as possible as a look at how bad television is extracted from good television, and as an inspiration against the forces of compromise, mediocrity, and resignation. It is a good movie, regardless of its box office numbers.

(I suggest you watch the Sorkin interview on google video, you can find it by searching "aaron sorkin charlie rose" and click the link for Sorkin and Anthony Zuiker)

Sometimes, it's not even a shot away

This morning, I finished watching a movie I started about 3 months ago, Layer Cake, starring a pre-bond Daniel Craig. I can say it was one of the best gangster movies I've seen in a long time. London crime films are very satisfying, and psychologically gratifying to me, because London never strikes me as a crime city. Living there for a semester, I tended to view everything through rose colored glasses. I was besotted with everything I saw, and it probably didn't hurt that I am naturally drawn to the posh, elegant areas of the city and didn't hang out at The Blind Beggar or other underworld establishments. I lived between Hyde Park and Regents Park for god's sake. However, there has always been a thriving gangster culture in London, and you would be mistaken to believe that British gangsters are like an episode of Mr. Bean Goes to the Mafia. They are hard-bitten and control illicit industries with iron fists, even if they are sheathed in velvet. Never is this more clear than in Layer Cake, which has been praised for its realistic portrayal of drug dealing specifically and of crime syndicates in London generally. It is an very complex and engaging film that is only marred, albeit slightly, by the wholly needless presence of Sienna Miller. Miller plays a floozy of indeterminate purpose who catches the eye of Craig's unnamed character. Her appearances on screen serve chiefly to allow the film's producers to provide a paper thin pretext to have Craig expose his pectorals to the audience, and in so doing mesmerize every women (and most men) in an 8 mile radius. Even heterosexual men like myself cannot deny his magnetism that draws both on physical other-worldliness and the raw confidence he portrays--GQ does pieces on "man crushes" because of men like Daniel Craig. To describe the film's plot would risk giving something away, because it twists like an Italian Formula 1 course, but you should see it (but not with your girlfriend if you want to stay together).

This evening, I also watched the highlights of my other new favorite gangster film, The Departed. I've already written about this movie back in October, when I saw it, but I was reminded today how much Martin Scorsese loves the song "Gimme Shelter" by the Rolling Stones. It features in Goodfellas, Casino, and at least twice in The Departed. The reason I noticed it especially here was because it is also featured in one of Miller and Craig's more amorous moments in Layer Cake. Something about this song attracts gangster filmmakers, good movies, or it is just a fortuitous confluence of events for fans of the song like me. I'm not going to look too deeply into it, because if you learn nothing from Layer Cake and The Departed, now this--If you go looking for trouble, you're sure as hell going to find it.

El Mundo Nuevo

Next week, I will be taking a vacation with my roommates to La Republica Dominicana for a seven day, six night tour of mayhem and debauchery. I never liked when travel advertisements do that thing where they compartmentalize the trip--it seems weird to me. But the real point is that I will be sitting in warm climates, relaxing with my friends, and exploring a native culture.

If I were not confident that my readers already knew that I am an enormous nerd, I would feel self-conscious about revealing my excitement at visiting one of the places that Christopher Columbus established as a settlement. As a corollary, I think if you are not enthused at that idea, you have either no appreciation for history or you're comatose. Either way, you would not make a good travel companion. I happen to think Columbus was a megalomaniac and his actions contributed to the deaths of thousands of indigenous people, but he is indisputably significant, and his voyages are worth knowing about, and the notion that I will be standing on land that was "The New World" makes me want to give someone a blanket of small pox. I'm kidding, I don't even think they make those anymore. After that we'll be luxuriating in a resort and enjoying all the trappings of wealthy foreigners. I'll be doing my best to pump money into the island at an alarming rate, as I'm fairly confident that the spending shock that will ensue upon our arrival will push so much money into the economy that we'll cause huge inflationary pressure that could ultimately destabilize the regime. That's how hard I'll be throwing down.

After we leave, you might want to look into the Dominican Republic--we'll make it cheap for you.

Best Artist To Use The Word Colostomy In Her Lyrics

Lily Allen is one of the latest iterations of Myspace popstars, but unlike artists like Cassie, Allen is pretty good. I know hipsters that read this will castigate me for coming so late to the party, but I would defend myself by saying that I've actually been listening to Lily Allen since the summer of 2006. When I was in London last spring, I heard rumblings of her, and because she's certainly not shy of making her views on other artists known the press likes to comment on her to see what scathing remarks she'll make about Kylie, Bob Geldoff, or cocaine. I really like how incredibly off-the-cuff she is, and I especially like that she doesn't change her behavior after getting into "trouble" for it. (I put trouble in quotes because being rebuked by catty journalists is a badge of honor for artists). If you read her interviews or watch her on telly, you'll realize that she's a brassy chick--I dig it. If I had any quibble with her it would be that she acts like chav when she's really from a rich family and went to Bedales. No shame in being rich, Lily--especially if you keep singing amazing parodies (that even work as stand alone songs) like Window Shopper. I've listened to this song about 47 times today, and I love it more each time, especially because the song it parodies is an absolutely awful Fifty Cent tune.



Lily Allen, I hope you forgive me for lending you my support, as it will make you seem a lot less cool and indie.



Après moi, le déluge.

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Apathy meets Shamelessness

I saw an advertisement for the movie School for Scoundrels that had the tagline "Bad Santa meets Napoleon Dynamite." This seems like the absolute laziest way to market a film--to pick two movies that the film's lead actors starred in and describe their new movie as a hybrid of the previous two. It really bothered me that some marketing or studio exec flipped that off in 15 seconds and then went to Balthazar for an expensed account lunch.



Although it would be a pretty sweet gig if I could get it.

But Not Tired of Irony.

Mitt Romney declares his candidacy for President in Michigan, proclaiming "We are weary of the bickering and bombast, we’re fatigued by the posturing and self-promotion." This is a well-intentioned and widely held belief, but it is somewhat undercut by the image of Romney bemoaning self-promotion while standing over a plaque emblazoned with MittRomney.com

You couldn't make it funnier if you workshopped it for a month.