If only the recession was a mass hallucination ...

Last fall, financial experts retroactively proclaimed December 2007 to be the official beginning of the recession that's, well, still receding. But guess who predicted the financial crash right as it was starting? Weirdo musicians, of course!

In the December '07 issue of Spin magazine, David Marchese profiled psych-pop band MGMT. "Last winter," he wrote, "MGMT began to think the world might end. So Andrew Vanwyngarden and Ben Goldwasser did what any reasonable neo-hippie music majors would do: They decamped to a desolate sliver of Brooklyn and concocted some seriously freaky songs. 'Something’s about to go down,' explains Goldwasser.... 'Things are going to change in a way nobody will be able to fix.' Vanwyngarden concurs. 'The apocalypse is in the zeitgeist,' he says.... 'But it doesn’t have to be about death and destruction; it could be the shattering of a mass hallucination ... where the human race realizes its true potential!'"

Sam Worthington has a terrific agent.

Who's Sam Worthington, you ask? Exactly. I'm pretty sure I've never heard of him before, but his name’s above the title, right next to Christian Bale's, on posters and billboards for Terminator: Salvation. I haven't seen a single TV ad yet that links his name to a face, but make no mistake—Sam Worthington's agent is the best agent in the whole wide world, and later this year the Australian actor will appear in Avatar, James Cameron's first feature film since Titanic 12 years ago. (Cameron also directed the first two Terminator films.)

Most publications are spelling the new Terminator movie's name without a colon before the word "salvation," but I refuse. Call me a punctuation maverick if you want (seriously—I need some sort of notoriety), but without that colon in the middle I start getting my hopes up about a sci-fi epic that centers on deadly cyborgs attending church. That movie sounds like a ton of fun, but despite the contrast of religion and science that's implicit in Terminator: Salvation's name, I doubt any robots will be baptized, unless you count "by fire."

handsome people being funny, funny people being serious

In the April 24-26 edition of USA Weekend, actor Seth Rogen (Knocked Up, Pineapple Express, Monsters Vs. Aliens) was asked, "If you were the opposite sex but had the same gifts and qualities, how would things be different?" He replied, "I would've had a much more difficult time being an unconventional-looking woman. I think being an unconventional-looking man is fine. Most of my favorite comedians have been weird-looking: Bill Murray, John Candy, Buster Keaton. It's almost embraced in the male world. People don't want their comedy from a real handsome guy."

In the May 1-3 edition of USA Weekend, actor Eric Bana (Hulk, Munich, Star Trek) was interviewed. He started out as a stand-up and sketch comedian in Australia in the '90s before making the leap to dramatic roles with the 2000 film Chopper. Bana is not an unconventional-looking man. He is a handsome man. And up until Funny People, which comes out July 31, he hadn't been cast in any comedies.

Bana uses his native Australian accent in Funny People, which has him competing with Adam Sandler for the affections of Leslie Mann, because handsome men are funny men's enemies. Sandler stars in the film as a famous actor and former stand-up comedian who's dying of a rare blood disorder.

Sandler himself is a famous actor who, like Bana, started out as a stand-up and sketch comedian. But Sandler is not a conventionally handsome man. Which is why he mostly makes comedies. But, like all clowns who cry on the inside, he wants to be taken seriously, so he continues to make dramas like Reign Over Me (2007) and comedy-dramas such as Spanglish (2004) even though his juvenile-comedy fans tend to skip those films in theaters. You can't blame him for wanting to stretch and not do the same movie again and again, but he won't know until August if his fans find Funny People to be too much drama, not enough comedy. Same for Judd Apatow, the film's writer-director, who's also trying to stretch.

In Funny People Bana and Sandler costar with Rogen, also a former stand-up, who recently slimmed down for his role in a remake of the 1960s TV series The Green Hornet. Rogen's character is supposed to be vain, hence the weight loss, but some fans and critics see it as a betrayal of the actor's everyman "schlub" persona. Slimming down is a healthy move for anyone who's overweight, but in the world of comedy, unfortunately, it can be viewed as a highly conventional move.

You can't kill a good series. Not the first time, anyway.

It was announced last week that NBC's fall lineup will include a one-hour series based on the 1989 Ron Howard film Parenthood, which centered on the extended Buckman family and its many problems. Some of those problems were comical, while others weren't—the film is fondly remembered by fans like myself for mixing comedy and drama with ease, leading to quietly devastating moments like the one in which Jason Robards, as the Buckman patriarch, lets his biracial grandson "Cool" know that his gambling-addict father, played by Tom Hulce, isn't coming back for him.

Steve Martin headed up the film's large cast, which also included Mary Steenburgen, Dianne Wiest, Rick Moranis, and a young Joaquin Phoenix, back when he was being billed as "Leaf Phoenix." The new series is headed up by Peter Krause, the star of previous series like Sports Night, Six Feet Under, and Dirty Sexy Money, but the Buckmans are now the Bravermans, and Gil (Martin) is now Adam (Krause).

Parenthood has already been converted into a TV show once before, though it met with little success: debuting in August 1990, also on NBC, the half-hour version was canceled after 12 episodes. Ed Begley Jr. played Gil Buckman, and a 15-year-old Leonardo DiCaprio played Phoenix's part. (NBC also debuted a small-screen version of Ferris Bueller's Day Off that fall, costarring Jennifer Aniston. It too was quickly canceled.)

Remakes of movies are common—and expected by audiences—and TV-series adaptations of hit movies aren't uncommon either (M*A*S*H and Clueless, for example, though Buffy the Vampire Slayer as a series was much more popular than the film it was based on). But when a series that was canceled after a handful of episodes is brought back years later by its creator, albeit with a new cast playing the original characters, that's not so common.

A recent example is Cupid, which aired on ABC during the 1998-'99 season and was canceled after 14 episodes. It starred Jeremy Piven (Entourage) as a man convinced he's the god of love, and Paula Marshall (Gary Unmarried) as his therapist. The series' short life was profiled in David Wild's 1999 book The Showrunners.

In March the new version of Cupid debuted, also on ABC, with Bobby Cannavale (Will & Grace) and Sarah Paulson (Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip) playing the leads created 11 years earlier by executive producer Rob Thomas (Veronica Mars). The new Cupid airs its sixth episode tonight, but it's not expected to be renewed for next season due to low ratings, so the series' second coming will most likely end next week with episode number seven.

Cupid's revival reminded me that back in 2000 the David Frankel-created series Grapevine was dusted off and given a new cast on CBS, which originally ran it as a summer replacement series in the summer of '92; in fact I still have one of those episodes on tape. Grapevine 1.0 was fun, breezy summer entertainment, with Frankel, a New Yorker, channeling Woody Allen's wit but setting his stories about modern romance in Miami rather than the Big Apple. Three main characters would talk to an offscreen interviewer in each episode about their various friends' love lives, with the narration setting up scenes of the friends—Paula Marshall guest-starred in one episode—flirting, dating, going to bed with each other, cheating on each other, etc. (Frankel must really like Miami: his feature-film directorial debut was 1995's Miami Rhapsody, and he filmed parts of his most recent film, last December's Marley & Me, in the area.)

It's probably for the best that Grapevine only lasted six episodes in '92; its half-sitcom, half-anthology hybrid format had its charms, but it may have grown tiresome over an entire 22-episode season, with viewers wondering "Who are these people, and why are they so eager to gossip about their friends' love lives in front of a camera?" But in the spring of 2000 Grapevine was revived, possibly because Frankel missed Miami, or maybe because CBS wanted a show like Friends that featured lots of good-looking twenty- and thirtysomethings cracking jokes and hooking up. (In this version Steven Eckholdt played the character of David, whereas eight years prior he played Thumper, David's younger brother. Only on TV will you ever meet a man named Thumper—twice.) I remember seeing only one episode of Grapevine 2.0, but the original version's charms were gone. The second coming lasted only five episodes.

Parenthood, Cupid, and Grapevine are rare examples of TV writer-producers getting another chance to rework an old idea that either didn't live up to its full potential the first time around, was the victim of a bad time slot—Cupid 1.0 aired on Saturday nights—or didn't have the right casting. The temptation to revisit a good idea that could've become a great show must be strong, even if 19 years have passed, as is the case with Parenthood. But are there even more regrets for the shows' creators the second time around if the idea still doesn't court favor with the public? Grapevine is long gone and Cupid is almost gone. Time will tell if Parenthood's "do-over" on TV gets a similar reaction, but it's doubtful any of them will receive a green light for another go-round based on their creators' pitch to the networks that "the third time's the charm."

running bravely from momentum-killing minutiae

I love facts and figures, but they often get in the way of the point I'm trying to make when I'm writing. (Their fault, not mine, of course. Hmm ... these parentheticals tend to get in the way too, don't they?) Here are the "deleted scenes" from my recent Popdose post about gay marriage and the 1986 action-comedy Running Scared.

(1) Chicago's James R. Thompson Center, formerly the State of Illinois Center, the site of Running Scared's climactic shoot-out, is located one block down from the Cook County Building, where the climax of The Blues Brothers was shot 30 years ago.

(2) Running Scared's narrative is supposed to take place in November and December, so fake snow is sprayed on trees, cars, and street surfaces in some scenes. But because filming began in mid-September, a week before summer was officially over, green leaves are still visible on some of those trees, which generally isn't the case in Chicago by the end of the calendar year.

(3) The screenplay is credited to Gary DeVore and Jimmy Huston, with DeVore receiving an additional "story by" credit. Because DeVore did uncredited rewrite work on Timecop, Sudden Death (both starred "the Muscles from Brussels," Jean-Claude Van Damme), and The Relic, three of Peter Hyams's films from the '90s, I'm going to guess he's the one who worked with the director to rewrite Huston's original script, instead of the other way around. The rules the Writers Guild of America uses to determine final screen credit, and whose name goes where, are complicated, to say the least. DeVore died in a car accident in 1997, but because of the mysterious nature of the accident, his body wasn't found until more than a year later. Entertainment Weekly described the action-film screenwriter as having "a bit of a cowboy streak."

(4) I had completely forgotten about the Rod Temperton Beat Wagon's existence as a "band"—it performs "Never Too Late to Start," which is played over the closing credits—until I watched Running Scared again. When I was 16 I wrote and recorded a novelty song called "Mr. Sporangiophore" with a friend, and I convinced him to call our "band" the Jonathan Vance Beat Wagon for the sake of our one-off project. Temperton must've been racing to complete all the songs in time for the film's final edit when an assistant asked him, "Who do you want the song Tommy Funderburk sings to be credited to?" As an ambulance wailed in the distance, he responded, "Uh ... the Rod Temperton Meat Wagon. No, wait—Beat Wagon. Yeah, that sounds more musical."

Temperton had a good quote about songwriting in the Yorkshire Post three years ago: "You have to please yourself first. Once you feel the hairs stand up on the back of your hand—you can go for the world. Writing a song is the biggest moment of all. Yesterday it didn't exist. Today it does."

(5) After watching the film again, I wondered if a sequel was ever commissioned. Well, for one thing, Running Scared made $38 million in the summer of '86, which wasn't boffo B.O. even then. (The number-one film that summer was Top Gun, which grossed $176 million, or $340 million when adjusted for today's ticket prices.) But Lethal Weapon made $65 million at theaters the following spring and then became a huge hit on video and cable, paving the way for Lethal Weapon 2 to rake in $147 million in the summer of '89.

Was Running Scared a hit on video? I can't find any figures, but IMDB and Wikipedia claim that a sequel was developed, with Hines and Crystal chasing criminals in Paris. Gay Paree? Oui. (Wikipedia states: "Around the time of the original home video release of Running Scared … MGM announced that there definitely was a sequel forthcoming for the following year, taking the characters to Europe. A promotional photo showed Hines and Crystal in front of the Eiffel Tower.") "Still Running" never came to fruition, though, supposedly because its stars didn't like the scripts they read that placed Ray and Danny in the City of Lights. Coincidentally, Rush Hour 3, the 2007 installment of Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan's buddy-cop franchise, was set in Paris; previous installments took place in Los Angeles and Hong Kong.

(6) Hyams has been the director of photography on every movie he's helmed since 1984's 2010. The only other mainstream director I can think of who's taken a similar route is Steven Soderbergh, who's doubled as DP on every film he's directed since 2000's Traffic, though he uses the pseudonym "Peter Andrews" instead of his own name.

(7) This has nothing to do with Running Scared, but I don't care since I'm already indulging in random thoughts: The Paper, a newspaper movie I wrote about at Popdose back in November, was cowritten by David Koepp, who's also penned blockbusters like Jurassic Park, Mission: Impossible, Spider-Man, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, and the upcoming Angels & Demons. But he's also directed four of his own scripts over the past 13 years, including 1996's The Trigger Effect, which didn't hold up when I saw it a second time a few years ago, but the opening sequence is still an impressive distillation of the negative energy that can course through a movie theater on any given night.

None of the films Koepp's directed have been hits, including last fall's supernatural comedy Ghost Town, but he is skilled as a director, at least based on the two films of his that I've seen; he's clearly learned some tricks from collaborators like Steven Spielberg and Brian De Palma. He had the misfortune of following The Sixth Sense (1999) a month after it debuted with his own supernatural thriller, Stir of Echoes; I remember it as being pretty suspenseful in its own right, but it didn't stand a chance once M. Night Shyamalan's film became a surprise hit that inspired repeat viewings. I didn't see Secret Window (2004), which starred Johnny Depp and was based on a Stephen King novella, but it was another supernatural thriller. Koepp has proven that he's intrigued by the great beyond. If he can just put ghosts or angels together with dinosaurs, a masked superhero, and an archaeologist who are on a dangerous mission, he might be able to come up with a blockbuster directing project of his own.

paper play

I've been beaten to the punch by a real journalist. That's how it should be, of course.

I didn't realize until a couple weeks ago that The Soloist, the based-on-a-true-story drama about a schizophrenic, homeless musical prodigy (Jamie Foxx) and the newspaper columnist (Robert Downey Jr.) who writes about him, was set to open one week after State of Play, the political thriller starring Russell Crowe as a D.C. newspaper reporter. The Soloist was originally set to be released last November; I'm not sure why it was moved from awards season to April 24, the week before X-Men Origins: Wolverine kicks off the summer season and drowns out all the remaining spring releases, though it's never a good sign when a film's release date is pushed back nearly six months. (It was advertised during the Oscar telecast in February rather than being Oscar bait awarded during the telecast.)

Two high-profile movies in two weeks starring A-list actors as newspaper reporters! And at a time when newspapers are struggling, yet for many of us they're still the most trusted source of news, and the people who bring us that news remain fascinating characters who are well suited to dramas, thrillers, comedies, and romance—whatever genre provides a good story, just as they try to provide good stories, as long as those stories don't get in the way of the truth ... Okay, sometimes we like to watch fictional reporters discard the truth for a good story, but in real life we tend to look down on the Jayson Blairs of the business.

Back to what I was saying to begin with—David Denby of The New Yorker has already published his dual review of State of Play and The Soloist, and he notes the closeness of their release dates in his opening paragraph:

Sometimes a mere coincidence in Hollywood’s haphazard release schedule crystallizes a national moment—a gathering mood, a twinge of longing. Two ambitious new movies, “The Soloist” and “State of Play,” both offer the stirring sight of a daily newspaper being reported, printed, and delivered—loaded into trucks and flung onto front lawns before dawn. And that’s not all: in “State of Play,” the deadline for an important investigative piece is repeatedly pushed back until the reporter can get the full story; in “The Soloist,” a series of newspaper articles causes a mayor to change a city’s social policies. Each movie features, at its center, the kind of scruffy urban hero whom Raymond Chandler canonized long ago (“Down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean”)—in this case, not a private eye but a print journalist, slovenly and sleepless, hounded by editors, comfortable only in a banged-up Saab. He may be disorganized and inadequate in his personal life, but his professional instincts are superb. He knows how the city works; there’s no door he can’t open. Are the two movies simply sentimental? No, they deal directly with the economic threat to news coverage. Both newspapers in question—the Los Angeles Times, in “The Soloist,” and a Washington daily clearly modelled on the Post, in “State of Play”—are struggling to cut costs and stay in business, a difficult situation in which a talented reporter who takes his time is both a nuisance and a blessing. However else these movies succeed or fail, they tout the daily newspaper as guardian of a city’s integrity and soul.

Denby adds near the end of the review that in State of Play "Rachel McAdams is a cocky blogger who has to learn how much work goes into actual reporting," and "Crowe has an animal quickness and sensitivity, a threatening way of penetrating what someone is up to, a feeling for weakness in friends as well as opponents. He seems every inch a great journalist; it’s not his fault that the filmmakers let the big story slip through their fingers."

Brad Pitt was originally supposed to play Cal McAffrey, the role that Crowe inherited, but the filmmakers seem to have caught a lucky break by getting Crowe at the last minute: even though he'll always look like a movie star, he's put on some weight in the last few years, adding to his already burly frame and making him look like the kind of reporter who should probably get his personal life in order and start jogging. Maybe that's one reason why Crowe took the part, i.e. "You mean I don't have to take off the weight I gained for Body of Evidence? Good, because this body of carbs is harder to slim down than I thought." Even though Crowe looks like a movie star no matter what he plays—a problem every movie star has—Pitt looks nothing like any reporter I've ever seen in person. Then again, his previous-generation cinematic doppelganger, Robert Redford, looks nothing like a reporter either, and he worked out just fine as Bob Woodward in All the President's Men (1976), one of the best newspaper movies Hollywood has produced.

Roger Ebert's review of State of Play last Friday in the Chicago Sun-Times adds a funny observation about reality in movies versus the way things work at an actual newspaper: "When Cal and his sidekick the perky blogger solve the mystery and are back in the office and it is noted 'Cameron [the fictional Washington Globe's editor] has been holding the presses four hours!'—I think her new corporate bosses will want to have a long, sad talk with her, after which she will discover if the company still offers severance packages."

Cameron is played by Helen Mirren, and Ebert notes that the Globe's new owners are "on her neck to cut costs, redesign the venerable front page, get more scoops and go for the gossip today"—hence bloggers like McAdams's character—"instead of waiting for the Pulitzer tomorrow." Ebert refuses to believe that movies like State of Play represent the last stand of newspaper movies, "because no matter what happens to newspapers, the newspaper movie is a durable genre. Shouting 'stop the presses!' is ever so much more exciting than shouting 'stop the upload!'" I agree, and it's similar to how I'll feel if I ever hear a contemporary song that contains a line like "When you texted me this morning" or "My baby, she wrote me an e-mail." It just don't sound right. (At Popdose last fall I wrote about The Paper, a newspaper movie that takes great pride in the tradition of newspaper movies with its own “Stop the presses!” moment.)

In an interview with The Decider back in February, Ebert was asked what he thought of all the "regular people" writing their own movie reviews on blogs or posting video reviews on YouTube. He replied, "Some are really gifted, some should hang it up. [But] the flaw in the theory that the Net will replace newspapers is that the Net borrows, directly or indirectly, most of its content from newspapers. Today you can cite the New York Times. Would you rather cite a blogger in East Jesus, Iowa?"

Of course not. And even though I quote directly from newspapers all the time, you can cite me if you want. I'm a blogger who's neither perky nor cocky, and I do a great job of disguising my movie-star handsomeness.

Our comedic freedom will help you gain financial freedom.

Q: What about bloggers who post YouTube videos in lieu of original content?
A: Yes, as long as they wrote the videos themselves.
Q: Cool.
A: That wasn't a question.

"No, my brother—you've got to buy your own."

I noticed the other day that the Gmail "chat" status update for Scott Malchus, a writer at Popdose (and a current employee of Cartoon Network, where I used to work), was a reference to a line of dialogue from a commercial that was popular in the '80s: "No, my brother—you've got to buy your own."



At least I assume the ad for the Hey Love soul-ballad compilation ("the classic sounds of sexy soul") was popular. I don't remember seeing it until the summer of '91, when I first saw House Party (1990), which featured the commercial in a scene where some of the adult characters are watching TV. Even then I wasn't sure if it was a real commercial or something concocted by writer-director Reginald Hudlin for a quick laugh.

Scott, it turns out, was cribbing the "No, my brother" line from Cameron Crowe's Say Anything ... (1989), and had no idea it originated in a commercial in the first place.

Speaking of origins (I'm the king of smooth segues), I recently walked past a 7-11 with a cardboard cutout of Hugh Jackman promoting X-Men Origins: Wolverine, "only in theaters" May 1. That made me laugh, seeing as how a work print of the film was leaked online March 31.

That's unfortunate for 20th Century Fox, which hasn't had a huge blockbuster in a while (Marley & Me helped a bit last Christmas), but the bad karma seems to have spread to Fox News, another division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation: Two days after the Wolverine work print was leaked, FoxNews.com's entertainment columnist, Roger Friedman, downloaded a copy and reviewed it for the website. Four days after that, he was fired.

Friedman wrote that Wolverine, even in its unfinished state, "exceeds expectations at every turn," and he appeared to give a thumbs-up to online piracy by saying that watching the movie on his computer a month before it hits theaters is "so much easier than going out in the rain."

But he did like the movie, so cut him some slack, Rupert. Friedman's the only one trying to turn this ship around!

On the Los Angeles Times's website, entertainment writer Geoff Boucher wrote, "The review was an audacious thing to do (or maybe just stupid) considering that 20th Century Fox, a corporate relative, had gone to the FBI to fight back against the theft and mass piracy."

Oh yeah.

And now that I think about it, what were you thinking when you reviewed a pirated copy of your sister company's tentpole summer blockbuster, Friedman? There has to be a better way to earn Brownie points around that place.

But according to StudioBriefing.net, "Michael Wolff, author of the controversial Rupert Murdoch biography The Man Who Owns the News, has suggested that ... Friedman was fired not because he reviewed a pirated workprint of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but because he exposed how easy it was to watch it. On his blog, Wolff suggests that Friedman's case exposes how oblivious top media executives are to common behavior by young people using the Internet. 'They think of [watching pirated movies] as exceptional behavior, while everybody else knows it's trivial stuff. Actually Murdoch tends to think that almost everything that happens on the Internet involves dubious, if not outrageous, behavior,' Wolff wrote.

"On the Los Angeles Times blog, columnist Patrick Goldstein chimed in: 'Friedman took the fall for his own starry-eyed approach to piracy, but if media tycoons like Murdoch believe they can hang on to their old business model forever, they will soon be taking a much bigger fall than Friedman did.'"

I've never watched a pirated movie online, mostly because I don't like watching anything on my computer—even music videos from the '80s on YouTube—if it'd be better viewed on a bigger screen, but especially not an unfinished movie or one that's been recorded with a video camera (and a shaky hand) in a theater.

I doubt I'll end up seeing Wolverine in the theater, but even if I did have a pirated copy right now, I wouldn't share it. Instead I'd answer all requests with "No, my brother—you've got to buy your own ticket on May 1." (I'm also the king of callbacks.)

It's hard to forget what you never memorized in the first place.

In yesterday's Chicago Sun-Times there was a short Associated Press interview with John Mahoney, who played Kelsey Grammer's dad on Frasier for 11 seasons. But before that he was already known as a terrific stage and film actor, having started his acting career at Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago in the late '70s, when he was in his late 30s.

I thought I'd read long ago that he was selling insurance before he started doing plays, but according to the All Movie Guide, "Mahoney worked at different careers including college professor and medical journal editor in Chicago. Though he had appeared on-stage in his teens, Mahoney did not again become interested in acting until he was 37 and decided to enroll in classes at the St. Nicholas Theater, a Chicago institution co-founded by playwright/screenwriter David Mamet. After performing in one of Mamet's plays, Mahoney quit his latest job. Later, at the invitation of distinguished actor and classmate John Malkovich, Mahoney joined Chicago's Steppenwolf Theater, where he appeared in about 30 productions."

I also didn't know until I read the AP interview that Mahoney was born in England. Again, according to the All Movie Guide, he "emigrated to the U.S. at age 19 in the 1950s and joined the Army. One of the first things he worked on was losing his British accent, something he succeeded at doing. Once out of the service, Mahoney earned a B.A. from Quincy College and then graduated from Western Illinois University with a master's in English." His most high-profile role outside of Frasier, at least as far as my generation is concerned, is in Cameron Crowe's directorial debut, Say Anything... (1989), where he plays Ione Skye's adoring but misguided father.

There was a quote in the AP interview, which was tied to Mahoney's role in the new season of HBO's In Treatment, that I agree with 100 percent: "You have to be respectful of your script, and I try not to change a word ... I just like to learn the lines and then see what happens with the other actors. I listen to what's being said, and then respond to how it's said. I like to surprise myself." I want to find Mr. Mahoney in nearby Oak Park and ask him if he'll shout that quote at improvisers who often treat sketch comedy as an opportunity to expand improv comedy, also known as "the laziest art form," into the area of scripted material.

Many actors have cold-sweat anxiety dreams about getting onstage and not knowing a single line of dialogue, and when you do forget a line and "go up," three seconds of silence can feel like three minutes. Improvisers, generally speaking, don't have that anxiety since every line of dialogue springs from their own minds, but you can become speechless onstage nonetheless.

With scripted material, you have to memorize your lines and repeat them over and over until they're second nature and you've forgotten them, in a sense, so that all you're doing once you get onstage is listening and reacting to the other actors. Improvising with scripted material can work if each actor knows where the script begins and ends and is comfortable expanding on it or doing away with it entirely—with the blessing of the director and writer, of course—but I've had trouble reaching and maintaining that level of trust in a sketch show. (For many improvisers the "brass ring" is Saturday Night Live, the long-running TV sketch show that involves no improvising whatsoever. Go figure.)

Of course, if the script is constantly changing (if you're also the writer of a sketch that's a work in progress until opening night of your show, then you're changing it yourself), having enough time to memorize and forget can be difficult. But what's more difficult is when the actors change the lines themselves each time they perform a scene or sketch because they never memorized the lines correctly in the first place. Sometimes I've read scenes with improviser-actors for the first time and been stunned to see that they're changing every other word in the script as they read. Do we have different scripts? Or is it arrogance? Or ignorance? Or arrogantly ignored dyslexia that needs to be retroactively diagnosed and immediately treated?

The world may be a stage, but since people who can't read tend to get left behind in the modern world, the theatre world shouldn't be forgiving of actors and improvisers who've decided to leave behind one of the most important things they learned in kindergarten. (This is a rant. I know. And I realize I could try to be more forgiving, but I believe I have a legitimate complaint, Your Honor.)

catching up

Now that I've alleviated some carpal tunnel cramping at my desk at home, I'm catching up on posting some things I wrote a while ago, or things I hadn't completed yet, or things that I "bookmarked" to write about a while ago but kept putting off, like the post about Fast & Furious from March 9, which wasn't written on March 9.

I've said too much. Now I must flee before the procrastination police arrive.

1/1: Let it be, but don't let it end.
2/6: once underfoot, now six feet under (This one isn't new, but I added a bit more to it.)
2/6: Blart No Blunder: B.O. Boffo! (Hire me, Variety.)
2/28: Black History Month is almost over. I'd better make this quick.

I'm back—I always forget my wallet, keys, and cell phone when I'm on the run. Now I'm leaving, and to accompany my exit, here's a Christopher Cross hit that was used to great comic effect in one of SCTV's most memorable sketches.

There's a riot goin' on (that nobody cares about).

Isn't this one of those situations where we should just let the herd thin itself out? Models like to be thin, after all.

The following comes from IMDB's gossip page:

New Rules In Place To Avoid Another America's Top Model Riot
20 March 2009 6:25 PM PDT

The producers of Tyra Banks' hit reality TV show America's Next Top Model have created a set of rules for wannabes — to avoid a repeat of the riot that broke out at a casting call last weekend.

Potential contestants were waiting to try out for producers in Manhattan, New York, when chaos broke out on the streets outside the Park Central New York hotel. Hundreds of people were caught up in the melee, leaving the street outside the hotel littered with shoes and clothing.

Two women and a man were arrested on charges of inciting to riot and disorderly conduct, and six people were injured. Police were forced to shut down the casting call.

To avoid a repeat when America's Next Top Model bosses stage another open call in Dallas, Texas, on Saturday, producers insist they won't see anyone who has been lining up overnight, or prior to 6 am, and only women competing for a part on the show can stand in line, unless they're under 18. Teenagers will be allowed to stand with one guardian.

Faster! Furiouser!

I just saw a TV ad for Fast & Furious, the fourth movie in the car-fetish franchise that includes the words "Fast" and "Furious" somewhere in each film's title. The lineage of this series gets confusing, so buckle up. (Driving clichés are so hard to resist.)

The Fast and the Furious was directed by Rob Cohen and was something of a surprise hit in the summer of 2001. It also turned Vin Diesel into an action star. Neither Cohen nor Diesel returned for 2 Fast 2 Furious, which was released in '03. Instead they made XXX (2002), which was also a huge hit, though neither one returned for its sequel, either—Diesel's character was declared dead at the beginning of XXX: State of the Union (2005), which starred Ice Cube as the series' new "extreme" hero.

Paul Walker, Diesel's Fast and the Furious costar, did return for 2 Fast 2 Furious, and was teamed up with Tyrese Gibson. It was the latter's second collaboration with director John Singleton, who debuted with 1991's gang drama Boyz N the Hood and at the age of 24 became the youngest recipient of a Best Director nomination in Oscar history, though films like 2 Fast 2 Furious and his 2000 remake of Shaft are more indicative of where his career has gone in this decade.

Without Diesel's star power, it seemed as if 2 Fast 2 Furious might fade quickly at the box office (I hope you appreciate how much effort it's taking to avoid phrases like "sputter out" and "crash and burn" here), but it earned $127 million in the summer of '03, only $17 million less than its predecessor. XXX: State of the Union, however, made only $26 million compared to the original's $142 million take.

In 2006 came The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, directed by Justin Lin and starring Lucas Black from Sling Blade but none of the stars from the first two films in the series—until Vin Diesel showed up at the end in a cameo. Tokyo Drift earned $62 million.

Three years later we have Fast & Furious, which was originally going to be released in June but is now set to open April 3, according to an ad I saw on TV. I wonder if Universal got a peek at the final cut and decided the movie would be better off going up against weaker competition in the spring than in the crowded summer season. Fast & Furious reunites Diesel and Walker and female costars Michelle Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster from the first film, but the director is Tokyo Drift's Lin.

I've heard Fast & Furious referred to as an "interquel," a goofy, made-up word I'm praying doesn't catch on with the public, which would mean that the film's narrative takes place between those of 2 Fast 2 Furious and Tokyo Drift. To make matters more confusing, Diesel has reportedly directed a 20-minute prequel (which itself was a goofy made-up word at one point, I suppose—but now it's the law!) to Fast & Furious starring himself, Rodriguez, and Sung Kang.

As ComingSoon.net put it last August, "The fourth movie is a sequel to the first installment, and though Diesel didn't elaborate, we assume this 20-minute prequel will tie-in some of the events from the second and third movies. Rodriguez appeared in the first movie, Sung Kang in the third, and Diesel in the first with a brief cameo in the third."

I told you it was confusing, and I read that Diesel may also be returning to the XXX franchise soon for "XXX: The Return of Xander Cage." I guess his character didn't die after all. Coincidentally, John Singleton's next film, according to IMDB, is "Luke Cage," based on the Marvel Comics character who inspired Nicolas Cage's stage name. It's set to star Tyrese Gibson as Cage (Luke, not Nicolas).

All this film-franchise zigzagging is making me drowsy, and I'd hate to fall asleep at the wheel. (See how hard it is to resist these clichés?) I'll leave you with a picture of Diesel that I found last summer around the time Babylon A.D. came out. The sci-fi action film bombed, thanks in part to its director, Matthieu Kassovitz, telling the press how bad it was before it hit theaters. In my opinion, Diesel should've cut his losses as an action star at that point and pitched himself to studios as the star of "Mr. Potato Head: The Movie." I'd buy a ticket.

They say the neon lights are insanely bright on Broadway if you're tripping on X.

On February 28 the Chicago Sun-Times reported that a billboard advertisement at the corner of Melrose and Broadway, about a half mile from where I live, had been pulled due to complaints from residents and the principal of Nettelhorst Elementary School. The offending ad, which faced the school from across the street, promoted Xanadu, the intentionally campy touring production of the 2007 Broadway hit that’s based on the unintentionally campy 1980 Olivia Newton-John movie.

The ad included a positive blurb from Vanity Fair magazine: “It’s like taking Ecstasy.” And what’s the first letter of Xanadu? No pressure, children, but having X-rated fun while doing X is way more fun than any musical could ever be! Just ask your big brother's friend Drake. You remember Drake—he's the one who doesn't come around anymore, but the last time he did, all of your mom's jewelry suddenly vanished.


When I walked by Nettelhorst yesterday, I saw Xanadu’s replacement on the billboard: an ad for The Tale of Despereaux, with “Christmas” at the bottom of the ad. Supposedly this is the ad that was on the billboard prior to Xanadu’s, and Despereaux certainly seems more kid friendly than Xanadu, but note the last letter in the name of that movie’s title character. The subliminal advertising for Ecstasy continues!

(Despereaux is a French mouse, by the way. The makers of The Tale of Despereaux presumably hoped to cash in on the popularity of the French rat in 2007's Ratatouille, though Despereaux only made $50 million in theaters compared to Ratatouille's $206 million and an Oscar win for Best Animated Feature. “As usual with Pixar releases, critics heaped superlatives on [Ratatouille]," noted Dean Goodman in a Reuters article from July 1, 2007. "But it was no secret that Disney faced a marketing challenge with the movie: A rat in the kitchen raises hygiene concerns for some people.” I think as long as the vermin protagonist in Ratatouille doesn't try to cook anything in moviegoers' own kitchens, there's no reason to get hysterical.)

Broadway in Chicago, the local company that’s putting on Xanadu, said in a written statement that “We currently have an outside vendor who purchases our billboard space throughout the Chicagoland area, and the producers of the show requested that general area.” The “general area” is nicknamed Boystown because of its gay population, gay bars, gay clubs, etc., and gay men are the perfect audience for campy musicals about disco, roller skating, and cute boys roller skating to disco, right?

Maybe, but the fact that there’s a meth problem in Boystown makes the ad insensitive to that demographic as well, not just kids who might be staring out the window during math class and wondering, “How do you 'take ecstasy'? Is that like when I eat one of my grandma’s oatmeal raisin cookies and she says I’m ‘swallowing happiness’? Or is it like when I heard Uncle Gary telling Uncle Ted that he loves swallowing Uncle Ted's happiness?"

writing

"I think of it like that scene in [Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade], where he has to go across where there is no bridge, and he has to step out into nothingness—and there is a bridge you cannot see, below. It's an optical illusion. That's how I need writing to feel: finding the way by being willing to fall." —Miranda July, writer-director-actor-performance artist (Me and You and Everyone We Know), discussing the process of writing in a 2005 Hit It or Quit It interview

"Putting things off to the last second provides the necessary tension of waking up at 3 A.M. in sheer terror." —Les Charles, cocreator and executive producer of Cheers, discussing the discipline of writing in a 1987 New York Times article

"For television, you should always write as the cast is standing on the stage waiting." —Glen Charles, cocreator and executive producer of Cheers (and brother of Les), as quoted in the same article

"Better to write for yourself and have no public, than to write for the public and have no self." —Cyril Connolly

fear

My parents gave me America: The Book for Christmas three years ago along with the 2006 day-calendar version, but I still haven’t made it through all the entries. Day calendars make me anxious, alright? I’m expected to fully digest an entire 4.5" x 4.5" square of paper every single day even if it only contains a few words and a large graphic? I got tired just writing that sentence. But almost all the entries I've read so far are smart and laugh-out-loud funny, just as you’d expect from the writers of The Daily Show.

The heading for March 23, 2006, is “Quoting the President,” and the subheading is “On the Economy.” Below a picture of FDR are these quotes:

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

“Oh, and starvation. We might all starve.” —Franklin D. Roosevelt, March 4, 1933

Oscars wrap-up (What, too late?)

First off, Ben Stiller's take on Joaquin Phoenix's odd behavior outstayed its welcome when he presented the Best Cinematography award with Natalie Portman, partly because it was too much of an inside joke. I knew the reference, but I didn't see Phoenix's February appearance on Late Show With David Letterman until a few days ago, and a friend of mine had no idea what Stiller was doing and why people in the audience were laughing.



I hope Phoenix doesn't give up acting, because the YouTube clips of him on Late Show elicit many emotions: sympathy, embarrassment, annoyance with the audience, annoyance with Phoenix, sympathy for Letterman, sympathy for the audience. Back in 2000 when he was promoting Gladiator on The Tonight Show, Jay Leno supposedly ended the interview with "Thanks for coming, Joaquin. Next time bring your brain." I never saw that interview and can't find it on YouTube, but Letterman says something similar here. Joaquin marches to the beat of his own drum machine.

On to the main event—I've waited until now to talk about the Oscar ceremony that took place two weeks ago because I wanted to let it completely sink in before I did a full analysis. And if you believe that, I'd like to offer you an authentic Oscar statue for only $10,000 cash. I found it in the trash outside Jack Nicholson's place in Malibu. I guess he felt he didn't really deserve that third one for 1997's As Good as It Gets.

Two of the comments under the post I wrote (and actually finished!) the day of the Oscars took the words right out of my mouth. First, this one from Halfhearted Dude:

The TV direction in the In Memoriam segment was criminal — I almost wish that the director will feature in it next year for messing up the best part of the show. Long angle shots of screens on which the writing was too small, and sometimes the image of the late subject. Unlike certain child actors, I couldn't see dead people. And then the camera zoomed in and out and left and right; I nearly got seasick. What pretentious rubbish.

I agree wholeheartedly, Halfhearted! I was especially invested in this year's "In Memoriam" segment because of the 2008 passing of Sydney Pollack, one of my heroes, but as soon as the segment started with Queen Latifah singing whatever she was singing, I had a bad feeling. Since Laurence Mark and Bill Condon had said they wanted this year's ceremony to feel more like a party, I got the impression that they decided the big downer moment would be Heath Ledger's family's acceptance speech if he won (yep, I shed a tear, as I expected), and that the "In Memoriam" segment would be the equivalent of when you're at a party and you get stuck talking to your friend who becomes morose whenever he's drunk and wants to discuss "what it all means." You make a beeline for the cooler, which is what the cameramen seemed to do during the "In Memoriam" segment. I'm sure the producers didn't mean to be disrespectful in their presentation of the segment, but it was executed about as poorly as it possibly could. Next year the names and images need to be visible to the viewers at home the entire time, not just to the audience inside the Kodak Theatre.

Next up is this comment from Jane:

I couldn't stick with the whole Oscar ceremony. I think for me what was missing were the film clips. I've always enjoyed the film clips playing while the nominees are called. The "tribute" from previous winners was a nice idea, but didn't hold the same impact for me.

Again, I agree. The Oscar ceremony is already the most self-congratulatory night of the year in Hollywood, so amplying that aspect with the tributes to the actor nominees made me squirm. "You're great!" "No, you're great!" Enough. I have no doubt it's difficult to pick out solid Oscar clips for the actor nominees each year—a good performance can't be encapsulated in 20 seconds—but for people like me who hadn't seen most of the performances that were nominated, I had no reason to think any of the nominees were better than any other. At least with the Oscar clips you can be "hooked" in those 20 seconds and see a glimpse of lightning in a bottle, even if the clip just shows the actor screaming or crying, which are the "old standby" displays of emotion in Oscar clips. (My roommate during my freshman year of college thought that good acting boiled down to how loud you can yell, or at least that's the impression he gave. Who needs subtlety? Just crank up the volume, and flip over a table while you're at it.)

I think a conspiracy was afoot—yes, afoot!—with the Oscar clips because Robert Downey Jr. was nominated for Tropic Thunder. After he was nominated I wrote my friend Jeremy and said, "Do you think his 'full retard' speech in that movie will be the clip?" If you haven't seen Tropic Thunder, I'll just say that the speech involves the Downey character's take on why certain actors win Oscars for playing mentally handicapped people and others don't. For instance, Dustin Hoffman played a character who was merely autistic in Rain Man, so he won Best Actor in 1989, but Sean Penn "went full retard" in I Am Sam, so he didn't win Best Actor in 2002.

The host of a party who can make fun of himself or take a joke at his own expense is a good host, but maybe the Academy isn't that kind of host. Or maybe Sean Penn is still sore about losing that Oscar for I Am Sam. Or maybe the fact that Downey was the only "black" actor nominated this year in both the lead and supporting categories made the Academy not want to show what he looks like in Tropic Thunder, in case Al Sharpton or Jesse Jackson were nearby with a stack of fresh picket signs waiting to be hoisted. But the "full retard" speech, though it may be offensive to some moviegoers, does a good job of showing the mindset of Downey's five-time-Oscar-winning Method-actor character, who goes to extremes to capture the "truth" in his performances yet is still career-savvy enough to know what Academy members will vote for.

(I also think Downey's Oscar nomination was more of an acknowledgement that he's "back" than anything else. His performance in Tropic Thunder is funny at first, but it wears thin, and the movie is a disappointment overall. Meanwhile, the trailer for The Soloist, also starring Downey—though Jamie Foxx plays the black guy in this one—is on the Tropic Thunder DVD, and when I saw it I thought, "Oh yeah, wasn't this piece of Oscar bait supposed to come out in the fall?" Sure enough, it ends with the date "November 2008"; DreamWorks's decision to push the film's release back to April doesn't bode well for its quality.)

Did you notice what when Jennifer Aniston was presenting the animation awards with Jack Black, the camera cut to Angelina Jolie in the front row looking at Aniston? Reeeal classy, Mr. Director. It wouldn't be a party without icy tension between two gorgeous women who've both been with the same guy!

What else? I think Beyoncé was lip-synching during the big Baz Luhrmann-choreographed musical number. And I liked that Sean Penn acknowledged Mickey Rourke in his acceptance speech for Best Actor, because it reminded me that Rourke had a great cameo in The Pledge, which was directed by Penn and starred Jack Nicholson. I recommend it if you haven't seen it. I had low expectations when I first saw it because it came out in January of '01 but was originally supposed to be released in the fall of 2000 to qualify for awards season. Releasing a film in January is never a good sign, but The Pledge isn't an embarrassment by any means. It stuck with me long after I saw it, and though Rourke only has one scene, it was enough to remind me that he was still a good actor who had something left to prove.

Black History Month is almost over. I'd better make this quick.

Chicago's Black Ensemble Theatre has previously produced musical revues like Memphis Soul: The Story of Stax Records and I Am Who I Am: The Teddy Pendergrass Story (Pendergrass was listed as "the late soul star" in the Chicago Reader in the fall of 2007 in its one-sentence preview of the play—I promise I would've caught that if it had come across my desk). Their latest production is I Gotcha: The Story of Joe Tex and the Soul Clan, which focuses on the Texas-born soul singer, born Joseph Arrington Jr., and fellow "Soul Clan" performers Ben E. King, Wilson Pickett, and Solomon Burke. Unlike Pendergrass, Tex really is "late"—he died in 1982 at the age of 49.

The song of his I know best is "I Gotcha," a stomp-and-shout firecracker from 1972 whose chorus was borrowed by rapper Def Jef for 1989's "Give It Here." I love "I Gotcha," but it's one of the most sexually aggressive songs I've ever heard, as is "Give It Here." The object of affection should get a restraining order, but while she's waiting for the judge to grant one, a can of Mace will suffice. Here are the lyrics:

I gotcha (Uh-huh, huh)
Ya thought I didn't see ya, now didn't ya? (Uh-huh, huh)
Ya tried to sneak by me, now didn't ya? (Uh-huh, huh)
Now give me what you promised me
Give it here, come on!

You promised me the day that you quit your boyfriend
I'd be the next one to ease on in
You promised me it would be just us two
And I'd be the only man kissin' on you

Now kiss me
Hold it a long time, hold it
Don't turn it loose now, hold it
A little bit longer, now hold it
Come on
Hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it
Now ease up for me

You made me a promise and you're gonna stick to it
You shouldn't have promised if you wudn't gonna do it
You saw me and ran in another direction
I'll teach you to play with my affection

Now give it here
You never shoulda promised to me
Give it here
Don't hold back now
Give it here
Don't say nothin', just give it here
Come on
Give it here, give it here, give it here, give it here
Give it to me now, good God, hey, I gotcha!

Any man can understand the frustration of being teased along by a woman who hints you're next in line, then reneges on the deal. (A guy like Prince Charles understands it in a different way.) But once it's clear your oral contract isn't going to be honored, you have to move on. You can't threaten her. You can't call her names. You can write a song about her, and it doesn't hurt if you make it irresistibly funky, but keep the sexual menace to a minimum. Otherwise you're no better than the Jonas Brothers. Sure, they appear squeaky clean on the surface, but with a song title like "Live to Party," you know they're trouble. (They haven't covered "I Gotcha" yet, but they do cover Shania Twain's "I'm Gonna Getcha Good" on their latest album, Music from the 3D Concert Experience.)

Eddie Murphy used to joke that Teddy Pendergrass "scares the bitches into liking him" with his forceful baritone, but it's not a foolproof method. I would ask Teddy what his secret is, but I read somewhere that he died. (I gotcha.)

compact men

Last night on TV I saw 1989's Leviathan, which stars Peter Weller (RoboCop, Naked Lunch) and Richard Crenna and is essentially Alien transferred to an underwater setting. The screenplay is credited to David Webb Peoples and Jeb Stuart; Peoples cowrote science fiction classics like Blade Runner and Twelve Monkeys and wrote Clint Eastwood's Best Picture winner Unforgiven, and Stuart's screenwriting credits include Die Hard and The Fugitive. But from what I saw last night, Leviathan isn't in the same league as those movies. In fact, it's 20,000 leagues lower. (Oh, hush. You knew that was coming.) It was directed by the late George P. Cosmatos, who had previously helmed the Sylvester Stallone blow-'em-ups Rambo: First Blood Part II and Cobra, so maybe he's the one to blame.

I've heard that most leading men are around 5'8". In Leviathan there's a shot where you see Weller walking toward the camera, and I got the feeling he wasn't that tall. Then I remembered walking past him in Chicago two years ago when he was starring as Frank Lloyd Wright in Frank's Home at the Goodman Theatre. I noticed he was my height. And I'm not tall. Therefore I should be a leading man.

I've also heard that many movie stars appear to have larger heads than the average nobody if you see them in person; I can't remember Weller's head looking that big as I walked past him, but on screen it's quite an impressive orb. On the fifth season of 24, in 2006, it looked even larger now that his hairline has receded. Side note: Did you know Weller earned his master's degree in Renaissance Art History in 2004 from Syracuse University and has taught a class there on "Hollywood and the Roman Empire"?

At the end of Leviathan, Ernie Hudson, a.k.a. the black Ghostbuster, is one of the three crew members who survives the monster attack. When he reached the surface with Weller and Amanda Pays (who plays a character named Elizabeth "Willie" Williams—it's important to amp up the homoerotic quotient in action movies by giving "the girl" a male-sounding nickname) after they'd blown up their underwater mining station and escaped, I thought, "Good for the black character surviving all the way to the end. That's rare in bad horror movies." But since it is a bad horror movie made in the '80s, of course there's one last attack. I was in the other room when it happened, but when I returned Hudson was no longer there, so the monster must've gotten him. You're never safe, black characters. President Obama, please address this problem.

Here's something I wasn't expecting at the very end of the movie, though: Weller and Pays are approached by a haughty female executive (Meg Foster) who tells them how glad she is they survived. Without having seen her earlier in the film, I knew she was there to fill the slot of the Paul Reiser character from 1986's Aliens, who values money over people. I jokingly said to the screen, "Punch her!" And Weller did! I was kidding, you jerk! At least let "the girl" punch her. Short guys like Peter and me are still angry these days (why is this stupid post taking me so long to fact-check?!), but 20 years after Leviathan there are at least fewer scenes of men punching women in mainstream Hollywood movies.