And we're back with another semi-regular Miss Media Junkie Blog follow-up post, to provide you with updates on topics I've previously written about, but that I don't believe require an entire new post to themselves. The original posts are linked below for your convenience.
Who Should Direct "Cinderella"? - Kenneth Branagh's name has come up as a likely contender for the director's chair. That's a perfectly good choice in light of Branagh's work on "Thor," but I have say it's still very strange to see Branagh helming such mainstream, commercial films. Then again, if "Cinderella" goes well, maybe he can convince Disney to pay for his next Shakespeare adaptation.
Goodbye to the Nostalgia Critic - Well that didn't last long. Doug Walker's new satirical web series "Demo Reel" premiered in October and lasted all of five episodes before Walker called it quits and decided to resurrect the Nostalgia Critic character and show. The rules have changed - no more date restrictions on what he'll review, and we only get a new episode every two weeks - but otherwise, he's back. One can argue about Walker's creative principles, but from a business standpoint this was probably the right decision. I meant to watch "Demo Reel" but I kept putting it off and putting it off. However, when I saw that the Nostalgia Critic was back, I didn't hesitate to click the link and watch the new episodes. The latest thrashing of Michael Bay's "Pearl Harbor" was most enjoyable.
The Sleepers of December and Dreamworks Animation Gets Ambitious - At the time of writing, "Life of Pi" has brought in $111 million in the US and over half a billion worldwide. That makes it the highest grossing of the Best Picture Oscar nominees. "Rise of the Guardians," unfortunately, barely inched over the $100 million mark in the US and even with the additional $200 million from overseas, it's probably going to lose money. Dreamworks Animation hasn't been doing too well in the past few months, delaying "Mr. Peabody & Sherman" from November, 2013 to next spring, and pulling Me and My Shadow" from their slate entirely. Next up for them is going to be "The Croods," which has been getting overshadowed by marketing for the "Monsters Inc" prequel that's not coming out until summer.
The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown - I haven't watched "House of Cards" yet since I've been so busy, but rest assured that you'll be getting a full report soon. The early word is that the series is a success for Netflix. Not only is it getting high marks from critics and viewers, but a survey of Netflix users appears to indicate that the availability of the show is helping to retain subscribers. But how long will that effect last? And without the traditional television ratings, can there be adequate comparison the performance of other shows? Currently there's no sign of one major indicator of success: a renewal. And I'm very interested in how the "House of Cards" will be treated at awards time.
About the New Fall TV Season - "666 Park Avenue"? Cancelled. "Last Resort"? Cancelled. "Elementary" and "Arrow" look like they're going to be around for the long term, and "Vegas" is still up in the air. It got a full season, but the ratings may not be good enough for a renewal. And "Revolution," inexplicably, has become a hit. On the comedy side, "Go On" and "The New Normal" on NBC both got full seasons, but only "Go On" is likely to be around next year. "The Mindy Project" has been getting better, both in content and ratings. And good grief, is "Beauty and the Beast" really still on the air?
The Unscheduled Contenders - You know, this is why I should refrain from trying to act like an entertainment reporter. A grand total of none of the movies that I talked about in that post ended up with a 2012 release date or were part of the awards conversation at all. Mike Newell's "Great Expectations" was released in the UK back in November to middling reviews, but there's no sign of an American release. The rest are all being released in 2013, though "Mr. Pip" doesn't have a date set yet, and "Imogene" has been retitled "Girl Most Likely."
Notes on the "Ninja Turtle" Situation - "Ninja Turtle" fans can't say they weren't warned. After the leaking of a lousy script, the project appeared to be quashed last year, but Michael Bay went and tweeted a few days ago that not only was the reboot still in the works, but that he planned to cast Megan Fox in it. The immediate assumption was that Fox was going to be playing April O'Neil, the plucky reporter that the Turtles were always saving from peril. Fans were not happy about this, and have been airing their grievances to the internet ever since.
6 More Upcoming Anime Adaptations to Worry About - I guess you could call this a non-update. I wrote this post sixteen months ago, and in that time none of the project mentioned has moved an inch. Even Starz's planned "Noir" series has been stalled for over a year. Fortunately "Akira" remains quite dead. I think it's safe to say that whatever interest Hollywood had in the anime audience has cooled enough that we don't really have to worry about any of them.
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Saturday, February 23, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
The New "Community" Status Quo
So it's been three weeks and three new episodes since "Community" finally returned to our screens, and I think that's enough to start drawing some conclusions. The show has lost its creator and primary creative force, Dan Harmon, and a good chunk of its writing staff. However, the replacement folks have elected not to overhaul the show, but pretend that nothing has changed. So far, they're doing a pretty good job of maintaining the style and the tone of the first three seasons of "Community," but there's clearly something different about season four. I don't think this is necessarily a bad difference, but there is a difference.
On the surface, things look the same. We've still got lots of in-jokes and meta humor. Last night's episode made ample use of "Inspector Spacetime," the "Doctor Who" spoof that Troy and Abed are fans of. Efforts have been made to preserve the character development. Britta's still the worst therapist in training ever, she and Troy have gotten together romantically, Pierce is still prone to bouts of evil behavior, and Jeff is working on being nicer, more altruistic Jeff. Shirley still never gets enough time or attention. However, there's something not quite right about Annie, and the Dean and Chang have only had minor appearances so far in spite of fairly hefty roles last season. And dare I even mention Starburns, Leonard, Magnitude, Vicky, Garrett, and Fat Neil? Where is everybody?
That said, the new episodes are fine. The premiere seemed a little frantic, pushing the zany, meta, reference humor a little too hard, but I really liked the Halloween episode, better than last year's, even. Last night's "Inspector Spacetime" convention episode had some weak spots, but it's not like "Community" didn't have its weaker episodes, especially back in the first season. I think the real difference is the change in attitude. When we left the show at the end of season three, it was going strong with a full head of steam. I didn't like the third season as much as the second. I thought that some of the developments were a little too unlikely, and some of the meta humor was getting self-indulgent. However, there was a boldness and a confidence about even the weakest half-hours such that I never questioned the commitment of the writers to their ideas. It's that confidence that helped them pull off some of the big highlights of that season, including the pillow and blanket fort war, and the video game episode.
The new episodes by contrast are tentative, made by people who are afraid of making a wrong move, of not giving the audience what they expect from "Community." The trouble with that attitude is that "Community" has built its reputation on giving the audience what it doesn't expect. The new episodes have made a good effort at providing the kind of crazy concepts that we've seen on the show in the past. However, the nerdy convention and the enrollment "Hunger Games" and the haunted house all feel kind of familiar, and they're clearly a step back from the more experimental, boundary-pushing stuff that was going on by the end of the third season. I often wanted "Community" to reign in the weirder shenanigans a bit and get back to community college life, but this feels like the show regressing rather than toning things down.
The other big issue is that the so much of "Community" is based on the character interactions and relationships that have been built up over the last three seasons, and suddenly some of those relationships aren’t quite where we left them. Annie was maturing nicely and seemed to have put her crush on Jeff behind her, and now she's indulging in secret fantasies about him. Meanwhile, Jeff's softening up a little too fast, and the Troy and Britta relationship seems to have skipped a few steps ahead. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing in the long run, but it's different, and it's going to take some adjusting to. Fortunately the Troy and Abed bromance still seems to be in good shape, and Jeff and Britta's banterful antagonism is right about where it should be. Given time, I'm sure I'll adjust to the rest.
But are we going to get that time? I'm certainly going to keep watching "Community," but in this form it's not quite as satisfying as it used to be, and the fanbase may get restless. The competition certainly isn't letting up either. Big Bang" isn't the most consistent show, but when it hits, like it did last night, it hits pretty hard. I've juggled these two sitcoms for years, trying to decide which to give priority to. "Community" usually came out on top, but after its recent setbacks, the race is getting much, much closer.
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On the surface, things look the same. We've still got lots of in-jokes and meta humor. Last night's episode made ample use of "Inspector Spacetime," the "Doctor Who" spoof that Troy and Abed are fans of. Efforts have been made to preserve the character development. Britta's still the worst therapist in training ever, she and Troy have gotten together romantically, Pierce is still prone to bouts of evil behavior, and Jeff is working on being nicer, more altruistic Jeff. Shirley still never gets enough time or attention. However, there's something not quite right about Annie, and the Dean and Chang have only had minor appearances so far in spite of fairly hefty roles last season. And dare I even mention Starburns, Leonard, Magnitude, Vicky, Garrett, and Fat Neil? Where is everybody?
That said, the new episodes are fine. The premiere seemed a little frantic, pushing the zany, meta, reference humor a little too hard, but I really liked the Halloween episode, better than last year's, even. Last night's "Inspector Spacetime" convention episode had some weak spots, but it's not like "Community" didn't have its weaker episodes, especially back in the first season. I think the real difference is the change in attitude. When we left the show at the end of season three, it was going strong with a full head of steam. I didn't like the third season as much as the second. I thought that some of the developments were a little too unlikely, and some of the meta humor was getting self-indulgent. However, there was a boldness and a confidence about even the weakest half-hours such that I never questioned the commitment of the writers to their ideas. It's that confidence that helped them pull off some of the big highlights of that season, including the pillow and blanket fort war, and the video game episode.
The new episodes by contrast are tentative, made by people who are afraid of making a wrong move, of not giving the audience what they expect from "Community." The trouble with that attitude is that "Community" has built its reputation on giving the audience what it doesn't expect. The new episodes have made a good effort at providing the kind of crazy concepts that we've seen on the show in the past. However, the nerdy convention and the enrollment "Hunger Games" and the haunted house all feel kind of familiar, and they're clearly a step back from the more experimental, boundary-pushing stuff that was going on by the end of the third season. I often wanted "Community" to reign in the weirder shenanigans a bit and get back to community college life, but this feels like the show regressing rather than toning things down.
The other big issue is that the so much of "Community" is based on the character interactions and relationships that have been built up over the last three seasons, and suddenly some of those relationships aren’t quite where we left them. Annie was maturing nicely and seemed to have put her crush on Jeff behind her, and now she's indulging in secret fantasies about him. Meanwhile, Jeff's softening up a little too fast, and the Troy and Britta relationship seems to have skipped a few steps ahead. Again, this is not necessarily a bad thing in the long run, but it's different, and it's going to take some adjusting to. Fortunately the Troy and Abed bromance still seems to be in good shape, and Jeff and Britta's banterful antagonism is right about where it should be. Given time, I'm sure I'll adjust to the rest.
But are we going to get that time? I'm certainly going to keep watching "Community," but in this form it's not quite as satisfying as it used to be, and the fanbase may get restless. The competition certainly isn't letting up either. Big Bang" isn't the most consistent show, but when it hits, like it did last night, it hits pretty hard. I've juggled these two sitcoms for years, trying to decide which to give priority to. "Community" usually came out on top, but after its recent setbacks, the race is getting much, much closer.
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Thursday, February 21, 2013
Why Can't I Watch "Black Mirror"?
UK science-fiction fans have been buzzing about the second season of Charlie Brooker's anthology series "Black Mirror," which is very much like "The Twilight Zone" or "The Outer Limits," but pointedly looks at the potential consequences of recent advances in technology, like social media and Big Brother style surveillance. I stumbled across an episode of the first series about a year ago on Youtube, not realizing it was part of a television series. I was so impressed that I gave it a good review over here. And then I made a mental note to look out for the DVDs when they became available so I could rewatch it legally.
Well, a whole year later, after a thorough search, I've discovered that the first season of "Black Mirror" is still not available to American viewers in any way shape or form. None of the streaming sites have it. The DVDs listed for sale on Amazon are Region 2 only, with prominent warning notices that they will not play on a Region 1 DVD player. The show does not appear to have been licensed to any American network or website, though it's apparently been making the rounds in Europe. Robert Downey Jr. picked up the remake rights to the third episode, "The Entire History of You," the only sign that the Brits are aware the potential American audience exists. Of course it's very easy for any curious American viewer with an internet connection to get a hold of "Black Mirror" episodes through unofficial channels. A cursory glance at Youtube reveals that the one episode I found a year ago is still there. That’s a worrying sign.
It used to be that a movie or television show from a foreign country was entirely inaccessible until a domestic version was officially released. This didn't mean that foreign media didn't still get around, but it usually required a lot of effort. My relatives would trade VHS tapes of recorded Chinese soap operas and American cartoons back and forth across the Pacific. My college anime club had a collection of nth generation fansubs with amateur subtitles. Now, it's possible to find these shows online a few hours after they air in Taiwan or Japan, thanks to digital recording and broadband internet. And yet, media companies often persist in retaining the delays between release dates in one country versus release dates in another. I constantly run across complaints from Anglophiles in the US waiting for the new season of "Downton Abbey," or animation fans in the UK who can't understand why there was a three month gap between the American release of "Wreck-It Ralph" and the British one.
The usual reasons for the delays are familiar by this point. The studios and distributors want to tailor each release to specific countries, they want to capitalize on the show or film's successful performance elsewhere first, or they just don't have the resources to put everything out simultaneously. The extra time is needed to finalize deals, to create new campaigns, and to ensure the best possible positioning of the property to maximize viewership. Unfortunately, more often than not the reality is that if these delays are perceived as too long, tech-savvy viewers are going to bypass the official releases entirely in favor of piracy. That's why the delays are getting shorter for the most prominent titles, like blockbuster movies and popular television shows. Though they’ve been dragging their heels, the distribution companies are learning. A well-received, but obscure foreign prestige film might take over a year to show up in the US, if at all, but new "Doctor Who" episodes pop up on iTunes within days of airing in the UK.
I don't doubt that "Black Mirror" is going to find its way Stateside eventually, but right now it seems to have slipped through the cracks. The buzz around it is significant enough, with many geek media sites trumpeting its praises, that the demand for it is surely there. "Black Mirror" is quickly becoming one of those British television titles that people are recommending in the same breath as "Sherlock," "Luther," and "Misfits." The trouble is, "Sherlock" and "Luther" are on Netflix, "Misfits" is on Hulu, and you can find all of them on iTunes. Where is "Black Mirror"? It's absolutely dumbfounding that somebody hasn't picked up the license yet. Heck, I'm surprised Syfy hasn't cut a deal to air edited versions, the way they did with "Doctor Who" and "Merlin." This is the kind of content they usually eat up.
As for me, I guess I'm still going to stick it out, at least for a while longer. However, I am getting more and more frustrated. I don't think that a year is too long to wait, honestly. I've still got the latest seasons of "Dexter" and "Louie" and "American Horror Story" in the queue. "Game of Thrones" fans who don't have HBO had a ten month wait for the DVDs and Blu-Rays, but at least they knew in advance about it.
The last episode of the second series of "Black Mirror" airs Monday on Channel 4 in the UK, and who knows when anywhere else.
---
Well, a whole year later, after a thorough search, I've discovered that the first season of "Black Mirror" is still not available to American viewers in any way shape or form. None of the streaming sites have it. The DVDs listed for sale on Amazon are Region 2 only, with prominent warning notices that they will not play on a Region 1 DVD player. The show does not appear to have been licensed to any American network or website, though it's apparently been making the rounds in Europe. Robert Downey Jr. picked up the remake rights to the third episode, "The Entire History of You," the only sign that the Brits are aware the potential American audience exists. Of course it's very easy for any curious American viewer with an internet connection to get a hold of "Black Mirror" episodes through unofficial channels. A cursory glance at Youtube reveals that the one episode I found a year ago is still there. That’s a worrying sign.
It used to be that a movie or television show from a foreign country was entirely inaccessible until a domestic version was officially released. This didn't mean that foreign media didn't still get around, but it usually required a lot of effort. My relatives would trade VHS tapes of recorded Chinese soap operas and American cartoons back and forth across the Pacific. My college anime club had a collection of nth generation fansubs with amateur subtitles. Now, it's possible to find these shows online a few hours after they air in Taiwan or Japan, thanks to digital recording and broadband internet. And yet, media companies often persist in retaining the delays between release dates in one country versus release dates in another. I constantly run across complaints from Anglophiles in the US waiting for the new season of "Downton Abbey," or animation fans in the UK who can't understand why there was a three month gap between the American release of "Wreck-It Ralph" and the British one.
The usual reasons for the delays are familiar by this point. The studios and distributors want to tailor each release to specific countries, they want to capitalize on the show or film's successful performance elsewhere first, or they just don't have the resources to put everything out simultaneously. The extra time is needed to finalize deals, to create new campaigns, and to ensure the best possible positioning of the property to maximize viewership. Unfortunately, more often than not the reality is that if these delays are perceived as too long, tech-savvy viewers are going to bypass the official releases entirely in favor of piracy. That's why the delays are getting shorter for the most prominent titles, like blockbuster movies and popular television shows. Though they’ve been dragging their heels, the distribution companies are learning. A well-received, but obscure foreign prestige film might take over a year to show up in the US, if at all, but new "Doctor Who" episodes pop up on iTunes within days of airing in the UK.
I don't doubt that "Black Mirror" is going to find its way Stateside eventually, but right now it seems to have slipped through the cracks. The buzz around it is significant enough, with many geek media sites trumpeting its praises, that the demand for it is surely there. "Black Mirror" is quickly becoming one of those British television titles that people are recommending in the same breath as "Sherlock," "Luther," and "Misfits." The trouble is, "Sherlock" and "Luther" are on Netflix, "Misfits" is on Hulu, and you can find all of them on iTunes. Where is "Black Mirror"? It's absolutely dumbfounding that somebody hasn't picked up the license yet. Heck, I'm surprised Syfy hasn't cut a deal to air edited versions, the way they did with "Doctor Who" and "Merlin." This is the kind of content they usually eat up.
As for me, I guess I'm still going to stick it out, at least for a while longer. However, I am getting more and more frustrated. I don't think that a year is too long to wait, honestly. I've still got the latest seasons of "Dexter" and "Louie" and "American Horror Story" in the queue. "Game of Thrones" fans who don't have HBO had a ten month wait for the DVDs and Blu-Rays, but at least they knew in advance about it.
The last episode of the second series of "Black Mirror" airs Monday on Channel 4 in the UK, and who knows when anywhere else.
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Wednesday, February 20, 2013
This Week in Rumor Control
As if we didn't have enough Disney-related rumors going around, yesterday a Colombian radio personality claimed that PIXAR was going ahead with a fourth "Toy Story" movie, to be released in 2015, and had already gotten Tom Hanks and other stars to agree to reprise their roles. None of the usual media news sources backed them up, and frankly anybody who was remotely familiar with PIXAR recognized right away that this was probably not reliable information. There is an untitled PIXAR movie on the slate for November of 2015, and Tom Hanks has claimed that "Toy Story 4" is in development, but there have been just as many denials that PIXAR is going forward with another sequel. Now, it's not too unlikely that PIXAR is considering giving Woody and his friends another movie. A Halloween special featuring the characters is in the works, and several shorts have produced. I caught the one with Rex and the bath toys at a Disney store over the weekend. However, nothing is remotely official yet.
Of course, that didn't stop bloggers and smaller sites from spreading the rumor around, and getting the internet worked up into a frenzy. The discussion went from questioning the news sources to talking about potential ideas for a new sequel to complaining about how PIXAR had jumped the shark by indulging in this kind of sequelitis very quickly. By the time the inevitable denial articles came around from sites like IGN and Ain’t it Cool News, the "Toy Story 4" rumors had already been digested and debated and absorbed like it was a real piece of news. The same thing happened with the rumor that Harrison Ford was returning as Han Solo to the "Star Wars" franchise a few days ago. That one came from a more reputable source, a Fox News Latino correspondent, and was reported by many legitimate news outlets, but ultimately there was no concrete evidence that any of it was true, just like the rumors about the possible "Star Wars" spinoffs about Yoda and Boba Fett and the young Han Solo that were running wild last week.
Entertainment news runs by different rules than regular news. It's a gossip-based economy, where there are almost no bad consequences for making up completely false claims and spreading around bad information. Being first to break this kind of news is much more important than getting the details right. The studios allow them to proliferate because they're fairly harmless. Rumors can even help gauge the public's reaction to certain ideas and possibilities, which is why some suggested that the new "Toy Story 4" rumors might have been planted on purpose, to see how people would react. If this happened with hard news, there would be scandals and backlash and recriminations. Rumors related to the business side of Hollywood are treated much more carefully, because there are hard consequences to getting that kind of information wrong. However, conjecture about projects in development, or who might be attached to play which role, rarely has so much impact, so there's more permissiveness.
I find this attitude a real a pain in the neck, personally. Sure, sometimes the rumors are fun on a slow news day, but they can also be such distracting, annoying, and kind of disheartening. I'm not going to put down anyone for getting excited over a possible "Toy Story 4," but this was such a bad rumor to begin with. A news item from Colombia based on the word of unnamed sources? Why would anyone believe this for a second? Why would countless bloggers and websites pass this around without waiting for any kind of confirmation? Is there any degree of skepticism at all in this process? Geographically I don't live too far from the PIXAR studios in Emeryville. I could know somebody who knows somebody who's working on the development of this new sequel. I could make up just about anything I want, let it loose on Twitter, and cause a media storm of similar proportions. I could say Brad Bird has been working on "The Incredibles 2" all this time, alongside "Tomorrowland," and offer no proof at all, and someone out there would believe me.
Let's just be clear that the preceding paragraph is a total hypothetical, before some data-scraper program gets too excited. Okay?
Sigh. I don't mean to get all worked up, but the rumor mill can be really frustrating sometimes. I particularly dislike that it tends to drown out smaller, but more concrete media news items that I find much more interesting. On the animation front, Dreamworks' "Peabody and Mr. Sherman" recently got pushed back to 2014, and "Me and My Shadow" was pulled from their slate, preceding a potential round of layoffs. And we just got a new batch of promotional material for "Ender's Game" - you know, that movie that Harrison Ford is actually appearing in this November. It's nothing as big or exciting as the recent rumors, but at least these stories are actually real.
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Of course, that didn't stop bloggers and smaller sites from spreading the rumor around, and getting the internet worked up into a frenzy. The discussion went from questioning the news sources to talking about potential ideas for a new sequel to complaining about how PIXAR had jumped the shark by indulging in this kind of sequelitis very quickly. By the time the inevitable denial articles came around from sites like IGN and Ain’t it Cool News, the "Toy Story 4" rumors had already been digested and debated and absorbed like it was a real piece of news. The same thing happened with the rumor that Harrison Ford was returning as Han Solo to the "Star Wars" franchise a few days ago. That one came from a more reputable source, a Fox News Latino correspondent, and was reported by many legitimate news outlets, but ultimately there was no concrete evidence that any of it was true, just like the rumors about the possible "Star Wars" spinoffs about Yoda and Boba Fett and the young Han Solo that were running wild last week.
Entertainment news runs by different rules than regular news. It's a gossip-based economy, where there are almost no bad consequences for making up completely false claims and spreading around bad information. Being first to break this kind of news is much more important than getting the details right. The studios allow them to proliferate because they're fairly harmless. Rumors can even help gauge the public's reaction to certain ideas and possibilities, which is why some suggested that the new "Toy Story 4" rumors might have been planted on purpose, to see how people would react. If this happened with hard news, there would be scandals and backlash and recriminations. Rumors related to the business side of Hollywood are treated much more carefully, because there are hard consequences to getting that kind of information wrong. However, conjecture about projects in development, or who might be attached to play which role, rarely has so much impact, so there's more permissiveness.
I find this attitude a real a pain in the neck, personally. Sure, sometimes the rumors are fun on a slow news day, but they can also be such distracting, annoying, and kind of disheartening. I'm not going to put down anyone for getting excited over a possible "Toy Story 4," but this was such a bad rumor to begin with. A news item from Colombia based on the word of unnamed sources? Why would anyone believe this for a second? Why would countless bloggers and websites pass this around without waiting for any kind of confirmation? Is there any degree of skepticism at all in this process? Geographically I don't live too far from the PIXAR studios in Emeryville. I could know somebody who knows somebody who's working on the development of this new sequel. I could make up just about anything I want, let it loose on Twitter, and cause a media storm of similar proportions. I could say Brad Bird has been working on "The Incredibles 2" all this time, alongside "Tomorrowland," and offer no proof at all, and someone out there would believe me.
Let's just be clear that the preceding paragraph is a total hypothetical, before some data-scraper program gets too excited. Okay?
Sigh. I don't mean to get all worked up, but the rumor mill can be really frustrating sometimes. I particularly dislike that it tends to drown out smaller, but more concrete media news items that I find much more interesting. On the animation front, Dreamworks' "Peabody and Mr. Sherman" recently got pushed back to 2014, and "Me and My Shadow" was pulled from their slate, preceding a potential round of layoffs. And we just got a new batch of promotional material for "Ender's Game" - you know, that movie that Harrison Ford is actually appearing in this November. It's nothing as big or exciting as the recent rumors, but at least these stories are actually real.
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Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Last Preliminary Oscar Thoughts
I've seen nearly all of this year's Oscar nominees. I'm missing most of the shorts, most of the documentaries, and most of the foreign films. However, I've actually seen just about all the movies in all the big categories this year, including every last Best Picture contender and all the acting performances. That's pretty big for me. Last year at this point in time I couldn't bring myself to plunk down the ticket money for "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" or "War Horse" (a wise decision in retrospect), and I was missing a bunch of performances from smaller films like "My Week With Marilyn." This year, the extra voting time for Academy members meant more time to hunt down the titles already released on DVD, and I did pretty well seeking out the likeliest nominees earlier in the season.
So the Oscars are this Sunday. Who's going to win?
If you've been following the awards race, it hasn't been difficult to work out the major frontrunners: "Argo" for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway, and Tommy Lee Jones for the acting awards, and since Ben Affleck wasn't nominated for Best Director, it'll probably be Steven Spielberg who ends up with the trophy. Upsets are certainly possible, as the expectation was that "Lincoln" was going to sweep everything a few weeks ago, but now "Argo" has worked up a head of steam from the various guild awards and may walk away with most of the gold. Are these the most deserving possible recipients of Academy Awards? Well, no. Probably not. A lot of my favorites from 2012 weren't even nominated, but that's not unusual in the least. Watching the Oscars and hoping for quality to win out over popularity is an exercise in futility and masochism.
So why follow the race at all? As a long-time Oscar watcher, for me it stopped really being about the movies a while ago. Now it's all about the game. It's about the timing and the volume of the controversy around "Zero Dark Thirty," positioned as a major early contender at the beginning of December. It's about comparing the acceptance speeches of Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain at the Golden Globes to see which of them was going to get a boost from her appearance. It's about the "Argo" backlash and anti-backlash. It's about the Roger Ebert factor. Remember, he picked "Argo" as the likely Best Picture way back last fall, when "The Master" was still in the race. It's about watching the studios rush to create narratives around their nominees, to build ad campaigns, and to come up with new ways of attracting attention. Some cineastes bemoan the politicking and the showboating of the Oscar race, but I think that if you're in the right mindset it can be a lot of fun.
It's important to remember that the Oscars, and all of these big, nationally televised media award ceremonies, are about marketing. It's about being able to label a movie an Oscar winner or Oscar nominee to drum up more hype and discussion about them, and drive up ticket sales, DVD rentals, and Blu-Ray purchases. The Oscars have been one big marketing gimmick since the very beginning, and Oscar night is the biggest ad of all, full of stunts and celebrities that make the event an enjoyable watch. Sure, there's no guarantee who will take home the statuettes every year, but it's understood that to participate in the Oscars is to participate in a pretty cynical popularity contest, with Academy members, who are all industry professionals, the final arbiters of who is deserving and who isn't. That means that we're always going to get very mainstream, very marketable choices, though occasionally there will be something like "The Artist" or "American Beauty" that will sneak through.
However, it's also important to realize that the Oscars are a necessary evil, especially if you enjoy these higher quality prestige pictures. Being able to sell a movie as an awards contender is an important consideration in getting some of these movies getting financed and produced. The Oscar bump, where films see an increase in box office sales after nominations are announced, is a very real thing. Maybe "Les Misérables" and "Django Unchained" would have been able to get off the ground without the help of awards buzz, but what about Ang Li's risky "Life of Pi"? Or "Zero Dark Thirty"? And though I'm little mystified by the amount of buzz around "Amour" and "Beasts of the Southern Wild," I'm very happy that the awards race has brought more attention to both of them too.
It's no surprise that some filmmakers have denounced the whole affair, and there are regularly rebels who just won't play along. However, sometimes it's to the Academy's benefit to recognize those who want nothing to do with them, which is why Jean-Luc Godard got an honorary Oscar a few years back, and why Joaquin Phoenix got a Best Actor nomination this year in spite of ragging on the awards a few months ago. The Academy Awards does have to maintain some credibility to keep their reputation intact, and frankly leaving out Phoenix, who delivered one of the most talked-about performances this year, would have been a mark against them. Phoenix might even win, giving us another potential missing Brando moment.
So sometimes quality does trump popularity. And some of those Academy voters actually do take the task seriously. But how many, and to what degree? We'll have to wait until Oscar night to find out.
---
So the Oscars are this Sunday. Who's going to win?
If you've been following the awards race, it hasn't been difficult to work out the major frontrunners: "Argo" for Best Picture, Daniel Day-Lewis, Jennifer Lawrence, Anne Hathaway, and Tommy Lee Jones for the acting awards, and since Ben Affleck wasn't nominated for Best Director, it'll probably be Steven Spielberg who ends up with the trophy. Upsets are certainly possible, as the expectation was that "Lincoln" was going to sweep everything a few weeks ago, but now "Argo" has worked up a head of steam from the various guild awards and may walk away with most of the gold. Are these the most deserving possible recipients of Academy Awards? Well, no. Probably not. A lot of my favorites from 2012 weren't even nominated, but that's not unusual in the least. Watching the Oscars and hoping for quality to win out over popularity is an exercise in futility and masochism.
So why follow the race at all? As a long-time Oscar watcher, for me it stopped really being about the movies a while ago. Now it's all about the game. It's about the timing and the volume of the controversy around "Zero Dark Thirty," positioned as a major early contender at the beginning of December. It's about comparing the acceptance speeches of Jennifer Lawrence and Jessica Chastain at the Golden Globes to see which of them was going to get a boost from her appearance. It's about the "Argo" backlash and anti-backlash. It's about the Roger Ebert factor. Remember, he picked "Argo" as the likely Best Picture way back last fall, when "The Master" was still in the race. It's about watching the studios rush to create narratives around their nominees, to build ad campaigns, and to come up with new ways of attracting attention. Some cineastes bemoan the politicking and the showboating of the Oscar race, but I think that if you're in the right mindset it can be a lot of fun.
It's important to remember that the Oscars, and all of these big, nationally televised media award ceremonies, are about marketing. It's about being able to label a movie an Oscar winner or Oscar nominee to drum up more hype and discussion about them, and drive up ticket sales, DVD rentals, and Blu-Ray purchases. The Oscars have been one big marketing gimmick since the very beginning, and Oscar night is the biggest ad of all, full of stunts and celebrities that make the event an enjoyable watch. Sure, there's no guarantee who will take home the statuettes every year, but it's understood that to participate in the Oscars is to participate in a pretty cynical popularity contest, with Academy members, who are all industry professionals, the final arbiters of who is deserving and who isn't. That means that we're always going to get very mainstream, very marketable choices, though occasionally there will be something like "The Artist" or "American Beauty" that will sneak through.
However, it's also important to realize that the Oscars are a necessary evil, especially if you enjoy these higher quality prestige pictures. Being able to sell a movie as an awards contender is an important consideration in getting some of these movies getting financed and produced. The Oscar bump, where films see an increase in box office sales after nominations are announced, is a very real thing. Maybe "Les Misérables" and "Django Unchained" would have been able to get off the ground without the help of awards buzz, but what about Ang Li's risky "Life of Pi"? Or "Zero Dark Thirty"? And though I'm little mystified by the amount of buzz around "Amour" and "Beasts of the Southern Wild," I'm very happy that the awards race has brought more attention to both of them too.
It's no surprise that some filmmakers have denounced the whole affair, and there are regularly rebels who just won't play along. However, sometimes it's to the Academy's benefit to recognize those who want nothing to do with them, which is why Jean-Luc Godard got an honorary Oscar a few years back, and why Joaquin Phoenix got a Best Actor nomination this year in spite of ragging on the awards a few months ago. The Academy Awards does have to maintain some credibility to keep their reputation intact, and frankly leaving out Phoenix, who delivered one of the most talked-about performances this year, would have been a mark against them. Phoenix might even win, giving us another potential missing Brando moment.
So sometimes quality does trump popularity. And some of those Academy voters actually do take the task seriously. But how many, and to what degree? We'll have to wait until Oscar night to find out.
---
Monday, February 18, 2013
Notes From a Hulu/Criterion Weekend
If you've been reading this blog, you know that I've sworn off paying for Hulu Plus since last year, since they decided to redesign the site and broke nearly all the searching and sorting functionality for their Criterion Collection titles. The interface is still in a sorry state, but this weekend Hulu decided to promote the addition of a batch of new titles to their Criterion section by offering all of them for free for four days, from February 14th through the 17th. I figured that this was a good opportunity to play catch up with the new entries to the" They Shoot Pictures Don't They" Top 1000 list. So, over the course of four days I watched eight movies, one each from Francois Truffaut, Jacques Feyder, Mikio Naruse, Aki Kaurismäki, Roberto Rossellini, and Nagisa Ôshima, plus two from Pedro Costa.
The free Criterions were offered with commercials, unlike the ones on Hulu Plus which don't contain ad breaks. I was a little wary of trying to watch the films this way, particularly the Costa titles, which both ran nearly three hours. However, I didn't find the interruptions that disruptive. It was easy enough to tune out the commercials, especially since the ads tended to repeat constantly. The biggest problem was that sometimes the movie would fail to resume after the commercials ran. After some experimenting, reloading the page seemed to fix the issue most of the time, though it meant having to sit through the Criterion introductory idents and ads again every time. This was a problem on some films more than others, but there were none that I didn't have to reload at least once.
I also spent some time poking around on Hulu, testing alternate ways to browse their collection. Currently, the site's Criterion page is organized so that you have to scroll through graphics-heavy lists that only show you five entries at a time. This might have been fun for a casual watcher using a tablet or a smart phone, but not for me. On my aging laptop, I got through about 200 entries from the "Most Popular" list before giving up, deciding there had to be a better way to compare Hulu's advertised 800 Criterions against the list of new "They Shoot Pictures don't They" titles I was looking for. Searching by director yielded some decent results, but searching by titles was often troublesome because so many of the Criterion films are not English-language, and can have multiple title translations. I sorely missed the ability to filter by country and director, and to limit my search to the Criterion films.
To really make use of the Hulu collection, you really need to know what they already have available, which is more difficult than it sounds. There's been a lot of bad reporting that the entire Criterion Collection is available on Hulu, but this has never been the case. Criterion struck deals with many studios to release titles like "The Royal Tennenbaums" and "Chasing Amy" as Criterions, but these deals didn't include streaming rights. Only about half of the official collections is currently on Hulu. However, Criterion also offers other films through Hulu that were released in other collections, or that the company has the rights to, but never released on disc. As these are the films that are the most difficult to find, to the dedicated cinema nerd they're what Hulu's partnership with Criterion has proven the most useful for.
However, finding a complete list of what is actually available on Hulu was almost impossible. A few of the articles reporting on the free trial pointed toward third party sites tracking which movies were on the site, all the ones I checked had outdated information. A fan-generated list of 700 titles, updated a year ago, was the most comprehensive one I could find. Paging through a Criterion fan message board, where posters had listed titles from each update for the last year, gave me the rest. And it was a good thing I checked, because otherwise I wouldn't have known to look for "India: Matri Bhumi," Roberto Rossellini's little-seen documentary about life in India, or half a dozen more Yasujiro Ozu titles.
I'm very happy that Hulu is offering these movies, and I have no issue with the size or the variety of their current collection of Criterion titles. I absolutely think it's worth the money to have access to many of these hard-to-find movies. By my own calculations, I've only seen about a third of what they're currently offering. However, the Hulu interface is user-unfriendly to the point where it negatively impacts on the use of the site. I shouldn't have to resort to third party sites to tell me how many Ingmar Bergman titles Hulu has. Typing "Pedro Costa" into the search bar shouldn't immediately direct me to the Pedro Zamora biopic "Pedro."
Right now I have enough classic films from other sources available to me, that I don't feel like putting up with the hassle. So I'm still going to refrain from subscribing to Hulu Plus again until they get their act together.
---
The free Criterions were offered with commercials, unlike the ones on Hulu Plus which don't contain ad breaks. I was a little wary of trying to watch the films this way, particularly the Costa titles, which both ran nearly three hours. However, I didn't find the interruptions that disruptive. It was easy enough to tune out the commercials, especially since the ads tended to repeat constantly. The biggest problem was that sometimes the movie would fail to resume after the commercials ran. After some experimenting, reloading the page seemed to fix the issue most of the time, though it meant having to sit through the Criterion introductory idents and ads again every time. This was a problem on some films more than others, but there were none that I didn't have to reload at least once.
I also spent some time poking around on Hulu, testing alternate ways to browse their collection. Currently, the site's Criterion page is organized so that you have to scroll through graphics-heavy lists that only show you five entries at a time. This might have been fun for a casual watcher using a tablet or a smart phone, but not for me. On my aging laptop, I got through about 200 entries from the "Most Popular" list before giving up, deciding there had to be a better way to compare Hulu's advertised 800 Criterions against the list of new "They Shoot Pictures don't They" titles I was looking for. Searching by director yielded some decent results, but searching by titles was often troublesome because so many of the Criterion films are not English-language, and can have multiple title translations. I sorely missed the ability to filter by country and director, and to limit my search to the Criterion films.
To really make use of the Hulu collection, you really need to know what they already have available, which is more difficult than it sounds. There's been a lot of bad reporting that the entire Criterion Collection is available on Hulu, but this has never been the case. Criterion struck deals with many studios to release titles like "The Royal Tennenbaums" and "Chasing Amy" as Criterions, but these deals didn't include streaming rights. Only about half of the official collections is currently on Hulu. However, Criterion also offers other films through Hulu that were released in other collections, or that the company has the rights to, but never released on disc. As these are the films that are the most difficult to find, to the dedicated cinema nerd they're what Hulu's partnership with Criterion has proven the most useful for.
However, finding a complete list of what is actually available on Hulu was almost impossible. A few of the articles reporting on the free trial pointed toward third party sites tracking which movies were on the site, all the ones I checked had outdated information. A fan-generated list of 700 titles, updated a year ago, was the most comprehensive one I could find. Paging through a Criterion fan message board, where posters had listed titles from each update for the last year, gave me the rest. And it was a good thing I checked, because otherwise I wouldn't have known to look for "India: Matri Bhumi," Roberto Rossellini's little-seen documentary about life in India, or half a dozen more Yasujiro Ozu titles.
I'm very happy that Hulu is offering these movies, and I have no issue with the size or the variety of their current collection of Criterion titles. I absolutely think it's worth the money to have access to many of these hard-to-find movies. By my own calculations, I've only seen about a third of what they're currently offering. However, the Hulu interface is user-unfriendly to the point where it negatively impacts on the use of the site. I shouldn't have to resort to third party sites to tell me how many Ingmar Bergman titles Hulu has. Typing "Pedro Costa" into the search bar shouldn't immediately direct me to the Pedro Zamora biopic "Pedro."
Right now I have enough classic films from other sources available to me, that I don't feel like putting up with the hassle. So I'm still going to refrain from subscribing to Hulu Plus again until they get their act together.
---
Saturday, February 16, 2013
"The Wire" Wrap-Up
When I first started watching "The Wire," it was with one question in mind. Is this really the best dramatic series that has ever been made, as claimed by so many of its fans? After sixty episodes, I'm inclined to say yes. And I'm also inclined to point out that the show is a total fluke that we may never see the likes of again.
I've been reading up on "The Wire" since I finished the series, and what strikes me about most of the coverage is how far under the radar it was for most of its run. It never won a single Emmy, and its only major nominations were for writing. Most of the cast is still working regularly, but there were no breakout stars. A possible exception is Idris Elba, and that was really only due to his follow-up roles in his native UK. The ratings were dismal throughout the entire run of "The Wire," even for a premium service like HBO. The critics always liked it, but nobody pays attention to TV critics, and probably never will. The only reason the fourth and fifth seasons exist at all is because the HBO executives liked the storylines enough to take a major risk on their success. That risk wouldn't pay off until years later, after the show became a cult hit.
And it has become a hit. References to "The Wire" have crept into the mainstream culture. Omar Little and Stringer Bell have quietly become minor icons. Audiences continue to hear about "The Wire" mostly through word-of-mouth and watch it through the DVD sets. All sixty episodes ran on BBC2 in the UK a few years ago, eventually attracting an audience several times the size of its original audience in the US, despite a smaller overall population. It actually became the source of some mild handwringing in 2009 by the British media, who held it up as a prime example of quality American drama, and wondered in multiple editorials why their television industry couldn't come up with anything in the same vein. Of course, "The Wire" could not have existed anywhere else but HBO, a premium subscription channel that has the luxury of not worrying too much about ratings and cost overruns. The serialized story, difficult material, and unusual level of realism - the major elements that "The Wire" has won so much praise for - would have made it a difficult sell even to basic cable audiences. It wouldn't have lasted beyond a season on the major broadcast networks, or even half a season the way things have been going lately.
HBO and other content producers are still responsible for plenty of innovative and socially relevant and challenging shows, but rarely do all of these qualities converge in a single program quite the same way as they did in "The Wire," and it was really the combination of all these factors that made the show one of the greats. "Game of Thrones" is a complicated serial told on a huge scale, and "Veep" has plenty of social critique, and "Girls" pushes lots of social boundaries, but only "The Wire" did all of these things at once. The impact of the series has also proven to be fairly limited. While "The Sopranos" created a genre of anti-hero centered dramas including "Breaking Bad" and "Boardwalk Empire," there hasn't been much eagerness to follow in the footsteps of "The Wire." We still see plenty of police and lawyer shows, but nobody is interested in looking at the bigger picture the way David Simon and crew did.
The potential for creating shows on the same level as "The Wire" is still there, which I find encouraging, but I don't see much desire to try. After all, even HBO has to pay attention to the bottom line. During the run of "The Wire," two other little watched, but much beloved series were cancelled before their time: "Deadwood" and "Carnivale." Meanwhile, David Simon's "Treme," considered the spiritual successor to "The Wire," will be ending this year after a truncated fourth season. While I enjoy "Game of Thrones," I worry that HBO and its imitators are going to look toward more genre shows in the future, leaving more interesting dramatic experiments on the shelf. "The Wire" proved that a show about difficult social issues with unusual characters could be compelling entertainment, but the longer it remains the only one of its kind, the more it becomes an exception to the rule.
I'm glad "The Wire" exists, that the right conditions were there and all the stars were aligned to allow for its creation. However, at the same time this looks like a once-in-a-generation media event that largely came about thanks to luck and good timing. Instead of comparing "The Wire" to "Oz" or "The Sopranos," the one piece of television I see the most similarities to is the 1977 "Roots" miniseries, which was also a total fluke, and never truly matched in its category by anything that followed.
---
I've been reading up on "The Wire" since I finished the series, and what strikes me about most of the coverage is how far under the radar it was for most of its run. It never won a single Emmy, and its only major nominations were for writing. Most of the cast is still working regularly, but there were no breakout stars. A possible exception is Idris Elba, and that was really only due to his follow-up roles in his native UK. The ratings were dismal throughout the entire run of "The Wire," even for a premium service like HBO. The critics always liked it, but nobody pays attention to TV critics, and probably never will. The only reason the fourth and fifth seasons exist at all is because the HBO executives liked the storylines enough to take a major risk on their success. That risk wouldn't pay off until years later, after the show became a cult hit.
And it has become a hit. References to "The Wire" have crept into the mainstream culture. Omar Little and Stringer Bell have quietly become minor icons. Audiences continue to hear about "The Wire" mostly through word-of-mouth and watch it through the DVD sets. All sixty episodes ran on BBC2 in the UK a few years ago, eventually attracting an audience several times the size of its original audience in the US, despite a smaller overall population. It actually became the source of some mild handwringing in 2009 by the British media, who held it up as a prime example of quality American drama, and wondered in multiple editorials why their television industry couldn't come up with anything in the same vein. Of course, "The Wire" could not have existed anywhere else but HBO, a premium subscription channel that has the luxury of not worrying too much about ratings and cost overruns. The serialized story, difficult material, and unusual level of realism - the major elements that "The Wire" has won so much praise for - would have made it a difficult sell even to basic cable audiences. It wouldn't have lasted beyond a season on the major broadcast networks, or even half a season the way things have been going lately.
HBO and other content producers are still responsible for plenty of innovative and socially relevant and challenging shows, but rarely do all of these qualities converge in a single program quite the same way as they did in "The Wire," and it was really the combination of all these factors that made the show one of the greats. "Game of Thrones" is a complicated serial told on a huge scale, and "Veep" has plenty of social critique, and "Girls" pushes lots of social boundaries, but only "The Wire" did all of these things at once. The impact of the series has also proven to be fairly limited. While "The Sopranos" created a genre of anti-hero centered dramas including "Breaking Bad" and "Boardwalk Empire," there hasn't been much eagerness to follow in the footsteps of "The Wire." We still see plenty of police and lawyer shows, but nobody is interested in looking at the bigger picture the way David Simon and crew did.
The potential for creating shows on the same level as "The Wire" is still there, which I find encouraging, but I don't see much desire to try. After all, even HBO has to pay attention to the bottom line. During the run of "The Wire," two other little watched, but much beloved series were cancelled before their time: "Deadwood" and "Carnivale." Meanwhile, David Simon's "Treme," considered the spiritual successor to "The Wire," will be ending this year after a truncated fourth season. While I enjoy "Game of Thrones," I worry that HBO and its imitators are going to look toward more genre shows in the future, leaving more interesting dramatic experiments on the shelf. "The Wire" proved that a show about difficult social issues with unusual characters could be compelling entertainment, but the longer it remains the only one of its kind, the more it becomes an exception to the rule.
I'm glad "The Wire" exists, that the right conditions were there and all the stars were aligned to allow for its creation. However, at the same time this looks like a once-in-a-generation media event that largely came about thanks to luck and good timing. Instead of comparing "The Wire" to "Oz" or "The Sopranos," the one piece of television I see the most similarities to is the 1977 "Roots" miniseries, which was also a total fluke, and never truly matched in its category by anything that followed.
---
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