Shoop and The Newsroom

Saw the first episode of Aaron Sorkin's new show, "The Newsroom." Rather like my last subject, Sorkin and his show seem to generate a great deal of heavy reactions. I'm not exactly a full-blown Sorkin expert--I've seen "A Few Good Men" and "The Social Network" (enjoyed both), and a couple of episodes of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (strange on many levels). Never saw "The West Wing." I'm fairly familiar with Sorkin's style, both in his own work and the various parodies of it--it pretty much boils down to Sorkin's being a breed of playwright/screenwriter heavily influenced by the film "His Girl Friday," perhaps the ultimate example of characters spouting reams of hyper-articulate dialogue at a rat-a-tat clip (Glenn Gordon Caron, who created "Moonlighting," is another writer who absorbed that movie). When it works at its best, you're too busy enjoying it to realize how incredibly clever it all is. When it works at its second-best, you have plenty of time to think, "Gee, that's incredibly clever." So, I like the pilot episode of "The Newsroom" more than I don't, but I think it falls into the 2nd tier of incredibly clever more than the 1st, if you're still following me. I'm going to casually go into some of the elements I like, some I like less, and comment here and there on some issues that other commenters seem to have.

First, I like Jeff Daniels in the lead. You believe him as an established news anchor, because after a long career of flirting with, but never quite closing the deal with, major stardom, he's attained something he's never had--weight and gravity. (Actually, I think he started to attain it with "The Squid and the Whale.") Plus, he's funny as hell screaming "YouTube! YouTube!" (It almost makes sense in context.) I also like his little "Network"-y rant at the beginning, including the seemingly controversial line "Worst--Period--Generation--Period--Ever--Period," a line that has truly enraged some columnists and commentators over at the A.V. Club. Personally, I'm fine with the line because a) there's evidence that we're meant to see that line as curmudgeonly and out-of-touch, as Daniels' character is indeed curmudgeonly and out-of-touch at other points in the episode, and b) it doesn't rank on a generation so much as rank on people who put periods after every word in a sentence, and these people deserve to be mocked on every occasion possible. Moronic habit.

I like Sam Waterston, too, but that's no surprise, since I've liked him dating all the way back to "Capricorn One" (go look that one up)--he's clearly having fun, and I'm having fun watching. And I like the points where the news-gathering and the let's-get-this-on-the-air atmosphere and the Sorkin-style dialogue get in synch (again, shades of "His Girl Friday"). 

There are some parts of the show I'm less on board with--the executive producer who has some sort of romantic past with Daniels seems to serve as a Collective Conscience, which is a little irritating, despite Emily Mortimer's best efforts. (Her character's name is also problematic--MacKenzie McHale. Seriously? "Shaft" writer Ernest Tidyman came up with a better character name by looking absently out a window at an air shaft. But I'm talking about MacKenzie McHale--then we can dig it.) And, unlike a lot of more vociferous commenters, I'm not absolutely sure I have an opinion about the newsroom gang getting information about Real Stories from History (in the case of the pilot, the BP Oil Spill). I could see that turning into Peabody's Improbable History after a few episodes ("This is my boy, Sherman. Speak, Sherman." "Hello, folks!" "Good boy."), but I'll probably give it another couple views to see how it pans out. And there's a cast of younger people who have made very little impression on me, except that guy from "Slumdog Millionaire," because I remember saying, "That's that guy from Slumdog Millionaire."

One other moment I liked--at one point, "Mac" (that is, MacKenzie McHale, who's a bad motherf----r) recites a couple of lines from the title song of "Man of La Mancha" to rouse Daniels' conscience regarding What News Shows Could Be, and then closes with appropriate gravitas, "That was Cervantes." And just as I was saying to the screen, "That's not Cervantes, that's Man of La Mancha," sure enough, Daniels says pretty much the same thing. Thus, Sorkin gives us a moment when we, in turn, can feel incredibly clever, which is pretty damn clever.

 

Shoop and Girls

"Girls" just ended its first season on HBO, and a lot of folks are talking. If you google "Girls" and "HBO" (that should do it), you'll find reviews and comments across the spectrum of love, hate, admiration and disgust. I don't have a huge investment in the discussion, but it might be worth examining--why has Lena Dunham's show kicked up such a fuss?

One reason, I think, is that it covers a subject that we're just not supposed to be interested in: privileged young white women complaining despite their privileges. Add to that the fact that the girls are played by real-life privileged young white women (lots of daughters of famous people). So "whiny" and "annoying" definitely go with the territory.  What the episodes lead to is the question--does the show realize how annoying these characters really are? I think the answer to that, for the most part, is yes--I'd say if Larry David were a 24-year-old girl, he'd be Lena Dunham's lead character Hannah. Just as Curb Your Enthusiasm fans consistently marvel at how obnoxious "Larry David" can be, I think Hannah's mistakes, mis-statements, and occasional dickishness is at least 90% intentional, and the same goes for her annoyingly shallow friends. I base that on two pieces of evidence: 1) Dunham's behind the scenes segments she does following the episodes, and 2) the occasional bursts of wild overacting when Hannah is crying about a "crisis."

What reason #1 accomplishes is what I call the "Ashley Tisdale stays behind to clean up" effect (I never said my names for things roll off the tongue easily). During a showing of "High School Musical 2," the cast is hanging out a pool with the director/choreographer, and they're making plans to take the party elsewhere. Ashley, who plays the flamboyant, self-centered Sharpay, offers to clean up. It's a message to the viewer--"Sharpay wouldn't stay and clean up, but Ashley would. Therefore, Ashley is not really Sharpay." That's an important message for those viewers who wouldn't be able to tell simply from Tisdale's gleefully over-the-top performance that she's not her character. So with Dunham in her after-episode pieces. At first I found them annoying in a kind of "here's what you just saw" kind of way, but I gradually caught on to the importance--Dunham is charming, well-spoken, and intelligent about the stories and the characters in a way that "Hannah" isn't. Mission accomplished.

The case of overacting leads to the second reason--going over the top is a way for actors to tell us that they're not really like that. Denham tends to be very low-key and mumbly as Hannah (as she was playing a variation of herself in her breakthrough movie "Tiny Furniture"), but when Hannah gets really upset over something incredibly stupid, Denham gets hysterical, as she does in the final episode of the season regarding her being 13 pounds overweight. It's her way of telling the viewer, "Yeah, I know Hannah's being a freaking moron about this, and you should go ahead and laugh."

Some critics are down on the acting in general. Of all the elements of a piece of entertainment that are hopelessly subjective, I'm inclined to think acting is highest on that list. In general, I'd say the acting is good enough--what it needs to be. Focuing on Dunham in particular, I think she's good at one-liners and casual conversation, and has some trouble bringing "real" emotion (hence the reliance on overacting), but it all fits what "Hannah" is, so it's fine. The  other actors, in turn, do what is needed, if not much more, with the exception of Peter Scolari, who rocks his occasional appearances as Hannah's dad.

Other reasons people give for hating the show, sadly, perhaps speak to our lesser nature, such as, "It's not funny because Lena Dunham's not hot enough." Remarks like that are just rude, and it's too bad some people feel the need to write them, but that's what an internet is for. And some folks focus on how "white" the show is, thinking that "Girls" is racist. Meh. They're white girls, and they know a lot of white people--it works that way sometimes. So on the whole, I like "Girls" fine, and I'll probably watch whenever the next season starts.

Plus, I'd love to hear Zosia Mamet do a medley of some of her father's coolest lines, like "Put that coffee down!" and "All train compartments smell vaguely of shit." That would be tight.

Why Ghostbusters II is Way Better Than Ghostbusters

I was inspired recently (if you call staring at the TV in a semi-comatose state inspired) to watch two iconic 80s movies--Ghostbusters and its sequel (that is, Ghostbusters II). The first was a revisit--I hadn't seen it since its initial release some 28 years ago. I vaguely remember being mildly amused and not terribly impressed back then. I'd never seen the sequel--most folks whose opinion I trust assured me that it was awful, a cynical cash-in on once beloved and inspired figures. What I found in 2012 surprised me a little--not that I found that I'd missed something in Ghostbusters all those years ago, but that the sequel is approximately 3 times the better film (which by no means makes it a classic, but it's still pretty enjoyable). Yes, that's an opinion, and you're probably thinking a really dumb opinion at that. So I guess I'd better be specific, going from the original Ghostbusters, and then, like the opening title tells us in the sequel, "5 years later...":

First off, Dr. Peter Venkman is a dick. Seriously. Check out his first scene, where he's torturing the poor guy and rewarding the hot chick in the "ESP" experiment, in order to get rid of the young man and bed the young girl. Like I said, dick. Now with Venkman's brand of dickishness, I'm touching on a huge cultural phenomenon. Murray as Venkman encapsulated a brand of humor that a whole generation--Generation X--took to heart as its own. Murray's whole "I can't really be bothered to pretend to be engaged in the story or this character, so I'm going to stay outside the whole movie and riff on it" attitude spoke volumes to millions of fans. While it's certainly true that you don't have to be "Gen X" to love Murray and Ghostbusters, I think it's also true that if you were to point to comedies that defined and glorified the Gen X attitude, Ghostbusters would rate way up there. All of that would be fine if it were also funny, but Murray carries that attitude all the way through the movie--when he's supposed to be facing down ghosts, when his friends are supposedly in great danger, and--millions and millions of devoted fans notwithstanding--I don't think it's terribly funny. Contrast that attitude with, for example, the Hope and Crosby "Road" pictures, where the heroes aren't taking anything in the movie seriously either, but that's the crucial difference--there's a real relationship between Bob and Bing, and they're in on the joke together. In the case of Ghostbusters, you've got Dan Aykroyd doing his damnedest to play a guy named Ray, you've got Harold Ramis throwing out the occasional improv-y non-sequitur but with no character to back it up, and you've got Ernie Hudson doing what he can with Token--that is, Winston--but Murray isn't joining in. Again, for the fans, that's the glorious point, but it's a point that eludes your faithful blogger.

Now--jump ahead to Ghostbusters II. Venkman is still a dick, but, huge surprise--the movie calls him on it. Now he's a dick with something to lose, and something to accomplish--win back Sigourney Weaver and prove that he can be a good dad.  It's a sappy character arc, to be sure, but it is indeed a character arc, and all of a sudden, we're watching a character in a movie--and, even better, a character who has to play with the other characters in order to get what he wants. We, as the audience, have a reason to care what happens. Again, it's a pretty frail reason, but compared to the first movie, it's a veritable Les Miz, with or without the songs.

This business of character brings me to the one scene in the original Ghostbusters that I really liked and that made me laugh. Ray, Winston, Egon, and Venkman are facing down Zool. Zool demands of Ray, "Are you a god?" Ray looks back at the guys, and Venkman is nodding encouragingly. Ray turns back to Zool and says with complete frankness, "No." Ray then gets blasted, leading to the one real laugh line of the whole movie, delivered by Winston: "Ray, when someone asks if you're a god, you say yes!" What's great about that whole sequence, topped by that very good line (the least they could do for Hudson is give him a laugh line), is that it comes from character--Ray is by nature too straightforward, fact-oriented, and honest to lie, even to Zool. Plus, there's that business with the nod from Venkman--Venkman is clearly trying to indicate to Ray that he should say "Yes," giving him an encouraging "of course you're a god" kind of nod. Ray, however, interprets the nod as "Be yourself--be factual and be honest." And that leads to disaster, as it should in comedy. For about two minutes, Ghostbusters is a great movie, and you wonder (or at least, I wonder) why the other 110 minutes couldn't have done stuff like that.

To be fair, I don't think Ghostbusters II has a scene or a moment that quite tops the Zool confrontation, but it's more consistently amusing. Ramis gets to do a splendid riff on his one toy as a child (part of a Slinky, which he straightened out), and all of a sudden, he's got a character, too--one that has strong (negative) feelings about Venkman (as well as bizarre childhood memories). Aykroyd, meanwhile, gets a certain sad grandeur from really missing his glory days as a ghostbuster. Even Rick Moranis gets to do more than be "annoying guy," and it's kind of cute when he puts on a Ghostbuster suit like a little kid putting on a Superman cape. (Hudson, of course, still doesn't get to do much.) Furthermore, Ghostbusters II has the wonderfully eccentric Peter MacNicol, doing the sort of weird-accent humor that Sasha Baron Cohen currently has a lock on, and he's terrific.

More importantly, Ghostbusters II comes out on top in terms of the other big element that Ghostbusters fans always go on about--New York Attitude. By the end of Ghostbusters, when Winston yells, "I love this town!", you wonder--which town? Oh yeah, I guess it was set in New York. But what does the town have to do with the Ghostbusters' ultimate triumph? Not much connection there--they could have been in mid-town Toronto. And New York Attitude is represented by whom, exactly? By Nashville-born, Kentucky-raised Annie Potts doing a just-good-enough-for-your-college-sketch-show New York accent as the Ghostbusters' secretary? Now, Ghostbusters II, on the other hand--that's an only-in-New York story. Remember the evil goo under the streets of New York, built up by years of New Yorkers' anger and general misery? That's New York attitude, buddy.

To end an essay like this, I of course have to allude to the insidiously catchy theme song. I'm not gonna call those 1984 Ghostbusters. I'm gonna check in with them in 1989, thanks.