Unca Harlan's Art Deco Dining Pavilion
RITA, not "Mitzi."
Mitzi???
Where the hell did THAT come from.
I meant Rita.
Where the hell did SHE come from?
Wearily, Harlan
THE TAPE
Josh Olson is my friend. Josh Olson taped "The Sopranos" first segment for this final season. Josh Olson is coming over tomorrow to add his first draft pages of the "The Discarded" teleplay to mine. Josh read my worried query. Josh offered to loan me his tape. I have accepted. My ethical conclusion was this: nowhichway do I need or want HBO...if I wanted to read something which I wouldn't buy anywhichway, but a friend had a copy, such as say that James Frey baloneystick, and I asked my friend if I could borrow it for a day or so, to judge its merits on my own, that would be okay. The book was bought and paid for, and James Gandolfini's salary, as well as that of the janitor at the HBO offices, would be properly paid.
Res ipsa loquitor. Mitzi, who posted somewhere earlier today, does a whited sepulchre rigadoon that is utterly bogus. "Gambling? There's gambling here at Rick's!?! I am shocked! SHOCK-ED!" Lady, let me point out that everywhere else on this fuckin' internet, people steal regularly, sell crap they don't have, cheat, shout dementedly under phony names till the perfectly decent word "rant" no longer means what it meant...and YOU are upset that the question of miniscule fine points of properly ethical behavior are DISCUSSED here!!!???!!!
Geddouddamy face, doofus. The people here are so much more tuned in to behaving well than the monkeymass running amuck brainless and barefoot on the Infobahn, you gotta lodda nerve comin' on like a banjo player who had a big breakfast.
Or that bore Annie Proulx.
Thanking everyone BUT Mitzi for their best thoughts on this teensy life-glitch, I remain,
Yr. pal, Harlan
P.S. See you tomorrow, Josh.
"I find it funny how people believe the biased information about Spielberg, instead of actually, honestly looking at the films, without one iota of bias on your part."
I find it even funnier that you, of all people, should leap to the defense of the King of the world's spoiled media brats. Personally I have no animus for Mr. Spielberg himself--he seems a nice enough fellow--but if you wanted a picture of middle class complacency not-quite-stirred-to-action and Stephen King was dead, you couldn't do much better.
And I have looked at certain of the films as a child, at which point I was pretty unbiased. The adult, viewing them later, finds them trivial. Sorry.
PIRACY on the INTERENET HIGH SEAS
ELLISON (me lad): I'm soundly on the side o' those hearty souls what say that _loanin'_ a tape (or parrot) to a mate, as long as said mate gives it back after partakin', is NOT piracy. Simply because yer mate isn't lookin' to make a shilling (or doubloon) offa yer when he loans the tape out. And even if he loans it to _another_ friend after that -- or invites a group of friends to watch the tape o' that show -- he STILL won't be doin' it in order to get his hands on some booty (unless, of course, said tape is a porno and the friends he invited over are some soft-skinned lasses...or, uh, laddies).
If a tape was made in order to make a dozen (or more) OTHER tapes -- which your mate planned to sell -- _then_ we'd be talkin, (arrrrgh!) piracy. So don't go shiverin' any timbers over this. Stop yer frettin and get yerself to bed, laddie. Tomorrow's another day and there are jibs to be hoisted and matey's to avast.
Yours in pursuite of treasure n'truth,
Cap'n Bly
>To be able to choose our small infractions is a luxury an ethical person is allowed to enjoy.<
Wow. You know, whether or not anyone borrows a Sopranos tape is irrelevant to me, but this statement is pretty unbelievable. Talk about some animals being more equal than others.
A lot of keystrokes have gone down on this board slamming these very kinds of choices made by people who no doubt think of themselves as ethical as Mike Jacka apparently considers himself...when those choices were costing Harlan Ellison money. James Gandolfini's salary, or that of an HBO night janitor, evidently isn't as large a concern here, so hell, have at it.
I knew that we'd see a bit of double-talk on this one, but this is pretty astounding.
Piracy or Sharing?
I think piracy is determined by the intent one has for the object. Taping a show to replay later for your personal pleasure is acceptable. And if I recall correctly, congress has backed up that point when the RIAA has tried to pass a special "blank tape tax" for those who make homegrown recordings and Congress has voted such legislation down.
Sharing changes to piracy when the one copy turns to 200, the single person becomes a mailing list and you are now encroaching on the economics of the creators/copyright holders, which is why you have that FBI WARNING at the start of every DVD, telling you what is nice and what is naughty.
Borrowing a book is acceptable, scanning it and posting it online, as Harlan has gone to legnths to establish is NOT acceptable and violates copyright and the current internet legislation, and a less then ethical action.
Sharing a guilty pleasure is not a case of being guilty of a violation of ethics. Your intent is appropriate to the situation: to borrow a tape, be entertained and then return it, with clean hands and a clear conscience.
To ethic or not to ethic
Harlan,
One or two birthdays ago you described going to the movies, then sneaking into a second one at the same theater. Someone on this board took the opportunity to quickly chide you for the breach of ethics. You or someone else here responded to the effect that the individual could go screw themselves – an appropriate response.
Watching a show someone else has taped from pay television (why the “Lost” analogy doesn’t work) is unethical. Sneaking between movies and not paying is unethical. Speeding is unethical. (I am making an assumption here, based on descriptions of your driving that you do, indeed speed. If such assumption is incorrect, then my heartfelt apologies. I am quite the speeder, so I am unethical.) “Borrowing” a pen from work is unethical. (That was for those of us working in offices.) Hell, using the word “hell”, for some, is unethical. No matter how ethical we may want to act, we inadvertently or vertently allow ourselves such infractions.
I guess my reply to anyone who would question your use of the tape is – well, not to put to fine a point on it – fuck ‘em. To be able to choose our small infractions is a luxury an ethical person is allowed to enjoy. Don’t buy off on anyone’s contention that you shouldn’t do something – this really falls under the non-sinner casting a stone and the mote in the eye. And don’t buy off on the “this is the first step down the slippery slope” either. We are all adults here. True, some actions are just the first step in eventually justifying greater crimes. But I am hard-pressed to believe that the watching of borrowed tape either starts you on the road to bootlegging crime or (and maybe this is the real point) invalidates anything you have said about the misuse of creative materials.
Borrow the tape, watch the show, and do it with a clear conscious.
Mike
I have never given much thought to whether or not I am bootlegging when I record a show and share it with a friend. I guess my question is, if I recorded BAND OF BROTHERS, took it to work and we all sat in the breakroom watching it, is it stealing? Or are we just killing time between assignments. If that is stealing, then am I stealing when I buy a movie and then ten of us at work sit around and watch it? I'm pretty sure when I did both of those things, I had every right to do so as the purchaser. I wasn't reselling either item for a profit. I didn't charge admission or sell concessions. I was sharing with friends something I had found enjoyable. When my father moved to Florida, I recorded all of the St. Louis Rams games the year they won the Super Bowl and mailed them to him every week. I am fairly sure that didn't count as "illegal distribution."
>even ask them to make a tape for you<
Not so sure about THAT, Bud. If you start making tapes of copyrighted material and give them to your friends, that sounds a lot like bootlegging to me. How is this different from offering copies of stories on the Internet?
The Sopranos is funded by HBO, who gets their money through cable subscriptions. For those of us who don't pay for HBO, we are also not paying for the Sopranos. If you give a tape of the show to one person, that seems cool...how about giving tapes to a hundred friends? Or just putting them on the Internet...
First, one of the funniest things John Leguizamo will ever say:
"¡°I¡¯ve heard about you Mexicans buying up all the Cabbage Patch dolls for their birth certificates."
--------------
I find it funny how people believe the biased information about Spielberg, instead of actually, honestly looking at the films, without one iota of bias on your part. But, in a world where we believe the lies, what else can we hope for.
First, this new guy, Jim Lewis:
"He forces the action and emotion where he wants it to be and not where the characters and the situation demand it to be."
What the hell does that mean, and can you prove it? Sure, you see that, but are you looking at this through unbiased eyes?
How do you FORCE action? Either action moves forward, or it lies around, cutting welfare checks. Most movie action is forced, since you have to have a script to move any action along. This guy is a storyboarding fool, he would never force anything. When a man punches another man, sure that is forced, but it makes a complete sense to my mind.
Spielberg rarely tacks on simplistic things, and when he does, I will also bash him on it. Like, when he went way too crazy with the ending of Indiana Jones And The Temple Of Doom; even though I do love the fun of it all.
How does he force emotion? Either you are emotional or not. He does have an ethical sense, as do many directors. Would you prefer he hate humanity, in the way that Tarantino or some exploitation director does? You look at films like The Wizard Of Oz, sure, they have a moral center and a heart, but it doesn't take anything away from the art. Having a soul doesn't make you bad. Not just black-hearted assholes make good film makers. Let's not forget, the blackest of the heartless film critics, John Simon, loved Schindler's List.
"I'm in school right now (a 34-year-old just getting his BA in English...weep for me) and am taking an Intro to Film (which gives me the right to pontificate, don't ya know!). There is a brief quote by Spielberg in my text where he says:"
""I love the idea of not being an independent filmmaker. I've liked working within the system""
What does a film student know about film making? Sure, you have your Spike Lee's, but look how long it took that mook to make a decent film.
Yea, his commercialism troubles me, as well. He is also responsible, as is Steven King, for making the art world a bean counters art. It does not take away from their art.
Steven did make up for it with the fine, Munich. All the right wing pigs who condemn this film, have lied about how the film humanizes terrorists. What are terrorists anyway, but disgruntled humans? These are not monsters, even terrorist have mommies. The left has been making this obvious point, ever since 9/11
We should defend a man who gets attacked unfairly, like he did. The dark hoards could come after us next. Actually, that is next on their ledgers.
"I don't want him to be something he is not. I certainly don't want him to be what I want him to be. I just think he is someone who is immensely talented and is frittering this talent away"
How is he frittering away? The fucking guy has two Best Picture Oscars!! The Shoah foundation alone, should make you salute him. Without his pull, would he have the ability to do this? He should get a Nobel Prize for Schindler's List, alone. Hell, the 30's and 40's were full of commercial movies, but also well made. See, you can do both. And, let's tell the truth here, a lot of hallowed independant films are just plain boring, or depressing, or both, or artistically muddled, to say the least. Sometimes you want an escape from the humdrum life. Spielberg is our escape valve. I salute him.
And, frankly, there need to be more Jews in Hollywood. We need to work on that travesty of justice.
Weighing in on ethics
HARLAN:
You know how I feel about copyright violators, no matter what their justifications. I'm on the SFWA E-Piracy Committee, and have blown the whistle on any number of on-line pirates, including the guy who was uploading _Love Ain't Nothing But Sex Mispelled_ (amongst many others) to the e-book newsgroups. I don't like people who copy software they haven't bought, and despite the immense temptations, I haven't given in myself, even when it meant having to shell out a couple hundred buckeroos. Which I don't got, believe me.
So I claim some gravitas when I tell you publicly that if you borrow someone's tape of the Sopranos, or even ask them to make a tape for you, you're not breaking the law and you're not slipping ethically. If you want to soothe any inner wailings or uncertainty, supply the tape, but otherwise you're fine.
>The only sane way to view (the fairly entertaining, if mistitled) THE BEST OF YOUTH is in two to four sittings. It was supposed to be a multipart tv production anyway.
I believe it was shown on Italian TV (and in Italian theaters) in two three-hour installments. We watched five hours straight and only put off the last hour because my cold medicine was kicking in and I had to go to sleep. A wonderful film, not to be missed, however you choose to watch it.
Harlan, you may be acting just a hair _too_ ethically here.
Borrowing a taped copy of a show is well within Fair Use-- it's not much different from borrowing a book, or a record, or even a boxed set of DVDs. Just don't make copies for yourself, or bring money into the transaction. Borrow it, watch it, and when you're done, either return it or destroy it.
Granted, HBO would love to charge its subscribers extra if they have guests over, or loan out a tape or two. Thankfully, we don't live in a world with that degree of control over what we watch or read or listen to.
those horns you are on
I recommend one of the following:
1) go to a friends house and watch with them. you bring the popcorn, of course.
2) have a friend who made an "archival" tape send it to you so you can check the quality of the tape and review it for accuracy.
3) go to a bar that regularly has a TV tuned into HBO. might be difficult during march madness, but that never stopped you before.
Otherwise, just suck it up and resign yourself to the fact that you will have to pay the subscription fee to Adelphia or COMCAST or Dish Network or whoever. I'm sure they will welcome you back with open arms and an iron-clad contract for a minimum of 24 months.
Stephen
Harlan,
Have you checked into the satellite feed options? Dish Network and others... Just a thought.
Delimma Schalimma
Harlan,
No no no. You ain't paying for HBO, you ain't watching the fuggin Sopranos. No delimma.
Now, if you mailed David Chase your monthly HBO subscription check, it would be somewhat more defensible an feasible vis a vis the ethical continuum, dan it is now.
Arrrrrr, Matey?
-K317H
Benito Cereno.
What a devilishly clever novella by Herman Melville. I've never been more alarmed when I realized that I had completely glossed over multiple passages associating the blacks on board Captain Benito's ship to animals. I didn't pick up on the racism of those scenes until long after I put down the book to watch a FARSCAPE rerun. It wasn't the moments themselves that unnerved me, but rather the fact that I browsed through them without a second thought. (I'm thinking of one sight in particular, where Delano compares a black woman and her child to a wide variety of creatures who suckle at their mother's nipples.)
Part of my deception might have lied in the protagonist Captain Delano, through whose eyes we witness the story. This S.O.B. has so THOROUGHLY accepted the "natural" order of whites over blacks, the possibility that the slaves aboard Benito's vessel had led a successful mutiny is beyond his imagination. He's a really nice, benign guy, too. He could charm Cujo. Delano describes the scenes of slavery with such benevolence, his ignorance and stupidity actually managed to transmit from the letters on the page and infect my brain.
The screenwriters of CRASH should have taken a peek at this story before filming began. It would have taught them a few interesting pointers about how diverse racism can really be.
Ethical Dilemma
Harlan - No ethical dilemma posed, IMHO.
You're asking to borrow a personal, not-for-profit copy of a program. No more, no less.
It's no more an ethical issue than if you asked to borrow a copy of last week's LOST ep, or borrowing my dvd copy of SHREK. If you were to keep it and copy it for either sale or mass produce *THEN* you've got an issue.
Again, my humble opinion. (And, as you know, I've taken a hard line or two on this subject my own self.)
Steve B
(And I shall do the proper penance for second-posting.)
(And, no, I don't get HBO but I may know someone in Silverlake who tapes the show.)
That's a dilema. Why not score an invite to someone's house with HBO?
TO THE MESHPUCHAH:
A SMALL ETHICAL CONUNDRUM:
For good and assorted reasons, Susan and I ceased allowing the great and good Adelphia Cable monopoly to continue sucking our video neck, and thus...we no longer get HBO. Which hasn't been a strain on our valiant efforts to stay au courant re Everything
PopCultural since CARNIVALE and DEADWOOD, but now comes the new and final season of THE SOPRANOS, a show I've watched (as a REALLY "guilty" pleasure) since episode one.
I would love to hitch a coat-tail ride off anyone hereabouts who may have taped it for his/her personal use--to keep up to date week by week, rather than to wait a year for the boxed DVD set--which I wouldn't buy anyhow, not having bought any of the preceding boxed seasons--but I am deadagainst Piracy, as you all know, and I scratch my head with conflictivity as to whether its okay, ethically, to ask someone to loan me his/her tape of the first (and maybe upcoming Sunday 2nd) episode, just for viewing...which I would mail back posthaste within a day or two.
I am wide open to suggestions here.
Do the Right Thing, Ellison; do the Right Thing.
Yr. pal, Harlan
There will always be movies based on books. No reason for not to be. Original screenplays are great, and original screenplays can suck wind. Adaptations of popular and unpopular books and short stories and comics can blow the same way. Good, bad, disappointing, surprisingly effective.
So, we all know when we hate a movie because it did not properly adapt a beloved book: but can you take the positive route of the debate and name some movies that met the criteria of a good adaptation, or even surpassed the written tale?
I could come up with tons, but since I'm at work I am unable to parse out a proper amount of grey cells while multi-tasking, so I will toss out some obvious ones (to me, of course):
When I read Silence of the Lambs I said to my beloved, "This will make a perfect movie if done right, but as a book it is not that good." I love the movie, and my wife reminds me of that statement all along.
The Godfather surpasses the novel in every way. I thank the novel for existing, though, so that The Godfather and The Godfather II could bless this movie-lovers eyes each year.
Blade Runner took a different approach to adapting Dick's Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep. Love the movie. Love the book. They are different, but the point is there.
Kubrick's The Shining is superb. King's The Shining is superb. The miniseries The Shining that was made so that King could stop complaining about how Jack Nicholson did not fit his idea of Jack Torrence was not superb.
E.T. the movie surpasses the iffy Kotzwinkle novel.
Jaws the movie beats Jaws the novel by a hair. Do we thank Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfuss for wonderful representations of written characters? Do we thank Spielberg for directing them to be wonderful? Do we thank Benchley for creating quite the summer phenomenom back in the hey day of the 70's?
Damn, there is so many more I can name. I haven't even gone back in time to the old black-n-whites.
On the other hand, yes, there is a lot of poorly conceived novel adaptations because the underlying themes are often lost on a 2 hour flickering screen. The majority of Stephen King movies are shit because the movie is presented as plot only, whereas King is such a good writer that he can take some nifty keen plotted hoo-haw story and fill it with juicy good characters and themes that need skill to present properly in a script. The Green Mile did it right, as did Stand By Me. There's a couple more....but mostly, the rule of thumb is that a movie adaptation of King's work is all plot and no quality.
PS, his latest novel CELL is scrumpdillyicous! Loved it.
-TODD
Since this is primarily a movie fan board, it's not a surprise that Spielberg is a big debate point. But once again, it seems there's always disappointment when a "movie version" of some beloved work of fiction doesn't meet one's expectations.
What do you expect? Unless the source was clearly written to be translated to the screen, like most genre fiction now as writers desperately trove for those scumbag producers to option their novels, you are always going to be left disappointed. Books contain whole worlds, for days, maybe weeks of your lives. Movies are two hours of images and theater.
Films are art lite. They are made by huge crowds of people and corporations. They are not scribbled, sketched or scored by some fevered brain in a studio apartment. Yes, there is a small segment of serious films that one could call artistic, that stand with symphonies, novels, and paintings. But the vast majority are circus acts, put on by an industry that is two clicks removed from the Coliseum.
All this noxious keening over V for Vendetta...who cares, it's yet another comic book movie. Read the original, give cranky Mr. Moore his royalties, and wait for Portman's career to tank enough so she starts posing.
Ummmm....
Okay. Just so I get this straight (based on comments read right here in the Pavilion in the last three days):
WAR OF THE WORLDS is a lousy film because it wasn't the book.
DUEL wasn't as good as the book.
V FOR VENDETTA isn't the comic, so Alan Moore and so far a few fans are upset.
Hollywood is turning out entirely too many movies based upon books and not original screenplays.
SCHINDLER'S LIST was a game of connect the dots, and evidently not as good as the book.
Movies are bad because they *gasp* try to manipulate your emotions in order to make you feel something while in the theater. Little children should never be allowed to emote, especially if it reeks of sentimentalizing a film that doesn't show enough military violence.
Oh. And the man who gave us CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND, ET, JAWS, the INDIANA JONES movies, JURASSIC PARK, SCHINDLER'S LIST, MUNICH, SAVING PRIVATE RYAN, AI, MINORITY REPORT, ALWAYS, EMPIRE OF THE SUN, and produced SHREK, MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, TAKEN, BAND OF BROTHERS, INTO THE WEST, AMISTAD, MEN IN BLACK, TWISTER, ANIMANIACS, and WHO FRAMED ROGER RABBIT sucks at his job.
To paraphrase the opening number from 'Avenue Q', I guess "It sucks to be him".
Have I about got it right???
I know you guys want to beat the discussion of Spielberg and his films into the ground, but I thought I'd try to steer the conversation to another point that hasn't been debated to smithereens yet.
Annie Proulx is apparently upset that CRASH won best picture when, according to her, BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN was sooooo much better. Sounds like sour grapes, and a pissy attitude to me. Frankly, neither one deserved Best Picture, but, hey, SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE won, too, so whattya gonna do?
http://books.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1727309,00.html
What do you guys think? Whiner, or valid remarks?
DVG says, "Thus Duel becomes a strange journey into anthromorphism vis-a-vis Christine."
True, but wasn't that apparent in the Richard Matheson story?
Spielberg is a very talented filmmaker, there can be no doubt about it. However, it's just that I personally am not much interested in the majority of his work. Much of it has the feeling of 'cheating.' He forces the action and emotion where he wants it to be and not where the characters and the situation demand it to be.
I'm in school right now (a 34-year-old just getting his BA in English...weep for me) and am taking an Intro to Film (which gives me the right to pontificate, don't ya know!). There is a brief quote by Spielberg in my text where he says:
"I love the idea of not being an independent filmmaker. I've liked working within the system."
I think this is where the trouble lays: Spielberg not only works within the system, but he IS the system as well in A LOT of ways. Is he ever not in control on the set? Is he ever forced to grab a shot on the fly? Is his coffee ever cold? I think a little less control on his part would translate very well onto the screen. It is nice that he is so powerful and able to get any actor he wants and shoot anywhere and whatever he wants...but I think this power leeches some of the emotion out of his productions.
I don't want him to be something he is not. I certainly don't want him to be what I want him to be. I just think he is someone who is immensely talented and is frittering this talent away.
Though I don't think it's one of his best films, I fail to see why Spielberg's WAR OF THE WORLDS should be derided as "pure shieze, merde, pap, guanno, sentimentalist tripe", simply because it is about a father's relationship with his children (a theme Spielberg has explored many times in the past). Why should 'man losing his place on the evolutionary ladder' (or, as Steve Evil has it, "man losing his place in the evolutionary ladder") be considered an inherently more important subject for a filmmaker to tackle? It is clearly true that "Martians just kind of loom in the background"...but they do so for the very good reason that Spielberg is more interested in human beings than he is in Martians. For Spielberg, the alien invasion exists purely to provide an extreme situation that will force Tom Cruise's character to reevaluate his life. This may have little to do with Wells' novel, but it is nonetheless a coherent piece of narrative/thematic construction. I would hope that we are all mature enough to judge a film in terms of what it is trying to achieve, rather than in terms of how faithful it has remained to its source material.
Sentiment vs. Authentic Emotion
Include me with Steve Evil and DVG in the anti-Speilberg WOW camp. Todd asked, "If done right, what the hell is wrong with a little sentimentalism?"
Someone-or-other said that "sentiment is unearned emotion." The example given was of a German officer who spent his day murdering children and then wept at the beauty of his daughter's violin recital.
I guess we're talking about emotional authenticity. Speilberg's not the only sinner. Compare Brian Cox's genuinely scary performance as Hannibal Lecter in "Manhunter" with the slurping noises made by Anthony Hopkins in "Silence of the Lambs". Or the entire cast of "Independence Day", so saucy in the face of death and destruction. Maybe Speilberg just needs a schmalz editor, somebody to let him know when lines like "they're veggie-saurs" will only have the audience rooting for the raptors. This imitation of emotion has the stink of the corporation on it.
I just finished reading Alan Moore's "Top Ten" series, and by contrast, the tears and the laughter were earned by even the most "absurd" characters. Please note that this is being said by a sap who weeps at injured kittens, beautiful women in lingerie, and Kurt Russell telling the bad guys that "Hell's coming with me!" Celtic tear ducts, pity me.
DOUGIE: Thanks for the pointer. You are a scholar, sir. Just going to have to gently break the news to the grubs that I am contemplating the frittering away of their inheritance on comic books. As for Alan Moore merchandise, I'm sure it'll happen. I'm just pleased that I have the original graphic novel, as it was before they plastered "NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE" or whatever on the cover.
ALL: Dunno if it is considered acceptable listening t'other side of t'pond, but for those of you to whom BritCom is basically FAWLTY TOWERS and THE OFFICE, or if you suspect the man who wrote THE DEATHBIRD and THE MAN WHO ROWED CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS ASHORE may just have been onto something, you could do worse than wrap your ears round half an hour of OLD HARRY'S GAME - a BBC radio comedy set in Hell. You'll find yourselves having nothing but sympathy for Andy Hamilton's Satan, a loveable curmudgeon, who so poetically describes the cast of FRIENDS as SIX CHARACTERS IN SEARCH OF A SMACK IN THE MOUTH.
Spielberg debate, my input: I agree with you all, including those who haven't piped up yet.
To Steve Evil, the only one here with ANY perception.
What a bunch o'sagging scrotums!
I didn't want to get into it, but it's gotta be said, if only for balance.
War of the Worlds sucked. There I said it. Pure shieze, merde, pap, guanno, sentimentalist tripe.
The book was about man losing his place in the evolutionary ladder and forced to re-evaluate himself. It was also an incredibly well thought out speculation about what extraterrestrial life might be.
This lousy re-make was about Tom Cruise and his brats. Martians just kind of loom in the background. (We don't even get to see a decent military confrontation, which Wells described in great detail.)
No it was about family and community and how we if we stick together we can pull Tom Cruise out from the belly of the beast, literally. And if a father is dedicated enough, god will guide his grenade hand, and then spare his daughter.
When the Martians finally succumb to germs, it feels like nothing so much as a bad dream, and we can all go back to producing and consuming. The Martians even had the decency to leave most of our cities more or less intact.
You know, there was another "War of the Worlds" film released by Full Moon Entertainment. An incredibly low budget effort that went directly to video.
It was better. It captured the dispare and the hoplessness of the novel. Even with a budget slightly smaller than your average chocolate bar commercial, it showed human civilization and all its beloved institutions o'erthrown, demolished, destroyed, flattened, wiped clean off the map, and the poor faceless, unknown actors seemed genuinely perturbed by the process. They actually got across a little of that Mental, spiritual agony which such an occurence might entail. So when the man finally gets reunited with his wife (just like in the book), I actually felt happy for him.
The issue is not the ending, it is the tone which preceeded it. Spielberg's version was sanitized to a nauseating degree, bereft of any menace or foreboding or cautionary note ("Don't get smug mankind") or even decent property damage. Instead we are treated to a pouty Dakota Flemming. She makes me wish the Martians had won.
If I get one more whiny child actor reach for my heart strings (or my purse strings), I will bite their fingers off.
-Steve E.
P.S. The tirade is meant for WotW, and not Spielberg in general. Loved those Indiana Jones films.
To clarify--I don't hate Spielberg because his work is childish--heck, the two movies he was associated with that I actually like, "The Goonies" and "Raiders of the Lost Ark" are about as childish as things get.
I hate him (or rather, his work) because I find it morally obtuse. Spielberg wades into ultimate evil and always chickens out at the last minute. Thus Duel becomes a strange journey into anthromorphism vis-a-vis Christine; Schindler's List is the Holocaust as a game of connect-the-dots; The Color Purple omits the messiness of the main character's lesbian interest and the horrendous violence of her marriage (certainly the most agressively confrontational thing in the book) in favor of comic bawdiness on both points. AI, Minority Report and even War of the Worlds all contained brilliant moments of penetrating insight that were followed by rapid back-pedalling. Where Kubrick could show the vileness of life, and Kurosawa could show that vileness and transcend it, showing us joy as well, Speilberg seems simply unable to limn the subject matter that he is evidently obsessed with. Thus the Goonies and Raiders are the most successful of his (executive produced, natch) films because evil is seen FROM THE START as a form of clowning and or/total stupidity. There is something to be said for this outlook (particularly in films for children). But it only goes so far each way.
Spielberg? I love almost everything he's done, from DUEL to SAVING PRIVATE RYAN to WAR OF THE WORLDS & MUNICH. All are absolutely stunning.
As for THE SOPRANOS, I've said it before and I'll say it again: It's the best thing HBO has ever put out. Period.
Jan: You are correct. I suspect that are more than a few that are rolling their eyes. I do it all the time.
Almost every major film maker of note--Scorcese, Kubrick, Tarantino, etc, love and rave about Spielberg and his worth as a film maker. He has his own vision and his use of humane stories just keeps him human. Cynics make bad art, usually.
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Big Night, there is a good Italian film. Good, I found one.
I'd like to point out to Todd that if some people put down someone on this board and no one disagrees, I think it often just means we're rolling our eyes and let them have their say. Spielberg makes things come alive on screen and is always pushing the envelope in terms of unobtrusive audiovisual storytelling techniques. He'll be doing another Indiana Jones movie soon, and who's not looking forward to that. I've been waiting since 1989.
The only sane way to view (the fairly entertaining, if mistitled) THE BEST OF YOUTH is in two to four sittings. It was supposed to be a multipart tv production anyway.
While we're on about Italians on film, let me urge everyone to rent The Best of Youth. And be sure to give yourself an unbroken stretch of six hours for watching it. You won't be bored for a second.
Spielberg Continued
I haven't bothered to write a defense of that length, but please put me in the rabidly pro-Spielberg camp. Especially for MUNICH, SCHINDLER'S LIST, JAWS, and CATCH ME IF YOU CAN. I see the flaws in his style, but I confess that only film of his that actually repelled me was HOOK. (I even love sections of 1941.)
Oh, by the way, I "bawled like a baby". I don't think babies do much balling. Many science fiction and comic book fans don't do much balling either, but that's another matter.
-TODD
The Spielberg grousing on this board just amazes me. Actually, I take that back….I’m not surprised, because many on this board just love rip ‘n rend anything that is ‘popular’ because, hell, ‘popular’ can’t ever be good can it? Sure, he is often prone to sentimentalism…..but is that always so wrong? Are we not human? Do we not have emotions? If done right, what the hell is wrong with a little sentimentalism? If I didn’t ball like a baby in Field Of Dreams, I wouldn’t watch it over and over every year.
For those who pigeonhole the ending of his War Of The Worlds remake as typical Spielberg happy ending….go read H.G.’s original book. Zounds, the protagonist is reunited with his wife. Alive! Happy! The aliens are defeated by avian flu and the lovers reunite. So, why does Spielberg’s happy ending deserve disgust?
Spielberg has an amazing body of motion picture work, but you guys and gals just want to bitch and moan because it’s too mainstream or sentimental or childish (hey, kids are allowed to watch movies too, aren’t they). Of course, you will support your distaste with something more than that, and using Harlan’s opinion on many Spielberg films as your back-up since this is his site and he is not a fan of Spielberg’s either. So, I suppose that as the brave little Conservative and the brave little Yankee fan of the site, I must speak up and be the brave little Spielberg fan.
By my count, Spielberg has directed about 25 films. They can be broken into the Summer Blockbuster Spielberg, the Serious Spielberg and the Hard To Peg Spielberg. You can rip and rend any of these films if you choose to, but then again, you can rip and rend any film ever produced if you choose to. Many of you choose to hate the man’s work…..I choose to anticipate every film, because on average, his hits far outweigh his misses and his body of work is great.
As far as the Summer Blockbuster Spielberg is concerned: what is wrong with a good, action, special effect drenched blockbuster if done well? There is fun cinema, and there is serious cinema, and I sure as hell don’t want either to go away. So, we can watch crap like Armageddon, or we can watch some real rock-em-sock-em well produced junkfood like the three Indiana Jones movies, Jurassic Park, The Lost World (which is a series of action set pieces, not a story, but who cares when you are gripping your seat and hanging over the cliff with our heroes as T-Rex shakes us all about and the glass window splinters and…..), War of the Worlds. This is fun stuff, and it’s fun because it is well made. I find it difficult to place Jaws into this category only because Jaws is not fluff….Jaws is an exquisite movie that I can never get sick of. Never. And Close Encounters is also a terrific movie that contains a helluva lot more than just simple action fluff. E.T. is one of the best kid’s movie enjoyed by adults I have ever seen.
The Serious Spielberg is not schmaltz. He might slip a little of it in, sloppily, as with the pro- and epilogues to Saving Private Ryan, but I’ll be damned if his opening D-Day sequence can ever be duplicated for sheer seat gripping presentation of what a chaotic battle might really feel like. I don’t want to ever know that nightmare! Schindler’s List does well with it’s presentation of the Ralph Fiennes character above and beyond the simplicity of the title character’s story arc. Schindler existed; he did what he did, whether for good reasons or greed, but Spielberg’s addition of the Fiennes character, along with his perfect casting, make this movie a step above what it could have been. And the score……beautiful. If you haven’t seen it yet, Munich is a damn good movie. Thank God he didn’t decide to present an over-philosophical debate on terrorism and the Israel/Palestine conflict. He did it right…..he presented a wonderfully directed revenge flic with subtle (and not so subtle) debate within the covers. And please tell me why The Color Purple is so despised? Is it the “Norman Jewison cannot direct Malcom X so give it to Spike” debate because of Spielberg’s color and religion?
The Hard To Peg Spielberg is the Spielberg that dabbles. Sometimes successfully (Catch Me If You Can is so well done and such a small picture that it is often dismissed offhand) and sometimes not (Hook, Always, The Terminal). I put Minority Report here only because I don’t see this as a Summer Blockbuster, even though Mr. Cruise stars, I see it as his attempt to do some form of strong Science Fiction that goes beyond fluff…..but boy, did he destroy it with that ending. Horrible ending.
I’m not sure where to place A.I…..all I know is that I love it. It’s got the Summer Blockbuster in it. It’s got the Serious in it. It’s got the Hard To Peg dabbling in it….and it’s terrific. And it is not a happy, schmaltzy ending. And if you think so, then that is why you have it out for Spielberg: because you choose to dismiss too easily.
Too many words to defend a director….and not enough meat to that defense. But I just wanted to get at least one pro-Spielberg posting out there. I can think of pages more to say about each of the films of his I love, but I won’t waste it here.
-TODD
Lots of things to respond to today.
Robert Charles Wilson: Time travel is tough to do, just watch any StarTrek episode in the past 20 years and you'll see how easy it is to do badly. His novel "Chronoliths" was a landmark. It was smart, engaging timetravel so good that I completely forgive him for ending Darwinia the way he did. I'll agree with Rick in that his books are inventive and thought provoking but (other than Chronoliths) he desperately needs to work on his endings. Fifty pages from the last I get the feeling that he's lost his train of thought and the story sort of stumbles and crawls it's way to a sort of end like an exhausted marathoner who has to be helped across the finish line.
Contemporary writers worth reading:
Michael Flynn: He's bascially written "The Man Who Sold the Moon" as novel in his book FireStar. It's excellent and beautiful and lets you feel the way you did about Space when men were actually going there. He goes on and gets better.
China Mieville: It's not SF but it's so very good. I would, with only positive conotations, call it Monster Porn (not in the Japanese way). It's a gorgeous menagerie of the grotesque and odd and that's just the main characters.
David Marusek: He can't end a novel yet but Counting Heads was so easy and fun I almost don't care. I'll definitely pick up his next bit of writing where ever I find it.
Jeffrey Ford: Although I haven't attempted his novels, his short fiction is worth the effort of running down. For the nearly perfect "The Empire of Ice Cream" we should all be sending free hookers to his house.
I could go on and on and I will but about the short fiction market.
It's not as good because today's young Korbluth's, Cordwainer Smith's, Knight's are all writing novels. Everyone in my writer's group and all the writer's I know have been told and it's been reinforced time and time again that you can't be a working writer unless you're producing novels. Short fiction is what you do to get a novel and then you stop except for an anthology here and there but only as a way of feeding readers to your novel.
The exception to prove the rule is Ted Chiang, who seems happy to persue non-writing career and produce the occasional short story that's just absolutely brilliant (of his 8 so far, 2 have Nebulas and 1 has a Hugo).
Tom Cruise: Don't mind him at all. That War of the Worlds was unnecessary was not his fault at all. Don't get me wrong, I love the visuals in the movie but what is the point of telling the EXACT same story but just rolling the date forward a litte? Oh, that's right, summer blockbuster dollars. I wanted desperately for them to do something new, to take the basic idea and riff off Orson's original. Spielberg is in a deep and ugly rut. He needs to make a good movie, not based on a book or previous movie (Munich (book and movie), Jurasic park (Book, some forgiveness since it was such great fun), JP 2 (book, no forgiveness), Amistad (book), Minority Report (short story, some forgiveness because it wasn't altogether bad), Hook (everything, I love Robin Williams but this was turkey of a movie), Catch me if you can (book), War of the Worlds (everything). Something, as Neil Gaiman says, "right out of our heads". New, exciting, interesting fictions. I will pay top dollar.
Wholesome Italiano movies
Hey, FRANK-uh, whattsamatter with-uh the BEST Italiano-related movies ever made-uh? I'm-uh talkin' 'bout "The Godfather" anna "The Godfather 2." LOTsa good, wholesome messages in-uh deese movies, paisan. Like-uh: Leave the gun, take the cannoli.
Never travel truu a toll-uh booth without-uh your paisans. Never shoot-uh you brotha until _after_ you momma is-uh passed away (rest her soul). And, last-uh, but notta to be the least, not _too_ much garlic when you make-uh the spaghett!
Ciao,
Vito
Shout-out to Ash in UK / acknowledgement to Alan Coil in Michigan
Ash, I've been trawling for Alan Moore items on ebay [still no luck - and don;t know why, as I'm flat broke.] and I ran across this :
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/2000AD-ANNUALS-1979-1990-COMPLETE_W0QQitemZ6613077975QQcategoryZ108880QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
It's in your neck o' the woods - good luck if you decide to go for it ! [ Hoping you're flush ]
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Alan - I've got dial-up as well, but methinks my connection must've been good the other night - it only took about 30 mins total to download - interesting and informative video clip. The other one below it - a preview clip of 'The moindscape of Alan Moore' was rather tasty too. ( www.shadowsnake.com )for more info.
Great to see Iain Sinclair with a few comments. Strange thing was, he popped up on an ABC (Australia) documentary on poets & poems the next day. You know what they say - No such thing as coincidence, right?
-- Dougie.
P.S. 'moindscape' above - should be 'mindscape'
- or is it a bit of a "Moorian" slip - me tryin' the Northampton accent ? - DAMc.
State of the Art, and a few more movies...
I will admit that I haven't read huge amounts of new fantasy/science fiction in the last decade -- a few, here and there (Card's "Ender's Shadow", Butler's "Kindred", Niven's "Draco's Tavern" collection, all written by 'old guard' writers).
It's fascinating to me that part of the problem lays in the definition. For years Harlan, Vonnegut and others have denied the moniker (Harlan, I'll hasten to add, because he didn't feel his work qualified, not from any sense of distancing it from an unpleasant definition) to the point where very clear mainstream FSF is being written without the asterisk of *F/SF.
Examples include (no comments as to individual quality) 'The Five People You Meet in Heaven', 'The DaVinci Code', the entirety of the 'Left Behind' series, 'Life of Pi', 'Timequake' and many others. Publishers have discovered an appetite for this sort of work, and are, whenever possible, ignoring what they still perceive to be a ghetto niche market and pushing the books as mainstream.
Unfortunately, and very likely because of the decining quality (though I'll admit I haven't given it that detailed an amount of thought), I haven't picked up a copy of either Asimov's or F&SF for a good decade. Bad me, I know, but I wasn't getting the return on investment, in my opinion. Then again, I haven't read STORY magazine in nearly as long, so maybe it's me. At one point in my life I was addicted to AMAZING, F&SF, Asimov's and WoIF. Either I changed, or they did, and declining distribution seems to favor the second scenario.
On the other hand, to add a dimension, it's interesting to me that the maturization of visual FSF occurred at roughly the same time. Galactica redux, Babylon 5, X Files, Lord of the Rings, Space: Above..., Farscape and others all far outstrip the previous level of quality in the genre (Logan's Run, Space:1999, Buck Rogers, Galactica 1, etc.). A cynical theory might be that the fans were getting better visuals and so abandoned the more challenging written form, a form which then abandoned its roots and tried to become more commercial. Who knows...?
I truly believe that good SF can still be found in the written form, and we've got to accept that 90% of what was written was crap (Thank you Mr Sturgeon) -- and memories and libraries are now filled with only the good stuff. Was the average issue of 1960's Galaxy really that much superior to today's F&SF? Someone with greater credentials than my own may weigh in, but as a reader I know I've moved away from the magazines and -- for the most part -- the books. And, as a consumer, that might bear attention...
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Frank, others have already nailed some of my own ten choices, but also consider 'Under the Tuscan Sun', 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin', 'A Bronx Tale' (okay, that has both good and bad), '1900' and *ahem* 'Romeo and Juliet'.
Vendettas, Italian and otherwise
A few days ago, I was thinking of suggesting _The Leopard_ as a fine film about Italians. After all, no one said that the films had to be made by Americans. Figured it'd be regarded as a cheap joke.
But guess what other film just occurred to me? _The Agony and the Ecstasy_. Okay, it's big Hollywood hoke, but remember that both of the principals-- yes, even if they're played by Rex Harrison and Charlton Heston-- are _Italians_.
I haven't seen _V for Vendetta_ yet, and I know I ought to go in with No Preconceptions and the Expectation of Great Things... but I'm going to have to work to do it. It's partly due to my admiration for Moore's comics, and the likelihood that a film won't touch the complexities he brought to his story. For example, although I liked _From Hell_, it wasn't Alan Moore's vision at all.)
But this is what worries me. _V for Vendetta_ was a fable. V himself is a superhero, impossibly adept and skilled and resourceful: really, how _did_ he assemble all of the great stuff in an underground lair? How _does_ he manage those amazing feats of martial-arts skill? How did he go from prison-camp test subject to superhuman aesthete? He is a fantasy, arrayed against a Britain that took Thatcher and Orwell as models for social order. And that's great fun as far as fantasy goes.
But in the real world, what factions have become known for blowing up buildings in the name of "resistance?" Right-wing maniacs and religious fascists. And while V tortures Evey to bring about a spiritual and political awakening-- a sequence I never liked in Moore's original, what with its echoes of Patty Hearst and Stockholm Syndrome-- these people tend to climax their interrogations with videotaped beheadings.
And if the last thirty years or so have taught me anything, it's that people who style themselves rebels against an Oppressive System are _every bit as likely_ to be bullies and fascists who just want a rationalization for corruption and ruthlessness. Look at the way the right wing styles itself here in America: as a heroic resistance to a largely imagined liberal fascism. Once they can convince themselves that their opponents have committed the worst sins imaginable, they feel free to perform others. They tell themselves that Whitewater makes Tom Delay's corruption a minor issue, that Michael Moore's goofiness makes Pat Robertson a comparatively honest person, and that the "holocaust" of abortion makes the murder of doctors a Highly Moral Act.
So I'm a little jaded on the matter of superhero rebels.
State of Science Fiction
A quick jab of an opinion: I, too, don't prefer "today's" science fiction and find too much of it lacking when it comes to giving me the same feelings I've had throughout the years. There is only one contemporary writer that I follow, Robert Charles Wilson, whose books I find every bit as inventive and thought provoking as the formative fiction of my younger years.
Science fiction today - a quick thought
The only science fiction magazine I read regularly is Fantasy & Science Fiction. Some months I will get done and wonder why I wasted that portion of my life. Other times I complete my assignment and just close the magazine in wonder, stunned by a collection of stories that remind me why I have the subscription. But that is only one piece of a great magazine pie. I read a few science fiction books each year. Same reactions. Therefore, I can’t comment on magazines as a whole, nor on anything else that’s published.
But, ultimately, I have a lot of trouble whenever anyone says, “It’s not as good as it used to be.” My analogy is Saturday Night Live. Anyone who watched the first few seasons laments that it isn’t as good as when Belushi, et al were there. You hear the same about casts from the 80s and the 90s. Folks, I invite you to go back to the full episodes and recapture just how dreadfully awful many of the skits were. We tend to remember the good/great things. And there ain’t that many great things. (Everyone sing Sturgeon’s Law along with me.)
I can’t offer you an in depth analysis of the state of science fiction, and I won’t even go into “who are the authors of the future”. I really can’t say whether the writing is as good, or the writers are as good, or the quality of any of it is as good. What I can say is that I can read a collection of Nebula or Hugo winning stories from any year and have very little problem defending the overall quality of that group with any other year.
Mike
Heaven help me, but Rob is right.
And since I seem to be the only heterosexual white male fan of Tom Cruise on the planet, I thought he did a fine job in WAR OF THE WORLDS. (The ending on the other hand...really did almost spoil the movie for me.)
One other thing since Josh Olson seems to have made an appearance...If you haven't seen A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE then you're really missing out. It completely boggles my mind that HISTORY wasn't up for more awards. There's a lot more to this flick than what is on the surface (Mortenson was robbed of a nomination, not to mention Cronenberg was robbed, too), and I double dare you to say that CRASH, BROKEBACK, or GOOD NIGHT deserved to be on the Best Picture list in place of HISTORY.
MR. OLSON,
Well, thank god I joked about Tom Cruise's casting...otherwise it might have actually happened! GAH!!
But seriously, thank you for the reply.
FRANK,
Although I can't sound off ten movies (please forgive me), I AM a devout fan of the Italian 'neorealism' movement. UMBERTO D. and LA STRADA are among my permanent "top ten" list of personal favs.
I was going to mention something about the Super Mario Brothers, but I knew someone was probably going to throw a rock at me...
ERIC MARTIN,
Sorry to break this to you, but I bathe daily, and make a habit out of keeping my clothes stench-free. I also don't mind wearing a suit, depending on the occasion. I'm pondering a career in Hollywood, but then again, I'm also thinking about being the first man on Mars. Frankly, England's the place I'd rather be right now.
So, neener-neener, Captain Stereotype.
Frank:
One for your list ... NIGHT ON EARTH (segment set in Rome). That taxi driver is spot on. My Iti pals agree, garrulously.
Jeff R:
I have visited parallel universes where Harlan spent tours of duty on some of the shows you list. In general, they were not nice places to hang out. I prefer this universe, where Harlan has written JEFFTY IS FIVE, SATURN - NOVEMBER 11TH, MIDNIGHT IN THE SUNKEN CATHEDRAL, and .... you get the idea.
In all my travels I found only one parallel existence that was in the remotest sense fun. It was the the one where Harlan, having resigned after his first day presenting FOX NEWS, was called in to save the REN AND STIMPY show. John K was half way into the script for the series finale, when he came down with writer's block. Harlan had to pick up the story from the point where Stimpy says "Hey, Ren! Something came out of my butt!" You'll have to visit that universe for yourself to see how Harlan took the story line to its only illogical conclusion.
To Brent re: FROM HELL
What ya gotta understand is that the film – in my mind – has NOTHING to do with Moore. I never implied I liked the movie because of Alan Moore. I detached it from the graphic novel completely, and therefore accepted the absence of Moore’s complex themes and studies. This allowed me to accept the film on its own terms (the only Moore adaptation thus far that could do that for me).
But you’re wrong when you say the film was nothing but a murder mystery. It supplied far more than that.
No film I’ve seen did a better job showing us what the lives of prostitutes in 19th century London were like; they faced constant male violence as well as the danger of sexually transmitted disease. At a time when public morality was strict and unbending, private misbehavior was a boom industry. The rich and pious engaged in private secret debauchery. The monarcy was detached and indifferent to the social rifts growing between the rich and the poor. The Ripper murders were a historical crossroad because, in drawing unbelievable media attention, these Dantesque realities were drawn into massive scrutiny. The movie uses visual metaphors to tear into these themes.
The imagery in the film recalled for me a lot of the ornate, naturalistic brutalism and dramatic intensity of some of the Baroque painters (Caravaggio, for instance), wherein a technique known as tenebrism was employed, bringing forms from a dark background into strong light, often to evoke deep personal psychology.
Roger Ebert said something about the film I really liked: “It is a Guignol about a cross-section of a thoroughly rotten society, corrupted from the top down. The Ripper murders cut through layers of social class designed to insulate the sinners from the results of their sins.”
And, finally, I can’t leave out how much I liked Johnny Depp as Abberline. It was interesting how he lived such an isolated life (even his loyal detective partner and Heather Graham seem like lose tangents), alone in his own world, with his poisons and disjointed psychic visions.
And I also liked the ending where he sacrifices himself. When I first saw the film, the picture postcard shot of Heather Graham (an actress I really generally like, but can never get past her obviously bad British accent in this movie) with her daughter some 10 years later really nauseated me; seemed way too “sweet”. But as I ran it again and again, I came to see it differently because it was the image Abberline saw as he passed away. Seeing it through his eyes adds a touch of ambiguity, because, perhaps, that's how he WANTED to see it. He knew that while he lived he faced the longing and temptation of going to her, and that endangered her life. If you really think about such longing…the unfair options life can toss in your face…well…you can FEEL that ending. Heather's ass was saved, but by the saddest card played. A good tragic ending.
That’s why the film worked for me. It had nothing to do with Moore.
It also has a good score, a rarity these days.
**I completely agree with Rick's comments. You have works that are so intrinsic to their own medium. The flipside struck me: if you take filmmakers like Hitchcock, Kubrick, or Bunuel, their personal imagery was so shaped organically by the language of film that, if translated in another medium, like a novel, you will lose the crucial idiosyncrasies in the personal metaphors. The story would be there; but not that personal narrative touch that tells us more than the story itself can. You lose the story beneath the story. Or should I say the REAL story?
Yeah, there are works that can only lose their power when translated in another form. And Moore’s stuff IS among them.
Doctor Who
Hey all--
Just want to make sure you know that DOCTOR WHO has returned to the U.S. airwaves on SCI FI, with a two-hour special begining this Friday at 9:00 EST.
HArlan was of course a major fan back in the day (for which I am eternally grateful, as it was his intro to the U.S. novelisations that first turned me on to HE).
The 2005 edition is quite different from the Tom Baker era (and all the "classic" era series), but it retains the same spirt, updated for teh 21st century.
On the whole, I think this 13-episode season is the best single season of any sf/fantasy show I've ever seen. ("Dalek" and "father's Day" being two of teh most outstanding hours on television ever.)
I hope you all -- esp. Harlan! -- give it a go. Maybe HE will be commissioned to write the intro to the U.S. editions of new novelisatons, and turn yet another generation on to his impressive body of work.
(Please excuse my typos -- using the antiquated keyboard at my folks' home tonigt, and it's giving me fits!)
Okay, I'll bite, too:
8 1/2
The Bicycle Thief
Allegro non Troppo
The Garden of the Finzi Continis
La Strada
Raging Bull
Things Change
Il Gatopardo (The original three hour vesion available in The Criterion Collection)
Big Night
Dear Diary/Caro Diario by Nanni Moretti
The mostly sorry state of literary science fiction today...
To Duayne Scott Thayer, who asked: Is it me, or has SF become boreing (sic) as sin over the last five years?
It's not you, Duayne, I agree that it's as bad as you think it is. There are occasional pearls, but, like you, I've subscribed continually to most of the top zines for years (Asimov's since its beginning in 1977, Analog, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Realms of Fantasy, and I fondly remember Aboriginal, Galileo, and, of course, Galaxy) and I've witnessed the relentless decline in genuine story telling, passion, and that oh-so-hard-to-define "sense of wonder" that drew so many of us to this genre in the first place. I, too, hear the claims that the current (ie. past five to ten years) crop of science fiction stories are far more "literate" than what passed before, but I think that's all self-serving apologist posturing. First, I can't help yet feel that what these defenders call "literate" is actually a convenient way of saying "we don't need clever things like plot, ideas that push the envelope of human experience, passion, or any expression of charisma, because we write so darn good, baby!" Seriously, I've had people, professionals, in this field actually say to me, yep, this or that story wasn't all that interesting, but, hey, look at that great "literate" writing! I just want to paraphrase Saul Bellow's zealously repeated first rule of writing: the greatest sin any writer can make is to be boring! Second, those who claim the current stories are oh so much more literate than what came before do a horrible injustice to a couple generations of writers whose works still blow our minds. Honestly, show me who today can consistently write at the level of (my good buddy, and how I miss him) Fritz Leiber, or Ted Sturgeon, or Phil Dick. Where are today's Kornbluths, or Kuntners, or Linebargers? Geez, and these are just a few of the old dead white guys! How about Budrys, or Wilhelm, or Lafferty, or, oh, some dude named Ellison who wrote a few passably interesting things during a scant 40+ years? Anybody wanna say, hey, them old hacks? They weren't all that "literate" compared to what we got today, were they? No, I don't buy any of this "literate" garbage. In the past this field was blessed with more than its share of great literate writers of the highest caliber, and none of them had any problems with passionate story telling! A couple years ago I bumped into Stan Schmidt outside a meeting room while we were both waiting for the next panel at a convention. I asked him (not right in his face, but after several minutes of undisturbed chatting on a number of related things) why he was publishing so much crap in Analog lately. His honest reply was that he was simply receiving a much greater percentage of crap from writers, and he'd gladly publish better stories...if he could get them! He said that more and more people seem to know "how to write", but they haven't got a clue how to develop an idea or tell a simple story. Okay, Duayne, you and I are opening a can of worms here, no doubt, and I'm sure a few webderlanders are going to take their shots at us, but I'm glad you brought it up. Please, I don't think science fiction is going to hell in a hand basket any time soon, at least I'm hoping it's just going through a sort of down cycle from which it will recover, but for the past decade, give or take, I've gotten pretty sick and tired of reading story after story without the reward of a thought provoking, eye opening, or at least somehow relevent resolution. Writers seem to drop the ball constantly these days, and stories just clunk to an end. Wow, I had the great pleasure to recently read all of the Arkady Renko books, back to back in order, by Martin Cruz Smith. Days and days of unrelenting narrative power, honest dialogue, mind bending experience, every scene viscerally felt as well as effectively described, that left me in a readerly rapture I haven't enjoyed in years. Oh, Mary, mother of God, why can't anybody in science fiction write stories about and create a character like that?! Hey, now THAT is passion, and uber literate to boot! Highly recommended. In the meantime, I'll keep reading all those monthly zines, waiting for the wheel to turn the cycle back up again. Hmmmm, Duayne, so you actually sold a couple stories to Shawna McCarthy back in the day? Well, then maybe you're part of the solution! Maybe it's time you tried selling Asimov's a third!
Crypt and Other Stuff
Jack Karcus: Yes, I remember having seen that episode back in 1978-79; I made a special point of doing so after hearing through the media grapevine that he had a had in the story.
Since Harlan had only a story credit, I felt at the time (and now) that the essense of what he was trying to convey was there but due to budget constraints, the director or network interference, it wasn't properly executed. If I had to rate it I'd give it a 2 1/2 out of 4 stars; worth watching but only as a curio.
Thanks to Josh Olson for an inside look at The Discarded"...I hope it turns out as nifty as its planned to be.
As for the Italian movies, I can only add Cinema Paradiso and Open City off the top of my head.
cmb
Five Years Of Boredom?
DUAYNE,
I like to think there's some juice left in sf.
italiano movies
A brief list, either set in Italy or originally produced there:
Enchanted April
Only You
Bread and Tulips
Stealing Beauty
Cinema Pardisio
Il Postiano
Room with a View
Tea with Mussolini
La Dolce Vita
My Mother's Smile
Summertime
A Room with a View
Where Angels Fear to Tread
The Stolen Children
The Way We Laughed
no particular order there. sorry I gave more than 10, I like them all. some don't have english translations, or only have subtitles. I didn't include the wonderful "Life is Beautiful" when I wrote that. It shows the character of the Italian spirit to make such a film, and the genius of Roberto to do it so well.
I also think that Good Fellas and Casino don't portray any ethnic group negatively. They portray them realistically.
Stephen
p.s. typos are my own. blame it on my irish-polish upbringing.
FRANK CHURCH:
I'll start the list.
How about:
MOONSTRUCK
A WALK IN THE CLOUDS
MARTY
BIG NIGHT
BIG DEAL ON MADONNA STREET
THE BUTCHER'S WIFE
ASK THE DUST
THE ROSE TATTOO
Yr. Paisan, Harlan
A legitamate question for Harlan, or anyone else.
I have been reading SF for over thirty years. I have an extensive collection, everything from the original Galaxy with Jim Blishes "Surface Tension" to signed copies of "Strange Wine" and "Deathbird stories." I have been a subcriber to F&SF and Azimov's for twenty years. Shawna McCarthy was kind enough to buy two stories from me back when she edited Azimov's.
At last the question: Is it me, or has SF become boreing as sin over the last five years? Yes I would agree that it may be more literate, but it just seems to lack any passion.
(Even if you say its me I still won't think that it is.)
Thank you, Dougie McIntosh, for the further linkage to the Alan Moore interview.
Unfortunately, I am on dial up. I am on 17 minutes and counting, and it appears I have only downloaded about 10-15 percent of the interview. Maybe I'll have to wait until tomorrow to watch it.
Alan Moore stated several months ago that he really didn't care to have any input in the V movie. His feelings are that the story is a comic book story, not a movie. When the producers lied about Moore having seen the script and having loved it, Moore demanded a retraction, which didn't happen. He then demanded that his name be removed from the movie and everything connected with the movie. (Some lobby posters that have been posted on the internet have his name on them and some don't.)
Alan Moore is a man of strong beliefs.
Forget the Italian Mafia!
What are we going to do about this Texan Mafia?
One would be hard pressed to name ten films that "say positive things" about *Americans*. A matter of definition. But one can easily make a list of Italian films that naturally portray Italians as the normal (if somewhat soccer-obsessed) people they are. Is mthat really what you want, Frank?
Italians love mafia movies as much as the next guy. The best mafia films preserve aspects of the Italian culture. The most famous ones were, of course, written and directed by Italians or American Italians like Puzo and Pileggi, Scorsese and Coppola. If only average Italians could be portayed in movies, there would hardly be a reason to tell a story about them.
Now as for Germans in American movies... ;-)
Okay, a bit of a quiz for the whiz kids. Name ten films that have positive things to say about italian life and or italians?
Not saying I agree with Paglia, but I just like quizzes.
-----------
Josh Olson, you should go into the archives and look at my stellar essay on the film AI, an essay that even received a rave from our Harlan. I was one of the few filmheads who saw the subtle truths in that film, and saw through the lies that implied that Spielberg was just heaping his usual sacrament unto the dewey-eyed masses.
The Discarded
Sorry for being late to the game... Josh Olson here. I'm working with Harlan on the adaptation of The Discarded. You can probably imagine how thrilled I am to be working with the cat who made me want to be a writer when I was 14. (It was Ellison Wonderland that did it, in case you're wondering).
Ben Winfield had some interesting comments about The Discarded, and the ABC version I’m writing with/for/under Harlan.... You definitely get the story, Ben, and I think you’ll be pleased. At the risk of enraging our glorious host by giving anything away, I have some interesting plans for Harmony Teat, and at least one other female character. (My girlfriend read the story and loved it, but commented - as the womenfolk are inclined to do about such things - that there were no female characters. Harlan points out that it was the late fifties and he was in the army, and there WERE no damn females PERIOD. So there, Annie.)
On top of that, I had some small success injecting sex scenes into my last adaptation, so I thought I’d give it a go again, and unless you want to see Brokeback Discarded with Bedzyk and Samswope, we’re gonna have to add some women.
I’m also with you about keeping Earth off-screen, although I have one tiny blip of a scene in my first draft that might drive Harlan up a tree when he reads it. But if it doesn’t and it survives, you might get a teeny glimpse of Earth. When I say teeny, I mean about three square feet.
I’m with you yet again about War Of The Worlds. Imagine how much better it would have been with, say, Paul Giamatti in the lead? Every time Cruise hit the screen, I felt like I was watching some male model show off the nifty working man’s clothes he’d just bought at Saks. Yack!
And y’know, I think by posting that publicly, I’ve now blown any chance that Tom would play Curran. Damn. We were so close to signing him....
Sorry, Harlan.
V for Vendetta review
I had a chance to see a sneak preview of V for Vendetta last night and posted my review over on the Bulletin Board. While i have not read V, I am very familiar with Alan Moore through Watchmen, Swamp Thing and his early work on Captain Britain.
This was a great movie and captured much of the feel of Moore, including his exposition. A great example of that is when V (Hugo Weaving) first meets Evie (Natalie Portman) and goes on a long soliloquy using almost exclusively words that start with the letter V.
I would strongly recommend this film to everyone, especially anyone who enjoyed Repent, Harlequin. While V is a much more violent character than Harlequin, the two characters are similar in their opposition to an oppressive regime.
Minicon
I'm not sure if this has been mentioned or not, but the Thursday night event is free for convention attendees. That's what the manager at the bookstore said when I spoke to her today, anyway. If her information was incorrect, I guess I'll find out next month. If anyone would like to meet up, I'll be the redhead with the big scary bald man (not Barney).
Jack - Harlan only wrote the story for "The Crypt". The teleplay was written by Al Hayes. That said, the broadcast retains the Harlan Ellison name as the "Story by" credit. Can't help you on whether it's worth your while to track down, as I've never seen it myself.
Anyone remember "Falling Down" starring Michael Douglas? It's the movie where a disgruntled every-white-man (played by Douglas) takes his frustrations out on the multicolored world. I found it mildly amusing when on one of his rampages, he takes over a MacDonalds which is clearly located in a nonwhite section of Los Angeles. And who happens to be manning the registers and deep fryers?
Yep, that's right. A whole gaggle of white suburban kids straight outta Minneapolis. Oh yeaaaah!!!!!
Ethnicisititty
I've always been rather proud of that 1/4 of my heritage that is Welsh. Other than the sterotypical unreliability on deals ("welshing"), and the dual performing gifts of Tom Jones and the late Sir Richard Burton, we've been pretty much ignored in the mainstream media's ethic labelling/libeling.
On the other hand, a good chunk of me is white Protestant American male, with all the freaking baggage that comes with that particular moniker these days...
Has anybody seen the Logan's Run episode "Crypt" Harlan wrote? Did it get 'Birded' and if not is it worth my time to find and watch?
Stereotyping
Dear Camille Paglia
The Mafia exists.
Films and TV shows about italian gangsters merely mine the headlines for character types.
Are they saying that ALL italians are gangsters? No.
Are they saying that all gangsters are italian? Also no.
Are they reacting to a well-known subculture of italian gangsters? Yes.
I couldn't help laughing when I heard "stereotype" complaints about GOODFELLAS and CASINO, two films inspired on real events that merely preserved the ethnic backgrounds of the people involved in those events.
Similarly, I always laugh out loud when I hear folks complaining about the "stereotyping" inherent in depicting airplane hijackers and other terrorists as arabs.
I recall these complaints being loudest about a film called EXECUTIVE DECISION, about arab terrorists who plan to crash a hijacked plane into the east coast. This was BEFORE 9/11. The film was attacked for being ridiculous.
Would it have made sense to have a group of fanatical Belgians?
Fanatical Danish? How about an angry, brutal fanatical guy from Monaco?
Italians/Mob
It's not untrue.
The Yakuza are not pale, hard-wintered Canadians or the Tong suited dandies from Mumbai. They are, respectively, Japanese and Chinese and it is not a slight to say that they are. In the same way, the mafia are Italians. They made it, they own it and they'll be forever associated with it as much as Einstein is with General Relativity even if the new Russians are sharing the term a bit, although you'll notice there's always a qualifier; It the Russian Mafia, not just the Mafia.
I have never suspected anyone, simply because they had an Italian sounding last name, of being in the Mafia in the same way that I would never assume anyone with an Arab name was a terrorist. It's a conceit. We're not talking about you, you just happen to be also Italian, Japanese, Canadian, Black, Jewish, etc. You're not interesting enough to build a television show around just because you happen to share some history with a subgroup we do find interesting.
>to hopefully sate the fanatical zeal of Eric Martin's awkward endeavor <
Harldy fanatical, and there sure ain't no zeal. You may be describing the hysteric tone of your own postings on this matter, but I'm just amused at all the whining.
And maybe if YOU wore a suit, you'd have a better chance getting an appointment with someone whose money and sponsorship you want. A nice wool blend, with a tasteful tie...I know, not the image you're trying to maintain, that of carefully unwashed artist. But just remember: wear jeans, and you'll make just enough to buy them.
The Trouble with Harry (I mean Alan)
The problems I see with translating Moore's work to the big screen are:
- He is an absolute effing genius writing in a specific medium and that is going to be diluted by every party through whose hands the work passes to be translated or edited
- Moore's work is heavily expository which is pretty much anathema for a major motion picture
- Moore almost always relies strongly on presenting a variety of complex, confused characters with conflicting goals and revealing both their past history and present motivation over a long period of time. This has to be daunting to the producer, screenwriter, or director who has usually less than 2 hours to tell the story.
Not that I think any of his adaptations have been anything more than piss water. But I do think any attempt to adapt the work of guys like Busiek, Moore, Gaiman is going to have to either follow one character through a story or focus on a smaller sequence of the story rather than try to tell the whole thing. It's like when 20 naked Pentocostals try to fit into a ford taurus. It's painful to those on the inside. It's confusing to those on the outside. And mainly all you can see are elbows and ass.
In an attempt to correct my post from yesterday (and to hopefully sate the fanatical zeal of Eric Martin's awkward endeavor to balance the writer/executive equation), I freely admit the majority of today's screenwriters DESERVE today's executives. Alternately egotistical, vain, twitchy, and shrill, it's no WONDER these folks leave no impression on the suits during pitch meetings, what with their "It's PRETTY WOMAN meets SEVEN"! and their "It's GODZILLA meets WUTHERING HEIGHTS!" (I'm not going to exempt myself from these people. My own stories are too derivative for any chance of being separate from the rest of the dung heap. There ARE individuals out there who break the stereotype...I'm just not one of them.)
Come to think of it, forget plain old creative bankruptcy; Hollywood's been through those periods before. This is the filmic apocalypse...the end of the mainstream as we know it. The business AND creative aspects of Tinsel Town are shriveling up faster than the body of the Witch King after he was killed by Miranda Otto in THE RETURN OF THE KING.
Okay. I'm done.
movies of today
Some comments about Moore and films:
Alex Krislov
"As I recall, Moore removed his name from the film project over a relatively minor tiff--he felt that pre-film publicity implied he'd approved of the final product, when he hadn't."
While that was the probably the back-breaking straw, Moore was quoted as saying that the script was "imbecilic". Not a good sign, in my opinion. True, he is against film adaptations in general, and I think rightfully so, but I think that should be taken into consideration.
Alejandro Riera
"A commercial film that dares present such brave notions as ideas never die needs to be seen and critiqued."
I think it lost some credibility by pulling back from the 5th of November release date (would have been cute timing considering the Guy Faux poem), due to the tragedy that occurred in London and lost more still by being bashed from the creator of the source material.
Rob
"I DID like FROM HELL, which was diluted but still intelligent."
It cut out all the interesting stuff and focused only on the "murder mystery" which I think if you read Moore's scripts and comments you'll find he wasn't really interested in that stuff at all. The whole history of London and the majority of the meat of the book that really was mind-blowing was nowhere to be found.
Now, I've seen the commercials and the posters and they certainly have the look down. "V" looks great and I'm sure it will be thrilling to see Hugo blow shit up, and stab the oppression - but will the story stand up? It's one of my favorites and when films are made from source material with rare exceptions I find myself wondering why? Why not just make a movie and call it something else? Why use the name of something that it no longer is?
Best-
B
V, Moore and More
As I recall, Moore removed his name from the film project over a relatively minor tiff--he felt that pre-film publicity implied he'd approved of the final product, when he hadn't. This is back when the early drafts of the script were circulating. His complaint was valid--the producers shouldn't be implying they have his approval without his express permission. On the flipside, this means that Moore's removing his name doesn't really say anything about the final cut.
And it's got to be better than the gawdawful film version of "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen."
TV Shows for which I wish Harlan had written
COLUMBO
THE FUGITIVE
THE INVADERS
THE GREEN HORNET
COMBAT!
THE PRISONER
PLAYHOUSE 90
ROD SERLING'S NIGHT GALLERY
A script Harlan wrote that I wish was produced: His BATMAN episode featuring Two-Face.
Any others?
The False Morel in Soylent Green
On the subject of how the film industry appears to operate ....
Those of you who have read FUTURE TENSE, the late John Brosnan's survey of SF in the Cinema from 1900 to '78, will probably recall that some 10 pages of the 300 page book describe the making of SOYLENT GREEN (the movie, not the delicacy, hmmm). Interesting insights from Harry Harrison into the workings of the Hollywood machine (at least how it was in the early 1970s). There is much in what Harrison says that will make you laugh, then cry, then sigh. My quick summary here cannot do it justice:
Charlton Heston read the book and cared enough to spend five years and a lot of his own money trying to get the project off the ground but it took the infamous plot twist to get buy-in from the MGM execs who insisted that they had bought the novel rights ONLY and the screenplay make that shooting script could only be written by one of their own monkeys not the author of the original novel who hung around the studio anyway making helpful suggestions which led to him being blamed for the escalating budget but probably resulted in a far better SF movie than the piece of doo-doo it could so easily have become given that virtually nobody involved in the production but Chuckie had read the original novel.
Something like that.
H:
You may be right.
Understand in this day n' age of cinematic toilet clogs, it requires a word from the revered to consider ANYTHING.
I DID see LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN...and...well, THAT wasn't Moore. It festered. On the other hand, I DID like FROM HELL, which was diluted but still intelligent.
Chuck,
re: the slimy Hollywood heads of yore, there is one other distinction from today's which you forgot to mention, though you're probably aware of it. Them guys genuinely loved movies; it wasn't just their business, it was their passion. Most of them, like Mayer, didn't understand people; but, right or wrong in their judgment, they really cared about what went into the movie.
These guys today - I mean now, from what I grew up reading by Harlan, this breed has been around for 30 or 40 years - REALLY don't give a SHIT. I think they're getting more contemptible by every generation.
V for Vendetta
Well, just saw it at a sneak preview. A good chunk of Moore's ideas and concepts were kept intact and some were updated to reflect our present times. I object to some additions, but I will not spoil it for you webderlanders. WE can debate those once you see the film.
It is mostly loyal to the spirit of the book (and I urge you to read the graphic novel if you haven't yet), and Hugo Weaving is simply amazing. Also got quite a kick of seeing Tim Piggott-Smith (he of "The Jewel of the Crown" fame and so many fine British TV serials) in the big screen.
A commercial film that dares present such brave notions as ideas never die needs to be seen and critiqued. Especially after hearing one Hispanic family complain out loud after the screening that they'd much rather stay at home and watch a telenovela than see a man who never takes his mask off talk and talk and talk. (Actually, they were screaming as the credits were rolling "What a piece of shit! He never took his mask off! And the bad guys stayed alive! What a piece of shit! And I missed my telenovela for this!" At which I shook my head while realizing that these are the same docile sheep who would let any government trample our rights as long as they did not interupt their telenovela or Don Francisco.)
I ain't moved enough by any of the posts since my last one, to the moment, to answer any of them. Lord knows if the person who asked me to talk about my tv experiences cares to go into the Webderland archives, he will find MORE than sufficient to keep him sated. And if that don't work, deputy, you kin reread THE GLASS TEAT and its companion volume. One point, however: do not dismiss the film version of V FOR VENDETTA out of hand, because Alan has taken his name off EVERYTHING emanating from the film world. He just doesn't like what's been done to his work previously, and I have no idea (nor have you, a priori) what his feelings might be in re this latest foray.
I suggest you go see it...or not...
And don't judge a book by chill rumor.
Yr. pal, Harlan
Minor correction: the previous note should read "portraying mobsters as Italians..."
Re Camille Paglia and _The Sopranos_
People, keep the following in mind:
Camille Paglia is a Philadelphian-- and she says that portraying mobsters is a malign smear and a lie.
A _Philadelphian_ says this. Someone whom, we can presume, has heard the names of Nicky Scarfo, Sal "Chickenman" Testa and Angelo Bruno.
Don't give her any more of your attention, people.
Paglia's a bore. Her fifteen minutes wrapped up fifteen years ago.
Through my father's and sister's field of endeavor, I've had the opportunity to know several Italian Psychiatrists, LICSWs and therapists, all of whom are quality people who provide quality value for their services.
Stick with Chomsky, Frank; at least he has a sense of humor.
Mark W.
Yeow! Ms. Paglia pulls no punches...Speaking as someone who had an Italian grandfather, I for one am sick and tired of seeing Italians portrayed as mobsters. My grandfather, who was a full blooded Italian, had a few of those on his side of the family, and they were nothing to brag about, much less talk about. My grandfather also made his living at Bell and Howell, not trying to muscle money out of people. He loved a good laugh, and loved us all unconditionally; he also taught my mother how to cook. He could repair just about anything (ask my sister--she was a genius at taking stuff apart. She would then go to my grandfather and, lifting up the remains of whatever it was she had taken apart, would say "Papa fix?") I refused to watch "The Sopranos" when it came out, and I still won't watch it. If there was ever a movie made about someone like my grandfather, would anyone care to see it? Or would it be just too dull compared to the goings on at the Soprano residence? Hmmm...I wonder.
I bet they took the politics out from V, that is why Moore did the right thing. This guy was always about more than just entertaining the sheep.
--------------
Camille Paglia has contended that the Sopranos is anti-Italian, because it makes Italian men look effete, or they are made to look like gimicky thugs. She also contends that no Italian she knows would ever see a shrink. And, she knows of no actual Italian shrink.
She calls the show elitist and blames the white-pc-left for making Italians the last race of people that can be lied about. She sees the show as plot for plot's sake, with no ideas behind it. She thinks of it as a minstrel show, with Italians taking the place of the blackfaced stooge.
Discuss...
The studio heads back in the days of the "Studio System" were bastards, for the most part. Mayer was a dictator, Jack Warner was a sociopath who screwed over everyone around him, even his brothers and his own son.
The people who run the studios today are bastards, too. However, the bastards of the past grew Hollywood as the world came to know it, and they knew the motion picture business inside and out. The bastards today don't really seem to know anything outside their MBA's. They really don't seem to know or care about the unique nature of the movie business the way the old bastards did.
That seems to be the difference between then and now.
Chuck
"The best works are still coming from the non-suits, and the claptrap ("Joey", "American Idol", the first two seasons of "Enterprise", almost any romantic comedy at a nearby theater) come from the cold and calculating accountants...
So, in response to your question, the corporations get it right only because there are still "artists" among the brass."
Yup. I'm reminded of a scene from THE PLAYER where an executive yearns for a world where they could eliminate the need for writers entirely. Gotta love the Hollywood suit...that impeccable amalgamation of amoral arrogance, flawless efficiency, indifferent ignorance, and stupid cynicism never fauls.
Well I was looking forward to V FOR VENDETTA so it's disappointing to hear AM has disassociated himself from the film. But then I was also looking forward to LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY GENTLEMEN and I still shake my head over that one.
Next it'll be PROMETHEA starring Britney Spears, produced and directed by Rob Cohen!
Sopranos
As a fan of the show, all I can say is, "yeahhhhhh." It was better than it had any right to be. See it, Rick.
That said (no spoilers here), I was put-off by the co-mingled season premier of The Sopranos, and Big Love. Big Love may be a good show (didn't watch it, so I don't know), but they went to such great lengths to force feed Big Love to me (no snickering!), that I deliberately protested by not watching the fucking thing. I hate being "marketed-to." Makes me feel like part of a "demographic," and I'm an anti-joiner.
Once everyone has seen The Sopranos, maybe we can talk about it. Until then, fugeddaboutit.
-Keith
Sopranos
I haven't seen the first episode of this yet and if anyone here spoils it for me I swear to god it will not go well for you. This includes you Harlan I have a little button I can hit and when you log in it will be like you opened the frigging arc of the covenant.
Harlan, are you following the Sopranos?
a winter's tale
...and let me tell you all one little thing, that in the vernacular of the upper midwest there is no sweeter single term than "snow day", with the possible exception of "morel mushroom". 4-8" and piling up; to think it was 50 degrees here on Saturday...
respectfully,
Neal
Producers, et al
Eric -
The producers and assorted "knuckledraggers" fulfill the necessarily evil role of financing and business when it comes to making films. That doesn't make them good or artistic in any way shape or form.
I think you'll find that, in fact, some of the very best films and television programs are those in which the producer is a creative person, not simply a businessperson. F'r example: Ron D Moore, JMS, George Clooney, George Lucas, Manny Coto, the folks at Pixar, J.J. Abrams, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez... well, you get the idea.
The best works are still coming from the non-suits, and the claptrap ("Joey", "American Idol", the first two seasons of "Enterprise", almost any romantic comedy at a nearby theater) come from the cold and calculating accountants...
So, in response to your question, the corporations get it right only because there are still "artists" among the brass.
My two dollars and ninety seven cents.
>knuckledragging producers and antbrained network executives<
Yeah, if only we could have no producers or executives. Think of all the great movies and tv shows that would have been made.
I dunno, I think those knucklehead producers and antbrained executives have generally done a pretty good job. I look back at the studio days of Hollywood, and compare it to what's being churned out now, and I don't see a lot of improvement. Maybe even a step or two backwards.
I'm not convinced that putting artists in financial and administrative control of films and television is a good idea. We need those knuckleheads and antbrains, if only to be sure everyone gets paid.
Showtime
We know the Television shows that Harlan has authored that were not been treated kindly by knuckledragging producers and antbrained network executives, but can Harlan if he has the time and inclination to comment on episodes from other programs like The Man from UNCLE, Burke's Law and Cimmiron Strip? It would be interesting to know if he has some personal favorites. My thanks in advance to Harlan for endulging this request in any form he wishes.
BBC2 Interview with Alan Moore available elsewhere . . .
To Alan Coil in Michigan, et. al.
try this website :
http://xrayhand.wordpress.com/
then scroll down to -
Alan Moore Culture Show interview
Filed under: TV, Comics — Youri Zoutman @ 10:58 am
It’s up on youtube, so:
[ you should see a videoplayer box about here, click and give it a try ]
Helpfully,
Dougie.
Mongo
It's fine to show killing and torture on TV, but at smoking I draw the line. That shit could kill you.
Now I'm off to watch Faces of Death XXIX, totally wholesome and smoke-free.
HARLAN:
Thanks, appreciate your restrained response. As Confucius (or was it Chuck Norris) say: "A wise man question himself, a fool others." Fear not, this fool will trouble you no further on such trivialities as the Lobster of the Week Show. Howsabout I try'n field that question addressed to you by ...
STEPHEN at Wrigley Field:
RDM's take on BattleTar Galactica can be read at
http://www.battlestarwiki.org/wiki/Main_Page?title=RDM_Battlestar_Galactica
See under "Why does the doctor smoke?"
My personal view, not that you asked for *my* view, is that smoking may be cool, but passive smoking (what I have to do) certainly is not, and ... well ... I've seen the effects of a lifetime being cool, and it ain't pretty. Television really is the best place for all that particulate matter.
Too bad about Moore taking his name off the V movie. It might still be enjoyable, but maybe not what Moore created in the original literature.
Just to let folks know, Dad's back home today. No blockages were found, but his heart has a tendency to slow down once in a while. He may need a pacemaker.
But, so far so good.
Chuck
V For Vendetta
Just learned Alan Moore removed his name from the film.
So much for the film.
...and what else is new?
To underscore the acknowledgements to Moore, I owe busloads to WATCHMEN for narrative technique, inspiration, breadth, irony, enigma, juxtaposiiton, imagery, and outright addiction. It allows you to revisit sections and find something new everytime. It's hard to avoid falling back on the cliche "it's a masterpiece in the truest sense". (Footnote: when you examine the sources Moore and artist Dave Gibbons use, it's almost impossible to miss the nod to Jack Kirby in the "storyboard" style panel sequencing, and NEVER was it put to better use)
I've been carving out a very difficult concept myself for a graphic novel, which I hope will take shape in another year, and his book has been a great assist in thinking outside the box.
I agree: W could only work as a miniseries. If they do a movie, I doubt I'll see it. Cluttered shorthand is all you're gonna get. (Frankly, I feel that way about most comic book adaptations, but this is particularly true for Moore's stuff).
Still Smokin'
STephen:
Life on a spaceship is depressing, so everyone takes up smoking. They have little hydropnics centres in the engine room which are discreetly kept out of camera shot.
Minicon 41 - let us take a deep breath
All,
Don't worry about the Minicon checks and such. Let me set the alarmists at east. I, too, was curious about the status of my check (I sent my check in to Minicon in mid January), and I sent an e-mail inquiring after it in the middle of February, and I heard back from both Greg Ketter and Carol Kennedy that it had been received, but that it had not been deposited yet. But they have their act together. My check was eventually deposited in late February/early March.
Greg is at Dreamhaven Books, so it must be quite a feat to setup a convention AND run a book shop, and Darwin knows what else.
See ya all there. I'm coming with my EO Crystal. Roger, I'm looking forward to talking to you again (we met briefly at DragonCon, remember?). Kristin, looking forward to meeting you.
-Keith
a trip down amnesia lane and a question of ethics
TV.com attributes the writing credit to Harlan directly: http://www.tv.com/voyage-to-the-bottom-of-the-sea/the-price-of-doom/episode/58844/summary.html
the folks at portup.com give the 3 word varient: http://www.portup.com/~hjbe/voyage/s1ep5.html
the fine aussies at melbpc at least spelled it right: http://member.melbpc.org.au/~petstaff/scifi/vttbots/vttbots_1_05.html
the boys at vttbots used all 3 words: http://www.vttbots.com/episode_guide_year_1b.html
... and so it goes on for an additional 400 web hits according to the yahoos at Yahoo! ... this amount of dreck and drivel over such an obscure and unworthly episode of a show from 4 decades ago ... >shudder< ... it boggles the mind. And that's enough said about that.
============================
Harlan,
In your professional opinion, is it ethically right for the writers and producers of _Battlestar Galactica_ to show so many of the characters smoking? Never mind that they are on ships with enclosed (and hopefully recycled) atmospheres. Never mind that they have no means to grow those noxious weeds. Never mind that there is no need in the plot or for character development. 2 full seasons worth of shows in the can, and no explanation for why they include it. I find the casual use and showing to be reprehensible. Please tell me there is SOMETHING that justifies what they have done. Please?
Stephen
p.s. I already have my tickets to see Villanova play in the first 2 rounds of the NCAA tournament. Catch'em on tv if you can, the enthusiasm and energy are a thing of beauty.
Kristin in regards to your question sbout your membership for Minicom. I do know my check for membership had been cashed because of my bank records, but not because of any response from Minicom. When I have gone to Dragoncom at least I got a note or email from them confirming they got my payment and picked up my id at the check in. I'm guessing if they have cashed your check your credentials should be at the sign in table, at least that is what I am hoping since they cashed my check. Looking forward to meeting you there at one of Harlan"s panels.
Roger
ASH:
Nothing would delight me more than being able to answer your query re: the onscreen manifestation of "Cordwainer" (properly spelled) or "Cord Wainer" (incorrect), as to its possible genesis either a) as an intentional auctorial denigrative or b) as a normal, to-be-expected production fuckup.
However...
To designate for you, either the former or the latter, it would entail me having to LOOK AT THE FUCKING PIECE OF YAK DOO-DOO for the first time in forty years and, well, to be absolutely forthright with you, my dear friend...
I would rather have someone sear out my eyeballs with quicklime.
So. You're on your own.
Respectfully, Harlan Ellison
That was no ladle, rich -- that was my knife!
More Moore
Here is a link to a recent New York Times article on Alan Moore and his relations with DC Comics and Hollywood. I found the link via Mark Evanier's weblog. If you have any problems go to www.newsfromme.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/12/movies/12itzk.html?ex=1299819600&en=dde707f88b70c9e5&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Am I the only one who spent all week trying to imagine the conversation Harlan Ellison and Tupac Shakur had about Hieronymus Bosch? (To have been a fly on the cornbread there . . .)
Yeah, V FOR VENDETTA looks like it might be a hoot. I just wish, though, that Hollywood would stop trying to adapt Moore for the big screen. I'm not opposed to the filming of his work, necessarily; but a two-to-three hour movie, no matter how good, will never capture more than a tiny portion of the complexity and richness of any one of his comics. Only a cable miniseries--say, an HBO production of WATCHMEN--has a shot at being anything other than a bitchfest for the fanboys on AICN.
rich
>>We shot the shit for a bit, after our initial shock of hearing about the end of the world ("I would've thought early 2008," TC said, shaking his head.) Begel567 took off, after crushing 68 beer cans on six of his foreheads in one fell swoop, whereupon Duvall gave Begel567 his Academy Award.
<<
that cracked me up
hawhaw
rick
Unfortunately, the link to the Alan Moore interview brings up a message that one cannot view the programme outside the UK.
I know about 20 people in my neck of the woods who would like to see it. Is the video available anywhere else?
Alan Moore
Re: earlier posts, a Alan Moore video interview that I serendipitously caught last week on BBC2's Culture Show-yeah shock, horror comics equated with culture in U.K.-is available for viewing via http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo/programmes/index.shtml?id=culture_show (alternatively go to bbc.co.uk/bbctwo and link up with 'Culture Show') Note that this is only until the 16th March, I assume for copyright reasons.
The images of Northampton (Moore's haunting ground) may deter you from planning a tourist literary tour-stylized dystopia indeed!
Bal
It was while working with Tom Cruise on DAYS OF THUNDER that I really understood what a great smiler TC was. (Those of us that know Tom Cruise--truly know him--call him TC. No relation or misunderstandings with Roger Mosley intended.)
So I'm working as an actual wheel nut on DAYS OF THUNDER--you may have spotted my performance in the fourteen car pile up, you know the one I'm talking about it...I nailed it by the way; no wheel nut was as believable as I was AT THAT MOMENT--and there was some downtime as Robert Duvall and Randy Quaid had a competition to see who could crush the most beer cans on their forehead, and I'm talking with TC and we're discussing our encounters with various government officials, mine with the Threaded Cylinders Inspectors (part of the FDA, for some bizarre reason), and TC's with Area 51 tour guide, James Watt ("Not to be confused with the improver of the steam engine," TC said. I smiled and shook my head to indicate I knew exactly who TC was talking about.).
TC and I were interrupted by a UFO settling in our midst. Well let me assure you that TC and I, and the rest of the crew, were nonplussed. TC more than I as the last time he was anal probed by Those From the Stars, they informed him that they wouldn't be back until the end of the world.
So you can imagine the look on TC's face (mine too, since he shared this revelation to me as the craft was settling down on the track we had taken over for the climactic DAYS OF THUNDER showdown), and out popped Begel567 (rough translation).
Well, nothing in Strasberg's class had prepared me for this moment as TC introduced me to Begel567. I mean, I had been THE MAN for inanimate objects--once having been a ten penny finishing nail in CHINATOWN that continued to rust long after initial shooting had wrapped--but I was dumbfounded and stood stock still as Begal567 informed TC and me that the world as we know it would end in the year of Hubbard, 2009. It was true, he showed us the plans and everything. Begel567 didn't know the exact date as the destruction of the Earth was still going through final planning. If funding could be secured, it was supposed to be 3rd Quarter, 2009, but we didn't hear that from him.
We shot the shit for a bit, after our initial shock of hearing about the end of the world ("I would've thought early 2008," TC said, shaking his head.) Begel567 took off, after crushing 68 beer cans on six of his foreheads in one fell swoop, whereupon Duvall gave Begel567 his Academy Award.
Well everything was in place and we worked on our scene (TC nailed it by the way, that smile he gave not only touched his eyes, but reached all the way up to his hairline), Duvall and Quaid started crushing bottles of Ole Grandad on their foreheads, and I went back to being a nut. A great nut, by the way.
But I'll always remember Begel567, TC and I swapping stories on the set of DAYS OF THUNDER, Bobby and Randy ending up in the hospital from crushed craniums, and the secure knowledge that I used my innate ability and training to become a pencil, and inverted the 9, making it a 6.
So while TC has money in Vegas on 2009, I've got the inside track for end of the world in 2006. And I'm gonna rake it in, baby, and TC will be working for me.
Ummm...waitaminnit.
Green Cheese, Claptrap and a Sea View
DOUGIE doon under:
It's never too late! Nice to know it's not a figment of my decaying grey matter, thanks.
SHELLY:
Generally agree with your sentiments, Shelly, but ....
Whether I am intelligent or funny is debatable, that I am cuter than Tom Cruise is a dead cert, but if claptrap is in the eye of the beholder, then my eyes are bloodshot with Graham Hancock bullshit, and I'm getting acute Adrian G. Gilbert glaucoma. I could write an entire essay (with some authority!) on all that is wrong in Chapter 3 of The Mayan Prophesies, but that's for another place I think. I am not objecting to anyone ranting about pseudoscientists or creationists or ufologists here (I don't own the board, and I can't speak for anyone else), all I'm saying is it would greatly lower my blood pressure if (as I think Alan suggested) such talk migrated elsewhere.
Quick question for HARLAN:
Please tell me to get lost if this is further opening an already festering wound. Sad case that I am, I dug out my (unwatched in 15 years) VHS of The Price of Doom. And maybe it is the glaucoma or the old tape, but it looks to me as though the credit reads "Cord Wainer Bird" rather than "Cordwainer Bird". Is this a variant of your pen name reserved for the *really* bad experiences, or did the production team screw up?
TO STEVE
Frankly, I gotta see it to believe what is suppossed to happen on 12/21/12, Anyhoo...like ya said...the Mayans probably have nothing to do with world ending things...only Great Cycles.
Besides if te world ends...it will be the world of humans and not the Earth itself...lest some asteroid or comet decides to play bumper ball with the planet.
Dear Alan,
1. I love hearing what intelligent ,funny people think about "claptrap." I learn from it, I think about it. And God knows i have laughed till i cried over some of the comebacks on this page. (Yours included). :)
2. Claptrap is in the eye of the beholder.
3. Freedom of thought and speech are critical to creativity and commentary. The rules in th