Program scripts from week of October 8, 2012
My name is Jay Phillippi and I've spent my life in and around the media. TV, radio, the movies and more. I love them, and I hate them and I always have an opinion. Call this the View from the Phlipside.
Trouble After Harry
When I first heard that J.K. Rowling had written a new book following the blockbuster success of her 7 book Harry Potter series I knew she was in trouble. And I’m watching that prediction come true right now.
Her new book “Casual Vacancy” hit the bookshelves at the end of September. Since then it has done very well on initial sales. The Publishers Weekly best sellers list that was released last Thursday shows Rowling comfortably at the top of the list. That doesn’t surprise me since I’d be willing to bet that the pre-order for the book was huge even with a $36 price tag.
Reviews for the book seem to be mixed. The New York Times reviewer was not at all impressed but there are plenty of others who found it quite acceptable. The general consensus seems to be that Rowling’s writing continues to be very good. The topics are very different from Harry Potter. It tells the story of a small English town where a well known local figure who also sits on the local governing council dies just before a very important vote on a divisive local issue. The story includes a variety of unpleasant real life issues like rape and includes a fair dose of obscene language.
In other words this is an adult book.
And that’s what is really bothering a lot of her fans. The customer reviews at places like Amazon and Barnes & Noble are utterly, utterly predictable. People who claimed that they knew perfectly well that “Casual Vacancy” wasn’t Harry Potter clearly show by their reviews that they were expecting more of the same. It is the greatest trap that any artist can confront because it’s a trap based on the success of your previous work. People fall in love with the characters and the created universe and have a terrible time separating that world from the author. These people are the ones who are given a chance to read a sample chapter (which in this case would have shown just how different this book is from the seven that preceded it) but don’t and then complain because the book isn’t what they expected. In the end there’s no way to satisfy these folk.
The reality is that only time will reveal whether or not Rowling has really been able to make the jump from the young adult. For the time being people are reading her book and talking about it. And that’s what you need to happen.
Televised Politics
The Presidential election always comes with two big media “events”. I hope you could hear the air quotes when I said “events” because I think it’s time to dump both political conventions and the Presidential debates from the media. They are enormous non-events in any real sense as far as I can tell.
As always let me be clear right up front. I am deeply interested in politics. I believe we need to be informed, that we need to know what our candidates stand for and what the parties are advocating. I just think that the current media oriented versions of the debates and conventions are largely a waste of time. As such I believe they are actively turning off a new generation of voters who find the whole thing an utter wast of time.
Political conventions were created in the 1830s when the Anti-Mason Party, the Democratic Party and the National Republican Party (not the GOP) all had them. They’ve been televised since 1940. The problem is that the very nature of conventions are committee meetings and long speeches. In the age of 140 CHARACTER tweets I’m not sure how you make that work. But week long talk fests are just not on in the digital age.
In large part the same problem arises when it comes to the debates. Their history is even shorter. You may remember being taught about the Lincoln-Douglas debates. You were probably never taught the format. Hour long speech, hour and a half long rebuttal and closed with a half hour response to the rebuttal. That would be GREAT TV don’t you think? Debates as we think of them are really creations of television and the first one was the Kennedy-Nixon debates of 1960. The problem is that the current format requires short answers to complex questions. I heard an interview with one of the prep teams for President Obama talking about working hard to get the President to stop making long substantive answers. And you can bet that Governor Romney’s team was doing the same thing.
What we are left with are beauty pageants. It’s all about surface and appearance. Things like actual discussion of the issues with carefully thought out answers to the complex issues that face us today have no place in either pseudo event. It’s actually the media at it’s most shallow.
So let’s do the right thing and just dump them both.
James Bond
So this past weekend marked the 50th anniversary of the James Bond movie franchise. Like most media icons Bond inspires many opinions. So I figured why not weigh in as well.
I became a Bond fan first from the books. So it never hurts to remember that the original stories were written between 1953 and 1966. A lot of the mindset of that time remains in even the latest versions of 007.
But for the movie versions there are four important pieces to being a great Bond movie. You need great devices (courtesty of Q), you need beautiful women, you need a great theme song, and of course you need the right actor playing Bond.
Best gadget? Easy. We all want our own jet pack. 007 got his in “Thunderball” in 1965. The only other contender would be any of the Bond cars. But they’re beyond mere gadgets.
Best Bond girl? Yes, the whole concept is pretty sexist. But it’s part of the Bond legend. Sadly far too many of the Bond Girls haven’t been worth remembering. And there’s the whole personal taste thing. So how about a top 3? Michelle Yeoh in 1997’s “Tomorrow Never Dies” simply because she is the rare female who can kick butt right along with 007. Hard for me to put Halle Berry in 2002’s “Die Another Day” in second place because, well, she’s Halle Berry. But first place for me has to be Ursula Andress as Honeychile Rider and the original Bond Girl in 1962’s “Dr. No”.
For theme song (not the classic Bond theme but the song for each movie) I was astounded to see a survey that put Paul McCartney and Wings “Live and Let Die” at the top. That’s silly. It’s a fine little pop tune but it’s not BOND. You want Bond theme song you want Shirley Bassey’s “Goldfinger”. No contest. I think Adele has a shot at creating that kind of sound for the new movie.
And as for who plays Bond, why is this still discussed? It’s Sean Connery first and last. Daniel Craig is second, Timothy Dalton third. If you think that Roger Moore or Pierce Brosnan should be on the list don’t ever speak to me again.
The 22nd movie in the Bond franchise, “Skyfall”, opens November 9 in the United States.
Call that the View From the Phlipsid
No comments:
Post a Comment