1) The Implied Goodbye
2) The Nice Bad Guy
3) Open Field Syndrome
4) Green Screen Driver

Comments, kvetches, and suggestions welcome.
The Opening Song is “How Lovely to Be a Woman” by Susan Egan. It is indeed from Bye Bye Birdie.

If the following flash does not work, here is a link to the podcast’s page.

Facebook games, iPhone applications, and product placement are only a few examples of the highly (surprisingly) profitable weeds that sprouted from capitalism’s planter.

Jesse Schell,  Carnegie Mellon professor and former Disney imagineer, spoke at the 2010 Design Innovate Communicate Entertain (DICE) Summit about these capitalist wet-dreams.

“Facebook is weird,” he announces to the crowd, “Webkinz. Wha? Really?”

Technology is revolutionizing not only our relationship with technology but our relationship with reality. Webkinz is so obscenely successful because it employs psychological tricks to keep our children playing. All the games on the website are free – in which you earn points and in game money – but the only way to spend your hard earned money is to pay a small monthly fee.

In 2007 Club Penguin, a children’s internet game, was purchased for 350 million dollars by Disney.

According to tech crunch there are over 350 million Facebook users. By the end of 2009, Twitter reached 18 million users. Now, note that there are more Farmville accounts than Twitter accounts; the massively popular facebook game has purportedly surpassed 80 million active users.

The law of inertia finds that technology converges: Refrigerators fit with wi-fi, computer/tv screen, and anything else you could possibly imagine – or want – from one kitchen appliance.

Pockets are the exception.

“Pockets turn the law of divergence inside out,” said Schell, “The iPhone is a modern digital swiss army knife.”

Schell’s speech, “Design Outside the Box” is fairly short (28 minutes) and extremely interesting. The last few minutes are a cheeky but probably not so inaccurate extrapolation of what our future will look like wrapped in Tech. Here is one of Schell’s many extrapolations: internet-synched ad tattoos. Scenario: See a friend at a BBQ who has the same ad-tattoo as you. The ads “link-sync” and you and your friend high five – because that is how you score points in the ‘game’ (winning you and your friend achievements which you can use for tax breaks). This ‘game’ teaches you to pay more attention to ads.

It makes more sense if you watch the video, linked here. I also linked directly to the video in the beginning of this article.

The extent to which we are immersed – and continue to be immersed – in technology reminds me of the award winning Young Adult novel Feed by M.T. Anderson.

This is Amazon’s summary: In this chilling novel, Anderson (Burger Wuss; Thirsty) imagines a society dominated by the feed a next-generation Internet/television hybrid that is directly hardwired into the brain. Teen narrator Titus never questions his world, in which parents select their babies’ attributes in the conceptionarium, corporations dominate the information stream, and kids learn to employ the feed more efficiently in School. But everything changes when he and his pals travel to the moon for spring break. There Titus meets home-schooled Violet, who thinks for herself, searches out news and asserts that “Everything we’ve grown up with the stories on the feed, the games, all of that it’s all streamlining our personalities so we’re easier to sell to.” Without exposition, Anderson deftly combines elements of today’s teen scene, including parties and shopping malls, with imaginative and disturbing fantasy twists. “Chats” flow privately from mind to mind; Titus flies an “upcar”; people go “mal” (short for “malfunctioning”) in contraband sites that intoxicate by scrambling the feed; and, after Titus and his friends develop lesions, banner ads and sit-coms dub the lesions the newest hot trend, causing one friend to commission a fake one and another to outdo her by getting cuts all over her body.

But the title of this post targets advertising.

Hulu introduced us (and has already spoiled us) to easy, legally accessible, virtually commercial free TV viewing. A half hour show will typically have about 3 thirty second ads.

One might assume viewers could sit through a 30 second ad and indeed, we might, if only advertisers tailor their systems to the internet. So far they have taken the broadcast commercial and transplanted it directly into online viewing, an arena that is submerged in distractions – even for thirty seconds of free time. Thus, these same old, flat, repetitive commercials are not keeping holding internet-attention spans. And thus, the 30 second time spot is already dead.

Here is a very thorough post by Frank detailing the reasons we should rightly hold a memorial for the 30 second advertising slot. He concludes: “The bottom line is this: advertisers and marketers need to embrace new media now or else.”

The two “new media” approaches I see having a future online are: storyboard and interactive ads.

[I'm going to quote my comment on his post]

One thing that makes commercials so unbearable, especially for me, is redundancy. I can’t stand seeing the same (usually boring) commercial several times in one night – and on the same channel. Hulu is a front line offender with its 15 second to 2 minute ads. With only one ad per spot (about 3 spots/ 40 min show), Hulu often plays the same ad in each spot. Viewers already have distraction at their fingertips by virtue of watching from the internet and consequently will abandon an ad – even if only for a 15 second Twitter quickie – even faster than tv watchers.

There are two hulu ads which stand apart from this trend. One is interactive and literally lets the viewer explore a set scene (say, a barbershop) to discover facts about a product such as shampoo or combs. The second ad is actually a series of ads that play out essentially like three acts in a play. Act 1: see boy at soccer game make a mud-sliding save. Act 2: mother applies detergent [product] to uniform Act 3: clean underwear all around.

I even see multiple products advertised in one storyboard ad. Perhaps, both detergent and the type of washing machine.

This could be seen as already in use by shows that incorporate a good amount of product placement (30 Rock). I do wonder if product placement will become standard in all television shows in place of, or in addition to, 30 second commercial spots. (Let’s hope it doesn’t go too overt e.g. The Truman Show).

[end quote]

Frankly, I am surprised at how lethargic advertisers have been to adapting to the internet. As a frequent and primarily internet-television viewer, I do not want to be bored by ads. I welcome those ads are find a happy medium between intrusive in my browsing and flat, boorish designs.

My sister and I used to play a game in movie theaters giving thumbs up or down to trailers to indicate our anticipation level for the advertised movie. I would imagine that everyone in the theater could hit a button “thumbs up or down” and the theater’s collective interest or disinterest would show up on the screen after each trailer. People live to interact with their technology. We love integration, adaptation, and enhanced reality (just a shade shy of actual reality). See: motion-detecting video games and games like Second Life.

How long will it take for advertisers to evolve with the rest of us? And how far are we willing to take it?

Parenthood the 1989 film, repackaged for television, hit a screen near you last week. The show has been hyped as NBC’s new hit, the savior sent to resurrect the network from the depths of ratings damnation. Originally slated to premiere in September, the show had to be pushed back to March to allow for Maura Tierney’s cancer-caused departure and Lauren Graham’s arrival. This casting change also contributed to the show’s hype. This is Graham’s first television role since Gilmore Girls. Can Graham – and viewers – shed Lorlei or will  fast-talking, coffee-addict forever overshadow her new roles?

Sarcasmbutton lamented the show’s pedestrian start and I’ll agree that the characters are fairly flimsy. She does a good job of summarizing each family’s storyline; I want to address why Graham was miscast.

Graham’s character, Sarah, is the single mom of two teenagers. One trouble-making girl and a daddy-deficient boy, the products of a misguided marriage to an unreliable musician, Seth. She’s a middle aged mom who has run out of money and is moving back home to Berkeley to stay with her parents.

Sarah’s is the least original storyline. Even her dialogue wilts in the rain. At one point in the pilot she picks her runaway son up at his father’s house. Seth tells his son he can’t stay because the tour could pick up at any time. Later, at a gas station, in the rain, Sarah tells her son to get back in the car and finds him crying. She proceeds to give a speech tasting of dustbunnies and cardboard, “Look at you. You’re a man. When did that happen?”

Parenthood’s obvious focus is Adam, the eldest brother whose son may have Asperger Syndrome, but the pilot devotes enough time to Sarah that it hints to her character as focus #2. I wonder if this was true prior to Graham’s arrival.

Perhaps I am blinded by Lorelei’s wit and confidence, but Graham looks like a matted down dog in this role. Her lack of shine is distracting. Maura Tierney has the weathered single mother look that Sarah should project. Tierney’s casting is of course a moot point, but I can’t help but see the logic behind her hiring and the flawed-logic behind Graham’s, that flawed logic solidly founded in her presence on TV as a single mother.

That isn’t to say I can’t enjoy Graham in anything but Gilmore Girls. In fact, I am a huge Graham fan, and saw her in The Answer Man in which she was also a struggling single mother; I never once thought she didn’t fit the role.

If Parenthood continues to keep Sarah woefully underdeveloped but give her family more screen time, I will probably pass on the show. My interest lies with Adam’s family ( love Monica Potter, Peter Krause) and Julia and Joel (Christensen, Jaeger).

Perhaps the cast is one sibling too big, stretching development – and inspired dialogue -  among too many families.

For now, Parenthood remains in my Hulu queue.

Parenthood is about two sisters and two brothers and their families. And here we have my first problem. I guess it’s just been too long since I’ve seen a show about brothers and sisters…oh wait, how about the show Brothers & Sisters?

One of the sisters (Lauren Graham) just divorced her tortured-musician-drug-addict husband and has taken her kids (troublemaker teenage girl and crying-inside-because-he-misses-Dad teenage boy) and moved closer to her family. I think my adjectives are enough to show that there’s nothing quite new and exciting in this department.

The other sister (Erika Christensen) is married to an adorable stay-at-home dad and they have an equally adorable little girl. Christensen plays a successful lawyer who supports the family but in the process loses a bit of her relationship with her daughter. It was a little (more) interesting to see the dynamic between the mom worrying that the kid doesn’t like her while the kid clearly prefers Dad.

One of the brothers (Dax Shepard, who strangely enough is getting engaged to Kristen Bell in real life (Why, Kristen? WHY?)) is the one that sleeps around. And in the end of the episode, it certainly comes back to bite him in the butt.

The last brother (Peter Krause) seems to be the oldest, wisest brother who everyone looks up to and asks for advice. His family and his marriage even seems perfect. What I like about this part of the storyline was that in the end it’s not the cliche ‘he’s actually having marriage problems’, but (SPOILER ALERT) he and his wife find out their son has a form of autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, which I haven’t seen dealt with at all on TV.

Then you have the grumpy dad (or grandpa to some), the loving mom…you get the point.

Overall, I was bored. It was too close to reality for me. I don’t want to watch something on TV that either a) I’ve already seen before, or b) I know all about.

Sorry, Lauren Graham. I really did love Lorelai Gilmore.

Elizabeth Canterbury (Margulies) is an unethical defense attorney.

She’ll be disbarred in every state she was ever licensed in if the Attorney Deputy General (Kinney) – to whom she’s never lost a case – has anything to say about it. Elizabeth Canterbury is a bad wife and mother. Her son was kidnapped; she’s been cheating on her husband. And yet, Elizabeth Canterbury is damn good at her job. Whether or not her clients are innocent, Canterbury defends those that ask for help.

Canterbury’s Law is indeed another law enforcement Hollywoodization. It is not, however, just another lawyer show. From the opening credits, an interesting splice of music and shot on its own, the show establishes itself as a shadier, if not darker, take on law and order in the USA.

On the surface, and perhaps at first viewing, the show is pretty routine. Canterbury defends a man who is accused of murdering a young boy. He gets off. Badabing Badaboom? By end of the episode we’ve met Elizabeth’s small practice of mint lawyers  – one is studying to take the bar a second time – and a failing marriage. If the viewer sticks around for episode two – and I think the pilot is decent enough to compel one into a second or third course – the show loses its barely established routine.

Canterbury dabbled in jury tampering to get her client off in episode one. The Attorney General finds out, gleefully beginning his vindictive disbarring campaign. Unlike the celebrated rebellious M.D. House, Canterbury is going down. Everybody knows it. The viewers, the AG, and Canterbury herself. Because she hasn’t been convicted yet, Canterbury is still permitted to practice, thus over the next four episodes while the evidence against her mounts she continues to take cases. Thus, these episodes contain plot and subplot, but the cases are subplot to Canterbury’s home and AG troubles.

We see Canterbury’s ragtag life outside of work; like most TV lawyers, she is hard-assed and driven, but at least we also know she has a life.

Kinney and Margulies’ rivalry is compelling because it is not grounded in straight-laced morals. Yes, Canterbury skimmed the law, but it was well-intentioned to save a man persecuted on the grounds laid by his past.

In six episodes we see Canterbury defend accused: bank robber, murderer, rapist (confessed), Rich Mean Girls, murder (claims to be psychic). We also see snippets of cases from a lawyer in her practice.

Canterbury isn’t young or oversexed. Margulies’ life-trodden features and deadpan delivery fuse excellently into a character that is a subtle heroine, just doing her job.

I noted above that Canterbury’s Law received only six episodes. Some people are reluctant to watch a show that is cut off so early for fear of cliff hangars and lack of resolution. Here is another place where Canterbury’s Law shined. It was out of the gates from the start, so the overarching plot started threading immediately and there wasn’t a filler episode to be seen. I suspect the writers knew of their dismal numbers and thus they gave Canterbury a rather clean sendoff (considering the dirty fighting that muddied up the first 5 episodes). In this way it is like the BBC whose seasons are about 6 episodes which leaves no time for dilly dallying in plot (compare this to a 22 episode US season in which you probably get 10-13 episodes that do little to advance anything – ergo my problems with 24.)

CHUD‘s Ian Arbuckle wrote this of his review of the series (as released on DVD):

“It’s a lot like meeting someone new, being initially alienated by their behaviors, gradually learning that there is a depth behind their foibles, and then seeing them get run over by a Wal-Mart delivery truck.”

Don’t let that deter you, he also says:

“By the second episode I was hooked…Canterbury’s Law is short and bitter, but good while it lasts.”

Michelle Pfeiffer, who plays the distraught and guilt riddled mother, is clearly the big name that drove this film to the theater and not, as I would argue, to its better fit in the Lifetime television forum. The Deep End of the Ocean is saturated with a made-for-tv feel and yet sheds some of the sap that hallmarks generally ooze.

The film is split into two sections: 1) mother loses son (Ben) at the Chicago high school reunion and the family suffers the emotional fallout. The film follows the parents’ anguish and resulting tumultuous marriage for a few months before 2) skipping 9 years ahead to the family’s relocation to Chicago where one day a boy rings the doorbell and asks to mow Pfeiffer’s lawn. Pfeiffer recognizes him (he matched the aging photographs the cops had printed years earlier). The boy is returned to his “original” family but struggles to match their memory of him as a 3 year old boy and the 12 year old he is now.

The film presents to viewers the balance of human relationships. Mother to son, Father to son, brother to brother, and parent to parent.

This is a Michelle Pfeiffer vehicle that ends up anchored by Cory Buck and Johnathan Jackson, the actors who play Vincent at age 7 and 16 respectively. 7 year old Vincent ends up taking care of his infant sister and fending for himself in the wake of his parents’ self destruction. At one point, overhearing his parents scream at each other, he goes into the baby’s room and makes her scream to get their attention.

When Ben (now Sam) is found and spends his first night with the Cappadoras, Vincent creeps into Sam’s room and sits on the floor, watching him.

Vincent and Sam’s relationship is most interesting to watch heal. Sam does not remember anything about his mother or father, but finally remembers something about Vincent, a brother that would always find him when they played hide and seek.

Also notable is the film’s attempt to give voice to Sam’s father of the past 9 years (he didn’t know Sam was stolen). The Deep End of the Ocean gives the audience a small dose of the man’s anguish at his family’s disintegration, but returns soon enough to focusing on Sam’s re-integration into the Cappadora clan.

Also notable: Whoopi Goldberg stars as the cop in charge of the missing child search who stays friends with Beth Cappadora over the years.

The Deep End of the Ocean scored a 42% at Rotten Tomatoes and 6.0/10 on IMDB, which is a good indication, which I’d agree with, that this isn’t a film to watch critically, but for the layman’s drama night on the couch.

Available on Netflix Watch Instantly.

Personal rating: 3.5/5 stars.

Not to start off my first great speech with a cliche, but I have a dream that one day, people will know me for my scriptwriting, producing, acting, and my general immersion in the tumultuous business they call Hollywood. I’ve decided to jumpstart this dream by reviewing movies, TV shows, short films…whatever can be criticized, I will criticize it (constructively, of course). And I’ll throw in the occasional vignette, wrought with references, to lighten the mood.  For example:

In the early afternoon I was lying on the grass reading a book when my physics teacher appeared in front of me. I looked up at him, squinting into the garish light of  day.

Mr. Weiner: Do you think it would be good or bad to be famous?

Me: I guess it would depend on what I was famous for.

Mr. Weiner: That is an excellent point. You wouldn’t want to be Paris Hilton famous.

Me: No. Although it seems to work for her just fine.

Mr. Weiner: So it does. What if you were famous in Hollywood?

Me: You mean as a scriptwriter?

Mr. Weiner: Or actress.

Me: I guess it would depend on what movie I was famous for.

Mr. Weiner: You guess it depends on a lot of things.

Me: I suppose so.

Mr. Weiner gave a curt nod, left the gun, took the cannoli, and walked off.

Me: Good talk.

While my life may not be the classic secret life of the american teenager, it is an interesting one. And as an English teacher (who used to be a script reader for Quentin Tarantino’s production company; I don’t know what that has to do with this, I just though it was damn cool) recently told me: All you can hope for in your writing is to lead an interesting life.

Thanks, Mr. Weiner.