Cable TV vs. Network TV

28 Mar

leveragejpgI really never thought I’d see the day.  Like, I seriously didn’t.  What day?  The day when an original show on a basic cable channel was declared a ratings success while network programming viewership shrank so vastly that Jeff Zucker, President and CEO of NBC television, declared that the network he lorded over would never be #1 in primetime again.   With almost every new program released in the last two seasons on major network television “on the bubble” (meaning it’s almost 50/50 if they’ll be renewed for another season), cable has swooped in to take the lead in original content.  What started with a small healthy pedigree of shows on various cable networks (Nip/Tuck, Monk, The Dead Zone, The Shield, etc.) has now grown to such proportions that you’re not a major cable network if you’re not producing your own original programming.  Battlestar Gallactica and Stargate: SG-1 both drew in fans to the Sci-Fi Channel.  USA Network grew their stable from Monk and the Dead Zone to Psych, In Plain Sight, and Burn Notice.  TNT’s experiment with the Closer paid off so well that they now have huge names headlining their shows including Saving Grace, Trust Me, and Leverage.  Last, but surely not least, AMC, a channel no one really thought would try to enter into this arena, has not one but two sophomore success stories with Breaking Bad and Mad Men and both not only drew record ratings but awards for their cast and crews.  All of this is occurring while NBC has canceled or is suspected to cancel almost all of its newest crop of shows.  Life, Chuck, Knight Rider, My Own Worst Enemy, and Heroes all underperformed this season with Knight Rider and My Own Worst Enemy canceled, Life and Chuck on the bubble and Heroes, while renewed, will go under the knife for retooling for a third time in three seasons.  CBS has had one break out hit in their drama catergory, the Mentalist, and successful new sitcom, the Big Bang Theory.  ABC… well… Don’t ask.  Fox is currently beating NBC in ratings even though Dollhouse and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, both relegated to the graveyard that is Friday nights, are both most likely doomed after this season.  The networks breakout show this season, Fringe, scores well but cost a fortune to produce.

burn_notice-1jpgSo what is cable’s secret?  Frankly, they’re following the British model for programming.  The seasons of cable television programs are shorter than network shows with 12-13 episodes a season being much cheaper to produce and thus allowing the budget to be focussed on production values, quality casts, and even marketing.  Also, these shorter seasons allow for faster production time where there’s less downtime between seasons to lose your audience.  The concepts are also simpler for mainstream audiences.  Leverage and Burn Notice both owe their simple premises to 80′s classics like the A-Team and MacGyver while Psych and Monk both hail from the classic detective model that was made popular by Magnum P.I. and Simon & Simon.   For the fans of the Sopranos and Dexter, both Breaking Bad and Mad Men offer more stronger writing and more complex storylines while pushing the boundaries of standards and practices.

Suffice it to say, as network TV begins to lose the race for quality and successful programming, cable seems to be picking up the slack to record returns and quality hits.  With NBC effectively eliminating 10pm primetime programming next season (and replacing it with a nightly Jay Leno show), cable is about to pick up even more viewers looking for an alternative.

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Coming Attractions: Give’em Hell, Malone

27 Mar

I have no idea what this movie’s about.  Frankly, I don’t think I need to.  The “trailer” almost feels like a short film of Thomas Jane just being a bad ass private detective doing… something… involving detecting?  No clue.  The movie is directed by the (sometimes) great Russell Mullachy who is responsible for one of my favorite movies of childhood, Highlander.  He’s also responsible for the craptacular sequel, so give him 50/50 on that talent scale.  I’ve always had a weird theory that using George Thorogood’s, “Bad to the Bone” in your trailer was a guarenteed curse upon your picture, so we’ll see what ends up happening here.  Anyway… trailer below.  Fingers crossed.

Synopsis:  A private eye named Malone attempts to retrieve a mysterious case.  (See? Feels like a short film…)

Release date:  April 1st, 2009 (probably a festival release date)

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TV Shows -> DVD: The State Within

25 Mar

the_state_within_dvd__large_jpg2Every so often, I come across an actor that I think is way too talented for the work I’ve found them in.  Jason Isaacs was someone I first saw in Armageddon way back when.  He played the NASA scientist who figures out how to stop the asteroid and has one of the best lines in the whole movie: “I know the presidents’ chief scientific advisor, we were at MIT together. And, in a situation like this, you-you really don’t wanna take the advice from a man who got a C minus in astrophysics. The presidents’ advisors are… wrong. I’m right.”  The man just oozed smarmy badass-ness.  Slowly, I waited for him to pop up in better more meaty parts, but alas he wound up as villains in Harry Potter and The Patriot, never really getting a chance to show off how an intelligent, yet realistic, protagonist could be played well.  You can imagine how happy I was to discover the BBC miniseries, The State Within.

The series follows Sir Mark Brydon, British Ambassador to the United States, during his last week in the position.  As he is wrapping up the final duties of the office, a terrorist attack on a British airline on US soil sends the country into a panic.  Brydon and British Counsellor External Affairs, Nicholas Brokelhurst, both begin to investigate the true purpose behind the attack and its connection to the Secretary of Defense Lynne Warner and her ties to former Haliburton-esque company, Armitage.

If you’re a fan of 24, then you’re already well-aware of construction of the plot of this series: a terrorist attack (or threat of terrorist attack) sets into motion a series of events involving multiple characters and conspiracies in the highest corridors of power with one man leading the charge to save the day.  Now here’s the rub: The State Within takes this tired formula that could have been used for any countlessly pointless seasons of 24 and not only compresses it to 6 episodes (thus saving on needless plot threads), but also makes every character believable and interesting.  I recommend this series to anyone that wants a little intelligence with their political action thrillers and some surprising twists on classic characters.  Now if only we could have something like this produced in the US…

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Purchased on Wednesday: Platinum Grit vol. 1, Hack/Slash vol. 5, Samurai: Legend

24 Mar

platinum-grit-vol-1jpg2Platinum Grit. vol. 1: This is volume one of the online comic strip, Platinum Grit (http://www.platinumgrit.com/) following the misadventures of the well-meaning, but hapless Jeremy and his friend, secret love, and constant antagonist, Nils.  In this first collection, Jeremy has inherited a Scottish castle from his not-quite-dead-yet aunt and must vanquish his Highlander-esque cousin Dougal to keep it.  Also, aliens show up.  Oh, and Jeremy must alter his destiny by partying with the 12 signs of the Zodiac.  It’s as crazy as it sounds, though is also equally charming.  Artist and co-writer, Trudy Cooper, renders the characters with a manic Disney-like style that makes both Nils and Jeremy come to life in simple black and white layouts.  I personally can’t wait for volume two.

hackslash_11bjpgHack/Slash vol. 5: If you’re not reading this comic, have never read this comic, or have never heard of this comic, then I feel extremely sorry for you.  It’s a classic high concept style pitch that seems to just keep getting better and better with each issue:  Cassie Hack is the daughter of the infamous slasher, the Lunch Lady and after the trauma of killing the undead creature that was once her mother, she sets off to hunt down and kill all slashers that roam the night.  Aiding Cassie on this quest is her loyal partner, Vlad.  Vlad is both fearsome and loveable depending on the situation and never leaves Cassie’s side.  Slashers, in case you don’t know, are basically the bad guys in horror films such as Freddy Kruger, Jason Voorhies, Michael Myers and Chucky the doll (who actually crosses pathes with Cassie and Vlad in volume 2).  This particular volume has a sordid publishing history.  Due to copyright issues (it features the classic horror character, the Re-Animator), the book had to be self-published and self-distributed by the comic company and thus the production quality of the book suffers.  The content, however, is still a cut above most of the horror movies being released currently.

samurai001_mediumjpgSamurai: Legend:  Marvel Comics has partnered with European publisher Soleil to present a diverse line-up of imported and translated titles for American audience to enjoy.  Samurai: Legend is one of those titles.  I’m a true sucker for this genre of comics and besides having a complete set of Usagi Yojimbo, Dark Horse’s Samurai: Heaven and Earth vol. 1 and 2, and Sam Noir: Samurai Detective from Image, I can still never get enough of samurai-themed comics.  Samurai: Legend is possessed of breath-taking layouts and line work while the compelling story of Takeo the newly anointed samurai and his journey of discovery.  The book is well worth the price in hardcover format and I look forward to more collections involving this character.

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Coming Attractions: (500) Days of Summer

20 Mar

I’m a huge fan of the romantic dramedy.  Romantic comedies are all well and good, but the thing is that actual romance includes pain and confusion and a lot less slapstick than your average Sandra Bullock movie.  The following is a teaser for the upcoming film, (500) Days of Summer starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel in what a great many of film enthusiasts are dubbing, “the next favorite hipster romance movie.”  Personally, I don’t think that label fits.  The tagline says it best:  This is not a love story.  It’s a story about love.  There’s also a full length trailer available that I’ll be posting later.

Synopsis: Boy meets girl. Boy falls in love. Girl doesn’t. This post modern love story is never what we expect it to be — It’s thorny yet exhilarating, funny and sad, a twisted journey of highs and lows that doesn’t quite go where we think it will. When Tom, a hapless greeting card copywriter and hopeless romantic, is blindsided after his girlfriend summer dumps him, he shifts back and forth through various periods of their 500 days “together” to try to figure out where things went wrong. His reflections ultimately lead him to finally rediscover his true passions in life.

Release Date: July 17th, 2009

{The song in the teaser is “Sweet Disposition” by the Temper Trap}

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Second Time’s the Charm

19 Mar

blade_ii_ver1So I have this small observation about genre pictures: Sometimes, on rare occasions, the sequel is better than the original. My DVD collection is rife with holes due to my insistence that I won’t buy the first film of a series just for completeness sake. Blade? Sucked. Blade 2? Sheer brilliance. The Mummy? Meh. The Mummy Returns? Dude… Pygmy mummies! See, when genre pictures (horror, sci-fi, comic book movies, etc) get made for the first time, they don’t get a lot of liberty with the overall vision and budget. It’s a gamble for a studio to fund just any movie, especially one with a niche audience. This is how the Fantastic Four movie can be so, so bad and Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer can be… well, still bad, but not AS bad. In fact, if FF:RSS had come out first, I might not have liked it just that smidge-above-crap that I do. If you ask me, it’s not JUST a matter of bigger budgets and more freedoms. Yeah, that’s most likely the case with something like The Mummy where Steven Sommers is given more funding for his massive special effects spectacles or even Spider-Man 2 where Sam Raimi gets to really cut loose and even make a couple of winks to his old Evil Dead style of directing (see the Doc Ock attack in the operating room scene). Other times, though, it’s just a matter of someone else taking overaliens-movie-poster for the second go-around that might actually have been better suited for the franchise in the first place. Transporter 2 is not all that great of a film, but is light years more entertaining than its predecessor. That is in no small part to Louis Letterier getting to make the film HE wanted to and not pick up the pieces of Corey Yuen’s mess. Steve Norrington is hand’s down just a shitty director and shows it in the first Blade movie (if you think it’s a fluke, go rent League of Extraordinary Gentlemen for double feature of crap). It was international sensation Guillermo Del Toro stepping up to the plate that really showed just how cool a Blade movie can be (Zombie Vampires!). Hands down, though, the movie that will always show that the sequel can trounce the original in terms of awesome will be be forever known as Aliens. What Ridley Scott started with the classic sci-fi horror film, Alien, James Cameron shot out of the park with his taking the franchise up to 11 and injecting Space Marines, Power Loaders, Alien Queens, and annoying child hostages. All in all, the original movie sometimes just serves as the tryout film. What can this property do in a mainstream marketplace? It’s a success? Great! Let’s make another and throw a couple more million at it! When that happens, we the audience can sometimes get a taste of a really great time. Of course, we can also get Batman Returns, Chronicles of Riddick, and Rambo: First Blood part 2.

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Why I like Bad Movies: Punisher War Zone

18 Mar

punisherwarzoneposter-62908I’ve seen a lot of movies.  I mean, a ton.  I worked 5 years in a Hollywood Video and before that I survived middle school and high school on a steady diet of 5 rentals a week.  I had friends, I swear.  I just really dig films.  As I get older, I find myself really digging some bad ones, but honestly… They’re really great.

See, expectations are the enemy of everything.  Books, music, sex, parties, politicians, you name it.  Barack Obama could be the greatest president we ever have, but the expectations for his administration are staggering.  You throw that attitude at something overly hyped like The Dark Knight or Titanic or Forrest Gump and you’ll see some pretty unsatisfied viewers.  They’ll most likely say the following, “It was good.  I mean, I can see why so many people liked it… I just expected more.”  Some variation of that phrase usually will be the review.  You can only imagine what might happen with a movie that isn’t a blockbuster or critically acclaimed or even quality in the slightest.  These are the movies that make up a good third of my DVD collection.  These films are Why I Like Bad Movies.

Today I bought Punisher War Zone.  This movie is terrible, don’t get me wrong.  The acting is wooden and accents are hidden poorly and attempted worse (British actors do Brooklyn and American’s attempt Irish, all in the same scene), the action is gory as all hell (one scene involve the Punisher dispatching a villain like he’s a Pez dispenser) and the plot is non-existent (I honestly forgot there was one towards the end).  Yet, I saw this movie three times in the theater.  Why?  Because it’s just so much fun.  The trick with a character like the Punisher, a product of a bygone vigilante-obsessed era known as, “the 80′s,” is that you have to play it full tilt.  You can’t hold back one inch or you’ll lose what makes that character still resonate:  Revenge Fantasy.  See, John McClane in Die Hard probably kills more people than the Punisher but does it in a wife-beater instead of a costume.  While the vigilante has been done over and over again as so many different characters, exploring the idea of the audience being able to exact their frustrations on the cannon fodder of criminals will never go out of style.  Punisher War Zone even kicks it up a notch to Rambo levels of gore allowing for so many, “They did NOT just do that,” moments that any true Bad Movie Action Fan will crack at least one smile.

No this film is not for everyone.  Hell, it’s probably only for ten people.  Suffice it to say, Punisher War Zone is Why I Like Bad Movies.

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