That old towel-cape feeling

I watch a lot of movies and TV. A lot. I'm what the money folks in the biz call "a heavy ingestor of content." How disgusting does that sound? Ahh, Hollywood, Inc.

But I digress. This post is about what makes a movie or TV show good vs. bad - and after nearly 27 years of heavy content ingestion, I think I can speak on the subject with some level of authority.

The first time I remember saying "Man, this movie is GOOD" was when I was four or five years old and I saw Superman - the true, Reeve-Brando version (I know the time math doesn't add up, but you gotta remember that it was Peru, it took some time for Yankee entertainment to hit our little corner of the hemisphere).

A MAN COULD FLY! Why didn't anybody tell me? I went home, tied a towel around my neck and jumped from the bed to the chair, from the chair to the bed, with the tiny hope that I'd catch air eventually. And I'm pretty sure I did, a couple of times. This continued for a long, long time. Months, even.

To this day, this remains my litmus test of good entertainment. Does it make me want to wrap myself in it, live in it, think and talk it for days?

According to this test, Hollywood has failed. Let's be charitable and say 99 percent of the time. Why is the vast majority of filmed entertainment so fucking disposable? I can count on two hands the great films and TV shows I've seen in recent memory. The rest, I've forgotten. Proves my point.

You don't realize how fleeting these crapfests are until you experience a miracle and see a damn good movie. All of a sudden context returns, and you're splashed with water when you never even knew you were thirsty.

V for Vendetta snapped me out of this trance this weekend - what a damn good movie. How do I know it's good? Because I saw it on Saturday, it's Tuesday, and I'm still thinking about it. Still reading about it. Still talking to folks who've seen it to find out if they liked it or not, if they saw it as a political tool, if it made them angry or made them feel more liberated.

That's great entertainment. It's not about the special effects, or the editing, or the box office - that's small-time. I'm talking about the way a piece of film makes you feel, the experience of seeing something so compelling that you want to think it, talk it, wrap yourself in it.

The 26-year-old equivalent of tying a towel around your neck. That's good.

Why bother writing/producing/watching the rest?

-TM

Going out in style

Good news this morning for West Wing lovers like the Tin Man, straight from the mouth of Daily Variety babes:

[Rob] Lowe, who left "The West Wing" in 2003, will reprise his role as Sam Seaborn in the final two episodes of Aaron Sorkin's Emmy-winning series.Also reprising their roles with appearances in one or more of the drama's final five episodes are Mary-Louise Parker, Anna Deavere Smith, Emily Procter, Marlee Matlin, Gary Cole, Tim Matheson, Timothy Busfield and Annabeth Gish.

Did I say "good news"? 'Cause I meant ass-kicking, great-fucking-TV news. I admit I kind of stopped watching when Aaron Sorkin "left" - and boycotted it outright after Toby and Josh got into a goddamn fist fight, which threw six years of character developement ever so stupidly out the window. I guess John Wells ran out of helicopters to crash that day.

But as much as the WW turned into ER on the Potomac, I can't deny I love the damn show - and it ends in May. It's like a relative who was cool and then turned into an asshole and then called to tell me he had four months to live, so all that's left is to make amends and enjoy the time we have.

And with the heartbreaking loss of John Spencer, whose like may never be seen again, all of us prodigal fans should return to pay the man - and the character - the tribute they both richly deserve. Let bygones be bygones.

Added bonus: seeing all the folks listed above return to the show. I worship the ground upon which Sorkin hurls his cigarette butts, but I'll admit that he was never the greatest at explaining why certain characters simply... vanished. And of course it'll be great to see Rob Lowe back where he belongs and where he would've been all these years had he listened to good advice instead of his accountant.

True-blue Sorkinites know that the countdown's on for his new show, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip - hitting your idiot box next fall - but until then, let's celebrate the goodness he gave us known as The West Wing. Let's thank everybody involved - writers, cast, crew, hell, even WB and NBC - for doing TV a friggin service and putting this show on the air.

Watch. It's the least we could do.

-TM

Getting this show on the road...

First, a hearty "up yours" to El Jefe for reminding me I haven't made good on my promise to post daily. The man has a point, though. I have failed you thus far. Let's see if I can't mend my ways.

A simple phrase:

"You're a writer if you write."

Makes sense, right? It's from a screenwriting course I took last year. Not sure why I remembered it this morning.

That's a lie. I know why. Because I've been calling myself a writer for some time now. And for a lot of that time it's been a damn lie.

I've gone whole weeks - sometimes months - without putting pen to paper. Not because I was too busy, or got held up by other obligations, or didn't have anything to write about. I have hundreds of things to write about, and even more reasons to do so. But sometimes I just... didn't. Which begs the question:

If you're a writer, and you don't write, what are you?

Aaron Sorkin, at whose screenwriting feet I worship, says there's nothing he fears more than a blank sheet of paper. He began writing A Few Good Men on a rickety grandpa-style typewriter, and I can see him rolling that empty sheet into the machine and just staring at the white of it all for hours - finally fracturing the silence with the first gunshots of frantic typing.

Me, I've been hanging out at Stage 1 - the paper's in there and I'm just staring at the bastard. Staring and waiting, waiting and sweating. Because I'm scared shitless.

As long as my ideas and my stories and my characters stay in my head, they're amazing. They're revolutionary. They're what TV and films should be, they're brilliant, they're golden.

Once they hit the paper, though, they're out there for everyone to see. To probe, to prod, to ridicule. And maybe, maybe, to be appreciated and enjoyed. But what are the chances of that?

Last fall I wrote my first "spec" script - in layman's terms, a screenwriting sample to shop around to possible gigs, a showcase of the wonders you're capable of should you be hired for your pen. And it was well received - my writing instructor said I blew her expectations for a first-time spec and that I showed promise. And I left class with my chest puffed out a little. Who wouldn't?

Then the fear sank in - what if she was lying? She was also trying to get me to sign up for the two-year writing program, which would've made a pretty big dent in my wallet, so what if she was buttering me up so I'd pay her salary? And the spec went in the drawer.

For four months.

I pulled it out last week and was surprised at how much I... liked it. I passed it on to El Jefe, Nate and some other writer friends - which made me realize that all my best friends are writers, which we'll come back to at a later post - and they liked it as well, and also threw in some valuable feedback to help me polish the beast up.

But they liked it - which means I'm doing something right. Just wish my self-esteem would get the goddamn memo.

'Cause the clock's ticking.

This weekend Helias and I jumped into our joint writing project, a spec pilot I've been kicking around for about five years now. No shit. Five years.

The thing's gone through permutation after permutation, characters have been added, killed and revived, pages have been written, burned and phoenixed. And it's waited. And waited. And it probably would've waited a while longer if Helias weren't the damn bulldog he is. Bless the bastard.

So the train's finally leaving the station. I'm kicking this fear bullshit.

It's on.

-TM

I need $40 million and stat

Seriously. Anybody want to help me out? It's for a good cause, I promise. And it's gonna make us mucho rich, on top of which we'll be credited with doing a VERY important service to the fastest growing minority population in the US.

What do you say? Wanna help me buy Univision?

The $40 mil pricetag may be a little steep - I think we could bring it down to $35, just let me do the talking. After all, I'm one of them.

Why buy Univision? Couple of reasons, the main one being that it - combined with the smaller Telemundo - is making my people dumber by the viewing minute. And that pisses me off.

Tits, ass, puppets, stupid game shows, ridiculous soaps, grown men in diapers and sensationalistic news that makes Fox seem subdued - that's pretty much Spanish-language TV. That's it. There isn't one worthwhile hour of programming out there. It's cheap. It's crap. And it's insulting.

These networks could not possibly set the bar much lower. Imagine if NBC ran nothing but Fear Factor and Who Wants to Screw My Sister over and over and over again, with a little O'Reilly thrown in for flavor. Would you think that NBC regards you as an intelligent, ambitious human being? Or the lowest common denominator of life?

I'm brown and proud, though I admit I've been a little whitewashed by growing up in rural North Carolina. I can't salsa worth a damn. I have no Latin charm to speak of. And I don't have a Peruvian accent - or, for that matter, a southern one.

I am hispanic. Maybe that makes me a little more sensitive to being talked down to or patronized, who knows. But when I see the kind of programming my networks think I deserve, it makes me want to punch a wall, a network exec or both.

Where are the Spanish equivalents of West Wing and The Shield? Hell, I'll even take a CSI or a Smallville. Anything, anything at all, that entertains and challenges me the slightest bit and aims just millimeters higher than the bar.

I realize it's a generational thing, that folks my parents' age and older are used to seeing crap on TV because that's what Latin American TV thrives on, but this is the UNITED STATES, the supposed beacon of culture. Yeah, sure, that's bullshit, but maybe just this once it doesn't have to be. Maybe the Spanish networks can stop calling their audiences idiots to their faces.

That's why we're buying Univision: to raise the bar for millions who deserve much, much more.

Who's in?

-TM

Blonde... twins... touching...

Apologies for not posting in like ten days, but the Tin Man's been under a lot of pressure on a couple of work-related fronts - happy to say TM delivered, as he tends to do when his street cred is on the line.

Jumping right back into things, yesterday I hit the crack pipe known as the 2006 Winter Olympics and fell in love with a little sport I like to call "Pretty Girls Doing Stuff." Or what others like to call "women's curling."

Granted, the "Pretty Girls" part applies only to the U.S. team, since the rest of the northern hemisphere seems to breed ogres particularly for this event. But Uncle Sam came through for me:

That's them: Jamie, Cassie, Jessica and Maureen, the lassies of U.S. curling. I credit them with making me watch hours and hours of a ridiculous "sport" that, in the end, is actually pretty compelling. Helias and I struggled with the rules at first but thanks to NBC's Curling-for-Idiots-like coverage we finally got what the point was. Which we never really cared about anyway since we were mainly focused on blonde twins lookin' all nice while hurling rocks across ice.

I think Great Britain kicked our ass in the end. But I keep the flame alive in my heart, Team USA. Thanks for the memories.

Call me.

-TM

P.S. Just found they're not twins. No matter. The blog stands.

Just another day at the mines...

Figure it's time to give you a peek behind the curtains of America's best-selling weekly mag - or my little corner of it, anyway. The most important corner. To me. Are you ready for this? There's no way in hell you are. It's extreme.


The Tin Man. Yup, that's me, r0ckin' the shell necklace. Look close. It's like I'm 17 all over again, minus the crying. And note the jeans - on a Thursday. This tells the upper brass that my style cannot be confined to one measly day a week. Also note that the jeans are strategically covered by the desk.

My buddy Andrew, hydrating. It's an important part of the day here at the Guide, the walk over to the watercooler to keep fluid levels healthy. I - and Andrew there - consider it a prerequisite for success and a ritual that should be repeated a couple dozen times an hour.

There are other pics but Blogger tells me there's no more room on this thing. Your loss. Be assured they were unreal.

On another office note, today I've organized my first Happy Hour since I went all West Coast. Some folks, like Andrew there, might even come. This is big for me - an opportunity to embarrass myself in front of a whole new set of co-workers. Though if I wasn't persona non grata after my drunkass performance at the Christmas party, I think I'm safe.

Rock on,

TM

Unhealthy obsession

So I was one of the seven people in the US who tuned into the News Hour last night to see Jim "My Boy" Lehrer stick it to Dick "Head" Cheney. And I was one of the two people who re-read the transcript this morning - the other being Maureen "MILF" Dowd, trolling for fun phrases to double-entendre. God, she's hot.

But I digress.

The interview was about five minutes long, I'd say. And what struck me most, besides the reminder that I hate Cheney like Ian hates Dook (http://www.xtcian.com/), was his frequent use of a certain word. Let's see if you can spot it:

"I've been involved off and on for more than 30 years in various aspects of the government's intelligence business as a consumer..."

"I don't want to get into the business of passing judgement..."

"And when you start to get into the business of slapping taxes back on, we think that will simply slow down the economy..."

"The education reform the president put in place, No Child Left Behind, is a huge change in the way we do business in this country with respect to education..."

One of these words is not evil like the others... catch it? That's right, this bastard's obsessed with business, and that's not good for you and me, 'cause he's not running a 7-11. He's running the NATION. (If you ask me, he's getting a little help, though I wouldn't say that to his fat face.)

I know I'm not beating anyone to the "Cheney eats money" story, but I realized last night that maybe the guy can't help it. Maybe his daddy beat him with a belt with a business buckle. Or maybe business was the name of the first chick Dick dicked. My point is, maybe it's a pathological thing, something so subconsciously engrained not even he realizes he's repeating it once a minute.

Maybe he needs help. Like an intervention. And if we're gonna give it to him, we gotta give it to him yesterday, because it's not healthy for him, you, me or a couple billion other folks who like to be alive rather than dead, happy rather than sad, stuffed rather than starving.

Because while equality, civility and sympathy are three things we strive for, they're also three things that almost never turn a profit.

- TM

P.S. Apologies for the post starting off ha-ha and ending up boo-hoo - you know who to blame. tm