1. "Oscar-winning film "Crash" heads for TV": Mother of mercy. Oh, and the state of the union? It's fucked, I mean, great!
[""Crash," the racially charged drama that won the Oscar for best picture of 2005, is coming to the small screen later this year as a TV series for the Starz network, the pay cable channel said on Monday."]
2. "Canada Lee: A Brief Tribute": The Self-Styled Siren pays tribute to one of the performers from Body and Soul (1947).
["But this time the Siren watched, and Canada Lee tore her heart out of her chest. Lee's character, Ben, serves as the ethical anchor for Garfield's ambitious fighter. That wasn't a new role for African Americans in the movies; Mammy serves the same purpose in Gone with the Wind. The role of the black angel on the white character's shoulder persists to this day, as a matter of fact. But Lee reaches beyond the character, to meet Garfield as another man, equally yearning for success, equally bitter about his treatment. Ben's description of what it was like to win a fight, to walk down Lenox Avenue and bask in the admiration, becomes a window into the yearnings of all people for respect. What a shot of adrenaline it must have been in 1947, to see a black man form a genuine friendship with a white man on screen."]
3. "Come on people -- the deadline is midnight Feb. 1": Edward Copeland needs ballots!
["That's Friday and we're still getting very few ballots when compared with previous years. Do I have to beg? Please, pretty please. In 2006, we did a survey to determine the best and worst of the Oscar-winning best pictures. Last year, we turned our focus to the best and worst of the leading ladies. This year, it's the leading men's turn. "]
4. "TV Critics Admit To Never Having Watched The Wire": Or so says The Onion. (Hattip to Ross Ruediger.)
["Many reviewers from top media outlets assured reporters that they would start watching the Peabody Award–winning show just as soon as the first season reaches the top of their Netflix queues."]
5. "Iranian life in cartoon motion": House contributor N.P. Thompson reviews Persepolis.
["Even in the exuberance of the film’s early section, Satrapi and Paronnaud, without fuss, make political points that implicitly criticize U.S. and British foreign policy. A man jailed by the Shah tells party guests, “Our torturers were trained by the CIA. They certainly knew their stuff.” Much later, when the adult Marjane returns home from Vienna after the eight-year Iran-Iraq conflict, her father laments, “People don’t know why we had a war. The West sold arms to both sides.” As he speaks, we see soldiers shooting at one another across a trench, yet all tumbling into the same grave — a shrewd assessment of war’s futility."]
Quote of the Day: Marguerite Duras
Image of the Day (click to enlarge): Photo of Magritte in Museum, from Kim Bos.
Clip of the Day: It's Super Lego Mario!
_____________________________________________________
"Links for the Day": Each morning, the House editors post a series of weblinks that we think will spark discussion. Comments encouraged.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Links for the Day (January 29th, 2008)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Posts
26 comments:
Re: "Crash" the tv series. I don't know if anyone can handle such hysterical, over-the-top racial animosity on a weekly basis.
Are they also going to have intertwining stories with convenient coincidences and tidy lessons at the end of each hour about how we should all get along?
Maybe they should turn Cronenberg's "Crash" into a weekly series. At least, that would be more interesting.
The new project would mark only the second time a best film Oscar winner has been made into a TV series.
Oh joy, oh rapture unforeseen. How are they going to sustain that piffle for 13 episodes?
And will this usher in a new era of Quality programming based on previous Oscar winners? I, for one, can't wait for the wacky Fox sitcom based on A Beautiful Mind, starring - who else - Michael Rapaport as a father of two maths professor who might or might not be imagining the curmudgeonly old dean who is always on his case! Ted McGinley guest stars as his CIA point-man.
N.P. Thompson's review is great but I do take issue with that particular aspect of the film which he brings up, and which Keith has quoted:
“People don’t know why we had a war. The West sold arms to both sides.As he speaks, we see soldiers shooting at one another across a trench, yet all tumbling into the same grave — a shrewd assessment of war’s futility."”
Of course, this is true from a humanitarian point of view, and I cannot argue against it. Still, it's simplistic, and it does not offer any insight into the mess that is Iran (or The Middle East, in general). "War is hell - why don't we just get along" is a lovely sentiment and all, but the reality of the situation is so complicated that approaching the issue with that line of thought reduces it to a soundbite.
#1: How are they going to pull this off? My guess: Every week, somebody gets racially discriminated against, a kid is put in jeopardy, bad dialogue is uttered, and then a preachy moral is spoken. This is followed by animated versions of Haggis and his cast singing a song about what you learned today, a la Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.
Crash: The TV Show will also boast guest appearances by some of Haggis' old TV cronies. In episode 2, Todd Bridges applies for a job at Eastman School for Girls, but Charlotte Rae won't hire him because she thinks he's a thug. He gets hired anyway by her peer Nancy McKeon. Turns out Bridges is really a brilliant nuclear physicist who has had trouble finding work in a new town. The turning point comes when Bridges' formula for cold fusion in a jar is mistaken for the equation for a super strain of crystal meth infused weed by Rae. When Bridges gets angry after finding Rae going through his stuff, she shoots him. Haggis and company come out and sing "Thugs Don't Have Meth Labs" as the show ends.
If "Crash" the movie had ended with the film's writer-director and its cast singing a song about racial tolerance in a junkyard -- with, perhaps, Matt Dillon on washtub bass -- I would not have uttered one syllable against it.
Maybe they should just animate the whole Crash series in the style of Fat Albert, so that we won't have to pretend its depiction of race relations is at all realistic.
Now I can't get the visual of the cast of Crash singing a song about racial intolerance in a junkyard out of my head.
Just goofing around. Oscar winners of the last 10 years, as TV series:
1997 - Titanic. Doesn't work.
1998 - Shakespeare in Love. Well, they did The Tudors, didn't they? But there's no real point beyond what the movie had in it.
1999 - American Beauty. Does Six Feet Under count?
2000 - Gladiator. Sure, why not? Actually, now that I think about it, I'm a little surprised no one's tried to do a gladiator series.
2001 - A Beautiful Mind. Already covered.
2002 - Chicago. Does Viva Laughlin count?
2003 - Lord of the Rings. Too expensive, and if you tried to be cheap, the fans would just go play World of Warcraft.
2004 - Million Dollar Baby. Obviously, you have to get rid of the ending, but if ESPN wants to try another TV show, they could do worse than this setup.
2005 - Crash. I don't get it either.
2006 - The Departed. After The Shield and The Wire, would there really be a point?
Steven Santos wrote:
Maybe they should turn Cronenberg's "Crash" into a weekly series. At least, that would be more interesting.
I'm pretty sure I'd be really down with that series.
Of course, this is true from a humanitarian point of view, and I cannot argue against it. Still, it's simplistic, and it does not offer any insight into the mess that is Iran (or The Middle East, in general). "War is hell - why don't we just get along" is a lovely sentiment and all, but the reality of the situation is so complicated that approaching the issue with that line of thought reduces it to a soundbite.
Except I do not think that was the insight the review was offering nor the insight the movie was presenting.
Steven Santos: Now I can't get the visual of the cast of Crash singing a song about racial intolerance in a junkyard out of my head.
(Theme song to Crash the Series, to the tune of the Fat Albert theme song)
Hey hey hey! It's racism!
And I'm gonna sling a slur at you.
And Paul's gonna show us nothing that's new.
We'll have some fun now, with Starz network to blame.
Learning 'bout the Others, while we call them names.
Nah nah nah! Gonna have a good time! Hey hey hey...
I'm so going to Hell. I'm sorry Fat Albert.
...only the second time a best film Oscar winner has been made into a TV series
how soon they forget
bah rather
Wasn't "Crash Colon Movie Film For Theaters" also 13 hours long?
Actually had to remind myself of the Fat Albert Theme. Here it is on YouTube so everyone can sing along to Odienator's genius lyrics.
I want the stairs that cure Sandra Bullock of racism to be a regular character on the show, like maybe they could develop a formula where each episode is about a different racist and each is about how they manage to fall down the racism-curing stars. And if there is a second season, then the racism-curing stairs get an arch-nemesis, the racism-causing stairs, which will basically become the Dale Cooper and Windom Earle storyline of Crash:The Show, like taking the classic themes of good and evil, or more accurately racism and not-racism, extending the movie's theme from the realm of cardboard cut-out characters into the realm of inanimate stuff that people walk on.
Can this long time lurker just say that the comments content in this blog rocks hard?
ROTFLOL
Na, na, na, gonna have a good time!
To be fully in the spirit of Crash Fu Manchu has to be the main villain. Remember: East Asians are the only irredeemably evil ethnic group in Crash Angeles!
In addition to the racist and non-racist stairs, there could also be the magic gun loaded with blanks passed around from person to person that will ultimately teach people not to shoot a person of another race.
Especially if an innocent little girl or boy or dog or cat runs in front of the bullet to make us think they got killed.
2000 - Gladiator. Sure, why not? Actually, now that I think about it, I'm a little surprised no one's tried to do a gladiator series.
Doesn't HBO's delicious Rome count? I loved that show. Kevin McKidd better find a new series soon, I'm going into withdrawal.
Joan: re "Rome" -- You took the words right out of my mouth -- although the series luckily had more going on in it than arena battles. A good series -- I miss it.
I think there's a way to mix Haggis' "Crash" and Cronenberg's. Think of the car wreck scene in Haggis' film with Matt Dillon and Thandie Newton, only with, er, some additional content.
I hate to pile on, but the lesson I took away from Crash was that in California the average locksmith keeps better records than the average gun-shop.
Sorry, but I saw the gimmick with the blanks coming a mile away (lazy writing actually).
There aren't too many episode-ending "Fat Albert" recap songs on YouTube -- a cultural calamity, that. But I did find this one, from an episode where Rudy has a crush on his teacher and has to learn how to get along with her sans nookie. Skip forward to the 4:50 mark for the song. It's actually kind of fun, for filler.
I just want to point out that Fat Albert can also rhyme "gang" with "thing." We can all learn something from that, if we're not careful.
To paraphrase the great Fat Albert character, Rudy, "Paul Haggis is like school in the summertime-- NO CLASS!"
Building on odienator's hilarious riff about characters from earlier Haggis shows appearing, why not have "Walker, Texas Ranger" come in and kick some racist ass at the end of every ep? Actually, that might be more gripping than anything in Crash (and with Chuck Norris onboard, certainly better acted).
Love all these ideas, especially odienator's one of characters' from Haggis's other films crossing over, and theoldboy's masterly "stairs that cure Sandra Bullock of racism." I even have a title for the show: Crash: Six Degrees of Segregation.
Actually -- and I can't even believe I know this when I have trouble remembering phone numbers -- it was Russell that usually dropped the various "No class" insults. My favorite is, "You're like school on Halloween...no class pumpkin-head!"
Post a Comment