Extra Criticum

The Slasher Movie Book!

I had seen films in the theater before I was 17 years old, and I’ve even written about that experience here once before, but when I was 17, a perfect storm blew into my life. I finally had my driver’s license and a car, I lived in the suburbs and hung out with a group of bored, like-minded, teenage boys, and the Golden Age of the slasher film was about to begin. In the fall of 1978, John Carpenter unleashed Michael Myers on the world and the gruesome genre was born, big shiny knife in hand.

Is Mad Men written backward, and is that a bad thing?

On my regular blog, I weigh in on the "Would Joan really do that?" debate sparked by the most recent episode of Mad Men ("Let's remind ourselves that Mad Men characters aren't real"), and I would love to get the perspective of the E.C. community on the importance of character consistency on a TV series. I also have a question prompted by this passage (spoiler removed) in James Poniewozik's criticism of the episode:

Meanwhile, on the Filmmaker Magazine Blog

In 1976 Werner Herzog hypnotized his cast of actors and directed one of the strangest narrative films in the history of cinema, Heart of Glass. Alan Greenberg, then a young writer, aspiring filmmaker, and Herzog disciple, was on the set, and thirty-odd years later he, and Herzog, would like to tell you all about it. Hence, Every Night the Trees Disappear: Werner Herzog and the Making of “Heart of Glass” (Chicago Review Press).

Hurt, Beckett, Egoyan, Krapp

Not too long ago Duane Kelly wrote about seeing John Hurt on stage in Samuel Beckett's Krapp's Last Tape.

Some kind soul posted on YouTube a film adaptation of the play, directed by Atom Egoyan and starring Hurt. It's simply incredible. Egoyan's camera does not get in the way here, and neither does his editor. The director lets the actor do his job, and we are all better for it. See for yourself.

Existential Question for TV Show Runners: Love Letter or Hate Mail?

Catching up on the first season of Smash on my DVR reminded me of what I loved about an altogether different writerly actorly theatrically magical series set in New York City. I'm thinking of Sex And The City. That show eventually found its center as an extended love letter to our hometown. In a very different way, it seems to me that Smash is shaping up to be an extended piece of hate mail to showbiz. 

I'm not sure the choice (hate vs. love) can ever be consciously made when putting a show together but in retrospect it certainly does impact how audiences will feel about watching. Most of the latter episodes of Sex And The City left me wanting to run out and soak it all in. Most episodes of Smash (so far) leave me craving a long hot shower. There's something icky about the vanity and backstabbing on display. Does it not speak volumes about a story when its most fully-realized three-dimensional character is a neurotic, entitled movie star (played brilliantly by Uma Thurman, by the way)?

Cartoon: My Kingdom for a Comp

Unlikely and Sneaky Inspiration

The other day, as I ranted to a friend about the state of the economy and my unemployed status, I remembered a commercial that aired in 1971, when I was a wee-little boy. Here it is!

How many films in competition at this year's Cannes were directed by women?

Guess.

Give up?

An Experience

I once heard a talk by the Artistic Director of one of the country’s largest and most respected children’s theatres. One of the great benefits of writing for kids, he said, was the response of the audience. “For children,” he said, “theatre is not an aesthetic experience. It’s just an experience.”

Those words came to mind after I saw the Broadway revival of Death of a Salesman last month. However great most theatrical experiences are – thrilling or funny or heartbreaking – they usually are, for me, aesthetic experiences. I have an amazing time, leave the theatre elated, and relish it for days afterward. This production of Death of a Salesman, however, felt qualitatively different. It wasn’t like I’d seen something. It was like something had happened to me.

"Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time" is now on Pinterest

My "Top 100 Sitcom Episodes of All Time" project is proceeding (now up to No. 47), but I seriously underestimated how much time it would take — something that I suspect a lot of E.C. contributors can understand. A big time suck is finding screen shots from each episode to accompany my blog posts. Fussing over the right look is a great way to put off writing.

Now I'm experimenting with Pinterest as another form of procrastination, but it's actually helpful in arranging my posts so that they're easier to browse. See the gallery of "Top 100 Sitcoms" here. Has anyone else found Pinterest useful as an organizing tool?

What I Think About When I Think I’m Dying

Sometime during the fourth year of production of A Life's Work I recognized how long this film was going to take to complete and a joke was born: I'm making a film about people who may not complete their work in their lifetimes. Could I be a subject in my own film? (When I tell people about the film and how long I've been working on it, the joke often comes to them as well. "Will you finish the film in your lifetime?") At the start, I didn't want to be in the film in any way. I figured my fingerprints were all over it so why should I stick my mug and voice in it, too? (I've softened on this stance, and my voice may be heard asking a question at a key moment, my figure may be somewhere in the shadows.) There was a night, though, when I thought I would not only put myself in the film, but would star in it.

CARRIE closes (again) demonstrating the power of conventional wisdom -- always conventional, seldom wise

The New York Times attempts to explain the recent closing of CARRIE by interviewing producers not connected to the show. That's sort of like asking executives at Sprint, Verizon and T-Mobile what the devil's wrong with AT&T. Here's a sampling of the imaginative conjecture that now qualifies for Arts-related news on the pages of the Times.

Several theater producers contacted recently said that “Carrie,” no matter how well acted and sung, presented far more than the usual share of difficulties, the most insurmountable being that nearly every character is dead at the end.

Two Entrepreneurial Models: Are you an Expander or a Hoarder?

I have two guys in mind. Let's call them Sam and Joe. Sam started a theatre company. So did Joe. Both were in a big city on the east coast of a big and powerful nation. The city was considered a hub of financial and cultural activity for much of the century during which these two began.

Cartoon: 3D Dramaturgy