Podcasts: Pop Culture Happy Hour

Once again, I'm really late to the party. I've only recently begun listening to podcasts at all because early on I couldn't find any I enjoyed and sort of assumed they all must suck. But I finally got around to this one, and I can say it's what's making me happy this week.

I've been jumping around from recent ones to ones from the past summer, just clicking on whichever ones sound even remotely interesting. And they've all turned out to be good, even if the topic isn't one I have strong feelings about. (Also, I'm glad to learn I'm not the only one in the world who wasn't a fan of Big. I didn't hate it, it just wasn't my thing. You and me, Glen.) The hosts are engaging and funny. They talk a bit fast, so if that bothers you, beware. But they give you good food for thought each week, too. Like this week it was about visceral reactions—what makes you cry, laugh, cringe? And I'm notoriously difficult to make cry. I'm too aware of being emotionally manipulated, and it ends up making me angry rather than having the [desired?] effect of making me cry. But if it's an animal, oh my God . . . The Fox and the Hound, Where the Red Fern Grows, Lassie, Come Home, The Cat That Overcame, The Cat Who Went to Heaven . . . I'll sob over those. If there's an animal involved, you've got me by the heartstrings.

Talk radio isn't my thing, so I'm not sure why I'm cool with all these NPR podcasts. Maybe talk radio has gotten better over the years. I think in the back of my mind it's still all sports and politics, and I just can't be bothered with listening to people carry on about that stuff. That kind of radio is like a never-ending Thanksgiving gathering for all the wrong reasons.

But on PCHH we're doing books and movies and all the stuff I like, stuff I feel I know enough to participate in. I may not have seen Creed, but I did see Rocky . . . a long time ago . . . And I still didn't need to know much about the film series to enjoy listening to the podcast. Because it's not just about the film. It's about reactions and why men feel the way they do about sports and sports movies. And this is the kind of media studies stuff my undergraduate degree was all about.

So I love it. It's like having a really good conversation with smart and interesting people. Even though, yeah, I'm not actually participating in the discussion. Except in my head. I've decided I'm kind of a Glen. There's probably an online quiz for that somewhere . . .

Books: You're Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day

Picked this one up prior to traveling to London and it was a nice, quick and easy read for the plane.

I am not, for the record, any particular fan of Ms. Day, though I've seen many of the shows she's been in (I'm a fan of Joss Whedon, so . . .) Why, then, did I decide to read her memoir? Because it sounded interesting. And as I read, I realized we have a lot of personality traits in common.

• Weird upbringing in the American South? Check. (Though mine was distinctly different from hers, I was equally isolated and had difficulty making friends.)
• Crush on Commander Riker? Check. Named my favorite teddy bear William. Though later MacGyver became my man.
• Creating elaborate worlds that combined favorite book and TV/film characters? Check. Mine had Han Solo and Indiana Jones as identical cousins, Patty Duke style, and for some reason they all spent a lot of time on the Enterprise. Also time traveling into the antebellum South, cuz I love me some houses with big columns.
• Astrology? Check. I still read charts for friends.
• UT Austin? Check. In fact, it sounds as if we attended at about the same time.
• Obsessive/addictive nature? Check. For me it was TV shows and movies rather than video games, but yeah. You should see my scrapbooks.
• Having a friendly support group hold you accountable and get you to start writing? Check.
• A people-pleasing, perfectionist nature? Check. I didn't necessarily need kids my age to like me, but boy howdy did I want my teachers to love me. All my self-worth was caught up in that, and I still struggle with it.
• Wanting to erase yourself from the world (digital or otherwise)? Check. I went through that a few years back, deleting accounts left and right, and I'm starting to feel that way again now.

Anyway. It's a great little book that doesn't require Felicia Day fandom to enjoy or relate, though whether you find her life and experiences interesting may be predicated on how much you like . . . geekdom? Day doesn't say anything specific about time on the Buffy set or other such things, instead focusing on her own work with The Guild and Geek and Sundry. We do get a lot about commercials and auditions, though, and acting classes, etc. And a bit about conventions, of course. (I was the guest at conventions when I was at UT, back when fan fiction had to be published in zines rather than just slapped onto the Internet. I was a fanfic author of some renown at the time—well, and my Sherlock fic from a few years back is still considered the gold standard—and those conventions were so fun. Maybe I'll get to do it again some day. Thanks, Felicia, for giving me permission to own that I got my start writing fanfic before moving on to more "serious" work.)

Other topics covered include mental illness and Gamergate. On the whole, it's a somewhat spotty story, but a good one. Worth the little bit of time it takes to read.

Movies: True Story

So this one didn't do well at the box office, and has 45% from the critics at Rotten Tomatoes, 42% from viewers. But I didn't think it was all that bad. It wasn't great, but it wasn't awful.

True Story IS a true story, though whenever something gets filtered through Hollywood . . . Well, but anyway, it's about ex-New York Times writer Mike Finkel and how he got entangled with murderer Christian Longo. Longo killed his entire family then went on the run using Finkel's identity. As a [recently disgraced] journalist, Finkel smelled a story and dove in.

My guess is most people didn't like that this is a talky movie. It's a lot of close-up shots, a lot of back and forth. There's no real action, though director Goold does at least try to alleviate things with flashbacks to the crime. It's a dark film—Longo killed his wife and three children—and heavy, and there's no real redemption in the end of the kind we've been trained to expect in movies.

Jonah Hill as Finkel and James Franco as Longo do a nice job, though Franco sometimes appears semi-catatonic, as if the movie is putting him to sleep even as he films it. He does play "psychopath" nicely, though. Felicity Jones plays Finkel's wife or girlfriend (not clear which) Jill, who later confronts Longo, but the scene is not quite earned. Though we see Jill get increasingly put off by Finkel's interest in Longo, and then Longo calls and weirds her out . . . It wasn't quite all there to make the scene of her lecturing Longo pay off.

In the end, True Story is an interesting character study. I'd like to maybe read the book now. But I can see how difficult it is to film something like this and make it compelling, which is why I think it tanked a bit with audiences.

Books: Funny Girl by Nick Hornby

I really liked Juliet, Naked, so it was unlikely any of Hornby's other books were going to touch my love for that one. But this one was near the mark. Maybe it's because I enjoy reading about "the biz."

I'll admit to having been a bit confused at first. See, I hadn't read the flap, so I didn't immediately realize the book was set in the 1960s. So for a while there—that first chapter or so before I looked at the flap—things seemed really strange. (An interesting lesson, since while writing Peter, my beta readers pointed out that they wouldn't have known it was set in the 60s if I hadn't told them. So I fixed that in the rewrites. But I guess all I really need is a book flap?)

Anyway, Funny Girl is about Barbara, who becomes Sophie when she becomes a television star. Barbara's big dream is to be a sitcom star like Lucille Ball. And thanks to her curvaceous body, her dreams come true. Now, I can't 100% love a book that's all about how being beautiful is the minimum requirement for wish fulfillment. Where does that leave the rest of us? But it's a cute book anyway.

Yes, Barbara is "discovered" by an agent, and then she changes her name to Sophie, and then she has a few flat auditions before hitting it off with a comedy writing team. And at this point the story branches out, and we see not only Sophie's life but the lives of those working with her, though it remains Sophie's story at heart. She's a likable enough character, a mixture of clever and naive, with sincerity to boot. But she's not the most interesting of any of them.

We see writers Tony and Bill: Tony in his awkward, asexual marriage; Bill in his rebellious anger at the system (it's the 60s and Bill is homosexual to boot). We see Dennis, the producer with the unraveling marriage as his snooty wife looks down on his work in comedy. And we see Sophie's co-star Clive, the poster boy for shallow actors everywhere, always worried about how the public perceives him.

It seems insane, of course, that Sophie lands a hit show on her first outing, but "the biz" is a strange place, and these things do happen. Funny Girl follows the show through three series (that's seasons in American), and the way the show affects all the interpersonal relationships of those involved. It is, all told, not a terribly complicated book. There's something very matter-of-fact about it, really. And it's a quick read.

We get a glimpse of what happens after the show ends, and we see a reunion, and . . . Yeah.

It's a sweet book that's mostly about the divisions between generations and the way those divisions are reflected in the media. Which sounds ridiculous given the plot I've just sketched, but believe me, that's the subtext. Do media follow trend or do media set trend? A little of both, I'd wager. Good media catch on early and ride the crest of the wave.

In any case, Hornby poses the discussion in an entertaining way.

Movies: Room 237

In this documentary, various narrators theorize over hidden meanings in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. The viewer never sees the faces of these speakers; instead, visual interest is added by using not only clips from The Shining (to illustrate the points being made) but also other Kubrick films and even old newsreels and cartoons as well.

As someone with a degree in radio-television-film and cultural communication, I always get a kick out of reading/hearing/seeing someone deconstruct something. I like being given these kinds of things to think about. I like having these kinds of things to discuss with others. That's my idea of a fun night (sad but true): a group of people at a dinner table, hashing out a book or movie or whatever. So Room 237 is a home version of this, and on that score I enjoyed watching it.

Of course, I do have to wonder why some people (people not in the industry or academia, you know, just the average person) feel compelled to take something like The Shining apart. But then, I suppose I'm not the only person in the world who finds it amusing to do so. And yet, after being forced to do it for so many years, I seldom take the initiative to break down a film so thoroughly as these people do The Shining. I have other things to do; maybe they don't. They've clearly watched the film repeatedly, whereas I've only managed to sit through it once.

Honestly, I'm no big fan of Kubrick, though I can admire and concede his talent. I found The Shining incredibly boring, but if what these narrators say is true, I should have been paying better attention. The theorists, however, come off as a bit obsessive. They all appear to be fans not only of The Shining but of Kubrick in general, and one has to then view their hypotheses through that bias. They are not passive observers; they have something to prove, whether it be that their specific theories are "correct" and somehow provable, or that Kubrick was a genius and worthy of all the admiration they've bestowed on him, or that repeated viewings of The Shining are not a waste of time and there really is something to be drawn out of the text.

One narrator discusses The Shining as an allegory for Colonization and the mass murder of the Native Americans. Another sees the film as being about the Holocaust. Yet another is fixated on the spacial relations in the house (she's made a map of the hotel as represented in the film); there's also discussion of the labyrinth. And of course there's a whole sex subtext—though if you've seen The Shining, you know a lot of the sex stuff isn't all that subtle. But the really amazing idea, I have to say, is the one that Kubrick hid clues throughout the film to let people know he helped the government fake the moon landing. Wow.

Here's the thing. I absolutely believe that Kubrick was the kind of guy to hide clues in his films. He was a very deliberate kind of filmmaker. He had a strong belief in cinema as a message, and he put those little messages in his work, like a children's book with hidden pictures. Kubrick was interested in the way the mind works: subliminal messages, dreams, conscious versus subconscious. What is seen and not seen, what is seen but doesn't register . . . Maybe that alone is a good reason to watch his films a few times over (if you can stand to, which I cannot).

But then we get into "author intent." We get into "encoding" and "decoding" of text. Is it really in there? Did he really mean that? And does it matter if he did? What people take away from a book or a movie or even a song . . . That is the bottom line. That is all that matters. If a writer or director wants to get a very specific point across, he had best be clear about it. Otherwise, if he relies on the audience to decode something very subtle, he may fail in getting his message to them at all. A few may "get it," but more may not.

This isn't to say one should beat one's viewer or reader over the head with something. But themes, if important to the creator, should be clear so that those engaging with the text can find them.

Unless, of course, Kubrick only put these things in to satisfy himself. Or to test his audiences.

I'd say he may not have realized it at all, that it may all have been subconscious on his part, but I believe Kubrick was a careful enough filmmaker not to have had that happen (much). For me, as a writer, I often don't realize my themes or through lines until after I've finished something; even then, sometimes someone has to point them out to me and ask, "Did you mean . . .?" But unlike Kubrick, I'm also not trying to be Freudian about anything. I just like playing with characters, setting them up and seeing what they do in different situations.

I'm getting off topic here, but you surely get the gist. At any rate, Room 237 is an interesting documentary, if only to show how deep down the rabbit hole one can go if one is willing to take that plunge. And yet . . . There's the sense, too, that some of these narrators are really reaching, striving to prove their points. I won't say any of the arguments are invalid—it's all subjective and who am I to judge?—but some at least seem to sit on firmer ground than others.

Still, Room 237 is a great potential starting point for longer, deeper discussions. Turn it into a home game with some friends: Pick a movie and then "Room 237" it by having everyone come up with some crazy theory. (Note: You may have to give everyone a week or so to research and/or re-view the film in question. Kind of like a book club. But it would be a "Room 237" film deconstruction club. Hey . . . Did I just make a "thing"? Cool.)

Ah, but did Kubrick diss Stephen King by showing that red Volkswagen crushed by a semi? Discuss!

Lightning in a Bottle

It's very difficult to break into the media business (film, television, music, publishing) because the industry is so averse to risk. And somehow "new" and "risky" have become equated.

I suppose there's something to be said for the tried and true, but there's just as much to be said against the old and tired. Studies have shown that open systems are more successful than closed ones, that drawing from the same pool of talent is akin to drawing from the same DNA—that is, it's incestuous and inbred and eventually leads to serious problems.

I look at all the excitement around J.J. Abrams and Star Wars and can only think: Is this really a good idea? Never mind that people tend to remember his hits and forget his misses, of which there have been just as many. I mean, I like J.J. but . . . when you keep dipping into the same well, it will eventually run dry. It seems to me just as risky to hope it won't dry up on your turn at the trough as to dig a new well.

Of course a big part of it is the work involved in the digging. So much easier to pull from what's already been dug. And the important thing is to keep things moving, preferably as quickly as possible. Who has time to dig a well?

But it's the "lightning in a bottle" metaphor I used when titling this post. Because that's another reason bizzers keep going back to the same writers and directors and actors and singers: they've had a hit, maybe several. (And again, it's easy to only see and remember the ups; people only start looking at the downs on someone when they've hit a slump.) They've caught lightning in a bottle. So the idea becomes: Let's have them do it again.

So if you have a hitter who bats .5 and someone who's yet to have a chance at bat . . . (Sorry, I'm just full of metaphors today.) At what point do you give that rookie a shot? In this industry, maybe never, so long as you've got a lineup of .5ers. Never mind if the rookie could do better. You go with ol' reliable.

But really, if you want to catch lightning more than once? You're gonna need a new bottle.

Entertainers of the Year

Entertainment Weekly just put out their annual "Entertainers of the Year" issue, which of course prompted me to think first about how irritating their online surveys have become* and then to wonder who would make my personal list.

You'd be surprised (if you happen to know me, or even read this or PepperWords on a semi-regular basis) that I'd count Steven Moffat as one of my Entertainers of the Year. Go ahead and rub your eyes, blink a few times, and read that again. Look, I know I'm harsh when it comes to Mr Moffat, but I'm only ever hard on the ones I think have genuine talent and can do better than they have done. (Rob Thomas and his bandmates would agree.) Steven Moffat takes the easy way out a lot of the time, but I think—at least in part—that's because of how hard he's working. He's producing two television programs (though only one on a semi-regular schedule, come to think of it, Jesus, what is he doing with his time?), and whatever else I may say or think, I'm still watching both Doctor Who and Sherlock, so that must count for something. So here is my one and perhaps only nod to Mr Moffat. I hope he enjoys it.

I think Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Liu also make my list. No secret I like Sherlock Holmes, and I really enjoy their chemistry on Elementary. And Zachary Quinto on American Horror Story who, despite it being a bit of a drag to see him playing yet another villain, still does a fantastic job. And Billy Burke and Giancarlo Esposito, the only two truly compelling actors on Revolution. Though David Lyons, too, is doing his best with the little they've given him.

That's television, but what about movies? I'll side with EW and count Ben Affleck as one of the Entertainers of the Year thanks to his great work on Argo, both acting and directing. Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, and Javier Bardem in Skyfall also make my list; that movie was the epitome of "entertaining." Haven't seen The Dark Knight Rises yet, so I can't speak to that. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey might also fit in here, but I don't know yet (though I do have IMAX 3D tix for opening night, and at the HFR viewing, too, so stay tuned).

I have to admit to being a bit outside of things when it comes to music this year. I listen to my iPod more than the radio, so I seldom hear anything really new. I liked that "One More Night" song by Maroon 5 and thought the new Matchbox Twenty album was okay . . . Don't know that I'd call them "Entertainers of the Year" though. I think that honor goes to Train for "50 Ways to Say Goodbye" and fun. for "Some Nights."

Books! I'm almost done with Anatomy of Murder by Imogen Robertson, and I think she'd make my list; I'm really beginning to love Mr Crowther and Mrs Westerman as protagonists. Ben Aaronovitch, too, for Whispers Under Ground. And Adam McOmber for The White Forest.

So that about sums it up for me barring any late entries in the month of December. Or anything I've simply forgotten. It has been known to happen, particularly when I'm hungry (which I am).

*EW has a habit of sending online surveys which first ask me whether I'm interested in [insert egregiously long list of television shows, movies, actors, musicians], then asking me effectively the EXACT SAME QUESTION by forcing me to choose AGAIN whether I'd like to read about [long list of television shows, movies, actors, musicians] in their magazine. Dear EW: you can safely assume that IF I am interested in something or someone, I would also be interested in reading about it, AND if I am NOT interested in something or someone, I do NOT want to read about it. And yet, despite my telling you these things REPEATEDLY and CONSISTENTLY, you still shove stuff like Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey (more or less the same thing given the origins of the latter) under my nose on a regular basis. DO NOT WANT. Are we clear?

Dropped Shows

There comes a time when a television show does one of a number of things: (a) ends, (b) changes direction, (c) gets routine and boring. When a show ends, one hopes it's on a high note, leaving people wanting more while simultaneously understanding that giving them too much of a good thing will only leave them so full they're sick. When it gets routine and boring, well, that speaks for itself. More of the same each week, and a lot of people might continue to tune in, but eventually a lot of people will tune out.

Changing direction, meanwhile, is tricky. Because the change can be for the better. Or it can be for the worse.

After a few years on the air, networks will sometimes come to a show whose ratings are beginning to flag and say, "Let's change it up a bit." Collective groan from writers and show runners. (It's worse when someone at the network has "an idea" about how to change things.)

The flip side of this might be when, even if the show is doing well in the ratings, the writers and show runners are starting to feel stuck and decide for themselves to change things . . .

Either way, it can be dicey.

Two shows I used to love made some major changes recently, and I've since dropped them from my must-see-TV list. Bones is one. I love the ensemble cast, the characters' quirks, the great dialogue and chemistry between the actors. But then everyone started having babies. And while I can understand the desire to move away from crime-of-the-week stylings and plumb the depths of various relationships on the show, I just found I couldn't care any more. Brennan having the baby in "the manger" was the last straw. Too over the top. I cut the show from my schedule.

The other show is Mad Men. Don Draper was a very interesting and complex character, dark and trying to find his happy. And then he found it. Her name is Megan. And Don Draper as happily married is just not compelling to me. And trying to fill in with other characters' issues doesn't do it for me, either. I like Peggy, sure, and Roger is a riot, but the supporting cast doesn't quite carry the show. I watched the first four episodes of this season and decided not to waste any more time.

A few seasons ago, I felt the same way about House. Right around the time he and Cuddy started to be an item, I just couldn't stomach watching any longer. House is a show that could have benefitted from some big changes, but not the kinds they made with the rotating interns and the on-and-off romances. No, see, they should have stuck with House and Wilson sharing a living space and turned it into a dramedy from that angle. That would have been hilarious. I'd have watched it forever.

Some shows are smart enough to quit while they're ahead. J Michael Straczynski knew he wanted Babylon 5 to be five seasons long. He had it planned out. It struggled at first but gained a core audience. But when asked to extend the show, JMS said no. He knew better than to wear out his welcome. He'd told the story he'd wanted to tell. B5 was like a novelization on TV, and it was perfect.

I read somewhere that Matthew Weiner plans to finish up Mad Men over three seasons (this and two more). I hope for his sake that he plans as well as JMS did. From what I watched this season, everything seemed to have been slowed down so that the show feels like it's being stretched at the neck and strangled.

So now that Bones and Mad Men are off my schedule, what do I watch?

• Smash
• Modern Family (though it hasn't been in top form, so it's on my personal bubble)
• 30 Rock (probably good, though, that next season will be its last, as it's running on fumes)
• The Office (also not so funny lately, but loving Catherine Tate)
• Sherlock and Doctor Who (when in season)

We had been watching Grimm for a while as well, but after a big cross-country move, we just didn't care enough to go back and catch up. And we're in temporary housing, so without HBO we haven't had a chance to see this season of Game of Thrones yet but intend to catch up as soon as possible.

For the first time in a long while, then, I'm looking forward to a new crop of television options come summer/fall. Upfronts have created buzz for things like Elementary (another modern-day Sherlock Holmes) and a host of others whose names I can't remember, and I don't have a copy of Variety at hand. Sort of at an out-with-the-old point as far as television is concerned . . .