Rushfield Babylon
Month
Fearless journalism! In real time!
1. I know why Les is TV’s smartest mogul.
2. He has made his well-written stereotypical character into a real breath of fresh air on primetime.
3. As Brad Grey (who used to manage Levitan) once said to me, “Steve is the only funny Jew I know who’s a perfect 40 Regular …” No wonder this guy loves the spotlight.
4. Trust me when I say that sooner rather than later Levitan will be writing and directing and producing for himself as the star of his own sitcom.
5. Claire Danes is TV’s younger Meryl Streep and Laura Linney. A true acting goddess.
6. The hot streak that Dana Walden and Gary Newman are on is unparalled in recent history. They rule.
7. No one else owns this category or makes more provocative movies than HBO’s Len Amato, Michael Lombardo, and Richard Plepler.
8. So smart of WME’s Patrick Whitesell and manager JJ Harris to convince Kevin to be Kevin again — even if it is on TV. Costner in an American Western? We’re there.
Bonus Questionable Taste Name Drop Vignette: I had the misfortune to break the news to Ron Howard that Andy Griffith had died.
- Nikki Finke once again proves herself women in Hollywood’s biggest supporter as she “live snarks” the Emmy’s
Too bad she wasn’t around to break that news to Marilyn Monroe, Claudette Colbert or Greta Garbo, o. Lubitsch could’ve saved a lot of effort and sent Ninotchka back to development.
Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful;
Nooses don’t thrive;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well Saturday Night Live.
I can’t say that I don’t have insta-pinions of everything I see. I do. But I suppose that I am more reluctant to make them a matter of public record as I am also more reluctant to take anyone’s first-blush ideas on these films seriously. If I feel like listening to the instant barrage of bloviating within minutes of a film’s closing credits leads to shallow, unconsidered, brutally overstated argument that then has to be defended because to disagree with one’s “gut”—at least publicly—is unacceptable, then how can I feel good about being party to this phenomenon… even if I am always right about everything instantly (DUH!).
In 2012, the most valuable tool a critic has is perspective. It is becoming more and more rare.
”—David Poland on the festival circuit’s buzz machine.Now I don’t want to be a jerk about this.. Terribly jealous that I’m not there. So I’m not going to single anyone out. I’m sure if I were at Toronto and Telluride this year, hobnobbing and filing instant reactions, I’d do much worse. And there are those who can resist the pressures and temptations and the hype and give honest evaluations. I know some very fine journalists who are at the festivals whom I absolutely trust that their assessments represent their actual beliefs to the cores of their souls.
But:
• When you see three pictures declared in the space of a week Instant Oscar Contenders within minutes of their screenings
• When you see those declarations filed by people who are publicly on their blogs and Twitter accounts bragging about schmoozing with the stars, directors and producers;
• When you see not a grain of salt about the fact that festival audiences are the cheapest of cheap dates, and that a film getting a standing ovation at a festival is like a candidate getting a standing ovation at his own rally.
• And you see those standing ovations tweeted out while in progress creating this Instant Buzz, leading to the inevitable declarations of an Instant Contender
• And you remember how many of these great festival sensations prove to be underwhelming or worse by the light of day
Then,
It’s hard, viewing it from afar, not to feel that the entire Oscar race is not only being stage managed and manipulated, but manipulated with so little effort that it’s barely worth the name manipulation.
As I say, there are plenty of reporters up there whom I trust absolutely. But, if you can see a movie in a packed auditorium filled a film’s partisans, then go party with the film’s stars, directors, producers and marketing mavens, and then look me in the eye and tell me when you go back to your hotel room, tired, ego-massaged and overfed, you can write a stone cold honest assessment of the quality of the film and its prospects, well, then you’re a stronger journalist than I could be on a full stomach.
‘Twas a time of the legacy media when there was this divide between critics and reporters. Critics were expected to remain arm’s length from the industry they covered so they could bring their readers pure, unsullied judgements of the films. While reporters who by the nature of their job had to walk amongst their subjects could not be trusted with opinons. Of course, this ideal was impossibly utopian, especially in the never-pure arena of entertainment journalism, but it was something to shoot for.
Today’s reporter/critics all too often however, seems to have just taken the institutional, back room marketing-driven coziness of the legacy media and pushed it out to the front room. Where being chummy with their subjects was something both sides previously realized they had to be a little embarrassed about, now the reporters brag about it. They Tweetpic it. And they are the ones driving the show. The sad remains of legacy media are chasing the Twitter story the bloggers create. A blogger Tweets about a huge ovation and the “Instant Contender” status of a film, and tomorrow you can find their opinion carved into marble by the legacy media as they “monitor” and “report” on the festival buzz. Once again, the job of the media seems primarily to aggregate Twitter.
We have more people empowered to share their opinons about film than ever before. And as a result, somehow, we have more conformity in opinion than ever before. With Twitter followed by the blogs, chased by legacy media, creating a consensus and then enforcing it.
So what’s the solution? As ever, I favor the libertarian approach: no rules, total disclosure. If you want to stand in a buffet line with a director or the star’s agent kissing up to him/her before you write your piece, go for it. Just be sure to reveal in your piece where you declare a film an Instant Contender that you were 20 minutes earlier, partying with its director.
There are bloggers who do this. And interestingly, the bloggers who are the most open about their socializing in the same space as they give their opinions are the ones I most trust that their schmoozing doesn’t influence their opinions. The ones with the divided personalities between Twitter and their blogs are the ones not to turn your back on for a second.
And message to those bloggers: why the heck do you think the marketing people invite you to those parties anyway? Hint: It’s not for your good looks. Hint #2: Regardless of what they may have told you, it’s not because the director actually likes your column and was hoping to catch up with you.
But following politics in this sense isn’t a serious pursuit, anymore than being a fanatical hockey fan or a Civil War re-enactor is a serious pursuit. And while most hobbyists and sports fans are realistic about the value of their fixations, politics fans often labor under the delusion that they are being serious and engaged when they are in fact goofing off. Election coverage often feeds this delusion, both because it is good business for the media to flatter its customers and because many pundits and reporters themselves get so caught up in the chase that they lose perspective on the inconsequential nature of so much of what they cover and write.
I hate to be the cranky voice of dissent here, but cluttering ones memory with ephemeral trivia while basking in the adrenalin rush caused by meaningless events is not the characteristic activity of a superior mind. People who follow politics incessantly and argue heatedly about it at every opportunity may and often do think they are more intelligent and more public spirited than people who have that kind of interest in baseball or quilting; that belief marks a failure to understand how politics and power work. (Like so many vices it is excusable in the young and can even be a sign of budding promise; but like most vices it grows progressively less attractive as the years advance.)
Let me emphasize again that political fandom is OK and harmless as far as it goes — you just need to remember that fandom is all it is and it is no more part of the serious business of life than attending Star Trek conventions. But the wise politics fan like the wise Star Trekker, knows that following a favorite hobby horse doesn’t make you a better citizen or even a more informed voter.
”— Walter Russell Mead on Noises vs KnowledgeIn Los Angeles we know that making a plan is not the end of our artistic odyssey but just beginning; it’s the clay being thrown onto the wheel and who can know what that lump of clay wants to be until you let it tell you? Perhaps it wants to be Michelangelo’s David, or perhaps it wants to be an ashtray shaped like a cat’s face. Or perhaps it wants to be an appointment at Starbucks at 7:15. But who can say until you dive in and lets your hands listen to the clay? When a plan is made it is certainly possible you will meet at that time and place; there’s no law against it.
But realistically, no. That meeting is never going to happen and before it does, someone is going to have to cancel or forget or just blow it off.
To Easterners with their soulless scheduling all this is maddening, and confusing. How do you ever plan to meet someone here? Well, the artistic process behind keeping plans may seem like a great mountain of jello from afar, but from up close there is a beautiful order and symmetry to it.
”—I lay out the Five Stages of Blowing off a Plan in LA over at Native Angeleno.RIP Hal David, soundtrack of my youth.