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  Ten Major Miscalculations of Popular Culture

  Michael Alan Harvey 1:02 pm on January 10, 2010 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Anakin Skywalker (2), Batman (5), Brandon Routh (2), Christopher Reeve (2), Fantastic Four (2), Garfield, Gerry Anderson, Green Goblin, Johnny Depp, Marvel, SCI FI (2), Spider-Man (2), Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Superman (2), Supermarionation, Syfy (2), The Dark Knight (4), The Thing, Thunderbirds, Tim Burton (2), Wedding Crashers, Willy Wonka

  That music you hear is of the latest pop culture bandwagon rolling past, this one displaying the banner, “End-of-Decade Lists.”

  Let us hop on, shall we?

  A while back we began a series of posts under the category “Major Miscalculations of Popular Culture.” These, in our opinion, were ideas from throughout popular culture that might have looked good on paper, but caused audiences to ask, “What were they thinking?”

  Because this is the season of the End-of-Decade List, we decided to abandon our plan to detail these miscalculations in individual posts and place them all within one of those fancy lists of which the kids are so fond these days.

  Here, then, is our list of Ten Major Miscalculations of Popular Culture from the Last Decade. (These are not in order, by the way.) (More …)

   

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• 

  American Music Award rants

  Michael Alan Harvey 11:37 am on November 23, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ABC (8), Adam Lambert (3), Alicia Keys, American Music Award, award shows, Janet Jackson, Jennifer Lopez, Lady Gaga, Michael Jackson, Seth Green, Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston

  

  Michael Jackson gave a spectacular performance at the 2009 American Music Awards. Wait, no he didn't; he's dead. (Image via Wikipedia)

  Here are some random thoughts on last night’s American Music Awards show on ABC:

  — Overall a very lackluster show. With the exception of a couple of acts (Whitney Houston’s tearful “I’m back” moment; Lady Gaga), most of the performers seemed to be just going through the motions. Unfortunately for Jennifer Lopez and Adam Lambert, those motions included falling.

  — Janet Jackson’s extremely ho-hum opening number brought the AMA show to a crashing thud before it barely started, a fall from which the show never really recovered. I actually began to feel sorry for Miss Jackson, knowing that there were plenty of singers and dancers yet to come on the bill with much greater talent.

  — Oh, and by the way, Janet, Luke Skywalker called: He wants his clothes back.

  — The audience was amazingly lacking in zeal, except for Seth Green who at one point appeared to be having sex with his date.

  — My daughter was taken aback when I mentioned — for the umpteenth time — that I just don’t understand the appeal — or any discernible performance talent — of Jay Z. But that’s just me. Seriously, it’s just me: I can’t find any other living being on the planet who agrees with me.

  — When I saw the separate audience shots of Adam Lambert and Perez Hilton, I was reminded of my grandmother’s old collection of salt-and-pepper shakers.

  — My daughter had to explain to me that Jennifer Lopez’s song (which will forever be known to me as the “Fall On My Ass Song”) was about her putting on her shoes.

  — Whitney Houston’s emotional number prior to her acceptance of the Greatest Entertainer History Will Ever Encounter Award (or whatever it was) was a great moment of television and, to me, the highlight of the show, but did the AMAs really need to deify her with her Lady Jesus gown and backlighting that projected a halo behind her head? (Whitney’s song will forever be known to me as “Janet Jackson, Don’t Even Bother Picking Up a Microphone Ever Again.”)

  — Adam Lambert’s climactic number (pardon the unfortunate pun) was almost laughable in its utter cluelessness as to what century this is. Was all of that simulated oral sex and kissing of band members and crotch grabbing supposed to be provocative? Come on, folks, on TV award shows we’ve seen umpteen incarnations of Madonna, not to mention the current incarnation of Lady Gaga. Watching Lambert’s showcase, I thought I was watching an ’80s homage. It certainly seemed, with Lambert’s over-the-top theatricality, to be nothing more than a Vegas stage piece. And what a disappointingly forgetable song it was. I’m not a big hip-hop fan at all, but this morning I found myself still humming Timbaland’s song, while I couldn’t remember a note of Lambert’s.

  — Speaking of Timbaland, until last night I had never heard of the French singer SoShy, who performed with Mr. Land and Nelly Furtado. She’s, umm … impressive.

  — A question raised by my daughter: Was the set of Alicia Keys‘ solo number supposed to invoke the old Fly Girls rooftop set of “In Living Color”?

  — I’m still haunted by the image of the tall guy in the vest standing still and silent in the front row. I don’t know who he was, but he didn’t move a single muscle throughout the entire show.

  — It seems odd, for some reason, that someone could be described as both cute and classy, but that’s Taylor Swift.

  — How many more years will the AMAs be able to get away with giving awards to Michael Jackson?

  
   
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    Lady. 10:34 pm on January 2, 2010 Permalink
    

    What on EARTH is wrong with you?? How disrespectful are you? Is your heart made of stone or are you recovering from some form of traumatic event in your life which has led you to take out angers on someone, Michael Jackson, who had done nothing but give and give for 90% of his entire life? I’m completely disgusted, is it because he is more successful than you or something, even after death? As I find it quite interesting you diss him and Janet, two people out of one of the most famous families on the planet. Serious, I don’t understand how certain people’s minds function. Don’t abuse the position you’re in. You write for the people, people read what you say. Say productive positive things or else no one wants to know. People don’t enjoy reading this, it’s just what the media make them believe is what they want to read, because people like you write horrible things. Or perhaps you don’t value life. Cause if there’s one thing I know, I would rather kill myself than disrespect the dead. How disgusting is that, I am literally appalled. If he was still alive he’d have done well over thirty concerts by now, spreading love to everyone, making people happy. All you’ve done is sat there and wrote disgusting articles. Do you even know what it is to love and smile?

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  Michael Alan Harvey 9:54 am on November 12, 2009 | 1 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: AMC, Ian McKellen, Jim Caviezel, miniseries (2), Patrick McGoohan, reimagining, The Prisoner

  A ‘Prisoner’ of irony?

  The buzz on the updated version of “The Prisoner” on AMC is good, but we’re having a hard time getting excited about it; not sure why. Perhaps it’s because we fear that this update, like many others before it, will just wind up missing the point of the original. Far too many times an update will focus on those elements that made the original cool, but will either neglect or fail to perceive that which gave the original its heart in the first place. (The makers of the movie version of “I Spy,” for instance, either didn’t understand or didn’t care that the original TV series was not a comedy, despite the starring role for legendary comedian Bill Cosby. There were a lot of wisecracks, sure, but the show was, at its core, about the simple, serious grunt work involved in being an undercover government agent.)

  Of course I’m happy to give the new “Prisoner” the benefit of the doubt, but I’m wondering if miniseries writer/executive producer Bill Gallagher appreciates the irony behind one of his modern tweaks. In the original 1967 series (it aired in the U.S. in ‘68), star Patrick McGoohan was “Number Six,” who famously inveighed at the beginning of every episode, “I am not a number! I am a free man!” In the reimagined version, however, our hero, portrayed by Jim Caviezel, is simply called Six. (Oscar nominee Ian McKellen is Two.) In other words, technically he’s not a number either. He’s a guy who’s original name was simply replaced by another. They could have called him “Kumquat” and achieved the same effect as “Six.” Gallagher might have thought it was cute or hip or modern to take away the “Number,” but it ends up missing the point of the loss of individuality made by the original series.

  AMC’s reimagining of “The Prisoner” begins Sunday, Nov. 15.

  http://www.amctv.com/originals/the-prisoner/

   
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  Michael Alan Harvey 6:03 pm on November 11, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: cancellation, Dollhouse (3), Eliza Dushku (3), Fox (10), Joss Whedon (4)

  Just updated the recent post on “Dollhouse” (scroll down) with the news that today Fox canceled the series.

  Here’s the word from Variety: http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118011179.html?categoryid=1417&cs=1

  Certainly not happy about the decision, although Fox has at least agreed to run the remaining nine episodes of the second season. Episodes 5 through 10 are in the can, and production on 11 is under way now.

   
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  Some quick thoughts on SYTYCD

  Michael Alan Harvey 11:45 am on November 11, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cat Deeley, dance, dance competition, Fox (10), Nigel Lythgoe (2), Performing Arts, So You Think You Can Dance (2), SYTYCD (2)

  Some quick thoughts about this, the sixth and current season of “So You Think You Can Dance” on Fox.

  We here in the Pfunn household are major fans of SYTYCD, but find ourselves somewhat underwhelmed by the current season.

  The most obvious evidence of our underwhelment: In previous seasons we loaded our DVR with every episode, both performance and results, and we very reluctantly deleted the episodes when the drive was full and a new season had begun. This year we’ve saved only a couple of episodes.

  Even though there are some fine dancers and some great personalities among the contestants in Season 6, this is hardly the best Top 20 ever, as executive producer Nigel Lythgoe and others have proclaimed. (Our vote for best would be Season 4, with Season 5 a close second.)

  Our other major beef about SYTYCD Season 6: They changed studios, from the intimate theater-almost-in-the-round that was their home for five seasons, to a traditional theater with a proscenium stage. The new stage removes the intimacy of the performances, is not lit as well as the original and features a massive video screen upstage that is used to flash backdrops and relevant imagery but only serves as a distraction. (Watching the dancers in the “Starry Night” number was like trying to pick out the image in a Magic Eye drawing.)

  We will not give up on SYTYCD, but we are not as happy in our fandom as we once were.

  PS: Oh, and host Cat Deeley deserves an Emmy. Pass the word.

  
   
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  Revisiting the 'Dollhouse'

  Michael Alan Harvey 5:45 pm on November 9, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Dollhouse (3), Eliza Dushku (3), Fox (10), Fran Kranz, Joss Whedon (4), Patton Oswalt, Tahmoh Penikett (2), Television (15)

  SPOILER ALERT: This post discusses characters, plot details and revelations throughout the episodes to date of the series “Dollhouse,” including the unaired episode “Epitaph One.”

  Back in February, after having seen only the premiere episode of Joss Whedon’s “Dollhouse,” I listed my misgivings with the premise and the presentation of the Fox series. As I tend to do lately with genre shows such as this, I avoided the series in first-run, opting instead to wait for DVD or iTunes Store release. (I didn’t watch a single episode of “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” in original release, but on DVD instead.) That way, if the buzz on the show is that it’s a piece of crap, I can avoid it altogether and not have wasted my time.

  The buzz on “Dollhouse,” however, was weird. It did not seem to have the Wheeders wetting their collective pants, as did “Firefly” (a Whedon show I enjoyed but still can’t understand the furor over), but it did have a particular type of cautious fandom. It was amusing to follow the early hype on the show, in which Whedon, star Eliza Dushku and other Whedonaires were downright apologetic about the early episodes, promising that it would all kick in with the now-legendary sixth episode, the Whedon-penned “Man on the Street.” (Apparently it did.) Also amusing was the fuss over Fox’s decision not to air the offbeat 13th episode, the also-now-legendary “Epitaph One,” as well as the massive “Wait  … what?” moment that occurred when Fox decided to renew “Dollhouse” for a second season. (For the record, I applaud both the decision not to air “Epitaph One” and the decision to renew the series.) Most recently came the fuss over Fox’s imbecilic decision not to air episodes of “Dollhouse” during November sweeps. (OK, it was, perhaps, a smart business decision, but imbecilic to fans of the show.)

  So, with some extra time on my hands of late, I downloaded the entire run of the show from iTunes and proceeded to get caught up.

  Bottom line No. 1: I can now be considered a fiercely loyal “Dollhouse” fan.

  Bottom line No. 2: While I might modify some of my original concerns, overall I take back nothing I said in my original post. (More …)

   
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  'Daily Show' could, should be an hour

  Michael Alan Harvey 8:22 pm on November 7, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Cable television, Colbert Report, comedy, Comedy Central (2), Craig Kilborn, Daily Show (2), Jon Stewart, Keith Olbermann, news satire, parody, satire, Television (15)

  

  Image via Wikipedia

  It seems that with increasing frequency, the interviews on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” are punctuated with lower-third graphics that read something like, “See the entire interview at TheDailyShow.com.”

  In other words, Stewart and his guests often will get into discussions of such import and passion that they run over the allotted time. (Occasionally the producers will see this coming and schedule an interview across two of the show’s three segments.)

  These lengthier-than-the-show-allows interviews serve only to bolster my main argument: “The Daily Show” could and should go to an hour-long format.

  The format could stay basically the same: Stewart’s opening “monologue” that tackles the top story of the day, followed by either a in-studio “remote” by one of the correspondents or a second bit by Stewart, with the interview bringing up the rear. The writers need only produce the same amount of original scripted content they do now. In an hour format, however, the interviews could be longer. Stewart could have more than one guest, in fact. The workload theoretically would be similar to that of, say, David Letterman, Conan O’Brien or any other late-night comedy host.

  Stewart used to — well, he still does, although erroneously — refer to “The Daily Show” as a “fake news show.” At one time it was, although not since back in the days of original host Craig Kilborn. Well, with an hour-long format, “Daily Show” would then mimic one of the weekend news shows, such as “Meet the Press,” or even one of the daily cable talkers, like Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” or “The O’Reilly Factor.”

  Yes, an hour format would push Stephen Colbert’s “The Colbert Report” back a half-hour, but if that becomes a problem then Comedy Central could move “Daily Show” up a half hour. (Do cable TV networks have to follow the prime time block?)

  While I’m usually interested and at times even fascinated with what Stewart’s guests have to say, I’ve never had the initiative to go to the website and see the entirety of an interview that couldn’t fit into the show. But if it were in the show itself, I’d watch the entire thing.

  Think about it, Jon.

  
   
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  'So You Think You Can Play Fair'

  Michael Alan Harvey 12:45 am on November 6, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Adam Shankman, competition, fairness, Fox (10), Fox TV, Mary Murphy, Nigel Lythgoe (2), reality show, So You Think You Can Dance (2), SYTYCD (2)

  

  Bianca Revels, Ariana Debose, Phillip Attmore and Brandon Dumlao, clockwise from upper left, were the first to be elminated from "So You Think You Can Dance" season 6. (Photos: Fox.com)

  If you go to the Contestants page of the official web site for “So You Think You Can Dance” over at Fox.com, and click on the dancer links, you come to profile pages, at the top of which are scribbled, in the dancers’ own hands, pleas to “Vote For Me,” or “just vote for me!! (smiley face)”

  Unfortunately for Ariana Debose, Bianca Revels, Brandon Dumlao and Phillip Attmore, their pleas will go unheeded. Even though they were in SYTYCD’s Top 20 and in any other season their performances would have been voted upon by the viewing public, they were dropped from the program purely on the decision of the show’s panel of judges, Nigel Lythgoe, Mary Murphy and Adam Shankman.

  Because of the post-season baseball schedule, which Fox carried, SYTYCD was forced to hold only one weekly show for its first two weeks. (Usually there are two shows per week, performance and results.) Therefore, rather than adjust the schedule somehow to allow viewers to vote as usual, the decision was made to simply have the judges decide which two dancers would be dropped from each show. Debose and Dumlao were dropped from the Oct. 27 episode, Revels and Attmore on Nov. 3.

  Now, we’re not going to get into the argument of whether or not the judges make better judges than the audience. (Over at the A.V. Club, SYTYCD blogger Donna Bowman says, “Better the judges having to make these decisions than America.”) Our question is, was it fair to these four dancers to have their fates decided without benefit of viewer input?

  After all, this is a major competition, with strict rules (as executive producer Lythgoe keeps reminding us) and a quarter-million-dollar cash prize for the winner. Shouldn’t the playing field be consistent for all the players? (And by “all the players,” we mean all of the contestants across all of the prior seasons.) Because of baseball, Debose, Revels, Dumlao and Attmore did not have the same chance for survival enjoyed by the dancers in the first two weeks of the previous five seasons.

  The fact is, without a popular vote, SYTYCD — not to mention similar talent competitions, such as “American Idol” — is a different show. The ironic drawback to having a popular vote is that such series stop being true talent challenges and become, instead, popularity contests. In its first two weeks of competition this season, SYTYCD was purely a talent contest. Did Debose, Revels, Dumlao and Attmore deserve to be let go based strictly on their talent? Perhaps; as we said, we’re not here to argue that. Did they deserve to have their fates decided in a popularity contest as did the dancers in the first two weeks of previous seasons? Definitely.

  Take Revels, for instance, the 20-year-old tap dancer from Detroit. Heavily featured in the early audition episodes of not only this but also the previous seasons in which she tried out for the show, she was clearly foremost in the hearts and minds of the viewing public. We’re convinced that had Revels the benefit of a voting public, she would still be on the show.

  (Note that even on normal results shows the judges determine who stays and goes, but usually they select from those who received the fewest audience votes.)

  The first two weeks of a talent show such as SYTYCD, particularly one in which a popular vote is involved, are both crucial and unique. The contestants still are new to both the viewers and the judges. They are developing their skills, talents and confidence. They are weaker in the early weeks. Who’s to say that Jeanine Mason, the winner of Season Five, would not have met the same fate as Revels had it been solely up to the judges in the first two weeks of her season?

  As far as we’re concerned, the producers of SYTYCD were unfair to Debose, Revels, Dumlao and Attmore. We’re of the opinion that it would be well within the dancers’ rights to file a protest with whatever governing body — producers, network, etc. — presides over the show.

  
   
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  Not in a 'Flash'-y mood

  Michael Alan Harvey 8:16 am on September 25, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: ABC (8), Dominic Monaghan, Flashforward, Joseph Fiennes, Large Hadron Collider, Lost (3), Robert J. Sawyer, science fiction (5), Sonya Walger

  SPOILER ALERT: This post discusses events in the Sept. 24 premiere of the ABC series “Flashforward” and the novel by Robert J. Sawyer on which the series is based.

  

  Joseph Fiennes is on top of the situation on ABC's "Flashforward." (Ron Tom/ABC)

  A man wakes up from a terrible accident to find himself amidst wreckage and hysteria. There’s crying, screaming, explosions and a lot of panic. It soon will be his job to establish at least a modicum of order among the chaos.

  Wait … Am I describing the Sept. 24, 2009,  premiere of ABC’s “Flashforward” or the Sept. 22, 2004, premiere of ABC’s “Lost”? Actually that paragraph describes both premieres. A coincidence? Perhaps, but even if it is, the fact that the creators of the new thriller series weren’t consciously trying to emulate the thrills of “Lost’s” opener could not remove the major feeling of deja vu I had upon watching it.

  The deja vu continued right up through to the “coming this season” previews at the end of the show. Although “Flashforward’s” creators are adamant that their show isn’t an attempt to replicate either the thrills or the fan base of “Lost,” still it appears that they’re following a similar blueprint: A major mystery at the heart of the series (who caused everyone on Earth to blackout for two minutes, and why?); clues parceled out in drips and drops (whatever the company Red Panda does, they’re up to something); mysterious characters who appear to have all the answers but who will reveal only enough information at one time to keep the plot going (one of whom is portrayed by “Lost’s” own Dominic Monaghan); couples whose love is challenged by the circumstances of the plot (but who could patch everything up if only they would talk to each other); animals showing up in incongruous locations (in this case, a kangaroo); viral web sites to help keep the fun and flavor going even when the show isn’t on (you can join the Mosaic — the catchphrase to describe the collective world visions — at jointhemosaic.com). (Oh, and I won’t even count the deliberate references, like the Oceanic Airlines billboard in-joke.)

  Look, full disclosure here: There was no one more excited about this new show than I was. I had eagerly read Robert J. Sawyer’s novel in preparation (the novel isn’t a thrill-a-minute joyride, but it’s fun in its own clunky way). The series had assembled a great cast, including Joseph Fiennes, Sonya Walger, John Cho,  Courtney B. Vance, Jack Davenport and the aforementioned Monaghan. Judging by the effects seen in the early clips and promos, the network was sinking a ton of money into the show. I was pumped.

  But then I watched the premiere, and was disappointed for three reasons:

  1. I am really not in the mood for another “Lost”-like mystery thriller that will tease us with clues to the final answer up until the final episode, whenever that is. In fact, I find myself not even caring who caused the blackout and why. Big deal.
  2. The series is about the wrong thing. “Flashforward” is about who caused the blackout and why. As I mentioned in the previous paragraph, I don’t care. But why is the show even about that? Sawyer’s novel revealed the cause of the blackout — an experiment with the Large Hadron Collider gone haywire — almost from the opening page. Sawyer’s novel was not about what caused the blackout and why, it was about what society did with the revelations it was given via the flashforwards (in the book, humanity flashed-forward 21 years; on the TV show it’s only six months). Do we get married knowing our marriage is fated to dissolve? Can we prevent our own murder? I was very disappointed that the series didn’t start with someone saying, “Oops, we hit the wrong switch,” and go on from there. There are plenty of good stories to be had without the writer’s crutch of The Big Mystery At The Heart Of It All.
  3. Not everyone blacked out. The big reveal at the end of the premiere was a shadowy figure, seen on security camera footage, lurking about a stadium filled with unconscious people. (I’m guessing it was Monaghan’s character.) What a cop-out. Sawyer’s novel did some fun things with the idea that everyone blacked out. (For instance, there was no security camera footage because there was no consciousness available to observe it; Schrödinger’s cat, anyone?) I’m sorry but Everyone in the world blacks out! is much more exciting than Almost everyone in the world blacks out! Also, it establishes that there is, in fact, a bad guy, one who flipped the blackout switch, which, in effect, makes the rest of us, who blacked out while they did their nefarious deeds or delivered presents or whatever, little more than props in a show. I resent that.

  As excited as I was to see “Flashforward,” I’m afraid it’s going on my list of Wait-and-See-Maybe-Later shows. In other words, it won’t be appointment television for me, but if it continues and becomes a hit and a major watercooler show, then I’ll get caught up via DVD or iTunes. If it just gets canceled, then I won’t have wasted my time.

  
   
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  Web Video Rules: Don't double-ad me

  Alexander Dash 8:14 am on August 11, 2009 | 0 Permalink | Reply
  Tags: Apple, Film trailer, movie trailer, Movies (4), online advertising (2), pre-roll (2)

  This is the second in a continuing series of posts about how video on the web should be properly implemented. It should be considered canonical, of course, because it is written by Alexander Dash. Obey.

  Rule #2: There should never be any pre-roll video before a movie trailer or other video that is purely promotional in nature. Never.

  This bit of common sense is almost a corollary to Web Video Rule #1, but I feel so strongly about it, and see it violated so often, that I thought it best to highlight it by making it a rule. This rule can be summed up succinctly as: No ads before ads!

  If you’re a site that shows movie trailers, teasers for television shows and/or any other video produced to promote and/or publicize something else, you should never serve a pre-roll ad. Never. There’s a reason Apple doesn’t charge for this kind of material on iTunes. Apple’s trading at over US$160 per share and has a market capitalization of more than US$147 billion (end-of-trading 8/10/2009). Maybe you can learn a thing or two by emulating them.

  The fact is, as entertaining as movie trailers and other promotional video can be, they are ads. You insult me as a viewer by attempting to take advantage of my willingness to voluntarily watch an ad by throwing another ad before it. When I try to watch a movie trailer and am presented with a pre-roll ad, I pre-roll my way away from your site.

  There are just too many sites offering up the same trailers for me to willing watch an ad on your site before watching a movie trailer. Yeah, sure, maybe I have to wait a day before some other site picks up that same “exclusive” and runs it without a pre-roll ad. But guess what? I’m waiting. Probably won’t be back to your site either. Just think how many ads you’ll be selling if everybody does the same?

  So, look, let’s do each other a favor. You show me that fancy promo video you’re hosting, without a pre-roll ad, that promo video you’re hosting as bait to get me to look at all those pretty Flash ads that you’ve got slapped over the rest of the page as if your site’s in NASCAR, and we’ll get along fine. I get my video with no hassles and you get eyeballs on ads. Ah … if only the rest of life could be so easy.

  This is Web Video Rule #2. So let it be written, so let it be followed.