In honor of Halloween, when normal girls dress slutty and slutty girls wear things that blow you away; when kids run wilder than normal; and when there's nothing better to do than tossing back a cold one and watching a truly awful movie; in honor of all that and more, we present the following:
Pajiba's Favorite Craptastic Horror Films.
Eat up.
|
|
||||
|
The Photo
the info
Los Angeles, California I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic. This Month
Login
the counter
the ratings
Search
the library
The Words
the shots
www.flickr.com
This is a Flickr badge showing public photos from dan_carlson. Make your own badge here.
the politics
The Alumni
The Clock
|
Monday, October 30
by
Dan Carlson
on Mon 30 Oct 2006 12:34 AM PST
by
Dan Carlson
on Mon 30 Oct 2006 12:08 AM PST
I know, I know: Most of you think I should lay off "Studio 60." But let me reiterate that I'm not out to bash the show, which I still think is better than most other programs on the air (it certainly beats people yelling at briefcases). It's just disappointing that the show is having trouble finding its voice. Granted, it could likely find it in time; "Seinfeld" wasn't even "Seinfeld" until its third season or so, all Chinese restaurant trips aside. But TV is a horribly numbers-oriented business, and I'm afraid NBC execs aren't willing to let shows grow anymore. But anyway:
Somebody a lot smarter than I am figured out that all great dramas have three players. Whether it's two men and the woman between them, or any one of a dozen other stories, the three players can ultimately be boiled down to two opposing forces and the conflict that defines their relationship. That conflict is a vital thing, since it drives the characters to interact and influences their decisions, while also acting as its own storytelling element. Aaron Sorkin's first show about TV, "Sports Night," has this in spades, and it's another in the list of things missing from the new "Studio 60" that, if things continue unabated, will keep the latter show from reaching the heights of the former. "Sports Night" dealt with a sports news show on a third-rate cable net that was constantly trailing Fox Sports and ESPN in the ratings. From the get go, the producers and anchors struggled to do their show while putting up with interference from their corporate owners. Sorkin set the tone in the show's second episode, "The Apology," in which Dan Rydell gets a slap on the wrist from corporate after supporting the legalization of marijuana in an interview with Esquire. Sorkin's druggy moralizing aside (and believe me, I'll get to that another time), the episode highlighted the opposition between the heartfelt aims of the creatives and the ratings-oriented world of the corporate chiefs, and the role that executive producer Isaac Jaffe played in mediating the demands of both. For his public misstep, Dan is forced to issue an on-air apology to his viewers, and in the process reveals crucial elements of his emotional backstory. In a series full of great episodes, this one's still one of the best. The second season upped the stakes, thanks to Sorkin's willingness to let the show reflect some of the offscreen struggles he was having with ABC. The fictional world of "Sports Night" had to deal with a ratings expert, played by William H. Macy, who was hired by the show's corporate owners to shake up the program and bring in more viewers. It was a great story arc precisely because it drove home the conflict that had been brewing since the show's inception. The resulting drama worked because the consequences felt real and immediate. But "Studio 60" exists in a world without these consequences. The pilot episode dealt with executive producer Wes Mendell's on-air breakdown, and the subsequent hiring of Matt and Danny to turn the show around. Yet after that, things seemed to settle down at the show-within-a-show. Steven Weber's appearances as network exec Jack Rudolph have been sparse at best, and his threats have been rendered toothless by the show's apparent ratings growth (though how a cold open featuring a horrible Gilbert and Sullivan rip-off is supposed to bring in viewers is beyond me). That's the problem: The fictional "Studio 60" is having too much success. There's no conflict, no battle to overcome small odds and big foe to achieve something great. That's not to say "Studio 60" can't or won't change. But with nothing to fight for or struggle against, the show will have nothing to do except revel in its own apparent glories. I'd rather see a good fight than an easy victory. |
the post
the quotes
"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising." "Film lovers are sick people." "I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army." "Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these." the humor
the screens
Pajiba
HSX IMDb MovieWeb Box Office Mojo Dark Horizons BFI RT New York Magazine Cinema Treasures Metaphilm Onion A.V. Club Film Comment Criterion Empire Drew's Script-O-Rama MCN Greatest Films Second Spin AFI The Hollywood Reporter Metacritic Defamer Dave Poland Dave Kehr AllMovie Movie City Indie Austin Movie Blog The Screengrab GreenCine Daily FirstShowing Fimoculous Chicago Reader: On Film Sunset Gun Bordwell and Thompson the tube
The Plugs
The Sis
The Oldest Guy I Know Creatum This Guy Borrowed My Dave Shirt Historian Emeritus Never Met This Guy Tucker Tucker Mother [Uh-Oh] Steve Holt Peter-Wecker Man vs. Clown! Susan the Canadian Halbey RozieD J. Scott Kendall-Ball Geoff Klock Bells On A Special Way of Being Afraid Down in Texas One More Curious Mile Jennifer, Who's From Weatherford, And Now Lives In Virginia They Call The Wind Jehiah Bad Movie Club Girish That Little Round-Headed Boy Tom The Dog's You Know What I Like? Hoyden's Kibitzing Brady Lane My Best Friend's Girl Mimi in NY No More Marriages! My Experiments Miles To Go ... litelysalted Recent Entries
Month Archive
the wisdom
Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?
O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again. — Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives. — John Stuart Mill We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget. — G.K. Chesterton We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy. — August Van Zorn There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way. — Stephen King Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town. — Ask the Dust, John Fante |
||








