So FX has renewed Louie for fourth season in the midst of their exceptional third year, one that recently featured a stellar appearance by Robin Williams.
Continue reading FX Renews ‘Louie’ – We Celebrate with Pictures…
Monthly Archives: August 2012
American Idol: A First-Hand Look at the Nitty-Gritty World of TV Production
You know how when you watch your favorite TV show you only see the actors, celebrities, or contestants’ faces the entire time and you can usually rattle off their names without a sweat? Now try watching all of the credits and recognizing any of those names. Can you do it? Probably not.
For many TV viewers, terms like “boom operator” and “gaffer” are foreign lingo (and when I say “gaffer,” I don’t mean Samwise Gamgee’s papa in The Lord of the Rings). Usually, the people’s names that show up next to these titles receive the same treatment, automatically being disregarded as unimportant and too obscure to be worthy of note. However, it’s people just like boom operators and gaffers that make your favorite shows possible.
This weekend I had the opportunity of being a production assistant for season 12 of American Idol, and I can now officially say I know what it’s like to be one of those workers whose name will not be remembered by anyone watching the show, yet the bus crew who stopped to audition local talent would not have been able to get through the weekend without me. And that is literally the most humble way I can explain the importance of mere “no-namers” in TV production and all that they do.
For example, the first thing I did on Friday was chauffeur several of the Idol crew to the audition location so we could scout out the best areas to park the tour bus and set up the audition tents and tables. I also was in charge of driving the crew back to their hotel every day, toting them around town to run errands, and picking up meals. Normally, driving does not seem like a large task; anyone could do that, right? Wrong.
When you’re an assistant, you are not always just driving yourself. You drive any crew members around and suddenly their lives are in your hands. This is a particularly scary thought at 5 a.m. the next morning when it’s still dark out and you’ve had four hours of sleep and are hopped up on coffee. You pray to the Lord that you won’t drift across lanes, hit a deer, or, worse yet, fall asleep at the wheel. Suddenly I realized why they’d asked for a copy of my official driving record!
Also, can you picture Ryan Seacrest or Simon Cowell running out to get their own lunches when they also have to be getting to hair and makeup in preparation for filming in the evening? Don’t try to picture it because it rarely — if ever — happens. The same situation was true with the tour crew, as well. They were more directly involved with the food selection than they might have been in-studio, but I was the one who ultimately went and picked up the food, paid the restaurant with production money, and made sure to get a receipt so the production manager could claim it as a company expense. You simply can’t have a hungry, grouchy crew or cast on your hands if you hope to get anything filmed every day.
Though most people don’t want to deal with paperwork, this is one of the final and most important elements that goes on behind-the-scenes of TV shows. Thousands of sheets of paper for employees are processed so that they can get paid properly, yet you never see any of these sheets. That’s because it’s the job of assistants, the legal department, and human resources. I, too, had to take care of making sure all the paperwork was properly signed by the other temporary production assistants hired to work this past weekend. Had I not done so, one of my friends would have missed a good chunk of money due him because he did not sign in three different, required places. Imagine how many other people in the industry miss signing and how some worker in the TV company has to catch each error, yet you may never know his or her name.
I haven’t even covered the jobs the other production assistants did, like line control and monitoring, registration table, paperwork for the “winner’s circle,” and more. What you need to remember is anyone who works behind the scenes of a TV show clearly has a purpose, no matter how insignificant it may seem. So the next time your favorite show is on, do the boom operators and gaffers a favor by acknowledging first their existence and second their efforts. Should you ever have an opportunity like mine or theirs, I can assure you that you will appreciate all the positive attention and “thank you’s” that you get.
* All pictures in this story are copyright Woman Friday (Bree Brouwer), with the exception of the header and one indicated photo which are owned by Paragon Videography.
Graphic Novel Review – Enormous
Imagine if you will a world like ours. A world where there is no pollution and no crowds. Sure it’s because most of the population has been killed off but that’s not a problem hey? Oh did I mention the massive mutated animals that roam the landscapes eating folk? Yeah probably not every ones holiday destination but it is the basis of the new graphic novel from Image.
Grizzly Review: The Bourne Legacy
There is an irony to The Bourne Legacy. The soldiers in the movie blindly do what they are told and never question the mission or authority. If an important task needs to be accomplished, they go head first, with an eye on the prize and don’t blink. They are only controlled by what seems to be a reliance on the same two sets of pills. The redundancy of these tasks echoes the movie. The film charges forward without questioning its path despite the ripe material it glances upon but we continue to eat it up because we don’t question the monotony of what we view on the screen, which results in a generic action thriller that only scratches the surface of a greater story.
In the fourth installment of this series, Aaron Cross (Jeremy Renner) is a genetically enhanced field agent similar to Jason Bourne (Matt Damon, who shows up in spirit only). He is part of the Outcome program, a more sophisticated, controlled program than Treadstone from the first three films. These soldiers are genetically enhanced for higher motor and physical skills, as well as better mental dexterity and ability. They have a reliance on a set of two pills, as previously mentioned, which breaks down into the blue and green. It does remind of The Matrix in which the control and enhancement of their abilities is based on whether they take the pills or not. The major difference is if they take the pills, they play into the control aspect of being reliant on their prescriptions from their providers (granted, if they don’t take the pills, they probably get shot).
Unfortunately for these Outcome members, Jason Bourne is happening. More specifically, the third movie’s events, The Bourne Ultimatum, is running concurrently during this movie. He raises the profile of the possibility of other programs in the CIA so in turn, all evidence must go. That includes Outcome and its members. So Aaron Cross must survive and find answers, and of course, he is almost out of the pills so he must find a doctor connected to Outcome (Rachel Weisz, who follows the Hollywood tradition of aging backwards) in order to get his dosage and survive.
The best part about the Bourne movies were its ability to take a small detail and make it rich in detail, or provide an essential purpose. Whether looking at the limits of patriotism or the idea of fighting for freedom with people who had theirs taken from them, I loved the Bourne Trilogy because there was that underlying message of the cost of ‘whatever it takes’. Of course, being able to use a magazine to disarm someone or a towel to take out a knife wielding villain helps too. I feel this movies brushes against these issues yet won’t attach themselves to them.
Edward Norton plays Eric Byer, the guy tasked with cleaning up the Treadstone mess and anything related to it but him and his character were surprisingly one note. There was no tension on what he provides on-screen, no sense of urgency that he felt like a character born out of the necessity of moving the plot along. He was there to explain to the audience why Aaron Cross is the person we were following in this movie. Byer and his team were into the players from The Bourne Ultimatum like Pamela Landy (Joan Allen), Ezra Kramer (Scott Glenn), Albert Hirsch (Albert Finney), Noah Vosen (David Strathairn) and the most frustrating thing was to not watch their stories unfold. I wanted to know how or if there were going to be punished for their roles in the clandestine world of black ops, whether Landy uncovering Treadstone made her a patriot or a traitor to the country; if CIA Director Kramer covered up what was the best means possible to get the job done and if the ends justified the means; if Dr. Hirsch opened up the gates to super soldiers; or if Vosen was correct in his definition of patriotism and loyalty to his nation. I got none of this. Writer and director Tony Gilroy went the wrong way for this movie because it merely scratches the surface and nothing more.
It doesn’t help that the movie was boooorrrriiinnngggg. This is of no fault to Renner or Weisz, who were both good in their roles. The flick just comes up short and as it just wants to be a carbon copy of actions movies. For the first third of the movie, I felt I was watching The Grey. The chase was straight out of The Bourne Ultimatum. Heck, I felt like I was watching Spy Game during certain pockets of the movie. I wasn’t sure if I was watching a survivalist movie, a straight action flick, or a detailed espionage flick. Regardless, we’ve seen the movie before. It brings nothing new to the table and sadly, felt like it had no purpose. This movie did not follow its namesake and expand upon the legacy of Bourne. The action was decent but never anything ground breaking or having cause to talk about it right after the movie about “hey, did you see that one part?!”
There were good parts in the movie, such as the Manila rooftop and car chase (although I’m biased coming from the motherland myself) and less reliance of shaky-cam but this movie could have been so good. Maybe my expectations were too high dealing with the Greengrass/Damon combination. There is no creativity in the movie and that takes away from the mythology of Bourne. Even more frustrating is how the movie just ends with no real resolution to the plot or characters in this story. This movie is nothing more than diversionary ploy to look aesthetically pleasing yet provide no answers while asking the wrong questions. Skip the Bourne ‘Letdown’.
On a side note, another program that is chasing Cross all around Manila, is a beta subject that exhibits even less empathy. He basically came off as the Asian T-1000. Sunglasses, police motorcycle, him running and giving the quick turn and stare before launching him arms in perfect 90 degree swinging motion…seriously entertained Dr. Kronner and myself. Some of my exes might even think that’d be me considering how “emotionally unavailable” I am…So apparently based off of that, I am the next Jason Bourne – with NO EMPATHY.
Grizzly Review: The Campaign
Enter The Campaign: Cam Brady, a strange mixture of both George W. Bush and Bill Clinton is a congressman running for another term, this time completely unopposed. That is until political nobody Marty Huggins enters the race at the behest of his retired, politician father (Brian Cox) and his former campaign contributors. (Both played by a terribly underutilized Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow.) As shown throughout the trailer for this political satire, a vicious match of mud slinging ensues which honestly just gets tired by about the middle of the movie.
The Campaign suffers from two things: Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis exhibiting their same old schtick, and the majority of the laughs being shown in the trailer I mentioned above. I’m not saying that there weren’t funny parts in the movie, but they were so few and far between that I had trouble not checking the time on my cell phone, and that‘s knowing that other moviegoers hate lit cell phone screens in the theater. I almost felt like people in the theater were cautiously laughing at certain scenes just so it wouldn’t make the movie seem so terrible.
A movie with a comedic cast of this caliber should have had me throwing up from laughter. Ferrell and Galifianakis should make that a guarantee, but when their shenanigans aren’t enough shouldn’t Jason Sudekis, Dan Aykroyd and John Lithgow somehow be able to pull us though? Shockingly enough, extra laughs were secured with me by Dylan McDermott who stole the scene every time he appeared on-screen. His dochebaggery as the smooth, relentless campaign manager to Marty Huggins was a welcome addition to the movie from an actor I had no idea could make me laugh the few times I did. Hopefully he’s in a few more roles like this in the coming years. He could be the next Channing Tatum in terms of how I went from absolutely hating C-Tates to actually liking him after 21 Jump Street. But that still doesn’t mean I went and saw Magic Mike.
Overall this movie serves a way to point out how corrupt politics is and how stupid a select two portions of the American population are ideologically. The only thing is, I don’t think that the audience needed a movie to tell us all of these things. And if the studio felt like they needed to then they could have done it in a funnier way. I had a much better time and more laughs watching a walking, talking, pot smoking teddy bear this year for God’s sake! 2 out of 5 Grizzlies is what I say! That dog WON’T hunt Monseigneur!
Be sure to check out our 2 A.M. Text Review of The Campaign also!
It’s happening… ALF The Movie
Remember when we were talking about ALF voice and creator Paul Fusco pitching the idea for an ALF movie to the studios back in May? Well then it’s good news for you if you grew up in the 80’s or resided on the planet Melmac! Gordon Shumway or ALF as his illegal alien harboring human friends like to call him, is getting a movie. This is not a big surprise considering the success of such movies as Alvin and the Chipmunks and The Smurfs. Granted, those were cartoons turned into movies but the idea is basically the same with the approach of using CGI technology to make something mediocre from the 80’s into a modern day cash machine. So expect an extra long episode of ALF with more of a budget.
Even as a kid I thought the show was a little silly and now looking back I can’t believe I ever used to watch it. For those of youngsters not familiar with ALF, the show followed alien Gordon Shumway after he crash landed in the suburbs of America. Actually he landed in the trash pile of the Tanner family who (reluctantly at first) take Gordon in and proceed over the course of the show to hide him from neighbors and government officials alike. And they call him ALF instead of Gordon because it stands for Alien Life Form as the elder Tanner points out. Seriously, this crap was sitcom gold back then.
I would say it will be interesting to see which route they go with the movie, but seeing as how it’s the same producer as The Smurfs I’ m sure it will be all sorts of family friendly. Having so recently watched Ted in theaters, one can only dream of the hilarity that would ensue if ALF was as foul mouthed and drug induced as that cuddly teddy bear. No talks of release dates or actors/actresses but we’ll be sure to keep you posted!
Grizzly Bomb 