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It’s the same old story – someone pitches an intriguing idea for a television pilot, and the next thing you know, a major network’s picked it up. Everything goes downhill from there. We’ve seen it with The Following, The Blacklist and a thousand other projects that had the nuts and bolts to be a contender. In the end these shows have all been ruined, decimated, dashed upon the rocks of network ethics. The goal is to present a highly-sanitized hour that poses little or no threat of offending anyone, or of making the general audience consider anything, for that matter.

Enter Gotham, a fiercely-anticipated drama that trades upon the rich back story of Batman, the twist here being there is no Batman, only a prepubescent Bruce Wayne. And while this could’ve – and probably should’ve – represented an innovative starting point, it inevitably winds up feeling like a letdown, the ultimate failure of which can be divided into quadrants: Continue reading →

(Good Pictures/Bad Camera is a regular feature on IFB.)

“Discriminating moviegoers want the placidity of nice art – of movies tamed so that they are no more arousing than what used to be called polite theatre. So we’ve been getting a new cultural puritanism – people go to the innocuous hoping for the charming, or they settle for imported sobriety, and the press is full of snide references to Coppola’s huge film in progress, and a new film by Peckinpah is greeted with derision, as if it went without saying that Bloody Sam couldn’t do anything but blow up bodies in slow motion, and with the most squalid commercial intentions.

This is, of course, a rejection of the particular greatness of movies: their power to effect us on so many sensory levels that we become emotionally accessible, in spite of our thinking selves. Movies get around our cleverness and our wariness; that’s what used to draw us to the picture show. Movies – and they don’t even have to be first-rate, much less great – can invade our sensibilities in the way that Dickens did when we were children, and later, perhaps, George Eliot and Dostoevski, and later still, perhaps, Dickens again. They can go down even deeper – to the primitive levels on which we experience fairy tales. And if people resist this invasion by going only to movies that they’ve been assured have nothing upsetting in them, they’re not showing higher, more refined taste; they’re just acting out of fear, masked as taste. If you’re afraid of movies that excite your senses, you’re afraid of movies.”

(Excerpted from The Age of Movies)

IFB’s Quotations Page, General Index

There is a rumor, rather prevalent, that David Chase forbid the use of tight shots centered around the back of any actor’s head throughout production on The Sopranos. Too clichéd, Chase believed (with the exception of a minor dream sequence during Season Four). Yet, if one watches the opening credits of either Mad Men or Boardwalk Empire – anchored by Chase protégés Matthew Weiner and Terence Winter, respectively – it’s difficult to ignore the prominent use of that shot.

David Chase was correct about so many things, in retrospect, his shadow must prove staggering, especially for Winter, whose follow-up to The Sopranos exists inside a similar universe. Because both Mad Men and Boardwalk Empire are period pieces, Weiner and Winter find themselves saddled with the responsibility of remaining true to bygone eras. Weiner has proven exceptional at this, building sets and storylines that are more true to 1960s America than 1960s America originally might have been to itself. Terence Winter, on the other hand, has struggled, in large part because he has taken shortcuts in the service of drama. “Never let the truth get in the way of a good story,” Nucky Thompson explains during Boardwalk Empire‘s pilot episode (an adage originally adapted from Mark Twain).

While Matthew Weiner uses exteriors, Terence Winter opts for CGI, suggesting lush, almost-impossible backdrops along a pixelized horizon. Mad Men inserts well-known figures into minor, incidental scenarios (e.g., Don Draper taking meetings with Conrad Hilton during Season Three). Boardwalk Empire, on the other hand, runs fast and loose with historical record (e.g., Al Capone engaging in a non-existent mob war alongside Nucky Thompson toward the end of Season Three).

And this … well, this is small potatoes, really.

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I was in the living room at my parents’ house when the call came, watching television as I picked up the phone.

“Do you have a minute?” Meghan wondered. A harbinger of bad results.

I had just returned from a weekend at the shore, the final working weekend of September. We were free of it, the two of us, with Meghan settling back inside her dorm room and me eating some Cheez-Its on the living-room floor. I had spoken with Meghan face-to-face a few hours prior, had seen her walking with her father on the boards. I had asked if Meghan wanted me to follow her back to Immaculata. No need, Meghan assured me, and she said it in the way that gives old lovers pause.

“I’ve been thinking about the way that things are going,” Meghan told me over the phone. “I’ve been thinking about this whole new world that I’ve just entered, about how I’m doing everything I can to gain control. And I keep on thinking about this horrible guilt that I’ve been feeling, this overwhelming sense I might be stringing you along.”

I attempted to bargain, for a moment, but soon resigned myself to the notion this had all gone on too long. I could hear my own words spinning back to me, and – within a matter of seconds – our two-and-a-half years together had come to a close.

“Are you there?” Meghan asked me.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I quietly replied.

“I think we need to spend some time apart. Are you there?” Meghan asked me.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I quietly replied.

“Please don’t hate me.”

“I don’t hate you. Should the two of us even continue to talk?”

“I suppose it’d be best if we didn’t for a while … Please don’t hate me,” Meghan added.

“No, I promise you, I don’t.”

“I love you.”

“Yeah, I love you, too.”

“Please take care.”

Then all was lost.

Day 1,000

(Moving On is a regular feature on IFB.)

©Copyright Bob Hill

Don Draper is a philanderer. He philanders. And though the reasons for his philandering are varied, Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner may have put his finger on it when he said, “I think Don likes longing more than he likes people who love him … His lack of loyalty runs deep because he doesn’t like the people who know him.” That is to say, we hurt the ones we love the most, but Don Draper seems intent upon punishing them. His weapon of choice: an ongoing cycle of adultery. His line of defense: implausible deniability.

As a character, Don is smart, arrogant, incredibly assured. He is wealthy, handsome … the consummate lover. Don is enough of the things that women want and men want to be that, as an audience, we tend to excuse all of his inequities. This, of course, carries over into everyday life – a capitalist culture in which rich, attractive, button-up types tend to walk all over hoi polloi.

Throughout Mad Men‘s six-and-a-half seasons, we’ve gotten to know Don, in large part, as a result of his affairs. We see Don reflected in shattered pieces of the lovers he has left behind. In ranking them, there was no consideration given to platonic relationships (no Joan or Peggy), no exceptions made for one-night stands or supernumeraries. What remains are eight eclectic women, each of them listed below based on intrigue, as well as what level of drama their interaction with Don has provided during the show:

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“It’s not a bad feeling when you’re knocked out. It’s a good feeling, actually. It’s not painful, just a sharp grogginess. You don’t see angels or stars: you’re on a pleasant cloud. But then this good feeling leaves you. You realize where you are, and what you’re doing there, and what has just happened to you. And what follows is a hurt, a confused hurt – not a physical hurt – it’s a hurt combined with anger; it’s a what-will-people-think hurt; it’s an ashamed-of-my-own-ability hurt. And all you want then is a hatch door in the middle of the ring – a hatch door that will open and let you fall through and land in your dressing room instead of having to get out of the ring and face those people. The worst thing about losing is having to walk out of the ring and face those people.”

(Excerpted from King of the World by David Remnick)

IFB’s Quotations Page, General Index

Two-thousand-thirteen was a polarizing year for Ryan Gosling, appearing – as he did – in both the best and worst motion pictures of his career. While Gangster Squad represented the shittiest A-List romp of that winter, it also represented the only piss-poor film choice Gosling had made in over a decade. The 33-year old’s success is the result of several factors, not the least of which is a quality Drive co-star Carey Mulligan once referred to as his “stillness”. A lifelong actor, Gosling made the transition from child star into leading man while avoiding all of the usual tabloid blunders. He’s got the look, the instincts, the mindset, and the following, and – despite only being nominated for one Academy Award – Gosling’s amassed an entire steam trunk full of accolades, the majority of which were awarded in recognition for these six essential roles:

1. The Believer (2001). As a 19-year old, Ryan Gosling was beginning to rebel against his early Mickey Mouse Club image. He broke out by portraying a self-hating Jew who violently aligns himself with the neo-Nazi movement. The Believer effectively freed Gosling, establishing him as a significant screen presence, one with the willingness to accept roles the majority of vested actors would avoid. The movie also showcased Ryan Gosling’s budding physique, accented by the martial arts training he received throughout Young Hercules.

2. The United States of Leland (2003). Once, when I was in high school, a classmate hired me to write a short story for her. I based that story – at least in part – on The Who’s Quadrophenia. Toward the end of my piece, the teenage hero, who lived in a tiny shore town, wandered out beyond the breakers, at which point he drowned himself inside the sea. The girl who I wrote the story for received a “D,” with her teacher providing a red-line note that read: “People don’t just kill themselves for no reason.” I mention this by way of explaining how critics responded to Matthew Ryan Hoge’s The United States of Leland. Roger Ebert declared the film a “moral muddle,” Moira MacDonald of the Seattle Times referred to it as both “ponderous and endless” (and not in a good way). The film maintains a 34% rating on Rotten Tomatoes’ aggregate all-critics meter, rather astounding when one considers the ensemble cast: Don Cheadle, Sherilyn Fenn, Ryan Gosling, Chris Klein, Jena Malone, Michael Pena, Kevin Spacey, Kerry Washington and Michelle Williams (among others). As the lead, Gosling plays a detached suburban teen who inexplicably murders the mentally-handicapped brother of his girlfriend. Combined with The Believer and Murder By Numbers, Leland made it appear Gosling would be pursuing an alternate trajectory, until …

3. The Notebook (2004). The Notebook is crucial within the framework of this list for the simple reason it proved Ryan Gosling was capable of playing out the next 25 years of his career as a multi-million-dollar heartthrob. Imagine, if you will, every person who’s ever said, “Oh, my God, I LOVED The Notebook.” Now imagine Ryan Gosling having placated that audience. The fact that he has not says more about his M.O. than it ever could about a thousand other actors who’ve made their millions following that path.

4. Half Nelson (2006). A return to form, as Gosling slumps his shoulders, inhabiting the shell of crackhead teacher Daniel Dunne. Gosling is exceptional, if not understated, intentionally dialing it down to feign exhaustion. Half Nelson is notable not only because it garnered Gosling his first and only Oscar nom, but also because it ushered in an ongoing string of signature roles – Fracture, Lars and The Real Girl, Blue Valentine, All Good Things – each of them paving the way toward …

5. Drive (2011). By the time Drive entered pre-production, Gosling’s swagger had become such he was afforded the luxury of choosing his director. Nicolas Winding Refn, a Danish auteur, helped transform what was originally a mainline vehicle (starring Hugh Jackman, no less) into a brilliant piece of noir – part 80s glam, part video game, part ass-kicking amalgam. Drive was a combination of so many clashing genres (i.e., Crime, Car, Heist, Drama, Western, Romance, Grindhouse, Thriller) that a handful of critics simply dismissed it, citing cruelty. Regardless, Ryan Gosling emerged a hero, entering a period during which he would partner with certain directors again, developing what he has since referred to as a specific form of shorthand.

6. The Place Beyond The Pines (2013). During a 2011 Hollywood Reporter Roundtable, Ryan Gosling explained that almost every scene he filmed for Derek Cianfrance’s Blue Valentine had to be shot in just one take. No table reads, no rehearsals … just years, literally, spent learning how to slip inside the skin of both those characters. While The Place Beyond The Pines represented a more conventional affair, it stands to reason Cianfrance maintained a similar approach. Between the bleached hair, the tattoos, and that brilliant, seething anger, Gosling appears nothing short of transcendent throughout this movie. His most staggering feat? Getting the audience to care. For here Gosling is charged with portraying a robber/bully/deadbeat/carney, one whose charisma holds the key to making all the other pieces matter. Schenectady, as you know, means “place beyond the pines.”