The Office of Letters and Light Blog

Cutting Back on Online TV

Since going off to college I haven’t had access to a television. At first, I thought it was going to be great: I figured I’d end up wasting less time being brainwashed by commercials and nonsense like Keeping Up with the Kardashians, and instead spend my time doing something more positive (like going outside!). Unfortunately, that’s not how it went down. As soon as I went off to school, I discovered Hulu and Netflix’s Watch Instantly, a.k.a. the kryptonite of productivity.

It started out small. I used to visit Hulu once a week to catch up on 30 Rock, or Lost; it was when my friend told me that I could stream full-length movies and entire TV series on Netflix that things really got out of control. Before I knew it, I was watching all sorts of shows and movies online that I didn’t even care about. I began following mediocre series out of boredom. Now it’s gotten to the point where I can’t get dressed in the morning without watching The Daily Show or The Colbert Report online. I feel a need for constant passive entertainment.

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Titanic 3D, same story but with more D’s

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of seeing Titanic 3D with a few friends. I was a little apprehensive about sitting through an almost three-and-a-half-hour movie that I’d already seen, but it ended up being well worth the whopping fourteen dollars. It was also my first experience watching a movie in 3D (not including Disneyland’s “Honey I Shrunk the Audience”), and although at first I found the glasses somewhat annoying and the effect a little distracting, I left thinking it was super cool!

The experience of watching Titanic again presented me with an opportunity to revisit something that I had first experienced in my childhood with fresh eyes. Even though I was only seven when Titanic was released, I can still remember “Titanic fever” and how crazy excited I was to see it in theaters with my family. With equal clarity I can recall the crushing disappointment I felt when, after stepping into the theater, my sister realized she was positively too scared to see it, forcing my parents to admit that Titanic was probably a “renter” (but not for them of course, they saw it the next night).

Although this was a blow, I didn’t miss out completely because after my mom saw it she spent the better part of the next morning telling my sisters and I the entire story with impressive accuracy; even James Cameron would have approved of her attention to detail. While she was telling the story I listened with wide eyes, and clung to every word. Even now I’m completely unable to divorce her version of the story from the actual film. I’ll never be able to watch the scene in which Jack teaches Rose how to spit like a man without picturing my mom’s ridiculous impression of Jack hocking a loogie. 

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TV’s Praise Problem

We’re living in a wonderful age for television. Several current or recent shows deserve all-time-best consideration; audiences are knowledgeable and engaged; showrunners and writers are thinking in bigger arcs. I can barely manage my DVR.

But I’m troubled by a particular byproduct of all this wonderfulness: a phenomenon I call insta-aggrandizement. Strong shows with engaged viewers means that even before the credits end, folks are striking the first key in their rush to praise, analyze, and created animated GIFs. And with showrunners more available than ever before, they’re helpful collaborators in this process, posting their own episode breakdowns, reactions, and responses to fans.

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Adaptation

It’s nearly mid-March which can only mean two things: One, it’s almost time for Script Frenzy, and two, it’s almost time for The Hunger Games premiere. I’ve been a proud, self-proclaimed Hunger Games nerd since I read the series a few months ago. If you haven’t yet read it, I recommend it! It’s a quick read and well worth it. To add to my delight, they are adapting the book into a full-blown movie, which seems to be a reoccurring pattern nowadays.

In fact, it seems that these days publishers are strategically seeking out novels that can be made into movies. Precious, The Kite Runner, The Lovely Bones, The Virgin Suicides—there must be hundreds, if not thousands of top box-office movies that started as books. So this leaves me wondering whether or not I should adapt a good book into my Script Frenzy script.

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Finding “My Person”

Last week in the office, I did something a little silly. I openly acknowledged my love for Grey’s Anatomy to everyone. Now, I know what you may think. “Grey’s Anatomy?! Didn’t it jump the shark when Izzie started having hallucinations about her dead boyfriend/when Meredith and Derek actually got and stayed together/when they made a musical episode?”

And yes, it would seem that Grey’s has joined the ranks of super-popular doctor dramas that start out amazing (if still a bit far-fetched) but ultimately get worse and worse with each season. And yes, I maybe wanted to stop watching all together when everyone began to belt out their frustrations a la High School Musical. But when I didn’t, something pretty cool happened. The show became awesome again.

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Marathon TV Watching

The other day, I added the entire six-season run of The Larry Sanders Show to my Netflix Instant queue. I’ve been meaning to watch it for a while, and I plan to take it down in one big gulp—a few solid days of rigorous sitcomming during the winter months.

Obviously, I’m not alone in this style of marathon TV watching. DVD and video-on-demand have made the practice a common part of the cultural conversation. I can’t jump on to my Facebook or Twitter feeds without hearing about someone working through a season or more. (A friend’s run of Cheers was the most impressive.) Recent episodes of Portlandia and Up All Night have noted the intense commitment people feel to the shows they’re mainlining. And many media critics have spoken up both for and against the “binge.”

(Our office, meanwhile, houses some serious Downton Abbey marathonners: Sarah and Grant just knocked out the first season.)

Are you a fan of watching TV shows all at once? Why or why not? If you are, which ones have kept you couch-bound? Any notable marathons that you regretted or repeated?

– Chris A.

Photo by Flickr user jayneandd

The Play’s the Thing

Until last week, it had been about a year since I went to “see a show”: a stage production of Beauty and the Beast.

I was reminded then, as I always am when I go to the theater, how much I love plays and how I really ought to see more of them. And more regularly.

And then another year passed before I found myself happily—luckily—invited to see Cirque du Soleil’s Immortal Michael Jackson tour. Not your traditional stage play by any stretch, but still theater to be sure.

The intersection of story (a loose bio of Jackson), tribute to his life and loves, and spectacular performance-art-as-music-video certainly ranked this production in the “like nothing I’ve ever seen” category. The astronomical production value, the astonishingly ornate costumes, the interpretations of history and the music that ranged from the wildly creative and abstract to the literal,  the pyrotechnics (!), the acrobatics, and the sheer awesomeness of the music heard in a different context all left me slack-jawed, starry eyed, and one million percent dazzled.

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It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

No, I’m not talking back-to-school. I don’t care about the crisp fall weather or the turning leaves. I’m not a football fan (hockey is my game). I love this time of year because it means the new TV season is starting at last. Yippee!

I have written before about my enthusiastic appreciation for all things television. And there is nothing I love more than the fresh slate of a new crop of programs. Except maybe all my old favourites coming back for another season.

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REC Everything

I went on vacation with my family recently (Mexico), and shared a camera with my father. This brought back a flood of memories of a syndrome from my childhood. It’s called DNVS, and it’s as contagious as it is unforgiving.

Depending on when you grew up, you may or may not be familiar with “Dad’s New Video (Camera) Syndrome.” DNVS is incurable (except by time) and can be exhausting for all involved. Its spread to epidemic levels in the ’90s was directly related to the falling prices in video recording technology, and resulted in millions of hours of historically critical footage of babies eating baby food, and your brother taking his first swim in the new avocado-colored kiddie pool.

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Boring Movies or Boring Critics?

I wish the title “Eating Your Cultural Vegetables” had attracted me based on some confusion or freshness, but the truth is the title was resonant in a nauseating way. It was resonant from having (way) too many conversations with film majors interested in participating in the creation of the next The Hangover 2.

Late this April, a writer named Dan Kois set-off a minor firestorm on the internet with his article about “Eating Your Cultural Vegetables.” In it, he coins the term “aspirational viewing” where the film-goer watches something he anticipates to be boring/painful/long because they consider it to be, for some inexplicable reason, good for them. 

If I heard this at a college party, I’d smile and nod, but I wasn’t alone in finding it a little hard to take from a film critic. Yes, this man is paid to watch films and write about them. (You can’t make this stuff up.)

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Chris A. and Sarah Debate… The Comedy Emmy Nominations!

Sarah: As we have written about in the past, Chris A. and I are both television enthusiasts. We are also both people with a lot of opinions, and thus are prone to frequent overzealous discussions about various shows we watch.

Naturally, then, last week’s announcement of the Emmy nominees began a spirited debate over the various categories. Although we have plenty to say about other genres (I for one am thrilled to see Cat Deeley get recognized for Reality Show Host, because she is a total delight and very good at maintaining order while still being charming), the comedy category is definitely where we have the strongest opinions. So we thought we’d break down those thoughts in another installment of our ongoing “Chris A. and Sarah Debate Things” blog series.

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Vegas, baby!

I am heading to Las Vegas for the first time in my life. Though I’m not traveling there to participate in the usual behaviors (gambling, getting married, eating endangered species), but instead to visit family, I fear it’s impossible not to get sucked into the spectacle.

I can’t help but ponder the representations I have seen in books and on film of this larger-than-life place—it is the standard by which I will end up judging the real thing!

The movies I keep referencing in my mind are Swingers, The Hangover, Ocean’s Eleven, and cameo appearances in The Big Lebowski and Knocked Up. As for books, well, I can only think of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. (I read it, though I didn’t see the movie adaptation.)

After this weekend, I will only be able to compare representation of Vegas in film and movies to the real thing.

I’d love to know what those might be—if I am missing some major seminal works about, or set in, this notorious and ultimately unavoidable phenomenon of a city. Enlighten me, please!

Through the looking glass I go…

Photo by Flickr user bfishadow