The Crystal Moment, or Why You Can't Write This Shit.

SOMETHING EXTRAORDINARY happened on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart last night.

I don't think it's much of a leap to predict that any author who came on, having just published a 400 page hagiography of Dick Cheney, was going to get a rough ride.

That being said, Stephen F. Hayes had to be feeling like one of those loose heat tiles on the Shuttle as he tried to bring his Daily Show experience in for a landing last night.

What Hayes couldn't have predicted when this appearance was booked weeks ago, was the appearance over the weekend of the video of Cheney in '94, declaiming in his angry Dad way, all the horrors that would have followed had the U.S. tried to take out Saddam in the Persian Gulf War.

That video, which Stewart also did a piece on last night, has some people scratching their heads. It's on the record that Cheney said these things before, about the first Gulf War...why is this unearthed clip causing such outrage?

It's worth watching from the beginning, just to chart the evolution of the interview. Hayes is obviously uncomfortable off the top -- he knows the question about the Cheney tape is coming. In many ways, Stewart is formidable in these book interviews precisely because he actually does read the books (or at least has a staff who does a really good job of highlighting the relevant points.) In any case, he won't let a happy talk answer stand. How sad that in this media age, that alone makes him stand out.

Hayes goes where you expect he'll go...he tries to have his cake a bit and eat it too, going to great pains to categorize Cheney's likely defense: "Things changed after 9/11" (yes, that again) as HIS response, not mine. But Stewart won't let him wriggle away.

In reaching for the core of why this thing upsets him so much, Stewart tries to do what he does: be funny. But when that doesn't work, when Hayes tries to use it to wriggle away, Stewart does the thing that is breathtaking whenever I see someone on TV smart and brave enough to do it: he asks the very thing the audience is thinking. He won't let it go. And when the answer is unsatisfactory -- how could it not be? -- Stewart goes for his main point: it's not just that he knew and lied. It's that he knew and lied, and along the way, pointed to anyone who didn't buy his disingenuous spin as gospel and questioned their patriotism.

The outraged gasps from the audience are palpable here. It feels to me like an accountability moment.

And that's why that video out there, being played, replayed, sent, resent, chopped up, animated, and referenced on talk shows is important. There are photos from My Lai that started the majority of the American people's turn against Vietnam. The "Smoking Gun" tape was the thing that finally finished Nixon.

With that tape, that small little interview, floating around -- what happens the next time the Republicans try the "criticize our efforts, you help the terrorists and disrespect the soldiers"? Because...the Republicans are still pulling this trick. But I wonder, after that Cheney video, if this video provides the "macaca" moment for that tactic. Probably not.

Because, you know, everything changed after 9/11.

Oh YouTube, you are going to make for one interesting election next year.

The true fun starts a little over halfway in.

How'd I Get To Meet Your Mother In the First Place?

REVISED OUTLINE, you are my nemesis.

But Carter and Craig seem like nice guys, and they get pretty detailed into the "big break" question, which I know everybody always wants to know about...so maybe I'll just keep banging my head against the wall and linkslut this "Watch With Kristin" interview with Carter Bays and Craig Thomas.

On any given day during the production of How I Met Your Mother, what are you actually doing? How do you go from a blank page to the product that's ready for air?
Well, in two years of doing the show, Craig and I have sort of discovered what's important and what isn't. And what is most important is story. So, we'll sit down with—not the whole writing staff—but me and Craig and usually two other writers in a room, with a dry-erase board, to figure out what the episode is going to be about.

You know, Phil Rosenthal wrote a book called You're Lucky You're Funny, which Craig and I are both reading right now. He talks about how Carl Reiner, on The Dick Van Dyke Show, would shut all the writers in a room and say, "What happened at your house this weekend?" And that's where the story comes from.

So, it sort of starts off as a few hours of therapy, talking about what we're feeling. You know, we'll be talking about what secrets do you tell your partner, and what do you keep from them, and that will eventually turn into [the] Robin Sparkles [episode]. Or we'll say, "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if Robin was a Canadian pop star?" and we'll work our way backward, figuring out how you get to that. We sort of chart it all on the white board, and then we can assign that story to one of our writers.

When the story is broken and the scripts are locked, is the bulk of your job done, or are you heavily involved in what's happening on set and in the edit?
Well, it seems like so much of the great stuff comes out on the set and in the edit room, but if a script is solid, it is like a huge, weeklong sigh of relief. But with some scripts, you know, when the actors are rehearsing scenes for camera, to figure out angles, we're completely rewriting those scenes in the midst of it.

No Accounting For Taste

AND THANK God for that.

Finding a way to quantify art is a disastrous and persistent pursuit in some quarters. Every pilot done in the USA (and Canada, now that we've started doing pilots) is subjected to a battery of tests to predict and gauge how audiences will receive it.

And every year, you hear story about high-testing pilots that go nowhere, and low testing shows that run for years (like Seinfeld.)

All across America, thanks to Clear Channel and companies like it, you have robocalls calling random people three times a day and playing twenty second snippets of songs. Depending on how that sample reacts, that's the songs you get to hear on just about every radio station in America.

Quantifying art leads to bad art. And yet for some it's still the golden grail. I think it's retarded.

Anybody who's worked on a TV show or movie knows that it's as much work to make a bad work as a good one. And when you're working on something, you may get the vague idea of whether it's bad or good, but that's notoriously unreliable.

So, too, when product is put out there, and people finally get to judge it, reactions can be baffling and puzzling. Is Californication an interesting show? Or rather, is it

clear that it had been green-lit by some network BSD who's contemplating leaving his wife for an underage hottie and he thought YEAH, baby, YEAH, this series speaks the TRUTH!

When somebody you know and whose taste you admire says something like:

I couldn't sit through this one. I had it on DVD, and I tried to watch it twice, and both times it turned me right off.

I wonder what happens in the second episode? Because I didn't see a hook there.

What does that really mean?

My favorite kind of criticism is the kind where the people run down what they didn't like about something, and I can't really disagree with it. I remember feeling that way about Superman Returns. My agent ran down a particularly devestating critique of that movie, and I saw every one of his points. I couldn't really disagree with them.

Yet I loved the movie. I think it's in these moments that you see little things about yourself. Some good, some bad -- always interesting.

I'm having a similar reaction to Californication right now. Further down in comments there are several people left scratching their heads by Mad Men, another show I just love.

Yesterday, in the Globe and Mail, Arts Writer Kate Taylor (taking her crack at TV criticism) wrote about Seinfeld reruns, from the perspective of someone who never watched the show when it was on. (Yes, there are a few.)

Watching Seinfeld today, you can note with amusement plots that turn around answering machines but which wouldn't work with cellphones, but you can also observe that these are people who can afford to worry about pizza cooks who don't wash their hands because they aren't worrying about terrorist attacks.

Perhaps, after Sept. 11, we are simply living in a less funny era: The sitcom landscape is a desert these days and the only heir to Seinfeld is Curb Your Enthusiasm, the show in which David gets his kick at the can, building a series around the travails of a producer's life in L.A. On a smaller scale, it's a successful series - HBO recently renewed it for a sixth season - but it also has a much harder edge. David's bleak comic persona is one less able to shrug off his character's anxieties and embarrassments than Seinfeld's was. You can suffer the distinctly uncomfortable sense, watching Curb Your Enthusiasm, that you are laughing at David, not with him. Perhaps it's no coincidence that none of the other spinoffs ever took hold: The Seinfeld moment is history.

Ooooh. Really? We're living in a less funny age, post-9/11? Knocked Up deals with terrorism head on, right? And the 40 Year Old Virgin had some amazing things to say about the war in Iraq. And, of course, that "No Blood For Oil" runner on Corner Gas was hi-la-ri-ous. Pffft.

The point is that this impulse -- to quantify, to explain, to debate -- we all do it. And the more we come at it from different perspectives, the more interesting our culture is. Thank God the banal assertion that "comedy is dead" that really was everywhere after 9/11 never took root and became canon, apologies to Kate Taylor.

Comedy on TV sits there in its periodic troughs, waiting for the next breakthrough hit. People praise John From Cincinnati while I scratch my head. (Even if Joss Whedon's little brother did write the finale.)

It's all good. It's all glorious.

The Nine -- remember that? -- It was the sure fire hit of last year. And now they won't even air the rest of the burned-off episodes, because it was too low rated.

Taken one way, this could induce an almost paralyzing fear in anybody who tries to pick something up and create. It can be used to support a lot of bad behavior (there's no accounting for the audience, so I'll do what I want, the audience is dumb so give them the lowest common denominator) and it can be used to glorify inaction (I can't figure out how to make this appeal to people.) It can send gatekeepers with no imagination to a batty and strange place.

I will never forget the weird meeting I had with the Canadian Network Suit who told me he'd passed on The Sopranos -- he wasn't telling the story as a "you know how I screwed up?" He was admitting that he'd seen the same show everybody else had and hadn't seen anything great in it...so he passed.
He told the story to show how much POWER he had -- he was able to Pass on the Sopranos.

People think in some strange ways. They think all sorts of strange things. They may hate the thing you love. You may agree with them and still love it, or think their critiques may be out to lunch. They may hate a show because of a woman's nose. You may love it for an irrational reason -- how it reminds you of your first babysitter or that goldfish Sam you had when you were a tot.

Whatever. It's all a big, fat, unpredictable ride, and the only thing we can do as writers or artists is keep seeking out opinions, and keep honing our instincts.

If your instincts are right, you'll do well.

If your instincts are off, you won't.

That's as quantifiable as things get.

In just a few weeks, the carnage will begin anew. People will make their choices. There will be winners, and losers, and once again as always, whatever they decide, the audience will be right.

Yes, even about Two And a Half Men and According To Jim.

Meantime, all I can do is tell you that Mad Men continues on AMC Thursdays at 10, Californication runs on Monday nights on The Movie Network (eastern Canada) at 9 p.m. ET and Movie Central (western Canada) at 10 p.m. PT. Watch em and judge for yourself.

And keep that debate raging, and don't let anyone put that opinion in a box.

John From Dunzo

WELL. SO. I guess John gets to go back to Cincinnati.

David Milch's latest, canceled, and though there's much in me to like with the show. Zippy, who breathed and said not a fucking word and then was dead. And Cissy, a bitch these many years on no good account of that asshole husband, and Shaun, dear God, Shaun with his blankness, Jesus Christ Jesus Christ!

I don't know Butchie instead.

I have yet to watch the finale so I don't have much to say. But Tod VanderWerff at South Dakota Dark sums it up pretty well in the lede to his wrapup:

Frustrating, enervating and enthralling, John from Cincinnati might be the most awesome show that I couldn't ever determine the quality of.

Yup. That's about the size of it. I'll watch, but I won't be happy that this is that which cost us more Deadwood. Go read Todd here. Me, I'm sticking with the Mad Men.

Californication

I AM LEERY, always, of shows about writers or featuring writers. Yes, yes, I think we are endlessly fascinating. How could I not? I'm just not sure that the world needs to share our solipsism.

The last real Inside-Showbizzy series I loved was The Larry Sanders Show, and I think my unreasonable love for that show is an instructive one. It was the first of the big behind-the-sceners (unless you count Mary Tyler Moore or Dick Van Dyke, and I don't.) but the juice of that show didn't necessarily come from its setting. It came from a triumverate of truly amazing characters: Artie, the always on the edge of a beating hardass producer, venal, complex, damaged Larry, and the sublime Hank Kingsley. (How is it possible that the show never made a big impact, yet everyone seems to know, "Hey now!" Does Howard Stern really have that much power?)

Shows that are too inside baseball never age well. I liked Murphy Brown, but man, those shows are well nigh unwatchable now.

When Studio 60 came along, I was willing to give it a flyer because of Sorkin. And we all know how that turned out.

Entourage, interestingly enough, bores me the more it becomes about the business, and the less it focuses on those four guys. I think giving Ari his own plots free of the boys -- while inevitable -- was probably a big creative mistake.

And 30 Rock -- well, the TV characters on 30Rock are the lamest -- Jenna, Tracy Jordan...it's Alec Baldwin, Fey, and the Intern who sell that show.

See how I just rationalized all the inside baseball shows I watch as not being inside baseball? Nifty trick, self delusion.

Anyway, on to Californication. I have to admit, I was pretty held by it. And yup, this is not a likable character. I mean, that speech he gives in the restaurant to dress down his date is just...horrific.

He also suffers from Tommy Gavin syndrome. There is something off the charts ridiculous about that many women leaping over themselves to get a piece of the Duchovny magic. And flash their bits in the process. There are a lot of actresses in Hollywood, yes there are.

And yet...

The show charms. It does. It helps that Natasha McElhone and Duchovny have a lot of chemistry. (I think Natasha McElhone is one of the most beautiful women on TV. Finally, a woman that I could see someone being all moony over for years. Duchovny sure has good luck with redheads.)

The late-episode reveal of the nature of one of buddy's bed partners is probably what everybody's going to be talking about...and it was a pretty sickening reveal... it was a little uncomfortable that they played the same beat as Rescue Me (when the father is delighted by the possibilty that his daughter's a lesbian. That was funny the first time...)

But all that being said, and despite serious reservations about the character, (and serious envy about the Soundtrack...I mean, who digs up My Morning Jacket singing Rocket Man, AND licences Sympathy by the freaking Stones?) I think I'll be watching. The dialogue was cutting, and there were some genunie surprises.

Like, say, I never thought I'd find myself laughing so hard at a donkey punch.

I think it comes down to Duchovny. This is the David Duchovny that you saw on Larry Sanders, and in the extras on the new excellent Sanders set. He's loose, he's enjoyable and charismatic and low key. David Duchovny is yet another one of those actors (like Jimmy Smits) who's made for TV. He looks so damn comfortable out up there on that screen, and he's just so likable, that I want to spend time with him, even if he is a shit.

But hocheemama that was a lot of nudity. That's a lot of closed set days there, by gum.

For Golick's take on Californication, click here. What did y'all think?

Sometimes Fiction Just Isn't Up To The Task

As Rove goes, there's just the matter of believing the six impossible things before breakfast.

Woody and Marty Make Me Think

TWO INCREDIBLY WORTHWHILE remembrances today in the New York Times:

Martin Scorsese muses on the power of Michelangelo Antonioni, "The Man Who Set Film Free,"

Where almost every other movie I’d seen wound things up, “L’Avventura” wound them down. The characters lacked either the will or the capacity for real self-awareness. They only had what passed for self-awareness, cloaking a flightiness and lethargy that was both childish and very real. And in the final scene, so desolate, so eloquent, one of the most haunting passages in all of cinema, Antonioni realized something extraordinary: the pain of simply being alive. And the mystery.

“L’Avventura” gave me one of the most profound shocks I’ve ever had at the movies, greater even than “Breathless” or “Hiroshima, Mon Amour” (made by two other modern masters, Jean-Luc Godard and Alain Resnais, both of them still alive and working). Or “La Dolce Vita.” At the time there were two camps, the people who liked the Fellini film and the ones who liked “L’Avventura.” I knew I was firmly on Antonioni’s side of the line, but if you’d asked me at the time, I’m not sure I would have been able to explain why. I loved Fellini’s pictures and I admired “La Dolce Vita,” but I was challenged by “L’Avventura.” Fellini’s film moved me and entertained me, but Antonioni’s film changed my perception of cinema, and the world around me, and made both seem limitless.

and Woody Allen talks of Ingmar Bergman, "The Man Who Asked Hard Questions."

His work probed the deepest concerns of humanity, often rendering these celluloid poems profound. Mortality, love, art, the silence of God, the difficulty of human relationships, the agony of religious doubt, failed marriage, the inability for people to communicate with one another.

And yet the man was a warm, amusing, joking character, insecure about his immense gifts, beguiled by the ladies. To meet him was not to suddenly enter the creative temple of a formidable, intimidating, dark and brooding genius who intoned complex insights with a Swedish accent about man’s dreadful fate in a bleak universe. It was more like this: “Woody, I have this silly dream where I show up on the set to make a film and I can’t figure out where to put the camera; the point is, I know I am pretty good at it and I have been doing it for years. You ever have those nervous dreams?” or “You think it will be interesting to make a movie where the camera never moves an inch and the actors just enter and exit frame? Or would people just laugh at me?”

Both articles are fully worth your while, of course, not just for their insight, but also their heart and humanity. Scorsese always talks about film and filmmakers this way, of course. Allen's melancholy says a lot, I think, not just about his striving, but his knowledge of his own mortality. And am I the only one who detects in Allen's writing an envy of Bergman's ability to not worry about what others think of his work? Or am I reading that in?

I don't have this kind of connection to film. I think I've admitted that many times. For better or worse (frequently the former, lately, it seems, the latter) film is as it is currently perceived: a director's medium. And it's about the visual sweep and motion. So I get it when Scorsese talks about how great it is to leave things unresolved.

And yet. And yet.

I'm starting to think of my love of the medium of television drama is something more. It's not just the love of someone working in a millieu where his gifts are better appreciated and respected. The conventional wisdom about TV is that it, even still, is film's poor cousin. Oh sure, sure, there are those who will make the bold point about the narrative of something like the Sopranos being better and more sophisticated than film, but generally I think there's a lot of unchallenged thinking going on out there in middlebrow and high falutin circles that TV is still largely what it was: film done more cheaply, on a tighter schedule, smaller budget, and more punishing schedule.

A lot of that (especially in Canada) comes from Directors -- who never quite seem to shake off the sense that by directing TV they're somehow lowering themselves. We have a high falutin cinema in this country, you see. (I should say that I've seen this less from the B.C. directors I've worked with, who seem to understand the medium a bit better.)

Directors want everything to be about the moment. It's very difficult to have a conversation in series with them, where you have to explain that what they may be doing here is setup for a character's reveal down the road. They tend to resent anything that does not pay off in their episode.

Television, by virtue of the fact that we live with characters and stories for so much longer, tend to revel in smaller reveals, telling details, and the slow build. This is all stuff that I've written about before.

But reading these two great men discuss the work of the giants in their field puts me in mind of those who I admire: Joss Whedon, who clearly is meant for TV rather than film; Sorkin, who for all the bombast of Studio 60 demands, I think, a hearth that's closer to the stage than the cinema. James L. Brooks, whose films have been hit and miss, but whose command of the TV medium is never less than masterful.

Increasingly, I'm starting to think of TV as not a cousin or brother to film, but as an evolutionarily distinct beast all its own. It's almost that moment few years ago when they discovered that Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens weren't really related -- but evolutionarily distinct. We think of one proceeding from the other. But they don't. TV's DNA is encoded with the stuff of Radio Drama far more than the stuff of Film.

Maybe that's why (even though they are hugely popular) I find the big film sensibility to tv transfers -- yes, you, CSI -- so empty.

I can appreciate and marvel at the love of masters like Antonini and Bergman, but they don't make my heart quicken. They're not of my tribe.

Now, the only question is: who's the neanderthals in this little parable and who's the homo sapiens?

I know where my vote goes. And I'll say only this...three words:

Brett Ratner, Auteur.

And Then There's Tom DiCillo...

WHO'S DEFINITELY a film guy after my own heart...From the NYTimes:

“Look at the movies people are watching,” he said, sitting in his Upper West Side apartment and shaking his head. “They’re about nothing. You invest nothing.” Mr. DiCillo blames, in part, the events of September 2001. “People can’t invest real emotion because it’s too terrifying.”

“Have you ever noticed,” he asked, “that the entertainment business is the only one where there has never been somebody picking up a machine gun and going berserk? A guy in a post office in Cincinnati will bring an AK-47 into his place of business because somebody used his coffee cup. Nothing like that has ever happened in the film business and never will. Never will. You know why? The stakes are too high. It’s life and death. No one is ever going to jeopardize their place in the food chain.

“I’m not suggesting they do,” he said with a smile, “but it’s a brutal business.”

Full Disclosure: I wrote and produced a short film years ago about paparazzi. So I can't wait to see DeCillo's new film. Mmmm.