Mike Gold has been a comic book go-to guy like forever. And now that comics have become mainstream – maybe even more than mainstream, certainly in terms of ancillary earning power – and are attracting a whole new generation of writers, he has something to say.
Something important:
It’s called JIMMY’S END and is “a film by Alan Moore & Mitch Jenkins.”
TVWriter™’s boss, Larry Brody, calls this “a cross between Fellini, John Osborne, and Rossellini, if none of these men had a sense of humor.” Does that mean he didn’t like it? “Not at all. I think it comes very close to actually being good in a way no film has been good since the death of Ingmar Bergman. I just wish it didn’t keep proclaiming its self-importance over and over and over again.”
You don’t write because you want to say something. You write because you have something to say.
F. Scott Fitzgerald
British TV shows are better than American ones. I’m sorry, there’s no other position to take. They don’t try to crank out 26 episodes a season, like we do here. When you do that, you are guaranteeing that at least 10 of the episodes will be “meh”, even if all the others are good. It takes a lot of work to make a superior hour of filmed television. Aside from the necessity of great scripts, the days are very long when in production, at least 12 hours, often longer. It’s too much of a grind to survive and still end up with a jewel at the end. The Brits have it figured out. Make 6-8 episodes/season, so they’ll all be good. Not only that, but it leaves the actors free to have a real life, or perform in plays or even to be in a different series at the same time if they wish. It’s civilized.
I’m totally hooked on another series about city folk moving to the country. It’s an ITV production called Doc Martin that’s shown here in Port Townsend but not where I used to live. You can, however, see three season’s worth of episodes (21 shows) in full 420p, 16×9 aspect ratio at hulu.com. Because I loved it from the moment I saw it, I went back to see it from the beginning. It fits what I wrote about in the previous article on Green Acres. The city guy is the fish out of water, in this case in the fictional coastal Cornish village of Portwenn.
The show is filmed in beautiful Port Isaac, and is about a once-successful surgeon from London who becomes a GP in a sleepy fishing village because he suddenly can’t stand the sight of blood. The Dr’s name is Martin Ellingham (Ellingham is an anagram of the last name of show creator Dominic Minghella), and the locals refuse to call him anything other than “Doc Martin”, which he finds disrespectful. The doc is a surly curmudgeon, has no bedside manner whatsoever, and is constantly in conflict with the villagers, except for his Auntie Joan (Waiting for God’s Stephanie Cole), a long-time resident. This is a dance of dominance between the doc and the locals, so in an inspired choice the show uses catchy tango music for its theme and underscore.
If anyone remembers my post about cable reality shows, you may be interested in this news story:
‘Storage Wars’ Staged, Fired Star Claims in Lawsuit – by Tim Molloy“Storage Wars” star David Hester says in a lawsuit filed Tuesday that he was fired after complaining that the reality show is staged.
In the lawsuit, Hester contends that the producers of the hit A&E series routinely plant valuable items in the storage lockers seen on the show. Competitors place bids on the lockers without knowing what is inside them, hoping to come across forgotten treasures.