broadcast football, technology, and awards

A note to my regular readers:  I've rearranged the blog's organization for hopefully easier use, including a search function and a list of all movies/shows/games discussed, with links to the appropriate postings.  Enjoy.

While prepping syllabi for the upcoming semester, I'm watching the first of this weekend's NFL wild-card playoff games (trying to get things done before the Packers-Cardinals game tomorrow afternoon so I can watch that one without trying to multi-task).  And I was musing about the "yellow line," which I'm old enough to remember televised football without (yes, I realize the grammar of this sentence is a mess).  For those who don't watch much football, this is a visual effect added to the broadcast feed (it is not on the actual playing field) to show the audiences at home how far down the field the offense needs to go to earn a first down (sometimes a blue line is also added to show where the line of scrimmage is).

Football has always seemed to me perhaps the ideal sport for television.  I still think baseball may be the best sport to attend - nothing else quite has the same ring as "take me out to the ballgame" - but it's not very exciting to watch on TV, and simply because of the number of games played (162 games per season, per team, not counting the post-season?!) there's not really much on the line in any one game.  In football, on the other hand, every game can make a difference to some team, so it's easy to take a rooting interest in almost any one.  Additionally, it has plenty of guaranteed stops in the action (unlike, say, soccer) to facilitate insertion of commercials; major plays can happen at any time so you want to watch the whole game (unlike, say, basketball, where games are almost always decided in the last few minutes); and the advantages of TV, such as the ability to show replays and get explanations and commentary from the announcers about specific plays (assuming you have decent announcers - see my earlier comments on ESPN's thankfully-over-for-the-season MNF), really enhance the viewing experience.

So there are a lot of reasons I think football is good for TV, but I was thinking about just how big a difference the yellow line makes.  What it does is make football a lot more accessible to everyone, whether or not they know much about football, in the same way that you don't have know all the intricacies of pitching in baseball or the pick-and-roll in basketball to understand the goal in each sport moment-to-moment (hitting the ball and getting the ball in the basket, respectively).  Now anyone can simply look at the screen and know that the offense is trying to get the ball past that line, and the defense is trying to prevent them from doing so.  It's just that simple.  Great invention.

What many people may not realize is the complexity of the technology that goes into this seemingly simple addition to the broadcast.  When it first appeared, it took an entire truckload of equipment to add the line just to the main wide view of the field, and the camera providing that feed couldn't pan or zoom.  Today, it appears in just about every shot of gameplay used, and is so common it seems a natural part of the broadcast.

But think about what has to happen for that yellow line to appear to be on the field as the camera pans and zooms during a game:
(1) a processor has to know where on the field the first-down marker is
(2) it has to correlate that with the signal the camera's picking up, even as the camera may pan across the field, zoom in, zoom out, etc.
(3) along the first-down line, it has to examine each pixel in the image and determine - in real-time - whether that pixel represents part of the field (which may be green grass, white or some other color of marking, or some type of snow or mud) or a person (including players who may be wearing some of the same colors as the grass or markings on the field).
(4) for those pixels that are part of the field, it has to color them with yellow and track with camera pans and zooms to keep the right pixels yellow...
(5) ...except that once the play begins, players will be moving across the line and the computer has to immediately change those parts of the picture back to the original camera image as long as a player's in that part of the picture, and then immediately back to the yellow line as soon as a player moves off that spot.

Pretty impressive, huh?  For anyone who's ever done greenscreen or motion tracking work, you can imagine how tough this is to do in real-time for a live broadcast - and really, the system makes very few mistakes given the tough job it has to do.

Video, film, and broadcast technologies are improving all the time, and in the big scheme of things the little yellow line on football game broadcasts is far from the most important.  But it's a very tangible example of how much creative and technical innovation still goes into making movies and TV better, whether through specific visible results (like the yellow line) or through gradual improvements in overall visual or sonic quality.  In the spirit of the latter, checkout this link to the just-announced winners of this year's Scientific and Technical Awards from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (the people who put on the Oscars).  These are the awards that get a brief mention during the Academy Award telecast but are not actually presented at that ceremony.  The people winning them may not get the coverage or acclaim as actors, directors, and other craftspeople involved in the film biz, but the movies we see would not be as enjoyable without their labors.  Thanks and congrats to all of them.

Catching up on media over the holidays (Part 2)

So I'm finally catching up on the new movies, TV, etc.  My quick-hit thoughts (well, at least that was what was intended, and as I tend to do I ended up writing more than planned) on three movies seen this week:

The Princess and the Frog
It's great to see a solid 2-D hand-drawn animated feature from Disney after several flops and the studio's attempt at one point to abandon that style and rely solely on 3-D computer animation for its animated films.  John Lasseter is a visionary filmmaker in the strongest sense of the word (as evidenced by Toy Story, Cars, etc.) but may be even smarter as an executive, helping people to flourish around him, and was wise to reinvigorate Disney's hand animation unit when Pixar was bought by Disney and he was given creative reign over Disney's entire animation business.  This is the studio that brought us everything from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and Fantasia in their golden age to The Lion King, Aladdin, and The Little Mermaid in their 80s/90s renaissance - which is why it's so exciting to see another good, solid entry in their catalog.

The Princess and the Frog (hereafter PATF) is not the best Disney animated film to date, but it's a well-done, engaging story that I expect kids and adults to be enjoying for years to come.  From a sociocultural standpoint, this is a milestone in that it gives the hugely popular "Disney princesses" line a long-overdue African-American character in the film's heroine Tiana; the film mostly sidesteps the larger issue of what it means to be a poor black girl growing up in an economically and racially segregated city, and what possibilities this affords (or, more importantly, does not afford), but this is perhaps for the best, and I must admit (minor spoiler alert) that I liked that the film gave Tiana's rich white friend Charlotte a chance to show there was more to her than we had previously suspected at the end - though I couldn't help but wonder why Tiana's rich white friend Big Daddy could not have simply helped her out financially earlier on, since he clearly had more money than he knew what to do with and was aware Tiana could have used it to start her restaurant.  But I digress...

The film's plot is predictable - in a good way, so perhaps "comfortable" would be a better word - and it's not really any surprise how things end up in a big-picture sort of way.  Its details, though, are charming, from the amusing secondary characters who assist our heroes (what would a Disney be without memorable sidekicks?) to the very specific-feeling bayou, New Orleans streets, plantation house, and other settings.  PATF is a feast for the eyes, and has enough genuine laughs and emotion to keep you engaged the whole way through.  At ~1:40 it's just the right length, leaving you wanting just a bit more but still feeling successfully concluded.

When compared to the best of Disney's animated films, I have to admit that the songs are not up to snuff - upon leaving the theater, I couldn't remember a single memorable tune or lyric that I would want to hear again.  It's not that the songs are "bad," just that they don't have the classic feel of something like "Under the Sea" or "Beauty and the Beast".  But this is a minor quibble in a strong film, and I enjoyed the songs in the moment even if I didn't come out humming them.

One note of caution:  not sure how this film got a "G" rating, though given how arbitrary the MPAA's ratings are and the fact that they generally assume any Disney animated movie is an automatic G, perhaps it's not surprising.  I thought a couple of the scenes with the "Shadowman," particularly when he's summoning the spirits to his assistance (and later when - spoiler alert - he's getting dragged back to the nether realms with them) could be pretty intense for little kids.  Adults will appreciate the strong visual style with which these are done, however.

Sherlock Holmes
Full disclosure:  I'm a longtime fan of the Sherlock Holmes character, and have read all the original Arthur Conan Doyle stories as well as a number of Holmes stories (both those true to the original style and those that spin Holmes in a new direction) by later authors.  I even watch House religiously.  So I was understandably worried when I heard Guy Ritchie had been entrusted with such a classic and close-to-my-heart character.  The good news?  It turns out my fears were only partially justified.  True, the action scenes are put together with Ritchie's normal cut-too-fast-and-shot-too-close-to-make-sense-of style (he's like a low-rent Michael Bay, except not as good), and there's not much in the way of classic Holmesian deduction.  And I'm not sure that the portrayals of Holmes and Watson here have much in common with the way Doyle envisioned them.

But that doesn't mean the movie's a failure.  In fact, I quite enjoyed it as a "popcorn movie"; Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law are a lot of fun to watch.  It's just that it's not a "Sherlocks Holmes movie."  The joy of the Holmes character has always been (at least to me) his ability to take tiny little things and deduce something larger from them.  And we do get a bit of that in this film, but not enough to make it what the movie's really about.  Instead, we get a bickering old married couple in Holmes/Watson (whose friendship today would certainly fall under the label "bromance"), a lot of fist-fighting and shooting, and a focus on the supernatural that's antithetical (for most of the movie at least) to Holmes' classic rationality.

On its own terms, it works.  And I have to give credit where credit is due:  this movie does a nice job with Watson.  Too many of the older cinematic/TV incarnations of Watson paint him as a doddering fool who's only there to fulfill the plot need of Holmes having someone to whom he can explain his deductions at the end.  This never rang true to me:  Doyle makes it clear that Holmes and Watson have a real friendship, and I just don't buy that someone as intelligent as Holmes would tolerate spending his time with an idiot.  So what I appreciated here is that Watson is made as intelligent and strong a force as Holmes.  True, he may not have the same level of attention to detail or deductive reasoning as his more famous companion, but it's clear that he and Holmes feed off each other, and while Watson may get a thrill from accompanying his friend and watching him solve cases, Holmes cannot function without his friend as a sounding board and companion:  he needs someone who not only understands his need for intellectual stimulation and hence puts up with his eccentricities, but also can hold his own in a conversation and is not afraid to call Holmes on his more ridiculous behaviors.  So kudos on this relationship to the actors, screenwriters, and director.


Ironically, it is a structural element of the film that tries to mimic the structure of Doyle's original stories which is one of its biggest failings.  In the classic short stories, Holmes tends to withhold his explanations until the end, when he reveals to Watson and/or his client and/or the police how he solved the case.  No problem in a short story, where there is a single key mystery and usually one key observation Holmes made that showed him the answer.  The problem with the film is that it raises a LOT of mysteries but (like the short stories) doesn't let Holmes explain anything until the end, when he's forced to give a five-minute monologue laying out all his deductions and explanations in a row, dragging what should have been the climax of the movie to a screeching halt.  Far better would have been for him to reveal some of his reasoning throughout, and save the final explanation that ties it all together until the denouement, when it could have carried a lot more punch in a much shorter timeframe.

Go see the movie, you'll have fun, but don't expect something as memorable as the original character.  My prediction?  This film will make its money, and probably spark a franchise, but will be one of those that is quickly forgotten once it's over.  It'll be one of those you watch on late-night cable TV years down the road, but not something you'd actively seek out.  Given my feelings about what they've done with the Holmes/Watson relationship, though, I must admit I'll be keeping my eyes out for a sequel, hoping they can build on that strength but have a more truly Holmesian mystery for those two to tackle.

p.s. - keep your ears peeled for some interesting surround usage in the scene where Holmes and Watson investigate the factory on the river.... nicely used here, and I just wish they would have been as thoughtful about the surround the rest of the movie.

Up in the Air
Easily the best movie I've seen this holiday season thus far.  The plot is predictable in both its large-scale movements and the in details of its execution, and there were very few "twists" you didn't see coming a mile away, including the ending.  But for all that, it's a treat and hard to resist.  The actors are superb, and it's a joy just to see them chew on these complex characters.  Vera Farmiga is amazing (and gorgeous - why isn't she in more things?) and Anna Kendrick is outstanding in a role very different (but just as well played) as her Alice in the Twilight movies.  But it's George Clooney's movie to carry, and he does it.  I always forget how good Clooney can be until I see him flexing his muscles in a role like this.  Just the range of smiles he uses throughout - truly happy, pretending to be happy, not happy, pretending not to be happy, etc. - and the amount conveyed through them is unbelievable.

The only one more impressive is Jason Reitman:  in only his third feature, he's as confident a director as it seems there is working today - and it's a well-earned confidence.  Often he's willing to forgo dialogue and let the visuals tell the story, and they do (check out the wedding sequence, which is extraordinary for what it conveys and how it does so, and feels effortless despite the work that has to go into staging any such complex sequence).  But he's also not afraid to let the characters talk, and their dialogue (co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner from the novel by Walter Kim) sparkles.  It's natural and witty, and feels like exactly what these characters would say in these situations.

There's so much one could say about this movie - it's a slice of life, a relationship movie, a workplace comedy, and an insightful social commentary about modern life and work - and yet at the same time it's hard to say a whole lot about it since the joy of this movie is the little things:  the way characters share moments, the editing rhythms, the sense of truth to it.  So I'll leave it at this:  this is a little gem of a movie, without the flash of so many other films this year but with far more emotional and intellectual engagement.

Between this and Precious, there are two movies out right now that are not getting the press and media attention of their bigger-budget brethren but deserve to be seen.  Whether naively or optimistically, I'm a believer that movie audiences get what they deserve:  if we go out and see terrible movies, the studios will continue to put out more of the same.  If, on the other hand, movies like Up in the Air and Precious show that they not only can garner critical raves but also can attract audiences and make money, more character-driven pictures like these will get made.  Go out and see them, and you'll be glad you did.

Time for holiday movies.... like "Star Wars"?

Most of today was spent cleaning and otherwise prepping for Christmas - which it looks like will be a white one, oddly enough for Dallas.  Left the TV on in the background throughout the afternoon, on Spike which was showing the original Star Wars trilogy.  Twice.  We jumped in partway through Return of the Jedi, made it through the original ("A New Hope"), and are now midway through The Empire Strikes Back.  I guess Spike figures that Christmas movies or not, the beauty of showing these is that on a day when people are busy with so many things on and off, (a) everyone knows these well enough to jump in at any point and (b) they're instantly engrossing.  Well played, Spike.

I guess I should clarify my comment that they were showing "the original Star Wars trilogy."  By that I mean "Episodes IV-VI" as opposed to the "new trilogy" (a.k.a. the "not-nearly-as-good-as-the-original-but-Lucas-needed-to-put-an-addition-on-his-mansion-or-something-so-he-popped-out-another-three-Star-Wars-movies trilogy").  But of course they're not really the "original" version of those movies, they're the redone versions.  Which inevitably raises three "Star Wars special edition" points in my mind (avoiding any mention of Greedo, or the obvious point that the original Star Wars was a landmark film and it would be really nice if Lucas would continue to make it available as it was originally released, as an object of study if nothing else):

1) The scene with Jabba in the Millenium Falcon's hanger is stupid, looks terrible, and adds nothing to the movies - in fact, it takes away from them.  I wasn't even in the room when it aired this time, but it's very existence continues to bother me to no end.

2) Hayden Christianson now at the end of Return of the Jedi.  Discuss.  (For my money, it makes as much sense as any other actor being there - at least in this case it's someone else who played Anakin Skywalker....)

3) The new music at the end of RotJ.  I think (based on completely unscientific anecdotal evidence) that I may be in the minority on this, but I totally prefer the original, more campy music.  It sounds like what this celebration might have actually been like, rather than simply "score music" which is what it is now.

I realize that in my last post I mentioned that I would be catching up on this year's movies, and here I am posting about movies from thirty years ago.  For this I can only offer the following explanation:
a) I felt like posting something, and in my defense this is the first time I've posted on Star Wars...
b) it's a busy time of year and I haven't made it to the theaters again since Precious
c) part of the reason I haven't made it to the theaters is that I've been busy playing GTA IV, which I also promised in my last post to do.  So I wasn't totally lying.  That game deserves a more detailed posting - which it will get - but suffice to say I'm thoroughly impressed by the complexity and completeness of the world Rockstar has delivered.  And I'm glad that I've progressed far enough in the game that I actually have some "real" ways to make money (granted, most involve criminal activity, but at least I'm being hired for such activities rather than just beating people up in the streets and hoping they have a couple bucks so I can buy a hot dog, which is where I was at in the game a few nights ago).

Okay.  Back to Empire Strikes Back and/or GTA IV for me.  Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night-of-movies-and-video-games-or-whatever-entertainment-floats-your-boat!

Back to the movies... Up first: "Precious"

With the fall semester now over, all grades turned in and paperwork completed, I'm working on catching up on all the releases I missed amidst the craziness of teaching, finishing a book, and editing a film.  Yesterday we hit the nearest Regal theater for their "Twilite" pricing (not to be confused with the movie series described in an earlier post, this is the Regal/UA chain's $4.75 pricing on all movies, every day, from 4-6 p.m.  Highly recommended for those who aren't big on paying $10 per ticket for first-run movies), and with a number of options starting around the time we got there, opted for the ridiculously-lengthily-titled:  Precious:  Based on the novel 'Push' by Sapphire (I kid you not, this is the movie's official name.  My only explanation is that somewhere in the negotiations for the rights to the novel someone slipped in that the book and author had to appear in the title, and the film's lawyers missed this tidbit).

I had heard about this movie briefly when it was a hit at Sundance awhile back, and the reviews had been good, but this is not one of those movies that gets the $100 million marketing campaign, so was pleased to find it still at the multiplex several weeks after its release.  I hope some of those who get turned away from sold-out showings of Avatar this weekend end up deciding to stick around the theater and see this film instead - it deserves the attention.  (This is no slam on Avatar, which I also intend to see and for which I have high expectations - it's just that I'm betting a lot of people don't know enough about this movie but would probably like it if they saw it)

Let's start with the most obvious:  the actors here, particularly Gabourey Sidibe as the title character and Mo'Nique as her mother, give amazing performances.  I remember much was made of Charlize Theron's willingness to be figuratively and literally "de-beautified" for her role in Monster, which earned her an Academy Award nomination.  Well, Mo'Nique takes that and pushes it 10 degrees further.  I'm not sure I've EVER seen an actress let herself be portrayed as someone so physically and emotionally repugnant - the acting, camerawork (with a good portion of the movie played in tighter-than-full-face close-ups), lighting, costume design, and make-up all conspire to present one of the least movie-fied characters I've seen, including in documentaries.  And she gives such a raw, realistic, and utterly unvarnished performance that you thoroughly believe that this character actually exists, and is exactly who we're supposed to think she is.

At least Mo'Nique has some juicy lines and scenes to chew on.  Gabourey Sidibe, meanwhile, has the difficult role of portraying someone who is about 99% convinced that everything she's been told - she's stupid, ugly, unlovable, etc. - is true, and has retreated into herself.  Yet the actress subtly conveys that there's still that 1% left who believes she can be something more, and makes us believe in this character and her drive even as she is virtually speechless and simply a punching bag for her mother's abuse during the film's first half.  Hard to believe this is Sidibe's first acting role - it has none of the half-aware-of-the-camera tics of many first-time actors, she simply becomes Precious, and acts as the character would rather than as an actor portraying such a character would.  Example:  when she goes to the alternative school for the first time, I would think the temptation would be to let some curiosity or excitement about this new venture show, even if tentatively.  Instead, what we see is a girl who's taking this step because she's hoping against hope that there might be an opportunity for her to better herself, but doesn't really believe it'll work out - she's been let down so many times, she assumes this will be a failure as well.  Amazing work. 

There are other actors, of course, and they all do an acceptable job, if not as noticeably as the leads.  Paula Patton as Precious's teacher is excellent and makes the role into something more than just a "do-gooder" trying to help out some disadvantaged kids.  Mariah Carey is serviceable as a social worker, and perhaps takes a step toward redeeming herself from Glitter; it's not that she's "bad," it's just that she doesn't have the acting chops to hold her own with the powerhouse performances of her co-stars.  And Lenny Kravitz is completely unrecognizable in a small role - when the credits rolled and we saw his name, we had to think back about who he could possibly have been.

I have to mention the sound design, which is generally subtle but effective, and does have a couple of stand-out moments.  Without revealing anything (since everyone should try to go out and find this movie playing), the first is the use of sound to convey what's happening in a flashback scene with Precious and her father; I'm not sure that showing the visuals here would have worked (it would have been a different movie) and loved the choice to use a few flashes (many somewhat abstract) paired with a soundtrack that tells us exactly what we need to know.  The second was absolutely BRILLIANT:  late in the movie, as Precious looks into a room to see who has come to visit her (I don't want to give anything away, but you'll know which scene it is when you see it), everything except the simplest Foley sounds and a hint of ambience drop out of the mix, and we're left with an almost-silence that completely focuses our attentions on the moment at hand, and the sheer reality of it.  Any music, background sounds, dialogue, etc. would have made this into a "movie scene," and instead we got a moment of nothingness and everythingness (which, I realize, was as constructed as any other scene in the movie - but it effectively makes you forget it was constructed, which is the point).  I was reminded of the scene in Frost/Nixon where everything except Nixon's voice falls away as he makes his confession, and we're just riveted to those words.  Kudos to the sound crew here for not feeling the need to punch this up, and instead letting it play as just a breath before this confrontation.

Last bit of praise:  this movie has one of the tensest scenes I've seen in a long time.  Remember Hitchcock's famous line about "suspense" being that the audience knows there's a bomb under the table, but the characters don't as we're waiting for it to go off?  It happens late in the film (MINOR SPOILER:  when Precious returns to her mother's apartment after a prolonged absence), and what's brilliant is that it's a scene that in any other movie would be very everyday, run-of-the-mill - but because we KNOW these characters and are afraid of what could happen, I was on the edge of my seat.  This one scene was more suspenseful than anything in most horror movies.

I must admit that the movie was not perfect.  Director Lee Daniels does a nice job with the actors and the pacing, and this would have been a better movie if he had left it at that.  Unfortuantely, the movie occasionally leaves this style with some way-too-hip-for-this-movie film tricks, like a 360-degree track around Precious as various historical video clips play on the walls all around her, or a post-modern moment where we actually see a slate with "director:  Lee Daniels" on it.  Perhaps in making what's a very realist, gritty, naturalistic movie, the director's ego needed to "show-off" some fancier filmwork, or perhaps he really thought that these elements helped the movie, but to this viewer they took me out of the story, reminding me it's a movie - and look what kind of cool stuff we can do in movies!  Simply not necessary:  trust your actors and the story.  One thing about which I'm always harping on my students is to use the right cinematic techniques for the story and movie at hand.  By that measuring stick, these devices were a bad choice.  (for the record, I was okay with the fantasy scenes themselves, which were appropriately treated differently from the main movie - but those would have been enough, no need to invade the rest of the movie with crazy camerawork and such.)

But that's a minor quibble.  It's a good movie, and I expect/hope to see some Oscar noms out of it (though I have a notoriously bad track record at the movies I think most deserve nominations getting them).  Go see it.  As for me, I'll be back at the theater catching up on the other new releases, and/or at home catching up on GTA IV, and will post thoughts on those as I get through them.

great singing, unjudgmental judging on "The Sing-Off"

We've been watching "The Sing-Off" on NBC this week.  And in fact after the first episode I actually recommended to my spring sound design class that they try to catch an episode, to get a sense of how the a capella groups build up a sonic environment using only their voices - as well as some of the comments from the judges, which tackle the same issues that sound designers do:  rhythm, dynamics, harmony, mixing, etc.

So what happens after this?  The judges drop the ball.


We had already learned that Nicole Scherzinger (from the Pussycat Dolls, which should have been a tip-off) was completely useless; after one episode of wasting our time listening to her pointless vacuous praising of each group, we learned to just fast-forward through her commentaries.  But in the first couple episodes Ben (Folds) and Shawn Stockman (formerly of Boyz II Men) gave productive, insightful suggestions and notes about both what worked and what didn't.

Tonight, all three judges chose to just effusively praise each performance instead of offering thoughtful, constructive critiques.  BOOOORING.

Let's be clear:  all the groups performing here are amazing, and it's not that I want to see them lambasted or humiliated.  I'm not a big fan of Simon Cowell-style ripping into contestants, unless they clearly deserve it - and none of these groups do.  But the role of judges is to judge - they're eliminating groups each night, so they need to distinguish WHY some performances are better than others, and for those who remain, what they need to do to improve.  When my students show their film projects in class, it would be easy to just blindly praise the things that work in each - but this would do the students a disservice; they deserve to hear what they're doing well AND what they're not, since both will help them progress as filmmakers.  The same is true here:  the judges would better serve the singers by praising what's good and making suggestions to improve what's not.

I can't help but think this is symptomatic of the larger problem in current American society that except for politicians and pundits, who often seem to do nothing other THAN criticize each other, no one wants to criticize anyone - we're all special, we're all perfect, and everyone's great.  The problem is, that's just not the case:  we all have room to improve, and constructive criticism helps us figure out how to do so - IF we're willing to listen and act on those comments.  So in the interests of moving toward a society where we all be a little less hyper-sensitive / ultra-PC and tell it like it is, let's see some more honesty from the judges on "The Sing-Off" - tell the groups what they're doing well and what they're not.

Oh, and one more note:  Nota is amazing.

TV (at dinner) has been good to me this week

It's now the final week of the fall semester, meaning most of my time is devoted to grading, exams, helping students with final projects - and I'm trying to finish up post on a short in time for a festival deadline as well.  So I haven't had time to catch many movies.  I have, however, caught a show a night this week (usually while eating dinner, which I know you're not supposed to do, but if not I'd be even further behind on my Tivo than usual); here's my quick hits:

1.  Wednesday:   "Glee" fall finale.  Excellent.  Sure, the fact that these kids (SPOILERS AHEAD) can put together a whole new show in an hour with no rehearsal space or anything is completely ridiculous, but what the heck, it's TV (and it's not like the version of show choir portrayed in the show has been any more realistic in any other episode).  This was well-structured, with real drama played out in an interesting way, and a LOT of the characters had important progressions in their arcs without it feeling forced or untrue to what we had known about them to this point.  Even Quinn has started to come together into a more consistent character, which was a criticism of mine earlier this season.  Most importantly, I've been yelling at my TV for weeks that Will needs to lose Terri and go after Emma - and as the very cool "My Life Would Suck Without You" (love the song) montage came to an end and they kissed, I actually clapped.  This is how you end your fall season with a bang.  Don't know what they have planned for the spring, but I can guarantee my eyes will be glued to whatever it is.

2.  Tuesday:  "The Biggest Loser" season finale.  I had pretty much given up on reality TV after season 2 or 3 of "Survivor," and haven't seen much since then to change my mind - until my wife got me hooked on this show.  What I love is that it really seems to care about it's characters - and we do too.  It's a mark of the show's success that when every season starts I think it's not going to be as good as the last one because I don't know the people, yet as it progresses I really come to care for them all.  It was a real treat at the finale to see all the eliminated contestants back, and just how far they had all come.  No better way to say it:  this is the rare competition show where EVERYONE is a winner, and all of them really support each other in their efforts to lose weight.  And let's be honest, with obesity an epidemic in the U.S. (I recall reading earlier this year that childhood obesity rates are finally leveling off after rising for years - but doctors think it's not because we're improving childhood health, it's that we've literally reached the point where EVERY child who has any predisposition to be overweight IS), a show that encourages people to take control of their lives and get healthy, AND shows it can be done through diet and exercise rather than surgery, is a worthy cause.  Love the idea of the show, my one wish for its improvement is that (for the love of God) it would PLEASE tighten up the editing.  I'm sure there's enough drama to fill its whole time slot without drawing the weigh-ins out so long and without repeating as much as a minute of material every time they come back from a commercial.  Here's a tip, producers:  we're fast-forwarding through this B.S., give us more show!

3.  Monday:  Ravens at Packers, Monday Night Football.  Really *should* have been working Monday night, but made sure I got home in time for the game.  I'm from Wisconsin and my wife's from Cleveland, so needless to say we were both rooting for the Pack and against the Ravens (for leaving Cleveland).  This season of MNF may have the worst commentators in the history of commentating, if it wasn't that I wanted to hear the ref's calls during the game, I would have turned off the sound entirely and put on something less obnoxious, like static.  When their comments weren't factually wrong (getting players names wrong, contradicting themselves, misusing statistics) they were uninsightful, annoying, and/or boring.  Luckily the commentators' ineptitude was overshadowed by the Packers, who put on a good show and I think continue to demonstrate that they're improving as the season goes on.  It felt like the won by even more than the final score - aside from a bizarre couple of minutes in the third, they seemed to dominate Baltimore pretty much the whole way through.  Memo to both teams:  there are refs watching these games, and they will call penalties when you commit them.  I know both teams thought a couple of the calls were questionable afterward and that the game was called "too tight", but from my vantage point it was a well-called game, it's not the referees fault that your teams played sloppily.  This is my biggest worry headed into the final quarter of the season:  the one area of the Packers' game that has not improved as the season has gone on is their sloppy play and large numbers of penalties called.  Let's hope they can get their act together or eventually that's going to catch up with them in a game.


Looking forward to next week, when the semester will be over and I can catch up on all the shows I'm STILL behind on (including almost the entire season of Nip/Tuck, several episodes of Always Sunny, and one or two of about twenty others).  Now back to work....

"New Moon" is better than "Twilight"... not that that's a ringing endorsement

(full disclosure:  I have read all the Twilight books and really enjoyed them, though they're not as addictive as, say, the Harry Potter books or the Ender's Game series)

Last year's Twilight was more or less a debacle.  The casting was strong top to bottom, the music was effective, and the production design was fine (though a bit over the top for my tastes), but the rest of it was a disaster.

With that as a baseline, New Moon marks a significant improvement in the series - the cinematography, editing, special effects, and design are all very good, and the music and casting continue to be good (though as a bit of an audiophile, I couldn't help but notice some major missed opportunities in the sound design, particularly with respect to the use of surround.... but that's another story).  Suffice to say, the quality of the filmmaking craft is markedly improved.  Whether that should be attributed to the crew overall (virtually all the crew heads changed, including the director), the bigger budget, the fact that it's a sequel and everyone has a better idea what they're doing now, or some combination thereof is difficult to say.

Though the first film had many failings, it was clear that the single biggest problem was the screenplay, and many of the other problems stemmed from that (okay, not the effects, but a lot of the other stuff).  So what's absolutely bizarre is that the one major crew position that WASN'T replaced was the screenwriter... and unsurprisingly the script was the element that dragged down New Moon despite the improvements made in other areas.

I can sort-of forgive the jumpiness and the fact that it assumes you're intimately familiar with the books and will fill in all the plot and character holes that are left out; the target audience for this has read the books - probably multiple times - and may be happy just to see their favorite scenes projected onscreen, even if I personally think a movie should be able to be enjoyed on its own.  But even aside from that, there are some major flaws in the structure, characterization, dialogue, etc.  And, of course, the screenplay is the foundation for any movie, meaning when that's not working it's really difficult to make a good movie out of it.

Certainly the producers and directors of the first two films bear some responsibility for making sure the script gets up to the level it needs to be, and both Hardwicke and Weitz dropped the ball here.  And the screenwriter herself deserves no small share of the blame, as do the producers who wanted to rush New Moon into production perhaps without adequate time for rewrites on the script.  What surprises me is that Stephanie Meyer has let her books be treated like this.  Being a novice to the movie biz prior to the first film, it's no surprise that she was happy just to get the chance to have her work made into a feature film, and was willing to trust the "professionals" to do it right.  But after it was clear that they didn't know how to translate her work into a screenplay, I don't understand why she didn't use her power as the ultimate authority of "the Twilight Saga" to demand a better script.  Maybe she hasn't worked as a screenwriter, but she has demonstrated she understands character and plot - why not let her take a stab at the adaptation?  She would be hard-pressed to do worse.

I'm big on medium-specificity, and so I'm not saying that the movie should be exactly like the book or that they should be afraid to change anything:  the two forms of media have different strengths and weaknesses and should exploit those.  The Lord of the Rings series is a good example - the filmmakers took the general plot of the book and altered story, characters, etc. as needed to make a good movie, recognizing that an exact translation of the books would not necessarily work for a film.  Adapting a book requires realizing what to keep, what to change, and what to discard.  Let's hope the Twilight franchise can do better in all three of these for the final two books.

I should note a couple positives.  Taylor Lautner gives a very strong performance, and is worth looking out for in future roles (as well as in the rest of this series).  I think Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson may be good actors - I've liked them in the limited other things I've seen them in - and I think they do what they can with the material they're given.  But neither is given much to do here, nor much range of emotion to express.  And for those who haven't seen it already in the trailer, there's at least one really amazing shot, which is of Jacob's midair transformation as he leaps over Bella - indeed, the effects throughout are convincing, head-and-shoulders above what we got in the first film.

I realize these films are essentially criticism-proof, as Weitz has acknowledged, and they'll make money regardless of their quality.  But for such a profitable franchise, couldn't they spend a few bucks on a decent writer?  And shouldn't Meyer be more protective of her characters and insist on a decent script?  Too many Twilight fanatics are happy to see anything with Bella, Jacob, and Edward in it, as the box office grosses for New Moon illustrate.  That's not looking down on them - I consider myself a fan.  I just wish more of them would demand that Summit make movies worthy of the books instead  of letting themselves be exploited by paying to see second-rate adaptations over and over....