A Sheltered Childhood

When I was a kid, I didn't see R-rated movies. Most of the time, I didn't see PG-13-rated movies, either. Hell, I remember begging and begging my parents to let me watch an episode of that scandalous, controversial TV show The Simpsons when I was 8 and barely being able to watch a single episode. (I remember it well: the episode was, I think, "Itchy and Scratchy: The Movie," wherein Bart is forbidden from seeing the new movie with his favorite cartoon characters because of how typically bad he is. Though I've seen the episode a few times since then, all I remember from that night in 1992 is hearing my mother say, as I was getting ready for bed, "Well, that won't be happening again for a while.") When I see kids with or without their parents at movies that are--or should be--way over their heads these days, I have to wonder if I was lucky, a rare case, or something far different.

This train of thought comes about for two reasons. The first is that I was briefly engaged a couple of days ago in a Twitter conversation with Slate's film critic Dana Stevens (@thehighsign) and Salon's TV critic Matt Zoller Seitz (@mattzollerseitz) about R-rated movies and kids. Stevens was commenting on having seen children under 10 at a screening of The Hangover: Part II, a movie that's clearly inappropriate for most, if not all, kids under the age of 13. Stevens was rightfully horrified at this sight. In fact, I remember a few weeks back that Stevens was asking her Twitter followers about whether or not it'd be appropriate for her to bring her child to a screening of the newest Pirates of the Caribbean movie, which is far less inappropriate for kids. (Fun fact: when I saw the movie this past weekend, there was a child around 1 year old who cried almost nonstop through the second half of the film. The child's dad was, I guess, hell-bent on seeing the movie, so he just sat with his kid on the front step of the theater, which was merely 10 feet from where my wife and I sat. Classy move, fella.) If nothing else, Stevens, like most critics, is smart enough to know which movies her kids are right to see and which movies aren't. Better still, she's savvy enough to know when to ask for advice, which is something most parents clearly don't care about doing.

The second reason this train of thought arose is from a screening experience I had last night, in Tempe. If you're an avid enough reader of various film blogs, you know that sites such as HitFix, Collider, and Ain't It Cool News helped sponsor a screening of the new British film Attack the Block last night in 25 cities across North America. Having read nothing but good things about this movie, I picked up a couple of passes and was eager to see what the fuss is about. Though this isn't going to be a review, know this: the hype you may have heard is dead-on. Attack the Block is a great piece of entertainment, scary and funny and intense stuff about a group of teenage thugs who band together with a nurse they mugged to fight off an apparent alien invasion. I had seen no footage, only knowing that Edgar Wright produced the film and Nick Frost had a supporting role, so I was pleasantly surprised with the film's twists and turns. Attack the Block's writer and director is Joe Cornish, someone who I wasn't familiar with until now. Knowing that he, Wright, and Steven Moffat (of Doctor Who and Sherlock fame) have written the script for the Tintin movie being helmed by Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson, though, makes me automatically excited for that project.

But, to the point. While I waited for Attack the Block to start, I saw a few kids walk into the theater, accompanied by parents. One of the parents was either press or was invited by a member of the press, because she got to go past the tiny velvet rope that blocked off the first two rows of stadium seating in the theater. Now, suffice to say, Attack the Block will be rated R for, among other things, profanity, gore, and drug use. The kids I saw at this screening ranged from under 5 to around 10 years old. I'm sure the older kids may have gotten a kick out of the action (or maybe a nightmare or two), but it just baffles me that even in a controlled setting like a screening, no one thought the kids should maybe stay home. Of course, I come at this as a) someone who doesn't have kids and b) someone who never got to see R-rated movies as a youngster. Maybe I'm jealous? Seriously, my wife and I plan on having kids, and though we were raised differently, I can't imagine that movies such as Attack the Block or Bridesmaids (which we saw the weekend it opened, and, yes, there were kids present) will be allowed in the house until our kids are of a certain age.

One thing I know: when my kids get frustrated or angry or sad at me for not letting them see, say, the new Saw movie (I have seen into the future, and predict a 15th film in the franchise!), I'll feel their pain. I still remember being almost physically crushed at the prospect of not seeing Jurassic Park in theaters in the summer of 1993. That massive, PG-13-rated blockbuster was pretty much the only movie to see that year, as far as I cared. I was a big movie fan even then, but for the most part, I didn't see anything above a PG rating. Still, even as an 8-year old waiting to turn 9, I saw the previews and did the math in my head: Steven Spielberg plus dinosaurs. Where do I sign up? My parents knew how badly I wanted to see the movie, and they made a simple rule: if it's rated PG, I can see it. If it's PG-13, no dice. The film's opening day was June 11, 1993 (a date that I'm so confident of remembering, I'm not even looking it up), so I didn't find out the film's rating until June 6 of that year.

How am I sure of the date? Well, June 6 would've been a Sunday, and Sunday meant a few things in my house: we got donuts that morning, my parents and I listened to Will Shortz and Leann Hanson on Weekend Edition, and my dad got the Sunday New York Times. We lived in a suburb of Buffalo, New York, so we only got the Grey Lady on Sundays. For me, reading the New York Times on Sundays equaled one thing: the Arts and Leisure section. This was before the Internet was common enough in our neck of the woods, and because I didn't watch much TV, I wouldn't find out the movie's rating until I opened up the Arts and Leisure section to the page where the film's poster was staring out at me...along with a PG-13 icon on the bottom right-hand side.

I couldn't believe it. I wasn't often prone to getting angry when there was an apple fritter staring me in the face, but I couldn't believe my parents wouldn't let me see the movie. Half of me, surely, was also furious at Steven Spielberg. What was wrong with this man? I thought he was brilliant, but for making a dinosaur movie that I couldn't see, he obviously had a few screws loose. Even worse, as the film's opening loomed, Spielberg (if memory serves) told USA Today that he didn't really want his kids, who were 10, seeing the movie in theaters. "You're not helping, Mr. Spielberg!" I can imagine myself being even more distressed when my longtime babysitter told my parents that there was one particularly traumatic scene where a Tyrannosaurus rex attacked two kids who were supposed to be 10 and 8. "You're not helping, longtime babysitter!" I felt bereft, knowing that plenty of kids in my classes would see the movie long before I ever did. I still remember hearing from one kid in my third-grade class about how cool the second Terminator movie was.

Obviously, I've seen Jurassic Park many, many times. In fact, the first time I saw any of it was on VHS during the fall of 1993. Something else that happened on Sundays for pretty much all of my adolescence was that my dad volunteered for a local radio station that read newspapers, magazines, and books to the blind in the Western New York area. I would go with my dad each Sunday, mostly just to sit around and spend time with intelligent adults who managed to tolerate my chatty nature. One morning in October, we walked in and a giant T-Rex was staring me in the face from the 19-inch TV. Jurassic Park had come out on VHS the past week, and the head of the radio station bought it as soon as he could. This story doesn't end with my dad grabbing me, covering my eyes, absconding with me back to the car, or anything. No, in my family, my dad was more permissive, so he let me watch as much of the movie as I could until we had to go, knowing that he couldn't really do too much. Two years later, when I was old enough to finally get more of the jokes on The Simpsons, and it was airing twice a day in syndication on CBC, a Canadian station our TV picked up, he was more than happy to turn the other cheek and not tell my mom.

I delve back into my memory to say this: as much as I wish I could've seen R-rated movies back when I was a kid, I hesitate to know what's to become of the kids who were plopped down in front of Attack the Block, Bridesmaids, The Hangover: Part II, or any of the other R-rated options out there now. As I said to Stevens on Twitter two nights ago, I can't remember the last R-rated movie I've seen where there WEREN'T kids in the audience. I can look back on my childhood and wish I'd been there for Jurassic Park or Terminator 2 or any of the other cool movies I could've seen, but I was way too young to appreciate them. I may have more sheltered than my peers, but I doubt they really knew what was going on.

That's really the issue at hand: I'm not trying to argue that seeing R-rated movies leads you down a path into all things wicked and foul, as much as I'm saying that these kids are being forced to potentially endure something simply because their parents are too damn lazy to be parents for a couple of hours on a Wednesday night or on the weekend. Each child is different, of course; some can withstand the most terrifying images on screen, and some are like me, at age 4, shouting in fright at the sight of Christopher Lloyd turning himself from a dour, black-coated judge into a bug-eyed Toon in the climax of Who Framed Roger Rabbit. How I got through that movie, I'll never know, but even in that mostly over-my-young-head movie, I was mostly thrilled to the colors, the sensations, and the allure of old Hollywood. I doubt the kids last night were thrilled. If we're lucky, they were just bored.

Time To Revoke My Film Buff License

I liked Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. What is wrong with me, right? More than enough of the reviews for the latest entry in the massive Disney saga based on a theme-park ride have been nasty, barbed, and altogether harsh. One of the reviews went so far as to say that watching the movie was worse than eating maggot-filled meat (something that the reviewer experienced a few years ago). Anyone who knows me knows that I'm more often on the side of critics than I am of the masses, so am I finally turning into a brainless zombie, someone who gleefully enjoys the newest pablum from Hollywood's blockbuster machine?

The answer, of course, is not, but before I defend--and based on how few reviewers liked it, it will sound merely like a defense--Captain Jack Sparrow's most recent adventure, let's talk about some of these reviews. I have no idea why there's so much bile being leveled at this movie. There have been bad blockbusters, movies that deserve the vitriol from journalists in print and online. When the third Transformers movie opens in late June, I eagerly await massively scathing reviews, but expect some critics to either be shocked that it's bad (as they were with the second film, seemingly forgetting how inept, loud, and stupid the first film in the franchise is) or to say that, well, it could've been a lot worse!

I suppose I could mount the same argument for the new Pirates movie. Following up a widely disliked movie is hard, but by not releasing a three-hour, overcomplicated epic, director Rob Marshall and producer Jerry Bruckheimer succeed at not providing an equally overstuffed piece of craziness. But I have to admit, I was surprised to enjoy the movie as much as I did (though, don't get me wrong, it's not perfect, nor nearly as fun as The Curse of the Black Pearl), simply because when most critics say a movie is bad, I'm usually agreeing with them (or avoiding the movie, because I don't want to waste my time). Maybe it's because I genuinely enjoy watching Johnny Depp and Geoffrey Rush as Captains Jack Sparrow and Hector Barbossa, but I liked this new movie, even as I note that having Rob Marshall direct a Pirates of the Caribbean movie is a lot different than when Gore Verbinski was behind the helm.

I was skeptical, since Marshall had never directed an action movie. In terms of directing swordfights, for example, Marshall still has a lot of work to do, as pointed out by many critics. The only thing I'd point out has less to do with this movie and more to do with Hollywood: Marshall has as much work to do to become a solid director of action sequences as pretty much EVERY director does. Again, Michael Bay has been making a name for himself for 15 years and counting by editing his action sequences to the point that they're more reminiscent of visual seizures more than anything else. Marshall's work was not uniquely bad; the few swordfights in the movie aren't great, but they're also not too terrible. Two other criticisms: while the movie isn't that long (at 137 minutes, it's the shortest in the series), cut out the love story between a cleric and a mermaid (because, of course), and you've saved me a lot of time on a story that no one cares about. Finally, I didn't see this movie in 3D, but even I noticed that the movie seemed darker than it should. I can't imagine how bad this movie looked in 3D, even though a few shots were clearly filmed so they'd be "Gotcha!" bits in the 3D format.

But I liked this movie; I like Depp, I like Rush, and Ian McShane did a fine job as Blackbeard. Would he have been better had he been able to use the same vocabulary he did when he was on HBO? Well, sure, but this movie's not for adults only. Some aspects of the story are as notably silly as they were in the previous films, or not as well developed as they could be (the idea of people or ships being controlled by a magical sword is really cool, but the mythology of the idea goes no further). Still...OK, this is becoming more about the movie's flaws, which are noticeable, and less about the fun I had. I'm not sure how much of the movie's charms come from Depp, Rush, and Penelope Cruz being able to elevate the material, and how much of it is just wanting to watch a fun piece of entertainment on a hot day.

I didn't love Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, but I only love the first in the franchise. The worst thing I could say about one of these movies is what the execs at Disney don't want: that I wouldn't want to watch another movie with these characters. Clearly, that's not happening with this movie. If you can put characters like Captain Jack Sparrow and Captain Hector Barbossa in fun, exciting storylines with some supernatural flair, I'm there. I can wish all day about what this movie could have done better, and hope about what will be done for the next film--which we all know is coming--but this movie didn't completely screw up the franchise, in the way that the last two movies did. If, however, the next movie is directed by someone closer to Verbinski in terms of style, though, I won't complain.

Planning Ahead, Redux

So, last night, The Office aired its seventh-season finale, titled "Search Committee." I talked early last week about how concerned I was that the previous Will Ferrell-lead arc was just a way of killing time, a way for the producers of the show to essentially let someone else shoulder the burden of not having a lead actor anymore. The finale didn't, in the end, provide us with a clear shot for who will be the next branch manager, which...I mean, I know that this has never been a densely plotted show, but give me a break.

There are so many ways to start this off, but let's aim straight at the supposed frontrunner. Hell, before I get there, let's get this "supposed" business out of the way. I honestly think it's quaint and kind of cute that anyone in the world thinks that any of the guest stars from last night's episode ever were going to be the show's lead (or the Scranton branch's manager). There's a story that's circulated on the Internet over the last 24 hours that Catherine Tate (who played Nellie, Jo's friend who is essentially a female version of David Brent, based on her short time onscreen) is the producers' top choice for the new boss.

There's some love online for Tate, whose work I'm unfamiliar with. (Though if I'm able to work through the five seasons of the new Doctor Who on Netflix over the summer, I'll get acquainted with her time on that show.) I've got no beef with her performance, even if it felt too reminiscent of Ricky Gervais, who showed up in a cameo that he has rightly dubbed pointless. But does anyone think there's more logic in hiring someone who American audiences are largely unfamiliar with, as opposed to putting Ed Helms or Craig Robinson at the head of the show? Granted, Helms is more recognizable thanks to his starring turn in The Hangover, but Robinson has been on the show longer.

I'm not automatically against the producers bringing in someone new, I'm just against them bringing in someone from last night's show. And honestly, it pretty much extends to the old characters, as Darryl became, for no good reason, a schmuck who figures that even in a job interview with colleagues, he shouldn't have a resume (and he apparently has no resume at hand). Andy did well in his interview (the back-and-forth with the ripping-apart-at-the-seams Gabe was funny), but he seems to think of himself as Dunder Mifflin Sabre's version of Jeff Zucker: always, inexplicably failing upwards. Dwight, while determined, will clearly not get the job, even if the penultimate episode was the absolute funniest episode of the season, reminding us of how great this show used to be; don't forget, Steve Carell wasn't on the episode, nor was Will Ferrell. No guest stars were required for humor then.

Did NBC make a mistake in so heavily marketing this episode's cameo appearances? On the one hand, I say yes, but on the other, it's hard to blame them. Why wouldn't a network want to promote, in big letters, cameo appearances from people like Ray Romano, James Spader, and Jim Carrey? It doesn't help, though, that the marketing department pretty much gave away entire jokes; why have Jim Carrey appear on your show to only give him two or three lines, at most? None of the cameos were terrible; at worst, they were pointless, because we all know that Will Arnett--soon to be on another NBC sitcom--and Ray Romano aren't getting the job.

So we have a summer to speculate, until NBC announces who they've hired or who hasn't been hired. I'm not too terribly excited; in the past two years, The Office has been quickly supplanted as one of the freshest and funniest network sitcoms by two fellow NBC programs, Community and Parks and Recreation. Salon's Matt Zoller Seitz brought up an interesting point today: do we criticize older shows simply because they're not new anymore? I can see the argument, but then, which shows remained consistently good, if not great, past its first few seasons? I don't know if Community or Parks and Recreation will last as long as The Office, which will have at least eight seasons, will. Hell, who knows if the creative teams behind those shows even want them to run for eight seasons? I don't have a problem with shows running long, unless they're just running out the clock for syndication purposes. The problem is simple: these days, what long-running show isn't just on to make money in syndication? Now that I can watch episodes of The Office on local channels and on TBS, the answer there is clear.

The Importance of Planning Ahead

The writing process varies for anyone who puts pen to paper, literally or figuratively. Some people think of an idea and dive into it, headlong, without knowing where that idea will lead them, or even if it will have a definitive ending. I've tried that when writing scripts, and have been mostly thoroughly displeased with the results. Whether it takes me a week, a month, or a year, I'm almost always going to know the vague aspects of the ending of any story I tell. It's worked the opposite way one time, but I wonder how much of good timing and luck entered into it. The point remains: some people write with a roadmap in their minds, and some don't. But we all have a process.

While I imagine there are advantages (or people would say there are) to diving in headlong, I have to wonder sometimes why people don't plan ahead when they're writing. Specifically, I'm thinking about the writing staff on NBC's highest-rated scripted series, The Office. I've been a fan of the comedy for almost its entire run (I tried out the first few episodes, didn't like it very much, but then came back near the end of the second season and was impressed with the show's improvement), but have grown more and more concerned as its seventh season has progressed. As probably everyone and his mother knows, the show's ostensible star, Steve Carell, has left the show. He made the decision official at the end of April of 2010, and his farewell episode aired at the end of this April. Let's presume, for a second, that Carell had let someone on the show, such as the executive producer or showrunner, know that he intended on leaving (as opposed to just saying so to get a bigger contract) well before he announced it in public. Even if he didn't, we know that the writing staff had a year's head start, roughly, to craft Michael Scott's exit strategy.

I will freely admit that I was getting extremely frustrated with the show this year, because as each episode aired, I kept asking myself the same question: "Why on Earth is Michael Scott going to leave these people behind?" The idea that Michael would not only leave the titular office, but leave the Scranton area (he'd have to, because otherwise the fictional documentary crew would film him at home or at a new job, as they've done with other characters in the past) made less and less sense as no actual plot emerged. Once the exit strategy came into play, I was either impressed with the story or just dazzled by Carell and Amy Ryan playing off each other. Whatever the case, I was fine with Michael's reasons for leaving Scranton. His farewell episode was funny and moving. With one exception.

I love Will Ferrell's comedy. I've been a fan of him since his time on Saturday Night Live. Anchorman is one of my favorite comedies. And, let's be fair: whatever issues there were with Deangelo Vickers, Ferrell was not one of them, which would have been pleasantly surprising. Ferrell is notorious for being an over-the-top comic performer, which is the antithesis of what is needed on The Office. But, lo and behold, Ferrell was appropriately low-key in his four-episode stint. Unfortunately, that was the one consistent element of his character's development or lack thereof. His final episode was especially baffling, because I kept asking myself a variation on the aforementioned question: "Why is this character going to leave the show, forever, by the end of this episode?" With only a couple of minutes left, the question was left unanswered until Deangelo was felled by an errant basketball hoop, giving him apparently permanent brain damage. I'm going to pause here so you can laugh so hard that drool drips all over your keyboard.

You good? OK then. So, yeah, Ferrell's gone. And I have to wonder, why did the writing staff on the show not have any better idea of what to do once Carell left? When Will Ferrell's casting was announced, some people wondered if it amounted to Ferrell (or someone at NBC) saying that he wanted to be on the show to reunite with Carell. Clearly, that's exactly what it was. There was no point to Deangelo Vickers (even the name is so jokey that you knew he'd be gone soon), and there never was. What's more, while I'm kind of curious to see actors like Will Arnett and Jim Carrey (oh, and Ricky Gervais, because the show's writers really like tempting fate, I guess) interact with the cast, it's so obvious that these people are showing up simply so the show or the network can stave off the fears that The Office is creatively kaput until the fall. I welcome an injection of creativity in season 8 of the show, but I'm not holding my breath.

More on Hype in TV

We are all notorious for building things up in our minds and then being disappointed when those things--or related items--don't live up to our own hype. I've talked about hype some in the past, but it's important to note that so much of it is self-created. Sure, there's going to be plenty of hype for some of the big summer blockbusters at the multiplex this year, but if you're going to see the final installment in the Harry Potter series, it's likely not due to you seeing an ad on TV and thinking to yourself, "Oh, yeah, I should see that." You've either read all of the books and loved the movies, seen all of the movies and want to finish the saga, or some combination of those. Warner Bros. hypes the movie, but there are times when the merits of a piece of entertainment, standing by itself, are enough to make or break you.

But today, I once again talk of hype in TV. We're now three episodes into Game of Thrones, which has clearly managed to evade sagging ratings (that its most recent episode improved its nightly ratings on the same night that President Obama announced that the U.S. military had killed Osama bin Laden is almost breathtaking) and negative hype. Who knows if the ratings will go much higher, of course, but I imagine HBO will be fine with the numbers Game of Thrones is putting up. One hopes that more people get into the show by the end of the season, because while the first book in the Song of Ice and Fire series is great, dark fun, it comes off as much more of a slow burn in the episodic style. My main focus today, though, is not on Game of Thrones, which had hype of a major kind, but two long-dead and two new series, one of which has yet to premiere. The new series have levels of hype that Game of Thrones will never have--and is lucky to be free of such hype.

As I've mentioned in the past, I re-subscribed to HBO because I wanted to watch Boardwalk Empire before it came to Netflix roughly a year after its premiere. It didn't have to do with The Sopranos, a show that I...still have not watched. But a lot of people were going nuts for the very thought of Boardwalk Empire because it brought one of the older show's writers back to the network, because Steve Buscemi was an acting connection from one show to the other, and because both are about mobsters in New Jersey. Some people seemed disappointed, let down that such a show (with a pilot directed by Martin Scorsese, no less) wasn't the Second Coming. If there's any comparison I would make between Boardwalk Empire and a preexisting TV show, it's Mad Men. Both shows were created by ex-writers of The Sopranos, both shows are set in a unique past time period, both shows are stunning to look at in high-definition, and both are dark dramas with a massive ensemble cast.

Now, don't get me wrong: while I very much enjoyed the first season of Boardwalk Empire and anxiously await its return, it was, indeed, NOT the Second Coming. The difference between me, it seems, and a lot of viewers is that I was never expecting it. I know that HBO put a lot of money behind the marketing for the show--as well they should have--but I was never put off by the show not being The Sopranos in the Prohibition. What the show offers me (and what it offers anyone willing to accept that their notions of what a show is can differ from what the show actually is) includes a slew of great performances, a dynamic and colorful period setting, surprising story arcs, and sharp, snappy dialogue and direction. Hopefully, some viewers have learned their lesson and are willing to open up their minds to different enactments of what the Mob was like in New Jersey.

What I'm most worried about is not following this edict when it comes to an all-new HBO drama that is, for me, the very definition of can't-miss television. When you hear that Steve Buscemi is starring in a pilot directed by Martin Scorsese, about the Prohibition-era Mob, from a longtime writer on The Sopranos, airing on HBO, you know it can't miss. How can such a show fail in any way? The same goes for Luck. If you haven't heard, the show is set in the world of horse racing in California. It stars Dustin Hoffman, Nick Nolte, Dennis Farina, and others. The pilot was directed by Michael Mann, and the show was created by David Milch, formerly of NYPD Blue and, most importantly, Deadwood. Here, again, is the definition of can't-miss TV. How can this show not be awesome? It's here that I remind you of this key fact: in my opinion, Deadwood is the best TV drama ever. Yes, I know: I've not finished The Wire and I've only seen the pilot of The Sopranos. While I know I can't speak for the latter, after having watched the first three seasons of The Wire, I know this much: it's a great show, clearly. But it's not on the same level of pitch-perfect entertainment, of high and low drama, as Deadwood, which often gets short shrift among most TV fanatics because it didn't get a chance to run its full course thanks to some contract disputes between HBO and Paramount Entertainment. It's a creative crime that the show didn't get to see its proper ending, but the 36 episodes spread over 3 seasons that exist are among the best TV has ever offered.

Is there a better cast of characters than the ones in Deadwood? While some shows have come awfully close, for the life of me, you can't beat people like Al Swearengen, Seth Bullock, Sol Star, Dan Dority, Alma Garret, Trixie, A.W. Merrick, E.B. Farnum, and the rest of the denizens of this Old West outpost. The show is, yes, notoriously and gloriously profane, but it's nothing short of a modern-day attempt at Shakespeare. David Milch is a strange poet of a TV writer, and due to my undying love for Deadwood, there's just about no way I'm not going to watch every episode of Luck. I know that Milch's last show, John From Cincinnati was a failure for most people (I'm almost scared to watch it), but Luck seems like it's right in his wheelhouse. I just need to remind myself: don't buy into the hype. Ignore the hype. Fingers crossed that the show's good enough that I don't need to remind myself.