Friday Matinee: The Man from Planet X

DAFOTV V: Reality TV

In the last installment, I discussed how excessive bandwidth leads to what I called “junk genres”; that is, genres of TV show that require as little overhead, planning, writing, etc. as possible.  This is necessary because the amount of quality TV—or quality anything—is relatively fixed, whereas the 24/7 structure of availability that is now the norm has increased the amount of time to be filled.   I enumerated some examples of these genres, to be expanded on later.  This is what I want to do now, regarding what I consider one of the worst TV-related phenomena of the last decade or so:  reality television.

Certainly, plenty has been said about this seemingly ubiquitous genre.  Some very recent articles of interest are here, here, and here.  I want to speak a little more generally.

To clarify what I mean in this discussion by the term “reality TV”, I refer (briefly) to my previous DAFOTV post:

I include things like Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, The Biggest Loser, the recent shows Jamie Oliver has been doing, and the various shows about hoarders, home makeovers, bridesmaids, etc. on TLC, Discovery, and such under the rubric of “reality TV”. I even include Dick Clark’s old Bloopers shows and America’s Funniest Home Videos.  They may not all purport to be documentaries (as An American Family did) or have an explicit game-show aspect (as Survivor does), but the basic principle of just letting the camera roll before “real people” is essentially the same. Also, I realize that it’s not all “real”–there’s jimmying and manipulating—but it’s still easier and cheaper than writing an actual drama or researching a documentary.

So what’s the problem with reality TV?

Movie Night: An LOTR Fanfilm!

 

A Lord of the Rings prequel fanfilm–what’s not to love?  May it give you momentum to get to the weekend!

For All Going Back to School This Week

 

For children and adults, students and teachers, who go back to school this week (or who already have, or will be soon, for that matter).  Also, for those who remember the Second British Invasion in the 80′s, especially Madness fans.  Enjoy!

Movie Review: Gladiator

A few years back, I wrote some reviews/commentaries on various movies and books for a friends now sadly defunct website.  Some of them I’ve posted to my LiveJournal since then.  I was looking back at some of them, and I’ve decided that a few may do well to be here, as well, with appropriate revision.  The movies are a bit out of date (I wrote this review about ten years ago), but I hope this review (and any other old ones I may post in the future) will be entertaining and maybe even enlightening.  I also plan to writes some new reviews–I have in mind particularly a series on Pixar’s films.  For now, enjoy this review of the Ridley Scott/Russell Crowe movie Gladiator.

The Noblest Roman of Them All

That is how Shakespeare referred to Brutus, but it could apply equally to Maximus, the lead character of Ridley Scott’s brilliant move Gladiator.  This movie is many things: an epic of the variety hardly seen these past forty years (with the occasional exception, such as Braveheart); an action/adventure move; a historical drama; the tragedy of a good man wronged.  What I would like to focus on here, however, is the way in which it is almost unique among epic movies, present or past, in catching the flavor of Roman virtue and vice at their highest (and lowest).

DAFOTV IV: Junk Genres

Having established the series of posts on this topic, I’m shortening “Decline and Fall of Television” as shown above and going from Arabic to Roman numerals to give a better feel.  Just so you know.

In the last installment, I discussed the issue of bandwidth. The idea is that television programming has evolved from three major commercial networks with about twenty hours of broadcasting daily, and only about three of those dedicated to original programming to dozens of networks which broadcast 24/7. Any creative endeavor is going to produce more mediocrity or outright junk than quality product; thus today, with much more time to be filled and the amount of outstanding creativity being probably no more than it ever was (i.e., in short supply), TV is going to produce and air more junk than ever before. In this post I want to extend this notion, from junk as such to entire junk genres.