"LET ME DO THE TALKING, ANGEL"

So there's good buzz on the Marlowe pilot, which is, yes, Phillip Marlowe (as in Raymond Chandler's Philip Marlowe). This is an updated Marlowe. Marlowe as he would be in the present day, though still hard-boiled. Though, not like an egg. Like a different hard-boiled thing. A cooler thing that is for some reason boiled. Hard.

Lots of the buzz seems to center around Jason O'Mara's performance. I like O'Mara. He was great in The Agency ( a series in desperate need of a slightly over-priced DVD release that I would gladly pay the extra scratch for). Since then, he's been in a lot of uninteresting stuff and one turn as an awesome bad guy in an episode of The Closer. The kind who should come back and menace once again.

When I'd read about the reception the pilot was getting at ABC, I realized that of the metric fuckton (slightly less than an Imperial fuckton but more than the US fuckton) of scripts my manager sent over (yeah, see how that sneaks in there), I somehow missed that one. Without further delay, I got right to it and was suitably impressed and totally grabbed before the end of the first page. Grabbed by what?

The script is written entirely in the first person.

Yes, entirely. Scene directions, everything. As if Marlowe wrote the script himself as he was living it.

So rather than "Marlowe drives down Sunset," you have "I'm driving down Sunset." More than that, it's all Chandlery (as it should be). He describes the characters as we meet them in, well, Chanderisms I s'pose. It works because it's Marlowe.

I think it's ingenious, this first person Marlowe thing. Written by Greg Pruss and Carol Wolper, it's surely a bold move as neither of them, as you can see on IMDB seem to have any massive credits to their name. It really makes the script an experience unto itself. Something a script rarely is and isn't generally even meant to be.

Last time Marlowe was on TV, it wasn't TV. It was HBO and Powers Boothe was the private dick in question and it was a period thing. I dug it, I seem to recall. I was quite the youth and all I remember about it now are the old cars. I'd like to see those on DVD too. I'd probably just NetFlix those though.

What other weird little scripty tricks can be thought up? And be they advisable? It seems like a fine line to walk. Calculated risk. It seems to have worked here, but it could easily have backfired, for an unknown writer. That's why I figure Tim Kring could do the Heroes pilot script with artwork in it. He's Tim Kring.

Marlowe is also the only script in the entire fuckton that should be set in LA.

STUDIO 60 MAY RETURN

May the month.

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip will assume the ER time slot of Thursdays at 10e/9c beginning on May 24th.

The day after the last day of sweeps.

Call it what it is. A burn off.

At least I get to see them. And I want a DVD set with at least one commentary by Sorkin explaining what he was thinking.

I BESEECH THEE TO PLEASE, IF YOU WOULD, SHOVE IT

Apparently this is TV Turn Off Week.

To the TV Turn Off Folk, I sing a hearty "Fuck you with a traffic cone used for several years as a marker in a middle school gym class."

There are, by percentages, as researched by the Foundation To Back Up Shit That Sullivan Says, as many crap books as there is crap TV.

How about Shut That Book Week? Huh?

You know another Tim Minear series bit it while this shit was going on.

A FEW GOOD LINES & TV ON SPEED

Can you believe I've never seen A Few Good Men on the stage, its original form? Well, until last Saturday night. I discovered a local theater company, The Maverick Theater, was doing a run and so I dropped by for the second night's performance.

You know, I've never even read the play, though I've meant to track down a copy on multiple ocassions, I just never got around to it. As such, I don't know what sort of adjustments might have been made for this particular production. Maverick is your basic black box theater (I think in the area of 60 seats). The staging was sparse. Tables and chairs with the actors facilitating scene changes on the fly. It wasn't always a smooth change (which makes me more curious as to other stagings of the material), but most of the transitions worked nicely

Naturally, I'm sitting there not just enjoying the play but noting the differences and what-not between the play and the movie that I've seen a ridiculous number of times. What I noticed the most is that there were numerous lines in the play that when it was transformed into the film were given to someone else, unchanged. And not because the original speaker wasn't in the film.

On the one hand, one might argue that it's proof that Sorkin's characters struggle to have an individual voice. They all sound like Sorkin (though he doesn't talk like that, just check a West Wing commentary). I think maybe there's some of that, but we must not forget that that voice goes through at least two major filters before we hear it. The actor and the character. Two different things.

In the play Corporal Barnes (Noah Wyle in the movie) gets the line "Whenever we go somewhere to fight, you fellas always give us a ride." In the film it belongs to Kendrick (Kiefer Sutherland in the flick), who delivers it as a direct slight to Kaffee and his whole branch of the service. When Barnes says it, it's much more matter-of-fact and is more comedic relief than menace. Yeah, there's the way the actor delivers it, but Barnes is much lighter, down-to-earth character so even with a sounds-the-sameness on the page, they don't really sound the same if you're really reading it. That and the Barnes on this production was played very broadly comic.

The other thing is how some of the facts of the plot changed from stage to screen. A security tag is the key rather than a neat closet. Also, the flight logs exist on stage where they were scrubbed on screen. Markinson (J.T. Walsh in the film) is perhaps the most different as there is a stage scene where he adopts a disguise to get those logs. Something that never happens in the film.

---

After the play was over, there was another show. The Maverick also has a cabaret style theater in addition to the black box and on Saturday nights a 11-ish, two guys (one of whom, Nathan Markaryk played Pfc. Louden Downey and looks uncannily like my friend Harkins, and no one looks like Harkins (he's like the Earth-2 Mark Harkins, even his last name is like some twisted version of MArK hARKins)) do this thing called The TV Show Show. Basically, they reenact, distort and generally mock an array of network dramas that had aired in the previous week. The shows they tackled were hit or miss. Their take on Drive or The Sopranos didn't do much for me, but ye gawds did they get me going on 24 and The Shield.

Their 24 was primarily driven by Makaryk playing everyone except Jack Bauer while the other guy played Jack. What made it funny is that the guy playing Jack doesn't watch 24 and had to be manipulated into doing the right things. That and a cute girl from the audience (forced to take on the name Sanjaya) was recruited to be Audrey Raines as best she could for not being an actress and possibly not knowing who Audrey Raines is.

The Shield was hilarious just for Makaryk's bizarre and lengthy threats of violence against other characters which I cannnot even begin to recreate here, but they were vile and hilarious.

I might go back for that from time to time.

For a small and somewhat invisible facility (you really have to know it's there. You're not going stumble over it), The maverick is really nice. The cabaret is nicely furnished in 20's art deco. I look forward to going back there for the Burlesque of Bond show which will feature live renditions of Bond themes with dancers and stuff doing live versions of Bond flick opening credits thingies.

JUST ME AND THE WORLD

Thanks to Alan Moore's classic Watchmen, I have long held that there is some connection between world domination and watching many televisions at once. I've always wanted to have some swanky wall of TV's (even better is if they can switch between different channels and being like one big Monster-vision screen).

I don't have that kind of scratch.

Until I do, there's this. Attempt at your own peril.







Yeah, it's no accident that Rachel Specter is in there three times.

ART IS RESISTANCE

Yes, I am a huge Nine Inch Nails fan and have been for a long time (down front at two shows, jumped down off the stage during "Piggy" directly in front of me both times). As such, my objectivity is very much in question, but fuck you. What do you know?

Year Zero, the new NIN CD was released earlier this week and according to sales reports on HITS Daily Double, it is only outsold by Avril LaVigne (and basically, it's tough to fight the young and pretty (she wears eye make up, she's a rebel*)). That's over 200,000 units as I understand it. EDIT TO ADD: #2 on iTunes also, behind...her.

Why do I give a crap? Because the entire album was released by Reznor (and continues to be available on yearzero.nin.com) in CD quality over two weeks ago. Just take this as reason #42,067 why the RIAA is full of shit. Piracy destroys sales, my shiny metal ass. If anything, the release boosted sales. Lots of people gave it a listen and liked it. Even Warren Ellis liked it (though I really don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing). A lot of those people are buying it.

Some of them listened because Reznor's doing this vast alternative reality thing (not unlike The Lost Experience) to go along with the CD which is a concept album (and there's a wiki to track it all). While the dystopian future thing is scarcely new to rock concept albums, Reznor's music and creativity in the alternate reality make up for it. If you get the CD itself, you get more clues (most notably in that the disc changes color when you play it, revealing a code). Also, with the strategically placed USB drives found around the world, the codes on concert t-shirts, weird e-mails, this campaign really takes hold of the reality part of alternate reality.

Earlier this week, fans that followed directions found on one of the concepts numerous website to find an unmarked van. Inside that van, an "operative" would give them some "materials." One of the items some people got was a cell phone. A call on that phone directed them to a secret "resistance meeting." That meeting was a short set by NIN. What's more, the set was ended by a (fake) SWAT raid.

Whether you are into NIN or not, you have to admire the way Reznor's ditched the retarded old conventional wisdom and embraced the future in as many ways as possible. This whole concept is supposed to continue on for 18 months culminating in another album. Should be a good ride.

*Come the fuck on, she choreographs her moves with her back-up singers. She's got more in common with Britney than Courtney.

HEROES (P)REVIEW: ".07%"

I got a screener for the first new Heroes after the six-week break.

The short version is that it is fanstastic. The long version is over at CBR. If you really read into it, you might be able to get a spoiler out of it, but it won't be easy.

LET'S JUST TRY A LITTLE SOMETHING HERE, EH?

Dig it? Hate it? Leave a comment.

She can afford to wear five-hundred-dollar Jimmy Choo heels, but only at the expense of having to build the bulk of her professional wardrobe from the collections named for, if not designed by, television stars. Today she’s wearing Jacklyn Smith. She doesn’t have a big problem with that. Jacklyn Smith was something of a role model to her. Additionally, she’s expecting a big pay bump in the near future and upgrading her look is something she’s very much looking forward to.

It’s those heels that are going to make Sarah McQueen late. She’s not about to break a heel on the patchy sidewalks between her office and Downing’s down on the corner because she's in a hurry. If she’d known she was going to hook up with Mark in the VC department for drinks, she might have brought some sneakers with her.

Catching a glimpse of herself in a reflection in a window, she disregards what the late evening winds rushing through the corridor of downtown has done to her long brown hair. Most of her days she classifies as bad hair days and today the windblown look is probably an improvement. Enough of an improvement that she has to make sure a spring doesn’t get in her step for more than the distance of one slab of sidewalk concrete. Her ringing cell phone will either make it worse, speeding her up in twitchy anger, or bring her to a complete stop in some sort of stupefaction that would, at least, solve the springiness problem. In all her life, she has never received good news on her cell phone.

“Hello,” she answers automatically.

“I want my dog.” The electronically reconstituted voice was firm, angry and Jack’s.

“He’s not your dog.” Sarah can do this on autopilot, it has happened often enough. She’d have changed her number, but Jack’s in the FBI. He’ll find it. He has. Every time.

“He’s still my—“ Jack was cut short by Sarah’s snapping her phone shut. She came to a complete stop in order to take a deep breath and start walking again at less than the increased pace that developed during the 12 words that constituted that entire conversation. One step, then another and a reasonable pace designed to keep a cobbler out of work is once again attained until her phone rings again, which is exactly what happens on step six. This time, she knows better than to even speak when she answers.

“He is my dog and I don’t give a rat’s ass what you, your shyster lawyer or some stuck-up judge says!” Jack’s voice clipped at least three times as he strained the capabilities of the speaker in Sarah’s phone.

Sarah rolls her eyes. “You have reached the number of someone who wants you to die by way of a fatal nut-kicking. Please leave your name, number and charity to contribute to in lieu of flowers at the sound of my scream.” At that instant she decided that were enough people on the street with her that screaming into her phone would be sufficiently embarrassing. “Good-bye, Jack!”

“What? Got a hot date or something.”

She almost had the phone closed when she caught that and it was too good and too true to pass up. So good, she hadn't noticed her stepped up pace.

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

Nothing came though the line. It would very shortly, but Sarah didn’t have the patience to wait for it or the desire to argue about it, so while Jack tried vainly to think of enough words to make a sentence, Sarah snapped off the back plate of her phone and dumped it’s battery into her handbag.

Then her heel broke.

“You look like you need a drink.”

Sarah looked up to find Mark waiting outside the door to Downing’s. Mark from the VC department. Mark with the hair and the teeth.

“We’re not even inside yet and you’re trying to liquor me up.”

“Really, I’m not.”

“If that’s true, then this date isn’t going very well already,” said as she blazed a path through the door. Mark tried not to smile too big as he followed her in.

TOTAL DISREGARD FOR PERSONAL SAFETY

Yeah, so there I am in a meeting in Beverly Hills. It went very well.

Exactly how well?

It's like this. Midway though talking about the current crop of pilots, the fire alarm goes off. The office, it turns out, evacuated. I say "turns out" because I didn't discover this until the meeting broke and I walked out to find everyone walking in. That's right. Everyone got the hell out except for the people meeting with me. We knew about the alarm. The light flashed. There was sound (not too obnoxious). We just kept our seats.

Who knew I could be so captivating?

I AM JACK'S SCREENPLAY

The Mystery Man over at Mystery Man on Film has put forth that we should write about our favorite screenplays. I'm down. Here's a little ditty we call Fight Club, hum along if you know it. If you don't, keep moving. I'm assuming familiarity with the subject matter.


Fight Club is not about fighting. Well, okay. It is. What it's not about is punching. Or kicking.

There's something truth through violence and fucked-up issues of identity that appeal to me. It also spoke to a period of time that, were it not for international terrorism and its ensuing wars, might still be going on...and getting worse. Middle children of history and all that.

One of the first things that hits you in the screenplay is the voice over. There's a lot of it. And it's been my view that VO is really easy to fuck up. You have to walk the line between show/don't tell. It's got to compete with the visuals while imparting something worth hearing. Palahniuk made this easy for screenwriter Jim Uhls by having such a uniquely defined voice that you could easily just sit and listen to Jack (and the screenplay does call him Jack) drone on about different varieties of store-bought pudding (because at some point, there's going to be some mention of which brand best absorbs ground up overdoses of painkillers). This is clear from the first page.

JACK (V.O.)
With a gun barrel between your
teeth, you only speak in vowels.

Voice, to me, is what really separates a so-so movie from something really special. Usually it comes though as a result of the whole shebang (to use a technical term), but Fight Club is a first-person story, and then later it becomes a first-person story (heh) so it's really driven in. A lot of this comes from the novel, and as an adaptation goes, this one is top notch.

Another notable thing about this screenplay is that it should not be read. Don't do it, unless you're just really into it. The script is fairly spartan, which I like. It is truly a blueprint. It knows that it is not art in and of itself. It is a step in the process.

Uhls does not go out of his way to try to evoke a mood or anything. This was a production where all involved knew the source material very well, so there was no selling it in the script. Also, it's a film that makes full use of the motion picture medium and as such lots of things lose their coolness when you're just reading about it. The single frame stuff just completely loses its effect when you're reading about it for four seconds instead of seeing it for a half-second (not actually a single frame, but...).

That said, here it is if you want to read it.

FIGHT CLUB

MEDICAL/DOCTOR PLAY-ON-WORDS-TYPE TITLE GOES HERE...OH, HEY...HOW ABOUT "THE DOCTOR IS IN!" THAT'S FRESH AND CLEVER, RIGHT?

So, with the somewhat uneven last half of the third season of Battlestar Galactica over and leaving us until next year to get an answer that eternal question of the ages (that question being "What the fuck?"), there's a hole in my Sunday night viewing. That's where the BBC comes in.

Doctor Who season three has begun (not on SciFi, I'm sure you can figure it out). As usual, the first episode is an easy jumping on point, has maximum scifi weirdness and the appropriate quotient of cheese. It's also got a new companion in the form of Martha Jones (Freema Agyeman). I dig her. She's smart. She's hawt. I never want to see her family again.

Also, personal bonus to me in the form of Roy Marsden as a guest star. Greg Rucka had recommended The Sandbaggers to me some years ago (as I imagine he does to many people). I tracked down the DVDs of this late 70s/early 80s British espionage series and it became an immediate favorite. Marsden starred as Neil Burnside, spy chief and asshole. Was he well utilized in the episode ("Smith and Jones")? Not so much, but still. Coolness.

Next week, The Doctor and Martha meet Shakespeare. And there's an episode coming up titled "42." That's got to be dipped in awesome sauce. And ZOMG! That's who's playing The Master!?!?!

ANOTHER NEW SORKIN PROJECT!?

The thing in the comics industry these last few years is to get writers from other fields to come in and write comics. It's a mixed bag, really, and while it has lead to things like Joss Whedon's fantastic Astonishing X-Men run, it's also lead to Damon Lindelof's unfinished Ultimate Hulk/Wolverine. Ostensibly, they go after these creators to get some name value, but I don't see any sales spikes over Jodi Picoult or Charlie Huston.

A couple of years ago, there was a book announced that I was looking forward to, but it's looking a lot like it's probably never going to turn up. Tom Fontana of Homicide and Oz fame was going to write a Batman graphic novel. Still waiting.

The latest TV-to-comics crossover is...unusual on the surface. Since, however, Sorkin has taken on the Flaming Lips musical, I guess nothing is going to be surprising now. If you've read the West Wing scriptbooks, then you know that Sorkin is good friends with Akiva Goldsman, the screenwriter who can win an Oscar for A Beautiful Mind but can just totally co-bungle an iconic figure like Batman in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin (and he was a producer on Constantine too, so take that as you will).

Apparently Goldsman still has some contacts in DC Comics through working on those properties and one thing led to another. Aaron Sorkin is doing a six-issue arc on Batman.

I don't know how to feel about this. Here's a leaked page, after inking and lettering and before colors.


>>April fucking fool's.<<