HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (PART TWO)

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (PART ONE)

And so Heath Ledger became the latest actor to portray a character with the potential for layers upon layers of complexities and who more frequently gets played one note. Maybe two.

In as critical as I am over portrayals of The Joker, and given that this version is something of a departure from any version of him, good or bad, found in the comics, I find this one a excellent translation to the screen and it both captures how I see him (more in spirit than literally, though there are even flashes of that) and seems to capture (also in spirit) some sense of the Joker's first appearance in Batman #1 in 1939. Or how I imagine how I might have perceived him had that been my first exposure to the character.

Both in writing and performance, this was truly The Joker. Leaving out an origin was perfect, and the establishment of him as an "unreliable narrator" showed a particular insight into the character. He exists only now. Like pain. You remember it, you imagine it, but it's only really there when you feel it.

Now, about that Oscar buzz. Was Ledger's performance worthy of the buzz, worthy of more than just buzz. I think yes. Objectively and subjectively. However, it brings up some thoughts to me, about crash of genreism and beloved, tragically lost actor.

Were Ledger alive now, would the buzz still be there?

Not at all because I think people are elevating his performance sentimentally or anything. He's already established himself as being up to par, his Oscar nomination for Brokeback Mountain spells that out clearly. And in the Joker, he is fully transformed.

Were he alive, though, would genreism rear it's ugly head. Would his performance alone be enough to elevate it above being a comic book character? Would it escape the artificial gutter of having been in a summer blockbuster, a cape movie...a Batman movie?

The Award shows are broken. They are just shows, after all. Yeah, I'm pleased if something I like wins, but otherwise don't care that much. Especially with the Oscars. The fact is, that all the Award shows have historically had a bias against sci-fi/fantasy/fantastical. It's true in any medium, really. It's hard to get people to go beyond trappings and into story and character and rarely do I hear a rationalization that holds up on even an individual basis.

Once in a while, something rises up and is able to garner attention. I see the Emmys coming around of late, as writing Lost's various recognitions, and some writing noms for Battlestar. Its becoming viable, but I still remember year upon year of Patrick Stewart being denied a nom for Star Trek, especially for "The Inner Light." That year, he should have owned it. And let us not forget the old maxim: "The Academy does not vote for something called Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Which is just a way of saying that the content of the show is pretty damn near irrelevant.

I feel that Ledger is deserving of the nomination. And I don't know if my subjectivity can be suppressed enough, but I would like to see him win (that said with six months of movies yet to be released). Unfortunately (for a variety of reason beyond my own irrelevant ramblings), we'll never really know if this is a result of an enlightenment to look beyond genre and find the fantastic in the fantastical or if this just a way to honor an actor who was liked, sounded like a good guy and who happened to have turned in an amazing performance in his last starring role.

If he does get nominated, I certainly hope that nary a voter will be wincing when they write the name of a movie about funnybook superheroes. These characters have endured for seventy years and though good and bad. There's a reason for that.

As for the movie itself. My CBR boss Jonah Weiland put it well. "Not just a good superhero movie, it's a good movie." I, myself, was just kind of dumbstruck in my seat for a minute at the end. It was everything it should be.

I need to see it again.

THE AUSLANDER GOES FORTH

It's that time again. Time for The Auslander to knock some heads, and this time around he's doing it in the Manzanar Internment Camp in a little number I like to call "Nisei, My Darling." A startling tale of two outsiders, a dastardly trap and insurmountable odds.

All this is by way of saying that the fourth issue of Astonishing Adventures is out and the lead story is the fourth installment of my pulp character, the shock-haired sentinel known as The Auslander. What's his schtick? Well, he woke up one day with a case of retrograde amnesia and he dreams of Nazi plots of stateside sabotage that come true if he doesn't stop them. And when he puts that two and two together, he doesn't like the four that comes out much.

You can check it out for free on Issuu, as seen above or you can order the pulpy version via Amazon.

The Auslander in "Nisei, My Darling"

And as his consciousness faded, the young khaki-clad soldier managed to get three words out. The same three words the black-and-white man hated to hear. “Who are you?”

There was only one answer. Always the same answer. The only one he knows.

“Ich bin ein Auslander.”

QUICK EMMY OBSERVATIONS

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (PART TWO) will be forthcoming.

This is the single best array of nominees in the Outstanding Writing for a Drama Series in a long damn time. FULL NOMINATIONS LIST HERE

As such, the pessimist view is that it guarantees disappointment. I want to see The Wire get it's due, but it'll be at the cost of Battlestar Galactica getting some love. And then Mad Men too. I confess, however, indifference to Damages.

	Battlestar Galactica • Six Of One • Sci Fi Channel • Universal Media Studios in association with R & D TV Michael Angeli, Written By
	Damages • Pilot • FX Networks • FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television Todd A. Kessler, Written By Glenn Kessler, Written By Daniel Zelman, Written By
	Mad Men • Smoke Gets In Your Eyes (Pilot) • AMC • Lionsgate Television Matthew Weiner, Written By
	Mad Men • The Wheel • AMC • Lionsgate Television Matthew Weiner, Written By Robin Veith, Written By
	The Wire • 30 • HBO • Blown Deadline Productions in association with HBO Entertainment David Simon, Teleplay By/Story By Ed Burns, Story By

And check that out, Mad Men writer's assistant (Veith) gets an Emmy nod out of the gate. Live up to that.

Drama series category ain't looking too shabby.

	Boston Legal • ABC • David E. Kelley Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television
	Damages • FX Networks • FX Productions and Sony Pictures Television
	Dexter • Showtime • Showtime Presents John Goldwyn Productions, The Colleton Company, Clyde Phillips Productions
	House • FOX • Universal Media Studios in association with Heel and Toe Films, Shore Z Productions and Bad Hat Harry Productions
	Lost • ABC • ABC Studios
	Mad Men • AMC • Lionsgate Television

I need for House to get some recognition.

Lastly, the cruelty of pitting Pushing Daisies against 30 Rock in the comedy writing category.

Sorry, though, gotta go with the Fey.

Or do I?

Actually neither of the nominated 30 Rock's were particular favorites, so...yeah...gimme the "Pie-Lette" this time out.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA (PART ONE)

The Joker has always been one of my favorite characters ever, despite the fact that there are as many versions of him as there cards in a deck and most of them are just ridiculous. I am very critical of how he is used. I'm terribly possessive of him in an unhealthy way.

In the early seventies, Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers created "The Laughing Fish," a story that has repeatedly been called The Definitive Joker Story. Denny O'Neil had just recast the Joker has having his own insane logic at work, not just having a clowny theme, and also imbued him with his casual attitude toward human life in such way not seen since his earliest days, if, really, at all. These guys were cementing that and refining it.

It's best exemplified by his off-handed way of pushing one of his own henchmen in front of a truck for his failure to be sufficiently amused by the boss's cracks. That was a new thing, then.

It's also since been made into an episode of the outstanding Batman Animated Series of the nineties. And while, less rampantly murderous, owing to the kiddies, still one of the few versions of him to really come correct in my mind.

In the eighties, Alan Moore, though thinking his own story is shite, nonetheless re-redefined him after several years of misuse since "The Laughing Fish," in "The Killing Joke." Also, for the first time, giving him a back story. Though one that has been, at times, taken to literally. One of the best parts of the character is he just is. The only fact about him was that Batman, inadvertently, created his own arch-nemesis. The Joker is an unreliable narrator, and while an excellent origin (which you'll have to read, I'm not recounting it for you), it should not be taken as the gospel.

In that last paragraph, there lies the biggest problem with the Joker. He's either a Royal Flush, or he's just a pair. And Royal Flushes don't get dealt out that frequently. Very few writers, for my money, have gotten the Joker to my satisfaction. I'm not saying that the only right version of the Joker is how I see him, but it is.

The fifties and early sixties were, surely, a bad time for the Clown Prince. They weren't great for Batman either. Both were just grinning cartoon versions of the characters that had only been created a decade earlier and in a decidedly darker, pulpier fashion. And that bore the Dozier TV series with Adam West.

And since the laughing fish, it's been consistently inconsistent. Some really get him and some don't. It's best when, for years at a shot, the Joker simply doesn't turn up in the comics. Let him come to the story rather than taking the story to him. Then, inevitably, he turns up anywhere and everywhere and frequently handled poorly.

I won't get into the ones I loathe, I will just mention (as I move off the comics topic) that the most recent Joker story that I felt nailed him with the fury of a meth-addled Bob Vila was the "sniper" storyline ("Soft Targets") in Gotham Central by Greg Rucka and Ed Brubaker. It's also, Batman-free. These are regular cops having to deal with him. It's totally Homicide meets the Clown Prince of Crime.

Jack Nicholson's Joker, to me, is an abomination. In fact, I'm not really a fan of Tim Burton's Batman movies. Flicks in which Batman is a supporting character, but with the Joker, he was stripped of everything that really made him what he is. As the murderer of Bruce Wayne's parents, the creator/creation roles are reversed as to become humdrum, and it maims Bruce's drive to eradicate crime because it really, if only subconsciously, is now all about the Joker.

And he was just Jack in clown shoes. He never really seemed insane, it seemed more just an act with him. And that "Did you ever dance..." line. That never fit. It was just wrong.

Now, there is talk of an Oscar nomination for someone playing the Joker.

To be continued...

SAY WHAT NOW?

Here's a little approximation of something I like to do when the opportunity arises in my pilots. Not recommended for series specs, where doing it like they do it is the order of the day.

This is just how I do it.



• An uncomfortable beat while al-Haque decides there’s no way out of the situation without getting ugly.
  
  
• AL-HAQUE
  
• 
  
  
• HUNTER #1
  
• How’s that?
  
  
• AL-HAQUE
  
• I said I wish you two would shoot each other.
  
  
• The hunters glance at one another and then back at Al-Haque, their suspicions seemingly confirmed. They slowly raise their rifles.
  
  
  
• EXT. SNOWY TREE LINE - DAY
  
  
• Up above the wilderness, as the sun blankets. TWO GUNSHOTS, almost simultaneous, ring out through the trees, sending the birds flying, fleeing.
  
  

Of course, it doesn't have that subtle border like you see here. That's just me fucking with the screenbox css and not really knowing how to turn off the picture borders non-globally.

I did this in another script with an inter-dimensional ninja, though that was for comic effect, but it worked. A table read busted out laughing.

OK, move along.

DUO DYNAMICS

In the last few days, in places like in the comments on Emily's Bamboo Killers, the [tvwriters] Yahoo group, and some other random places, I've noticed several people express the same sentiment with regards toward writing partners. It usually goes along the lines of "a writing partner keeps me motivated."

I'm not anti-partner. I know people who've had them and the experience was really nothing to write about and I know a set of writing partners now and it seems to work out well for them.

I think it generally comes down to the dynamic and an equality of contribution. I've occasionally found myself in collaborative situations where most of the heavy lifting rested on me...and it's not even my idea or concept. In those cases, I generally wind up not doing the heavy lifting and nothing gets done. And I can't say I feel especially bad about it. If the collaborator is so keen to get the project written, why isn't he writing it?

And I don't want to hear about lacking the skills. If the idea's that good, you write it anyway...and maybe you learn to write along the way.

I prefer not to have a partner. It is, as I've said elsewhere, it's just me and the page - to the death, but I do really enjoy working out stuff with other writers, breaking the story, bouncing ideas. It's a vital skill if you're going to be in a writer's room for more than just delivering lunch.

In fact, one of my favorite things in a meeting of my writer's group is either pitching fixes for other people's scripts or when my synapses start running with some idea that one of the others pitched for one of mine.

Hell, just the ability to incorporate notes is a like a subtle level of partnership, isn't it?

It's the partner as motivation thing that concerns me. I don't know if I've ever read anything written by a team where this is a consideration. I don't think I have, as I've read very few specs by teams. But I kinda have to wonder about the quality of something that a team like that might produce. And this is why.

If the story alone doesn't motivate you to write it, why should I be motivated to read it?

I can see the point in being pushed to action by a writing partner. It creates deadlines where, really, there isn't. It invokes the let-down factor in that if you fail to do your part, then you've let own your writing partner. No. I get it.

Especially since our lives our hectic, either by design or circumstance, but no one ever said that writing is easy. Certainly I have periods where I just can't get adequate time or rest or be in the right mental state to sit down and write. Sometimes I let my social life (or attempts thereof) eat up that time, but sometimes it goes the other way around. However, I find that the more effort I have to make to write, the less likely that whatever I'm writing is going to be worth the trouble. When an idea is firing, you really can't keep me from my keys, even if it means falling asleep on them (or, really near them).

This is how I know (most of the time) what to write and what to move past. The story is the motivation. Nothing else.

Sometimes I come across some competition or other opportunity where a certain kind of writing is called for. Like a short script or a particular genre and its something I don't really have "in stock" as it were, so I try to work something up to fit the criteria. Sometimes I come up with something that I really like and want to write and other times my motivation is that goal. When that is the case, it generally turns out as less than. I was probably better off not even writing it.

Sure, a lot of my writing is motivated by a goal. I want to be a full-time professional writer, but isn't that goal fueled by my need to write. Even if I'm overloaded with work commitments and plans with friends, or advising third world coups, if I've got a good story, then it's breaking in the back of my mind whenever there's a free moment and of there's any measure of consciousness when I get home, and that story is really working, then I'm getting something down before I pass out...even if it's just a couple of lines.

If you need an outside motivator, like a partner, in order to get the work done, I have to wonder how bad you want it. How bad you want the story. How bad you want to be a writer. How bad the need is to write.

Like I said, though. This is scarcely an accusation about all writing teams. There are certainly all sorts. I know of one writer who likened his partnership to the post-modern Batman and Robin concept. Robin keeps Batman from going over the edge into vengeance and his partner keeps him from going over the edge into crap. There's another partnership I know where (and this is purely my application of analogy) it's The Doctor and his companion dynamic in that each partner improves the other and their respective strengths are both brought out and magnified by the collaboration.

In both of those cases, though, I'm reasonably sure that if they didn't have partners, they'd still be writing something whenever they could, despite whatever dangers they perceive from not having the partner. They're writers and they have to write.

(P)REVIEW: LEVERAGE

Leverage is so full of supreme awesome that it makes me angry.

Since Adam asked...

Some things are just so good, right out of the gate that it completely fouls the gauges. Up is down. Left is right. And being bad is just fucking good.

I'm going primarily, mostly spoiler free here, so be not terribly afraid.

The concept is pretty basic. It's modern-era Ocean's Eleven for TV, so not eleven. Bad people doing good things to even worse people. Or if you're down with Hu$tle, you're down with this.

Nate Ford (Timothy Hutton) is an ex-insurance investigator who finds himself put with a bunch of skilled ne'er do wells to put the screws to some people who really deserve it because they stole Saul Rubinek's airplane designs.

We get keen little flashbacks with the intro of each of the Leverage crew, and each one is priceless. Beth Riesgraf's (formerly better known as the mother of something called Pilot Inspektor) Parker (a.k.a the girl) has, without a doubt, the best one. The tone setter. And she comes after geektastic Alec Hardison (Aldis Hodge) who's flashback involves Slave Leias.

With this show, Timothy Hutton reestablishes his coolness, because, honestly, it's been a while since I've thought "hey, Tim Hutton. Cool." That Nero Wolfe stuff a few years ago might be a contender, but otherwise, I'm probably reaching back as far as the early 90s.

Christian Kane is fantastically Euro-trashy as Eliot Spencer, which is saying something as his character isn't even European. Must be the hair. Then he's fantastically geeky, then he's...well, he's the faceman.

And Gina Bellman. Don't need to say anything there. Just...Gina Bellman.

But, really, the star of this...yo, Rogers...you and Downey hit this out of the muthafuckin' park.

There's a scene where the principals meet up in a big empty warehouse after things have gone a little sideways (which isn't really a spoiler, because things always go sideways in those situations). There's suspicion, there's gun's getting drawn and there's a fierce desire to get paid. It was during this scene that it really hit me. This show stands to be everything that Smith wasn't.

Smith was my favorite show of a the new season a couple of years ago, but it was really a show about bad guys. Not good bad guys, really unpleasant people. And being on CBS, it failed to find its audience in its three weeks on the air.

Leverage doesn't have the irredeemable bad guy thing, but it's nailing enough of that wrong side of the law thing that this is a worthy, of not superior successor.

Technologically scamtastic with a biting sense of humor...a drawing blood biting. I can learn from this show, in good and bad ways.

I believe Amy Berg who's (mid-level on the show), at the recent Scriptwriter's Network Event that E and I attended (and so did apparently everyone I know in the state, yet we all saw naught of each other while there (except Josh) that the show is scheduled to bow in December (or maybe January). That is too damn long.

I'd put off watching this because I had high hopes for it and I wanted to be in an optimal state of mind, with optimal snacking options and optimal whatever else. That's why I'm just getting to this now, despite it having been..."set free" some little bit ago.

It lived up to and then some.

I'm watching this again. Probably several more times.

Shooting it back in the homeland (Chicago) was nice too.

If I were to have a complaint, and I really don't, it's that the music evokes the Ocean's Eleven thing a little too directly. I'd have liked to hear something with its own unique identity.

PREVIOUS (P)REVIEWS

• Heroes
• Heroes: ".07%"
• Chuck
• Pushing Daisies
• Bionic Woman
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
  

I AM MADE OF WORDS

So the writing kind of ground to a halt, for a variety of reasons. Chief among them being that nothing was quite firing right. I hate getting a block like that. It keeps me from wanting to consume new materials. Like the flood of preairs that hit the illicit distribution systems of late.

This is no longer the case, also for a variety of reasons.

Hellcat has been indefinitely shelved. Still brainstorming on one-act play ideas. Have had several that are perfectly viable, but for one reason or another just don't quite feel like what I want to write...at least right now. And the shooting of another episode of Area Five has been delayed. One I'm especially looking forward to, but it's also a break for the brain.

Then, I came across a challenging opportunity. Something in the realm of horror, which is not something I usually do. I'd like to come up with something classically gothic in nature but with some aspect of modern weirdness. It's a small thing so it's kinda backburnered for now.

In the meantime, I've been giving some thought toward a project I wanted to work on later. After Hellcat. I didn't think it was gonna quite fill the need I have write now for a fresh pilot, but some ideas began coming to me.

So on Saturday, the idea was sit down with some chili and get cracking on something, like a once over of the Dexter spec, making sure I hit the notes the astounding writer's group gave me when they covered it last month, and working on NBC/Universal program application materials. And that was done.

I decided to warm up by doing something uselessly creative, so I grabbed Steiny and fired up Garageband. The result, "Wiresnip" is not safe for human consumption, but then so are cigarettes and thiose make you look cool and all.

Then some more ideas for the next pilot just started showing up, and then...and this is when I knew that the next pilot was going to be the this pilot, more characters started talking to me. Ben Franklin had already been whispering to me. (Yes, that Ben Franklin). Then Sayf started talking to me. Then, the weirdest thing, Danny from Hellcat showed up with a case and a movie (Be Kind, Rewind, I liked it). Before I knew it, she had joined the cast of what I'm calling Black Ops.

It satisfies all my needs: Weirdness, violence, political maneuvering, outright lies, and a really nice house on the east coast.

I'm going to be writing two versions of it, for reasons I'll describe another time.

And somewhere in all that, my Pushing Daisies, I've decided, needs a massive overhaul.

Oh, and maybe some (p)reviews of some of those preairs later on, now that I've burned through them.

AND NOW THE SECOND GREAT AND BOUNTIFUL WHEDON EMPIRE IS IN FULL EMPIRENESS

Still busy. Here. look at the sauce d'awesome.


Teaser from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog on Vimeo.