Thursday night TV has taken an interesting turn. And by interesting turn I mean the programming has become much less interesting that it used to be. Gone are the days when we would be glued to the newest ER to witness George Clooney and his friends perform emergency surgery on an infant trapped in an elevator because a tornado had hit the ER. Again. The fact that ER is even still on the air shocks me. I think it must be going for a record for Greatest Number of People Who Have Starred in a Series or something because now I’ve noticed that Angela Bassett is on it- not to mention Dr. Green is returning from the dead this week. It may even still have some compelling storylines, but it has been on for so goshdarn (thanks SP) long I don’t think I would tune in to see. My dad did mention that he DVRed it last week, but I think he was just excited to DVR something since it was his first night with FIOS. Anyway, there isn’t much in the way of competition for the Thursday 10 p.m. slot. Or so I thought until last Thursday.
I had sort of breezed in and out of Life on Mars because although I wasn’t much interested in the storyline, the guy is hot- real hot. He’s not just good looking, he’s wildly charming as well. So cute. Anyway, that was really the only reason my clicker ever stopped there, and I was never really engaged in the plot. That whole stepping back in time thing, especially stepping back into the 70s, just didn’t really intrigue me. Plus, I wasn’t really up for another, “Dear God what is happening here- is it heaven? Is it hell? Is it another dimension?” because I watch Lost and get plenty of that there.
However, last Thursday, the kids were asleep and my husband wasn’t home and there was a HUGE pile of laundry to be folded so I tuned in to Life on Mars starring Mr. Cutie Pants. (He’s got it going ON even in the bad 70s fashion.) ANYWAY. This show has something to it! Let me start by saying that I was born in 1974 and I imagine that everyone’s early memories are the same: vague, dreamlike images with random bits of concrete detail. For me, I remember my mother making applesauce in our yellow kitchen and I remember watching Bjorn Borg playing tennis on the TV in our living room with a green rug and an orange afghan. Lots of patchwork also comes to mind. And I have a vivid image of my dad wearing REALLY SHORT cutoff jeans and digging in a potato patch in our back yard. But in terms of the times, I can conjure up nothing with the one exception of encouraging my parents to vote for Carter, but that actually would have been in 1980 so it doesn’t really count. In Life on Mars, Harvey Keitel is a bad cop with an okay conscience and the hot guy’s name is Sam. Sam was a cop in 2008 when he got run over by a car and woke up in 1973. There are really kookey parts to it where he almost gets back to 2008 but not quite, but the really interesting part of the show is seeing how much has changed culturally since the 70s. Back, then cops were very willing (and able) to take the law into their own hands. It was a club of good old boys who were really pretty rogue. The show takes a very interesting look at sexism- which I really didn’t know existed so strongly back then- I’ve always thought of sexism as belonging to the 50s. According to Life on Mars, it wasn’t easy being a woman in the early 70s, what with all the crude remarks and all the cops thinking you were not so bright. This was all well before sexual harassment lawsuits. And the race wars! Last week’s episode focused on the apparent murder of a black girl and then the Black Liberation Army’s attempt at vengeance. It was a race between the BLA and the cops as to who was going to kill the responsible party first. Whoopie Goldberg was wonderful as an undergound radio host. I realize that this is in fact television and all, but if the show is even partly accurate it seems as though we are living in a much more civilized society now. NYC in the 70s was a very dangerous place. However, despite all the ugliness, the show also allows us to laugh at how sensitive and careful we’ve all become in this day and age. Political correctness is all good, but it has made us a much squishier society- as is illustrated on the show in the relationship between Keitel and Sam.
Anyway, Life on Mars is a pretty decent show. It is an informative look back at recent history with a good storyline, great characters and a superhot guy in the lead. Worth a watch…at least until ER finally calls it quits.
No commentsThat’s what a blog is!
I have had a really hard time writing this thing because I like whatever I am going to write to be perfect and ready for the public. So I have edited myself into silence. I wrote a great little piece about the Boston Film Festival, only to never publish it because it never quite felt finished to me. Oh well. Eric has assured me that I can just write whatever because that’s what a blog is, so here goes. Please forgive the informal nature and possible incohesiveness of all my future postings.
No commentsMan on Wire: What Philippe Petit Can Teach Us All About Dreams and Fear
This past weekend, I went to the Nantucket Film Festival…I have a dream to someday direct a short film and submit it to the festival circuit. So, my first step in accomplishing this is to check out the festival scene, right? So off I go to the Nantucket Film Festival. Alone. That in and of itself is conquering one of my fears- the whole being alone thing. Lots of Nantuckety people were there, strolling along, laughing with friends, sipping Chardonnay and buying pink and green outfits, and there I was. Alone. It was actually kind of refreshing. I haven’t been anywhere with my arms swinging in a long time. My thoughts were my own and they were uninterrupted. Neat. Since conquering my first fear went so well, I decided to conquer another, more serious fear of mine. Heights. One of the films in the festival was a documentary called “Man On Wire” about a French guy who, in 1974, strung a high wire from one World Trade Center to the other and danced back and forth for almost an hour before being arrested by NYPD. Astonishing, right? He first decided to do it when he was just a kid and he saw an illustration of the plans for the World Trade Center in a magazine. The buildings didn’t even exist yet. He ripped out the page from the magazine and a dream was born. A dozen or so years later he was a quarter mile up in the air with no net, no harness, no tether. Just him and the open sky. It was absolutely breathtaking… I have an insane fear of heights. I have nightmares about people making me or one of my children walk around the perimeter of a skyscraper. My palms sweat just to look out the window of a highrise. And once I freaked out (and I do mean freaked out) while hiking in Oregon after walking along what I would call a ledge with a big drop next to it. (Sidenote: My sister claims an old lady with a walker was also “hiking the ledge” and doing just fine, but it was STEEP man. Real steep. I was crying and hyperventilating- the whole nine yards- until at last my group had to leave me behind with only my husband and our 11-month old baby strapped to his back. I wanted to hike the 25 miles the other way around to avoid going back the same way, but my husband convinced me to go back via the ledge. I clung to him and frantically counted out loud- really loudly- and now I have a reputation as a crazy person in the Northern Oregon region of the United States. Oh, well. Win some, lose some. Nothing like that happened on Nantucket.)
Back to the movie. Please see it. It is truly an extraordinary film. Whether or not you are afraid of heights you will gasp when he talks about the moment he made the decision to shift his weight from the building to the tightrope. Just try that for a moment. Try to visualize being him at the top of the World Trade Center and that moment of leaving the building and going out on the wire. Frightening, incredible, invigorating, other-worldly. It’s all there.
The point? Step out on your own wire today. Or, if you’re not sure what your wire is yet, at least cut out a picture from a magazine to get you started.
No commentsGet your popcorn…it’s the premiere of Heather’s blog
Everyone who has rented a DVD knows a director’s cut is a specially edited version of a film where the director gets to put back in all the stuff that got left on the cutting room floor when they produce a movie and it needs to be edited for time, content, rating, etc.
The commentary on a DVD is a special track usually done by the director, producer or actor which is usually an entertaining look inside the movie making process and can give you all sorts of nuggets of information otherwise not disclosed to audience members. Most people probably don’t watch this unless you are a real film buff or love the movie you are watching.
So that is what this blog is going to be for me. Lots of information about online video, my inspiration, ideas and concepts for using social networking, statistics with a little pop culture thrown in just for fun. Enjoy!
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