Sunday, September 24, 2006

The Crazy Christians

Well, this post comes a day early, because for some reason, the new episode of Studio 60 came on right now (Sunday night) as opposed to tomorrow night.

Jordan: "I raised the bar a little high?"
Danny/Matt: "Yes."
Jordan: "Well, I'm sorry. Clear it."

I love how it was said with no attitude, almost jokingly, and yet came across so strong. Jordan's character is just awesome. She's the one in the show, I think, that will always be doing the "right" thing. Even though it would be deemed professionally an unsmart move.

Matt and Danny's characters are starting to show. Of course they're the good guys. But there are going to be moments we don't like them. They're the "bosses" at the level that a lot of interaction with their subordinates is required. They're going to be putting their foot down, and sometimes being harsh. It'll be very interesting. I'm also very keen on seeing how the relationship between the two of them reveals itself.

I absolutely loved the scene Danny asks Matt if he's in love with Harriet (of course, I'm a sucker for romance). The dialogues were too long for me to take down and put on here as a quote, but I'll try to get them off online somewhere soon and add them on. It was exactly those kind of scenes...of utter stupidity and full-out human childishness, but in intellectual people...that just makes you smile.

And of course, Matthew Perry...I can already feel myself coming around to accepting him as Matt Albie, the high-flying, high-strung, super-brilliant writer-of-the-funnies, rather than the cutesy, annoying Chandler Bing. It was just odd seeing him in a position of polished expertise, after his string of comic roles...but it's good. He's doing good. I believe him as an intelligent, deep kinda guy. I can see the wheels whirring at the back of his mind at all times.

One of the things that stood out to me, also, was the scene right after the press conference in the corridor, with Jordan, Matt, Danny and Jack. It hit me, that in most of our "non-showbiz" professions, I suppose there'd be very few in which bosses would talk so incredibly sarcastically without it being something odd. I'm referring to Jack's words as he leaves, "Well, if anyone thinks of any new ways to screw us over, I'll be in my office," or something to that effect. We're so used to, in most "regular" professions, being focussed on taking the route of diplomacy, that the electricity of a work environment like this, is entirely unknown to us. I think it would be fun, albeit admittedly numerous times more stressful as well, to experience a setting like that. I'm thinking now, I would just honestly love to intern on some kind of TV show set.

Lastly, of course, to allude to the title of this post..."The Crazy Christians". Needless to say, anyone who watched the show would probably agree, the scene where Matt, Danny, Simon and one of the other writers come up with the idea for the sketch...was just brilliant. To see how these ideas come into people's heads is a thing of beauty and wonder. Good humour really is not a thing of ease. I loved how, before the show starts, Harriet, in her prayer, thanks God for the gift of humour, and says something like "Lord bless his son Jesus, who had to have been very funny to get so many people to listen to him." I think it is not by any means or stretch of the imagination even remotely simple to come up with witty lines that respect, and yet, put in sensible perspective, what are in the political arena called the "value votes". "The West Wing" did it, too. Aaron Sorkin has to be unconditionally credited for that.

The final sketch itself, obviously, was awesome as well. The imagery was just great...and while I'm convinced there are a lot...a LOT...of people that would find it quite offensive, I think it was just the right thing. The crack (forgive the pun) about Danny's being on "blow" was perfect. And the catch-line...the model of a modern tv network show...I hope it reaches the people out there...watching all these different TV networks. I hope it lends even the slightest bit of window, or perhaps a slightly different slant, on the oh-dear-god-i-wanna-hurl-cuz-it's-so-damn-obvious class of diplomacy that we're just saturated with.

In the interest of an early and rather busy work day tomorrow, here's goodnight to the non-Christians, the neo-Christians, the smart Christians, the stupid Christians, and of course, the Crazy Christians!

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip

No better time to start this blog.

Since "The West Wing" got over some time last spring, I've been missing that passion, that adrenaline, that power, that intelligence, that diction, that class, that suaveness, that fucking HEAT. And hell, in the first 10 minutes of "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip", it all just came alive again.

Recently there have been many, and I stress, many times I have witnessed, considered, analyzed, brooded, at the cliche'd time long struggle of good vs. evil (to speak in broad broad paradigms). I suppose a better way to put it would be to say...you see how many things there are just fighting down and choking the throat of everything you so innately and instrinsically believe to be true and right. And it makes you want to stop trying. Maybe not in the physical, practical, routine sense. But in the ideological sense. You live through these days just quarrelling with yourself about the thousands of things that stick like thorns in your soft-as-a-baby's-butt mind. And then you get exhausted! Hell, it's about time.

But I swear, in barely the first 5 minutes of when I tuned to "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip" (oh, and mind you, it was by accident I was reminded today was its premier), there was this pulse just racing through me. Somehow, somehow, Aaron Sorkin manages to show situations and characters that, albeit might be your ideological nemesis, don't just malign the world...they make it worth the fight.

Don't get me wrong. I'm hardly going to wake up tomorrow with a brand new sun shining out of my eyes, ready to take on the world! Truly, it may not alter my day-to-day perception very much. But somehow, somewhere, it inspires something. I'm not quite sure what, because it hasn't had any tangible results, but I can only hope that what I feel deep inside in some lost, unlocateable part of me, will someday choose to reveal itself. And that it will be worth seeing, touching, and experiencing. I think it inspires a kind of fire for patience that only a violent and firm love...and someone very special can inspire. Hell, last time I felt that way was when I was with such a person! Of course, that has a much more real and palpable difference. And God, do I need some of that. But hey, that's for a different blog maybe.

Right now, it's about the return of Aaron Sorkin. And my heart-racer...Bradley Whitford. Even Matthew Perry might turn out to be a pleasant surprise. I think I'm just so defaulted into seeing him as good old Chandler on Friends, it's hard to take him in as a fully serious character. But I think I'll come around.

Aah the intellectual energy just brimming, and then just flowing out of every conceivable and inconceivable pore...of the TV, of me...of the damn air! Just revitalized parts of you I suppose. It's like this vibration that wakes you up. And man, is it HOT. It's sexy. It's just such a turn on.

The show starts off like that. With the taboo. It was amazing. To see such inspired and risen minds, with informed, knowledgeable opinions on society. What Wes (Judd Hirsch) says about people competing to be like Donald Trump, getting paid to eat bugs, and seeing who can "sleep with my sister". So fucking true. And it's easy, in that moment, seeing this man who runs a top television show...come out and just blurt these things. And you think "Hell, why don't people just do that? Intelligent people can take the bluntness!" But then you see right at the end Danny (Bradley Whitford) say how he thinks it was a stupid thing to do. And you know he feels the same way. But he still says it was stupid. That conflict is really the spine of all this. Lots of people believe in the right thing. It's finding the right way to do the right thing that really gets people riled up. I love watching it. So much like "The West Wing". Aah I can't wait for this show to roll out.

Enough of my rant for now. Until next week, then! (For my guess is, that's when I'll want to come back and write more.)