From: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org (stillpt-digest) To: stillpt-digest@smoe.org Subject: stillpt-digest V2 #12 Reply-To: stillpt@smoe.org Sender: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-stillpt-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk stillpt-digest Monday, January 17 2000 Volume 02 : Number 012 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: b/-the-film ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/-the-film [Todd Huff ] Re: b/-the-film [meredith ] Re: b/-the-film [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/-the-film [allenw ] Re: b/-the-film [GHighPine@aol.com] Re: b/-the-film ["David S. Bratman" ] Re: b/Top Ten [Micole Sudberg ] Re: b/-the-film [GHighPine@aol.com] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 12:48:34 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/-the-film At the risk of getting off-topic ... I don't remember the ODD COUPLE movie very well, so I can't make the comparison there, but while I liked the MASH tv show, in particular Alan Alda, I didn't think it was artistically a match for the movie. The show was best in its early middle period, after which it developed a case of the "warm fuzzies". The final episode, which I dragged myself to a friend's house to watch, was actively nauseating. (I didn't have a tv set after I went to college in '75, but as MASH and THE ODD COUPLE were the only shows I was still watching at that time, I didn't much care. I did see a lot of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE on the dorm communal tv set, by which I became familiar with all the early years cast members except Andy Kaufman, whom I _never heard of_ until the new movie about him appeared. I am half convinced the film is a giant put-on, like SWEET & LOWDOWN is.) There may be tv shows better than the movies they are based on, but I am pretty sure that there are =no= movies better than the tv shows they are based on. And if THE ADDAMS FAMILY is the best of the bunch, I'm =absolutely= sure of it. ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 10:09:07 -0800 (PST) From: Todd Huff Subject: Re: b/-the-film Two more days and we'll have plenty new to talk about. I agree about M*A*S*H getting a bad case of "the fuzzies". It was indeed nauseating from time to time. Andy Kaufman was never an actual member of the cast of SNL, just an occassional guest. I would say that the Brady Bunch films are far funnier than the tv show they were based on, but since they were clearly parodies it might be a different category altogether. - --- "David S. Bratman" wrote: > At the risk of getting off-topic ... > > I don't remember the ODD COUPLE movie very well, so > I can't make the > comparison there, but while I liked the MASH tv > show, in particular Alan > Alda, I didn't think it was artistically a match for > the movie. The show > was best in its early middle period, after which it > developed a case of > the "warm fuzzies". The final episode, which I > dragged myself to a > friend's house to watch, was actively nauseating. > (I didn't have a tv > set after I went to college in '75, but as MASH and > THE ODD COUPLE were > the only shows I was still watching at that time, I > didn't much care. I > did see a lot of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE on the dorm > communal tv set, by > which I became familiar with all the early years > cast members except Andy > Kaufman, whom I _never heard of_ until the new movie > about him appeared. > I am half convinced the film is a giant put-on, like > SWEET & LOWDOWN is.) > > There may be tv shows better than the movies they > are based on, but I am > pretty sure that there are =no= movies better than > the tv shows they are > based on. And if THE ADDAMS FAMILY is the best of > the bunch, I'm > =absolutely= sure of it. > > __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger. http://im.yahoo.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 13:40:10 -0500 From: meredith Subject: Re: b/-the-film Hi! David mentioned: >I did see a lot of SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE on the dorm communal tv set, by >which I became familiar with all the early years cast members except Andy >Kaufman, whom I _never heard of_ until the new movie about him appeared. >I am half convinced the film is a giant put-on, like SWEET & LOWDOWN is.) Wow. I'm completely flabbergasted. I can see not being all that familiar with Kaufman's work (my only exposure to him was really his Latka character on _Taxi_, whom I always found exceedingly annoying, and of course I've known the REM song from which the movie got its name for years), but never having heard of him?! Wow. There's a show making the rounds on PBS now (it was on in Chicago on Wednesday night, and on Channel Thirteen in NYC on Thursday) that's a 1983 show Kaufman did in Chicago. I taped it, but haven't had a chance to watch it yet. I heard it's really good, and is a good look at what Kaufman was all about. You might want to keep an eye on your local listings and check it out. He really did exist. :) Maybe I pay too much attention to movies in production, but I was looking foward to _Man On The Moon_ from the first article I read describing how involved Jim Carrey was getting in the character. Of course, being lame I still haven't gotten out to see the movie yet. >There may be tv shows better than the movies they are based on, but I am >pretty sure that there are =no= movies better than the tv shows they are >based on. And if THE ADDAMS FAMILY is the best of the bunch, I'm >=absolutely= sure of it. The Addams Family movie was amusing, but you're right, the TV show was much better. I've tried to stay away from movies that were based on TV shows (thank god I was warned away from _The Avengers_ and _Wild Wild West_ in time!), so I can't really comment there. My tendency would be to agree, though. +==========================================================================+ | Meredith Tarr meth@smoe.org | | New Haven, CT USA http://www.smoe.org/~meth | +==========================================================================+ | "things are more beautiful when they're obscure" -- veda hille | | *** TRAJECTORY, the Veda Hille mailing list: *** | | *** http://www.smoe.org/meth/trajectory.html *** | +==========================================================================+ ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 13:46:57 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/-the-film In a message dated 1/16/00 10:01:07 AM Pacific Standard Time, dbratman@genie.idt.net writes: << there are =no= movies better than the tv shows they are based on. And if THE ADDAMS FAMILY is the best of the bunch, I'm =absolutely= sure of it. >> Well... one might make a certain kind of special case for THE FUGITIVE. Not that it was better than the series, but it was light-years better than the original denouement of the series. What a big gyp disappointment the final ep of the original series was -- contrived and anticlimatic. My sister and I were big fans of the original FUGITIVE series, and when the FUGITIVE movie came out, she didn't want to see the movie out of loyalty to the original series. Having seen the movie, I told her, "It's not a replacement for the series, it's a replacement for the =last episode= of the series." And seen in that light, it is very satisfying. She went to see it and was glad she did. As for MASH -- if you disagree that the MASH series eventually got better than the movie (the characters in the movie were too mean-spirited for my taste, but the series didn't have enough "backbone" for me till some of the cast changes -- but yeah, I agree with you about the finale), then that just reinforces my main point, which was that series that are better than movies that inspire them are extremely rare. In all the decades of television's existence, BUFFY, ALIEN NATION, and DANGEROUS MINDS are the only series I know of that clearly surpassed the original big-screen movies beyond any possible dispute. (But there may be others I don't know about.) Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 17:35:59 -0600 (EST) From: allenw Subject: Re: b/-the-film On Sun, 16 Jan 2000, David S. Bratman wrote: > pretty sure that there are =no= movies better than the tv shows they are > based on. And if THE ADDAMS FAMILY is the best of the bunch, I'm > =absolutely= sure of it. > The Brady Bunch? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 16 Jan 2000 23:38:02 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/-the-film A little confession here. I didn't have a TV between about 1970 or 1971 to about 1983 or 1984, so I saw shows broadcast then only sporadically, usually when visiting someone with a TV. So, though I have since seen quite a few eps of both shows in reruns, my judgments regarding MASH and ODD COUPLE were not completely my own; I had seen the opinion that they surpassed the movies they were based on rendered in print a number of times, and had had the impression that that was a consensus. And though I have never sat through a complete BRADY BUNCH episode, I saw the BRADY BUNCH movie because an actor I know was in it. It was hilarious. I loved it. But, as people have pointed out, it was a parody, so not fair to compare to the original series. As to the movie MAN ON THE MOON -- I saw it and found it fascinating. If (who was it?) found the Latka character annoying -- it seems that Andy Kaufman =wanted= to annoy people and =tried= to alienate them. He semed to set out to make people dislike him and seemed determined to sabotage his own career. From the movie it seemed clear that the TAXI cast (who, interestingly, were all undisguisedly their present-day ages) all disliked him. I don't know much about Andy Kaufman beyond what was in this movie and what I saw of him in TAXI, but I have heard from several independent sources (including a Genie-ite who spent a number of days extraing on the movie) that Jim Carrey never broke character even when the cameras were not rolling. Separate interviews I saw with Kaufman's writing partner Bob Zmuda and Danny deVito said the same thing, that Carrey acted so much like Kaufman even between takes -- even when he wasn't working from a script -- that they felt as though Kaufman's ghost was visiting them. Zmuda sounded as though it creeped him out. I found the movie to be a fascinating character study and touching at the end. New BUFFY soon to discuss. Gayle ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 00:27:03 -0500 (EST) From: "David S. Bratman" Subject: Re: b/-the-film Knowing this won't keep us away from the new BUFFY in two days ... Meredith: Re not having heard of Kaufman, you must realize that I haven't watched tv regularly for 30 years. ANGEL is the only show I've followed from its beginnings since 1968. (Besides it and BUFFY, the only current show I've seen enough of to have any idea who the characters are is FRIENDS.) I've never seen an episode of TAXI, and only know it as the show that Danny DeVito and Christopher Lloyd came from. Since Kaufman didn't "come from" it, i.e. didn't launch a notable movie career, his name wouldn't have meant anything to me before now, but I don't recall seeing his name mentioned in any articles discussing the show. Nor do I listen to much pop radio; I know REM mostly as a band whose lyrics are famously unintelligible. The song in the movie previews did not sound familiar, and I could only make out about 6 words anyway: those being "Andy Kaufman" and "man in the moon", I suspect I was primed to register them. Gayle: Another reason I would not have paid any attention to Kaufman's name if it had flickered past me is that there was a raft of deliberately obnoxious comedians around in those days, whom I deliberately avoided: the only name I remember offhand (and one whom I had to hear too much about, as a roommate liked him) was Bobcat Goldthwaite. But I remember that name over 20+ years: if Kaufman had been a big thing, I should have remembered him too. Good thoughts on movies. I think the MASH tv show was more popular than the movie. It was certainly more lovable (for reasons that you mention), and unsurprisingly therefore more loved. Which is why I said the film was artistically superior to the tv show, because in that lay its superiority. And it wasn't as if the tv show was bad. Re THE FUGITIVE, it was a good chase movie, but the tv show wasn't a chase tv show (unlike, say, THE IMMORTAL, purportedly sf, which _was_ a chase tv show). The tv show was about the loneliness of life on the run; in the movie the fugitive doesn't get to stop anywhere long enough to regret that he can't stay longer. I never saw the last episode (I didn't watch the show regularly), and I haven't previously encountered such disappointment in it as you have. I have one beef with it as a final episode substitute, though: the killer is supposed to be a one-armed man, but in the movie he's a man with an artificial arm, which is not exactly the same thing. (You all recognized the actor who played the part, right, shorn of the alien makeup he's more famous in our world in?) ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 02:04:55 -0500 From: Micole Sudberg Subject: Re: b/Top Ten At 06:15 AM 1/14/00 -0500, you wrote: >Here's a useless conversation piece: how about a Top Ten Episodes for >=Buffy=? I got thinking about this because it seemed to me that "Hush" is >not only clearly by far the best episode this season, but an all-time >outstanding episode. I like numbered lists. They give an illusion of order to an otherwise chaotic and unstructured life. >say "Amends" from the 3rd (if for nothing else maybe the best single scene >in the series). Which is? "Amends" is quite possible the single biggest disappointment in the entire series for me. It ended up skirting around the whole problem of Angel's redemption--no amends really do get made--in favor of melodramatic confrontations. They keep doing the same thing in =Angel= the series, approach and avoidance, glancing at the problem and then looking hurriedly away. Maybe "Somnambulist" will actually face up to Angel's past, this week. Maybe not. >The problem with lists like these of course is however objective one tries >to be one ends up playing favorites; and I'm cognizant of the fact that >the 3rd season gets a little slighted on the above (certainly >"Helpless" and "Bad Girls"/"Consequences" would be honorable >mentions). But my most glaring omission, I think, is "Angel." And I can't >account for it. To me it's no better than fifth-best episode of the 1st >season (I also prefer "Puppet Show"), even though I'm well aware that it's >=the= most crucial episode of the season (after the premiere and the >finale, i.e. the gist of the 1st season is in those four hours), the >fulcrum on which the whole season pivots, in fact; structurally equivalent >to "Surprise"/"Innocence" in the 2nd season. I guess that "Helpless" occupies >that position in the 3rd season (Giles getting fired setting in motion the >whole Faith problem). Wow. That's a mix. Some of those choices I agree with whole-heartedly and some of them flabbergast me. My mix would be much more heavily Season 3, to start with, although that may simply be because that's when I started watching, and thus that has the episodes I've been able to review the most. My top dozen would probably be, in order of appearance: 1. Angel 2. The Pack 3. Nightmares 4. Lie to Me 5. Surprise/Innocence 6. Becoming 1 & 2 7. The Wish 8. Bad Girls/Consequences 9. Doppelgangland 10. Earshot 11. Graduation Day Part 1 12. Hush Honorable mentions: "Welcome to the Hellmouth"/"The Harvest"; "Prophecy Girl"; "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered"; "Helpless"; and I'm growing increasingly and oddly fond of "The Zeppo", which a friend very rightly characterizes as Joss Whedon's version of =Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead=. (Yes, I'm a sucker for the Buffy-Angel romance, how could you tell?) My preference is pretty clearly for the emotional intensity over the humor, although I like the humor mixed in; and I really appreciate the episodes which show control of quick changes of tone. "Graduation Day 1" stunned me. I'd doubted that the show could manage to hit the same peak as "Becoming", because that two-parter managed a nearly perfect structure, combining the plot threat, the emotional threat, and the physical threat all into one neat package; but "GD1" did the same. "GD2", by contrast, disappointed me intensely (and I didn't even have to wait that long to see the bootleg) because the sources of intensity split apart again and didn't reinforce each other, and because the solution to the problem of the Mayor seemed fairly random and trivial. A pretty flat dream, too, probably the least interesting dream sequence in the series. It's also got the same problem as "Prophecy Girl"-- it's very *rushed*. Nearly all the scenes are the tense adventure ones, without the leavening of humorous scenes that creates the depth of tone most of the series has. "Language rustles around her with many voices, none of them hers, all of them hers."--A. S. Byatt, _Babel Tower_ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 17 Jan 2000 02:17:25 EST From: GHighPine@aol.com Subject: Re: b/-the-film Yes, THE FUGITIVE movie did not contain the essence of the TV show, which was poignant and heart-touching. But the movie did make for a much more satisfying resolution than the original wrap-up, so to me the movie and series are complementary. As I recall (from what, 35 years ago?), in the original finale, Kimble finds out that a neighbor had witnessed the entire murder through a window. He finds the neighbor and the neighbor says, oh, sorry, he hadn't spoken up before because admitting his presence in a spot where he could watch the murder would have revealed the fact that he was having an affair. Kimble then catches up with the one-armed man, they have a climactic fight on a water tower, and either Kimble captures him or he falls to his death. So Kimble is exonerated, Lt. Gerard shrugs goodbye (maybe shakes his hand) and leaves. It was a dud of a finale that left us feeling cheated. And I think that, at the time, it was the highest-rated single TV ep in history. I was familiar with Andreas Katsulas before B5 and THE FUGITIVE, BTW. He had a memorable turn as an alien villain in ALIEN NATION and several prosthetic guest spots in STAR TREK, and I'd seen him in a movie, too. Since you apparently watched B5, Jeff Conaway of B5 was also part of the TAXI ensemble. (TAXI was a superior sitcom, BTW, worth catching in reruns if you can.) Judging from the MAN ON THE MOON movie, Andy Kaufman could never have become a big star -- he seemed to do everything he possibly could to sabotage his own career. Gayle ------------------------------ End of stillpt-digest V2 #12 ****************************