Letters to the Editor
tomreedtoon
Published Letters: 805 Editor's Choice: 81
-
Everyone's waiting for Sharpton's own Imus Moment.
[Read the article: What did Al Sharpton really mean?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]To me, Sharpton represents the kind of media celebrity that focusses on getting the camera's attention more than thinking and pondering what he believes or intends. He's very much like Imus, Limbaugh, O'Reilly and so many others, so full of their own ego and power that their brains shut down.
Inevitably, hubris gets 'em. They say something impromptu that they never thought about - thought being a pointless exercise when they reach a certain level of power. Whether they mean it or not, it casts them in a whole new light, and their popularity drops or drops off.
Jesse Jackson entered "Hymietown" and never left. Mel Gibson's hardcore right-wing Christian credentials dissolved like a policewoman's sugary breasts in the rain. Imus didn't prove to be so much a racist as someone who wanted to make a smartass remark about some innocent girls he didn't know, although the racial content made it worse. Imus thought he could confess to Sharpton and save his career, one media whore washing the hands of another. Well, if this isn't the time Sharpton gets shot down, the next time will probably come soon...
-
I just think Fonda couldn't "give and take."
[Read the article: Fondling Stephen Colbert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Improv comedy, like the kind Colbert used to do, requires that every actor on stage gives and takes. There's a lot of rules about it; you never deny the reality set up by the other actors, it's better to go for cooperation than grab for a punch line; you support each other on stage.
Fonda never did improv. She followed scripts. In fact, you could extend that to her relationships with men; she took on the politics and the attitudes of her man of the moment. From her New Left squeezes to Ted Turner, she stuck with the scripts she was given. That's what she did with Colbert, not picking up on his cues - or not caring about them. It might have been good "acting" by some people's lights, but it wasn't good comedy.
By the way, Fonda's character was best represented on an old SCTV episode where Fonda (played, if memory serves, by Catherine O'Hara) was sitting with Tom Hayden on an episode of William F. Buckley's Firing Line. Her leftist views melt away under the power of Buckley's overblown words, and she finally croons to Buckley, "I want to join you in this new, exciting conservative movement."
And you know...I think it's a good thing Fonda never spent much time with George W. Bush.
-
Kay W, "Traveller" was cool back in 1967.
[Read the article: I Like to Watch]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It was called Coronet Blue back then, and it had a young college-age guy running for his life from mystery men. The guy had amnesia, and the only thing he could remember was "Coronet Blue," which supposedly had some significance. It was an American pretender to some of the aura and paranoia of The Prisoner.
Since 1967, the show got dumbed down. Let's see if there's someone we can care about in this show. There are two rich yuppie kids with no smarts, Eddie Bauer clothing and at least one corrupt rich dad, and massive pretensions of competence. (No wonder Havrilesky identifies with them.) They get framed by a terrorist for blowing up a museum and killing a bunch of people.
The Homeland Security types go after the retarded kids, but can't even contain them in Manhattan. The FBI agent who captures one and holds a gun on him is too stupid to shoot off his kneecaps right away, so he can be cuffed and waterboarded later. The only way she could keep her job in the real world would be if she was appointed by Gonzales.
The kids get mysterious help from the old black hotel custodian, who is clearly with the CIA or the terrorists or something. In the end one of the spongehead's dads promises help, but then speaks to a guy in shadows who is clearly with one of the factions. Who? They won't tell, because in badly-plotted series like this, raising a bunch of unconsidered questions and indeterminate characters makes your show seem "deep."
This is Coronet Blue with a lot more smoke and mirrors, out-of-focus loyalties and reduced violence. (At least in the 1960's, the FBI and secret agents killed people. Nobody in 2007 television series would dare, no matter how many failures-as-human-beings deserve it.) And the retarded dudes will keep running in their freshly-pressed Havrilesky-level plush sportsclothes no matter how desperate their situation is supposed to be, because unlike the 1967 version, this show is based on product placement. Given ABC's current level of desperation in finding action hours, I'm guessing it will last through the summer, no more. Maybe it'll be kept after summer as a cheap replacement when this fall's crop of awful hour dramas start to die.