You ask:
4--What administration would make a deal with terrorists without looking more deeply at their motives?
5--What administration would give its intel and security info over to terrorists without some kind of back-up?
The Bush Administration.
Think about it. It explains a lot, especially 9/11.
Heather, m'love, there's only one thing wrong with your critique of The L Word: the scenes about being surrounded by hopelessly lame straight people are drawn from REAL GAY LIFE. Trust me, I was just in the Midwest visiting relatives who full-on expected me to dance-monkey-dance like Will and Grace's Jack and Karen.
And it's not just straight people - let's look at J's letter:
>I'm a lesbian ... (and believe me, I've looked) ...
>is like finding a fat gay guy who has to
>beat potential suitors off with a stick.
>They are as rare as Sasquatch.
Clearly J hasn't watched enough L, because in Season 3, Episode 14, at the 15:37 mark (historic moment!) was the first & probably only reference to the bear community ever, the community where handsome, intelligent, smokin'-hot fat gay guys DO, in fact, have to beat suitors off.
Sasquatches are real. And they have back hair. AND it's delicious. So where's *my* stereotypical, badly-written soap opera?
(Oh... yeah. Professional wrestling.)
Lipstick lesbians are not that abnormal. Is it the absolute absense of any masculine looking lesbians, or is it the over the top glamor that is irritating the community.
It's not high femme vs butch, it's high femme vs butch vs comfy vs sporty vs classically dressed vs probably other categories I'm missing. You know, like straight women. (There are a lot of butch straight women in the south where I live.) But that's not the issue. It's a soap opera. They do that.
One issue that irritates me is not that they're all ultra-glam but that there are practically no straight people in the universe. Are we incapable of holding an important--even central--place in a show unless 90% of the characters are gay? The show ends up feeling like this weird little bubble.
Plus the acting's bad--and I assume the directing is part of the problem. When you can make Cybil Shepherd look that klutzy, something is wrong.
all I can say about that horrible L-Word song is..
Thank God for TIVO!
Heather...sometimes it feels like you're reading my mind...you're my hero. ;-)
Ok so it's a little depressing and not very chatty, but so what? Sarah Schulman is the writer who Rent ripped off by the way. I mean if you want to be taken seriously, act serious.
Is no one going to tell me what on-the-nose dialogue means? Does no one know? Or does everyone know, and I am so clueless that no one is going to waste their time responding?
Exact, on-target. E.g. "on-the-nose criticism". In this case, I think it means dialogue that encapsulates what's wrong with the show in question.
I've never watched the "L Word" but I do know that Pam Grier is approximately 60 years old- so was Havrilesky kidding when she talked about Grier trying to get an abortioin? is there some inside joke for which I need enlightenment from the regular viewers?
it can't be only I who has noticed this.... but you can actually sing "These Are a Few of MY Favorite Things" from the Sound of Music right along with the theme to the L word
Different chords, but the timing works perfectly.
Careful though. This can be as addicting as the trashy sitcom itself.
And then I don't feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeel......so baaaaaaaad.
Tyler, it's not a joke. Grier's character gets pregnant in the show. She's able to carry it off; she doesn't wear a label announcing that she's 58.
I can't verify Heather's comments about these shows, but she is right on the nose when it comes to Stouffer's chicken pot pie. Question for the SAT review: Stouffer's is to "24" what Banquet is to ?
Really I do. But it's lame. It seems to be made with (surprise, surprise) the gratification of heterosexual men in mind. They're happy to sit (or fast-forward) through the pretentious dialogue to get to the girl-on-girl action.
I'm not. And I hate the way it separates the women from the rest of society instead of showing them as a normal part of it. I'm just tired of seeing gay people portrayed as aliens. The longer that goes on, the longer that (mis)conception will remain.
... Melrose Place w/ lesbians, cuss words, and more graphic sex scenes. And just as junkily addictive!
Really I do. But it's lame. It seems to be made with (surprise, surprise) the gratification of heterosexual men in mind. They're happy to sit (or fast-forward) through the pretentious dialogue to get to the girl-on-girl action.
I'm not. And I hate the way it separates the women from the rest of society instead of showing them as a normal part of it. I'm just tired of seeing gay people portrayed as aliens. The longer that goes on, the longer that (mis)conception will remain.
The crazy thing is that the people behind the show are lesbians. I think that Ilene Chaiken went off the deep end after she got involved with ezgirl, the *cough* genius *cough* behind the music (including the lame ass theme song).
Who is the gay drug dealer and gay FBI agent on WEEDS? WTF did I miss now...
It is dialogue that is not so much bad as to exact, not oblique enough.
Good Dialogue (LAWRENCE OF ARABIA):
Scene - Sharif Ali is insulted by TE Lawrence
ALI
Or is it because we are a little people, barbarous and cruel?!
Same Dialogue, On the Nose Version:
ALI
You don't respect me, or my people!
See the difference? Choose any film with genuinely great dialogue and you will find that there are almost zero occurrences of "on the nose" dialogue. Take for example BODY HEAT. This great exchange between William Hurt and Kathleen Turner:
HURT
I want someone who'll rub my tired
muscles and turn down my bedsheets.
TURNER
Why don't you get married?
HURT
I only want it for *tonight*.
This is just before she goes back into her house, he breaks through her sliding glass door and they screw like crazy. Here's the on-the-nose version of the same dialogue:
HURT
I wanna get laid tonight.
TURNER
Ok.
Now that's a bit of an extreme, but you get my point. On-the-nose dialogue is one of the hardest things a screenwriter has to work at to avoid.
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