The Wild Blog in the West

My blog posts can often be on the cynical side, so I've decided to dedicate this one to some of the things that I appreciate.  In no particular order or category: 1.  Puppies!   All doggies really.  Actually, I'm an animal lover through and through, but I can't have cats due to allergies.  But there's just something so nice about doggies... they love you when you're sad, they just want to be near you, and the only things you need to give in return are food and some hugging/playing time. 2.  Professional Sports.  It can be painful when your professional sports teams are going through bad times, but when they're doing well, nothing is sweeter... 3.  Les Miserables.   No elaboration needed . 4.  Most Musicals, Really.   There's something energizing about them, so that even Just Okay musicals can perk me up.  Well, maybe not you, Rock of Ages .  There's something about the idea of just bursting into song and dance ...

In American culture, whining is probably second only to murdering in terms of being a scorned activity.  Those who whine are labeled childish, selfish, soft, weak, lazy, lacking character, and "everything that's wrong with today."  Americans don't want whiners -- we want winners! Yet the definition of "whine" can be difficult to pin down.  Merriam-Webster Dictionary merely describes the sound -- "to utter a high-pitched plaintive or distressed cry" or "to complain with or as if with a whine."  As does the Free Dictionary: "To utter a plaintive, high-pitched, protracted sound, as in pain, fear, supplication, or complaint." So the sound isn't pleasant, but does that mean the reason for it should be ignored?  What is the fine line between a valid complaint and a "whine"? Maybe the answer lies in our view of the American ideal: the stoic, rugged individual who takes a single tree on a barren landscape and turn...

At this point, it's becoming more difficult to find notable movie musicals made in the past 15 years.  Live-action musicals, that is -- of course there are countless animated ones.  There are a few obvious live-action musicals still left, but otherwise, I'm struggling to think of any.  That brings me to  Rock of Ages . Like Across the Universe and Mamma Mia! , Rock of Ages is a jukebox musical.  Unlike  Across the Universe ,  Rock of Ages  isn't "wrong" because its ambitions and creativity fell just short of the mark.  No, Rock of Ages  has very simple aims: be feel good and nostalgic.  Yet unlike  Mamma Mia! , Rock of Ages  does not fulfill these aims.  I am hard-pressed to think of a more blah musical. Rock of Ages began as a stage musical.  Whereas the other two jukebox musicals dug into the song catalogue of one band, Rock of Ages features songs from a variety of 1980s hard rock and "hair metal" ban...

... on television, that is. Warning for the squeamish: extensive, sometimes graphic, talk about nudity.  If that's not your thing, get out now.   I like when characters are not afraid to get naked on television.  The scenes on network TV where the woman and man sit post-coital, with the woman's chest carefully concealed, always make me snicker.  So I was grateful when premium cable channels like HBO said: "Fuck it all.  Let's show people the way they really are."  And real people get naked.  Not just above the waist, but below. However, there was a point where the nudity started to feel less "real" and more exploitative.  I feel this way often while watching Game of Thrones , but noticed it much sooner.  It was during an episode of Boardwalk Empire , a show that I've tried really hard to like, but which leaves me cold.  Investigators were in a coroner's office looking at the body of a murdered woman.  The corpse lay on the t...

Years ago, I enrolled in a class through the UCLA Film and Television Department.  The purpose was to come up with a strong pitch for our film or television concept.  It was a small group of maybe five or six people, and the instructor was a former content advisor at one of the major networks.  Why "former" I never thought to question. Within two weeks, it became clear that our instructor had very set ideas about "good" concepts.  We listened and followed his advice because he was the expert.  Then when we brought our changes to him the next week, instead of commenting on how well the changes worked, he found something new to criticize.  No problem.  We would just keep revising until we satisfied him. Except that it turned out "satisfying" him meant conforming to his vision.  If you had a different idea, you were destined for failure.  One student absorbed his vision readily -- he was an admirer who had taken previous classes with the i...