In Memoriam Leonard Nimoy

Because actors can embody a character for several years (and not just the two hours of a movie), and because TV shows come into our homes, it is not uncommon for actors to become wedded to their characters.  Jack Webb will always be Joe Friday, Peter Graves is Jim Phelps, Hugh Laurie’s obituary will have the headline “House Dies.”  Supposedly George Reeves committed suicide because he couldn't escape the legacy of having been Superman.

But probably no actor melded with his character as much as Leonard Nimoy became Mr. Spock (his first name was unpronounceable). Nimoy even wrote a book titled “I Am Not Spock,” and then another one much later titled “I Am Spock.” This inconsistency might be annoying, but the duality seems appropriate for a character who was America’s best known alien, yet was described at his funeral as being surpassingly human.

Nimoy brought a gravitas to Spock than many TV actors would have eschewed. Yes, he wore pointed ears and was tinted as green as 1960’s make-up could manage, but instead of hiding behind the facade Nimoy allowed the humanity of the character to peak through no matter how much Spock tried to suppress it. Nimoy added a Jewish hand gesture to Spock’s greeting, “Live long and prosper,” creating a secret handshake for closet Trekkies for decades to come.

More than anyone else, it was Nimoy who remained attached to the Trek franchise, through the Original Series, the Animated Series, the film series (writing or directing three, and doing a much better job than Shatner), a guest spot on The Next Generation, a vocal appearance as Spock on The Big Bang Theory, and ultimately the Trek movie reboot where he met . . . himself. His final acting credit was Spock Prime in Star Trek Into Darkness.

Side note—as someone with a well-developed respect for logic, it fascinates me that two of the most enduring characters through the 20^th century were Sherlock Holmes and Mr. Spock, two logicians of the highest order, revered by a humanity wallowing in its own illogic.  Both characters would point out (if they existed) that what they do is not remarkable, yet millions of readers, TV viewers and filmgoers are amazed by their ability to reason.  It is highly illogical.

Nimoy was of course more than Mr. Spock.  He had a multi-year run on Mission: Impossible as the resident actor/impersonator.  In addition to his three Emmy nominations for Star Trek he became the only member of the Trek cast to get a post-Trek Emmy nomination for A Woman Called Golda. He was one of the best guest stars on Colombo, playing an arrogant surgeon that Columbo must have been happy to collar.  His vocal performance on The Simpsons’ episode “Marge vs. The Monorail” was one of the standout guest appearances in the show’s 25 year run.  And then there were books he wrote, photography, and notable stage work.

But Spock dominates his resume. His devotion to logic and reason made him catnip to female fans who were sure they could break through his Vulcan philosophy.  His friendship with James Tiberius Kirk is one of the great buddy duos of fiction; in the famous episode where Spock and Kirk time-travel to Earth’s past, a character played by Joan Collins says they don’t belong there; when Spock asks where he does belong, she replies that he belonged by Kirk’s side.  Kirk needed Spock; Kirk was capable of logic but it wasn't his first choice.  And Spock needed Kirk; his logic sometimes came up short when there were factors that couldn't be reduced to stochastic variables.

Mr. Spock was a one-dimensional character that never stopped growing, even in the Star Trek reboots.  He was logical, yet compassionate; aloof, yet loyal; mentally and physically superior, yet comfortable in a subordinate position. Gene Roddenberry has been heaped with praise for the genius of creating Star Trek, but I've long thought that 90% of that genius was the casting of Shatner and Nimoy as Kirk and Spock.

Safe journeys, Leonard Nimoy.  The world is an even more irrational place without the actor who gave Mr. Spock life.

Oscar 2015 thoughts

Whew! That’s a relief; I don’t know if I could have lived in a world where the actor from Beetlejuice and the director of Dazed and Confused were Oscar winners.  Not that they didn’t deserve it (especially Michael Keaton).  This is the first time in over a decade that my favorite film of the year has won Best Picture, and I think I am a little disappointed.  The Academy used to be dependable; when confronted with a brilliant film (The Social Network) and a nice one (The King’s Speech), they always chose the nice one.  I wonder if this will become a habit.

Can we please PLEASE eliminate the award for Best Original Song?  This was the worst line up of best song nominees since 2009 when two of the three nominees was in Hindi and the other was a rap song.  How bottom was the barrel they were scraping?  They had to nominate a song from a documentary about Glen Campbell (first, someone had to say, “I think I’ll make a documentary about Glen Campbell.”  Then someone had to write a song).  I don’t think anyone in America will be humming any of these tunes tomorrow morning.

The ratings were a major drop off from last year; one doubts if people in advance knew that Neal Patrick Harris was going to be telling people to watch a box containing a briefcase for the entire evening.  There us a distinct link between ratings and the popularity of the favorite film to win Best Picture, and it had pretty much boiled down to two small indie films, Boyhood and Birdman (note—how annoying was it that they insisted on using Birdman’s full title every time they said its name? Did adding “or the Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance” really add anything?).

The irony is that the Academy expanded the Best Picture field from 5 films to 8, 9 or 10 in order to get a few summer blockbusters in the mix, the occasional Guardians of the Galaxy or maybe a Transformers 4.  Instead, the voters just nominated even more small indie films.  Yes, American Sniper made a ton at the box office, but nobody thought it had any chance at winning (well, no one who follows the pre-Oscar awards season; in my office an on-line survey found that 42% of the people I work with were convinced Bradley Cooper was going to win best actor).  So the TV audience was comprised of everyone who Boyhood and Birdman, which would barely rate above Sermonette these days.

I am amused by all the breast beating about the nominees being so White.  First of all, most of the creative people behind Birdman were from Mexico and didn’t look like they’d blend in at any country club I know.  Second, before Sunday night four of the previous eight winners in the Supporting Actress category were Black (I can’t say African-American because Lupita Nyong’o is Mexican/Kenyan).  I’d say winning half of the awards in one category is pretty impressive given all the, you know, racism.

Apparently there is a major hubbub over Joan Rivers being “snubbed” in the In Memoriam sequence.  Quick, what’s your favorite Joan Rivers movie? Remember that time she won the Oscar?  I thought not.  She wrote and directed exactly one movie (you remember Rabbit Test?), and she’s going to bump some costume designer from the “Who died” list?  There are also protests in Italy because Francesco Rosi, the director of Christ Stopped at Eboli, was left off the list.  A few years ago there were complaints that Gene Siskel was overlooked.  Pretty soon things will be so touchy they’ll just skip the whole thing.

The show had its moments (I liked NPH singing off JK Simmons with the Farmers Insurance jingle) but it was an exercise in tedium that ran 30 minutes over time.  If you are going to bore us, at least come in on time.  Maybe less John Travolta would help.

The Emmys are fixed! The Emmys are fixed!

We live in a world where, unfortunately, no one is really interested in solving problems.  Oh, they SAY they want to solve problems, yet years go by and nothing gets done.  The people who created the current policies have a vested interest in defending their work, while the people advocating for change realize they’d be out of a cushy gig if things actually changed.  Between the two forces, nothing seems to get done.

That’s why it was a shock to hear that the Television Academy had made changes to the rules surrounding the Emmys that address the most egregious of the recent abuses and are so sensible that frankly, I’m nearly speechless.

In a nod to the explosion of sources for programming, now including not only broadcast and cable but also places like Netflix and Amazon, the number of series nominated in each genre category will expand from six to seven.  Perfectly reasonable, although one could argue that given that the amount of programming has probably doubled since the categories were created that an even more series should be included.  But more than seven nominees might create voting chaos, leading to some marginal candidates winning.  Seven is a reasonable expansion.

The problem with “dramadies” was solved by splitting the baby; half hour shows, no matter how un-funny, are comedies and longer shows are dramas.  There is no logical reason for delineating between drama and comedy based on the length of the show, but there is no more practical basis either.  At least this creates a bright line, and hour-long shows can petition to be placed in the Comedy category (Ally McBeal really was a comedy).  Bad news for Orange is the New Black; it’s gone from being a not very funny comedy to a mildly amusing drama.

The debacle of shows choosing to position themselves as “dramas” or “mini-series” based on the strength of the competition was dealt with by creating a new category called “Limited Series” for a collection of episodes that tell a complete, non-recurring story (suck it, Downton Abbey, you’ll have to be in the Best Drama category next year). Again, producers will have the ability to appeal decisions. This is a good move, but still leaves a show like Fargo in a grey area; season two will be a prequel to season one, with some recurring characters played by different actors.  Since there is continuity of production I would assume Fargo will have to compete in the Drama category next year.

To counteract the domination of the Daily Show/Colbert Report axis in the Variety show category (despite the fact that both shows have lost their host), the Variety category will be split into “talk” and “variety sketch” categories.  I knew there was a downside to The Daily Show winning the Emmy in this category ten years in a row.  Presumably Saturday Night Live can go back to winning more Emmys.

A minor but annoying issue was addressed as now an actor cannot submit themselves as a “guest actor” if they appeared in more than 50% of the show’s episodes.  That seems fair.

The academy also opened up the voting process so that all voters eligible to vote in the nominating round can vote in the final round; before the Academy used a “Blue Ribbon Panel” process.  But the ease of on-line voting and the desire to democratize the process led to the change (of course some Academy members might have to have their grand-kids explain this Internet thing to them).

That’s . . . astonishing.  Nearly every major complaint addressed, and in a reasonable fashion.  My main complaint is that the new rules still establish that a minimum of six episodes are necessary to be considered a “series.”  This is probably The Mad Men rule, as if the number were upped any higher Mad Men would not be eligible for a Best Drama nomination next year.  I would like to see them raise it to at least 13 episodes as soon as possible; when you consider that shows used to produce 40 episodes a season, defining a series as six episodes is pathetic (it also discriminates against broadcast shows, which generally have to spread their talent over 22 episodes to be profitable, while cable shows can focus on fewer episodes and maintain a higher quality).

Maybe we can get the Television Academy to deal with player discipline in the NFL; they’d do a better job than Roger Goodell has.

Why vote?

Voter turnout has plummeted in California, with the last general election prodding only about 40% of the electorate to the polls (or rather, to the mail box since half of all voters vote by mail).  Elections in Los Angeles, which seem to be scheduled at odd times, have a turnout of around 20%.  These numbers have sent experts scurrying for solution of how to boost voter turnout, proposing everything from increased civic education to making not voting illegal.

Everyone seems to agree on one thing—low voter turnout is an affront to Democracy, and every voter has a civic duty to express his or her opinion at the ballot box.  I would reply by quoting what the internet says is an old anarchist proverb: don’t vote, it only encourages them.  Congress has an approval rating of less than 10%, and every one of those idiots was elected by people who voted.

California now has a top two primary system where only the top two vote getters in the primary are on the ballot in state elections.  In national elections like for President all the party nominees are on the ballot, so in 2012 if I thought Barack Obama had been basically incompetent and Mitt Romney would cut services to the poor to give tax cuts to the super-wealthy, I could cast a vote for Roseanne Barr.  I did my civic duty.

However, the 2014 election in my congressional district was the site of one of the most expensive and vicious Congressional campaigns in history.  Democrat incumbent Ami Bera was seen as vulnerable in a district with a Republic edge in registration, so both parties poured in “independent” spending along with the candidate’s own spending.  The ads for both sides can be described succinctly: Republican Doug Ose said Ami Bera was a liar and a thief, and Ami Bera said Doug Ose was a liar and a thief.  That’s basically 80-90% of the messaging, and with all the money available in meant that, as the election approached, during commercial breaks often a Bera ad would be followed by an Ose ad, which would be followed by another Bera ad.  Or vice versa.

If anyone is looking for a reason for low voter turnout, let’s stop blaming the voters and start blaming the politicians.  Maybe voter turnout has to be driven down to as close to zero as possible before politicians start believing that running a campaign based on issues and positive advertising can win.  Maybe the only way voters can express their disgust at the choices offered to them is to stay away in droves.  As Yogi Berra reputedly said, “If people don’t want to come, you can’t stop them.”

If I were to take a pledge to never again vote except for a candidate who only ran a positive, issue-based campaign and to never again vote for any mud-slinging jackanape, it would mean not voting in most elections for the rest of my life.  But the Good Government people would call me names and say I was not doing my civic duty.  According to them, I have a moral obligation to vote for one of the two thieving liars on the ballot.

Nuts.  From now on I am only voting for candidates I actually support, who I actually want to win the election (well, unless one of the candidates is not just a jerk but so dangerous that an unintelligent boob is preferable).  In the political marketplace, one in which I don’t have nearly enough money to actually influence anything monetarily, the only coin I have is my vote, and I refuse to squander it on candidates whose idea of a campaign is to run commercials with unflattering photos of their opponent with vaguely worded accusations that fall JUST short of slander.

You want better voter turnout?  Get better candidates.  But don’t “Tsk, tsk” me for not voting for the least objectionable candidate.  They say if you don’t vote, you can complain about the result.  True, but it also means you aren't responsible for the mess caused by the politicians who WERE elected.

Friendly Neighborhood Spiderman getting the re-boot

You've got to love Hollywood movie moguls.  They are just so gosh darn optimistic.  No matter how many bombs they produce, no matter how many bad Ben Affleck blockbusters they make, no matter how many incoherent films the Wachowskis churn out, someone is always willing to double down and make more.  How many times has there been a movie version of The Lone Ranger that succeeded?

If you have a successful franchise that seems to be slowing down, just reboot.  Dump the old cast (and I do mean old, if they are getting into their twenties) and start afresh with a new vision.  It worked for Star Trek; not so much for Superman.  But Superman will go on no matter what, and even Brandon Routh can’t kill the Man of Steel.

The news out of Hollywood is that Sony will team with Marvel on a new Spiderman franchise, booting out Andrew Garfield and starting over with . . . who?  They have time to figure that out as the new Spiderman won’t be unveiled until July 28, 2017.  The hope is that they won’t have to begin the next round with an origin story as we’ve already seen Peter Parker’s Uncle Ben die twice in 15 years.

Let’s get one thing straight—Andrew Garfield is not to blame for the lackluster box office of The Amazing Spiderman films.  Yes, he’s a tad old (31 now), but he was an immense improvement over Toby Maguire, who completely lacked Peter Parker’s puckish sense of humor and anti-authoritarian mind set.  Maguire (a fine actor) portrayed Peter Parker as a sad sack; what Mary Jane ever saw in him is beyond me. 

The problem with the last two Spiderman films was the scripts.  Okay, let’s be fair; scripts have been the problem with 4 of the last 5 Spiderman films.  The original was overly-ladened with all the origin story schmaltz.  In Spiderman 3 they threw every super-villain they could think of into the mix—Sandman, Venom, the black ooze, Green Goblin 2.  In the rebooted Amazing Spiderman the supervillain was a large reptile (shades of Godzilla).  As for Amazing Spiderman 2 . . . I don’t know as they lost me at Jaime Foxx and a Rotten Tomato rating of 53%.  The criticism I’ve read indicates that, like Spiderman 3, they threw in too many characters and not enough pluck and quips.

Only Spiderman 2 works.  Really works.  I consider it to be the best superhero movie of all time, the Citizen Kane of spandex.  It has Spiderman’s greatest nemesis, Doctor Otto Octavius aka Doc Ock, but with a humanized origin story; tremendous action sequences that really operate in three dimensional space; the Christ imagery as Spiderman is pulled back into the elevated train by the people he just saved from drowning; and an ending worthy of Shakespeare, with Spidey winning not by super strength but by appealing to the humanity still within his enemy.  If only Tobey Maguire wasn't so mopey.

Will rebooting the Spiderman franchise yet again work?  Of course it will!  Today’s youth market will see virtually anything with CGI action and a connection to comic books (excuse me, graphic novels).  But it better have legs, because starting over a third time may not be an option.

Why has adapting Superman been so easy (the early TV series, the Christopher Reeve movies (well, the first two were excellent), the Lois & Clark series) and Spiderman has proven so problematic?  I think it’s because Spiderman, despite the cliché ridden origin story, is a more fully realized character than Clark Kent.  Clark Kent’s only problem is that Lois likes some muscle-bound freak more than him.  Peter Parker has money troubles, school pressures, a well-meaning but nagging aunt, guilt over his uncle’s death, a girlfriend he knows is way out of his league and, on top of it all, a deranged newspaper editor who turns his heroics into a public menace.  But he responds to it all with wit and a good natured attitude.  It is difficult to capture that subtlety and work in all the CGI explosions.

So I wish Sony good luck with the next reboot of Spiderman.  Just don’t think you are going to find a better actor for the role than Andrew Garfield.

Leave Little League to the kids

This has been a rough couple of weeks for honesty.  There was Deflategate, with the prospect that the winner of the Super Bowl got there by cheating.  Trusted NBC anchorman Brian Williams admitted to fabricating stories about the Iraq War (if he wants to, he is now qualified to run for President).  And now the team from Chicago that won the US Little League championship has been stripped of the title for cheating.

As someone who participated in Little League for three years, I’ve always felt that it was the adults that screwed it up.  Just supply the kids with bats and balls and get out of the way.  No need for hot, itchy uniforms, silly team names, or an organized league with a champion who goes on to regionals like they always talk about on Glee.  Leave it to adults to take a great thing like baseball and mess it up by making it organized.

And if organized Little League wasn’t bad enough, now it is broadcast worldwide on ESPN.  The network pays $7.5 million per year for the rights to televise the Little League World Series, but how much of that goes to the kids?  Where are the child labor laws when ESPN is making a fast buck exploiting a bunch of 11 and 12 year olds? 

What do the kids get out of it?  They get the chance to have their smallest failures broadcast globally.  They get the chance to preen and call attention to themselves like their favorite athletes.  They get put under the same pressure as professional athletes who make millions of dollars per year, except the kids are expected to do it for free.

The quality of play isn't that good; how could it be?  These are a bunch of 11 and 12 year old kids.  They have another ten or twelve years of development before they can play at a level approximating “good.”  Whenever I've seen one of these teams at the Little League World Series, it always seems like it is six or seven average 11 year olds being led by a pitcher with a 0.05 ERA who throws an 85 MPH slider, shaves, and is cheered on by his wife and kids.

How can we avoid scandals like the one that tainted last year’s Little League World Series? My solution would be to stop the nonsense entirely and not have any sort of championship beyond local ones.  But then I don’t understand why college football teams play teams from colleges two thousand miles away.  As long as people are willing to watch a bunch of kids trip over their own feet trying to play baseball, as long as ESPN can sell ad time on their broadcasts, then there will be a problem of adults cheating so their kids can be “special.”  If you ask me, it’s the parents who are “special” but in the old fashioned sense if that word.

It is the same insoluble problem faced by the relationship between the NCAA and college football.  If you have a professional situation with the spoils being shared, it is hard enough to prevent cheating (see MLB and steroids).  But when you have millions of dollars of revenue coming in and a workforce working for nothing, cutting corners is going to be even more pervasive.  I don’t know how to keep Little League innocent and pure when adults are trying to profit as much as possible off it.

Just hand the kids bats and balls and let them choose sides.  That’s my solution.  The kids will have more fun, but that’s not the point of Little League, is it?

Jon Stewart, we hardly knew ye

The book The Daily Show and Philosophy features a series of papers by academic philosophers (are there any other kind?) that all more or less pose the same question—how can the host of a “fake news show” become the most trusted man in America (in a 2007 Pew Center poll he came in 4^th; in a 2008 Time on-line poll he was #1)?  Part of the answer is—have you met Brian Williams? Because Jon Stewart told the truth about the mighty and powerful, not just saying that the emperor had no clothes but also that he was fat and gullible, his announced departure from The Daily Show made the front page of the New York Times.

In his book Playing to Win, a tongue in cheek Bible for aspiring political candidates, Jeff Greenfield advised potential candidates that they need not fear lying to the media.  Why?  Because the New York Times would never begin an article, “Senator Smith lied again today when he said . . . .”  The news media would never do that because, well, that would be biased.

Jon Stewart did that.  He not only would say a politician was lying, but his crack research staff would then produce multiple clips of the politician in question saying precisely what he or she claimed he or she never said.  It was one of the greatest rapid-response teams in media history.  And it was done not for political gain, but for laughs.

On the show in which he announced he was leaving The Daily Show, Stewart produced footage of Republicans fawning over a “strong leader” like the King of Jordan, then juxtaposed a series of clips from Republicans (or their media lackeys) attacking President Obama for acting “like a king.”  Stewart has been doing The Daily Show for 16 years and yet Democratic politicians never learned to do what he did—hit back at lies hard, fast, with copious evidence and a twinkle in the eye.

What Stewart hated the most was not either political party but the vacuous news media, mindlessly repeating officially sanctioned lies as if re-telling the lies both sides told was the meaning of “unbiased.”  He made Jim Kramer admit his show was entertainment, not market analysis.  He went on the CNN show Crossfire and told the hosts they were, “hurting America;” several months later the show was cancelled. He probably would appreciate a line from the TV series Sleepy Hollow this week, when one character noted that freedom of the press is in the Constitution and time-traveler Ichabod Crane replies that the Founding Father did not anticipate the 24 hour news cycle.

The show became a juggernaut, winning ten consecutive Emmies for Best Variety Show (eventually losing to its progeny, The Colbert Report) and 20 Emmies overall.  The Daily Show supplanted Saturday Night Live in producing comedic talent, from Oscar and multiple Emmy nominee Steve Carell (I loved his performance in Dan in Real Life) to Stephen Colbert to Ed Helms to John Oliver to Aasif Mandvi (he was in Spiderman 2!) to the new host of The Nightly Show, Larry Wilmore.

Who will take over?  I pity whoever tries to step into Jon Stewart’s enormous shoes.  Jon Stewart was an essential part of this nation’s fragile tether to sanity in the George W. Bush post-9/11 era.  When Stewart took over for Craig Kilborn (who left to do bigger and better things; how’s that going, Craig?) it was not the end of an era.

I expect the show to promote from within, as when John Oliver took over while Stewart was directing Rosewater.  No one on the show now blows my socks off; I've always thought that The Daily Show suffered from SNL syndrome, meaning its best cast members left and they were replaced with good-but-not-quite-as-good replacements.  Of course no one thought The Colbert report would last ten years when it started, or that it would only end when its host agreed to take over for David Letterman. 

So, surprise me, Daily Show! I am looking forward to Indecision 2016 with trepidation and anticipation (unless it is Clinton vs. Bush, in which case I am moving to Canada).