Some songs are so sweet, so romantic, so personal, you just have to imagine how great they would be as a wedding song. Here’s my personal list as I run across them:
Update: Mynagirl picks her faves for the top spot!
Ok, I’m not going to surprise anyone when I pick Stacy & Tony vs. Drew & Cheryl in competition for the lead. To be honest, since we’ve now lost George Hamilton and are down to only four couples in the competition, it’s hardly a huge act of clairvoyance to see them as the top competitors. Not only has each couple already scored perfect 10’s (Stacy and Tony twice!!) but there are only two other couples still left. Would you believe I picked these two competitors out from the beginning? Even if you don’t believe me, I know that I spotted talent right away!
And while I love Jerry Rice, unfortunately he cannot conquer his hunched-over football-player stance, nor his innate “oh my god the guys are gonna so laugh at me” self-consciousness. And although Lisa Rinna tries really hard (oh my god just she try hard) and is actually pretty good, I’m just not rooting for her manic and over-the-top performances. Not only are Stacy and Drew the best dancers, they also seem to be the nicest and most self-effacing, so that just makes me want to root for them more.
Drew Lachey and dancing partner Cheryl
Stacy Keibler and dancing partner Tony
As you can tell, the program has kept me hooked, and I’m sure I’ll watch it next season as well. Who can resist gripping pseudo-drama, humor, dancing, and flashy costumes?! Not this Mynagirl!
Original Article: 01/16/2006
So, Dancing with the Stars was never really on my radar last year. It sort of snuck up on me like a deadline I wasn’t tracking. Being the TiVo goddess I am (married to a Tivo god) and inveterate fast-fowarder I don’t necessarily know when all the new shows are on, or indeed even what they are. By the time I saw enough ads in fast forward to decide to rewind and investigate this sparkly indulgence, it had already left for the season.
But I was prepared this season, the Tivo at the ready. What a great concept — whoever thought this up definitely had a flash of genius. (Or what do I know, they could be a genius 24×7). Let’s get celebrities, some of which have obviously zero dancing talent, and try ballroom dancing with a professional. Not club dancing or anything free-form, but Ballroom Dancing… like, the complicated stuff. With steps and arm and hip motions, all working completely synchronous like an entire orchestra of body parts floating according to plan. Or in some cases, working in an utterly unsynchronous and disorganized manner somewhat like “Pinnochio chasing Jipity Cricket [sic] across the floor”… a hilariously accurate description of ESPN’s Kenny Mayne’s attempting the Cha-Cha.
Five women and five men, plucked from their comfortable niche of acting, sportscasting, wrestling, journalism, or being an eligible receiver, extend themselves way beyond their comfort zone in order to compete for glory and (for some) maybe a way out of obscurity. It’s uncomfortable and inspiring in equal measure. It really does take a lot of chutzpah to put one’s performance on the line in an area that isn’t your core specialty. And have the behind-the-scenes practice footage shown as well — all your mess-ups, your physical shortcomings, and how much you can’t do that backbend.
Of course, I can’t help but love it for the gloriously should-be-trashy-but-aren’t fashions … where else it it appropriate to wear a silver sequin bikini with a swath of black fabric cutting a line from your shoulder to your ankle? With high heels no less! The men, of course, are a bit more limited… although George Hamilton managed to pull off (well… I mean… look good wearing) a tux with tails and top hat.
This season’s crop is impressive. Tia Carrere (from Wayne’s World), right out there with her post-baby body. George Hamilton, adorably suave and at the same time humble about his 60+ year-old body. They just don’t make men that suave and handsome anymore (well… George Clooney excepted, I guess). Wrestler Stacy Kiebler is definitely not an elf — the totally tall and adorable blonde has turned out to be one of the best dancers there! Kenny Mayne (already voted off) was an absolute nightmare, dance-wise, but had an affable oh-hell-let’s-go-with-it attitude. P Miller (Master P) is similarly a nightmare on the dance floor with much more a you-deal-with-it attitude. The guy won’t even wear dance shoes! Amazingly he hasn’t been voted off yet, although his hapless partner is smilingly terrified each week. Tatum O’Neal, who utterly who cannot stay still, did really well the first week but not so great the second week — I think the first week’s performance was because the dance was the waltz and her inflexibility didn’t really show under the long gown and the striding step. Jerry Rice is awesome — he even took his dance partner out to the 49’s practice grounds to show her how fast his feet could actually move. Wow! Journalist Giselle Fernandez (who I’d never heard of but they showed clips of to prove that she’s a journalist) is doing reasonably well — and she can wear a two piece gown pretty nicely, so I guess that helps. Soap star Lisa Rinna shows off her well-toned body but I’m not quite sure her footwork is up to par. Plus I can’t help staring at her huge lips… the’ve been like that for years so I can’t tell if they’re collagen or not. The standout star of the program so far, however, has to be Drew Lachey (Nick’s brother)… he’s engaging and a pretty darn good dancer to boot. He might be my pick to win!
All in all I’m very enthralled with the show. The judges are hilarious, the dancing is a hoot, and the dresses are to die for. They’ve got me hooked!
I’ve heard and read nothing but good things about Peter Jackson’s King Kong. This weekend I got a chance to go see it with my friend Bruce. Long story short, there is no way that Mynagirl would ever go see a movie filled with so much animal cruelty, but she and her mom are deep into a home renovation project (from which I am excluded by everyone’s mutual consent), which left me at loose ends on Saturday, which is rare.
So on Saturday we saw the film, in a fairly full movie theater, and I must say that I do not get the hype. I will say this, the film managed not to be boring over its three hour length, but “not boring” does not an epic make.
On the positive side, the effects are pretty eye-popping and realistic for the most part. Kong’s face is very realistic, as is his fur, gait, musculature, and hands. I’d quibble with the fact that during his titanic clash with three T-Rex’s, Kong throws boxing jabs like Joe Frazier, drop-kicks like Jackie Chan, and does rolling, over-the-shoulder throws like Rowdy Roddy Piper. Not very…ape-like, I must say. But very well-rendered from digital effects perspective.
With regards to the story-telling, I think I can sum it up with one anecdote. An hour into the film Bruce leaned over and asked, “Isn’t there supposed to be a giant monkey in this movie?” The first hour sets up the tale by showing an idealized but still Depression-era New York, with fanatical movie producers, struggling engenues, salty tramp steamer captains, and earnest playwrites. The second hour begins with the tramp steamer voyage, complete with gruff but trustworthy crew members, secret maps to undiscovered islands, and a semi-kidnapped earnest screenwriter.
During the second hour we finally make it to Skull Island, replete with fog-shrouded rocky coastlines and the ship temporarily beached on the rocks, forcing them to stay just long enough for the plot to continue developing.
The first journey ashore is quite frightening, and the lady beside me with her two kids should be ashamed of herself. Her daughter appears to be 6 or 7, and her son appeared to be about 5. During a very scary encounter with the local natives, and I mean *very* scary, her son leaned over and said “Mommy, I’m scared…” and tried to crawl into her lap. She fended him off back into his seat, saying, “Look, your sister isn’t scared…stay in your seat…”. I almost couldn’t pay attention the rest of the film knowing that this poor kid was sitting there having to huddle alone with his fear next to his seemingly uncaring mother. And, ma’am, if you read this, next time believe it when the film is rated PG-13.
About halfway through the film we finally get a brief glimpse of Kong as he takes Ann Darrow off into the jungle. The next 45 minutes consist of the men chasing Kong and Ann, Kong chasing the men and Ann, everyone fighting with dinosaurs and insects, and the crew of the tramp steamer being miraculously transformed into the Colonial Marines from Aliens, blasting natives, dinosaurs, and giant bugs like a well-trained special forces military squad. They finally knock Kong out with a sh*tload of chloroform that just happened to be aboard.
They bring Kong back to New York, put him on stage, he gets loose, climbs the building, yada, yada, yada, we all know how the story goes. The creative part of this film is that this whole thing is stretched to three hours. It felt like about 30 minutes of screen time were taken up with Ann and Kong staring soulfully into each other’s eyes and inventing a new one-word sign language (setting up the faux-tearful finale).
Jack Black, as big a personality as he is, isn’t really able to inhabit Carl Denham, the larger-than-life character that he plays…his performance just doesn’t do it…like a long fly ball that hits a foot below the top of the fence…still a well hit ball, but just a double, not a home-run. I didn’t even recognize that Ann Darrow was being played by Naomi Watts, as the performance was very un-stellar and unremarkable, and it was only later that I found out it was Watts. Adrien Brody is…just one of those things that I don’t understand about women. He looks like a whippet and has about as much personality as a sedated whippet, but the accolades seem always to flow for him, so I’ll just have to resign myself to his celebrity-hood, I guess.
Overall this movie is just average, which means that it’s actually pretty bad given the budget, expectations, reviews, and hype surrounding it. If I’m being completely honest, I have to say that this movie was just about exactly what I expected, so I’m glad that I’ve seen it so that I can now disparage it from direct experience. And if that’s the most positive thing one takes away from a film, that is faint praise indeed.
So one of my favorite web sites, The Smoking Gun, has dug into the story behind the supposed memoir by James Frey called “A Million Little Pieces”. According to their findings, many (if not most) of the key events depicted in his book either never happened or are wildly modified and exaggerated. Now, most memoirs contain certain dramatic license, usually of this type:
We, the reading public, expect a little fudging of the facts for better reading, because the truth is that we are all mostly mundane and the absolute, literal truth of the events of just about anyone’s life would make for dull reading.
However, Mr. Frey has gone beyond the expected bounds of dramatic license for non-fiction works. It appears that the truth of the matter is that he spent his life as a spoiled, coked-out frat boy, nothing more, nothing less, and then finally stopped snorting blow long enough to write a fiction book that contains some small aspects of his actual life surrounded by very huge imaginings and tall tales.
For example, he derides rehab as useless and encourages people to kick drugs by using the slogan “just hang on”. Perfect. That’s like telling a depressed person to “just cheer up”. If he was in fact addicted to drugs, and he managed to quit them on his own without treatment, that might be noteworthy. However, the fact that it worked for him does NOT make going cold-turkey with no support the most effective way for true addicts. I would not be surprised to find out that although Mr. Frey may have been an abuser of drugs, that he was not a true addict and so his blatherings about coping with drugs should be discarded, if for no other reason than they are based on a sample size of one (very impeachable source) and have not been proven to be repeatable.
In another case of melodramatic license, Mr. Frey twists the details of a tragedy from his high school days into a “Rebel Without a Cause” moment in his life. The facts are that two 17 year old girls were riding with some other guy in a car, and the guy raced a train to the crossing and lost. He was broadsided on the passenger side and both girls died. The driver survived, was prosecuted for his crimes and served time for the accident, due to his blood alcohol level. The main players in the story, interviewed by The Smoking Gun, have a vague recollection of who James Frey is, but also have a clear recollection that he was in no way involved in the incident. These witnesses include the dead girls parents and friends. However, Mr. Frey moves the whole incident back 5 years so that it happened when he was 12, and weaves himself into the plot by claiming he helped a girl sneak out of her house to the movies so she could go on a secret date with a boy her parents disapproved of, and on the way back from her date she was killed. Mr. Frey was, of course, wracked with guilt, and also became the focal point for the wrath of the entire town, who blamed him and felt sorry for the poor football star driver of the car. Mr. Frey makes no mention of the other dead girl, or of the fact that it happened 5 years later, or of the fact that the three people involved had left a party with many witnesses and headed to another party, nor of the fact that neither girl left home using him as a cover story. Basically, he makes no mention of anything that matches the reality of the situation.
In another example, Mr. Frey tells about being in a drug-fueled rage, striking a police officer with his car, assaulting said police officer and his backup, inciting nearby watchers to riot against the cops, being beaten down by the police, and finally serving 3 months in jail as a result. The actual story, as uncovered by The Smoking Gun, is that he was drunk, made an illegal u-turn, didn’t hit a cop, didn’t start a fight, didn’t incite a riot, was released after 5 hours, and the cops noted on the arrest report that “He was polite and cooperative at all times”. Yeah, what a rebel, huh?
And the list goes on and on and on and on, click the link in the first sentence up there to read the full expose on The Smoking Gun. All of this would simply be humorous and a bit sad to me, except for one thing. Oprah Winfrey was enthralled with this guy’s fable, and has treated him as if he were a near-messianic example of what she and all her quivering desperate housewife audience want…the “Bad Boy” who cleaned himself up, not with outside help, but with the sheer force of his own superhuman will, beating up cops, inciting riots, vomiting and bleeding on airlines, and reading great works of literature to illiterate cell-mates in prison along the way. A suburban housewives’ wet dream come true.
And the fact that he is being held up as an example by someone with the undeniable cultural power of Oprah Winfrey means that people are taking his story to heart. This means that there are addicts who are tattooing “Just Hold On” over their trackmarks instead of going into rehab. There are people who are looking at the devil-may-care actions of the fictionalized James Frey as something to emulate. This would not be a good idea even if his stories were true. But the fact that his stories appear to be based on his imagination makes it even more wrong.
And the most wrong, most vile aspect of this whole thing to me is the fact that Oprah is standing behind this chump with her full support, in the face overwhelming facts and the admission of the author that he took great license with the facts. I can almost forgive Mr. Frey for his book, because at the time he wrote it he had no idea it would ever even be published, much less become the second best selling book of 2005 behind Harry Potter. So, he told a wild tale, characterized it as a “memoir”, managed to sell it, and then had to stand behind it as it caught fire. I find that aspect to be sad but understandable…the spoiled frat boy caught in a white lie to aggrandize himself and make a few bucks.
But Ms. Winfrey is already rich beyond belief and has nothing at stake here other than the fact that she adopted this guy as her pet bad-boy, and now seems not to be able to let go and face the facts. For example, Mr. Frey appeared on Larry King Live, admitted to his fabrications while defending them as within the bounds of dramatic license, and Oprah called in and said that regardless of the truth, it’s his “story” that is important. Here are Ms. Winfrey’s incisive arguments in support of Mr. Frey and his book:
“If you’re an addict whose life has been moved by this story and you feel that what James went through was able … to help you hold on a little bit longer, and you connected to that, that is real. That is real,” she said. “And it’s … irrelevant discussing, you know, what happened or did not happen to the police.”
Wow. Oprah thinks that it is irrelevant to discuss the actual facts of this asshole’s life and instead encourages real addicts with real problems to embrace the fictionalized actions of a mythical being that James Frey created in his head and put into his book? That is the height of irresponsibility, and although I have never been a fan of Oprah’s I used to have respect for her and the good that she seemed to try to do in the world. But in this case she has abandoned any claim to righteousness or the moral high ground, because she is using her awesome stature as a media powerhouse to try and do what all women who fall for bad boys end up doing…trying to justify it in the face of utter tragedy. She might as well have said:
“You just don’t understand him, he’s not really like that. If you knew how he was in private, how much he cares, and how much he’s had to go through you’d know why I love him, even when he hits me and sleeps around and steals the rent money and hits the kids and gets fired and drives drunk and…and…and…and…”
The litany of a woman and her bad-boy-gone-wrong. Oprah needs to “Just Hang On”, forget about her ego, and come clean that she backed a loser here, if for no other reason than to stop the harm that his book coupled with her publicity is doing to people who are being sent the wrong message…real people with real problems. One of my great fears in this story is that we will find out that Oprah has some sort of financial stake in the success of this book, or his next book, or his movie, or his TV show, or something else, and so is taking these irresponsible actions not out of a misplaced mothering instinct but as a coldly calculated business decision to stem her losses. I actually don’t think even Oprah is capable of stooping that low, but given the spectacle she has made of herself thus far, I would not be surprised to learn that was the reason behind her actions.
First of all, be prepared to pay attention. If you’re not in the mood to stay focused and track details and make logical jumps and not be spoon-fed the typical, ham-handed, Hollywood hoopla, then skip this movie and go see King Kong. However, if you’re in a thoughtful mood and want to be challenged, educated, and entertained, then go see Syriana.
It also helps if you have an interest in geopolitics and a healthy skepticism that causes you to wonder what the differences are between what the government says, what the news reports, and what reality is. Syriana tells a complicated story by following several key characters and showing their points of view as they interact, intersect, or pass in the night.
The backdrop of the story is the oil bidness and how the trillions of dollars involved end up causing oil companies to act as nation-states, and also causes the disenfranchised of the world to direct their hatred at the oil companies in the same way they hate fat, comfortable western nations.
The movie is a fictionalized story based on a non-fiction book by a former CIA agent who worked the Middle East beat back in the 80’s. The book is called “See No Evil”, by Robert Baer. I have not yet read the book, but plan to do so very soon.
The story borders on being opaque, and I had to lean over to Mynagirl more than once and whisper stuff like “Which brother is he?” and “Is that somebody we’re already supposed to know?”. But it gives you just enough of the story so that even though the blanks aren’t all filled in, you’re able to get the gist of it. I like that in a movie…challenge me to keep up and don’t feel you have to have some character exposit everything for the audience.
Along with its intricate plotting the film also has great acting and directing. George Clooney disappears into his role as a the CIA agent, sporting a full beard and a few more pounds that make him seem much more Everyman-y and much less Clooney-y. Then there’s Christopher Plummer – yes, that Christopher Plummer, from The Sound of Music – turning in a chillingly effective performance as a behind-the-scense string-puller. Matt Damon is also effective as the eager and idealistic consultant.
If you’re comfortable having a black-and-white view of the world, and you don’t want that worldview challenged, you should skip this film. Everything and everybody in this film is some shade of grey and while some of the characters are truly bad, none are truly good in the typical Hollywood sense. But if you have an open mind and are energized by challenges then this might be the movie for you.
The producers of the short film clip “Broken” were nice enough to send me a review copy on DVD. There’s an interesting story behind this short film, as it was produced by independent film makers on a shoestring to serve as a demonstration of their film making skills, a sort of artistic audition, if you will. The difficulty on judging this piece stems from trying to figure out if it should be judged in the realm of Hollywood films (to which it aspires) or in the realm of shoestring, independent films (which it is). My only choice is to rate it both ways, so here goes.
Shoestring Film Rating (***½, grading on a curve)
If I had been shown this short film without having previous knowledge I would have assumed that it was from some schlocky new UPN/WB television series about spies. It’s got sort of an Alias-meets-Consipiracy-Theory-meets-Xena-meets-Seven kind of feel to it, but with cornier writing and acting. For a network television show or a Hollywood film, that would be faint praise. However, for something done in the manner of this short film, it’s actually very good. So, from the perspective of a couple of normal folks spending their own money to put something together, this film rocks.
Absolute Film Rating (*½, no curve)
However, if we ignore the origins of this piece, it comes in at a bit below average for Hollywood/network TV fare. The dialog and acting are sometimes okay, usually corny. The artistic direction is a bit trite with all the characters affecting the most obvious trappings of their stereotype. For example, the main bad guy’s schtick is he plays a harmonica, and the various henchpeople are tattooed, muscled, pleather-wearing, and/or cartoonishly menacing depending on the particular well-known caricature being attempted.
Overall Rating (**, combined rating)
So, if I put that all together I say that this is overall an average piece, but with flashes of talent, imagination, and drive that clearly demonstrate that the people behind it could probably step up to the major leagues. I think that was the purpose the producers had for this film, and in that I think they have succeeded. Consider that they went out of their way to locate this website, contact us, send us the DVD gratis, and continue to communicate to elicit feedback. They clearly want people to see and review their work.
They’ve even gotten a mention from Roger Ebert. They have also put a lot of work into their web site, where you can read more about their production of this film and its effects, and even buy a copy of you’re interested. In particular, if you have an interest in the making of film, the information on this site and on their DVD is incredibly interesting and entertaining.
For me, as a film aficianado, seeing people creating works like this is like a breath of fresh air. Yes, the film aspires to a lot of Hollywood cliches that I don’t find particularly compelling, but what it does it does well. It also shows that “cinema” is coming into the reach of the masses and it gives me hope that we’re moving to break the stranglehold that the big studios have on this type of entertainment. I urge Alex Ferrari and Jorge Rodriguez (the makers of Broken) to use this film as a Trojan Horse, allowing them to enter the gates of Hollywood film making, while allowing them to secretly bring their artistic sensibilities along for the ride and not be assimilated. Resistance is NOT futile!
Nobody Goes to the Movies Anymore
There’s much ballyhoo and boo-hoo in the press these days about how movie theatre revenues are declining. Nobody “goes to the movies” anymore. DVDs are too prevalent and come out so quickly. Moviegoers just aren’t as excited about going to the movies.
One possibility is that the movie quality is declining. I know Engineerboy feels this way, at least in part. Make good, interesting movies that people want to see, and they’ll go to the theatres.
But that’s not entirely true. Sure, a theatre packed with Syrianas and When Harry Met Sallys and Full Metal Jackets would be great, and you might see more people — although some potential moviegoers may want more Dukes of Hazzards instead (which actually wasn’t a bad movie…). But the truth is, at least for people like Engineerboy and me, going to the movies is largely about the experience as much as it is the film content itself. Granted, if the only offerings at the Googleplex were Deuce Bigalow Three through Thirty-Three, we might take a pass. However, we’ll go to the movies even for a mediocre offering just to have a nice social afternoon escaping from reality, snuggling next to each other in the seats, and munching on treats.
But our urge to go for even a mediocre offering dims in the face of the waning experience that is “Going to the Movies”. Movie theatres could do SO much to improve the experience and pull people in, almost regardless of the quality of the film itself.
What the Hell are Squinkles?!
First off, improve the concessions. For some of us, this is almost the whole point of the “Going to the Movies” event… the fresh popcorn, the Milk Duds, the fountain Cokes. But movies no longer have “traditional” candy, I was informed… No Milk Duds, no Whoppers, no Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. About the only recognizable offering among the weird disgusting-looking candies were M&M’s. I’m sure somewhere at the corporate level a bean-head decided that evil alliances with sub-par candy providers were a good financial decision, and it may have looked really attractive on paper. But what 35-to-40-year-old has great memories of Squinkles at the theatre when they were a kid? I bet you if they just bought from the various vendors without regard for alliances and simply bought with the immense buying power they wield, they’d have a fully stocked display case of REAL candy that might make people actually want to come to the movies. But it’s a long-return payoff to improve the bottom line, unlike simply slashing your “treat” providers to UnknownCandyCo.
And improve the popcorn… I mean, the stuff they put on it isn’t even labeled as “Butter Flavoring”. It’s “Golden Flavoring”. If that doesn’t scare you, it should. It’s just flavored oil. Eww. There’s a classic theatre here in River Oaks from a boutique chain (Landmark Theatres) that actually has butter on their popcorn. I’m sure it’s messy and a total pain in the ass for them to maintain, but it’s SO exquisitely good. Makes going to a show there worth the narrow seats and only two or three screens.
So if the treats are any indication, the movie theatres just don’t care about you anymore. Just a year or two ago if you ordered a pretzel extra salty, you got one right from the spinning spindle — warm and decently fresh, with the salt baked ALL over that twisted little piece of bread. Last week when we went to the movies I ordered an extra salty pretzel and got a PLAIN pretzel in a disgusting perforated steam pouch and had to find the location of little salt packets on my own. I mean, could this place give less of a shit about the experience? They can’t even be bothered to bake the salt into the pretzels. And trust me, trying to get large hunks of salt to hold onto an already-baked surface is completely futile. AND distracting if you’re trying to watch a show. Similarly, I got tricked the other day into lusting after a “Cinnabon Pretzel” at our local Marq-E multiplex. It looked incredibly appetizing in the picture, hot and delicious with a cinnamon bun center with swirled icing. Knowing how yummy Cinnabons are, I asked for one. Same disgust-o perforated pouch, with a little TUB of COLD icing. Why does this make me want to come to the movies? It doesn’t.
In general the whole self-service aspect of the movies gets so infuriating that you do begin to ask yourself, Why am I here?. I have to butter…er….oil… my own popcorn. I have to salt my own puny pretzel. I have to get my own napkins and straws at the end of the counter, at this narrow space among the zillion other patrons. It does make one ask “Is this experience worth $30?”. As the theatres try to cut costs by streamlining their process, they forget that at some point the loss of customer interest just isn’t worth it.
Go for the Long Haul
Like many companies, the theatre chains are trying to improve bottom line by slashing basic services. This may work in the short haul but will not gain you long-term loyalty. And loyalty is what these guys need as home-based options get more advanced. I know theatre chains are bitching about movie quality, but they should take a hard look at themselves and decide what will entice people to the theatre instead of staying home. I mean, people still go to eat out all the time even though nearly everyone has a stove and oven. Going out is fun, and enjoyable, at the right restaurant. The theatre chains have to think of themselves as more of an “experience provider” than a “movie house” that can just shove any old thing at their patrons and somehow miraculously expect the patron to want to come back again and again.
Are you ready for some football? Too bad...
The NFL has blackout rules that impact what games can be televised in which areas. If your TV provider does not broadcast within 75 miles of a city with an NFL team, these rules do not apply and your local affiliates can show any of the games available from their parent network.
However, if your TV provider broadcasts within 75 miles of an NFL city, you are definitely impacted by these rules, which are shown in complete detail at the bottom of this article. Functionally, the blackout rules work as follows:
Rule Number One: If the home team is playing at home, and does not sell out by 72 hours prior to game time, then the local affiliates cannot show this game. The purpose of this rule is to get more people to the stadium to watch the game, which benefits the team owner. You see, the NFL divides up TV revenues among the teams, but the individual team owners get to keep all their stadium/ticket/concession revenues.
Rule Number Two: If the home team is playing at home and manages to sell out prior to 72 hours prior to game time, and the local affiliate shows the game, no other NFL games can be shown on other channels while the home team game is on. I guess that this rule is designed to drive more viewers to the affiliate/network showing the home team?
The stated purpose of these rules is to preserve/enhance the revenues for the home team (Rule Number One) and home network affiliate (Rule Number Two). However, this is extraordinarily flawed logic. I’ll give you an example of similarly flawed logic – my mother used to work for the County Tax Assessor/Collector Office, which also handled license plates for the State of Texas. At one time vanity plates were available for about $25, and the state sold a whole lot of them. Some brainiac in the state government said, hey, if we charged $75 each, we’d make three times more money! So they raised the price to $75, and ended up with vanity plate revenues that were half of what they were at $25, because so many people stopped buying the plates at the new, higher price. This is exactly what the NFL is doing…driving away lifelong fans (customers) in pursuit of short-term revenue (instead of long-term profit).
MTVFL?
The NFL does not seem to understand that their short-sighted blackout rules, while perhaps improving revenue for a weekend, or maybe even a season, has the long-term effect of driving fans away from the NFL. You see, today the American consumer is inundated with entertainment options. Movies, TV, music, DVD, TiVo, Pay Per View, Movies on Demand, etc. And television now has 100’s of channels with thousands of programs, and although most are unwatchable (in my opinion), one man’s dreck is another man’s favorite show.
In the midst of this cacophony, the National Football League struggles to maintain viewership and relevance. However, all the mic’ed players and overhead cameras in the world will not change the one simple fact that people want to turn on the television and watch the team that they like. If the NFL would simply allow this to happen, things would be much better for them from a ratings and relevance perspective.
However, the NFL does not allow this to happen. I am a fan of the Dallas Cowboys, and I have been since I was a boy. I live in Houston, which once again has an NFL team (the Texans). There is absolutely no legal way for me to watch all of the Cowboy games on my television at home. I could buy a DirecTV Sunday Pass, but DirecTV still enforces the NFL blackout rules (described above). My local FOX affiliate has most of the Cowboy games on their broadcast schedule, however over the last two weeks, as the Cowboys have fought to make the playoffs, the blackout rules have forced FOX to not show the games here in Houston. This is because the home team (the Texans) have sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff, so the local CBS affiliate showed the Texans game, which meant the local FOX affiliate could not show the Cowboys game that was scheduled to be on at the same time.
Fan Apathy? Who Cares
There are two direct results of this. One is that I do not feel involved in the Cowboys playoff quest, because I didn’t see it. This means that I have had one more layer of my NFL-Fan tendency eroded away, making me a slightly less interested viewer, the same as has happened every single year for the last decade or so. The second is that my wife, who this season was on her way to becoming a football fan for the first time, has been “baited and switched” by being duped into caring about the outcome of Cowboys games, and then suddenly, as the Cowboys fought to make the playoffs and the games really mattered, been denied the ability to see the games.
These blackout rules do nothing but hurt the NFL and I do not understand why they cling to these outdated strategies. For instance, there is no way that I would ever buy a ticket to see the Texans play. This is solely because the cost of attending an NFL game is outrageous. If ticket prices were even close to reasonable (about ¼ of what they are now) I might think about it. But the Texans have been selling out nicely, so the NFL doesn’t need to worry about me buying tickets. I think I fit the mold of the average fan, in that not seeing my team on TV will never cause me to buy a ticket. The way the NFL will make money on me is through my value as a member of a desirable TV ratings demographic and through the few licensed products (caps, jerseys, etc) that I may buy. I can only presume that stadium game tickets are bought by either the very rich or the very rabid, and those people will go to the game regardless of if it’s televised. So there goes Rule #1.
Also, although I will certainly be a homer when it comes to the Texans, it is highly unlikely that I will ever become a die-hard fan. Maybe, but probably not. I get kind of insulted that the NFL thinks (seemingly) that if they force me to watch the home team, and deny me the ability to watch my preferred team, I will somehow become a revenue-producing fan-bot of the Texans. Not gonna happen. And denying me access to the Cowboys games on TV is certainly not going to make me watch and pay attention to a Texans game. So there goes Rule #2.
So why do these rules persist? Well, it’s possible that I have completely misinterpreted the whole situation, and severely underestimated the marketing savvy of the NFL while also severely underestimating the sheep-like tendencies of NFL fans. But I don’t think this is the case. What I think is that the NFL has been backed into a corner, squeezed between increasing costs (salaries, stadiums, etc.) and declining revenues (shooting themselves in the foot), and they are trying desperately to wring out every single penny of possible revenue in the short-term, while mortgaging their future by creating a passive, fair-weather fan base.
Winning Strategy: First Sow, Then Reap
It also seems that they have long-term contracts and agreements in place, with TV networks, players, unions, concessionaires, owners, etc, and these contracts do not give the NFL the ability to gracefully scale back their operations in the face of declining interest/revenues. It would be heartwarming to see the NFL lift the blackout rules and accept the resulting (temporarily) lower TV revenues, and to see the NFL owners agree to putting butts in the seats by offering true entertainment value, rather than by blackmailing the locals, and to see players agree to normalizing their salaries to match the new financial realities.
Lifting the blackout rules would certainly result in reduced revenues in the near-term, but it would, in my humble opinion, allow the NFL to preserve and expand their fan base, which would also preserve and expand their long-term financial success. Unfortunately all I expect from the NFL are higher ticket prices, another division realignment, more expansion teams, an 18 game season, the Super Bowl in March, and a butt-cam for the center.
All my rowdy friends are doing something else tonight.
Glossary of Terms
Blackout Policy
To ensure an NFL club’s ability to sell all of its game tickets, and to make televised games more attractive to viewers through the presence of sellout crowds, the following policy is observed by the NFL:
For a home game to be aired locally in the franchised market and in any secondary blackout market(s), the game must be sold out 72 hours in advance of kickoff. If the game is not a sellout by the 72 hour cutoff, both the home franchised market and the secondary markets of the carrying network will air an alternate game.
Number of Games in a Market
With regard to the number of NFL games seen in a particular market on a Sunday afternoon, there are three different situations.
On a week when the NFL team (or teams) in a market is on the ROAD Sunday, Monday or Thursday night or Saturday afternoon, the market will receive three Sunday afternoon games… two telecasts by the network with the doubleheader week and one game by the network with the single game week. When an NFL team in the market is playing at HOME on Sunday afternoon, the market will receive two games… one game on FOX and one game on CBS, regardless of which network has the doubleheader week. Unless 1) the home team’s assigned telecaster that day (CBS or FOX) is also on the doubleheader network and 2) the game is sold out 72 hours in advance. Then the three games would be the home team’s and two other games in the remaining early or late window.
Selection of Games to be Telecast Regionally
By network contract, all team road games must be telecast back to that team’s home territory (franchised market and secondary blackout markets).
Other than the above requirement, the televising network is the sole selector of which game(s) will be aired in all markets.
So, Steve Carell has just burst onto the scene as a new major Hollywood film star. We knew him from The Daily Show, where we found him to be…enh. He was okay, but when he left we didn’t miss him. We heard that he was starring in the US version of the British TV show “The Office”, but never saw an episode.
Then one day a couple of weeks ago while watching another movie we saw a trailer for “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. It looked pretty funny and so it was on our radar as a possibility, but we’ve seen thousands of funny trailers for movies that sucked, so I wasn’t too sure we’d go see it. But over time we kept hearing good buzz about the film, and the trailers kept getting funnier. So today we decided to go see it, and, boy, am I glad we did.
The movie is hysterically funny, and also a bit touching and heartwarming. Carell plays Andy Stitzer, who is, well, a 40-year-old virgin whose workmates find out about his…intactfulness…and decide to “help” him lose it. One of the best characteristics of the film is that it doesn’t mock or deride Andy’s virginity, and actually shows it to be kind of noble. Oh, it sure pokes fun at him, but in a natural way that seems to fit the oddness of an actual 40 year old virgin male.
Carell plays the part with perfect pitch, and walks a fine line between disturbed, lonely electronics store worker and lonely, inexperienced yet still nice and normal electronics store worker. As his “friends” give him advice and try to get him hooked up with an assortment of…um…”available” young ladies, Andy instead becomes enamored of Trish, who runs a store near his workplace. Trish is played with refreshing reality by Catherine Keener. In a wonderfully un-Hollywood move, Keener and Carell actually appear to be about the same age, and the character of Trish has three kids (and one of those kids has a one year old of their own, making Trish a “hot grandma” in the opinion of all of the male characters). I’m sure somewhere there’s a Hollywood exec who is sure that the role should have gone to Lindsey Lohan (who is 20) instead, to grab that key (and imaginary) Won’t-Plop-Down-$10-To-See-Anyone-Over-30 demographic.
Rant Directed At Hollywood Execs:
We know you think that 15-25 year olds are your key demographic. However, what you are missing is the fact that the reason this is your key demographic is because, as a general rule, younger people are not discriminating movie-goers and so you can still count on them for a big opening weekend as long as you have the right “names” and a big marketing budget. To put it another way, you can sucker teens into watching a crappy movie as long as you “spin” it the right way, and that can be done purely with dollars. Making something of quality, however, requires talent and inspiration, two things which you seem to no longer value. However, I predict that this film will do great at the box office, even though it’s Rated R, even though the two characters are 40+ and one is a grandparent, even thought it’s actually sweet and not stupidly shocking for shock value, even though it stars a no-name (by Hollywood standards), even though it’s directed by a TV guy, even though nothing explodes, even though there are no rappers in it, even though the denoument is…well, I won’t spoil it. This movie breaks all the apparent “rules” of Hollywood execs, so much so that I’m surprised it got made. But, oh baby, am I waiting for the attitude change that this film (along with Wedding Crashers and other films like it) will bring to Hollywood. I know you’re in the business to make money. But I think you’ll find that while it is hard work to find and nurture talent, it’s even harder work polishing turds, which is what you’ve been doing lately.
Anyway, back to Virgin. The supporting cast is also great, with virtually no false notes anywhere in the film. There are a couple of things I could have done without, but to highlight any of them would be to give them more weight than they deserve. But overall the film manages to be hilarious, touching, raunchy, and sweet in just the right proportions. I urge you to run out and see this movie and show Hollywood that making this film was a risk worth taking.
Critical pans be damned. The Dukes of Hazzard was exactly the brainless, fun-loving, dorky, indulgent, hilarious, don’t-have-to-think-too-hard piece of cornball southern-fried guilty pleasure I was hoping it would be. After I couldn’t quit cracking up at the trailer, I knew I had to convince Engineerboy to take me opening weekend (he gamely obliged, sweetheart that he is). We’ve actually already seen it twice!
The movie is perfectly cast, the plot has good bones (but with some lazy writing in areas), and they went the absolute right direction with it in just makin’ it about what it is: hot rods and hillbilly silliness, and letting the cast shine at what they do best.