HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Citizen, 2006-09-21, Page 5THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2006. PAGE 5.
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Seen any bad movies lately?
What's your all time favourite bad
movie? There are some certified
stinkers out there — Warren Beatty
and Dustin Hoffman trying to out-mug each
other in Ishtar springs to mind — but that's just
my opinion.
How about Battlefield Earth? There was a
multi-million dollar flick with state-of-the-art
special effects that boasted certified box-office
king John Travolta in the lead role. It was
dismissed by The New York Times as "the
worst movie of the century".
And they were talking about the 100-year
20th century, not this six-year-old puppy we're
living in.
Personally, I would heartily entertain and
endorse nominations such as Howard the
Duck, Attack of the Killer Tomatoes and
anything featuring the astoundingly lame
Stephen Seagal, but you might disagree. One
viewer's Casablanca is another viewer's
Rocky V.
"Ain't no accountin' for taste" as a
commentator said at the nuptials of Jackie K
and Ad 0. It's a sentiment that applies in
spades when it comes to movie critics.
Take the film Crash. Roger Three-Thumbs
Ebert pronounced it the best movie of 2005.
Scott Foundas, movie critic for The LA Weekly
declared it was absolutely the worst film of the
year.
Besides, there are- different kinds of bad.
Some movies are bad to watch; others are bad
for your health. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho
was a fairly standard thriller until Janet Leigh
decided to take a shower.
Legislature
Ontario's longest-running soap opera
has been on television for 20 years,
but is no threat in the ratings to
Desperate Housewives or even Big-time
Poker.
The televised proceedings of the legislature
have drama, with politicians announcing
policies that affect many lives, human frailties,
such as one revealing she had a child while
unmarried in making a point on adOptions, and
action, as others get kicked out for rowdyism.
They have humour, such as New Democrat
Peter Kormos declaring the world's three
greatest lies are "Your cheque is in the mail,"
"Your money cheerfully refunded" and "Hi.
I'm from the government and I'm here to help
you."
The big handicap for the legislature on
television is it requires viewers to think, which
is an obstacle to attracting mass audiences, but
it could attract more if given a chance.
The legislature started putting its full
proceedings on television on Oct. 14 1986 and
will commemorate it, because it took hard-
fought battles to get this or any of the
legislature televised.
Liberals and New Democrats pressed to
allow television in from the early 1970s,
arguing it would help the public understand
laws and how they are made, and how the
province is run.
They felt it also would enable them to show
their own policies and abilities and catch up on
the Progressive Conservatives, entrenched in
government since 1943.
Conservative premier William Davis had
seen some of his ministers exposed as poorly
informed and feeble in defending policies in
the legislature and did not want this on
television.
Davis, although shrewd enough to win four
elections, also was an average speaker and did
not want to be compared with outstanding
orators like New Democrats Stephen Lewis
and Bob Rae and Liberal Sean Conway.
The Conservatives countered that cameras
It's a pretty safe bet that anybody who ever
saw that scene still feels pangs of horror about
what might be on the other side of the shower.
curtain whenever they're lathering up.
Psycho came out in 1960. I' II bet you a case
of Head and Shoulders that sales of shower
stalls bottomed out for the next 10 years.
And while we're in the bathroom,• spare a
thought for the vendors of hot tubs. They're
still trying to recover market share thanks to
that one scene in About Schmidt. You know
the one — where Kathy Bates launches her
naked, walrus-like body across the tub at a
terrified Jack Nicholson.
Did you see Marathon Man? In which an
arch-sadist/Nazi played by Laurence Olivier
extracts — literally — information from a
terrified New York schlub played by Dustin
Hoffman?
Using dentists' drills and pliers?
And how was your next trip to your friendly
oral surgeon?
And how about Deliverance? I can't help
thinking that the scene where the esthetically-
challenged, sex-deprived hillbilly makes city-
boy Ned Beatty bend over a log and 'squeal
like a pig' must have caused an entire
would be costly and encourage publicity-
seeking MPPs to play to them and delay
debates.
But under pressure, they allowed television
first to cover formal events such as their
government's throne and budget speeches,
which allowed them to say what they wanted
almost without interruption.
They expanded this over the years to allow
television to cover almost everything, but one
quickly discovered problem was it usually had
space for only a couple of short stories a day
and concentrated on what ,government said,
because it affects people, and gave much less
space to critics.
The opposition pressed Davis to allow the
full legislature on television, but he dragged
his heels and it was only after the
Conservatives under Frank Miller were
defeated that Liberal premier David Peterson,
supported by the NDP, put the whole of it on
television and it became known as "electronic
Hansard."
Putting the legislature on television has
increased understanding of it for some, but not
revolutionized it the way many predicted.
It has not promoted greater oratory. Its most
accomplished speakers of recent times, who
included Lewis, Rae .and Conway, were
Final Thought
We take greater pains to persuade others
that we are happy than in endeavouring to
think so ourselves.
— Confucius
generation of men to swear off male bonding
forever.
Luckily, movies aren't always as bad as
some critics would want us to believe.
Reviewing The Godfather in 1972, New
Republic critic Stanley Kauffman opined:
"Brando is handicapped by poor makeup...A1
Pacino rattles around in a part too demanding
for him...The surprisingly rotten score is by
Nino Rota."
Pauline Kael, the Godmother of movie
critics, had this to say in a movie review that
appeared in Harper's back in 1969: "In some
ways it's the biggest amateur movie of them
all...a monumentally unimaginative movie."
She was talking about 2001: A Space
Odyssey.
Some cinema criticism doesn't improve
with age. Here's Russell Maloney panning a
film in The New Yorker, 'way back in 1939:
"I sat cringing before MGM's Technicolor
production...which displays no trace of
imagination, good taste or ingenuity...I say
it's a stinkeroo...Bert Lahr is funny, but out of
place."
Yes, he's writing about The Wizard of Oz.
Let's leave the last word in bad movie
criticism to late night host Conan O'Brien:
"Religious experts who have seen Mel
Gibson's movie The Passion of the Christ say
the film is an accurate portrayal of the last
hours of Jesus. When asked how he got the
actor playing Jesus to portray so much
suffering, Gibson said, 'I forced him to watch
Lethal Weapon IV.—
displaying their dexterity with words before
television arrived.
One reason is the most crucial part of the
legislature is its question period and it requires
short, crisp questions and answers and not
flights of oratory.
It would be difficult to name a politician
who has made his name mainly through
television in the legislature. Rae defeated
Peterson because the latter became arrogant,
Conservative Mike Harris pushed out Rae by
promising tax-cutting and Liberal Dalton
McGuinty nudged out the Conservatives and
became current premier without any pretence
to dominating the legislature:
The legislature would influence voters more
if more people saw it, but its full proceedings
are shown only on a cable channel many
viewers do not receive, on some satellite
dishes, and in taped question periods on
provincially-owned TVOntario, usually so late
most people are in bed.
Much of its proceedings would lack interest,
but enough could be culled from several hours
of questions and answers and debates a day to
put together a half-hour package many would
watch, and some television station motivated
as much by serving the public as money
should try it.
Letters Policy
The Citizen welcomes letters to the
editor. Letters must be signed and should
include a daytime telephone number for
the purpose of verification only. Letters
that are not signed will not be printed.
Submissions may be edited for length,
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our guideline. The Citizen reserves the
right to refuse any letter on the bans of
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letear,,,brief and concise.
Our mistake!
you'll notice it from time to time.
"Oops, sorry our mistake!" Or "We
goofed!". Or it might just be the
simple one word says it all — "Correction".
If there seems to be one thing that's certain
in the newspaper business it's that mistakes
happen and apparently we like to share them.
It's the big ones that unsettle me.
Misidentification, inaccuracy, or mixed-up
copy have been known to occur. And while we
are sorry to upset anyone, I can only hope it
helps to know that we are dreadfully
remorseful and embarrassed when it happens.
'This past week, someone pointed out some
boo-loos to us that basically came down to
typos. The person seemed a little surprised that
this could happen. And she's probably not
alone. However, walk in any pair of shoes in
this place and it's a much clearer picture.
I wondered if it might be helpful to try and
put you in those shoes. First, keep in mind that
we come into this knowing that any mistake
that gets past us is out there for 2,000 plus to
see. No pressure there.
Second, we don't seem to be allowed to
make them. I cannot tell you how many people
have phoned, not simply to point out a
mistake, which is generally appreciated, but to
give us heck for making it.
Gee even on Sesame Street they know that
everyone makes mistakes.
But, anyway, back to the walk in the shoes.
We are busy here. Numerous people are multi-
tasking at any given moment. We put out a
weekly newspaper, a monthly agricultural
magazine, many special sections and a tri-
yearly tourist publication. This place is a
cacophonous enclosure of ringing phones,
chattering, printers, doors opening and
closing.
There are constant interruptions that can
take you away from the task at hand for long
minutes at a time. Writing is often left to be
returned to hours later. The thoughts are
broken, the focus side-tracked. A cut from
copy on the computer, followed by a visitor to
your office, can result in a mistake that may or
may not be found.
My job is to turn out copy and read
everything that crosses my desk or comes to
me through e-mail; the latter of which amounts
to hundreds a week. Most are given a cursory
perusal, others get more attention.
People are passing papers back and forth,
corrections are being made. A job will be left
to tend to another, then another. Favours are
asked, responses given.
With the newspaper Wednesday, Thursday
and Friday are the days we try to organize,
write, make appointments and keep them,
complete housekeeping tasks, update data
bases, attend meetings, etc. etc. etc.
Then comes Monday, D-Day, D being for
deadline. The funny thing about deadline is
that 98 per cent of the copy comes in near the
end of the day. By then, we are fried,
exhausted, and scurrying to complete
everything. Because you see, that's another
funny thing about deadline — there's a time
limit on finishing.
Which means also an end to checks and
balances. The proofreader is given a few short
hours to read absolutely everything one more
time, scrutinize, seek and search. Amidst, I
might add, the aforementioned cacophony.
The bottom line is, we do the best job we can
in the time we have. We take pride in our
work. So when mistakes get through, and they
will, believe me when I tell you that no one
could possibly hate it more than we do.
TV needs viewers