Typically, when there's some hot new Broadway show where you need to buy tickets way far in advance and there are no discounts and etc., I wait. And wait, and wait, and wait. I live in New York City. Eventually in five years of fifteen years demand will drop. Tickets will be on TKTS. If I die before that happens -- well, if I'm dead, the fact that I missed a Broadway show will be the least of my worries. And it's New York, it's Broadway, you see the 12th replacement cast in the 9th year of the run, and odds are you're still going to see some pretty good stuff, The Phantom of the Opera is still chugging along well after Michael Crawford, you know.
Charlaine Harris was in town this week to do a special pre-signing of books for select bookstore accounts. She wanted to see Jersey Boys and The Book of Mormon. A good agent would happily choose to take the client to Jersey Boys, cheaper tickets, and let the publisher take to The Book of Mormon, expensive tickets. I guess I'm not a good agent. I'd already seen Jersey Boys, which is fantastic and I'd recommend it to anyone, but I'd seen it. I've been dying to see The Book of Mormon. And the availability update on the website suggested there might still be premium seats for the week in question. So I was forced -- forced, I say, forced !! -- to go get very nice seats to see this show I'd been dying to see. Sometimes, it's a hard life being a literary agent.
It was worth every penny.
The Book of Mormon is one of the best musicals I've ever seen, likely one of the best I will ever see.
Even with Elder Price being played by the understudy.
There is one flaw, if you will. The songs are excellent, lively, melodic, tuneful, all of that, but not anything like Tomorrow from Annie or Sunrise Sunset from Fiddler that will linger in the mind for 62.92 years after you've seen the show. You can bet your bottom dollar that tomorrow I will be able to hum "I Believe" to myself, to the extent of humming those two words, I will not be able to go deep into the verses through to the cobwebs and the sorrow.
No, two flaws. One number takes place in the departure lounge of the airport with the Elders on their way to their mission in Uganda, the set has the departure board at the gate listing the flight as bound for Uganda. I kept looking at that and thinking in any real airport I've ever been to the plane would be going to a particular city in Uganda, not to the country. It is hard for me to believe that the creators of the show are worried that nobody from Gulu or Jinja will want to come see the show if that sign had properly read "Kampala, Uganda" instead of just saying Uganda. I think we should start a petition to get that distraction changed.
I can't address the show from a Mormon perspective. If you want to read up on that, you can find a thorough and interesting annotation on "I Believe" from our client Bryce Moore by clicking here.
I can say that the interesting thing about this irreverent if not downright blasphemous or sacrilegious show is that it is ultimately reaffirming of the idea of faith. The co-leads are two Elders off on their Mormon mission in Uganda, one trim and good-looking and fervent and personable and all those things you want your Elder to be, the other rather less in regard to everything except his weight. The good Elder loses his faith, and this is a bad thing. The bad Elder gets the locals to enter the church by teaching them an "interpretive" version of the Book of Mormon, which version the locals proceed to act out before the mission's supervisors to their great dismay. But in our happy ending, we are told that even this version has offered something, a ray of hope or a path to a different life. And to me, the corollary to this is that if there is good to be found even in the bastardized teaching then surely there is more than that to be found in the real teaching. Furthermore, while the musical is clearly skeptical about Joseph Smith's discovery of the Book of Mormon, the musical as a whole and the "I Believe" song in particular must present some of the basics of Mormon teaching in order to have some fun with said teachings. It is well within the realm of possibility that there are people who will find it intriguing, their curiosity heightened, and then decide to explore further. There are worse things. The church is wise to have taken a measured response to the show.
The musical is sometimes considered to be one of the great distinct American contributions to world culture. I am struck in watching The Book of Mormon to see how closely it follows in that great American tradition, only so much better in so many ways than so many of its antecedents. The Book of Mormon has a great love song. It happens to be a long double entendre set against a baptism, it's absolutely hilarious and a thoroughgoing delight to watch. But in its essence, in its form and place and function within the show, it is every bit as much the classic American musical love song as Maria in West Side Story. Similarly, the lengthy musical number in which the Ugandans present their version of Mormon history and belief is a clear and direct descendant of the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" presentation in The King and I. With significant differences. That number in The King and I has limited relevance to the basic plot, it's long and dull and boring, we should all go and see it to appreciate the place of the musical in the history of the musical and blah blah blah. But honestly, I have no particular interest in spending my life going to see a lot of these classic shows with long dance sequences stuck in just because you need to have a long dance sequence, and since I will never be able to get that Whistle a Happy Tune thing out of my head I don't need to keep going to see The King and I for a refresher course in whistling happy tunes whenever I feel afraid. But I would happily go see The Book of Mormon again.
The Book of Mormon marches along from high point to high point. It doesn't have much of a plot, but it has imagination and wit and humor and good cheer. All of which are present in virtually every musical number. So the show just flies by. You can tell that the creators have seen every great Broadway musical at least 9 times, which is easy. What's way less easy but which these people have done, is to identify what makes the shows work instead of borrowing the bad elements. Hairspray it's not, Hairspray has a much stronger plot line but is ultimately kind of dull because it takes too much to heart the idea that every character should have a big number and not enough to heart that all those big numbers should really do something to move the story along instead of just being there and being big to attract ovations from tourists.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Monday, March 26, 2012
Lex Luthor's Lair
I don't have the tech savvy of E C Myers, who did this nifty little Acknowledgment Video for his debut novel Fair Coin, recently out from Pyr SF as part of their new YA line and well worth reading -- you can meet Mr. Myers at various events in the coming days as well.
But after a busy and wonderful day of actually finally housewarming my apartment, I thought I should put a few thank you things out into the world...
The biggest thanks in many ways have to go to my clients. Charlaine Harris, Sookie Stackhouse, and the True Blood folk kind of paid for the place, but I think it's a mistake to be too narrow in viewing the JABberwocky family. Because Charlaine wouldn't be a client today if it weren't for the general belief amongst authors in general that we do a good job for all of our clients, or maybe not a client today if back fifteen years ago when Charlaine Harris wasn't Charlaine Harris yet, but Arkham House and Elizabeth Moon and Simon Green were some of the key players making it possible for me to have the money to go to Malice Domestic every year in large part because I wanted to be there for Charlaine (well, and to visit all the wonderful bookstores in the DC area that are now two thirds of them closed). And I'm kind of cautious, so even today the fact that the agency is not just Charlaine Harris but is Brandon Sanderson and Peter Brett, and Elizabeth Moon and Simon Green, and John Hemry/Jack Campbell, and many other people. The agency is a stool with many legs, not just one that would always threaten to wobble me into ruin. I can't name every single client here, but the thanks are to all of them.
And it isn't possible to do what we need to do without having people to help me do it all. Steve Mancino did that for four years. Eddie Schneider will soon surpass Steve as the longest tenured employee at JABberwocky. Jessie Cammack came looking for us, and once Eddie and I found her we weren't going to let her go. Lots of other people who've helped over the years, Joseph and Ronald and Armand and Kat and Brenna and Ethan and Mark and David, among others.
There's Adrian, the broker at Nestseekers who told me the apartment I really really wanted might actually become affordable, because for once in my life the real estate market was dipping as my income was increasing to where I could just find an intersection between the two. But then nobody wants to actually give a mortgage, but Yitz found the guy who would.
When I looked at the raw space, I had a vision of what I might do with the space, and one of the things I'm happiest about today is that the apartment, finally and arduously two and a half years after I purchased it, pretty fully realizes my vision of what it should be and would be and could be and what I wanted it to be. It really is my place, more than anyone else's.
But it doesn't happen that way without some help along the way, some little voices chirping in the ear with advice and suggestions and guidance and how-tos and where-tos. Ronald and Jennifer helped with the painting and recommended the contractor. Elizabeth Moon helped to fill in the idea for the display shelf at the end of the gallery. The guy from Horizon helped find the right shade of window treatment for the bedroom.
When my younger brother got married close to twenty years ago, I was the best man, and one of the groomsman was this tall lanky guy named Mason Rapaport. Mason, it turns out, does woodwork. Really gorgeous woodwork, which now that he's finally actually done something with his website, you can learn about here.
The killer app for this apartment was this very long, very wide, very tall entrance gallery that was going to allow me to bring a little bit of Lex Luthor into my life. The Lex Luthor of Superman: The Movie. So do I thank the director, Richard Donner? Or the production designer Jonn Barry? Or the set director Peter Howitt? Or the art direction crew? Whomever it was in whatever combination who had that gorgeous bookcase in Lex Luthor's lair, where Otis could wheel around Lex, or more pleasantly wheel around the ladder and leave Lex hanging? This entry gallery was going to enable me to have at least a little version of this bookcase complete with ladder that I could call my very own, plenty deep enough to hold three layers of mass markets, two layers of hardcovers, and still leave enough width in the entry gallery to leave room for a wheelchair with lots of space to spare. Look ma, it's my bookcase! It looks even nicer filled with books and with the lights on than it does empty posing for the photo.
Besides being a great thing for a literary agent, it stores so many books, it makes the whole business function better because we don't need to clutter the office with books, we don't need to ship extra books to a client in March because there's no room and then realize in May that we need to order more.
In any event, I knew that Mason needed to do this bookcase, and I didn't think to talk to anyone else.
If you are hanging about the northeast and want any kind of beautiful woodworking or other sorts of cabinetry (the "kitchen" section of Mason's website has a couple other pieces for my apartment) this is the guy to call.
Myke Cole refers to Peter V. Brett as his Professor X.
Myke first introduced me to the idea of getting nicer furniture when we upgraded my old apartment with some nicer stuff several years ago, we trekked out to Long Island and went furniture shopping, and my sofa and dining room set and recliner were all selected that day. And because I'm that kind of a guy, I treated Myke to a delightful picnic lunch of MREs to thank him for his time and support.
I enjoy MREs a lot more than Myke, kind of like I love to visit and mow somebody's lawn, because I do that once every two years and it's a delightful special treat.
Myke gave lots of good suggestions on the right color scheme.
He accompanied me on shopping trips to buy furniture and ceiling fans and other things to fill out the apartment.
He rented the van that moved the boxes of books from the office and then helped along with Eddie and Jessie to move and shelve those dozens of boxes of books.
If there is something hanging on a nail in the apartment, Myke banged in the nail and hung it, and he didn't almost die hanging the movie posters above the TV but it wasn't because I didn't try really really hard to get that to happen.
For the party Myke was my scullery maid and galley slave for the day, and if regulations allowed him to wear a cover indoors I'm sure he would have worn at least six different hats over the course of the day.
Even though Myke resisted my specific instructions to use the Swiffer duster instead of the Swiffer sweeper to dust the moldings, I must give him an extra special and very heartfelt thank you for all of these efforts. Which go above and beyond any rational definition of "what friends are for" or "sucking up to your agent" or any other reason or excuse or justification or whatever else you call it that one might give for somebody to do all of these things.
The brownies for the party came from the Sage General Store. Which is around the corner, and which makes some of the best brownies you can find in New York City. You can find them on the Food Network, not that everyone isn't these days. I ordered way too many brownies. However, they don't make their wonderful german chocolate brownies any more because not too many people wanted to buy those as badly as I. But since I was ordering a full tray, I was able to get some of them, and maybe the leftovers will last for a bit.
The cookies came from Nita's European Bakery in Sunnyside a few blocks from the office, which totally deserves its largely favorable notices on Yelp. I've been in Sunnyside for many years, it's only recently that I've started to habituate Nita's, as I have come to appreciate how their Italian cookies are just head and shoulders almost every other little bakery cookie that I have ever come across.
The prospect of getting yummy things from Sage or Nita's should encourage you to venture across the East River into Queens.
One of my guests said especially how much he liked the scroll that John Moore was kind enough to give, and which sat in its tube for too long before finding the right proper place to hang.
The party was nice because so many people came, childhood friend, college roomie, people from the synagogue, neighbors, clients, editors, publishers, family, from the Scrabble club. Not an abundance of people from any one place, but a wonderful mix of people from all the different parts of me all in one room for the afternoon. Thank you for stopping by!
If I ever get more tech savvy, maybe I can come up with a video that can attempt to list everyone.
But after a busy and wonderful day of actually finally housewarming my apartment, I thought I should put a few thank you things out into the world...
The biggest thanks in many ways have to go to my clients. Charlaine Harris, Sookie Stackhouse, and the True Blood folk kind of paid for the place, but I think it's a mistake to be too narrow in viewing the JABberwocky family. Because Charlaine wouldn't be a client today if it weren't for the general belief amongst authors in general that we do a good job for all of our clients, or maybe not a client today if back fifteen years ago when Charlaine Harris wasn't Charlaine Harris yet, but Arkham House and Elizabeth Moon and Simon Green were some of the key players making it possible for me to have the money to go to Malice Domestic every year in large part because I wanted to be there for Charlaine (well, and to visit all the wonderful bookstores in the DC area that are now two thirds of them closed). And I'm kind of cautious, so even today the fact that the agency is not just Charlaine Harris but is Brandon Sanderson and Peter Brett, and Elizabeth Moon and Simon Green, and John Hemry/Jack Campbell, and many other people. The agency is a stool with many legs, not just one that would always threaten to wobble me into ruin. I can't name every single client here, but the thanks are to all of them.
And it isn't possible to do what we need to do without having people to help me do it all. Steve Mancino did that for four years. Eddie Schneider will soon surpass Steve as the longest tenured employee at JABberwocky. Jessie Cammack came looking for us, and once Eddie and I found her we weren't going to let her go. Lots of other people who've helped over the years, Joseph and Ronald and Armand and Kat and Brenna and Ethan and Mark and David, among others.
There's Adrian, the broker at Nestseekers who told me the apartment I really really wanted might actually become affordable, because for once in my life the real estate market was dipping as my income was increasing to where I could just find an intersection between the two. But then nobody wants to actually give a mortgage, but Yitz found the guy who would.
When I looked at the raw space, I had a vision of what I might do with the space, and one of the things I'm happiest about today is that the apartment, finally and arduously two and a half years after I purchased it, pretty fully realizes my vision of what it should be and would be and could be and what I wanted it to be. It really is my place, more than anyone else's.
But it doesn't happen that way without some help along the way, some little voices chirping in the ear with advice and suggestions and guidance and how-tos and where-tos. Ronald and Jennifer helped with the painting and recommended the contractor. Elizabeth Moon helped to fill in the idea for the display shelf at the end of the gallery. The guy from Horizon helped find the right shade of window treatment for the bedroom.
When my younger brother got married close to twenty years ago, I was the best man, and one of the groomsman was this tall lanky guy named Mason Rapaport. Mason, it turns out, does woodwork. Really gorgeous woodwork, which now that he's finally actually done something with his website, you can learn about here.
The killer app for this apartment was this very long, very wide, very tall entrance gallery that was going to allow me to bring a little bit of Lex Luthor into my life. The Lex Luthor of Superman: The Movie. So do I thank the director, Richard Donner? Or the production designer Jonn Barry? Or the set director Peter Howitt? Or the art direction crew? Whomever it was in whatever combination who had that gorgeous bookcase in Lex Luthor's lair, where Otis could wheel around Lex, or more pleasantly wheel around the ladder and leave Lex hanging? This entry gallery was going to enable me to have at least a little version of this bookcase complete with ladder that I could call my very own, plenty deep enough to hold three layers of mass markets, two layers of hardcovers, and still leave enough width in the entry gallery to leave room for a wheelchair with lots of space to spare. Look ma, it's my bookcase! It looks even nicer filled with books and with the lights on than it does empty posing for the photo.
Besides being a great thing for a literary agent, it stores so many books, it makes the whole business function better because we don't need to clutter the office with books, we don't need to ship extra books to a client in March because there's no room and then realize in May that we need to order more.
In any event, I knew that Mason needed to do this bookcase, and I didn't think to talk to anyone else.
If you are hanging about the northeast and want any kind of beautiful woodworking or other sorts of cabinetry (the "kitchen" section of Mason's website has a couple other pieces for my apartment) this is the guy to call.
Myke Cole refers to Peter V. Brett as his Professor X.
Myke first introduced me to the idea of getting nicer furniture when we upgraded my old apartment with some nicer stuff several years ago, we trekked out to Long Island and went furniture shopping, and my sofa and dining room set and recliner were all selected that day. And because I'm that kind of a guy, I treated Myke to a delightful picnic lunch of MREs to thank him for his time and support.
I enjoy MREs a lot more than Myke, kind of like I love to visit and mow somebody's lawn, because I do that once every two years and it's a delightful special treat.
Myke gave lots of good suggestions on the right color scheme.
He accompanied me on shopping trips to buy furniture and ceiling fans and other things to fill out the apartment.
He rented the van that moved the boxes of books from the office and then helped along with Eddie and Jessie to move and shelve those dozens of boxes of books.
If there is something hanging on a nail in the apartment, Myke banged in the nail and hung it, and he didn't almost die hanging the movie posters above the TV but it wasn't because I didn't try really really hard to get that to happen.
For the party Myke was my scullery maid and galley slave for the day, and if regulations allowed him to wear a cover indoors I'm sure he would have worn at least six different hats over the course of the day.
Even though Myke resisted my specific instructions to use the Swiffer duster instead of the Swiffer sweeper to dust the moldings, I must give him an extra special and very heartfelt thank you for all of these efforts. Which go above and beyond any rational definition of "what friends are for" or "sucking up to your agent" or any other reason or excuse or justification or whatever else you call it that one might give for somebody to do all of these things.
The brownies for the party came from the Sage General Store. Which is around the corner, and which makes some of the best brownies you can find in New York City. You can find them on the Food Network, not that everyone isn't these days. I ordered way too many brownies. However, they don't make their wonderful german chocolate brownies any more because not too many people wanted to buy those as badly as I. But since I was ordering a full tray, I was able to get some of them, and maybe the leftovers will last for a bit.
The cookies came from Nita's European Bakery in Sunnyside a few blocks from the office, which totally deserves its largely favorable notices on Yelp. I've been in Sunnyside for many years, it's only recently that I've started to habituate Nita's, as I have come to appreciate how their Italian cookies are just head and shoulders almost every other little bakery cookie that I have ever come across.
The prospect of getting yummy things from Sage or Nita's should encourage you to venture across the East River into Queens.
One of my guests said especially how much he liked the scroll that John Moore was kind enough to give, and which sat in its tube for too long before finding the right proper place to hang.
The party was nice because so many people came, childhood friend, college roomie, people from the synagogue, neighbors, clients, editors, publishers, family, from the Scrabble club. Not an abundance of people from any one place, but a wonderful mix of people from all the different parts of me all in one room for the afternoon. Thank you for stopping by!
If I ever get more tech savvy, maybe I can come up with a video that can attempt to list everyone.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
The Candidates on TV
With both 24 and Friday Night Lights going off the air the past couple of years, two shows that were appointment viewing for me, I've been willing to cautiously explore finding replacements.
Glee never quite cut it, too inconsistent.
I've been trying Smash. The first three episodes were enh. The 4th episode the show seemed to have found its footing. The next two were OK, the 7th episode that aired this past Sunday was the best so far. I'm willing to keep going with it a bit, I'm a NYer and a theatregoer.
But the show I've taken to wholeheartedly after watching a few episodes tonight is The Good Wife.
I've heard a lot over the years about how good this is, and they are frequently filming at the courthouse across the street from my apartment (yes, New York City doubles for Chicago in The Good Wife).
And a few minutes in to an episode I still had on the DVR from the end of January, I was totally hooked.
What's not to like?
The writing is excellent. Sharp characters, sharp conflicts, ongoing character arcs but each episode also provides some resolution to a case. In essence, it's all the things that TV people like to say they're doing but which they rarely execute on or often say they want but don't actually do.
The cast is excellent. Smash might be about the New York theatre, but The Good Wife brings the best of NY theatre into your living room every week. One episode, there's David Pittu who was just playing in CQ/CX, the next week there's Josh Hamilton whom you've seen multiple times in the judge's robes, and then another week it's Bebe Neuwirth. If it's a delight, at least for someone like me who goes to the theatre and can appreciate the guest stars, the rest of the world gets to enjoy the regulars. They all seem just right. Christina Baranski and Josh Charles and Juliette Margulies and everyone else, and they all just work.
The best film and TV manage to tow the line of the exaggeratedly real, a little over the top and a little Hollywood and a little manipulative and a little of everything but without ever going completely over the top. Shows like Glee today or Ally McBeal a decade ago can cast a brief bright flame by actually going over the top in some different or fresh way, but they flame out. The gimmick can't be fresh forever, or they fall in love with the gimmick and go over the top, and over time you lose the connection with the audience. It seems horribly unlikely in one episode that the prosecutor would start to ask our lead character in a grand jury investigation about whether she was sleeping with the guy they're trying to indict, but then you can think about how Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex. It seems even less likely that the person being questioned would then walk out of the courtroom in the middle of the questioning and dear the prosecutor to have her arrested, and even less likely that the grand jury would start asking questions and rebel against the prosecutor. But the characters are strong enough that you suspend disbelief, you enter the world of the exaggeratedly real where you can recognize the implausibility but believe. No dancing babies, no teaching the world to sing.
The show keeps things fresh with some tonal variety. One episode was pretty serious, the main case is about the father of a college student who committed suicide suing a filmmaker who documented it. This is serious stuff, and it's handled reasonably seriously within the realm of the exaggeratedly real. The next episode is a laugh riot. Dylan Baker is hilarious as a corporate executive specializing in peccadilloes, caught up in a paternity and harassment case in the middle of a proxy fight. It's laugh out loud stuff.
So this show is as good as everyone's been saying it is. I doubt I have the hours in the day to catch up on previous seasons, but it is so tempting to go and buy season passes on iTunes.
I don't want to rush to judgment on Smash when the show is giving signs of finding its footing as it goes along, but it's also the case that you don't get a second chance at a first impression and Smash's has been inconsistent.
Writing: If you are doing a show that's about a Broadway musical, is it a great idea to have a major subplot about the co-composer's attempts to adopt a Chinese baby? Not in my book, it's too off-center, it's a subplot that could be thrown into pretty much any hourlong drama if you wanted to, it's not why I'd decide to sample this particular show. And then there's the live-in boyfriend of the Marilyn who works in the Mayor's office as the Press Secretary, and that's another character that just seems like something you could have everyplace. The Good Wife is gloriously incestuous, within minutes I'm picking up on all of these connections between the district attorney's office and the law firm and the good wife and her husband, and they're not afraid to just make everything about the lawyers and the politicians. Smash is a TV show about a Broadway show that constantly seems to look over its shoulder, fearing that the outside world is gaining on it because who really wants to watch a show that's just about Broadway. It's commercially logical and entirely mistaken. The show is about what it's about, if you don't think people want to watch what your shows about, then make a different show, don't bring in lots of extraneous elements in order to appeal to people who don't care about what you care about.
Casting: It's not bad, but it's just the slightest bit off. If you've just come off seeing Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn, it's harder to buy into Megan Hilty's performance here. Katharine McPhee is good but generic, when she's put into the ensemble instead of being given the lead role, you don't automatically think it's a bad decision. There's nothing wrong with having personality, the faces of the people in The Good Wife radiate all kinds of personality, all of it the right kind for the role. Smash is just that little bit off, that fine line between that person in high school with some weird ambition that everyone respects because it's so true and real for that person, and the person with some weird ambition that everyone thinks is just weird.
As always, these things run into one another. The role of an assistant to the composers is underwritten. This character could be the audience's surrogate, by seeing what makes him tick we could find ourselves with an interest in the Broadway stage that we didn't know we had until this character started voicing it for us. The way Lloyd's desire to be Ari Gold on Entourage makes us envy Ari at the same time we despise him. In Smash, we get a lot about the adaptation, a little less about this potentially pivotal character, who ends up being defined by his weirdrobe.
I'm being a little too hard on Smash, there are a lot of smart people involved with it. There's this sense that they've slowly gotten more confident over seven episodes to be about the musical instead of the adoption. The original musical numbers are solid. But comparing and contrasting, it's hard to see this grow to be The Good Wife, to be better definitely, but not to be one of the best dramas on TV.
Glee never quite cut it, too inconsistent.
I've been trying Smash. The first three episodes were enh. The 4th episode the show seemed to have found its footing. The next two were OK, the 7th episode that aired this past Sunday was the best so far. I'm willing to keep going with it a bit, I'm a NYer and a theatregoer.
But the show I've taken to wholeheartedly after watching a few episodes tonight is The Good Wife.
I've heard a lot over the years about how good this is, and they are frequently filming at the courthouse across the street from my apartment (yes, New York City doubles for Chicago in The Good Wife).
And a few minutes in to an episode I still had on the DVR from the end of January, I was totally hooked.
What's not to like?
The writing is excellent. Sharp characters, sharp conflicts, ongoing character arcs but each episode also provides some resolution to a case. In essence, it's all the things that TV people like to say they're doing but which they rarely execute on or often say they want but don't actually do.
The cast is excellent. Smash might be about the New York theatre, but The Good Wife brings the best of NY theatre into your living room every week. One episode, there's David Pittu who was just playing in CQ/CX, the next week there's Josh Hamilton whom you've seen multiple times in the judge's robes, and then another week it's Bebe Neuwirth. If it's a delight, at least for someone like me who goes to the theatre and can appreciate the guest stars, the rest of the world gets to enjoy the regulars. They all seem just right. Christina Baranski and Josh Charles and Juliette Margulies and everyone else, and they all just work.
The best film and TV manage to tow the line of the exaggeratedly real, a little over the top and a little Hollywood and a little manipulative and a little of everything but without ever going completely over the top. Shows like Glee today or Ally McBeal a decade ago can cast a brief bright flame by actually going over the top in some different or fresh way, but they flame out. The gimmick can't be fresh forever, or they fall in love with the gimmick and go over the top, and over time you lose the connection with the audience. It seems horribly unlikely in one episode that the prosecutor would start to ask our lead character in a grand jury investigation about whether she was sleeping with the guy they're trying to indict, but then you can think about how Bill Clinton was impeached for lying about sex. It seems even less likely that the person being questioned would then walk out of the courtroom in the middle of the questioning and dear the prosecutor to have her arrested, and even less likely that the grand jury would start asking questions and rebel against the prosecutor. But the characters are strong enough that you suspend disbelief, you enter the world of the exaggeratedly real where you can recognize the implausibility but believe. No dancing babies, no teaching the world to sing.
The show keeps things fresh with some tonal variety. One episode was pretty serious, the main case is about the father of a college student who committed suicide suing a filmmaker who documented it. This is serious stuff, and it's handled reasonably seriously within the realm of the exaggeratedly real. The next episode is a laugh riot. Dylan Baker is hilarious as a corporate executive specializing in peccadilloes, caught up in a paternity and harassment case in the middle of a proxy fight. It's laugh out loud stuff.
So this show is as good as everyone's been saying it is. I doubt I have the hours in the day to catch up on previous seasons, but it is so tempting to go and buy season passes on iTunes.
I don't want to rush to judgment on Smash when the show is giving signs of finding its footing as it goes along, but it's also the case that you don't get a second chance at a first impression and Smash's has been inconsistent.
Writing: If you are doing a show that's about a Broadway musical, is it a great idea to have a major subplot about the co-composer's attempts to adopt a Chinese baby? Not in my book, it's too off-center, it's a subplot that could be thrown into pretty much any hourlong drama if you wanted to, it's not why I'd decide to sample this particular show. And then there's the live-in boyfriend of the Marilyn who works in the Mayor's office as the Press Secretary, and that's another character that just seems like something you could have everyplace. The Good Wife is gloriously incestuous, within minutes I'm picking up on all of these connections between the district attorney's office and the law firm and the good wife and her husband, and they're not afraid to just make everything about the lawyers and the politicians. Smash is a TV show about a Broadway show that constantly seems to look over its shoulder, fearing that the outside world is gaining on it because who really wants to watch a show that's just about Broadway. It's commercially logical and entirely mistaken. The show is about what it's about, if you don't think people want to watch what your shows about, then make a different show, don't bring in lots of extraneous elements in order to appeal to people who don't care about what you care about.
Casting: It's not bad, but it's just the slightest bit off. If you've just come off seeing Michelle Williams in My Week with Marilyn, it's harder to buy into Megan Hilty's performance here. Katharine McPhee is good but generic, when she's put into the ensemble instead of being given the lead role, you don't automatically think it's a bad decision. There's nothing wrong with having personality, the faces of the people in The Good Wife radiate all kinds of personality, all of it the right kind for the role. Smash is just that little bit off, that fine line between that person in high school with some weird ambition that everyone respects because it's so true and real for that person, and the person with some weird ambition that everyone thinks is just weird.
As always, these things run into one another. The role of an assistant to the composers is underwritten. This character could be the audience's surrogate, by seeing what makes him tick we could find ourselves with an interest in the Broadway stage that we didn't know we had until this character started voicing it for us. The way Lloyd's desire to be Ari Gold on Entourage makes us envy Ari at the same time we despise him. In Smash, we get a lot about the adaptation, a little less about this potentially pivotal character, who ends up being defined by his weirdrobe.
I'm being a little too hard on Smash, there are a lot of smart people involved with it. There's this sense that they've slowly gotten more confident over seven episodes to be about the musical instead of the adoption. The original musical numbers are solid. But comparing and contrasting, it's hard to see this grow to be The Good Wife, to be better definitely, but not to be one of the best dramas on TV.
Tuesday, March 13, 2012
Portal Down
This week, Random House unveiled, and I've now started to play around with, an "Author Portal."
This allows authors to check up on their print and e-book sales for their books with Random House, pretty much in real time. It allows them to check on the subsidiary rights sales that Random House has made. It allows them to review their royalty statements. It gives all kinds of information which heretofore hasn't easily been available from the publisher. Some of it has been available only on semi-annual royalty statements with a considerable time lag. Some of it has been available in different ways on Bookscan. Some of it, like timely real time access to e-book sales, hasn't been available at all. Agents can check on all of their contracts with Random House.
Sales information is broken down in different ways. You can check the total number of sales over the life of a title broken down by format (mass market, hardcover, electronic, etc.) or get a pretty good breakdown by sales channel, distributors and book chains and e-book and mass merchandisers and several other strata.
Why is Random House doing this? Why after so many years of trying to keep a lid on some of these pieces of information are they suddenly opening up a curtain to show all?
Part of it is that they can. Not too long ago, the IT involved in dong all of this would have been kind of daunting.
Part is because other people are already making chunks of this information available. As an example, authors can set up a portal on Amazon that allows access to Bookscan sales information.
Part of it is about being relevant. When there are so many ways to self-publish and to get data on your e-book sales with B&N and Amazon with very little lag, one way for Random House to keep authors is to give them more and better information than somebody else can.
There is some benefit to Random House in giving this information away. It will reduce the number of times an author or agent has to ask an editor for some piece of sales information. As an example, I was just querying Elizabeth Moon's editor to see how the e-book sales for Echoes of Betrayal compared to the sales of Kings of the North a year ago. If the portal had been available, I could have gone hunting for that information myself.
If knowledge is power, Random House is giving up some power by giving up knowledge. Certainly for my most successful authors having close to real-time access may give me a little more power at the bargaining table. However, it may also empower Random House as well. Let's say Random House wants to keep publishing an author but feels they overpaid a little on the last contract, now when they come to me and ask for a pay cut they can take the "you can see for yourself" approach because all the disappointing-against-the-advance sales information is there for me to look at and I can be most haughtily informed of that fact. Same thing for an author Random House wants to drop, it takes a little of the burden of dong it gently or nicely off of the publisher because the reason is there for an author to see, it's been there for the author to see, there's no reason for it not to have been seen.
This doesn't entirely disintermediate Amazon and Bookscan. An author can check only their Random House titles, I can only check my clients. Bookscan doesn't track every copy sold while Random House tracks every copy it ships, but a full access Bookscan subscription does allow me to check anything by anyone. However, it's safe to say that if three or four of the six major publishers had similar portals, it would become a lot harder to justify layering a Bookscan subscription on top of that.
It's pretty clear that Random House didn't do a lot of testing and checking of the portal on Safari. I ended up having to switch to Firefox to finish the enrollment process, going back in to actually use the site in Safari my cursor kept disappearing unless I moused outside of Safari and then back in.
The printed royalty statements sometimes contain "Print Summary" sheets that give copies printed and a monthly breakdown of copies shipped and sold and other bits and pieces of information we want to track. The online versions of the royalty statements are direct clones of the mailed ones, they don't incorporate print summaries that weren't incorporated in the mailed royalty statement. So I'll still have to manually request those sheets instead of doing self-service via the portal.
At least from what I'm seeing, the sub rights field is a straight list of the deals that have been made, but it doesn't add a lot of color on what advances might be expected or received from a licensor, it doesn't provide any access or summary of the royalty statements that might be coming in from the sub rights licensor, so I don't have a way to use the portal to figure out how many copies the SF Book Club has sold of Elizabeth Moon's Oath of Fealty, or how many audio copies Recorded Books has reported for Peter V. Brett's The Desert Spear.
It's a little bit clunky, hitting this error then checking that box then clicking on that link, and I feel as if there might be a slightly less cumbersome interface awaiting discovery.
But on balance, let's count this as a win for the home team. It's allowing my clients to find out more, to find out sooner, and to be more aware of what's happening.
So, Thank You, Random House.
Simon & Schuster has something similar going on, I don't have a lot of current business there. All we need is to start seeing Hachette and Harper and Macmillan and Penguin joining the jamboree.
This allows authors to check up on their print and e-book sales for their books with Random House, pretty much in real time. It allows them to check on the subsidiary rights sales that Random House has made. It allows them to review their royalty statements. It gives all kinds of information which heretofore hasn't easily been available from the publisher. Some of it has been available only on semi-annual royalty statements with a considerable time lag. Some of it has been available in different ways on Bookscan. Some of it, like timely real time access to e-book sales, hasn't been available at all. Agents can check on all of their contracts with Random House.
Sales information is broken down in different ways. You can check the total number of sales over the life of a title broken down by format (mass market, hardcover, electronic, etc.) or get a pretty good breakdown by sales channel, distributors and book chains and e-book and mass merchandisers and several other strata.
Why is Random House doing this? Why after so many years of trying to keep a lid on some of these pieces of information are they suddenly opening up a curtain to show all?
Part of it is that they can. Not too long ago, the IT involved in dong all of this would have been kind of daunting.
Part is because other people are already making chunks of this information available. As an example, authors can set up a portal on Amazon that allows access to Bookscan sales information.
Part of it is about being relevant. When there are so many ways to self-publish and to get data on your e-book sales with B&N and Amazon with very little lag, one way for Random House to keep authors is to give them more and better information than somebody else can.
There is some benefit to Random House in giving this information away. It will reduce the number of times an author or agent has to ask an editor for some piece of sales information. As an example, I was just querying Elizabeth Moon's editor to see how the e-book sales for Echoes of Betrayal compared to the sales of Kings of the North a year ago. If the portal had been available, I could have gone hunting for that information myself.
If knowledge is power, Random House is giving up some power by giving up knowledge. Certainly for my most successful authors having close to real-time access may give me a little more power at the bargaining table. However, it may also empower Random House as well. Let's say Random House wants to keep publishing an author but feels they overpaid a little on the last contract, now when they come to me and ask for a pay cut they can take the "you can see for yourself" approach because all the disappointing-against-the-advance sales information is there for me to look at and I can be most haughtily informed of that fact. Same thing for an author Random House wants to drop, it takes a little of the burden of dong it gently or nicely off of the publisher because the reason is there for an author to see, it's been there for the author to see, there's no reason for it not to have been seen.
This doesn't entirely disintermediate Amazon and Bookscan. An author can check only their Random House titles, I can only check my clients. Bookscan doesn't track every copy sold while Random House tracks every copy it ships, but a full access Bookscan subscription does allow me to check anything by anyone. However, it's safe to say that if three or four of the six major publishers had similar portals, it would become a lot harder to justify layering a Bookscan subscription on top of that.
It's pretty clear that Random House didn't do a lot of testing and checking of the portal on Safari. I ended up having to switch to Firefox to finish the enrollment process, going back in to actually use the site in Safari my cursor kept disappearing unless I moused outside of Safari and then back in.
The printed royalty statements sometimes contain "Print Summary" sheets that give copies printed and a monthly breakdown of copies shipped and sold and other bits and pieces of information we want to track. The online versions of the royalty statements are direct clones of the mailed ones, they don't incorporate print summaries that weren't incorporated in the mailed royalty statement. So I'll still have to manually request those sheets instead of doing self-service via the portal.
At least from what I'm seeing, the sub rights field is a straight list of the deals that have been made, but it doesn't add a lot of color on what advances might be expected or received from a licensor, it doesn't provide any access or summary of the royalty statements that might be coming in from the sub rights licensor, so I don't have a way to use the portal to figure out how many copies the SF Book Club has sold of Elizabeth Moon's Oath of Fealty, or how many audio copies Recorded Books has reported for Peter V. Brett's The Desert Spear.
It's a little bit clunky, hitting this error then checking that box then clicking on that link, and I feel as if there might be a slightly less cumbersome interface awaiting discovery.
But on balance, let's count this as a win for the home team. It's allowing my clients to find out more, to find out sooner, and to be more aware of what's happening.
So, Thank You, Random House.
Simon & Schuster has something similar going on, I don't have a lot of current business there. All we need is to start seeing Hachette and Harper and Macmillan and Penguin joining the jamboree.
Sunday, February 26, 2012
Oscars 2012
11:47 PM Maybe a recap post to come, but for now, the live blog is shutting down. See you at the movies.
11:43 PM No real surprise in the Best Picture category. I wasn't a fan of The Artist, but I do want to give some respect out to Harvey Weinstein. A kind of kindred soul in this way. I have an eye for spotting talent for writing good books, and I'm always willing to stick in my two cents on how to make the good books better and hopefully into great. And that's Harvey. He knows how to find movies that can participate in the Oscar parade. His reputation as Harvey Scissorhands is not undeserved, I think here he may be a little more forceful and a little better able to have his way, in part because he actually cuts the checks while I can only promise a good effort to get people to cut them. And when it comes to Oscar campaigning, he knows what he's doing. He's got the kind of Oscar marketing machine that I try in a smaller way to apply to the foreign marketing for the JABberwocky list. He saw The Artist. He sensed it. He even sensed that he could keep his Scissorhands off of it. And he got it. Deserved? Didn't deserve? You know, I have to respect that he can go out and make these things happen.
11:40 PM My disappointment in the Best Actor category is balanced by the pleasant surprise of Meryl Streep winning for Best Actress. Woo hoo! I can't say enough how good her performance was in The Iron Lady. And what a wonderful speech, that one if you are watching at home or in the audience, please try. Real seeming emotion, thanks limited to just a few special people instead of a long laundry list. Joy, graciousness, modesty, all in one. Well, that was just a happy-making victory.
11:21 PM Overall the show is reminding me of watching a movie on commercial TV, where they have a good 15 or 20 minutes without commercials at the beginning so you get into it, and then as you get along you've got commercials for 4 mnutes out of every 12 and it's baffling why anyone actually watches the move. The commercial load the first hour wasn't bad, but for the past 45 minutes it's been one block, whether it's the actor award or the memorial, followed by multiple minutes of commercials. Explains why I shoudln't have worried the show would run short when we had just a few awards left to present a half hour ago. The Penneys commercials are excellent, though I thought maybe that last one was for Miracle Whip. Diet Coke also re-ran a commercial joining Sprint in that ignominy, but at least it's a really good fresh ad seen tonight for the first time.
11:18 PM I am not happy with Jeana Dujardin winning Best Actor for The Artist. There are only four other performances I think I liked more in this category. Even Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but what a performance. Well, it was a nice acceptance speech at least, but I really really really would have liked seeing George Clooney coming out with this one. Humbug.
10:58 PM Couldn't they have cut to the commercial break giving more of a glimpse of the honorary Oscar recipients in their box, instead of yet another view of the musicians playing in the other boxes, which we've seen only 12 times already over the course of the evening?
10;55 PM Best DIrector goes to Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist. No surprise, but very disappointing to me. Perhaps the only thing more disappointing than seeing a repeat of the same Sprint ad from earlier during the preceding commercial break. If they were going to run a Sprint ad twice, it should have been the one that was filmed near JABberwocky Central, with the CEO at Gantry State Park on the Long Island City waterfront just a couple miles away.
10:30 PM Happily the Original Screenplay award did NOT go to The Artist. I liked Midnight in Paris, happy here.
10:28 PM And the winners for Adapted Screenplay do thank the author of the book on which the screenplay was based. Very important!!!
10:27 PM. Since I liked The Descendants very much, my pick for Best Picture, having it take home at least the one Oscar makes me happy.
10:23 PM The chocolate chip bar from Buttercup was OK, my next dessert course is a cream cheese brownie from Crumbs. Another good Penney's ad, interesting Tide ad, better AT&T ad than what Sprint is showing.
10:19 PM Very glad to see Man or Muppet win over its one competitor for Best Song. If you watch the old Muppet Show, you'll see how important music was to the show, having fun with music, doing unexpected things with music. "A true honor to work in the shadow of such legends" does about sum up how one should feel about writing music for the Muppets, and last year's addition to the Muppet cannon did a good job of living up to that legacy. A pleasing win.
10:12 PM Original score is a really strong category. The Artist had a score that was absolutely integral to it, as did Hugo. The music for War Horse plays and I see War Horse. It's even hard to argue the excellent score for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was overlooked, because I don't know which of the nominees I'd boot in favor of it. No real surprise, and really hard to object, to having it to go The Artist.
10:04 PM for those watching at a home Christopher Plummer game a wonderful acceptance speech, but this was by a professional driver on a closed course, do not attempt because the music will cut you off, and then your microphone will cut out. The last time I watched a chunk of The Sound of Music a couple years ago, it amazed me to see how youthful Christopher Plummer looked, it shouldn't, it was 45 or 50 years ago, but still. He probably looks better at 82 than I do a bit shy of 50 still, which gives me something to look forward to. I still don't like the movie, but this is one of those career achievement awards you just can't argue with. My pick for Plummer, go and take a look at his performance as a customs agent in Atom Egoyan's film Ararat.
10:00 PM Kenneth Branaagh -- is he a vision of Jeremy Renner in 25 years? There's an uncanniy resemblance to me.
9:56 PM. 5 wins for Hugo. I would have loved seeing Harry Potter or Rise of the Planet of the Apes winning for visual effects.
9:55 PM racing through the show so they have time for the Ben Stiller - Emma Stone train wreck.
9:45 PM Kind of a dull show, the acceptance speech in the documentary cataegory is actually lively, so they bleep some and cut it off.
9:34 PM Diet Coke ad was good, Sprint ad is another same old same old that isn't impressing me, if you're going to come to the Oscars you really should put on a new outfit.
9:28 PM And with another win for Sound Effects I think we can safely give Hugo the crown for most, if not the most important.
9:26 PM Sound editing to Hugo, its 3rd win, it may end the evening at least tied for the most Oscars.
9:25 PM Today's paper has a coupon for Doritos, maybe I will buy some!
9:24 PM Even more baffling, how can it win?
9:22 PM, how can the overlong Dragon Tattoo have a nomination for film editing?
9:17 PM I thought the Miracle Whip ad was another JC Penney ad. Not a fan of The Help, hard not to like the outpouring of affection for Octavia Spencer's win for supporting actresss.
9:08 PM Footnote is the only nominee for Foreign Language Film that I've seen. I might want to see Bullhead. No interest at all in the winner, A Separation.
8:59 PM And Iron Lady wins. Excellent!
8:58 PM I would go with Iron Lady for makeup.
8:55 PM I only saw two of the Costume nominees, so it can't bd a surprise that it goes to a film, The Artist, that was actually seen and is in the award mix overall. I wish I'd seen Anonymouse.
8:53 PM This opening film montage -- pointless. Gave me a chance to crack open a Mike's Hard Lemonade and get the Buttercup Bakery chocolate chip bar out of its bag. I'm hungry!
8:50 PM After the great JC Penney ad, disappointing to see Spring with the same unlimited data for iPhone ad that I've seen 142 times before.
8:49 PM For as long as I can remember, the first award out the door was one of the Supporting Acting awards, I don't know how to deal with this thing with giving out two technical awards first.
8:48 PM The JC Penney add about coupons was funnier than the Billy Crystal opening.
8:46 PM With these first two technical awards going to Hugo, it's clear that there isn't gong to be some big sweep for The Artist even if it wins for Best Picture. I don't think these two wins are a harbinger of a surprise sweep for Hugo. I might have opted for Midnight in Paris in this category.
8:44 PM Of the films nominated for cinematography, I think War Horse had the photography I enjoyed most. I can't complain too much on having Robert RIchardson win, he's done a lot of good word and I think first and foremost of Born on the 4th of July, one of multiple films he did for Oliver Stone.
8:40 PM The Chapter 11 Theatre. Used to the Kodak Theatre, maybe even still is, but Kodak is in bankruptcy and got the OK to back out of its naming deal for the venue.
8:40 PM The opening montage was more of a chuckle than a belly laugh, but OK, it'll do kid, it'll do.
8:30 PM Best Original Screenplay is a tough category. There are three films here that I'd love to see winning, Bridesmaids, Margin Call and Midnight in Paris. I'll give some blog space to Margin Call,which is one of the movies from 2012 that I wish I'd found time to see twice. It has moments that I'm still seeing seveal months later, the really bland office space for the finanicial firm doesn't seem so bland in my mind's eye. There's Jeremy Irons chewing this boring scenery at the crucial board meeting that will decide the fate of his financial firm, Zachary Quinto staring at a computer screen. Debra Winger and Stanley Tucci being paid to sit in a room. These are moments that usually don't stock out because there's so bland, but somehow this movie takes the workaday life of high finance and makes it crackle. Excellent script and acted with passion all the way around.
8:25 PM The Supporting Actor category... well, it's hard to believe Christopher Plummer has never won an Oscar for all the excellent performances he's done over the years, I don't like that he's going to win it for a performance that's so brilliant in its subtely it didn't make much of aa impression on me at all in a film that made a rather negative impression on me, like I wish I hadn't forked over a Very Important Neighbor ticket to see it at the Clearview Chelsea. I might vote for Jonah Hill in this category. But Nick Nolte's nomination is a good occasion to talk belatedly in praise of Warrior. I wish I had more time to review movies on my blog because I feel guilty about not having given some warm words of praise to this movie when it came out. As to Nolte himself, his performance is a lot of old saws knit together, a modern update of Burgess Meredith's trainer character in Rocky, one might say. But it's an awfully good piece of work nonetheless. The movie is one of the best sports movies I've ever seen, a little surprisingly because it's about a sport, mixed martial arts, that doesn't particularly interest me. But it is the first film of it's the where I've ever gotten to the final bout and not really known which character I was supposed to root for. That never happens in sports movies, but this script is a gem and pulls it off. Doesn't hurt that Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton are also giving quite excellent performances, too bad my good memories of Tom Hardy's have been washed away by the recent drek known as This Means War. But trust me on this, consider putting Warrior on your Netflix queue.
8:23 PM LIked the backstage look at the winner's walk.
8:16 PM A quick shout out in Best Actor to Demian Bichir. Not too many people saw A Better Life. It's kind of depressing in the end. But it's excellent filmmaking, really absorbing, and Bichir's performance is an important part of that. One of those occasions when just getting the nomination is a win in and of itself.
8:07 PM Best actress is a category worht talking about ahead of time. The general consensus is that Viola Davis will win for The Help. I don't mind Viola, you can go see an incredible performance from her in the film version of Doubt, as one example. But for Meryl Streep not to win this year would be a darned shame. When I was young and Meryl was in movies like Sophie's Choice or Out of Africa, I didn't truck much with her, all of that "just doing accents" stuff. As I've aged, I've grown to appreciate her work more and more in the richness of variety and the invisibility of her technique. The Devil Wore Prada and Being Julia Child. I think her performance in The Iron Lady might be her very best performance ever. She is the movie, and you don't see her. You see Margaret Thatcher all the way. It isn't an actress wearing a nose, but an actress totally immersed in every aspect of the subject. The movie isn't great, I liked the first half quite a bit but thought it faltered in the later going as it had to deal with the Falklands in ten minutes and then the union strikes in ten minutes without very much to say about any of these things. But what a performance it is. Just incredible. She has my Oscar vote, but mine doesn't count. I didn't see Albert Nobbs, doubt I will. Michelle Williams was quite good in My Week with Marilyn. Don't get me started on Dragon Tattoo, nothing against Rooney Mara but the movie paled next to the original Swedish version. You can't take good pulp material like this and drown it in so much Hollywood acting and Hollywood production value and languor. Meryl is the best!
8:03 PM, settling in for the evening's excitement!
11:43 PM No real surprise in the Best Picture category. I wasn't a fan of The Artist, but I do want to give some respect out to Harvey Weinstein. A kind of kindred soul in this way. I have an eye for spotting talent for writing good books, and I'm always willing to stick in my two cents on how to make the good books better and hopefully into great. And that's Harvey. He knows how to find movies that can participate in the Oscar parade. His reputation as Harvey Scissorhands is not undeserved, I think here he may be a little more forceful and a little better able to have his way, in part because he actually cuts the checks while I can only promise a good effort to get people to cut them. And when it comes to Oscar campaigning, he knows what he's doing. He's got the kind of Oscar marketing machine that I try in a smaller way to apply to the foreign marketing for the JABberwocky list. He saw The Artist. He sensed it. He even sensed that he could keep his Scissorhands off of it. And he got it. Deserved? Didn't deserve? You know, I have to respect that he can go out and make these things happen.
11:40 PM My disappointment in the Best Actor category is balanced by the pleasant surprise of Meryl Streep winning for Best Actress. Woo hoo! I can't say enough how good her performance was in The Iron Lady. And what a wonderful speech, that one if you are watching at home or in the audience, please try. Real seeming emotion, thanks limited to just a few special people instead of a long laundry list. Joy, graciousness, modesty, all in one. Well, that was just a happy-making victory.
11:21 PM Overall the show is reminding me of watching a movie on commercial TV, where they have a good 15 or 20 minutes without commercials at the beginning so you get into it, and then as you get along you've got commercials for 4 mnutes out of every 12 and it's baffling why anyone actually watches the move. The commercial load the first hour wasn't bad, but for the past 45 minutes it's been one block, whether it's the actor award or the memorial, followed by multiple minutes of commercials. Explains why I shoudln't have worried the show would run short when we had just a few awards left to present a half hour ago. The Penneys commercials are excellent, though I thought maybe that last one was for Miracle Whip. Diet Coke also re-ran a commercial joining Sprint in that ignominy, but at least it's a really good fresh ad seen tonight for the first time.
11:18 PM I am not happy with Jeana Dujardin winning Best Actor for The Artist. There are only four other performances I think I liked more in this category. Even Gary Oldman in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. I wasn't a big fan of the movie, but what a performance. Well, it was a nice acceptance speech at least, but I really really really would have liked seeing George Clooney coming out with this one. Humbug.
10:58 PM Couldn't they have cut to the commercial break giving more of a glimpse of the honorary Oscar recipients in their box, instead of yet another view of the musicians playing in the other boxes, which we've seen only 12 times already over the course of the evening?
10;55 PM Best DIrector goes to Michel Hazanavicius for The Artist. No surprise, but very disappointing to me. Perhaps the only thing more disappointing than seeing a repeat of the same Sprint ad from earlier during the preceding commercial break. If they were going to run a Sprint ad twice, it should have been the one that was filmed near JABberwocky Central, with the CEO at Gantry State Park on the Long Island City waterfront just a couple miles away.
10:30 PM Happily the Original Screenplay award did NOT go to The Artist. I liked Midnight in Paris, happy here.
10:28 PM And the winners for Adapted Screenplay do thank the author of the book on which the screenplay was based. Very important!!!
10:27 PM. Since I liked The Descendants very much, my pick for Best Picture, having it take home at least the one Oscar makes me happy.
10:23 PM The chocolate chip bar from Buttercup was OK, my next dessert course is a cream cheese brownie from Crumbs. Another good Penney's ad, interesting Tide ad, better AT&T ad than what Sprint is showing.
10:19 PM Very glad to see Man or Muppet win over its one competitor for Best Song. If you watch the old Muppet Show, you'll see how important music was to the show, having fun with music, doing unexpected things with music. "A true honor to work in the shadow of such legends" does about sum up how one should feel about writing music for the Muppets, and last year's addition to the Muppet cannon did a good job of living up to that legacy. A pleasing win.
10:12 PM Original score is a really strong category. The Artist had a score that was absolutely integral to it, as did Hugo. The music for War Horse plays and I see War Horse. It's even hard to argue the excellent score for Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close was overlooked, because I don't know which of the nominees I'd boot in favor of it. No real surprise, and really hard to object, to having it to go The Artist.
10:04 PM for those watching at a home Christopher Plummer game a wonderful acceptance speech, but this was by a professional driver on a closed course, do not attempt because the music will cut you off, and then your microphone will cut out. The last time I watched a chunk of The Sound of Music a couple years ago, it amazed me to see how youthful Christopher Plummer looked, it shouldn't, it was 45 or 50 years ago, but still. He probably looks better at 82 than I do a bit shy of 50 still, which gives me something to look forward to. I still don't like the movie, but this is one of those career achievement awards you just can't argue with. My pick for Plummer, go and take a look at his performance as a customs agent in Atom Egoyan's film Ararat.
10:00 PM Kenneth Branaagh -- is he a vision of Jeremy Renner in 25 years? There's an uncanniy resemblance to me.
9:56 PM. 5 wins for Hugo. I would have loved seeing Harry Potter or Rise of the Planet of the Apes winning for visual effects.
9:55 PM racing through the show so they have time for the Ben Stiller - Emma Stone train wreck.
9:45 PM Kind of a dull show, the acceptance speech in the documentary cataegory is actually lively, so they bleep some and cut it off.
9:34 PM Diet Coke ad was good, Sprint ad is another same old same old that isn't impressing me, if you're going to come to the Oscars you really should put on a new outfit.
9:28 PM And with another win for Sound Effects I think we can safely give Hugo the crown for most, if not the most important.
9:26 PM Sound editing to Hugo, its 3rd win, it may end the evening at least tied for the most Oscars.
9:25 PM Today's paper has a coupon for Doritos, maybe I will buy some!
9:24 PM Even more baffling, how can it win?
9:22 PM, how can the overlong Dragon Tattoo have a nomination for film editing?
9:17 PM I thought the Miracle Whip ad was another JC Penney ad. Not a fan of The Help, hard not to like the outpouring of affection for Octavia Spencer's win for supporting actresss.
9:08 PM Footnote is the only nominee for Foreign Language Film that I've seen. I might want to see Bullhead. No interest at all in the winner, A Separation.
8:59 PM And Iron Lady wins. Excellent!
8:58 PM I would go with Iron Lady for makeup.
8:55 PM I only saw two of the Costume nominees, so it can't bd a surprise that it goes to a film, The Artist, that was actually seen and is in the award mix overall. I wish I'd seen Anonymouse.
8:53 PM This opening film montage -- pointless. Gave me a chance to crack open a Mike's Hard Lemonade and get the Buttercup Bakery chocolate chip bar out of its bag. I'm hungry!
8:50 PM After the great JC Penney ad, disappointing to see Spring with the same unlimited data for iPhone ad that I've seen 142 times before.
8:49 PM For as long as I can remember, the first award out the door was one of the Supporting Acting awards, I don't know how to deal with this thing with giving out two technical awards first.
8:48 PM The JC Penney add about coupons was funnier than the Billy Crystal opening.
8:46 PM With these first two technical awards going to Hugo, it's clear that there isn't gong to be some big sweep for The Artist even if it wins for Best Picture. I don't think these two wins are a harbinger of a surprise sweep for Hugo. I might have opted for Midnight in Paris in this category.
8:44 PM Of the films nominated for cinematography, I think War Horse had the photography I enjoyed most. I can't complain too much on having Robert RIchardson win, he's done a lot of good word and I think first and foremost of Born on the 4th of July, one of multiple films he did for Oliver Stone.
8:40 PM The Chapter 11 Theatre. Used to the Kodak Theatre, maybe even still is, but Kodak is in bankruptcy and got the OK to back out of its naming deal for the venue.
8:40 PM The opening montage was more of a chuckle than a belly laugh, but OK, it'll do kid, it'll do.
8:30 PM Best Original Screenplay is a tough category. There are three films here that I'd love to see winning, Bridesmaids, Margin Call and Midnight in Paris. I'll give some blog space to Margin Call,which is one of the movies from 2012 that I wish I'd found time to see twice. It has moments that I'm still seeing seveal months later, the really bland office space for the finanicial firm doesn't seem so bland in my mind's eye. There's Jeremy Irons chewing this boring scenery at the crucial board meeting that will decide the fate of his financial firm, Zachary Quinto staring at a computer screen. Debra Winger and Stanley Tucci being paid to sit in a room. These are moments that usually don't stock out because there's so bland, but somehow this movie takes the workaday life of high finance and makes it crackle. Excellent script and acted with passion all the way around.
8:25 PM The Supporting Actor category... well, it's hard to believe Christopher Plummer has never won an Oscar for all the excellent performances he's done over the years, I don't like that he's going to win it for a performance that's so brilliant in its subtely it didn't make much of aa impression on me at all in a film that made a rather negative impression on me, like I wish I hadn't forked over a Very Important Neighbor ticket to see it at the Clearview Chelsea. I might vote for Jonah Hill in this category. But Nick Nolte's nomination is a good occasion to talk belatedly in praise of Warrior. I wish I had more time to review movies on my blog because I feel guilty about not having given some warm words of praise to this movie when it came out. As to Nolte himself, his performance is a lot of old saws knit together, a modern update of Burgess Meredith's trainer character in Rocky, one might say. But it's an awfully good piece of work nonetheless. The movie is one of the best sports movies I've ever seen, a little surprisingly because it's about a sport, mixed martial arts, that doesn't particularly interest me. But it is the first film of it's the where I've ever gotten to the final bout and not really known which character I was supposed to root for. That never happens in sports movies, but this script is a gem and pulls it off. Doesn't hurt that Tom Hardy and Joel Edgerton are also giving quite excellent performances, too bad my good memories of Tom Hardy's have been washed away by the recent drek known as This Means War. But trust me on this, consider putting Warrior on your Netflix queue.
8:23 PM LIked the backstage look at the winner's walk.
8:16 PM A quick shout out in Best Actor to Demian Bichir. Not too many people saw A Better Life. It's kind of depressing in the end. But it's excellent filmmaking, really absorbing, and Bichir's performance is an important part of that. One of those occasions when just getting the nomination is a win in and of itself.
8:07 PM Best actress is a category worht talking about ahead of time. The general consensus is that Viola Davis will win for The Help. I don't mind Viola, you can go see an incredible performance from her in the film version of Doubt, as one example. But for Meryl Streep not to win this year would be a darned shame. When I was young and Meryl was in movies like Sophie's Choice or Out of Africa, I didn't truck much with her, all of that "just doing accents" stuff. As I've aged, I've grown to appreciate her work more and more in the richness of variety and the invisibility of her technique. The Devil Wore Prada and Being Julia Child. I think her performance in The Iron Lady might be her very best performance ever. She is the movie, and you don't see her. You see Margaret Thatcher all the way. It isn't an actress wearing a nose, but an actress totally immersed in every aspect of the subject. The movie isn't great, I liked the first half quite a bit but thought it faltered in the later going as it had to deal with the Falklands in ten minutes and then the union strikes in ten minutes without very much to say about any of these things. But what a performance it is. Just incredible. She has my Oscar vote, but mine doesn't count. I didn't see Albert Nobbs, doubt I will. Michelle Williams was quite good in My Week with Marilyn. Don't get me started on Dragon Tattoo, nothing against Rooney Mara but the movie paled next to the original Swedish version. You can't take good pulp material like this and drown it in so much Hollywood acting and Hollywood production value and languor. Meryl is the best!
8:03 PM, settling in for the evening's excitement!
The Pre Oscar -- Best Picture
I don't know how Bryce Moore manages with two kids to find time for more movie reviews than I do, but it's time to at least say something in preparation for Sunday's Oscar ceremony!
We have nine Best Picture nominees, I've seen all of them to some extent or another.
Let's say I won't be rooting for Hugo. I started to feel weary within ten or fifteen minutes of the film starting. I eventually woke up, decided sleeping was to be preferred, and ended up walking out. During the brief moments that I was awake, I could see that the movie was brilliantly made from a production design standpoint or a music standpoint or in any and many fashions you could say. But the story was just boring, I didn't care about the kid, I didn't want to see a peon to motion picture history or preservation.
I also left The Help. I hadn't read the book, I read the first page or so and recoiled at the very thought of it. Trying to watch the movie cold reminded me of what it must have been like to try and watch Sorceror's Stone without having started in on the Harry Potter series. It was dramatically inert, I didn't care about the main character or any character just from what was on the screen. The buzz is that this will mean I will not properly appreciate the virtues of the actresses most likely to win in both leading and supporting characters. Pardon the pun, but there's no Help for for that.
I did kind of like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I thought it rang true in a lot of important ways, in the relationship between the mother and child, in the child's reaction to what happened on 9/11. It's not "real" after that, it's a movie. But I was bothered a lot more by the unreality of having World War I stop for ten minutes so a British and German soldier could take care of War Horse than I was by anything in Extremely Loud. If the Best Picture race were between the two of these pictures, I'd put the horse out to some incredibly close pasture and be done with it. Not that War Horse doesn't have some virtues as well, but its mawkishness and manipulativeness was far more apparent in my eyes.
I don't know what to say about Tree of Life. I saw it. I stayed awake, pretty much. But it's not a movie. It's a tone poem or an elegy or something but it isn't a movie. I'm sure whatever it is, it's a very good example of whatever. But I like to see a movie when I go to the movies.
Of the above films, Extremely Loud and War Horse are the only ones that I was in any rush to see. I only went to The Help at all because it was a free screening months after it opened, I waited weeks to see Tree of Life. Hugo was part of a double feature with the rather disappointing Young Adult. By and large, I was right to have been disinterested.
Similarly, I saw The Artist pretty much only because I had an opportunity to see it as part of a last minute add on to the Variety Screening Series. And this was entirely disposable and missable as well. It's not a bad movie. But it's such a trifle that I don't entirely see the point of it. The most interesting part of it to me was correctly noticing that part of it was filmed in the Bradbury Building, which might be best known for being used in Blade Runner. The ornate staircase looked a lot different here, but it's one distinct piece of staircase. It pains me to think that this amusing little trifle is thought to be the leading contender for Best Picture. Really?
Extremely Loud might be preposterous in some ways in some eyes, but I at least see it as a legitimate attempt to go near the events of 9/11, and where it approaches them most directly to do so in real vibrant ways that speak -- accurately in the eyes of someone in NYC on the day -- to some of the actual emotion of the events.
If I'm not rooting for The Artist...
well, I'm not rooting for Moneyball. Brad Pitt is awfully good in the movie, Jonah Hill is awfully good in the movie, there are some good performances lurking elsewhere, like Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Oaklands As manager Art Howe. The last third or maybe last half of the move was actually pretty darned good. The problem here is just that the first chunk of the movie isn't really that good. It's too slow to get going. Not rooting for it, but of the nine nominees this is in the half that I at least don't mind seeing in the running.
Midnight in Paris, this is a great movie, but like The Artist I think it's a little too trifling for me to really want to pull for it in the Best Picture category. Still, it's an awfully good movie, Woody Allen's best movie in perhaps 20 years, his first really good one maybe since Crimes and Misdemeanors. If you haven't fallen in love with the idea of Paris before, it's hard not after the opening montage of the city photographed with its best side in every frame, in every shot, in every glimmer of light. The script is tight, witty, the contemporary relationships feel real, and I'm willing then to consider that the historical parts of it are as real as the contemporary. Whether they are or not, I don't know, but I'm willing to go along for the ride. It's hard in some ways to say why this movie charmed me so thoroughly where The Artist does not. Maybe it's because The Artist competes with my memories of Mel Brooks' Silent Movie? Maybe it's because there's some edge and ambivalence to the relationships in Midnight in Paris, while there's never any real doubt what will happen in The Artist, if you've seen a lot of movies The Artist has one of those scripts that you can write from memory of other films. I certainly couldn't fill in the blanks from my own experience on the literary experiences of Paris through the ages.
Ultimately, and rather surprisingly in light of my past experience with the director, my hands down favorite pick for Best Picture from the films that were nominated is The Descendants. I don't think I've ever liked an Alexander Payne film quite as much as his most fervent admirers. Sideways was experienced by me in the same way as Hugo, a film better suited for napping than for viewing. Election wasn't bad, but I'd call it Enhlenhectenh because it's kind of enh and not really great. And somehow or other, this director I've never really warmed to managed to come up with a brilliant picture. He's helped tons by George Clooney. Clooney has been so good if not better in so many movies, but he gives his best performance yet in this picture. It's quiet, subtle, yet incredibly forceful. There's no sign of star power or glamor when he's trying to deal with the daughters he doesn't really know. It might be the only movie set in Hawaii that makes me want to visit, because it doesn't just stay on the touristy beaches. It reveals the islands as actual places where real people eat, meet, work. Shows me a place I could actually walk around in and visit and experience in ways beyond worrying about whether I'd gotten all the right spots with my sunscreen. The script presents characters that movie experience tells us are to be experienced in particular ways, and then if gives us an entirely different experience, often in subtle, well-crafted scenes that put the craft and unique experience of cinema to use. There's the confrontation scene between George Clooney and Matthew Lillard, the gangly guy from the Scream movies, who's something entirely different here. Grown into almost middle age in his face but not quite in his life experiences, holding his own with George Clooney at his best. There are a lot of great scenes in this movie, but to me the one that still holds in my mind's eye a few months after seeing the movie is toward the end. Clooney's in-law has come to say goodbye to his dying daughter. The hospital scene is rife with tension between the two, the son-in-law who's never been good enough for the daughter, the son-in-law who knows he's never been good enough in his father-in-law's eyes. Experience suggests that we go either into some kind of full throttle final argument or to some wonderful scene of last-minute reconciliation. We get neither. Clooney and the camera quietly leave the hospital room with nothing fully resolved, and we peek in at the father and we peek in on Clooney's face. There's no resolution at all to the relationship between the characters, but we see that everything the father's ever said has been said out of real love and care for his daughter, who means more than anything to him, that it might be misguided but never out of malice and spite. And we see in Clooney's face that he might never have enjoyed his father-in-law, but that he'd managed to come to grips over time with his place in the relationship. There's no love, there's no hate, there's a lesson passed along to Clooney's daughter and to us, quietly, gently, but with clarity, it's somehow the quiet ringing of a loud clarion call.
If I could swap out some of the movies I liked less for others I liked more...
Bridesmaids. Comedy done right, uproariously side-splittingly funny. This isn't easy to do.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. About as good a popcorn movie as you can put together. Director Brad Bird, known for animated movies such as Iron Giant and The Incredibles, manages to do live action action with the fluidity of animation, and does it without giving the film the CGI anything goes look and feel that makes some of today's films look artificial.
Margin Call. It has a nomination in the screenplay category, deservedly. I'd settle for that if it weren't that there are so many appreciably worse movies in the 9 contending for Best Picture that this one should be in the mix for the main prize.
We have nine Best Picture nominees, I've seen all of them to some extent or another.
Let's say I won't be rooting for Hugo. I started to feel weary within ten or fifteen minutes of the film starting. I eventually woke up, decided sleeping was to be preferred, and ended up walking out. During the brief moments that I was awake, I could see that the movie was brilliantly made from a production design standpoint or a music standpoint or in any and many fashions you could say. But the story was just boring, I didn't care about the kid, I didn't want to see a peon to motion picture history or preservation.
I also left The Help. I hadn't read the book, I read the first page or so and recoiled at the very thought of it. Trying to watch the movie cold reminded me of what it must have been like to try and watch Sorceror's Stone without having started in on the Harry Potter series. It was dramatically inert, I didn't care about the main character or any character just from what was on the screen. The buzz is that this will mean I will not properly appreciate the virtues of the actresses most likely to win in both leading and supporting characters. Pardon the pun, but there's no Help for for that.
I did kind of like Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I thought it rang true in a lot of important ways, in the relationship between the mother and child, in the child's reaction to what happened on 9/11. It's not "real" after that, it's a movie. But I was bothered a lot more by the unreality of having World War I stop for ten minutes so a British and German soldier could take care of War Horse than I was by anything in Extremely Loud. If the Best Picture race were between the two of these pictures, I'd put the horse out to some incredibly close pasture and be done with it. Not that War Horse doesn't have some virtues as well, but its mawkishness and manipulativeness was far more apparent in my eyes.
I don't know what to say about Tree of Life. I saw it. I stayed awake, pretty much. But it's not a movie. It's a tone poem or an elegy or something but it isn't a movie. I'm sure whatever it is, it's a very good example of whatever. But I like to see a movie when I go to the movies.
Of the above films, Extremely Loud and War Horse are the only ones that I was in any rush to see. I only went to The Help at all because it was a free screening months after it opened, I waited weeks to see Tree of Life. Hugo was part of a double feature with the rather disappointing Young Adult. By and large, I was right to have been disinterested.
Similarly, I saw The Artist pretty much only because I had an opportunity to see it as part of a last minute add on to the Variety Screening Series. And this was entirely disposable and missable as well. It's not a bad movie. But it's such a trifle that I don't entirely see the point of it. The most interesting part of it to me was correctly noticing that part of it was filmed in the Bradbury Building, which might be best known for being used in Blade Runner. The ornate staircase looked a lot different here, but it's one distinct piece of staircase. It pains me to think that this amusing little trifle is thought to be the leading contender for Best Picture. Really?
Extremely Loud might be preposterous in some ways in some eyes, but I at least see it as a legitimate attempt to go near the events of 9/11, and where it approaches them most directly to do so in real vibrant ways that speak -- accurately in the eyes of someone in NYC on the day -- to some of the actual emotion of the events.
If I'm not rooting for The Artist...
well, I'm not rooting for Moneyball. Brad Pitt is awfully good in the movie, Jonah Hill is awfully good in the movie, there are some good performances lurking elsewhere, like Philip Seymour Hoffman as the Oaklands As manager Art Howe. The last third or maybe last half of the move was actually pretty darned good. The problem here is just that the first chunk of the movie isn't really that good. It's too slow to get going. Not rooting for it, but of the nine nominees this is in the half that I at least don't mind seeing in the running.
Midnight in Paris, this is a great movie, but like The Artist I think it's a little too trifling for me to really want to pull for it in the Best Picture category. Still, it's an awfully good movie, Woody Allen's best movie in perhaps 20 years, his first really good one maybe since Crimes and Misdemeanors. If you haven't fallen in love with the idea of Paris before, it's hard not after the opening montage of the city photographed with its best side in every frame, in every shot, in every glimmer of light. The script is tight, witty, the contemporary relationships feel real, and I'm willing then to consider that the historical parts of it are as real as the contemporary. Whether they are or not, I don't know, but I'm willing to go along for the ride. It's hard in some ways to say why this movie charmed me so thoroughly where The Artist does not. Maybe it's because The Artist competes with my memories of Mel Brooks' Silent Movie? Maybe it's because there's some edge and ambivalence to the relationships in Midnight in Paris, while there's never any real doubt what will happen in The Artist, if you've seen a lot of movies The Artist has one of those scripts that you can write from memory of other films. I certainly couldn't fill in the blanks from my own experience on the literary experiences of Paris through the ages.
Ultimately, and rather surprisingly in light of my past experience with the director, my hands down favorite pick for Best Picture from the films that were nominated is The Descendants. I don't think I've ever liked an Alexander Payne film quite as much as his most fervent admirers. Sideways was experienced by me in the same way as Hugo, a film better suited for napping than for viewing. Election wasn't bad, but I'd call it Enhlenhectenh because it's kind of enh and not really great. And somehow or other, this director I've never really warmed to managed to come up with a brilliant picture. He's helped tons by George Clooney. Clooney has been so good if not better in so many movies, but he gives his best performance yet in this picture. It's quiet, subtle, yet incredibly forceful. There's no sign of star power or glamor when he's trying to deal with the daughters he doesn't really know. It might be the only movie set in Hawaii that makes me want to visit, because it doesn't just stay on the touristy beaches. It reveals the islands as actual places where real people eat, meet, work. Shows me a place I could actually walk around in and visit and experience in ways beyond worrying about whether I'd gotten all the right spots with my sunscreen. The script presents characters that movie experience tells us are to be experienced in particular ways, and then if gives us an entirely different experience, often in subtle, well-crafted scenes that put the craft and unique experience of cinema to use. There's the confrontation scene between George Clooney and Matthew Lillard, the gangly guy from the Scream movies, who's something entirely different here. Grown into almost middle age in his face but not quite in his life experiences, holding his own with George Clooney at his best. There are a lot of great scenes in this movie, but to me the one that still holds in my mind's eye a few months after seeing the movie is toward the end. Clooney's in-law has come to say goodbye to his dying daughter. The hospital scene is rife with tension between the two, the son-in-law who's never been good enough for the daughter, the son-in-law who knows he's never been good enough in his father-in-law's eyes. Experience suggests that we go either into some kind of full throttle final argument or to some wonderful scene of last-minute reconciliation. We get neither. Clooney and the camera quietly leave the hospital room with nothing fully resolved, and we peek in at the father and we peek in on Clooney's face. There's no resolution at all to the relationship between the characters, but we see that everything the father's ever said has been said out of real love and care for his daughter, who means more than anything to him, that it might be misguided but never out of malice and spite. And we see in Clooney's face that he might never have enjoyed his father-in-law, but that he'd managed to come to grips over time with his place in the relationship. There's no love, there's no hate, there's a lesson passed along to Clooney's daughter and to us, quietly, gently, but with clarity, it's somehow the quiet ringing of a loud clarion call.
If I could swap out some of the movies I liked less for others I liked more...
Bridesmaids. Comedy done right, uproariously side-splittingly funny. This isn't easy to do.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol. About as good a popcorn movie as you can put together. Director Brad Bird, known for animated movies such as Iron Giant and The Incredibles, manages to do live action action with the fluidity of animation, and does it without giving the film the CGI anything goes look and feel that makes some of today's films look artificial.
Margin Call. It has a nomination in the screenplay category, deservedly. I'd settle for that if it weren't that there are so many appreciably worse movies in the 9 contending for Best Picture that this one should be in the mix for the main prize.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Do The Math
So what do e-books mean for John Taylor and his bride, Suzie?
Penguin is selling an e-book of The Bride Wore Black Leather for $12.99, and the hardcover cover price is $25.95. These prices are not unusual.
The typical royalty rate from a major publisher on an e-book is 25% of net receipts, and the typical publisher share of the e-book price is 70%. So 70% of $12.99 means around $9 going to the publisher, and around $2.25 going to the author.
The typical author royalty rate for a hardcover with a big publisher is between 10 and 15%, we take the middle tier on that at 12.5%, and the author gets around $3.25.
Hence, every time somebody trades from buying a hardcover of Bride Wore Black Leather to buying an e-book, the income to Simon Green drops from $3.25 to $2.25.
This isn't good news, if you are Simon Green!
HOWEVER...
For A Hard Day's Knight, now in mass market, both the e-book and the paperback are $7.99.
Let's do some more more math.
Typical royalty of 8% on the paperback, around $.64 on each paperback sale.
Same math formula for the e-book, list price x .7 to the publisher x .25 to the author. That's $1.40.
Every time an e-book is sold instead of a mass market, the author gains $.75.
I'm using the Nightside books as the example here, but the math would be similar for pretty much any set of hardback and paperback books coming from every major publisher. For a very successful author, the hardcover math is much worse, you're probably trading down from a 15% royalty and a higher hardcover cover price, and losing closer to $2 every time out. And gaining less on mass market sales, where many top bestselling authors might get a higher royalty rate. For a less successful author, the hardcover royalty might be only 10%, and the loss on the e-book trade is reduced. But maybe you're getting only a 6% royalty on your paperback, so your gain as readers trade from e-book to paperback may be even bigger.
Interestingly enough, then, at current industry standard royalty rates, the less successful authors might be better off -- way better off, even, than the most successful authors. You can't say for sure, that's for sure, you have to start doing fancy calculations at all different kinds of permutations of trade-offs to figure out 100% for sure if a given author is better off or worse off, but the math certainly shows that an author with huge hardcover sales to be turned into e-book sales has a lot more lost royalty potential than the author who's being published only in mass market.
Hmmm.
From the publisher standpoint...
You take a $26 hardcover, the publisher may get around $12.50 in revenue back from that. Has to pay the author $3.25, and the gross revenue after royalty expense is $9.25. For the e-book the gross revenue is $12.99 x .7 x .75, or around $6.80 if the e-book is priced at $12.99, $5.25 if the e-book is priced at $9.99. The publisher's gross revenue after royalty expense is clearly way less -- way way way way less -- for the e-book.
Hmmm, we're all sitting around thinking that the publisher is getting rich off of e-books.
That said, we must keep in mind that the hardcover book has more hard cash expenses to it. The unit cost might be $2. I'm going to assume that two-thirds of the books that are printed actually end up selling. So that's $18.50 in revenue after royalty expense for two books, less maybe $6 for the actual physical manufacturing costs of three books, less a little bit more for the freight and the warehouse expenses and other hard costs of a physical book. So that ends up being maybe $6 per book. So for a $12.99 e-book, it's kind of looking like the e-book is $12.99 instead of $9.99 for a reason, the $11.99-12.99 price point is about where the publisher can make as much money per book as on the hardcover, before all the overhead and other costs associated with the book itself -- the cover artist, the copy-editor, the office rent, the salaries for the editors and everyone else hanging around the office. At $9.99, the publisher is taking a real revenue hit from people buying e-books instead of hardcovers, even after taking account of the hard cash expenses that go along with the physical book, but not the e-book.
Bottom line here, on hardcover books, the move to e-books isn't helping publishers very much, if at all.
But on mass markets, the publisher may get $3.50 on a $7.99 paperback, have a royalty expense of $.65, and hard cash expenses for the physical book of $.80 or $1. Let's again assume three books printed for every two sold, that's $7.20 in revenue for selling two books less $1.30 royalty expense less, let's say, $2.70 in hard cash costs. That's around $1.60 per book before overhead. For the e-book at $7.99, it's $7.99 x .7 x .75 = $4.20 !!!
So unless my math is wrong, publishers are doing rather nicely when people trade from mass market to e-book sales, and the author is doing a little bit better off but nowhere near as better off here as the publisher is doing.
Again, there are myriad other factors that can go into this, this is just rough sketching, the unit costs for a mass market book from a 100,000 copy first printing will be vastly less than for a mass market with a 15,000 copy first printing, and that all by itself can make this math look a lot different from book to book.
To be honest, I'm so astonished at how much the math favors the publishers on trading from mass market to e-book that I'm thinking I've got to be getting something entirely wrong, the publishers can't really be doing that well on the mass market, can they?
Now, if you are an author with a track record, the most important lesson in all of this is that you can't determine the appropriate advance for your book by looking at your royalty statement. You might be losing royalties big time on your hardcover sales, but the publisher isn't losing per-unit profit the same way you're losing royalties. You might be gaining royalties on the paperback vs e-book side, but the publisher is probably gaining even more.
So it's like the title of this post says -- Do The Math. You or your agent need to try and grope your way toward looking at the P&L (profit and loss) statement for your book, not the royalty statement. Your numbers for that will never be like the publisher's, because all the publishers have different ways of allocating overhead and other unique factors they won't share with you, but you can rough something out by looking at your previous royalty statements and looking not at royalties earned but at copies shipped vs. sold and e-book copies sold and the expenses that go along with each.
The second thing to ponder here ... what do these numbers suggest regarding the legitimacy of 25% of net proceeds as an appropriate industry standard royalty rate for e-book sales.
Hard to say. If the publisher's trading more hardcover sales for e-book, then 25% of net seems to be kind of the right rate for keeping publisher unit profit at about the same level regardless of format. But 25% of net doesn't seem right when the publisher is trading more mass market sales. The other factor here, authors can easily self publish and get the full 70% of e-book cover price for themselves. Publishers have to justify what they're doing to be keeping three e-book dollars for every one that goes to the author when the authors can easily keep all of them. Because of that, and because of the revenue potential trading from mass market to e-book, I think the 25% has to move up some. Some.
Final quick thing, let's look at a trade paperback. $15-16 paperback, $12.99 e-book. So again $6.80 in gross revenue to the publisher on the e-book, after royalties. On the print side, two books bring in $14.50 or $15 in revenue, less $4.00 for hard physical costs for three books, less $2.40 royalties. That's $4 in gross revenue. Here, it looks like there's more revenue for both the author and the publisher, more equitably split between the two than on the mass market.
Penguin is selling an e-book of The Bride Wore Black Leather for $12.99, and the hardcover cover price is $25.95. These prices are not unusual.
The typical royalty rate from a major publisher on an e-book is 25% of net receipts, and the typical publisher share of the e-book price is 70%. So 70% of $12.99 means around $9 going to the publisher, and around $2.25 going to the author.
The typical author royalty rate for a hardcover with a big publisher is between 10 and 15%, we take the middle tier on that at 12.5%, and the author gets around $3.25.
Hence, every time somebody trades from buying a hardcover of Bride Wore Black Leather to buying an e-book, the income to Simon Green drops from $3.25 to $2.25.
This isn't good news, if you are Simon Green!
HOWEVER...
For A Hard Day's Knight, now in mass market, both the e-book and the paperback are $7.99.
Let's do some more more math.
Typical royalty of 8% on the paperback, around $.64 on each paperback sale.
Same math formula for the e-book, list price x .7 to the publisher x .25 to the author. That's $1.40.
Every time an e-book is sold instead of a mass market, the author gains $.75.
I'm using the Nightside books as the example here, but the math would be similar for pretty much any set of hardback and paperback books coming from every major publisher. For a very successful author, the hardcover math is much worse, you're probably trading down from a 15% royalty and a higher hardcover cover price, and losing closer to $2 every time out. And gaining less on mass market sales, where many top bestselling authors might get a higher royalty rate. For a less successful author, the hardcover royalty might be only 10%, and the loss on the e-book trade is reduced. But maybe you're getting only a 6% royalty on your paperback, so your gain as readers trade from e-book to paperback may be even bigger.
Interestingly enough, then, at current industry standard royalty rates, the less successful authors might be better off -- way better off, even, than the most successful authors. You can't say for sure, that's for sure, you have to start doing fancy calculations at all different kinds of permutations of trade-offs to figure out 100% for sure if a given author is better off or worse off, but the math certainly shows that an author with huge hardcover sales to be turned into e-book sales has a lot more lost royalty potential than the author who's being published only in mass market.
Hmmm.
From the publisher standpoint...
You take a $26 hardcover, the publisher may get around $12.50 in revenue back from that. Has to pay the author $3.25, and the gross revenue after royalty expense is $9.25. For the e-book the gross revenue is $12.99 x .7 x .75, or around $6.80 if the e-book is priced at $12.99, $5.25 if the e-book is priced at $9.99. The publisher's gross revenue after royalty expense is clearly way less -- way way way way less -- for the e-book.
Hmmm, we're all sitting around thinking that the publisher is getting rich off of e-books.
That said, we must keep in mind that the hardcover book has more hard cash expenses to it. The unit cost might be $2. I'm going to assume that two-thirds of the books that are printed actually end up selling. So that's $18.50 in revenue after royalty expense for two books, less maybe $6 for the actual physical manufacturing costs of three books, less a little bit more for the freight and the warehouse expenses and other hard costs of a physical book. So that ends up being maybe $6 per book. So for a $12.99 e-book, it's kind of looking like the e-book is $12.99 instead of $9.99 for a reason, the $11.99-12.99 price point is about where the publisher can make as much money per book as on the hardcover, before all the overhead and other costs associated with the book itself -- the cover artist, the copy-editor, the office rent, the salaries for the editors and everyone else hanging around the office. At $9.99, the publisher is taking a real revenue hit from people buying e-books instead of hardcovers, even after taking account of the hard cash expenses that go along with the physical book, but not the e-book.
Bottom line here, on hardcover books, the move to e-books isn't helping publishers very much, if at all.
But on mass markets, the publisher may get $3.50 on a $7.99 paperback, have a royalty expense of $.65, and hard cash expenses for the physical book of $.80 or $1. Let's again assume three books printed for every two sold, that's $7.20 in revenue for selling two books less $1.30 royalty expense less, let's say, $2.70 in hard cash costs. That's around $1.60 per book before overhead. For the e-book at $7.99, it's $7.99 x .7 x .75 = $4.20 !!!
So unless my math is wrong, publishers are doing rather nicely when people trade from mass market to e-book sales, and the author is doing a little bit better off but nowhere near as better off here as the publisher is doing.
Again, there are myriad other factors that can go into this, this is just rough sketching, the unit costs for a mass market book from a 100,000 copy first printing will be vastly less than for a mass market with a 15,000 copy first printing, and that all by itself can make this math look a lot different from book to book.
To be honest, I'm so astonished at how much the math favors the publishers on trading from mass market to e-book that I'm thinking I've got to be getting something entirely wrong, the publishers can't really be doing that well on the mass market, can they?
Now, if you are an author with a track record, the most important lesson in all of this is that you can't determine the appropriate advance for your book by looking at your royalty statement. You might be losing royalties big time on your hardcover sales, but the publisher isn't losing per-unit profit the same way you're losing royalties. You might be gaining royalties on the paperback vs e-book side, but the publisher is probably gaining even more.
So it's like the title of this post says -- Do The Math. You or your agent need to try and grope your way toward looking at the P&L (profit and loss) statement for your book, not the royalty statement. Your numbers for that will never be like the publisher's, because all the publishers have different ways of allocating overhead and other unique factors they won't share with you, but you can rough something out by looking at your previous royalty statements and looking not at royalties earned but at copies shipped vs. sold and e-book copies sold and the expenses that go along with each.
The second thing to ponder here ... what do these numbers suggest regarding the legitimacy of 25% of net proceeds as an appropriate industry standard royalty rate for e-book sales.
Hard to say. If the publisher's trading more hardcover sales for e-book, then 25% of net seems to be kind of the right rate for keeping publisher unit profit at about the same level regardless of format. But 25% of net doesn't seem right when the publisher is trading more mass market sales. The other factor here, authors can easily self publish and get the full 70% of e-book cover price for themselves. Publishers have to justify what they're doing to be keeping three e-book dollars for every one that goes to the author when the authors can easily keep all of them. Because of that, and because of the revenue potential trading from mass market to e-book, I think the 25% has to move up some. Some.
Final quick thing, let's look at a trade paperback. $15-16 paperback, $12.99 e-book. So again $6.80 in gross revenue to the publisher on the e-book, after royalties. On the print side, two books bring in $14.50 or $15 in revenue, less $4.00 for hard physical costs for three books, less $2.40 royalties. That's $4 in gross revenue. Here, it looks like there's more revenue for both the author and the publisher, more equitably split between the two than on the mass market.
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