MadMup.com

A good friend of mine recommended the movie Alive to me and I just finished watching it. Are you familiar with this movie? It’s a true story about a rugby team flying to Chile to compete in a match in 1972. The plane crashes. In the Andes Mountains. And no one rescues them until 71 days after they crashed. Sixteen people out of 45 or so survived.

Did I mention that the survivors ate people to help them survive?

I remember this movie causing quite a bit of controversy when it was released – “They eat people!!!” was the common argument as to why the movie was bad. Granted, it’ll be a long time before I eat shredded ham again, but if the people ate people and this is a true story, I’m guessing that’s kind of important to the story.

But it is nasty.

I have a hard time keeping track of people in movies. I don’t recognize faces well without repeated viewings and interaction, so a two-hour movie hardly gets the job done for me. If a person is famous and I’ve seen them in things before, I have a better time of it. The only person I recognized in this movie was Ethan Hawke. Well, and Illeana Douglas, but that’s because she guested on Seinfeld once. Everyone else all kind of looked the same to me. When someone else would die and it was supposed to be emotional because we had just seen them do that one thing, you know? I wouldn’t be too upset by it because I couldn’t keep them straight. Most of them had pretty good beards going after that long, and that didn’t help me any. Everyone, that is, except Ethan. For some reason he never got a full beard. He just had that little scruffy sorta-mustache and sorta-goatee that you always see him with. Either he was shaving out there or his character couldn’t grow a full beard, I don’t know which.

Anyway, everything turns out okay – for 16 people anyway. Of course, we don’t get to see them back in society, going to restaurants, and playing rugby, so we don’t know how they handled all that. Not very well, I would imagine.

There were two documentaries on the DVD. One was 52 minutes long, and I didn’t feel like investing another hour in the story tonight, so I didn’t watch that one. I did watch the 12 minute one chronicling the main character’s return trip to the site 30 years later. That was kind of interesting. I think Ethan should have gone with him, but I’m sure he was very busy.

Anyway, it was a good movie. Thought-provoking. See it once if you haven’t, but don’t plan on serving snacks during the movie.

I’ve gone off and left my cell phone at home. Irritated I am. Not that it matters – not only does my phone not work in the buildings I’m in all day, I rarely get phone calls.

It’s no secret that I mention Seinfeld on this blog a whole lot more than I mention The Muppet Show. I either need to remedy that or rename the blog, I suppose.

Here’s a quote about video games from the website Penny Arcade that I thought was interesting. I can’t necessarily recommend PA to everyone because they tend to use salty language on a frequent basis, but I really liked this paragraph. It refers specifically to the fact that you can play games on an XBox against other people on the Internet:

The Colts lost yesterday, and I felt very bad about it. Their last two games were amazing, and it was easy to think they’d continue that streak right on through the Super Bowl. Alas. I blame Brandy. She was calling me for computer help yesterday while the game was on, and every time she called the Colts would get an interception or a penalty or something. Her husband’s a Patriots fan, so that may have had something to do with it. Regular readers (ha!) will recall that I am a Dallas Cowboys fan for life and may wonder why I care about the Colts. I have no good answer except to say that I’ve never had an AFC team I liked and it was about time and the Colts have had a few good seasons now and I live in the area. Good enough for you? I’m just glad the Panthers beat the hated Eagles. And, really, the only reason I hate the Eagles is because they’re in the same division as Dallas. I should hate the Panthers, as they knocked Dallas out of the playoffs, but I do like saying, “Well, yeah, Dallas lost, but look who they lost to! The Super Bowl Champions!” So, goooooooooooooooooo Panthers!

I went to the doctor on Friday about my foot. He has recommended I wear some leather-ish insoles from Dr. Scholl’s to alleviate the pain I’ve been having for a few months in my left foot. He doesn’t think it’s a stress fracture, rather, he believes it to be the joint in between the blah-blah and the hoo-doo. I have no idea what the actual names of the bones are, so those’ll have to do for you. I have yet to purchase the insoles, as that requires walking around, something I’m not fond of.

So the big question is: at lunch, do I go buy the insoles or go home and get my phone? Right now “insoles” is winning out over “phone” by a handy 3-1 margin.

A lot of people hated the last episode of Seinfeld. There was a two-hour block of time set aside for it: the first 45 minutes was a clip show, and the last hour and fifteen was the last episode. People griped because they felt the episode was like another clip show, it didn’t live up to their expectations, yadda yadda yadda.

Me? I loved it. Not only did I feel the series finale was a perfect ending to the series (they got put on trial for the very behavior that made the show so funny!), but I don’t have any problems at all with clip shows. Think about it: you’re getting the best parts of the show without having to wade through the not-as-good parts. And, on seeing the best parts, you’re instantly reminded of the episode that the part was taken from. If you’re a fan, you say, “Yeah, that was great!” If you’re just starting to watch the show, you say, “Hey, I want to see that episode!” If you hate the show, well, you’re probably not watching the clip show, are you?

People gripe about clip shows a lot, and I’d have to say, I don’t care for mid-season clip shows. If I see in TV Guide that this week’s episode of something is new, I expect it to be new, for crying out loud. “Clip show” is network-exec speak for “repackaged rerun,” and they have no business being advertised as “new.” Clip shows have their place: at the end of the show’s run, or at a milestone in the show’s run. Have you made it to 100 shows? Good for you! Have a clip show! 250? Even better! Have a clip show! 20? Um, no.

Essentially, isn’t a clip show how we present ourselves to others, anyway? Think about your current resume – it’s basically “My Greatest Hits.” First date = rerun of the clip show. Take the best parts, leave out the garbage. Maybe that’ll get someone interested in the whole show.

Whenever you meet someone, it’s like a pilot (the new TV show kind, not the airline kind – stick with me here). You’re floating yourself out there to see if anyone will keep tuning in. Most TV pilots don’t make it. Think of that – the junk on TV is considered the best of the bunch! And even if a show does make it to more episodes, how long does it have? A year? Two? 14? The Simpsons just started their 15th year, and what do you hear about it? “It’s not as funny as it was.” It’ll be done in a year or two. The last episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation was aptly named “All Good Things…”, as in “must come to an end.” I’ll admit, I feel bad when a show gets cancelled, especially if it’s been popular at some point. I’ll tune in to “last episodes” of shows I’ve never seen, just to see how they’ll wrap it up. Whether a show’s been on for 6 months or 10 years, it’s still sad to see it go. But, that’s the nature of the biz.

Is that the nature of our biz, too? How do you keep your ratings up for 30, 40, 50 years? How do you “keep it fresh”? Will the addition of new characters help or hurt? What about a new setting? New location? If the audience stops tuning in, what do you do then?

There’s a phrase out there these days: “jumped the shark.” It means “that point in a TV show’s history where it lost whatever magic it had and has turned to ridiculous stunts to try to keep the show going.” It refers to that moment in Happy Days when Fonzie – you guessed it – jumped a shark while waterskiing. So, if it’s easy to tell when a TV show has jumped the shark, is it easy to tell when you have? I’m guessing other people can see it – just ask them, if you can take it.

Unlike TV shows, we don’t get reruns. Sorry, Apu – no such thing as reincarnation.