An Entirely Different View

The view is back for its eighteenth season, and following the departure of Barbara Walters, and the shows failed attempts to become more pop culture friendly and lightweight. The new show features a new set, which is cleaner and fresher, which feels more modern and less stuffy, and the hosts are now sat round a coffee table as opposed to the traditional desk and sofa format seen previously.

The new show also features three new hosts, with only Whoopi Goldberg returning, after Walters retired after working for over 50 years in broadcast journalism, hosting the view for seventeen. The View started as a politically driven, heavyweight talk shown featuring a group of intelligent female journalists and presenters discussing various political and current affairs issues. The show first took a dive following the appointment of Sherri Shepherd and Elizabeth Hasselbeck.

Hasselbeck, who was appointed first was previously known only as a contestent on Survivor, a reality show, and her blind faith in the Bush Administration and the republican party won her few fans, and the show became more about argument than discussion. Sherri Shepherd was known as an actress before her time as co-host, and she caused a furor in her first appearance in which she said that she didn't know if the earth was flat, and that Christians were the first people on earth. Being a Jehovahs Witness she also claimed to never have voted, and was a huge blow for a show which claimed to be about politics.

In the shows seventeenth season, Jenny McCarthy was hired, known for her anti vaccination views and for appearing in playboy, she was a sign that the show was lost, and didn't know whether to be about politics or pop culture, and at the end of the season Jenny McCarthy and Sherri Shepherd were both fired. The show then looked to re-orientate the show back to being politically driven.

The first decision the show made was to rehire Rosie O'Donnell, who had previously quit the show in 2007 after a fight with Hasselbeck, O'Donnell is hugely politically active, and she added a sense of gravitas to the show, being a TV veteran. The other new hosts are Rosie Perez, an actress who seems to be blessed with more intelligence than either Shepherd or Hasselbeck, and Nicole Wallace, a former white house aide and political commentator who was previously communications chief during the Bush Presidency, yet who looks less biased and more objective than her biography gives her credit for.

So i ask my readers to give The View a second chance, the show is much more interesting, more diverse and more political than in previous seasons, and the co-hosts seem to be a group of intelligent and politically minded women, who actually have something to say about current affairs

HBO GO

HBO recently announced that they are finally opening up their HBO Go service to non cable users. This is something i advocated about a year ago, as a way for HBO to become more profitable, and a greater competetor for Netflix, currently an internet only service.

Netflix is one of the fastest growing internet streaming companies today, and this is mainly down o their business model, they offer cheap accounts costing less than 10 dollars a month, available in many countries worldwide, and not linked to any specific address, meaning that it is particularly popular with young people.

HBO is currently also popular with young people, having given birth to such series as Game of Thrones, The Sopranos and Girls, however HBO until now offered no way for people to access their streaming services without signing up for a cable package, meaning that many young people used their parents accounts, and thus not paying HBO any money. Allowing access to HBO Go outright means that HBO can finally capitalize on people who only watch television on their tablets and laptops, and who don't have a permanent address, or indeed who have no interest in signing up for a cable package.

This announcement is certainly timely, coming just a few months after Netflix announced a plan to expand across the world starting in france, and Amazon announced that Amazon Prime subscriptions would allow access to a catalog of original and archive television series that included much of HBO's own back catalog, and original shows like the acclaimed Transparent. Hopefully this plan will put HBO into the future, and allow them to compete against rivals Amazon and Netflix.

source: Gawker

The Michael Bay Apology

Of all the filmmakers who are too often unfairly criticized, Michael Bay is very often the most hated on, i previously described how i try to make this blog a celebration of the cinema and a positive experience, and thus i don't review or even watch films that i know i will hate, thus there is no Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles or Transformers 4 review, however Michael Bay holds an important place in today's film industry. Tentpole movies are a huge part of today's summer movie schedule, and studios now spend hundreds of millions of dollars on a single picture, normally a film that is certain to make money.

Many directors croak when given too much money, the production nightmares of John Carter and The Lone Ranger, both of which went hugely over budget, and both of which cost in excess of 200 million dollars to make show that although it is hard to make a film on a tight budget, it is often harder to make one with a huge budget. With Pain and Gain being a slight exception, costing only 26 million dollars, most of Bay's films cost in excess of 100 million to produce, and his films have grossed in excess of 5 billion dollars worldwide.Bay has consistantly shown that he is capable of handling huge productions, his films rarely run over budget, and they always make money.

Michael Bay's films have a target audience, mainly teenage boys, and although most film critics loathe his films, audiences love them, and his box office returns are proof of that. Although i love smaller film productions like Lost in Translation and The Hours, these are not projects that are huge runaway successes, and they don't make hundreds of millions of dollars at the box office. It is films like Transformers that are the reason these projects are green-lit in the first place, tentpole movies are named as such because that are able to prop up other, less successful films, so whilst it is great that risky films like Gravity can get made, it is only because of films like Transformers, that money is available to finance a 100 million dollar art film.

Critically i will also apologise, unlike other filmmakers, Michael Bay has his own aesthetic, he tries to make good film, and he at least shows a mere level of respect for his audience that is not seen in other filmmakers. The was a definite improvement between Transformers 2 and 3, and Pain and Gain was actually, sort of good! Despite being critically reviled, Bay has also show a level of nonchalance, and he is great at making films that appeal to his target audience, so while giant robot porn might not be to everyone's taste, Bay at least has his own aesthetic, and while his films are not to my taste, Michael Bay has at least shown himself to be a highly consistent filmmaker, critically and commercially.

"I make movies for teenage boys. Oh, dear, what a crime." - Michael Bay

The Backlash against Blackfish

Well the first thing i can say in this article, is that Blackfish was robbed, despite being the most noteworthy, controversial and current documentary of the year, it failed to pick up an Oscar nomination, Blackfish was the only documentary released this year that had any kind of impact, yet the academy failed to recognize that, to be honest, Blackfish was the only documentary that most people saw or even heard of, shame on you AMPAS.

The film, my review of which can be viewed here, started a backlash against Seaworld the repurcussions of which are still being felt. Visitors at SeaWorld are down six percent from last year, and due to the company going public, they now have a huge amount of debt to contend with, it doesn't look good for BlackStone or for SeaWorld 'Entertainment', it is interesting that despite America now coming out of the recession, visitors are still down, so the decline in visitors is perhaps due to Americans realizing that they have a choice where to spend their vacation dollars. In fact Ondi Timoner, director of Bring Your Own Doc's son didn't want to go ti SeaWorld after seeing the film, proving that Blackfish is a powerful documentary that has the ability to change peoples opinions.

We can also see that even SeaWorld Entertainment knows that the decline in visitors is due to Blackfish, in December 2013, nearly a year after the release of the film, SeaWorld spent a fortune taking out a full page ad in The New York Times, to rebuke the events portrayed in the film, they also used twitter and YouTube to release videos and comments from SeaWorld trainers contradicting the events portrayed in the movie. The fact that they are willing to spend so much money, time and effort to rebuke what is portrayed shows two things, firstly that SeaWorld is scared, they realize the effect that this film has on people, that this film is stopping people coming tho their parks, and that they need to do something to combat the negative publicity against them.

Secondly, by rebuking the events in the film so strongly, they are in a sense validating them, if the film was a complete fantasy, they would just ignore it, but seeing as they are taking notice of this film, and attempting to fight back, it suggests that their is some validity to the films claims. A good parralel to this is the film Escape From Tomorrow, filmed clandestinely at Disney World and Disneyland, the film is less that complimentary about Disneys business practices and ethos, yet Disney didn't just ignore the film, they included it in Disney A to Z: The Official Encyclopedia, and didn't rebuke any of the events of the film or the films agenda. By rejecting so forcefully the concepts put forward by Blackfish, SeaWorld shows their vulnerability and manage to reinforce what this movie promotes. By taking out a full page ad in a national paper, all SeaWorld does is promote the movie and encourage more people to see it, and thus decrease ticket sales.

Whatever you think of Blackfish personally, it is impossible to ignore the powerful images it presents, whether you think that animals are deliberately mistreated at SeaWorld or not, the fact is that three people have been killed by Tilikum, the parks remain the only theme parks where workers are still injured regularly, and the list of incidents involving whales in SeaWorld parks is longer than my arm, the video footage of bleeding whales and rake marks across the whales backs is real, and it is a fact that Orcas die younger in the parks than they do in the wild. I suppose all there's left to say to SeaWorld is: "Karma's a bitch man".

Jared Leto and the Transgender Question

Well, i don't know if any of you have been living under a rock for the past few days, i assume if you are reading this blog you do at least have a limited interest in cinema, and of course internet access so i would hope that you now know that on sunday night, Jared Leto took home a much deserved Oscar for his role in Dallas Buyers Club. I'll review the ceremony later, but now i would like to talk about the prominence (or lack thereof) of transgender actors and characters in film and television. Leto's win generated a slight backlash from members of the LGBT and trans communities who felt that the role should have gone to a transgender actor.

Leto is a cisgender actor, who, in Dallas Buyers Club, plays Rayon, a pre-op transsexual struggling to fight AID's and import drugs, whilst being shunned by her family and community. Jared Leto's performance in this film is spectacular, it feels visceral and real, and we feel Rayon's pain just as much as she does. The reason Jared Leto deserves the Oscar is that when i watched this film, i couldn't help but root for Rayon, and after a certain point i stopped seeing Jared Leto, as he fell deeper and deeper into his character, getting lost under the layers of makeup and wigs. His performance is so powerful, that it would have been inconceivable to give anyone else the golden statuette.

I do however understand the arguments given by transgender activists, simply put, there are not enough transgender actors working in hollywood today, in fact there is really only one, Laverne Cox, who plays the sassy Sophia Burset, in Netflix's Orange Is The New Black, carries the weight of representing the entire trans community, which is unacceptable. A trans actor has never been nominated for either an Oscar or and Emmy, and this needs to be changed. The real problem is that it's not Leto's fault, and he shouldn't be condemned for his performance or rebuked for taking on this role, as he pulled it of with subtlety and dignity. Other films featuring cisgender actors playing transgender characters such as Transamerica featuring Felicity Huffman or Boys Don't Cry starring Hilary Swank also attempt to deal with this complex issue, and manage to pull it off successfully.

It is not Jared Leto's fault that there aren't enough trans actors working, but it is Hollywood's fault, minorities are very poorly represented by the academy, it is not just the trans community that is underrepresented, only around ten black actors have ever won Oscars for acting, and the academy is over eighty percent caucasian. If Jared Leto is shunned for playing a transsexual character, then Tom Hanks should be criticized for his role in Philadelphia, Sean Penn should never have played Harvey Milk, and Neil Patrick Harris would be criticized for playing a straight character on How I Met Your Mother. I don't really care about an actors back history, for instance i have no issue with Kevin McHale playing a disabled character on Glee, because i support art, and i support performance, and if actors were simply content to play themselves onscreen the film industry would be far less exciting.

The Academy loves transformation, and so do i, Leto's transformation into Rayon is astounding, as was Felicity Huffman's. I agree that something needs to be done about the prevalence of transgender actors, and this vital community needs to be given more opportunities within the film industry. However the issue of the transgender community being underrepresented is for the whole of Hollywood to bear, and not exclusively the responsibility of Jared Leto.