People Who Cry At Airplane Movies

Posted on February 13, 2011 at 8:00 am

I love This American Life. This week’s episode is called “Tough Room,” and it has four stories about people who have to face and try to somehow persuade or ingratiate themselves with highly critical and skeptical crowds.
But the last story of the episode is exactly the opposite. It’s about an audience member who is exceptionally susceptible to what is in front of him. GQ’s Brett Martin tells about his experience as someone who never fails to cry at a movie on an airplane, even those that are dumb, cheesy, or just plain awful. And he finds a group of others who experience the exact same phenomenon.
Most movies are selected by viewers for their entertainment value. The one thing everyone in a movie theater has in common is that everyone wants to be there enough to get out of the house and pay for a ticket. But airplane movies are chosen for a captive audience who have nothing in common except that they all want to go to the same city. And the airline’s primary goal is to keep everyone calm. So they tend to be bland films chosen not for artistic quality but for being as unobjectionable as possible. You generally won’t see heart-rending drama or pulse-pounding thrillers on a plane. You’ll see a comedies and romantic comedies.
And that is why it is fascinating to hear Martin talk about how he cried in “Sweet Home Alabama.” All four times he saw it. It isn’t that he’s a big softie. He doesn’t cry in the circumstances most people do. And he isn’t afraid of flying. There’s just something about being on a plane. He talks to other people who are coping with this newly characterized plane movie crying syndrome, and, because I see so many middle-range movies, I found the list of films that sparked their tears and sometimes sobs very funny.

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Understanding Media and Pop Culture

Pioneers of Television

Posted on February 8, 2011 at 3:59 pm

I am a big fan of the PBS series “Pioneers of Television,” and I am especially looking forward to tonight’s episode about the early days of local children’s TV featuring Willard Scott, Stan Freberg, Jim Henson, Larry Harmon (“Bozo”) and Nancy Claster (“Romper Room”). Before national programs like “Sesame Street,” “Captain Kangaroo,” and “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood,” television for children was developed locally. “Romper Room” and “Bozo the Clown” appeared in nearly every market, but they were franchised so that some cities could produce their own versions.
Be sure to watch for some surprising history and some familiar faces.

Pioneers of Television

The Spiritual Foundation of ‘The Company Men’

Posted on February 3, 2011 at 8:00 am

Be sure to take a look at this excellent interview by Dann Gire with John Wells, writer-director of “The Company Men,” about the lessons he learned from his clergyman father and how they influenced the film.

When you grow up as I did in a very socially progressive, Episcopalian household, there’s a great deal of importance placed on the teachings, the parables and the notions of Christianity, teaching a certain generosity and kindness and understanding and empathy for others.
I think that colors all of my work. It would be impossible for me to separate that out from what I write, what I think, and how I hear things. Everything I hear is filtered through that moral framework I grew up with.

Ebert: Thumbs Down on 3D, Up on Maxivison48

Posted on January 30, 2011 at 4:21 pm

Roger Ebert says the case is closed on 3D — it can never work. He has some powerful support for his position, a letter from Walter Murch, “the most respected film editor and sound designer in the modern cinema.” Murch says that “horizontal movement will strobe much sooner in 3D than it does in 2D. This was true then, and it is still true now. It has something to do with the amount of brain power dedicated to studying the edges of things. The more conscious we are of edges, the earlier strobing kicks in.” He says our brains are not capable of processing 3D movie technology, because “the glasses “gather in” the image — even on a huge Imax screen — and make it seem half the scope of the same image when looked at without the glasses.”
I’m not sure I agree; I expect a glasses-free 3D technology is possible, for one thing. But I do agree with Ebert that there is a much less gimmicky and much more powerful enhancement — Ebert’s counter-recommendation — called Maxivision48.
Movies “move” because we see a series of still pictures so quickly that it fools our eye through something called “persistence of vision.” It’s the same technology as a flip-book, and it hasn’t changed much since it shifted from 16 frames per second to 24 when movies added sound (this is why silent films often seem jerky). Unlike current digital equipment, which replicates the 24 frames per second standard, Maxivision combines digital and film to eliminate wasted space and project at 48 frames per second to give the audience a fresher, clearer, more distinct image.
I love their tagline: “See What You’ve Been Missing.”

Skins — Another Challenge for Parents of Teens

Posted on January 22, 2011 at 8:00 am

MTV’s latest series is Skins, an American version of a controversial British television show about teenagers and starring teenagers. It was co-created by a teenager, the son of a television writer who was challenged by his father to come up with an idea.
The characters in both the US and UK versions use drugs, have casual and sometimes predatory sex, and engage in a great deal of irresponsible and highly risky behavior. Hank Steuver of the Washington Post wrote:

By and large, “Skins” is a repugnant, irredeemably nihilistic viewing experience for grownups – the very thing for which “off” buttons are made.

For actual teenagers, “Skins” might be something of a vicarious thrill, in which a scheming, savvy twerp named Tony (James Newman) arranges a debauched social life for himself and his other working-class friends, each of whom have their own overblown emotional issues and troubles at home. Imagine a kid with Ferris Bueller’s self-assurance and Eddie Haskell’s duplicity plunked down with his ethnically diverse peers in a den filled with drugs, porn and a stack of unmade “ABC Afterschool Special” scripts with the final scenes (i.e., the saccharine conclusions) torn out.

That is the key point. Some shows try to have it both ways; they display all kinds of bad behavior and justify it with a moral lesson by showing the consequences. These can range from the “very special episodes” that put favorite sitcom characters in the path of danger to movies like “The Hangover,” which let us enjoy the out-of-control behavior of the characters and then let us enjoy even more the pain of coping with the consequences. “Skins” doesn’t seem to care about anything but giving audiences a transgressive thrill. Knowing that the actors really are as young as the characters they portray adds to the shock value — and the appeal.
Parents should know that this series pushes the boundaries already pushed very far by shows like “90210” and “Gossip Girl.” New York Magazine reports that MTV is concerned that it might violate child pornography statutes. Wrigley, GM, and Taco Bell have already pulled out as advertisers. If you are going to give your children permission to watch, I strongly suggest you watch it with them — though it’s hard to say which of you would be most uncomfortable doing so.

Skins