Tag: AMC

Posted on By Patrick Maines

‘Breaking Bad’ Elevated Television

If you’ve been out of the country for the past six years, you have an excuse for being unfamiliar with Breaking Bad, perhaps the best show that’s ever been on television.

The story of Walter White, a humble high school chemistry teacher who, upon learning he has lung cancer, decides to team up with a former student to make methamphetamines, BB portrays the transformation of White from “Mr. Chips into Scarface,” as the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, describes it.

Fresh off its Emmy award as best drama series, a recognition that was too long in coming, the question now is when will we see another TV series that is as astonishingly good?  And another question: Why is it so hard for truly excellent programming to get air time?

In his book Difficult Men, Brett Martin recounts the lengthy and harrowing path traversed by Gilligan on the way to securing a deal with AMC, one of the several channels that comprise AMC Networks.

Martin tells the tale of Gilligan’s meeting with executives of the TNT cable network, who liked the show but were afraid of the drug-making aspect of it: “We don’t want to be stereotypical philistine executives, but does it have to be meth?  We love this, but if we buy it, we’ll be fired.”

Nor was TNT the only cable network that turned thumbs down on Breaking Bad.  So too did Showtime, HBO, and FX, meaning, as Gilligan put it, “there was no place left in the known universe.”

Elsewhere in his book, Martin usefully recounts the words of the AMC executive (Rob Sorcher) who decided to take a chance on the show: “We had had success with Mad Men,” he said.  “And once you’ve had that cookie it tastes good.  You want another one.  The decision to go another way, believe me, it was … terrifying.  But once you did, once you chose quality over everything else … you could do anything.”

At a time when so much video programming – film as well as TV – is demographically driven, PC themed, and/or scripted for cardboard characters, Breaking Bad is something very different.

Incorporating tremendous writing, directing, acting, and visuals, BB delivered a series that was marked by ambiguity, complexity, surprise, and sophistication.

As many have noted, in recent years the Emmy’s have been dominated by cable rather than broadcast network programming.  Indeed, both pay and basic cable channels have gained a reputation as the place to find smarter, edgier original series like Mad Men, The Sopranos, and of course Breaking Bad (despite the initial drug-themed hesitation about BB).  And this raises the question of why much of the best programming has been gravitating to cable.  

One explanation is that broadcasting is much more heavily regulated.  For this reason, programming that is marked by sexual or violent content carries greater risk for broadcasters than for cable networks.  And the risks involved don’t issue from government only.

A case in point is the Showtime program Dexter, a series that, though critically acclaimed, features both sexual situations and violence.  In 2007, CBS announced that it was considering broadcasting reruns of Dexter over the air.  In response, a conservative group, the Parents Television Council, warned CBS affiliates to preempt the show, and threatened the show’s advertisers.

As it happened, CBS edited the reruns down to a TV-14 rating and aired them on its affiliates, but only for a single season.

None of this is to suggest that violence equals excellence, or that excellence can only be achieved with the inclusion of violence – only that where violence is a necessary ingredient in the excellent telling of a good story, its inclusion ought not to preempt the airing of it.

For years now, many people have bemoaned the “dumbing down” of America, a phenomenon defined by Wikipedia as “the deliberate diminishment of the intellectual level of the content of schooling and education, of literature and cinema, and of news and culture.”

The popular and critical success of Breaking Bad demonstrates that there is both the talent and the audience for something better.

                                               

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.  A version of this article appeared in the online edition of USA Today on Sept. 29, 2013.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

‘The Ladykillers’ and the Critics

It’s with great trepidation that I say something that may offend.  Let me apologize, in advance and profoundly, if that’s the case.  I know I’ll have to live with this for the rest of my life.  This said, here ’tis: I like blues and gospel music.  More than this, I prefer African-American blues and gospel music.

I don’t know why this is, but I’m pretty sure it isn’t because I’m biased against whites.  I think it could be because it sounds good.  Anyhow, I was powerfully reminded of this, and other things, when I caught AMC’s premiere last month of the remake of the 1950s British comedy classic, “The Ladykillers.”

Directed by the Coen brothers, Ethan and Joel, and starring Tom Hanks, the American version had its U.S. theatrical debut in 2004, and has since been dubbed “one of the best Tom Hanks films you’ve never seen.”

For those not familiar with the British version starring Alec Guinness, of which the Coens’ film is a “retelling,” “The Ladykillers” is the story of a band of ne’er-do-wells who, in the guise of a “classic music ensemble,” rent a basement flat that abuts the counting room of a nearby riverboat casino.  The group’s intention is to tunnel into the casino’s vault, under cover of the (recorded) sound of their instruments in practice.

So that’s the storyline.  But the point here isn’t so much to provide a review as it is to register a few paragraphs in criticism of how a film as good as this could go six years before most people had even heard of it.

A lot of the problem, I think, has to do with the reviewers.  Reading now what they wrote then raises the question: Who are these people?  Even accounting for the fact that their reviews were of the theatrical version, and not the edited one shown on AMC, it’s almost beyond belief that most were so negative and that virtually none of them even mentioned the music.

This omission is remarkable because “The Ladykillers” is filled, not just on the soundtrack but also on camera, by fabulous gospel singing.  Sung by such as the Soul Stirrers, Rose Stone (sister of Sly), The Venice Four, and the Abbot Kinney Lighthouse Choir, featured performances include rousing renditions of “Trouble of This World” and “Let the Light From the Lighthouse Shine on Me.”

Credit for the inclusion of these groups belongs to T-Bone Burnett, who was the music producer on “The Ladykillers” and also on the earlier Coen brothers’ production, “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Never mind for a minute the joy of seeing Tom Hanks as you’ve never seen him before, or a spot-on performance by Irma P. Hall; the music in this production is among its most prominent features, and for reviewers to have ignored it completely says much more about them than anything they have to say about the movie.

It’s always a risky thing to attempt a remake of a classic, but it’s made nearly impossible when, as here, the reviewers are tone deaf.

                                                           

The opinions expressed above are those of the writer and not necessarily of The Media Institute, its Board, contributors, or advisory councils.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

Orts and All

FCC’s "OpenInternet"

The FCC website, now in Beta, called OpenInternet.Gov is interesting.  It’s not great, but it’s better than you might expect and sort of refreshing.

Ostensibly given over to a public discussion of the “important issues facing the Internet,” the site’s primary focus is on one issue facing the Internet: Chairman Genachowski’s plans to extend and codify the FCC’s so-called Internet principles.

Unlike the FCC’s main site, which is as unreliable as it is difficult to navigate, OpenInternet actually works pretty well.  Much more importantly, it’s attracting, in addition to fans and the usual sycophants, a fair number of people who are critical of the Commission’s plans.

The public’s views are communicated in two ways, through the posting of opinions on the “Join the Discussion” page, and by posting comments there and on the “OpenInternet Blog” page.  Check it out.

Love That AMC

Close observers of this blog will remember an earlier piece written in appreciation of the impressive AMC series “Breaking Bad.”  Yesterday’s was the penultimate show this season of the other award-winning AMC series, “Mad Men.”  And coming to AMC on Nov. 15 is a miniseries remake of the classic 1960s series, “The Prisoner.”

All of which begs the question: What’s the deal with AMC?  Are they trying to make us love them?  If so, they’re succeeding.

Hugo Chavez and Friends

Many of the editors at a magazine I used to work for had “laws.”  One’s law was “never go west of Fifth Avenue unless you absolutely have to.”  Another’s was “the love of evil is the root of all money.”  But the one that I recall most often was “when you find a good thing run it into the ground.”  (The same person who authored that law once told me that in order to handle New York cabbies you need to have iron lungs, a nasty disposition, and a law degree, and he had all three.)

Anyhow, I’m reminded of the “good thing” law whenever I reflect on the endless joy it gives me to say something truly unkind about people who’ve earned it.  It’s in this spirit that I’m pleased to present this week’s Trousered Ape Award to Sean Penn, Danny Glover, and Oliver Stone (who also receives a Golden Homunculus), for their support of Hugo Chavez at precisely that moment when he’s cracking down on free speech, and every other human right, in Venezuela.  One can only wonder where we’d be, as a nation, without such people.

Posted on By Patrick Maines

‘Breaking Bad’: An Appreciation

Every once in awhile something happens in medialand that elevates and refreshes, and at least partially reclaims the enormous potential of the industry.  Media coverage of the events of 9/11 is one example, and the minor miracle that is AMC’s series "Breaking Bad" is another.

For the uninitiated, who unfortunately are legion, "Breaking Bad" is the story of Walter White, a high school chemistry teacher who, discovering that he has late-stage lung cancer, embarks on a career as a methamphetamine producer.

As measured by the awards, which already include a Peabody and two Emmys, and by the reviews, "BB" has already established itself as perhaps the best show on television.  The writing, acting, directing, and camera work are achingly good.  Unlike the X-rated products that are consumed by people with the emotional maturity of children, whatever their age, "Breaking Bad" really is adult entertainment.

In this brilliant series human beings are complex, neither all good nor all bad, itself a kind of challenge to a world immersed in the poses and pieties of political correctness.  And then there’s the subtlety of it; the communication, with no more than a look or a word, of a world of meaning. 

But the best is the essential humanity of the production — the notion that, no matter how unequal our circumstances, we are essentially the same, and capable of great understanding and empathy.  How else to explain the poignant and touching relationship between Walter and Jesse, Walt’s wayward former student and now partner in crime?

Because of the way the series ended its second season — and because the producer (Vince Gilligan) has told us so — we know that "BB" will be back for a third year, a fact that virtually guarantees more awards and critical acclaim.  And that’s all to the good.  But there are aspects of this phenomenon that invite some further comment that go not to art but to the lesser realms of politics and commerce.

One such observation is the folly of trying to enforce content standards on TV fare where no account is given to the context in which certain words or pictures are used.  "Breaking Bad" features a number of words, and acts of violence, which by themselves might offend some people.  But where, as here, such things are employed not to titillate but to deepen and extend the reality of the experience, one would think many people might see what a mistake it is to allow any kind of governmental censoring scheme that is blind to such distinctions.

The commercial aspect of this show that rankles a bit is the fact of its distribution by American Movie Classics (AMC), owned by Rainbow Media Holdings, itself a subsidiary of the cable operator, Cablevision Systems.  Which is not to say anything derogatory about AMC.  Far from it, the network, and all involved, should be enormously proud of what they’re delivering.  (Which, by the way, also includes the terrific original series, "Mad Men.")

But why, one wonders, isn’t "Breaking Bad" being shown on one of the bigger cable networks, or indeed on one of the broadcast networks?  Kind of hard to imagine that AMC was the producer’s first choice when, were the show being aired on USA or TNT — not to mention, say, ABC — the audience would likely be orders of magnitude larger.  One assumes it may have something to do with the very qualities that make the show so rewarding —that  it’s seen as too smart or sophisticated for a mass audience. 

If so, that’s a shame, both for the country and for the industry, and something that’s being noted.  As Tim Goodman, TV critic for the San Francisco Chronicle and enthusiastic fan of the series, put it: “It’s like I’ve been freed from the tyranny of network programming.”