Monday November 5, 2007
Just a Thought
TV will never be a serious competitor for radio because people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen; the average American family hasn’t time for it. [Author Unknown, from New York Times, 1939]
Good morning. Feeling a little more refreshed than usual for a Monday? There’s a good reason for that: you got that extra hour’s sleep on the weekend. I’m not sure I feel the good effects as deeply as I suffer from losing that hour in the spring, but I’ll take it! Woke up this morning at 3:00 am to the alarm clocks at the cottage, and felt like it was 4:00 am. Whoo hoo! Yes, I know, I’m deeply disturbed.
November used to be one of the craziest, busiest months of the year for me, but I’ve finally learned to say “No, thank you,” and trim down my schedule. This Sunday is the always spectacular Celebration of Hope Luncheon, raising money for breast cancer research in York Region - especially for diagnostic equipment at Markham Stouffville Hospital - and then Monday Rob and I will be collaborating (as we usually do) on my Living Out Loud PowerPoint speech. Those two events are the big ones on my calendar; we also have our winners’ get-together this week before we head off with listeners on our trip later this month, and - oh yes - I’ll be helping the Breakfast Television bunch this Friday as we all try to set a world record for the number of people playing Twister at one time. You’re invited to join in the fun; just come to the Rogers Centre after 6 am Friday, and at 8:30 we’ll endeavour to set the record. I’ll be heading down at 8 am and hope to be on hand (or on my butt) for the big moment…so if you’re in the vicinity, please come by! We want your body (but we respect you for your mind, as well). Go to our home page at chfi.com for info.
Saw a couple of movies on the weekend. Gord Rennie lent me his DVD set of The Godfather trilogy, since I’d finally seen part one on A & E a week ago. Part two, which featured a very young Robert DeNiro was a treat to watch just for the actors even though DeNiro and Pacino never shared a screen (they were separated by a generation, as DeNiro played Pacino’s father as a young man). Part Three was painful on so many levels I won’t even go into it. And given that the movie came out, oh, seventeen years ago, you are likely more than familiar with it. Let me just say that Francis Ford Coppola’s decision to cast his daughter Sofia as a main character (the daughter of Pacino’s character) has to rank among the top ten casting mistakes of the twentieth century. I only wish I was exaggerating. After investing hours in the first
two installments, I felt cheated and angry over the way the third chapter was botched - including a very convoluted plot line that extended all the way to The Vatican - and wonder how Coppola (and Mario Puzo for that matter) could have gotten so far off track.
Coppola’s nephew, meantime, was the star of one of the other movies we watched on a gray November weekend: World Trade Center. Nicholas Cage didn’t chew the scenery (for a change), as John McLoughlin, a Port Authority Police sergeant trapped with a rookie cop in the rubble of the collapse of the concourse between the two towers on 9/11. It’s a gripping film directed by Oliver Stone that we taped months ago on TMN. Not for anyone who’s claustrophobic, that’s for certain.
We also caught up with Blood Diamond, the gripping and violent 2006 movie about conflict diamonds in Sierra Leone. Incredibly powerful, it was easy to see why Leonardo DiCaprio and Djimon Hounsou were nominated for Oscars. But perhaps more important, the closing credits say that it’s up to the consumer to determine where the diamonds he or she buys come from. But how exactly are we to do that? Unlike, say, An Inconvenient Truth, there are no actual calls to action or suggestions as to how we as individuals can bring about change.
Finally, we enjoyed Man of the Year, starring Robin Williams as a late night comic who throws his hat into the presidential ring and, thanks to a computer glitch, ends up holding the highest office in the land. Not quite as biting as say, Wag the Dog, this Barry Levinson flick (also on TMN) is worth the time spent watching it. I especially enjoyed watching caustic comic Lewis Black playing Williams’ head writer. I like to see people stretch a bit and step outside of the realm that we’re used to seeing them in. It’s part of the reason the Rick Mercer Report is a delight week after week; he puts himself and his guests in “fish out of water” situations, and they usually end up being tremendously entertaining. Of course, his Rants are state of the art, too. His delivery and the accompanying camera work are modern wonders.
You have probably heard that Hollywood writers are on strike as of this morning. I can remember the last time they went out (twenty years ago) and how it shook my little world. This time, I have to confess, I couldn’t care less. I watch so little television (and most of that is stuff we catch up on much later on the PVR) that it just doesn’t affect me, while I know that fans of daytime dramas will be anxiously awaiting the writers’ return. If you stay up to watch Letterman, Leno, Stewart or Colbert, you’ll be getting more sleep which, coupled with the Standard Time we’ve returned to, can only be a good thing, right?
Have a great day and we’ll be back tomorrow; I have a story to share with you about a distraught business owner who called the studio Friday. I couldn’t help but think about him all weekend and I’ll explain why tomorrow.
Erin