December 2001 Archives

Pity poor Pete Jones. The 31-year old Chicago insurance salesman had a simple dream: write a script, send it off to Hollywood and maybe, just maybe, make a movie. After a little help from Ben Affleck and Matt Damon, Pete can now live his dream.

Jones' efforts to bring his script to low-budget life are the focus of the terrific new HBO series Project Greenlight. Affleck and Damon, you may recall, are past darlings of the low-budget film world for their own Oscar-winning script, "Good Will Hunting." Now rich and famous, the two conceived of Project Greenlight as a contest to give talented amateurs a shot at the big time. It's a fine idea: anyone who has ever tried landing a Hollywood gig knows access, not talent, is what determines who moves to Malibu and who stays put in Chicago, selling insurance.

The eponymous reality show began with Damon and Affleck picking the winner and now follows the ensuing journey from script to screen. It's a fascinating look behind the scenes at a world most would aspire to yet few could actually stomach. Indeed, the main moral of the story seems to be: watch movies, don't try and make them.

Jones was one of thousands who submitted a script to Greenlight and it was his story, "Stolen Summer," that made the final cut. His prize includes one million dollars of financing from Miramax which then gets to distribute the film how it sees fit. There is a catch, however. See, Hollywood may be great at creating dreams, but it's even better at crushing them. So it's probably safe to say Pete's movie-making fantasies didn't involve scrimping pennies, battling over cranes, and Aidan Quinn.

Ah yes, Aidan Quinn, lead actor. "Stolen Summer" is a semi-autobiographical tale of Pete's Chicago childhood, circa 1976. Apparently his upbringing was quite the Irish one and that has a large part to do with the casting of Quinn. Now, I'll be the first to admit Aidan Quinn looks vaguely Irish. And after all, this is a low-budget indie. It's not like Jim Carrey is banging on Pete's door. But still, Aidan Quinn? What, was Ted McGinley unavailable?

Apparently all those stereotypes of actors as obnoxious, thin-skinned, pretty-boy, control freaks are actually true. And Aidan Quinn is the prototype stereotype. First of all, the actor demands he be given some "control" over the film. What exactly this amounts to is unclear so far, but it definitely includes approval of his female co-star. Apparently, Aidan has been dumped or rejected by actresses all over Los Angeles, because he nixes every one of Pete's suggestions, especially the director's choice of Marg Helgenberger.

Quinn actually takes time out of his busy shouting schedule to spend a paranoid couple of minutes telling the camera he doesn't trust Pete or any other crew member before haranguing the costume director about her 1976 Sears catalog clothing options. Quinn takes one look at the 200 or so catalog pages carefully assembled by this poor woman before storming out, yelling that his character would never dress in Sears' clothing, only Salvation Army.

Perhaps somebody forgot to tell the man his career highlight is... um, is... well, just what the hell is Aidan Quinn's career highlight? "Stakeout?" "Desperately Seeking Susan?" Go ahead, ask 100 Americans "Who is Aidan Quinn?" and 99 of them will say, "Wasn't she that Medicine Woman?"

It's not just Aidan Quinn making Pete's life miserable. Jones' own production staff seems determined to make his first movie his last. After finally wrangling an approval out of Quinn, Pete chases down Helgenberger, who would love to do the movie. The only sticking point is she wants a few days off to go see her kids back in L.A. The line producer agrees to five days. Marg wants a couple more. The line producer, either unaware or unwilling to admit Marg Helgenberger stars in a top ten TV show while he is working on a no-budget film with a rookie director and Aidan Quinn, refuses. Next thing you know, it's seven days before shooting starts and the movie has no female lead.

In the middle of all this is poor, poor Pete. Here is a genuinely nice guy -- some cruel and vicious people might go as far as to say "sap" -- who is handed the opportunity of a lifetime only to see it nearly ripped to shreds by the very people who are supposed to help him. Jones is pure Midwest farm boy: a roly-poly sort with a crooked grin who nearly wets himself while meeting Marg Helgenberger and declaring his everlasting devotion for "CSI."

He's also in way over his head.

Jones repeatedly lets us know Helgenberger's exactly who he wants for the pivotal role. Yet he stays on the sidelines during the haggling over Marg's proposed schedule and tiptoes around all of Quinn's insane ramblings. His production designer and his director of photography are repeatedly ripping each other's throats out while he smiles politely and nods his head, unwilling or unable to speak up. Granted, most people thrust into this situation would be intimidated at the thought of helming a motion picture, but that doesn't prevent us from yelling at Pete through the TV screen: "Goddammit, grow a pair!"

Especially when the new director starts to cry. Which he does, twice, in the most recent episode. Once when the actors have finished their initial rehearsal and again later, when he finally talks to Bonnie Hunt, who has agreed to play the female lead a mere ten hours before shooting starts. Is it just me or is it hard to imagine Sam Peckinpah or Alfred Hitchcock shedding a few tears over Ernest Borgnine or Janet Leigh?

Even if you don't know the difference between best boys and craft services, Project Greenlight is another example of HBO appointment television. The Greenlight producers have skillfully crafted a large but easily recognizable cast of characters and the grand prize -- the premiere of "Stolen Summer" -- is a much more compelling than a cash payout.

But Pete is still the reason Project Greenlight stands alone as the only reality TV series worth watching. Whereas the Survivors or Elimidaters are already human scum that force the audience into rooting for the hungry lions, Greenlight is an old-fashioned good versus evil story. The rookie director and his innocent vision versus a corrupt Hollywood system that treats newcomers like the Borg welcome the Enterprise. We know part of the ending already -- "Stolen Summer" completed filming in July -- but we don't know whether our hero is still our hero or if he's just another Locutus, already working on "American Pie 3."

The cancellation of Thieves upsets me -- certainly not in a the-floodwaters-are-rising-and-the-bank-men-are-coming-for-our-deed-and-they-done-shot-Billy-Joe kind of a way. But, provided we keep a healthy sense of perspective about these things, it's bothersome nonetheless, in the same way that it's upsetting when the good Mexican restaurant takes the barbecued burrito off the menu or the New York Yankees throw a sack of money at your team's star first baseman or Madonna releases a new album. Upsetting in that way.

It's not that Thieves was transcendent television. It was plenty entertaining, but we're not talking a complete reinvention of the dramatic narrative here. It has nothing to do with any particular affection toward the stars, though John Stamos was surprisingly good and, really, who'd have thought I'd ever get such a kick out of Tone Loc of all people? And while ABC stuck to its m.o. and axed a perfectly fine TV show while allowing lifeless, toothless fare to remain on the airwaves -- enjoy the ride while it lasts, Jim Belushi -- I'm not particularly miffed about that.

No, the cancellation of Thieves upsets me because it ensures that I wind up looking ridiculous to family and friends.

A little background is in order: Thieves is -- well, was -- about a pair of cat burglars, ably played by Stamos and Melissa George. They're caught mid-caper by John Q. Law, handed over to a pair of humorless federal agents (Robert Knepper and the aforementioned Mr. Loc) and told they must perform thievery in service of the crown to avoid lengthy jail time. While all this happens, Stamos and George banter. A lot.

If the premise doesn't necessarily sound like it was culled from a Kafka story, it's of little consequence. Thieves is -- well, was -- a damned fine hour of programming, with dialogue just sharp enough to make you feel less bad about spending a Friday night in front of the TV set. Perhaps TeeVee will get around to reviewing Thieves one day. Or perhaps not. It's not like I run things around here. If I did, let me assure you, things would definitely be different, starting with the dress code.

ABC replaced Thieves in its Friday night lineup with the apparently indestructible America's Funniest Home Videos, now in its twelfth glorious season of broadcasting hilarious pratfalls. Popular tastes will change, years will fade one into the next, and civilizations will crumble into the sea, yet America's Funniest Home Videos endures, supplying a grateful nation with footage of wedding video mishaps and wacky pet antics. I cannot stress enough how simply incomprehensible this development is to me.

(A tangent to this tangential-enough aside: During my senior year in high school eleven years ago -- when America's Funniest Home Videos was still on the air -- I took a girl I was very sweet on to the Winter Ball in one of those Moonie-like group dates that are so very popular amongst the young people. We all assembled at the house of this other girl, whose little sister insisted upon videotaping us in all our finery. "Maybe we could send it to America's Funniest Home Videos," the young lass said hopefully, which gave us all a good chuckle. We didn't have the heart to explain to her that the prerequisites for an America's Funniest Home Videos submission were physical pain, obvious anguish and complete humiliation -- and that wouldn't come until subsequent dates with the girl I was going out with that night. But that's a story for another time, I guess.)

So how do all of these things -- the cancellation of a show I like, its subsequent replacement with a program that considers kicks to the groin the highest of comedy, the awful, awful girls I went out with in high school -- conspire to make me look foolish? Because I gave Thieves a big ol' thumbs up. I sang its praises to anyone who would listen. I even wrote a nice little blurb about Thieves that nobody probably read, urging you all to watch it.

And what did I get for my efforts? Mockery.

"You know, Thieves is actually a pretty good show," I'd tell them.

"Yeah, right. Good one," they'd respond.

"No, really. I'm not being ironic," I'd insist.

"But John Stamos is in it," they'd sneer.

"True... but he's good," I'd say.

"You're drunk on paint thinner," they'd snort. And that would end the argument. Because usually I am. But that has nothing to do with why I like Thieves.

My one hope -- my one chance to restore the tattered remains of my reputation -- was that my friends and colleagues would find themselves stuck at home on a Friday night (not too much of a longshot, really, considering who we're talking about), turn on ABC, and find out that, well, goddammit, Phil was right all along. And then those that had mocked me, that had wronged me, would come crawling back to offer deep and sincere apologies. "You were right, and we were wrong," they'd say choking back tears. And I would nod sadly and bite my lower lip and hold out my arms in a gesture of beneficent forgiveness -- which is when I would puncture their chest cavity with my right fist, rip out their still-beating heart and show it to them as they spent their final seconds on earth regretting how they did me wrong.

And now, by canceling Thieves, ABC has robbed me of that simple pleasure.

ABC has also done something else by canceling Thieves -- something I never would have thought was possible. ABC has made me sympathize with fellow Vidiot Ben Boychuk.

It was at my bachelor party last year, right after Jason Snell lost $40 at the $5-minimum blackjack tables in about the time it took you to read this sentence. A friendly game of low-stakes poker just seemed like a better idea than watching Snell sink deeper into debt and having to hock his clothes just to afford bus fare home, so back to our hotel room we went. We ordered a bottle of Jim Beam, and there's no need to go into too much detail about how Boychuk drank most of it. These are the sorts of reckless stories that destroy men's reputations, and Boychuk can rest easy knowing that I won't recount the sordid details of the evening -- not even how he screamed, "You all drink like children!" before collapsing in a sweaty, whimpering pile where he stayed for the next 20 hours. Because I'm a good friend like that.

No, the portion of the evening that's least libelous and most relevant to the discussion at hand is when Boychuk launched into a bourbon-fueled testimony on behalf of Vengeance Unlimited. You may remember Vengeance Unlimited as the 1998 ABC drama where discomforting character actor Michael Madsen played a shadowy man of mystery who went around extracting vengeance against greedy businessmen and snotty college kids and adulterous housewives and, so far as I know, anyone who looked at him funny. Or maybe you don't remember Vengeance Unlimited, which would be perfectly understandable since ABC canceled it as quickly as Jason Snell can find himself 40 bucks in the hole at the Tropicana.

Well, Ben Boychuk remembers Vengeance Unlimited. Ben loves Vengeance Unlimited. And, damnit, Ben is going to tell you about Vengeance Unlimited until you admit you like it, too. Or until you keep filling his glass with booze.

"Vengeance Unlimited was a good show," Ben kept saying that night. "A damned good show."

We laughed at him, of course, because drunken, hapless people are funny. But if I knew that night what I know now, I wouldn't have laughed -- well, not as much anyhow. Because I would have known the pain of being one of the few people to like a show and having no way, no proof, no rerun to convince doubters of the rightness of my cause. And I would have wondered how many others were out there just like us -- the poor, put-upon souls who insist against a sea of naysayers that Hello, Larry was a perfectly fine sitcom or that there wasn't a damned thing wrong with Hooperman. How many of us are out there, hoping, praying, waiting for the day the program we alone defended appears on the USA Network, wedged between juicer infomercials, so that we can finally prove to friends and loved ones all along? A good 10 or 20 of us at least, I'm guessing.

So no, I wouldn't have laughed at Boychuk that night. Instead, I would have poured myself a glass of Jim Beam and had a drink to John Stamos and Tone Loc and all that they stood for.

Because Thieves was a good show. A damned good show.

Dear reader, my heart is somber with reverence as I write these lines. On this night, a momentous occasion shall come to pass, one that marks the ending of an era. It will be a night of wistful reminiscence, coupled, ironically, with great joy. For tonight is the night I can finally stop watching ER.

After seven long years, original cast member Eriq La Salle is leaving the cast of NBC's Thursday night medical powerhouse, thus providing me the final excuse I needed to stop tuning in to the damned thing every week.

Not that I haven't had other reasons to give up on ER It's been years since I gave a crap about the so-called plotlines. There are, after all, only so many ways that a person can get splattered with barf, or almost catch AIDS, or have some embarrassing object removed from his rectum. And I already saw most of them during college.

Also long gone is my affection for the ensemble cast, which I guess isn't too surprising, because so is the ensemble cast.

But I was hanging on for Eriq. And not for his acting prowess. Oh, don't get me wrong! Eriq hits perfectly the one note required to portray his character, the driven Dr. Peter Benton. And that snappy "q" at the end of his name adds some much-needed pizzazz to the cast list, especially now that Ming-Na is gone again.

In truth, though, I've labored on with ER for lo these many years, through the bad times and the slightly less bad, the magically disappearing story arcs and the horror that is Erik Palladino, for one single, solitary reason: that thing Eriq La Salle does in the opening credits.

You know what I'm talking about. That karate chop thing where he goes down on one knee and he does some sort of kooky zen thing with his hands and the music rises to a crescendo and then, Haiiiii-YA!

It's just so fucking bad-ass.

So fucking bad-ass, in fact, that at some point during season two I was actually roused to leave my seat and perform the move along with him. And again the next week. And the next week after that. Until now, six years later, we find me still doing "The Benton" religiously at the start of each and every episode.

(Note that this excludes reruns, which I had to stop doing in 1998 after collapsing from exhaustion. Those syndicating sons of bitches at TNT almost killed me.)

Now I'm no Mr. Miyagi, but I suspect that six years is a long time to be practicing one kata. I like to believe that I have attained perfection in this one. There was one brief disruption in my training when Paul McCrane became a regular cast member, and the bastards moved The Benton from the middle of the credit sequence to the end. But being forced to adapt has only made me stronger.

As the music swells, I crouch to the exact Benton depth, my forearm hair rippling lightly as I pull my right hand around and through my center of gravity. My left arm extends, the palm flexed upwards to the heavens, as though exalting the Lord for imbuing me with such badassity. Then my fist strikes down with pinpoint timing, in precise synchronicity with the action on-screen. Some even say that I appear to momentarily turn black. It's truly awe-inspiring.

And all of that beauty and grace comes to an end tonight, with my final performance. At its passing, I feel a profound sadness, as though I'm bidding farewell to my dearest of friends. Fortunately, in my melancholy I have found two cheerful thoughts to which I can cling.

One is that I don't have to watch this awful show anymore.

The other is that I can still see Eriq La Salle whenever I miss him. TNT airs "Coming to America" three times daily in order to space out ER reruns.