RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
Good observations on the show's portrayal of the BP Oil disaster. I was thinknig that while watching the show, but that was a couple of months ago, so I had forgotten that reaction. We'll probably try another episode now and then when there's nothing else to watch, but these days, everything pales in comparison to Breaking Bad. From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of authfriend Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 11:50 AM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com , Rick Archer rick@... mailto:rick@... wrote: I've only watched the first two episodes so far. My only criticisms were that the dialog seemed so frenetic, and so cute and witty and off-the-cuff articulate, that it seemed unrealistic. Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing sucked me in and made me feel I was really in the White House. Pretty much the same here, Rick. But even the super-snappy dialogue in West Wing began to get to me after a while. A couple years ago I was doing something in the kitchen with the TV on. I hadn't been listening, but the audio of a clip from some dramatic show that was being played caught my attention. I hadn't heard it before--it wasn't from West Wing--but I knew instantly it was a Sorkin show because just the rhythms of the dialog were so recognizable. Seems to me that has to be a flaw of some sort. The Newsroom hasn't sucked me in yet. I felt I was watching something unrealistic. I've seen only the first episode and a clip from the final episode of the first season, and it wasn't just the dialog that was unrealistic. I wonder what folks who have actually worked in the White House thought about West Wing in terms of realism. I know nuttin' about working in the White House, but I do know something about TV news operations, and there was stuff in the first episode and the later clip from Newsroom that was seriously inauthentic. Just for one thing, the station's reporting on the Gulf disaster was portrayed wildly inaccurately: they supposedly dug up the details of what had happened very shortly afterward that *nobody had actually known for days and even weeks*. And the script used that faux knowledge to beat up on other news outlets for going with the drama of the missing crew members instead of focusing on the environmental disaster (which, in reality, wasn't yet evident to anybody at that point, but which the Newsroom folks had purportedly uncovered within a matter of hours). Not that the news media totally covered itself with glory in its reporting on the Gulf spill, but this portrayal was just below the belt, IMHO. Nobody who watched this episode who hadn't followed the Gulf story pretty closely would have any reason to suspect that the news media had not, in fact, disgraced itself in the early days of the catastrophe by not doing the necessary investigation. Still pisses me off. If you're going to re-create a very recent major event for a mass audience, you need to take significant pains to do it accurately rather than distorting it for the sake of the drama. Otherwise your grossly mangled version is likely to become the common wisdom.
RE: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
From: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com [mailto:FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Alex Stanley Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 12:13 PM To: FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com Subject: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III Yabut, the science on Breaking Bad isn't realistic! http://youtu.be/6ncwzVmE5IM Yabut, I don't think Breaking Bad is trying to be completely realistic. I presume the Newsroom is.
Re: [FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
Turq's original post on Newsroom has yet to show up via email or it's stuck in the Yahoo Mail spam bin. I've been watching the series but this may be the last episode I watch for awhile or until October. Comcast is encrypting Limited Basic starting October first rendering my computer TV tuners useless. Of course Newsroom is HBO and my promo ran out last month so I'm paying Comcast's ridiculous full price for it. So HBO gets canceled this week. And towards the end of the month Comcast will be kicked out of this house entirely either being replaced by U-Verse or no TV except streaming. U-Verse's 12 month month promo will save me a lot of money over Comcast. And I'm sure I'm not the only one in the area canceling Comcast. My only problem with Newsroom is that I read a lot of political stuff over the week so a fictional show about it is not that compelling. It's a well crafted show but I usually get around to watching the recording of the current episode later in the week. The news itself is a much better show. I've become a fan of Ray Donovan which follows Dexter. The latter has only three episodes left of the series. Then there's the great Lennie James in the AMC series which follows Breaking Bad. It's about a couple of bad cops trying to cover their tracks to their murder of another bad cop. And of course Talking Bad where last night Samuel L Jackson and the actor who plays Saul were guests last night. Talking Bad is a Breaking Bad fan show follow-up. On 08/26/2013 08:21 AM, obbajeeba wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com mailto:FairfieldLife%40yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: OK, I know that not many here enjoy this series as much as I do, but I'm the only person I have to please around here, and I love it. What many? You blocked view, of most everyone's posting and refuse to converse with most anyone who actually is listening, but again, you are only pleasing yourself by typing it on the FFL Yahoo Group Message Board and you love it. I read your post. I listen, but I am not the audience you wish to be concerned if I am listening (we do not hear type written word and thank god for that. Turq's voice droning over and over in a mono tone B flat.) to my music as I read your post to yourself, I guess, I am still listening. Have a nice time and thank you for the tip of the series. Will check it out. Just wanted you to realize it may be best not to type drunk. I think it's tightly written, superbly acted and directed, and it occasionally makes some strong and valid criticisms of the News and how it works...and how it sometimes fails to work. All six of the previous episodes this season have been leading up to last night's episode, when a seemingly strong story they'd broadcast came crashing down with embarrassing-to-the-network and mass-resignations-required consequences. And IMO all on the team did a fine job in presenting this story in these six episodes. But -- again IMO -- all of this was preface. It was all leading up to a scene featuring the actress who had not been present so far in the season, delivering a speech that both Aaron Sorkin (as the writer) and her (as the actress delivering it) will be remembered for long after those who rag on The Newsroom are dead and forgotten. The owner of the fictional News network gets called out of a charity benefit she's dressed to the nines and paid a thousand bucks to attend because she wanted to meet Daniel Craig, who was a no-show. She's not in the best of moods, because she really *wanted* to meet Daniel Craig. And to top that off, she's stoned. Then she gets called into a room and told that she has to accept the resignations of her three most key employees at the network. That's the setup. The punchline is that this woman is being played by Jane Fonda, one of the greatest actresses any of us have ever been privileged to see onscreen. My bet is that she'll be nominated for another Emmy (she already was, for her work in last season) for this five minutes of screen time. And my hope is that she wins. This was as masterful a piece of acting as I have ever seen in my life. She literally brought tears to my eyes. Those of you who like to rag on The Newsroom can carry on now, carrying on. Me, I'll carry on enjoying great TV wherever I find it, no matter how many others don't like it.
