[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
Have others here not liked this show, and if not, why not? My wife and I just watched the first season on Netflix, and we enjoyed it a lot, for the same reasons you give. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.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. 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.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer 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
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.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
Yabut, the science on Breaking Bad isn't realistic! http://youtu.be/6ncwzVmE5IM http://youtu.be/6ncwzVmE5IM --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Rick Archer wrote: 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 , Rick Archer 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.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.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. 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 i Our household members are very big fans of The Newsroom and enjoyed this last episode immensely. While this drama may not be all that accurate a portrayal of how newsrooms work, it does make the point very wall that behind the camera are real people with real lives. These lives are full of drama and imperfections just like the subjects they cover and this can color how things can get reported (or ignored or suppressed). I like how the character of Will McAvoy is used to push things always back to the center when there's an axe to grind in either the left or right. I agree that some of the dialog is frenetic and even forced, but I think they're trying to cram 90 minutes of drama into a 60 minute format. That pace can be a bit much and I find we are rewinding certain scenes once in a while to make sure we got what was being telegraphed. The dialog is outstanding, but occasionally too smart for its own good. I hate that, but it's way ahead of a lot of the drek in sitcoms. This season feels like a homage to Dan Rather with the setup he fell into around his investigation into W that ended his stint on the CBS Evening News. ACN is trolled by someone with an agenda other than telling the truth. CBS was given so called vetted documents on Lt. Bush's record. Thus, the newsroom and the reporters become story. The fallout of such a troll is the proverbial chilling effect. Cheney Bush were great at this, and sadly, Obama and Holder are following suit with their blatant intimidation of reporters. As an aside, I would expect the same if not worse from a Romney Presidency, but I am very disappointed in Mr. Change We Can Believe In. Also, these season has done a great job of characterizing how political campaign reporters are reduced to readers of press statements from spin meisters. Yeah... Sorkin is preaching to the choir, but I love his music.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.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.
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.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, RoryGoff rorygoff@ wrote: Have others here not liked this show, and if not, why not? My wife and I just watched the first season on Netflix, and we enjoyed it a lot, for the same reasons you give. Back when the series started, I wrote positively about it, so there is a certain contingent here who felt the need to dump on it simply because I liked it. And, as we have seen here before, I would bet that many of those who did so have never seen a full single episode. Should any of them chime in, ask that question of them directly, and see whether they'll admit that they got pretty much all of their supposed criticisms from other people's reviews. (Rory, remember what I just said about Barry doing it to himself?) I did watch the entire first episode, as Barry would know if he actually read my posts, ;-) and I posted my own review of it, plus an analysis of how it had handled one of its big plot points. If you want to read the posts, Rory: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/313208 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/313140 Later, I also made some comments on a clip Barry had posted from the last episode of the first season: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/318505 (The first episode and that clip were more than enough; I haven't been tempted to watch any more of it.) And back at the beginning, I made two posts analyzing Barry's conspiracy theory (which he echoes below) as to why some of the initial reviews were negative: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/313121 http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/message/313016 I became allergic to Aaron Sorkin some time back, for a variety of reasons. I loved West Wing at first, but Sorkin's writing style eventually began to wear on me; and I really can't abide his frequent lack of concern for authenticity (see the second and third of the posts I listed above). This is funny: ...my early prediction of the series' quality being rewarded with several Emmy nominations came to pass. I imagine that the people mentioned in my first paragraph found that particularly galling. :-) Barry is second to none at imagining that other people suffer from his own petty quirks. ;-) That said, there *were* a lot of criticisms of the show in the media, mainly IMO *from* members of the media, who didn't like their foibles presented so accurately onscreen. Some envy Aaron Sorkin his success, and others envy him his writing ability, so the bottom line of a lot of the criticism is, again IMO, envy. The silliest of the criticisms have to do with the characters of the primary women in the series. So- called feminists complained that they weren't treated seriously. As if women in *any* workplace in America *are* treated as seriously as they deserve to be. I personally think that many of the women in the series are presented as being strong, but at the same time capable of love and stupidity and the ability to make dumb decisions w.r.t. love from time to time. To me, that's a *compassionate* portrayal, putting them on an equal pedestal of capability/stupidity as their male counterparts. :-) The worst of the media criticisms are veiled attempts to create a furor of supposed dislike for the series, in an attempt to get an obviously left-leaning series canceled. That failed, and my early prediction of the series' quality being rewarded with several Emmy nominations came to pass. I imagine that the people mentioned in my first paragraph found that particularly galling. :-) Me, I just enjoy snappy dialogue, at which Sorkin and his team of writers are masters, and I like complex characters who foil attempts to pigeonhole them, of which there are many in this series. Yes, it's main- stream television, and thus must walk that fine line between being entertaining to the masses and actually saying something, but I think it's managed that quite successfully. Glad to hear you liked it. It's one of my Monday morning automatic downloads from the previous Sunday night, US time, along with Dexter, True Blood (now over for the season), Breaking Bad, and (thanks to you reminding me about it) Copper. When it comes to Jane Fonda, I have a particular affection for her because I discovered her early, long before she gained recognition in the US as anything but another example of Hollywood nepotism. After a couple of fluff movies in the US, she moved to France, took up with Roger Vadim, and starred in one of his films called (in English translation) The Game Is Over (a remake of Émile Zola's La curée. I was transfixed. I went back to see it several nights in a row, and started telling all of my film school buddies, This woman is a STAR! Three years later came her first recognized performance, in They Shoot Horses,
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
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. authfriend: Uh, Barrykins, the most recent post expressing any negativity about Newsroom was almost exactly a year ago. No wonder it took so long to get to Barry2's computer.
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
Ha! Yeah, I didn't eve know Jane Fonda was in the series, and didn't recognize her immediately when she first appeared, and so was both surprised and delighted in the apparently right-wing role she played so convincingly. Thanks for your well-thought-out review of the show ... I also liked West Wing and -- what was the name of that short-lived one of Sorkin's? Studio 61? Breaking Bad I love, having just finished the first 8 episodes of the last season, and still waiting for Netflix to give us the final batch. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, RoryGoff rorygoff@ wrote: Have others here not liked this show, and if not, why not? My wife and I just watched the first season on Netflix, and we enjoyed it a lot, for the same reasons you give. Back when the series started, I wrote positively about it, so there is a certain contingent here who felt the need to dump on it simply because I liked it. And, as we have seen here before, I would bet that many of those who did so have never seen a full single episode. Should any of them chime in, ask that question of them directly, and see whether they'll admit that they got pretty much all of their supposed criticisms from other people's reviews. That said, there *were* a lot of criticisms of the show in the media, mainly IMO *from* members of the media, who didn't like their foibles presented so accurately onscreen. Some envy Aaron Sorkin his success, and others envy him his writing ability, so the bottom line of a lot of the criticism is, again IMO, envy. The silliest of the criticisms have to do with the characters of the primary women in the series. So- called feminists complained that they weren't treated seriously. As if women in *any* workplace in America *are* treated as seriously as they deserve to be. I personally think that many of the women in the series are presented as being strong, but at the same time capable of love and stupidity and the ability to make dumb decisions w.r.t. love from time to time. To me, that's a *compassionate* portrayal, putting them on an equal pedestal of capability/stupidity as their male counterparts. :-) The worst of the media criticisms are veiled attempts to create a furor of supposed dislike for the series, in an attempt to get an obviously left-leaning series canceled. That failed, and my early prediction of the series' quality being rewarded with several Emmy nominations came to pass. I imagine that the people mentioned in my first paragraph found that particularly galling. :-) Me, I just enjoy snappy dialogue, at which Sorkin and his team of writers are masters, and I like complex characters who foil attempts to pigeonhole them, of which there are many in this series. Yes, it's main- stream television, and thus must walk that fine line between being entertaining to the masses and actually saying something, but I think it's managed that quite successfully. Glad to hear you liked it. It's one of my Monday morning automatic downloads from the previous Sunday night, US time, along with Dexter, True Blood (now over for the season), Breaking Bad, and (thanks to you reminding me about it) Copper. When it comes to Jane Fonda, I have a particular affection for her because I discovered her early, long before she gained recognition in the US as anything but another example of Hollywood nepotism. After a couple of fluff movies in the US, she moved to France, took up with Roger Vadim, and starred in one of his films called (in English translation) The Game Is Over (a remake of Émile Zola's La curée. I was transfixed. I went back to see it several nights in a row, and started telling all of my film school buddies, This woman is a STAR! Three years later came her first recognized performance, in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and then three years after that, her first Oscar-winning role in Klute. I have been missing her onscreen presence for some time, so it is a real joy for me to see her not only take on a plum role like this one, but knock it out of the park. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.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. 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
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, RoryGoff rorygoff@... wrote: Have others here not liked this show, and if not, why not? My wife and I just watched the first season on Netflix, and we enjoyed it a lot, for the same reasons you give. Back when the series started, I wrote positively about it, so there is a certain contingent here who felt the need to dump on it simply because I liked it. And, as we have seen here before, I would bet that many of those who did so have never seen a full single episode. Should any of them chime in, ask that question of them directly, and see whether they'll admit that they got pretty much all of their supposed criticisms from other people's reviews. That said, there *were* a lot of criticisms of the show in the media, mainly IMO *from* members of the media, who didn't like their foibles presented so accurately onscreen. Some envy Aaron Sorkin his success, and others envy him his writing ability, so the bottom line of a lot of the criticism is, again IMO, envy. The silliest of the criticisms have to do with the characters of the primary women in the series. So- called feminists complained that they weren't treated seriously. As if women in *any* workplace in America *are* treated as seriously as they deserve to be. I personally think that many of the women in the series are presented as being strong, but at the same time capable of love and stupidity and the ability to make dumb decisions w.r.t. love from time to time. To me, that's a *compassionate* portrayal, putting them on an equal pedestal of capability/stupidity as their male counterparts. :-) The worst of the media criticisms are veiled attempts to create a furor of supposed dislike for the series, in an attempt to get an obviously left-leaning series canceled. That failed, and my early prediction of the series' quality being rewarded with several Emmy nominations came to pass. I imagine that the people mentioned in my first paragraph found that particularly galling. :-) Me, I just enjoy snappy dialogue, at which Sorkin and his team of writers are masters, and I like complex characters who foil attempts to pigeonhole them, of which there are many in this series. Yes, it's main- stream television, and thus must walk that fine line between being entertaining to the masses and actually saying something, but I think it's managed that quite successfully. Glad to hear you liked it. It's one of my Monday morning automatic downloads from the previous Sunday night, US time, along with Dexter, True Blood (now over for the season), Breaking Bad, and (thanks to you reminding me about it) Copper. When it comes to Jane Fonda, I have a particular affection for her because I discovered her early, long before she gained recognition in the US as anything but another example of Hollywood nepotism. After a couple of fluff movies in the US, she moved to France, took up with Roger Vadim, and starred in one of his films called (in English translation) The Game Is Over (a remake of Émile Zola's La curée. I was transfixed. I went back to see it several nights in a row, and started telling all of my film school buddies, This woman is a STAR! Three years later came her first recognized performance, in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? and then three years after that, her first Oscar-winning role in Klute. I have been missing her onscreen presence for some time, so it is a real joy for me to see her not only take on a plum role like this one, but knock it out of the park. --- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.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. 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
[FairfieldLife] Re: The Newsroom: Red Team III
--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, turquoiseb no_reply@... wrote: snip 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. Uh, Barrykins, the most recent post expressing any negativity about Newsroom was almost exactly a year ago.