![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
HBO shows: Newsroom and True Blood
Jun. 25th, 2012 10:57 pm1. Just finished the new Aaron Sorkin HBO drama Newsroom - which was quite good.
Held my interest throughout, entertained me, made me chuckle, and informed. It's sort of a combo of The West Wing meets Sports Night by way of the flick Network, Broadcast News, and The Hour. If you like those series and/or films, are critical of our current news environment and like rapid fire dialogue, you'll love this.
Has a great cast - with Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterson, Emily Watson, and several newer actors who are actually very good. More multi-ethnic than usual - but that's true of HBO generally speaking. Trademark rapid fire dialogue, which I adore. Jane Fonda will be playing the head of the network in the weeks ahead - nice ironic twist that - considering she was once married to the owner of CNN.
Plot? Simple. Burned out Jay Leno style news anchor Will McAvoy, portrayed by Jeff Daniels,
finally gives his "I'm Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore Speech" at a Q&A at Northwestern. This speech spurs things into motion. His boss, Sam Waterson, the news chief,
decides to hire a new EP for him, McKenzie Hale - portrayed by Emily Watson, who has spent the last ten years as a War Correspondent. She's mentally and emotionally exhausted.
His old EP, Don, has jumped to the ten o'clock slot with another anchor - along with 85% of his staff - because Will is an ass. McKenzie brings people with her and sells him on her skills - hammering together a winning news program in a short period of time. She lucks out with a huge breaking news event, a pending environmental disaster.
Sorkin entwines real past events with the hectic pace of the newsroom and interpersonal working lives of the people inhabit it, constructing a fictional workplace drama along the lines of The West Wing, Sports Night, The Hour and The Wire. It's a recent historical piece as well - he mines the events of the recent past.
It's not perfect, there's still a gee-whiz neatness to the proceedings and a sort of liberal "mad as hell" preachiness that is trademark Sorkin and imbues almost all his work.
Will McAvoy's mad as hell speech at the beginning is quite similar to Jed Bartlett's or
Leo's or Toby's from the West Wing. But there's an even more cynical edge to it. Sorkin much like Will McAvoy looks at the next generation, the up-and-coming generation, and sneers in distaste...this, this...is what we're coming to? But it is that generation that populates his team and makes it work. The drama tackles the generation gap as well.
One of HBO's better offerings of late.
2. True Blood - I can't do this without spoilers.
( Read more... )
Held my interest throughout, entertained me, made me chuckle, and informed. It's sort of a combo of The West Wing meets Sports Night by way of the flick Network, Broadcast News, and The Hour. If you like those series and/or films, are critical of our current news environment and like rapid fire dialogue, you'll love this.
Has a great cast - with Jeff Daniels, Sam Waterson, Emily Watson, and several newer actors who are actually very good. More multi-ethnic than usual - but that's true of HBO generally speaking. Trademark rapid fire dialogue, which I adore. Jane Fonda will be playing the head of the network in the weeks ahead - nice ironic twist that - considering she was once married to the owner of CNN.
Plot? Simple. Burned out Jay Leno style news anchor Will McAvoy, portrayed by Jeff Daniels,
finally gives his "I'm Mad as Hell and Not Going to Take It Anymore Speech" at a Q&A at Northwestern. This speech spurs things into motion. His boss, Sam Waterson, the news chief,
decides to hire a new EP for him, McKenzie Hale - portrayed by Emily Watson, who has spent the last ten years as a War Correspondent. She's mentally and emotionally exhausted.
His old EP, Don, has jumped to the ten o'clock slot with another anchor - along with 85% of his staff - because Will is an ass. McKenzie brings people with her and sells him on her skills - hammering together a winning news program in a short period of time. She lucks out with a huge breaking news event, a pending environmental disaster.
Sorkin entwines real past events with the hectic pace of the newsroom and interpersonal working lives of the people inhabit it, constructing a fictional workplace drama along the lines of The West Wing, Sports Night, The Hour and The Wire. It's a recent historical piece as well - he mines the events of the recent past.
It's not perfect, there's still a gee-whiz neatness to the proceedings and a sort of liberal "mad as hell" preachiness that is trademark Sorkin and imbues almost all his work.
Will McAvoy's mad as hell speech at the beginning is quite similar to Jed Bartlett's or
Leo's or Toby's from the West Wing. But there's an even more cynical edge to it. Sorkin much like Will McAvoy looks at the next generation, the up-and-coming generation, and sneers in distaste...this, this...is what we're coming to? But it is that generation that populates his team and makes it work. The drama tackles the generation gap as well.
One of HBO's better offerings of late.
2. True Blood - I can't do this without spoilers.
( Read more... )