The Newsroom: Sorkin's HBO Joint

the opening scene was really terrible, too

and yet. he managed to wring some subtle moments out of that. i'm kind of okay with big sorkin speeches as long as they're undercut a little and not treated with the kind of rapt worship indicated by schmaltzy music and that moment when daniels was ranting at northwestern and they cut to a college student looking awed--that moment is straight out of the american president! which is a movie i am fond of but come on.

i don't know, sometimes i don't even understand why i like sorkin.

xxp

i do think sorkin scripts make a lot more sense with cursing

there was a heated exchange on sports night once where jeremy was like, "you think i'm SCARED?" and natalie was like, "i think you're SCARED CHICKEN!" and it was like ...

Yeah, there's a lot about this that feels about 15-20 years old, at least.

in the scene where daniels yells at his ex-exec-producer for bailing on the show, and then ex-exec-producer yells at him for being mean, and then sam waterston starts yelling at the ex-exec-producer for reasons that weren't clear to me, all i could think of was steve carrell's character in anchorman. "LOUD NOISES!!!"

i'm kind of okay with big sorkin speeches as long as they're undercut a little

― horseshoe, Monday, June 25, 2012 12:52 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

also when they're not total bullshit, like daniels's whole "we used to be good" speech at the beginning

not that american exceptionalism, this american exceptionalism. my old man version!

Note how the trailer only showed the first half of the speech. Whole other story once you hear the whole thing.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash3/600887_464639143564325_373923033_n.jpg

o plz plz plz internet don't let me down again

Aaron Connects

if he had any kind of sense of humor he'd start every response w/ 'listen internet girl/boy'. but as anyone who saw studio 60 can confirm he does not have any kind of sense of humor.

never forget
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZoJQhkQedU
never fucking forget

Like I just muttered over on balls' FB page, Aaron Eckhart really is going to play him in his self-penned biopic about his own life story one day. And he will capture his utter dickishness to a T.

this kinda gave me a rush during the broadcast part of the episode but it was largely really annoying

― J0rdan S., Monday, June 25, 2012 12:31 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

i felt the opposite -- was fairly engaged with it through the first hour, then started to check out during the whole THE ELECTRICITY OF LIVE TELEVISION bit.

Mortimer deserves equal credit w/ Daniels for making this easier to watch than it ought to be imo

i have to make myself forget that her character's name is 'Mackenzie MacHale'

i feel like every detail of this will be forgotten in a couple months

i'm going to write a compelling dramatization of how we should've made fun of it 2 years from now, though

Sorkin is literally the worst writer in the world. It's incredible how terrible he is at understanding how human beings and the spoken word work both independently and in interrelated ways.

Also the casting for this was terrible.

I really enjoy just watching daniels just do his thing though. didn't know that about myself!

is this programme basically just meant to make journalists feel great?

I actually really enjoyed the live production of the news show part very similarly to how I enjoyed the west wing. every other aspect of this endeavor was absolutely unbearable.

not the journalists who broke the stories that newsroom takes credit for xp

i checked out the newsroom hashtag last night and there were a lot of people saying variations "of course journalists don't like this show, it reveals how bad they are at their jobs!"

i thought this was pretty okay? i enjoyed it? or i'm trying not to reflexively hate on it just because some of it was obviously pretty standard in pretty standard ways. it would be nice if he could do something to transcend the network cliches but i don't know that they're awful for their inclusion, more just disappointing. like the working with an ex relationship in which each side conceals an enigmatic history & still smoulders thing - it is such a pre-fab timebomb, & it was in studio 60, but it's lazy writing more than it is bad tv, i think. i wish alison pill wasn't such a klutz, because she's great, also her dress was v nice, but i can get with the peter parker whippy new newsroom guy. it would be nice if her bf became slightly more complex rather than just spitting out fodder to justify our affection for his rival. i think this is gonna be particularly problematic if the audience is already privileged with the gift of hindsight & knowledge of historical irony, so we always know who we're rooting for, who'll be vindicated & who'll be a stupid hubristic asshole. & the waterson guy seems like a missed opportunity. there should be some awesome intriguing back room network man. a david carr man. instead it is a guy in a bow tie. do you remember this guy from studio 60? i hated him. like a budget kevin bacon.

http://www.seriesadictos.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/studio-60-weber-300a121206.jpg

Is that Steven Weber?

it's ricky sargulesh

i thought Weber was one of the more redeemable parts of Studio 60, actually

o easily

this thread and emily nussbaum's (otm, at least based on the pilot) review of the newsroom are making me kind of want to watch studio 60, which i couldn't stomach at all when it was airing.

in a perverse way, just to help me catalogue all the ways in which sorkin shows are embarrassing

really?
i'm trying to find a picture of one of the simpsons characters who wears a suit and works for a network and represents corporate interests to include, whom he seemed to be the live action version of. iirc he was just a kinda james murdoch guy with occasional displays of pre-programmed emotion.
xxp

to be clear, "better than Sarah Paulson in Studio 60" was not meant as high praise

omg that actor is so annoying. sarah paulson, i mean.

if i were kristen chenoweth, i'd be like, her? really? thanks, dude.

really nobody could've played the Kristen Chenoweth cipher besides Chenoweth herself, but Paulson was pretty amazingly ill-fitted for it (xpost)

i wonder if i have a lower standard for judging this - like if its flaws are all the things we can file under _ways in which sorkin shows are embarrassing_ i think i'll be okay with it; it won't be the sopranos that manages to be generally complex, but its lazy failures are the kinds of lazy failures that we're super used to - un-fleshed-out female characters, predilection towards syrup & happy endings & rootsy belief, &c&c&c. it was when those things sorta overtook the interplay of characters or blunted the occasional exchanges of people having well-rendered arguments in the west wing or studio 60 that i tuned out slightly.

can i just say the murky moody Greg Mottola direction is a terrible look for this show? it could've at least been a better, more Sorkin-y Sorkin show if it was a little more crisp and clear.

this has been mentioned but i think the problem is that tv has gotten a lot better and there's enough good tv to watch that i don't feel especially compelled to watch the aaron sorkin hour esp if it's kinda lousy?

can i just say the murky moody Greg Mottola direction is a terrible look for this show? it could've at least been a better, more Sorkin-y Sorkin show if it was a little more crisp and clear.

― some dude, Monday, June 25, 2012 9:24 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

maybe you're right but i experienced mottola's direction as the one refreshing change because everything else about the show down to phrases of dialogue was such a retread.

if it had that thomas schlamme sports night look (which i love) i would just have popped in a sports night dvd because at least robert guillaume can deliver sorkin dialogue.

yeah true. but to me it felt a lot like Moneyball, which similarly tried to be brooding and meditative in a way that brings out the worst in his dialogue.

yeah sure. but i guess it's a there-if-you-need-it thing that delivers media-y distraction for people who are eligible/interested in it, with a good cast more, than it is a bold new take on anything. there is something funny about the west wing existing slightly before an advance and change in quality and style of tv - i watched some a while back & you could sense how it was slightly constrained compared to how it might've been a few years later - it'd occasionally go for a big cinematic gambit, use of some weird mike oldfield style orchestral music or of bold percussive flourishes, but it never seemed to go that much further. maybe sometimes. maybe with the canteen 9/11 episode.

some of the look of this was pretty nice, i thought. daniels & the exec's walk & talk, the exterior thing on 6th ave.

this thread and emily nussbaum's (otm, at least based on the pilot) review of the newsroom are making me kind of want to watch studio 60, which i couldn't stomach at all when it was airing.

had a swell old time watching the pilot, but by ep 3 or so the novelty of an SNL-based drama wore off. May revisit.

granted, i came into it like I did Tommy Wiseau's The Room.

i have fondness for greg mottola because of the daytrippers + adventureland, so i might have just decided to like his direction when i saw his name tbh

the direction reminded me of Adventureland and i kinda hated Adventureland

yes i remember being mad at you about that

Studio 60 would have been fine if a. they had better skits, or just never showed them and b. sorkin could have left his anti-christian right boner off tv.

even if they had better skits I'd then say "well why don't you just do a great sketch comedy show instead of a self-righteous drama about one"