Amidst LA Con reports

[loony_moony]

1. There should a SONG about Kurt Fuller and his pink shirt. It would be A SONG OF LOVE.

2. Lunch happened with memphis86, raelala and elrina753, during which Rae discovered what I actually do, and then she and Mem drunk-dialed regala_electra who wanted to take their heads off because I could hear the GRRRRR all the way from her house.

3. Then we saw "Hot Tub Time Machine"! DO NOT SEE THIS MOVIE SOBER! OR EVEN HALFWAY TIPSY. See it SLOSHED and/or HIGH. It would make no sense to you otherwise.

4. I would say though, Crispin Glover is fast becoming one of my favourite b-cast actors. First "Alice" and now this! LOVE THIS MAN.

5. But before that, we got to see the full trailer for "The Losers"!!!! \O/ FLAAAAAAAAAIL DO ME SIR DO ME DO MEEEEE

6. And now I'm watching "Mad Men" again. Mmmmmm, Jon Hamm. Just. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

7. My life <<<<< Jensen Ackles, I know. :D

Comments

[jamesinboots.livejournal.com]

There should a SONG about Kurt Fuller and his pink shirt. It would be A SONG OF LOVE.

That would be the most excellent song omg!! :D :D :D

[loony-moony.livejournal.com]

HERE'S MY LAME-ASS, BADLY-SLEPT ATTEMPT:

Kurt Fuller's a dude I enjoy,
All my favorite shows him employ,
In LA Con did he flirt,
While in a pink shirt,
But he didn't look like a big toy (UNLIKE JARED).

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

I'm watching Mad Men all this weekend too! I figured out I can write my paper about it. And it will be awesome. This happened mostly because I have to write a paper about gender in a film or TV series, and I was gonna go with one, but I couldn't come up with anything. And then when I was just watching an episode of the show because I wanted some good times with Jon Hamm, I accidentally said a thesis statement out loud. Then I went, oh shit! And now I'm gonna write about women in Mad Men. I can't wait to write about when Joan breaks a vase on GREG'S FACE. Oh snap. But mostly, my point is actually that despite how we go, "That's a shame," women all over the world are willing to ignore however many shortcomings Don Draper may have and still like him. It's not even just Jon Hamm. Who is of course pretty and less of a d-bag, as far as I can tell. It's Don Draper. He's so sexy. I hate that I find him as hot as I find him.

I also cannot wait to talk about Pete throwing Trudy's chicken out the window, and how Peggy's success makes Pete resentful even though he feels that she is the only person who really connects with her.

AND SAL BEING GAY. I heard Sal would not be back next season. I HOPE THIS IS FALSE. If I can figure out who to write a letter to, I totally will, because I love his storylines even if they make me so uncomfortable. But the man himself said they didn't ask him back and they were supposed to. I don't even know. I can't deal with that. That's actually the most distressing news I've heard in the last few weeks, moreso than "you are farsighted and have an astigmatism that you didn't last time you got your eyes checked" and "your credit is going to be ruined because your dad took out an insurance policy in your name without really asking you and now isn't planning on paying it." How can this happen!?

[loony-moony.livejournal.com]

You know, I figured something about Mad Men this week: If it weren't for the fantastic characters and the mindfuck factor, it wouldn't be nearly as good. Seriously, think about it. Place it in the 90s with the charisma each of the characters of "Friends" had on their own, and you'll get a show that's not on the same league as Mad Men. Of course, that would also mean getting rid of Mad Men's cast, and that's just unthinkable. Whatever. My point's that the plot is the weakest link in the show.

ANYHOO. Joan broke the vase on Dr. Rapist's head, not his face. She came behind his back. And Don Draper, at the end of the day, is a classic Film Noir hardboiled detective kind of character. Which is to say, kind of a Mary Sue, kind of a Gary Stu, but it's historically okay to make characters like him and have people identify with him the most (even though he is an epic douchebag).

From what I understand, Matthew Weiner said they did all they could with Sal's character, which is why Bryan Batt said they didn't renew his contract. Which, perpetuating the "gay in Hollywood" stereotype much? Sidenote: He looks a lot like someone I know, so it always throws me off, seeing his face.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

Ah, I know she broke it on the back of his head. I remember it pretty vividly because I watched it like six times. But when I am excited, "in the face" tends to become the phrase I attach to things. I assure you in the paper it will be correct.

I agree with you that the plot isn't that great, but saying that it would be a horrid show if you made it take place in the '90s and changed the characters (and their actors) does indeed make all the difference. That's like saying Brokeback Mountain would've been a totally different movie if they were straight. (Or look at something like Coupling, in which the plot and characters remain essentially the same and yet somehow when you move it from Britain to the US and cast other actors, it sucks. The Office and Queer as Folk become entirely different shows, even if you use the same script.) But this is just because Mad Men isn't really a high concept show. And high concept shows tend to have inherent flaws, inasmuch as they can run a much, much shorter time before you figure out how implausible it all is, before they do everything they could do. I mean you look at shows like, say, 24, and at this point it's become a mildly ridiculous show because you're like, really? Really? ...really? And even look at Dexter, which hasn't gotten bad, obviously, but everyone on the show seems to say in interviews recently that part of why they did what they did with the season 4 finale is that they needed a game changer, because at this point they were all aware they were running out of possibilities, because if they didn't change something, people were going to lose interest. (Not me, personally. But you know.) I mean, how many big bads can Dexter face and kill? If the arc of every season is, "Dexter finds link with other person, Dexter reveals too much about himself, Dexter is somehow betrayed by other person, Dexter kills other person." It HAS to happen that way, and yet they are aware that once you try to pull this four times you have to do something crazy in order to make it work. So they did.

A show with as weak a plot as Mad Men, that survives on its characters, is one of the best for longevity, I think. And it can go anywhere. They could all spontaneously quit advertising and become fitness gurus and the show would probably still be watchable because they are great characters. Nobody watches the show because they can't wait to see if Lucky Strike will go for a new ad campaign. Well, I have a feeling some ad guys do, actually, considering exactly how many Mad Men articles there have been in Adweek. But the general audience, not so much. This is part of why I object to Sal's exclusion from the new season. Yes, I can see how he might not be re-hired by Don at any point because of the gay thing. It is a sign of the times indeed. But at the same time, am I made to understand that everybody who didn't come with them when they broke off from Sterling Cooper is gone? And Betty broke up with Don; does that mean she's gone? When Joan quit her job, we still saw what was going on with Joan, even if we had no idea if she was going to come back. Yes, we didn't see her as much, but we still saw her at home. Because we cared about her, because her story was incomplete and because we wanted to know what happened. I care about Sal, and I can come up with so many ways that he might show back up in the series even IF he has to be related to their new ad agency to turn up again. But it doesn't seem to me like that has to be necessary. Sal's character has a story just like pretty much all of the other characters, and his is unfinished. I don't like it. So I mean, they're citing plot reasons for why Sal isn't going to come back, when character is what drives their show.

I am definitely going over my character limit for the next part of the comment, so I will post this.

[doubtful-salmon.livejournal.com]

CONTINUED. About Don. So what I mean about Don Draper is it's not that I feel it's unusual that people identify with him. I was reading this article about why people accept a lot of ads they see with little or no objection even though the ads tend to make women appear like children. It's a good question because the person in the article proposes that it's not that these ads are actually based in reality, and it's not that society as a whole, at this point, feels that women are on par with children in a maturity level. So, why is that? I feel that way about Don Draper. He may be attractive, and an enigmatic ball full of mystery, and what I really love about him is that it seems that all of his major affairs are based on a legitimate love he seems to feel. I don't doubt his sincerity when he asks them all to run away with him at some point. (Which he does.) I could go on about something that Don says to Bobbie in the second season, about how he feels nothing, and my suspicion that the opposite is true and he tries to feel love for these women because he feels, uh, unfeeling, but that's mostly unrelated. But Don is not a good man to women. And I know that, and I am still attracted to it. What is that?

I know that he's written as the protagonist, that even when he does bad things we are intrigued by him. But that's different than being attracted to him, which I am, not just because he's so beautiful. I am attracted to more than the face. This disturbs me. I can see how I might be attracted to Don were I to meet him in the 1960s. But that's when I don't know the way that he treats women. I should find him skeevy, sleazy, a guy selling his soul on a daily basis and yet...! I don't. I want to bang him. And I don't feel apologetic for it, the way that I feel when I tell people that I like Twilight.