Milburn Stone

Another thought regarding the idea that we should throw up our hands in despair because the end of The Colbert Report means the end of penetrating, in-depth political satire on TV: It doesn't. Last night I caught the most recent Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, the one in which he spent a good deal of time building a case against the opponents of net neutrality. The segment--which occupied a significant chunk of real estate in the half-hour--was, there is no other term for it, a thing of beauty. It built and built and built and was just short of being a one-act play, one which would have deserved a Pulitzer Prize. I always liked John Oliver on TDS, but I never knew he'd be capable of something like what he's doing with this show. Without comparing him to Colbert (who is clearly a genius in his own right) suffice it to say that when The Colbert Report leaves the air, we won't be left with a vacuum.

I missed that mention. Okay, the fully-grown Sudanese "kid" is probably really their adoptee. I won't worry about that anymore. An amazing thing about Martin Freeman's performance (and the whole show): When Lester had become the fully transformed confident creep, and then it all began to disintegrate at the sight of Malvo, I felt his anxiety in the pit of my stomach. In other words, I identified with him! I shouldn't, but I did. Show, how are you doing this to me?

I might be in the minority, but I loved the flashback to young Louis and Janet. It seemed so true to how people are in their twenties, the choices they make and the choices they avoid. (At least in my experience.) Louis' colorblindness to casting (a white actress to play the young version of a black character? why not? we wouldn't object to a Greek-American actress playing the young version of a Jewish character) is awesome; the world would be a better place if everyone felt race and ethnicity mattered as little as Louis apparently does.

Count me as one who thought the time jump was awesome. I'm very suspicious of the African "kid." The story he told was totally his, and could have been totally fabricated. The only thing Bill can corroborate is that he saw an African lad shoplifting in Phoenix Foods, and he thought and assumed this was the boy he and his wife had agreed to adopt. Does Bill have a picture of the correct kid, so that he can verify this? I heard no evidence of that. The African lad could have seen a great chance in the fact of this misunderstanding, and taken advantage of it. Could he in fact be a terrorist who is embedded here? The FBI guy's mention of The Patriot Act to Molly on the phone put the thought in my head.

First of all, IMO, Letterman actually gets across some stinging political satire in his monologue and sometimes behind the desk. He just does it with a well-timed punchline instead of developed 5-minute bits. If one is going to mourn the death of political satire, one might well mourn the loss of Letterman as much as the demise of The Colbert Report. Second, I yield to no one in my awe of Stephen Colbert, and I have confidence he'll be able to make his new gig as much of a forum for political satire as he wants it to be.

My post was intended to get you to give some support for your position, which you've now done magnificently, so…mission accomplished. Thanks. I can't disagree with any of your evidence. (Even if, for me, the mere fact of Ruffalo's being a movie star automatically conferred "hero" status on the character that didn't quite jibe with the character's actions.)

The angry reaction totally makes sense to me. If there is one theme that can be derived from the contrast between the time of the play and now, it is that the tension between the gay and straight communities has melted away to a degree that would have seemed miraculous in 1984. Gone? No. But gone almost to the vanishing point? I'd say so. Gay activism deserves a good share of the credit. Events have validated Larry Kramer's position.

I've greatly enjoyed Ruffalo in other parts for many years now, so I'll just chalk up the fact that I didn't believe him in this one as "one of those things." Among things I felt the film did exceptionally well was its examination of the conflict within the gay community in response to the health crisis. As a not-gay but aware person, I knew early-on about the crisis in real life, and I knew from the perspective of someone outside the gay community how the majority population was mostly ignoring it. But I never knew the extent of the dissension within the gay community as to how to deal with the crisis--even to the point that there were those who rejected well-meaning and valid efforts by straights to stem the crisis as an attempt to force gays to behave within straight norms. As one faction pleaded with the majority culture to help, another faction tragically rejected straights' efforts to help because of suspicion that the help was "for the wrong reasons." We'll never know how many lives would have been saved if the urgency to practice safe-sex had been more widely appreciated within the gay community earlier. One real-life event not in the film which I believe changed the direction of the mainstream culture on AIDS--a shift which in turn allowed the gay community to view the straight community's efforts to help with less suspicion--was the death of Rock Hudson.

Ben's grandfather was Herman Mankiewicz, co-screenwriter of Citizen Kane (so not too shabby). Joseph Mankiewicz was a great uncle or something.

I get that this is what happened in the film (it's the basic plot line, after all), but did you believe from Ruffalo's performance that this would happen? That was my problem with the film. Not once did he come across as "sanctimonious asshole" to me. Persistent, dogged, passionate, abrasive when necessary, but never an asshole you'd say your organization was better without than with. That was the intent, that was the actual history--but Ruffalo's performance didn't sell it, and so the GMHC's action (a rather important turning point in the film) felt unmotivated. Now, if you want to say Ruffalo was good casting because it was important to get a mainstream movie star to play the part so the film would get made and a broad audience would watch it, that's another story. As far as the performance he delivered "knocking it out of the park," no, not for me.

Did the cop tell the nun he hated spunk?

I didn't see it on Broadway, but I think I might have liked the HBO movie better if Joe Mantello had played Ned instead of Ruffalo. Ruffalo at his most strident never seemed like so much of an assh*le that the GMHC board would have forced him out. I don't know whether that's because Ruffalo was afraid to stray too far from likability in his portrayal, but even when he was supposed to be aggravating I saw him more as simply a passionate advocate that GMHC would have been well aware it was lucky to have. Mantello, I can picture being more the thorn in their side that we were clearly meant to believe Ned Weeks was. Other than that I thought it was a good movie and it did a great job of historical education, but that central bit of miscasting--perhaps the distortion of character that's inevitable when you cast a movie star with something to lose in a role like that--took it down a notch.

I get your point, but the issue has been raised by another poster, "Did the writers know?" On that issue, I agree with lucindabelle that they did.

I just don't know about that. I picture myself one of the writers, or the show runner, and I just don't see myself being OK with not knowing the "why" behind an important event I've created. Even if they came up with the murder first, they wouldn't have left the writers' room without someone saying, "OK, guys, the murder is cool and everything, and I realize we haven't figured out who did it, but we're not leaving this room until we do figure that out." Any other scenario is too risky, because what if they don't figure it out? What if they find themselves with no plausible explanation when it's time to write the season finale? No professional (other than maybe Veena Sud) would create that dilemma for himself. Now whether the show is guilty of misdirecting the audience, through misdirecting the actor, that's another question. That does seem to be the case.

I agree, but I guess I thought the show would do a whole "we've been deliberately withholding information from you, the viewer" thing. So that we'd find out that Gaad was in on it, and the whole national security apparatus was in on it, etc. That would be a cheat in a sense, but one that I've been trained by television to expect! I'm glad the show didn't resort to this.

I agree. It's the surest indicator that this show, this year, is just plain dumb, in the sense that it assumes its audience is just plain dumb and needs things pantomimed if it is to "get" them. I don't recall 24 being this dumb, in this expository, "we're not sure you're going to know what we mean unless we put it in blazing neon lights" way. It might have been dumb in another way, which was asking the audience to buy stuff that couldn't happen in real life, but that's all part of the ride you sign on for when you watch 24. That's a less insulting form of dumb. But different people must be in charge this year. Because this year's version has a lowest-common-denominator feel that makes me feel slightly soiled. Still watching, though, for the time being.

Interesting. I think I agree with you. And, at root, Stan is also. I admire him for making the final decision he made. Go figure. I'm an American, so I kind of like it when other Americans don't threaten my security by trading vital secrets to our enemies. I never could see Stan as a traitor, but I thought he had some clever endgame in mind, where he'd convince the Soviets he was giving them what they wanted (so they'd let Nina go), but was giving them a fake instead. Or would find some way to turn things around so that "giving them what they wanted" was a trap designed to out Oleg and Arkady as spies and have them deported. In the end he chose a much simpler solution. One that was difficult, but truest to his heart.

I agree. The fury Stan is going to feel when he discovers the Russian spies have been right under his nose will be awesome to behold.

I think this episode settled the question, "Who does Nina really love, Stan or Oleg?" Her last look to Oleg--full of tenderness, full of understanding of how he must feel even as she is the one being sacrificed--versus her last facial expression as she saw Stan in the car, which was more dispassionate--told the tale. But wait--her look at Stan had no hate in it, which you might have expected toward someone who had sealed her doom. And maybe she was "playing" Oleg in that last glance, in the hope that he still somehow can be her savior a couple of chess moves down the road. Okay, I'm back to not knowing again.

Aha. So, great minds think alike then. :)

Great piece, Tara. It prompts a thought. I would submit that the variety show never went away. It became SNL. When you think about it, SNL and the genre known as "the variety show" essentially have all their elements in common. Musical sequences--often not limited to the numbers performed by the musical guests, but in the opening host segment and in sketches and "Digital Shorts" as well. Comedy skits. Recurring comedic characters (a la The Carol Burnett Show). SNL is the variety show of the modern era; it just snuck up on us through the counterculture so that we didn't recognize it at the time.

Until that forum exists…I think the Maya Rudolph Show (is this going to be a weekly show, by the way?) started off strong with the funny and well-crafted (IMO) musical number in which she introduced the show and herself to the audience, then lost a little steam, then picked up steam again with the "Siri-voice" sketch, then lost steam for good. The good parts were enough to make me give the show one more chance (if it's ever on again). But I agree, the lame parts, of which there were too many, were disappointing.

Not only did the garage have the same name as in the movie; from my recollection, the garage in the TV show looked exactly like the one in the movie. (The rooftop part, which is more memorable to me.) Clearly that was the intention, but I wonder if in order to realize the intention the makers of the TV show went back to that actual location (whatever city it is in) to shoot the scene. As for the fish-nado, I wonder if that is an Act of God--not in the mere "insurance" sense of "unexplainable unpredictable event," but an actual, conscious, intentional act of the Supreme Being--as if He, the Lord, is saying, "Fool around with my plagues, will you, Malvo? I'll visit a real one upon all of you, just like I did in Ancient Days, and see how you like it."

That has been true for a while. "What Up With That?," anybody?

In a movie full of top-notch material, my favorite is Ann Sheridan's performance of "Love Isn't Born (It's Made)."