Author: John Ostrander

John Ostrander: Obsessive CHEWing

Some thirty years ago, I broke my left ankle in three places and was laid up for a while as it healed. It was around this time of year and it was a real harsh winter; I didn’t venture outside much because of the ice; crutches and a cast don’t lend themselves to walking on ice. I watched TV a lot, especially daytime TV. I was not then and am not now a fan of soap operas so I would find game shows and reruns to while away the hours. I became obsessive about some of them, especially reruns of Happy Days. I never said it was good TV, just compulsive.

These days, as I recover from my triple by-pass, I’m also into watching some daytime TV and my current obsessive show is ABC’s The Chew, which airs five days a week. The show is a cooking themed talk show featuring five co-hosts – Michael Symon, Mario Batali, Carla Hall, Clinton Kelly, and Daphne Oz. I’m not a chef and I wouldn’t classify myself as a “foodie” but I am a pretty good cook and I credit television with sparking my interest in cooking. I’ve long had an interest in food and eating as most of my photographs from past years will attest.

I first got interested in cooking and the Food Network with the original Iron Chef, a Japanese cooking competition. I was intrigued by the description of the show as a sporting event using kitchens. The set, in fact, was called “kitchen stadium.” The show was eventually replaced on Food Network by Iron Chef America, an Americanized version using American chefs. From there, I went on to sample other cooking shows hosted by chefs such as Sara Moulton, Mario Batali, and Alton Brown. I also watched some of Emeril LaGrasse’s shows but didn’t get into them as much.

Iron Chef was fun and so was Iron Chef America until they “improved” the latter and made it almost unwatchable.

The Chew premiered in September 2011 and, while I sampled some episodes, I wasn’t taken with it. Shot before a live audience, it had a frenetic pace and an attitude of forced gaiety, trying to be a “party” every day. It put me off.

Sampling it again during my current convalescence, I think the show has jelled and I find it very entertaining. For me, the main attractions are chefs Mario Batali and Michael Symon, both of whom had been on Iron Chef America. Batali also had a cooking show on Food Network called Molto Mario and I was always struck by his ease before the camera and his knowledge, especially of Italian food and its history. I like it when I can learn something. Symon is also a great chef with a maniac laugh. Clifton Kelly was the co-host on What Not To Wear (and I don’t know how that qualifies him as food knowledgeable). Carla Hall was twice a contestant on Bravo’s Top Chef and wellness expert Daphne Oz.

The show wants to be a party and I think it succeeds. I most like shows where I learn something about cooking (although most of that happens on the PBS cooking shows such as Sara Moulton’s Sara’s Weeknight Meals and, most especially, America’s Test Kitchen and Cook’s Country – which are my favorites).)

The Chew has been successful enough to be ripped off by Food Network with The Kitchen. It also has a live audience and five co-hosts including an Iron Chef. To me, it seems a cut-rate version of The Chew; it’s gaiety and “party atmosphere” seem forced. It’s not the first time Food Network has done this; Robert Irvine’s Restaurant: Impossible is a low rent rip-off of Gordon Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares. Same concept for both – a borderline abusive UK chef comes to a restaurant that’s in trouble and gets it working again. In theory. Not all the restaurants saved are open a year later.

Still, I find it sad that Food Network, that sparked my interest in cooking, has become the home of rip-offs, endless food competitions, and/or “undercover” reality shows (although Mystery Diners is so staged it’s impossible to think of it as a reality show even within that genre’s elastic boundaries).

The Chew has a relentless pace; each cooking segment has only a few minutes allotted to it and so the hosts wind up speaking real fast which, I suppose, is supposed to add to the high energy feel of the show. I’m also a little put off by the shilling of certain sponsors’ products within the show. The segments become commercials embedded in the show.

As I return to my own work, I’ll have less time for The Chew but for now it informs me and entertains me – so what more can you ask from daytime TV? I mean, it’s no Happy Days… but, then again, what is?

 

John Ostrander: Secret Convergence Wars

Starting April 1, DC Comics is launching its new meta-Crisis series, Convergence, in which characters from different planets and timelines will be thrust together on the Blood Moon to fight fight fight. In May, all of Marvel’s multiverse will go blooey with bits and pieces being recombined into a single place called Secret Wars: Battleworld and, no doubt, every one will fight fight fight. Worlds/characters will live, worlds/characters will die, and nothing will ever be the same yet again.

It’s the same concept as DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths back in 1985 (and Convergence, at least in part, is a thirty year Anniversary celebration of that event). For you young’uns who weren’t around, COIE was a 12 issue maxi-series with a very real purpose – to modernize and re-boot the DC Universe and continuity.

To be honest, I think that’s a necessity every so often for every continuity. Over the years, narrative barnacles form on characters and concepts and its good every so often to scrape them off and get back more to the basic concepts that attracted us to the characters/books/universes in the first place. That’s what the movies and TV shows made from comics have been doing – they take what is essential, respecting the source material without being bound to every bit of it, and re-interpreting it and presenting it fresh for a large audience, as if those stories were being created today. Fanboys may protest, fanboys may cry, but nothing remains the same.

IM-not so-HO (to steal from Mindy Newell), that’s a very good thing. It makes the characters and stories accessible to a larger audience, usually a much larger audience. It has the potential to grow the audience for these characters – except that the versions they see on TV or in the movies bear no resemblance to the versions they find in the comics. For example, if you like Chris Hemworth’s Thor and go to the comics, you’ll find Thor is now female. Remember that cool character the Falcon in the last Captain America movie? He now is Captain America.

It’s hard to make the comic characters track with their movie/TV versions but not impossible. When Jan Duursema and I were doing Star Wars set on the time between Episodes II and III before III came out, we had access to an early version of the script for III. We had to sign stiff non-disclosure statements but we were able to make our stories work within that time frame.

Of course, DC has said that the cinema versions of their characters do not match up with the TV versions but Marvel has gone out of its way to make TV and movies all part of one version of the Marvel Universe.

Marvel Comics has always disdained the reboots that DC has done, claiming they don’t need them but, in fact, they do. One of the really interesting aspects of Captain America is that he was frozen at the end of WW2 and wakes up in a modern world. That became a trope that you couldn’t keep repeating as the comics aged; it was no longer the Sixties and having Cap whine about being out of time for 50 years would be very tiresome. But being able to say he was thawed out in our day revives that trope and that makes it interesting again.

Continually re-inventing the characters can make them fuzzy and blurred. I’ve heard artists talking about “noodling” a page to death or erasing your pencils so often that you only get muck on the page. Doctor Strange has suffered that as every new writer coming on wanted to give their version of his origin with the “Everything you thought you knew is wrong!” schtick.

Crisis on Infinite Earths suffered from not having a clear idea of who the characters should be once you finished deconstructing what you had. To my mind, reboots need to get back to core ideas – what is unique about a given character or concept. Write them for modern audiences while capturing their essence which is what many of the movies and TV shows have done.

What will be most important about the two events – Convergence and Secret Wars: Battleworld – is what comes next. How will the companies and their writers and artists re-interpret their classic characters so they seem fresh and new and relevant for the here and now. Capture our loyalty again not with stunts (which may fuel sales but not imaginations) but with new visions of who these classic characters are. Make them familiar and yet new.

Good luck, Marvel and DC. Sincerely. Good luck.

 

John Ostrander: Walking Tall On the Small Screen

I was not always a big fan of Westerns. My knowledge/memory of them were largely drawn from TV shows of my childhood – and not always the best ones. They were dominated by The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry (although I was never a big Autry fan) and shows like them. Westerns dominated TV in those days in ways that I don’t think any genre dominates any more.

It was my late wife, Kimberly Yale, who really schooled me in movie Westerns and the difference between a John Ford Western, ones by Howard Hawks, and Budd Boetticher’s Westerns. I finally learned and grasped what powerful movies they were, Just a few years ago, I got to see John Ford’s masterpiece The Searchers on the big screen and it was only then that I really understood how powerful it was and why its star, John Wayne, was such an icon. In the close-ups, where Wayne’s face is two stories high, he seems like a figure off Mount Rushmore. And the famous final shot, where his character is framed by a closing door, is haunting. It’s also interesting to note that both here and in Howard Hawks’ Red River he plays something of a bastard.

It’s only been in recent years that I’ve returned to some of the Western TV shows and rediscovered them. What I discovered was some very good writing and acting, especially in the half hour shows. Have Gun, Will Travel, starring Richard Boone, featured him as a traveling gunslinger, Paladin, and a memorable and haunting title song. Wanted: Dead or Alive starred a young Steve McQueen right around the time that he broke out in films in The Magnificent Seven.

Of all of them, my favorite discovery has been The Rifleman starring Chuck Connors. Connors was a 6’6” former athlete, playing basketball for the Celtics and baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Chicago Cubs. In the show he played Lucas McCain, a homesteader who was fast with a special rapid fire Winchester. McCain was a widower although he had a son, played by Johnny Crawford. His best friend was the Marshall of the town of North Fork, Micah Torrance, played by Paul Fix. (Trivia note: Mary and I so liked the name “Micah” that we gave it to one of our cats.)

The show was also a proving ground for actors, writers, and directors who would later go on to other things. Sam Peckinpah directed several episodes and wrote a few, too. Budd Boetticher directed an episode, as did Ida Lupino. Richard Donner, who would later direct the first Superman movie with Christopher Reeve, directed seven episodes.

A number of famous (or to be famous later) actors also appeared – Agnes Moorehead did a turn, as did Martin Landau, Buddy Hackett, and Harry Dean Stanton. Sammy David Jr. acted in the series twice, once as a gunslinger. There was a time that I would have questioned the probability of that but my later researches into the history of the West revealed that there were a number of black gunslingers in the Wild West.

Connors was a better actor than I remembered and the stories were varied and almost always interesting. His Lucas McCain was a stern father but a loving one and usually reluctant to be drawn into a fight. The stories weren’t the simple good/bad confrontations I knew from shows like Roy Rogers. The characters were more complex which made the stories more interesting.

You can catch the shows on DVD and I would guess on Netflix or Hulu. They’re worth a shot. So to speak.

 

John Ostrander: Close to Home

Shock. Outrage. Fear. These were my immediate reactions to the terrorist attack on the offices of the French satiric magazine, Charlie Hebdo, last Wednesday. This one strikes close to home, despite being in France. The main targets – and victims – were an editor and several artists at Charlie Hebdo and the reason given were Muslim outrage at caricatures of the prophet Mohammed, a big no-no in Islam. The magazine, the artists, were exercising their freedom of expression, their opinion, and it supposedly offended some radical Muslims.

I don’t think that’s what is really going on. I think that’s the excuse.

There is a purpose to terrorism over and above the act itself, over and above the shock and horror of the violence. The site Terrorism Research says “Terrorism is designed to produce an overreaction and anecdotally, it succeeds at that almost all the time.” The ultimate target of the terrorists are not the initial victims but the general public.

Think back to 9/11 and the World Trade Center. Think of the time when the first plane struck. The second tower was hit slightly later – time enough for the news cameras to be there and capture it. Remember how the images of video played and re-played.

There are videos connected with the attack on the offices of Charlie Hedbo and they are being re-played as well. I know when I see them, when I think about the attacks, I am enraged and part of me wants violent terrible revenge. That is not the better angel of my nature and I know that.

As a writer, I put my protagonists through hell because that process strips away the layers and reveals who they really are. My tenet is that if something is true in writing, it is because it is true in life. We may think we know how we would react in a given situation but, until that moment actually arrives, we don’t really know.

As a people, as a civilization, we are in that situation now. As I write this, the French police report that terrorist sleeper cells in France have been activated over the last 24 hours. CNN reported that a senior U.S. law enforcement official said “This isn’t going to end.” Nor do I think it will be confined to France; I think inevitable that the attacks will come to our shores as well. After all, we are “the Great Satan.” How will we respond? In the past, we have responded with Abu Graib, the war in Iraq, the cells at Guantanamo. Is that who we are? Is that what we must become to survive?

I am a pop culture writer and I tend to have violent protagonists. They don’t turn the other check and often seek revenge. I could be accused of promoting that viewpoint with my work; I like to think I’m allowing people to vent that anger through fantasy rather than advocating the approach but perhaps I’m just being self-serving. I also know, however, that all the characters that I write are damaged and scarred by their approach and I hope that I write them that way.

In our lives we can’t control what others do; we can only control – hopefully – our reactions and how we respond. In the same way, we cannot control or even prevent what these terrorists do; we can only choose how we respond.

It will come down to this – how much are we willing to sacrifice to feel safe; how much are we willing to endure to be free? We might think about Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Address with which Steven Spielberg chose to close his remarkable film, Lincoln: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive. . .to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

If we cannot, then the terrorists will have in fact won.

 

John Ostrander: Newspapers and their Great Comics

Dick TracyI’m a fossil. I know it. Proof positive: I read the daily newspaper. Not on a pad or tablet or my computer, I go out and actually buy the blamed thing. I read it during breakfast. Yes, I still get a certain percentage of my news from the computer and/or Jon Stewart and The Daily Show but I like having the physical newspaper, just as I prefer actual books to an e-reader. If I don’t get to read the paper, I get cranky. Or crankier.

I think I got that from my father, Joel W. Ostrander Sr. He was always the first up in the morning but, during my high school years, I was up second. We’d both be at breakfast and we would read the newspaper. I’d get the sections he was done with; that’s where I learned to be possessive about my newspaper. If I buy the newspaper, you get it when I’m done. If you want to read it sooner, go buy your own.

Dad and I would have breakfast and read in a comfortable silence unless my mother decided to get up early and join us. Mom was a talker in the morning. Worse, she would expect you to talk back and on the topic she started so you had to listen. You couldn’t just fake it or grunt replies. She expected coherent sentences. I can do that in the morning but it takes an effort and more concentration than I care to give. Just let me read my newspaper and no one gets hurt.

When I move to a new location, I always have to decide which of the available newspapers I’m going to read (assuming I have a choice which is increasingly becoming difficult as newspapers fold up). So I have to choose which newspaper is going to be my regular. While the editorial bent is an important factor (politically left of center is a prerequisite), the determining factor is usually what comic strips they have. I was raised on the Chicago Tribune but I would also buy the Sunday Chicago American because I enjoyed the comics there. Dad would bring home the Chicago Daily News in the evening so, all in all, I got a goodly number of strips.

Chester Gould was still doing Dick Tracy when I was younger (my buddy Joe Staton now draws it) and Harold Gray was doing Little Orphan Annie. Al Capp was doing L’il Abner, Hal Foster was doing Prince Valiant, Walt Kelly was doing Pogo, and Milton Caniff was doing Steve Canyon. I don’t know if music was better back then but, yes, the comic strips certainly were. Perhaps even more than the comic books I read, comic strips were influential in my development as a writer, especially in graphic literature.

Some of the strips are no longer around. Leonard Starr’s On Stage was beautifully drawn and wonderfully written. I would later come across the British strip Modesty Blaise, created by Peter O’Donnell and drawn by a succession of artists following Jim Holdaway, who drew it first. I read those still not only for pleasure but because O’Donnell was a master of the medium. He knew how to pace and drive a story, wasting nothing, with every line forwarding the plot or the characters in a minimum of words. Elegant and compelling.

These days, there are very few adventure strips or strips with a continuing narrative and that’s a pity. Mostly, it’s gag and humor strips although some strips have picked up that narrative aspect. For example, Luann – created, written and drawn by Greg Evans – started out as a gag strip but has developed into a narrative, with the characters allowed to age and change.

Some strips these days are minimally drawn, such as Dilbert by Scott Adams. The drawing is competent although I get the feeling some panels are simply repeated over and over again but the writing is generally sharp and satiric. Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis also has minimal drawing although, again, the writing is generally sharp and funny. Mutts, written and drawn by Patrick Mc Donnell, is a modern classic; better drawn although sometimes the writing is not so sharp. Non Sequitur, by Wiley Miller, is unique – sometimes it is a single panel drawing and sometimes it’s a sequential strip. It has continuing characters but it also has many stand alone installments. This one is also superbly written and drawn and benefits, I think, from Miller’s work as an editorial cartoonist. He packs a lot into a little space.

Some strips, unfortunately, are wretched, badly drawn and almost incomprehensible. That was always true, however, and there’s good reading to be found even today. Almost all of them are also available somewhere on the Internet but I still enjoy reading them in the newspaper if I can. There’s a tactile pleasure in holding the newspaper and experiencing them that way. I recommend it.

As they (used to) say, see you in the funny papers.

 

John Ostrander: Odder Ends 2014

This week I’ve got a bunch of different topics and themes but none of them seem to be developing into a coherent column. So I think I’ll take parts of all of them and just stitch together into a hodgepodge column. It’s the end of the year so maybe I can get away with it.

If you’re doing a SF tent pole movie, you want to hire Zoe Saldana and use her prominently. She played Neytiri in Avatar, Uhura in the two latest Star Trek films, and Gamora in Guardians Of The Galaxy and she’s going to be in the next installments of all these films. They all made what is technically called a shitload of money. Coincidence? I think not. In fact, I’m beginning to wonder if she shouldn’t be cast as Amanda Waller. (Sorry, Oprah.) I really want the upcoming Suicide Squad movie to sell like hotcakes and spawn sequels and Amanda Waller related merchandise. Okay, I’m crass. Still, think about it. . .

Peter Capaldi has finished his first season as the new Doctor and I like his Doctor McCrankypants. It’s a nice variation of the past few Doctors. Not as crazy about all the writing, tho, and I really am beginning to feel it’s time for showrunner Steven Moffat to move on. When Moffat is good, he’s really good and he’s rarely outright bad but he’s often becoming mediocre. He seems, to me, to not always think things through. Or he gets clever for the sake of being clever.

Best Animated Film I Saw This Year – How To Train Your Dragon 2. The animation was better than the original and the story wasn’t a re-hash of the first but actually advanced the characters. It was fun but also had real emotional depth and impact. In fact, it was a better film than many live action serious movies I saw. It took chances.

Best Marvel Film I Saw This Year – a lot of people would say Guardians Of The Galaxy and I loved it too. It was just wonderfully entertaining. However, I liked Captain America: The Winter Soldier even more. Chris Evans is to Steve Rogers/Captain America what Christopher Reeve was to Superman. Why doesn’t Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow have her own movie? How the hell did they get Robert Redford go play the main villain? (Oh, right – money.) And Samuel L. Jackson just has deep reserves of cool to call on. The movie also had a major impact on Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D. which was an added bonus.

Just finished reading Alexander Mcall Smith’s latest installment (number 15!) in his No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, titled The Handsome Man’s De Luxe Café. The series is set in Botswana, Africa, and features Precious Ramotswe, her partner Grace Makutsi, and their friends, co-workers, and clients in and around the city of Gabrone. The characters are all African and the author is white, born in Rhodesia, now living in Scotland. He writes the characters with great love and understanding, along with a great love for Africa in general and Botswana in particular. Reading each new book is like visiting old friends. The mysteries are mostly small matters and not really the focus of the series. It is the people. I recommend the series and, while I suggest starting at he beginning, each book is admirably written to be accessible even if you haven’t read the others. I will warn you that they are quiet books, slow paced, but wonderful reads.

Final note: just an update since so many of you expressed concern following my recent triple bypass. I’m healing nicely and recovering well. My general practitioner, on my last visit, pronounced me “medically boring.” I’ve never been so glad to be called boring.

Well, that’s 2014. Drive carefully, drink responsibly, party carefully, and we’ll all reconvene in 2015.

Happy New Year, y’all!

 

John Ostrander: Scrooge Revisited

I love Christmas. It’s been my favorite time of the year as far back as I can remember – which, these days, may be last week. I think, in many ways, it was the run up to Christmas, also known as Advent, that I loved the most. It was the anticipation that made it special; what presents would we get, buying the present we would give, the Advent Wreath and the Advent Calendar. The day itself could be a bit of a let-down because it as never as good as the dream, the anticipation. How could it be? So long as it was a dream, it was perfect. The reality of something is always less than the dream of it.

While I was in grade school, each Christmas Eve I wound up at Midnight Mass (did I mention I was raised Roman Catholic?), singing in the Boy’s Choir. We practiced for weeks and that was also part of the anticipation.

At home, we also had a little ritual that my mother devised and that we dutifully performed/attended, although when we hit puberty it was only with protest. We marched down the stairs, the youngest carrying the Baby Jesus for the manger. We would read The Night Before Christmas (a.k.a. A Visit From Saint Nicholas) by Clement Clarke Moore.

A section of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, was also read. It was the Cratchit dinner scene in Stave Three of the story and it was from this that I began my life long fascination and affection for the story.

A Christmas Carol was written in 1843 and has never been out of print since. It spearheaded the revival of English Christmas customs, many of which survive to this day; it re-invigorated the celebration of the holiday. I have read the novella several times, I’ve watched many different versions of it on TV (and some I watch every year as part of my own personal Christmas tradition) and for several years I acted in it on stage at the Goodman Theater in Chicago, playing such vital parts as Mr. Round, Fred’s friend #3, Dancing Man, and Ensemble. A lot of my performance centered on my tearing off my clothes as soon as I got offstage, changing into others, and dashing to whatever part of the stage I was supposed to enter from next.

My great friend, William J. Norris, played Scrooge and he did it magnificently. One of my jobs, as I saw it, was to see if I could make him break up during the Fezziwig dance scene. I am not a trained dancer by any means and I would fly with my partner past Bill who was on the steps; I would be sweating and puffing and muttering, “Oh, I live to dance!” Yes, somewhat unprofessional, I know, but the only one who heard it was Bill and he giggled.

It was also during A Christmas Carol that I met Del Close, the fabled director, teacher, and actor at Second City and elsewhere, who played the Ghost of Christmas Present. He and I would later become writing partners on Munden’s Bar and Wasteland. Del, a pagan and witch, said his portrayal was based on Baccus; he also wore a pentangle under his costume, Del’s way of being subversive without being disruptive.

The production has become a yearly mainstay for the Goodman Theater, generating a lot of income that helps sustain it. But nobody knew that in its first year. As strange as it sounds now, it was a risky venture – a large cast, lots of costumes, fancy sets, and even special effects! If it didn’t come together, if it didn’t go over, the theater could be in trouble. As late as the final week before opening, the show still hadn’t jelled.

Opening night was magic. Everything worked and the audience was with us every step of the way. Just as the show ended, a light snow began falling outside. We all wondered how the Special Effects people had rigged that.

Most of all, the audience was drawn in to the story. It’s a brilliant concept – a ghost story set, not at Halloween, but Christmas. I have yet to see a play version or movie or television adaptation that emphasizes that. The ghost story aspects should, I think, be frightening. It’s what establishes what is at stake for Scrooge. The Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future are powerful entities; if we only observe them and not feel them, Scrooge’s reformation is hard to fathom.

Also central to A Christmas Carol is its social conscience and message. This is often glossed over or omitted entirely and that’s a shame; it is the soul of the story. It is scary how much of that message is still relevant; Scrooge early on claims to be “a man of business”. He also famously says of the poor: “If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.” How prevalent that attitude seems today. One might wish it had become outdated; it seems stronger than ever.

So, part of my Christmas celebration will be to watch my favorite movie version, with Alastair Sim, on Christmas Eve, along with its American counterpart, it’s A Wonderful Life. And wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

God Bless Us, Everyone.

C’mon; you knew I was going to say that.

(Photo I.D. – Val Bettin, left, and William J. Norris in the Goodman Theater’s A Christmas Carol, from its first run in 1978)

 

John Ostrander: TV Midterm Report Card

Well, we’re now in the Christmas doldrums for TV. The regular series are on hiatus until January or later. A couple of columns ago I discussed which shows I was anticipating or not (So How Was It For You?) and this seems a good time to revisit them and give my evaluations.

Warning: there may be spoilers sprinkled here and there. You have been warned.

The Flash – my favorite in this group. Grant Gustin is doing good work as Barry Allen/The Flash and the supporting cast is good. The writing is also first rate and they keep adding little nods to DC continuity that pleases the Old Fan in me.

Grade: A

The Blacklist – The show has kept my attention and James Spader as main character/anti-hero Red Reddington is worth watching all by himself. I thought the premise would get old fast but I find it holding up.

Grade: A-

Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The show has gotten a lot more complicated and more imbedded in Marvel continuity. Is that a good thing? Depends on your own taste. More characters have been added but a few were killed off in the finale. They’re taking a hiatus until March and, in its place they’re bringing in Agent Carter. It’ll pick up Captain America’s “best girl,” Peggy Carter, played by Hayley Atwell in a series about the founding of S.H.I.E.L.D. It takes place after the events of the first Captain America film. The two series appear to have ties to one another and I think it’s an interesting experiment.

Grade: B+

Arrow – There’s some interesting stuff going on here and they’re capable of taking twists and turns and surprising me. They also take a lot of characters and ideas from DC continuity. My problem with it is that it wants to be Batman and I don’t think that’s who Green Arrow ever was. Still, it’s worth watching and, every so often, Amanda Waller shows up. A skinny Waller, true, but she still puts change in my pocket.

Grade: B

Gotham – This may be my most controversial judgment. Lots of people love the show but I’m not one of them. I don’t hate it but it’s not must see for me. I’m not really interested in any of the characters. Frankly, it needs Batman but Bruce Wayne is a kid at this point and Bats won’t show up for ten years and I doubt the show will go that long.

Grade: C

Constantine – The show is creepy enough at times but it isn’t really setting me afire. I like it okay (although some folks – and critics – hate it) but it, too, is not must see viewing for me. The title character just isn’t snarky enough to suit me. He needs to borrow some of James Spader’s attitude from The Blacklist. Matt Ryan is okay as Constantine but they’ve made the character a little more haunted by his past. They want us to like him. Spader doesn’t give a damn if you like Red Reddington or not and thus is a more compelling character. Charles Halford is good as Chas and I’d like to see more of him but Angélica Celaya is vapid as Zed.

There’s a lot pf questions as to whether or not the series will be back for a second season. NBC isn’t commissioning anything beyond the first 13 episodes so it’s doesn’t look great although everyone connected with the show keep making positive noises. I guess we’ll find out in January.

Grade: C-

Castle – sadly, once my favorite show is now running on fumes. The characters don’t have the same life and sparkle that they once did and some of the plots have just stunk. If ABC announced the show’s cancellation, I wouldn’t be too sad. Or surprised.

Grade: D

So that’s my scorecard at half time for the season. Your mileage may vary.

 

John Ostrander: Casting About

Amanda-WallerThis week the Internet was all a-twitter with news that the movie version of Suicide Squad, the series that I created in 1987, had been mostly cast. (You can read about it here.) The film is scheduled to debut in August 2016 and will be the first Warner Bros. DC film after the Superman v. Batman: Dawn of Justice flick that shows up earlier that year.

As with any comic book movie, there has been substantial debate over the casting, largely focusing on Will Smith as Deadshot, the inclusion of the Joker at all (whether played by Jared Leto or not) and the possibility of Oprah Winfrey playing Amanda Waller. Heck, my fellow columnists Mike Gold and Marc Alan Fishman have already chimed in. I held forth in an interview on what I thought of the casting and why. I’m going to hold forth a little here as well. I need to get a column in and it would seem strange if everyone else here was talking about the movie and the casting and I didn’t.

Let me say upfront: I haven’t seen the script and I haven’t been consulted. Nor do I expect to be. I have no track record in Hollywood and Warner Bros. is putting a lot of money into this. A lot of money. The salaries alone will be substantial. It’s not a time to be using an amateur and that’s what I am as far as movies are concerned. The film’s writer and director will have their own take on the characters and they maybe, probably will be, different from mine.

That’s how it should be. The needs of a movie are different than the needs of a comic book. When I started doing the Squad, my versions of the characters were substantially different than how they were portrayed before. I took charge of the characters, tried to keep them consistent with who they were, but I didn’t ask if I could change them up. I just did it. It wasn’t gratuitous; it was always in service of the story I was telling. I fully expect those doing the movie to do the same thing.

It makes sense that they would go for the biggest names they could get for the characters; the general public doesn’t know anything about the Squad. This movie is positioned right after the Superman v Batman flick so it’s going to be high visibility. For the sake of not only this film but for the whole DC movie franchise, it has to sell a lot of tickets. Lots and lots of tickets.

Again, let’s be honest – I’m glad that the Squad has had so many of loyal fans over the years but there aren’t enough of them to fill a single theater for more than a week and that’s only if all of them go and do it more than once. If a Squad movie is going to be a success, it has to bring in the general public in droves. How do you do that? You feature the Joker, Will Smith, Jared Leto, Tom Hardy, and maybe Oprah Winfrey. Those are names that the general public knows. They sell tickets.

Yes, I have a vested interest in a success and it hinges on the character of Amanda Waller. The name Suicide Squad, most of the characters in it – they all existed before I used them. I don’t participate financially when they get used again. Amanda is different; she was my creation and I have what is called “participation” when she gets used in other media. In other words, I’ll make some money for doing nothing more than being a swell fellow. It also depends on how important to the film Waller is and how much she is used. A big name – such Oprah – makes it more likely that she’ll have an important part. Oprah ain’t doing no cameo. Over and above the fact that I really think she would be wonderful in the part, she makes my participation better.

I want the movie to succeed. I want it to spawn sequels. I want it to have merchandising; I want an Amanda Waller action figure. I’m crass enough to admit I want it to make money because then I make money. The best way for it to do that is to be a damn good story and that’s what I want more than anything else.

We’ll see come August 2016. I can’t wait.

 

John Ostrander: Busted Icons

Bill Cosby Robin WilliamsYou’ve probably seen the news feeds – 77-year old comedian Bill Cosby is accused of being a serial rapist, of drugging women and then raping them. He neither confirms nor denies (however, his spokespeople deny); he simply looks sad and shakes his head. We are left to wonder and question but there are 20 women accusing him and where there’s that much smoke I’ve found there is usually a fire.

And, yes, I believe the accusations. Sadly, I think they are true.

You wonder why he would do it (assuming he did). He was Bill Cosby. He was famous; he was rich. He could probably get or buy as much sex as he wanted. Which underlines the fact that rape isn’t about sex, it’s about power. It’s an act of violence in which a penis is substituted for a club. It’s every bit as brutal.

Does it matter? Another celebrity caught in a sex scandal. The only thing less surprising is a politician caught in a sex scandal.

I think it does matter. When The Cosby Show debuted in 1984, it was a game changer and not just for television. It was a sitcom that showed an upper middle class family of African-Americans. I remember the Eighties (and the Seventies and the Sixties; I go back a ways). I lived in Chicago. Not every neighborhood was integrated. When I was growing up, I rarely saw a person of color. When you don’t know anyone of a certain color or ethnicity, it’s easy to make assumptions about them, to classify them as a group instead of individuals. Prejudice comes easy.

The Cosby Show changed that. They gave us people that we could know, that we could identify with. The Huxtables were relatable. Their problems and situations were like those in most families, black or white. We welcomed them into our homes, our living rooms. It changed things.

And Cosby himself was a wonderful father figure. Warm, funny, sometimes beset by his own family. The show was smart and it felt true. That was part of its success.

It wasn’t just the show. Cosby did stand-up, telling stories about his life and family. His Jello commercials were great because he knew how to react and talk with kids. Cosby was avuncular; he was good company.

How do we separate those images now from his image of a serial rapist?

I don’t think we can.

I believe in separating the artist from their work. Picasso was a son of a bitch but he was a great painter and the paintings exist in their own right. However, the image of Cosby as a comedian, as a TV star, cannot be separated from Cosby the person. His persona is based on his life. The work is not separate from the man.

Cosby isn’t the only one. Robin Williams’ suicide changes what we thought we knew about him. He was a zany, a madcap. He was brilliant; his mind moved like quicksilver. Didn’t like this joke? Never mind; here comes another.

He was also in pain that must have seemed inescapable to him. I don’t know if I can watch Mork and Mindy or his stand-up specials and not look to see the pain underlying the mask. He and Cosby were both icons and, in the end, both are broken. We didn’t know them as we thought we knew them.

Just like the rest of us.

 

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