Ripped from the Headlines

Sad songs say so much: the enduring appeal of songs that hurt your heart

You don't have to look far to find songs about sadness. Popular music of all genres has trafficked forever in lyrics that tell terrible tales, suggest dark motives and essentially insist that we all live in a vale of tears.

The nice thing is, there's usually a catchy chorus and, if you listen to psychologists, this is all good for us. Earlier this year, an article in Psychology Today noted that sad songs let us understand shared difficult experiences of "rejection, loss, unrequited love, misfortune or other themes," and which gives us a perspective on others' problems. We might have had similar experiences, which give sad lyrics a new resonance, but regardless that empathetic understanding is what helps us grasp our common humanity and, down the road, perhaps overcome our own troubles.

Not that we're thinking about this when listening to songs like Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" or Metallica's "Unforgiven." But music paired with thoughtful lyrics has a way of worming into our conscious in a way little else can: We play our favorite tunes over and over, and even talk sometimes about how some snippets become earworms we can't eradicate so easily.

While I'm a fan of a good, sweet pop tune like Pharrell's "Happy" – I think anyone who isn't must be a little dead inside – I get much more long-term traction from a tune that takes a seriously dark turn. Maybe it's the aural equivalent of picking at a scab – it's questionably good for you, but the itch you reach by listening again and again is deeply, instinctually, satisfying.

And a good dark lyric can even overcome some of my lack of interest in the music or artist herself. Take Kelly Clarkson's "Because of You." She's just about as mainstream as you can get, from her "American Idol" success to her chart-topping hits, Clarkson doesn't seem like the sort of musician who would write a song about being abused – and being forever changed by that abuse. But in "Because of You," we get:

Because of you
I find it hard to trust not only me, but everyone around me
Because of you
I am afraid

Damn, girl.

Dark lyrics are often best approached when we're in our darkest, loneliest times – when we're teenagers. We may have friends we can talk to, but when the right song sinks its teeth into your spine, it's hard to ever lose the feeling entirely. I'll always know exactly how I felt when The Smiths' "Last Night I Dreamt That Somebody Loved Me" hit home the first time:

Last night I dreamt
That somebody loved me
No hope - but no harm
Just another false alarm
Last night I felt
Real arms around me
No hope - no harm
Just another false alarm
So, tell me how long
Before the last one?
And tell me how long
Before the right one?
This story is old - I KNOW
But it goes on
This story is old - I KNOW
But it goes on

In that short space the band acknowledges that we've all had that dream – waking or asleep – in which we felt totally secure and loved, only to wake and find it was nothing but smoke. Then, at the end, the terrifically brilliant bit: the self-awareness that it's an old story and maybe boring, but it never truly ends.

Noted Psychology Today, hearing those sad songs and thinking them through is like an exercise: We can imagine terrible real-life occurrences without having to literally experience them, and "such mental exercises can promote an attitude of problem solving and a safe venue for hypothetical testing of possible choices," said the article.

This "music-evoked imagination," at least in my case, sometimes went further than the artist may have intended. When I interviewed Juliana Hatfield about her 1993 single "My Sister," she insisted it wasn't actually about killing a wicked sibling. But I have my doubts; the song begins:

I hate my sister, she's such a bitch.
She acts as if she doesn't even know that I exist

She spends the rest of the song talking about how awesome her sister is … but then sister vanishes.

I miss my sister – why'd she go?

Because you took her out and wiped your memory of the incident! Or maybe that's just my imagination going wild.

Whatever the reasoning, I've always been attracted to lyrics that twist and bend, or take us in different directions than just acknowledging how damn happy we are. Whether the surreal (Robyn Hitchcock's "My Wife and My Dead Wife") or epic (Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald") or surprisingly frightening (The Beatles' "Run for Your Life") or literary (The Beautiful South's "Woman in the Wall"), those tunes stir the darkness within year after year.

And, perhaps, make the real world a bit more understandable. As PT notes, "Music-evoked imagination can encourage us to reach beyond our troubles to help others. Compassion for others can comfort us and help us find our own healing."

Or just a kick-ass playlist.

This article originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

David Letterman's caution in the name of comedy: My visit to the first 'Late Show' in 1993

So I guess this is how it happens: You do something long enough and you start being able to flash back on your own work. In 1993 I wrote to Late Night With David Letterman in the hopes of being able to get a ticket to one of his last NBC shows before he jumped to CBS, a move I was concerned would parallel with REM's leap to a major label. Letterman wasn't exactly Letterman then; on NBC, he was Dave. At CBS, he became Letterman, if you get my drift.

Instead, I landed one of the 440 tickets to that first CBS show.

In the ensuring years Letterman's become a national treasure. Since the network jump I've paid little attention to his show; when he abandoned his silliest routines and traded spotlights on oddfolk like Harvey Pekar and Ostarro the Discount Magician for effusive celebrity guffaws, I lost interest. Generic Letterman wasn't for me.

But that's fine; give the people what they want.

Having landed one of those 440 tickets way back then, I took advantage of the situation: I pitched my attendance at the Boston Phoenix (pause for moment of silence for the departed) and editor Jon Garelick gave me one of my very first assignments to cover TV.

I'm still doing it today. Thanks, Jon ... and thanks, Dave.

Here's the piece I wrote:

Easy Street
Hey, I got tickets to the David Letterman show!
(The Boston Phoenix, September 1993)

Like an often-absent uncle, Letterman is just "Dave" in my household. And today, August 30, he has invited me into his home. I've watched Dave since 1983. I have earned this ticket. So standing on line, schvitzing in sunny, humid Manhattan as we wait to get into the first of his new CBS shows, the news that the fat lady behind me from Long Island "never watches his show - it's on too late" nearly spurs me to violence. And it strikes me: are we going to have to share Dave now, with a bunch of people who don't deserve him?

Quite probably. Dave is open for business. I expected CBS to be thoroughly unprepared for the arrival of Dave: the ticket department had no idea how tickets were to be doled out as recently as July, when I called to check on my request. And the Ed Sullivan Theater, where the Late Show is now filmed, had rats, not phone lines, until just a few weeks ago. But I forgot one thing. Dave is the boss.

He's just letting CBS air his show. The ticketholders' line had started forming at 12:30 that afternoon, and standby ticketholders had been waiting since the Saturday evening before, hoping to be one of the 440 selected by the efficient, scurrying, laminated-pass-wearing worker bees. CBS pages swarmed up and down the line, updating impatient ticketholders with tidbits:

"Once you get inside, you will have a limited time to use the bathroom, so go to the Roy Rogers across the street now." Limousine chasers got their reward when Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel arrived and were thronged by television camera crews and thrill seekers in line. Next to me, last-minute alterations were being made as carpenters constructed wooden dollies in record time, then slid them into the air-conditioned building. A CNN camera filmed a posse of ticketholders waving their very important blue cards, like a scene from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Paul Newman, a surprise pop-up in the first episode, wondering where the hell the singing cats were.

Once in the building we were held in winding queues as though waiting for the Batman ride at Riverside Park, then herded by yet more pages into our cushy, suede seats with a precision that would have impressed the Marines. While minions scurried to round up last-minute details - one assistant gasped, "I never want to do this again" - Paul and the rest of the CBS Orchestra, the World's Most Dangerous Band fleshed out by a second guitarist and keyboard player, launched into a loud, tight version of "1999," segueing neatly into the locale-appropriate "I Saw Her Standing There."

Everything felt like the inside of a new car, fresh and spotless. At NBC, Dave's studio held the audience on a tight incline of bleacher seats, leaving people blocked by lights and dangling monitors. At the Sullivan Theater, Dave's desk sits higher than the first row. The stage is only three steps up from the audience, and though it looks spacious on television, those thousand-pound cameras teeter perilously close. One of the show's writers, dressed eerily like Dave five years ago, even down to sucking on a cigar, took the stage and introduced us to the show, adding that we were very lucky to be witnessing television history. History? Phoo, we were witnessing Dave. And then Dave emerged jacket-less, striding onto the middle of the stage, looking thinner and handsomer in person than television would lead you to believe. He made a short speech, acknowledging much of what his writer had already told us, but he did not ask, as he does traditionally, if there were any questions or out-of-town guests - it seemed he just wanted to get on with the show. Once he departed, without so much as a countdown, Calvert DeForest (Larry "Bud" Melman) was guffawing from the iris of a huge black eye: "This is CBS."

From there the roller-coaster never stopped and never had to. Controlled anarchy reigned, Dave wise-cracked, he stole an in-joke for the rest of the show from Paul Newman. While cameras rolled, all staff paused to watch the action, leaning pleased against theater walls. Dave's assistant Rose twirled her skirts giddily. During the breaks they were all action: darting about to meet Dave's changing coffee needs, to roll Calvert away, to set up Billy Joel's equipment. This bustling activity seemed organized; no one ran screaming across the stage about last-minute changes, Dave never broke a sweat. From the start the Late Show never resembled a maiden voyage. Of course, Dave had taken no chances; two practice shows were taped to work out the bugs. Caution in the name of comedy seems to work for Dave.

As my friend and co-Dave ticketholder Valerie remarked, "It feels less planned on TV," and she's right. What makes Dave remarkable after 12 years is that though what you see on tape feels, as he would say, "slapped together," Dave has it planned down to the last cigar puff. Of course you know putting together the Late Show takes massive manpower and endless energy. But Dave, our favorite uncle, knows how to make it all look easy.

Remake, remodel: "Mad Max: Fury Road" and the delicious taste of a reboot done right

When I go to the grocery story for ice cream, I know exactly what flavor I want. Maybe I'm flexible on who's making the flavor but in general, give me what I know I already like.

Ice cream makers aren't the only ones in on this truism; advertisers are well aware that once consumers find something to our liking, we keep going back to it. Then movie executives got on the bandwagon a few decades back and boom – we're awash in remakes, reboots and sequels.

Of course, when you're pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into a two-hour entertainment venture in an industry that's slowly leaking customers, original vision and story is not high on priority list.

Last week, the latest edition in how this tale plays out hit the press. On Thursday, Sony Pictures announced it would remake the 1996 supernatural cult favorite The Craft to much wailing and moaning among people who feel it's a touchstone. (Confession: I have not seen, and I have no opinion on the remake.) Then on Friday, Mad Max: Fury Road premiered after a three-decade hibernation of the franchise.

Remakes and reboots and sequels, oh my! It's easy to see why they get the studio executives excited; they're a proven favorite flavor. It's also easy to see the dismay in potential consumers, who're left bewailing "why?" And while it's less easy to see, I imagine there's a significant disappointment in the creative screenwriters whose fresh stories are buried once again under the same stuff we've already seen. Hiring writers for remakes and reboots must appeal to those who like the strictures of fan fiction: Here are your borders, your canon, and a beloved lead character. Go!

The moaned "why" is not important here. Why is easy, why was decided by the accountants who saw that Craft made $55.6 million in worldwide box office with a budget of $15 million, and that the last entry in the Mad Max franchise, Beyond Thunderdome (1985) earned $36.2 million with a budget of $10 million. (And that one had Tina Turner in a skimpy mesh dress!)

The "why" that comes next, however, does interest me. Clever writers who avoid aping the same movie again can make or break the good do-over film. And while I can't speak for Craft (though there's hope in the indie horror director Leigh Janiak and screenwriter Phil Graziadel, who worked together on her film Honeymoon), I can address why Fury Road is the best kind of do-over film possible.

There are a number of reasons to ignore Fury Road, including:

1. No Mel Gibson, perfect as the haunted title survivor. (Pretend the last decade of his behavior never happened.)

2. The Fast and Furious franchise already has a lock on two hours of racing cars.

3. Dystopic sci-fi largely has gone beyond shoot-em-ups.

4. Ain't nothin' wrong with the first three Max films (aside from the absurd replacing of Australian voices with American ones in the 1979 original).

But having seen Fury Road, there are even more reasons to go see it. Fury Road, is exactly what you want from a big, loud (very loud), dumb (not entirely dumb) summer action picture. The movement is nonstop, the dialogue is minimal but effective, and the visuals are jaw-dropping and original. It succeeds because:

1. Original director and screenwriter George Miller has remained fully in the driver's seat.

2. He's not cashing in on his creation; he's re-crafting it for a new age.

3. He understands that women watch action films – and has weighted not just his cast but his story in their direction

Was there a screenplay for Fury Road? Ostensibly yes; writers (including Miller) were deployed at some point to craft at least a skeleton of a story. But what they did best was not in the line-by-line readings, it was in the world-building of a post-apocalyptic landscape of little water, acres of sand, plenty of grinding metallic engines, and an abundance of shell-shocked, possibly insane survivors. The film is predicated on a brilliantly realized, layered world of intertwining backstories – white-faced creatures exist to serve with religious fervor underground; women are sequestered as breeders for the leader (or used as milk-producing cows); there's a determined, take-no-shit female leader (Charlize Theron) who makes a bold break for freedom that propels the plot; and there are multiple factions of differently-motorized tribes scattered around the blasted landscape. Each calls out for its own film, or at the very least more explanations and explorations, but none of those are forthcoming. You are in this story, and the story owns the viewer from the first startling moments.

And the payoff works, for the most part. Angst, loss, determination, conversion, reunion, loss, survival. Max (played ably if not electrically by Tom Hardy) is almost beside the point. Instead, for this go-around Miller has used his Mad Max creation as a Trojan horse to tell a story today's audiences will lap up like ice cream – a brilliant packaging switch that more than justifies the need for whatever this film is: reboot or sequel.

"We don't need another hero," Tina Turner sang in the theme song to Beyond Thunderdome. And she has a point – most remakes feel like a chance to capitalize off of an established franchise and ring that cash register again. Fury pulls off a magic trick with this new edition, expanding its universe and providing several new, unexpected heroes. That it will more than make its budget back should comfort the accountants, but it's unimportant to those who care about story. Fury Road gives us the heroes we didn't know we needed.

This story originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

Contain yourself! Four shows whose “bottle” episodes are short bursts of perfection

Into the life of every TV series, a breather must fall. Here you have a successful plot engine chugging along, peopled by a beloved ensemble cast, all of whom who up every week to continue an ongoing story. But that can get tiring. Everyone needs a palate-cleanser.

Which is what happens when a showrunner and his or her set of writers step back and create what’s known as a “bottle episode.” The term refers to a self-contained episode within a series; technically, they’re supposed to be a money-saver since they rarely venture off of the main set (or even one room on the main set). But this is a lie – bottle episodes run over budget all the time.

What they really are is a chance for writers to crack their collective knuckles and go deep rather than broad with storytelling. The best bottle episodes are like one-act plays, taking place in an enclosed environment with a limited number of characters who may not do very much, but who undergo emotional or psychological changes. They are my favorite types of TV episodes.

Here are four that were done exceptionally well:

Star Trek: The Next Generation, “Data’s Day” (1991)

Written by: Harold Apter and Ronald D. Moore

Any discussion of the bottle episode would be remiss not to include something from Star Trek, the series that reportedly originated the concept (the “bottle” refers to a “ship in a bottle”; in this case, the Enterprise). In this episode, the artificial intelligence character named Data goes through a typical day in his life on the ship, narrated by his portrayer Brent Spiner. He experiences dramas small and large, but the script tells several small stories rather than a single overarching one that imperils a crew member/the ship/the universe. While no one would want to watch the heightened mundanity of a day in the life of a character each week, thanks to skillful writing and storytelling, plus the ultimate “outsider” character as narrator, the episode is charming and fulfilling.

Homicide: Life on the Street, “Subway” (1997)

Written by: James Yoshimura

How do you solve a murder that’s a kind of Schrödinger’s cat of a mystery? In this episode, which takes place almost entirely on a subway platform, commuter John Lange (Vincent D’Onofrio) is pinned at the waist between a subway train and the platform. His injuries are such that he cannot be removed without instantly dying, though whether he moves or not he will be dead within an hour. The detectives are tasked with trying to find the man who pushed him while also trying to keep him calm and track down his girlfriend so that he can make his goodbyes. The episode is moving and uncompromising – there is no last-minute save or easy ending. The best anyone can do is to find the not-yet-late man’s killer. The episode won a Peabody Award and earned two Emmy nominations (for the script and for D’Onofrio’s performance).

Law & Order: SVU, “911” (2005)

Written by: Patrick Harbinson

Though the show eventually leaves the Special Victims’ Unit precinct, most of the episode involves Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay) speaking on the phone with a little girl who says she’s in a locked room. Tracking her down while calming her down is both harrowing and exasperating, but Olivia has to remain cool while marshaling all the forces of the unit to first determine it isn’t a hoax, then to actually locate the girl. Hargitay won an Emmy for her performance in this episode.

“When we finished the episode, I knew this was going to be nominated,” said then-showrunner Ted Kotcheff. “In 1967 I did a TV movie, The Human Voice, with Ingrid Bergman. She gets on the phone with a lover and off the phone. As her mood changed, the walls subtly changed colors to objectify her feelings…. The script [of “911”] did come to me because of [that film]: ‘Let’s put Mariska Hargitay on the phone for an hour.’”

 

Mad Men, “The Suitcase” (2010)

Written by: Matthew Weiner

Though not fully contained within Don Draper’s (Jon Hamm’s) office, the episode largely focuses on interactions between Draper and Peggy Olson (Elisabeth Moss) over one long night in which emotions get spilled and secrets are discussed. Both characters are going through life upheavals: The niece of Don’s friend is dying of cancer, and Peggy has sabotaged her relationship with her boyfriend by remaining at work. By the end of it they’ve had a rare (if brief) discussion about the baby Peggy gave up for adoption and Don has gone to sleep with his head in her lap. They’ve never been lovers, but in this moment they’re as intimate as two people in a long, meaningful relationship.

“In ‘The Suitcase’ you see a vulnerability from Jon,” Weiner said. “A lot of people look at that character and see someone who is reserved and a presence without dialogue, and to have an excuse to let go of that reserve and be adrift – he’s pitiful at times, he’s ashamed about having to break down his emotions, and that’s a satisfying thing to see him down… [With Peggy] you see this mutual respect between them.”

This article originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

A love song for Howard Jones: Why pop lyrics matter to the teens we are and the adults we become

The world teaches us to think that life is full of limitations
The world tries to make us think that there are loads of limits
— “Conditioning,” Howard Jones

 

Two things happened in the world of music during the week of March 23, neither of which had anything to do with one another – unless you happen to live in my head.

Zayn Malik left One Direction, a band I do not listen to. And I went to see Howard Jones, a musician I fervently listened to when I was the median age of most of 1D’s fans.

In this column, I generally address great (and poor) writing on TV and in movies. But when I was a teenager, all the words in the world that mattered to me came not from TV or movies – or even books. I was voracious in my consumption of of music and spent hours flipped on my stomach in our living room parsing the lyric sheets of albums by my favorite artists, explicating every line for deeper meaning.

Music lyrics do that to us. The music is the bird that pokes holes in our conscious; the lyrics are the seeds it leaves behind, and they flower all the rest of our lives. My mentors never spoke to me directly, but left behind legacies of words put to a good beat you could sometimes dance to that still conjure up adolescent memories even today. When I was 14 and 15 and 16, I wanted someone to give me guidance about what the hell was going on in the grown-up world, and pop tunes did that for me.

 

Here I come now got no time to frown
Nothing in my way now nothing can bring me down
Feel that surge open the doors around
Higher and higher the world is my hunting ground
— “Hunt the Self,” Howard Jones

 

So 1D fans, I know none of your band’s lyrics and can hum none of their tunes, but I feel your pain: Your bedrock is crumbling and everyone around you who isn’t a fan is laughing. I’m way, way old and I’m not. Because I remember that whether the words are deep and meaningful or shallow and simply-rhymed doesn’t matter; as long as you’re listening to them, they are the scaffolding on which you are hoisting yourself to the next stage of life.

I listened to a lot of bands and took in a lot of words in those formative years. Howard Jones was never No. 1 on my top list of bands but I put him quite high up in a rarefied position, thanks in part to the words he wrote – he was a guru to me. Legendary rock critic Robert Christgau may have vilified Jones’ first album Human’s Lib for being self-help twaddle, but I wasn’t listening to it as a grown up; I heard it as a kid.

So when I listened to some of those songs all over again some 30 years after hearing them for the first time in New York City the other night I confess: I took a little side trip in my head and remembered all the things I had learned from my guru, and the places those lessons took me.

Places like these:

Veganism and Taoism.

Howard Jones was the first person I ever heard of who was full-on vegan. He did it hard-core in the days before the world ever heard of a Boca Burger and even wrote songs about the cruelty done to animals in the name of feeding humans (“Assault and Battery”). So I went vegetarian. And had some eggs. And fish. OK, I was terrible at being vegetarian, but it was a blow for independence at a young age.

In addition to being a vegan, Jones referred both directly (with a B-side song title) and indirectly to the Tao Te Ching, a religion/philosophy/book/way of thinking I’d never heard of before. I still don’t know if I fully understand what “the way” really means, but it has a lot to do with letting go and understanding that you are just a speck in the river that carries you along.

Professionalism.

I’ve never met Jones (other than waiting hours in line outside Tower Records in 1985 only to have him sign my “Things Can Only Get Better” 45 record sleeve “To Mandee”), and it’s not important that I do. But early on in my journalism career, I interviewed him over the phone – in the most irritating way possible. I peppered him with dozens of nerdy fangirl questions until he finally asked, “Do you think we’ll talk about the new album soon?” which was of course why we were here in the first place. I went scarlet. I scrambled, recovered, did the job I was supposed to do and learned a hugely valuable lesson. You really do often learn best from your mistakes.

Acceptance.

When I went out to visit a friend of mine I’d been pen-pals with since she moved away after we were in kindergarten together, I was 16 and crushing hard on a guy in school who was still two years from coming out of the closet. He gave us ladies some hope by, well, dating us – but we knew the truth even if we (and he) didn’t want to admit it.

Meanwhile, my pen-pal had begun a deep dive into evangelical Christianity, and when I told her about my hopeless devotion to my uncertain friend she became first sincerely concerned for my soul. Then, when she couldn’t convince me to abandon my friend, she wrote me a letter quoting the Bible extensively and explaining that she could no longer associate with me.

It begged for a response. So I went to a different bible for my recourse: I shot her back the last letter we ever exchanged, covered with my own favorite lyrics about equality, tolerance, what is natural and what is not – Jones’ lyrics.

I have always felt good about that.

 

You don’t know
I don’t know
Nobody knows
This is an answer to every question
This is a place to begin
— “Always Asking Questions,” Howard Jones

 

It’s easy to mock pop lyrics. Easy to say Taylor Swift’s words are all about the same thing, or that the guys in One Direction don’t even write their own lyrics. But teenagers don’t care – they’re still listening hard, still using those lyrics to ascend into adulthood. Pop singers, rock singers, rap singers – those are the grown-ups kids listen to; they are their teachers as much as, if not more than, the ones paid to instruct them in school.

Awards strictly for lyrics don’t exist, so far as I know. Songwriters get prizes for the combination of words and music, but that’s a significant difference. And lyric writers, the good ones, really should get some recognition for a clever rhyme, the hidden pun, the evocative image. A well-turned lyric, aimed at the right person at just the right time, gets under the skin of even the hardest-to-reach young people. That’s a rare power that deserves respect – and love.

So thanks, Howard Jones. You weren’t the only musician who raised me into adulthood, but you were a significant player in the group. Long may you – and the beautiful simplicity of your words – reign.

This column originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

Writing Dead: Why Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse still ask the big questions in ‘The Leftovers,’ ‘The Returned’

When Lost first aired in 2004, I was prepared to be hooked. Plane crashes on deserted island, people learning to survive. That’s my kind of story – Survivor without the gimmicks. Creation of a new community, a new society.

That was not going to be Lost’s story. Yes, there was an airline crash. Yes, survival was an issue. But Lost was never about day-to-day events; it had a lot of smaller stories and a much bigger ambition (if not always perfectly realized) than almost anyone – including those who stuck it through to the end – were planning on ingesting. Creators Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse (and to a lesser degree J.J. Abrams) wanted to ask the big questions about life, death, and meaning.

I wasn’t expecting that on ABC primetime.

“One of the thematic things that was always interesting about Lost is this idea of is this arbitrary? Is it happening for a reason? And that’s the fundamental question of life,” Lindelof told me. “That’s the fundamental question of life: Is there a purpose? Am I part of some grander design?”

I bailed on Lost when it didn’t give me what I expected, and though it clearly was worth going back to, I never did. One of those things I’ll get to in the nursing home, I expect, but there’s just so much good TV and only so many hours in a day.

But then I did it again, with Lindelof’s latest TV project. Last year, I gave HBO’s The Leftovers a real kiss-off in this space. The book is always better than the movie (or the TV series), said I, and here was just the latest evidence. And then I bailed on Leftovers.

Well, I’m going to give that one another try. As shows like Walking Dead and Game of Thrones have shown us in recent years, going off the reservation in terms of telling story is all but a requirement when you’re adapting a book for the long term. A movie of the week or even a miniseries is one thing; if you’re going to spin out a slim novel like Leftovers for more than a season, you’re gonna have to rethink things. But that’s not exactly why.

I’m interested in the big questions, and now I think I have a better grip on Lindelof’s (with author Tom Perotta) mission. And Lost fans, take heed: Lindelof’s writer-in-arms Carlton Cuse is also back on TV (well, he’s been there overseeing Bates Motel and Strain) with a new adaptation of the terrific French series The Returned. It’s another show that addresses those life-shaping questions – what if the dead returned to you, unchanged and unharmed, exactly how they were at the moment of death?

“It is interesting that we’re both working on projects that grapple with the idea of life and death and loss and absence and grief,” said Cuse, who meets with Lindelof approximately once a month for lunch (though they don’t talk shop). “But The Returned and Leftovers are vastly different in the way they’re executed, even if they are exploring both of the same themes. There’s plenty of room for both shows.”

Undoubtedly so. TV doesn’t always do very well asking, or answering, the big questions; we couch potatoes are fairly happy being spoon-fed good guys and bad guys and satisfying resolution within 42 minutes of screen time, once a week. But there are shows that go deeper, and are worth grown-up consideration. In just the last week I watched the latest episode of The Walking Dead challenge me with the question of what happens when a bunch of PTSD-ridden survivors of the zombie apocalypse find Eden? Could they be the ultimate snakes in the grass? And then on The Good Wife, atheist Alicia believes her God-fearing daughter may be losing her religion, which prompts a moment (that takes place in her head) in which Richard Dawkins visits her to ask why this troubles her so much.

This is big stuff, and the fact that it happened on one of TV’s top rated shows (Dead) and on the staid, older-skewing Tiffany Network (Wife) blew me away. But maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised, just as I shouldn’t brush off a show because it fails to meet my preconceived notions – and actually posits more challenges to my perception of storytelling. And of what couch potatoes can absorb.

“I feel like a lot of TV shows avoid religion,” said Lindelof. “It’s a very dangerous topic and that’s why I really responded to Tom’s book. He was talking about religion in a very interesting way, and the same thing is happening in The Returned. Leftovers doesn’t deal directly with death, but it is a death metaphor. These people have departed, they’re gone. But … you didn’t get to bury them, so could they come back? That’s what we’re trying to explore here.”

This article originally published in Curiosity Quills.

“Last Man on Earth”: Laughing, or not, at the end of the world

Can the end of the world be funny?

It sure can be serious: One of TV’s most popular shows has been showing just how un-funny the end of the world can be for five seasons now. In fact, The Walking Dead has pretty much rubbed our faces in not only how bad it is when the world ends, but how it continues to go on ending every day as the survivors lose their humanity inch by inch. There are zero laughs (except when Carl stuffs himself with pudding). It is well-written, a question I have to ask before praising anything in this column - most of the time.

But can it be something that’s not jut bleak and bloody? Can laughs be wrung out of the most divine joke of them all; namely that the machine of civilization has seized up and perished?

Answer: Yes. If you’re willing to squint.

Squinting is crucial when it comes to Fox’s new series The Last Man on Earth. The premise is, thus far, as stated: Will Forte appears to be the only survivor of a virus that has wiped everyone else out. The squinting begins when you have to set the hyperbole of the title aside - no network show is going to permit 22 minutes per week to be a one-man operation. So, there’s a woman. Also, while Forte is shown scouring the U.S. and parts of Canada in a big RV, he’s not exactly done due diligence on the entire planet.

The fact that Forte is an interesting actor helps. He does sad and thoughtful and absurd all at once, most nimbly shown off in the movie Nebraska. All three are needed to enjoy Last Man, but by the time the show gets moving, squinting’s not enough. We’ve all seen too much of this kind of thing not to have some crucial questions that invariably invade any attempt at funny. Like:

• Where are all the bodies?
• Where are all of the car pileups on the highways?
• Why would anyone choose to live in the inhospitable, arid desert of Tucson following civilization’s collapse?
• Why (other than for purported comic reasons) would a man who can appreciate fine paintings decide it was OK to use a fountain as a toilet, rather than dig a trench?

A well-written series can get away with anything, even when it does veer off course. Set the tone, set the mood, set the tension between the conflict and the characters in just the right way and you’re free to experiment. Last Man Standing, however, isn’t all that well written and so it doesn’t fly. Whether you like Forte’s character or just find him sexist almost is beside the point - the fact that I’m left with questions rather than chuckles as the show goes on means they haven’t set this world up very carefully. I’m constantly aware that this is going to be a sitcom and it will follow sitcom rules, like never leaving the immediate vicinity or considering things in a practical manner.

That leaves me sad, and a little bored. What could have been!

Yet the end of the world can be funny, if you do set it up right; this is why I have hopes that Comedy Central will let Matt Porter and Charlie Hankin make more episodes of New Timers, a web series whose heroes don’t seem to fully grok the challenges they’re facing now that the end has arrived. We first meet them 281 days after “the event,” just two guys hanging out and making condiment dip in a tool box to take to a gathering.

The party they’re expecting to attend turns out to be an escape from the hellhole the city around them has become - a handsome hero has fixed a car so they can flee with a handful of others who have been invited. But the gathering turns into a “who is more equipped to survive the apocalypse” bicker-fest (one of them suggests his narrow wrists come in handy more than you might expect), and the hero drives off alone. The cluelessness, the vague nature of the disaster, and the general reflective, mundane complaining that goes on is what makes this funny. It’s sly, and it’s subtle: You totally know guys who would be like this when the world ends.

It may also help that each episode is less than 10 minutes long; funny and the end of the world may work a lot better as a sketch than a thought-through narrative series.

The problem in the end is this: If Last Man insists on being what it has so far set itself up to be - yet another half hour of men and women clashing over their various differences - then who cares if it’s set in the apocalypse or not? If the only point of having to grow their own food is so they can be at odds over fresh vegetables - why should we bother? It’s plug-and-play battle of the sexes, with two members of the sexes who really do have much bigger battles to wage. The most interesting thing that series could do right now is to have both characters remember that it’s a big - and now empty - world out there, and start chasing down some actual plot.

This article originally appeared at Curiosity Quills.

10 scripts, 2 Oscars: Which writers will take home the best screenplay awards?

The writer on a movie set is a second-class citizen, a vestigial remnant that might once have served a purpose but who, once filming has begun, can only get in the way. Once a script leaves the hands of its screenwriter, unless said screenwriter is also directing, they’re less useful than an appendix. Nobody wants to know or hear about the “writing” any more.

But that hasn’t stopped the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences from creating two Oscars for the writing that even makes the story possible. Sharp acting, studied design and clever writing aside, all movies have to start in the same place – with a story – and so the writing of that story deserves at least a nod. Even though, on Oscar night, writers tend to be shoved all the way in the back of the theater. (They’re the ones most likely to have loosened hair pins and bow ties by the time they’re called; bless them, they’re so grateful.)

With that in mind, my hubris and expertise has surged to the fore again (as it did in August when I prognosticated which TV scripts were most likely to take home Emmys). Here, a brief look at the two important Oscar writing categories and which male scriptwriters (because there are no women nominated) will bring home a new lil’ buddy (and a whole new lease on his career) after Sunday night.

Take notes!

Writing, Adapted Screenplay
For reference: An adapted screenplay may be an original work, but it derived its inspiration (at the very least) from something else (like a memoir) that has already been written.

American Sniper (Jason Hall)
Based on the late Chris Kyle’s memoir, Sniper has been a source of contention since it was first released. Is it anti- or pro-war? That foot-on-either-side-of-the-minefield approach is likely director Clint Eastwood’s, but clearly Hall’s script wasn’t interested in seeing things in black-or-white at all times. Nominated by the Writers Guild of America.

The Imitation Game (Graham Moore)
Being nominated by the WGA is one thing; winning it gives your script a huge boost: Moore comes to the Oscars knowing the guild is on his side, and this is likely to tip the balance in his favor on Sunday. That said Imitation is a weird artefact of a script, divided in what story it wants to tell and dropping a major moral quandary three-quarters of the way through telling it. The likely winner, but not the most deserving one.

Inherent Vice (Paul Thomas Anderson)
As the heir to the Robert Altman school of intertwined, loopy and often surreal storylines, Anderson wrote and directed his own script and probably deserves a special prize for being able to successfully adapt a Thomas Pynchon novel. Alas, Vice has a very low profile and didn’t even receive a WGA nomination.

The Theory of Everything (Anthony McCarten)
Or, the biopic about a Cambridge-educated scientific genius who changes the world that isn’t Imitation Game. Theory is a more coherently-told, if rambling, story about the great Stephen Hawking (based on his ex-wife Jane Wilde Hawking’s memoir) that is conventional in nearly every way. Still, McCarten’s take on the love triangle between Jane, Stephen and a family friend was done with a light hand and a firm expertise. Not WGA-nominated.

Whiplash (Damien Chazelle)
Here’s your dark horse outsider. A relative newcomer to directing/scriptwriting, Chazelle occupies a unique niche: storyteller/director for dark musical tales. Whiplash is roundly considered to be original and extremely well made, but is probably in the wrong category. It’s only considered “adapted” because Chazelle adapted his own 2013 short film by the same name for this longer take. The WGA recognized this and nominated it as an original; being in the wrong category for the Oscars could sink Chazelle’s chances.

Writing, Original Screenplay

Birdman or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (Alejandro G. Iñárritu, Nicolás Giacobone, Alexander Dinelaris, Jr. and Armando Bo)
Those who haven’t yet seen Birdman may sneer, and sneer rightly: At its twee, weirdly-punctuated title; at the fact that it took four people (including the director) to write it. Yet Birdman soars above those criticisms by being a kinetic bit of magical realism that was like nothing on the screen we’ve seen in years. Not nominated by the WGA, though; this may hurt its chances.

Boyhood (Richard Linklater)
The screenplay that took 12 years to complete should win for something. But it’s hard not to feel that Linklater let his actors form the script every time they met for a week each summer over that long span of time. It’s the Mike Leigh way to tell a story, and while it’s not wrong … it’s not exactly scriptwriting. Linklater is owed, big time. But based on the script – there’s not enough there, there. WGA-nominated.

Foxcatcher (E. Max Frye and Dan Futterman)
A big misfire. Slow-moving and dreary, starring Steve Carell’s prosthetic nose. Director Bennett Miller really thought he was on to the next Capote (in which he was also directing an Oscar-nominated script by Futterman) and then found whatever gems his script kept hidden buried under turgid directing and performances (save for Mark Ruffalo). Nominated for reasons unknown by the WGA.

The Grand Budapest Hotel (screenplay by Wes Anderson; story by Wes Anderson and Hugo Guinness)
You want your quirk? Wes Anderson delivers your quirk. He may be pushing his limits in terms of just how sweetly off-the-wall he can be, but no question that director/writer Anderson knows how to move things along on charm and style. As the WGA winner this year, Budapest is largely considered to have this in the bag.

Nightcrawler (Dan Gilroy)
There’s a good chance you missed this film, but it’s never too late to seek it out. Darker than the inside of a goth’s closet during a blackout, Nightcrawler was also pointedly satirical about the way the greed for ratings has turned the newsgathering game into a blood sport. Gilroy wrote and directed his own script with a firm, clear hand but this one tended to fly under most peoples’ radar. Worthy, and WGA-nominated, but hasn’t really a solid chance.

This article was originally published at Curiosity Quills.

Arisia 2015: My schedule, and how I'll defy both time and space while there

It's almost time for Arisia again! And that means ... panels! Reading! Parties! Boston in January!

Come join me!

Arisia is New England's largest sci-fi/fantasy con, and is held at the Westin in Boston early every year. I'm going for what I think is the sixth time, and again I'm honored to have been invited to participate on panels. I'll also be running directly from one panel into the tail-end of the awesome Broad Universe "Rapid Fire Reading" in order to share a new story of mine, which makes it even more exciting.

So for those of you who are thinking about attending, here's what you need to know about the con ... and here are the panels/readings in which I'll personally have a hand. Or voice. See you there!

Saturday 1/17, 7 p.m. / Alcott
"Fan Etiquette: How Not to Be That Fan"
You're a fan of something, I'm a fan of something. But nobody really wants to be the scary, creepy or downright embarrassing fan ... at least, hopefully that's not a goal. During this panel (I'm moderating) we'll talk about how to come across as a devotee, not a stalker.

Sunday 1/18, 11:30 a.m. / Alcott
"TV Year in Review"
Man, there have been so many great TV shows in the genre field this year, who can keep track? Five of your fellow esteemed panelists will try running through our favorites (and ones that aren't quite so favored) while soliciting comments from the audience. See how many we can get through an hour and fifteen minutes!

Sunday 1/18, 11:30 a.m. / Douglas
Broad Universe "Rapid Fire Reading"
Yeah, I've got access to the TARDIS but even I can't be in two panels at once. While other great Broads do short readings of their new work, I'll be over in the TV Year in Review panel, then heading into the RFR in the last few minutes to gasp out my own work. Let's see if I can violate both space and time in the process.

Sunday 1/18, 1:00 p.m. / Alcott
"TV Writing: Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror/Genre"
As anyone who reads my Curiosity Quills column "Between the Lines" knows, there's a lot of great ways to tell story on TV ... and a lot of ways to mess it up. With former Syfy Network excecutive Thomas Vitale moderating, we'll be discussing what makes for great writing on TV, and what the challenges of telling supernatural stories on the small screen are.

Come on by and say hello at the panels, and if you miss me there, check out the Broad Universe table, where we'll be selling copies of our latest work. Have a great con!

Ho-ho-hold the treacle: Most holiday movies stink. Demand better!

After much delay, at last I saw “Maleficent” the other night. And yes, while it is full of exactly what one expects from a Disney film – for (spoiler alert), example, a villain given grace by his vanquisher tries one last time for the win and ends up falling to his death – it took a remarkable number of turns away from expectations and more than once I prickled up with a tear.

I don’t cry much in the movies, and I wonder how many regular moviegoers do any more. Certainly, I know how the man behind the curtain works too well – the little manipulations of script, color, costume and music are all tip-offs to me. When a script does successfully vault my hurdles and makes me teary, I love it like no other. But there are so few instances when a movie goes where it did not seem to be heading, and evokes an emotion that I was unprepared to have. I can’t be alone in this – we’re all ingesting so much visual entertainment these days, I think it’s getting harder to really push our buttons.

Or is it? As we head into the holiday season, there’s a distinct change in the air. All at once, it’s time for the holiday movie – more specifically, Christmas movie – onslaught, and almost without exception it is seriously sweet stuff: Norman Rockwell households, problems best enclosed in quotation marks, wholesome (and usually very white) protagonists whose only real problems in the world now are how they can make one day at the end of the year feel real and precious. The other 364 days? Who cares.

Tune into the Hallmark Channel, and it’s almost wall-to-wall Christmas movies this time of year. From “Mr. Miracle” to “One Christmas Eve” to “Christmas Under Wraps,” these are films that are not written to surprise or challenge viewers – they’re meant as the equivalent of a holiday sweater: red and green-colored expressions of goodwill toward people. There’s nothing inherently wrong with them. They’re perfectly nice. And also like that holiday sweater, meant to be worn once and never thought of again.

Into all of this niceness has pawed one of the odder internet memes in recent years, Grumpy Cat. Lifetime – not traditionally the source of original, meaty stories – has embraced the cat with the permanent frown (a real animal) and turned her into the star of “Grumpy Cat’s Worst Christmas Ever.” This is enough to make me sit up and take notice: Comedian Aubrey Plaza is providing the voice of the cat and one of the scriptwriters is a longtime contributor to “SpongeBob SquarePants,” which automatically makes it a more interesting story.

Will it all pan out? Or will it end with Grumpy Cat coming to some kind of un-grumpy realization about the joy and wonder of the holiday season? Civilization will not fall either way, but it would be nice to know that things might turn out a little differently than the paint-by-numbers structure most of these holiday movies are made of.

We’re gluttons for stories these days, with more outlets than ever to tell them to us – online, in the movies, on TV. Expectations are higher than they once were – it’s up to us to demand better from our mythmakers. We want movies that will send their arrows through our protective walls, into our hearts, and release the emotion within. The storytelling equivalent of “nice” makes us sleepy. The other kind makes us alive.

If all goes well, “Grumpy Cat” will have a long life. Think of the Christmas movies that stick with us these days – “Elf,” “A Christmas Story.” Think of “It’s a Wonderful Life” as a horror movie (stay tuned for that next time). The films that are more than the sum of their parts, which get around all of the treacle and usual expectations … those are the ones we’ll want to watch again and again.

So for this Christmas, here’s what I want: A better story, well told. Think Santa’s got that on his sleigh?

This column originally appeared in Curiosity Quills/Between the Lines.