Notes on Pop Culture: Olympics, Good Reads, 'To Rome with Love' & 'The Newsroom'

Olympic Opening Ceremonies: With the exception of the Queen-James Bond thing, I generally disliked not only the London Olympics' Opening Ceremonies, but the way NBC not only riddled the broadcast with ads (seriously, way too many, way too often), had horrifically stupid scripts and replaced footage of the ceremony with a pre-taped Ryan Seacrest interview with Michael Phelps. I was so annoyed that I went to bed way before they were even halfway through the alphabet announcing the arrival of the nations' athletes.

Despite my initial griping, other than Ryan Lochte flashing that god awful diamond grill after he won his first gold of the London games, I've been pretty much into the Olympic competitions, specifically keeping tabs on the U.S. women's soccer team (love Rapinoe, Wambach), the U.S. gymnastics teams (too bad for the guys in team competition), the U.S. basketball teams and the swimming competitions.

And how fabulous was it to see the U.S. women's gymnastics team shine? While watching Massachusetts home gal Aly Raisman deliver a fabulously powerful floor routine that put the exclamation point on the team's performance, I had to keep reminding myself how very young these gymnasts really are and how much pressure they're all under to perform so well.

Totally Worth Reading: The New York Times Book Review's "How to Write" essay by Colson Whitehead.

As a writer myself, I loved the "rules" Whitehead offered up, particularly the second one: "Don't go searching for a subject, let your subject find you. You can't rush inspiration. How do you think [Truman] Capote came to 'In Cold Blood?' It was just an ordinary day when he picked up the paper to read his horoscope, and there it was -- fate." (Truman saw the article about the brutal murder of a Kansas family and that set into motion a years-long odyssey that would become the classic book In Cold Blood.)

To Rome with Love: Caught Woody Allen's latest, To Rome with Love with a pal of mine. Weird, weird very uneven flick. Sure, we laughed out loud a couple of times, pondered Allen's none too subtle anti-reality TV/anti-celebrity message, but Midnight in Paris it was, sadly, not. That was disappointing.

However my appetite was whet for another film that I saw previewed before To Rome: The Words starring Bradley Cooper, slated to be released in September. A writer passes off someone else's manuscript as his own and suffers the consequences. Certainly not lacking in a ripped-from-the-headlines feel to it . . .

The Newsroom: Maybe it's misplaced longing for HBO's old show In Treatment, but I really enjoyed the latest episode of The Newsroom (reviewed it here) featuring Will McAvoy going to a therapist to work through his Mount Everest of personal issues.

Going out and buying an engagement ring and pretending that he's kept it locked in his desk for four years as he nurtured but pointedly did not try to heal his broken heart? Going after and humiliating a Santorum aide on the air as if the guy didn't know how to stand up for himself and was unaware of the senator's position on gays and lesbians, thinking that he, Will was, in the end, being this man's hero? Yeah, I'd say Will could do with tons more treatment, which I think would make for some emotionally in depth scenes.

What have you been watching and reading this week?

Image credit: Joon Mo Kang/New York Times.

Notes on Pop Culture: Favorite Flicks, Shows, Etc. from Past Week

Movies

While I’m planning on seeing the biggest movie of the summer this coming opening weekend – I speak, of course, of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 – I finally got to go to the delightfully air conditioned movie theater and enjoy Woody Allen’s latest offering, Midnight in Paris.

As someone who’s in the midst of tweaking my own novel and who has sought feedback from trusted sources, I identified with Owen Wilson’s naïve, romantic, insecure writer character, Gil who was fearful of letting folks take a peek at his manuscript lest they rip it apart and, in a way, destroy him. However when Wilson’s Gil got the chance to go back in time and enjoy 1920s Paris with the likes of Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Pablo Picasso and Cole Porter, that’s where the similarities end.

This movie about learning to appreciate what you’ve got, taking chances and daring to follow your dreams was clearly written by a dreamer. Maybe that’s why I liked it so much.



TV


Women’s World Cup: Quarterfinals game. Against Brazil. Amazingly inspiring for all the sports-minded members of my household. The real-life, come-from-behind drama created by the U.S. Women’s World Cup team this weekend trumped even the inspirational Nike ad the team stars in.

Friday Night Lights: In preparation for a piece about the end of Friday Night Lights (*sniff*), I watched the first two episodes of the drama where, 33 minutes into the pilot episode, the clean cut, sweet, police hero high school quarterback is paralyzed during a pivotal play. Five seasons later, the show hasn’t lost its mojo. It’s so sad that the series will end this Friday evening.

Want to relive the Panthers/Lions glory? The entire series will be replayed on ESPN Classic, according to the New York Times. Starting tonight, ESPN will air those same first two episodes starting at 8 p.m., followed by a marathon of the first season on ESPN Classic on Thursday and Friday. The series will begin regularly airing episodes on Thursday evenings on ESPN Classic starting July 21, the paper reported.

Newspapers/Magazines

In this past Sunday’s New York Times, the co-creators of The Good Wife, Robert and Michelle King wrote an op/ed about how strange the real-life marital twists of politicians’ love lives have turned out to be. Talking about everyone from Weiner, Schwarzenegger and Edwards to Spitzer and Sanford, they said, “Speaking as television writers: [The melodrama] is over the top.”

“One can imagine the studio notes,” the couple wrote. “’We like the husband who impregnates his housekeeper, but keeping her in the same house for a decade seems a bit mustache-twirling.’ ‘Love the presidential candidate cheating with the videographer, but do you need the wife to have cancer?’ ‘Tweeting semi-naked photos from the congressional gym: good – very hip. But making his wife pregnant: isn’t that too on-the-nose?’”