Thursday, August 9, 2018

Fall 2016 TV season- cancelled

Jun. 21, 2018 Fall 2016 TV season- cancelled: I used to be on this forum called Television without Pity.  There was a thread called "TV shows no one remembers but me."  These shows may fall on the list.

There are so many TV shows that come out every year on all sorts of platforms from TV networks to streaming.


Notorious: 

"A charismatic defense attorney and a powerhouse television producer work together to control the media following a high-profile incident."

Pros:

1. It has big names like Piper Perabo (Coyote Ugly).

J. August Richards (Gunn from Angel).

Marc Blucas (Riley from Buffy).

Ryan Guzman (the movie The Boy Next Door).

Aimee Teegarden (90210 reboot).

Kevin Zegers (Gossip Girl).

Dilshad Vadsaria (Second Chance). 

2. There is some interracial dating.

3. They show a woman in her 50s Kate Jennings Grant that she can still be sexy.

4. There is a murder mystery.

5. There is drama, conflict, and tension as the characters work in a fast-paced TV news show as they cover breaking news.

Cons:

1. Bad writing.  I don't care about any of the characters.  There is no one I like or dislike.

I feel like all the big names I listed, it does not save this show.

2. It was trying to be sexy.

A couple hooks up in the first scene.

The TV host hooks up with her male guests.

One of the assistants who works there was an escort.

This show is coming off as sleazy.

My opinion: I felt kind of in a bad mood after watching this show.  I was cringing at it.  I never watched it again.

The career- oriented mind sees this TV news show that the characters are on, seems to be a bad environment to work in.

I was little surprised there were positive comments about this show on imdb.com.



https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5519574/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2

Shoot the Messenger:

"A young journalist who, while working on her first murder case, becomes embroiled in a web of urban gangs, the political class, corporate power-brokers and the police."


Pros: 

1. It had a strong opening with the lead character Daisy driving to meet someone.  Then she see someone get shot.

2. There is lots of drama, conflict, and tension to solve this murder.  Daisy is a journalist, so she may be covering this story even if she didn't witness a murder.

There is conflict in trying to identify the victim.

3. There is good ethnic diversity.  They go in-depth about the Somali community.

4. There is good acting as the victim's family shows grief.

Cons: None.

My opinion: I find this show mediocre.  I never watched it again.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5178678/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Jun. 27, 2018 Pitch: Dan Fogelman co-created this show.  He created This is Us.

"A young pitcher becomes the first woman to play in the Major Leagues."


Pros: 

1. I like the idea of the first young woman to play in the Major Leagues.  Also a woman of color.

2. Kylie Bunbury who plays the lead Ginny is good.

Mark- Paul Gosselaar is a baseball player in it.  (Zack from Saved by the Bell.)

Ali Larter (Heroes).

Alex Solowitz (the bad boy Mickey from the fictional boy band 2gether) was in the pilot.

3. Good ethnic diversity with the lead.

Tim Jo- the Asian guy in the show.

4. It's fun and exciting to see professional and famous sports stars and their lives.   Hilary Clinton and Ellen DeGeneres sends Ginny gift baskets.  Little girls ask Ginny for an autograph.

5. Good production. 


6. The drama, conflict, and tension seems that there is a lot of pressure when you're famous.



Cons:

1. I thought this was kind of contrived.

Spoiler alert: The whole time it looks like Ginny's dad was alive, when really he died.  It felt like the writers were trying to get the audience to feel empathy for Ginny.  Here she has made this great achievement and her father is not here to see it.

Actually when I was watching it: "Wow, both her parents are alive and still together.  Most of the time by the time kids are in their 20s, the parents are divorced or one passed away."

My opinion: The show was average.  I watched the pilot and then I never watched it again.  I don't like baseball or professional sports.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5500158/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

Aug. 2, 2018 Pure Genius: 


"A young Silicon Valley tech-titan enlists a veteran surgeon with a controversial past in starting a hospital with a cutting-edge, new school approach to medicine."


Pros:

1. The characters are good.  I like Dr. Walter Wallace (Dermot Mulroney) who plays a likeable surgeon.  Augustus Prew who plays the tech-titan James Bell is average.  I like Prew more in the Prison Break reboot as Whip.

2. I like the setting of this nice and modern office and hospital.  It's very high- tech.

3. The show is about how a hospital and the workers really want to help people.

A line: "Studies show patients eat better, sleep better, better recovery if they fell more in control of their environment."

It's kind of inspirational to watch.

4. Good ethnic diversity.

Cons: 

1. I thought this was kind of contrived.

Spoiler alert: James reveals he built this hospital really to help himself.  He has this kind of neurodegenerative disease that acts fast.  It seems within 5 yrs, he may not even know his name.  James is in his late 20s.

My opinion: The show was average.  I never watched it again.  I don't really like medical dramas.  You can check it out.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5500906/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Conviction: 


"A brilliant attorney and former First Daughter is blackmailed to heading a unit that investigates cases of wrongful conviction."

Pros: 

1. Hayley Atwell (from Agent Carter) is good in it.

Eddie Cahill (from CSI: NY).

Shawn Ashmore (Iceman from the X-Men movies).

Merrin Dungey (Alias).

Emily Kinney (The Walking Dead).

Manny Montana (I have never seen him before, but I thought he was good.)

2. There is drama, conflict, and tension as the team investigates in a period of 5 days is this person guilty or not.

3. It was kind of funny.  Atwell and Dungey's characters go to confront a man with a box of evidence.  He is going to set it on fire.

Atwell: Don't do it!
Man: Why not?
Atwell: I'll let you touch these. (Her breasts.)  Well it has worked before.

4. There is a happy ending.

Cons: None.
My opinion: The show was average.  I never watched it again.  I don't really like law dramas.  You can check it out.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5396572/?ref_=tt_rec_tti
My week:

Aug. 2, 2018 Job interviews: I did an interview at a fast food place in the morning.

I then did an interview at Juice Place #1.

Writing about TV shows: I did my job search.  I then decided to have a break by doing something different.  I wrote about some pilot reviews, and I felt good. 

Aug. 3, 2018 Donovan Mitchell helps: I found this on Yahoo:

As he waited for a technician at a Salt Lake City Apple store to examine his broken iPhone on Wednesday, Andrew Simeona’s brother struck up a conversation with a friendly fellow customer standing nearby.
He had no idea the man he was speaking with was Utah Jazz star Donovan Mitchell, nor did he have any inkling that the NBA rookie-of-the-year runner-up was about to make him a fan for life.
When the Apple store technician finally came over a few minutes later, he delivered some bad news for Simeona’s brother. The phone’s shattered screen required an expensive repair job, one Simeona’s brother couldn’t afford.
“My brother said, ‘Oh, it’s OK,’ and took his broken phone back,” Simeona said. “Donovan overheard all this and he could tell my brother was disappointed. He spoke up and said, ‘Well, how much is it?’ Then he intervened and covered the cost of the repair.”
Simeona’s brother still had no idea who came to his rescue until after Mitchell left. That’s when the Apple technician approached him again and said, “You realize that’s Donovan Mitchell, right?”
Shocked and a little sheepish, Simeona’s brother admitted he had no idea. Then he raced home to tell the rest of his family about his crazy experience.
“It meant the world to my brother,” Simeona said. “He was in a bit of a bind, and Donovan saw the opportunity to help him out.
“It speaks volumes about the kind of guy that Donovan is. There’s a ton of gratitude from our end. It goes to show you this guy really is trying to do good things and be a decent guy out in the community. He gets so much respect from us about that.”
Simeona declined to reveal his brother’s name because he didn’t want to publicize the fact that his brother has a learning disability that affects his speech and his ability to process information quickly. It’s not clear if that contributed to Mitchell’s decision to help out, but Simeona said, “I’m assuming Donovan noticed that.”
Late Wednesday night, Simeona posted on Twitter about Mitchell’s compassionate gesture. The second-year pro responded Thursday morning, telling Simeona, “All love, Glad I could help!”

Aug. 4, 2018 Mental health: I feel like I'm in a bad mood and lots of things are triggering me.  I am able to pinpoint it.

I am not sleeping well.  I have been working at night and I sleep about 6.5-7 hours.  I always wake up at the same time.  I don't set an alarm.  I need 8 hours.  I do take a nap in the afternoon on the bus on the way to work.  

Solutions:

1. Drink water.
2. Drink coffee only up to 2pm.
3. Eat healthy and only when hungry.  Be mindful of eating like don't eat in front of the TV and eat slowly.

4. I am also most alert in the mornings so I do the hard stuff first, like my job search and reading the business section of the newspaper.

Aug. 5, 2018:

5. If I need energy, I listen and dance to music for 5-15min.  

Sleeping habits: As soon as I get home from night shift, I go straight to bed.

1. Turn the lights off.
2. Listen to boring and calm music.
3. If I am to read something before bed, it has to be light and fun articles like entertainment.

This is bringing some flashbacks of that bad time in 2006: The Year of Anger Management.  I had gotten laid off from Call Centre #1 and had a hard time dealing with it.

Aug. 6, 2018 Ep:1: Redefining success: Deanna Danski is a life coach and I listened to one of her free telesummits: 

Many of us have been taught what success SHOULD mean based on our upbringing, demographics, heroes, education, and all other outside influences.  But what does success mean to YOU?  Watch as Deanna and Steve discuss how to make each day your masterpiece.




The Self-worth summit:


TV shows: It's Aug. and there aren't that many TV shows to watch except Reverie.  I find this show average and I've only seen a few eps.  I'm also watching the sitcom Crawford and it's average.  I'm going to write about some TV show pilots to bide my time until other shows come on during the fall.

Aug. 7, 2018 Bobby Brown builds domestic violence shelter:

Fast food place job interview: I went to it and the boss said they needed people to work at night 4pm-10pm.  She did mention that at another location that's closer by and it's like 1pm-9pm.

Aug. 8, 2018 Gardening: Today at the bus stop I bumped into my neighbor Maria.  She has been gardening zucchini, squash, pumpkins, and onions.  I didn't know that you can garden this in the Edmonton climate.  Then again, I don't know about gardening.  

She was on vacation in Jasper.


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Thursday, July 5, 2018

"Meet Canadian cinema's class of 2018"

Jun. 29, 2018 "Meet Canadian cinema's class of 2018": Today I found this article by Barry Hertz in the Globe and Mail:

The first day of Canadian cinema’s bold new era feels a lot like the first day of school.

It is the last Tuesday of June, and though classes are done for the semester at Ryerson University, the depths of the Toronto campus are buzzing. In the engineering centre’s basement, a gaggle of mostly young, largely fashionable and extremely hungry men and women are busy emptying steam trays full of scrambled eggs, bacon and home fries (as well as tofu with roasted peppers, for the vegans in the crowd). Some work the room with ease, extending hands and making fast friends. Others find quiet spots to huddle with laptops or other trusted companions. Just as the chatter and laughter threaten to overwhelm the space, a booming voice from the top of the stairs interrupts. 


“Everyone ... shut up!” shouts Matt Johnson, the Toronto filmmaker known for his dark comedy The Dirties and meta-fiction series Nirvanna the Band the Show. “No, I’m kidding. But we’re going to kick things off in 10 minutes. And on time.”



With his white T-shirt, worn jeans and knapsack, Johnson looks like any one of the fresh-faced youth assembled below. But the 33-year-old isn’t here to lead a frosh mixer, and the crowd isn’t nattering on about course schedules – they are budding film directors and producers in town for the inaugural Talent Summit, Telefilm’s big, risky, unprecedented bet on the future of homegrown cinema. And for the next 48 hours, Johnson will be their cheerleader, coach and occasional drill sergeant.


For those familiar with the Canadian arts industry, or merely with Johnson’s audacious filmography, the idea that he would be working hand-in-hand with Telefilm seems as believable as the plot to, say, the director’s own 2016 mockumentary Operation Avalanche, which posited that two CIA agents faked the moon landing. 



Just three years ago, Johnson used every opportunity he was afforded to decry the traditional institutions of Cancon – from Telefilm to TIFF – culminating in a quote that will, appropriately, be etched in his eventual obituary: “A lot of people just need to die of old age for the system to change.”


Today, though, Johnson and his producing partner Matthew Miller, 37, are the system’s biggest boosters, thanks to their work developing Telefilm’s new Talent to Watch program, an initiative that -- if everything lines up -- will flood the country with a tidal wave of fresh and diverse cinematic talent.


Talent to Watch is deceptively simple. An update of Telefilm’s five-year-old microbudget production fund, the new program will finance up to 50 features per year from first-time directors, with cash funding capped at $125,000 per project. That is more than double the number of productions supported under the previous plan, and this time the grants are non-repayable, meaning filmmakers completely own their work. (Financing is mostly supported through Telefilm’s Talent Fund, a private-donation fund supported by donors and media partners.) 


Another new plank is Fast Track, which will automatically green light the sophomore efforts of directors whose feature debuts are recognized at top-tier international festivals such as Cannes or Berlin, with Telefilm contributing $500,000 per film. 


“The goal is to introduce the country to new voices that we would never have seen otherwise,” Johnson said last year, just before unveiling the revamp. “This is a sea change in film funding.”

Discussions started this past fall, when Johnson and Miller were connected with Carolle Brabant, Telefilm’s then executive director, through producer Niv Fichman.

“I basically challenged [Matt]: ‘You’re talking on behalf of emerging filmmakers, but now you’re part of the establishment,’” Fichman recalled. ”‘You have to help, if you’re serious about this, to design the program that you think should exist.’”

Eight months later, and Talent to Watch is a reality. After 102 rookie directors and producers applied through Telefilm’s designated partners (film schools, co-ops, festival talent incubators), 45 projects now have cash in hand. 


The artists hail from across the country – Émilie Serri, director of the immigration tale Damascus Dreams, is Québécoise; Madison Thomas, the director of the Indigenous-focused drama Ruthless Souls is from Manitoba; Jillian Acreman, director of the “gentle sci-fi” entry Queen of the Andes, lives in New Brunswick – and arrive with different backgrounds. 


“This program is about respecting that talent can come from anywhere in this country,” says Jean-Claude Mahé, Telefilm’s interim executive director. (Brabant stepped down in March at the end of her eight-year tenure; Christa Dickenson will assume the role July 30.) 


But all members of Talent to Watch’s “Class of 2018” share one crucial bit of work experience, or lack thereof: No one has ever shot a feature-length film. With a tight deadline of 18 months – all projects must be at final cut with Telefilm by the end of 2019 – Johnson and Miller decided that the artists, and the future of the program, necessitated guidance and, occasionally, tough love. 



Which is why a few dozen filmmakers today find themselves sitting in a Ryerson lecture hall filled with shiny desks and squeaky chairs, listening to Johnson warn them that they are living on borrowed time.


“After tomorrow, what are you even doing? This is your lives now,” Johnson tells his audience. His delivery oscillates between the wild enthusiasm he brings to the screen playing an unctuous version of himself on Nirvanna the Band the Show and Dead Poets Society-esque sincerity. Johnson knows how hard it is to make something out of nothing – The Dirties cost just $10,000 to shoot – and he wants to turn his past mistakes into the next wave’s cautionary tales.


“Don’t betray yourselves. You have the months right now, so … get it done.”


Two-thirds of his audience nod knowingly, while a handful of others furtively glance around the room, wondering just what they got themselves into. This is to be expected. No one is convinced that Talent to Watch will produce 45 or 50 Canadian masterpieces every year. “If we see anybody who cracks the surface of this, even one person, we will be so much further than we were five years ago,” Johnson says. 


One of the program’s positive outcomes, Johnson explains to the class, is “if you decide you hate making movies.”


“Better to figure it out in 18 months rather than five years,” adds Miller.


This year’s English-language projects were selected by a jury consisting of filmmakers Albert Shin (In Her Place), Chelsea McMullan (My Prairie Home), and Cory Bowles (Black Cop), as well as producer Karen Harnisch (Sleeping Giant) and film critic Adam Nayman. Diversity was a key consideration, though there were no quotas and jurors operated without oversight from Johnson, Miller or Telefilm. (There were separate peer-based juries for the French-language and Indigenous projects.)


In the end, 21 of the 45 successful applicants, or about 47 per cent, have female directors attached. Geographically, 20 come from Ontario, 11 from Quebec, five from British Columbia, three from Nova Scotia, two from Manitoba and one each from Alberta, New Brunswick, the Yukon and Newfoundland and Labrador.


No matter the filmmakers’ backgrounds, everyone will face the same myriad obstacles that come with producing a debut film. To underline this point, Johnson and Miller enlisted industry experts, from festival programming to public relations, to dole out advice and horror stories during the summit. 


McMullan offers a warning that some men in the industry live to run women out of it. How Heavy This Hammer director Kazik Radwanski, who kept Johnson out shooting a role in his new movie until 2 a.m. the previous night (“I knew your work habits,” he teases), explains how crucial it is to cast actors who have no dreams of fame or even craft services. And Shin, asked for his biggest mistakes, recalls, “pretty much everything.”


For the most part, the neophyte filmmakers are unfazed. Many are just grateful to be here.

Jordan Molaro, the 30-year-old director of Billy, which follows an Indigenous man who believes he’s being haunted by a wendigo, recalls how he found out his team made the cut: “It can only be described as a moment you will remember for the rest of your life ... This program evens the playing field a little bit more for a couple of kids who grew up in the hood of Winnipeg.”


“I’ve done four short films and I felt like I was stalled,” says 30-year-old Sanja Zivkovic, whose drama Easy Land looks at the fraught relationship between a mother and daughter after they leave Serbia for Toronto. “Having an opportunity to get something done, even if it’s not expensive at all, it feels like such a step forward.”


After two days of advice and warnings and problem-solving – the first evening finds the filmmakers split into teams to recreate scenes on their iPhones from Paul Gross’s war drama Passchendaele, with the winners judged by Fichman, the film’s “good sport” producer – everyone boards a shuttle to the Pinewood Studios for a splashy party.


The event is designed to introduce Talent Fund’s benefactors – Bell Media’s Randy Lennox is in one corner, Sleep Country Canada’s Christine Magee the other – to Telefilm’s best new hopes. But it is also an opportunity for the filmmakers to enjoy an open bar, graze on bites of whisky-braised Alberta beef short ribs – and experience one final burst of contagious you-can-do-it encouragement, thanks to a surprise keynote address from Xavier Dolan.


As the Quebecois filmmaker behind Laurence Anyways and the forthcoming The Death and Life of John F. Donovan takes the stage, the suits in the audience politely applaud –but the filmmakers don’t dare turn their attention anywhere else.


“I saw I Killed My Mother on Monday night, just two days ago, and I had forgotten all about it,” Dolan tells the crowd, recalling his first film, which he wrote at 16 and which went on to play the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. “There exists a trace of the young man I was back then: tortured and insecure and loud and brash and loving and creating evermore. And that is everything.


“You’re lucky to be able to create without being scared of people or yourself. That’s what a first-time film is. It’s a shameless act of self-discovery. It’s a way to insist on the value of the worth of your very own existence, and the worth of our desire to solve problems, and change the world. It’s perhaps naive and flawed and whatever.”

“But,” he adds, “it is true. So, good luck to you.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/arts/film/article-meet-canadian-cinemas-class-of-2018/


8 hours ago
 (Edited)
"No one is convinced that Talent to Watch will produce 45 or 50 Canadian masterpieces every year."
"Masterpieces" is beside the point.
Skill doesn't matter as much as connections; ways to get whatever creative work you produce before the eyes, ears and, including the written word, in the hands of the masses. Or even, those who represent coveted "niche markets".
People like to think that going to a casino of Friday night is real gambling.
Hah! Be an artist. Worse--because we only have about 30 million adults in this country--be an artist living and working in Canada.
Brave souls, every one.


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