About a month after 9/11/01, an half-hour sitcom premiered on the WB that I quite enjoyed - dispite not being a fan of many sitcoms. Quite possibly my enjoyment was helped by the fact that I was assisting in the raising of a teenage girl at the time, and there was alot of good stuff aimed at teenage girls then - the first BRING IT ON, the JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS movie and THE VIRGIN SUICIDES just being the ones that quickly spring to mind. But I liked Raising Dad more than Melissa did, and Rosalynd just didn't get it. I could not get through an episode of Full House, but I liked Bob Saget on America's Funniest Home Videos when I accidently came across it; so he wasn't the real draw. Jerry Adler and Andy Kindler were amusing, and I still enjoy seeing them: Jerry on Rescue Me and Andy on his visits on the Late Show with David Letterman. But the real stars of the show were the daughters, Kat Dennings and Brie Larson. Kat recently got alot of publicity co-starring in NICK & NORA'S INFINITE PLAYLIST after attracting alot of attention in THE 40-YEAR OLD VIRGIN. But what inspired this posting is that I've just seen the first episode of The United States of Tara on Showtime. There's Brie as the teenage daughter of Toni Collette and skillfully holding her own. See Toots! I can spot talent! Sorry, Meagan Good - I didn't remember you. But now that I know who you were on the TV version of Minority Report I am a new fan.
I got stuck with having to watch FULL HOUSE and SISTER SISTER. Since my brother works at Paramount I got stuck every year for about 4 years taking my daughter and friends to the studio to watch a taping of SISTER SISTER usually in December.
ReplyDeleteMy wife and I saw at least half-a-dozen of the first season (it debuted in January of '71) of ALL IN THE FAMILY. I actually talked to Norman Lear and told him my favorite thing of his was THE NIGHT THEY RAIDED MINSKY'S. Jason Robards kills as a vaudevillian song and dance man, and Forrest Tucker is the local mobster head.
ReplyDeleteThere's an excellent book, WHEN THE SHOOTING STOPS, by Ralph Rosenblum, writing about his career as a film editor. He spent a year editing MINSKY'S with the direction from Norman Lear to make it in the "new style". Lear couldn't explain what that style was, so Rosenblum kept returning to the cutting room and experimenting. When it was over, Rosenblum felt that if Lear had told him that what he wanted was something like THE KNACK... the whole process would have been much easier.
ReplyDeleteRosenblum had a similar experience cutting ANNIE HALL.