RICH TV

Each Monday night at 11:00pm I ask myself, "Why is this series on cable TV?" The Riches, starring Minnie Driver and Eddie Izzard is - hands down - the best television series NOT on broadcast TV or HBO.

The series premise for The Riches is downright dreadful – a vagrant family surreptitiously living the life of another that was killed in a car accident caused by the vagrants. Yet it is wonderfully compelling and provides constant tension and opportunity for some oddly comedic situations. It does, at moments, appear that Doug (Izzard) gets out of jams way too easily, but it’s a fantasy so I’m not complaining.

The acting is unmatched on the small screen. And that includes the children! I’ve always like Driver and heard some negative feedback on Izzard, but I think he’s done a fine job with this role. So where did FX find the Rich kids? Emmy Award™ for Best Casting goes here.

Which brings me back to my question of why this is not on FOX proper? Is it because the premise is too dark, or perhaps, the sprinkling of questionable language? I’d hate to think so, considering some of the fare that is already on broadcast network prime time.

With the recent ouster of David Gold as head of Fox’s drama development department, one wonders whether it was due to the recent string of drama flops at the Fourth Network. Whatever the reason, I would hope the Fox folks would tap into the FX Network’s development team (The Riches, Rescue Me, etc.) to bring something fresh to FOX. 24 has gotten old quickly, Prison Break can only go so far, and Idol is so done on the reality/contest front.

Who’da thunk FOX would be the one to bring credible, enticing drama back to TV?

Photos Copyright 2007 FX.

FORTUNE COOKIE WISDOM

It never ceases to amaze me how small yet brilliant pieces of wisdom can come to you when you are least expecting it and from the most unusual places.

Take my Chinese food desert from this weekend. Sitting at the dining room table after another hectic weekend day topped off by take-out Chinese food, I opened my celophane encased fortune cookie and broke it in two expecting the usual boring proverb to appear. (Why did fortune cookies stop giving fortunes, by the way?)

To my surprise, this piece of paper happened to provide a saying that is true to most, but indispensible to the independent film producer:

You may be disappointed if you fail, but you are doomed if you don't try.

How fortuitous, indeed! Surely these words apply to everyone, but who more than we producers? We work in an industry that rewards precious few individuals and ideas, and leaves most 'doomed to failure'.

Should failure disappoint us? Certainly, but our job description pretty much says, 'try, try again!'


Oh, my lucky numbers were 2, 34, 44, 17, 29, and 3.

Lotto anyone?

WHAT MAKES A DOC A DOC?

Now that I finally got to sit down to screen Davis Guggenheim's An Inconvenient Truth, I find the film's title is quite ironic. Here's a film that won both the Academy Award and Producers Guild of America award for Best Documentary of 2006. But was this truly a documentary?

There were several other docs up for 'best' of 2006, and my personal favorite - Who Killed the Electric Car - was among them. Truth presents very powerful - and scary - insights into the global warming issues facing our planet. However, it also spends most of its time presenting staged lectures given by the former 'next President of the United States'. Once in a while, some old news is sprinkled in - his 6 year old son getting hit by a car, losing the 2000 election - but mostly it is a taped live event not much different than watching a debate on TV. Does this constitute a documentary? Not really. And I don't think I'm alone in this opinion.

Let's look at Who Killed the Electric Car. Here's a classic documentary that follows a few key characters in their quest to find out why the major auto makers were literally killing state-of-the-art electric cars that were proving to be a viable technology in California. The film follows the characters and sprinkles in some footage of government hearings to underscore or prove points. It's a really good piece of journalism that took the filmmakers to many different places to capture charaters doing many different things and then weaving it all together to make a comprehensive narrative. Technically, this film blows An Inconvenient Truth out of the water.

These films both address environmental issues, and the 'electric car' issue might prove more critical to solving the 'inconvenient truth' because of the potential effects of killing a viable, emmisions-free technology.

I guess the fact that Al Gore was involved goes a long way to explaining things. But I have a question for Mr. Gore -

What kind of car were you driving on the way to your lectures?