Extra Criticum

Top 100 sitcom episodes of all time (a list in progress)

After months of bugging acquaintances for suggestions, I've finally started posting my list of the “100 Best Sitcom Episodes of All Time” at my personal blog. Each episode will get a separate blog post, counting backward toward No. 1.  A list of the programs revealed so far is here. 

I'll be posting the entire list at Extra Criticum, but please visit my blog if you're interested in the meantime. And I welcome comments from the insightful E.C. audience!

Here is the introductory post:

When I decided to make a “best sitcom episodes” list last year, I had two goals in mind. One was to make the case for the sitcom as an art form to people who were unfamiliar or dismissive of it. The second was to contribute to the making of a canon, or a consensus set of episodes that critics should be familiar with so that we have some shared points of reference.

The Top 10 Reasons to Support the Arts (from Artsblog.org)

By Randy Cohen, vice president of research and policy at Americans for the Arts, the nation's advocacy organization for the arts.

Ted Hope offers 35 ways to keep the faith

Ted Hope continues to offer wisdom, wit and encouragement to those of us still committed to creating truly independent film. Check out his 35 Ways to Keep the Faith in Truly Free Film, recently posted on IndieWire:

Every "No" bringing you that much closer to a "Yes"

This great post by Adrienne Crezo on the Mental Floss blog to cheer up any writer feeling overwhelmed by rejection this Holiday Season:

For writers, getting rejected can seem like a pastime. But don’t take my word for it, even though I’ve gotten my share of no-thank-yous. These best-selling authors were rejected, too, and some not very kindly. Editors, publishers and agents have made big errors in judgment, as evidenced by the list of unkind (and sometimes needlessly rude) rejections received by these famous writers. Full post here.

From a Pile of 45s to the Digital Playlist: My History of Music Curation

I miss playing music for other people. Sure, my love of listening to music was a major driving force in seeking a career in the music industry, but for me, music is not only to be received, but also to be shared.

And since I have no great musical talents of my own - despite a year of French horn, the praise of my grandmother during piano lessons, and chorus roles in several high school and college musical theater productions - I can only share other people's music.

Hospitality Among Presenters: Extinct? or Dying? You Decide

Whenever an artist is invited to present work at a venue, there's an opportunity on the part of the presenter for making someone feel special with very little effort. To some presenters this comes naturally. To others, not so much. Here, in random order, are some of the things I feel every presenter, curator, producer or host ought to think about before they invite us to screen, perform, talk or appear.

The Minimal Inflection Approach (M.I.A.) to Acting - I don't get it

There's a style of acting that sprang up about 20 years ago as far as I can tell and I just don't get it. I call it the "Minimal Inflection Approach," or M.I.A. for short because often when watching one of these actors, one has the sense that a part of their soul is just that: M.I.A.

You all know what I'm talking about. They speak their lines in a virtual monotone (i.e.with minimal inflection) and I suppose we are expected to project whatever we like onto them but as far as I can tell, there ain't a lot going on up there. Here are three examples of actors who seem to appear this way in every role they play. Care to expand the list?

Desert Island Discs

It's rare that any of us would ever actually be stranded on a desert island, but for some reason, we humans love to make lists in anticipation of such an event.

This weekend, I am moving into a spare room in an apartment in Astoria, Queens, which - after nine years of living alone in a studio apartment - might as well be a desert island.

I planned to put most of my stuff in storage, and give the rest away, a purging process that has been more than difficult. When choosing what to keep and bring with me, I thought it might be nice to bring my remaining vinyl records and my stereo rack system with turntable. I liked the idea of playing records in Queens, alone in my room, desolate, lonely, longing.

But still, I couldn't put all of my CDs in storage. After 13 years of working in the music industry, and having inherited my father's penchant for record-shopping, I've got a lot of CDs. So I allowed myself to cherry-pick the few discs that I absolutely cannot live without, for however long I will be in that month-to-month living situation in Queens while I look for a job (or a life) elsewhere.

I figured I'd take about 30 discs with me.

Which TV Finale Is Your Favorite?

With LOST giving it up Sunday night in a pop culture gorge-fest, naturally I started to think of other notable finales.

The best, of course, the mother of all final episodes, is MASH. Moving, funny, incredible and sometimes painful (if your heart doesn't break for Hawkeye and the "chicken", you are dead), it rounded out the moving, funny, incredible and sometimes painful (particularly in the last couple seasons when Preachy took over from Funny in the writer's room and minor characters were given major roles too often - there's a reason that some of them were written to be minor - Klinger is only funny/interesting in a dress - out, not so much of either).

Each character got an ending that fit them (such as Charles, who had always been the music snob, could no longer listen to his records without remembering the quartet of musicians who died from a roadside bomb), and nothing felt off or rushed. 

I Am SO 1976

I’ve been looking back at my film commentary for this here blog, and it didn’t surprise me that most of the films I wrote about were not current releases. “So what’s up with that?” you ask.

Here's what’s up with that:

If you don't know about these films, you better have a good excuse, like you were raised by wolves, something like that.

These films are not "the best" but maybe we can call them the most influential, and I don't mean they've influenced other films, but influenced the culture. They've affected the way we speak, see, behave, think, and feel. Sometimes we're aware of it, sometimes we're not; some of them are quoted or referenced so often we've lost touch with the original source.  

Bringing a life to life: the challenges of writing a biographical play.

After seeing the Broadway production of Matthew Lombardo’s Looped the other night, I was struck by how the playwright endeavored to find a fresh approach to the biographical drama in Act One, and then fell into the trap of good old “confession and reconciliation” banality in Act Two, thereby turning a surprisingly entertaining evening into another disappointing attempt at bringing a life to life.

Disparity between Acts is not the sole domain of biographical plays, of course.  Many a great playwright has been stymied by second acts, and it is no small feat that Looped manages to entertain up until the predictable and preposterous confessional climax.  What keeps the play interesting in Act One is Lombardo’s fine and vital sense of comedy and, mainly, Valerie Harper’s brave and bravura turn as the bawdy Tallulah Bankhead.

What a difference the back-story makes!

I went to see a show the other night that I knew nothing about when I walked into the theatre. As we walked home after-wards, I learned a few things about the show that I had just seen. And what I learned completely changed my experience of it. And it got me thinking about context -- how important it is to how we take things in... how it impacts our experiences in ways far beyond our consciousness.

Here are the basic facts, followed by my impressions of elements of the show both BEFORE and AFTER I acquired this new knowledge of its back-story. I've color-coded it for easy reading. The BEFORE in green
and the AFTER in red.

Proof Positive That The World Is About To End

Just when you thought that we might be OK, London's Mail on Sunday came up with The 100 Celebs Who Really Matter and, like all of these lists, it's very subjective of course and since I don't have an idea who the author, Piers Morgan, even is (clearly not one of the "100" even though apparently he's a judge on America's Got Talent - excuse me while I scratch my head and remember that this show is even still on) I'll have to assume (perhaps incorrectly, who knows) that he has some thought in his head and some criteria for this list above and beyond shilling for the people he works for (although, let's look at the number one spot... hmmm Simon Cowell, isn't that his boss on AGT?? Shocker!).