My All-Time Favorite TV Show

Andy Griffith died yesterday, and a piece of America’s collective yesteryear died with him. While he played many characters over his lifetime, the role he will always be associated with is Mayberry Sheriff Andy Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show.

Even though he was hysterically funny (remember him as Will Stockdale in No Time for Sergeants) he chose to play Andy Taylor as the straight man and it was a brilliant move on his part. Don Knotts won five Emmy Awards for his hilarious portrayal of Deputy Barney Fife.

The rest of the cast was stellar, as well, and Ronnie Howard, who played Andy’s son Opie, was probably the best child actor I’ve ever seen.

So what was it about the Andy Griffith show that was so different? Most of my generation enjoyed The Dick Van Dyke Show as much as The Andy Griffith Show, but I don’t know of anyone who ever thought how nice it would be to live in New Rochelle the way we all dreamed of living in the fictional town of Mayberry.

Mayberry was based, in part, on Mount Airy, North Carolina, the town where Andy Griffith grew up. My wife and I have been to Mount Airy twice, and the second time we went we actually spent the night in the house and bedroom where Andy Griffith grew up. It was one of our favorite memories of that vacation.

I’ve attached some photos from our first trip to Mount Airy in 2007. If you ever get the chance to go, I think you’ll enjoy it. In the meantime, you can still watch The Andy Griffith Show almost any day of the week, and most of the time, it’s on several times in the same day. 

  

Movie Review: THE FIGHTER

I’ve been a fan of boxer Micky Ward for years, thanks in large part to his three epic battles with fellow pugilist Arturo Gatti. These two warriors would have made Winston Churchill proud with their “Never give up, Never surrender” style of fighting.

Little did I know all the obstacles Micky’s own family placed on him as his early boxing career languished in the shadow of his popular drug addict half-brother, Dicky Eklund., whose main claim to fame was a flash knockdown of Sugar Ray Leonard in a 1978 bout.

While Mark Wahlberg did a nice job in his portrayal of Micky Ward, it didn’t really test his acting chops as much as his ability to fake/take a few pokes in the chops.

Christian Bale was another matter entirely. I never liked his raspy-voiced take on the Batman character and I thought his performance as John Connor in Terminator Salvation was mediocre. But, I didn’t even recognize him in his first few scenes in The Fighter. Bale completely transformed himself from leading man into the character of Micky Eklund, and I wasn’t at all surprised when he won the 2011 SAG Award for Best Supporting Actor.

Melissa Leo also won as Best Supporting Actress for her sometimes hilarious, and sometimes maddening, performance as Micky Ward’s domineering mother/manager. I suspect that she and Bale will both be tough to beat in the upcoming Academy Awards, just as the real Micky Ward was tough to beat inside the boxing ring.    

When Your Screenplay is Really a Stage Play

The last screenplay I was hired to evaluate had an interesting premise, but the story was told in a series of dialogs, with very little action and too much Q& A.

I recommended that the writer make hundreds of changes or consider redeveloping the story as a stage play, since stage plays tilt more toward telling the story through dialog, while screenplays tend to be more of a visual experience.

Click on the video link below to see an excellent example of visual storytelling. This one-minute commercial contains no dialog, yet it speaks volumes:

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A Grittier True Grit

I like John Wayne movies as much as the next guy, but the only comparison between John Wayne’s Oscar winning 1969 portrayal of Rooster Cogburn in True Grit and the 2010 Coen Brothers version starring Jeff Bridges is that Bridges should also win an Oscar for his interpretation of Rooster Cogburn.  Has the Academy ever awarded an Oscar to two different actors for playing the same role four decades apart?  Did anyone else notice that Bridges and Wayne wore their eye patch on the opposite eye?

The truth is, John Wayne’s 1969 Oscar was not so much in recognition for his portrayal of the one-eyed U.S. Marshal as it was for his overall body of work in nearly half a century in the film business.

Fast-forwarding to 2010, Joel and Ethan Coen have a major hit on their hands with a more faithful rendering of the original Charles Portis novel than the 1969 movie version.  The spotlight is back on Mattie Ross, and actress Hailee Steinfeld left a much more lasting impression in the role than 1969’s Kim Darby. 

Whereas John Wayne’s 1969 Rooster Cogburn was simply an extension of John Wayne (and he’d be the first to tell you so), Jeff Bridges completely channeled a more rough-hewn lawman in his 2010 performance.  From the hand-rolled cigarettes and gravelly voice to the torn and dirty long johns, Bridges BECAME Rooster Cogburn, instead of the other way around. 

A few years ago, I wrote a screenplay with what I thought was a very unique introduction to one of my main characters.  Imagine my delight to see the Coen Brothers introduce Rooster Cogburn using the same device that I had come up with in my script, except now people will think I borrowed the idea from the Coen Brothers if my script goes into production. 

The third character upgrade in 2010 was Matt Damon taking on the Texas Ranger role that Glen Campbell played in 1969.  As an actor, Glen Campbell was a great singer.  In contrast, this was undoubtedly one of Damon’s best characterizations.  Damon had some great scenes, usually with Hailee Steinfeld.

While I haven’t seen the 1969 version of True Grit in a few years, the most memorable scene  for me (for all the wrong reasons) was John Wayne riding his horse, reins clenched between his teeth, guns blazing with both hands as he charged a gang of outlaws.  The reason the scene was memorable was because the Duke was obviously on a mechanical horse. 

This scene is still in the 2010 version, but I didn’t detect a mechanical horse this time around, although it’s possible my eyesight isn’t what it was forty years ago . . .   

Merry Christmas to All

Television Review: Chase (2010)

I really want to like the new NBC series Chase because I have friends who have worked on the show and  I want to see more television shows filmed in the Dallas area.  It already had one strike against it because NBC slotted it against ABC's Castle which is one of my favorite shows over the last couple of seasons.

I caught the pilot episode of Chase during a Saturday night NBC encore presentation and found the thick Texas accents a little too Texan for my tastes.  I also took exception to U.S. Marshal Annie Frost lecturing a new, non-Texan, Deputy Marshal that if he wants to be successful working in Texas he'd better learn more about (Texas) music as it's "the quickest way to see into a person's soul," while another Marshal jokes that the new guy will last "about as long a fly in a frog swamp."  Unfortunately, that's longer than I suspect this show will last on the Peacock Network unless they Forget the Alamo and give it a new slot where it doesn't compete with Castle or CBS's Hawaii Five-O on Monday nights.

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