Tudors cancelled

Well, another show like Smallville has announced its farewell season which is due to launch next year - and which gives fans time to cope with the separation anxiety.  Considerate of them - as it can be traumatic to follow one series, invest yourself emotionally in its characters and storyline, and then find yourself facing the cold grave of cancellation at the end of the journey.  (Think Journeyman.)

This time, Showtime's serise on the loves, lunacies, and lecheries of Henry VIII (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) will just have one more season - its fourth and then no more.  After three seasons which have seen political intrigue that literally rocked nations, split a Church, sent sinners and saints to the gallows, and women and wives changed as if the young lusty king were changing wardrobes, the producers are calling it quits.

It's not because of ratings - The Tudors still brings in 1 million viewers each episode.  But it is costly to produce - given its resplendent recreation of 16th century England. This is the era when monarchs rule with almost absolute power and the will of the people and their rights aren't on the agenda.

Still, Henry's reign won't end abruptly.  In just that remaining season of ten episodes, producers will have to squeeze in the state of affairs that shook England as he took his last two wives.  Tudors season 4 won't be pretty - the producers have described it as Henry VIII's descent into madness.

It's the kind of stuff that TVdom will try to resurrect.  According to the grapevine, the network is looking at a modern re-telling of the Borgias, a Sicilian ruling family of  corrupt popes and byzantine blackmailing  that makes Henry's reign look like a family squabble.

Season 3:



Season 4, the last of the Tudors:

Cancelled U.S. shows

Lost isn't the only fan favorite that will be saying its goodbye to its faithful fanbase.  There are a few others which aren't just popular or long-running but set the bar higher for what became golden television.

Law and Order, which rivals (and started earlier than) CSI when it came to series-franchies building, will finally have its last perp arrested, its last case tried, and its last debate between idealistic prosecutor and hardened cops finally argued.  After 20 years and a series of cast changes, it is time to finally say goodbye.  My own favorite incarnation of Law and Order has Assistant D.A. Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston) hammering away against criminals at the dock while providing a moral fulcrum to his team amidst the political and legal storms surrounding them.

Fortunately, Law and Order is survived by the indomitable Law and Order:  Special Victims Unit, which has the dynamic duo of Stabler (Christopher Meloni) and Benson (Marita Hargitay) tag-teaming to bring pedophiles, rapists, snuff artists, and other perverse wackoes to justice.

After 8 life-threatening ordeals, each happenign witin the span of 24 hours, one-man army Jack Bauer (Kiefer Sutherland) is finally calling it quits.  After seeing his wife murdered, his best friend die in the line of duty, another best friend turn traitor, who can blame him?  The producers of 24 said they wanted to quit while they were ahead - but we can't just write off Jack yet.

He'll continue to fight terrorists, but this time in 24 adaptations for the big screen.  Not sure how they can squeeze real-time drama in just 2 hours, but I'm fine with it.  Anything to see Jack back in fighting form.



And while Smallville is returning for the tenth season, the producers have said it'll be their last - and hopefully their best.  I can understand the logic here.  We've seen the evolution of Clark Kent since the series introduced him first to us as an insecure kid trying to hide a big screen.  We've seen him grow more comfortable with his powers, create a network of his own super-powered allies, stared evil in the face time and again, outgrew Lana Lang to fall in love with Lois Lane, balanced his twin lives between adopted Earth farm boy and Kryptonian prince. 

Now all he needs to do is don the famous-red-and-blue to become Superman as this famous fan manipulation shows.

Smallville's tenth season finale is a show not to miss.  We've waited long enough.

Lost finale spoilers

If you don't know what to know what happened in the U.S. showing of Lost's finale episode, STOP reading now.

I'm just posting this for my own sanity as well as for others like me who live on the other side of the world - and will probably wait months before we can catch this on live TV.

I won't post the spoilers in detail - just the few big ones that matter. 

HERE WE GO.   SPOILERS OF THE LOST FINALE.













Jack dies. Yes, our beloved idealistic doctor bites the bullet. But he does so heroically, with Kate's help, saving his friends and the island from....\

The Black Smoke monster who incarnated using Locke's body or probably imitated it.

The island still needs a caretaker - and Hurley volunteers.

There is a grand reunion at the end - and based on the posts I've read, it's one touching moment where everyone gathers because all of them has to  move on....

Why?  Because the island is an alternative universe where souls of the dead have to redeem themselves before they are allowed passage to their next phase in the afterlife (reincarnation, Heaven, Hell, take your pick...)

I'll still watch it - because of the emotional pay-off and none of the words i say here or you read in other sites will capture the emotional and dramatic power of the finale where everyone finally comes to grips with who they are and what they had been experiencing all this time.

How did the producers promote the season 6 finale? 

Destiny.

Indeed.

Lost questions I want answered - in the Lost finale

After 6 seasons, Lost is finally calling it quits - and that while it's still ahead, while its ratings continue to skyrocket, and while it remains one of the most popular shows on TV with a cult following that rivals TV legends like Star Trek.  Expect slam-dunk ratings for the Lost finale.

More than just a TV hit, prestigious publications like Time Magazine have labeled it a groundbreaker, a show that broke all boundaries and revolutionzed the industry with an idea - namely that science-fiction, serials, mythology, psychology, and iconic references to other popular phenomenon can draw in a huge number of *thinking* audience week in and week out.

Honestly, after season 3, Lost lost me. I couldn't undertsand anymore why there were flash-forwards or how some of the Oceania 12 finally were rescued and that, a few months later, they felt the compulsion to go back because it "was their destiny."  I also didn' have a clue as to why the island disappeared and why creepy Ben felt it a duty to hurl the entire island down a time-space continuum.

But one thing I did notice is that, everytime I caught the show on cable, I'd be drawn in by the questions that these impossible situations posed.  And that, no matter how long a time had transpired since I saw my last episode, the characters still mattered to me.  Seriously.  More important than the origin of the island, I wanted to know who Kate would end up with; if the Korean couple would reunite; would Sawyer finally escape his past;  and who would finally win as leader of the castaways, John or Jack? 

The characters stranded on that mysterious island were ensnared in a web of past bad decisions - and they had to find redemption.  And that was the heart of the show, not the Dharma Group, or Ben's Wizard-of-Oz shenanigans.

Still, having said that, there are questions I'd like the producers to answer during the Lost finale:

1.   Why exactly did the Dharma Group settle on the island?  What experiemnts were they conducting?
2.   Is the island even vaguely alive?  How did they choose the 'castaways' who crashed on its shores?
3.  What's this thing about Jacob and his twin?
4.  Why did everyone had to go back to their past?
5.  Why was it important for the main charaters to see glimpses of their alternate realities?

And of course, who lives, who dies, and who finally goes home?

And what happens to that freaking island???

Jollibee in Glee, Ewoks speak Tagalog

By now, almost every Pinoy on the planet must have heard about or seen Jollibee's facade accidentally (or maybe not) providing a background to a dance number in Glee, the U.S. pseudo-musical series that is a virtual spin-off of High School Musical.

Reminds me of other - and grimmer - scenes when a Filipino was caught accidentally or betaryed his nationality unintentionally (and sometimes weirdly) in other U.S. shows.

Probably the most recent one is Constantine, the Keanu Reeve vehicle of a demon-fighter who has a beef against both Heaven and Hell.  In the first few minutes into the movie, the title character walks into a shack to portray an exorcism on a brown-skinned illegal alien.  Turns out - as the poor possesed lady was able to spurt out a few words of her own - that the demonic prey is a Filipino. The Tagalog words that came out of her mouth which Constantine couldn't understand was proof enough. 

Then there's an episode in Banged Abroad, National Geographic's re-enactment of true-to-life stories of First World citizens spending years in the harshest prisons in other countries either because they were framed or were caught in doing something illegal.  In one episode, one such Aussie was framed and had to spend a decade in a Mexican American jail.  The locals and actual prison looked convincing enough - until the main character had to be rushed out of his cell and into the clinic as he was suffering critical wounds from an assault.  Then you hear the other characters - the nurses, the doctors, the other prisoners - yelling in Tagalog (not Mexican) to either run for help, clear the way, or pray for the dying man.

True enough, when the end credits rolled, acknowledgment was given to a certain prison located in Rizal.  The prison scenes were obviously shot in the Philippines, not Mexico - and nobody bothered to check that the real-life prison personnel who were doubling as actors should speak in Mexican, not Tagalog.

Then there's the now classic story of a few Ewoks (remember them?) muttering Tagalog complaints in Return of the Jedi. First time I saw this as a college student in a movie house in the 1980s, my friends and I froze.  Imagine underneath all that murmuring, a few clear Tagalog sentences came out - no, they weren't mistakes that were mumbles, they were Tagalog spoken consciously and clearly:  "Ayun, puno daw ito!"  "Ay, ang ganda!'   Translation:  "Hey, this is supposed to be a tree!" "It's cute!"

Methinks there were a couple of Pinoy extras cast in Lucasland.

Check this out:

Why Heroes was cancelled

According to the latest news from Hollywood, the superhero series Heroes was cancelled for two reasons: a) low ratings (a good enough reason to pull the plug) and b) high costs. 

So...what happened?  How can the show which was on everyone's must-see list only four seasons ago was given the shaft?  How can the series be cut in mid-stride and leave forever unresolved the fates of such unforgettable charactesrs as the mutant cannibal Sylar, the self-righteous human spy Noah Bennett, the quirky time-traveller Hiro, and the conflicted clan of the Petrellis who was responsible for setting up the stage for the creation and proliferation of these super-powered outcasts?

Like the Manny Villar ads, it's too much of a good (or bad) thing.  The Heroes storyline got more lost than Lost (another show by its producers, btw) when it got obsessed with building and rebuilding the world and origins of these mutants to the point that the structure became a labyrinth which confused the readers with its twists and turns?

True, the storyline on a world gone bad after one mutant screwed up in the first season was disturbing - and compelling.  Who could forget the episode where angelic Peter finally became kick-ass and nuked it out with Sylar in a life-or-death battle?

But the producers kept milking that storyline for all its worth.  We kept going back to a dark future that's either incinerated by a nuclear holocaust, or devastated by a plague.  And it's always a world where mutants or people with powers are hunted down, killed, or thrown like cattle in concentration camps.

If I keep mentioning mutants, it's not accidental - there's a lot that Heroes has borrowed from X-Men including that alternative universe which always ends in mutants (ok, people with powers) being treated with the Final Solution. 

It became tiring.  And the producers were so focused on this grim tale that they forgot why Heroes clicked in the first place - it was the optimism of the show, the delightful discovery that a cheerleader or a simple male nurse can suddenly realize her immortality or his capability to adopt the abilties of others?  It was Mr. Joe-becoming-Superman that made Heroes a fun show to watch.  That was why it was called Heroes.

By third season, the optimism was gone - and the people with powers were just on the run for survival.  And the audience (like me) stopped tuning in. 

Station ID

What's in a logo - or a name?

Our friends in advertising will say it's everything - it has to be the perfect (as much as you can make it) represenation of your company's identity, objectives, mission, personality.

But sometimes, without totally changing the logo, a company can just fine-tune it a bit, modernize it, make it trendy to reach an entirely new generation.  Remember when National Book Store changed its logo - and notice now how venerable, redoubtable BPI is making theirs brighter, lighter, sunnier?

The same applies to cable channels.  Without going much into images, chances are a channel's name will or should embody the kind of shows it brings to its audience.  Cable channels, after all, is about niche entertainment - it offers one paricular, specialized genre in all its many varieties in just one number; this is what separates it from free-for-all free TV.

Just take a rundown of your favorite channels:

AXN - action at its best                         

HBO - box-office movies right where you live

History Channel - it's about the lessons taught us in all the events that transpired through the ages

Velvet - sleeky, stylish, naughty, the kind of entertainment that you'd like to watch before you go to sleep and carry with you in your dreams.

Crime and Investgiation - it's self-explanatory

And yes, cable channels have to reinvent themselves, too.  Cinemax had already carved a notorious name as the hub of B-movies and forgettable thrillers until it re-branded itself as Maxx! for maximum entertainment and enjoyment.

Sci-fi Channel, too, captured the niche audience of lovers of specualtive shows until its own archaic programming (old series, TV movies, grade Z sci-fi films) killed it and its competition went to AXN Beyond.  To be upfront, I was one of the few who anxiously waited for Sci-fi Channel to make its debut in Philippine airwaves  -  only to be disappointed with its paltry offerings.

The weakness must also have been present in the other overseas branches of Sci-Fi Channel.  It just re-booted itself a few months ago to call itself Sy Fy - intimating that it's more hip, dynamic, enterprising, inventive, and with a name like that, supposedly pushes is boundaries.

What's in a name, right?

American presidents on film

U.S. presidents, to be exact. Taking a breather from our own electoral exercise that recently spawned a debate on the use of political ads, here's a rundown on how the American president has been portrayed in various ways on celluloid.

The American President (1995), directed by Rob Reiner.  Politics takes a back seat as widowed and extremely popular President Andrew Shephard (played by a dashing Michael Douglas) falls for and courts a very liberal and independent environmental advocate (Annette Benning).  The bad guy in this movie is a Republican senator (Richard Dreyfuss) who pounces on the budding romance to criticize Shephard for his supposed lack of morality.  What the president is guilty of is indecision - which his speech writer (Michael Fox) points out to him in an impassioned speech that almost steals the thunder away from Douglas' charm and touching resolve.

Air Force One (1997), directed by Wolfgang Petersen. Your American president can't get more heroic than this. Harrison Ford's President James Marshall is a war veteran, an enemy of terrorism, and a devoted husband and father. So when his titular plane is hijacked, he stays on the plane to rescue his family hostaged by Russian terrorists led by Gary Oldman. Naturally, he saves the rest of the passengers as well. Yet for all of Marshall's kick-ass moves, the most memorable scene in the movie was played by an unnamed fighter pilot - he literally takes the bullet for his Chief Executive by using his weaponless plane to shield Air Force One against a barrage of missiles that enemy aircraft had launched against it.

Frost / Nixon (2008), directed by Ron Howard  - this is as real as it can get.  Frank Langella in an award-nominated performance does the amazing job of humanizing former President Richard Nixon, portraying him as a shrewd, ambitious leader far from the buffoon that everyone caricatured him to be, and yet driven by his own demons to make ethically questionable decisions.  The other person in the title is British broadcaster David Frost (Michael Sheen) who initially starts out as a journalistic joke - the buffoon, actually - but facing public humiliation and the crash of his own career, transforms into the broadcaster who, on live TV, does the one thing that none of his more respectable peers acheived:  force Nixon publicly to admit his complicity and accountability in the disaster that was Watergate.

Tagline for movies on TV

Sometimes, it's the tagline that gets you - next to the image in the poster, and prior to watching the trailer.  Granted that this happens during the advertisement of the movie and way before it gets filtered into cable.  But the tagline remains.  And makes you remember the movie with enough fondness to schedule yourself for a viewing when it finally airs on cable.

The best taglines are the ones that are real - that actually live up to the hype surrounding the film.  More important, they capture the heart of the film.  They are what the film is about.

Now from an old science-fiction classic that revolutionized the genre for cinema way back in 1979:

"In space, no one can hear you scream."  - Alien (how could you, with those monsters jumping for your throat before you even make a sound...    

Then, Superman (1978)..."You'll believe a man can fly!" Back then, the late, great Christopher Reeve soaring through a cinematic canvas, strapped on wires, was state-of-the-art special effects.

And when ghosts raid your house..."Who you gonna call?"  The Ghostbusters, of course (1984).

Tom Hanks radios, "Houston, we have a problem..." and everyone is on edge watching to see if Apollo 13 (1995)  will land or burn through the stratosphere.

And of course, the famous prelude to a cosmic saga that has been parodied ad nauseam:  Star Wars' (1977) "A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away..."   

Dance scenes in dance movies

Stumbled into Step Up 2:  The Streets (2008) on cable Holy Thursday.  It's a little-known probably direct-to-video film that is actually quite good.  Sure, it's a typical boy-meets-girl story, with both coming from opposite ends of the track (he's rich and comes from a classical ballet family, and she's poor and literally dance on the streets), but it's done so well and so sincerely that you can't help but buy into the success-against-all-odds plot. School expulsion and old-gang ostracism notwithstanding, Andie and Chase create their own dance crew, challenge the powers that be on both the high and low roads, and end up winners.  And, yes, they get accepted back into the school.

Here's the video of their final dance:



Admittedly, I haven't kept up with all the versions of High School Musical, but the physically challenged aspect of me (I'd flunk gym class in high school and metaphoricaly speaking, had my shoes stuck somewhere as illustrated in this ad)  likes watching cinematic dance scenes over and over.  Here're a few of my favorites:

Dance as a form of combat in a gang war had its cinematic roots to as far back as West Side Story in 1961 where rival Poles and Mexicans duke it out in a community ball. The Romeo and Juliet plot also didn't allow for a happy ending:



Street dance crashing into the ballet school scene was made famous by Jennifer Beals in Flashdance (1983):



And when Kevin Bacon at first found his dance freedom restricted in a town scared by rock and roll, he let off steam in this famous scene in Footloose (1984):



And the solo dance scene to end all others which had John Travolta's simple paint store clerk transforming into the King of Disco in Saturday Night Fever (1977):



The underground dance scene finally comes out with a bang in safe, staid middle America in Dirty Dancing (1987) which had critics raving that Patrick Swayze had out-Travolta'd Travolta.  I'm afraid you have to Youtube it as the site has disabled all embedments upon someone's request.

Now here's what happens when someone from the establishment (Antonio Banderas) goes out of his comfort zone, teaches a group of bright hungry kids classical tango, and then merges it with their hip hop in Take the Lead (2007):



It doesn't have to be all combative and competitve as Gene Kelly does his showstopper in the now-classic Singing in the Rain (1952):

Movies I will watch this Holy Week

To get in touch with their Lord or inner spirituality during Holy Week, some people go church-hopping, others get themselves literally nailed to a cross, and a few more go on a public or private retreat.

Me, if I can't do the last activity (and it's been years), I re-watch a few beloved movies:

Jesus of Nazareth - IMO, the best movie of Jesus Christ of all time.  It's been more than 30 years and the six-hour mini-series still holds up to today and stands scrutiny.  It takes a few dramatic liberties (e.g. Peter the fisherman wants to brawl with Matthew the tax-collector) and skips out on Herod's encounter with the Lord, but under Franco Zeffirelli's masterful hand, the Gospel is brought to life dramatically and powerfully.  The characters in them are humanized and made to act like flesh-and-blood human beings with their own motives and doubts, causing them to act as cowards one moment, and heroes the next.  Each shot carries a sense of grandeur and there are some scenes that, when freeze-frozen, looks like a painting (e.g. when Jesus calls Peter a rock and that He must build His church); to date, the only movie I've seen that comes close is Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings:  The Two Towers (think of Gandalf's last-minute rescue at Helms Deep).

Of course, Jesus of Nazareth can't be mentioned without acknowledging the contribution of Robert Powell, who is the only actor who portryed that role as humanity and divinity personified.  As Zeffirelli acknowledged when he cast Powell, it was the eyes that sold the actor on him.  Eyes that saw everything, were infinitely compassionate, and at the same time seemed to beckon with the promise of eternity.  Nowin his late 60s, Powell says that he portrayed Jesus (he was then in his mid-30s) as millions believed him to be.  Good job, Robert - your act remains untopped,  the challenges of Mel Gibson and the most recent BBC passion play notwithstanding.

Les Miserables - the Tenth Anniversary Dream Cast in Concert:  Sure, it's set in revolutionary France and the entire three-hour performance is sung in costume, but Cameron Mackintosh's award-winning musical theatrical rendition of Victor Hugo's novel makes very real the power of faith and forgiveness in a society wracked by rebellion, anger, discontent, and institutional injustice.  I've seen other more cinematic versions of Les Mis (e.g. the Liam Neeson version), but  nobody can replace Colm Wilkinson and Philip Quast as Valjean and Javert in my mind.

Beyond the Gates:  Based on real-life accounts of the Rwandan massacre.  What would you do if you were this British priest (played by John Hurt) who, after serving the mission field and educating the Rwandans for more than 30 years, finally find yourself in the middle of a tribal genocide - your only option is to either get away and go back to England (supported by a UN more than willing to help you) or stand with the Africans whom you loved and get hacked to them into pieces by their machete-wielding enemies?  It's a dilemma that leaves no easy answers and defies anyone to cast judgment.  John Hurt's Fr. Christopher was all-too human and yet showed remarkable grace under pressure.

Chariots of Fire:  The lifestory of Eric Liddell  (played by the late Ian Charleson), who before consecrating himself as a Scottish missionary in China (and dying in a prison camp there in the 1950s) ran for the U.K in the Olympics in the 1920s.  He ran for his country and his God - and when there was a conflict, God won out.  His last race at the end was simply inspirational.  So were his quiet sharings to a crowd of followers and his preaching at the pulpit.

Green movies

Nope, I don't mean the prurient or the lurid. 'Green' in these global-warming days, when doomsayers would have you believe that the end of the world will come crashing down on us in 2012, means theme or a message that promotes environmental awareness and ecological responsibility.

Undoubtedly, James Cameron's Avatar is the first movie to come in mind when it comes to this subject. It's provocative enough to make you re-examine your commitment to preserving the ozone layer, but if you really want a shock to the system and something closer to him, brace yourself for the aptly titled An Inconvenient Truth. Then there was an episode of History Channel's Mega Disasters which showed in horrific detail what would happen say our present sea levels were to rise 1-3 inches in a couple of years' time: my mind still reels at the images of a London half-submerged in a flood that makes Ondoy look like a stream and a blazing heat that leaves the once sunny California a withered desert.

And if all that still does not disturb you, watch Soylent Green,, a apocalyptic yarn that names the ultimate price that neglectful man must pay for abusing his environment. The extinction of animals and the devastation of the forests process corpses into packaged food, turning mankind into unwitting cannibals.

No greater indictment and punishment is there of man's irresponsibility than the hero, detective Charlton Heston's, anguished cry, "Soylent green [the processed food that is delivered to the masses]....is people."

Movie inspiration

I know that most of us watch the movies occasionally to de-stress or escape from the doldrums of life, but a long time ago, in college when Betamax rewinds were too screechy and a very good memory came in handy, I did so to find some kind of inspiration. Seriously. I needed a lift, an encouragement that came in the form of a line, a visage, or a thematic idea. Those images were boosters that sparked something in my soul and triggered my creativity. I didn't come up with anything earthshaking but the images were enough to chase away any self-pity and prompted me to reach for something higher by thinking hard, exploring the untrod road, and digging in deep to work even harder.

Just a few favorite cinematic lines/images from my college moviewatching that have lodged in my grey matter up to today and emerge once in a while when I need something to chase the shadows away:

Brother Sun Sister Moon (1972): St. Francis' (Graham Faulkner) dramatic declaration of his faith and renouncing all things worldly in the town square, in front of his family, their businessmen friends, and the powerful clergy.

Chariots of Fire (1981): Who could forget Eric Liddell's (Ian Charleson) triumphant race in the Olympics with a voice-over that could have been corny but wasn't ("God made me for a purpose. He also made it fast. When I run, I feel his pleasure.")

Fiddler on a Roof (1972): The classic songs of this musical about a Jewish family coming to terms with change in Russia of the 1900s were alternately fun, rollicking, solemn, moving, and always provocative ("Sunrise, Sunset," "If I Were a Rich Man," "Sabbath Prayer").

Jesus Christ Superstar (1972): Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice's portrayal of a Messiah who battled against his doubts in the shadow of a looming crucifixion amidst breaking dawn and the darkness of Gethsemane.

Judgment at Nuremberg (1961): The riveting court scenes when a Supreme Court Judge, whose integrity has always been deemed impeccable, is tried with his more corrupt peers by the Allies in post-WW2 Germany as a guilt-ridden nation comes to terms with the Holocaust.

Spartacus (1960): An army of freed slaves rises up one by one, volunteering to take the place of their leader Spartacus (KIrk Douglas) about to be crucified by the Romans.

Looking at this list now, I am struck by the single irony that most of them, if not all, have religious themes. I may be a Christian now, but back then, when I was still creating my Betamax collection, I was a full-blown, Ayn-Rand-chomping, dedicated atheist. Go figure.

A journalist's crusade

Good Night and Good Luck, George Clooney's directorial debut of how crusading journalist Edward R. Murrow went head-on and won against the witch hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, is a must-watch for any of us who have contemplated becoming a member of the press, print or broadcast. A bit of a background: The power-hungry (and some say crazy) McCarthy used Americans' fear of Communism to indict and cast aspersions (on a national level at that) on individuals and groups he suspected of loyalty to the Red cause. This happened in the post-WW2 era when the U.S., standing for democracy, and U.S.S.R, representing totalitarianism, were in race to become the leader of the world. Anyone that McCarthy ranted against - regardless of his innocence - was immediately branded a Red, and was immediately ostracized by the world around him; even if he were spared jail, he could lose his job, his social standing, his reputation, his circle of friends.

It was against this abuse that the tough-as-nails Murrow launched his campaign against. Murrow (played by David Straithairn) rightly deduced that it was this tyranny and the abuse of power that free, clear-thinking, courageous citizens must denounce. Though Murrow was at the peak of his popularity, his one TV show could not hope to stand against the arsenal of the government - and worse, the advertisers of his show who would pull out if Murrow becomes too outspoken.

Murrow's boss, the head of CBS (played by Frank Langella), struck a delicate but firm balance on the divide between the responsibilities of honest, dedicated journalism and the pragmatic concerns of the TV station which just might close under the onslaught.

Needless to say, Murrow won - and McCarthy fell from grace. But the price that the journalist - and his station - paid was steep. Yet in his last speech before an audience, Murrow cautions that the war was far from over. His last lines are unforgettable and serves as a warning to those who take their freedom - and the freedom of the press - for granted.

Tempted by the Temptations

Why I'd watch over and over this TV-movie whenever I'd catch it in Hallmak about a decade ago is still a mystery to me up to now. The Temptations was never my favorite group. Sure, I liked some of its songs but they were never in my personal Top 40. Given a stack of CDs or VCDs, I'd grab those of the Jacksons or the Bee Gees/Andy Gibb over this Motown musical group any time. I wasn't even familiar with any of their cast of characters and their stories, as I was with John, Paul, George, and Ringo, for example.

But still I watched. Didn't matter whether I caught the movie at the beginning, middle or the end. Maybe because it was just a well-made TV movie of the rise and fall of one of the most popular bands in its era (the 1960s) who revolutionized the music industry then by catapulting one hit after another into the charts from an African-American group, unheard of at that time. Maybe it was the writing that deftly captured the evolution and later devolution of eager young singers who reached for their dreams only to crash and burn. Maybe it was the strong bond of friendship of the two founders that layered the emotional stampede in the film, giving it heart and soul.

I'd never had that kind of experience again - wherein I'd drop everything at the broadcast of a TV movie about a cast of characters that were not exactly known to me. In that sense, this TV movie of The Temptations is a first for me and, still, a mystery.

Just a snippet of thought on Jerry Maguire

It's one of the few Tom Cruise movies I can bring myself to watch (I deplored his peacock-like posturing in Top Gun and hated his self-serving travesty of a remake that was the first Mission: Impossible film. And the one reason I watch Jerry Maguire is because of its story, not the star, and its play on redemption. In the fast-moving world of sports giants and their agents, you harden your heart and play hard or you lose your one shot at fame and fortune. The titular character, played by Cruise, is one such sports agent who found himself laughed at and ostracized when he tried to bring back ethics, integrity, and all those forgotten values back.

In a world where the real person and the brand get intermixed and become almost inseparable, Jerry Maguire tries to find his soul. And that, at least for me, is what makes it most appealing.

Pirates of Silicon Valley

Pirates, raiders, thieves, robber barons...with no honest bone in their body.

Yikes! Warning to all admirers of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates - the 1999 movie, Pirates of Silicon Valley, which freqently crops up in HBO, portrays these idols of millions of the Apple and Explorer generation in a totally unflattering light.

True, the movie depicts them both as driven, ambitious, eager to create their own new world - but that's just the problem that supposedly lies at the core of each man: everything else is secondary, and woe to everyone who gets in the way. Jobs' daughter is portrayed as a casualty (although the film acknowledges at the end that he eventually played loving father). Noah Wylie lets go of his aw-shucks charm to portray Jobs as a narcissistic genius who dismisses his men on a whim. Anthony Michael Hall's Bill Gates isn't an improvement, either - he's a whiny nerd who just wants to copy and "pirate" whatever it is that Jobs is doing.

So much for innovation. Granted that the movie can become a guilty pleasure of a tabloid TV movie that lets you in on the depraved weaknesses of today's gods...but still, there has to be more to these men. Wasn't there anything that the movie could have portrayed of the inner light in Bill Gates that decades later, would show him as an altruist donating his fortune to countless unfortunates? Or the strength of character that saw Jobs sustain - and triumph over - several bouts of cancer?

Nope, the definitive movie on these two tech giants still has to be made. I, for one, would like some meat on the plate in the new version, something that would show the heart, soul, and spirit that gave birth to the Internet era.

Gates and Jobs were probably the first software millionnaie entrepreneurs - they won't be the last. And if only for that, I'd really like to see an honest cinematic depiction of them (and not a homage, mind you).

This film just keeps knocking them down, and the tongue-in-cheek approach doesn't really help in getting the bile out of your mouth.

One supposedly revelatory scene SPOILER SPACE is that Jobs supposedly stole the concept of the mouse, one of the revolutionary tools introduced by Apple, from Xerox. Yup, it made me think...and wonder...and wonder a lot. But I'd also have to ask: how long can an empire last if its foundations and subsequent pillars were built on stolen loot? Not for long. It would have imploded as soon as it started. Last I heard, Gates was still giving away millions to charity as the #2 richest man in the world. And in one board meeting, Jobs announced that Apple had a SURPLUS of $40 billion just lying around.

TV, Cable, and all that jazz

In this age of laptops, YouTubes, and downloadable films, cable TV remains a favorite (if not constant) companion. It's the upper that sometimes gets me out of bed in the morning, the escape window that pulls me out of my funk, and the lullaby that soothes me to sleep at night. Maybe it's the images, the cacophony of sound and sight - whatever it is, it connects to the inside of my brain and snaps me back into life. (Whereas my favorite books would take some time to ferment, and I'd have to find a way to quiet down.)

All the charges of TV making you a passive couch potato still stand - however, I'd like to think that the shows, especially the ones in cable TV, compel you to interact, if not necessarily think. Why'd you think reality shows became a hit the past decade, since Survivor made its classic debut? All of a sudden, the audience is invited to participate, critique, yell, bet on their favorite idol - even if they are being drowned in entertainment.

Not all of it is mindless. Just check the channels of History and Discovery where you get a different interpretation of how the West was won, or how Asia's version of the Titanic took place tragically in our own shores and in one of our own vessels. Or you get a modern re-imagining of Superman that finally makes all those comic book stories make sense. Let's not forget how Jerry Bruckheimer brought the discipline and larger-than-life sense of cinema into his own TV shows, effectively making one-hour movies of series like CSI.

In the mood for nostalgia on a Sunday, that's what MGM is for - they have a lot of 1980s movies. Or the black-and-white Mission Impossible and Combat on MAXX.

And once in a great while, you stumble on an intellectual gem like Kings which re-enacts the Biblical story of David, Saul, and Samuel amidst the strife, political and religous intrigue and modern day machinery of the 21st century.

Sure, I don't get to watch all my favorite shows, but then again that's what DVDs are for.