tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post110559280470971631..comments2024-03-24T13:26:57.317-07:00Comments on Sergio Leone and the Infield Fly Rule: PUTTING ON MY (SANDRA) OH FACEDennis Cozzaliohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01954848938471883431noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1106765109360059002005-01-26T10:45:00.000-08:002005-01-26T10:45:00.000-08:00Ah! I had forgotten about her parenting skills......Ah! I had forgotten about her parenting skills...you are right, the movie is rich. One thing I'm grateful for is that here's a female Asian character who's a complex human being, not a noble stereotype or any kind of stereotype. Remembering how multidimensional the character is puts the beating-up scene in perspective for me a bit; they haven't tried to make her completely likable, after all. It does make me uncomfortable when I think how many people in the theatre expressed happiness when she beat the daylights out of him, and I can't say I wasn't one of them. Thanks for furthering this interesting conversation! Mr. Bay Area P.C. (AKA Bruce).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1106764154529092622005-01-26T10:29:00.000-08:002005-01-26T10:29:00.000-08:00Bruce: I think an ambiguous response to Oh's chara...Bruce: I think an ambiguous response to Oh's character's outrage is appropriate, given that she's basically not used a lot of common sense up to that point in assessing just how much she's being played by this guy. She's horny, so is he, and given the brief glimpses we get into her parenting philosophy (pot smoking with strangers in the living room while the child is left to her own devices) it's not too much to imagine that, regardless of the quality of the rest of her character, her judgment may not be the best when sex is thrown into the mix. So yeah, we know that Church's Jack is a softie who's trying to talk himself out of a looming major commitment that he's completely unsure of, and he's a shithead to boot whose mainly out to, as he puts it, get his bone smooched, so that gets us on her side and lets those feelings of righteous fury play a lot better than they would if, as you say, the roles were reversed. But it's simpleminded and wrong to think of this situation as simply an innocent woman wronged and how she stands up for herself, and I appreciate your bringing up a slightly different angle on the scene that my Sandra Oh love may have let me gloss over. That slight shadow on the scene makes the movie richer, I think.Dennis Cozzaliohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01954848938471883431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1106762736642265882005-01-26T10:05:00.000-08:002005-01-26T10:05:00.000-08:00At the risk of sounding like my father-in-law, wha...At the risk of sounding like my father-in-law, what if the Sandra Oh character had been a man who screwed a woman the first day he met her, although the woman was clearly a player, and the man fell totally in love with the woman in the course of a few days, only to find out that his new love was actually about to get married at the end of the week? I wonder how satisfied we'd all feel when the wronged man showed up and beat the woman to a bloody pulp with his motorcycle helmet. I know well that men much more often beat (and kill) women than the other way around, and so of course things are not at all equal--nonetheless it bothered me that I was initially satisfied with her vengeance. Anyway, Sandra Oh did a smashing job, so to speak, in the role, and she has star quality if ever I've seen it. --BruceAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1106353445276407142005-01-21T16:24:00.000-08:002005-01-21T16:24:00.000-08:00"Yoru" equals "your," wise-ass. There! I got to it..."Yoru" equals "your," wise-ass. There! I got to it before you did!<br /><br />Yoru buddy, DennisDennis Cozzaliohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01954848938471883431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1106353030059576182005-01-21T16:17:00.000-08:002005-01-21T16:17:00.000-08:00Thank you, Mr. Stoogeking, for your bracing boilin...Thank you, Mr. Stoogeking, for your bracing boiling-down of my article to its most salient point. I couldn't agree more. (I'm going to refrain from commenting on yoru sexual history, though...)Dennis Cozzaliohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01954848938471883431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1106351406177251212005-01-21T15:50:00.000-08:002005-01-21T15:50:00.000-08:00I had my first sexual encounter with an Asian. The...I had my first sexual encounter with an Asian. They do rock.Stoogekinghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07053607100563940772noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1105735133470314732005-01-14T12:38:00.000-08:002005-01-14T12:38:00.000-08:00Sharon/Anonymous: Yeah, as much as I long for Sand...Sharon/Anonymous: Yeah, as much as I long for Sandra Oh to get more recognition/attention/bigger parts, I also long for Alison Janney to get the chance to be as funny (and strangely sexy) on screen again as she was in "Ten Things I Hate About Her," in which she played the beleagured principal of Julia Stiles' high school, who hinted rather hilariously at some odd sexual proclivities throughout the course of her (naturally) small role. Oh did a similar turn, though without the curdled innuendo, in "The Princess Diaries," so the parallels may be even more than I at first recalled. The danger with someone like Oh getting the bigger parts is that the larger the role, the more homogenized the Holywood system is likely to insist it/she becomes, so she runs the risk of becoming a higher-profile, less-interesting actress. But just as I couldn't imagine any director not wanting her in his/her movie, I have a hard time imagining that vibrant sensibility being so easily tamped down. I wish her well with "Grey's Anatomy." <br /><br />Also: Did you encounter anything strange in accessing my blog this morning? Sometime yesterday afternoon I, and several others, noticed that each time we clicked on the address to go to the site, we were denied access and instead directed to a pop-up window that asked if we cared to download a file which had the blog address as its name. The IT guy here at the office was able to determine that the file is not a virus, but we remain unsure as to exactly what it is. My Blogger support staff have been notified, and I'm assuming that, if you posted today, you had no trouble logging on. I hope this is true, and maybe that means my problems are being fixed. Throughout the troubles I've been able to log on to post comments, but each time I try to view the blog I'm blocked out by that damned pop-up. I'll e-mail you and see if you had any trouble. For anyone else who happens to be reading this, I'd be interested to know if you had any trouble logging onto the site yesterday (Thursday 1/13) or today (Friday 1/14). Thanks!Dennis Cozzaliohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01954848938471883431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1105733857891989612005-01-14T12:17:00.000-08:002005-01-14T12:17:00.000-08:00Sharon again. Don't know what I did to make my na...Sharon again. Don't know what I did to make my name appear in the last post, but I can't figure out how to do it again, so I'm anonymous!<br /><br />The main character in Grey's Anatomy (can't remember he name so let's call her Betty) is a medical intern who is the daughter of a legendary female doctor. Sandra Oh plays another intern who is resentful/suspicious/pissy about Betty’s presence in the intern program, believing that Betty has had everything handed to her while Sandra has worked her ass off to get where she is. As I said, the pilot was great. Haven't heard how the subsequent episodes have progressed.<br /><br />As for Alison J, you're right that TWW has sucked up all her time and obviously made it hard for her to do other work. The curse of the one-hour drama strikes again!<br /><br />I, too, watched the pilot of House thanks to a DVD I got in a magazine (in my case, Entertainment Weekly). Liked it but haven’t had occasion to watch it since.<br /><br />Dennis’ top ten list! Whoo-hoo! Can’t wait!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1105651231445601812005-01-13T13:20:00.000-08:002005-01-13T13:20:00.000-08:00I'm glad for any benefit someone like Alison Janne...I'm glad for any benefit someone like Alison Janney takes away from a show like "The West Wing," and I'm not talking about Emmys and the like, because she's a terrific actress who deserves good material. But it seems to me like if she's doing other stuff outside of that show I'm just not aware of it. She seemed downright ubiquitous before it, and now the last thing of hers I can recall seeing her in (without resorting to IMDb)was "American Beauty," where I felt she was essentially wasted (her talent, not the character). I can't comment on the last two seasons of Sorkin-less "Wing" as I gave up on it long ago. And thanks for the heads-up on "Grey's Anatomy." Is it another "E.R."-type deal? I hope she gets to do plenty of good work in it, but I also hope her feature work doesn't dry up as a result. (Speaking of good medical drama, have you seen "House"? I got a free DVD of the first episode in some magazine a while back and have yet to watch it, but the premise sounds intriguingly cranky and I've heard mutterings of good things. If it really is good, that probably just mean that no one's watching it and it'll soon be cancelled, and then I can catch up with the whole aborted run on DVD...! Good to hear from you, SJ. Please keep reading! And tell a friend! (How much closer am I to a carnival barker than I was a month or so ago? RHETORICAL QUESTION, thank you.) Top Ten list coming up next (I think!)Dennis Cozzaliohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01954848938471883431noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8795280.post-1105647040311173792005-01-13T12:10:00.000-08:002005-01-13T12:10:00.000-08:00Hey, it's Sharon here. I was having trouble setti...Hey, it's Sharon here. I was having trouble setting up an account, so I gave up!<br /><br />Anyhoo, I couldn't agree with you more about Sandra Oh. I'm not as big a fan of the film as most seem to be, but I truly feel that the cast is stellar. And as more and more accolades pour in, I've felt increasingly miffed on her behalf. She was just as integral to the movie's success as Paul Giamatti, Virgina Madsen and Thomas Haden Church. Oh, and in case you're not aware, she's one of the stars of an upcomming ABC series called GREY'S ANATOMY. I've seen it and she's really great in it.<br /><br />But, hey, step away from the Aaron Sorkin smack talk! The day he departed WEST WING In my humble opinion, WEST WING is the best television drama EVER. The last two Sorkinless seasons have been so unbearable that I have removed the WEST WING Season Passes both of my TiVos. I can no longer bear to watch the mess that it has become. As for Alison Janney, the show has done wonders for her career and her reputation. Yes, she brings the quirky comedy and Sorkin gave her ample opportunity to showcase that particular talent, but now she's also seen as sexy and brilliant. Not bad for a 6ft-plus, 40-plus actress!Sharonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08518655682285694701noreply@blogger.com